Has WoW gotten "too" family friendly?

[Steelcryo]

I actually hated rings of power so try again..

Yes, because that was my point...

And you can have an opinion, but you can't say "This is how it is supposed to be", that's just entitlement. That was my point.

[Snowfunk]

If it is (probably is imo), It always was.

Nothing really changed, like many have already concluded.

[Sansnom]

No before WoW in any fantasy literature Dragons were bad asses. Not these nicey nice life giving good hearted creatures. I remember watching one of the Nixxiom videos. He was talking about the Dracthyr race. He was saying they are OK but he always wanted to kill dragons not BE one. Look it is what it is, I don't want to go off on a tangent but Dragons in lore have always been evil. Some dragons from eastern culture had benevolent ways but by and large even going back to the Bible dragons were bringers of doom. Terrible Winged nightmares to bring about death and calamity. Movies and TV shows in the past 20-30 years have tried to make dragons kid friendly ever since puff the magic dragon.

Given that Dragons are fantasy creatures, they are how the author wants them to be. If the authors wants them to be all nice and sweet, that is their prerogative.

Using the Bible is bad choice given that book has demonize many other things for its own purposes.

[Tarba]

Wow dragons except from vanilla black flight have allways been indredibly lame.
Nothing new here. Just more visible because there are more of them. One hour of questing with the 3day offered period was enought to see that the lore was targeting a 9 year old audience. Still.

[Foulfrost]

This thread has some of the dumbest replies I've ever seen, flat out in denial about what is happening. Same nonsense that happens on the WoW-forums.
You state a fact about modern wow that is bad and people come in to say it was always like that, that being bad is actually good, that it's refreshing to be a different kind of bad, and so on. All the while being somehow unable to see the point being made. That WoW went from a DnD/Warhammer inspired world to a Disney/Pixar one and it's f'cking awful.

I can only offer my sympathies to the OP, who is probably one of the few OG's left, surrounded by the same people that the game is now made for; with opinions as blind and shallow as the writing is.

[Elodeon]

If you quested through this expac you can’t seriously tell me it wasn’t intentionally dumbed down to some dumbdumb friendly pile of happy rainbow sunshine friendship land.

If you're looking for some hard-core gore, this year and next year you are going to find it everywhere in real-life. Then the game will seem like a nice escape.

My god every time I fly over one of those Instagram river raft world quests and hear that blood elf talking about “fluffy animals” I lose 10 brain cells

Destruction is not actually intelligent, and lovely things aren't dumb.

[Whitedragon]

I disagree, one of the things I really have loved about Warcraft is the fact that the dragons aren't just generic kill machines of death, but rather have some depth to them. Even in this expansion we have plenty of bad dragons running about, and I'm sure we will have more before the end. meanwhile we get to have some actual alliable dragons we can get to know.

[arkanon]

Destruction is not actually intelligent, and lovely things aren't dumb.

This is a complete strawman, however, destruction absolutely CAN be intelligent, and lovely things absolutely can be dumb. It's entirely about context.

[Whitedragon]

This thread has some of the dumbest replies I've ever seen, flat out in denial about what is happening. Same nonsense that happens on the WoW-forums.
You state a fact about modern wow that is bad and people come in to say it was always like that, that being bad is actually good, that it's refreshing to be a different kind of bad, and so on. All the while being somehow unable to see the point being made. That WoW went from a DnD/Warhammer inspired world to a Disney/Pixar one and it's f'cking awful.

I can only offer my sympathies to the OP, who is probably one of the few OG's left, surrounded by the same people that the game is now made for; with opinions as blind and shallow as the writing is.

It's almost like people can have different opinions and tastes in things. Friendly dragons aren't even unique to WoW, there is plenty of books, TV shows, and movies with friendly dragons. Also we had 4 tonally dark expansions back to back, and the second we get something like mists with a somewhat more calm tone everyone starts freaking out jeez.

[Orby]

WoW has the Primal Incarnates who are dragons doing exactly what you are looking for OP, Dragons destroying shit... even if it is in a Saturday morning cartoon way and not as scary. :P

I wont pretend that WoW's story hasn't felt more toned down in Dragonflight, then again if this is a semi-reset type of expansion it will serve to make the big moments feel even bigger when they happen. maybe, I don't know. Or maybe Dragonflight remain this way going forward. I will admit it does feel like I am watching the Dragon Prince at times, (which isn't bad, I love that show), but this isn't dragon Prince, this is WoW. I do hope that the writers are not leaning into the game being too be like a Saturday morning cartoon. There's only so many ham-fisted messages about friendship and working together I can take lol. (once again not bad morals, but preaching to the choir much)

With that said so far the story seems fine, its not what I would call very Warcraft. In fact it feels like a whole new game now. And thats not a bad thing. WoW has a new direction now with a new team or people working on it. so of course its going to feel very different. Least we not forget Warcraft is coming on 30 years old (good lord I am getting old) so tonally things will change over time.

