What made Suramar unique was the fact that Blizzard took their time and fleshed out the storyline/zone; you got to meet new characters and begin growing the resistance piece by piece. Along the way, you lose some of those characters and suffer some setbacks as some parts of Suramar (both the city and the zone) began to change to reflect the story's impact.
there is a LOT of detail put in to tww spider zone,in some ways more than suramar when it comes to its lore and history,but this zone was clearly not intended to be the same even if it seems similar
Indeed, it REALLY sold the feeling of building everything from scratch, piece by piece, step by step but with general arch and end goal always somewhere in sight. Truly one of the best zones/storyline in wow's history.
100% I remember waking up at 5am to get so hours in before work on launch and getting my first artifact on my mage. I never played so much wow as I did in Legion.
@@chickpoon9607 Tauri Wow, probably the best Mop server, has Legion server on the way but it's still on PTR. There is a rumor it will be available in 2025 and if it's as good as the Mop one then it will be amazing.
I think what helped is Nighthold wasn’t the first raid in Legion. Lets look at the other 2 zones/raids: Castle Nathria: 2-weeks then go into the raid and beat the bad guy Nerub-Ar Palace: 2-weeks then go into the raid and beat the bad guy Suramar: Quest chain spanning a couple months, then go into the raid and beat the bad guy. Suramar and its villain were given time to marinate. The other two zones’ issues were resolved immediately.
Legion was a masterpiece, but even in Legion Suramar stood a cut above the rest of the zones. It felt like the first actual living city in the game. Not just a large city-themed space for NPCs to hang out until you need them, but a city, with it's denizens and quirks. I guess now it would feel like a chore to go through it, but when it was live content Suramar was *chef's kiss*
As a new WoW player (yeah, we exist) I like to explore older scenarios and zones, and I love to dig into old lore and stories, and the Legion extension and especially all the plot around Suramar were one of my favorite, it felt so special and exciting. I really, really loved it. I also did like every single sidequest for the legendary Legion weapon appearances, so I kinda felt a special connection to the place. Even though doing everything with a lvl 80 gear made things a lot, LOT faster and easier, and may for sure have taken away some of the "big accomplishment" side of things.
once they launch legion classic its inevitable to happen it will be the most amazing and bullshit experience you get unless they fix the glaring issues. it is by far the best modern expansion for me atleast
I think it is the most beautiful. I was sad to see that Suramar wasn’t the capital and that Dalaran was the hub. But I haven’t spent too much time in Legion zones having played less than three years.
Literally this - like if anyone ever needed to know why Suramar is loved and the Maw is hated, just compare 2 screenshots. Nothing reminds you that you're in an endless grind of futile daily quests like being in an endless, empty desert of despairing lost souls. The people who designed the Maw were either extremely self-aware with a dickish sense of humour, or completely oblivious with no awareness at all - no in-between.
@@graysaltine6035All of this. I had to go to the Maw, but it’s literal hell: no one at all in the cosmos _wants_ to be there. Suramar City is beautiful and this makes it relatable. Going to the Maw is a narrative means to an end (heck, at the end of the expansion, Pelagos suggests that no one will ever be sent there again), but Suramar City is an end in itself. Even if your mana addiction is cured, you still _want_ to be there. As for the self-awareness of the devs … I kinda feel like some of the legal issues Blizzard had a few years ago suggest “self-aware dicks” rather than “oblivious”.
Another detail that made me love Surammar was the fact that it was actually in Warcraft 3. Alongside Aszuna and Val'sharah. During the Nightelf campaign to chase Illidan down, Maieve mentioned these ancient cities when they first arrived at the Broken Isles. The amount of nostalgia and hype for something as old as this being uncovered was a thrill for me.
I mean in spirit I suppose, but the only part that really canonically to touch is the broken shore not the greater isle. GRANTED RETCONS so I’m not standing by this like gospel
One important thing is that you explored suramar by foot. You remember every house, district and neighborhood. Later cities or zones you just zip around in a flying mount
yea i think the main flaw of ahj kahet is that. In suramar we could not fly before doing the questline. In ahj kahet i fly around to get from a place 20 yards away
It’s more than that too though! Coincidentally, I’m working my way through Good Suramaritan for the first time recently as I level up a new fire mage. I played legion when it was current but I was too busy getting into raiding at the time to do suramar. Even zipping across the zone on a flying mount, I find myself absolutely captivated by it. I’ve currently logged about 15-20 hours on the zone and almost done with it, so it’s not like I’m pacing myself either to savor it. It still holds up even with modern WoW changes. The story is still just uniquely outstanding.
@@dulcetwho5770 Its why I never listen to the people who glaze legion, man. I really enjoyed Legion but tons of people did nothing but whine and a lot of those same people are glazing it to this day
i miss the pacing of legion, i felt like i was apart of fighting for the nightborne helping them defeat the evil elisende. i loved walking around suramar finding all the chests and rares. good times.
I think they could still 'make a suramar' today. It would absolutely be different. A big problem is that it would need to take place over a longer amount of time, be more central to the narrative and the experience. With the kind of stories they're trying to tell I don't think it will happen.
I would just sit in Shal'Aran for hours and listen to the music. Suramar had one of the best soundtracks in the entirety of modern WoW and was an absolute masterpiece all around. I'll never forget the first time stepping into this zone after being the realm first level 110 character doing the questline in an area so serene, fascinating, beautiful and completely devoid of other players. That zone is a one-of-a-kind experience.
can say the same about the Timeless Isle, it was fairly popular and Blizzard keeps trying to recreate it over and over again, but never to the same level.
oh man as a very intense Suramar enjoyer who heard TOO many people compare COT to Suramar, only to be extremely disappointed upon release, my algorithm and you really know me
Fantastic analysis! The bit about Suramar having so much buildup until the climax is so true - but for me, it was the level of attachment we could build with even minor NPCs, and not knowing which of them would be safe by the end. Runas the Shamed back in Azsuna primed us early to empathize with the Withered's plight. And seeing even many of the well-off Nightborne feel pity and doubt in Elisande's plan really made the revolution feel realistic. That's how dictators often shoot themselves in the foot: they try to stoke fear, and end up making martyrs. If anyone remembers Margaux the vintner... I still have the wine she gave me in my bag, all these years later.
Babe wake up, Sixsten posted a video! Suramar actually is the entire reason I fell in love with World of Warcraft. I actually started playing in earnest during BfA and had only played a bit of BC back in the day when I was a kid... Going back and doing Suramar to unlock the Nightborne race was a GREAT though grueling experience. Legit the best patch zone in WoW. I wish I could have gotten to experience it live.
I mean the fix to flying in the city is easy, Have scout towers with a spot light, and players will have to dodge the spot lights while flying, if the spotlight hits the player it alerts the guards and they will attempt to net the player, players will now go from dodging the spotlight to dodging nets
1) Azj'kahet's City of Threads is smaller than Suramar. 2) Being able to fly right away in that zone nullifies the sense of danger/being discovered by the guards has no real consequences. 3) While during the campaign you feel like a massive army is endlessly pouring out of Azj'kahet into the other zones, once you reach Azj'kahet you don't feel like they're even training an army for an invasion. They're just chilling here and there. 4) They didn't give the Azj'kahet story arc enough time to consolidate. And even now, some things like what will happen to the original queen are left unsolved. My opinion is that Nerub'ar Palace should've been the 11.1 or even 11.2 raid, not the first one.
The saga will release expansions at a faster pace so a zone like Suramar will be practically impossible. The fact that we only get 2 major patches now instead of 3 per expansion is a good indicator of this. There will be a bigger focus on content cadence instead of story progression and engagement which is what made Suramar so good and rich where you felt like you actually impacted the events. We also now know player housing will take major dev time. Edit : Well there you go, you explained that towards the end of the vid.
Unless they do something in one expansion in the trilogy that leads into the next expansion in the trilogy. I am not confident that will happen, but Hallowfall and the Arathi could be that. But having something contained in one expansion? yeah, I would doubt it. The reason why people like the FF14 story so much is because of all the set up and marination things get. It's like playing an actual single player FF game as you work through the MSQ. Blizzard often wants their big pay off without any of the work. Just look at Shadowlands and how they said it was the conclusion of a story they were telling since WC3. It wasn't, of course, the Jailer never existed until maybe BFA. Whereas Legion? Legion was THE conclusion of WC2 and TBC. The Sons of Lothar reunited against the Burning Legion. Kil'jaeden and Velen's story wrapped up. The Draenei exiles return home. Sargeras defeated. Illidan's story is fully resolved. They didn't jerk themselves off when they did Legion, they just told the story. Was it prefect? No. But it was definitely way better written than either BFA or Shadowlands.
Don't forget that Legion was a great expansion because they sacrificed WOD half trough to work on Legion, that is an important factor to consider (among others) on why legion was better than others.
I fondly remember Suramar. One of my favorite daily quests was that wine quest, I love that they 'age' the wine with temporal magic enchantment created around the warehouse where they put barrels of wine.
So to sum it up, Suramar did it first meaning all of the elements of it that became a issue in later expansions, grinding the same resource over and over again, slowly opening up a zone until we could raid it, etc etc where novel, new and unique. The they just copy pasted Legions homework with slight tweaks but at that point people are tired of it and want something new. When people say "we want you to redo Suramar" what they are really wanting is that new and unique feeling that Suramar gave them because it was new and unique at the time. They don't want a rehash of what they already did and honestly I'm willing to bet if we do get Legion Classic, people won't enjoy Suramar the 2nd time nearly as much as they did the first.
