Opioid

Sure you can. Not everyone that got through UBRS killed Nef, not everyone that quested Silithus slew C'Thun, not everyone doing Strat/Scholo got to kill Kelthuzad, and so on.

 

Jebraltar

I think his point was not that it cannot be done, but moreso that it's really irritating for the casual players when it's done. Never being able to touch the guy who sends Rend at you is seriously annoying.

 

Dralmoo

this.

They made a new character, Pathaleon, presented him as antagonist throughout the leveling process, and enabled "casual" players to eventually kill him. Is that really so bad? We get Kael, Vashj, Illidan, and soon Kil'Jadeen all to our hardcore raiding selves.

 

Reverie

It's a tough call really, to decide whether or not the lore's main antagonists are accessable to "casual" players.

Not to make a generalization here, but I think it's the most prevalent and most on point with this:

Roleplaying servers tend to have the most lore-involved players, the ones who read every Warcraft book, the ones who interject their characters into the story. They take more enjoyment in the story than most "hardcore" guilds/players ever do. Despite this, it appears that RP servers have the slowest raid progression and one would imagine those who take tremendous involvement in the story would be the ones to have the most direct access to interacting (read as: killing) the story's main antagonists.

Making up low-level cronies for casuals doesn't quite cut it in this regard. Lore-nuts don't give a rats you-know-what about killing some minion of Kael (Pathaleon).

 

Deris

They could have a middle ground, where maybe you defeat Arthas in a 5 man and merely interrupt an experiment he is carrying out, or etc. You don't have to "kill" him to defeat him. I hope the build up in WOTLK is alot bigger than BC's.

While im not a roleplayer by any stretch of the imagination, I do enjoy a good story. Nefarion was pretty damn cool, we knew he was the boss of BWL, we had seen him in the Rend event, we've been building up to defeating him for months with the Burning Steppes lines, etc.

 

Angeron

Nefarian was also infinitely more accessible for the "casual" player than Illidan ever will be, due to the long life of level 60-max gameplay (nov 2004-january 2007 just over 2 years), the relative lack of max-level 5-man instance options(DM/scholo/strat..? vs. heroic/non everything in outland), and low barrier to entry keying requirements (UBRS(10man) vs. rage winterchill/kael/vashj and (3x25man+ solo questline)THEN kill an entire instance of bosses).

I'm not sure what my ultimate point is regarding this issue, but in the short run, Blizzard is running into EQ-style mudflation issues where the pace of content release(both casual and non) at max-level is so far outstripping the pace of both leveling and casual progression at many people won't get to see Illidan simply due to the fact that WOTLK will be out before they would naturally reach him or the sunwell. This is like having a superheated economy (China/India), if you raise release time in between expansions/content release too much, people who run on the bleeding edge get bored/quit, if you release too much content too fast, the people at the other end of the spectrum (those who look up at the bleeding edge content guilds and see their items as cool things to obtain) get cheated of valid content due to newer/better stuff being availible before the natural lifetime of the previous content expires.

Though I can hide my cold gaze, and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours, and maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are probably comparable; I simply am not there.

 

andastra

I don't think Nefarian is comparable to Illidan, though. The better comparison is SSC/TK. A year after vanilla was released, my original server had 3-4 kills of Nefarian. Eight months after TBC's release, my guild just killed Kael and I think there's two other guilds that are close. I'm in a much lower pop server now, though, which is a bit of a backwater raiding wise.

Let's not forget that SSC/TK was really inaccessible to everyone except the most hardcore until after 2.1. Even my guild, who stopped after 4H in vanilla, only bothered to kill Morogrim before 2.1 was released. We just didn't feel like pre-2.1 SSC/TK was worth it or fun. In reality, SSC/TK has only been there for the consumption of the "general public" for three months and I think progression should become faster going forward. Also, Blizzard did burn out a ton of hardcore raiders, pre 2.1. If Blizzard doesn't release WotLK with raiding at the same state it was in pre 2.1, I think you'll a lot better progression there.

 

Emory

That would take away from the mystique and suspense of fighting THE guy, making the experience available to casual players, but far less epic for both casual and hardcore. I recall reading that Arthas would be involved in different areas of Northrend, so hopefully he'll appear in instances, but I don't want to fight him until the very end.

 

Zurai

Really? Considering BWL wasn't even released until 10 months after the launch, and the world first kill was less than one month before the 1 year anniversary, I find that doubtful.

 

Dudlee

I'm disappointed that we'll be killing Malygos, personally. He seems to have been one of the more powerful aspects, and though he kind of went insane, he is a good character. Also, as the aspect of magic, if he dies, won't that screw up magic in all of Azeroth?

