World of Warcraft - Lore & Storyline discussion [SPOILERS] - Page 94

Blayze · 01/07/09, 8:22 AM

The titans reshaping some of Azeroth could really make the areas interesting again and it could give some real well done final to the whole story.

Nozdormu yells: To me, champions! You sought to slay me, yet my Infinites and I have only been working for your salvation! We will not survive the purging of the world -- I was shown my own death by these Titans, and I know it is not a fate that can be avoided -- but there is still hope!

The shimmering energies in the air rapidly converge into a shining portal at Nozdormu's side.

Nozdormu yells: This portal stretches five years into the future, and it is up to all of you to right whatever wrongs you can! Go now, we'll hold them off!

---

How's that for phasing the future? (And of course we'd have to be able to go back again -- just like in Ocarina of Time)

Talgog · 01/07/09, 9:35 AM

Originally Posted by Ukerric

This scene settles, I think, the question of whether Matthias Lehner was the Lich King manipulating us or an autonomous part of former Arthas.

Yeah. Tirion might have screwed the pooch, not that he had much choice in the matter in those circumstances.

Can we stop hearing about "can we develop the other side of the Lich King, he's not just Arthas, there's an ORC in there too?" now as well? Ner'zhul isn't recognizable as anything but a pure evil entity at this point.

Tyrian · 01/07/09, 10:49 AM

Nozdormu yells: To me, champions! You sought to slay me, yet my Infinites and I have only been working for your salvation! We will not survive the purging of the world -- I was shown my own death by these Titans, and I know it is not a fate that can be avoided -- but there is still hope!

The shimmering energies in the air rapidly converge into a shining portal at Nozdormu's side.

Nozdormu yells: This portal stretches five years into the future, and it is up to all of you to right whatever wrongs you can! Go now, we'll hold them off!

This is a most impressive idea: The Infinity Dragonflight was working to undo all those COT events, to prevent Azeroth getting messed up, which ultimately was to prevent the Titans returning to Azeroth very angry and attempting to purge us all. Nozdormu saw the future and perhaps his/our death was due to the Titans of all things. In a grand twist of irony, the titans would now be the effective bad guys and the Infinity dragonflight were our salvation and allies all along - we just didn't understand why when we fought them previously. One of the most innovative ideas i've read here in a while.

The portal could also stretch 10 000 years into the past when we had a single continent and the well of Eternity in the middle. Players would essentially live out the game from that point on in the past: We would still have 'familiar Azeroth' in many ways, but its an entirely new single continent which could deliver so much fresh content. There are some pre-existing characters players will be familiar with, but also the opportunity to develop many more.

zoombini · 01/07/09, 3:00 PM

Originally Posted by Tyrian

The portal could also stretch 10 000 years into the past when we had a single continent and the well of Eternity in the middle. Players would essentially live out the game from that point on in the past: We would still have 'familiar Azeroth' in many ways, but its an entirely new single continent which could deliver so much fresh content. There are some pre-existing characters players will be familiar with, but also the opportunity to develop many more.

Except you'd be effectively entering into a world with no orcs, no draenai, MAYBE humans/dwarfs/gnomes (someone said upthread the vyrkul started giving birth to humans 15k years ago) and absolutely no familiar characters other than Night Elves or dragons (and Broxigar, which would be awesome). While I suppose the Horde could find some interesting stuff regarding the early Taurens or the great Troll Empires, it seems like there's not much supplemental stuff there to be interested in.

• Melthu · 01/07/09, 3:38 PM

Originally Posted by Talgog

Yeah. Tirion might have screwed the pooch, not that he had much choice in the matter in those circumstances.

This certainly sheds some light on the Matthias Lehner quests. I don't think he was trying to remove all hope of defeating the Lich King. Rather, he wanted to show us that we can't succeed by overpowering him. That's why he showed us how the Lich King raised Sindragoa, how he killed his own men to build his army, and how futile it is to destroy his minions. The only way to defeat him is to somehow get Arthas to rebel against Ner'zhul.

