Dragons?

Many different ideas about what dragons are and what they should do. Easiest work around is simply have different species. I would go with four species:

1) A small house-only pet. Very small, flutters about the home and occasionally snorts little puffs of smoke. A few different colors. Can either buy one in Add-On Store or quest for it. Transferable between players.

2) A species that can communicate with players and give them quests. Maybe they talk, maybe they speak through another being or a special item. Rare quests. Hard quests.

3) A species (actually maybe several) that one can battle, slay, tame, run away from and then lie about it, etc.

4) Crazy big epic dragons. Bring friends. Bring enemies. Bring everybody! Five Episodes...maybe five dragons. They don't have to be the "end" to every Episode. Just a fun and scary part of life.

Well, that's what I would do. Oh, and if anyone wants to check out dragon types...start here.

 

Psuedo dragons from D&D, especially Greyhawke when I was still playing D&D ... still seem a little big

Maybe the Fire-lizard style from Pern ... I like the concept of imprinting rather than taming ... it is still an intelligent animal, but if you've imprinted on it, and if treated well ... why wouldn't it hang around?

Like a cat ... with wings ... that breathes fire ... what's not to love.

Expect the GoT dragons to keep getting bigger ... much larger by book 5 and the series isn't over yet. They are full sized, just not yet.

 

I love dragons, and I definitely would like to see them in some or several shapes in SotA. Personally, I consider dragons as an exciting and almost essential part of any RPG. However, I prefer it when they are sort of rare and dangerous which is not what I got from Skyrim.

A hypothetical pet dragon should be smaller, and significantly weaker than epic large encounters in my opinion.

 

Rarity and danger are the most important elements of a dragon for me too. Skyrim had a pretty fluid dragon system, but I agree that they were painfully weak. On a side note, did you (Aonoa) ever play any of the Dragon Lord mods for Skyrim (don't quote me on the title of the mod)? They added dragons that were truly ferocious (one of which was so powerful, 4 minutes of strait master level lightning destruction didn't even scratch it. That one may have been overkill, being it was an invisible skeletal dragon).

 

No, I did not, but it sounds like it may be a fun mod. I always tried to avoid gameplay mods and mostly used mods to improve upon appearance or add decently balanced items. The reason being I wanted to play as close of a game to the original designed gameplay as possible and not risk breaking quests or the balance too much. With that said, I've actually not finished that game yet, I spent so much time exploring and doing side-quests. I also no longer have Windows installed on my desktop, only Linux without having gotten to try making it work with wine.

Returning to dragons.. I always enjoy trying to find dragons in games, and I like the tension related to deciding whether I should try to engage it or not. Fully expecting to die, but wanting to try anyway. Also.. The treasure, I'm thinking it has amazing loot and rewards for successfully overcoming it, and managing to defeat it is a satisfying reward in and of itself. Particularly if some failures are involved beforehand.

 

I would love to see dracolich in SotA..perhaps even a quest to allow a player to work with an evil dragon to bring about the transformation which could trigger a boss fight in which other players entering a tile could work together to destroy the beautiful abomination.

Being able to roleplay evil and have quests which allow you to cause a bit of chaos in the world--and have other characters able to react to it in a pve manner by questing to undo the damage--that would really add a lot of depth to the game. Give the evil guys goals to work towards!

 

How about being able to tame dragons, but only if you caught them young enough to develop a bond? The theory being older dragons (and therefore more powerful) would just eat you, but you could tame a young dragon. As dragons take forever to grow up, then the player would have a pet dragon, without being overpowered.

 

would make for an interesting spontaneous kind of situation. You get tamed by a Dragon. He leads you back to his lair as a pet. At some point, you snap out of it and have a choice to make: escape? un-tame the other human pets there? slay the dragon?

I like it.

 

I personaly don't think Dragons should be tamable, however you have other animals like dragon kind for instance Wurms or Drakes

 

I'd like to see insanely epic dragons as a semi rarity, or mystical source of power. They are maybe ancient protectors constantly on the move. To catch a glimpse at one, would be a story forever told. The only way to kill a dragon, would be to hunt the adolescent ones... That alone is no small task either.

 

I'm ok with dragons appearing in a later episode.

But, it would be cool to have the lore built early on. Or have a glimpse.

 

I dont think dragons should be tameable either.

 

I think they should be epic beasts/monsters/creatures, random fly overs like skyrim, but much much more powerful. Maybe a few different types, lore to go along with them, like a really interesting history. I'd hate to see them as a tameable thing or someone's pet, but in saying that I'd love to see dragon lords as well!

 

A dragon already appeared in the six-month video when it shot some fireballs at the player. This leads me to believe that they'll be in Episode 1, at least for some kind of story or quest.

 

Almost all of my UO characters were tamers. Playing solo alot, a pet really helps. I think they should have some dragon races as being tameable, or do it as certain dragon races lay eggs and if your crafty enough to steal one then if your taming is high enough you can bond with it and it will grow into a dragon. This way its a time sync... takes effort to get to goals. It grows by leveling but will not be uber powerful. If they live for a few hundred years, and we are only human who live generally less then a 100 years the dragon might not ever reach adulthood in our lifetime so they will never be overpowerful.

I think they should sell non combatant fluff pets in the cash store. Serve no purpose except they are amuzing. Come when called, can do a few basic commands like puffs of smoke or a little flame. Maybe can do the equivalent light of a torch. Wont be an unfair advantage if you don't decide to buy one but for RP purposes it could be fun!

 

Yep.. we've asked about tameable dragons.. they haven't answered yes or no... but in the combat and crafting thread in the community announcements section they mention a difficult to tame creature would be a lion... but that doesn't mean a dragon wouldn't be an extremely challenging beast to tame.

 

He never said a solo player couldn't kill one. He said no matter if you are the biggest bad ass in the game one of these should definitely scare you or something like that. In UO nobody could really just solo a dragon very easily. You had a "bad-ass" character you still had to hit them then move off of the screen so they don't keep fire balling you to death, then heal and come back for the next strike. It might be something like that. Then again maybe nobody can solo one of these.

He also never said we cannot tame a dragon in this game. In fact many of us are able to tame an "elusive monster" in game. No telling what that is. It just leaves doors open.

 

It's possible that it will come down to the intelligence of the creature in question. If this is an animalistic dragon, then taming would be an option. If dragons are intelligent like say, Smaug, then I don't believe that it would be possible to tame them. That would be like trying to tame Orcs or Trolls.... If they are intelligent and can be tamed, wouldn't that actually be slavery?

Maybe you could hire them as mercenaries instead....

 

The 6 month video also showed some kobalds being attacked by a dragon. The dragon was flying around breathing out fireballs that were exploding everywhere. So that should be visual proof for those who were concerned about no dragons in the game.

Even if tamers cannot tame a dragon I hope they can tame something that is as powerful as a player or a little more powerful as a player, and then have the ability to level up their tamed companion.

 

Perhaps if you could some how prove yourself in a test of combat and bring the dragon down to under 25% of health, then maybe an intelligent dragon would be able to find respect for you. However as a team I would expect there to be a period of time before the dragon and you are "bonded". Becoming a team, in a bonded relationship situation where the dragon sticks around out of a type of love for the character and vice versa.

That's if it is even possible. It doesn't seem likely that will be the case, but you never know.