She was the main reason the entire world nearly got genocided though… it’s pretty clear her philosophy does not rule it out as an option.
Not all the Naga are like Vashj. She is explicitly stated to be the most fanatical of all Naga, and Blizz has made it clear not all Naga have the same motivations. They say so verbatim.
Again, I am not okay with just being some tool for some vain narcissist’s selfish ambitions, and it’s unlikely the Horde or Alliance would allow Azsharan loyalists join them. It would be hard enough for them to trust Naga rebelling against her, and rightfully so. Naga are and should remain devious and sinister by nature. It only makes sense some of such people would betray even Azshara.
She lets them die all the time.
We do not know she came to her people’s aid against that kraken when they called for her help. We only know that she imprisoned Leviroth. When and why she did so is left up to our imagination.
If Blizzard decided to have playable Naga be Azsharan loyalists, I’d still main one, but I would never stop pushing Blizz to let us depose her
Not always. Raj is not the only example of de facto male leaders of Naga groups we have encountered.
Yes, Naga society is and should remain matriarchal. That does not preclude a male ruler. As I’ve said, a truly exceptional individual to lead the Naga is exactly who would be needed in lieu of Azshara.
Well, the reasons dont really matter much, the result is that she stopped that kraken who was killing her people.
There is not that much ruler that actually deal with threats only out of “i help my people” they mainly do it for benefit.
To me, this is like if you said you want to play an orc but not being part of a clan. By that i mean, their fanatism, and their devotion to their Queen, is like one of the main cultural thing in their socity, and their Queen, is not even just a Queen to them, its their Goddess, they see it as such, saying that you dont want to be part of this is like saying you dont want to play a Drow of Lolth in dnd its like you are 1% of the population.
Everything, and i really mean everything in the naga culture revolve around Azshara, removing that aspect would just remove so much from it.
I am not even sure if Vashj is the most fanatical, to be honest, 99% of the nagas we saw are fanatical to Azshara.
You had just, one tribe that allied with the Legion in Broken Shores and one guy in tbc who was worshipping Neptulon, thats all.
Thats called an exception more than a rule, and at the end of the day he was still under Azshara rule.
The Naga deserve the support just as much as ogres do. I am doing my best to bring people’s attention to this thread.
We Naga enthusiasts must ALL do our part to spread the word about this forum and convince people to post here. There has to be people out there who do fan art, fan made graphical design, and other fan made work who can contribute here to give the original post more content like other race request discussion threads have. We need them, as well as every other person willing to post here.
So mention Naga and this thread in general and trade chat in game. Rack up support wherever possible.
The reasons mean almost everything. They determine if someone can be counted on. Someone in leadership needs to be counted on to put their people before themselves, at the very least when it matters most. Azshara has proven repeatedly she can only be counted on to put herself before everyone else.
Everyone is expendable to her, as long as she can find someone to serve her, which she has spent her incredibly long life developing the power and skills to ensure she can always garner new followers if she decides her old ones better serve her by being discarded.
When things get desperate, the best you can hope for is that she considers you part of her inner-most circle of sycophants, and even then it isn’t certain you’re safe.
Most rulers are better than that. Even if it’s a 50/50 or even 60/40 split of self-interest, and selfless care for their followers, that is still better than Azshara. She’s 25% worried about her followers at MOST, and I think that’s extremely generous.
Clanless, or at least non-clan focused orcs are pretty common. In fact until recently, it seemed more the norm. There were more important aspects to their culture. Same goes for the Naga.
She is not their goddess. She is a demi-god to most of them. That’s canon. Without Azshara they’d still be Naga. They’d still egotistical, corrupt, devious and wicked creatures by nature. Still serpent people of the ocean depths. Still defined by the magic obsessed culture they had as Highborne Kaldorei.
They could even still be fanatical followers of a monarch, even if it isn’t Azshara. An usurper with a compelling backstory.
Actually, there’s a very large portion of the drow population that does not worship Lolth in dnd. Way more than 1%.
Disagree. There’s no doubt that the Naga would not exist without Azshara, but I am not convinced their culture is defined mainly by her.
It’s canon that Vashj was her most fanatical follower. It’s even stated in chronicles, iirc.
It was two tribes that allied with the Legion, actually. One of which was led by a male, not subservient to a female.
