New Villain Appreciation thread

[Jastall]

I do not like that we don't know where the story is headed, which was a huge point of contention in Shadowlands, but at least this time around we can make an educated guess.

The incarnates have a reason to be bad guys. They are angry and destructive, and sometimes that is enough (surely better than whatever the Jailer was doing). On top of that, their design is awesome, especially Iridikron. The Jailer was just a ragged guy, and I get that him being a prisoner was the main reason for... everything, but he was forgettable in motives, personality and looks. I mean, we got more personality exposure for the incarnates in that 2-minute video than in two years of Shadowlands for the blue man. Fire guy is hot-headed, ice lady is cool-headed, Iridikron keeps them together.

Jailer failed to check literally any villain tickbox. Incarnates so far have memorable looks, defined personalities, and bland motives. But even a bland motive is better than no motive at all, so in my book, these villains work for the time being.

Yeah, I think a big difference with the Jailer is that the narrative so far isn't trying to pretend it's more clever than it is. Jailer was a walking, talking contrivance presented as a 420 IQ all according to plan schemer, whereas Incarnates are big bad dragons presented as big bad dragons. They drive the plot without hijacking it. The concept isn't exactly revolutionary or anything but I'll take safe and half-decently executed over trying too hard and making a gigantic mess of a villain.

[Kyphael]

I find these villains even more bland than The Jailer. The complete lack of knowing where the story is going kind of deflates a lot of my hype, too.

Agreed. WoW has always been a game where I get more hyped when I know the endgame. Illidan, Lich King, Deathwing, Garrosh; those were some great bad baddies to spend an year or two campaigning, scratching, and clawing to get to. After all, it's not like keeping things under wraps makes anything special. Even if they keep it all hush hush for an year and nine months, it'll be spoiled either in a convention, or announcement, or whatever the hell. We'll see the final patch coming months ahead, so I think keeping it all secret is detrimental in an MMO. I don't play this to be surprised, I play it to progress, and expansions that keep me in the dark as a player lose me.

There are exceptions of course. I knew the Jailer was the villain all along I'd work my way up to, but the content and writing was so bad, I either didn't care or was burned out. With Dragonflight, I don't care who the current bad guys are, and I don't see where it's all going, so I care so much less, I never even wanted to sample it. It's the first expansion I'm never skipping outfight without even sampling.

Now if later on they announce Yrel will be the big bad for an upcoming Holy Crusade story, I'd come running back.

[sam86]

Now if later on they announce Yrel will be the big bad for an upcoming Holy Crusade story, I'd come running back.

there was strong hint she is KJ daughter to be accurate, why they didn't continue on that story no idea, probably like everything else they abandoned in wod
and i'm seriously puzzled by how 'positive' ppl starting to view WoD, are there many new players post wod or did ppl really forget how crap it was? who was a good villain in wod? even Gul'dan was pure failure all time, our timeline gul'dan was actual evil incarnate who only failed due to his insane greed, and fucked the entire horde with him, now that's an amazing villain
well I find Cho'gall: the idea of pure lunatic who doesn't use logic and ape shit brain is still interesting too, he is a villain because his brain is missing few gears, u can't reason with him, and he is smart enough to be a threat, he doesn't try anything good or nice, he just wants to fuck the world because no reason at all, he is just insane

[Gurkan]

there was strong hint she is KJ daughter to be accurate, why they didn't continue on that story no idea, probably like everything else they abandoned in wod
and i'm seriously puzzled by how 'positive' ppl starting to view WoD, are there many new players post wod or did ppl really forget how crap it was? who was a good villain in wod? even Gul'dan was pure failure all time, our timeline gul'dan was actual evil incarnate who only failed due to his insane greed, and fucked the entire horde with him, now that's an amazing villain
well I find Cho'gall: the idea of pure lunatic who doesn't use logic and ape shit brain is still interesting too, he is a villain because his brain is missing few gears, u can't reason with him, and he is smart enough to be a threat, he doesn't try anything good or nice, he just wants to fuck the world because no reason at all, he is just insane

Gul'dan was a pretty good villain in both WoD and Legion, and WoD is nearing its tenth anniversary, of course people are gonna see it in a more positive light, especially coming after Shadowlands.

