Blizzard has worked hard to be a company that people have a certain loyalty to. While WoW has always remained my primary interest with them as a company, I've tried out Diablo, Starcraft, and other titles of theirs largely due to the sense of their commitment to quality.
Eleven years ago, Blizzard merged with Activision, and many worried this would mean the exact sort of thing we've seen recently, with as many as 800 people losing their jobs despite the fact that the company had record profits in the last fiscal year.
I don't pretend to know how to run a game development/publishing company, but that seems backward and does not do much to dispel the sense that there's a mercenary level of corporate greed at work here.
Blizzard's success of course ebbs and flows, and different titles have their days in the sun. My concern for their titles is of course based more in a critical approach rather than raw numbers. They stopped publishing subscriber numbers for WoW after they started to dip from their late-Wrath/early-Cataclysm high, but from a subjective point of view, I think that Legion was the best expansion they ever came out with. As a player, even if I find Battle for Azeroth a lackluster follow-up to Legion (which, to be fair, was a hell of a tough act to follow, and it's still a hell of a lot better than Warlords of Draenor) I have had faith that we'd continue to get interesting stuff that makes the game worth playing.
The staff cuts have been primarily in marketing, it appears, and other "non-developmental" roles. This is admittedly a fuzzy subject for an industry outsider to comment on. But I do think that the identity that Blizzard has built is largely due to the efforts of some very skilled marketers.
It also appears that much of the games' support staff is being cut as well, and that to me is a huge red flag.
One of the reasons for my loyalty with Blizzard has been their fantastic customer support. It might take a while, but when I've had issues with WoW, GMs have always been incredibly helpful and responsive and willing to stick with the problem until it is solved. Beyond the quality of the games, this is one of the things that has always given me a positive impression of Blizzard as a company.
I don't think they're going to be cancelling any of their major titles as a result of this, but I do really worry that one of gaming's legends is putting short-term profits ahead of long-term quality, and that's never a good strategy.
My heart goes out to the people who have lost their jobs. I know for many of them it was probably a dream to work for a company that has earned such good will from its fans, and getting canned for no good reason must feel like an intense betrayal.
This blog started as a WoW blog, and while it has diversified (largely as I've learned to obsess over other games) I still want WoW and Blizzard in general to be something I can root for and enjoy playing. Seeing stuff like this adds a bit of bitterness to that experience.
Tuesday, February 12, 2019
Tuesday, January 29, 2019
N'zoth and Threat-Shifting in the Warcraft Cosmos
For a very long time, Sargeras was the big bad of the Warcraft universe. His goal was to burn the universe to charcoal with demonic fire, and it's not hard to understand why we would want to fight such a guy.
But as we learned more about his motivations, Sargeras started to feel less like a pure evil and more of a seriously misguided extremist. Sargeras encountered the Old Gods and was so disgusted that he was willing to enlist the second-most-evil things he had ever encountered and team up with them. Sure, he took a very "we burned the village down in order to save it" approach to his mission, but one gets the sense that he truly believed that he was trying to accomplish the lesser of two evils.
So what's interesting is that there are hints now that even the Void and the Old Gods have their own oddly reasonable motivations.
The Void and its ilk are the Lovecraftian faction in the Warcraft cosmos - all unknowable and unbelievably ancient - a power that one should avoid meddling with as it is so much larger than us that we could never really harness it without succumbing to it.
We've actually gotten a little more clarification on the Void versus the Light and how there are actually some ways in which one could see them as less obviously good versus evil.
The names suggest that they represent existence and non-existence. And in a way, both are necessary for there to be anything of meaning. If every single space is filled with light, then it's just one undifferentiated mass - not much different than a perfect vacuous void.
Yet in truth, what they really represent is fate versus fatelessness. The Light is all about a single truth and ignores all other possibilities while the Void believes that there is no fundamental difference between truth or lies - that all things are true, and nothing is.
Despite its name, the Void is not about ending all things. It's actually about creating a whole lot of new things - just that those things, comprising all possibilities, include every nightmarish thing you could possibly imagine.
