Drustvar is a really well designed zone with great quests. The most terrifying creatures in this zone are the vomiting pig creatures and that one butcher who turns formerly human piglets into sausages and then sells their meat. Yes, World of Warcraft made me not want to eat bacon for a couple of days, just like Darkest Dungeon or Amnesia. With that being said, Drustvar also has a lot of weak points as a horror zone: The wicker creatures just aren’t scary. They’re cool, but not scary. Which brings me to my next point: Many Drustvar quests are just too funny. Like, who could have guessed that old Lord Waycrest triumphed over the cursed wood creatures by discovering their weakness to fire? No shock! This ancient lore was lost for centuries, until a strong and smart Alliance adventurer appeared and rediscovered the secret recipe for liquid fire. If only the people of Drustvar had known of this beforehand! But then again, the same people think onions, silver needles and mosquitoes are useful tools for uncovering witches. Ok, maybe that’s unfair, because in Drustvar, and Drustvar alone, those things actually work, making it even more hilarious.
Nazmir, on the other hand, lacks any sort of humour. It’s a gigantic swampland filled with bloodthirsty cannibals who cannot be reasoned with. The place itself feels like it wants to trap and eat you- like all the other creatures who are decomposing in the lakes and tar pits. Nazmir tears you down, contrasting perfectly with mountainous Zuldazar, which represents the apex of Troll civilisation. Everything in Nazmir is meant to deconstruct the Zandalari and their values. The most horrifying example is how the Blood Trolls actually managed to kill and eat a Loa, using its parasite infested body as a power source to summon undead and faceless ones. I also think that Nazmir has much stronger visual imagery than Drustvar, like the blood moon above Bwonsamdi’s necropolis.
With that being said, I think Nazmir is a slightly better horror zone than Drustvar, because unlike Drustvar it’s just not salvageable.
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I love Nazmir. It’s the best zone design that Blizzard has ever done imo.
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I agree whole heartedly and held this opinion pretty staunchly since BfA’s launch. Nazmir feels horrifying and almost suffocating. You get a real sense of dread there, and it really sets up the Blood Trolls as a legitimate threat to ALL of Zandalar which is hard in a setting where you’re geared to the teeth and giving mobs a rude look is enough to one-shot them.
Drustvar doesn’t really achieve this, as much as I love the themes there, they are very contained and feel slightly disjointed from the rest of the Kul Tiran campaign. Like you mentioned, it also has a bit of a comedic element (intentional or not) and the music even sets a slightly comedic tone to me, which is much different from the dreadful dirge in Nazmir.
Nazmir really gives a body horror element that WoW hasn’t really had before, whereas Drustvar feels more of a campy Victorian era Van Helsing mystery. Which in it’s own right, is very fun, but pales in comparison to the hanging bodies, cauldrons of rotting blood and flesh, sacrificial pyres etc. etc. Nazmir stands up as one of my absolute favourite zones in all of Warcraft for this reason, and I will ALWAYS play through it if I’m leveling a Horde alt.
Not to mention Bob Salami’s Necropolis being the icing on the cake in terms of spooky visual awesomeness.
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Mythologically too, the blood moon over The Necropolis has some pretty cool mythological symbolism.
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I guess that depends on which character you decide to play trough Drustvar. I played on my Demon Hunter and felt like Geralt from the Witcher series (ha! fitting name). Furthermore, Kul Tiran zones are maybe a bit too beautiful. Tiragarde Sound has a questline (The shadow over anglepoint), which comes pretty close to Nazmir, with brain and gut parasites infecting a seaside town. But the moment you exit the town, you’re welcomed by majestic mountains and valleys, and even more majestic music.
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Yeah, I definitely think the immersion of your current character plays a big part in how the zone is perceived, if you’re someone that kind of plays through a character PoV.
I think the main difference is that KT has ‘sections’ of it’s zones that somewhat match Nazmir’s vibe, like the Shadow over Anglepoint, or the pig quests like you mentioned before. Stormsong also has some cool Lovecraftian vibes mixed into it’s majestic rolling hills, but outside of those niche areas they don’t really carry through the entire theme of the zones.
Whereas Nazmir is just all around terrifying and there’s really no comedic reprieve. Krag’wa is the closest thing perhaps and he reads more ‘really cool’ than comedic to me. Bwonsamdi of course is meant to be funny, but he still has this sinister vibe that matches the zone really well, and doesn’t read ‘campy’ or ‘goofy’ like Drustvar’s comedic moments do.
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Nazmir is definitely more spooky than Drustvar (I seriously love the art design of Nazmir, it’s fantastic), but I don’t really know if I’d call either of them scary.
I was musing on this yesterday while I was doing the 9.2.5 Brill questline. Tirisfal and Duskwood feel much scarier than Drustvar or Nazmir, and I think the reason for that is they’re more atmospheric while the BfA areas are trying too hard to be scary? Like Tirisfal and Duskwood make use of empty space, and have that subtle effect of eyes shining in bushes, things like that. You feel like you might get ambushed, even if you don’t actually see anything. It’s a subtle vibe.
