Insanely Cool Idea For Nazjatar in 8.1

[Starry Sidekick]

So I just had a really cool idea for how to introduce a Nazjatar endgame zone/raid area for 8.1. Hear me out:


What if the central palace of Nazjatar was basically Atlantis, and the story involves Azshara trying to raise it out of the sea and summon N'Zoth?

What's cool is that this would actually be reflected in game, so every weekly reset the central landmass of the zone would rise higher and higher out of the sea, until week 5 or 6 when the raid finally opens following launch. Every time it rises a new tier of story, world quests, and areas would unlock.

"But Timbleton, that's too much work, Blizzard would never do that!", not quite. Considering Nazjatar will probably be instanced, with some clever design you could basically just change the water level of the zone and swap a few seaweed textures here or there and you would be solid. It would even line up with the episodic nature of the last patch in this part of the cycle, 7.1, although I'd imagine Blizzard would aim to make it less tedious than Insurrection (and alt skippable).


So now that I have this in my head I will be disappointed if we at least don't get something similar this. It's just too cool not to do a little bit.

What are your thoughts, am I crazy or would this be super fun?

[Mahmeya]

Since we'll presumably fight Azshara, it's theoretically possible. Since we have no hints through beta zone maps or "mysterious islands" (á la Isle of Thunder / Farahlon-Tanaan / Thal'dranath-Broken Shore 2.0) it's clear that whatever it'll be is still kept secret and thus won't be tied tightly to the current zones. Separate zone (similar to 4.2 Molten Front) is very well possible and with Azshara mentioned as boos, it could be Nazjatar or other zone related to Naga.

[A Chozo]

I want it to be technological. An advanced palace under the sea.

The Naga already demonstrated skills in engineering, like when they managed to drain Outland's water to the Coilfang Reservoir. Hopefully Nazjatar's Naga are equally - or more - advanced and we'll get a cool futuristic palace instead of more stone elven ruins.

Make it look like Chrono Trigger's Undersea Palace. Azshara and N'zoth are similar to Zeal and Lavos already, we just need to push the similarity to the scenery!



It would match your idea of rising the building from the ocean too.

[Adoxe]

We already know that's Azshara's plan. In Cataclysm, the reason she goes after Neptulon's trident is so that they can raise the sunken city to the surface. The rest of your idea was planned for Zangar Sea in WoD, where the mushrooms would grow over the expansion's duration and resemble Zangarmarsh by the end of WoD, however that was one of the cut "content".

[Wishblade]

First of all, I hope to see Nazjatar being raised from the seas 'cause it would be epic. Secondly, sounds like a cool idea.

Thing I'm wondering though is the layout of said land...

I imagine some kind of palace for the raid to take place in, and that seems like something that's gonna be visible asap. So the reveal of the main base itself isn't all there. Then there's the surrounding areas of Nazjatar. Depending on the level of the land, we could end up having to advance outwards instead of inwards.

Let's imagine we got a big ol' palace in the middle and land around it. Say the palace is on the tallest point, then whenever the land is raised higher, we slowly move further away from the palace since that's where new land appears. That doesn't sound like a wise tactic to me, and it thus involves us walking around the palace walls at the beginning.

But now as I write this I'm having a new thought...

Now let's imagine the Isle of Thunder, big palace in the "corner". Sure we've got part of the palace appearing immediately but maybe the rest of the land seems to be separate, almost like it's own island next to the palace. Then as the land continues to rise, we finally see that the land is connected to the palace by a bridge or other fortification, which we'll have to fight our way through during the final week before the raid becomes available.

Who knows how it'll go down but as long as we at least get to see some kinda land-raising cinematic then I'm good. XP

[Sommber666]

That's what a lot of the speculation is based upon at the moment, there's evidence Azshara plans to do this as well as one of zul's visions, along with the cataclysm, was naga coming up from the sea with void like beings. The latter hasn't happened yet. Honestly i think the sunken city rising makes more sense than going under water. However simply getting rid of her as a threat won't be the main motive, i think she will have something that both the horde and alliance want to fight over

My idea for the azshara fight is that she will show us visions of nyolotha (where n'zoth presumably is) and at the end she will call upon n'zoth for aid, and he consumes her to use her power to open a rift between azeroth and nyolotha and begin a complete rebirth of the black empire and initiate an invasion. However, i don't think the tier following azshara will be n'zoth as it would ideally be the mid-tier, so i think that will be defending some sacred place like the heart of azeroth or whatever. I have a strong feeling the heart of azeroth will be a big content area/raid we go to at some point.

[Phaelia]

I want Nazjatar to be a patch content but I don’t want it raised from the sea. It’d be a boring grey rock like broken shore with random coral on it. I loved Vashj’ir. I’m sad they didn’t have more of this type of gaming sooner.

[Kyphael]

I want Nazjatar to be a patch content but I don’t want it raised from the sea. It’d be a boring grey rock like broken shore with random coral on it. I loved Vashj’ir. I’m sad they didn’t have more of this type of gaming sooner.

The thing is Vashj'ir wasn't very well received among the player base, most hated underwater questing, which was partly why they canceled the Abyssal Maw raid where the story with Neptulon would have likely continued or concluded instead of just being left hanging in the air.

I'm all for the city being raised, or maybe part of it so we have some ocean floor questing and then on the surface for Azshara's plan to have come to fruition. It is a big part of her character. Honestly, I would love for Azshara to directly address the Nightborne and see what she thinks of them.

