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'lore' in blizzard games is just fluff to paper over the game mechanics, it's always been last-minute thrown together garbage in every one of their games it's not that blizzard's gotten worse at it, it's that you've gotten older
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Jan 15, 2016 03:41
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AriadneThread posted:'lore' in blizzard games is just fluff to paper over the game mechanics, it's always been last-minute thrown together garbage in every one of their games That and it's more prominent. It's a lot easier to forget warcraft II had a poo poo plot when that plot composed of "The orcs chased the humans across the sea and now they're fighting again(This time the humans have friends!)"
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Jan 15, 2016 03:45
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AriadneThread posted:'lore' in blizzard games is just fluff to paper over the game mechanics, it's always been last-minute thrown together garbage in every one of their games I don't think that's entirely fair. Really, WC2 and before, their games only had excuse plots, but WC3 and Starcraft had pretty decent low-effort ISO standard pulp fantasy/sci-fi plots. Nobody was ever going to seriously compare them to Tolkien or Feynman, but it's at the level of some of the better mass market D&D novels. Which is to say, not exactly good, but more coherent and nuanced than the direction they've gone in. Which isn't even to say WoW is wholly atrocious either, I really liked a lot of WotLK, especially the whole Wrathgate thing. Even some of MoP was fun and well written at a character level (Chen/Li Li interactions) even if the overarching narrative wasn't exceptionally strong. SC2 was dreck, though. It would've merely been "bad and kinda boring" had they not tacked on that epilogue.
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Jan 15, 2016 03:52
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FoolyCharged posted:That and it's more prominent. It's a lot easier to forget warcraft II had a poo poo plot when that plot composed of "The orcs chased the humans across the sea and now they're fighting again(This time the humans have friends!)" yeah I think this is the big thing. In StarCraft you had the mission briefings and (if you were a nerd or had nothing better to do) a good fifth of the manual to get your story and lore infusion. This was the same with Diablo and Diablo 2, if you wanted to know more about your class or some stuff about the landscape then you read the manual. You didn't need to really pay attention to The Sin War or any of the other Horadrim stuff that was scattered throughout the dungeons in Diablo and the only time you got dialogue in D2 was from quest givers and if you reeeeeeeally wanted to hear inane gossip. Fast-forward to SC2 and D3 and now we have a cutscene at the end of every mission, waaaaaaaaay more cinematics and every five steps you take in a mission and someone starts talking. The D3 LP going on right now is reminding me why I beat the game once, got to Act 2 Inferno and promptly put the game down to never touch it again. There was dialogue all over the place, bosses wouldn't stop talking and it just lost all of the charm that the first two games had. Diablo keeps talking non-stop throughout Act IV whereas in D2 all he ever said was "not even death can save you from me". Really all this boils down to is that familiar phrase "brevity is the soul of wit"
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Jan 15, 2016 06:50
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Jsor posted:The only WoW book I've ever read was The Last Guardian and it was pretty good, but I really like Medivh. I could never get into Knaack's writing, though, which closes off a great deal of the more "important" books. Christine Golden is pretty good, but I read the War of the Ancients archive and Knaack really is dreck.
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Jan 15, 2016 06:57
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SirSamVimes posted:Christine Golden is pretty good, but I read the War of the Ancients archive and Knaack really is dreck. Fortunately, all the Knaak-original characters have been killed off by this point in WoW.
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Jan 15, 2016 07:06
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Well, except Vereesa.
