Seriously does any of this factor into the plot?
Because the smaller quests seem like pretty random nostalgia bait. Not sure how a pristine boar intestine or deviant delight factors in with Xalatath.
And with the bosses Ragnaros and Onxyia are certainly Void adjacent but then we’ve Arthas who’s pretty left field. Seems like Yogg Saron would’ve been a better fit.
Or is it supposed to be the planetary equivalent of like someone’s life flashing before their eyes before they die?
Presently we do not know. Khadgar is not even sure they are Azeroth’s memories. For all we know they are our memories she saw when we wore the Heart and she is reflecting them back at us for some reason.
One thing for sure, they mean I can level from 60-70 in about an hour and some change.
To me, it seems more like nostalgia bait than any actual meaning in the narrative. Maybe I’ll be proven wrong in TWW’s patch cycle.
The only thing that might disprove that they are our memories is the one in Dragonblight where we assist the Prophet of Sseratus and his Drakkari minions against the Scourge, which is not what happened during Zul’drak questing.
It’s really hard to gauge any connection between the big bosses, the only thing I can think of is that the big bosses aren’t necessarily just connected to the Old Gods, but that they were often subjugated or subordinates to larger and more cosmic forces.
Ragnaros, the Old Gods.
Onyxia, wherein Dragonkind was changed by the Titans and then the Old Gods.
Arthas, his whole story being the manipulations of Ner’zhul.
Then there’s some of the smaller visions:
King Gordok was haunted by the Emerald Nightmare.
Hakkar’s whole deal is the subjugation of the Gurubashi.
Gahz’rilla was potentially a pet of the Old Gods, and was worshipped by the Farakki.
Thorim’s will was entirely Yogg-Saron’s until we beat some sense into him.
The Winterfin Murlocs in the memory were corrupted and enslaved because of the Markura, Maximus.
Hogger is the outlier, but grouped up with that particular vision are quests we fulfill for the sake of killing the gnoll even faster. Foulhoof is another, and more overt, example of questgiver manipulations.
Azeroth could be warning us, in the most indirect way possible, that we are just as susceptible to potential manipulations as the enemies we often fight. Sometimes all someone has to do is give us something shiny for the trouble.
But there’s also the whole… Argent Tournament Frog Princess memory. Yeah, I’ve got nothing for that one.
For me the most meaningful part is the color scheme of the radiant memories and their sound effect.
This is pure Azerite, and I’m more curious how this will factor in.
I doubt they are actually Azeroth’s memories. She has no reason to remember Hogger or running beer or collecting book pages. Pretty sure they are our memories that Azeroth is reflecting at us for some reason.
'member berries.
Azeroth is projecting her REM state.
Apparantly she was watching EVERYONE all that time.
I’m tempted to use the single most despised quote in Story Forum history, “Wait and see”, but I think I can tie the radiant memories to the plot. If we think of the memories as less of Azeroth’s own memories and instead of memories of ours that will help to impress upon us the gravity of the impending threat. Is it nostalgia bait, oh yes, but that alone doesn’t make it a bad thing. It sadly just means that it may not be as interesting as it could be.
Yes. The nascent world soul really imprinted on that one time I did the argent tourney frog-kiss daily in grizzly hills.
She didn’t remember the lip-balm that prevented me from turning to a frog, though.
Maybe that’s a clue.
Also some of them are slightly inaccurate. For example there is one in Dragonblight where we have to defend the Prophet of Sseratus from the undead Drakkari. But we did no such thing back in Wrath. In fact we killed the Prophet.
That is true, which makes me wonder if Azeroth’s sense of time is not ours. Like, does she see all timelines her host planet exists in at once and cannot differentiate them apart entirely?
I think it is more simple than that. Could be a case of misremembering.
I wonder if there are others in Searing Gorge and Dustwellow Marsh that are inaccurate now that I think about it.
It means we will grind for hours to get low poly mounts with a questionable azerite tint
Yes.
If you did the small quest chain prior to this event regarding Xal’atath, at the end of the quest chain Locus Walker says to Alleria that the Radiant Song (and the memories that come with it) is similar to what his people experienced on K’aresh (the Ethereal home world) before it was consumed by the Void Lord Dimensius.
He now fears that Xal’atath is preparing Azeroth for a similar fate.
One thought is per the spider cinematic it seems like them using old god blood is key to their corruption.
And Arthas used old god blood to make his doom fortress.
So that’s a connection.
So for Dustwallow Marsh, Mother Smolderweb shows up as an enemy for the ‘collect spider eyes’ memory… even though Smolderweb is in Lower Blackrock Spire… Which is in the Eastern Kingdoms.
it could mean anything, from Azeroth not being the source of the echoes to simply being that whoever wrote the last Chronicles book was involved in the prepatch.
My guess is some intern was told to make a boss mob for that mini event and just picked Smolderweb because “it is a spider boss”.