This does raise some questions about what's going on with his heart. Did Tirion screw up by destroying it, and therefore Matthias? Or was the heart a prison similar to the frozen throne, and now that it has been destroyed Matthias is free and can exert greater influence over Arthas?

Jagiya · 01/07/09, 11:20 PM

I have to say; reading that little piece of RotLK really leaves me with a taste for more. It's so good to finally know that Mathias is indeed the "good" (replace that word with whatever truly fits) side of Arthas, battling internally with Ner'Zhul for whatever purpose. (Redemption, salvation, freedom?)

Either way, the whole scene was so well written. Arthas sitting in between the two of them, as nothing but a spectator whilst Ner'Zhul commands him like a puppet was pretty damn cool.

To touch on a few discussions over the last ~4 pages or so...

Firstly, the subject of "building up" a super-villian. My girlfriend started playing WoW about 7-8 months ago. She's never really played any other computer games before, and certainly hasn't experienced any of the other WarCraft content; whether it be RTS, Novels, WoW or otherwise. I found it interesting to observe when she did Magtheridon for the first time, and recognised him, "Hey! It's the big guy we saw in the floor of Blood Furnace when I was little!" And when she did Black Temple, she said things like, "So do we get to fight Illidan soon?" Whereas when she reached 80, and we went to Naxx, she said, "So where is it? Who's in there? Why are we going there? Who's the boss of that place?" She said the same thing about Sartharion, and had reservations about Malygos, although the Coldarra questlines gave her a rough idea of what the objective was there.

The point I'm trying to make is, the current design offers very little "story" to the average WoW player who has had no previous exposure to Blizzard titles or lore. It's almost as if they went backwards in their design. Upon release, WoW had very limited connections to the WarCraft RTS universe. Sure, there were some "Hero" characters who made appearances here and there (Jaina, Thrall, Cairne, etc) but I remember spending my first year or two of WoW under the assumption that they intended on keeping the story completely isolated; as to continue the WC3 storyline in WC4. My assumption was based on the fact that all of the villains we faced in the first two years were "no-names" who had no previous introduction to the player. ie. Ragnaros, Nefarian, Onyxia, C'Thun, and many more. Finally, Naxxramas was released, and I heard that Sapphiron & Kel'Thuzad were featured. I remember speaking to one of my friends, "Finally! Some continuation from the WC3 story! For a while there, I thought we were just going to keep chopping through whatever random names/models were thrown at us, with no real advances from where we left off in the RTS."

Then TBC was announced, and I heard that we get to fight Illidan! And Vashj! And Kael'Thas! And Magtheridon! It was like the feast we'd been waiting to sink our teeth into for far too long. We finally get to fight someone "meaningful" and familiar! But wouldn't it have made sense to inject those characters/stories into the game during its infancy? At least in my experience, most of the people who originally picked up WoW when it was released did so because they wanted to follow on from the story of the previous WarCraft titles. If there were a blurb on the back of the box saying, "Battle against Deathwing, Illidan, Lady Vashj and all your favourite WarCraft Villains!" rather than a bunch of randoms, I'm sure they would have attracted a larger crowd initially. Once they captured a massive worldwide audience, they could continue on to develop new stories and characters for further expansions. (Most of this is redundant anyway, since they captured such an audience regardless - I'm just pointing out that it logically would have made more sense to reel people in with that content, rather than bleeding it out over the course of 5+ years.) It's as though the more the game grows, the more we play catch up with events which transpired almost a decade ago. Anyway, all that aside... back to "my point."

