9.0 General Discussion

[huth]

I think a whole lot could be done by just not having the big titles being handed to the player at the very start. BfA was the most egregious example of this, immediately starting the campaign with you being the "Champion of Azeroth".
Things like that could be more impactful if that is on the tail-end of an expansion.

Except we got that title after several years of fixing various disasters on Azeroth, not immediately at the start. It simply makes no sense for us to still be a nobody unless we end up somewhere where noone has any way or reason to care about our previous actions.

[Eurhetemec]

Jury's out on if he's going to have proper payoff of humiliation. It's meaningless if it is not directly observed by the player. He loves to talk but it also kinda read as him baiting her to kill him. That being said, when Dark Mirror established their relationship in the first place, was written by Steve, Nathanos' likeness was based off Steve, Steve goes on to be the Hunter Order Hall guy after Nathanos was the hunter trainer in Undercity, plus all the other nonsense in the now-overshared pic of his social media history...I dunno. Maybe it's not a direct self-insert by virtue of shitty qualities. It's still irritating.

So like, three things:

1) Dude, it was directly observed. Watch the cutscene, he's continuing to rant and gets very literally cut off by having his throat slit. If you want to see his throat being slit, well, buddy that's not how it works. This isn't Game of Thrones.

2) I'm going to require a real clear citation fro your claim re: Nathanos being physically based on Steve Danuser. He looks fucking almost nothing like him beyond being a white dude with a beard - it's not even the same kind of beard and Danuser is bald AF where Nathanos could advertise shampoo. They have different noses and face-shapes too (I'm artist and used to specialize in portraiture so don't be trying to tell me I'm blind or something). If your link is just some internet dude who uses the word "cringe" every third sentence (which is all I could find Googling this) making a claim based on his clinical inability to recognise human faces (a lot of people out there kind of face-blind), then stop making that claim, imo.

I mean shit, you want WoW people who look like real people - I'm not posting pics, but was I was about 18-20, I looked pretty much exactly like Anduin did in the most recent cinematic (the one where he gets kidnapped) and Varian in stuff like the Legion intro cinematic (i.e. where he gets killed) looks a lot like my dad did when he was in his late 40s (obviously my dad had more sensible hair and no scars lol), so I'm going to say these are just pretty generic faces (because I'm sure I'm not the only one who thinks Anduin looks like them etc.).

3) He's meant to be irritating. I don't get why people don't get this. You're not meant to think that Hans Gruber is cool. I know some people do, but I don't know what to tell those people. Nathanos is meant to be a foil, an irritant. He's clearly extremely successful at this, but WoW players being WoW players, and really reminding me of the "Why can't you just be normal?!" meme, there's a bizarre desire to attack the writers, not the character.

I mean, attack them for making him overexposed, but ad hominem shit like "He's a self-insert" (especially on a particularly wanker-y bad guy!) is just creepy unless it's extremely well-justified.

[Sondrelk]

Except we got that title after several years of fixing various disasters on Azeroth, not immediately at the start. It simply makes no sense for us to still be a nobody unless we end up somewhere where noone has any way or reason to care about our previous actions.

For those who have played consistently, then sure. The problem, which I suspect is part of the reason why Blizzard chose to not give new players the HoA at the beginning of levelling, is that from the perspective of someone who just started playing you are just handed this title for no particular reason.

More on the general sense of the player being too important is however the fact that if you start the expansion by stating the players status as already perfect and the Champion of Azeroth and whatnot, then you are in a sense undermining any chance at future plot developments further into the expansion.
Not that WoD was even a particularly good example of it, but even that didnt start you of as the general of the Draenor forces, you were just the leader of your garrison alongside others like Admiral Taylor's garrison in Spires of Arak, it wasnt until later into the expansion when Varian promoted you.

[Xilurm]

With two characters in a row now I kill Nathanos but don't get the cinematic. What gives? It's so annoying.

[Sondrelk]

With two characters in a row now I kill Nathanos but don't get the cinematic. What gives? It's so annoying.

Seems to be a common bug if the server is too laggy.

[Xilurm]

Seems to be a common bug if the server is too laggy.

Are you supposed to get it only once per character or is it with each kill?

