Where's the hype before killing Villains?

[Velshin]

After all, people were hype about Illidan in the Black Temple too and he had literally zero presence in WoW prior to that fight.

Illidan did appear once in TBC in the shadowmoon Valley area if you do the Netherdrake rep questline.

[cparle87]

Whatever, I felt pretty hyped in ALL final bosses of the raid tiers. Especially Kil'Jaeden with the numerous dialogues with Velen. Holy shit.

Yeah. That whole line on board the ship "Did the Light save your son? Was it faith that shone in Rakeesh's eyes as they closed for the final time? Or was it hatred for the father who abandoned him?" That was savage.

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WoW villains has become stripped to the bones/basic in term of gameplay and lore.

Besides Ragnaros and Geddon had we ever heard of the other bosses in MC before we saw them the first time? We had a mini garothi worldbreaker patrolling Krokuun, the dogs are part of a WQ, one of the rares is talking to the Admiral through a communicator. And Aggramar stomped our shit at Nath'raxas.

[anaxie]

Not saying he only suddenly appeared in the raid, but no one knew he existed before the patch that featured him. We were learning about Lei Shen from the moment we stepped into Pandaria.

The fact that Sargeras' entire endgame was not known until we arrived to Argus might be dramatic but it also made far less sense that the Army of the Light that had been fighting him so long also had no idea what was going on.

To be fair the alliance is always in the dark about wtf is going on.

The lightforged are a perfect fit for them.

[cparle87]

Not saying he only suddenly appeared in the raid, but no one knew he existed before the patch that featured him. We were learning about Lei Shen from the moment we stepped into Pandaria.

The fact that Sargeras' entire endgame was not known until we arrived to Argus might be dramatic but it also made far less sense that the Army of the Light that had been fighting him so long also had no idea what was going on.

During the invasion of Draenor during the Second War Xe'ra had a vision of an "emerald star". During BC, with so many of Argus' forces being deployed to Outland, Turalyon and Alleria infiltrated Argus and the latter was shown a vision by Argus. So the AotL did know about Argus, at least recently.

[Tiwack]

That's not coincidence, that after LFR not a single boss captured these feelings...because no matter how strong this boss lorewise is, your grandmother can kill him.

People complain about not remembering their first kill the day after because they were boozed out of their skull when they did it in LFR or normal. Story hasn't really been anything to write home about for a while so I don't blame people for playing how they want. It just emphasizes that the build-up is often missed fx. because they're not taking that additional week to polish before patching. Ideally all the bosses should be taunting you as some of them might as well be made of cardboard. Lore and artistic expression are hard pressed when the devs can't breathe and directed to focus on other things.

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Why have a big baddie? I distinctly remember during WotLK, I was more invested in the Iron Dwarves storyline than any Lich King on-goings. Big Baddies completely underturn any sub-plot that they may want to develop in the continent. More or less, every expansion has had a main villain, so BfA won't be the exception.

You can do it well or not at all with the opposite effect. They can play into and support sub-plots and make the expansion come together as a whole or they can be so detached that it just further confuses the player with multiple side-stories and sub-plots with strenuous relations to each other.

[Trickname]

Diminishing returns. It would just become predictable if the had a Lich king plot every expansion.
They tried something different with MoP and people also love that expansion (anecdotal evidence from these forums)

This expansion suffered the same one as Cataclysm. When the big bad guy is just utterly too powerful/large for us to deal with we don't get a satisfying final encounter.

And we can't have build up to new villains anymore because the response is 'they weren't in WC RTS games!! BLIZZ pulling lore out their ass!!!'

[Avellon]

I thought the "build up" towards the final encounter with Arthas was a bit silly up to the point where I actually encountered him.
His plan did backfire but he did have a reason for not killing you and just taunting you "like a stupid saturday cartoon villain".
He states it out right when he outright kills you in his encounter. Yes, you loose. His plan was to raise you as his most powerful death knight, and use you to destroy everything you were protecting up to that point, his speech felt chilling to me.
Then mary sue Tirion Fordring pulls a bit of a deus ex machina out of his ass and breaks Frostmourne; and the "saving grace" continues as Arthas' father's ghost miraculously raises you from the dead and you deliver the killing blows to a weakened Arthas without his frostmourne and haunted by the countless souls that escaped his now broken sword (millions?).
Anyway, cheesiness and deus ex machina included, I loved the feeling it gave me. Haven't felt like that about a boss in WoW ever since.