I feel that a WoW player of any calibre/history should have some kind of familiar understanding of a dungeon/raid before they step inside. Currently, there's very little synergy between alot of the story and the dungeons/raids. And as others have mentioned, it really doesn't take much. A simple quest from Chromie at the end of the Wyrmrest chain directing you to come visit her at the Caverns of Time when you gain a few more levels to assist with another Infinite Emergency would suffice. As opposed to the current scenario whereby the player wanders aimlessly into the Caverns of Time, discovers a new instance, and once inside, finds Chromie waiting for them with a series of dire tasks to be completed. The Coldarra/Nexus development is a fantastic example. You spend a few hours running about and doing a series of solo quests; whilst gradually being introduced to critical NPC's on both sides of the war. As you progress down the chain, you're instructed to go into The Nexus with several objectives. So when you reach the final boss, you know WHY you're about to kill it. Again, Utgarde Pinnacle is another horrible example of, "Let's randomly wander into this zone and kill everyone inside - oh hey, there's a guy in here who wants us to score some loot for him while we're at it!" It's mind boggling to see so many inconsistencies, as the Nerubian NPC's out the front of Azjol'Nerub & Ahn'Kahet direct you inside, whilst the Ambassadors standing on the rooftop of the Obsidian Sanctum are entirely oblivious to Sartharion's existence/objectives.

The slightest directives & incentives can achieve so much, and it's a shame to see them overlooked at times. Kinda gives some dungeons a bad aftertaste.

Moving right along, in response to the discussion regarding the lifespan of WoW & additional expansions. One thing to consider is that (almost?) every major Blizzard title to date does not have a happy ending. From WarCraft, to StarCraft and Diablo, the ending cinematic of each game typically results in the bad guys winning and guaranteed impending chaos. If and when the World of WarCraft story comes to an "end", (is that even possible in this genre?) it'd be traditionally accurate for the Burning Legion to be defeated - destroying Azeroth in the process or something.

Liebestod · 01/07/09, 11:58 PM

Eh, I'm inclined to defend WotLK here. I agree that the tie-ins are often sketchy, but Blizzard obviously knows how to do them.. I imagine that the main reason why they don't is because of time constraints, that it's difficult to incorporate revisiting old zones into their design (for the Occulus and Utgarde Pinnacle instances), etc. Most of the leveling instance were tied in well, and for those that weren't there are good reasons:

Azjol-Nerub: Was meant to be part of a bigger Azjol-Nerub zone but this idea was gutted.
Violet Hold: Crystalsong Forest isn't complete yet.

The lack of development behind Naxx and Sartharian is disappointing as well, but it's pretty much guaranteed that this isn't going to be repeated with Icecrown and Ulduar.

TBC wasn't perfect either. Kara and Zul'Aman were disconnected from the plot (arguably Zul'Aman ties to the Ghostland story, I guess..), Auchindoun in general had very light ties to anything going on, there were no proximate reasons for why we're revisiting Steamvault / Shattered Halls at 70, and the CoT instances had no ties to any larger picture (except possibly BM to Kara, which as mentioned was disconnected itself.)

I think it really comes down to coordination. Blizzard is good at plotting out very linear stories that unfold across zones, but they've lacked in giving players reasons for why they're going back 10 levels later. In early beta I was sure that Coldarra would eventually have some flying mount content on the floating platforms around the Nexus that would lead to Occulus and Malygos plots, but there weren't. It could've easily been done, it would've made a lot of sense, but Borean Tundra is a 68-72 zone and that's that, I guess.

Personally I miss the old Azeroth where you'd level across lots of zones, back and forth... Hinterlands / Feralas / Tanaris, Swamp of Sorrows / Desolace / Badlands, etc. And then you'd have to keep going to STV as well. No, I don't like backtracking, but it kept things interesting and there's no reason why Blizzard couldn't have more of this, as knocking down zones and never looking back unless they have a max-level instance is kinda dull.. and arguably problematic plotwise, since it tends to mean that a story stops getting developed once you finish its main territory. ie. There aren't any blue dragons after Dragonflight, even though the Nexus War is one of WotLK's major plots which gets tied up at 80. Yes, eventually Crystalsong will bring it back some, and that's great, but imagine if that weren't the case - the most glaring example here in TBC was the Naga in Zangermarsh. Once you're done there, you simply don't see them again until level 80.

