Originally Posted by
Kaleredar
Ozumat, the FIEND OF THE DARK BELOW is a giant, underwater swimming Kraken. And Things are very dark at the bottom of the ocean.
Have you met "us?" We freakin' charged into the Lich King's citadel... and won. We raided the prisons of Old Gods... and won. We are the HEROES of Azeroth. Anything we run into... we win.
*pre-expansion event*
1)Legion invades
2) Oh noez! We need to push them back to where they're invading from.
3) Huzzah! We banded together and did so! But the portal is still open!
4) We'd best push inside the portal to end their threat... because if we don't... they're just going to keep freakin' attacking from the portal.
*Queue expansion*
5) Lots of awesome fighting and raiding Argus
6) We defeated Kil'jaeden and dismantled the Legion's presence! The portal's powers are waning!
7) END OF EXPANSION
...had we failed to stop any of the bad stuff in the final patches from happening, the world would have been doomed. That's just kind of how it goes.
I edited my post to account for both Hyjal AND Dragon Soul... In the first case, Hyjal was a shameless loregasm plugged in for that reason and that reason alone. In the case of Dragon Soul... yeah, Blizzard didn't get too great of feedback about that, now did they?
Everyone knows the Naga are the Old God's minions... did you happen to play through Vashj'ir?
And Wrathion "not caring about the old gods?" Did you do any of the Rogue Legendary quest chain? He bloody hates them. The Old Gods tried to kill him, remember?
Because Wrathion KNOWS what they are, and that they're evil.
Because he isn't an idiot.
The old gods don't want to "save Azeroth," I think End Time was painfully clear of that.
Why the hell would they cram that in WITH Azshara AND N'zoth?
Yeah, but we also don't need to weirdly smear them around in expansions they don't belong in, as you seem to propose.
WoW expansions go like this:
1) Something big happens (The Shattering, Arthas' invasion, Demons from the Dark portal, discovering Pandaria.) A single big bad presents himself. (Or blizzard tells us, with the case of Garrosh)
2) We move in to do stuff there (Dismantle Deathwing's forces, push into Northrend, push into Outland, begin settling Pandaria)
3) We fight bad guys that are related to any of the main story points established, generally following similar story arcs (Fighting Deathwing's Lieutenants, Fighting the Lich King, dismantling Illidan and fighting the Burning Legion, killing the Sha and related forces)
4) Intermittently, we might fight threats that are also in those regions, but aren't as immidiately dire or well-established (Lei'shen, Yogg-Saron)
5) We then fight the big bad guy
The ONLY exception to this was Illidan not being built up well and being in the first raid patch, which Blizzard has SAID they regret.
You're proposing:
1) Bad stuff happens (N'zoth and Azshara related)
2) We go to fight them
3) Wrathion randomly flips his shit somewhere in there
4) We defeat N'zoth and Azshara's forces, everything is looking cool and...
5) Just kidding, Legion invades!
6) Legion is repelled without anything else happening.
7) END EXPANSION
N'zoth, and Azshara for that matter, are much too powerful to be sidelined as little "interim" bosses. They don't serve the Burning Legion, nor are they casually related to them being the "final bad guys" of the expansion.