Blizz hyping new villains by downgrading older ones

[Houle]

You mean... ever since TBC has been launched? Sargeras and the Burning Legion motivations has been the same ever since they retconned it, back in TBC. It didn't change in Legion.



Old Gods have never been interesting. C'Thuun was not that big of deal and Yogg'Saron was only a filler Boss in an Expansion revolved around the Lich King. N'Zoth, despite being the weakest Old God, is the only one that has made to the final patch of an Expansion.




Bolvar is a very interesting character and I look forward to see him in Shadowlands. That said, he is not the real Lich King. The Lich King died with Arthas and Ner'zhul. Bolvar is just a guy wearing a helm that was not meant for him.

doesnt matter who the current Lk is. The very position of LK himself is now just a copycat. wether it was ner'zhul, arthas or bolvar, all of them are just reduced to being the jailer but in weak n small.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Haha, so much bullshit in one post. Im dont care that the Lich King isnt one of the strongest beings ever, he never was. What i care about is that Blizz made him a copycat villain, he isnt his own thing anymore, hes just the weaker version of the jailer.
And what part about WC3s lore shat on the villains that came before huh? Gul'dan was done justice, ner'zhul became an even bigger villain, the horde evolved/got actual personality. Not one part of the story of WC3 downgraded the villain (aka the horde) from the previous games. So cut the bullshitting

We don't even know who the fuck the Jailer is aside from having a similar name to the title of "Jailor of the damned." You are just presuming they are the same because they use one word the same. Ner'zhul turned into the Lich King which later got slapped down by Arthas someone that was started in WCIII. The Horde was made to be a lesser "threat" in the sense its not focusing on its warmongering bullshit and well stuff related to the Dead are the bigger threat.

So in a way the villains are "downgraded" but again thats just a dumb point of view.

doesnt matter who the current Lk is. The very position of LK himself is now just a copycat. wether it was ner'zhul, arthas or bolvar, all of them are just reduced to being the jailer but in weak n small.

No it isn't, we don't know what the heck the Jailer is other then someone that contacted Sylvanas and is aligned with him(Temporarily).

[Houle]

We don't even know who the fuck the Jailer is aside from having a similar name to the title of "Jailor of the damned." You are just presuming they are the same because they use one word the same. Ner'zhul turned into the Lich King which later got slapped down by Arthas someone that was started in WCIII. The Horde was made to be a lesser "threat" in the sense its not focusing on its warmongering bullshit and well stuff related to the Dead are the bigger threat.

So in a way the villains are "downgraded" but again thats just a dumb point of view.







No it isn't, we don't know what the heck the Jailer is other then someone that contacted Sylvanas and is aligned with him(Temporarily).

Before you start calling anyone dumb, check the link. Blizzard themselves revealed the full title of the Jailer is "Jailer of the Damned". Not just Jailer. So why dont you start actually reading before talking dumb shit. They literally share the same title, similar crown/look and base of operations. What more do you need hm?
And the threat of the Horde as removed in WC2, and the remnants of the Horde followed a different path. Thats not the same thing as pulling out a new villain and saying "heyyy, heres the new villain whos basically the old villain but much worse, and the old villain was just his bitch all along"

[Swisted]

Maybe im wrong here but, Scourge is just undead without souls and they follow the will of the Lich King. The Jailer however controls the souls of those who have departed and ended up inside The Maw. Another thing that could make them different is that they dont have to be mindless like the Scourge are, they just have to be "loyal" to The Jailer (think of an electric shock collar kind of effect)

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Before you start calling anyone dumb, check the link. Blizzard themselves revealed the full title of the Jailer is "Jailer of the Damned". Not just Jailer. So why dont you start actually reading before talking dumb shit. They literally share the same title, similar crown/look and base of operations. What more do you need hm?
And the threat of the Horde as removed in WC2, and the remnants of the Horde followed a different path. Thats not the same thing as pulling out a new villain and saying "heyyy, heres the new villain whos basically the old villain but much worse, and the old villain was just his bitch all along"

He isn't the same as the Lich King aside from some visual throwbacks and we have no idea what he intends aside from the obvious taking more souls to make him strong. The Lich King usually just wanted to kill all life and make them Undead. A little bit different and well the story isn't played out yet.

[LarryWithTheWeatherReport]

Sargeras could still be more powerful than the Void Lords as he's constantly gaining more and more power. The Void Lords will no doubt become a big threat once they make a move. But I think it's perfectly normal to introduce new threats that makes older ones weaker because the universe and lore gets expanded. The Arbiter and Jailer existed before the Pantheons. Now older doesn't truly mean more powerful. However in this case the Arbiter judges all things from all realities so if it's powerful enough to judge even reality ending level threats or above beings than it surely has to be more powerful. Same goes for the Jailer, he's the boogie man, the warden, the punisher that punish and harass the countless reality ending and above level prisoners in the Maw. So he is also above them as he could intimidate them.