But then there's death.
Death embodies the downfall of life and the concept of universal entropic decay.
If you've ever heard about the concept in physics called the Heat Death of the Universe, this might ring a bell. Essentially (and I am by no means a physicist who could really get into the nuances here,) physical law seems to say that over time, entropy increases. A process that creates entropy will happen more easily than one that reduces it (or maybe it's that you can't reduce entropy in one area without creating more than what you reduced in another area.) Entropy is basically the number of states a system can be in - higher entropy means more potential states.
While that would seem to be freeing and very Void-friendly, what it actually means is that the universe is moving every forward toward a state in which things are done doing anything.
Consider the idea that things have energy stored within them. You lift something from the ground, and you are imbuing it with the energy to fall back down. Entropic decay is (again, not a physicist here) the idea that, whatever route it takes to get there, everything has finally fallen to its ultimate resting point. All the things that could have happened have happened, and the only energy you have left is random, meaningless bouncing against each other - aka heat.
Death, in the Warcraft cosmos, is ultimately a force that leads toward this kind of stasis. Nothing really lives and nothing really dies. A world conquered by death is one in which the same undead creatures wander the same unchanging landscape for eternity. It's actually a lot like the era before the Age of Fire in the Dark Souls cosmos.
It's something that came up when we were fighting the Scourge - you could have asked what Arthas' end goals were, but the fact is that the Scourge doesn't really want to accomplish anything except ensure that it endures. If Arthas had won, his plan was presumably to rule over a dead and unchanging Azeroth for the rest of time.
And you know what? Doesn't that sound a lot like what Sylvanas is shooting for? The Forsaken were once dynamic - they had the goal of revenge against Arthas but also the goal of restoring themselves to true life. There has been very little progress made on the latter and the former was accomplished ten years ago.
The Desolate Council decided that if they couldn't return to life, maybe it was all right to simply let themselves die off over time and allow the living to reclaim Lordaeron - they might not live to see Lordaeron restored, but as living humans, they hadn't expected to live forever anyway.
But Sylvanas - notably after being raised by the Val'kyr, whose motivations are very mysterious - instead shifted her mission from revenge and restoration to perpetuating the Forsaken. No longer lamenting her cursed state, she now envisions herself and her people continuing to exist in their undead state forever - and if the only way to secure that future is converting all of humanity (and maybe the rest of the living as well) to undead, she's ok with it. And that, my friends, sounds pretty much like the Lich King.
The Void does not want stagnancy - they want every opportunity for new truths to form.
But Death seeks stability through stagnation.
And now, the Light kind of does too.
In Before the Storm, we saw Anduin and Alonsus Faol channel the light to raise Calia Menethil (sister to Arthas and arguably the rightful Queen of Lordaeron) as a kind of light-bound undead.
Historically, the Light has abhorred undeath. Paladins were the main opponents to the Scourge, and it was a miracle of the Light that freed Tirion to destroy Frostmourne before Arthas could raise us as his champions of death.
And yet, the Light and Death are two forces that do kind of aim for similar things. The Light wants order and truth - a single truth - and to see all living things connected to it. In the Light, we are One - something Maraad says as he dies, somehow using his own Divine Shield to protect Y'rel (who then becomes a much more zealous advocate of the Light 30 years down the road.) The Light immortalizes people - look at how Turalyon has basically not aged in his thousand-year time warp.
The Light seeks for things to remain, stalwart and unchanging. And Death seeks to end change as well.
And now we have a light-based undead Calia Menethil.
Now, is either side really wrong? There is horror to both the Void's nightmarish chaos but also Light and Death's unyielding permanence.
I feel more confident every day that N'zoth will be Battle for Azeroth's final boss. But I'm also feeling much more confident that his defeat will cause even bigger problems for us.
Basically, expect Death to play a big role in the expansion that comes next (which, hey! Should be announced this year!)
But as we learned more about his motivations, Sargeras started to feel less like a pure evil and more of a seriously misguided extremist. Sargeras encountered the Old Gods and was so disgusted that he was willing to enlist the second-most-evil things he had ever encountered and team up with them. Sure, he took a very "we burned the village down in order to save it" approach to his mission, but one gets the sense that he truly believed that he was trying to accomplish the lesser of two evils.
