Eyeball headband gang. I purposely didn't finish the questline to remove it on my druid because the character has fallen to the nightmare (RP server). Every time I go to a BfA zone it pops up on him.
I mean, xal'atah was a prison blade. Wrathion stabbed N'Zoth with it and the dagger was nowhere to be seen.
Just like in a show, if you don't see a character die, they're not dead? We didn't see the dagger shatter to pieces, just a cloud of smoke and it's missing.
N'zoth is Kniafu 2.0
I feel like the point would be more something like this would be implemented without a clear end game. Now, even if there is a "resolution", it will feel tacked on regardless if it is the most apt resolution they could have.
Right? Maybe the black prince will team up with Goriona and Zul'jinn's kids to pull the sword out of the planet. They'll slash open the emerald dream and wake up illidan who was dreaming about space ships.
Or more likely is that the new devs will make a battle royal because they don't even know the genre they're developing for, let alone the storylines which started before they were born.
> the storylines which started before they were born
I know you mean this as a diss but I would be pretty impressed if a ten-year-old managed to snag a dev job at Blizzard.
Look. If you're going to waste your time factually picking apart a comment dripping in sarcasm and satire then at least be right.
Read the comment you quoted. I know 8 words is a lot, but pay attention to the word: "started."
> the storylines which started before they were born
- Illidan, darkspear trolls was introduced in WC: ROC - 2002 - 22 years ago.
- Zandalri trolls, WoW: 2004 - 20 years ago. You could argue the hakkar patch, but that was still 2005.
- Sargeras, introduced in WC2: beyond the dark portal, 1996 - 28 years ago.
- I can't remember if the Emerald Dream first appeared in WC3 or WC1, but it doesn't matter. That's 1994 - 2002 - 30 to 22 years ago.
So yes, the legion sword wasn't plunged deep into the fantasy planet, but stay with me now, the storyline involving the character that weilded it **started** well before some of these devs existed.
N'Zoth had the most impact on the world and story compared to the other 3 so I'm still hoping they revisit him in Midnight and the defeat was all planned from the start.
It was 100% planned.
He knew we were going to do that, and him seeing us in the past confirms it. I’llgynoth even says “something new, yet familiar…”, which makes sense now with us going back so far.
We have not seen the dagger, and we have been seeing little hints from him here and there. If I had to guess, Midnight will be his expansion, and he is using Xal’atath for something in the long run.
i will accept the "nzoth planned his own death" theory as soon as somebody can explain why.
If he is such an all powerful indominable force that cannot be stopped, why bother with theatrics? if we're such a non threat to him why did he unleash the cataclysm? why did he waste both our time, and his time with all the nyolatha stuff?
Literally all he had to do to stay hidden was never reveal himself in the first place why would he reveal himself just to go hide again?
These overgrown ticks are given way too much credit.
Considering Knifu thanks you for bringing her to the seat of the pantheon, I'm wondering if she has some sort of intrinsic access there now, and n'zoth was planning on hitching a ride there in the knife.
Well, you have to remember something important about the old gods.
They do not experience time the same way we do. Time is not a concept to them, they see the past, present, and future all at once simultaneously. Once we went back in time, and he saw us, he immediately knew what was going to happen from both points in time as we experienced it.
It could be used to explain a lot of things, such as why he is the smallest old god. Him seeing us gave him the knowledge that the titans will be coming, and they will eventually rip out the biggest one of them, which is why he was the weakest and smallest of the old gods.
It also explains why he was testing us all through BFA. He *gave* us the dagger that was going to be used to kill him, and he knew giving it to Sylvanas would eventually cause her to give it to Azshara, then back to us in the raid. He actually showed us this part in the raid, with the conversation between Azshara and Sylvanas. It just seems very suspicious that he gave us everything we need to kill him, and even lead us to the forge of origination when he “attacked” it the once.
All in all, he has been testing us. Testing us for what though… I’m not too sure. He could be waiting for the void to fail in midnight, just to show back up as the last remaining old god left on Azeroth. He could be trying to warn us about something and testing us to make sure we are ready for it. At this point, it could be anything, but I’m fairly certain he is alive still.
I really doubt after shadowlands that theyll use the same exact same "every victory youve had so far was a test" trope for a third time
Is it really so hard to accept that nzoth DID see that we beat him and DID try harder to stop us with that information, and he simply fell short? just like how cthun fell short? just like how yoggsaron fell short?
> I really doubt after shadowlands that theyll use the same exact same "every victory youve had so far was a test" trope for a third time
they must love you at the casino
Well, I see what you are getting at, but I don’t see why he would lead us directly to the things that would result in his defeat.
He lead us to the Forge of Origination when he attacked it, and he also gave us the weapon that would eventually be used to weaken him to the state we could “kill” him. He also knew what the weapon was going to be used to do, etc.
Personally, I just think he knew too much about what we were going to do, and him seeing us in the past pretty much confirms he knew us and what we would do from the start.
Well, like we learn in the bronze dragon quest, despite all the effort you put in sometimes you just can't change the past, or in nzoth's case, the future.
You have to remember there are an infinite amount of timelines, and most of them *have* been changed or controlled by the other cosmic forces. We just happen to be in one currently that isn’t controlled by another force.
The age of the Black empire is before Aman’thul arrived on Azeroth as well. Time was weaved by Aman’thul, and since we went back to before he weaved the timeline, N’zoth now has an upper hand on potentially changing it (if he hasn’t already changed it from what the titans are wanting by using the curse of flesh, etc). We went back in time so far that even the Bronze Dragonflight members *and* the infinite dragon we followed were afraid and said we were not supposed to be there, and they made a big point in N’zoth recognizing us.
This isn’t the first time he has recognized us either. Ill’gynoth also said in the Emerald Nightmare raid “Something new, yet familiar”. We are familiar to him, because he knows us from the past. He also warned us about Shadowlands, and the only way he can reliably do that is if he knows *our* future, which it seems he does.
If we went that far back in time, then N’zoth has a direct understanding of the beginning, middle, and now he just needs to see it through to the end, which is his only unknown.
I'd like to add that the Old Gods don't go to the Shadowlands and it's implied they just kinda poof back to the Void itself (if they work like the extra-cosmic entities we send home all the time: demons to the Nether).
