f13.net

http://www.mmo-champion.com/news-2/icecrown-citadel-the-lich-king/

Now, some of this stuff makes sense but don't you think it's a bit of a jump to say bolvar will be the new lich king with absolutely no evidence besides him having a new model? The immolated champion could just be a part of the lich king encounter with nothing to do about who gets frostmourne next.

Yeah, I kinda agree that just assuming it's Bolvar next is a bit of a stretch, or at least declaring It Will Be So is. I've been assuming Tirion, personally.

I so want the new Lich King to be the first player to loot Frostmourne. And the player's character becomes an NPC mob in Icecrown.

That'd be great if their name was Licholas or Palalol or RougeDK or something.

Yeah that was my first thought, too - the Dread Lich King Myballsonurchin.

They would strike more fear into me than some emo Paladin.

Don't worry, Blizzard hasn't had anything that might actually make a character unique in their game since the AQ gate opening.

Except Blizzard has been hinting fairly heavily since the Wrathgate (then Ulduar, then the datamined 'lavaman' model*) that something is going to happen with Bolvar. Add in that he's emphatically not a boss in ICC but now tied fairly strongly to the WotLK as a whole and "Bolvar taking up the mantle to stop the Scourge going full on zombie apocalypse" is, at the least, a reasonable possibility.

* Which got yanked from the MPQ files the instant someone did a spot of graphical analysis that pointed to it being almost certainly designed around the theme of "what if a human male in full Alliance armour had it melted onto his body, and then was somehow reanimated/resurrected by said flame"

Oh, I'm not saying it's wrong, I just don't think it's as obviously written in stone as the MMO-Champ dude(s?) think it is.

He's not a 'boss' per say but who says you won't fight him during the lich king fight? A new model doesn't necessarily mean 'omg lich king'

MMO-Champ has the Lich King cinematic up now, by the way.  :oh_i_see:

Obvious spoiler was obvious.

Who wants to take odds that in another 2 expansions we go and wake him up to help us fight some even bigger evil.  :oh_i_see:

No no, in another 2 expansions we fight him and his new FIRE MODE Northrend zones.

How unsurprising.

Hey, they left open that

(http://imgur.com/r0mbZ.jpg)

Wow...I thought they might at least TRY to surprise us.

I am pretty sure my cat has better developed creative chops than Metzen & company.

No, that's unfair, they do occassionally write some lore I find interesting, but the Lich King thread was utterly squandered. Not that Fallen Paladin is omginnovative, but they lost a lot of even THAT, and now he's just a fucking cartoon Captain Planet villain. Why is he doing any of this? BECAUSE HE IS EVIL OMG.

They could've done something INTERESTING, like have Arthas inside the Lich King wanting to kill the world and raise it as undead because he thinks that's the only way the races of Azeroth would stop slap fighting long enough to finally get rid of the Burning Legion for good, and maybe he's "holding back" the Scourge to give the living races one last chance to get their shit together (if they can unite to stop HIM, surely they can unite to stop Sargaras, rite). Then the THERE MUST ALWAYS BE A LICH KING might make the tiniest shred of sense because Arthas really WOULD be holding them back FOR A GOOD FUCKING REASON (or at least not a totally arbitrary one). Have Tirion realise this shit and have HIM take over in a moment of understanding just what Arthas' motivations were, perhaps in a fit of anger that NO THE ALLIANCE AND HORDE REALLY CAN'T GET THEIR SHIT TOGETHER (because the tournament clearly didn't work, etc).

One of the things they wanted to do was have us all do shit we might not be proud of in Northrend, turning Arthas into a cardboard cutout zomgbadguy with this stupid THERE MUST ALWAYS BE A LICH KING AND UH WE'LL MAKE BOLVAR TAKE OVER bullshit ruined that completely, in my opinion.

Or fuck, at least go with the FAKE UTHER LIED TO JAINA TEE HEE YOGG SARON YOU ARE A SCAMP AREN'T YOU angle so we go "oh noes, we was tricked" or something.

I'm not a great writer by any stretch of the imagination and this shit I just pulled out of my ass isn't going to win awards either but Christ, Blizzard, your ending is terrible.



PS: And I am not a giant Horde fangirl by any stretch, but it pisses me off Saurfang Jr submitted to the Lich King (yes yes it was HARD WORK but he STILL SUBMITTED EVENTUALLY) but Bolvar, in his MANLY MANFUL HUMAN MALE PALADIN NOBILITUDE manages to hold out. God, even if they left the Mustache Twirling Lich King shit intact but made it so they BOTH fell to the Lich King (giving BOTH SIDES a sense of "fuck, if THEY couldn't resist him, how could any of us?") and have someone ELSE (LIKE TIRION or THRALL or ANYONE) take over, it would annoy me less.



EDIT: Also, the more I think about it, the more annoyed at the squandered Malygos storyline I am as well.

No.  EoE needed to die.  The last thing anyone wanted was more Maly-style raids.

;-)

Sheepherder Presets:  The Way it Should Have Been Ended.

Players emerge onto the Icecrown, before them is the lake and the pinnacle with the Frozen Throne.

Stage 1: Players fight across the lake, leaping across floating ice, fucking up gargoyles and frost wyrms while Arthas causes massive icicles to rain from the roof onto the ice.  Jumping into the water should give a massive armor buff, frost damage weapon enchant / lightning overload style spellcast proc, and frost DoT on themself when they leave, allowing virtually anyone to tank as long as they're healed.

