So thus far in WoW we haven't really faced up against any of the big name bosses. Onyxia is about as close as it comes, but she has only had passing mention in the grand scheme of it all. Rend, Rivendare, Nefarian, AQ-- none of them were major players in Warcraft 3 or TFT. Thus far we've been given a lot of chump villians to kill. Sure, we have been able to kill faction leaders, but it hasn't advanced the plot of the game. With 1.11 we're going to be killing the first actual hero unit from Warcraft 3 (Kel'Thuzad) as a raid boss and as story progression. In the Burning Crusade they've already confirmed that we'll go after Kael'thas and Illidan. I think this is a pretty major step in the game's life cycle. What happens as we start picking off the major bad guys of the Warcraft universe one by one? There's still a pretty healthy laundry list of antagonists out there (Lich King, Deathwing, the Old Gods themselves) but sooner or later we're going to have all their heads on pikes by the Orgrimmar gates. Is Blizzard going to manufacture more and more villians for us [possibly involving inter-dimensional ships or time travel]? If so, how? I think one of the major failings of trying to advance the plot in WoW is that unless people complete quests (and actually read the text) they don't see it happening. How many people misunderstood that the AQ bugs were tunneling under the wall? I can't tell you how many times I read "lolz y didnt we just lleav them in" because that part of it was only revealed through quests that most non-raiders will never do.

Obviously we can't keep dodging the issue of the big bad boss forever. The Scourge has been terrorizing Azeroth since WoW launched and sooner or later it's going to fall to the players to deal with the issue, at least in terms of plot advancement. Kel'thuzad will die eventually. But how is Blizzard going to keep the world from stagnating once we do? What balance exists to allow the player to do the story for themselves ("congratulations, you killed Onyxia and nobody else ever has, I swear") and moving the story ahead? Opening up new areas like AQ is one way to do it, but can it happen in reverse? Are we going to be stuck with a never-ending assault on the undead newbie area by mindless level 1 Scourge even after the Lich King's armor is shattered?

Goon Squad killed Thrall. And boy howdy, let me tell you that it was hilarious.

I dont really get how we (at least horde) can go after Illidan and Kaelthelas now. The horde blood elves' lore states that they've only befriended the horde in order to get into Draenor and meet up with Kael.

Then when we get there they'll help us kill him? Maybe Illidan's faction in Draenor now will get corrupted (again since they've already been corrupted once) and the regular corrupted blood elves will turn on their corrupted corrupted masters.

CORRUPTION

Good question. Most likely, yes, lvl 1 scourge will continue to be present in the undead area. The storyline only advances for the player themselves that takes part in it. The NPCs change their stories based on what you've done, but the surrounding content that other players experience won't.
That is, when you kill the leaders of the bristlebacks in the Barrens, for example, they respawn and another person does the quest too. The NPCs pretend like you ended the bristleback threat, but they are still standing around like nothing happened. This is an unfortunate drawback to a MMORPG as opposed to a single player RPG. Your just gonna have to live with that.

But, your point about major lore characters is something I'm curious about in terms of what kind of balance will they strike with pulling out actual WC3 characters and 'new' ones.

If they let us eventually kill Arthas in a future expansion, they will need to be seeding the lore with a new enemy to take his place. None of this 'lolz new expansion, this super powerful race that lived on a far away island eating mushrooms for 29 millenia is coming to kill us, and they are waaaay worse then the Gods' shit that EQ ended up pulling after POP. If they give us hints of this race, or introduce them into existing quests ahead of time, then it's fine.

I mean, it'll be awhile, especially considering Blizzard's glacial pace with the expansion, before we've run out of the bad guys they've already introduced. But, it will happen someday if they aren't careful. We're already going to kill Magtheridon, Kael'thas, and Illidan in the expansion. After Arthas and the scourge, assuming they are the next expansion, we've really only got the other Old Gods and the Burning Legion guys (Sargeras/Kil'jaeden) left. That's quite a steep ramp up.

Yea, good point. I would assume Illidan is getting controlled by Kil'Jaeden directly now. The statue of him at E3 looked more demonic then ever, and considering WC3 ended with him Kil'Jaeden going 'yo bitch where's my money? You didn't kill Arthas? Oh hellz naw..' after he tried to hide from him on Draenor, then they may be too far gone to be saved.

Uhm, Goon Squad is Horde guild, right ?

Yes sir.

It would be wise to explain to you the depths at which our enemis will go to to hide themselves under our noses.

Know this first and foremost: our enemy is the Shadow Council. No matter what task I give you, or who I ask you to act against, know that one simple fact.

Many cults exist within the Council, but only to hide its actions against the goolish.

Groups like the Burning Blade, the Argus Wake, and the Searing Blade are all tools of the Council. Consider them one and the same.

Eh, If I'm going to kill Arthas, i'd rather do it in Warcraft 4(in my dreams).

