Voidlords threat level already shit upon

[Baconeggcheese]

I dunno man Kilton is as threatening as he's ever been.

[Rustedsaint]

Then again it’s not that odd for the creation to turn against its creator.
Who’s to say the Nathrezim weren’t corrupted by the voidlords/others and only pretending to serve the death guy atm. They kinda the perfect villain minion here cause blizzard can keep reintroducing to serve each baddie that appears.

[matrix123mko]

Anything with a consciousness can be manipulated, that doesn't diminish their capabilities

Yes. You can theoretically manipulate a god to do your bidding.

[Destinas]

Threat levels past "will destroy your planet" are meaningless anyways. See Season 4 and upwards of any boy anime ever.

Nothing will ever destroy the universe in WoW, so they can tell us that this cosmic power is 10 TIMES BIGGER than the last clolored blob that tried to destroy the universe all they want. Everyone knows that it will still be killed by a giant space laser 3 patches in. So going that route to make us care will not work.


But making the cosmic forces into people who have motivations and emotions is a good idea imo. Thats relateable. They can still try to destroy the universe, of course, but this way we have an aditional reason to engage with them and the writers have ways to distinguis the enemies beyond "this space blob is green - but this one is purple! So its different!".

One of the major things going against Blizz right now is that they, essentially, made two big bad forces, which most people we've fought can be categorized in. The Legion, and the Void.

Sure, many enemies we've fought may have had other powers in dungeons or starting raids, but by the end of every expansion we wind up fighting a minion of one of those forces, or someone empowered by one of those forces. Even the Scourge was a product of the Legion, and now they're expanding that in Shadowlands.

I agree, though. I don't mind more forces of evil with more motivations at all. It makes the game more varied than "this is a demon" or "this is a void boi" or "this one's undead, but it works for the Legion" in the end.

[buddah13]

you know the only thing to change the landscape in wow was Deathwing. I mean ya there is a big sword in the planet, but Deathwing messed everything up, thats why i laugh at every new "enemy" we get, gear up, fight bads, rinse repeat

[Michael Jackson]

you know the only thing to change the landscape in wow was Deathwing. I mean ya there is a big sword in the planet, but Deathwing messed everything up, thats why i laugh at every new "enemy" we get, gear up, fight bads, rinse repeat

That's why I LOVED Cataclysm. So much actual change in the old world, and practically all for the better.
That expansion got so much shit because it lasted too long towards the end, but for fuck's sake if you were a new player during that time it must have felt amazing.

I love leveling a new character now and discovering all these quests i never did back then.

[Evaddon]

Yes. You can theoretically manipulate a god to do your bidding.

Yes, yes you can..because beings with power often think they're untouchable and unstoppable when all it takes is someone getting close enough to learn and be trusted..and Void Lords aren't gods, they wish to be

[shadowmatrix]

Anyone who can be manipulated is dumb, so the void lords are in fact just some dumb lords.

Anyone who has desires can be manipulated, intelligence has nothing to do with it.

[dope_danny]

WoW has been "n-no, THIS is the ultimate world ending villain, and this time its the real world ending threat not the other 18 times, swer on me mum!" since AQ. Its well into the 'zombie IP' stage of the loot pinatas where they have wrapped up everything established so can only go bigger to try and generate a sense of threat after the players dealt with everything. Go look at stuff like Stargate where all the established villains were dealt with but the IP was still considered profitable so they farted out two more mediocre seasons trying to reinvent their mythology while upping the power tier to a new one that only makes the previous stuff seem like jobbers and the new stuff feel like fan fiction. Its what happens when any longform media outlives its story.

[Thrif]

There was this passage quoted a few days ago I think from that new abookmination or some quest in game i don't know.

It's about some guy writing to his "master" about how they've been using everyone to get their "plan" to succeed, and one of the people they've been using are the Void Lords, making them think they're serving them but actually using them.

And of course this person writing the letter and master are gonna be ANOTHER dumbass supermassive cosmic threat and whatever.

So if you had expectations for the voooooid loooooords....don't.

This was my immediate thought too reading the book tbh. They were definitely portrayed as a big baddies in Chronicles, and now they are demoted to just another cosmic force. And this is before we've ever really interacted with them at all.

Blizzard definitely have "big threat" whiplash of the greatest degree. On one hand it's good to shake things up, having the same big baddy for 20 years would be kinda boring, but it's also hard to get invested in a great threat when they keep faffing about with the power levels like a regular shounen anime.

[Minikin]

There was this passage quoted a few days ago I think from that new abookmination or some quest in game i don't know.

It's about some guy writing to his "master" about how they've been using everyone to get their "plan" to succeed, and one of the people they've been using are the Void Lords, making them think they're serving them but actually using them.

And of course this person writing the letter and master are gonna be ANOTHER dumbass supermassive cosmic threat and whatever.

So if you had expectations for the voooooid loooooords....don't.

In the end. Nothing can stand if it contains a top simming trinket or weapon. No matter how big the threat the raid will take it down in the name of Details.

[Powerogue]

Do keep in mind that "underestimating superior force, thinking they could manipulate them, only to get their asses handed to them once deceit is uncovered" is a trope.

[rayvio]

That's why I LOVED Cataclysm. So much actual change in the old world, and practically all for the better.
That expansion got so much shit because it lasted too long towards the end, but for fuck's sake if you were a new player during that time it must have felt amazing.