Legion showing its peak dominance amongst all other more "Modern" Expansions. We still love WoW and as a whole it is moving in a better direction, but they still have a way to go for sure. Love your insights and perspectives as always Six, keep up the good work and congrats on 5K subs! 🙏🔥⚔🛡
If Nurabar Palace had been the raid to end TWW on, that might have helped it. But you are right, the story and patches are going at mach speeds compared to Legion. Legion also came after Warlords of Dreanor, the expansion that dropped a whole raid tier to let us get Legion faster, or to give it more time to come together. TWW likely didn't have the same time and space that Legion had, in terms of making a Suramar experience. As with all expansions, the game speeds up. Item level increases at a faster pace. The story also didn't give us the Broken exiles. The faction we join on the Nerubian's side wasn't really weak. They were strong, and had access within the City of Threads that our weakened allies didn't. It was a fundamentally different way to tell the Suramar story. To me, it would have been like starting the Suramar storyline with Thalyssra in her state post fruit, and maybe one of the others also in that state, having JUST been thrown from the city. Maybe have...Oculeth thrown out earlier because he's a telemancer and could get rebels in. The game didn't need another Suramar. But knowing Blizzard, they try to either replicate a system that was received positively (ala Suramar and artifacts) or a storyline. The problem is that they've either ramped up the system to borrowed player power, or they just can't or don't replicate the cadence of the storyline. At least, that's how I feel about it.
i agree with all of what you wrote. But Shadowlands was always weird to me. Not that i think the idea was bad or anything, but going into a kind of deathrealm, or THE deathrealm of your univers, is a difficult step imo. Its like timetravel. there are so many possibilitys that you have to discover when writing the story. And honestly yes the 4 starting zones were great, but then they just messed with old caracters or others dont even show up. And the jailer.... i realy believe to this day the jailer wasnt even real. It doesnt make sence to me that ALL OF WARCRAFTS STORY is because the jailer said oHHH iTs mY mAsTeR pLaN. nah man the jailer was dumb. at first spooky and cool, but after just dumb man....Legion was the best time i had in WoW. i regret not playing through the full expansion honestly :O
@@danielwaldhoer7544 Honestly, Legion would have made a great swan song. It wrapped up so many stories, while still delivering shocks that made sense. For the most part. Vol'jin being 1 shot by a demon spear to the gut doesn't make sense. Varian saying "I'm going to make sure my allies and forces get away unharmed"? Way more sensible. In fact, had Vol'jin told Sylvanas to leave him and take the Horde, and then jumped down to help Varian, thereby getting both of them vaporized together, that would have been better to me. Sylvanas becoming the Warchief was weird, but since she had apparently already went to the Maw after we killed Arthas, it sort of made sense that she had been in contact with the Jailer since then. He'd been powering her up slowly since the end of WotLK, meaning when she revealed she was much more powerful than before, that would actually make sense. What doesn't is every other exspanion they changed the Helm of Domination's story. Legion made, turned to dreadlords made, then turned to made by the Jailer or the knowledge of it, and finally turned to the Runecarver made it. If it was just dominations magic, why bother with Ner'nul staying in the helm, then? Just banish the unneeded soul. The Jailer was just a bad character over all. Him being the original arbiter that gained a sense of unfairness should have just seen him killed and replaced. Instead, the others decided that tossing him into a pit of Warcraft hell was better, and that letting him bread resentment for them over millennia was smarter. The leaders of the covenants were morons. There is no other way to say it, with the way the story was presented. They did not think their plan through at all. If they were manipulated by the Sire, they should be made that the story, not that the other 4 just derped their plan to send him to the Maw and just assume he'd never get away. The Jailer himself is one of the most hollow villains Blizzard ever made. I will have to bring up the era that this story was in, in the MMO market at the time: Shadowbringers from FF14. They built up the innitial villain of the story arc very well. We get to know him, and get to understand his feelings and his motives for why he does what he does. Zuval is a hollow mess that is just evil because we needed a bbeg (dnd for big bad evil guy). The true villain of the Shadowlands should have been the Sire. He at least had a personality, as supremely pompous, and would have made a much bigger splash on the story because he controlled the dreadlords. Gripes aside, the Shadowlands was just a bad place put where it was. A realm of death is a super high concept. It should have been saved for much later, and it should have been written in the background more. That would have given them much more time to bring back interesting characters. What and who we were given were just...not that interesting. Drakka was cool, when we first saw her, but then she did nothing but stay in the hall. Keal'thas was a'ight, we got him in a quest and in the raid, but he ultimately turned out disappointing. Garrosh was a nothing burger, Ner'zul was just a raid boss... Shadowlands had potential. It was just squandered as it was not allowed the time to breath.
as someone who played Legion I remember what people really said back then. Now personally I liked Legion but it had a lot of problems people just carefully gloss over in all praise of the expansion, or even outright deny. But by the end of Legion people were saying they never wanted to see almost anything they got in legion again. No more AP grind. Back when AP meant artifact power. No more burning legion. No more khadgar. No more killing off HUGE amounts of random story characters just to advance the plot (from as big as Tirion Fordring to as small as Amber Kearnen) No more talking head world quests, no more mission tables, No more legiondaries, and more. And people seem to forget the reason BFA is so hated is because it continued all the things people hated in Legion along with the various things people liked. People got so much content in Legion, complained as usual, but got more burned out than before, and that burnout carried into BFA and made them far less charitable to BFA. And Suramar was one of the most mocked things of its time. People hated withered training. People hated the Nightborne callouts. On the flipside, people were really excited for allied races. They wanted more flavor to their race and people overall liked what they got, except for 2 people - Nightborne players, and void elf players. Velfs wanted to be High elves. Nightborne wanted to look more like the NPC models. But all that aside, people were really hyped for allied races and now that we have them all people do is whine about a new allied race not being different enough from existing races every single time. Then we got evokers and dracthyr and people didnt want that either. You can not please the playerbase and I at the same time also refuse to accept this nostalgic view of Legion as the absolute peak of WoW. I personally really enjoyed Legion more than most expacs (not all, but most) but people did nothing but whine even during Legion.
There's also a lot of WoD revisionist now too, constantly praising Highmaul + Blackrock Foundry. WoD was not liked at all from the very beginning, people were very upset at the garrisons for lagging, and when garrisons started to feel like you don't see other players anymore, the infamous selfie patch was released and it was clowned on for years to come. Content drought, Ring legendary being inferior Cloak legendaries, Archimonde being the final boss and dying for good in an expansion he was irrelevant in, Grom changing sides and going "Draenor is free", etc etc. People went on and on. Legion catching so much flak at the start, like Legiondaries and Emerald Nightmare raid being clowned on, only to be known as one of the best modern expansions later down the line is amusing to watch. If Blizzard fumbles TWW or Mignight, we will see the same treatment for Dragonflight. It's current reputation is: amazing system changes, wet fart of a story, and mediocre overall. In 2 years, it's gonna be heralded as some new messiah of WoW.
I actually really liked revendreth both as a zone and it's story. It feeled like a real place, like Suramar. I love TWW but Azj-Kahet definitely does not feel like city (nor does the palace feel like a palace, unlike the Nighthold and Nathria castle). Edit; you know what,I'm gonna expend on this and say an unpopular opinion : I think the start of Shadowlands ruled, actually. I loved the 4 realms and I was surprised by the depth of their respective stories. I think the covenents storylines were great storytelling and did give the whole first segment of the expansion a feeling of actual large scale political drama. Every realm had it's own issues to resolve and very often they were tied to the issues of the other realms. It made the Shadowlands feel real to me, filled with real people. Uncovering the treason of Denatrius and the extent of it's influence was thrilling. I do agree that this feeling did not last with the later patches of the expansion. I actually stopped playing for almost a year and got back when Dragonflight was announced to catch up on the story and I must say I had a blast. I think Zovaal made for a poor big bad and for an expansion based almost entirely on him, it meant the overall story could not feel compelling. But other than that, and I will die on this hill, I think that Shadowlands world building was way better than people give it credit for and there are a lot of things to love in it.
I loved Shadowlands, and was always kind of confused with how much hate it got all the time. I even liked the Jailer in a weird way. Sure, I didn't care for most of his plot, but I really wanted revenge for what he did to Anduin. It made him an oddly personal villain in that way.
I agree on the fact that the start of shadowland ruled. The zones were great. Cracks showed real fast sadly. Just like legion with getting the wrong legy or TWW with everything that happened after 11.0.5.
Bro I started farming SL stuff by soloing mythic nathria and then doing the rest of the content and I'm having such a good time. Shadowlands was amazing except for the terrible, terrible systems
I didn't like Shadowlands because it not only broke the lore, it was also very unrelatable. I want to quest in Azeroth, not some odd place that had nothing to do with the story so far.
I agree, so glad others think like this, the beginning of Shadowlands was amazing, I love the theme so much, I even have the collector's edition. As a Romanian from the Transylvania region, I especially loved the Revendreth zone and doing the Venthyr campaign. The whole expansion should have been amazing, but everything fell apart a few months after launch and I think in most part due to the pandemic, then they scrapped together two more major patches that felt so disconnected. The systems however were not good even in the beginning. I loved the RPG element of choosing a covenant and having special abilities, but the Soulbinds and souls / anima acquisition were awfully designed.
Grew to love this zone's story after having to go through it for the Nightborne allied race quest (I initially avoided this zone simply because of the ancient mana grind, which I now find rather satisfying), really loved that you covered it! :D
There is also the content tied to Suramar, with the chest runs with fun rewards and tactics, simple tactics but still fun since it changed it up from normal grind. Then unique skins for weapon as well, which sort of "encouraged" people to do raids, be it just for loot, or to upgrade their weapons for the skins
Amazing video, so well done! Keep up the good work. The Suramar nostalgia hit me hard, I started back in Legion and my God was it good! I feel WoW is moving to a formula in which it has something for everybody and it is actually amazing! Sometimes I see something in the open world and maybe I don't understand it very well but knowing that someone is enjoying that content and is riding in the skies same as I do rushing to another dungeon to fight for my life in another key makes me so happy. Sometimes you are not the target audience and it's fine however maybe if you try... Who knows :D Loving delves so far!
Suramar was blend of various things that made it so memorable, they tried it was azj'kahet, but at the end of the day, flying is the core reason we will never get an experience like it again
Suramar was a unique experience. There's no need to attempt replicating something perfectly, and while trying can be worthwhile, exploring new ideas often leads to even better outcomes. World of Warcraft is a massive game, and its evolution depends on balancing nostalgia with innovation. If Blizzard were to return to a slower release cycle, like one patch every six months, many players (myself included) wouldn’t be thrilled. Instead, they could focus on creating more engaging, dynamic content within shorter timeframes. A great example is the secrets and hidden discoveries that continuously pop up in the game. These elements keep the community engaged and excited, similar to the way events are designed. By leaning into that format, Blizzard could potentially revolutionize how zones and updates are developed, ensuring that the game remains fresh without alienating players who crave frequent content updates.
I didn't even realize how good suramar was until I watched this, really an amazing video with a lot of details and work put into it that should be admired. Keep it up.
