spiralJunkie

Didn't he get involved with what his mother would refer to as 'the wrong kind of people' ?

 

Blayze

The most obvious answer to me (Given that he inhaled that fatal, murderous gas) is undeath, most likely "Death Knight" -- possibly with the addition of the soul of Saurfang the Younger for a bit of a "Hey, remember when it was done like this?" moment, given that Frostmourne stole his soul.

If the translation truly is about Bolvar's fate -- and they wouldn't be keeping the secret of his death when the entire Alliance and Horde know (Or "know") about that -- then that's the only thing I can think of.

 

• Playered

If it was Arthas then how does that explain his presence in future zones as 'normal' when this implies there is something 'different' in the young paladin.

 

Docjowles

This makes the most sense of anything posted so far (besides "it's throwaway text that players aren't supposed to see anyway").

 

TSplodey

Well he has the soul of Saurfang and the body of Bolvar. Sounds like a likely candidate for Teron Gorefiend 2.0.

 

shed

No, Alexstrasza or the red flight burned his body and the red flight as the ability to do a lot of things with life. There was another quest line in Icecrown where you try and save another dying paladin who is infected with the same plague and Alexstrasza is involved in trying to save him too.

 

Multane

You were involved in trying to save him, yes. But Alexstrasza's power was not enough to actually save him.In the end it was Adal who saved the Paladin's soul, since none managed to save his physical self. Since the Lich King took Frostmourne and thus Saurfang's soul with him back into Icecrown, its fairly safe to say he has that at least.

As for Bolvar's body, i dont know. Maybe some random Scourge managed to drag it into Icecrown before getting under the full effects of the Forsaken Plague. Thats just speculation though.

 

Blayze

We saw the reds burning bodies. We never specifically saw them burning *Bolvar's* body.

 

Vaccine

Wasn't the point of the plague to destroy both living and undead? It wouldn't be very effective if they could simply be raised again as more minions to Arthas' army. I guess him being a Paladin could have something to do with it, when tested on the Scarlet Crusade the plague had little effect, Bolvar could have received a similar protection. It certainly does sound sinister though, I can't see Alexstraza and the red having anything to do with it.

I do think we'll be facing Saurfang the Younger though, with help from his dad. Though if the animosity between Horde and Alliance continues until the Icecrown raid that has some interesting story aspects, how will Variann react if the Horde put down the undead Bolvar? Or vice versa with Saurfang and his son.

Edit: I just read through the alliance questline leading up to the Wrathgate and the events afterwards. A few things struck me, the first is that you gather Bolvar's shield to take back to Variann, not his armour like with Saurfang. This suggests his body was removed from the scene, the shield would be easy to drop but the armour would have to be removed, no time for that. Had it been there when the dragons arrived it would have surely still be left like Saurfang's was.

Secondly this line struck me from the Alliance equivalent of the Darkness Stirs quest given to the Horde.
""All is not lost. From the ashes of the fallen will rise a force that will unite nations and purge the evil from this world."

Those are the words Alexstrasza tells Alliance players to give to Variann. That actually lends more credence to the idea that Alexstrasza or some other force for good rescued him and others of the troops dying there, be it before or after death, to create some sort of army to fight the Lich King.

 

Emeraude

Not to derail from my beloved lore thread on this same board, but the Forsaken's plague had the purpose of destruction, as well as the means of allowing them to bolster their own forces, as they need bodies themselves to keep their forces strong.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=CX81UJZ8
For the lurking Phoenix Wright faithful.
What is the most important thing to you? Won't you grant me the pleasure of taking it away.

 

Elhana

As far as I remember the details of implementation of different languages in WoW it works fairly simple:
1) server sends all messages unscrambled, but includes language information in the data packet
2) client recives message, checks if player is capable of understanding that language and if not, scrambles it according to some internal rules for different languages.

Therefore all you need to do to actually find out the real meaning is to get a packet sniffer software, decode corresponding messages and read it. I also remember seeing a tool for that floating around on the internet (for reading opposite faction stuff on BG. I can try to find sources for people intrested in this particular tool, pm me with your email - despite it being harmless, I won't post it here unless explicitly allowed by the staff.
On a sidenote if you are paranoid about getting banned for violating ToS, you shall run sniffer on a separate PC and route wow traffic through that box to avoid any possibility of warden catching you.

p.s. I'm not sure if book text comes from serverside, but since people can read it now it seems to be the case.

 

shed

removed.

