Heavensward Art (Potential Spoilers)

[Itseotle]

stuff

Mmmm after reading both points I can see why many people would be led to believe the Bench dragon is Nidhogg, but Alberel's post does open some doors. SE tells better stories than that. A plot where "We are the good guys, that dragon is bad so we should kill it." sounds to plain for SE. I think there is more than meets the eye with both of these dragons, and we may see a big plot twist. I also want to point out the white dragon is on the cover of the box for the game itself, therefore its more than just promotional flare. The bench dragon has only been seen in the bench so far. I'm not saying the bench dragon is or is not Nidhogg, but that the White Dragon does have significance.

[Dalvy]

Actually, I would put more weight with promotional art than benchmark dragon, because that is essentially a demo and subject to change...

[Momita]

I remember at the end of 2.0 benchmark there were a dragon and mindflayer.. but at the end, in the game we had only mindflayer, no dragons here... What I trying to say is that what we see in benchamark doesn't mean nothing.. that can be even only a boss from a dungeon or raid for what we know, and just share the model with a celestial dragon...
Nidhogg, ofc, is a bit more angry, but we have only an artwork... we don't know what happens there ^^

[Nalien]

I'm not saying the bench dragon is or is not Nidhogg, but that the White Dragon does have significance.

And I'm not saying this white dragon has no significance, because he clearly does.

All I'm doing is pointing out that the Benchmark Dragon fits every description of Nidhogg we have, while the white ones doesn't, in fact he seems to contradict most. I really don't know why people are questioning whether either is missing an eye, they both clearly are missing one, to me that is a point of far bigger interest.

Actually, I would put more weight with promotional art than benchmark dragon, because that is essentially a demo and subject to change...

Well good for you. The last Benchmark didn't have a single unique model, unless you count scaling a turtle up, I don't expect they'll suddenly remove scars and add an eye to this Dragon between now and release. The scenarios in the Benchmark are likely all unique, just like Ifrit being in Thanalan was for the original one, or the Dragon in Tam-Tara, but the actual models were the same. We now have a model of a Dragon which matches the description of Nidhogg we've had thus far, complete with a missing eye, if they change that I'll eat my hat.

Meanwhile I've lost count of the number of promotional art pieces I've seen which offered glimpses to gear and minions I'd love to have, but are not in the game. I've lost count of the number of promotional art pieces I've seen with glaring mistakes in them.

At the end of the day, both Dragons are missing an eye, but only the blue one matches descriptions of Nidhogg. Even the artwork for the Benchmark Dragon has him visibly seething with a rage like aura, which is information about Nidhogg we've gotten directly from the horses mouth (or Dragons Eye). Therefore it's Nidhogg. QED.

[Itseotle]

All I'm doing is pointing out that the Benchmark Dragon fits every description of Nidhogg we have, while the white ones doesn't, in fact he seems to contradict most. I really don't know why people are questioning whether either is missing an eye, they both clearly are missing one, to me that is a point of far bigger interest.

I'm not disagreeing, in fact I am agreeing with you they are both unique in that they are BOTH missing an eye, which is a huge plot device giveaway to me. All signs do point to Bench Dragon as the Nidhogg as described to us, its just it seems... wrong somehow from a story point of view. Why would they show us such an important encounter such as Nidhogg so early into the expansion?

The last Benchmark didn't have a single unique model, unless you count scaling a turtle up, I don't expect they'll suddenly remove scars and add an eye to this Dragon between now and release. The scenarios in the Benchmark are likely all unique, just like Ifrit being in Thanalan was for the original one, or the Dragon in Tam-Tara, but the actual models were the same.

You kinda contradicted yourself by saying the last bench had no unique models and that the last bench included Ifrit, which is a unique model, but I am not counting SM/HM/EX as separate instances of the same model, as its literally still the same character in all 3 instances. Also, when the last bench released, the Mindflayer model was unique afaik. No other mob shared it. Granted, its a very generic model, unlike Bench Dragon which does have unique qualities, so I am agreeing with you we won't see it just thrown about willy-nilly as some trash mob.

[Nalien]

You kinda contradicted yourself by saying the last bench had no unique models and that the last bench included Ifrit

Let me clarify, I mean the models we saw in the Benchmark were not unique to the Benchmark. The Ifrit we saw in the Benchmark was the one we got in game, same for the Mindflayer.

That goes for gear as well actually. The only things in the Benchmark we saw that were unique to the Benchmark were various scenarios (Ifrit FATE) and various scaling up of enemy sizes (giant enemy turtle). That's it. All the models for enemies and gear that were in the Benchmark were the same as what we got in the game. Nothing was changed. I see no reason the same will not be true for Nidhogg here. There should be no models in the Benchmark which are unique to it, they're all taken directly from the game to test performance, as such the Dragon thought-to-be Nidhogg should look exactly the same in game as he does here, though perhaps with some scaling changes; As such the fact that he is missing an eye in the Benchmark is as good a proof that he will in the game. So we have a Dragon model missing an eye, and two promotional art pieces with two different Dragons missing an eye.

Why would they show us such an important encounter such as Nidhogg so early into the expansion?.

Why not? We took Gaius and Ultima Weapon out in 2.0, I see no reason why we similarly wont be taking out Nidhogg in 3.0. 3.1+ could be based around the other Celestial Dragons or saving the Scions or who knows.

[Itseotle]

Why not? We took Gaius and Ultima Weapon out in 2.0, I see no reason why we similarly wont be taking out Nidhogg in 3.0. 3.1+ could be based around the other Celestial Dragons or saving the Scions or who knows.

Very true yes but they did not show such characters in the benchmark is the point I'm trying to make. Hell, iirc we didn't start hearing about Ultima until about the lv40 quest line? It just seems to me SE put that dragon in the Benchmark to steer people toward it, and away from there true plans.

Or I could be totally wrong but I guess we will see right? :P

[Nalien]

Very true yes but they did not show such characters in the benchmark is the point I'm trying to make. Hell, iirc we didn't start hearing about Ultima until about the lv40 quest line? It just seems to me SE put that dragon in the Benchmark to steer people toward it, and away from there true plans.

Or I could be totally wrong but I guess we will see right? :P

The original Benchmark was much less revealing, I think it mostly took from the Limit Break trailer. The Story trailer was still pretty revealing though, even including cutscenes from Praetorium iirc.

It occurs to me that these pieces of art aren't even all that new; We saw them during the unboxing of the CE. Granted Whitey was obscured by the disk. Actually makes him even more interesting...

Anyone fluent in Japanese? I'll feel like laughing if he is pointing at the Benchmark Dragon art going "This is Nidhogg!", or "This isn't Nidhogg!".

[LycorisSelunis]

I still think the more important implication of the image isn't who the dragon is, but that Estinien and Iceheart are clearly there with you and Alphinaud. Alphinaud is a squishy little boy who only deals with things diplomatically so that implies that this was a prearranged meeting and he is generally assured of his safety (not that I mean anything derogatory about him, just the way he works).

Estinien + Iceheart is a huge huge deal! pretty sure as far as we know they would be happy to murder each other right now.

[axemtitanium]

If there's one thing I'd like to point out, it's that the benchmark dragon seems a bit too small to be Nidhogg. It's about the same size as Svara or Aiatar, but definitely smaller than Bahamut Prime and Vishap. I would imagine any scion of Midgardsormr would be at least as big as the moon-sized Bahamut.