Drustvar and Nazmir meanwhile have body horror around every corner and mobs cramped in everywhere. They don’t give you any time to breathe, they’re in your face constantly.
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Nazmir was Beautiful! Drustvar felt horrifying cuz all those tough mobs in one place! Ew!
It’s actually good to have both. They both have different flavors of horror.
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Agree. Nazmir felt more hostile to me the player but it’s not hard enough for that to be more scary than Drustvar on the whole. Drustvar was more of being scared for others: will I actually be able to rescue them?
Both very good. And I really liked the point earlier by Spyrn about how they’re a little too dense to get the suspense factor of places like Duskwood.
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Both have strengths and weaknesses.
I do like how we get a look at the culture of Drustvar.
This was my favorite part. In other settings there’s usually a lot of misunderstandings and misinformation about magic. Which tracks as arcane literally means “understood by few”. WoW is certainly a high magic setting so magic is about as esoteric as science and medicine is in our world but we’ve no shortage of people who loudly refuse to understand it. So tracks Azeroth would have the same troubles.
In Warhammer for example part of the reasons vampires run rampant is because they very deliberately spread misinformation about what they are. To the point where only an educated and trained Witch Hunter has any hope of effectively fighting them. Knowing how they work means knowing how dark magic works and that’s not the sort of info you pass out in PSA pamphlets.
I don’t think the Witches make the same dispropaganda effort but it was still cool to see them take advantage of ignorance. I also just loved the witches. In a lot of popular culture witches are frequently just sexy lady wizards who maybe know some spookier spells and are a bit rude. A properly wretched, Baba Yaga, something wicked this way comes, Brother’s Grimm Captial H Hag is a favorite of monster of mine.
Nazmir on the otherhand has the Blood Trolls who were pretty much just cannon fodder. I’m still not sure why they worshipped G’huun. Kinda seemed like just a feral toothy tumor, basically just the sarlac from Star Wars. I at least don’t remember him communicating with anyone and it didn’t look like he’d be capable of it anyway. Weird deity to trade presumably Hakkar for. At least N’Zoth can bargain and turn you into sea snake people.
But where Nazmir shines is of course the other Loa. Bwomsamdi has technically been around for awhile but never like this and he’s imho the best addition to WoW in ages. Then there is of course His Celestial Circumference, The Blessed Belly, The Holy Hopper; Krag’Wa, Hippotus Hoppotus Deus Domine.
“You are a friend to the frogs. I will… not… eat you” is the best line not just in WoW, but perhaps gaming in general if not the English language.
And it’s really hard to top that.
On the whole I’d say Drustvar has superior world building while Nazmir has the superior characters.
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That’s the one spot where Drustvar bothered me.
I made sure I was in human form anytime I approached the townsfolk. As I just couldn’t buy that these on edge yokels are going to be accepting of a werewolf. Though TBH that’s a general issue with Blizz kinda forgetting Worgen exist. Just one bit of dialogue was all I needed.
On the flipside with the Forsaken I loved that bit with the Gob Squad in Nazmir where one of the members gets freaked out by the army of undead. Paraphrasing here but the dialogue goes;
"What! Undead! Nobody told me we’re dealing with this!
“We work with undead all the time idiot!”
“Uh, boss, they prefer the term Forsaken”
Which was a cute little exchange.
I do wish Lady Waycrest would’ve had different insults though for Horde groups. I at least found the idea of the coven running into a group of Forsaken funny.
They’re doing the whole “Mortals beware, you’re in for a scare” thing and the Forsaken are just banally wandering around like prospective home buyers.
“We do so love the abomination in the kitchen but why the pig head? Did you run out of humanoid flesh? Oh, how rude of me, I don’t mean to brag about our means.”
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I think the world building is definitely the big difference. When you go to nazmir you are a multi world saving hero going to a swamp to deal with blood magic wielding cannibal cultists, otherwise know as another Tuesday.
By contrast when you go to drustvar however you are essentially Van Helsing or Geralt of Rivia showing up to the sleepy little village. There you find a threat that delights in using illusions and mind control, and that almost no one alive has ever faced.
Nazmir presents the greater threat no doubt. It also has great story, but drustvar through the villagers you encounter does a better job if making you feel the horror
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Drustvar is one of my all-time favorite zones to level in. As far as scariness goes, it reminds me most of a good-but-cheesy horror flick that can be alternatingly frightening or humorous.
Nazmir is definitely more bleak, but for brings to mind dark sci-fi more that straight horror. More like investigating a hostile alien world or post-apocalyptic landscape. And while it is more consistent in tone than Drustvar, the goofy Tortolans and Hand of Fate quest do somewhat detract from the bleakness.