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Jan 15, 2016 07:33
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Lord_Magmar posted:Part of the problem with WoW is that there is a whole team of writers and they get a whole lot of freedom with what they do at the micro level. Chris Metzen for all that people complain about him doesn't really do much of the minutae, he gives his team the broad strokes and has them fill out the details before checking if they fit. Which means the quality of WoW lore and writing varies quite a bit. Although Metzen is still a fairly easy target, for instance he introduced a female Orc Shaman to be Thrall's wife because he hated that people thought Thrall and Jaina made a good couple. He seems to only have one story and that's CORRUPTION, and because he's so important within the company people rarely tell him no when he writes lore. I thought the dumbest thing was SPOILERS FOR WRATH OF THE LICH KING AND BY EXTENSION BOTH THIS GAME AND TFT I SUPPOSE The whole 'there must always be a Lich King' nonsense. Like it's literally one of the dumbest plot points I've ever heard in my life. It's literally saying a massive army of the Undead thralled wholly to the will of a immortal demigod of death who's only goal is the destruction of life in Azeroth is LESS dangerous than that same army, but disorganized, leaderless, and aimless. Like the expansion had already established - as did I believe Word of God - that, no, there was no goodness left in Arthas and he wasn't holding the Scourge back and he really was throwing his all behind it. So, yeah. We're to believe, somehow, that leaving the Scourge leaderless would make it more powerful than leaving it united behind someone who's only goal was killing everyone. It's so dumb it almost gives Mass Effect 3's ending a run for it's money, but I think ME3 wins out on virtue of being literally incomprehensible.
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Jan 15, 2016 07:41
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To continue the story of what happens after The Frozen Throne, we turn our attention to WoW's first expansion. The Burning Crusade Five Years After TFT One Year After Vanilla At the start of The Burning Crusade, hereafter referred to as TBC, both the Horde and Alliance stand in positions of relative strength, bloodied by the campaigns against the Scourge in the Plaguelands and Ahn'Qiraj in the great desert of Silithus, but having also resolved many of their internal conflicts. Then two new races enter Azeroth's geopolitics. The Draenei: The draenei represent one of WoW's more overt retcons, but in brief the orcs and ogres were not alone on Draenor prior to the First War. They shared Draenor with a peaceful race known as the draenei. The draenei were refugees from across the cosmos, fleeing the Burning Legion which had destroyed their homeworld and corrupted most of the race - Archimonde from Reign of Chaos was a corrupted draenei. With the aid of a race of mysterious beings called the Naaru that seem to be physical embodiments of the Holy Light, the draenei wandered across the cosmos always one step ahead of the Legion. When the Legion found Draenor, one of the first acts of the corrupted orc Horde was to eradicate the draenei, paving a road a mile long with their bones. A small number of draenei escaped onto a great dimension-traveling floating fortress known as the Exodar. When the blood elves from The Frozen Throne arrived, they sabotaged the Exodar and sent it crashing into Azeroth. While recovering from their unexpected planetfall, the draenei encountered an Alliance armada and opened diplomatic negotiations. Finding a great deal of shared values and beliefs with the Alliance, the draenei survivors adopted Azeroth as their new home and formally joined the Alliance. The Blood Elves: Prince Kael'thas lead many of the surviving elves of Quel'Thalas into Outland behind Illidan, but thousands more stayed behind. While some of the high elves fought the magical addiction now ravaging the race after the Sunwell's destruction and held on to their place within the Alliance, most of Quel'thalas adopted their prince's less savory methods as their only chance at survival. In record time Quel'thalas was rebuilt through extraordinary - and extraordinarily dangerous - feats of magic, surrendering to the endless thirst for magic no matter the source. Having already abandoned the Alliance, then seen the night elves - hated cousins to the high elves - join their ranks, the blood elves instead reached out to their former ranger general Sylvanas Windrunner to petition the Horde for membership. Though possibly even more distrusted than the Forsaken, the blood elves were accepted into the Horde's ranks. Meanwhile, the Dark Portal had lain quiet since the end of The Frozen Throne, watched over by the Alliance fortification of Nethergarde Keep. Shortly after the blood elves and draenei joined their respective factions, the Dark Portal reopened and another invasion by the Burning Legion began. The Alliance and Horde were prepared, however, and quickly pushed the Legion back into what remained of Draenor, now simply called Outland. The Illidari and the Legion: Azerothian forces quickly discovered there were two distinct demonic armies