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

[ParanoiD84]

What a joke wow's writing/lore is extremely bad atm.

[McNeil]

They actually unlisted it. Fucking cowards

[Alja]

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.

I actually liked this expansion for the most part (and yes I realize that I am probably in the minority) - however I still agree completely with your statement. The story was all over the place and I was really hoping for more old god stuff and less sylvanas (really not looking forward to next expansion being the sylvanas show).

[Flower Milk]

Or maybe, just MAYBE, the millions of people just playing the game are happy with the way it is, and it's just the 50-odd whiny bitches on MMOChamp that should grow a pair and just stop playing a game they obviously do not like and is not designed with their snowflake mentality in mind....

Or maybe you felt the need to reply because you are one of those people still willing to pay/play the game no matter how bad they make it.

[Tiwack]

Cinematics that include the player have been cut from the linked vids.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

FFXIV ends its current big bad https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MFYXNc76nc Nearly an hour of cutscenes.

WoW ends the last of a series of big bads its introduced in the throzen throne expansion for warcraft 3 over 15 years ago: NOT EVEN THIRTY SECONDS.

So budget cuts? or has the expansion been in skeleton crew mode as they try to get Shadowlands done as fast as possible to rush it out for another box sale to replace this?

Even at its lowest point with lfr wow seems a lot more like an mmo when it comes to story when compared to sitting though an hour of generic ff trifle alone.

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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.

Mostly wasted ya but that’s blame to put on the writers the cutscene team has been putting in work like never before.

[Artelia]

I am not suprised at all. Since burning of Teldrassil and crying about Sylvanas they changed bfa from "faction war expac" to "rush rebellion and N'zoth expac".

I really want to see when Blizzard chicken out from Shadowlands in same way because people will start crying that Sylvanas is not villian.

[RamGuy]

This sure was disappointing. But to be honest, I didn't really expect much. This has been the least fun expansion of the game for me so far. I wont blame the game and the expansion entirely, I think the game is struggling more for each year and each new expansion just because of how old and outdated the underlying foundations of the game truly are. Can we really expect an engine that dates back to 2003/2004 to still manage to be relevant in 2020?

Sure the engine has been improved over the years, but it's still based around code dating back so long. And the market has become significantly more difficult since then. We have great games releasing all the time these days. Ranging from great indie games to Triple-A games. I can't free myself from the feeling that no matter how good a job Blizzard do with World of WarCraft it will always feel stale and dated in today's gaming market.

But even when considering all that, there is no doubt that Battle for Azeroth was a real let-down of an expansion. The levelling experience was decent, but not great. I really felt the severe lack of class identity and focus. With Legion giving us so much great class identity and class quest-lines with the Artefact Weapons and the Class Order Halls it made the campaign's in Batte for Azeroth feeling like a huge step backward's.

I also felt my class was neutered. After playing Legion with a cool Artefact weapon unlocking rather fun and impressive skills. Taking it all away and introducing so much added global cool-down just made my character feel worse and weaker in pretty much every respect. That was not a good feeling, and it made the start of the expansion feel lacklustre in-terms of gameplay right out of the gate. I did not truly enjoy farming Artefact Power in Legion, I'll tell you that much but at least it all feed into a somewhat rewarding system unlocking things that made me feel powerful.

And the expansion began with pretty much every new feature just feeling like a grind for getting additional azerite power. Island Expeditions just felt like repeatable and meaningless scenario's. Warfront's didn't bring anything meaningful either. You just went in, had next to no challenge along the way and received the loot. In terms of story it fell right into disappointing from the start by trying to hype the burning of Teldrassil like something convoluted that might not be Sylvanas doing just for it to be her all along. Why create expectations that you are just going to crush moments later?


Patch 8.1 didn't bring nearly enough to revitalise what had been the most disappointing start of any expansion thus far. At least for me. And Blizzard decided to try gate the already gated and grindy and repetitive gameplay-loop but removing ground finder / world quest add-ons etc.. That's not the way to go, don't make the gameplay-loop that I can barely withstand as is become even more tedious.

I truly felt like they did try to revitalise the expansion with patch 8.2 but at that point it felt a little bit too late. I did enjoy 8.2, but you still had the horrible heart of azeroth system, the azerite power etc as the centrepiece and cornerstone of the expansion. 8.2 did make me somewhat hyped for 8.3 as I've been waiting for more Old God's for so long and I did find that the end-cinematic of Eternal Palace did a good job of hyping me for N'zoth in 8.3.