[Sommber666]

The thing is Vashj'ir wasn't very well received among the player base, most hated underwater questing, which was partly why they canceled the Abyssal Maw raid where the story with Neptulon would have likely continued or concluded instead of just being left hanging in the air.

I'm all for the city being raised, or maybe part of it so we have some ocean floor questing and then on the surface for Azshara's plan to have come to fruition. It is a big part of her character. Honestly, I would love for Azshara to directly address the Nightborne and see what she thinks of them.

it's possible that they'd approach underwater zones in a completely different way especially since their game technology has advanced since cata but at the same time, we will still be working towards our flying as pathfinder part 2 is being added in later like it was in legion, so what's the point of getting flying if in the next patch we'll be going underwater anyway. So i think nazjatar will be a island like broken shore where which we'll receive pathfinder 2 to fly around there and shit

[The Stormbringer]

Sounds good to me. I still think they should have some underwater content, though.

[Phaelia]

The thing is Vashj'ir wasn't very well received among the player base, most hated underwater questing, which was partly why they canceled the Abyssal Maw raid where the story with Neptulon would have likely continued or concluded instead of just being left hanging in the air.

I'm all for the city being raised, or maybe part of it so we have some ocean floor questing and then on the surface for Azshara's plan to have come to fruition. It is a big part of her character. Honestly, I would love for Azshara to directly address the Nightborne and see what she thinks of them.

Yeah I understand that, but it’s going to be a gross grey rock. You know it, I know it. I don’t want a gross grey rock. That’s what happens when new islands are formed or raised from the sea. It won’t be colorful. It’ll be Broken shore 2.0

[Kyphael]

Yeah I understand that, but it’s going to be a gross grey rock. You know it, I know it. I don’t want a gross grey rock. That’s what happens when new islands are formed or raised from the sea. It won’t be colorful. It’ll be Broken shore 2.0

Maybe it can be a beautiful and colorful new island with blue/green ancient Highborne architecture and other bottom of the ocean-like colorful decoration. =P It doesn't have to be a dull grey rock, they can do whatever they want with it whether it's underwater or on the surface.

[AnonEntity]

I absolutely like your idea, but at this point of time their roadmap and plan are already in movement, so it's at least several months too late and a mere what-if. As that I would say it's a cool idea.

[RedFenix]

First of all, I hope to see Nazjatar being raised from the seas 'cause it would be epic. Secondly, sounds like a cool idea.

Thing I'm wondering though is the layout of said land...

I imagine some kind of palace for the raid to take place in, and that seems like something that's gonna be visible asap. So the reveal of the main base itself isn't all there. Then there's the surrounding areas of Nazjatar. Depending on the level of the land, we could end up having to advance outwards instead of inwards.

Let's imagine we got a big ol' palace in the middle and land around it. Say the palace is on the tallest point, then whenever the land is raised higher, we slowly move further away from the palace since that's where new land appears. That doesn't sound like a wise tactic to me, and it thus involves us walking around the palace walls at the beginning.

But now as I write this I'm having a new thought...

Now let's imagine the Isle of Thunder, big palace in the "corner". Sure we've got part of the palace appearing immediately but maybe the rest of the land seems to be separate, almost like it's own island next to the palace. Then as the land continues to rise, we finally see that the land is connected to the palace by a bridge or other fortification, which we'll have to fight our way through during the final week before the raid becomes available.

Who knows how it'll go down but as long as we at least get to see some kinda land-raising cinematic then I'm good. XP

I'm totally down for this idea! And I would tie-in that the primary reason for Azshara raising her palace and the land around it is two-fold. One part is to have the main bulk of her forces closer to the surface to be in closer proximity to the Horde/Alliance and launch full-scale attacks. The other part would be that by raising the seafloor, she would be able to weaken the Titan prison holding N'Zoth.

[Hitei]

Any idea that reduces Nazjatar to patch content is a bad one, but in this specific case I think you are just setting yourself up to annoy players by essentially timegating the patch's content, one of the major things complained about for Legion.

[Hitei]

That's very likely what we're getting though. The chances of a South Seas Naga expac are pretty much dead at this point.

Or we just get a shitty Nazjatar raid instance and Azshara dies in it.

What a great send off to the last exciting War3 era villian. /sarcasm

We'll see. I'm not happy about Azshara being implemented this way, but it's hard to say anything without knowing what will actually happen. Gul'dan was handled quite nicely. If 8.2 is Nazjatar as a large patched in zone a la Argus, with a dungeon or two and then a raid where we kill Azshara, it will be shitty. But it's not like that is the only potential outcome.

It's possible that, like Gul'dan, Azshara could survive, or even win her encounter. If we fight her in a raised Nazjatar and she flees down into the depths of the sea and the second half of the expansion is going down to Ny'alotha and fighting against a reborn Black Empire as she attempts to free or frees N'zoth... that's a fairly decent use of her character. If she ends up turning the tables on N'zoth and ascending into Old God-hood herself? That'd be wonderful.

I'll reserve judgement until we know what the later parts of the expansion are going to look like.

[Hawkknight97]

I think it would be better if we took the fight to Azshara and her nagas under the sea. I mean if Nazjatar was rise up then it would just be another broken shore 2.0.

Honestly prefer seeing the dark mysterious beautiful city of Nazjatar underwater. But I highly doubt that will ever happen due to hate of vash'jir and because playerbase likes to complain about new different types of gameplay like underwater and flying.

[Powerogue]

It would be cool to see the "long term story progressing over several weeks" theme we had with the suramar campaign and the city changing as you progressed in it.