 

Jaete

Hmm, I thought WoW now sends its data encrypted? Assuming the encryption isn't trivial, packet sniffing would then produce no useful information; one would have to try to read the stuff directly from WoW's memory space or something like that, which would indeed be hazardous due to Warden.

 

shed

The chat messages from the server (at least the ones from NPCs) is completely unencrypted, and a standard packet sniffer will clearly see the non-draconic text and it does match what was posted in this thread earlier.

 

Blayze

Ironically if Bolvar does become a Death Knight and was removed from the scene sans shield, what Plate-wearing class can't use shields? Death Knights.

 

◊ Cadfael

What shed said. Add to that that the *partial* encryption that is actually there is utterly trivial to break.

 

candal

Warden doesn't and is not able to detect packet sniffer that runs on linux based router/firewall before your home LAN.

 

nfw

The quest chain at Venomspite seems to imply that the protection is the result of a new prayer taught to Bishop Street by Admiral Westwind. So Bolvar would definitely not have it.

 

LucidityAxel

The cinematic shows the Lich King using Frostmourne to suck some sort of energy from the corpse of Saurfang the Younger. (Presumably his soul.) No such thing happened to Bolvar. Arthas never so much as touched him with Frostmourne, much less used it to drain his soul. Bolvar was felled by the Putress plague.

We saw Bolvar collapse, heard some of this thoughts, and saw him stop moving. His face was not melting off like it was with some of the other plague victims. It's certainly not farfetched to assume that Bolvar died, but it's also possible that he was only very near to death. It was never really established in the cinematic either way.

When the Reds burned the plague, you could clearly see flowers sprouting up in the aftermath of those flames, as well as see them in-game afterwards. The Red dragonflight's domain is life, and the protection of all life. Their breath burns, but it can also renew and rejuvenate. They can restore barren ground to life by merely walking on it.

Those are all facts, established in the cinematic, in the game, or in other lore. The rest of this post is pure speculation.

I think the most likely outcome is that Saurfang the Younger's soul was taken by the Lich King. I don't know what he will do with that soul, but it wouldn't be all that surprising to see Saurfang again in Icecrown, either as a raid boss or as some other sort of minion who is bound to the will of the Lich King. There are some interesting dramatic possiblities here with Saurfang the Elder, perhaps in a scripted boss event.

Bolvar, on the other hand, regardless of whether he actually died or was just very near to death, had Red dragon fire breathed on his body from some of the very strongest members of the flight, possibly from Alexstrasza herself. It would not be at all surprising if he is alive somewhere, either saved from death or resurrected by the Red flight. The idea that Alextrasza and her consort were talking about Arthas is intriguing, but I think it's a lot more likely that they were talking about Bolvar Fordragon, who is not actually dead as we think, but is very much alive because the Reds have a plan for him.

 

Lunkhedd

I don't think that really fits with what Alexstrasza says about red dragon renewal powers in the Bridenbrad quest chain, though. Unless they charcoalized him and he got up anyway, which'd probably surprise the dragons quite a bit.

I'd almost say it's more likely he got picked up by the Naaru.

 

Blayze

Technically we didn't actually see Bolvar's body struck by the dragons' fire. We saw the dragons breathing fire on the soldiers, but we never actually saw Bolvar specifically get burned. There's always that out for Blizzard...

 

LucidityAxel

Alexstrasza says she cannot cleanse the plague of undeath (aka the Lich King's plague). The Putress plague does not turn the living into the undead -- it just kills everything. They are not the same thing.

It's true there was no specific shot of flames hitting Bolvar's body. But there were shots that showed an unbroken cloud of green all over the stairs, and we know Bolvar collapses right in the middle of all that. The cinematic shows the Reds burning away that whole plague cloud, so unless something teleported Bolvar I don't see how the flames could avoid hitting him.

Anyway, all my speculation here might simply be a bunch of hogwash, but I think Blizzard has definitely left the option open to bring back Bolvar if that's what they want to do.

 

Kazanir

It seems obvious that Alex and Korial are talking about Bolvar and that something happened to him between the last cinematic shot of him and the start of the Alliance shield quest, probably at their hands. Bolvar got a lot of face time in Dragonblight and seems like the kind of character that Blizzard is going to have some sort of use for in the near future.

'War' is too small a word for what I'm fighting. Like a candle in front of the whole burning Sun. I told you. This is bigger than a war. Now, I am not going to die today. I have other projects, and other options.

You can come with me. I can protect you.

 

Ukerric

Common TV show/movie rule: "If no body was found, it's not dead"

 

Lgs

You never watched the Sopranos??

Gnomes are creatures of destruction.