fighting over Outland: the Burning Legion's forces, and the followers of Illidan Stormrage who had taken to calling themselves the Illidari. Among the Illidari's ranks were not just demons, but naga, fel orcs, blood elves, and worse. Azerothian forces came to ally with the same Naaru that had sheltered the draenei and then, following the events of Warcraft 2: Beyond the Dark Portal, the Alliance expedition's remnant. Shattrath City, once the draenei capital on draenor, had become a great bastion and center of commerce for all uncorrupted souls in Outland, and anchored by the might of the Naaru. Reunions and Betrayals: Both the Alliance and the Horde found new old friends in Outland. Handfuls of draenei had evaded the Horde's genocide in the far reaches of Outland, while the Horde discovered that small numbers of orcs who had never drunk of demon's blood had survived. These brown-skinned orcs called themselves the Mag'har and were lead by a young orc named Garrosh Hellscream, the only son of Grom Hellscream. Meanwhile, the forces of Quel'thalas who had accompanied the Horde to Kael'thas' supposed promised land found themselves in for a rude awakening: during the intervening time between The Frozen Throne and the return to Outland, Kael'thas had pledged himself fully to the Illidari and begun works that horrified even the newly arrived blood elves. Faced with a choice between the incipient madness of Kael'thas and the Horde that they had worked with and been shown loyalty to in turn, Quel'thalas rejected their prince and committed to the battle against Illidan and all his followers - including Prince Kael'thas Sunstrider. In a series of raids, forces from the Alliance and Horde systematically crushed both the Burning Legion and the Illidari, slaying Lady Vashj and her naga in Serpentshrine Cavern, then Kael'thas and his blood elves in Tempest Keep. With both of Illidan's most powerful lieutenants dead, Azerothian forces assaulted the Black Temple itself, once the greatest draenei temple on Draenor and now Illidan's stronghold. With the aid of night elf warden Maiev Shadowsong, Azerothian forces killed the former demon hunter. Assault on the Sunwell: Simultaneously with the battle for the Black Temple, however, Legion armies arrived in force in Quel'thalas. Kael'thas, as Azerothian forces discovered, had betrayed Illidan in turn and given everything he knew to the Legion. Their target was the Sunwell in Quel'thalas, and quickly overwhelmed the blood elf forces stationed there. Commanding the invasion, as had been cryptically hinted previously, was none other than Kil'Jaeden the Cunning, second in command of the Burning Legion behind only Sargeras himself. Among his forces were the most twisted of Kael'thas' blood elves, who had begun to feed directly on demon blood and begin their transition to true demons. Most horrifying, however, was the entity known as M'uru. One or two of its like had been seen in the Outland campaign: Void Gods, darkened and perverted Naaru that had been transformed into things of utter shadow and darkness rather than Holy Light. Despite all of these forces and more, Azerothian forces ultimately destroyed Kil'Jaeden before he could fully manifest on Azeroth, and in a stunning act of charity and self-sacrifice the defeated and rekindled M'uru threw itself into the Sunwell to reignite it as a font of holy and arcane energy once again. The Burning Crusade ends with the defeat of Kil'Jaeden, the redemption of the blood elves, and proof that the Horde and Alliance can work peacefully together, though only time would tell how that promise would fare... Other Threats: A wide variety of minor threats arose during The Burning Crusade, the most noteworthy of which was the Infinite Dragonflight, a mysterious group of dragons that sought to change key points in Azeroth's history for the worse: killing Thrall as he escaped slavery before he could become a shaman, stopping the possessed Medivh from opening the Dark Portal to begin Warcraft 1, and letting the Legion win the Battle for Mount Hyjal. Though stopped in all three cases, the identity and intentions of the Infinite Dragonflight would remain a mystery for some time. Also, Azerothian forces breached Karazhan, the haunted tower of Medivh, and the whole affair was very strange including a chess match against the Guardian, a brothel staffed by succubi, banshees, and zombies, and an opera house that would randomly put players in the middle of Little Red Riding Hood, the Wizard of Oz, or Romeo and Juliet.
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Jan 15, 2016 08:04
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You don't need to spoiler tag it, but any prospective readers be warned that more or less any attempt to read anything about Burning Crusade wholesale spoils an entire campaign of Frozen Throne, and the next campaign we're doing in this thread, due to the Elves stuff.
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Jan 15, 2016 08:10
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Wait, Archimonde was a draenei? What happened to the Eredar? Isn't it what his loving unit model is called, Eredar Warlock or something? It's really depressing how every character inevitably becomes a raid boss. Say what you will, I still like Illidan.
