Patch 8.3 Cinematics - Wrathion, N'Zoth, and Ny'alotha: Raid Finale

[Paraka]

That's one of the weirdest things about this whole expansion to me.

From at least the preview chapter they gave us for Before the Storm, it seemed like the expansion was going to be about Sylvanas. They danced around Teldrassil and Lordaeron, but in the end, Teldrassil was Sylvanas. Then we were given an unprecedented series of full cinematics peppered throughout the expansion, that all revolve around the war between the Horde and Alliance and culminate in Sylvanas being ousted as Warchief.

Then Shadowlands is announced. Sylvanas is confirmed to be a major character in the next expansion, leaving Battle for Azeroth to be capped off by... N'Zoth?

Looking back however, it made me wonder if Battle for Azeroth was always supposed to have been the N'Zoth expansion. You had Azshara meddling during the leveling (even if her connection to the Zandalar stuff was made less explicit by launch), 8.1 had N'Zoth being set up more with the Crucible of Storms raid, 8.2 had us confront Azshara after all this time, and 8.3 ends with N'Zoth. If you just look at a patch outline, it wouldn't look like anything other than a N'Zoth/Azshara expansion.

The problem is, it was never actually focused on. The unprecedented cinematics alone overshadow absolutely anything else that the expansion could have done. Even without those, however, the biggest mystery of the expansion was probably what Sylvanas and Nathanos were up to, followed by who set Vol'jin up. We were never given any particular reason to care about N'Zoth and Azshara's meddling. There was no hint that N'Zoth's rising was altering our perception of reality, there was no real implication that the war was being orchestrated by the Void, because we were pretty much shown that Sylvanas really was doing these things through the loyalist option, and even implied that she was using N'Zoth as a pawn in her scheme, so there was never a reason to care about N'Zoth and Azshara.

There was at least some mystery in N'Zoth claiming a desire to aid us on and off throughout the expansion, and to warn us about some greater threat, but none of it really mattered in the end. The end of the War Campaign and the Shadowlands announcement revealed that it was all about Sylvanas and the Jailer well before 8.3, and N'Zoth proceeds to not actually do anything about any of it (and in fact, helps facilitate some of it by working with Sylvanas). Despite all of the build up that N'Zoth is the most clever Old God and he was smart enough to keep away from us until he was fully unleashed, all he does is jump in front of our proverbial bullet despite claiming he wanted to point us at the Jailer.

I'm just left wondering what expansion Battle for Azeroth even was.

If I am a gambling man, I would wager Blizzard will go with a "SUDDENLY OLD GOD!" stunt 1.5 expansions from now, trying to placate this was the plan all along.

[DemonDays]

Your post makes too much sense. You do not belong here.

kidding. But really though, reading it I find myself agreeing on every point. BfA could have been all about N'zoth and all this would have made sense. But, Blizzard had to shove THE FOURTH WAR down our throats and make this a lead in for Shadowlands. N'zoth was just another supporting character for Danuser's Waifu.

https://imgur.com/r/wow/FX4poT6

Never forget people. Never forget.


I hope everyone realizes that the writing in Shadowlands is going to be as bad or worse than BfA because Sylvanas is still front and center of the story. She's the current hack writing teams favorite little girl.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Yeah the fucking cowards unlisted it.

This is what billions of dollars and the "biggest WoW team ever" is capable of producing.

GG. This is the worst expansion ever.

To be fair we have gotten waaaay more cinematic’s in bfa then ever before so the biggest team ever has been putting in work.

Just not on the ending I guess....

- - - Updated - - -

https://imgur.com/r/wow/FX4poT6

Never forget people. Never forget.


I hope everyone realizes that the writing in Shadowlands is going to be as bad or worse than BfA because Sylvanas is still front and center of the story. She's the current hack writing teams favorite little girl.

I’m kinda hoping and this is a very vane hope that because they had the story of bfa set before they hired golden that she pointed out what ever they had was garbage even compared to this so they rushed the ending/faction war instead and have a not totally awful direction for shadowlands.

I mean I know it’s not the case but I wanna dream you know?

[pewpmeiser]

Thought it was fine. Nothing special, but not bad. Man you guys are so hellbent on tearing down anything to do with this game anymore. Go play a different game and shut up.

[Eapoe]

It was okay. I’m confused though, how did Wrathion get Xalatath? Didn’t Sylvanas have it last we saw?

[cerberus1838]

What is the story/lore team actually doing?

