The "Grit" Dragonflight Should've Went With

Community General Discussion
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We’ve all seen a lot of threads now, asking for darker storylines, or more grit to WoW.

Dragonflight, while it has had some side quests or areas that did have Dark and Gritty themes, the overall vibe admittedly is more laid back and about friendship, which like that’s fine, we’ve not had an expansion really on this theme before, so a refresher so to speak is nice.

Personally the angle they COULD’VE and SHOULD’VE leaned more into, is giving the Djaradin more of an actual spotlight.

If you do the side quests, you can see that these guys REVEL in full on hunting dragons down. The waking shores even have areas with full on Dead Dragons hanging from metal chains or being chopped up for food. One Dragon actually even mentions they’re curious in what kind of seasonings the Djaradin cook their kind in, lol.

Like I LOVE Dragons and Elves, so seeing Dragon Corpses like this, and seeing an entire people who hunt and eat them, just existing on the Dragonlands. It made me want to go full on “Let’s GOOOOO, and beat these guys off the isles”. I feel like especially with the Dragons being our allies here, it would’ve been a good angle.

Instead the Djaradin become sidekicks to Fyrakk, which I mean is fine. But in doing so, the game, at least to what I’ve noticed, doesn’t build any story or tension really for the Djaradin or Primalists even really, beyond the Base Leveling experience.

Like idk, I just feel like if at the very least they gave more of a Focus on the Djaradin, it would’ve at the very least increased the intense feeling of the fact that we are in the middle of a DRAGON war, and they’ve got massive DRAGON hunting Giants on their side that want to Unalive and Eat our friends.

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I dunno. I think DF needs more close up cinematics of Alexstrasza’s Disney Eyes.™

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Is it sad that I actually LOVE her eyes, lmao.

I also personally enjoyed the Anime/Winx Club Power Up part of the ending cinematic, lol.

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They could have just let Emberthal have realistic emotions towards her situation as a creature made to kill, and not much else, when confronted by one of her own commiting the ultimate sin/treason.

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Reminds me of Twilight Highlands with all of the dead red dragons strung up.

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THIS!!!

Like personally I loved Emberthal as a character, and her story in 10.0.7 was what actually got me to engage more with DF as a story.

But at the same time, she was never even really given the time or space to grieve, or cry. She didn’t have any angry lashouts, or anything. She was just the Anti-Sakareth. Like I feel they delivered her end of Abreus scene well.

But with her being the ONLY survivor for her Weyrn, I would’ve liked to see more like pure RAW emotion and trauma from her.

I’ve not done the Twilight Highlands, but now I want to.

I know they’ve also got some Strung up Black Dragons in Blade’s Edge Mountains. I’ve not done that story yet, but I saw them the other day while Mog hunting. I think the Ogres there are the culprits.

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So true, I’d rather have closeups of sweaty Djaradin parts.

Story saved.

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I don’t know. I mean, you’re right that the djaradin got shafted on plot involvement, but tbqh… I’ve hated the djaradin since day 1. They’re bland vrykul ripoffs that have incredibly ugly models and all look the same. You can’t even really tell the males and females apart. Our raid leader called Igara a “he” because he plays with WiW sounds off. They’ve also proven to be very one dimensional, and to be quite frank, every Djaradin area and every Djaradin encounter to me has been very irritating.

That’s basically it. They’re ugly discount Vrykul that aren’t interesting, not even with the stories from that one blind djaradin quest giver. They definitely got shafted, sure, but I don’t really care. Let them never show up ever again for all I care.

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I’m also not a Djaradin fan. But like I’ve mentioned, when I first saw them, and what they were doing to the Dragons. I at least instantly hated them, and wanted to all out on fighting against them.

They would’ve been perfect antagonists to at least build upon, that would’ve also added in some more highstakes grit, knowing that they’ve allied with the Primalists.

But then again, tbf, I feel like the Primalists didn’t get much story progression either.

But it could be because I’ve not yet finished the Sidequests in Zaralek and Thaldraszus.

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Yep, those are from Gruul and his gronn. One was literally thrown sideways and impaled on the mountain spikes.

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That is VERY intense/gritty.

But also, now I wanna go farm that area and avenge all of those Dragons, lol.

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I didn’t even bat an eye at that stuff. I’ve killed so many dragons, and seen so many dragons strung up, chopped up, impaled, etc, in WoW that I guess I’m desensitized to that stuff. At this point it’s basically Blizzards way of showing how tough and strong someone is.

“Oooh look at how strong these guys are! Look at all the dragon corpses! These guys so strong they kill dragons as a hobby! So strong!”

I don’t know, Djaradin were just entirely uninteresting to me from the very start, and I frankly have no idea how they could be made to be interesting. I think I’d have rather the Djaradin concept was dropped entirely. Of course, that would leave a large hole in several areas of the game, but… maybe then those holes could have been filled with more Primalist and Dracthyr content, both of which, as you mentioned, were also woefully underdeveloped and underused.

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I think it was gritty enough but those moments were not important besides what happened to the tuskaar and furbolgs. :mag::robot:

…speaking of the furbolgs, I don’t think we ever got to see the primalists imbue a dragon and they a decent model for it. :thinking:

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That Dragon apparently is from too much Wild Arcane Magic. Oddly enough, but I wish it had more story in the overworld.

I’ve not done the Furbolg stuff yet. So I can’t speak for that.

But I feel like to really count as being Gritty for the vibe, it has to have things strewn throughout each zone that kinda reinforce that, or make you feel that kinda vibe.

Which DF didn’t do really, which as I’ve said it’s fine. We’ve not had an expansion yet with a calmer and more breather vibe. So I enjoyed that.

Honestly, I would’ve LOVED to see a LOT of the Djaradin stuff, since they didn’t get much development, be replaced by the Sundered Flame, or more development on Sarkareth and how his Weyrn are trying to navigate the world and thier freedom.

And honestly with how it is in the current game. They could’ve easily just used more Druids of the Flame and Primalists with maybe some more flavor stories in the Dream, instead of even putting Djaradin inside of it.

But I do wish the enemies got at least a little bit more spotlight.

I’m hoping War Within does more of that with it’s side characters and villains.