I do feel for a lot of us, we might need to admit that WoW and Warcraft is no longer for us. Everything changes eventually.

[Venziir]

In Dragonflight. We have all these friendly dragons we deal with, a few who aren't so friendly but none that are truly terrifying. Dragons are supposed to be awe inspiring, terror inducing entities that radiate power, not your next taxi upon a quest-leg.

Look at movies like Dragonslayer from the 80's where it actually felt like Vermithrax (the name of the dragon antagonist), was something to be feared. When his anger was incited he bathed the countryside in blood and fire.

(Spoilers)

Look at season 2 of the new animated series Vox Machina in the first episode I was like now that's how dragons are supposed to be, as I watched a maruding band of 4 chromatic dragons obliterate the capital city.

All the while not sounding ANYTHING like the disney-fied dragons in WoW "Your monuments shall fall! Your civilization erased! Here me insects! You live out of mercy! Fight or flee and you forfeit that mercy!" All the while each dragon launched it's personal devestation upon the city and it's people.

One Dragon literally breathed gouts of poisons gas melting some from the inside. Yet another belched acid breath literally melting the castle ramparts. The frost dragon launched volleys of tremendous ice shards ripping apart the countryside. The leader's flame breath put Deathwing to shame. his fire basically turned into a giant molten beam of destruction vaporizing the main castle to it's foundation.

If anything close to this happened in WoW I honestly wouldn't know what to do. But instead we have nice dragons in WoW who help us plant flowers and find new homes for frogs...

Vox Machina is rated 18+ though, WoW is pg12.

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Dragonflight is literally full of Pixar crap ripoffs. If you quested through this expac you can’t seriously tell me it wasn’t intentionally dumbed down to some dumbdumb friendly pile of happy rainbow sunshine friendship land. It’s nauseating, especially the voice acting. My god every time I fly over one of those Instagram river raft world quests and hear that blood elf talking about “fluffy animals” I lose 10 brain cells

Ouch! Careful not to cut yourself on all that edge!

[Indigenously Abled]

Nobody tell the dragons about DKP. We'll all be cancelled.

[Orby]

Dragonflight is literally full of Pixar crap ripoffs. If you quested through this expac you can’t seriously tell me it wasn’t intentionally dumbed down to some dumbdumb friendly pile of happy rainbow sunshine friendship land. It’s nauseating, especially the voice acting. My god every time I fly over one of those Instagram river raft world quests and hear that blood elf talking about “fluffy animals” I lose 10 brain cells

To be fairs Warcrafts voice acting has always had awkward over grandeur with a bit cheese going back to Warcraft 1. I know that may not be what you want to hear but its true.

[kranur]

It has gotten more "cute" but it's not a DF thing. It started getting worse with the WoD higher quality graphics and now only a handful of models look badass .. most are just cute, even demons and the like don't look threatening.
But yeah ... WoW was never an M game, even though most of it's audience are adults

[Mysterymask]

It has gotten more "cute" but it's not a DF thing. It started getting worse with the WoD higher quality graphics and now only a handful of models look badass .. most are just cute, even demons and the like don't look threatening.
But yeah ... WoW was never an M game, even though most of it's audience are adults

I mean arguably most adults aren't looking for GRIMDARK EDGY blood and skulls everywhere and hey look a ritualistic orgy in Undercity to summon a giant demon lord to lay waste to the non believers. I mean there's a distinct chance that a lot of adults prefer more lightheaded things. Especially if your in a place where depressing and gruesome things are literally all around you. If wow is more family friendly it's more because Blizzard is trying to reach a wider audience

[Venziir]

I'm in my mid 40's so I remember a lot. There were always a few outliers with Dragons on screen but Movies like Shrek I watched as like a joke. It wasn't meant to be taken seriously. Mulan wasn't my cup of tea. I was into Heavy metal and anything "Badass" which was why I was attracted to the First Diablo game and Orcs vs Humans. Falkor was a luck dragon which was a rarity that's why Atreyu when he first encountered him was at first defensive upon seeing a Dragon because previously the only dragons he had heard of were the ones that ate people, which was why his first comment was "Falkor: I like children Atreyu: For breakfast?"
Dragonheart was stupid and I never really got into that movie and just wrote it off. Even though Sean Connery was one of my favorite actors I thought he just took that part for a paycheck.
DBZ I only watched a few episodes here and there never really got into that even though it was pretty cool it was basically an Anime series not to be taken too seriously.

