On a zone level? Breathtaking. Great creatures, great greenery. Amirdrassil itself looks bad as an Ardenweald tree in a sea of newer, actual green trees. I wish they bit the bullet and maybe made it a mix of green and purple, because Shadowlands can stay in it’s lore and visual hole. I think a giant Ardenweald tree on Azeroth is gonna look even weirder.
On a story side, it’s been great so far. 0 interest in the primal incarnates or the villains themselves- the Druids of the Flame arguably have some case for ‘we can get immortality’ but thats really all i can see beyond generic villain madness. Which tbh, is fine, but a little shallow when the tree might be providing what they want outside of fire and murder.
The absence of Malfurion sucks. Sure we KNEW it was gonna happen. But it feels really bad that he has been written out of stories for so many expansions continuously. He’s been getting the ‘2 good scenes’ treatment where he just gets a cool moment maybe once every other expansion. He is the Druid, and in a story trying to tell a tale about NE renewal, his absence is really felt, because those are massive parts of his character wow’s never explored because it keeps removing him from it’s story. But the characters who are here are shown pretty well so far. Cenarius isn’t just a joke from what i’ve done who we stumble on unconscious, which is a massive improvement over Legion. Goldrinn and another new wild god give a classic ‘we are [x]’ kinda introduction that presents them as the spirits of something beyond just a species, which is a really good return to old lore in my opinion.
The problem is external stuff it’s not the patches own fault for. The tree seems like it’s so obviously not gonna be on Kalimdor, which erases a central, core component of the NE fantasy of being the protectors of Kalimdor.
Of course that means Zovaal fell because he was given the Souls of Azeroth, Titania(the weak point of Life due to her own attempt to corrupt Azeroth) and the Old Gods all in one go and didn’t realize the implications.
Said implications being that Denathrius was already seeking to expand the borders of Death to begin with and used the Void Lords to get Old Gods onto Azeroth so that Denathrius and Titania could all start corrupting them.
Yogg-Saron was corrupted to Necrotic Death, Y’Shaarj was corrupted to Fel, C’Thun was corrupted to Disorder, Titania was corrupted to Death and Azeroth was also corrupted to Death.
Those slain in the Summer of Death return to the Winter of Death. Killing those in the Winter of Death will kill them permanently.
I’m sure Blizzard is sniggering over the fact we are only just now realizing that their statements on the Old Gods being dead wasn’t a reference to our victory but Sargeras killing that Titan long ago.
Of course the Titans’ own experiments on the Old Gods gave the Void an entry point into Life: G’huun the Blood God. Blood is Life Energy so by creating an Old God of Life the Void just gained a foothold into the Life Realm.
Just realized that Vyranoth will be the Final Boss in the form of the True Winter Queen(with Elune’s sister having served as a stand in) with Malfurion’s Body(turned into a Death Servant) serving as the Winter King of Ardenweald and be replaced with Sindragosa as Winter Queen & Malygos as Winter King.
At the hour of Vyranoth’s third death(because by drowning herself she dies and by having her physical body slain to stop the Death Corruption of Avaloren she dies a second time cutting her off from Azeroth trapping her in Ardenweald) she ushers in the Void’s coming to the Shadowlands.
Of course such a final end game should have the Snowy Faeweald itself as a Zone with the entrance to Ardenweald being the Raid Entrance. The goal: save the Night Fae from being sent to Azeroth where they would drown due to being underwater(yes Vyranoth is that cruel to Titania’s children).
Am currently suspecting that the term First Ones means First Eternal Ones as in the first Generation of Eternal Ones.
The Primus leader of the Pantheon of Order was driven to become an Eternal One because he saw disorder in the Pantheon of Death and switched places with Aman’Thul, the conversion of a member of the Pantheon of Death to Light was used to convince Kyrestia to join the Pantheon of Death, Vyranoth talked Titania the Summer Queen into joining the Pantheon of Death and a Void Lord and a member of the Pantheon of Disorder joined the Pantheon of Death as well.
There is a 7th Cosmic Force that never joined the Pantheon of Death and that one covets what the other 6 hold fast: the position of Winter King… Probably because he shares a Realm with the Winter Queen and would fight over it.
Vyranoth’s solution is to simply switch back with Titania and kill Titania’s subjects so that the guy getting her Consort’s Robotic Shell doesn’t have to fight her over her subjects.
Her attitude is going to get her killed and probably convince the 7th to declare Ardenweald a lost cause and look toward the various other Realms of Death and arrange a proper body for their ambassador.
As far as Aman’Thul, Il’gynoth and the other 2 First Ones are concerned Vyranoth’s actions are grounds for giving up the plan, replacing her and returning home now that they gotten their replacements onto their thought process ready to be switched back.
Kyrestia is no longer rigid and the Primus has discovered that forcing structure on things won’t work out.
I’m sure the signal sent out upon the Winter Queen’s death will call Zovaal’s predecessor(who currently should be in the Pantheon of Disorder) back into Zovaal’s Body too upon which the First One will start messing around with Zereth Mortis in ways too absurd to imagine creating Realms of Death so bizarre it will drive one mad.
so an interesting thing, due to how map phasing is right now, you can see exactly where the new world tree is in relation to the rest of the dragon isles main map:
When they pluck the tree and the land under it, looks like it will become an island in the direct center.
I know this new zone is beautiful and all that and I’m actually enjoying the PTR but this just reminds me how the Horde won by kicking us out of Kalimdor.
As average as the Night Elf Heritage Armor questline was, it at least showed that the Night Elves haven’t been removed from their holdings in Kalimdor, and even made Felwood more solidly established as theirs as opposed to being “contested.”
So this is just like Argus only with night elves instead? Blizzard really does their best tu push alliance races in the front of the story. Nobody eats as good as humans, nelves and Draenei.
