World of Warcraft - Lore & Storyline discussion [SPOILERS] - Page 518

miller1990 · 02/26/10, 9:42 PM

Originally Posted by Emeraude

Juicy Lore Tibits from the Dev Twitter Chat.

Q. With the Lich King defeated, in Cataclysm, will the Plaguelands be green and beautiful again?
A. Western Plaguelands will finally be free of the plague in Cataclysm. It’s hard for the Scourge to survive without their beloved Lich King. I guess this means we need to rename the zone?

This question really stood out for me, bit of a glaring contradiction with regards to the whole 'there must always be a lich king' thing.

Given that we still have a lich king, albeit (for the time beng) a much less dangerous one, by that logic they should be fine and dandy; maybe less agressive without the previous LK's influence over them, but I can't imagine they just dissapear into thin air.

The other thing is it drags up the earlier argument of why there must still be a lich king to control them... if it would be hard for them to survive without, kind of destroys the whole vast numbers running rampant argument for it.

kirvin · 02/26/10, 10:44 PM

How did Bolvar get up there anyways? I mean theres a whole questline where the main theme is "Blovar died go kill people".

miller1990 · 02/26/10, 11:07 PM

Originally Posted by kirvin

How did Bolvar get up there anyways? I mean theres a whole questline where the main theme is "Blovar died go kill people".

If you are referring to the Battle for Undercity then that was before we knew (or were supposed to know) what actually happened to Bolvar. Once we entered ICC then it was clear that Bolvar's body had been taken from the Wrathgate and was being held by the Lich King while he attempted to turn him.

I guess he found his way way up to the throne shortly after all the loots was handed out and Tirion was just hanging around, enjoying the view.

Emeraude · 02/26/10, 11:49 PM

Actually before the Final Battle starts you can see Bolvar's burned body hanging above the Lich King. I imagine once the Lich King is defeated he's freed and lands on the throne, where he just kinda decides to sit for a while....I mean if your body was burned to a crisp you wouldn't want to run around either I suppose.

miller1990 · 02/27/10, 12:02 AM

Originally Posted by Emeraude

Actually before the Final Battle starts you can see Bolvar's burned body hanging above the Lich King. I imagine once the Lich King is defeated he's freed and lands on the throne, where he just kinda decides to sit for a while....I mean if your body was burned to a crisp you wouldn't want to run around either I suppose.

Ah right, not had the pleasure of seeing the fight yet. Tirion must be getting short sighted now he's getting on a bit I guess, going by his surprise at seeing Bolvar seemingly suddely appear in the cinematic.

Leviathon · 02/27/10, 12:28 AM

Originally Posted by miller1990

This question really stood out for me, bit of a glaring contradiction with regards to the whole 'there must always be a lich king' thing.

Given that we still have a lich king, albeit (for the time beng) a much less dangerous one, by that logic they should be fine and dandy; maybe less agressive without the previous LK's influence over them, but I can't imagine they just dissapear into thin air.

The other thing is it drags up the earlier argument of why there must still be a lich king to control them... if it would be hard for them to survive without, kind of destroys the whole vast numbers running rampant argument for it.

Need to remember that neither Cory nor GC are the lore writers so anything concerning lore from them shouldn't really be taken as literal. WPL for example is likely more cleansed due to the efforts of the Argent Dawn getting rid of the plague cauldrons and cleaning up the Scourge rather than due to Arthas being defeated.

Originally Posted by Dubbleutyeff

Stated in the Blizzchat:

"Some Tanaris goblins wisely invested in desert real estate and reaped the benefits when it became beach-front property."

"Western Plaguelands will finally be free of the plague in Cataclysm. It’s hard for the Scourge to survive without their beloved Lich King. I guess this means we need to rename the zone?"

The slide from Blizzcon of Alex in front of the color-coded world map has WPL and Tanaris as "green" zones, which had me thinking we wouldn't expect to see significant changes to the zone. My guess is that this map is outdated, but it's possible that what we thought of as "light changes" aren't that light.

WPL isn't exactly that plagued looking so them changing a few doodads and ground textures is pretty small compared to tearing down mountains. :p The Tanaris one seemed a bit too vague to fully get what will be changing.

Liebestod · 02/27/10, 1:09 AM

Originally Posted by Emeraude

Which is kinda lorey since we haven't seen subs since Warcraft 2

There were turtle boats, those were pretty close. :P

Anyways, I don't buy that line about the Yogg-Saron/Lich King link at all. I think it's just being thrown out there because you know it could maybe work and it makes Blizzard look like they had everything all linked together... but really now, I'd put this on the "Vezax = Tyr" level of bullshitting.

And yeah, I imagine that the new WPL/EPL quests will deal mainly with cleaning up the plague and re-establishing a presence in Lordaeron, with plenty of Horde/Alliance territorial wrangling. Might also be some crazy Scarlets hanging around to clean up as well.

Axanor · 02/27/10, 1:37 AM

The Tanaris one seemed a bit too vague to fully get what will be changing.

