Lich king SPOILERS

[Lakov_Sanite]

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.

[Sjofn]

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.

[Ratman_tf]

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.

[apocrypha]

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.

[Ingmar]

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.

[Lantyssa]

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

[Malakili]

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.

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

[Simond]

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.

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"

[Sjofn]

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.

[Lakov_Sanite]

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'

[Simond]

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

[Fabricated]

Obvious spoiler was obvious.

[Fordel]

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

[Ingmar]

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

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

[K9]

How unsurprising.

[Jayce]

Hey, they left open that

[Aez]

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

[Malakili]

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

[Sjofn]

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.

[Selby]

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]

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.

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

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

[Sjofn]

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.

;-)

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."

[Jayce]

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?

[Malakili]

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.

[Nebu]

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. 

[WindupAtheist]

This is so trite even I don't care.

[Jayce]

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?

[Soulflame]

You're thinking of Ner'zhul.

[Lantyssa]

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.

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

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.

[Slyfeind]

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. 

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.

[Fordel]

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.

[WindupAtheist]

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.

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.

[kildorn]

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.

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!

[Jayce]

You're thinking of Ner'zhul.

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 

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

[Khaldun]

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.