[TheFirstOnes]

Killed Nathanos the first time, and got the Cinematic. Did it the second time and it didn't happen.

Seems Tyrande stole my kill the first time, but I killed him myself the second. FUCK THAT SIMP DOUG!!!!

[Sondrelk]

Are you supposed to get it only once per character or is it with each kill?

Well I got it on both characters I have done it on. Though I am not sure whether it is on each kill or not, I somehow feel it should be on each kill considering Nathanos stops attacking at 10% waiting for the cinematic to end.

[Raetary]

With two characters in a row now I kill Nathanos but don't get the cinematic. What gives? It's so annoying.

The cinematic is tied to the quest.

Did you pick up the quest before you killed him?

[Vakir]

So like, three things:

1) Dude, it was directly observed. Watch the cutscene, he's continuing to rant and gets very literally cut off by having his throat slit. If you want to see his throat being slit, well, buddy that's not how it works. This isn't Game of Thrones.

Not what I mean at all. Until we get the direct observation of his displeasure or discomfort, it's a pretty hollow "victory" to observe, and it's arguable it was what he wanted in the first place. I don't mean the physical act of violence.

Compare AU-Gul'dan's demise to Nathanos. Both are engaged by an entire raid group and arrogantly display their superiority. One even gets a long, uninterruptable monologue about how much you're totes fucked and how much of an insignificant gnat your King/Warchief was. Both have a significant number of NPCs assisting in addition to the full raid group, although this is more for environmental flavor in Nate's case. Both have evaded direct capture despite a full expansion of misdeeds where they are a major part of the inciting incident.

Gul'dan, though, at least collapses from how much we've messed him up, has a panic moment that his ritual has failed, has fears of the consequences it'll bring from Sarg/Kil'jaeden, etc. before getting Wing Attacked to embers by Illidan. Gul'dan is, for all intents and purposes, a rotten prick and yet a beloved character. No one makes long, involved posts about how obnoxious or poorly written Gul'dan is. He's great.

Nathanos has seemingly no wounds despite already being cornered by a bunch of Argent Crusaders before we got there, continues to egg us on and misses no steps when the cutscene begins as if we did nothing at all, seems more amused than frightened by the presence of a God's avatar when the eclipse starts, is interested at the prospect of fighting Tyrande, and doesn't break his smile before he gets a throat slit after saying it plays into his benefit regardless.

Forgive me for not getting schadenfreude for it, I guess my expectations are a little higher? Nobody, say, watched the Joker's interrogation in the Dark Knight and said "Ha! Take that!" when he got the tar beat out of him because ostensibly those people could actually read situations.

2) I'm going to require a real clear citation fro your claim re: Nathanos being physically based on Steve Danuser. He looks fucking almost nothing like him beyond being a white dude with a beard - it's not even the same kind of beard and Danuser is bald AF where Nathanos could advertise shampoo.

https://twitter.com/SteveDanuser/sta...42223050100736

I, too, look into mirrors and see completely different visuals other than myself. ...wait, who took my Clozapine?!

Someone jokingly replied on the presence of hair and he even acknowledged it, including the difference in eyes.

https://imgur.com/r/wow/FX4poT6 Hate to repost this, but Moorgard's twitter activity is gone, and hey look at that, comments about a desire for crimson eyes.

The visual similarities don't even need to imply it's a 100% self-insert, you can have credit on that, but it's intellectually dishonest to ignore that Nathanos is modeled heavily after Steve Danuser. The origin of his current character design was a short story he wrote himself alongside his romantic relationship with Sylvanas in the first place. Nathanos' origins and aesthetic unto itself ignoring Danuser is already a special snowflake. In a fantasy universe with golden spaceships, you can and need to suspend a lot of disbelief, but it's another thing to suspend the universe's own internal roles when it's an exception granted for one character that is designed to look like a lead writer.

3) He's meant to be irritating. I don't get why people don't get this. You're not meant to think that Hans Gruber is cool. I know some people do, but I don't know what to tell those people. Nathanos is meant to be a foil, an irritant. He's clearly extremely successful at this, but WoW players being WoW players, and really reminding me of the "Why can't you just be normal?!" meme, there's a bizarre desire to attack the writers, not the character.

