That could’ve helped but really on top of Arthas the Scourge had some memorable lieutenants. Of course Kel’Thuzad but also those Vampire Count dudes, the Vyrkul and Drakkari servants and so on. It felt like a journey. Like you were working your way up to Arthas.
With Zooval I’ve tore through an innumerable number of his henchmen, powerful ones at that in Torghast. But I’ve no idea if I’m making any progress. Just sorta swinging wildly at an amorphous gray blob rather than slowly ascending up to Icecrown.
9 Likes
This is my reaction to him as well. Which is sad because he could have been taken in much more interesting directions. Instead of making him an your face kind of villain why not make him a kind of menace behind the scenes. For example have him feed off the scattered remnants of souls and he wants the wars to continue so he can continue to feed. In fact make one of his goals to free Sargarus so the Burning Crusade can resume and the stream of shattered souls will become a flood.
In other words make him a part of the overall story of Warcraft we have been playing through.
6 Likes
Is there any other kind of Irish? As an Irishman, I kid…
There’s Irish American 
Or Irish Latino
(Fun fact distantly Irish cuz of some soldiers y’all sent to Bolívar, proudly 1/64th O’Donovan of Carly Cashel)
2 Likes
I am just tired of Blizzard not explaining these villains’ plans. Like do they really think the story is going to be that much better when they info dump everything in the last patch of Shadowlands?
How can I have an opinion on a boss that doesnt tell me why I should care about his plan aside from a generic “he is going to destroy the world”.
11 Likes
I’ve written about this before but it really doesn’t help that the first patch took so long to come out. For what little it feels like the player has to go on, the wait length helped numb story progression even more than usual.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Shadowlands tries to wrap up in 8.2 so Blizzard can catch up on their usual expansion release pattern.
4 Likes
I think that the realities of earnings release schedules will force this. WoW still drives a lot of their fluctuations - you can’t have two dry years in a row, the usual explanations won’t be applicable and then investors will start asking questions.
1 Like
It’s unfortunate for story and for us as consumers, because it seemed as if initially Shadowlands was to be sold on premise of the Jailer acting as an anti-villain, whose efforts, while misaligned or malicious, were to be sympathized with. I was, going into Shadowlands and perhaps against my better judgement, expecting much more nuance from the Jailer’s motivations and his relationship with Sylvanas, the rest of the Eternal Ones and reality as a whole.
As the narrative progressed, however, it became increasingly obvious that wouldn’t be the case. Zovaal’s only role in the narrative thus far, besides being predestined as this expansion’s mustache twirling end boss, is serving a poorly executed set piece to hand wave away Sylvanas’ agency, responsibility and personality in about fourteen seconds. He went from being presented in early concept as a Magneto or a ‘V’-type character, only to become the Most Memeable Macguffin in the modern franchise.
20 Likes
In addition to being so unbelievably boring, his backstory is literally just the same thing as Sargeras. Member of Pantheon betrays the others, decides to unmake reality because he sees it as flawed.
18 Likes
Except we don’t even have the buildup and backstory we do with Sargeras, so anything The Jailer does, or any victory we achieve against him, is going to lack even that much emotional weight.
It’s almost impressive that they could use a cosmology like Warcraft’s, so dumb and over the top, and manage to make a story and villain so insufferably boring.
10 Likes
I am still hoping we get…something, next week once the Grimoire is released. At the very least some hint of whatever Blizzard plans to do with WoW.
Maybe but this all feels too little too late for me. I actually just got my laptop fixed and was really excited to play WoW yesterday. Of course the maintenance was happening when I had the time to.
But honest to God after that cutscene I don’t really want to. Knowing that’s essentially the patches finale and we have months to wait for more is very disheartening.
It’s been the better part of a year and I still have no idea WTF this Zooval guy is on about.
2 Likes
Same as Ley’Shen and others.
Now compare these two. Lei’Shen has interesseting lore, he was powerfull, batteled the celestials defeated Raden, had a packt with Zandalari etc.
He was interesseting and a cool vilain to go up against.
Zoval is the opposite of that. Nothing from him is interesting and the last thing we learned from him was he stole Sargeras plan for himself, kinda. Destroying reality, forging a new one to play tyrant over his creation. This part reminds me about a certain book.
He is so boring.
I really don’t care about him or what happens to him.
I am way longer concerned about the story. He wasn’t the red flag for me. He is just another side issue in a see of problems.
4 Likes
All the people complaining about pandas, aesthetically ripping off Dreamworks, and Chinese capitulation never realized they were living in the golden age. I miss Mists.
18 Likes
Dungeon bosses from Classic and TBC have more compelling narratives than the Jailer.
15 Likes
I loved MoP from the start…until Garrosh happened.
All in all it was a great expansion, but from villain batting Garrosh onwards it all went only downhill.
3 Likes
I’ve said this in another thread, but my issue with Zovaal is that he was not introduced as Zovaal, he was already the Jailer.
There was no character arc for him, as we just get to see the end result, which leads the character to being very flat.
Arthas had a story to which be became the Lich King.
Illidan had a story leading up to the Betrayer.
Deathwing even had lore which lead to the Destroyer.
This was the issue with just dumping us straight into a cosmic war we have no background in, and Blizzard has dropped the ball countless times in simple areas of making this character relevant.
At the very least, a Shadowlands Afterlives: The Maw, should have been created and placed in the game either during the Maldraxxus storyline, or the Nightfae Storyline.
Something to give some information about Zovaal, to introduce him as a character and not this uninteresting “the Jailer.”
12 Likes
I mean…yes. But TBC also had weird lore cases… a lot and thrashed so many characters.
Poor Zul’jin. At least he died true to himself.
4 Likes
Another missed opportunity in 9.1
He’s literally right there man like what
7 Likes
Indeed it’s such a shame and waste.
The Broken chain and him standing alone, no even him being there at all made me hope for anything. But so far nothing…
3 Likes