Thank you for making this video, it has been a big question for me and i sat down many times talking about it. Suramar worked back then cause it was clear blizz wanted to make a story and it was going to be relevant through patches, any other attempt was clear were trying to be like suramar (and failed) and i fear that might also left a bad taste in people's mouths. I believe blizz could make another suramar, it just needs to be more than a single patch or beyond just an excuse to have a raid only. But then again like you said the pacing was slower and that was a huge benefit for suramar, plus wod was still fresh in people's memory so Suramar was gotta be more favourable for that as well i think.
loved the in-depth analysis! its crazy how every mechanic and element are deeply intertwined. its extra crazy having to tackle that experiment with the everchanging cadence of a playerbase. it becomes its own living organism
As a blood elf main, I too felt the pain of their addiction to mana. Really brought to mind ye ol days of dealing with the enemies in the Belf starting area. I'm surprised that we haven't yet seen any real interaction between the nightborne and the Belfs. Maybe in Midnight? I hear that might be Belf focused
Other reasons Suramar was "populated" was cuz it was SWIMMING in artifact power, so people really wanted to go there to farm that during late hours or when not in the mood to farm m+, and also withered training was fun and led to artifact appearances and other goodies. The build up to nighthold was awesome, its just something i dont think we will see again. Last month i was flying toward ara kara for a key and thought to myself "huh, this zone is a lot like suramar, eh?" just rushed and stripped and void of all flavour
Suramar could have been even more rewarding if they implemented a phase of the city that is post Legion war. Basically made a story and quests to make it a peacefully usable capital for the Nightborne and all the horde players. That would also explain the epilogue of the story of how the Nightborne joined the Horde and their city being opening with a warm welcome to their new allies. They just need to put some ins, vendors, banks, auction houses, portals to the other continents and disable the hostility plus a Zidormi dragon to change from present to past. Thats not that hard to do.
20:49 saved?? dragonflight... the best expansion? sturdy bones? a success? It definitely had some redeeming qualities, but I would consider the expansion that saw the playerbase drop to half a million, that had a campaign completion rate of less than 4%, a unique raid participation in the triple digits, considered by many as a boring filler episode whose best selling point was being inoffensive at best a wake up call, not a savior.
dragon flight was dog, only good thing from it was the quality of life changes it made, the story sucked, the zones sucked, the raids sucked and m+ was better in shadowlands
@@Ryan-sn3uogithub is your friend, if your gpu can handle it, you can run specialized ada-like tools like spe to filter accounts using common filters like pet teams/achievements/dates/guilds to discard alt-characters using the db of your preference during whatever time-period suits your fancies and reach your own conclusions. While half a million and triple digits was blurted out for overemphasis, most 'properly gauged' results will launch a population between the 700k and 900k range between season 1 and 2 of df down from a 1.5millions high. Just for comparison's sake, in most areas before s3, df peaks at about half of Shadowland's lowest point (season 2). Notice that chinese accounts should always be excluded due to api limitations for accuracy.
lol the only time the playerbase has been at 500k is in 2005. Pretty sure I remember seeing something that said Dragonflight was the first expac since BC where the mid-expansion player numbers actually rose instead of dropped.
that's why i can say kul tiras lore, it's similar to suramar, it's cool, you explore, discover secrets and mysteries, the boralus city is full of incredible details, every house is different, it seems very real. they are not empty houses all the same as in dragonflight, they are alive. The missions are not all a: kill kill and that's it, there is an incredible story underneath
No one remebers it now, but this is why I enjoyed the story of cataclysm fireland dailies. Where you grow a tree as well. I know I love druid stuff, and the dailies were very repetitive. Goes to show how much enjoyment is time and place dependent, because suramar was just a foot note in my legion journey while most early wow content is more nostalgic for me personally.
You know listening to positive retrospectives on old WoW content makes me think "this is how these systems must have been talked about internally in blizz. Like covenants does feel like a cool idea. I can see why internally they thought it was a bold new direction and expansion on the ideas of the faction system, but of course we know the community can be very hit or miss.
By the way, for all the Suramar story line enjoyers like myself (I absolutely loved it) - if you liked it, check out Brandon Sanderons' 'Elantris' - I'm pretty sure they must have low key taken inspirations from it, to me it has very similar feeling and setting - people afflicted by magical disease that makes their bodies both kind of partially immortal but also slowly withering away, are exiled to closed off ruins of a magical city where they are eventually doomed to fall into apathetic zombie-like state driven mad by hunger and pain which they are unable to ever alleviate... familiar isn't it? And it also has the similar feel and story arc of slowly building something from nothing despite being doomed to seemingly hopeless situation at the beginning. I can't recommend it enough if you enjoyed Suramar!
Nah i want another suramar, the progression and watching your work actually do something as you grow the tree and everything. idk maybe i'm remembering it wrong but i loved that, and i loved that expansion.
This is such a good analysis on why Suramar was amazing. As a fan of the Drow race from D&D and their city of Menzoberranzan, which is definitely the inspiration for Azj-Kahet, I wanted so much for the City of Threads (doesn't even have a proper name) to be like Suramar, but it just wasn't. There are multiple reasons, we had no visual progression on the story as we had with Arcan'dor and the way the characters changed in looks. We have Skyriding and their guards were never a threat. We had no losses that we actually care about and the story just ended the moment the raid opened, without a proper conclusion. Do the three members of the Severed Threads rule the city now? Don't know. Or is it Queen Neferess in her new abominable form? Don't know, and we're probably never going to find out, as we're moving to the goblin city next. As much as I like the theme, the Azj-Kahet zone has been a missed opportunity, at least for my high expectations of this zone. To be honest, I think Shadowlands in 9.0 was far closer in replicating the Suramar vibe, not with the Maw though, but with the Revendreth zone and if you chose the Venthyr covenant and did their campaign. I have so much nostalgia with Legion and Suramar, here's hoping that perhaps the Silvermoon City in Midnight will be somewhat like Suramar. I totally see Xal'atath as a Gul'dan-like character, who knows, perhaps we'll fight her at the Sunwell the way we fought Gul'dan at the Nightwell, the forces of the void instead of the Burning Legion. Once again, amazing video, subscribed.
I'm still holding out hope for Azj;Khaet storyline to continue in a later .5 or .7 patch, because they have already set up the story threads or it. The city and its story is still nothing compared to Suramar or Menzo, but I love its ambience and architecture too much to see it go to waste.
Legion was the best xpac. Being a Blood elf Mage, I knew and I felt the pain of the nightborne, and I put my heart to make them free of mana addiction.
My brother and I (warrior and rogue) would sneak around suranar and randomly attack guards for hours acting like freedom fights. Idk why it was so fun lmao
i think they shouldn't have allowed flying in the city of threads. or at least, let us do quests to unlock portions of the city where we can fly around. maybe by having us rank up our reps, it becomes easier. that way we'd be forced to be on the ground among the nerubians, experience their culture a lot more. definitley leave it as a max level zone. there's such a great feeling to having to wait to get there compared to being able to fly in straight away. heck, there was even that one queen in their lore who got kicked out that you can find that went kind of crazy. maybe by turning traitor, their pheromones start to act up, and they get closer and closer to getting found out. combine that with delaying the raid, it would've given us more tension, more of a race against the clock. i felt a race against the clock in suramar, cause i knew that if i didnt get the rebels their mana, if i didnt do everything i could to keep them afloat, their rebellion would've failed, and the legion would've ensured their hold over suramar. im no writer, and def shouldnt write for this game, but i just feel they couldve done something to make us feel like there was a race against the clock. more tension to worry about these cool spider people and their cutlure. make the pheromones as significant like mana. different systems, but that concept of "let me blast you with my pheromones and you'll blend in" was so cool!!! but they just didnt take advantage of it. and to harp again about flying, i really think they should limit it. in suramar you got to see more tame parts of the city and the more legion dominated areas and how the citizens went about their lives in these areas, because u were forced to walk through it. in the city of threads, that wasnt really there. but i do love this vid and it was great
I didn't expect your take on the Maw to be so on point. Just having this little "Welcome to Hell" hardcore game mode that you only get ~15 minutes of a week seems like a perfectly fine addition to the game. A weekly reward for doing it just seems like a nice little bonus, but NO. The retail playerbase can't control themselves and they HAVE to do ALL the things, including the super hardcore mode. It's all obligatory. This is why we can't have nice things.
That is why in 11.1 the undermine will not have flying and instead they are investing in cars, perhaps that way they will be able to create that engaging enviroment again.
loved the video - you have a new subscriber :). Suramar was pure magic - it will indeed not be replicated. Instead, Blizzard should keep being creative until they find the right recipe to deliver us another dose of magic.
Legion Suramar nightborne Quest felt like it was its own assansins creed game when fulfilling objectives around the city. Nighthold was also the best Raid to be ever release in my opinion.
So I will give my opinion because you dont mention this specifically but, I was decided not to play this expansion but when i saw nerubians as a plot I knew i would end up giving in, I love Nerubians I love anything with them scarabs I even find Anub'Arak kinda sexy to be honest but aside that, I like the Nerubians for what they are, how agressive and monstrous they act, how their conviction was indomitable, how mysterious and scary their origins seemed, so I was hooked in - before saying my point I will talk about Suramar and the nightborne When I started to know the nightborne as a player, they seemed so grounded to the reality of WoW, they reacted like people in need and they threw their pride away asking for help, their addiction and issues felt raw and I could actually feel icky aswell as empathy for their cause, THAT was the part that sparkled interest in me, appart from doing the daily quests, I was thinking about them, I was thinking about the surreal world they live in and how I had to grab mana from this MASSIVE and GORGEOUS city so I could bring it to this miserable cave and the wretched people inside, it didn't feel like a chore I was truly invested because of it was made with a purpose aside from "people enjoyed this content we got to bring it back", the aesthetic of it too, it was just so - grounded - because I dont know a better word to describe it.... OKAY so NOW the point you didnt mention because it probably is not nice to say, but it's true WoW direction has been more.. "endearing" leaning, THOSE NERUBIANS are NOT my nerubians, they're not real, this zone made me EYEROLL to the sight of them, their story seems cheap and unorganized, the supposed NERUBIAN ARCHITECTURE is not it, I saw human-like beds in their INNs, the entire palace seems crafted as for humanoids exclusively, I just can't believe that the City of Threads is a Nerubian zone no matter how much webs and tangle you place around, the stores are lame and predictable, they are 8 or more legged creatures (ignoring the boring-plot-driven ascendance forms that they didnt had time to adapt the entire city for those alone) They SHOULDN'T be sleeping in human beds, they should have many more holes paths to crawl in, their city should be 100% more oppressive to look at, you did mention flying messed things up there and I agree on that too, the entire story and content surrounding nerubians seem forced like no one wanted to really work on the plot, that's just cheap stuff they had to pull up to start the expansion. And one of the parts I hated the most is how cordial and cutesy they talk to the player, "little critter..." "delicious bite", so unserious, the way they ask for help is poorly written, too trustworthy from the go, their hub is not even hiding from the enemy with no repercussions at all, all happens way too fast, they BEHAVE like they are used to having outsiders as customers and that is just not it that is not nerubians and that is not grounded I couldnt give a single fffuk about their struggles and their motives, their villain is cheap the plot is cheap once again, even xal'atath didnt expect Ansurek to achieve anything its just uninteresting and sad....... Then look at the Nightborne, they never treated the player like this was a joke or a game, they were legit junk-ies crawling on the floor not knowing what to do and thalyssra the voice of reason helped patching up all together, i cant remember a single Nerubian from what im playing now because not a single one of them is interesting, the nightborne in our side werent half as cordial as the nerubians we have now, if so I remember they treating you just like comrades and enjoying just the simple things they could afford while being in that horrible spot, they were in constant dread too, the nerubians are just chilling, Im repeating myself but overall all surrounding them feels lazy and unwanted......
and with all that vomit spewed - the editing, writing, organization, voices and production overall in this video are so good, entertaining to listen and most importantly to pay attention to cuz i tend to get distracted easily and i found myself doing something i never do which is - looking at the screen, xoxo mami kisskiss
At one hand, we will never have the bliss of Suramar again. In the other hand, I'll never again spend hundreds of hours helping, saving and simping to a race that will later on be given exclusively to the horde (I'll never forgive them for marrying Thalyssra to the Blood Elf leader). Fair trade.
