The new proto-drake from Wrath Classic is very cool! Beautiful design, really captures the vibe from that expansion.
Here’s my question tho: with all these increasingly lavish dragon mounts being thrown into the game, will we actually be able to ride them with dragon riding or are they just going back in the toy box for the duration of the expansion?
As a big BC freak I personally want dragon riding on the old Nether Drakes. Or is this hoping too much from a dragon themed expansion?
Doesn’t appear so. From everything I’ve seen, it’s restricted to the new dragons we get in DF.
As @Karat said, probably only new mounts from DF. They are tagged with “Dragonriding” just under the name in the mount tab (see top 4 mounts below). It’s possible that the devs could apply this tag to existing mounts that make sense thematically (e.g., Cloud Serpent), but I don’t have any idea if it’s just a flag in the model file or if there’s more stuff under the hood that would make such a change a lot more work than just adding a logic flag and a sub-name to the model file.
Edit: As @Falynos said, “Dragonriding” mounts can also have their appearance customized (new appearances seem to drop with every major quest and likely in instanced content too). If that’s not separable from actual dragon-riding mechanics, then yeah, it’s very likely just the new mounts in DF.
I’d think anything using the original drake or proto-drake skeletons is surely going to be repurposed for these new animations, no?
Doubt it. Another core feature of the new dragon mounts is customization.