That questline, I believe, involves the capture and destruction of Arthas' heart?

Seeing as how the boy's name is an anagram for Arthas Menethil and he gives you several (kick ass, might I add) quests involving the LK's background.

Yup, thats the quest line. But the fact that Yogg-Saron's influence from his underground chamber has spread accross so much length, would make any fight with him rather interesting.

Also, does anyone know the Lore behind the Sunreavers? They are BE faction that want to join the Kirin Tor. Is the corresponding alliance faction already a part of Kirin Tor (they actually have someone present next to Rhonin)?

Thanks

I hit 80 just from BT/HF/DB, so I haven't gotten into the story/questlines of Storm Peaks yet, but I couldn't help but notice the thorny tentacles wrapped around some of the structures at Ulduar. Co-incidence? I haven't seen them present at any other titan structures.

That's his wife.

Azjol Nerub spans so much of Northrend the entrace to the instance (if it is the unamed 3.2 instance) could literally be in almost any zone. It is possible Sholazarr might have escaped the influence due to the protection of the titans, we saw similar effect with C'thun and his armies unable to settle in ungoro moving straight on to Tanaris. But you get whispers from him as far south east as Howling Fjord and you can see parts of the structure of Azjol Nerub under Icecrown in the north. We also know he has extensive influence in the Storm Peaks. Crystalsong Forest is smack in the middle of where we know hes had influence and currently is an empty zone ala v1 Silithus with the exception of the cooking daily and a couple of Icecrown quests.

My hope is that they will open up a huge underground portion of the cavern as non-instanced and make it Sunwell Isle v2 with lots of quests, dailys and new stuff to do. I was pretty disappointed that the Nerubians had such a minor cameo when their empire is meant to be vast and spanning the entire continent.

Ah, thanks for clearing that up. I had seen this place when I was exploring after getting cold weather flying, and I guess I haven't progressed through the Icecrown quest lines to this point yet.

As you say, the influence of the Nerubians is not that widely felt throughout Northrend, so if they are going to open up a huge underground city to have us go there for a raid, Blizzard will have to come up with some reason for us to skip Icecrown and go there.

At the same time. like the Isle, it could be opened up after Arthas is defeated. Considering that Yogg-Saron is covering a massive area of Northrend, I can even see a possibility of multiple fights against him (one in Storm Peaks, one in Dragonblight for example).

Also, Icrcrown seems like an ideal place for many one-boss raids or open world raid bosses. I would personally prefer doing some raiding in Icecrown before going to the Citadel.

Blizzard has already said that Arthas / Icecrown will be the last raid zone of this XP.

Really? Not saying it isnt true, but from a marketing perspective, thats not too smart, as well know that the moment Icecrown Citadel opens up, the WotLK is close to being over. Its bad for Blizzard however you cut it. My guess would be that Arthas is the Illidan of WotLK.

Despite Illidan featuring most... strongly in the opening cinematic, the expansion wasn't named "Illidan's Bane" or somesuch, but "The Burning Crusade". Hence, a boss from the crusade at the end. Whereas this expansion is "Wrath of the Lich King". So, yes, you can expect Arthas to be the pinnacle of the expansion.

(unless they make us kill the Lich King twice: once we separate Arthas, and kill him. Then, next raid, we get Ner'zhul. I'd consider that cheating, though)

Yogg - Saron before Lich King makes sense considering it can actually be tied in with whatever happens in Ulduar.

Lets not forget the next raid being released, as that probably would hint at the direction of lore.

While I think having Arthas as the last boss of the expansion might "feel" right, it doesn't neccesarily have to be. This is especially true if around that time they announce the next expansion. Icecrown Citadel opens up, people beat Arthas, they announce the next expansion and before it comes out they release another raid to gap the two expansions. Would sort of be like ZG but on a larger scale.