I love leveling a new character now and discovering all these quests i never did back then.

the only thing it did wrong was replacing the content, which was lost as a result. if all the Cataclysm zones and dungeons had been additions instead, if the old zone were accessible through Bronze Dragonflight requests and both versions of dungeons were available, then it would have been perfect

[Powerogue]

WoW has been "n-no, THIS is the ultimate world ending villain, and this time its the real world ending threat not the other 18 times, swer on me mum!" since AQ. Its well into the 'zombie IP' stage of the loot pinatas where they have wrapped up everything established so can only go bigger to try and generate a sense of threat after the players dealt with everything. Go look at stuff like Stargate where all the established villains were dealt with but the IP was still considered profitable so they farted out two more mediocre seasons trying to reinvent their mythology while upping the power tier to a new one that only makes the previous stuff seem like jobbers and the new stuff feel like fan fiction. Its what happens when any longform media outlives its story.

I mean...the fact that this has been the formula since Classic, formulating the story around creating further raid fodder, at least proves this isn't new or surprising.

I have no idea how they could "better handle" the DBZ effect that inevitably comes with creating an MMORPG (a game that centers around fighting enemies and increasing in power) without "the DBZ effect" (as the story progresses, the characters grow in power to defeat ever-stronger enemies.)

Honestly bringing up C'thun to me proves that it has not gotten out of hand. In that raid, we defeated an old god. In 8.3, we defeated an old god. A bigger one, but still.

[matrix123mko]

Yes, yes you can..because beings with power often think they're untouchable and unstoppable when all it takes is someone getting close enough to learn and be trusted..and Void Lords aren't gods, they wish to be

Yes. After all, nathrezim even manipulated a titan to work with them. Sargeras considers himself the master of Burning Legion but dreadlords have a lot of autonomy.

[Gaidax]

Once we deal with Void Lords in 13.3.5, it will be Light Lords next and then The First Ones and then Mega Voidlight Emperors and then The Ultimate First-er Ones and then...

It's a common pop series lore going for decades, like Marvel - there will be always a next threat, like Thanos and then Galactus and then Abraxas...

Not terribly sure what's the surprise, we have the map and for all their might, Void Lords are just one of six big cahunas out there. With a bit of imagination, you can absolutely see Void Lords being eventually supplanted by some X out of other 6 and round the wheel goes.

[dope_danny]

I mean...the fact that this has been the formula since Classic, formulating the story around creating further raid fodder, at least proves this isn't new or surprising.

I have no idea how they could "better handle" the DBZ effect that inevitably comes with creating an MMORPG (a game that centers around fighting enemies and increasing in power) without "the DBZ effect" (as the story progresses, the characters grow in power to defeat ever-stronger enemies.)

Honestly bringing up C'thun to me proves that it has not gotten out of hand. In that raid, we defeated an old god. In 8.3, we defeated an old god. A bigger one, but still.

With mmos in particular where everything is catared around that vertical "number get bigger" dopamine release its less about trying to avoid doing it and more about how you stop the fatigue in the player. Pandaria got a lot of positive buzz because it introduced new or returning characters while introducing things that were not so much a greater threat but the idea of "if you never came here this might not have happened". I think a lot of WoW's issue with its villains is how they rely far too much on just "no this thing from outside is coming to once again give us a reason to fight something other than horde vs alliance and point out how thats kind of absurd at this point, then we go back to horde vs alliance till something new shows up from outside again". Thats a severe diminishing returns kind of threat escalation. You can only do it so many times before the player experience is "yeah, okay, i get it. Where do i get my bigger numbers from?".

Personally i think the success usually rides on the characters they introduce around it. For every Lorewalker Cho that sticks around you have a Y'rel who gets poochie'd. To use the Dragonball example GT pulled this and there are no exclusive characters in that people remember fondly but in Dragonball Super characters like Whis and Beerus became favourites and i think 'who you go on this new adventure with' can really balance out the 'no THIS is the actual threat, everything else was a low tier jobber all along!' fatigue.

[Mosotti]

Anyone who has desires can be manipulated, intelligence has nothing to do with it.

One can be very intelligent and also dumb as a brick at the same time. It's about the lack of wisdom, not intelligence.

Anyway, all these manipulation crap twists are already too old and overused.

[Azerate]

2020 - people realizing that a game needs a new "big bad" every now and then so the plot can continue...

[Yarathir]

There was this passage quoted a few days ago I think from that new abookmination or some quest in game i don't know.

It's about some guy writing to his "master" about how they've been using everyone to get their "plan" to succeed, and one of the people they've been using are the Void Lords, making them think they're serving them but actually using them.

And of course this person writing the letter and master are gonna be ANOTHER dumbass supermassive cosmic threat and whatever.

So if you had expectations for the voooooid loooooords....don't.

It's just Blizzard using a future villain to hype a current villain. Death big scary, big bad right now, so everything must be done to hype it up.

When the Void Lords are up, they'll do something similar for them.

- - - Updated - - -

Then again it’s not that odd for the creation to turn against its creator.
Who’s to say the Nathrezim weren’t corrupted by the voidlords/others and only pretending to serve the death guy atm. They kinda the perfect villain minion here cause blizzard can keep reintroducing to serve each baddie that appears.

That'd be funny and I can see them actually pulling something like that.