Zandalari lore overwent a change to make them more palatable as a good-guy playable race.
Zul’s faction was no longer the result of a valid political schism in the face of stagnancy, they’re all actually hooked up on Old God kool-aid, the heretics! Kill them all, and let’s never tackle the fact the world was stolen from us again.
Also, let’s kill off Rastakhan just as he was getting compelling for his infinitely less-interesting daughter, who’s [young leader letting go of old hatreds and looking to the future], which was Vol’jin’s deal. We killed him to kickstart a wonderful storyline about Sylvanas, y’see.
Nuanced little things, too. Implications that the Zandalari are actually above sacrificial rituals and rolling heads down pyramid steps in most cases, the sheer inexplicable existence of the Sethrak Empire on the same island, their aesthetic being inherited from titan constructs.
Obviously it wasn’t terrible, but the appeal of the Zandalari shifted from MoP. Of course, I still dig Zandalar, but I’ve a lot of headcanon to pad or emphasise it, like the functions of a caste hierarchy, the presence of actual agriculture and that the crimes of the Kaldorei Empire remain well-recorded.
Also, I can’t help but go on thinking Genn was literally grandfathered out of the forefront, as his personality+ legitimate grievances don’t mesh with the ongoing 0% faction conflict narrative.
Yeah, Blizzard jumping from one extreme to another after criticism is the norm; especially when they’re on damage control. While i don’t think anyone has any interest in another faction war, the entire Gilneas Reclaimation is… yeah.
Agreed with everything, but knowing trolls, I wouldn’t be surprised if other descendants of Rastakhan are either not powerful enough to attain the blessings of the loa or, well… tried to overthrow him on some point over these 200 years? It’s not against their tradition.
On the Chronicles 4 situation, Matt Forbeck has since tweeted out confirmation that the authors are him, Marty Forbeck (I assumed they were the same person and it was a pseudonym/typo, guess not), Christie Golden, and Chris Metzen.
That was my main gripe with Zandalar. The immense capitol should be a culmination of all surrounding cities and villages but all we see are either inhabitable ruins or tiny settlements amidst an otherwise hostile jungle. It makes zero sense to have those creatures so close to the capitol, they should roam on the outskirts. It missed the gradient of how further you are from the center the more hostile it got. Then there’s the city of gold up in the mountains and it just sits there feeling unpopulated. Like one big hunk of fake cast plastics from some themepark’s background decor.
I don’t know, I was really intrigued by the Zandalari during MoP but finally meeting them in BFA was disappointing. Their whole identity is nothing but chunky gold ornaments.
I might buy this more if there was ever any real mention of it. Rastakhan has one click “joke” line about how the 46th assassin that tried to kill him was “a good wife” but that’s it.
You’d think that Talanji taking over might get some commentary about the ones that had come before her, if he had other kids, but…nope, it’s just a blank. Talanji’s mother? Never mentioned once. Was she the 46th assassin?
We can guess, we can headcanon, but it’s all just filling a massive gap. If there were bloody battles over the golden throne of Zandalar between Rastakhan’s kids…I mean, it’d be nice to hear about that. It might contextualise Talanji’s character a bit. Watching her elder (half?) siblings slowly pick each other off one by one in power-seeking plots would probably inform her character, especially since she is a literal teenager in BfA - she’s 16.
It’s hardly the end of the world, but it just feels shallow to have…nothing there other than player guesswork.
Also while I’m at it, complaining about troll families, Vol’jin has at least two children, but we’ve only met one, and he never showed up since, not even at Vol’jin’s funeral, and not since. You’d think the children of the chieftain and Warchief might get some attention, maybe show up for the questline where we deal with Vol’jin’s soul but uhhhh nope, I guess not.
I’d chalk this up to the massive issue Blizzard has had over the years. Which is that if the characters are not part of the “main cast” of OG characters, or those specifically written to join that squad as newer introductions, there is a slim chance they barely get mentions, if at all.
Correct me if I am wrong, but didn’t a great deal of Zuldazar sink beneath the waves during Cataclysm?
As far as I remember, this is even reflected in the game. If you go to the shallows around most of Zandalar, you will find plenty of sunken roads (also shifted and broken due to tectonic upheaval), temples etc.
Maybe that’s the reason why so much of the isle looks the way it does, although I really like tge zone. The evening ambience sound of the dinosaurs is also really cool.
But that’s the shallows. The rest of the jungle feels void of civilisation that would lead to a city as grand as Zandalar. It’s like putting London in the middle of the rainforest.
I felt the same with OG Dalaran when it stil sat under that dome. There weren’t even roads leading away to southshore. Just flat grasslands.
This reads a lot like a rebirth of the Auchenai and creating something akin to Auchindoun on Azeroth - and I’m all for it. The Auchenai was one of my favourite parts of draenei lore.
I’m in for anything that makes the Draenei a proper race on Azeroth instead of exiles living in a crashed dimensional-ship, they should’ve long settled in Azuremyst Isles proper already, with villages, cities, etc!
Hell, it did not take them this long to settle Draenor! And that planet is apparently harsher then anything Azeroth could offer…