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Jan 15, 2016 08:22
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anilEhilated posted:Wait, Archimonde was a draenei? What happened to the Eredar? Isn't it what his loving unit model is called, Eredar Warlock or something? This is probably one of the bigger retcons they ever did. They made it so that the Draenei was a word that meant "outcast" in the Eredar language. When the big bad corrupted Archimonde and Kil'jaeden, as Cythereal mentions Velen escaped with the help of the Naaru. There's some weird explanation for why the Draenei we'll see later look all hosed up and not like goat people. They're called "The Broken" and it has something to do with the demons and the Orcs (because in the new expansion the broken don't exist in the alternate Iron Horde timeline), but I can't remember the exact explanation they went with. Strictly speaking, Archimonde isn't a "Draenei" because "Draenei" refer to a specific group of Eredar who defected after their race's corruption. The retcon is more that Draenei were super secretly Eredar. Also, the Illidan raid as I understand it is kind of great because it all just turned out to be a setup by noted creepy stalker Maiev (TFT spoilers) to capture him again, and you basically fell into her gambit. The poor guy wasn't even corrupted or doing anything wrong AFAIK. Linear Zoetrope fucked around with this message at 08:34 on Jan 15, 2016 |
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Jan 15, 2016 08:30
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Cythereal posted:Also, Azerothian forces breached Karazhan, the haunted tower of Medivh, and the whole affair was very strange including a chess match against the Guardian, a brothel staffed by succubi, banshees, and zombies, and an opera house that would randomly put players in the middle of Little Red Riding Hood, the Wizard of Oz, or Romeo and Juliet. 
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Jan 15, 2016 08:38
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Kharazan, like most things involving Medivh, is both incredibly strange/dumb and yet still amazing. E: TBC is, by far, the weirdest expansion. Above all that, it has this weird pseudo sci-fi theme. We've mentioned the Dranei "escaping", but what we've failed to mention is that Tempest Keep is a spaceship. Also, the Twisting Nether is outer space. Like, they never mention these words, but if you read between the lines at all it's exactly what they're saying. Add to that all the new technology, with these pipes and settlements that were "mining" and "redirecting" mana and stuff, and it seems like WoW had this bizarre little Buck Rogers space opera embedded in it. Linear Zoetrope fucked around with this message at 08:44 on Jan 15, 2016 |
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Jan 15, 2016 08:39
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Aces High posted:yeah I think this is the big thing. In StarCraft you had the mission briefings and (if you were a nerd or had nothing better to do) a good fifth of the manual to get your story and lore infusion. This was the same with Diablo and Diablo 2, if you wanted to know more about your class or some stuff about the landscape then you read the manual. You didn't need to really pay attention to The Sin War or any of the other Horadrim stuff that was scattered throughout the dungeons in Diablo and the only time you got dialogue in D2 was from quest givers and if you reeeeeeeally wanted to hear inane gossip. "Actively offensive" is how I would describe SC2 and D3 plot in two words.
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Jan 15, 2016 08:47
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Palladium posted:"Actively offensive" is how I would describe SC2 and D3 plot in two words. Rock Paper Shotgun had by far the best article about SC2's story: https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/12/10/legacy-of-the-void-singleplayer-review/ quote:Rest assured it reaches a definite conclusion, but the vast bulk of it is so cloyingly dour, so entirely devoid of wit, warmth or humanity. It’s the kind of videogame storytelling that would cause someone who doesn’t play videogames to decide, should they walk in on me playing it, that this really is the lowest common denominator of art forms. It’s not simply tedious: it’s openly humiliating that one of the biggest game-makers in the world believe that all we want is this. I’d be highly tempted to say that this was Blizzard on cruise control, including a token singleplayer effort for a package only really intended for its multiplayer mode. And yet they have, as always, clearly spent an absolute poo poo-ton of money on cinematics and setpiece levels. This is them being as big as they can be.
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Jan 15, 2016 08:51
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Then they cut off their own hands and wept bitterly, for they would never be able to write anything to top that. They not only dropped the mic, they hurled it into the cold, uncaring sea.
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Jan 15, 2016 09:21
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I personally think that Burning Crusade is the worst expansion from an interacting with the villain standpoint because Illidan gets all the promotion but is barely in it and if we hadn't murdered our way to him he probably would not have attacked us. Meanwhile the actual villain Kil'Jaiden gets even less screen time and has from memory a pretty awful raid associated with him.
