Here comes the next content patch (3.2)

[Ingmar]

I want in to Uldum! UNFINISHED QUEST CHAIN ARGHGHGHGHGH

[Sjofn]

I've given up on Uldum. :(

[SurfD]

In a blue post, GC dropped a hint about Icecrown.

I ultimately am agreeing with what you're saying, but once we say "tanking niches" players have visions of the DK who parks outside of Icecrown until boss 4, 17 and 31 (yes, IC is that big).

Just think about that.  31 bosses.  In one instance.

Suddenly, the raid lockout extension makes a lot more sense.

Makes me wonder how many of them are going to be completely optional

[Dren]

Yeah that's my feeling.  I think after Arthas I'm done with WoW.  He's what I've been waiting for sinec WoW came out. I really don't give a rat's ass about defeating Azshara or the Old god of Sphinters or whatever Demon is in charge of the BL at this moment.

That's why, in my opinion, Arthas won't ever die.  He may be beaten to a point where he moves to a different brand new chunk of content, but you won't kill him.  My guess is you won't even fight him.

I've never been a fan of allowing us to fight all these legendary bosses anyway.  We should just be able to shape the way the bosses are banished, taken down in power, etc.  Most of these bosses cracked planets at some point.  Yet, 40/25/10 players can waltz in and whack them no problem?

[Rasix]

Yeah that's my feeling.  I think after Arthas I'm done with WoW.  He's what I've been waiting for sinec WoW came out. I really don't give a rat's ass about defeating Azshara or the Old god of Sphinters or whatever Demon is in charge of the BL at this moment.

I have no illusions.  The next expansion will likely keep me occupied for at least 3 months.  Maybe longer depending on how they implement goblins. And then WoW will become my off and on MMO yet again. 

It's easier for me to gauge my future interest level, since raiding is dead to me for the foreseeable future.

Only monkey wrench in this plan would be if Old Republic is any good. Thing hasn't even announced beta yet. I've got time.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Yeah that's my feeling.  I think after Arthas I'm done with WoW.  He's what I've been waiting for sinec WoW came out. I really don't give a rat's ass about defeating Azshara or the Old god of Sphinters or whatever Demon is in charge of the BL at this moment.

That's why, in my opinion, Arthas won't ever die.  He may be beaten to a point where he moves to a different brand new chunk of content, but you won't kill him.  My guess is you won't even fight him.

I've never been a fan of allowing us to fight all these legendary bosses anyway.  We should just be able to shape the way the bosses are banished, taken down in power, etc.  Most of these bosses cracked planets at some point.  Yet, 40/25/10 players can waltz in and whack them no problem?

Seriously. Fuck off.

People like you bitch at every little thing blizzard does when it comes to wow lore, from blood elves, draenei to arthas and everything in between.  People always complain about blizzard ruining lore...guess what, they can't.  That right, nothing, absolutely nothing blizzard does can fuck with lore.  What, how is that possible you ask? Simple, they're the fucking owners and writers of it, it's THEIR lore.  If they wanna say arthas was really a fluffy bunny disguised as the prince ever since stratholme, guess what? They can and it's canon.

This rabid devotion to canon, to characters people like is endearing and cute but let's not make a fucking mountain out of a molehill here.  Arthas was a cool and interesting character but don't fanboi him into some untouchable demi-god that can never die. Trying to put characters up on pedestels can de-value them more than killing them ever could because it makes them unrealistic and bland in their superiority. 

I'm all for making some bosses a challenge but it would get pretty fucking lame for every single high level boss you encounter to pull a cobra commander/skeletor and escape at the end.  That or taking every boss to jail/banishing them...what the fuck kind of payoff is that?  I still don't get the mentality of people who want to play and pretend to live in this thriving story world, wow or any other game but never be able to actually have their or the actions of others affect the story itself, god forbid.

[Morfiend]

Yeah that's my feeling.  I think after Arthas I'm done with WoW.  He's what I've been waiting for sinec WoW came out. I really don't give a rat's ass about defeating Azshara or the Old god of Sphinters or whatever Demon is in charge of the BL at this moment.

That's why, in my opinion, Arthas won't ever die.  He may be beaten to a point where he moves to a different brand new chunk of content, but you won't kill him.  My guess is you won't even fight him.

I've never been a fan of allowing us to fight all these legendary bosses anyway.  We should just be able to shape the way the bosses are banished, taken down in power, etc.  Most of these bosses cracked planets at some point.  Yet, 40/25/10 players can waltz in and whack them no problem?