Stage 2:  Players climb the Throne.  Tense, exciting, eerie!

Stage 3: Arthas fight.  He should have the ability to randomly split the battlefield in half with a huge line frost attack (A hybrid of the Ancient in Nexus and Garfrost)  Undead waves start swarming in from the skies and path (Geists jump from above, of course), these are dealt with by [big name hero here].  Continues until half health.

Stage 4: Arthas freezes everyone solid except the tank, who animates the strangulate effect and hovers in front of Arthas while he points Frostmourne at him, something memorable is said.  Saurfang Jr. jumps in (Revenge!) and deals a mighty strike to Arthas, who parries just in time.

Stage 5: The tank is tossed away like a soiled rag, Saurfang roars mightily shattering everyone's ice blocks (full-screen shake, ice and snow dropping from above), and cuts massive chunks out of Arthas' health (the tank is now Saurfang, for a time).  Fighting continues, the damage Saurfang does is carefully controlled so it is always consistent.  Periodically he turns around to be awesome, like corpse exploding flesh giants running up the ramp, or death coil volleying waves of gargoyles out of the sky.

Stage 6: Arthas blasts everyone back with a giant wave of frost attack (Tsunami style).  Saurfang falls to his knees and begs the players to avenge him, continues to kneel and bleed while fight rages on.

Stage 7: Arthas' health is low, Mograine shows up and deals him his deathstroke, helm falls from his head.  Tirion holds Mograine back from finishing him completely.  Arthas talks, anguish / remorse overcomes him (Sjofn has some good ideas for motivation), sees and talks to Terenas and Uther (nobody else does, this is supposed to be subtle), and falls on his blade (note: rip the lines from Turin Turambar).

Stage 8: Tirion looks at the helm, hears Uther's warnings (note: they wouldn't be so fuckstupid as the ones in HoR), Bolvar talks from the Throne about taking up the burden, Tirion crushes the helm with his size 13 scourgestompers, says something memorable about damning oneself (note: which one is damnation?  Being eaten by feral ghouls or making a new Lich King?) and living without remorse (note: contrast with Arthas), walks away, pauses says "...We could have saved him." and continues walking, damned in his own eyes (you can feel his anguish, he is remorseful, just not for ending the scourge).  Cinematic continues with him walking down the ramp, hearing echoes of voices now dead.

Stage 9: Loot.

EDIT - Stage 10: Maybe all the players die in one final runeblade blast by Arthas, only to rise again after the cinematic, with a new freebie ability or something else unique that simultaneously lets them know that they are dead and raised by the power of Frostmourne.

Note: I wasn't actually aware that Bolvar was a paladin until the Wrathgate chain.  I always assumed he was a warrior based on the cleaving during the Onyxia chain.


Yes, they fucked the lore and the fight there bad.

You know what I meant. :P

There was some nice misguided intentions there (THE MORTALS CAN'T HAVE NICE THINGS) and such, they just kinda let it turn into "whelp, let's go kill Malygos and then forget all about it."

I've been a little uncomfortable with the whole idea that we seem to be working our way through the Aspects.  I mean, these dudes were charged by the Titans to do stuff.  I guess their jobs weren't so important after all if we'll have killed 2/5 of them by the end of Cataclysm.

Who is keeping magic in check now? Who watches over the earth after Cataclysm? Are the other Aspects being asked to work extra hours?

lollore.

Seriously though, WoW lore is so far gone that it doesn't matter anymore.  Blizzard has shown time and time again that they are simply going to do whatever makes for the "coolest" story at any given moment.  Thats fine, you get some neat dungeons and questlines out of that, but if you try to look at the big picture, the human brain just can't handle it.

As I've stated before, lore isn't a worthwhile investment in MMO's.  Most of the kids playing WoW have no idea why they are running quests, why the races are at war, or any other backstory in the game.  That's reserved for nerds like us that read quest text and post on forums dedicated to whining about video games. 

This is so trite even I don't care.

I actually enjoyed the cinematic itself.  It will make a lot more sense if someone turns out to be behind it like I mentioned, but I can take it at face value.  I've always been good at suspension of disbelief though.... or even suspension of the need for continuity... or sense...

Maybe a better way to say it is that my standards are low and the Lich King story met them.

Another question... we never saw or heard hide nor hair of Gul'dan.  Did Arthas entirely suppress/destroy him?

You're thinking of Ner'zhul (http://www.wowwiki.com/Ner%27zhul).

He's been that since, oh, a few minutes into Warcraft 3. :-P

I still need someone to explain to me why there must always be a Lich King.  There wasn't one five years ago.  Undirected scourge are going to be easier to isolate and wipe out.  A bunch of ghouls aren't going to be raising progenitor dragons for a pet.  Valkyr aren't going to be holding tournaments to earn the non-existent Lich King's favor.  It make no damn sense.

Every once in a while I try to dig deeper into the lore of Warcraft, thinking there's something I'm missing. But there's not. It's all really straight-forward and predictable. And I'm glad for that, because I know I'm not missing anything. Those huge books you read in the libraries are three pages long. I think that's awesome.

The Blue Dragon storyline being cut short is rather interesting from a 'oh crap the server is exploding' way. There was supposed to be a LOT more with the Blue Dragons trying to break into Dalaran, and with CrystalSong Forest in general, but they completely underestimated the massive server destroying lag factor that shoving the entire level 80 population into a floating city would cause.

Even the Tourney was supposed to originally be inside CrystalSong, which is why half the quests send you there for no good reason seemingly.


