i’m basically reposting one of my comments from the campaign page, but my thought was around having our pets progress over time… they could start off as a simple companion, but can then perhaps be trained (animal trainer perhaps?) and eventually become a more substantial threat to your enemies… thoughts? 
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Maybe not the “companion” pets like the puppy/kitten. But I would like the idea of our pets being able to level up, just like any soldier might. Then you could add another level for crafters so they could make armors for the pets.
Pack of wolves with armor and scary looking teeth!
agreed… i was thinking more along the lines of our dragon whelp… could certainly be formidable, if he was adequately trained, and armored… 
So my lil dragon welp can grow into a gargantuan dragon WRAITH?! I like the sounds of it.
I just guessed that guy was going to be like the kitten/puppy/mammoth and would be a non-aggressive pet that would just follow your guys around aimlessly. Like Puff the Magic Dragon.
Are we talking Pokemon style levelling - improved stats, new attacks, different forms.
Or just general levelling that make them tougher to kill and harder hitting?
I mean, I completely love the idea of both …
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After seeing a small and big version of the dog in the livestream, it would make sense that they grow. Plus I like the idea of your companion protecting your town! This makes me want a direwolf! I think the dragon should turn into a huge badass dragon but that should insanely hard to achieve. Dragon vs Cthulhu anyone?
dog -> Direwolf (or however it is spelt GoTs)
Kitten -> Nyan Cat
Baby Dragon -> BAD ASS DRAGON
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Kittens should stay kittens. A cat would never protect it’s owner.
To be fair, my understanding of the dragon welp description is that it will be capable of fighting, it just will take a while to get to its full power.
aye… the description does read “may take centuries to mature”… i can wait… oh yes, i can wait…
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@DAWGaMims @SteveAdamo When I read the description under the kickstarter, my feeling was that was nothing more than flavor text. Since it’s a baby whelp I’m still going with it’s a non-combative pet. However if they want to allow it to grow or fight, that’s fine, I just assume it’s to run around your village annoying the people.
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yes, the right side of my brain says the exact same thing… im just being overly optimistic here… 
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Also, if we were able to breed a gargantuam badass dragon that would be able to eat a titan in two bites the purpose of the titans being big bada boss monsters would become kinda defeated I’d say. 
The description of the dragon whelp implies it growing into a full-grown dragon, but it also makes it sound like it would take a while to happen. The way it is worded could also mean that it just never will though.
I think part of the adversion to the dragon “Growing up” is people think it could break the game. We think of dragons and we think of Cataclysm from WoW or Alduin from TES. I’m thinking if this was used for combat it would be little more than a special combat character with a dragon avatar. It wouldn’t be overpowered at all. Maybe the idea of it “maturing” is simply it going through a number of leveled classes as it earns XP. Maybe it could have either a combative role or a civilian role (dragon armor? Dragon ale? vs Dragon knight?). Idk, I don’t needa FOURTH useless pet and will actually be fairly upset if they make him useless. The concept of the dog and cat annoy me too, as does the mammoth. If it doesn’t have a purpose, don’t add it.
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I’m fine with that as long as it’s realtime, not accelerated game time.
what specifically annoys you about the existing pet concepts? their appearance, or what you think they will be used for?
It might be a good idea to add a toggle so that in any given game people could pick which of their pets they wanted to use.
I know a typical dwarf fortress game doesn’t run much past 10-20 years or so but that’s mostly due to CPU limitations – by that point you’ve got all the dwarfs and built all the stuff anyone’s computer can likely handle. Figuring on a similar timeframe for this game, if the dragon whelp does “mature,” by the time it does so your city would be so well established that I doubt it could make much difference anyway.
Perhaps it might matter in pvp if people just run the clock out on their cities for hundreds of years so that they have like armies of animal-breeder-improved trained dragons and so forth. But if people are doing that kind of thing I doubt one little dragon baby would make that much difference anyway.
From my understanding of the cat, dog, and mammoth specifically is that they have no use whatsoever. They’re just aesthetic gifts for the player. That’s dumb.