Even with that we only see the outskirts and a tiny bit of the city. Past the wall of water there is even more dense city, probably even bigger than Suramar in scope.
Nazjatar to me is a prime example of trying to be everything to everyone, rather than one idea done well. It wanted to be an underwater zone without actually being underwater. It wanted to be Nazjatar without making it a city.
The world revamp dream will never die!
It's the unfortunate truth of a patch zone: it can't be THAT good, due to limitations of budget and dev force. Even the Argus zones were small and had restrictions (no flying) to make up for the size of the patch.
The only way we get a good Nazjatar 2.0 is that it is a main focus of an expansion. So fingers crossed for Midnight or some future saga expansion.
Technically a Naga area could work in Midnight if they needed to have one area that isn't Thalassian/Amani themed.
Last edited by Cheezits; 2024-03-12 at 02:48 PM.
Not every dungeon can be a slam dunk sadly. It's not like the SL dungeons are all great either. Personally I love Algeth'ar and Uldaman. And while I might be one of the few, I think Brackenhide was a fantastic dungeon.
As for SL dungeons I do think it would be too early to get them now. I would definitely prefer having them start showing up in TWW.
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It could be more clearly taking a stance on what kind of zone it wanted to be. You could have made it fully underwater and then made the mechanics reflect that. Or made it fully in Zin-Azshari, maybe with the Eternal Palace visible in the middle. Or for that matter, they could have gone with the original idea and made the zone even smaller, only to then have N'zoth on the side of it as another zone possibly unlocked for 8.3.
The world revamp dream will never die!
Yeah tbf, the only time they managed to do the "expansion theme as a patch" thing right was with the Emerald Dream in Dragonflight, and tbh that worked only because we know now that there is a propper life realm beyond the dream on Azeroth, which will get explored down the line. Even Argus had sooo much missed potential, like we didn't even got KJ's palace.
And I mean, Nyalotha didn't even get the zone treatment, but rather the same shitty fate the Dream original had with the Nightmare raid.
Yeah although they now could do a proper void realm instead, which would have the same advantage as the Shadowlands - a blank state that still can incorperate past designs and show their origins. Plus they could make it a dual expansion with the light so you would have some easy variation there. Although we may not get that all too soon since Midnight seems to deal with the void and light threads for now.
Honestly Nazjatar has grown immensely on me over the last few years. I was a bit disappointed about it being dry docked at first, and felt colours looked pretty muted.
But looking back, the mysterious music and the feeling of everything being ancient and abandoned is what makes it so good. It feels really captivating. The only issue is that our expectations at the time were: water, Vashj'ir, naga, boats, rich colours, corals, etc. Like some say, had it been called something else then maybe it would've worked out better at the time.
Agreed, I love Nazjatar and have many fond memories of it.
1) Having the Tidestone of Golganneth literally part the waves around Nazjatar is one of the most original ideas Blizzard has ever come up with;
2) Seeing the ruins of Zin-Azshari and getting a glimpse at the ancient glory was a plus;
3) Keeping the mystery of the city proper by hiding it behind the waves and only glimpsing it briefly while travelling to the Eternal Palace was a plus;
4) Masterful world-building in only giving a glimpse of the countless Elven and ship wreckages that can only be glimpsed at from beyond the waves;
5) The zone aesthetically looks surreal, alien and otherworldly even.
Patch 8.2 is the peak of BfA, and one of the high-points of 2010s WoW:
- Nazjatar and Mechagon;
- Megadungeon;
- Azerite Essences
- The raid Eternal Palace is very original and Azshara is a wonderful villain.
- Mount equipment (No more Dazed).
Patch 8.2 >>>
Nazjatar's only "crime" is not being a generic and boring Disney zone like Azure Span, instead doing some cool and unique world-building with its original scenery.
I have my fair share of criticisms for the story and general tone of Dragonflight, and I hate to agree, but I understand fully what you mean. That being said, Azure Span was clearly the best zone of Dragonflight, which is unfortunate. It felt the most Warcraft, the most at home. I enjoyed the Tuskarr and I don't think they entirely fell into this "Disney" vibe there is definitely present in other portions. Most of that came from the Expedition and the Dragonflights themselves.
But you're right to point out that Nazjatar had some fantastic world building in the greater scheme of what Warcraft is. The Naga always have that.
I'll always be upset at meta achievements due to the fact that the Violet Spellwing was a reward for one in Legion as opposed to being the mage class mount. Instead we got the silly sewer plate.
This is a Community-generated problem, aka, inability to temper expectations.
Like it or not, Vashj'ir was a fiasco, so Blizzard wasn't going to repeat an Underwater zone, especially a mandatory Patch one.
Blizzard also wasn't going to do another colourful Elven cityscape so soon after Suramar, or it would feel redundant.
The way Nazjatar was portrayed in BfA was the only feasible and logical way. Anything else would get dismissed as either Vash'jir 2.0 (clone of the least-liked and most controversial zone in the game) or Suramar clone (people would accuse Blizzard of copying Legion instead of coming up with something unique).
You don't want a Vashj'ir 2.0. You think you do, but you don't.
I don't know about that. All of BfA received some criticism for being "South Seas at home" by the community. It was another example of Blizzard delivering what players had begged for, but insisting on putting their creative spin on it for originality.
Same with Void Elves, Alleria's return, the entire Shadowlands, Night Elves getting back their world tree, and so on. Sometimes, the proper thing to do is simply to give players comfort food when they're asking for it, not try to cook up some culinary vegan masterpiece.
I think a lot of it is fears that what the players want aren't palatable to the broader audience they were marketing to (except Velf, that was just pettiness/thinking Belf lock to Horde was required for player numbers). I think the reason BFA was the way it was was because they did not think an expansion solely about Islands, Azshara and N'zoth would sell, so the war theme had to be tacked on to market it. There's a reason that NONE of the super expensive cinematics were at all about anything happening on the islands.
Were they right? Honestly, maybe. But per Worldsoul Saga the focus seems to have shifted towards things mostly fans know and recognize.
All the flaws about BfA's story-telling and setting are from the Faction War arc.
I just spent two years in Legion fighting side by side with Lady Liadrin against the Burning Legion. Why am I suddenly killing Lady Liadrin in front of Stromgarde? What is the reason? How does that make sense?
The Old God/Naga arc of BfA, including the storylines of Kul Tiras and Zandalar, and only excluding Ny'alotha at the end, were masterfully-done.
There were too many competing themes is how I would put it. The South Seas are an amazing location for the expansion, and both Old Gods/Naga, and Faction War are good themes to explore it with. But you cannot have all of those fighting for space to actually have a satisfying story. Even more so when the writers were enamored with the GoT S8 style of writing and thinks a big event somehow equals instant engagement.
The world revamp dream will never die!
I've seen a lot of stuff asking why we got Earthen instead of any other fan requested race, and it feels fairly obvious to me that the Devs aren't going to introduce a race unless it is tied to next expansion and they can make use of their models as NPCs. Hence why Earthen are there and Nerubians may be given there.
That being said, is there any way we could ever get Ogres in that capacity, unless we go back to Outlands or have a Cata-All Azeroth expansion?
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Holy shit who cares about Ogres, they are adding untimed mythic keys.
https://worldofwarcraft.blizzard.com...-changes-ahead