WOTLK has been designed from the ground up to better suit a 'the final instance has the poster-boy boss' scenario than TBC, if thats what people are comparing it to. Whether people think this design is good or bad is personal preference, but the encounter itself really will feel like a culmination of many things (the zombie plague, the quests involving Arthas/LichKing while we level, avenging the deaths incurred at the Wrath Gate etc).

Now if you tried to apply this design to TBC/Illidan, it would have just sucked and 'be bad no matter how you cut it'. Although theres more story to the astute quest-reader, many people knew little-to-nothing about Illidan when entering outland, while they levelled and while they raided the entry level tiers. He was just... there. I wouldn't be surprised if the delaying of Icecrown for WOTLK actually increases player excitement and suspense in the months leading up to it - because of how well integrated the Lich King is with Northrend. A 'good thing' for Blizzard, in that regard.

With that said, I'm intrigued as to how Blizzard could hope to best WOTLK's story and subject material it draws from, in the months after Icecrown's release and leading up to the third expansion.

When they do finally release Icecrown we'll all get that epic confrontation... and the satisfaction of ~1.5 years worth of anticipation to see the Lich King. Whats next? Well, lets hope its something pretty compelling. Because otherwise we're going to all feel like WoW just deflated and ended with that patch - with only 'tacked on patches/expansions with a new bad guy' to follow.

I am thinking the same thing... this expansion to many people is more than just the culmination of many storylines within WoW and WoTLK but of WC3 as well... I don't recall for sure how longs its been since I finished the frozen throne but it had to be at least 5 years. So now that story arc is finally drawing to a close... it's hard to imagine what can be next.

I really hope they pull it off though.

Deathwing is one option; the Black Dragonflight have been a fairly constant part of the game since release. Between Onyxia, UBRS / BWL and parts of Dragonblight there have been some fairly "high profile" encounters with them, and it would make sense to continue that.

The other one I can think of is the speculated return of Sargeras. Varimathras and Putress were trying to summon someone powerful in Undercity, and Mal'ganis' return suggests that the Legion still has an interest in the world. Given his statements in Onslaught Harbour I wouldn't be suprised if he turned up in Icecrown Citadel as well, potentially paving the way for more Legion activity in the future.

I agree entirely, which is why I'm surprised that WotLK was the second expansion... although not as surprised as I was with TBC being the first. If they really want to make me "wtf" they'll make the inevitable "worlds beyond" expansion leading up to fights with Kil'Jaeden and Sargeras next, but I really hope they don't do that when there's stuff on Azeroth yet to be done. Azshara would probably make a decent enough major villain, though I doubt she'll be as engaging as Arthas. The Emerald Dream.. who knows, that's almost guaranteed to be a made-up villain. Deathwing of course is on the short list of major enemies as well, but I doubt he'll be given his own expansion.

If they really wanted to be evil and toy with us... they would have us fight the Lich King, and lose. Our defeat will be apparent and inevitable, Tirion and Saurfang will hold off the Lich King while sending/forcing us away. Maybe whisked away by dragons, or fallen down off a ledge or cliff. Whatever etc... what matters is we lose, the Lich King wins, evil prevails and "Oh Shit, now what do we do?"


The next expansion would be a few years 'in the future', in a world in complete and utter Armageddon. Ironforge is sealed up and under martial law, Stormwind is a burning heap, Orgrimmar is under constant siege and Thunderbluff has raised the lifts and instituted policies that make the Scarlet Crusade seem sane. Etc. Almost the entirety of the world just being razed and scourged up.

The Initial focus of the expansion would be plain old survival. Trying to protect refugees, keeping the zombies at bay. Then as we progressed, we would retake the world, piece by piece. Form new allegiances, reform the old ones, fight for every damn inch. Thanks to the phasing technology, we actually could visibly retake and rebuild things. Imagine a whole expansion that acted out like long duration 'world event'. Like the Sunwell Island invasion, but better and minus the suck

Of course no one wants to be stuck in a permanent wasteland, so you can go back to the 'past' thanks to our friends at the bronze dragonflight. Maybe make it part of the story arc, requiring heroes to go back in time to fix things that we did wrong the first time through. Leave things in the past so you can use them in the future etc.