Seriously. Fuck off.

People like you bitch at every little thing blizzard does when it comes to wow lore, from blood elves, draenei to arthas and everything in between.  People always complain about blizzard ruining lore...guess what, they can't.  That right, nothing, absolutely nothing blizzard does can fuck with lore.  What, how is that possible you ask? Simple, they're the fucking owners and writers of it, it's THEIR lore.  If they wanna say arthas was really a fluffy bunny disguised as the prince ever since stratholme, guess what? They can and it's canon.

This rabid devotion to canon, to characters people like is endearing and cute but let's not make a fucking mountain out of a molehill here.  Arthas was a cool and interesting character but don't fanboi him into some untouchable demi-god that can never die. Trying to put characters up on pedestels can de-value them more than killing them ever could because it makes them unrealistic and bland in their superiority. 

I'm all for making some bosses a challenge but it would get pretty fucking lame for every single high level boss you encounter to pull a cobra commander/skeletor and escape at the end.  That or taking every boss to jail/banishing them...what the fuck kind of payoff is that?  I still don't get the mentality of people who want to play and pretend to live in this thriving story world, wow or any other game but never be able to actually have their or the actions of others affect the story itself, god forbid.

I agree with Dren, I don't think Arthas should be killed. He is to big a part of the lore to have him being killed over and over again by every raid guild.

[Hindenburg]

We all know they'll pull an Illidan on that one. You'll get him to a certain percentage, Tirion will come and subjugate him, then Varian will pop and kill Arthas, take Frostmourne, fight Tirion, be killed, and  Tirion will become the new king of Stormwind. For horde, the brown orc replaces Varian and is killed by Thrall.
It'll be a fucking miracle if that's not what happens.

[Lakov_Sanite]

We all know they'll pull an Illidan on that one. You'll get him to a certain percentage, Tirion will come and subjugate him, then Varian will pop and kill Arthas, take Frostmourne, fight Tirion, be killed, and  Tirion will become the new king of Stormwind. For horde, the brown orc replaces Varian and is killed by Thrall.
It'll be a fucking miracle if that's not what happens.

Illidan died, maeve may have helped in the fight but she didn't get the killing blow and really just helped lay a few traps(it's been a while since I fought him though)  Actually I fully expect one of the bosses in icecrown to be saurfang the younger and have his father help you take him down.

Back to arthas, I highly doubt they'll have an alternate storyline for horde/alliance simply because everything that occurs in wow, even though it's repeatable is considered to be canon.  Onyxia dies once, sure horde/alliance get to put heads on a pike but the ramifications are the same for both sides. First off, you need to do every quest in icecrown, specifically the one where you find arthas' heart and try with the aid of tirion to capture it and convert him back somehow. Then of course arthas shows up and tirion destroys it with the ashbringer before arthas can get it back.  Afterwards tirion says arthas is flat out irredeemable and must be destroyed.

Besides, where the fuck would arthas go from here? where would his story logically take him besides erotica fanfics where wow nerds can spew their loads over thoughts of his icy lich-cock plowing jaina. Sure they could banish him but to what end? just to say "oooh, the scary lich king might be back...someday gadget,m someday!"  also this notion that players are not enough to take down creatures of legend is bullshit.  You're level 80, you've fought all your life and become a harndened champion of your faction, for all intents and purposes in warcraft the game you ARE a hero class on your own and you stopped being a peon a long time ago. 

[Sjofn]

There is no way we don't fight Arthas. He's been shoved in our face this entire expansion because they didn't like how people were all "Illidan? Oh right, he's in this expansion or something." We may not kill him (I am positive there will be a OMG ARTHAS IS REDEEMED thing), but we will fight him. The question is just how many NPCs help us in the fight, since half the world wants a shot at him. :P

The only character at this point that I don't mind not-killing-or-completely-beating is Mal'Ganis. Getting beaten down to 1 HP and then scurrying off is totally his THING, man.

[Ingmar]

Alliance is almost certain to get Muradin helping out with Arthas, for a start, based on the end of the quest chain involving him in Storm Peaks. Maybe that tauren they name-dropped in the last podcast thingy is the Horde equivalent. I'd be pretty shocked if Thassarian (or his Horde equivalent blood elf guy) doesn't join the party too.

[kildorn]

Alliance is almost certain to get Muradin helping out with Arthas, for a start, based on the end of the quest chain involving him in Storm Peaks. Maybe that tauren they name-dropped in the last podcast thingy is the Horde equivalent. I'd be pretty shocked if Thassarian (or his Horde equivalent blood elf guy) doesn't join the party too.