[Al Gorefiend]

OP a few things you stated seem wrong to me. Maybe they aren’t, it’s all opinion anyway. But a few facts might clear your negative opinions.

Firstly Sargeras was never downplayed. He’s still intensely powerful and has successfully waged war against the void and was shown for the first time only a year ago. And he was gigantic and intensely powerful. He may be much more powerful than a void lord.. with no ‘s’ at the end. Against many? That’s why he was forming an army of mortal races and beasts and transforming them into immortal infinite demons.

The Lich King hasn’t been downplayed at all! He’s the mirror king of the undead within the mortal plane. Think Ragnaros MC vs. Ragnaros Firelands. Ragnaros Firelands was much more powerful because he’s within his own realm - the realm of fire. As we are now within the realm of death, it would make sense whoever rules there would have unparalleled power over death magic. But he wasn’t the Lich King’s boss, just the ruler of a separate realm where the magic he utilizes is much more powerful.

The Lich King calling upon the armies of Maldraxxus isn’t calling the Lich King any less powerful. That’s just how necromancy magic works as we are going to discover. The problem so many people are having is they created headcanons to how magic in WoW works and now that it’s being explained in an expansion, people are confused or thinking retcons are taking place. Magic is otherworldly power manifested on the mortal realm - fire from the Firelands, Arcane from the Twisting Nether, Life magic from the Emerald Dream, Death magic from the Shadowlands. So everything from the spirits that send you envelopes on Lunar Festival to the Forsaken and ghouls rising out of the ground - it is all death magic and it all comes from the same plane.

Think of this as one giant Firelands expansion just dealing with a separate type of magic. With the Arbiter/Jailer being Ragnaros, and Thrall/Powerful fire mage being the Lich King. I suppose that’s the best analogy I can come up with.

[Niwes]

imo blizz ofc realizes that in a few years/xpac they have to come to an end. so imo they wanna do the following:

- dont kill nzoth
- introduce death as 1 of the elements (SL) and maybe let sylvi take that place
- introduce the wow elements concept (see chronicles)
- bring another 1-2-3 xpacs and start the route to the final fight
- bring illidan (that defeated sargeras, but agreed sargeras and the void problem) as leader of the demons/legion
- bring the light in form of lightbounds and army of light
- bring back nzoth and introduce void lords
- final fight xpac: giant 5-6 factions war between the elements (void, light, death, demons...)

i think somewhere aroooound that route blizz will go.

[Nefarious Tea]

With the important reminder that Sargeras is stronger than the Void Lords, who were always envious of the power of the Titans (so much so that they have to target Titans when they are still very weak and defenseless), and is simply just worried by their insidious corruption taking over a World Soul.

None of that is true outside your head.

[october breeze]

Totally agree with OP.

It's not about power creep of our character and the new threats. It is about how they shit on old characters and old lore.

For the past 20 years, all Nagas marching chant was "For Nazjatar". And what was it at the end? A re-colored Azsuna!
We had Argus, with 20 ears of build up, and they screw it in a patch with 3 zones.
We had Azshara, Kil'jaden, Sargerass, N'zoth, they all got shafted.

Now out of nowhere, a jailer appears for a whole expansion and Danuser imaginary waifu gets 2.5 expansions of story because reasons! Watch she gets Karrigened and lols complete.

I stopped playing right at the beginning of BFA. Not gonna touch Shadowlands.
For me, WoW ended with Legion, an average good expansion for the final chapter.

[Queen of Hamsters]

imo blizz ofc realizes that in a few years/xpac they have to come to an end. so imo they wanna do the following:

- dont kill nzoth
- introduce death as 1 of the elements (SL) and maybe let sylvi take that place
- introduce the wow elements concept (see chronicles)
- bring another 1-2-3 xpacs and start the route to the final fight
- bring illidan (that defeated sargeras, but agreed sargeras and the void problem) as leader of the demons/legion
- bring the light in form of lightbounds and army of light
- bring back nzoth and introduce void lords
- final fight xpac: giant 5-6 factions war between the elements (void, light, death, demons...)

i think somewhere aroooound that route blizz will go.

And I think that people always make up the narrative of the game ending yet they're never correct. Examples of theories laid out:
-"Once Arthas story has been told, they'll need to end the game",
-"MoP is the sign of them starting preparations for maintenance mode"
-"WoD will be the final expansion cuz they killed the game"
-"Legion is the final expansion because what can we fight past Sargeras??"
-"BfA is the final expansion cuz it sucks and the game is not bringing in big bucks anymore"...

Meanwhile: They've stated it loud and clear: As long as people keep playing (aka paying if you wanna be cynical), they'll keep producing expansions. They 100% surely (1st person accounts from Blizzcon attendees) look towards the 25th anniversary and beyond.

- - - Updated - - -

OP a few things you stated seem wrong to me. Maybe they aren’t, it’s all opinion anyway. But a few facts might clear your negative opinions.

*snip to save space*.

Balancing the thread with your sanity won't achieve much considering the weight of their outrage.