They setup the old gods from the moment the sword got stabbed into Azeroth (Twilight reappears, aqir get a complete remodel and they explain that the life blood of Azeroth was bleeding into the corpse of C'thun). Yet they still decided to burn through every character they could see in a horrible way, Tyrande, Malfurion, Azshara, Wrathion and N'zoth. There's probably heaps more characters that got ruined by this one. Like honestly why didn't they just setup Wrathion from the start of the xpac, have us not kill N'zoth but make him a looming presence and have Nyalotha be a Mythic dungeon system like greater rifts in Diablo. Then focus the rest of the story on finalising the war story ending with all our characters dying or Sylvanas tearing the veil in game as a small raid and have the main raid be N'zoth empowering C'thun with Azerite. Or a million other ways to actually make the game not feel like it was written on a napkin 6 weeks until launch, the story/lore team aren't earning their paychecks at all. I get that they have to prepare much earlier to meet the patch cycles but that should be even more of a reason to keep this stuff coherent. Maybe it isn't just the lore team but the whole management of Blizzard presenting a product that isn't even remotely planned and blowing their budget and time on initial content of an expansion.

Like why kill off Wrathion and N'zoth when they weren't ever really developed in the expansion. N'zoth got 40 seconds in some cutscenes and they have been throwing Wrathion breadcrumbs all over the game only to kill him a few weeks later. Like do the writers understand how anti-climactic it feels. They messed up at the end of legion by having a huge jumbled mess (legit any lore nerd please explain to me what happens between the last three fights of Antorias) and burned through Argus. They made up for it by setting up the next expansion slightly with the sword. Yet here they went "oh well the expansion setups are always well received let's just do it a patch early to keep the player base occupied.

[Deadite]

I'm the only one, who got Kerrigan vibes?

Was more thinking 'For Frodo.....'

[Aliven]

The entire cinematic including the shitty in-game Dragon Ball Z KAMEEEEEHAAAAMEEEEEHAAAAAA scene added on is even worse.

For anyone wondering why this dude is defending this trash:



It's even worse with context. HAHAHAHA

- - - Updated - - -



Nope. The cinematic that everyone assumed could possibly be a Mythic only stage turned out to be the Wrathion cinematic.

Only two encrypted ones were found. This and Wrathion. LOOOOL

"You are fully operational, battle champion. Fire at will MOTHER." - laughs in sith.

[DemonDays]

To be fair we have gotten waaaay more cinematic’s in bfa then ever before so the biggest team ever has been putting in work.

Just not on the ending I guess....

- - - Updated - - -



I’m kinda hoping and this is a very vane hope that because they had the story of bfa set before they hired golden that she pointed out what ever they had was garbage even compared to this so they rushed the ending/faction war instead and have a not totally awful direction for shadowlands.

I mean I know it’s not the case but I wanna dream you know?

Multiple cinematics about a sad orc and a Faction War that ultimately led nowhere.

Meanwhile we had fucking Azshara and Nzoth shoved into the same expansion alongside Sylvanas and her garbage.

[Adversarius]

I have little faith in Blizzard to do really anything right, but I don't buy that this is the actual end to Ny'alotha. The last phase of the Mythic N'zoth encounter suggests that the Forge of Origination doesn't actually work on him.



So for now, my assumption is that the end of the normal/heroic fight is a hallucination created by N'Zoth, and that Mythic is the true ending.

Even thematically, this ending doesn't fit with the ending of literally every other expansion ending cutscene. Every single one of our victories come at some sort of a price or twist.

WoTLK: There must always be a Lich King, so Bolvar has to take on the role of the Jailer of the Damned.

Cata: We defeat Deathwing, but the Aspects have to sacrifice their power and become moral.

MoP: We stop Garrosh, but the Pandaren force us not to kill him, which eventually leads to the Iron Horde being formed.

WoD: We kill Archimonde, but Gul'dan is flung into our reality and summons the Legion.

Legion: We beat Argus, but Sargeras stabs Azeroth, releasing Azerite and causes a new war to start between the Horde and Alliance.

This cutscene doesn't conclude the story of the expansion. It doesn't even have any dialogue; it's not even a full minute long. Blizzard's story telling has been really bad in this expansion, but I don't believe that it's actually this bad. I'm waiting until the Mythic encounter is downed before making my judgement.