Arthas can be all "hello random important NPC deathknight, we've never met before, but you don't know the POWER of the scourge and it's deathknights!" like he does all through wrath.

[WindupAtheist]

We all know they'll pull an Illidan on that one. You'll get him to a certain percentage, Tirion will come and subjugate him, then Varian will pop and kill Arthas, take Frostmourne, fight Tirion, be killed, and  Tirion will become the new king of Stormwind. For horde, the brown orc replaces Varian and is killed by Thrall.
It'll be a fucking miracle if that's not what happens.

And then in a new era of peace and understanding under the reign of King Tirion, they remove all the battlegrounds, carebearize all the PVP servers, and rename the whole thing World of Peacecraft right? Get the fuck out.

[Hindenburg]

Eh, that idea had it's flaw exposed when Lakov pointed out that you can't have an alternate history, allied to the fact that they already have a corpse from each faction, Saurjr and Bolvar, so the betrayal segment will flow considerably differently.
PVP servers have already been carebearized, and bg's never made sense, those are moot points. Also, dalaran and shattrath, it has been world of peacecraft for the last 3 years.

But really, If blizzard somehow doesn't kill him while fighting arthas, the only threat to stormwind's throne after everything is done is Tirion.

[WindupAtheist]

I'm gonna laugh when not only does Varian survive, but they kill off Thrall and make Garrosh the new Warchief. We've watched the whole "Alliance and Horde cooperate" thing go totally out the window this expansion, and the idea that they've done all this just so they can reverse the whole thing at the end and have everyone make up and go out for frosty chocolate milkshakes together is pretty hilarious.

[Ingmar]

It would not be a big surprise at all for Tirion to get killed off. His story arc will be pretty much over when Arthas goes down.

[Lakov_Sanite]

IF anyone becomes the new warchief it's saurfang, thrall and garrosh or both two extremes and the horde would probably gor for a more warlike warchief but not a bloodthisrty one.  I can completely see thrall stepping down and giving it to saurfang who promptly says to garrosh "Sit down and stfu boy"

[Ingmar]

Saurfang is also on the short list of "NPCs who help in the Arthas fight and die at the end to resolve their storyline" possibilities I think, too.

[K9]

Lore spoiler for those of you who care

[Lakov_Sanite]

obvious spoiler is obvious?

[K9]

It's not really that obvious; it's in the "throw shit at the wall and see what sticks" category of obvious for me.

[Nevermore]

At this point I wouldn't be surprised if there was an Aeris Gainsborough deathknight boss to fight in Icecrown.

[Ingmar]

The dialogue wasn't that specific.


There are a number of possibilities there. The one you describe seems the most likely but I wouldn't think it is set in stone.

[Jayce]

I think it'd be a serious letdown not to kill Arthas.  Also, remember, it's not just Arthas anyway, it's Nehr'zul too.  So you'd have to split him again if you wanted to redeem him.

And I've heard other people also say that they'd quit after Arthas.  I don't really get it - it's just the end of the lore alluded to in WC3, but they can keep generating that shit as long as the cash flow is coming in, really.  And there's no reason to assume it won't be as good or better than what we have up until now.  If anything, they are no longer shackled by storyline generated in an RTS, with different constraints than an MMOG would have.

[Rendakor]

Jayce I think the 'Quit after Arthas' logic comes from that fact that many feel the storytelling in WC3 was superior to the storytelling in WoW. For example, I played through much of WC3 with cheat codes because I cared about the story but was not good at all races. Conversely, I only bother to read quest text for chains that I know beforehand are "cool" (Wrathgate comes to mind) because so many quests are simply 'kill 10 rats'. As discussed in the SWTOR thread (and not to derail this thread to that one), reading quest text alone is simply not an immersive storytelling method for many people.

I'd argue that storytelling in an MMO is much more constrained than the story in an RTS, especially a character-focused RTS (or lolroleplayingstrategy) like WC3.

[Fordel]

Tirion is probably going to die fighting Arthas, then the Head Good Guy DK will finally take up the AshBringer and save the day. Assuming "he doesn't forget".


Bolvar and/or Saurfang Jr. will end up being bosses, but you save/redeem them somehow. After it's all over, they'll go back to their previous postions of prestige in the Alliance/Horde, possibly as DK's or whatever.


Muradin will be tucked away in some corner of IceCrown, and you'll bring him a brew and/or avenge his inevitable death. His Tauren counterpart will be beside him with the same story.