-edit-

Really though, they just bit off way more then they could chew for WotLK. Just to many factions and motivations all at once.

Especially since the Lich King already TRIED overrunning the world with an uncontrolled zombie plague just before the WOTLK launch, only to see the plague cured and the zombies wiped out. Kind of a weird thing to do if you're holding them back somehow.

He was just making sure they had a plague cure! You know, prodding them into researching a good defense!

Yes, thanks.  Question remains.

"There must always be a Lich King" only makes sense if it's a false idea being propagated by an old god.  That's why it's probably not the case  :uhrr:

Did Yogg really die in Ulduar or just one manifestation/tentacle of him?  Does my idea even make any sense?

You know, they really should just have made Captain Placeholder be the new Lich King rather than Bolvar. Because that's all this is about: the Scourge are too much a part of existing instances and questlines even if Cataclysm changes many of them. Actually getting rid of the Lich King a la throwing the One Ring into Mount Doom leads to the expectation of non-Forsaken undead scurrying into the dark corners of the earth and leaving most of the locations they're presently found in.

But even if they had to come up with a Placeholder scenario, I can think of more elegant ways to do it:

1) Arthas dies at the end of the big fight, everybody goes boo-hoo and hoo-ray all at once, throne room cracks and crumbles and everybody runs out. Frostmourne and the LK's Crown tumble into an endless abyss, Tirion briefly wets his panties but then says, "Oh well, no worries, it's down in the bowels of the fucking earth, what are the odds anyone would ever find them." Cue scene in the dark where we see one of those Anub'arak types scurrying away into an Old Kingdom style place dragging Frostmourne along. Finis. Very standard comic-book thing, and they can just leave it alone as long as they need to--2, 3, 4 expansions. Scourge can still be around in the world, just not acting on the orders of the All-Powerful Lich King.

2) Arthas gets what's coming to him, his daddy's ghost pops up and says, "Sorry, son, but you were a bad guy". Arthas does the Anakin Skywalker thing and says "It was the goddamn sword and that Nerzhul shitface, sorry dad, I wuv you and I iz sorry for all the bad things I done." Everybody gets all weepy. Arthas totters to his feet and as his last act drives Frostmourne into the LK's throne. Gasps and says, "I can't make the Scourge go away, nothing can do that now, but I've ordered them to stay where they are and lead no further attacks against the world. That will hold until someone takes this sword from the throne, and nobody can do that unless...unless...beware Deathbringer...a greater darkness is upon you...ACK". Exeunt, dum da dum dum.

3) Mal'Ganis shows up and turdburgles Frostmourne while all the heroes are distracted with doing celebratory dances. "When next you meet the Burning Legion, we will be the ones who truly command the Scourge!" Cue ominous music.

I dunno, there's a zillion ways to do this that would be better storytelling.

Arthas is an idiot ergo whoever picked up the hat next would be more dangerous than him therefore heroic sacrifice, please.

Frostmourne should drop, and Bolvar should ninja it from the raid and log out.

The only way this can possible make sense is if Arthas was holding back, which I believe is strongly hinted at in the beginning, where has asks if it's finally over.  Which of course, overturns all the buildup that Arthas is completely evil. 

I've always thought it was Frostmourne's fault.  Maybe it gets broken or something in the final fight.

There is a part in FT where Arthas says "It's odd - I've destroyed everything I ever cared about, but I don't care" and Mal'Ganis or someone says "It's because Frostmourne stole your soul, dude".

Arthas didn't care before he ever heard of Frostmourne.

That helps quite a bit, actually.

I've been told that in some Blizzard Approved Canonical Novel that Arthas and That Damn Shaman had it out when they originally merged, or at some point afterwards, and Arthas won out.

I'm not entirely sure on the timeline, but the Scourge can't have been around for more than a few years.  That Bolvar is shown in the YS illusions has very interesting implications, who knows what it really means (LOLORE) but to me it means that the Lich King is more than likely a tool of the Old Gods.  So it doesn't make a lot of sense for there to be a requirement: Must exist, Lich King, one each.  Unless, of course, this is more long term planning on the part of the Old Gods to do something, anything, to escape their prisons.

As for the Old Gods, they are described as a necrotic parasite that could not be killed or removed by the Titans without destroying the planet.  It's entirely possible we managed to do what the Pantheon itself could not, but I would not count on it.

i.e. at best we caused the two Old Gods we have fought to subside, but the odds are not good (again, my opinion) that we actually defeated them.  It's way too likely we'll see YS in an expansion or three, yelling out, "I know what you're thinking, but Ulduar was merely a setback!"

This is Metzen, the man who couldn't remember if his DemonLordTitan corrupted a entire species, or if the species corrupted the Titan.

Again, this is my opinion, but it'll likely be retconned yet again that the original corrupter of Sargeras was the Old Gods.  Then we'll fight Sargeras (because you just know he's not all the way dead) at level 100, and just as we're about to deliver the killing blow, he'll yell out, "Stay your hand... !"

Watch the cinematic again. It's shattered by Arthas' side as he's lying on the ground.

Meh, not really. Like I said, the Fallen Paladin isn't exactly original, but he had an actual motivation for his fall. Now he's just all MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA because ... well, just because.

He HAS always been a douchebag, though.  :oh_i_see:


EDIT: And you know, Mal'ganis showing up and being all YOINK like Khaldun suggested would've made me happy.  But clearly we would have to fight him down to 1 HP before he left, because that's how Mal'ganis rolls.