Hate Monkey · 01/08/09, 12:10 AM

Originally Posted by Jagiya

The point I'm trying to make is, the current design offers very little "story" to the average WoW player who has had no previous exposure to Blizzard titles or lore. It's almost as if they went backwards in their design. Upon release, WoW had very limited connections to the WarCraft RTS universe. Sure, there were some "Hero" characters who made appearances here and there (Jaina, Thrall, Cairne, etc) but I remember spending my first year or two of WoW under the assumption that they intended on keeping the story completely isolated; as to continue the WC3 storyline in WC4. My assumption was based on the fact that all of the villains we faced in the first two years were "no-names" who had no previous introduction to the player. ie. Ragnaros, Nefarian, Onyxia, C'Thun, and many more. Finally, Naxxramas was released, and I heard that Sapphiron & Kel'Thuzad were featured. I remember speaking to one of my friends, "Finally! Some continuation from the WC3 story! For a while there, I thought we were just going to keep chopping through whatever random names/models were thrown at us, with no real advances from where we left off in the RTS."

Well you got to remember that in order for a story to go on, you need to introduce new character to the game. Just because what we fought in release weren't big names in the RTS world, it doesn't mean they aren't big names.

Now this next part will make a whole lot more sense if I could just find the damned web page that surfaced back in classic that had a listing of all important WoW characters ranked based on a power scale. Arg!!!!!

Just because the story line follows one npc for a while, or we know a lot about one npc does not make them important overall, we make them important by talking about them.

We fight Onyxia and Nefarian because they are trying to take control over the world just like their badass dad Neltharion.

We fight Ragnaros because if he gets back to his full power state, he'll destroy the world. Plus the Dark Iron Dwarves made a mistake, altering part of the world attempting to summon him here.

We fight C'Thun because well, he's an evil old god that spawned a war and everything and needs to be dealt with.

Just because there aren't a bazillion quests dealing with them doesn't mean the story line doesn't include them. Just look at every quest line, there is a purpose behind why we are doing things. Sometimes we are deceived and in turn, have to correct ourselves.

Originally Posted by Liebestod

I think it really comes down to coordination. Blizzard is good at plotting out very linear stories that unfold across zones, but they've lacked in giving players reasons for why they're going back 10 levels later. In early beta I was sure that Coldarra would eventually have some flying mount content on the floating platforms around the Nexus that would lead to Occulus and Malygos plots, but there weren't. It could've easily been done, it would've made a lot of sense, but Borean Tundra is a 68-72 zone and that's that, I guess.

Have you not done the Aces High! - Quest - World of Warcraft quest yet? It teaches you how to control the dragons that are part of phase3 Malygos encounter. That is where the tie in is.

Cos- · 01/08/09, 2:03 AM

Originally Posted by Valerys

Incidentally, why *is* Hadronox fighting the nerubians? Who is he and what is he doing there in the first place?

His full mob name is Hadronox <Spawn of Maexxna> aka Just Another Scourge Boss.

Originally Posted by Hate Monkey

We fight Onyxia and Nefarian because they are trying to take control over the world just like their badass dad Neltharion.

I've never been so mad at WoW as when I learned we never actually so much as see Onyxia or had anything to do with rescuing Windsor. Variann should have tried harder to find a way to come back as a hero that didn't include shitting over probably the most heroic thing alliance players ever do.

Liebestod · 01/08/09, 2:15 AM

Originally Posted by Cos-

I've never been so mad at WoW as when I learned we never actually so much as see Onyxia or had anything to do with rescuing Windsor. Variann should have tried harder to find a way to come back as a hero that didn't include shitting over probably the most heroic thing alliance players ever do.

I mentioned upthread that it seems likely that Blizzard will eventually fill in canonical versions of all the events of WoW in ways that don't involve 10/20/25/40 heroes killing major enemies and taking their loot. The interesting question, I think, is whether we'll ever see these canonical versions referenced within WoW - will we see a line about Varian taking out Onyxia? I mean, arguably the Darion Morgraine / Naxx 1.0 story is part of WotLK already, retconning the notion that it was PCs who repulsed Kel'Thuzad, but that might be a special case.

Have you not done the Aces High! - Quest - World of Warcraft quest yet? It teaches you how to control the dragons that are part of phase3 Malygos encounter. That is where the tie in is.