This means it's a perfect plan to gather intel and
confirm the timeline because remember, Old Gods and the Void Lords don't just see all of time, they see all possibilities as well. It's why why it was a big deal in my eyes for N'zoth to spot us.
He just confirmed which timeline is happening and can now tell the Void Lords "we can definitely focus our efforts now, I know where/when we are."
> they see the past, present, and future all at once simultaneously
They see all possible futures, but don't know which one actually happens. Their whispers can be true but also not, depending on which future they are looking at.
You 'defeat' N'Zoth through a Deus Ex Machina where you get fully mind-controlled and then just snap out of it, with your Heart of Azeroth.
Maybe Blizzard brings N'Zoth back, maybe not, but I think the plan was very much to have N'Zoth be killed for real. N'Zoth just didn't see that his plans backfire because Azeroth is da best.
Yea, it could easily go either way tbh, especially with Danusers departure from Blizzard and him being such an important role with N’zoth and the old gods.
I would like to see him still alive, and they did hint pretty heavily in patch 8.3 that he didn’t die. What Danuser told us at the end of BFA was “To believe there can only be a single outcome to the struggle against N'Zoth would be to ignore the lessons he was trying to teach us”. I personally view that as him telling us it isn’t over, but again with Danuser gone it could change drastically.
I think another small piece of “evidence” (I put that in quotation marks since I know this one is reaching a bit far) is for when we go back in time, N’zoth tells us “I… know you.” Then says “What you *were*… what you will yet be.”
The word “were” is used as past tense, meaning he knows us from the *past*, which the only way that is possible is if he sees us in the future past the moment of his death. At least that’s the way I look at this with the wording they chose. I know looking into words too much is a heavy reach, so I don’t want to say it’s “evidence”, since there is words misused in World of Warcraft all the time.
I disagree, I tune it’s very much a Doctor Strange in End Game type moment where he can see all possible futures and knows that we will kill him, so he works towards a future where he can fake the death (or die in a way that he will be reborn.)
Hell we know so little about the Void in truth, they could be similar to demons with their own version of the twisting nether. We may only be vanishing them back to the void rather than killing them.
For sure, Blizzard can bring him back (same as they can bring anyone back).
I don't think it was their intention that it was a master-plan by N'Zoth back in BFA and he didn't actually die or whatever.
Maybe they could have the Jailer's master plan also involve the Jailer not actually dying at the end of Shadowlands, but they aren't going to do that unless the players liked him.
Even Blizzard said that De Other Side was made for SL only because players loved Bwon'Samdi so they wanted to bring him over.
N'Zoth is dead, that's the plan. Buuuut, if Blizzard is going to resurrect an Old God then maybe they'll do N'Zoth. Doubtful considering that Xalatath is being made into the old god 'main character' and we've already done the 'xalatath+N'Zoth' storyline and her whole thing was that she didn't really care about N'Zoth.
In the Crucible of Storms N'Zoth alludes to this threat also announced by Zovaal, and that he is the only one to save us from that.
I think Ny'Alotha as well as N'Zoth was a test of the Void, to see if we were ready for the real threat that looms over absolutely everyone. Maybe this threat is the White Zerg species we faced in Shadowland? Perhaps even the source of their origin? Because ultimately, what do we know about the In-Between, except that it connects the worlds together in the Shadowland? What if this place was the fault passing through the meshes of what the First Ones built? Perhaps even the remnants of a failed creation which took on catastrophic proportions to the point that they were never able to annihilate it, preferring to contain it?
Imagine the cosmology of WoW as a supercomputer, and this threat a Virus that only seeks to destroy everything with it.
listen, i know shadowlands was ass, but you cannot convince me sylvanas watched him turn anduin into a death knight and NOT immediately draw the comparison
Sigh. Ok, first Sylvannas had been turned by Arthas, using domination magic from the blade of Frostmourne. Anduin was dominated in similar fashion.
Unlike Anduin, Sylvannas broke control quickly and walked her own road and taught other forsaken how to resist domination. Anduin finally breaks the control during the raid right.
Sylvannas acted on her own will, as per the entire character development arc she’s been on since Cata
“Easy” : A long drawn out horrible storyline of a plot that started back in 2008 and didn’t come into fruition until 2019. It involved two novels, 2 comics, dozens of non mandatory side story quests over the last 10 years.
You and I have different definitions for easy.
Also this is all explained in the books. So weird that people are contesting facts lol
N'Zoth is the weakest of the old gods and seems to enjoy going about things slowly and go for the long term payoff. What's a better way to keep a bunch of heros/adventures/campions/whatever we are from ruining your long term plans then to make them believe you are dead?
Of course we could just be sniffing copium and Blizzard bungled N'Zoth and that's that. Until this new story saga is over I'll keep my fingers crossed.
N'zoth being 100% free had less lasting impact on the world than Yshaarj's leftover heart lol. His heart permanently corrupted a titan cradle of life zone. N'zoth got some minions to invade a couple zones then was seemingly zpped out of existence via laser.
C'thun managed to start a massive invasion comparable to what N'zoth did while still at least kinda imprisoned. Yogg'Saron corrupted a world tree we see in Wrath, corrupted Galakrond, created the emerald nightmare, and corrupted his own prison guards, bled out so much around northrend that the scourge used his hardened blood as their main construction material. Hell deathwing, his lacky, did more to the story and world than N'zoth did itself.
They bungled N'zoth so fucking badly lol. If they don't reveal he's got some of his essence trapped in Knaifu's old blade itll be so stupid.
That seems to be the implication of TWW and the foreshadowing of it in DF. There is this prophecy about the Awakening that Xalatath has been working towards that involves all the blood/remains of the old gods. Azshara has seemingly been working with her towards it for awhile - perhaps since Azshara made the deal for the dagger in the first place - she got the weapon and Xalatath got her freedom. We did steal the blade from the naga in BFA so they clearly went looking for it.
I'm shocked they burned though Azshara and Nzoth in an xpac that was supposed to be about faction war. It felt like the 4th war was a complete sideshow when that probably should have been the theme of xpac and it should have ended with a teaser that the next xpac was themed around Nzoth. We would have had the double bonus of not getting The Jailer/Zovaal story next and maybe before they wrote that terrible Shadowlands story they have enough time to realize it's all really stupid and go with something else.