You're ignoring the context behind it. There's been plenty of characters who act shitty towards us in the past, but none have been so ubiquitous and omnipresent with no basis to do it. Nathanos was never this important until he was suddenly a tumor.

Vanilla raid boss or not, it's the equivalent of a Remember the New Guy moment and he's in no position to have the self-entitlement he does over other characters. I'm referring to NPC characters that have far more story agency than the player. For example, if "the Zandalari don't seem to like me very much," maybe it doesn't make sense for him to be present the whole time for a diplomatic fucking mission to get the Zandalari fleet. When we started brainwashing Proudmoores and putting cows in bondage later in the campaign, then yes, I can see him being present.

Some villains or dickish characters have even been popular, or at the very least regarded as interesting. People can enjoy irritants and outright villains. Emeni from the Necrolords is on track to be a favorite...for anyone who will go with a rather weak and unpopular Covenant. Most of the Venthyr are enjoyable and vibrant personalities despite that they treat us drolly as expendable or lesser. Even when characters get retroactively fixed to be more heroic, you still have characters in popular roles that aren't particularly friendly to us as a foil, like Illidan. I'm not supposed to come home without the keystone! If I die, it's merely "interesting" that I survive via demon soul, and my demise would otherwise be treated without a second thought! ...but it makes sense for the character's position relative to my own PC's.

When people mix it, though, with the perception of these kinds of character exceptions being made, and then ALSO see the similarities to a public figure with already well-known fandom and favoritism towards a certain polarizing character, it is increasingly conspicuous that they may have external, writer-driven influences rather than just "well, they kinda mishandled that one character" and move on.

It's more like if Alan Rickman and Jeb Stuart regarded Hans Gruber as a favorite character, Hans Gruber managed to personally fight John McClane to a stand-still in the second act, and he smirked slyly on his way down the Nakatomi Building after covertly wiring a bunch of the money to Simon before he existed.

I mean, attack them for making him overexposed, but ad hominem shit like "He's a self-insert" (especially on a particularly wanker-y bad guy!) is just creepy unless it's extremely well-justified.

There's enough reasons to attack Steve Danuser without even factoring in Nathanos, the least of which is for him to call BfA a story "full of heart," to insist it wasn't a poor redragging of Mists, or just about every other poor narrative decision he has been the lead on. The awkward psychological implications are just gravy. But hey, what is context or nuance?

Hopefully the above well justifies it for you. Other than that, I can't really fix contrarianism. Or people who choose to act as PR teams for free.

[Xilurm]

The cinematic is tied to the quest.

Did you pick up the quest before you killed him?

Yeah. It fades to black then nothing.

[Sondrelk]

Yeah. It fades to black then nothing.

Could be an addon automatically skipping the cutscene.

- - - Updated - - -

For Nathanos I feel a much better take on the same cutscene would simply just cutting his villain monologe with Tyrande. Would be a nice twist as well if we had Tyrande taunting him for no longer being with Sylvanas before cutting his throat, but in general I feel the biggest misstep really was that he got to have his villainous monologue despite not really having a good reason. Sure, our characters and Tyrande might not know that he has been abandoned by Sylvanas, but the way he acts makes it seem like even he doesnt actually know he has been abandoned yet.

[huth]

More on the general sense of the player being too important is however the fact that if you start the expansion by stating the players status as already perfect and the Champion of Azeroth and whatnot, then you are in a sense undermining any chance at future plot developments further into the expansion.

Do keep in mind that we actually do start lower in SL. Maw Walker only references the fact that we're so far the only known person to have left the Maw under their own power, and not even we ourselves know why. They have little to no idea what else to think of us, and Bastion initially treats you as nothing more than a regular new arrival, not even fully realising you aten't dead.

[Vakir]

For Nathanos I feel a much better take on the same cutscene would simply just cutting his villain monologe with Tyrande. Would be a nice twist as well if we had Tyrande taunting him for no longer being with Sylvanas before cutting his throat, but in general I feel the biggest misstep really was that he got to have his villainous monologue despite not really having a good reason. Sure, our characters and Tyrande might not know that he has been abandoned by Sylvanas, but the way he acts makes it seem like even he doesnt actually know he has been abandoned yet.