So what's interesting is that there are hints now that even the Void and the Old Gods have their own oddly reasonable motivations.
The Void and its ilk are the Lovecraftian faction in the Warcraft cosmos - all unknowable and unbelievably ancient - a power that one should avoid meddling with as it is so much larger than us that we could never really harness it without succumbing to it.
We've actually gotten a little more clarification on the Void versus the Light and how there are actually some ways in which one could see them as less obviously good versus evil.
The names suggest that they represent existence and non-existence. And in a way, both are necessary for there to be anything of meaning. If every single space is filled with light, then it's just one undifferentiated mass - not much different than a perfect vacuous void.
Yet in truth, what they really represent is fate versus fatelessness. The Light is all about a single truth and ignores all other possibilities while the Void believes that there is no fundamental difference between truth or lies - that all things are true, and nothing is.
Despite its name, the Void is not about ending all things. It's actually about creating a whole lot of new things - just that those things, comprising all possibilities, include every nightmarish thing you could possibly imagine.
But then there's death.
Death embodies the downfall of life and the concept of universal entropic decay.
If you've ever heard about the concept in physics called the Heat Death of the Universe, this might ring a bell. Essentially (and I am by no means a physicist who could really get into the nuances here,) physical law seems to say that over time, entropy increases. A process that creates entropy will happen more easily than one that reduces it (or maybe it's that you can't reduce entropy in one area without creating more than what you reduced in another area.) Entropy is basically the number of states a system can be in - higher entropy means more potential states.
While that would seem to be freeing and very Void-friendly, what it actually means is that the universe is moving every forward toward a state in which things are done doing anything.
Consider the idea that things have energy stored within them. You lift something from the ground, and you are imbuing it with the energy to fall back down. Entropic decay is (again, not a physicist here) the idea that, whatever route it takes to get there, everything has finally fallen to its ultimate resting point. All the things that could have happened have happened, and the only energy you have left is random, meaningless bouncing against each other - aka heat.
Death, in the Warcraft cosmos, is ultimately a force that leads toward this kind of stasis. Nothing really lives and nothing really dies. A world conquered by death is one in which the same undead creatures wander the same unchanging landscape for eternity. It's actually a lot like the era before the Age of Fire in the Dark Souls cosmos.
It's something that came up when we were fighting the Scourge - you could have asked what Arthas' end goals were, but the fact is that the Scourge doesn't really want to accomplish anything except ensure that it endures. If Arthas had won, his plan was presumably to rule over a dead and unchanging Azeroth for the rest of time.
And you know what? Doesn't that sound a lot like what Sylvanas is shooting for? The Forsaken were once dynamic - they had the goal of revenge against Arthas but also the goal of restoring themselves to true life. There has been very little progress made on the latter and the former was accomplished ten years ago.
The Desolate Council decided that if they couldn't return to life, maybe it was all right to simply let themselves die off over time and allow the living to reclaim Lordaeron - they might not live to see Lordaeron restored, but as living humans, they hadn't expected to live forever anyway.
But Sylvanas - notably after being raised by the Val'kyr, whose motivations are very mysterious - instead shifted her mission from revenge and restoration to perpetuating the Forsaken. No longer lamenting her cursed state, she now envisions herself and her people continuing to exist in their undead state forever - and if the only way to secure that future is converting all of humanity (and maybe the rest of the living as well) to undead, she's ok with it. And that, my friends, sounds pretty much like the Lich King.
The Void does not want stagnancy - they want every opportunity for new truths to form.
But Death seeks stability through stagnation.
And now, the Light kind of does too.
In Before the Storm, we saw Anduin and Alonsus Faol channel the light to raise Calia Menethil (sister to Arthas and arguably the rightful Queen of Lordaeron) as a kind of light-bound undead.