Killing off Zul'Jin is pretty uncool as well.

But on the more recent top in this thread: I personally started playing WoW with the hopes of being able to see Kel'Thuzad, Arthas, Illidan, etc. The major players from the storyline.

It disappoints me that I probably won't get to see the latter 2. This was my first MMO so I didn't know to expect otherwise either.

 

• Playered

I dont believe its been said we would 'kill' Malygos has it? and as to your last comment, they said they intended to involve Arthas heavily through WoTLK to enable all players to get the feeling of experiencing him without needing to 'complete the game' to do so.

 

Kirion

Why would that? He is just Amani trolls leader, presumed to be dead since Warcraft 2, but somehow he is still alive. I have no problems with killing this traitor to the horde, i'm afraid that his lore wont be good. There is absolutely no clues on what Zul'Jin is planning from Ghostlands quests. Wild guess, Amani trolls working with Burning Legion/Kael'thas. I hope Blizzard will add some questlines in 2.3 to explain that.

42.

 

◊ Uljin

There is supposedly some lore regarding Zul'Jin in the RPG supplement; the Revantusk trolls in the Hinterlands were a tribe Zul'Jin had convinced to join the Horde and he had left them to try and convince the other Amani tribes. I'd have to double check that to be sure next time I'm in work but I'm fairly sure this is the case as described in the book.

When I first heard that Zul'jin would be the final encounter in Zul"Amen, I have to admit I was dissapointed.

 

Hasselhoof

I'm pretty sure the idea that the part of the world monitored by a dragon aspect would 'screw up' if they died (magic in this case with Malygos) is an entirely player created myth. I don't think there's anything official to back this up.

As far as much understanding goes, the Titans just imbued the dragons with the power to make sure nothing screwed up, nothing to do with being intrinsically tied to the planet.

 

Emeraude

Traitor to the Horde? Zul'Jin is literally a living legend to all Trolls everythere, it's extremely suspect that we're killing him, so the reasoning had better be damn good.

Then again after the reasoning for Mount Hyjal they gave us, "Lawl purples" I'm not expecting much =/

 

Fugazor

[x] gone mad
[x] drop good loot

 

Dudlee

Ok, just did some more reading. Malygos isn't even insane anymore. What possible reason could there be to fight him, unless it's a test of strength to make clear a way into Azjol-Nerub or something?

Source here. Malygos - WoWWiki, the Warcraft wiki

From the same source, this sounds really cool and I hope it is reflected in his encounter in WotLK.


Would be pretty cool if he cripples the casters in a raid in some way.


But, aye. At the bottom it explains in more detail the reasons for fighting Malygos.


It better be a really cool fight at least.

 

Aonea

If i were to hazard a guess, I would assume that Malygos' war is probably hampering the efforts of the Alliance and Horde to combat the Lich King's forces. After all, undead are not magic. So the Lich Kings forces can just keep going even if his magical forces were restricted, unlike the mortal races.

I would assume the Red Dragonflight and Rhonin went to Malygos to explain things and he probably told them all to GTFO. So Dalaran decides to head north to take the fight to him.

For us, its probably a matter of 'Hey, we need to stop Malygos or we won't be able to use any magic anymore." Not that the Alliance or Horde really want to fight a Dragon Aspect, but there would be no way to beat the Lich King's forces with Malygos' mucking with everything.

 

Kirion

In second war, when alliance turned the tide of war, Amani trolls quickly abandoned horde. So yes, he is a traitor. Also, Amani trolls and Darkspear trolls are not friendly to each other at all.

As for reason, probably he is working with burning legion or scourge.

42.

 

FLEABttn

1) The experience isn't less epic for the casual player if the casual player can never see it. Really. They don't care if Illidan is the most awesome 25 man event ever if they know for a fact they were never see it.

2) Nobody seemed to mind Warcraft's lore being dealt with in a single player fashion with Warcraft 2 and 3.

 

◊ Uljin

I beg to differ. In Warcraft 3, the sound bite for the Darkspear spearthrower's is "Vengeance for Zul'Jin" Now to me that doesn't imply a lack of friendship between the Darkspear and the Amani, quite the opposite in fact.

 

Tacitus

Incorrect, the Amani trolls left the Horde when they began losing the Second War. Zul'Jin had nothing to do with this, so he left into exile in shame.

That's only because Zul'Jin is so cool. Amani and Darkspear still don't like each other, Zul'Jin managed to unite every troll tribe so that's the reason for that sound and the troll /charge in WoW.

Brotherhood, Peace, Unity

Welcome back, Comrade

 

Vaccine

Extract from "Legacy of the Aspects", a book found ingame at The Dor'Danil Barrow Den in Ashenvale.

