Delves deliver on what they´re meant to be, a form of solo progression for people who don´t want to do dungeons or raid. They´re nothing like Torghast and were never meant to be even close to the same.
I really don´t see it tbh. Both Sylvanas and Jailer were constantly doing “oooh, I am mysterious and actually good, you just don´t get me”, while Xal´atath is being openly a villain.
We can also kind of figure out what the end goal is, both from visions of Arathi emperor about Renilash, Radiant Song on K´aresh appearing before Dimensius came and consumed the planet, and from IRL knowledge of where the next expansion takes us and what it´s going to be about (big battle in Quel´Thalas against the Void).
A completely natural thing given that the story is about world soul of Azeroth.
Shadowlands broke some Warcraft fans and their perception of villains.
If a villain is smug and boastful, that’s bad because those are traits that the Jailer and Sylvanas had.
If a villain is manipulative and scheming, that’s bad because those are traits that the Jailer and Sylvanas had.
If a villain is extremely powerful, that’s bad because that is a trait that the Jailer and Sylvanas had.
Never mind the fact that a lot of these are generic villainous traits possessed by a lot of beloved Warcraft villains like the Lich King and Gul’dan. Anything that reminds people of the Jailer for any reason causes an intense negative reaction.
I mean, Shadowlands did leave a sour taste in alot of people’s mouth…
So anything that reminds them of it ends up creating a strong emotional reaction. Now I am not saying thats either a bad thing or a good thing, but its something Blizzard themself created and its something they have to fix with good and interesting villians instead of Jailer 2.0.
Personally I don’t mind Iridrikon or Xal’atath as main villians over the span of multiple expansions! I don’t find them very interesting, but they’re league’s above Shadowlands’ Sylvanas and the Jailer and for me they’re interesting enough to carry on for now.
Although sometimes I do feel you could swap Xal’atath with Queen Azshara and it would’ve made more sense. I am rather happy Azshara her head isn’t on the chopping block, yet… Since she is my second favorite Warcraft character, right behind Malfurion
It takes a lot of effort and build up to generate a puppet-master-esque villain. The Jailer was literally so far out left field that i think it’s simply soured the archetype in the wow scene for a lot of people. He literally had no build up and he has has his roots as far back as WC3? Yeah, cheers.
At the very least, Xal’atath had build up and history generated in Legion that depicts her as a -stirrer and manipulative. I don’t think she’s a bad villain, just that the stench of the jailer hasn’t gone away for a lot of people.
Admittedly, i wish they went more body horror in the vein of The Ring with her seeing as she’s posessing a corpse over what she’s shown as at the moment.
I wish the devs stepped away from the concept of the big villain at least for an expansion. Let it be some local threats like Hakkar, feral undead, Azerite-crazed elementals and other problems we know and would be interested in solving without being the heroes. We’ve a whole world to rebuild after the wars, after all, but unfortunately, such approach would demand a complete revamp of the older locations.
Yeah, give me the Gnolls running rampant in Elwynn, the centaur being lead by a terrible warlord in Kalimdor or whatever for a bit after the world soul saga. Just a palate cleanser.
There has never been a time in WoW where we didn´t have big villain. Even Vanilla had us go against the Firelord, followed by massive black dragon, Old God and basically second in command of the Scourge.
The local threats exist as dungeon bosses or quest objectives, and we fight those all the time.
They did, it was called Dragonflight (or at least everyone likes to say that, I personally think Fyrakk was pretty big deal for the world).
All Hakkar seriously threatened was the Gurubashi trolls and a bunch of green dragons. His influence never got past the Stranglethorn and the Swamp of Sorrows. Or it probably would if not for the lack of worldbuilding back in the days. Same as Nefarian, he just did his thing in Blackrock and the surroundings. The Scourge, the Firelord and C’Thun, yes, they were big and dangerous for everyone around.
And judging from the reaction to Dragonflight, the majority (or very vocal minority) of WoW players don’t want a more relaxed, lower stakes expansion, even if the stakes of Dragonflight shot up towards the end.
We could say the same about Jailer, with his influence really only being seen in Shadowlands (or Fyrakk technically only ever causing problems in 2 zones and Emerald Dream).
Often the reason why many enemies don´t cause massive worldwide problems is because the murderhobos come to their lairs early enough to stop them before they can enact their plans. Hakkar was stopped just as he was summoned, while Nefarian´s experiments weren´t perfected yet. If Alliance (or nerubians, for that matter) knew about Lich King from the start and sent armies against him before he managed to conquer all of Northrend and raise it, they probably would have succeeded him and Scourge would have been the same mid-level threat in world´s history as Hakkar or Nefarian.
Already happened in Zandalar at some point. It ended with a civil war, an entire subcaste of priests disbanded and employing golems to cremate the potentially afflicted bodies.
The reason they didn’t become world ending threats is because they got snipped in the bud. Saying they weren’t a big deal because they were killed before they could become a big deal is a weird take
-stirrer and manipulative. I don’t think she’s a bad villain, just that the stench of the jailer hasn’t gone away for a lot of people.