But then all excitement gets killed by Blizzard themselves during Blizzcon. It was made obvious that 8.3 would become a rather small patch and that it's content wouldn't really matter much. And they sure was right. It's a really lacklustre patch, with some really lacklustre in-game cinematic's to what should have been a much bigger storyline. All what they tried to achieve with 8.2 was nowhere to been seen or felt with 8.3. I can't shake they feeling that they made 8.3 because they had to have at least something before Shadowland's and bot because it was something they actually wanted to do.


Patch 8.3 does absolutely nothing in-terms of trying to setup and establish Shadowland's. In that regard it's ending is even weaker than Warlords of Draenor. And I have to admit, I find Battle for Azeroth to be inferior compared to Warlord's of Draenor. Warlord's biggest issue was how the entire time-travel premsis is a horrible one to boot. You just can't go right which such a premise. But the begging of the expansion felt fun. Sure Blizzard really dropped the ball with Warlord's just like they ended up doing with Battle of Azeroth but at least I did not find the time-gating all the new features to feel as stale and boring as I found all the new stuff introduced in Battle for Azeroth. And for what it's worth, they didn't take a plot which such great potential and just flush it down the drain. And even with it's lack of content towards the end, it actually did setup the following expansion something that Battle for Azeroth does not seem to do at all. And it didn't leave so many plotholes and unresolved answers and mysteries.


I do hope Shadowland's will prove to be the same versus Battle for Azeroth as Legion was to Warlord's. But what makes me really sceptical is how Legion made me feel really hyped, and all the features they did announce at Blizzcon for Legion sounded promising. The reveal of Shadowland's and all it features didn't sound like much to me. Is it because it was so early in development that all the details weren't ready yet? I don't know, but I do not like it.

And I honestly believe that World of WarCraft will have a much harder time releasing a expansion i 2020/2021 that will engage players compared to back in 2016. So much has happened since then, we will have PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X at the end of the year. We have never seen so many great games getting released at such a rapid pace ever before. The bar is set extremely high in order for Blizzard to truly succeed and for them to manage to do it with such old foundations as this game has doesn't seem all that realistic to me but I sure hope they can prove me wrong.

[Rampant Rabbit]

Looks like a fan video.

[Jasper Kazai]

The whole theme of 8.3 should've been its own entire expansion, not tacked onto the end of a bad expansion in the hopes of salvaging it a tiny bit. Because this sure as hell isn't salvaging it.

[beanman12345]

that's it? okay...

[DemonDays]

Even at its lowest point with lfr wow seems a lot more like an mmo when it comes to story when compared to sitting though an hour of generic ff trifle alone.

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Mostly wasted ya but that’s blame to put on the writers the cutscene team has been putting in work like never before.

Dude you don't need to attempt to defend them at every opportunity.

It's shit. Just call it what it is and move on.

This patch is a rushed, underdeveloped waste.

[Mataleo]

To all ppl triggered when ffxiv is mentioned here: the topic is about cinematics, right?
Just sayin.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Dude you don't need to attempt to defend them at every opportunity.

It's shit. Just call it what it is and move on.

This patch is a rushed, underdeveloped waste.

wasn't aware saying that the increased work load was wasted because of bad writing was defending them. but if it makes you feel better i guess you can say it is.

[twothe]

Well the bullshit of Ny'alotha being another dimension, thus N'zoth needed to step in our reality for us to focus the Re-Origination device on him seems to be the explanation. Doesn't explain why the Titans didn't use that for the other Old Gods who were technically in our dimensions though.

There are still so many questions open. I get a feeling that Blizzard just gave up writing a good story, and just comes up with random Hollywood bullshit. Almost like JJ Abrahams was directing it now... -.o

[DeltrusDisc]

Uh... yikes.

Considering the depth of this, this cinematic should have been far more dramatic... and longer. A 30 second blip on the radar that people will forget about in a few months.

Meanwhile, the Wrath LK death cinematic still gets quoted to this day in positive manners:

There must always be *lightning crack* a Lich King!

I thought the Cataclysm one was bad with the aGe Of ThE mOrTaLs but holy shit this is pathetic.

[Usernameforforums]

Kinda sucks how they ended a boss thats been hinted at for like 10 years if not more

[Hyeonh]

THey really did N'zoth dirty for how long they built him up. They should of at least make it that we stopped his meddling in Azeroth but also take the fight to him in Shadowlands. Not kill him off like another small blip on the radar.

[Queendom]

Final cinematic of the expansion is 26 seconds? I can't believe this really.