Its quite interesting, suggests that Malygos could shapeshift at will. Also maybe we'll end up fighting part of the fight in his preferred insect form? Also possibly suggests a tie in with the living remnants of Azjol-Nerub.

Descriptions on his insect and insect/dragon forms from Day of the Dragon:


Now this quote comes from the Manual of Monsters RPG book that was published. It suggests that even a weak dragon's death will cause trouble to the local habitat, and that a full dragons death can cause extreme concequences like volcanoes, earthquakes etc... as well as alerting any other dragon in the area.

Now if an entire aspect were to die, aside from whatever other problems would be cause by having no Guardian of Magic to control the flows in and out of Azeroth, Northrend would be ripped to pieces in the aftermath, as well as the entirety of the blue dragonflight attacking your posistion almost instantly.

On his sanity, as far as lore was concerned he was already sane again before the Blizzcon panel that stated the Netherdrakes made him sane, so we have a contradiction in sources.

Theres also the question of his power. I mean without some gimic I think this is just a step too far from believable that a 25 man raid of even powerful heroes could even last a second vs an aspect. Unfortuantely knowing blizzard Malygos' ultimate control over the flows of magic is likely going to get translated to the game as a high resistance and a mana burn auara

I'm not against killing lore characters as a rule, but this just seems a step too far, when previous lore has set precedent that people wouldn't stand a chance against an aspect.

Guess only time will tell.

 

aleyro

(Moderators, please excuse any grammar issues, specifically sentence capitalization; I was in a bit a rush while writing this, for obvious reasons.)


In an attempt to catch up latecomers to this thread, I have summarized the previous 11 pages of posts into one monstrocity of a post. Hopefully, this will reduce the amount of repetitive comments and suggestions that have already been hashed over.

I present to you- the main topics of this thread (so far):

• Sunwell Plateau (SP) confirmed as post BT, pre WotLK instance
• New Wotlk instance "Nexus" also confirmed.
• EJ forums may or may not be a suitable replacement for worldofraids/mmochamp.
• This may or may not be worthy of new-threadness.
• ...Oh, wait, it is.
• The (supposed) heroic version of the (confirmed) 5 man instance of sunwell may (or may not) have a rep grind associated with it.
• There may be blood elves in SP.
• This new five man can, and should, be "hard".
• Players will have to find their way to the instance. this is unfair.
• We have absolutely no idea when this will actually be released.
• There may be demons in SP.
• Making 5 man content difficult is "hard".
• There will be dragons in NX, and this is good.
• Players having to find their way into instances is unfair in different ways on pvp and pve servers.
• Group composition is important in 5 man content.
• Kil'Jaeden (KJ) will have something to do with SP.
• Kael may have something to do with SP.
• KJ is a really bad guy.
• We still have absolutely no idea when this will actually be released.
• Epic battle at SP may have lore implications for both factions. a new quest hub may be required.

• They may completely rahash spirit, so that drops from SP are relevant at lvl 80. ::gasp::
• The fight with malygos will not be epic enough. he should be epic-er than arthas.
• Archimonde was not epic enough.
• KJ will not be epic enough.
• Arena season 3 may or may not come in the near future.
• Estimate software release schedules is difficult.
• Making 5 man content difficult is "hard". early heroics were evidence of this. hero classes will *not* help the situation.
• Making 5 man content difficult is easy, just CC less.
• Making 5 man content difficult is easy, just have enemies spam more.
• Making 5 man content difficult is easy, just look at arcatraz.
• Making 5 man content difficult is easy, just add stages to boss fights, and set equipment. or, make it like chess.
• players will have to find their way to the instance. this is unfair. you could get killed out there.
• We have absolutely no idea when this will actually be released. but maybe 10/16/2007, 5am server time.
• ...or maybe october 30th, for competitive reasons.
• Making 5 man content difficult would be bad, because then we would miss easy 5 man content.
• Players will have to find their way to the instance. this is NOT unfair. flight times are unfair.
• 2.3 will be a pretty big class balance patch. who knew?
• The (supposed) heroic version of the (confirmed) 5 man instance of sunwell may (or may not) have a rep grind associated with it, and it may have
  something to do with the (supposed) attunement process for 25man sunwell.
• The sound subsystem is the major cause of delay for the 2.2 patch.
• Flying is unfair.