[Caerule]

You know, I actually deeply enjoy that the Scourge ripped off many elements of the death found in the Shadowlands. The Scourge drew on power from that realm. It makes sense that they were inspired by it.

Those I've spoken to in my guild feel the same way. So yeah, I think it's genius. I like the concept, and it's a way to recycle old concepts in new form. The Scourge took these concepts, and forged a dark army of death out of them. Now we get to see the sources of these concepts, and their natural state of being.

I think I'd enjoy it in the opposite as well. Had we had knowledge of the Shadowlands first. And then some dark Lich King ripped off the familiar concepts we had, to reforge them into a hostile army of the dead.

I also disagree that learning more about the motivations of villains somehow redeems their characters. But that's another discussion.

[Al Gorefiend]

imo blizz ofc realizes that in a few years/xpac they have to come to an end. so imo they wanna do the following:

- dont kill nzoth
- introduce death as 1 of the elements (SL) and maybe let sylvi take that place
- introduce the wow elements concept (see chronicles)
- bring another 1-2-3 xpacs and start the route to the final fight
- bring illidan (that defeated sargeras, but agreed sargeras and the void problem) as leader of the demons/legion
- bring the light in form of lightbounds and army of light
- bring back nzoth and introduce void lords
- final fight xpac: giant 5-6 factions war between the elements (void, light, death, demons...)

i think somewhere aroooound that route blizz will go.

There’s not going to be a final WoW expansion. It would take the complete financial downfall of the entire company (backed by so many investors, financiers, shareholders and Activision to topple down Blizz - at which point they’ll be bought as they sell their company and if WoW ever starts losing money that company chooses to kill it) or some sort of apocalyptic event like the San Andreas fault ripping California in half destroying the entire Blizzard building the day someone spilled coffee on the motherboard containing the last fully compiled code to World of Warcraft.

If WoW starts losing players, they’ll rebrand and double down on advertising, they’ll see the downhill loss of active subs to the exact quarter of the year WoW becomes more expensive to maintain than what it makes and will have ample time to reshuffle resources around to make it healthy again.

McDonalds isn’t going to stop selling Big Macs when half the world stops eating Big Macs.

[Varodoc]

None of that is true outside your head.

No. It is mentioned in the Chronicles that not only were the Void Lords envious of the Titans' power, but they also weren't able to corrupt them, hence why they went for the World Souls, which is when a Titan is yet to be born.

[derpkitteh]

sargeras is still the most powerful being ever encountered. the void lords aren't as powerful as a titan 1v1, even.

this jailer thing is strong, of course, because its been gathering souls since the beginning of mortal life in the universe. but we can't really be sure if he's as strong as sarg or a void lord yet.

[Qualia]

Just a reminder that as silly as the Legion appear in-game, they are still the most successful army in the story so far. Azeroth was the only force managed to put up a resistance and eventually, won against them (with the help of the Titans, or we'd have failed in the end). Every other planets, including the ones fully corrupted with multiple Old Gods on them, failed. The Legion still destroyed and conquered most of the universe / Great Dark Beyond, and destroyed all other forces that clashed head-on against them, forcing the army of the Light to switch to guerrilla tactic (and still on the verge of being wiped out before we came). The force from Shadowlands and Void might be a threat - and perhaps the Void is potentially a bigger threat than the Legion - but "potentially" is the keyword. Neither of them are particularly more successful than the Legion yet.

[ErrandRunner]

It's not easy to strike a balance between respecting old lore characters and introducing newer ones that need to appear fresh and exciting. People tend to forget that they are free to like old characters and new ones.

[Verdugo]

This is pretty much an age-old trope in fiction, known on TV Tropes by the humorous name The Worf Effect. Basically a character, usually a villain, makes their power-level known by beating down another character well known for their own strength or power. "Star Trek" followed this trope by having various aliens beat down Worf (the stronger-than-human and very physically capable Klingon security chief) to establish their own strength. Sylvanas does the same by beating down both Saurfang (himself long a meme for insane strength and accomplishment) as well as Bolvar to establish her threat-level in the narrative.

I still remember with glee how Worf was once defeated to the point of suicidal depression by a plastic barrel.

[shise]

Now, why you go and do something like that? Don´t you see the sign that says DO NOT TALK BEFORE YOU ACTUALLY KNOW WHAT GOES ON!'? How will we finish testing with the self-destruct mechanism active?

[Scathan]

Haha, so much bullshit in one post. I dont care that the Lich King isnt one of the strongest beings ever, he never was. What i care about is that Blizz made him a copycat villain, he isnt his own thing anymore, hes just the weaker version of the jailer.
And what part about WC3s lore shat on the villains that came before huh? Gul'dan was done justice, ner'zhul became an even bigger villain, the horde evolved/got actual personality, the legion/demons got much more fleshed out. Not one part of the story of WC3 downgraded the villains from the previous games. So cut the bullshitting

Considering no one knows anything about the jailer, couldn't that be a little pre mature?