I may have discovered a bug, and am curious if any of my fellow druids have had a similar experience.

In Coldara, the daily quest Drake Hunt (http://www.wowhead.com/?quest=11940): Raelorasz wants you to use the Blood-tipped Spear to subdue a Nexus Drake Hatchling and return it to him at the Transitus Shield.When you get back to Raelorasz the drake despawns. Right?

Every time I've done this daily - three so far - the Drake has continued to follow me after turning in the quest. Flying to a new area doesn't stop it, nor does going underwater, or entering an enclosed area like a house or cave. Zoning into an instance seems to release it, as does hearthing/porting to another area.

I know it's not just a graphic glitch local to my computer, because I've had other players /t me and ask how I got the Drake to follow me. And given that I've never seen another player with a Drake following them outside Coldara, I figure it must be something unique or at least odd that I'm doing.

The only thing I can think of for why this happens to me is that I always spear the drake, then immediately Hibernate it so that I take no damage while it decides to be friendly towards me. I'll try the quest tonight without Hibernating it, to see if that is what makes a difference.

Have anyone else had this happen?

(screenshots to add when I get home)

Haven't had it happen to me yet, but i never thought about hibernating it, either... I'll give that a shot tonight to see what happens!

Doh. nevermind. Just read further in the comments under the quest in Wowhead and it seems to be a known issue where the drake doesn't respawn if he's not right behind you when you turn in the quest, and I generally just run right up and complete the quest right away.

The post there says that taking a flight point makes it go away, while that is in conflict with my observations - but I've only flown back to Amber Ridge, so perhaps the drake didn't get far enough behind me to despawn.

Oh well. I hope they don't fix it too soon. :whistle:

As a final epitaph to this:

Apparently with yesterday's patch Blizzard put an end to this for good.

Before yesterday, I've done some testing that revealed that it wasn't Hibernation specifically, rather that if you speared the drake and did no damage to it, it would become friendly to you and follow you as a normal drake, rather than staying in 'shadow form' and being tethered to you with a rope. And while in normal form, it didn't matter how close to the quest giver the drake was when you turned it in.

Flying any further than Amber ledge would cause it to despawn, as would logging into an instance or dying.

Now, the drakes are immune to Hibernate, and even doing no damage to them they stay tethered in shadow form and despawn at quest turn in.

Why does Bliz feel the need to remove stuff like this that harms no one and adds a bit of fun to the game? [/emo]

Oh well. At least I got screenshots while I could.
Swimming with my Drake - NE Borean Tundra

Fishing with the Drake

Drake & Me with our Murloc army