Historically, the Light has abhorred undeath. Paladins were the main opponents to the Scourge, and it was a miracle of the Light that freed Tirion to destroy Frostmourne before Arthas could raise us as his champions of death.
And yet, the Light and Death are two forces that do kind of aim for similar things. The Light wants order and truth - a single truth - and to see all living things connected to it. In the Light, we are One - something Maraad says as he dies, somehow using his own Divine Shield to protect Y'rel (who then becomes a much more zealous advocate of the Light 30 years down the road.) The Light immortalizes people - look at how Turalyon has basically not aged in his thousand-year time warp.
The Light seeks for things to remain, stalwart and unchanging. And Death seeks to end change as well.
And now we have a light-based undead Calia Menethil.
Now, is either side really wrong? There is horror to both the Void's nightmarish chaos but also Light and Death's unyielding permanence.
I feel more confident every day that N'zoth will be Battle for Azeroth's final boss. But I'm also feeling much more confident that his defeat will cause even bigger problems for us.
Basically, expect Death to play a big role in the expansion that comes next (which, hey! Should be announced this year!)
Get that Piranha Plant!
Do you own Super Smash Bros. Ultimate?
Then you can get the Piranha Plant as a fighter when it releases next month!
But it's not automatic, so here's a PSA:
If you bought a physical copy of the game, you'll need to register it on the My Nintendo site.
If you got a digital version (like I did,) you're automatically registered.
In either case, check your email and you should find a code that you can enter into the Switch's eShop. Redeem it and you'll have the fighter when it comes out!
I think you only have until the end of the month to get the code, but you have until the end of June to enter it (though why wait?)
If you enter it now, the new fighter should be added when it goes live.
(I've also got the Smash pass, so I should be getting all the DLC fighters as they come out.)
Then you can get the Piranha Plant as a fighter when it releases next month!
But it's not automatic, so here's a PSA:
If you bought a physical copy of the game, you'll need to register it on the My Nintendo site.
If you got a digital version (like I did,) you're automatically registered.
In either case, check your email and you should find a code that you can enter into the Switch's eShop. Redeem it and you'll have the fighter when it comes out!
I think you only have until the end of the month to get the code, but you have until the end of June to enter it (though why wait?)
If you enter it now, the new fighter should be added when it goes live.
(I've also got the Smash pass, so I should be getting all the DLC fighters as they come out.)
Sunday, January 27, 2019
The Dimir Observer - Ravnica Headcanon
One of these days I've got to run a Ravnica-set campaign.
As you'll know if you've read this blog, House Dimir is my favorite Ravnica guild (if you've read my fiction, you could have probably guessed that.)
While the Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica gives you a great jumping-off point for creating a campaign in the setting, DMs will certainly need to fill in some details. So here's one I came up with:
House Dimir is, as we all know from being outside the narrative, basically Ravnica's Illuminati-like ancient conspiracy. But since the events of the first Ravnica block (which, canonically for GGtR, was about 70 years ago - Teysa is looking real good for her age) the existence of House Dimir is now public knowledge (in fact, I believe that reveal is actually what invalidated the original Guildpact.)
And so the Dimir must now have a public face.
That face is an affiliation of librarians, booksellers, private investigators, and in some interpretations (mine included,) journalists.
Ravnica is not a totally medieval setting - the work of the Izzet League has given the city some modern conveniences, like elevators and mass transit (I think there's canonically a subway.)
And while the internet is changing the way that journalism works, one modern(ish) thing to add there is a major newspaper.
So in my version of Ravnica, the most prominent and prestigious newspaper is the Dimir Observer.
The Observer would basically be the New York Times of Ravnica - it's the most prominent journalistic publication in the city, and the one that people generally trust the most. Indeed, most citizens probably think of House Dimir as "that guild that runs the Observer."
I should also note that my take on House Dimir is more of a True Neutral guild than Neutral Evil.
So the Observer would be the paper that everyone reads - if you want some big bit of exposition for your party, you can say that everyone's reading a bombshell article in the Observer.
Given Dimir's capacity for infiltration, it makes sense that they'd have the best investigative journalism, with contacts (who might in fact be Dimir operatives) close to the powerful people in every guild.
