Every once in a while I can’t resist a photo op, even if there isn’t much to say about it!
For a Dragonflight that’s generally evil, a black dragon can still look nice against a beautiful background.
black dragonflight
All posts tagged black dragonflight
Mooglegem and I quested in the Twilight Highlands this week. Here we’re pretending to be Twilight Cultists. They totally bought it.
We explored a dark cave together too. We were a bit scared, but luckily for us, we had Squishy the water elemental to fight off any dreaded spooks.
Okay, okay, it was actually Mooglegem who managed to cleanse the place and save me from the bad spirits. I just didn’t want to admit to being saved by a blood elf.
While fighting the Black Dragonflight, I invented a new sport – dragon surfing. While watching a dragon surf would be pretty neat, that’s not what this is.
When I saw Mooglegem earn the achievements Explore Twilight Highlands and Explore Cataclysm, I had to go fly in circles until I explored Victor’s Point too and earned the achievements. Nice to finally get this.
Then we pretty much performed genocide against the Black Dragonflight. I’ll admit to feeling a little bad about that.
Next I tried to go for a quiet flight, but these darn Kor’kron kept flying behind me everywhere I went.
After earning Fading into Twilight (and Loremaster of Cataclysm), I sort of expected the zone to be just about done, but there were still a significant amount of quests left.
We posed with Blindeye the Guardian because we thought he (and his surrounding area) looked pretty cool.
Squishy was thrilled to meet Super Squishy, so we swam in circles around him excitedly! (I wish Blizzard hadn’t removed the ability to rename water elementals even if they never intended it to be in the game anyways.)
I enjoyed the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy references in the names of these two-headed ogres.
Beeble’phod and Za’brox are obviously references to Zaphod Beeblebrox.
All in all, Twilight Highlands was an enjoyable zone, but I’m glad to have finished all the Cataclysm zones. Now I wonder if I’ll finish Blackwing Descent or Throne of the Four Winds in time for Mists of Pandaria. Probably not.
It took until patch 1.6.0 for Blizzard to release another raid. As I mentioned in an earlier post, this isn’t because Blizzard wasn’t releasing content. They were just more lenient about what constituted a full patch number. In the last post, I talked about the 1.5.0 – Battlegrounds trailer. It was bad.
If you watched the Assault on Blackwing Lair trailer, you’ll see that this is bad as well. I’m positive that Blizzard knew how to make good trailers at this time. They did it for previous games, and they did it for the launch of World of Warcraft. Why does this one look like amateur machinima? Why is there a jerky camera? Everything’s in-game; there’s not even any voice work. It’s probably worth noting that this patch also introduced the Darkmoon Faire, although the trailer doesn’t address it at all.
Of course, maybe it’s redeemed by the character jumping around randomly around 0:15 to 0:17 on the left! Blizzard also uses this raid to reinforce the importance of the Black Dragonflight. In fact, having multiple Black Dragonflight raids so close together probably contributed to them seeming more important than they were, because they did take a backseat for a while afterwards. It was also interesting that the first three raids (and a few dungeons) were all within Blackrock Mountain. That was an incredibly important place for a long time. Besides PVP, it was the location of endgame World of Warcraft.
“Mere whelps, experiments, a means to a greater end. You will see what the research of my clutch has yielded. Nefarian, Onyxia, Sinestra… they were nothing. Now you face my ultimate creation. The Hour of Twilight is nigh; the sun sets on your pitiful mortal existence.” – Deathwing, Ultraxion encounter in Dragon Soul
This quote always makes me a bit sad. Deathwing sums up much of the story of the Black Dragonflight, and by the end of Dragon Soul, we seem to bring it to a close. Allow me to explain what I mean.
Many of the bosses we fight can be grouped together. For example, we have Old Gods, Scourge, trolls, and Titan constructs. We also have the Black Dragonflight. Unlike some of the other that are grouped together by race or purpose, Nefarian, Onyxia, Sinestra, and Deathwing are family. In Vanilla, we kill Deathwing’s son and daughter, Nefarian and Onyxia. In the Burning Crusade, we see Sinestra, Deathwing’s prime consort and mother of Nefarian and Onyxia. Wrath of the Lich King brings us Onyxia again. During Cataclysm, we kill Nefarian and Onyxia for good, we slay Sinestra, and we go on to kill Deathwing himself.
It’s interesting having an entire family as bosses – a lineage of enemies for us to battle. It seems like that’s done now. On top of this, Deathwing himself doesn’t even seem to care that they were family (not that I’d expect him to care at this point). In fact, I think his mentioning of them in his monologue before the Ultraxion fight exemplifies this and is a nice detail reinforcing the fact that he’s insane and cares only about destruction. Deathwing calls Nefarian, Onyxia, and Sinestra nothing compared to his ultimate creation, Ultraxion. Never mind that they were his children and lover.
Will we see more of the Black Dragonflight as enemies in the future? I suppose we could, but I doubt they’d serve any real link to Deathwing. New black dragons could become evil all on their own. (Update: I understand that there are uncorrupted black dragons. However, if they become bosses in the future, they will most likely be bosses for some other reason. The on-going problem of the Black Dragonflight has still been solved.) Then we have three new dragonflights that were created, either directly or indirectly, by the Black Dragonflight.
First, there was the Chromatic Dragonflight – dragons that possessed the powers of all five flights. As far as I know, and I might be wrong because I didn’t play endgame in Vanilla, there’s only one known adult Chromatic Dragon. Chromatus has five heads, each a different color. While he was defeated, he’s not exactly dead. He planned on mating with a Blue Dragon to create natural Chromatic Dragons, and I believe Blizzard will definitely return to this in the future.
Next, there’s the Netherwing Dragonflight, dragons that were exposed directly to the Twisting Nether and were, well, twisted by it. So far, they haven’t stirred up much trouble. They wanted to be left alone, and they eventually were able to do as they pleased thanks to player involvement in the Burning Crusade. We could definitely see more of them.
And then there’s the Twilight Dragonflight, Netherwing eggs further twisted by the Black Dragonflight. We see them a bit in Wrath of the Lich King, first as drakes in the Obsidian Sanctum and then as Halion in the Ruby Sanctum. In Cataclysm we see them quite a bit more, culminating in the slaying of Ultraxion.
Really, Blizzard could throw anything at us. There’s always a way for them to bring back anything they want – Black, Chromatic, Netherwing, or Twilight. In my opinion, we won’t see any trouble from the Black Dragonflight for a while. They’ve effectively been wiped out, although new Black Dragons could be born or less important ones could decide they’re mad and decide to fight us. The Netherwing have been rather neutral. Sure, they could get mad or turn evil if Blizzard decides to do that, but there isn’t any reason for it. Without a powerful Black Dragonflight, I don’t see a high chance of more Twilight or Chromatic Dragons being created. Of course, there’s still Chromatus. It’s very likely we’ll see him again.
With the end of Cataclysm, we see the end of the line of Deathwing. It’s been fun.
earthwormgem
Peter (Devee)
Kor'kron 501st 