Actually, no, never did that.. I'm inactive atm and never saw that in beta. It's not much, though... it should've been like Skettis imo.

snarl · 01/08/09, 2:43 AM

Originally Posted by Hate Monkey

Now this next part will make a whole lot more sense if I could just find the damned web page that surfaced back in classic that had a listing of all important WoW characters ranked based on a power scale. Arg!!!!!

This power scale? Apologies for the length:

Muradin - 15
Jaina - 17
Rhonin - 17
Alleria - 21
Krasus - 21
Cairne - 22
Grom - 22
Khadgar - 22
Maiev - 22
Uther - 23
Azgalor - 35
Lothar - 25
Tyrande - 25
Vashj - 26
Doomhammer - 27
Kel'Thuzad - 28
Thrall - 28
Alexstrasza - 30
Nozdormu - 30
Ysera - 30
Kael - 31
Malygos - 32
Sylvanas - 33
Deathwing - 34
Al'Akir - 35
Gul'dan - 35
Illidan - 37
Furion - 38
Ragnaros - 40
Xavius - 42
Medivh - 43
Aviana - 44
Tichondrius - 44
Cenarius - 44
Mannoroth - 45
Therezane - 45
Archimonde - 50
Lich King - 50
Neptulon - 50
Azshara - 52
Ursoc & Ursol - 52
Agamaggan - 54
Kil'jaeden - 59
Malorne - 62
Khaz'goroth - 65
Eonar - 70
Agrammar - 71
Golganneth - 73
Sargeras - 73
Norgannon - 74
Aman'Thul - 77
Elune - 92

Kazanir · 01/08/09, 3:18 AM

Originally Posted by Melthu

This certainly sheds some light on the Matthias Lehner quests. I don't think he was trying to remove all hope of defeating the Lich King. Rather, he wanted to show us that we can't succeed by overpowering him. That's why he showed us how the Lich King raised Sindragoa, how he killed his own men to build his army, and how futile it is to destroy his minions. The only way to defeat him is to somehow get Arthas to rebel against Ner'zhul.

This does raise some questions about what's going on with his heart. Did Tirion screw up by destroying it, and therefore Matthias? Or was the heart a prison similar to the frozen throne, and now that it has been destroyed Matthias is free and can exert greater influence over Arthas?

Based on how Tirion has been built up as a character, and how Matthias is introduced in that excerpt, I'm betting Tirion knows some things about what happened that he isn't telling us about just yet.

Typhon · 01/08/09, 4:37 AM

Originally Posted by Liebestod

Auchindoun in general had very light ties to anything going on, there were no proximate reasons for why we're revisiting Steamvault / Shattered Halls at 70, and the CoT instances had no ties to any larger picture (except possibly BM to Kara, which as mentioned was disconnected itself.)

Agree with you fully on Steamvault. As far as Auchindoun goes, part of the Nagrand Thrall Mega-chain involved visiting that place and finding a lost Naaru. But Horde had very good reason for revisiting the Shattered Halls - killing Kargath. You could only do so once you had the key from the Fel Reaver parts, which was pointed to by the Fel Orcs in Shadowmoon Valley. Granted, this wasn't foreshadowed all that well (a problem with large parts of TBC) and I suppose there was no reason why this couldn't have been done at level 62 or so if SMV and so on had been restructured appropriately, but still...

• Chicken · 01/08/09, 5:28 AM

Originally Posted by Cos-

His full mob name is Hadronox <Spawn of Maexxna> aka Just Another Scourge Boss.

You'd have to wonder then why "Just Another Scourge Boss" is fighting with other Scourge. All the hostile Nerubians are Scourge themselves.

Maledict · 01/08/09, 5:33 AM

The lore for Maexxna says that she was captured by the Scourge - there's no reason that her off-spring have to all be scourge friendly - similar to the great spiders in LotR.

fundamentally though, this goes back to the earlier point I made - Blizzard design fights around coolness and fun first, lore second. The AN instances are all about the "Gingdom of the Spider", they had a great idea for the visuals of the fight and the mechanics, and they implement that first and then lore second.