Is Glen Cook bored yet? Can we get him on the payroll to fill in some really crazy lore for WoW?

Just how many times do you want to kill the Limper?

I like this idea. Except he doesn't need to hold back because there's still good in him, or he has some hope left for the mortal races, or any wishy-washy stuff like that. He can be unrepentantly evil but still have a reason to hold back. Namely, the Burning Legion itself.

Replace that stupid blue dragon sideshow with some Scourge-versus-Legion stuff. Make it clear that Arthas is only playing this "get their heroes to come to me and convert them" game because while he COULD smash the combined Alliance and Horde outright, it would leave him too weak to hold off the Burning Legion. After all, that's explicitly why the Legion created the Scourge in the first place, to weaken Azeroth in preparation for their own invasion.

And of course, an uncontrolled zombie-wave Scourge wouldn't grasp any of this. They would just mindlessly attack everyone. They'd probably lose without a Lich King to guide them, but that would still leave the world too weak to hold off the Legion. Hence, someone else needs to put on the Lich King hat.

There you go. The Scourge is still more dangerous with a Lich King than without. Arthas is still 100% evil but has a motivation and a reason to hold back. Shit makes a little bit of sense. But no.

I dunno, I'm a sucker for the "Oh god, what have I done?" <impale> endings.  That being said, at least it works.

The main thing with me is the Misguided Intentions they always, always, always fuck it up and use the Old God/Demon scapegoat, so I would've liked to see Arthas basically doing his Misguided Intentions MOSTLY on his own. I am totally OK with him being 100% evil too, of course, I just don't like the cardboard cutout he is.

Now I'm annoyed again about Metzen's lack of creativity. It first pissed me off with the Scarlet Crusade (OH HAI THEY'RE BEING SEMI-CONTROLLED BY A DEMON LOL, THEY AREN'T REALLY RACIST ZEALOTS BECAUSE THAT WOULD ACTUALLY BE INTERESTING) and pretty much every time since then it's been either a demon or an old god corrupting our bad guys. And if it ISN'T a demon or an old god corrupting some bad guy, it's never a big Lore Moment. The only bad guy I can think of off the top of my head who was 100% responsible for his bad guy creepiness is fuckin' Stalvan in Darkshire. Oh, and the hermit, I think he's just bad on his own too. Apparently the good writers worked on that zone or something. But again, those aren't really important. They're memorable though, dammit.

I guess to be fair, I can't remember if they blamed Malygos' tough love policy about magic being a result of Yogg Saron leaking into his skull or not. But he was at least crazy, I think I would've prefered him be perfectly sane. SANE IN OUR INSANE MAGIC ABUSING WORLD RAAR.



EDIT: Another nice thing about WUA's idea is it would keep the Burning Legion, the main bad guys, in the picture a lot more than it currently is, so we don't get all "Oh yeah, those guys" when they start to be a focus again.

First, I'd say that based on state of the lore, what you have said is pretty much the case.  The Burning Legion has suffered multiple set backs on Azeroth, and they have lost several high ranking members, but it's not as if the Legion has vanished.  It's still in operation, and it's pretty much a guarantee that for whoever is running the show, either defeating or re-enslaving the rogue Lich King on Azeroth is a high priority.  Ner'zhul's plan has pretty much always been to escape the Legion, build his own army, and strike back, not out of any heroic intentions, but because he is an evil power hungry bastard who wants to rule the show.

As many have pointed out, the Scourge is vast and powerful, but based on the 2 offensives, it's not strong enough to take over.  A friend of mine has suggested that without a Lich King, the Scourge would fight amongst themselves until the stronger and more intelligent ones took over, formed their own armies, and started fighting with each other and with the citizens of Azeroth.  The situation would rapidly devolve into chaos because while the forces of Azeroth are strong enough to prevent them from taking over, they are not strong enough to fight multiple fronts, especially considering that potentially every fallen soldier can be converted to the Scourge.  From Wrath, I got the impression that a full scale offensive was never in Arthas's plan.  He wanted to get the most powerful heros and leaders of Azeroth onto his turf where he could corrupt and turn them to his side.  Once enough heroes had been converted, he could then launch a full scale offensive turning the might of the Alliance and the Horde back on itself.  

As for the blue dragon side-show, it's not a side show, it's the attempt to tie the lore of Wrath back to the original conflict of Saergas.  It's just not well executed.


I'm pretty certain the with or without the dreadlords, the Scarlet Crusade would still be an overzealous military campaign led by a bunch of short-sighted racosts bastards.  The dreadlords are using that fact to control the SI and use them for their own ends.


That's actually the case.  He's got his sanity back, but he views our misuse of arcane magic as a major threat because he fears it would attract the Legion back to Azeroth.  I don't think he's aware that the planet is already the number 1 target.

I think you are giving them too much credit, frankly, certainly as far as the Scarlet Crusade goes. If they ARE trying to imply they'd be terrible people anyway, they do a shit-ass job going about it. I'd go with it, almost, if the Onslaught wasn't being lead astray by a DIFFERENT demon and were just following their own batshit selves instead. It loses a LOT when it can mostly be laid at the feet of a dreadlord, and it can be BOTH TIMES we have to deal with them.

While I'm rambling, I hope Arthas cries that we killed his boyfriend Kel'thuzad. They were tight, man. KT was always there for him. <sniff>

If there are any players death knights in the raid (VERY UNLIKELY) he should also taunt them.

