Guess we’ll see what else happened during the N’zoth fight in mythic. There’s no way the heroic version is the full fight.
Personally, I want to see an extra boss. An azeroth fight. Like both healing azeroth and dpsing N’zoth fight. N’zoth using our heart of azeroth to connect to her soul or something.
The Old gods arc was in-game since the beginning, from classic to BFA.
And the black empire did not fall easily.
We simply have more power, experience and knowledge than before:
N’Zoth din’t stand a chance like Yogg or C’thun before him.
Yeah, N’Zoth is dead.
Until we need a villain again and he’s not.
Blizzard doesn’t do subtlety.
But they come up with something like Shadowlands? Out of the blue? I mean, they can develop other worlds… So why not the Emerald Dream/Nightmare too?
And it was a shot on the foot, because there being a plane that involves all afterlifes means that necromancy is inconsistent.
Right, its certainly POSSIBLE to make it better than they said it might be. That’s just the explanation they gave.
They could have resurrected all the old gods of past and tried to make an entire expansion out of it, but I just don’t see what the 4 raid tiers would have been, or what zones etc.
Right, that’s the point. The Emerald Dream and Nyalotha have this steeped precedent about them. Its much easier to create an entirely new place than try to massively expand on a place that has always been hinted at / existed right?
That’s what they say at least.
I have never even begun to imagine what world building on this scale would entail.
I mean, if the Old Gods are on about warping our minds, making us think what they want us to think, see what they want us to see, etc…
We could start off the expansion in a cinematic where we are “raiding” a location where the Old Gods’ essences have gathered at in secret, somewhere on Azeroth, and they break through our mental barriers and we have to fight against an Old God-infested mind-world of Azeroth it self to break free and cripple their powers (for seemingly ever)?
That’s just a 10 second thought.
Like I said, there are plenty of possibilities. Its a bit of a cop out on their part for sure.
But I think the most fair way to rationalize it would be this.
What 4-5 zones would exist?
What would the 4-5 raids look like?
What would a new BG or Arena look like?
What would 10 or so dungeons look like?
There has to be enough variance so that you could have visual diversity in it all, and I’m sure they COULD make it happen, but it would likely just destroy what we thought of as the Emerald Dream or Nyalotha along the way, unless everyone was satisfied with 10 dungeons will with different shaped tentacles.
That’s fair. I see what you’re saying. Definitely would take creativity on their part to do this. And creativity has not been their strong suit these days (yes I’m jaded and negative about blizz I admit).
Pretty sure if I gave it some serious thought, I could flesh out an Azerothian-Old God Mind Trap and give it enough variance from the real Azeroth to be a passable expansion (granted, on the massive worldly scale that is Azeroth… It’d probably be quite a lengthy expansion, but oh welllll~). So I don’t see why Blizzard couldn’t.
Its not accurate to say all dungeons would be themed with tentacles and the like, just as all dungeons in wotlk aren’t themed with scourge symbols everywhere.
The black empire controlled the entire planet which you would think their empire would look pretty diverse in landscape given this, some with jungles or some that are barren wastelands. Could even imagine an entirely innocent looking village,place or jungle but all who go there suffer hallucinations and the like, or the zone itself is an illusion and you can see glimpses of whats real for small flickers if you manage to hurt n’zoth or some core part of the world.
Hell, even C’thun had multiple quests that were implemented and then removed that hinted his survival, so they obviously had some plans with him that were shelved multiple times.
The old guys deserve more and saying it wouldn’t diversify the zones is a grave injustice.
If anything came from MoP’s approach to old god lore, they are extremely difficult to stamp out completely. Y’Shaarj was decimated but his lingering emotions became the sha and his still beating heart caused quite a lot of trouble, might have even lead to the resurrection of the most powerful old god if it wasnt finally stamped out at the end of SOO.
Nzoth might have gotten the dragonsoul treatment but cthun and yoggsaron basically just got beaten to death and left laying around - c’thun’s remains in particular are as far as I am aware, not contained.
He’s dead but the black empire encoded in the origination plans exists and if used he will be alive again along with the rest.
Thats a blizz badly written cliffhanger for future.
This is also a big thing, just an echoe of Y’shaarj completely changed pandaria forever where pandaren had to live peaceful lifestyles and self control or they would become a living horror that would have to be killed if they could not be pacified.
They had to live in complete self control or they would turn into monsters that could kill hundreds before being stopped.
A dead old god started all this, and this further reinforces why n’zoth WAS FLIPPANTLY thrown away. There aren’t any grave consequences for killing an old god anymore, the titans locked them away because they feared another situation like Y’shaarj and the Sha.
Things absolutely can not end like this, its basically saying the titans making the prisons was a complete waste of time and they should have killed them all then and there. Its making the titans look like fools
The Old Gods were tired and played out even before we got the random “bonus” Old God with the first BfA Raid. “The Old Gods did it!” is the default explanation for everything in WoW, even when it’s nothing more than hype and conspiracy. Putting this trope to rest, even with a resounding “meh!” is one of the very, very few achievements BfA can claim.
It doesn’t make up for all the rest of it by a long shot, but credit where it’s due.
Seriously, as if this expansion’s lack luster ending wasn’t enough of a disappointment. Now you want the kazoo fart of a “climax” to be even less meaningful? …
Good riddance to N’zoth and all his samey, overdone kin.
Maybe you are misunderstanding the point I was trying to make.
I was suggesting, that based on their comments about the Emerald Dream, they likely do not feel confident turning a deeply specific area and concept like Nyalotha into an entire 2 year long expansion with all those different areas.
Wrath of the Lich King is a fair example though, as before it was an expansion, it was just snow and rock, basically.
It was greatly added on to make it what it is today, and for some reason, they don’t feel confident they could do it again with other settings.
Still, look at every old god driven story and theme thus far.
Not a lot of diversity, right?
Lots of bugs, lots of elementals and an absolute ton of eyes and tentacles.
Whatever it means, that’s just what Old Gods look like in this game.
They can and the actually did it xD
They’ve been hinting at this all expansion. N’Zoth’s favorite tactic was always “let the enemy win, but he still gets a greater long-term victory from his opponent winning”, which is how he managed to hold out so well against the other four Old Gods. It’s also entirely feasable that he let Azshara keep the dumb dagger, that he gave Horde players, that he let Sylvanas have that she could give it to Azshara so she would give it to Wrathion who is very prideful and arrogant, who thinks he’s “beaten” N’Zoth by stabbing him with the blade.
When, in reality, it is exactly what N’Zoth wanted.
Now, that said, the biggest waste of this patch wasn’t “defeating” N’Zoth, it was wasting all of those beautiful Black Empire assets that should have gotten their own zone, with giant temples and dungeons, and hideous abominations that almost skirt an M-Rating, and so on, on true Lovecraftian fashion.
I’d of rathered we have the actual expansion focusing on Horde vs Alliance, while also trying to save Azeroth’s bleeding soul while fighting over the powerful Azerite.
This entire expansion went like… 4 different ways…
8.3 is basically the “filler ending”, which is sad because it used THE biggest bad Azeroth has had since Vanilla, who was behind most of the evil plots even back then. Same with Azshara, but at least both of them survived, in some way, unlike the Legion. The real ending, and all of the storytelling passion, went into the Alliance/Horde war, and the Saurfang Mak’gora was the REAL ending cinematic for this expansion, IMO.