We've basically kicked the living crap out of everything tossed at us so far, seems like we've maybe gotten too comfortable with that.

I think they're looking to grow new lore within WoW itself rather than continually referring back to the RTS games. Foremost "new" enigma to my mind is what is going on with the Infinite Dragonflight and Nozdormu.

This would make a whole lot of sense from the "not everyone sees the content" point of view as well. With something like Naxx, everyone will clear it, making the actual event of Kel's death rather humble.

For Arthas on the other hand, we could run into an "Only one may rise" scenario. Consider: the best guild on the server takes their "kill" shot at Arthas, which is to survive and "win" long enough for him to grow tired of the battle, and then pull out the big guns.

The Achievement is granted, the raid is rescued, and the "loot" is distributed by a faction leader after the raid reaches home. Assuming a reasonable timeline on the release of the final Icecrown patch and the next expansion, you could do Scourge style events until the patch gets released. These events start once the first "failure" happens. You can continue to do the instance and "fail again", but the clock is already ticking.

I think we need a "don't kill Arthas" petition on the main forums. This would be about as compelling as storytelling could get as far as I'm concerned.

I think the idea of losing to the evil forces is really a compelling one, as long as it is you genuinely losing, not some ambiguous fight were we manage to weaken the lich king but he could still return. It would be really unique. However, the idea is wrought with problems. The most glaring is how do you market an expansion with the same boss as the last? So much of WoW is tied up in lore and we have pretty much exhausted the line in WotLK. Another expansion devoted to the same thing would be tiresome at best. Your idea of a world under siege is interesting, but seems to way overshoot the scope of an expansion. You can't just radically alter existing content. This idea would be better left for a sequel.

Also, one of the reasons I enjoy WotLK so much is that the Arthas/Lich King story line has been in the background since launch. We knew it was inevitable. This gave us plenty of time to anticipate it and Blizzard lots of time to really ingrain the lore and myth. It is really effective story telling and for once in WoW I really feel like everything is leading to something. It is the one advantage this expansion and it really separates it from TBC. I am afraid any new expansion will have to forward looking, creating a lot of brand new lore instead of building on what was already there.

Azshara is a big question mark right now. There is a lot they could do with her, as there just isn't much stuff out, especially concerning the time after the Sundering. I think she would be a great choice, but they would have to go even further with the story stuff then they did with Arthas, she is a lot more obscure to a lot of the game player base then Arthas. Say Azshara and a lot of people just think of the zone that is empty.

If they do use her as the headliner villian, I'd expect at least one or two CoT instances to help explain things a bit, which is where you can also have a lead into he whole situation with the Bronze flight finally coming to the forefront.

One nice thing about Azshara is she would be a major female villian. WoW hasn't had many woman super-villians other Onyxia and Vashj, and poor Vashj kinda got shortchanged even with her amazing boss fight.

The idea of us losing is fascinating, but I don't think Blizzard will go that route. People prefer "happy endings" as they say and also Blizzard can do a lot after the Lich King is defeated.

In terms of the new Phasing Tech, it is good for limited use like in Icecrown, having an entire city under it means two people in different phases can't interact with each other. So we would have some issues there.

I would instead look at the Burning Legion if we are looking for the same exact things you mentioned. A return of the BL to Azeroth could cause similar results, while we are celebrating our victory over Arthas. If the fragile alliance between Alliance and Horde doesn't reform leading to Arthas's defeat, it would be an ideal opportunity for the Legion to strike. Even the death of Arthas would make the moment good, its one less thing for the Legion to deal with and maybe they can take control over the scourge?

I think there is enough Lore and storylines in WoW that I am not worried about, "what after Arthas?". Arthas is the most compelling Villian because that is where the RTS games sort of left off. But I would like for Blizzard to introduce some new story arcs (take the Infinite/Bronze arc forward for example).