He also didn't even have his monologue cut short for the right reasons! It's not some kind of "own" on him that Tyrande slit his throat, it's an own on her that he got under her skin, her partial vengeance was unsatisfying, and the trail on Sylvanas is now luke-warm at best. That was gloating. There was no comeuppance. If Nathanos is out of the story for good, it's an unsatisfying way to do it. If he's a future raid boss, they need to nail the shit out of it - but it would also be another weird-ass exception being granted to the character that's undeserved, as Sylvanas is confirmed to no longer give a fuck about him and thus he should be just another Stygia battery for the Jailer to use.

This reminds me of when Dave Kosack said back around Mists that "there will be a reckoning" for Sylvanas and her actions relative to some of the dubious stuff in Cataclysm, and then people insisted that the fall of Lordaeron would be that reckoning after Teldrassil happened, before they knew how it would end. ...then she nuked it on purpose. Now people insist her characterization was all just as keikaku and that she was good all along/a redemption arc is coming. Exciting reckoning if true, guys!

[Sondrelk]

He also didn't even have his monologue cut short for the right reasons! It's not some kind of "own" on him that Tyrande slit his throat, it's an own on her that he got under her skin, her partial vengeance was unsatisfying, and the trail on Sylvanas is now luke-warm at best. That was gloating. There was no comeuppance. If Nathanos is out of the story for good, it's an unsatisfying way to do it. If he's a future raid boss, they need to nail the shit out of it - but it would also be another weird-ass exception being granted to the character that's undeserved, as Sylvanas is confirmed to no longer give a fuck about him and thus he should be just another Stygia battery for the Jailer to use.

This reminds me of when Dave Kosack said back around Mists that "there will be a reckoning" for Sylvanas and her actions relative to some of the dubious stuff in Cataclysm, and then people insisted that the fall of Lordaeron would be that reckoning after Teldrassil happened, before they knew how it would end. ...then she nuked it on purpose. Now people insist her characterization was all just as keikaku and that she was good all along/a redemption arc is coming. Exciting reckoning if true, guys!

Simply not having Tyrande be fazed by Nathanos could work too I suppose. If his monologue is instead framed more as him trying to goad her into killing him, or generally reverting to be the person everyone knows him as. Would possibly feed een better into the tragedy if he gets more and more desperate to elicit a reaction from Tyrande by continuing his spiel.

- - - Updated - - -

Do keep in mind that we actually do start lower in SL. Maw Walker only references the fact that we're so far the only known person to have left the Maw under their own power, and not even we ourselves know why. They have little to no idea what else to think of us, and Bastion initially treats you as nothing more than a regular new arrival, not even fully realising you aten't dead.

Shadowlands is definitely a step up, but really that mostly comes down to BfA being the crowning achievement in the plaer being lauded as a hero, possily even more so than in Legion, where at least there was the slim caveat that you were just a leader of your chosen class.

Hopefully in future expansion the writers lean more towards having hte character be as insignificant as possible in the early game before getting renown over time. Not to the level where noone knows who we are, but rather more that the people we interract with don't.

[Pebrocks The Warlock]

Anyone notice while testing the Maw in the quest The Path to Salvation if another player is on that quest they have the same NPCs following you but have generic names. Jaina was "Kul Tiran Mage", I forgot what Baine was but I swear I saw Anduin's named "Stormwind Paladin". I might be reading into it too much.

[Dancaris]

Anyone notice while testing the Maw in the quest The Path to Salvation if another player is on that quest they have the same NPCs following you but have generic names. Jaina was "Kul Tiran Mage", I forgot what Baine was but I swear I saw Anduin's named "Stormwind Paladin". I might be reading into it too much.

As it is like since Legion at least?

[Pebrocks The Warlock]

As it is like since Legion at least?

I don't recall Anduin ever being called "Stormwind Paladin" in Legion. Do you know where this is at?

[Sondrelk]

As it is like since Legion at least?

The first time I remember seeing it was in WoD actually, might have been the entire thing, or just the 6.2 patch with retroactive effect.

[Pebrocks The Warlock]

The first time I remember seeing it was in WoD actually, might have been the entire thing, or just the 6.2 patch with retroactive effect.

I feel like you both missed the point I was trying to make.