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Personally the only thing in WoW that ever creeped me out were the smaller bits in Horrific Visions.
None of the huge set piece stuff. But smaller things like seeing the SW orphans possessed by Faceless Ones or the Goblin auctioneer who’s completely lost it, murmuring his standard greeting in a corner like he hopes this is a nightmare he’ll wake up from any second now.
There was just this sense of failure. The day is beyond saving now the best you can do is salvage what’s left, and even then you can’t save everyone.
I compare that to say Torghast. Where bad things were happening but in an unfamiliar place that had only ever known bad things. And instead of trying to rescue people you’ve at least met, you’re rescuing souls who are more the vague suggestion of a person than an actual person.
Power fantasy and horror are incompatible genres. There’s a reason slasher protagonists are hapless teenagers and not Batman. But Horrific Visions managed to be scary by removing the power fantasy aspect. It was one of the few modes with a genuine fail state, and it piled on thr debuffs to rob you of your power. You’re not the hero riding into save the day. You’re a rat scampering through a burning ruin.
Unfortunately I think that’s why it proved so unpopular. But I really adored it for that.
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To each his own, but I disagree.
I really like the first half of Drustvar, but once you get past Arom’s Stand into the second half of the zone it somewhat peters out for me. I think it was the cold autumnal forests covering the eastern face of the island, and that the hags were everywhere, but NOT everywhere… spread out, watching from the shadows; that really did it for me. There IS the Crimson Forest north of Falconhurst, but it’s SO jam-packed with the witches that the threat feels like it sacrifices quality for quantity- they’re just so obviously trash packs to be mowed down- mechanical game threats to be avoided rather than narrative threats to be feared if you will. Still,
Despite the ruins, Nazmir was still mostly quite beautiful and natural looking. The over-the-top gorey evil was mostly concentrated in the center, and there it clashed with the rest of the zone. In Nazmir, the Blood Trolls seemed to destroy nature (Ghuun’s Rot), but it could still be found in healthy abundance. In Drustvar, the hags suborned nature- it was still there, seemingly beautiful and healthy as Nazmir’s healthy areas, but therein lied the danger. It had all been turned towards the witches’ service. Spotting and avoiding areas of Blood Troll control was easy, but in Drustvar you knew that you couldn’t ever feel safe, no matter what it looked like. The Blood Trolls were too blatant an enemy, boldly building up mass- and making themselves obvious targets; the hags subverted and hid within both nature and society, then struck from the shadows when the time was just right, when the victims had been lured into a false sense of security.
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I think you have a point about Horrific Visions, but it’s worth remembering Torghast was also unpopularity. I’m pretty sure horrific visions and torghast proved unpopular because:
- Repetitive.
- Depressing. This speaks to your point, but is a broader issue. Repetition is more tolerable with brightness. C.f. Mario, Diablo 3.
- Borrowed power and the general degeneration of gameplay meant roughly 2/3rds of specs had very boring gameplay within those areas.
- No pause button. Central part of most of the “do hard thing and get better at it” genre is that you can always take it at your own pace. This isn’t at all true for HV or Torghast.
- The random elements of each week didn’t really transform your gameplay in interesting ways. The ability rotations are too tightly designed to accommodate this without gamebreaker stuff.
- It feels too disconnected from how your character normally plays to satisfy people who want to see how their character grows.
No disagreement on your story analysis, I like it a lot. I just don’t think atmosphere was the primary issue there.
It’s worth noting that initial responses were positive for both and they only became negative when released to the wider public as they weren’t good enough experiences to be run for gear cycles.
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Where I think HV got it right is that it was a much shorter experience that could be mastered over time. And once you had the game mode down pat you could equip masks to heighten the difficulty, to a truly merciless nightmare mode level with all 5 in full effect. And crucially it awarded both gear and currency to buy the corruption gear bonuses. Rather than 1/3 of the stuff yoh need to craft a piece of gear.
Torghast had a fundamentally boring design where I feel bad for the devs who took the time to give it that roguelike randomly generated aspect. Because I genuinely couldnt tell one grayish corridor from the other. And also it just took forever. The final bosses were such a difficulty spike that not scouring every nook and cranny for an upgrade was a recipe for failure.
They did have the break room levels which I appreciated. Not because this was just so pulse pounding I needed a breather, but because I was so bored I needed to walk away and do something else. It felt like a second job I was paying for.
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I’m not sure how that relates?
Foxgirl loses her magic due to advancing tech levels, reduced to sexslave
Gets turned into cyborg by owner who’s into machines instead of furries
Friend re-engineers her into killer fox cyborg so she can get revenge
there’s loads of fetish and body horror, but she regains her power/agency and becomes a slasher of sorts herself, albeit targeting bad guys
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Anyone watch Space Ghost Coast to Coast a long time ago? You know that sound Zorak made when he blinked? And he always blinked twice.
Imagine that sound.