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Jan 15, 2016 10:03
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Lord_Magmar posted:I personally think that Burning Crusade is the worst expansion from an interacting with the villain standpoint because Illidan gets all the promotion but is barely in it and if we hadn't murdered our way to him he probably would not have attacked us. Meanwhile the actual villain Kil'Jaiden gets even less screen time and has from memory a pretty awful raid associated with him. I wouldn't worry, Kil'jaedan is back in Legion, since we didn't kill him in the Sunwell, we merely pushed him back through the Sunwell to where ever he came from 
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Jan 15, 2016 10:44
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Burning Crusade was the most boring WoW expansion, but this is coming from someone that came in 7 months prior to Cataclysm dropping and then promptly unsubbing 1 month after Cat came out. Even the friends that got me into WoW were just going "just level up to 70 and move on to Northrend" and I admit they were right, Wrath had way more stuff I cared about
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Jan 15, 2016 11:07
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As generic as Artha's descent into evil story was, that's still a J.R.R Tolkien masterpiece than Darth Vader's version of it in the Star Wars prequels. Same for the implied romance angle with Jaina.
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Jan 15, 2016 11:37
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Cheez posted:HI, I'M BADDY MCBADSON, BUT YOU CAN CALL ME BAD. HOW DO YOU DO? Let's not forget about Malfurion. Badangry.
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Jan 15, 2016 13:21
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Malfurion Stormrage.
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Jan 15, 2016 13:23
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To be fair that's an elf thing. Most of them have second names that work like that. Tyrande Whisperwind for example, or Kael'Thas Sunstrider.
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Jan 15, 2016 13:31
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We don't know who any of these people are.
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Jan 15, 2016 21:20
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The next WoW expansion goes in a completely different direction from The Burning Crusade. It's time for... World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King Six Years after The Frozen Throne Two Years after Vanilla So, Wrath of the Lich King. In the opinion of many players, this was WoW's best expansion and it certainly was the high water mark for subscriptions. While much of Wrath focuses on our dear friend Arthas, it's nothing that can't be derived from Reign of Chaos alone. However, arguably the most interesting plot from Wrath - and what's generally considered the best raid WoW has ever had - has nothing to do with the Scourge. There are older things than the Lich King hidden in the snows of Northrend... First, however, we've got a few new characters to introduce. Varian Wrynn: The king of Stormwind, missing and imprisoned in Vanilla, finally returns to his kingdom via a bunch of events in the books that are mostly irrelevant. Varian Wrynn is hotheaded, stubborn, and carries an enormous grudge against the Horde in general and the orcs in particular. He's spoiling for a fight and is waiting for a suitable excuse to declare war on the Horde. With Varian's return, regent Bolvar Fordragon is put in command of Stormwind's armies. Tirion Fordring: Tirion Fordring was a character introduced back in vanilla, and much-loved by the player base for his storyline: Tirion is a Knight of the Silver Hand who was exiled for working alongside the honorable orc Eitrigg in the past, and further driven to despair by his son's joining the Scarlet Crusade. Players, Alliance and Horde alike, rekindle Tirion's spirit and inspire him to reunite with his son who redeems himself but is sadly cut down shortly thereafter. Tirion is an old, world-weary paladin who nevertheless believes in a better world and thinks everyone, even the most evil, has a chance for redemption. In Wrath of the Lich King, Tirion is the central heroic figure of the overall narrative, leading the players and disparate factions to victory. The Knights of the Ebon Blade and the Argent Crusade: The Lich King has tired of the presence of the Argent Dawn and Scarlet Crusade in his Plaguelands, and has created a new instrument to do it: a new generation of death knights known as the Knights of the Ebon Blade. Lead by the corrupted son of one of Azeroth's greatest paladins, the Knights of the Ebon Blade are brutal, ruthless, and player characters - the first