Hey! I posted this on the Story Forums as well, so I guess this is a cross post. Those might be against the rules, but I wanted a wider sampling of opinions.
I just wanted to gauge reception of the new Nathrezim lore.
From what I understand of it, the Nathrezim were actually creations of Sire Denathrius, and they were then sent out to spy on and manipulate all of the other cosmic forces? Just curious, what are your thoughts on it?
Personal Opinion
I donât really like the new lore. It just feels unnecessary. To me, it doesnât answer any questions. I mean, was anyone thinking, âGee, did the Nathrezim really just come from an alien planet?â Itâs one more thing adding into their generally dumb vibes of , âEverything bad was actually insertnamehereâs fault all along! Arenât you surprised??â
Itâs just Blizzard being caught by surprise that after nearly two decades theyâve run out of old Warcraft villains to milk, so theyâre trying to do it to add gravity to the new ones and, well, itâs not going great.
Iâve mostly skimmed over the nathrezim stuff, so there may be some fine points of nuance that I missed.
Overall, though - Iâd like it⌠if the story didnât just do almost the exact same âtwistâ with Zovaal.
The Dreadlords are sneaksy manipulators - the idea that they do have a sinister historic goal of infiltration, that they have a bunch of deeeeeeep cover agents in many places, that theyâve infiltrated even other spheres of existence? Neat. (As long as it still relates back to what theyâll be doing on/to Azeroth.)
This reveal fits what I know of the nathrezim and gives future opportunities to use them in the same or similar roles to what theyâve always played. Thatâs what lore expansions should be, in my opinion.
But coming in on the coattails of âYou thought Wrath of the Lich King was about the Lich King? Nope, it was Zovaal the whole time all of a sudden! Isnât he so cool and mysterious?â really sours any other âthis event was secretly manipulated by someone elseâ âtwistâ.
I think this is a fair point. On the whole, I donât like it, but itâs also not as offensive to me as other retcons and story beats. Like, if Shadowlands as a whole had better lore, Iâd probably be like, âOh uh⌠Thatâs weirdâ. But, this is another straw on the camelâs already broken back. Itâs in the same vein as all the stuff I donât like, which makes me dislike it more than I otherwise would have.
Was it part of the plan for the Lich King to have Malâganis killed? That was good acting, then, when Malâganis pretended to be shocked when Arthas killed him.
Was it part of the plan for the Dreadlord brothers to then use the chaos of the Lich King losing power to cause a civil war, weakening the Lich Kingâs grip on Azeroth?
Was it part of the plan to have Varimathras capitulate to Sylvanas and turn on his brothers, destroying any chance for a Dreadlord run Forsaken?
Was it part of the plan for Varimathras to try, and fail, to usurp Sylvanas in the name of the Legion?
Was it part of the plan for Malâganis to plot revenge against the Lich King as he took the Scarlet Onslaught to Icecrown?
How about Vargas the Betrayed, who turned on the Legion to serve Illidan then defected back? That part of the plan?
How did an entire race manage to work closely with Kilâjaeden the Deceiver and not end up spilling the beans to him? How did Malâganis manage to keep this from him and then just instantly go on a monologue at us about his dastardly true allegiance?
Another whirl around on Blizzardâs Cosmology Vomit-Coaster.
By itself itâs not particularly offensive, but the entire setting feeling like a toddler standing sticky-faced next to a stolen pie making up stories on stories to get out of trouble ("But wait, no, actually, the bird didnât mean to fly into the window, it got hit by a GIANT bat - ") is growing more than a little tiresome.
Fundamentally they seem to have confused what it means for a story to feel like Warcraft with recycling old character names that bear at best a tenuous connection to their namesakes.
Again, itâs not offensively gross like BfA. Itâs just⌠tiresome. Is that better or worse?
I think itâs an awkward, ham-fisted, and ill-thought-out attempt at making the Jailer seem more developed and threatening than he actually is that clashes with established lore. Blizzard is desperately trying to make Evil Mr. Clean interesting, and all theyâve accomplished with this, as far as Iâm concerned, is making the nathrezim less interesting.
On some level, I do like the idea of manipulative villains who keep twisting events to their own end.
Like, Iâd find it really fun for the nathrezim to be manipulating these events - not in a âeverything, even getting my face kicked in - er, especially getting my face kicked in - was all according to plan!â way, but in a âAw fel, those NPCs/adventurers got me good⌠but hmmmm, how can I recover from here and even twist things to my advantage for a new plan?â sort of way.
(And since theyâre death-entities now, the player can actually kill them, rather than them having to âEnough!â their way out of a fight!)
Especially in an MMO setting that needs new villains every expansion/patch cycle, I think itâs valuable to have established villains who can both keep showing up with new dastardly plots, and most importantly, do so while not invalidating all the player effort/investment that went into their last defeat.
Sylvanas and her 72-D chess maneuvering failed that second requirement.
Zovaal and his âLich King? It was me, Zovaal!â failed that second requirement.
The nathrezim⌠might be failing that second requirement, depending on how much they retcon prior events. But if they donât, Iâd be okay with it. (But yeah, explaining how they deceived the Deceiver for eons is going to be a doozy to explain properly.) Iâm not sure they could carry a whole expansion by themselves, but theyâd be fun recurring patch villains for fans to speculate about.
Problem is that most of this is like, them against the Lich King. Who should be their ally. Heck, it sounds like the Lich King was their main plan. Why fight him? What does any of this give?
If this was all staged, why?? Wouldnât it just be easier to consolidate power instead of⌠what? Give the adventurers a fighting chance or something?
I was giving Shadowlands a cursory C grade in my book out of nostalgia for my childhood spent playing The Frozen Throne and my absolute stereotypical love of Wrath of the Lich King.
Theyâre not only not doing Wrath 2.0 like we thought but theyâre not making Christianity Warcraft better theyâre making rock and roll my memories worse.
im mostly meh about it at this point, honestly i dont think itâll really get explored any more than it is now yâknow and then it gets forgotten and ignored like most things in this game lol
remember when a giant space satan stabbed the planet and its blood was literally spilling out across the world and a big ol war started over it and we were healing the woonz yah I dont remember it either
Iâm all for the Nathrezim getting a bigger role as the looming bad guys.
Better ways to go about it though. Plans failing is ok so long as you got plans within plans which spawned plans. No need to change much, just build up new characters while building off the old without retconning.
the nathrezim existing as a parallel to the player races as a people versed in multiple forms of power and rapidly growing in strength and influence through alliances with multiple forces is neat
