@loop

"I truly do not understand this sentiment. Deathwing is Deathwing. The tentacles you deal with in Spine and Madness are Deathwing. The plates you blow off *using his own sentient blood* is Deathwing. The limbs are *obviously* Deathwing - being separate "NPCs" seems like a ridiculous distinction to focus on."

Are they? Deathwing to me was a clever, scheming dragon - a force of personality powerful enough that an army of Twilight cultists answered to him, even if he in turn answered to N'zoth. If what Deathwing is now is just a mess of tentacles, then he's not an interesting villain. Tentacles don't have motivation or character.

To put it another way, in real life, would you rather speak to someone, or speak to their tumour?

"The two quotes I took from your post seem at odds with one-another. How do you handle gigantic villains without breaking them down into individual NPCs?"

You don't, IMO. I will be thrilled beyond words if in Mists of Pandaria we get a person to fight, and if the person can have a political or ideological motivation like all our favourite WoW personalities already do. Arthas coasted on a wave of "my motivation is killing everyone" because he was a complex character before his fall, but even after that, he remained a real entity that engaged with us and could strategize and interact with us.