Now if you want to know the types of Anime that I WAS into that backup my POV about dragons then check out (Record of the Lodoss War) It was a Dungeons and Dragons based anime series where dragons were depicted as frightening creatures of untold destruction.

Which brings me to another point. I was a big Dungeons and Dragons player in my teens. Our Dungeon Master was really good, he was strict and by the books and didn't just throw dragons at us as sword fodder. When we encountered one it wasn't until we were either much higher level or he used them as unsurmountable obstacles at lower level that we would have to use creative roleplaying to avoid. When we got unlucky enough to feel the wrath of one of these creatures it made for some tense moments as he would literally fill a small cup with d6 dice to roll out the damage of their breath of death.

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Yeah I totally agree with you on this point.

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I actually hated rings of power so try again. It IS blizzards game but I came into it from original Warcraft where things were much more gritty. We didn't even find out about dragons being "protectors" and all that until after WC3 when Richard Knaack started writing WoW books. Yes it's their game but I can still have an opinion. I play because I largely try to overlook how things have changed over the years and enjoy the bits I do still enjoy. If I hadn't played for almost 18 full years now and had previous experience with the Warcraft series then I probably wouldn't even play WoW as a totally new player these days.

Day of the Dragon pre-dates Warcraft 3 though. As does The Last Guardian and Lord of the Clans.

[Nzx]

This thread has some of the dumbest replies I've ever seen, flat out in denial about what is happening. Same nonsense that happens on the WoW-forums.
You state a fact about modern wow that is bad and people come in to say it was always like that, that being bad is actually good, that it's refreshing to be a different kind of bad, and so on. All the while being somehow unable to see the point being made. That WoW went from a DnD/Warhammer inspired world to a Disney/Pixar one and it's f'cking awful.

I can only offer my sympathies to the OP, who is probably one of the few OG's left, surrounded by the same people that the game is now made for; with opinions as blind and shallow as the writing is.

Lmao. This forum needs a circlejerk thread.

My first Warcraft experience was Orcs vs Humans. By the time WC3 rolled around I was spam clicking on all the units to hear them make jokes about Britney Spears songs. When I started playing World of Warcraft, before they added weather to the game, I was playing a gnome with stupidly oversized weapons and listening to those jokes, too. Now, almost 20 years later, I'm hearing some clown on a fan forum talk about how him and the other "OGs" know dragons that aren't super epic edgy razorclaw xXxburninatorXXx acid breathing killaz are an objectively bad thing about World of Warcraft in 2023, a game which never had any dragons like this in the first place. WoW was always the Disney/Pixar of fantasy worlds. Of course, this being an objectively bad thing, someone made another MMO rooted in all the cool emo kid brutality that is objectively better, and history tells us that game was super successful and absolutely SLAMMED WoW and all the dumbass loser babies that played it!


No, wait... That's not how it went. What happened to Warhammer Online again?

[Mysterymask]

No, wait... That's not how it went. What happened to Warhammer Online again?

I mean the MK community has actually been asking Ed Boon to tone down the fatalities or remove them all together and put more emphasis on Brutalities which are
-WAY less violent
-A lot more satisfying to pull off

[mysticx]

You state a fact about modern wow that is bad and people come in to say it was always like that, that being bad is actually good, that it's refreshing to be a different kind of bad, and so on. All the while being somehow unable to see the point being made. That WoW went from a DnD/Warhammer inspired world to a Disney/Pixar one and it's f'cking awful.

Problem is that the "Fact about modern WoW that is bad" you're referring to is actually an opinion.

After Legion, BfA, and SL i'm quite over the edgelord stuff, thanks, it's my opinion-i'm-announcing-as-fact that needing all that edgy stuff (Blood, gore, unending misery and stuff) is actually a child's idea of "mature content".

Are some bits a bit overly silly? Sure. Have things like that always been in the game? Yes they have, so acting as if it's unique to DF is quite objectively wrong.

[Nymrohd]

I just want the two "archeologists" to decide how to stress "marmoni"