The DF time skip is 5 years

Wyrmrest Accord
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As for Nathanos, tremendous backstory, poor execution as a character.

Dunno if anybody’s played Elder Scrolls Online but Abnur Tharn comes to mind. Abnur is rude, self-righteous, self-absorbed, and singularly focused on his goals to the point that he will betray his allies for his own ends.

However, Abnur is also determined, brave, willing to go to extraordinary lengths to fix his own mistakes, and while he talks down to the player constantly, it’s clear that he fundamentally means well. He cares about his nation, he will protect and innocent, and even when he is acting dubiously he’s doing what, pragmatically speaking, is the lesser of two evils in any given situation.

The point is, Abnur Tharn has redeemable qualities.

Nathanos, on the other hand, is rude and self-righteous, just like Abnur. But does he have redeemable qualities? Not really. He’s selfish. He doesn’t care about the Horde. He won’t try to make amends for his mistakes, or protect the innocent. He doesn’t even really care about the Forsaken. He cares about Sylvanas. Everything that’s been written about Nathanos indicates that his personal love for Sylvanas, in life and death, was his only driving motivation. He’d follow her to whatever end, no matter how selfish and dark, even when it makes literally no sense to him.

A rude and self-righteous character can be done very well. But they need to have some redeemable qualities - things that make you know that the rudeness is a personality feature, not their whole reason for being. Nathanos has nothing to balance it against, so he’s just a jerk who likes nobody, and thus, who nobody likes.

I still think a better end for Nathanos would’ve been to go through some sort of massive character development - to BETRAY his Dark Lady, because he knew what she was doing was wrong. Perhaps he would think Teldrassil was too far, perhaps when Sylvanas left the Horde, I don’t know. But if Nathanos ultimately cared more for the Horde or Forsaken than Sylvanas, it could’ve made some great character conflict and totally changed how we see him. But alas, a devoted stooge he remained.

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226

It’d be fine if it was clear and intentional if you were supposed to hate his guts but it’s clear at least with how much screen time and effort that went into him that Blizzard at least thought he was anything more than guy who everyone hates but never bothered to fill the rest of us in and then when the blowback erupted they decided that what we got was good enough or whatever and uhh… I guess that summarizes a lot.

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My issue was less how abrasive and annoying he was- I mean, that too- but more how he was inescapable. Our entire War Campaign revolved around retrieving a dead body under his leash and that’s about it. I wanted to actually -fight a war-, not fish up a corpse that should have been basically mush if anything was even left after years of exposure to the underwater elements. It was stupid, stupid, stupid. Our entire war strategy was “hey let’s freak out Jaina for lols and see if they surrender.” I guess?

Alliance got to see more Horde war efforts than Horde players did in their questing. I didn’t even know about some of the horrible things they had Horde doing until people here talked about it and I had to see for myself.

Anyway now I’m just repeating myself.

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hahahaha omg that is so accurate for Nathan OS.

The difference here is that Tharn is a well-written character that shows growth throughout the game. He comes off insufferable through the vanilla game, and is still kinda annoying in Elsweyr. But you learn about him as a person, he has depth and isn’t just 1D stand-in that’s just there to shake pom-poms and stare moon-eyed at Lyris.

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What’s frustrating about WoW’s writing is that they occasionally brush against a genuinely good writing idea and then ruin it by being Blizzard.

Nathanos’ attitude actually was something players asked for. People didn’t like the alienation that came from everyone hailing them as The Chosen One and yearned for the days of becoming a rank and file nameless adventurer again. And for good reason–our experiences felt more grounded.

So, in that regard, Nathanos’ brusque, unimpressed attitude was quite welcome and even garnered a few genuine fans. Unfortunately, it was overwhelmed by all the other negatives.

He was a Horde character, so any character growth he might have had would only be seen by the Horde. But despite being a Horde character, he occupied way too much spotlight in the Alliance campaign. And it didn’t end up mattering, either, because he never grew from that.

From Nathanos, I wanted another Nazgrim. I wanted a character that might be unfriendly to begin with, but would eventually grow into respect or begrudging acknowledgement. Instead, I got a Dark Redditor Nathanos.

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Yeah if he grew like Abner Tharn did, from a “I’m so much better than you” to “You’re not as :poop: as I thought you were at first”, Nathanos would have been a much better character.
Instead we got, as you said, Dark Redditor Nathanos.

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The best character to not give a crap about the player character was that Akunda priest in Voldun. You’re prompted with telling him you killed Death Wing and the Legion and w/e and he’s like, that doesn’t mean anything to me now shut up and do the memory wipe ritual or get out.

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232

This, but for Legion ruining shaman gameplay (I’m not a fury warrior)

I hated Drustvar. Stormsong felt like a real place, Drustvar felt like a moody fifteen year old’s vision of what witches would get up to. (I liked it only because it’s a snow zone, and snow zones are lacking. I despised it otherwise).

WoD crawled so Legion could run. Show respect to your elders. :older_man:

When you think you’re Maverick but you’re actually Goose.

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As someone who went Kyrian, I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.

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And Silvermoon has been destroyed for belves for even longer! Shame Nelves will have a new home before those who lost it all to the Scourge. I love my nelves and my Worgen and all, but… I’ll weep if Gilneas gets restored before Blood Elves get a non-destroyed home.

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I say this as a massive Blood Elf fan but… they still have a functional (and frankly quite beautiful) city, and a reasonable population throughout their zones. I agree the zones need an update (and flying, please), but lose 80% of your population to the Scourge and there’ll be some abandoned ruins. Blood Elves still have a lot more of a homeland than the Night Elves and Worgen.

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Literally the one appealing thing about Silvermoon.