• Zifna's guild is AWESOME, and they havent finished BT yet, so its unfair to announce new content, because it will burn people out. but ZA is good, because it will buff t5 players.
• SP could be a continuation, lore wise, of Dire Maul.
• ZA may drop items that are valuable to some players.
• blizzard should think carefully about when they release SP, so as not to repeat the disaster that was naxx.
• SP could be a continuation, lore wise, of Silvermoon City.
• Continuity in WoW is Non-Linear; see overlapping onyxia quest chains.
• Elves saboutaged spacegoats and crashed their ship (<---current thread winner, btw)
• There are multiple development teams within blizzard.
• Vashj and kael should be changed.
• The sunwell is kinda like the alamo, spiritually.
• Making 5 man content difficult is easy, just diversify.
• SP is not likely a continuation, lore wise, of Dire Maul, and vaccine has leet elven language skills.
• We have absolutely no idea when this will actually be released.
• Flying is unfair, for alliance.
• Wowwiki has excellent lore information on the sunwell.
• Unlocking heroics shouldn't be rep based. rep based unlocks require a bazillion runs.
• There may not be enough space on the map for SP.
• 2.2 contains new technology.
• There may not be enough time between the release of SP and the release of WotLK.
• There may be 6 bosses in SP.

• there may just be enough time between the release of SP and the release of WotLK.
• We have absolutely no idea when this will actually be released.
• Arcatraz had mini bosses.
• Three or four months is plenty of time to clear unreleased, unknown content.
• The last 3 bosses in naxx were hard.
• Gamestop says WotLK will be out in 10/2008.
• Zul'Aman is to 25 mans like DM was to MC.
• There may not be enough space on the map for SP, but blizz can make the map bigger. see AQ as an example.
• Really, just 4hm in naxx was hard.
• ...or maybe gothik.
• Flying was unfair for horde, so its only fair that it becomes unfair for alliance now.
• fighting dragon aspects would be cool. yay NX.
• The only thing ZA will most likely give us is haste and armor penetration.
• ZA will likely drop item that are around tier 5.
• Flying is likely to be unfair. perhaps we could see a map?
• Lucky for us, wowwiki has a map, and LORE!
• SP and ZA might be connected, lore wise.
• Flying is unfair, but there may be a BOAT!!
• We may be killing Zul'Jin. he's working with the bad guys.
• We have absolutely no idea when this will actually be released.
• SP lore may be related to WotLK lore, but WotLK lore isn't really relevent to outlands.

• We can all agree that the Supreme Power Debacle was retarted.
• As of 8/26, TBC wasn't out in china.
• Even though NYC is a vicous hive of scum and villany, folks are sad about 9/11. its kinda like that with elves.
• Many more people will clear the sunwell than cleared naxx. You simply can't argue with MATH.
• Sunwell is going to be like the Kel'thuzad of the expansion.
• Making 5 man content difficult is easy, just make the mobs intelligently react to the exact group composition.
• Making 5 man content difficult is easy, just add tokens.
• Making 5 man content difficult is easy, just alter mob AI based on specific specs of each party member.
• In WotLK, every update should include at least 3 instances.
• Future expansions may or may not include more hero classes.
• WowWiki points out some useful in-game information, related to lore and raids.
• We should all go to pandaria.
• Blizzard gets to just make this stuff up.
• Wowwiki has information regarding SP lore.
• Sizzle-n-fry AoE is overpowered.
• Somehow, it would make sense to use AQ mounts in northrend.
• Black morass was rajaxx DONE RIGHT.
• Someone has something to do with SP:
• Kael may have something to do with SP.
• It might not be kael. (even though the big snowflake suggested it was...)

• ...It's Probably not Dar'khan, as low level Blood Elves have already killed him.
• No, really, rajaxx was serious business.
• SP should be a continuation, interior-decorating wise, of Silvermoon City.
• SP could be a continuation, lore wise and interior-decorating wise, of Silvermoon City.
• Future encounters may be formulaic.
• A boss may not die after being defeated.
• The (confirmed) 5 man instance of sunwell may (or may not) have a rep grind associated with it. and it might be sha'tar. or consortium.
• The (supposed) reputation associated with the (confirmed) 5 man instance in SP has been RULED OUT, in favor of skill based attunement.
• Kil'Jaeden (KJ) will have something to do with SP.
• Kael may have something to do with SP.
• SP lore may be related to WotLK lore.
• we do not know how we will unlock the heroic 5m instance in SP. it may be rep, it may be skill. it might be aldor/scryer.
• TBC had an intricate plot, involving lore.
• Aspects should be harder than onyxia.
• Aspects may be as hard as a fully empowered vael.
• Kael has middle level management that non-hardcore players get to kill.
• hardcore (and casual) players should (and shouldn't) get to kill (or defeat) major lore (or previous RTS) characters.
• Zul'jin may or may not have been a traitor.
• there may or may not be a valid reason to kill Zul'jin.
• Along with wowwiki, books are a good source of lore.

 

Renew

Stopped reading here as this is false. Sunwell will come before WotLK.

Confidence is not Arrogance.