Even though the Dimir are obsessed with their own secrecy, they are also ravenous for the secrets of others. Maybe that sometimes takes the form of exposing others.
My sense is that Lazav and other prominent Dimir leaders would have editorial control over the Observer, but exposing the right secrets could be a massively powerful tool for the Dimir to influence the public. It also allows for more idealistic and altruistic player characters to be undercover journalists who work for the Observer.
Of course, my sense is that 99% of what House Dimir does is build up resources and advantages, rarely taking advantage of their assets, and only when it is crucial to accomplishing their goals (that goal most often being to secure additional assets and influence.) As such, in most cases you really can trust the Observer to be telling the truth. The whole point is that they want the public to trust the Observer, and the best way to get them to do that is to just have very solid, professional journalism done right.
But if Lazav gives the order, the Observer can and would run a false story in order to manipulate the public when it serves House Dimir's goals. Similarly, while the Observer probably exposes countless Orzhov conspiracies, Azorius rights violations, or Golgari plots, House Dimir remains its one clear and intentional blind spot. Observer reporters are great at infiltrating other guilds, but the Observer only reveals aspects of House Dimir if the story serves a clear (and usually misleading) purpose for Dimir ends.
As you'll know if you've read this blog, House Dimir is my favorite Ravnica guild (if you've read my fiction, you could have probably guessed that.)
While the Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica gives you a great jumping-off point for creating a campaign in the setting, DMs will certainly need to fill in some details. So here's one I came up with:
House Dimir is, as we all know from being outside the narrative, basically Ravnica's Illuminati-like ancient conspiracy. But since the events of the first Ravnica block (which, canonically for GGtR, was about 70 years ago - Teysa is looking real good for her age) the existence of House Dimir is now public knowledge (in fact, I believe that reveal is actually what invalidated the original Guildpact.)
And so the Dimir must now have a public face.
That face is an affiliation of librarians, booksellers, private investigators, and in some interpretations (mine included,) journalists.
Ravnica is not a totally medieval setting - the work of the Izzet League has given the city some modern conveniences, like elevators and mass transit (I think there's canonically a subway.)
And while the internet is changing the way that journalism works, one modern(ish) thing to add there is a major newspaper.
So in my version of Ravnica, the most prominent and prestigious newspaper is the Dimir Observer.
The Observer would basically be the New York Times of Ravnica - it's the most prominent journalistic publication in the city, and the one that people generally trust the most. Indeed, most citizens probably think of House Dimir as "that guild that runs the Observer."
I should also note that my take on House Dimir is more of a True Neutral guild than Neutral Evil.
So the Observer would be the paper that everyone reads - if you want some big bit of exposition for your party, you can say that everyone's reading a bombshell article in the Observer.
Given Dimir's capacity for infiltration, it makes sense that they'd have the best investigative journalism, with contacts (who might in fact be Dimir operatives) close to the powerful people in every guild.
Even though the Dimir are obsessed with their own secrecy, they are also ravenous for the secrets of others. Maybe that sometimes takes the form of exposing others.
My sense is that Lazav and other prominent Dimir leaders would have editorial control over the Observer, but exposing the right secrets could be a massively powerful tool for the Dimir to influence the public. It also allows for more idealistic and altruistic player characters to be undercover journalists who work for the Observer.
Of course, my sense is that 99% of what House Dimir does is build up resources and advantages, rarely taking advantage of their assets, and only when it is crucial to accomplishing their goals (that goal most often being to secure additional assets and influence.) As such, in most cases you really can trust the Observer to be telling the truth. The whole point is that they want the public to trust the Observer, and the best way to get them to do that is to just have very solid, professional journalism done right.
But if Lazav gives the order, the Observer can and would run a false story in order to manipulate the public when it serves House Dimir's goals. Similarly, while the Observer probably exposes countless Orzhov conspiracies, Azorius rights violations, or Golgari plots, House Dimir remains its one clear and intentional blind spot. Observer reporters are great at infiltrating other guilds, but the Observer only reveals aspects of House Dimir if the story serves a clear (and usually misleading) purpose for Dimir ends.