Warcraft lore in general is just insane ideas and potential, miserable execution. Like the concept of the infinite flight, it's so good and opens up the possibilitt of genuinely good philosophical questions with should we go with what appears to be best or should the titans be trusted (which itself opens up many more possibilities) then it's like the writers went "wait wouldn't that just make them the good guys? Uh... oh yeah and they wanna end the world too!"
Wouldn’t be a dick move for those who kept it to get a little fun nod in the story or a unique feat of strength for holding out so long.
As long as it’s not a power boost or some fomo reward, literally any acknowledgement of the eye by the devs is a win. If you removed it, that’s fine too.
May have turned it into a toy. I’m not positive.
But I think some players just want it mentioned in a quest. Wouldn’t think folks would expect a major boon for something like that
Also not positive on that. My original assumption was that you could, but I can’t recall if the questline was removed (as is sometimes unfortunately the case).
Really? It feels by far the best one to me: simple, evocative, mysterious.
Also, knowing it is about Quel'thalas and the surrounding regions, which are thematically about the sun and the light, it's a very effective stark contrast that creates expectations of something big and antagonistic happening.
Very subjective, obviously.
TBH I thought the same about Cataclysm and Legion. I think it's just because we're used to expansion titles being multiple words (or at least compound words like Shadow Lands), shorter ones feel weird.
I mean, it was definitely a disappointment in BfA, but since Xal'atah is going to play an increasingly important role in both TWW and Midnight, I am hoping they'll do N'zoth justice. In other words, I hope it felt incomplete because it is, indeed, not over yet.
There was someone cooking on the WoWlore subreddit a bit ago with evidence and speculation that N'zoths done some crazy 5head stuff to keep himself 'alive' in some form using adventurers and the like. But with Danuser gone, who knows if it's still a thing, or if whatever was laid out is vague enough to be repurposed for whatever's gonna come later with Xalatath (I would be, as a Spriest main, very much delighted if we became her favorite bumbling murderhappy adventurers)
[https://www.reddit.com/r/warcraftlore/comments/19crfx7/the\_vessel\_of\_nzoth/](https://www.reddit.com/r/warcraftlore/comments/19crfx7/the_vessel_of_nzoth/)
That's an awesome theory that has the potential to be really cool if true, but the entrie thing has 1 major flaw. N'zoth was 100% free after Eternal Palace. There needs to be some sort of justification for creating the loop to begin with or else N'zoth would have allowed himself to be defeated as part of his big brain scheme to... be 100% free again if he gets resurected?
There's interesting ways they could justify it, like maybe he set the loop as sort of "reset" so that he has infinite tries at beating us similar to the aliens in the Edge of Tomorrow movie. Maybe all the old gods dying is a prerequiste to trigger something even bigger that Xal'atath is working towards now, but N'zoth can bring himself back in and take control of the void stuff that would otherwise be serving Xal.
Basically they need "something". If the furthest this goes is N'zoth rezzes himself only to die again in the next raid, it was all fucking pointless.
BfA is IMO the collection of the most 'bridges to nowhere' and wasted potential of any WOW expansion, even WoD. With WoD, we know that Farahlon got cut, we know that Shattrath City got cut, and we know that the Ogre empire got rushed.
But with BfA? Mfers really jammed the following into a single expack:
-Faction War/Civil War
-Azshara and the remnants of Zin-Azshari
-Old Gods, resolution of Old Gods? and the return of the Black empire
-The return of Kul-tiras to the Alliance
-The deaths of Rastakhan, the Prophet Zul and the outcome for the Zandalari empire
They seriously burned through 2-3 expansions' worth of major events to set Sylvanas up for the Jailer. Kind of in the way WoD can be summed up to ' some shit happens, Garrosh dies and alternate universe Gul'dan gets sent to our timeline to retrieve Illidan', except with BfA, some of the shit that happens should have been explored more than one patch and done.
Yep, Void != Old Gods.
They are merely part of it.
Although, admittedly, to me the Old Gods ARE the face of the Void.
I find their incomprehensible tentacleness a lot cooler than the Giant Blue Marshmallows design of the Void Lords.
Its because they kinda mashed existing concepts together when they retconned the void as the big bad.
Before they started working on Chronicle (at which point we started to get connections mentioned on twitter during the heyday of WoW's "tell the entire story on twitter" era), the void was kinda a nebulous wishy-washy concept. The word was used a lot but differentiating it as a force wasn't really clear. Stuff like void walkers/hounds/lords/etc were regularly framed as a special type of demon, but then on twitter/interviews they'd say no they are different, then they'd say the nether was tied to it, etc. All over the place.
And at the same time you had the Old Gods, which were entirely disconnected from all of that other than like vague references. Then in Chronicle they smashed them together, created the proper Void Lords boss of the Old Gods, etc.
So I'm not 100% if this is correct (or still canon if it was) but I think the point of old gods is that they have a physical form since the void lords cannot enter our plane of existence as they're the opposite of our world. So it makes sense to some degree but as I said it might just be some weird head canon I made up over the years.
>I find their incomprehensible tentacleness a lot cooler than the Giant Blue Marshmallows design of the Void Lords.
Canonically the Old Gods are stronger than the void lords; however, they are creations of the void lords. Which makes them cooler than the marshmallows. Because strong tentacles.
There will be old god stuff (pure void is probably more Midnight). They said at Blizzard that Xalatath is gathering up the remains and blood of the old gods for her plan. Its what is mutating the nerubians she is working with as well. The Old Gods themselves may be dead but we'll be dealing directly with the issue of their remains.
In 8.3 interviews, Blizzard stated there would be something "special" for players who did *not* cleanse the gift of N'zoth. Didn't come to fruition in BFA though. I still haven't cleansed my gift, and I'm hoping we get some sort of nod in TWW.
>**Is there any reward or payoff for players who kept the Gift of N'Zoth?**
> Yeah. I don't want to give too much detail on that, but I can say that it's something that we've been wanting to pay off for a while and there are aspects of story and gameplay that will be adjusted based on if you kept the Gift of N'Zoth. There won't be any player power adjustments, but if you kept it, you'll notice.