new player class in WoW's history. The Scarlet Crusade is wiped out in a massive battle with the Ebon Blade, and the survivors flee to Northrend, lead by a manic highlord who claims to be receiving holy visions. When the Ebon Blade assault Light's Hope, headquarters of the Argent Dawn, things go awry. Tirion Fordring leads the Argent Dawn's defense, and defeats the Ebon Blade's leader Darion Mograine. Then the Lich King shows up and informs everyone that this was all a trap to draw out Tirion Fordring and kill him, and the death knights are expendable towards that goal. A bit of still poorly explained deus ex machina from the Light later, and Darion Mograine and most of the Ebon Blade betray the Lich King, allowing Fordring to claim a legendary undead-killing sword known as the Ashbringer and drive off the Lich King. In the aftermath, the surviving Knights of the Ebon Blade swear vengeance on the Lich King for creating and using them - the rank and file of the Ebon Blade, it turns out, were once great heroes of the Argent Dawn who died fighting the Scourge and were resurrected, brainwashed, and memory-wiped to serve as Scourge shock troopers. How much they remember of their past lives or personalities is unclear, but Tirion Fordring vouches for them as he declares a union of the Argent Dawn and the Knights of the Silver Hand: the Argent Crusade. Alongside the vengeful Knights of the Ebon Blade, the Argent Crusade makes ready to travel to Northrend and kill the Lich King. With that out of the way, it's time for one of the most memorable events in WoW's history. The New Plague: Arthas decides that the time has come, and returns to old tricks: a necrotic plague across Azeroth and Outland that turns the affected into zombies. Including players. Argent Dawn healers can cure the plague, but it's a virulent thing and their efforts grow harder all the time... aided and abetted by many players in a scenario that's been cited in legitimate academic papers as a model for real-world epidemics. Depending on who you ask, the plague event is either amazingly fun or incredibly goddamn frustrating, either way because it turns entire cities into graveyards. The plague is eventually cured by a Forsaken named Putress, Sylvanas' grand apothecary. With the plague cured and Naxxramas retreating to Northrend, the Horde and Alliance both launch two-pronged invasions of Northrend targeting the eastern and western extremities of the continent: the Borean Tundra in the west is invaded by the Horde's Warsong Expedition and the Alliance's Valiance Expedition, and the Howling Fjord in the east is targeted by the Forsaken expedition known as the Hand of Vengeance. The Alliance's expedition into the Fjord is almost completely destroyed before it can ever land, however, due to Horde treachery: the Hand of Vengeance is perfecting a biochemical agent known as the Blight, a refined version of the Scourge's own necrotic plague that will turn even the undead into puddles of ooze, and the Forsaken give it a test run on the Alliance expedition as it sails for the Fjord. The Nexus War: Dalaran, after its whoopsie in Warcraft 3, has finally been rebuilt as a flying citadel and has moved to Northrend. While there, however, they discover an entirely new problem: Malygos the Spellweaver, Aspect of Magic, has decided that mortals cannot be trusted with arcane magic and has declared war on all mortal arcane spellcasters. The Kirin Tor, along with the Red Dragonflight, violently disagree and believe that Malygos' actions will destroy the entire planet. Malygos believe that the Kirin Tor's actions will destroy the entire planet. The Kirin Tor solve the problem by enlisting the players to kill Malygos. This storyline also features the Kirin Tor revealing that they have strict laws against torturing prisoners. So they have the player torture information out of a blue dragon instead while the Kirin Tor watch. Echoes of the Past: In the early zones of Northrend, the Azerothian expeditions encounter a new series of problems far older than the Scourge: the servants and remnants of the Titans are still active in Northrend, and extraordinarily dangerous. A few, notably the viking giants known as the vrykul, have been subverted by the Scourge, but others are fiercely opposed to any and all intruders. It's established in the Warcraft 3 manual that the dwarves were once creatures of stone and earth created by the Titans that in time became fleshy creatures, and in vanilla this was referred to as the Curse of Flesh, the Old Gods subverting and corrupting the Titans' creations. Wrath reveals that the dwarves aren't alone in that respect: humans and gnomes, too, are devolved Titan servitors. The vrykul are the fleshy versions of a race of metallic soldiers of the Titans, and humans began as a plague of stunted, runty offspring of these 8-10 foot tall vikings. The gnomes, in