First Look at Dazar'Alor
My guild, after months of no raiding, waltzed into the Battle of Dazar'alor raid this first week and...
Got curb-stomped by the first boss.
Now, part of it is that WoW is not registering my mic, which is a pain when you're typically the guild's raid leader and main tank. But this champion of the light fight (we're Alliance, so it was a troll paladin - which is a thing for Zandalari, and that's pretty cool) has a LOT going on.
First off, you've got a boss that stacks up the tank-swap debuff at a pretty fast clip. Next you have one add that can disorient the whole raid (oh, and that makes the boss drop aggro on the tank while they're disoriented.) There are a million other nasty things that the boss does, and so it's a bit of a wall to start with.
Granted, we only got about halfway through Uldir, so we might go back and finish that (and shake off the raiding rust.) And hopefully I'll figure out a way for the voice chat to work for me!
Anyway, Dazar'alor is interesting in that, rather than an ending cinematic, there's an intro one (and one in the middle after Rastakhan.)
We get a pretty awesome cutscene from the Alliance perspective in which Jaina brings her fleet in and Gelbin Mekkatorque gets a heroic moment after it looks like he's dead.
As great as it is to see the Alliance get a win (and yes, it's a bit of a qualified win, but not nearly as subverted as Undercity had been) it's also pretty clear that what we're doing is really just laying the groundwork for N'zoth.
Got curb-stomped by the first boss.
Now, part of it is that WoW is not registering my mic, which is a pain when you're typically the guild's raid leader and main tank. But this champion of the light fight (we're Alliance, so it was a troll paladin - which is a thing for Zandalari, and that's pretty cool) has a LOT going on.
First off, you've got a boss that stacks up the tank-swap debuff at a pretty fast clip. Next you have one add that can disorient the whole raid (oh, and that makes the boss drop aggro on the tank while they're disoriented.) There are a million other nasty things that the boss does, and so it's a bit of a wall to start with.
Granted, we only got about halfway through Uldir, so we might go back and finish that (and shake off the raiding rust.) And hopefully I'll figure out a way for the voice chat to work for me!
Anyway, Dazar'alor is interesting in that, rather than an ending cinematic, there's an intro one (and one in the middle after Rastakhan.)
We get a pretty awesome cutscene from the Alliance perspective in which Jaina brings her fleet in and Gelbin Mekkatorque gets a heroic moment after it looks like he's dead.
As great as it is to see the Alliance get a win (and yes, it's a bit of a qualified win, but not nearly as subverted as Undercity had been) it's also pretty clear that what we're doing is really just laying the groundwork for N'zoth.
Friday, January 25, 2019
Metroid Prime 4 Development Restarting
The Metroid Prime series, which began on the Gamecube with its first two installments and then went to the Wii for the third and seemingly final part of the trilogy, was a surprisingly effective translation of a side-scrolling exploration/platforming/action game into a first-person-shooter. When a fourth game was announced for the Switch, fans were pretty excited.
Well, it seems there have been some development problems at Nintendo, and while the game is not cancelled, they've effectively scrapped what they had before and are going back to square one.
One piece of news in all this that could be seen as a positive is that Retro Studios, the American game studio that did the original trilogy, will be the ones making it this time around. I don't know if the same people are there (game three came out what, ten years ago?) But nailing the feel of the older games could make for a better experience.
Metroid is one of the big Nintendo franchises, but it has never been quite as ubiquitous as Mario or Zelda. There was no N64 Metroid game, nor was there one for the Wii U (I think...?)
My hope here is that we'll be able to see this release on the Switch eventually and not have to wait for the next console generation.
Well, it seems there have been some development problems at Nintendo, and while the game is not cancelled, they've effectively scrapped what they had before and are going back to square one.
One piece of news in all this that could be seen as a positive is that Retro Studios, the American game studio that did the original trilogy, will be the ones making it this time around. I don't know if the same people are there (game three came out what, ten years ago?) But nailing the feel of the older games could make for a better experience.