@@MysteriousPear802There's lore excuses for Ally or Horde, including for both. "Doesn't matter what side they're on" is your opinion, so state it as such.
I gave mana to a LOT of desperate civilians in the city before I even realized it rewarded a buff. Also got held up a lot because I stopped to fight guards for being scumbags.
I feel like Suramar being inspired by Venice helped a lot too. Easily recognizeable. Reminiscent of Assassins Creed in a way. The new iterations of the Suramar idea are a mish-mash of different things, the layouts of the cities pale in comparison and overall they all seem a bit half-baked. The identity of these cities falls flat imo. One other city that nails this energy is Boralus. At least in my experience. There is so much space thats taken up by buildings that we will never really go to, BUT! It makes the city feel real. I love exploring Boralus bcs it feels authentic. I will have no use of most of these areas - but the fact they are implemented makes the city feel vast and real. Comparing Boralus and Suramar to Azj-Kahet makes the latter feel extremely condensed. Theres barely any nooks and crannies to snoop around in. It just doesnt feel like an actual occupied city.
I feel like the City of Threads should've had some debuff that prevents flying in the city, but can still fly elsewhere in Azj-Kahet, it's called the City of Threads after all, not hard to imagine their capital would have webbing everywhere as an air deterrent. Also Nerubar Palace should've been a much later raid while the launch raid should've been something Earthen related, cause they're ironically a bit neglected when you get to endgame. (Not that I'm not excited for Undermine, and I wonder if that's not going to be another Suramar attempt as well considering what we've seen...)
Yea flying in Azj-Kahet fundamentally changed the experience. If they were serious about repeating Suramar, they should’ve made it dangerous for us to fly there, yeah, we could still fly, but various things should’ve been able to take us down and knock us out of the sky if we weren’t careful. Ultimately blizzard has gotten better at doing 3-D zones but honestly, I expected more spiderwebs in the air given the fact that we’re dealing with spiders, the zone was still too flat in both obstacles and threat. (and was over too quickly to have the impact they wanted it to) Sounds to me like we’re going to wind up with another attempt in undermine though.
really well done video! My unsolicited constructive criticism is to practice the voice over more bc i noticed words were getting slurred occasionally making it harder to understand the commentary. Keep up the good work tho!
I started in mid Shadowlands. I have leveled a few toons in Legion and have totally missed the story. By the time I start questing in Suramar, I reach max level and get booted.
I think something important Legion as a whole had going for it, was the previous expansion WoD was gutted of dev time to put more work into Legion and its polish.
There's also a few other noteworthy differences between Azj-Kahet and Suramar. 1: Suramar was beautiful, the City of Threads is kinda meh in comparison. 2: The circumstances of our protagonists, our three conspirators are not exiled, starving and desperate for our help just to get by so you don't get that sense of dependancy. 3: There doesn't seem to be much of a bond forming between ourselves the way we did with Thalyssra, Oculeth and Valtrois, we don't go questing and doing stuff together with them as part of a greater long-term progressing zone story so Arak'nai, Anub'azel and Nizrek do not get anywhere near as much characterisation as our trio from Suramar did. It's not as easy to get attached when our interaction with them is a lot more limited in comparison.
there was a time suramar was hated. The world quest lets you wander inside the city with elite mobs, that was one of the complaints. I was surprised as the expac goes on, players was beloved
How I would fix Ahn-Kajet is first... slow down the patches, let players marinate in the zone, add little mini-games that gives you rewards, like the Nightborn Withered Army Training mini-game. Make it to where flying in the city is not inpossible, but limited. For the lore nerds, add the excuse that your pheromone mask weakens in the air and makes you easily detectable, and because of the attempted assassination on the Queen, the skies are under constant supervision, so if you mount up and fly, you get a stacking debuff that lasts for an hour. Once you reach ten stacks, you are webbed off your mount and abducted and have to do a mini-event to escape your captors. This incentivizes players to walk more, explore the zone, learn to be sneaky again.
Here’s how you know TWW is better than SL, reason number 539: I missed Withered Army Training during SL. I’d have taken that over Yet Another Torghast Run or Yet Another Maw Assault any day. Nothing I am regularly doing in TWW makes me long for the bad old days of making sure I didn’t lose a single withered or else my entire run was in vain because I couldn’t open that chest.
I don't disagree that the greater context matters, but it's also true that Blizzard decides what the content of the game is. Azj-Kahet stands out like a Jedi in a fantasy novel because it's designed like it's supposed to be a Suramar but it's placed into the wrong context (and without any notable adaptations to make that work). As the authors of the game, Blizzard didn't have to do things this way so it's worthwhile to ask why they did.
I may be coping, but I think another Suramar may be possible if they give it the consequences of the maw. Like we enter it slowly to get cosmetics while we deal with immediate problems. And notice AFTER we were already infiltrating enemy narrative notices us and bans us from there for x time. In which we need to find a way back in another corner. Likely making allies along the way and reuniting with whoever we first met. And making it either the second or final raid in which expansion end game is us earning the ability to use the zone. I feel like this would be a great usage of the Ethereal home world should we ever go there. And would have reasonable power / narrative for us to somehow get there and then be banished without a return ability.
And lets say a reason we can't be there could logically be potent void corruption/insanity. And we can't return because Alleria was our anchor, and she gets captured. So we spend a patch or half patch with locus walker or whomever learning how to channel the void the way Alleria does or something. But we end up on like its moon, and we work to eventually save alleria and siege the planet. In a following patch
So... unfortunatelly i didnt have the oportunity to play Legion back on time. I quit on WOD and kinda get away from wow for quite a while until end of BFA. And hell.. i would love if they handle to really create another Suramar. I see thats work very well and was fun to play, so... today players deserve it. If not a copy, a so good equivalent system. Cause of it, i do not judge they atempting to "recreate suramar" on Shadowlands and now with azjkahet.
I think for me the big reason why the most recent 'attempts' at another Suramar haven't really hit have been because of the theme. For example Suramar was a magical city in lore and was absolutely beautiful city with the whole zone feeling fun and aesthetically pleasing, where as you contrast that with the maw where it's original incarnation was drab and boring and essentially hostile to navigate through, and even Azj'Kahet is drab and 'spidery' which feels kind of unwelcoming and annoying. I can definitely say that the Suramar arc didn't feel like that bad to navigate, and I think the City of Threads is actually not bad too, I prefer both of them hands down over the BS that was the Maw and I think that's ok. Additionally to all that I think that people probably felt more relatable to the Nightborne as many of us played Blood Elves and are essentially kin where as we have only ever faught Nerubians so it would take longer to warm up to them than just the first section of an expansion where we just met them. Perhaps it would have made more sense for Azj'Kahet to be explored in a later patch after we had met some of the friendly ones earlier on in the expansion so we could have had some of that exposition of the situation there with the final conclusion coming in a .5 patch. Ah well.
Suramar had a story, that's for sure. Classic underdog stuff. But it was also a tremendous pain. i don't think any form of grind zone built around repeat events will somehow not be a pain because every gimmick is just a hurdle between you and being done with your chores. The war within is also operating on some low energy, taking a popular side villain/ambiguous enemy who should be scheming her way to power in the background, and thrusting her into the fore is feeling like more a desperation play with each bit of the story we see. They just don't have the plot devices to make a suramar's strengths anew.
![[Live สด] การออกรางวัลสลากกินแบ่งรัฐบาล งวดวันที่ 16 ธันวาคม 2567](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/dNTiBBthKgQ/mqdefault.jpg)
"It's amazing how many of these quests are simply about union busting."
It all started with the Defias.
What made Suramar unique was the fact that Blizzard took their time and fleshed out the storyline/zone; you got to meet new characters and begin growing the resistance piece by piece. Along the way, you lose some of those characters and suffer some setbacks as some parts of Suramar (both the city and the zone) began to change to reflect the story's impact.
there is a LOT of detail put in to tww spider zone,in some ways more than suramar when it comes to its lore and history,but this zone was clearly not intended to be the same even if it seems similar
Indeed, it REALLY sold the feeling of building everything from scratch, piece by piece, step by step but with general arch and end goal always somewhere in sight. Truly one of the best zones/storyline in wow's history.
Mainly because WoD was cut short. never forget this.
Legion is still my favorite expansion by far.
10/10 would do anything for a legion server
100% I remember waking up at 5am to get so hours in before work on launch and getting my first artifact on my mage. I never played so much wow as I did in Legion.
@@chickpoon9607 Tauri Wow, probably the best Mop server, has Legion server on the way but it's still on PTR. There is a rumor it will be available in 2025 and if it's as good as the Mop one then it will be amazing.
Mythic Dungeons were so much fun. Especially with all the salty Guildmates looking at your Loot in the Chest. hahaha
Hell, teah brother
I think what helped is Nighthold wasn’t the first raid in Legion.
Lets look at the other 2 zones/raids:
Castle Nathria: 2-weeks then go into the raid and beat the bad guy
Nerub-Ar Palace: 2-weeks then go into the raid and beat the bad guy
Suramar: Quest chain spanning a couple months, then go into the raid and beat the bad guy.
Suramar and its villain were given time to marinate.
The other two zones’ issues were resolved immediately.
This. And we had an epilogue to it all as well. It was just so well developed and given time to live and breathe as a "real city" might.
Legion was a masterpiece, but even in Legion Suramar stood a cut above the rest of the zones.
It felt like the first actual living city in the game. Not just a large city-themed space for NPCs to hang out until you need them, but a city, with it's denizens and quirks.