[LionSinMaikeru]

I touched on this in an XIV thread, but it's true here, too.

"The world is gonna end" is the absolute least interesting plot driver and has no actual "stakes" because...well, it can't happen. Just like how "I'm going to kill you, [player character]!" is always weak. Azeroth isn't going anywhere, the player character isn't going anywhere.

It's like betting your friend a trillion dollars that the Lions will win the Super Bowl. It's not an interesting bet because neither of you has a trillion dollars, so no matter how big a number it is or how dramatic you try to make it, it's just...nothing at all.

I'd argue it only has "no actual stakes" because of the people in charge of the game, not because of the actual premise.

For example, in FF6, we're told that if a specific event happens it will cause the world to end and that event does happen due to the Big Bad. As a result? The second half of the game is drastically different because the world itself has been reshaped completely due to said event occurring.

It's only a lack of stakes because the villain never succeeds. They're always thwarted last minute by the heroes. If one of these big bads who threatens the world actually were to *succeed* and reshapes the world, then it wouldn't be a lack of stakes.

I was hoping so much that the Jailer would have succeeded in his plans or Sylvanas usurped him and succeeded in accessing the power + resulted in reshaping Azeroth entirely. But of course that would take a lot more effort than the devs are willing to put in.

[Kyphael]

there was strong hint she is KJ daughter to be accurate, why they didn't continue on that story no idea, probably like everything else they abandoned in wod
and i'm seriously puzzled by how 'positive' ppl starting to view WoD, are there many new players post wod or did ppl really forget how crap it was? who was a good villain in wod? even Gul'dan was pure failure all time, our timeline gul'dan was actual evil incarnate who only failed due to his insane greed, and fucked the entire horde with him, now that's an amazing villain
well I find Cho'gall: the idea of pure lunatic who doesn't use logic and ape shit brain is still interesting too, he is a villain because his brain is missing few gears, u can't reason with him, and he is smart enough to be a threat, he doesn't try anything good or nice, he just wants to fuck the world because no reason at all, he is just insane

I skipped WoD after sampling it, and despite how bad Shadowlands was, still don't look back fondly on WoD. WoD had a great soundtrack and premise but that was it. Garrisons were boring, story execution lacking and content-wise they abandoned it to focus on Legion.

[Ghost of Cow]

I'd argue it only has "no actual stakes" because of the people in charge of the game, not because of the actual premise.

For example, in FF6, we're told that if a specific event happens it will cause the world to end and that event does happen due to the Big Bad. As a result? The second half of the game is drastically different because the world itself has been reshaped completely due to said event occurring.

It's only a lack of stakes because the villain never succeeds. They're always thwarted last minute by the heroes. If one of these big bads who threatens the world actually were to *succeed* and reshapes the world, then it wouldn't be a lack of stakes.

Right, but FF6 is a single player game with a defined end. Anything can happen in those games, it's basically all up to the writer since the game must end.

An MMO isn't that. It has to go on and on and on. The world can't end, the player character can't be eliminated, so on and so forth.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

For example, in FF6, we're told that if a specific event happens it will cause the world to end and that event does happen due to the Big Bad. As a result? The second half of the game is drastically different because the world itself has been reshaped completely due to said event occurring.