I can see Kel'Thuzad, Illidan, Lady Vashj, or Kael getting taken down by 40 hard-core motherfuckers...but Arthas? Deathwing?

Hell no :P...it's not encouraging that Ner'zhul pre-fusion could simply inflict/kill people with the plague using his mind alone(sucks to live on Icecrown!)

I just cant see 40 people taking down Arthas, an Aspect, or an Old God by themselves, it took the combined might of the Alliance, the Horde, and the Night Elves to STALL Archimonde...Now 5000 or so wisps? Hell yeah I'd put my money on them to kill Arthas :D


Please tell me there's a video of that Thrall kill, I dont think he's ever been killed on Thunderlord.

Well Blizzard stated that a 40 man group of level 70's wouldn't be able to kill Arthas.

I'm thinking that in a future expansion, or even WoW 2, they'll up the level cap again and increase the number of people per raid.

To make the final battle truly epic, they would have to make an arthas kill require both Horde and alliance working together.

C'thun is an Old God. He's been killed. Yea, he's still 'weak' from his battle thousands of years ago (which is always funny when they use that, Gods take thousands of years to heal up? sux2Bthem) but he was still an Old God.
Ner'zhul could kill weak minded people with just his thoughts, but not everyone. He still had to use mind control to get other things to do stuff for him. Get a super duper helmet of anti-mind control (onyxia cloak 2.0) and Arthas can't do that to us. Done.
We're going to kill Illidan in the expansion. He almost killed Arthas solo when he was infused with the power of the Lich King (not fused with him, but he had put most of his power into him). It's not too far fetched that we could take Arthas out after killing Illidan, lore wise.

Archimonde took the might of the armies to stall. But, it wasn't hundreds of 'Furions' fighting him, it was tons of grunt units and such. I think the player characters are supposed to be like an individual hero unit, and by the time we've progressed to actually fighting Kil'Jaeden, we'll be as powerful as Furion or similar hero. 40 Furions or Tyrandes or 40 Thralls or 40 whatever that human mage of the Kirin Tor (not Jaina) was called, probably would have done more to him then the armies as a whole.

The Lich King got a lot of his power from the nether and Kil'Jaeden too, iirc. He got cut off by being rebellious, but he found a way to keep his power by merging with a physical entity in this dimension. Arthas w/Lich King is more powerful then any single entity ever to walk Azeroth that was not being directly empowered by Demonic or Titan energy, but I don't think he's as powerful as a Titan or a full power Old God etc..

It's all irrelevant anyway, as they can, and have shown that they can, do whatever they want with the lore. It all comes down to how much you like Arthas and whether or not you want to see him dead. I'd like to, as it will (hopefully) feel more epic then most of the other characters. But, I don't think he's been built up to God status necessarily. I always interpreted the 'most powerful being on Azeroth' line they threw into the WC3 lore as not including Gods/Demons/Titans. He's more powerful then Demigods like Cenarius or Magtheridon though for sure.

Rend is much more of a major lore character than you know, apparently. l2backstory. Warcraft 3 was not the only warcraft game pre-dating WoW. That's why it has the number 3 in it's name.

Needs more Kul'Tiras and naval battles.

Isn't Azshara supposed to be as/more powerful than Arthas?

Arthas seems like the perfect opportunity for Blizzard to try something as cool as requiring a pairing of an alliance and horde raid. Forget all their platitudes about immersion and lore, it would be truly unique to have a raid boss that not only required 80 people, but a coordination and communication between the two sides that for me at least, would make it a genuinely epic event. With the level of scripting and design they've reached now with their top end stuff, it would be fairly easy to design him so that not only paladins and shamans became signicantly important, but that he could also immediately repel any straight up 80+ man zerg attempts.

Well what you have to remember is WoW is the continuation of the Warcraft plot line. It's entirely possible you will kill Arthas at some point, but I would be surprised if it didn't involve a few heroes from the alliance/horde/w/e in the actual fight. Maybe even an army of NPCs, who knows?

Not reading the books or playing the former Warcraft games, this thread fucking owns.

I at least remember reading something about the expansion explaining that Prince Kaelthelas had gone insane and the Blood Elves joining the horde recognized this.

One thing that most bothers me about killing someone like Kel'Thuzad or Arthas is...they're tiny!

Ragnaros: Huge
Nefarian: Pretty Large
C'thun: Hefty Feller
Kel'Thuzad: Human turned Lich
Arthas: Paladin on a horse (throne now, I suppose)

Can you imagine the positioning?! That'll be a bloody nightmare. It can get confusing in Z'G with 4-5 people whacking a humanoid, imagine 12+.

Pretty sure he'd pull an FF move and become some huge shadowformed demon the size of the fucking continent.

Rita Repulsa throws her staff at Arthas, he turns into a giant, five hunters leap into their giant multicolored tigers and finally gain a purpose...