Azshara

I'll open by stating that Sire Denathrius had the potential to be an extremely relevant antagonist in World of Warcraft, far beyond just the limited influence he had in the Shadowlands.

The first time we encountered Il'gynoth was in the Emerald Nightmare raid, it had some interesting prophetic whispers for players -- whispers that were immediately dissected for clues about future plans for the game.

When we last saw Azshara back in patch 8.3, we had freed her from Dark Inquisitor Xanesh and in payment she gave us Xal'atath as means of defeating N'Zoth.

It's not every day you see Warcraft show up on Humble Bundle, the pay-what-you-want-for-books-and-or-games site that lets you choose how to distribute your payment, with part of the proceeds benefitting a wide variety of charities.

I've been thinking a lot about what N'Zoth fate in patch 8.3 means for World of Warcraft going forward.

If you need a spoiler warning, consider this entire post to be nothing but spoilers.

Polygon has posted this interview with Ely Cannon, art director and senior level designer on World of Warcraft, discussing the design of Nazjatar and the Eternal Palace raid going live today.

Tomorrow, the big raid of patch 8.2 officially opens, allowing World of Warcraft players to take on Azshara in her own domain.

Once again the folks at Wowhead have provided us with the cinematic to the latest patch, this time the first cinematic when you go to Nazjatar in patch 8.2, Rise of Azshara, which is live right now.

Update: Patch 8.2 now has an official release date!