I guess now it would feel like a chore to go through it, but when it was live content Suramar was *chef's kiss*
Thalyssra: "One of the withered is running away. Catch him before he is lost in the tunnels!"
Scorpid: "No.. Natural Selection" 😎
As a new WoW player (yeah, we exist) I like to explore older scenarios and zones, and I love to dig into old lore and stories, and the Legion extension and especially all the plot around Suramar were one of my favorite, it felt so special and exciting. I really, really loved it. I also did like every single sidequest for the legendary Legion weapon appearances, so I kinda felt a special connection to the place. Even though doing everything with a lvl 80 gear made things a lot, LOT faster and easier, and may for sure have taken away some of the "big accomplishment" side of things.
once they launch legion classic its inevitable to happen it will be the most amazing and bullshit experience you get unless they fix the glaring issues. it is by far the best modern expansion for me atleast
suramar is one of the most beautiful zones in wow as well
I think it is the most beautiful. I was sad to see that Suramar wasn’t the capital and that Dalaran was the hub. But I haven’t spent too much time in Legion zones having played less than three years.
Literally this - like if anyone ever needed to know why Suramar is loved and the Maw is hated, just compare 2 screenshots. Nothing reminds you that you're in an endless grind of futile daily quests like being in an endless, empty desert of despairing lost souls. The people who designed the Maw were either extremely self-aware with a dickish sense of humour, or completely oblivious with no awareness at all - no in-between.
@@graysaltine6035All of this. I had to go to the Maw, but it’s literal hell: no one at all in the cosmos _wants_ to be there. Suramar City is beautiful and this makes it relatable. Going to the Maw is a narrative means to an end (heck, at the end of the expansion, Pelagos suggests that no one will ever be sent there again), but Suramar City is an end in itself. Even if your mana addiction is cured, you still _want_ to be there.
As for the self-awareness of the devs … I kinda feel like some of the legal issues Blizzard had a few years ago suggest “self-aware dicks” rather than “oblivious”.
Another detail that made me love Surammar was the fact that it was actually in Warcraft 3. Alongside Aszuna and Val'sharah. During the Nightelf campaign to chase Illidan down, Maieve mentioned these ancient cities when they first arrived at the Broken Isles. The amount of nostalgia and hype for something as old as this being uncovered was a thrill for me.
I mean in spirit I suppose, but the only part that really canonically to touch is the broken shore not the greater isle. GRANTED RETCONS so I’m not standing by this like gospel
One important thing is that you explored suramar by foot. You remember every house, district and neighborhood. Later cities or zones you just zip around in a flying mount
It's crazy seeing a take like this after years of people complaining about having to use ground mounts
yea i think the main flaw of ahj kahet is that. In suramar we could not fly before doing the questline. In ahj kahet i fly around to get from a place 20 yards away
@@dulcetwho5770 it wasnt even that bad and most people didnt even care, its just always the loud minority who is crying
It’s more than that too though! Coincidentally, I’m working my way through Good Suramaritan for the first time recently as I level up a new fire mage. I played legion when it was current but I was too busy getting into raiding at the time to do suramar. Even zipping across the zone on a flying mount, I find myself absolutely captivated by it. I’ve currently logged about 15-20 hours on the zone and almost done with it, so it’s not like I’m pacing myself either to savor it. It still holds up even with modern WoW changes. The story is still just uniquely outstanding.
@@dulcetwho5770 Its why I never listen to the people who glaze legion, man. I really enjoyed Legion but tons of people did nothing but whine and a lot of those same people are glazing it to this day
Forget Suramar, there will never be another Expansion like Legion.
ahaha legion classic
Only real ones remember farming AM through the vineyard to hit cap in like 2 minutes.
i miss the pacing of legion, i felt like i was apart of fighting for the nightborne helping them defeat the evil elisende. i loved walking around suramar finding all the chests and rares. good times.
I think they could still 'make a suramar' today. It would absolutely be different. A big problem is that it would need to take place over a longer amount of time, be more central to the narrative and the experience. With the kind of stories they're trying to tell I don't think it will happen.
they could, but dumbass players would start whining about gatekeeping the story xD
Blizzard lost this skill when the people who designed the game left
Enter Undermine, no flying, huge city, racing with cars. I think it's gonna be great
Also you need remove flying until you at least complete the zone's questline. No need to wait for .2 patch with it.
I would just sit in Shal'Aran for hours and listen to the music. Suramar had one of the best soundtracks in the entirety of modern WoW and was an absolute masterpiece all around. I'll never forget the first time stepping into this zone after being the realm first level 110 character doing the questline in an area so serene, fascinating, beautiful and completely devoid of other players. That zone is a one-of-a-kind experience.
can say the same about the Timeless Isle, it was fairly popular and Blizzard keeps trying to recreate it over and over again, but never to the same level.
@Sixsten would like a video of your style on this topic for sure
oh man as a very intense Suramar enjoyer who heard TOO many people compare COT to Suramar, only to be extremely disappointed upon release, my algorithm and you really know me
Fantastic analysis!
The bit about Suramar having so much buildup until the climax is so true - but for me, it was the level of attachment we could build with even minor NPCs, and not knowing which of them would be safe by the end. Runas the Shamed back in Azsuna primed us early to empathize with the Withered's plight. And seeing even many of the well-off Nightborne feel pity and doubt in Elisande's plan really made the revolution feel realistic. That's how dictators often shoot themselves in the foot: they try to stoke fear, and end up making martyrs.
If anyone remembers Margaux the vintner... I still have the wine she gave me in my bag, all these years later.
Babe wake up, Sixsten posted a video!
Suramar actually is the entire reason I fell in love with World of Warcraft. I actually started playing in earnest during BfA and had only played a bit of BC back in the day when I was a kid... Going back and doing Suramar to unlock the Nightborne race was a GREAT though grueling experience. Legit the best patch zone in WoW. I wish I could have gotten to experience it live.
I mean the fix to flying in the city is easy, Have scout towers with a spot light, and players will have to dodge the spot lights while flying, if the spotlight hits the player it alerts the guards and they will attempt to net the player, players will now go from dodging the spotlight to dodging nets
I feel like there were so few quests in Azj-Kahet, it felt empty to me. I want more quests, more to do there! Beautiful place, very underused.
1) Azj'kahet's City of Threads is smaller than Suramar.
2) Being able to fly right away in that zone nullifies the sense of danger/being discovered by the guards has no real consequences.
3) While during the campaign you feel like a massive army is endlessly pouring out of Azj'kahet into the other zones, once you reach Azj'kahet you don't feel like they're even training an army for an invasion. They're just chilling here and there.
4) They didn't give the Azj'kahet story arc enough time to consolidate. And even now, some things like what will happen to the original queen are left unsolved.
My opinion is that Nerub'ar Palace should've been the 11.1 or even 11.2 raid, not the first one.
The saga will release expansions at a faster pace so a zone like Suramar will be practically impossible. The fact that we only get 2 major patches now instead of 3 per expansion is a good indicator of this. There will be a bigger focus on content cadence instead of story progression and engagement which is what made Suramar so good and rich where you felt like you actually impacted the events. We also now know player housing will take major dev time.
Edit : Well there you go, you explained that towards the end of the vid.
we are gettng less and less every xpac since SL but ultra wow fanboys are not ready for the truth.
Unless they do something in one expansion in the trilogy that leads into the next expansion in the trilogy. I am not confident that will happen, but Hallowfall and the Arathi could be that.
But having something contained in one expansion? yeah, I would doubt it. The reason why people like the FF14 story so much is because of all the set up and marination things get. It's like playing an actual single player FF game as you work through the MSQ. Blizzard often wants their big pay off without any of the work. Just look at Shadowlands and how they said it was the conclusion of a story they were telling since WC3.
It wasn't, of course, the Jailer never existed until maybe BFA. Whereas Legion? Legion was THE conclusion of WC2 and TBC. The Sons of Lothar reunited against the Burning Legion. Kil'jaeden and Velen's story wrapped up. The Draenei exiles return home. Sargeras defeated. Illidan's story is fully resolved. They didn't jerk themselves off when they did Legion, they just told the story. Was it prefect? No. But it was definitely way better written than either BFA or Shadowlands.
Don't forget that Legion was a great expansion because they sacrificed WOD half trough to work on Legion, that is an important factor to consider (among others) on why legion was better than others.
I fondly remember Suramar. One of my favorite daily quests was that wine quest, I love that they 'age' the wine with temporal magic enchantment created around the warehouse where they put barrels of wine.
So to sum it up, Suramar did it first meaning all of the elements of it that became a issue in later expansions, grinding the same resource over and over again, slowly opening up a zone until we could raid it, etc etc where novel, new and unique. The they just copy pasted Legions homework with slight tweaks but at that point people are tired of it and want something new. When people say "we want you to redo Suramar" what they are really wanting is that new and unique feeling that Suramar gave them because it was new and unique at the time. They don't want a rehash of what they already did and honestly I'm willing to bet if we do get Legion Classic, people won't enjoy Suramar the 2nd time nearly as much as they did the first.
Legion showing its peak dominance amongst all other more "Modern" Expansions.
We still love WoW and as a whole it is moving in a better direction, but they still have a way to go for sure.
Love your insights and perspectives as always Six, keep up the good work and congrats on 5K subs! 🙏🔥⚔🛡
If Nurabar Palace had been the raid to end TWW on, that might have helped it. But you are right, the story and patches are going at mach speeds compared to Legion. Legion also came after Warlords of Dreanor, the expansion that dropped a whole raid tier to let us get Legion faster, or to give it more time to come together. TWW likely didn't have the same time and space that Legion had, in terms of making a Suramar experience.
As with all expansions, the game speeds up. Item level increases at a faster pace. The story also didn't give us the Broken exiles. The faction we join on the Nerubian's side wasn't really weak. They were strong, and had access within the City of Threads that our weakened allies didn't. It was a fundamentally different way to tell the Suramar story. To me, it would have been like starting the Suramar storyline with Thalyssra in her state post fruit, and maybe one of the others also in that state, having JUST been thrown from the city. Maybe have...Oculeth thrown out earlier because he's a telemancer and could get rebels in.
The game didn't need another Suramar. But knowing Blizzard, they try to either replicate a system that was received positively (ala Suramar and artifacts) or a storyline. The problem is that they've either ramped up the system to borrowed player power, or they just can't or don't replicate the cadence of the storyline.