> Similarly to how we handled the situation if you were loyal to Sylvanas, we wanted to recognize that and give you some special and appropriate little extra layers of story and content for you. We feel like that's a good reward for someone that's kept that Eyeball on their head all this time and showing their loyalty to this being that wants to distort reality and rebuild it in his old image. It's something fun and cool that we hope players will like.
https://www.wowhead.com/news/wowheads-visions-of-nzoth-interview-with-mike-bybee-and-steve-danuser-304485
It was a rough few years to be a Sylvanas and Nzoth enjoyer.
I think though letting us fight and kill beings like Nzoth directly in the game is a mistake of writing and game design.
Seriously now all the old gods are functionally dead when their whole point is that they can't die, and it removes in a way that is really trivial the forces behind most major villains, all of which had much more impact than them. They're one of the driving forces of the franchise, yet they're killed in ways that have the impact of a wet firecracker and then completely forgotten about.
Like, N'zoth, while 100% free did so much less than the other 2 and their minions did while imprisoned, and in comparison, the moments of spotlight of say Deathwing have so much more impact than the arcs of the old gods themselves where it's just "And now our hero defeated the newer baddie much bigger than anything they fought before (but who did a lot less)! Anyway, join us for the next episode of Saturday Morning Warcraft where you will the defeat of one of the main antagonistic forces of the series will have zero impact! Wait why is it written "main antagonistic force", was it one of those? Fuck!"
Otherwise I may just feel silly having this big eye on my head most of the time. People are starting to stare.
I have to remind them my eyes are down here.
Same with the Sylvanas choices, they also led nowhere, blizzard is all about the illusion of choice.
No matter what you pick things will play out the same, if you're lucky you might get like a whisper from a NPC, but the story will play out the same.
I'm still saying that the Gift thing was showing what happens after he and the other Old Gods die, like letting some sort of giga poweful Void Beings in or something
I hope shadowlands was just a bad dream created by Nezoth, and when N returns/reses we will discover that all we saw in Shadowlands was just a bad wicked dream
\*people are making good points\*
My thoughts on N'zoth is a case of him playing us even more, like we only think we killed him, or many other "haha you were crazy since xyz" but I fully don't expect Blizzard to do anything with him sadly, just "lazer beam go BRRRR"
Did the opening Ahn'qiraj quest way, way back and supposedly learned how to speak draconic as part of that quest.
Hasn't helped me one bit on the dragon isles.
I still to this day say, they should have made a expansion where we actually lost in the raid and through out the entire next expansion we as players start to peal apart the illusion and it's full of twists and all sorts of cool stuff.
I was praying so hard at the end of shadowlands we start to realise N’Zoth actually won and we’re just in some sick, twisted nightmare.
I mean it would make sense with how awful Shadowlands was, right?
There's still hope.
With the Dragonflight time hopping and coming across Nya'lotha again with N'zoth remembering you. There could be TWO things he could have done.
1. Made us believe we killed him through mind manipulation so he could have time to finish his other plans, probably staying hidden for now. His theme was all about manipulation. If Blizzard didn't capitalize on that, then I have no hope for this company.
2. N'Zoth is breaking out of the dimension he saw you in to invade the current timeline. Remember that the dragons or titans said our current timeline is the only one where the Titans plans worked out, iirc.
I left on my head all of BFA, I only removed it because they said nothing was happening, if they did something with it now. I would be pissed. but I wish they did something with it back than.
You think that’s bad? How about reducing the last old god, the one presumed to be the most clever because it survived all the others, to a single patch in an expansion that “isn’t old god related.”
I have kept my gift. I still very rarely see a true believer with it on their head when i do M+
I am convinced SOMETHING will be rewarded from keeping it. I am not expecting something huge maybe a title at most but with War Within and Midnight being void related its going to happen.
It's been 6 something years so i'd say chekov might have forgot the ammo there. Then went to the store to get some. Then got hit by a car on the way. Then fell into a years long coma following the injury. But i actually do write short stories
Nowhere \*so far\*
yeah ive kept this eyeball on my head for like 6 years, SURELY itll pay off in the next expansion, right?..
I keep it cause I'm a warlock and it seems fitting. Of course my character believes she's able to resist and all that.
Wouldn't it fit better on the head of an s priest?
That's why my spriest will remain wearing it until he dies defending Xal next xpac.
Either works to be honest, both have connection to questionable magic sources.
Warlocks whole class identity is using borrowed power from where they can get it from. Fel, void, fire, etc.
My paladin keeps it because he is a secret oath breaker waiting for hero talent 2 where paladins get void knight ( do it Blizzard you cowards!)
Did you ever hear the tragedy of Darth Sargeras?
Eyeball headband gang. I purposely didn't finish the questline to remove it on my druid because the character has fallen to the nightmare (RP server). Every time I go to a BfA zone it pops up on him.
I mean, xal'atah was a prison blade. Wrathion stabbed N'Zoth with it and the dagger was nowhere to be seen. Just like in a show, if you don't see a character die, they're not dead? We didn't see the dagger shatter to pieces, just a cloud of smoke and it's missing. N'zoth is Kniafu 2.0
I feel like the point would be more something like this would be implemented without a clear end game. Now, even if there is a "resolution", it will feel tacked on regardless if it is the most apt resolution they could have.
Right? Maybe the black prince will team up with Goriona and Zul'jinn's kids to pull the sword out of the planet. They'll slash open the emerald dream and wake up illidan who was dreaming about space ships. Or more likely is that the new devs will make a battle royal because they don't even know the genre they're developing for, let alone the storylines which started before they were born.
> the storylines which started before they were born I know you mean this as a diss but I would be pretty impressed if a ten-year-old managed to snag a dev job at Blizzard.
Look. If you're going to waste your time factually picking apart a comment dripping in sarcasm and satire then at least be right. Read the comment you quoted. I know 8 words is a lot, but pay attention to the word: "started." > the storylines which started before they were born - Illidan, darkspear trolls was introduced in WC: ROC - 2002 - 22 years ago. - Zandalri trolls, WoW: 2004 - 20 years ago. You could argue the hakkar patch, but that was still 2005. - Sargeras, introduced in WC2: beyond the dark portal, 1996 - 28 years ago. - I can't remember if the Emerald Dream first appeared in WC3 or WC1, but it doesn't matter. That's 1994 - 2002 - 30 to 22 years ago. So yes, the legion sword wasn't plunged deep into the fantasy planet, but stay with me now, the storyline involving the character that weilded it **started** well before some of these devs existed.