Please, he should act like he did the rest of Wrath and pretend he's never seen you before and you do not know the power of the lich king yadda yadda.

Always always annoyed me. Stop acting like I'm some random jackass. I actively rebelled against your ass like, a week ago! Still wearing your fucking logo on my armor even!

This is why I don't give a fig about the lorelol. Dude was an ass who then got his soul sucked out so he could become a super powered ass. Yey. I'd be first in line to piss on his corpse.

The Scarlet Crusade without the Dreadlord manipulation, would have been a hard line faction, but no where near as crazy as they are now. The Argent Dawn are the people from the Scarlet Crusade that figured out they were being manipulated and broke away, and the random friendly Crusaders you find around the world who haven't been inside the Dreadlords sphere of influence, while again hard liners, aren't bat shit insane like the Crusade/Onslaught proper.


Specifically, what tipped them completely over the edge, is when they were tricked into believing the Undead could look like they were not Undead. Before that, they were ruthless about quarantine and the like, but could still understand the difference between Zombie and Not-Zombie.



A lot of the Crusades lolore breaks down when you realize they were originally supposed to be the Horde Version of the Defias Brotherhood. 

Actually, Arthas's humanity was represented by a small child (Matthias Lettner) and Ner'zhul battling for... something. His soul? I don't know. Arthas slew both of them and took over, which I found to be a "WTF?" moment because I had no idea what that meant or what they were trying to go for.

Arthas turned into a joke after that book and Lich King. Let the Cataclysm come and wash it all away.

tiny derail, but in the spirit of Blizz retconning or just changing stuff...

honest question: when I was playing vanilla, I had no idea about progression.   How do you know which instance to go into?  That is, how do you know which instances are worthwhile and which are Deadmines skippable?  just read player wikis?  Was there anything in the quests that said: go here, get that gear, go here get that gear?

It's gotten better bit by bit.  The quests sending you into dungeons are still a bit wonky as to when you get them, but the main thing is that the Dungeon Finder tells you right there what instances you should be running.

The two things that make pretty much all dungeons worthwhile at this point is the updated loot and Random Dungeon rewards.

I think I got this right.  A flash movie would have more impact but....

Matthias Lehner

aMtthias Lehner
arMtthias Lehne
arttMhias Lehne
artthMias Lehne
artthaMis Lehne
arthas tMi Lehne
arthas Mti Lehne
arthas Meti Lehn
arthas Menti Leh
arthas Meneti Lh
arthas Menethi L

arthas MenethiL

 :Love_Letters:

I know. I know.

Blizzard is not only good at innovating on existing game design, but trite cliches too! *THOOM* LICH KING NOWIWILLDISAPPEARINDRAMATICFASHION.

That's the meanest thing I've ever seen WUA write. seriously.

At least there aren't gnomes running around Arthas yelling out lines from Family Guy.

I was randomly thinking about this some more today, and really all they'd need to do to make this a little less retarded is to change "Someone has to take over holding the Scourge in check or they'll run wild!" to "Someone has to take over holding the Scourge in check or the Burning Legion will get control back!"

ICC would be about 400% better if Millhouse Manastorm showed up in it.

Milhouse should totally be a Major Bad Guy one day. Find out the real reason he was in Arcatraz.  :why_so_serious:



EDIT: Maaaaaan, I bet the reason they didn't say there must be a Lich King because otherwise the Burning Legion will get it back is because Metzen forgot that's where they fucking came from in the first place. And God Forbid he glance over the shit he's written before.

It's a clusterfuck.

Total clusterfuck. I used to care about the lore. Now I just want to bone night elves and be done with it.

(http://www.treehugger.com/Avatar-Na%27vi.jpg)

The dialog during the Lich King fight basically implies he wanted you to kill all of his underlings, because if you're THAT tough, he'll convert you and -no one- will be able to stop him then. He gives a big speech before the pull, thanking Tirion for "delivering the greatest fighting force in the world right into my hands."

Technically, that's not before the pull according to the kill videos I've seen.

(I know this is the spoiler thread but this needs double-secret spoilering)

He's been rolling with that all of Wrath though. Every time you beat up on one of his badguys, he shows up in a random height and kills him for you. I mean seriously, this guy is terrible upper management.

See my post above.  :oh_i_see:

 :dead_horse:
 So the Lich King wanted to turn the badest of the badasses into scourge so what? They could rebel like the Forsaken or the metric fuckton of Death Knights running around and viola! He's made his enemies stronger again. Wonderful plan.

Why do we even need to beat Arthas? He makes Dr. Evil look like a genius mastermind. Just leave the idiot in Icecrown jerking off and talking into his Darth Vader voicechange helmet.
 :dead_horse:

Oh my God do not get me started on his horrible Evil Bad Guy Voice.

Well I think it's just awesome that the singer from Morbid Angel has found work.  :awesome_for_real:

It's that same voice actor who does everything in WOTLK and half of everything everywhere else. I'm sure he's better known for other things, but all I hear is...

(http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:UPpXS62_ZeDO7M:http://images.absoluteanime.com/big-o/schwarzwald.jpg)

It was the same voice from Warcraft III. Not for Arthas, for the Lich King.

Michael McConnohie was Uther and Kel'thuzad in WC3, and the Lich King in WOTLK. When he gets to "Leave here and never return!" he sounds like Schwarzwald, whom he also did the voice of in Big O years ago.

He sounds like Dr. Claw.

Here seems as good a place as any to ask: Am I the only one who thinks Metzen has a lot higher opinion of his own voice acting than is warranted? 