[Ophenia]

Even with the cutscene kamehameha, that's a poorly 1:30 ending with no "after" or consequence, no dialogue from anyone, nothing leading to Shadowlands, no epic moment, that's lame af, please Blizzard go die

At least the Wrathion one was cool, I guess, but even this whole Xal'atath shit, as the Faction War, ultimately led to nothing. Yeah, you have to stab N'zoth to kill him, yeah yeah yeah or just use the gigantic beam to erase him from existence I guess

[DemonDays]

I have little faith in Blizzard to do really anything right, but I buy that this is the actual end to Ny'alotha. The last phase of the Mythic N'zoth encounter suggests that the Forge of Origination doesn't actually work on him.



So for now, my assumption is that the end of the normal/heroic fight is a hallucination created by N'Zoth, and that Mythic is the true ending.

Even thematically, this ending doesn't fit with the ending of literally every other expansion ending cutscene. Every single one of our victories come at some sort of a price or twist.

WoTLK: There must always be a Lich King, so Bolvar has to take on the role of the Jailer of the Damned.

Cata: We defeat Deathwing, but the Aspects have to sacrifice their power and become moral.

MoP: We stop Garrosh, but the Pandaren force us not to kill him, which eventually leads to the Iron Horde being formed.

WoD: We kill Archimonde, but Gul'dan is flung into our reality and summons the Legion.

Legion: We beat Argus, but Sargeras stabs Azeroth, releasing Azerite and causes a new war to start between the Horde and Alliance.

This cutscene doesn't conclude the story of the expansion. It doesn't even have any dialogue; it's not even a full minute long. Blizzard's story telling has been really bad in this expansion, but I don't believe that it's actually this bad. I'm waiting until the Mythic encounter is downed before making my judgement.

Yet you can see Magni proclaim you the hero of Azeroth when handing the quest in. It's on the wowhead raid stream.

People have been claiming there must be a hidden Mythic cinematic for 10 years.

Also - they cancelled 8.3.5. So where are we supposed to actually wrap this up? We aren't - this is it.

[BDu]

Stop buying pet store mounts if you want some effort put into lore and cinematics.

[Malikath]

Fire. Everyone.
Ion, Brack, Kotick, fucking everyone.

[Ohforfsake]

What is the story/lore team actually doing?

They setup the old gods from the moment the sword got stabbed into Azeroth (Twilight reappears, aqir get a complete remodel and they explain that the life blood of Azeroth was bleeding into the corpse of C'thun). Yet they still decided to burn through every character they could see in a horrible way, Tyrande, Malfurion, Azshara, Wrathion and N'zoth. There's probably heaps more characters that got ruined by this one. Like honestly why didn't they just setup Wrathion from the start of the xpac, have us not kill N'zoth but make him a looming presence and have Nyalotha be a Mythic dungeon system like greater rifts in Diablo. Then focus the rest of the story on finalising the war story ending with all our characters dying or Sylvanas tearing the veil in game as a small raid and have the main raid be N'zoth empowering C'thun with Azerite. Or a million other ways to actually make the game not feel like it was written on a napkin 6 weeks until launch, the story/lore team aren't earning their paychecks at all. I get that they have to prepare much earlier to meet the patch cycles but that should be even more of a reason to keep this stuff coherent. Maybe it isn't just the lore team but the whole management of Blizzard presenting a product that isn't even remotely planned and blowing their budget and time on initial content of an expansion.

Like why kill off Wrathion and N'zoth when they weren't ever really developed in the expansion. N'zoth got 40 seconds in some cutscenes and they have been throwing Wrathion breadcrumbs all over the game only to kill him a few weeks later. Like do the writers understand how anti-climactic it feels. They messed up at the end of legion by having a huge jumbled mess (legit any lore nerd please explain to me what happens between the last three fights of Antorias) and burned through Argus. They made up for it by setting up the next expansion slightly with the sword. Yet here they went "oh well the expansion setups are always well received let's just do it a patch early to keep the player base occupied.

We do not kill off Wrathion for real. We fight an illusion. https://wow.gamepedia.com/Wrathion,_the_Black_Emperor

[pkusa]

Man.. they really threw in the towel. It's really quite sad and pathetic.

[Lorathir]

pathetic, effortless, disgusting piece of shit.

[Megitsune]

Seeing as how this is already one of the worst expansions ever, I'm not sure what I expected. If there's nothing else to the Mythic fight and this is truly it, then this will be one of the lamest, most anticlimactic things I've seen in a video game.

[SkagenRora]

and here i thought the end of expansion boss would actully have a decent cinematic.. Kinda like you know.. every other expansion

[Mendzia]

Holy shit... it is so bad that they even unlisted it from their YT channel.