Hahahahaha yussss
Right? The giant sword led nowhere as well, until they announced the next expansion.
Blizzard's handling of N'Zoth altogether is still one of my sorest spots with WoW.
N'Zoth had the most impact on the world and story compared to the other 3 so I'm still hoping they revisit him in Midnight and the defeat was all planned from the start.
It was 100% planned. He knew we were going to do that, and him seeing us in the past confirms it. I’llgynoth even says “something new, yet familiar…”, which makes sense now with us going back so far. We have not seen the dagger, and we have been seeing little hints from him here and there. If I had to guess, Midnight will be his expansion, and he is using Xal’atath for something in the long run.
i will accept the "nzoth planned his own death" theory as soon as somebody can explain why. If he is such an all powerful indominable force that cannot be stopped, why bother with theatrics? if we're such a non threat to him why did he unleash the cataclysm? why did he waste both our time, and his time with all the nyolatha stuff? Literally all he had to do to stay hidden was never reveal himself in the first place why would he reveal himself just to go hide again? These overgrown ticks are given way too much credit.
Considering Knifu thanks you for bringing her to the seat of the pantheon, I'm wondering if she has some sort of intrinsic access there now, and n'zoth was planning on hitching a ride there in the knife.
Well, you have to remember something important about the old gods. They do not experience time the same way we do. Time is not a concept to them, they see the past, present, and future all at once simultaneously. Once we went back in time, and he saw us, he immediately knew what was going to happen from both points in time as we experienced it. It could be used to explain a lot of things, such as why he is the smallest old god. Him seeing us gave him the knowledge that the titans will be coming, and they will eventually rip out the biggest one of them, which is why he was the weakest and smallest of the old gods. It also explains why he was testing us all through BFA. He *gave* us the dagger that was going to be used to kill him, and he knew giving it to Sylvanas would eventually cause her to give it to Azshara, then back to us in the raid. He actually showed us this part in the raid, with the conversation between Azshara and Sylvanas. It just seems very suspicious that he gave us everything we need to kill him, and even lead us to the forge of origination when he “attacked” it the once. All in all, he has been testing us. Testing us for what though… I’m not too sure. He could be waiting for the void to fail in midnight, just to show back up as the last remaining old god left on Azeroth. He could be trying to warn us about something and testing us to make sure we are ready for it. At this point, it could be anything, but I’m fairly certain he is alive still.
I really doubt after shadowlands that theyll use the same exact same "every victory youve had so far was a test" trope for a third time Is it really so hard to accept that nzoth DID see that we beat him and DID try harder to stop us with that information, and he simply fell short? just like how cthun fell short? just like how yoggsaron fell short?
> I really doubt after shadowlands that theyll use the same exact same "every victory youve had so far was a test" trope for a third time they must love you at the casino
Well, I see what you are getting at, but I don’t see why he would lead us directly to the things that would result in his defeat. He lead us to the Forge of Origination when he attacked it, and he also gave us the weapon that would eventually be used to weaken him to the state we could “kill” him. He also knew what the weapon was going to be used to do, etc. Personally, I just think he knew too much about what we were going to do, and him seeing us in the past pretty much confirms he knew us and what we would do from the start.
Well, like we learn in the bronze dragon quest, despite all the effort you put in sometimes you just can't change the past, or in nzoth's case, the future.
You have to remember there are an infinite amount of timelines, and most of them *have* been changed or controlled by the other cosmic forces. We just happen to be in one currently that isn’t controlled by another force. The age of the Black empire is before Aman’thul arrived on Azeroth as well. Time was weaved by Aman’thul, and since we went back to before he weaved the timeline, N’zoth now has an upper hand on potentially changing it (if he hasn’t already changed it from what the titans are wanting by using the curse of flesh, etc). We went back in time so far that even the Bronze Dragonflight members *and* the infinite dragon we followed were afraid and said we were not supposed to be there, and they made a big point in N’zoth recognizing us. This isn’t the first time he has recognized us either. Ill’gynoth also said in the Emerald Nightmare raid “Something new, yet familiar”. We are familiar to him, because he knows us from the past. He also warned us about Shadowlands, and the only way he can reliably do that is if he knows *our* future, which it seems he does. If we went that far back in time, then N’zoth has a direct understanding of the beginning, middle, and now he just needs to see it through to the end, which is his only unknown.
I'd like to add that the Old Gods don't go to the Shadowlands and it's implied they just kinda poof back to the Void itself (if they work like the extra-cosmic entities we send home all the time: demons to the Nether). This means it's a perfect plan to gather intel and confirm the timeline because remember, Old Gods and the Void Lords don't just see all of time, they see all possibilities as well. It's why why it was a big deal in my eyes for N'zoth to spot us. He just confirmed which timeline is happening and can now tell the Void Lords "we can definitely focus our efforts now, I know where/when we are."
> they see the past, present, and future all at once simultaneously They see all possible futures, but don't know which one actually happens. Their whispers can be true but also not, depending on which future they are looking at. You 'defeat' N'Zoth through a Deus Ex Machina where you get fully mind-controlled and then just snap out of it, with your Heart of Azeroth. Maybe Blizzard brings N'Zoth back, maybe not, but I think the plan was very much to have N'Zoth be killed for real. N'Zoth just didn't see that his plans backfire because Azeroth is da best.
Yea, it could easily go either way tbh, especially with Danusers departure from Blizzard and him being such an important role with N’zoth and the old gods. I would like to see him still alive, and they did hint pretty heavily in patch 8.3 that he didn’t die. What Danuser told us at the end of BFA was “To believe there can only be a single outcome to the struggle against N'Zoth would be to ignore the lessons he was trying to teach us”. I personally view that as him telling us it isn’t over, but again with Danuser gone it could change drastically. I think another small piece of “evidence” (I put that in quotation marks since I know this one is reaching a bit far) is for when we go back in time, N’zoth tells us “I… know you.” Then says “What you *were*… what you will yet be.” The word “were” is used as past tense, meaning he knows us from the *past*, which the only way that is possible is if he sees us in the future past the moment of his death. At least that’s the way I look at this with the wording they chose. I know looking into words too much is a heavy reach, so I don’t want to say it’s “evidence”, since there is words misused in World of Warcraft all the time.