Thousand Needles will be flooded, so they might be referring to Gadgetzan there.

Brigham · 02/27/10, 1:55 AM

Originally Posted by Axanor

Thousand Needles will be flooded, so they might be referring to Gadgetzan there.

It also could be referring to the grossly underdeveloped Steamwheedle Port. From what I remember, it's supposed to be the go between of Gadgetzan and the Undermine

miller1990 · 02/27/10, 1:58 AM

Originally Posted by Leviathon

Need to remember that neither Cory nor GC are the lore writers so anything concerning lore from them shouldn't really be taken as literal. WPL for example is likely more cleansed due to the efforts of the Argent Dawn getting rid of the plague cauldrons and cleaning up the Scourge rather than due to Arthas being defeated.

True, what would be nice to see is to witness and take part in the gradual 're-taking' of the plaguelands (whether through phasing/mini content patches), sort of like with Quel'Danas. While they're putting focus back on the old world I'm not entirely sure if the plaguelands play an important enough part to warrant this much developer attention though.

I've not heard a great amount (read as: nothing) of the future of the Argent Crusade in Cataclysm, I guess something like this could at least keep them active.

shed · 02/27/10, 6:46 AM

Originally Posted by Liebestod

There were turtle boats, those were pretty close. :P

Anyways, I don't buy that line about the Yogg-Saron/Lich King link at all. I think it's just being thrown out there because you know it could maybe work and it makes Blizzard look like they had everything all linked together... but really now, I'd put this on the "Vezax = Tyr" level of bullshitting.

That's fine, I buy it. It was painfully obvious to be during Ulduar and when going into the brain room during phase 2 every time and seeing the corruption to the old world events that Yogg was responsible for that he was also responsible for some of Arthas's or LK's corruption.

Kaejin · 02/27/10, 7:11 AM

I expect the Old Gods have had their tentacles in just about everything since they came to Azeroth just by merit of being Old Gods.

I don't buy the specific answer they gave in the devchat because it's so extremely vague and cop-out level. They fed us an answer that sounded ominous and Old God-like with a tiny bit of evidence. There were a total of two Icecrown quests that dealt with the influence of the Old Gods, both in the Saronite Mines. Neither had anything in particular to do with Arthas.

I think, however, that Yogg's Brain Room of Arthas was probably more focused on Bolvar. Sure he talked about Arthas, but I expect the torturing of Bolvar by Arthas was a good start at softening him up for Yogg to toy with his brain for an unspecified number of years while he's isolated in a block of ice. Who more fitting for the Old God of Death to have under his thumb than the Lich King?

I doubt Arthas' infatuation with making everything out of Saronite was a coincidence either. What better conduit for Yogg-Saron than a citadel constructed out of Saronite?

Duilliath · 02/27/10, 8:32 AM

I can see a lot of things as cop-outs (Vezax, if somewhat ingenious, being a prime example). Pretty much all of AN comes to mind really.

However, with the case of Yogg-Saron and the Lich King, I do feel they were being honest. They felt there was a connection and it wasn't demonstrated as clearly as it could/should've been. Naturally, since that wasn't as prominent as they might've liked, it wasn't as clear to us as they would've wanted it to be. But we've been given enough hints that there was -a- connection (Saronite Ore, Brain room and a few more tid-bits), that their explanation feels completely valid.
I think what might've given them issues is the move from YS to Ulduar instead of the AN-raid. As with the Crusader's Coliseum, some moves were made for technical reasons. Gameplay goes before Lore and in some cases, that just makes for some stumped and puzzled faces.

Liebestod · 02/27/10, 9:55 AM

Originally Posted by shed

That's fine, I buy it. It was painfully obvious to be during Ulduar and when going into the brain room during phase 2 every time and seeing the corruption to the old world events that Yogg was responsible for that he was also responsible for some of Arthas's or LK's corruption.

I don't know, I read the LK vision as just a clever way of foreshadowing Deathbringer Saurfang / Immolated Bolvar. There were just pretty much zero hints anywhere that any outside forces were influencing Arthas / the Lich King, and it's certainly not like his corruption couldn't be explained well enough without Yogg-Saron (was there any hints of Old God influence in the "Arthas" novel? Did the Lich King ever do anything to help Yogg-Saron in any appreciable way? It seems like before the PCs came to Northrend, the Lich King was a huge threat to his plans if anything.) Besides the one vision, pretty much any other evidence seems to be close to "epileptic trees"-style explanations.

Duilliath · 02/27/10, 10:09 AM

Faceless ones mucking about in Old Kingdom and around "Matthias'" heart for example.Or the captured Faceless one controlling the Saronite slaves. There's some other coincidences such as the "God of Death"-comments made by the Vrykul and the previously mentioned death-lines.

Granted, it's largely 'circumstantial' evidence and had YS been in AN, the interaction between Arthas' Nerubian empire and that of the Old God's would've been a lot more logical. I still feel that overall there's enough to give Blizzard the benefit of the doubt here, that there was supposed to be an intended connection between the two main villains this expansion.