That one guy in tbc, Skar’thiss, is shown to be the head of an entire cult of Naga during the Midsummer event, and again, does not work under a female Naga. Devs have stated, word for word, that there are multiple groups of Naga with their own motivations, separate from Azsharan loyalists.
Again, Raj was not the only example of a male Naga leading his own tribe or group. I have already pointed out a couple in this post, and there are a few others besides them.
Yes, obviously males being the supreme ruler is, would be, and should be the exception. But that does not mean it would make no sense for a male to be the leader of playable Naga. An exceptionally intelligent, ambitious, and magically gifted male usurper would make a lot of sense.
Doesn’t mean the culture he’d be part of would change.
Azshara would still lead the most Naga. But there is simply no way to justify the Horde or Alliance letting Azsharan loyalists join them, and unless we get a third faction, that means we won’t be playing them.
But we can still have playable Naga have all the other traits Azsharan loyalists have.
I still think the correct way to implement Azshara is from a third party perspective on a politically neutral entity.
Someone who would loan out her people to manipulate both factions into subservience initially, and someone who would inherently manipulate the balance of power between the horde and the alliance.
A race of people who would gladly kill each other in the name of service to their queen.
As this attempted plot of manipulation keeps going, the grander questions of the race begin to get asked.
Like, now that Azshara is free; Is her hatred of the void greater than her distaste of the other native races of Azeroth?
Could there be some threat to the elven race that only she can provide succor against?
Can she come to the conclusion that the folly of all empires is overreach, and she recognized that the only way for her to maintain power is to control what she already has instead of expanding outward?
In a world of growing circles, councils, and senates; can she prove the legitimacy of a monarchy in a world that seems desperate to change?
I don’t necessarily want a full on redemption, because my queen can never do wrong. However the introduction of noblesse oblige in the mind of someone who legitimately sees herself as the Queen of all elves and working to prove that claim, and working towards proving, indeed, Azeroth still needs the most powerful arcane mage on the planet (lower your hand, dadghar) as well as a unifying cultural force for the elves would be completely something new and out of the perspective that blizzard has been going in.
For the Horde, theres an undeniable fact that the naga saved the blood elves under Kael’thas from Garithos’s idiocy.
As for the Alliance… Well realistically I would have to go back in time to BFA and have Azshara save some night elves from the burning of Teldrassil to instill the same blood debt.
Now that Blizzard is using AI tools to help with rigging and morphing models across many playable races - as is evident with the tons of 3D models coming out (even if the base body is sometimes left alone / flat textures); having Naga being playable is without a doubt a possibility now. Especially after Evokers became a thing? Dracthyr are easily one of the worst for transmog but at the very least the most unique in terms of customization differences.
That doesn’t mean they’re GOOD, but they’re there. And the systems are in place for that. Naga are the next logical step for a bestial race that has been waiting for a long time in the background. Ogres are similar in this regard - surprised they haven’t been added as a neutral race considering they’ve worked with and for both sides throughout the lore.
I unfortunately don’t think Blizzard is gonna try to do another Dracthyr anytime soon though, so it’s just wishful thinking at this point.
I’d think the rigging is mostly handled. The helmet wouldn’t be that different from Tauren and Worgen, and as OP points out, we have some naga models that really look like they are ordinary Naga with helmets and interesting little tassets and assymetric skirts for leg armor. For that reason, I am not sure Naga would be quite the same as dracthyr.
Like you said, flat textures still works for gear just fine. I don’t think people will mind not being able to wear leg armor anyway. The more important gear to look at is on the torso and head.
I hope you are wrong… I want to believe blizz will listen to us if we all come together and tell them what we want.
I am not sure that blood debt will make the Horde feel obligated to let in the Azshara loyalist Naga they know for a certainty can not be trusted due to their loyalty to Azshara, and how all the Azshara loyalists to this point have caused so much trouble and harm. But maybe Blizz would overlook that.
And like you said, there’s even less of a reason for Alliance to let them in.
I’m sorry, but I simply don’t see Azshara being even partially redeemed as you imagine her being. She tried to summon the Legion to wipe out everyone but those highest nobles she favored. Many thousands died because of her. The whole world was nearly destroyed and was terribly damaged because of her. She assisted Deathwing and N’zoth in all sorts of destructive endeavors. There’s no coming back from that. I really doubt the elves will ever be convinced to accept her as a unifying cultural force… but if Blizz goes that route I… I’d accept it. As long as I get my Naga toon.