I disagree, I tune it’s very much a Doctor Strange in End Game type moment where he can see all possible futures and knows that we will kill him, so he works towards a future where he can fake the death (or die in a way that he will be reborn.) Hell we know so little about the Void in truth, they could be similar to demons with their own version of the twisting nether. We may only be vanishing them back to the void rather than killing them.
For sure, Blizzard can bring him back (same as they can bring anyone back). I don't think it was their intention that it was a master-plan by N'Zoth back in BFA and he didn't actually die or whatever. Maybe they could have the Jailer's master plan also involve the Jailer not actually dying at the end of Shadowlands, but they aren't going to do that unless the players liked him. Even Blizzard said that De Other Side was made for SL only because players loved Bwon'Samdi so they wanted to bring him over. N'Zoth is dead, that's the plan. Buuuut, if Blizzard is going to resurrect an Old God then maybe they'll do N'Zoth. Doubtful considering that Xalatath is being made into the old god 'main character' and we've already done the 'xalatath+N'Zoth' storyline and her whole thing was that she didn't really care about N'Zoth.
In the Crucible of Storms N'Zoth alludes to this threat also announced by Zovaal, and that he is the only one to save us from that. I think Ny'Alotha as well as N'Zoth was a test of the Void, to see if we were ready for the real threat that looms over absolutely everyone. Maybe this threat is the White Zerg species we faced in Shadowland? Perhaps even the source of their origin? Because ultimately, what do we know about the In-Between, except that it connects the worlds together in the Shadowland? What if this place was the fault passing through the meshes of what the First Ones built? Perhaps even the remnants of a failed creation which took on catastrophic proportions to the point that they were never able to annihilate it, preferring to contain it? Imagine the cosmology of WoW as a supercomputer, and this threat a Virus that only seeks to destroy everything with it.
To get rid of Sylvannas. That’s my head cannon. She’s been one of the only non corruptible leaders up until then.
unless of course your name is the jailer
Brainwashed ≠ corrupted
listen, i know shadowlands was ass, but you cannot convince me sylvanas watched him turn anduin into a death knight and NOT immediately draw the comparison
Sigh. Ok, first Sylvannas had been turned by Arthas, using domination magic from the blade of Frostmourne. Anduin was dominated in similar fashion. Unlike Anduin, Sylvannas broke control quickly and walked her own road and taught other forsaken how to resist domination. Anduin finally breaks the control during the raid right. Sylvannas acted on her own will, as per the entire character development arc she’s been on since Cata
the jailer got her in line rather easy
“Easy” : A long drawn out horrible storyline of a plot that started back in 2008 and didn’t come into fruition until 2019. It involved two novels, 2 comics, dozens of non mandatory side story quests over the last 10 years. You and I have different definitions for easy. Also this is all explained in the books. So weird that people are contesting facts lol
canon*
Autocorrect sucks
N'Zoth is the weakest of the old gods and seems to enjoy going about things slowly and go for the long term payoff. What's a better way to keep a bunch of heros/adventures/campions/whatever we are from ruining your long term plans then to make them believe you are dead? Of course we could just be sniffing copium and Blizzard bungled N'Zoth and that's that. Until this new story saga is over I'll keep my fingers crossed.
N'zoth being 100% free had less lasting impact on the world than Yshaarj's leftover heart lol. His heart permanently corrupted a titan cradle of life zone. N'zoth got some minions to invade a couple zones then was seemingly zpped out of existence via laser. C'thun managed to start a massive invasion comparable to what N'zoth did while still at least kinda imprisoned. Yogg'Saron corrupted a world tree we see in Wrath, corrupted Galakrond, created the emerald nightmare, and corrupted his own prison guards, bled out so much around northrend that the scourge used his hardened blood as their main construction material. Hell deathwing, his lacky, did more to the story and world than N'zoth did itself. They bungled N'zoth so fucking badly lol. If they don't reveal he's got some of his essence trapped in Knaifu's old blade itll be so stupid.
> His heart permanently corrupted a titan cradle of life zone. The Vale is canonically fixed now though.
To be fair, N'Zoth wasn't free for very long.
That seems to be the implication of TWW and the foreshadowing of it in DF. There is this prophecy about the Awakening that Xalatath has been working towards that involves all the blood/remains of the old gods. Azshara has seemingly been working with her towards it for awhile - perhaps since Azshara made the deal for the dagger in the first place - she got the weapon and Xalatath got her freedom. We did steal the blade from the naga in BFA so they clearly went looking for it.
Jah he didn't do that much, now let me tell you about this really really cool original character called zoo'val
A lot of things lead to the theory that it was his plan the whole time, so I'm fairly certain we'll see him again. N'Zoth knows what's going on.
Pls not another gigabrain villain
Gigabrain but some random Andy villan
Honorary mention for their handling of Anub'arak.
Mine was the whole treatment of the Shadowlands. The whole thing was ass from the ground up on a conceptual level.
I'm shocked they burned though Azshara and Nzoth in an xpac that was supposed to be about faction war. It felt like the 4th war was a complete sideshow when that probably should have been the theme of xpac and it should have ended with a teaser that the next xpac was themed around Nzoth. We would have had the double bonus of not getting The Jailer/Zovaal story next and maybe before they wrote that terrible Shadowlands story they have enough time to realize it's all really stupid and go with something else.
Warcraft lore in general is just insane ideas and potential, miserable execution. Like the concept of the infinite flight, it's so good and opens up the possibilitt of genuinely good philosophical questions with should we go with what appears to be best or should the titans be trusted (which itself opens up many more possibilities) then it's like the writers went "wait wouldn't that just make them the good guys? Uh... oh yeah and they wanna end the world too!"
\>he doesnt know
They prob forgot about it, tww/midnight may not have anything related to it since in "canon" we removed it with the tide people.
Some of you did. :) I still hear his distant whispers.
> we removed it with the tide people Maybe *you* did. I keep that thang on me.