Destruction doesn't work well as a threat in WoW because it's almost always poorly presented. We are TOLD that the Scourge invasion in the WotLK prepatch event left Stormwind and Orgrimmar in ruins, prompting the revamp in Cata, but we never saw evidence of that ingame. A city being nuked in Tides of War should be a big deal, but it doesn't matter to we the audience because Theramore was just a levelling location you might have spent a half hour levelling in, if at all. It was never a capital city you spend countless hours hanging out in over the years. The destruction of the Vale in 5.4 was more noticeable because we had spent a full year there and knew the Golden Lotus characters from their reputation storyline. The Legion invasion in 7.0 prepatch went unremarked because there was no lasting damage to Orgrimmar and Stormwind (by this point, players had been away from the minor questing settlements for almost a decade and no longer cared about those places). Nobody cares about a sword's nuclear blast going off in the bug desert. The only instance of destruction that had real impact was the loss of Teldrassil. People were still creating Night Elf characters and starting their journey there. It had been a fond place for Alliance roleplayers, back when the RP scene was still alive. The destruction had good art to go along with it, with the 2D card of the burnt out tree being visible from faraway on Kailmdor, but the game has poorly portrayed the aftermath. You don't see tent cities of refugees in or around Stormwind. Likewise, the Alliance assault Dazar'alor but outside of the raid you see no visible damage to the city.

- - - Updated - - -

Another issue with destruction in MMOs is that oftentimes, it isn't futureproof. If you weren't playing before Cata? Well you don't feel the impact of the Cataclysm, because you never saw the pre-Cataclysm world so you don't know the differences between the vanilla and the Cata world. Didn't play before 5.4? Well then you only ever saw the post-destruction Vale. Didn't play before 7.3? Well then you didn't see Silithus before it got nuked by a giant sword. And so on. Same issue with GW2, where if you didn't play before 2014, then you never saw pre-destruction Lion's Arch. You only knew the rebuilt city. And so on. This hamstrings the storytelling. There isn't much tension in going through a story if you already know the outcome, and there isn't much impact because you don't quite know the impact because you didn't see the world that was before it got destroyed.

[Wangming]

Snip

So what are we left with? Personal grudges? Villain wants to torture and kill Jaina so we always watch out and go into high-alert mode if she disappears?

- - - Updated - - -

I touched on this in an XIV thread, but it's true here, too.

"The world is gonna end" is the absolute least interesting plot driver and has no actual "stakes" because...well, it can't happen. Just like how "I'm going to kill you, [player character]!" is always weak. Azeroth isn't going anywhere, the player character isn't going anywhere.

Agreed. We know the plan will fail. The only question is, how many people need to give their lives to get to the point where the villain fails?

[sam86]

Gul'dan was a pretty good villain in both WoD and Legion, and WoD is nearing its tenth anniversary, of course people are gonna see it in a more positive light, especially coming after Shadowlands.

I don't see AU Gul'dan was good villain, his only success was dischant Varian, which mainly happened due to own alliance fucked up spy network, meaning if alliance were actually good and not focusing on hate horde for just being horde 24/7, Gul'dan only success was going to fail too
In comparison to MU Gul'dan of wc2, he fucked everything, including entire planet - his own planet, his own ppl, he fucked alliance too so hard he almost won then war with his Ogre Mage and Death Knights, then he fucked the horde just to get more power, and in end his greed just destroyed everything, he wasn't a failure, he was 'too successful' that he destroyed everything he was related to, and that comes from 2nd best shaman, someone who should been so good heart that elements trust him (was there any explanation how did that happen? I talk about MU not AU crap story that made him looks crap)
and that's another point i love about MU Gul'dan, he is just evil, he wasn't mistreated, misguided, poor life or anything, he was 2nd in command to top shaman of horde, he had position and power, he was just evil, no other reason (like puss in bots wolf, he is flat out death, no metaphor or anything), something i miss in all wow villains, someone who is just flat out evil, no backstory, no 'because i see more danger u don't know' bullshit of 4d master jailor, he was evil
AU gave us a crap story of he was treated bad bohoo, we should feel 'sympathy' for him

I think of all villains in entire wow history since its creation, MU Gul'dan is top, he is evil for just being evil, he is selfish, he wants power and control and nothing will stop him, he will destroy anything at all and sell anyone just to get on top, he doesn't plan for revenge, he wasn't trying so hard that he got depressed and corrupted, no, he is pure evil, end

- - - Updated - - -

Agreed. We know the plan will fail. The only question is, how many people need to give their lives to get to the point where the villain fails?