At least, that's how I feel about it.
i agree with all of what you wrote. But Shadowlands was always weird to me. Not that i think the idea was bad or anything, but going into a kind of deathrealm, or THE deathrealm of your univers, is a difficult step imo. Its like timetravel. there are so many possibilitys that you have to discover when writing the story. And honestly yes the 4 starting zones were great, but then they just messed with old caracters or others dont even show up. And the jailer.... i realy believe to this day the jailer wasnt even real. It doesnt make sence to me that ALL OF WARCRAFTS STORY is because the jailer said oHHH iTs mY mAsTeR pLaN. nah man the jailer was dumb. at first spooky and cool, but after just dumb man....Legion was the best time i had in WoW. i regret not playing through the full expansion honestly :O
@@danielwaldhoer7544 Honestly, Legion would have made a great swan song. It wrapped up so many stories, while still delivering shocks that made sense. For the most part. Vol'jin being 1 shot by a demon spear to the gut doesn't make sense. Varian saying "I'm going to make sure my allies and forces get away unharmed"? Way more sensible. In fact, had Vol'jin told Sylvanas to leave him and take the Horde, and then jumped down to help Varian, thereby getting both of them vaporized together, that would have been better to me.
Sylvanas becoming the Warchief was weird, but since she had apparently already went to the Maw after we killed Arthas, it sort of made sense that she had been in contact with the Jailer since then. He'd been powering her up slowly since the end of WotLK, meaning when she revealed she was much more powerful than before, that would actually make sense. What doesn't is every other exspanion they changed the Helm of Domination's story. Legion made, turned to dreadlords made, then turned to made by the Jailer or the knowledge of it, and finally turned to the Runecarver made it. If it was just dominations magic, why bother with Ner'nul staying in the helm, then? Just banish the unneeded soul.
The Jailer was just a bad character over all. Him being the original arbiter that gained a sense of unfairness should have just seen him killed and replaced. Instead, the others decided that tossing him into a pit of Warcraft hell was better, and that letting him bread resentment for them over millennia was smarter. The leaders of the covenants were morons. There is no other way to say it, with the way the story was presented. They did not think their plan through at all. If they were manipulated by the Sire, they should be made that the story, not that the other 4 just derped their plan to send him to the Maw and just assume he'd never get away.
The Jailer himself is one of the most hollow villains Blizzard ever made. I will have to bring up the era that this story was in, in the MMO market at the time: Shadowbringers from FF14. They built up the innitial villain of the story arc very well. We get to know him, and get to understand his feelings and his motives for why he does what he does. Zuval is a hollow mess that is just evil because we needed a bbeg (dnd for big bad evil guy). The true villain of the Shadowlands should have been the Sire. He at least had a personality, as supremely pompous, and would have made a much bigger splash on the story because he controlled the dreadlords.
Gripes aside, the Shadowlands was just a bad place put where it was. A realm of death is a super high concept. It should have been saved for much later, and it should have been written in the background more. That would have given them much more time to bring back interesting characters. What and who we were given were just...not that interesting. Drakka was cool, when we first saw her, but then she did nothing but stay in the hall. Keal'thas was a'ight, we got him in a quest and in the raid, but he ultimately turned out disappointing. Garrosh was a nothing burger, Ner'zul was just a raid boss...
Shadowlands had potential. It was just squandered as it was not allowed the time to breath.
as someone who played Legion I remember what people really said back then. Now personally I liked Legion but it had a lot of problems people just carefully gloss over in all praise of the expansion, or even outright deny. But by the end of Legion people were saying they never wanted to see almost anything they got in legion again. No more AP grind. Back when AP meant artifact power. No more burning legion. No more khadgar. No more killing off HUGE amounts of random story characters just to advance the plot (from as big as Tirion Fordring to as small as Amber Kearnen) No more talking head world quests, no more mission tables, No more legiondaries, and more. And people seem to forget the reason BFA is so hated is because it continued all the things people hated in Legion along with the various things people liked. People got so much content in Legion, complained as usual, but got more burned out than before, and that burnout carried into BFA and made them far less charitable to BFA.
And Suramar was one of the most mocked things of its time. People hated withered training. People hated the Nightborne callouts.
On the flipside, people were really excited for allied races. They wanted more flavor to their race and people overall liked what they got, except for 2 people - Nightborne players, and void elf players. Velfs wanted to be High elves. Nightborne wanted to look more like the NPC models. But all that aside, people were really hyped for allied races and now that we have them all people do is whine about a new allied race not being different enough from existing races every single time. Then we got evokers and dracthyr and people didnt want that either.
You can not please the playerbase and I at the same time also refuse to accept this nostalgic view of Legion as the absolute peak of WoW. I personally really enjoyed Legion more than most expacs (not all, but most) but people did nothing but whine even during Legion.
There's also a lot of WoD revisionist now too, constantly praising Highmaul + Blackrock Foundry. WoD was not liked at all from the very beginning, people were very upset at the garrisons for lagging, and when garrisons started to feel like you don't see other players anymore, the infamous selfie patch was released and it was clowned on for years to come. Content drought, Ring legendary being inferior Cloak legendaries, Archimonde being the final boss and dying for good in an expansion he was irrelevant in, Grom changing sides and going "Draenor is free", etc etc. People went on and on.
Legion catching so much flak at the start, like Legiondaries and Emerald Nightmare raid being clowned on, only to be known as one of the best modern expansions later down the line is amusing to watch. If Blizzard fumbles TWW or Mignight, we will see the same treatment for Dragonflight. It's current reputation is: amazing system changes, wet fart of a story, and mediocre overall. In 2 years, it's gonna be heralded as some new messiah of WoW.
@@Ryan-sn3uo Would that WoW players could enjoy an expansion while they're playing it instead of 2-10 years later
@@kabrozkabroz. You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone.
I actually really liked revendreth both as a zone and it's story. It feeled like a real place, like Suramar.
I love TWW but Azj-Kahet definitely does not feel like city (nor does the palace feel like a palace, unlike the Nighthold and Nathria castle).
Edit; you know what,I'm gonna expend on this and say an unpopular opinion : I think the start of Shadowlands ruled, actually. I loved the 4 realms and I was surprised by the depth of their respective stories. I think the covenents storylines were great storytelling and did give the whole first segment of the expansion a feeling of actual large scale political drama. Every realm had it's own issues to resolve and very often they were tied to the issues of the other realms. It made the Shadowlands feel real to me, filled with real people. Uncovering the treason of Denatrius and the extent of it's influence was thrilling.
I do agree that this feeling did not last with the later patches of the expansion. I actually stopped playing for almost a year and got back when Dragonflight was announced to catch up on the story and I must say I had a blast. I think Zovaal made for a poor big bad and for an expansion based almost entirely on him, it meant the overall story could not feel compelling. But other than that, and I will die on this hill, I think that Shadowlands world building was way better than people give it credit for and there are a lot of things to love in it.
I loved Shadowlands, and was always kind of confused with how much hate it got all the time. I even liked the Jailer in a weird way. Sure, I didn't care for most of his plot, but I really wanted revenge for what he did to Anduin. It made him an oddly personal villain in that way.
I agree on the fact that the start of shadowland ruled. The zones were great. Cracks showed real fast sadly. Just like legion with getting the wrong legy or TWW with everything that happened after 11.0.5.
Bro I started farming SL stuff by soloing mythic nathria and then doing the rest of the content and I'm having such a good time. Shadowlands was amazing except for the terrible, terrible systems
I didn't like Shadowlands because it not only broke the lore, it was also very unrelatable. I want to quest in Azeroth, not some odd place that had nothing to do with the story so far.
I agree, so glad others think like this, the beginning of Shadowlands was amazing, I love the theme so much, I even have the collector's edition. As a Romanian from the Transylvania region, I especially loved the Revendreth zone and doing the Venthyr campaign. The whole expansion should have been amazing, but everything fell apart a few months after launch and I think in most part due to the pandemic, then they scrapped together two more major patches that felt so disconnected. The systems however were not good even in the beginning. I loved the RPG element of choosing a covenant and having special abilities, but the Soulbinds and souls / anima acquisition were awfully designed.
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Every single time I start a M+ or end a Nerub'ar and the volume just spikes into orbit for no reason.
Some of my most cherished memories from WoW were made in legion and it Suramar. Absolutely surreal to realize that it’s been 8 years since then
Grew to love this zone's story after having to go through it for the Nightborne allied race quest (I initially avoided this zone simply because of the ancient mana grind, which I now find rather satisfying), really loved that you covered it! :D
There is also the content tied to Suramar, with the chest runs with fun rewards and tactics, simple tactics but still fun since it changed it up from normal grind. Then unique skins for weapon as well, which sort of "encouraged" people to do raids, be it just for loot, or to upgrade their weapons for the skins
Amazing video, so well done! Keep up the good work. The Suramar nostalgia hit me hard, I started back in Legion and my God was it good! I feel WoW is moving to a formula in which it has something for everybody and it is actually amazing! Sometimes I see something in the open world and maybe I don't understand it very well but knowing that someone is enjoying that content and is riding in the skies same as I do rushing to another dungeon to fight for my life in another key makes me so happy. Sometimes you are not the target audience and it's fine however maybe if you try... Who knows :D
Loving delves so far!
I swear, the Suramar questline/completing all the quests in that freaking zone was longer than the combined four questlines of each zone in the TWW!
Suramar was blend of various things that made it so memorable, they tried it was azj'kahet, but at the end of the day, flying is the core reason we will never get an experience like it again
Suramar was a unique experience.
There's no need to attempt replicating something perfectly, and while trying can be worthwhile, exploring new ideas often leads to even better outcomes. World of Warcraft is a massive game, and its evolution depends on balancing nostalgia with innovation.
If Blizzard were to return to a slower release cycle, like one patch every six months, many players (myself included) wouldn’t be thrilled. Instead, they could focus on creating more engaging, dynamic content within shorter timeframes. A great example is the secrets and hidden discoveries that continuously pop up in the game. These elements keep the community engaged and excited, similar to the way events are designed.
By leaning into that format, Blizzard could potentially revolutionize how zones and updates are developed, ensuring that the game remains fresh without alienating players who crave frequent content updates.
I didn't even realize how good suramar was until I watched this, really an amazing video with a lot of details and work put into it that should be admired. Keep it up.
Thank you for making this video, it has been a big question for me and i sat down many times talking about it. Suramar worked back then cause it was clear blizz wanted to make a story and it was going to be relevant through patches, any other attempt was clear were trying to be like suramar (and failed) and i fear that might also left a bad taste in people's mouths. I believe blizz could make another suramar, it just needs to be more than a single patch or beyond just an excuse to have a raid only.