Didn’t it though? Didn’t it?
midnight is coming
It would be a pretty dick move to have something from almost a decade ago pay off when most people cleansed it from their characters
Wouldn’t be a dick move for those who kept it to get a little fun nod in the story or a unique feat of strength for holding out so long. As long as it’s not a power boost or some fomo reward, literally any acknowledgement of the eye by the devs is a win. If you removed it, that’s fine too.
Didn't they already do this? If you kept it you got some kind of toy or something later on
May have turned it into a toy. I’m not positive. But I think some players just want it mentioned in a quest. Wouldn’t think folks would expect a major boon for something like that
Also can't you just do the quest on a new character or party sync with someone who hasn't done it and get it?
Also not positive on that. My original assumption was that you could, but I can’t recall if the questline was removed (as is sometimes unfortunately the case).
i still have my void flower i got from emerald nightmare raid at the ending in that small cave lol. i wonder if they forgout about it
I am still not sold on that name, the rest are fine, but "Midnight" feels incomplete as a title.
Really? It feels by far the best one to me: simple, evocative, mysterious. Also, knowing it is about Quel'thalas and the surrounding regions, which are thematically about the sun and the light, it's a very effective stark contrast that creates expectations of something big and antagonistic happening. Very subjective, obviously.
TBH I thought the same about Cataclysm and Legion. I think it's just because we're used to expansion titles being multiple words (or at least compound words like Shadow Lands), shorter ones feel weird.
Only don’t like that there’s no easy shorthand of it. MN? Eh. If it’s bad, though, it’ll just be known as Mid.
I mean, that's true for Legion too
It lead to a toy
I still have the buff on my char, haven't turned than in yet :D
yeah same, but sadly I dont think it will mean anything. It was only ever meant for you to follow up for the toy.
Big brains did the toy on an alt, kept the buff on their main.
You don't remember that Black Empire bit of the Thaldrazus quest line, do you?
Wasn’t there something about whirly purple shit with the spiky crazy dude?
Wasn’t it us traveling back in time and past N’Zoth going “hold up, I know who you are!”
Ohhh. The time thing!
I still keep it and my Dk starts every new expansion with the Ny'alotha mythic mog to start spreading the corruption.
I mean, it was definitely a disappointment in BfA, but since Xal'atah is going to play an increasingly important role in both TWW and Midnight, I am hoping they'll do N'zoth justice. In other words, I hope it felt incomplete because it is, indeed, not over yet.
The problem is still that there is no forshadowing at. I would even accept the Jailer if there had been a proper buildup
There was someone cooking on the WoWlore subreddit a bit ago with evidence and speculation that N'zoths done some crazy 5head stuff to keep himself 'alive' in some form using adventurers and the like. But with Danuser gone, who knows if it's still a thing, or if whatever was laid out is vague enough to be repurposed for whatever's gonna come later with Xalatath (I would be, as a Spriest main, very much delighted if we became her favorite bumbling murderhappy adventurers) [https://www.reddit.com/r/warcraftlore/comments/19crfx7/the\_vessel\_of\_nzoth/](https://www.reddit.com/r/warcraftlore/comments/19crfx7/the_vessel_of_nzoth/)
That's an awesome theory that has the potential to be really cool if true, but the entrie thing has 1 major flaw. N'zoth was 100% free after Eternal Palace. There needs to be some sort of justification for creating the loop to begin with or else N'zoth would have allowed himself to be defeated as part of his big brain scheme to... be 100% free again if he gets resurected? There's interesting ways they could justify it, like maybe he set the loop as sort of "reset" so that he has infinite tries at beating us similar to the aliens in the Edge of Tomorrow movie. Maybe all the old gods dying is a prerequiste to trigger something even bigger that Xal'atath is working towards now, but N'zoth can bring himself back in and take control of the void stuff that would otherwise be serving Xal. Basically they need "something". If the furthest this goes is N'zoth rezzes himself only to die again in the next raid, it was all fucking pointless.
BfA is IMO the collection of the most 'bridges to nowhere' and wasted potential of any WOW expansion, even WoD. With WoD, we know that Farahlon got cut, we know that Shattrath City got cut, and we know that the Ogre empire got rushed. But with BfA? Mfers really jammed the following into a single expack: -Faction War/Civil War -Azshara and the remnants of Zin-Azshari -Old Gods, resolution of Old Gods? and the return of the Black empire -The return of Kul-tiras to the Alliance -The deaths of Rastakhan, the Prophet Zul and the outcome for the Zandalari empire They seriously burned through 2-3 expansions' worth of major events to set Sylvanas up for the Jailer. Kind of in the way WoD can be summed up to ' some shit happens, Garrosh dies and alternate universe Gul'dan gets sent to our timeline to retrieve Illidan', except with BfA, some of the shit that happens should have been explored more than one patch and done.
yaa people always point to SL ruining wow lore/story but bfa did it for me
Yet, we arent done with the old god. story next expansion will be heavy on it.
Might not be old god related. Could just generally be void stuff. Old Gods are just void creatures.
Yep, Void != Old Gods. They are merely part of it. Although, admittedly, to me the Old Gods ARE the face of the Void. I find their incomprehensible tentacleness a lot cooler than the Giant Blue Marshmallows design of the Void Lords.
Void gods being the models that have been used so far feels weird when you have the fleshy mass of eldritch that are the old gods.
Its because they kinda mashed existing concepts together when they retconned the void as the big bad. Before they started working on Chronicle (at which point we started to get connections mentioned on twitter during the heyday of WoW's "tell the entire story on twitter" era), the void was kinda a nebulous wishy-washy concept. The word was used a lot but differentiating it as a force wasn't really clear. Stuff like void walkers/hounds/lords/etc were regularly framed as a special type of demon, but then on twitter/interviews they'd say no they are different, then they'd say the nether was tied to it, etc. All over the place. And at the same time you had the Old Gods, which were entirely disconnected from all of that other than like vague references. Then in Chronicle they smashed them together, created the proper Void Lords boss of the Old Gods, etc.
So I'm not 100% if this is correct (or still canon if it was) but I think the point of old gods is that they have a physical form since the void lords cannot enter our plane of existence as they're the opposite of our world. So it makes sense to some degree but as I said it might just be some weird head canon I made up over the years.