Garrosh and Varian will spend the entire instance going "NO U!" Neither will come even remotely close to dieing, since they are Metzen's universal war starting plot device. They also spent too much time and too many polygons on the King's Chin.



Thrall and Jania will stop denying there feeeeelings and have their secret love child.



I'm sure Rhonin will save the day a few times too. 

[Ingmar]

My secret desire is for Staghelm to show up at the end and just druid the shit out of Arthas, and show everyone why he's the most awesome faction leader type guy and the only cool night elf ever, but I know it will never happen.

[Rendakor]

Tirion is probably going to die fighting Arthas, then the Head Good Guy DK will finally take up the AshBringer and save the day. Assuming "he doesn't forget".


Bolvar and/or Saurfang Jr. will end up being bosses, but you save/redeem them somehow. After it's all over, they'll go back to their previous postions of prestige in the Alliance/Horde, possibly as DK's or whatever.


Muradin will be tucked away in some corner of IceCrown, and you'll bring him a brew and/or avenge his inevitable death. His Tauren counterpart will be beside him with the same story.



Garrosh and Varian will spend the entire instance going "NO U!" Neither will come even remotely close to dieing, since they are Metzen's universal war starting plot device. They also spent too much time and too many polygons on the King's Chin.



Thrall and Jania will stop denying there feeeeelings and have their secret love child.



I'm sure Rhonin will save the day a few times too. 

Thanks for ruining Icecrown for me. Spoiler tags man, spoiler tags!

[Fordel]

The fact the Druid's aren't really around doesn't really make much sense. You'd think they might be a bit interested in stopping this whole "destroy all life" guy.


Really though, there is already about 50 factions too many all gunning for the LichKing, so I'm sure the Logic is "we had a druid heavy expansion last time, and will probably have a lot of them in the next one, so we'll cool our jets with them for now".



It should be noted that the only DragonShrine seemingly immune to the Undead, is the Green one though!

[kildorn]

The fact the Druid's aren't really around doesn't really make much sense. You'd think they might be a bit interested in stopping this whole "destroy all life" guy.

Fuck that, staghelm has to do something SINISTER with morrowgrain.

[El Gallo]

If anyone gets redeemed, it should be Nehr'zul (life story: alternating between being Jesus and being Dick Cheney) rather than Arthas (life story: turning from a worthless jackass with blonde hair into a worthless jackass with white hair).

[Sjofn]

The main reason I'm pretty positive Arthas will get redeemed is because there's a quest line that basically spells out that the Light "takes care of its own." Somewhere Arthas the paladin still exists, and that's the part that the Light will take care of. It may just be us killing the Lich King and that kid with the anagram name strolls in, goes yay, then his spirit ascends or whatever, but if Arthas doesn't wind up redeemed by the end of the raid, I will be shocked.

Nehr'zul may well get redeemed too, but it's not as foreshadowed, so I'm not positive about that.

[Ingmar]

I think there was some shit in one of the comics or novels or something about Arthas eating up what was left of Ner'zhul or something. At least its in the wowwiki Lich King article, who knows what it means or if they'll remember what the story is supposed to be when they write the boss encounter. 

[Merusk]

The main reason I'm pretty positive Arthas will get redeemed is because there's a quest line that basically spells out that the Light "takes care of its own." Somewhere Arthas the paladin still exists, and that's the part that the Light will take care of. It may just be us killing the Lich King and that kid with the anagram name strolls in, goes yay, then his spirit ascends or whatever, but if Arthas doesn't wind up redeemed by the end of the raid, I will be shocked.

This is my exact line of thinking.  Both of those quests (Anagram kid and the Pally w/ the Plague) in Icecrownset-up the redemption of Arthas far too well.  In the anagram quest Tirion doesn't figure out what you're seeing or experience it, he's only focused on finding a method to destroy Arthas.  That's what he expects of the heart, like the Sorcerer in Sinbad.  Tirion doesn't get that it's the not that it's the last vestige of Arthas' Humanity and you seeing the kid means "There's still good in him, you can feel it!"

[Simond]

Alternate interpretation (aka what the quest heavily implied): Tirion was planning to try and pull some sort of redemption thing right up until the point he actually got the heart then went " there's not actually anything left that can be redeemed" and then being a lawful good (as opposed to lawful stupid) paladin tried to use the heart to kill Arthas.

Oh, and add Sylvanas to the "Gonna show up in Icecrown" list. She's got a slight grudge.