[cparle87]

True, which makes Turalyon's general surprise around this even sillier.
I still think that an end of expansion villain is built throughout the expansion.

Well, one thing to consider is do we have any idea how far spread the knowledge that the Pantheon is dead is, how common the knowledge we as players have about how Titans are born is, and such. Turalyon could know there's some being in Argus, know it's powerful, know the Legion is tormenting and using it, but not know it's a Titan.

[Deleted]

Who are the current villains again? I kinda lost track somewhere halfway Legion.

[SirBeef]

Yes, the one we saw the origins story of, freed from the Dark Portal, tracked across Draenor, whose forces we fought against, whose assassin tried to kill Khadgar and was eventually freed, who turned the Iron Horde into a new Fel Horde, turned Cordana, was defeated atop Hellfire Citadel, stole Ilidan's body, opened the portal at the Tomb of Sargeras creating the Felstorm, mortally wounded Tirion, and killed Varian.

You are complaining just to complain. There was a massive amount of buildup for Nighthold, with Gul'dan, with Elisande, with Tich.

Arthas's """build up""" was just about the shittiest thing that has ever happened in-game.

"Haha, I'm going to let you survive this time, because you're nothing, even though you're completely ruining my plans across Northrend."
"Haha, I'm going to let you get away, even though you are still screwing over my plans, becuase you're amusing."
"Haha, I'm going to let you get away, even though you have stopped everything I was doing on the entire continent, because I really want you as a DK despite now having lost literally thousands upon thousands of scourge and a number of significantly stronger fighters for it."

I'd rather not go back to that and "Malygos is insane, do this quest hub and then kill him", thanks.

Exactly. I love pointing this out when people say the LK was well written. The whole Arthas arc is cliched. H whiny little bitch, who didn't listen to his teacher, thought he could do better, and fucked everything up, only to return many years later to get destroyed by the real heroes. I mean The Incredibles did it better with Buddy/Syndrome.
With that, I never really cared who the villains were. Just give me fun game-play with cool raids.

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Well, one thing to consider is do we have any idea how far spread the knowledge that the Pantheon is dead is, how common the knowledge we as players have about how Titans are born is, and such. Turalyon could know there's some being in Argus, know it's powerful, know the Legion is tormenting and using it, but not know it's a Titan.

Player-characters knew nothing of it until Magni learned. Most everything in Chronicles from a cosmic perspective are only know to us as real people. Very little of it is known from a in-game perspective. It is a hard thing for some people to understand.

[Lacruiser]

Deathwing had great buildup as well, was REALLY psyched to finally down that badboy, and then the fight ruined it. But up until his fight he was a great villain, with a lot better buildup than most bosses as well, but he was referenced through multiple expansions/games as well, just as arthas. Azshara/N'zoth can have great archs as well with the correct interactions in game.

[Puri]

I can tell you spot on what made Arthas completely different from other villains: The WC3 cinematics. I don't really read quest texts, I don't really care for what I do, I don't read books nor really care about the lore of a game. But the cinematics have been an eyecatcher in most games in the 90 and early 00s, and I cannot tell how often I've watched those (and considering their age, they still look absolutley stunning).

Together with the theme music those cutscenes together with the Lich King death scenes just give me the chills and made the character so much more memorable than some other unseen but greater evil.

There was no build up for any other WC villain like this. Sure they might have been mighty and their lore might have been there for the first WC game, but who cares if you don't read those.

[americandavey]

Diminishing returns. It would just become predictable if the had a Lich king plot every expansion.
They tried something different with MoP and people also love that expansion (anecdotal evidence from these forums)

This expansion suffered the same one as Cataclysm. When the big bad guy is just utterly too powerful/large for us to deal with we don't get a satisfying final encounter.

And we can't have build up to new villains anymore because the response is 'they weren't in WC RTS games!! BLIZZ pulling lore out their ass!!!'