But then again like you said the pacing was slower and that was a huge benefit for suramar, plus wod was still fresh in people's memory so Suramar was gotta be more favourable for that as well i think.
loved the in-depth analysis!
its crazy how every mechanic and element are deeply intertwined. its extra crazy having to tackle that experiment with the everchanging cadence of a playerbase. it becomes its own living organism
As a blood elf main, I too felt the pain of their addiction to mana. Really brought to mind ye ol days of dealing with the enemies in the Belf starting area. I'm surprised that we haven't yet seen any real interaction between the nightborne and the Belfs. Maybe in Midnight? I hear that might be Belf focused
Other reasons Suramar was "populated" was cuz it was SWIMMING in artifact power, so people really wanted to go there to farm that during late hours or when not in the mood to farm m+, and also withered training was fun and led to artifact appearances and other goodies. The build up to nighthold was awesome, its just something i dont think we will see again. Last month i was flying toward ara kara for a key and thought to myself "huh, this zone is a lot like suramar, eh?" just rushed and stripped and void of all flavour
Suramar could have been even more rewarding if they implemented a phase of the city that is post Legion war. Basically made a story and quests to make it a peacefully usable capital for the Nightborne and all the horde players.
That would also explain the epilogue of the story of how the Nightborne joined the Horde and their city being opening with a warm welcome to their new allies.
They just need to put some ins, vendors, banks, auction houses, portals to the other continents and disable the hostility plus a Zidormi dragon to change from present to past.
Thats not that hard to do.
2:31 the stock footage of the girl fiddlnig with a joystick and slamming the button of a claw machine that is clearly not moving is crazy
20:49 saved?? dragonflight... the best expansion? sturdy bones? a success? It definitely had some redeeming qualities, but I would consider the expansion that saw the playerbase drop to half a million, that had a campaign completion rate of less than 4%, a unique raid participation in the triple digits, considered by many as a boring filler episode whose best selling point was being inoffensive at best a wake up call, not a savior.
curious about your source of numbers, cuz I couldn't find them anywhere online
dragon flight was dog, only good thing from it was the quality of life changes it made, the story sucked, the zones sucked, the raids sucked and m+ was better in shadowlands
@@Ryan-sn3uogithub is your friend, if your gpu can handle it, you can run specialized ada-like tools like spe to filter accounts using common filters like pet teams/achievements/dates/guilds to discard alt-characters using the db of your preference during whatever time-period suits your fancies and reach your own conclusions.
While half a million and triple digits was blurted out for overemphasis, most 'properly gauged' results will launch a population between the 700k and 900k range between season 1 and 2 of df down from a 1.5millions high. Just for comparison's sake, in most areas before s3, df peaks at about half of Shadowland's lowest point (season 2).
Notice that chinese accounts should always be excluded due to api limitations for accuracy.
lol the only time the playerbase has been at 500k is in 2005. Pretty sure I remember seeing something that said Dragonflight was the first expac since BC where the mid-expansion player numbers actually rose instead of dropped.
that's why i can say kul tiras lore, it's similar to suramar, it's cool, you explore, discover secrets and mysteries, the boralus city is full of incredible details, every house is different, it seems very real. they are not empty houses all the same as in dragonflight, they are alive. The missions are not all a: kill kill and that's it, there is an incredible story underneath
i love the stock footage of the girl playing the arcade crane game so animatedly while absolutely nothing is happening inside the case.
No one remebers it now, but this is why I enjoyed the story of cataclysm fireland dailies. Where you grow a tree as well. I know I love druid stuff, and the dailies were very repetitive. Goes to show how much enjoyment is time and place dependent, because suramar was just a foot note in my legion journey while most early wow content is more nostalgic for me personally.
You know listening to positive retrospectives on old WoW content makes me think "this is how these systems must have been talked about internally in blizz. Like covenants does feel like a cool idea. I can see why internally they thought it was a bold new direction and expansion on the ideas of the faction system, but of course we know the community can be very hit or miss.
Legion was the reason I have around 20 rogues. The 5k per week per rogue in Suramar was so good.
6:53 that was my first time seeing suramar as well! slipped off the mountain and died at suramar lol
By the way, for all the Suramar story line enjoyers like myself (I absolutely loved it) - if you liked it, check out Brandon Sanderons' 'Elantris' - I'm pretty sure they must have low key taken inspirations from it, to me it has very similar feeling and setting - people afflicted by magical disease that makes their bodies both kind of partially immortal but also slowly withering away, are exiled to closed off ruins of a magical city where they are eventually doomed to fall into apathetic zombie-like state driven mad by hunger and pain which they are unable to ever alleviate... familiar isn't it? And it also has the similar feel and story arc of slowly building something from nothing despite being doomed to seemingly hopeless situation at the beginning. I can't recommend it enough if you enjoyed Suramar!
Excellent video. :)
Glad you liked it! Thanks for checking us out :)
really well edited, great insight, great video, handsome player characters
Never considered that angle as to why Azj-Kahet didn't feel right. Great video!
I feel like one of wow's biggest problems right now is that its trying to replicate any nostalgia content it has waaaaayy too much
And absolutely not understanding why it worked in the first place yeeep
Oh reaaaally. Great vid!
Surumar was one of the few things I liked about Legion.
Loved it about the same amount as the landfall campaign in Pandaria.
Nah i want another suramar, the progression and watching your work actually do something as you grow the tree and everything. idk maybe i'm remembering it wrong but i loved that, and i loved that expansion.
SL's Maw was also undercooked due to the pandemic. SL was delayed so they could finish the Maw which lead to everything within it being very rushed.
This is such a good analysis on why Suramar was amazing. As a fan of the Drow race from D&D and their city of Menzoberranzan, which is definitely the inspiration for Azj-Kahet, I wanted so much for the City of Threads (doesn't even have a proper name) to be like Suramar, but it just wasn't. There are multiple reasons, we had no visual progression on the story as we had with Arcan'dor and the way the characters changed in looks. We have Skyriding and their guards were never a threat. We had no losses that we actually care about and the story just ended the moment the raid opened, without a proper conclusion. Do the three members of the Severed Threads rule the city now? Don't know. Or is it Queen Neferess in her new abominable form? Don't know, and we're probably never going to find out, as we're moving to the goblin city next.
As much as I like the theme, the Azj-Kahet zone has been a missed opportunity, at least for my high expectations of this zone. To be honest, I think Shadowlands in 9.0 was far closer in replicating the Suramar vibe, not with the Maw though, but with the Revendreth zone and if you chose the Venthyr covenant and did their campaign.
I have so much nostalgia with Legion and Suramar, here's hoping that perhaps the Silvermoon City in Midnight will be somewhat like Suramar. I totally see Xal'atath as a Gul'dan-like character, who knows, perhaps we'll fight her at the Sunwell the way we fought Gul'dan at the Nightwell, the forces of the void instead of the Burning Legion. Once again, amazing video, subscribed.
I'm still holding out hope for Azj;Khaet storyline to continue in a later .5 or .7 patch, because they have already set up the story threads or it. The city and its story is still nothing compared to Suramar or Menzo, but I love its ambience and architecture too much to see it go to waste.
Suramar was also a pleasure to be in. Really beautiful.
Legion was the best xpac.
Being a Blood elf Mage, I knew and I felt the pain of the nightborne, and I put my heart to make them free of mana addiction.
My brother and I (warrior and rogue) would sneak around suranar and randomly attack guards for hours acting like freedom fights. Idk why it was so fun lmao
i think they shouldn't have allowed flying in the city of threads. or at least, let us do quests to unlock portions of the city where we can fly around. maybe by having us rank up our reps, it becomes easier. that way we'd be forced to be on the ground among the nerubians, experience their culture a lot more. definitley leave it as a max level zone. there's such a great feeling to having to wait to get there compared to being able to fly in straight away. heck, there was even that one queen in their lore who got kicked out that you can find that went kind of crazy. maybe by turning traitor, their pheromones start to act up, and they get closer and closer to getting found out. combine that with delaying the raid, it would've given us more tension, more of a race against the clock. i felt a race against the clock in suramar, cause i knew that if i didnt get the rebels their mana, if i didnt do everything i could to keep them afloat, their rebellion would've failed, and the legion would've ensured their hold over suramar. im no writer, and def shouldnt write for this game, but i just feel they couldve done something to make us feel like there was a race against the clock. more tension to worry about these cool spider people and their cutlure. make the pheromones as significant like mana. different systems, but that concept of "let me blast you with my pheromones and you'll blend in" was so cool!!! but they just didnt take advantage of it. and to harp again about flying, i really think they should limit it. in suramar you got to see more tame parts of the city and the more legion dominated areas and how the citizens went about their lives in these areas, because u were forced to walk through it. in the city of threads, that wasnt really there. but i do love this vid and it was great
I didn't expect your take on the Maw to be so on point.
Just having this little "Welcome to Hell" hardcore game mode that you only get ~15 minutes of a week seems like a perfectly fine addition to the game. A weekly reward for doing it just seems like a nice little bonus, but NO. The retail playerbase can't control themselves and they HAVE to do ALL the things, including the super hardcore mode. It's all obligatory.
This is why we can't have nice things.
So wait.. the Arcandor tree.. is what Kael and the blood elves were searching for all this time?
honestly never knew you had to sneak around the city of threads
That is why in 11.1 the undermine will not have flying and instead they are investing in cars, perhaps that way they will be able to create that engaging enviroment again.
With the worldsoul saga they could even make a city that lasts twice as suramar did
loved the video - you have a new subscriber :). Suramar was pure magic - it will indeed not be replicated. Instead, Blizzard should keep being creative until they find the right recipe to deliver us another dose of magic.
Legion Suramar nightborne Quest felt like it was its own assansins creed game when fulfilling objectives around the city. Nighthold was also the best Raid to be ever release in my opinion.
So I will give my opinion because you dont mention this specifically but, I was decided not to play this expansion but when i saw nerubians as a plot I knew i would end up giving in, I love Nerubians I love anything with them scarabs I even find Anub'Arak kinda sexy to be honest but aside that, I like the Nerubians for what they are, how agressive and monstrous they act, how their conviction was indomitable, how mysterious and scary their origins seemed, so I was hooked in - before saying my point I will talk about Suramar and the nightborne
When I started to know the nightborne as a player, they seemed so grounded to the reality of WoW, they reacted like people in need and they threw their pride away asking for help, their addiction and issues felt raw and I could actually feel icky aswell as empathy for their cause, THAT was the part that sparkled interest in me, appart from doing the daily quests, I was thinking about them, I was thinking about the surreal world they live in and how I had to grab mana from this MASSIVE and GORGEOUS city so I could bring it to this miserable cave and the wretched people inside, it didn't feel like a chore I was truly invested because of it was made with a purpose aside from "people enjoyed this content we got to bring it back", the aesthetic of it too, it was just so - grounded - because I dont know a better word to describe it....