That’s actually an interest story idea. Azshara sends word that she’s ready to return to Azeroth but wants a more inside look at the factions. So she has her agents present themselves as Anti Azshara forces, only for them to actually genuinely bond with the Horde/Alliance, and came to realize that Azshara’s loyalty was ultimately to herself.
The question is how to get the Horde and/or Alliance to trust a Naga tribe or two. Perhaps the Naga leader(s) would be someone known, to the Nightborne and/or Night Elves. For example, say it’s a former student of Thalyssra or a once trusted confident of Tyrande, who was thought killed. They present themselves as merely accepting N’Zoth’s gift because they feared otherwise and could even warn them of Azshara’s return, as a means to build up trust. Only to actually renew the bond they had and come to see the difference between true loyalty and blind obedience.
Them being or at least claiming to be anti-Azshara rebels should probably be enough for them to be given the chance to prove their trustworthiness to the Horde. Just as the Forsaken were able to get into the Horde by claiming, and proving to be anti-Lich King.
In fact, the usurper concept can still be integrated into this narative, by having a leader of the playable Naga tribe(s) Azshara sends to have been secretly looking for a way to usurp her for a long time. They will have been earning her trust and favor for thousands of years, and see an opportunity in Azshara’s orders to infiltrate A or H. An opportunity to find assistance in their plans to become the new monarch.
A rebel/usurper, posing as a loyalist, sent to pose as a rebel. Lmfao.
Obviously, many, perhaps even most of the Naga following him/her will not be aware of his/her plans… perhaps not even the player character, who only finds that out early if they make certain choices in a starting quest chain that will let players decide if they want their toon to be truly anti-Azshara early on, and have their tribe-leader discover that fact, and induct us into their plot. The intrigue… the scheming… the secrecy… it would be perfect for the Naga.
This could be how the Naga are given a chance to earn a place in the Alliance, yea. I don’t like the idea of the Naga having to tolerate the high amount of prejudice from the Night Elven general population though. Goes against their fantasy. They’re the proudest of the Highborne.
We’ll see, they’ve had usable Naga models for the majority of armor except for foot armor since what, Legion? And before that a lot of the rigging was in place for Cataclysm. The leg armor is just textures but having upper body transmog capable over Dracthyr who don’t even have half that is insane to me.
I’m still hopeful some day we may see them though. But it’s a long shot IMO. We’d sooner see a naga only class or some kind of hybrid humanoid form for mounts / base form kinda like how we do for Worgen and Dracthyr. Like we certainly aren’t getting Monk for Naga lol.
Exactly. Even with leg armor just being a texture, that’s leagues better than the Dracthyr, and male naga have that burly draconic almost drakonid look people wanted from Dracthyr, but didn’t get.
If we keep pushing, and gather the Naga enjoying community together, I have to believe Blizzard will listen…
You might be right. I believe you are wrong. But you might be right.
I worry about this. I would like to think just giving base naga legs for mounting and whenever else they are essential would be easy enough for Blizz to do, without needing to give naga a default elf/human form like drac and Worgen. But Blizzard has proven to incredibly dumb and lazy…
Lmfao. Yea it seems a stretch, but you never know! Like I said, just pop some legs on Naga monks during combat or at least when doing kicking animations, and monk becomes feasible! And naga monks being feasible helps increase the likelihood they’ll be added.
But Naga monks aren’t important to me. I wouldn’t play one.
I would fear requesting that would make the devs see adding the Naga a more daunting task. We need it to seem as easy as possible to them while still adhering to the race’s fantasy as much as possible, after all. Plus people already complain about race locked classes, and I would hate to scare away community support…
That being said, I would definitely love the naga getting their own unique class. It definitely is… difficult to imagine what they could get. The utility/buff focus of evoker doesn’t seem to have been well-received, even though I personally love it. My idea would be a class focusing on shadow, nature (in the form of Lightning, water, and maybe poison) and physical damage. One with a tank spec, a ranged dps caster spec, and maybe a utility spec if people couuld stomache it, and a melee dps if not… the Battle-Maiden, and wc3’s Royal Guards both had tanky and caster elements to them.
Honestly, they’re among the couple races that were previously considered and theres clearly a fan base for them. Really think Blizzard should consider it again.