turn, were once clockwork automatons simply called mechagnomes. The Wrath Gate: Back to the actual Lich King, things go pretty well for the Alliance and Horde (save for the odd bit of one sabotaging the other) as they sweep through the Borean Tundra, Howling Fjord, and Dragonblight, converging on the gateway to Icecrown: an enormous fortification known as the Wrath Gate. Besieging the gate are the two field commanders of their respective expeditions: mighty paladin and former regent of Stormwind Bolvar Fordragon, and the mag'har (i.e. never corrupted) orc warrior Saurfang the Younger whom Thrall is grooming as his heir apparent. Together, the Alliance and Horde clear out the Scourge forces at the Wrath Gate, prompting Arthas himself to walk out. Arthas promptly kills Saurfang, resurrects his entire army, and is about to wipe out the entire assembled army when the battlefield is bombarded from above: the Forsaken have returned with Grand Apothecary Putress and the perfected Blight. Scourge, Alliance, and Horde alike are wiped out in seconds and Arthas himself is severely wounded and forced to retreat. The Battle for the Undercity: Red dragons arrive and incinerate the Forsaken forces, burning away the Blight in the process, but Bolvar Fordragon and Saurfang the Younger are dead. Simultaneously, Sylvanas' second in command in the Undercity has rebelled, forcing both the Horde and the Alliance to lay siege to the Undercity. Thrall and Sylvanas fight their way in from the front and destroy the traitor, while Varian and Jaina assault the city from the rear and kill Grand Apothecary Putress. The two groups confront each other in the depths of the Undercity, and enraged by the Forsaken attacks throughout Northrend and especially the Wrath Gate, Varian Wrynn declares war on the Horde. Jaina Proudmoore freezes both sides and teleports the Alliance forces away before Thrall and Varian can fight, but afterwards Jaina and Thrall confirm that the cold war between the factions has finally gone hot even as they march on the Lich King. Halls of Stone and Lightning: Meanwhile, the Kirin Tor and the dwarven Explorers' League have turned their attentions towards the hostile forces of the Titans and the mysterious power of the Old Gods. In the northeast corner of Northrend is the great Titan city of Ulduar, once the Titans' center of operations on Azeroth. Left behind as Azeroth's general custodians and overseers were the Watchers: Loken, Thorim, Auriaya, Mimiron, Hodir, Freya, Tyr, Kologarn, and others elsewhere (yes, the ones in Ulduar are transparently the Aesir). These watchers in Ulduar had a particular duty: Ulduar was the lock on the prison of the Old God Yogg-Saron, an eldritch horror like C'Thun in Ahn'Qiraj. Over time, Yogg-Saron had corrupted Loken, the Prime Designate of Azeroth and chief representative of the Titans on the planet, and through Loken the rest of the Watchers died or succumbed to corruption. Working with the Kirin Tor and surviving loyal agents of the Titans, the players assaulted the outer reaches of Ulduar and killed Loken, who died laughing in the knowledge that his death meant the end of Azeroth. The Siege of Ulduar: What Loken meant wouldn't become apparent until the players invaded Ulduar proper in what most WoW players consider the best and most atmospheric raid in WoW's history. Penetrating deep into the lost Titan city and freeing many of the surviving Watchers from corruption, the players discovered a strange celestial being called Algalon the Observer. As Prime Designate of Azeroth, Loken's death caused Ulduar to emit a distress signal to the Titans who responded by sending an agent to investigate Azeroth and determine whether all was well or if action would need to be taken. In particular, if the Old Gods were threatening to break free and destroy the Titans' work on Azeroth, Algalon had authorization to redeploy the very engines that remade Azeroth at the dawn of its history. Since that's exactly what was indeed happening, the players took the expedient solution of beating Algalon's face in until he decided that the people of Azeroth had the right to fight for their world and independence, and send a false all-clear signal back to the Titans. Also the players beat up Yogg-Saron. Icecrown: The war against the Scourge went from bad to worse for the living as they destroyed Naxxramas (killing Kel'Thuzad again) and then attacked the domain of the Scourge at Icecrown. The Argent Crusade and Knights of the Ebon Blade were able to establish small outposts in the region, but the situation on the ground proved so hostile that the Alliance and Horde were forced to deploy enormous aerial gunships to serve as mobile bases of operations. The one attempt at a full ground assault ended in the Alliance charging the Scourge from the front, the Horde charging the Alliance from behind, and the Scourge wiping out