and who should we care for if he die by now? By legion end, we fought titan, so unless they bring someone who fought titan and eternal and pretty much everything and still lived beside us players, it doesn't matter since however that is, he wasn't going to make a dent to stop the destruction
wow made us players reach beyond godhood status of power, i don't see Thrall anymore as strongest shaman, my XXX_ipwngnoms_XXX goblin shaman is lorewise way more powerful than Thrall ever was, so I don't even need Thrall's help to stop anything, I'm a mawwalker, a world shaman, Doomhammer and every artifact u can think about user, titan and eternal slayer, the only one whose death may actually benefit the villain is me the player and only me, anyone else 'death' is irrelevant

[VinceVega]

I like them too.

They don't really stand out, and i don't think they will become very memorable. But they don't annoy me either.
Iridikron will probably be the endboss of the expansion after he succumbs to the void.
Icelady will maybe turn around after her two friends become voidy.

Problem with many of wows villians is that they don't react. Everything they do was a plan from start to finish and they don't deviate.
Jailor would have been a cool villian if it didn't feel like he knew everything in advance and could perfectly predict thousands of years but not the final stand where we killed him?
If he would have just reacted to whatever happend it would have been a completly different story.
Endgoal is there. Ok. We make a plan. Plans never survive so we have to adapt. But he never had to adapt. Everything he did worked until we killed him.
And we still have no idea why he did it in the first place.
Like a perfect Project Manager. Make a plan. Stick to it no matter what. It works. And in the end everybody is pissed and we need a new project manager.

The power ranger dragons on the other hand are just pissed and want to fuck up the dragons. Razageth wanted to free her siblings. There is no 1Million IQ plan behind it. Just smash!!!
Same with Arthas. There never was anything... complicated about the Lich King. Just "I am undead. And i want you to become undead aswell. You want to? No? Well that was a retoric question anyway."
Garrosh aswell. He was just a raging racist asshole who wanted everyone to submit and make the orcs great again. Preferably via genocide.
Guldan was... more on the line of the jailor with the whole possess Illidans body for big-fel-daddy scheme but i felt more natural than 4D CHess.

The TBC villians... well... they have been done dirty anyway.

In the end wow is working better with something staightforward. As do all MMOs. Difficult plans don't work really because the player cannot react to anything. MMOs are very railroaded by nature.

[Auxis]

I like the Incarnates. They give me Red Lotus vibes (Legend of Korra antagonists).

Granted we don't know much about them, but the Aspects acknowledge them as a threat. The Incarnates themselves don't underestimate us and are actively trying to gain power.

I'm still a bit confused about why the Titanforged/Aspects decided to seal 3 of them in the same prison complex, while Razsageth was just behind a magically sealed door. Not the sharpest idea I've heard, NGL.

[Wangming]

and who should we care for if he die by now? By legion end, we fought titan, so unless they bring someone who fought titan and eternal and pretty much everything and still lived beside us players, it doesn't matter since however that is, he wasn't going to make a dent to stop the destruction
wow made us players reach beyond godhood status of power, i don't see Thrall anymore as strongest shaman, my XXX_ipwngnoms_XXX goblin shaman is lorewise way more powerful than Thrall ever was, so I don't even need Thrall's help to stop anything, I'm a mawwalker, a world shaman, Doomhammer and every artifact u can think about user, titan and eternal slayer, the only one whose death may actually benefit the villain is me the player and only me, anyone else 'death' is irrelevant

This is again something Final Fantasy XIV does well. You aren't sent against Primals because you are stronger than an archon. But you have the echo and that protects you from tempering.

Also, the story takes time for small character models so you can care about NPCs on a personal level. They don't just grunt a few words before sending you into dungeons to clear them.

- - - Updated - - -

I'm still a bit confused about why the Titanforged/Aspects decided to seal 3 of them in the same prison complex, while Razsageth was just behind a magically sealed door. Not the sharpest idea I've heard, NGL.

Because the plot needed to happen.