I respect the guy's design and guidance chops, but he sounds like a nerdboy with a little bit of training who wants to voiceover everything.

Cheaper than hiring a professional.

I dunno which people he's acted, so I can't say! Given I think he has a higher opinion of his VISION for the LORE than is warranted, though, I would probably think the same of his voicework.  :why_so_serious:

Oh, lore.

The Lich King was always a bitch, glad to see it gettnig back to fucking DRAGONS in Cataclysm. Not that there was a lack of dragons in LK or anything, but now we have a main bad guy dragon.

The Lich King represented the third party to the Order vs. Chaos fight.  As one dimensional and stock as he was, I found his simplicity to be refreshing in a group of characters that are always somehow misguided, or some other reason for their actions.  The Lich King is not misguided or duped, or bitter.  He's just evil.

Had I my way, I would have let him win.  Frostmourne would have destroyed the Ashbringer, and I would have plunged Azeroth into a state of chaos until the cataclysm occurred.  A Scourge Invasion but on a much larger and broader scale.  Mix in with that a worsening of relations between the Horde and Alliance, blend in some crazy dragons, and things get lore interesting.

For better or worse, Arthas was THE villain. The last boss of vanilla was some lackey of his. The last boss of BC was some guy he beat up. Pulling up some dragon with a dumbass name like Deathwing from the "10,000 years ago some night elves did some shit nobody cares about" section of the lore just isn't that interesting, no matter how many novels that I've never read make reference to how super important he is.

They completely mishandled him in such a way as to make me lose faith and concern for all things Warcraft once it became clear Arthas was just a little bitch.

WUA hit the nail on the head.  Arthas's fall from grace occupied 2 of the 3 campaigns in WC3 and the ultimate campaign of TFT.  In his journey, he fought (and won) against agents of the Burning Legion, the Old Gods, and even a rogue night elf, and wiped out a high elf city.  His actions, both as an agent of the Burning Legion and as a rogue entity reshaped Azeroth more than some random dragon did.  His one dimensionality was refreshing in a game that is full of complex and often misguided people.  Keeping him around in his current state would have had a Scooby Doo affect - "I would have won if not for those meddling kids".   His antics in Wrath can be excused because he was luring us all into a trap, and letting him be defeated by a essentially a deus ex machina is lame.  As I said, had I been in charge, he would have won, and then mounted a full scale offensive against Azeroth that would have placed increased the strain between the Horde and the Alliance and caused all out war to break forth, and then unleased Cataclysm on everyone.  A massive worsening of conditions until the storm hits and blows everything.  Far more interesting that having the Lich King on farm status for loots that will be replaced by the first quest in Cata.

Deathwing is no NEPTULON. Both names sound like something a kid in middle school came up with for his totally sweet D&D campaign though.

They likely hire based on how sweet that D&D campaign was, at least from an entertainment perspective. Naming of characters in that campaign? Not so much.

Hey now, Deathwing is out of the Warcraft 2 expansion, at least it isn't some Knaak-penned garbage.

Fucking Knaak. I hates him so much.

Unfortunately Metzen loves him, and that's all that really matters.

Its actually not from that long ago at all in the lore, like someone else said, Warcraft 2 era.  Definitely still relevant.  Not to mention we already fought his son, and his daughter, in vanilla, so it isn't exactly like the Black Dragonflight has been absent until they just pulled this out of their ass.   I think Deathwing being the main villain for Cataclysm is one of the only things that might actually get me to come back.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_x5zDCjULw

Well, at least Blizzard let players sort of deliver the final blow to Arthas rather than what happened with Illidan.

Maybe I don't get it, but wouldn't the dead stay dead if the Lich King gets destroyed with no one taking his place?  I mean, he's raising the dead, no?

Dead would stay dead, but the reanimated still has life (see: Forsaken). They just aren't under his control and would rampage, which.... I GUESS Arthas was holding back some massive armies or something that would make that a bad thing?

It's been mentioned above but it's a good enough explanation.  Consider the forsaken being run by a fairly benevolent ruler(or at least one who plays along with thrall)  Now imagine if every single undead was suddenly given their free-will back. Sure many would be almost mindless but a njority of the higher ranking undead and even the human cultists would start running amok, forming their own factions and splintering into many different armies with goals that may be more chaotic and dangerous than the lich kings.   All these newly free undead could be worse or not but it's an unknown variable.  Personally I think tirion should have smashed the helm but there's an argument for not doing so.

No the explanation is still pants-on-head retarded, like most lore.

Man, you know what totally could have won WW2 for Japan? Taking their highly disciplined and organized military, and splitting it into a million uncoordinated sub-factions all randomly executing their own plans. I mean if you thought four Japanese battleships executing a well-ordered plan were dangerous, just imagine two ships (because someone else got the other two) sailing around shooting at random.

No, it only works if Arthas were holding the Scourge back all along. Which would actually make absolutely No Fucking Sense at all given that he already gleefully destroyed his homeland and murdered his father in their name, not to mention all the times this expansion has slapped us in the face just to go "LOOK HOW TOTALLY EVIL HE IS! HERE IS A PLACE WHERE HE MIGHT SHOW SOME REMAINING TRACE OF GOOD, BUT NOPE, EVIL!"

Yes I still do green.

Option 1: Arthas wanted to conquer the world, not own a desolate waste. Hence the repeated conversion attempts on the PCs, the minions turning towns/kingdoms/entire races (instead of just razing them) etc.