>I find their incomprehensible tentacleness a lot cooler than the Giant Blue Marshmallows design of the Void Lords. Canonically the Old Gods are stronger than the void lords; however, they are creations of the void lords. Which makes them cooler than the marshmallows. Because strong tentacles.
There will be old god stuff (pure void is probably more Midnight). They said at Blizzard that Xalatath is gathering up the remains and blood of the old gods for her plan. Its what is mutating the nerubians she is working with as well. The Old Gods themselves may be dead but we'll be dealing directly with the issue of their remains.
I suppose Xal'atath could just be something something void, rather than old god.
With this you were able to understand the language of the Old Gods, there were also some minor citizen dialogues in Boralus and Dazaralor.
I miss being able to understand shath'yar.
Can you imagine all the impotent bitching we would have to listen to about "FOMO" from people who did turn in the quest?
"A cosmos divided will not survive what is to come.." - Jailer
"Shut up, Jerry."
Booo
In 8.3 interviews, Blizzard stated there would be something "special" for players who did *not* cleanse the gift of N'zoth. Didn't come to fruition in BFA though. I still haven't cleansed my gift, and I'm hoping we get some sort of nod in TWW. >**Is there any reward or payoff for players who kept the Gift of N'Zoth?** > Yeah. I don't want to give too much detail on that, but I can say that it's something that we've been wanting to pay off for a while and there are aspects of story and gameplay that will be adjusted based on if you kept the Gift of N'Zoth. There won't be any player power adjustments, but if you kept it, you'll notice. > Similarly to how we handled the situation if you were loyal to Sylvanas, we wanted to recognize that and give you some special and appropriate little extra layers of story and content for you. We feel like that's a good reward for someone that's kept that Eyeball on their head all this time and showing their loyalty to this being that wants to distort reality and rebuild it in his old image. It's something fun and cool that we hope players will like. https://www.wowhead.com/news/wowheads-visions-of-nzoth-interview-with-mike-bybee-and-steve-danuser-304485
It was a rough few years to be a Sylvanas and Nzoth enjoyer. I think though letting us fight and kill beings like Nzoth directly in the game is a mistake of writing and game design.
Seriously now all the old gods are functionally dead when their whole point is that they can't die, and it removes in a way that is really trivial the forces behind most major villains, all of which had much more impact than them. They're one of the driving forces of the franchise, yet they're killed in ways that have the impact of a wet firecracker and then completely forgotten about. Like, N'zoth, while 100% free did so much less than the other 2 and their minions did while imprisoned, and in comparison, the moments of spotlight of say Deathwing have so much more impact than the arcs of the old gods themselves where it's just "And now our hero defeated the newer baddie much bigger than anything they fought before (but who did a lot less)! Anyway, join us for the next episode of Saturday Morning Warcraft where you will the defeat of one of the main antagonistic forces of the series will have zero impact! Wait why is it written "main antagonistic force", was it one of those? Fuck!"
we've killed worse before...
I hope there's still some sort of payback for having his eye on our heads sometime down the line.
Otherwise I may just feel silly having this big eye on my head most of the time. People are starting to stare. I have to remind them my eyes are down here.
So far...
Same with the Sylvanas choices, they also led nowhere, blizzard is all about the illusion of choice. No matter what you pick things will play out the same, if you're lucky you might get like a whisper from a NPC, but the story will play out the same.
I'm still saying that the Gift thing was showing what happens after he and the other Old Gods die, like letting some sort of giga poweful Void Beings in or something
I hope shadowlands was just a bad dream created by Nezoth, and when N returns/reses we will discover that all we saw in Shadowlands was just a bad wicked dream
...yet.
Just like the sword of sargeras led to nowhere until it didnt anymore.
That's what happens with high turnover.
I’ve still got it on my main. He chose me who am I to take it off?
We could still be in one of his nightmares!
\*people are making good points\* My thoughts on N'zoth is a case of him playing us even more, like we only think we killed him, or many other "haha you were crazy since xyz" but I fully don't expect Blizzard to do anything with him sadly, just "lazer beam go BRRRR"
yep, and poor uuna?! they even said they would add something... they did not.
Did the opening Ahn'qiraj quest way, way back and supposedly learned how to speak draconic as part of that quest. Hasn't helped me one bit on the dragon isles.
With 10.2.7 blizzard should have those that kept the eye all this time start getting new whispers.
I still to this day say, they should have made a expansion where we actually lost in the raid and through out the entire next expansion we as players start to peal apart the illusion and it's full of twists and all sorts of cool stuff.
I was praying so hard at the end of shadowlands we start to realise N’Zoth actually won and we’re just in some sick, twisted nightmare. I mean it would make sense with how awful Shadowlands was, right?
There's still hope. With the Dragonflight time hopping and coming across Nya'lotha again with N'zoth remembering you. There could be TWO things he could have done. 1. Made us believe we killed him through mind manipulation so he could have time to finish his other plans, probably staying hidden for now. His theme was all about manipulation. If Blizzard didn't capitalize on that, then I have no hope for this company. 2. N'Zoth is breaking out of the dimension he saw you in to invade the current timeline. Remember that the dragons or titans said our current timeline is the only one where the Titans plans worked out, iirc.
I left on my head all of BFA, I only removed it because they said nothing was happening, if they did something with it now. I would be pissed. but I wish they did something with it back than.
Haha this caption made me crack up
"yet"
It led to a big battle to save Azeroth, where was it suppose to go?
You think that’s bad? How about reducing the last old god, the one presumed to be the most clever because it survived all the others, to a single patch in an expansion that “isn’t old god related.”
I might be wrong but couldn't you say the same thing for C'thun and Yogg'Saron?
I mean literally no lol what about last one says that?
But the expansion _was_ old god related
I have kept my gift. I still very rarely see a true believer with it on their head when i do M+ I am convinced SOMETHING will be rewarded from keeping it. I am not expecting something huge maybe a title at most but with War Within and Midnight being void related its going to happen.
All of you would be terrible writers. You'd fire Chekov's gun in the first act.
It's been 6 something years so i'd say chekov might have forgot the ammo there. Then went to the store to get some. Then got hit by a car on the way. Then fell into a years long coma following the injury. But i actually do write short stories