Metroid is one of the big Nintendo franchises, but it has never been quite as ubiquitous as Mario or Zelda. There was no N64 Metroid game, nor was there one for the Wii U (I think...?)
My hope here is that we'll be able to see this release on the Switch eventually and not have to wait for the next console generation.
Thursday, January 24, 2019
N'zoth, Sylvanas, and BFA's Endgame
The Battle for Dazar'alor is likely to be the biggest major battle of the current Alliance/Horde war, at least if the war does not continue into the next expansion.
Given expansion cycles, to get meta for a moment, we've had our intro raid with Uldir, we're getting a Trial-of-Valor-like Mini raid in Crucible of Storms, and that leaves the Azshara raid in 8.2 and then presumably some final raid at the end of the expansion (Ny'alotha is my bet, but I'm getting ahead of myself.)
It's been pretty clear from the start that there's something going on beneath the surface (no pun intended) in this war. There are a lot of factions and players involved outside of Big Red and Big Blue. In the Dazar'alor raid, we see Bwonsamdi's takeover of the Zandalari royal line fully actualized (the finger he points when he directs Talanji to pursue the Alliance is a fantastic moment of visual storytelling.)
We know Bwonsamdi has his own boss, and that thread remains shrouded in mystery (it seems like a next-expansion hook to me,) but what is also quite clear is that N'zoth has been active as well.
SPOILERS AHOY
In the run-up to the Crucible of Storms mini-raid, players recover Xal'atath, the Blade of the Black Empire. Shadow Priests during Legion were intimately familiar with this weapon, as it was their artifact weapon. But now everyone gets to interact with it, and the sentience that had been trapped within.
There are four major Old Gods in Warcraft canon, but it turns out that there was at least one more that appears to have never attained the levels of power that Y'Shaarj, Yogg-Saron, C'thun, or N'zoth did. Defeated by her "brothers," Xal'atath was trapped within the blade and forced to serve the other Old Gods through it. In the Crucible of Storms quests, we actually allow Xal'atath to manifest outside of the knife, taking the form of a female void elf.
It would seem that Xal'atath is the Warcraft equivalent of Nyarlathotep - manifesting in a human (or humanoid) form, and so we find ourselves walking alongside and aiding this eldritch abomination that looks like an elf woman as she offers to help us fight against the Naga forces in Stormsong Valley.
In truth, however, she uses us (not really a shocker) to help open the way for N'zoth - whatever that means. Despite the fact that they were clearly once rivals, they enact their bargain, and N'zoth actually "blesses" us with his gift in thanks, allowing us to see the thousand truths.
His only request is that she leave the dagger behind, which she does as she steps into the void.
So this confirms that the dagger and Xal'atath are not one and the same - it was her prison, not her body.
To my mind there are two clear possible final bosses for Battle for Azeroth - Sylvanas or N'zoth.
But we don't want a Garrosh 2.0 situation here, so I suspect that instead, Sylvanas will wind up doing something huge in our fight against N'zoth.
We know that in 7.2 Sylvanas wields the dagger - does she do so with N'zoth's permission, or does she steal it from him?
We know this dagger is capable of trapping an Old God within it. Yes, Xal'atath was probably never as strong as N'zoth, but what if?
What if Sylvanas uses the dagger to imprison N'zoth within it?
The implications are fascinating:
On one hand, it gives Sylvanas a world-saving move to take, which would force us to reevaluate her a bit. It doesn't erase the horrors that she has committed, but she proves herself valuable to Azeroth in a way that is hard to deny.
But also: the dagger was super-powerful when Xal'atath was trapped inside. What kind of absurd power might it hold if N'zoth were the one inside of it? (And could we get Darin dePaul's voice whispering to us for an expansion? Sidenote: I really wish that they'd use the creepily casual voice that he first uses to speak with Azshara more instead of the booming monster voice. C'thun's voice acting was always more compelling to me than that of Yogg-Saron. Let the Lich King have the lowest, scariest monster voice - it works for him.)