Option 2: Arthas is a retard and anyone else at all running the Scourge would be more dangerous purely by not being Arthas.


Either one works.  :grin:

I'd go with option two. Putricide running the scourge would be ten times more deadly, and fun!

It's both.  He set up shop in the most desolate portion of Northrend and look at his lovely trail cutting through the Ghostlands and Silvermoon.

Also he's an idiot.

"Hey, let's lure the strongest in the realm all to one spot so they can kick my ass, instead of just killing everything, raising it, and getting the strongest anyway when they're uncoordinated."

Arthas didn't set up shop in Icecrown so much as he took over the operation that had already been established in Icecrown because that's where the Burning Legion hurled the Frozen Throne.

The 'There must always be a Lich King!' is still stupid, though.

Well, there was a Scourge/Lich King (just not a MOBILE Lich King) before Arthas put on the hat, maybe that's what they mean. If some sucker doesn't put on the hat and wrestle with whatever is still kicking around in there then Ner'zhul gets to do his thing again or something.

Of course if that is it, they should actually spell it out.

No no, you don't understand!  He had to allow us to get more powerful by getting the items dropped by his underlings on our way up the ladder.  That is certainly not something he could have done in your scenario.

...oh wait...Nevermind.

That's for the 6th x-pac.  "Return to Icecrown Mountain"

His plan wasn't that retarded, actually.  To some degree, it worked.  At the start pf phase 4, he uses the full power of Frostmourne and kills everyone, and starts to resurrect them. The retarded part is that spell doesn't kill Fording for some reason, he is only enslaved, which allows him to break free, destroy Frostmourne, and have a Prior Incantato moment.  That is why I said he should have won.  There is no good reason why Fording shouldn't be killed along with the rest of the players.  It's more of Metzen's childish "Light must always win mentality" that messed up the whole situation.

Pretty sure it wasn't Metzen's "Light must always win" mentality rather than Foror's ego coming through Ashbringer to strike down Metzen's Frostmourne.

Watch what happens when Cataclysm comes along and all these Big Damn Heroes from the Argent Crusade walking around with weapons meant to obliterate nations disappear into the ether.

it's pretty clear arthas doesnt kill fodring on purpose though. he mentions wanting fordring to watch azeroth die and something along the lines of "you will beg for mercy and i will not give it" essentially he wanted to torture the paladin.  again, arthas was an idiot

Arthas is only as dumb as the people pulling his strings and the need for the MMO-space to continue on. It is inevitable in a non-terminating product for some Deus Ex Machina to occur to turn a hopeless situation into an unexpected victory. That they create a situation that doesn't take this into account is the greater problem.

So, I just walked up to the statue in Dalaran, clicked the plaque, and bam: endgame cinematic.

What the fuck?  Not even a soloable Wrathgate style event?

Wow, you guys are good at inventing drama.

Could it possibly be that it's a "players must always win" design mentality?  Do you want to end the expansion unable to defeat the final boss?  Hamhanded story - that's a different problem.

If it were not for the whole premise behind Cataclysm, then Arthas's victory would not work.  If the players did not defeat him, but were saved, it would create a Scooby Doo situation.  Essentially, the lich king would have gotten away with it if nor for those darn kids.  However, Arthas's defeat just doesn't work.   He's been played, since TFT as an entity that is far more powerful than anything on Azeroth, with the exception of the (fully powered) Old Gods.  The deus ex machina of not killing Fording, as well as the blatant rip off of the prior incantato is just a stupid way to climax a story that has been building up for 7 years.   On the other hand, if Arthas wins, it would create an not winnable situation.

The whole premise behind Cataclysm, on the other hand, is that it opens up the possibility that Arthas wins, launched a massive offensive against Azeroth, and is tripped up wen Deathwing decides to wake  up.

Arthas is a terrible character no matter what, so any story based around him is going to likewise have tons of problems.  Asshole 'Paladin' (HTF does the Light choose such a loser?) betrays everyone, finds a magic sword and helm, which makes him the most powerful active entity around.

"Oh but if I went 'round sayin' I was Emperor, just because some moistened bink lobbed a scimitar at me, they'd put me away!"

It's the nature of the beast. With that fact accepted, we must move on to making the best of that situation.

Again I think people are discounting how powerful the players in wow are supposed to be now.  Thus far players in the wow narrative have defeated

~A dreadlord pretending to be one of the scarlet crusade
~not only onyxia but her brother nefarion, both powerful children of deathwing.
~Ragnaros(not the god of flame but a demi-god?)
~Servants of the old gods that were so powerful they had to be sealed by malfurian up to and including c'thun(albeit weakened)
~The troll blood god hakaar

TBC

~The pit lord magtheridon
~Kael'thas
~The progenitor or the ogre race gruul
~Illidan stormrage
~Teron Gorefiend
~Kael'thas
~Banishing kil'jaeden

Wrath

~The aspect of magic and head of the blue dragonflight malygos
~mr bigglesworth
~The old god yogg saron and a host of titan aspects.



Ever since wow began players got their panties in a bunch saying "we shouldn't be allowed to kill X or Y" but the power progression path is pretty clear and makes perfect sense.  If players have been able to defeat all those prior challenges then defeating the lich king is not so far fetched.  Of course it's ludricrous to think of warcraft the world when you have a small battalion of demi gods on each factions side running around but it's not inconsistant.

It's kind of hard to take bosses seriously knowing that a turkey or moose from the next expansion will be higher level, and possibly be able to beat the players who just beat the Lich King.