[Eon Drache]

Iridikron himself may be the more traditional serious strong man villain type and would be boring by himself - but he's got ice lady with the cold demeanor, and the more unhinged impatient dude ready to blaze things up.

The fact that you can describe them as "Serious Strong man", "Ice Lady with the cold demeanor", and "Unhinged dude ready to blaze things up" means they are kind of generic. They are all 3 tropes in villians that are common in gaming. Oh look, strong guy with a plan, Ice lady gives you the cold shoulder, and fire guy that is hotheaded. Sorry, it is about as generic as you get.

[ThatsOurEric]

Uh...how, exactly? They're just Rags 2.0

Rags yelled out memes and was thoroughly forgotten.

These guys at least look cooler (Not that Rags doesn't, but I like their look more), and they at least have distinct
personalities and opportunities to flesh out more of themselves.

[Skytotem]

The fact that you can describe them as "Serious Strong man", "Ice Lady with the cold demeanor", and "Unhinged dude ready to blaze things up" means they are kind of generic. They are all 3 tropes in villians that are common in gaming. Oh look, strong guy with a plan, Ice lady gives you the cold shoulder, and fire guy that is hotheaded. Sorry, it is about as generic as you get.

The interesting bit with Iridikron is he had the most 'controlled' display of power out of all of them. He didn't crush the earth elementals with an avalanche or a boulder or a giant fist of stone, he just... atomized them since they were made out of the element he controlled.

[Al Gorefiend]

They're anime villains, of the most generic kind. No real motivation, nothing discernible beyond "we're bad guys, and we're gonna do bad things!", no real cohesive story to slot into. Sure the design of their vision forms is interesting and they look kinda cool, but in terms of narrative, this is about as bland as it gets.

I guess it's the development time lag to blame for them not learning anything from the Jailer fiasco. Mystery is one thing, but if you don't make people CARE in some substantial way, then you can't really generate investment into stories or fates. Blizzard is really kinda bad at this. They think "the world is gonna end, you guys!" is somehow enough as a narrative driver, but the fact that this has been the case for decades now really kind of makes it ring hollow. Villains like Arthas or the Legion at least had a legacy of previous storylines that gave you an idea about what they were like and what they were all about, but the new villains they've introduced since have really never risen above the level of Generic Big Bad - for all the attempts at making the Jailer into this 4D-chess mastermind behind every event in the WC universe, it never actually went anywhere. We never found out what he was after or was doing, exactly; all we got was more generic one-liners in the vein of he'll remake reality, he'll enslave us all, yada yada. And they have not managed to rise above that in DF, not even close.

This is why Sylvanas was a good villain and she was wasted. It's a character we've known since WC3 and throughout WoW. Her descent into evil madness would have felt so tragic yet relatable to us players. Everything from the lament of the highborne quest to Wrathgate to Gilneas, we knew her motives and the pain she felt. It's such a shame they ruined the character by taking it in such a wild direction then abandoning the idea and effectively writing her out of the story. She had the groundwork to be a recurring antagonist or final boss of the game, not necessarily because she has power to rival Sargeras but because of how personal it would have felt.

[Soon-TM]

Uh...how, exactly? They're just Rags 2.0

Raggy had at least an interesting buildup, with all those crazy DI dwarves worshipping him and the story ties with WC2, not to mention those cool heavy metal looks.

But these primalist dudes/dudettes are as generic as generic can get. Oh look, there is a strong dude with a plan and a more "down to earth" (kek) attitude, you have this icy, disdainful gal and the fiery hot-headed guy. Boy it does sound like a pun, and a quite bad one while we're at it... If this bunch is better than Nipple Boi (which frankly isn't too high of a bar to begin with), it's just because their scope is much more limited, instead of the Blue Man's cosmic 5D chess.

[Polyxo]

I think they're visually very cool. So far they're mostly just bad guys who want to destroy stuff. However, they are kind of hinting at the good guys (meaning the aspects and the titans) are much less good than they've been presented, and that could be interesting.