This a thousand percent. We cant have new characters because of this. We cant have new villains because of this. To quote again.

And we can't have build up to new villains anymore because the response is 'they weren't in WC RTS games!! BLIZZ pulling lore out their ass!!!'

[Deleted]

The only advantage Arthas had was him being a central character from a previous game... Basically being the main character of a game that made WoW possible in the 1st place.

In WoW the build up was horrible. We should have been dead on multiple occasions during the leveling process alone...

[corebit]

Yet again, you all say this, yet for some reason he's praised as one of the most built up fights and peoples crowning moment DESPITE that he felt like a "Saturday morning cartoon" villain.

I mean, you can just look at other games for comparison where people praise villains who actually pop up often to trash talk you, like Handsome Jack from Borderlands 2, or hell, Gruntilda from Banjo Kazooie.
Whether you felt it was cheesy or not, the opposite is far worse, and that's having no interactions with the bosses at all, and that sentiment seems to be shared quite a bit too, when people are complaining about random bosses coming out of nowhere, and feeling irrelevant because of that.

Not all wow players played the original rts though.

Different genres attract different player

Not all but most people who played WoW when it was released were fans of the RTS games, hence why Arthas was already super popular before WoTLK even released. People were most hyped about his fight because of nostalgia, simple as that.

Also, Handsome Jack is a bad example. He didn't go around : "imma gonna get you next time!!" like a broken record. He was actually funny when he taunted you, and his revenge action in BL2 was actually pretty devastating, unlike the super serious Lich King who didn't do anything threatening and spouted the same crap after you foiled his plans for the 100th time.

[JohnnyTheCherriesLover]

They can be killed in LFR. It removes all threat and immersion.

This is the correct answer.

[Deleted]

Yes, the one we saw the origins story of, freed from the Dark Portal, tracked across Draenor, whose forces we fought against, whose assassin tried to kill Khadgar and was eventually freed, who turned the Iron Horde into a new Fel Horde, turned Cordana, was defeated atop Hellfire Citadel, stole Ilidan's body, opened the portal at the Tomb of Sargeras creating the Felstorm, mortally wounded Tirion, and killed Varian.

You are complaining just to complain. There was a massive amount of buildup for Nighthold, with Gul'dan, with Elisande, with Tich.

Arthas's """build up""" was just about the shittiest thing that has ever happened in-game.

"Haha, I'm going to let you survive this time, because you're nothing, even though you're completely ruining my plans across Northrend."
"Haha, I'm going to let you get away, even though you are still screwing over my plans, becuase you're amusing."
"Haha, I'm going to let you get away, even though you have stopped everything I was doing on the entire continent, because I really want you as a DK despite now having lost literally thousands upon thousands of scourge and a number of significantly stronger fighters for it."

I'd rather not go back to that and "Malygos is insane, do this quest hub and then kill him", thanks.

Haha, true. That's what LK was all about .. When next we meet ...

There's no hype these days because blizzard fails to develop characters properly. Arthas had a fantastic story from WC3 and it's a big part of the reason he was so popular. Same thing with Illidan in BC. You barley saw him at all in Outland, yet he was badass and people looked up to fighting him.
And then there's the bringing them back .. what satisfaction can there be in killing the same guy 2 or 3 times. It will be the same if we got to fight Lich King again. First time was , oh awesome, afterwards it's gonna be oh, lich king again.

So to sum it, villains that people get hyped over are the ones with a great background and pretty much pre-wow since wow is pretty shitty in this area.

[Deianeira]

They can be killed in LFR. It removes all threat and immersion.

You know how you fix that? Dont play LFR That should work for those that dont want to faceroll everything.

[cparle87]

This is the correct answer.

And having 1-5% of the population ever see the bosses is somehow superior? We wouldn't have raids without LFR, cause Blizz flat out said that in classic/BC numbers they weren't worth making for the cost to make vs the participation.

[Sencha]

And having 1-5% of the population ever see the bosses is somehow superior? We wouldn't have raids without LFR, cause Blizz flat out said that in classic/BC numbers they weren't worth making for the cost to make vs the participation.

Source please. Never seen Blizz said this.