OKAY so NOW the point you didnt mention because it probably is not nice to say, but it's true WoW direction has been more.. "endearing" leaning,
THOSE NERUBIANS are NOT my nerubians, they're not real, this zone made me EYEROLL to the sight of them, their story seems cheap and unorganized, the supposed NERUBIAN ARCHITECTURE is not it, I saw human-like beds in their INNs, the entire palace seems crafted as for humanoids exclusively, I just can't believe that the City of Threads is a Nerubian zone no matter how much webs and tangle you place around, the stores are lame and predictable, they are 8 or more legged creatures (ignoring the boring-plot-driven ascendance forms that they didnt had time to adapt the entire city for those alone) They SHOULDN'T be sleeping in human beds, they should have many more holes paths to crawl in, their city should be 100% more oppressive to look at, you did mention flying messed things up there and I agree on that too, the entire story and content surrounding nerubians seem forced like no one wanted to really work on the plot, that's just cheap stuff they had to pull up to start the expansion.
And one of the parts I hated the most is how cordial and cutesy they talk to the player, "little critter..." "delicious bite", so unserious, the way they ask for help is poorly written, too trustworthy from the go, their hub is not even hiding from the enemy with no repercussions at all, all happens way too fast, they BEHAVE like they are used to having outsiders as customers and that is just not it that is not nerubians and that is not grounded I couldnt give a single fffuk about their struggles and their motives, their villain is cheap the plot is cheap once again, even xal'atath didnt expect Ansurek to achieve anything its just uninteresting and sad....... Then look at the Nightborne, they never treated the player like this was a joke or a game, they were legit junk-ies crawling on the floor not knowing what to do and thalyssra the voice of reason helped patching up all together, i cant remember a single Nerubian from what im playing now because not a single one of them is interesting, the nightborne in our side werent half as cordial as the nerubians we have now, if so I remember they treating you just like comrades and enjoying just the simple things they could afford while being in that horrible spot, they were in constant dread too, the nerubians are just chilling, Im repeating myself but overall all surrounding them feels lazy and unwanted......
and with all that vomit spewed - the editing, writing, organization, voices and production overall in this video are so good, entertaining to listen and most importantly to pay attention to cuz i tend to get distracted easily and i found myself doing something i never do which is - looking at the screen, xoxo mami kisskiss
At one hand, we will never have the bliss of Suramar again. In the other hand, I'll never again spend hundreds of hours helping, saving and simping to a race that will later on be given exclusively to the horde (I'll never forgive them for marrying Thalyssra to the Blood Elf leader).
Fair trade.
i feel like it makes the most sense within the lore. also you can still play as them. doesn’t really matter what side they’re on
@@MysteriousPear802There's lore excuses for Ally or Horde, including for both. "Doesn't matter what side they're on" is your opinion, so state it as such.
@@KodFrostwrath belfs love magic, nelfs tolerate it. makes sense to me why they would favor one over the other
Once again, thank you Six for an amazing video!
I gave mana to a LOT of desperate civilians in the city before I even realized it rewarded a buff.
Also got held up a lot because I stopped to fight guards for being scumbags.
Really excited for Midnight and Playet Housing.
I do like Azj Kahat though !
Great vid, hope it gets many views
I feel like Suramar being inspired by Venice helped a lot too. Easily recognizeable. Reminiscent of Assassins Creed in a way. The new iterations of the Suramar idea are a mish-mash of different things, the layouts of the cities pale in comparison and overall they all seem a bit half-baked. The identity of these cities falls flat imo.
One other city that nails this energy is Boralus. At least in my experience. There is so much space thats taken up by buildings that we will never really go to, BUT! It makes the city feel real. I love exploring Boralus bcs it feels authentic. I will have no use of most of these areas - but the fact they are implemented makes the city feel vast and real. Comparing Boralus and Suramar to Azj-Kahet makes the latter feel extremely condensed. Theres barely any nooks and crannies to snoop around in. It just doesnt feel like an actual occupied city.
Legion is the GOATED xpac IMO. I was SO excited to get Thalyssra back to her full power
I feel like the City of Threads should've had some debuff that prevents flying in the city, but can still fly elsewhere in Azj-Kahet, it's called the City of Threads after all, not hard to imagine their capital would have webbing everywhere as an air deterrent. Also Nerubar Palace should've been a much later raid while the launch raid should've been something Earthen related, cause they're ironically a bit neglected when you get to endgame. (Not that I'm not excited for Undermine, and I wonder if that's not going to be another Suramar attempt as well considering what we've seen...)
Yea flying in Azj-Kahet fundamentally changed the experience. If they were serious about repeating Suramar, they should’ve made it dangerous for us to fly there, yeah, we could still fly, but various things should’ve been able to take us down and knock us out of the sky if we weren’t careful. Ultimately blizzard has gotten better at doing 3-D zones but honestly, I expected more spiderwebs in the air given the fact that we’re dealing with spiders, the zone was still too flat in both obstacles and threat. (and was over too quickly to have the impact they wanted it to)
Sounds to me like we’re going to wind up with another attempt in undermine though.
really well done video! My unsolicited constructive criticism is to practice the voice over more bc i noticed words were getting slurred occasionally making it harder to understand the commentary. Keep up the good work tho!
Thank you for the suggestion! Will pay more attention to making sure the VO is clear in future videos
even tho I played classic, tbc and wotlk back in the day, Legion is still my favorite, especially cause of Suramar
Great video!
I started in mid Shadowlands. I have leveled a few toons in Legion and have totally missed the story. By the time I start questing in Suramar, I reach max level and get booted.
I think something important Legion as a whole had going for it, was the previous expansion WoD was gutted of dev time to put more work into Legion and its polish.
There's also a few other noteworthy differences between Azj-Kahet and Suramar.
1: Suramar was beautiful, the City of Threads is kinda meh in comparison.
2: The circumstances of our protagonists, our three conspirators are not exiled, starving and desperate for our help just to get by so you don't get that sense of dependancy.
3: There doesn't seem to be much of a bond forming between ourselves the way we did with Thalyssra, Oculeth and Valtrois, we don't go questing and doing stuff together with them as part of a greater long-term progressing zone story so Arak'nai, Anub'azel and Nizrek do not get anywhere near as much characterisation as our trio from Suramar did. It's not as easy to get attached when our interaction with them is a lot more limited in comparison.
there was a time suramar was hated. The world quest lets you wander inside the city with elite mobs, that was one of the complaints. I was surprised as the expac goes on, players was beloved
How I would fix Ahn-Kajet is first... slow down the patches, let players marinate in the zone, add little mini-games that gives you rewards, like the Nightborn Withered Army Training mini-game. Make it to where flying in the city is not inpossible, but limited. For the lore nerds, add the excuse that your pheromone mask weakens in the air and makes you easily detectable, and because of the attempted assassination on the Queen, the skies are under constant supervision, so if you mount up and fly, you get a stacking debuff that lasts for an hour. Once you reach ten stacks, you are webbed off your mount and abducted and have to do a mini-event to escape your captors. This incentivizes players to walk more, explore the zone, learn to be sneaky again.
Here’s how you know TWW is better than SL, reason number 539: I missed Withered Army Training during SL. I’d have taken that over Yet Another Torghast Run or Yet Another Maw Assault any day. Nothing I am regularly doing in TWW makes me long for the bad old days of making sure I didn’t lose a single withered or else my entire run was in vain because I couldn’t open that chest.
I don't disagree that the greater context matters, but it's also true that Blizzard decides what the content of the game is. Azj-Kahet stands out like a Jedi in a fantasy novel because it's designed like it's supposed to be a Suramar but it's placed into the wrong context (and without any notable adaptations to make that work). As the authors of the game, Blizzard didn't have to do things this way so it's worthwhile to ask why they did.
I may be coping, but I think another Suramar may be possible if they give it the consequences of the maw.
Like we enter it slowly to get cosmetics while we deal with immediate problems. And notice AFTER we were already infiltrating enemy narrative notices us and bans us from there for x time. In which we need to find a way back in another corner. Likely making allies along the way and reuniting with whoever we first met.
And making it either the second or final raid in which expansion end game is us earning the ability to use the zone.
I feel like this would be a great usage of the Ethereal home world should we ever go there. And would have reasonable power / narrative for us to somehow get there and then be banished without a return ability.
And lets say a reason we can't be there could logically be potent void corruption/insanity. And we can't return because Alleria was our anchor, and she gets captured. So we spend a patch or half patch with locus walker or whomever learning how to channel the void the way Alleria does or something.
But we end up on like its moon, and we work to eventually save alleria and siege the planet. In a following patch
So... unfortunatelly i didnt have the oportunity to play Legion back on time. I quit on WOD and kinda get away from wow for quite a while until end of BFA. And hell.. i would love if they handle to really create another Suramar. I see thats work very well and was fun to play, so... today players deserve it. If not a copy, a so good equivalent system. Cause of it, i do not judge they atempting to "recreate suramar" on Shadowlands and now with azjkahet.
Forget Suramar, there will never be another Legion.
...at least until Legion Classic of course.
I think for me the big reason why the most recent 'attempts' at another Suramar haven't really hit have been because of the theme. For example Suramar was a magical city in lore and was absolutely beautiful city with the whole zone feeling fun and aesthetically pleasing, where as you contrast that with the maw where it's original incarnation was drab and boring and essentially hostile to navigate through, and even Azj'Kahet is drab and 'spidery' which feels kind of unwelcoming and annoying.
I can definitely say that the Suramar arc didn't feel like that bad to navigate, and I think the City of Threads is actually not bad too, I prefer both of them hands down over the BS that was the Maw and I think that's ok.
Additionally to all that I think that people probably felt more relatable to the Nightborne as many of us played Blood Elves and are essentially kin where as we have only ever faught Nerubians so it would take longer to warm up to them than just the first section of an expansion where we just met them. Perhaps it would have made more sense for Azj'Kahet to be explored in a later patch after we had met some of the friendly ones earlier on in the expansion so we could have had some of that exposition of the situation there with the final conclusion coming in a .5 patch.
Ah well.
People unironically think legion was "the good old past"
I cant even
Probably the last time I was really invested in the questing.
spider land had so much potential but was not fleshed out, the rumors and the factions were grinded out in 8 weeks.
Suramar had a story, that's for sure. Classic underdog stuff. But it was also a tremendous pain. i don't think any form of grind zone built around repeat events will somehow not be a pain because every gimmick is just a hurdle between you and being done with your chores. The war within is also operating on some low energy, taking a popular side villain/ambiguous enemy who should be scheming her way to power in the background, and thrusting her into the fore is feeling like more a desperation play with each bit of the story we see. They just don't have the plot devices to make a suramar's strengths anew.