It's pretty clear to me that Xal'atath is being set up to be a major player in the future. If we go on another cosmic excusion - to K'aresh or some similar void-infested world - I could easily see Xal'atath returning to use us.
But I think we have a pretty strong "holy crap" moment that might occur at the end of the final raid of the expansion being set up quite nicely.
Given expansion cycles, to get meta for a moment, we've had our intro raid with Uldir, we're getting a Trial-of-Valor-like Mini raid in Crucible of Storms, and that leaves the Azshara raid in 8.2 and then presumably some final raid at the end of the expansion (Ny'alotha is my bet, but I'm getting ahead of myself.)
It's been pretty clear from the start that there's something going on beneath the surface (no pun intended) in this war. There are a lot of factions and players involved outside of Big Red and Big Blue. In the Dazar'alor raid, we see Bwonsamdi's takeover of the Zandalari royal line fully actualized (the finger he points when he directs Talanji to pursue the Alliance is a fantastic moment of visual storytelling.)
We know Bwonsamdi has his own boss, and that thread remains shrouded in mystery (it seems like a next-expansion hook to me,) but what is also quite clear is that N'zoth has been active as well.
SPOILERS AHOY
In the run-up to the Crucible of Storms mini-raid, players recover Xal'atath, the Blade of the Black Empire. Shadow Priests during Legion were intimately familiar with this weapon, as it was their artifact weapon. But now everyone gets to interact with it, and the sentience that had been trapped within.
There are four major Old Gods in Warcraft canon, but it turns out that there was at least one more that appears to have never attained the levels of power that Y'Shaarj, Yogg-Saron, C'thun, or N'zoth did. Defeated by her "brothers," Xal'atath was trapped within the blade and forced to serve the other Old Gods through it. In the Crucible of Storms quests, we actually allow Xal'atath to manifest outside of the knife, taking the form of a female void elf.
It would seem that Xal'atath is the Warcraft equivalent of Nyarlathotep - manifesting in a human (or humanoid) form, and so we find ourselves walking alongside and aiding this eldritch abomination that looks like an elf woman as she offers to help us fight against the Naga forces in Stormsong Valley.
In truth, however, she uses us (not really a shocker) to help open the way for N'zoth - whatever that means. Despite the fact that they were clearly once rivals, they enact their bargain, and N'zoth actually "blesses" us with his gift in thanks, allowing us to see the thousand truths.
His only request is that she leave the dagger behind, which she does as she steps into the void.
So this confirms that the dagger and Xal'atath are not one and the same - it was her prison, not her body.
To my mind there are two clear possible final bosses for Battle for Azeroth - Sylvanas or N'zoth.
But we don't want a Garrosh 2.0 situation here, so I suspect that instead, Sylvanas will wind up doing something huge in our fight against N'zoth.
We know that in 7.2 Sylvanas wields the dagger - does she do so with N'zoth's permission, or does she steal it from him?
We know this dagger is capable of trapping an Old God within it. Yes, Xal'atath was probably never as strong as N'zoth, but what if?
What if Sylvanas uses the dagger to imprison N'zoth within it?
The implications are fascinating:
On one hand, it gives Sylvanas a world-saving move to take, which would force us to reevaluate her a bit. It doesn't erase the horrors that she has committed, but she proves herself valuable to Azeroth in a way that is hard to deny.
But also: the dagger was super-powerful when Xal'atath was trapped inside. What kind of absurd power might it hold if N'zoth were the one inside of it? (And could we get Darin dePaul's voice whispering to us for an expansion? Sidenote: I really wish that they'd use the creepily casual voice that he first uses to speak with Azshara more instead of the booming monster voice. C'thun's voice acting was always more compelling to me than that of Yogg-Saron. Let the Lich King have the lowest, scariest monster voice - it works for him.)
It's pretty clear to me that Xal'atath is being set up to be a major player in the future. If we go on another cosmic excusion - to K'aresh or some similar void-infested world - I could easily see Xal'atath returning to use us.
But I think we have a pretty strong "holy crap" moment that might occur at the end of the final raid of the expansion being set up quite nicely.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)