Plus, you know, Ashbringer is a fucking Na'aru that walks like a man is currently in the form of a sword. So yeah - Best paladin on the planet + archangel-sword > dreadlord-forged runesword + mummy's boy fallen prince.

I'm not saying one should take wow bosses or for that matter lore, seriously. Quite the opposite actually however wow does go by a certain timeline, in that the wrath events take place after tbc events, take place after vanilla.  C'thun/kil'jaeden/yogg all with godlike power arguable more than powerful than arthas in single combat are all defeated. To say arthas is the ultimate power-omg-cant-be-killed, is just fanboy wankery.

It's not fan boy wonkery.  He's the only boss who kills everyone in the raid, only to lose to a Harry Potter ripoff.   Call it what you want, the Lich King has has a presence in WoW since the game launched, which makes sense, because the a good size of the population has played, or was at least famailiar with, TFT. 

You say this, but every time I go back into one of their dungeons they're all still there!

Mmm. Ok. I can see that.

BUT THE PEOPLE ARE STILL SCREAMING AT THE WRATHGATE!  :grin:

How is it that House recycles the same plot every episode and manages to be constantly fresh, and Samwise can't even make a fucking Macbeth story work?

I blame his obsession with gigantic shoulder pads.

Samwise? You mean Metzen, right?

Yes, though the other one needs to be shaken like the baby of an abusive mother too.

... SAMWISE?

My main problem with Samwise is he seems to think no women wear pants ever.

Women wear pants?

But.. but... they get in the way of the s3xy!

Shit, maybe I'm a dude and didn't realise it.  :headscratch:

You're on the internet claiming to be a woman. Of COURSE you're a dude.  :grin:

Does that mean Ingmar is gay?

That or sjofn is *really good* at disguise.

Man, our guild WISHES.  :heartbreak:

Samwise is Metzen! ZOMG!

Get in here Sam, you have some 'splainin to do!

We're talking about Samwise Didier, one of the OG artists at Blizzard and someone who has nothing to do with the lore.

Has a way with making pants-less ladies, though.

Man, if Ingmar were gay, I'd have a lot of competition. He attracts a lot more dudely attention than I do.  :oh_i_see:

Like Cosby said*, "we are dumb, but we are not so dumb".



*man, I'm old

He's got Bigger boobs?

I'm an A cup at best.

Actually what's really funny is that the player doesn't really get credit for like 99% of the biggest kills in the series:

Retconned/No Credit:

Onyxia - Retconned. King Dickchin solos her.

Nefarian - Supposedly he's back for Round 2 in Cataclysm.

Naxx - Naxx 1.0 retconned. Morgaine and 4 other schlubs 5-man the place I think? Since everyone's undead it gets rebuilt and everyone gets re-re-undeaded so we can kill them for reals and we presumably get credit for that.

Ragnaros - His batteries were at something like 5% since he used up almost all of his power coming into this plane and owning the fuck out of what is NOW the burning steppes. We merely punted him back to the elemental plane after waking him up from a bad hangover. He's baaaaaaaaaack in Cataclysm attempting to burn down the surprisingly not-so-dead worldtree in Hyjal.

Illidan Stormrage - Maiev or whoever literally steals your kill. Illidan, not impressed with you burning him to 1% pulls a mass perma-stun out of his ass, laughs at you, then Maiev shows up and polishes him off. Cunt.

----

Partial Credit:

Yogg Saron - Even doing it Zero Light (meaning no titan help), Yoggy isn't at 100% due to having a gigantic facility meant to keep him contained sitting right on top of him.

C'Thun - I guess we actually KILL him, but it's another "wake up from a bad hangover" like Rags.

Lich King - You get a victory lap where you get to Teabag Arthas from 10% to 0%, but you need Tirion and Arthas' daddy to save your ass first.

Kil'Jaeden - You literally give him a boo-boo and shove him back through a portal.

----

Full Credit:

Kael'thas - Yep, we get credit for this...but we end up having to kill him for good in a 5-man.

Vashj - Actually a pretty big lore kill we get credit for. Not nearly Illidan/Arthas level, but still we actually get credit for this.

Anub'arak / Kel'Thuzad - To be honest, bit players but near and dear to people who liked Warcraft 3. Both get the indignity of finally being finished off in really really easy filler/rehash raids. Oof.

Zul'Jin - Famous/semi-legendary alright, and we kill him. Again, still sort of a bit player.

All of Karazhan/Gruul/Magtheridon - Who gives a shit.

Zul'Jin: Dude has been around since War II, he's serious business.
Karazhan: Aran is an old-school lore character, and he's still got a few tricks up his sleeve.
Gruul: Decorates with black dragon corpses.
Magtheridon: Ruled all of outland in Warcraft III TFT.  Is a pit lord, they're serious, ask Grom.

Must be your come-hither walk and bedroom eyes, then.

Ehhh, ghost of Medivh's dad doesn't really qualify as a "fuck yeah I wanna kill that guy" character. Neither does Gruul. Mags kinda, but only because I like his (now dead) voice actor.

Zul'Jin is arguably the biggest lore character we get a legit kill on. Maybe moreso than Vashj but I dunno.

Is you sayin that the PCs are Wedge from Star Wars?  :awesome_for_real:

On the plus side those first NPCs you talk to in each expansion think you're awesome.

The WotLK ones called me a scrub :(

You are a scrub. :-P

The WotLK ones asked me to collect dog food.

I still can't get over that.