both armies and raising them as undead. Garrosh Hellscream, the Horde's other primary commander in Northrend, approved. With both factions unreliable, the war in Icecrown fell on the shoulders of the Ebon Blade and Argent Crusade. The Alliance and Horde broke into Arthas' own private chambers in Icecrown Citadel - Jaina Proudmoore hoping to find some hint that the Arthas she knew was still inside, and Sylvanas hoping to assassinate him. Both were wrong, and it took a full raid of players to breach Icecrown Citadel. In the final battle, Arthas revealed why he hadn't simply killed them at the beginning of the expansion: he could instantly raise every minion and lieutenant, and so waited until there were heroes strong enough to give he himself a good fight... at which point he one-shotted the raid and was about to raise them all as his greatest minions when Tirion Fordring pulled another bit of deus ex machina, shattered Frostmourne into countless pieces, and the players finished off Arthas Menethil. The Jailor of the Damned: However, a quiet subplot throughout parts of Icecrown was the idea that Arthas still retained a tiny shred of his humanity, and that fragment of who he once was managed to keep the Lich King from completely wiping out the world in the years since Warcraft 3. Without a Lich King to control the undead, the Scourge would run rampant across Azeroth. However, it turned out that Bolvar Fordragon had not died at the Wrath Gate after all, and willingly donned the Helm of Command to become Jailor of the Damned and keep the Scourge contained. This idea won't be revisited in WoW until this year with the forthcoming expansion Legion. Other Threats: As usual, Wrath saw several minor threats come and go: Northrend trolls who had devoured their gods, Illidari holdouts looking for revenge against the Lich King, savage wolverine-people, the remnants of the Scarlet Crusade (who, as in vanilla, turned out to be lead by a Dreadlord using them as a tool against the Scourge), a rather stupid knightly tournament hosted by the Argent Crusade, and so on and so forth. Wrath of the Lich King ends with Arthas dead, Frostmourne destroyed, a great hero keeping the Scourge contained, and Ulduar restored. However, the Alliance and Horde were in open war and many great heroes had died in the effort. In particular, among the Horde the only notable surviving commander was young Garrosh Hellscream who had become very popular indeed with the younger orcs hungering for more dynamic leadership than Thrall's lofty idealism and diplomacy... Cythereal fucked around with this message at 22:32 on Jan 15, 2016 |
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Jan 15, 2016 22:30
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Is this entirely to blame on WoW for warcraft lore being such a freakish abomination of ideas?
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Jan 15, 2016 22:47
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Up Circle posted:Is this entirely to blame on WoW for warcraft lore being such a freakish abomination of ideas? No. A couple folks expressed interest in a cliff's notes of what's happened in the Warcraft story after Warcraft 3, so this is my brief overview of the WoW story through each expansion. The next one, after Wrath, is where poo poo really starts to go off the rails.
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Jan 15, 2016 22:51
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Wrath of the Lich King sounds... OK? From what you said. I mean, it's a horrible mishmash like everything else Blizzard makes, but isn't on the "We must <made up verb> the ancient <made up word> in the name of <made up name>. Truly, we are the <made up word> of the <made up word>" level of awful.
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Jan 15, 2016 23:18
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Cythereal posted:No. A couple folks expressed interest in a cliff's notes of what's happened in the Warcraft story after Warcraft 3, so this is my brief overview of the WoW story through each expansion. I don't mean all these posts in this thread, I mean the endless bloat of lore Blizzard churned out since TFT.
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Jan 15, 2016 23:30
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my dad posted:Wrath of the Lich King sounds... OK? From what you said. I mean, it's a horrible mishmash like everything else Blizzard makes, but isn't on the "We must <made up verb> the ancient <made up word> in the name of <made up name>. Truly, we are the <made up word> of the <made up word>" level of awful. Wrath is generally the best regarded episode of WoW by most players, largely due to the Titan storyline that culminates in Ulduar. Say what you will about Blizzard's writing, but I think most would agree that their art department is incredibly good at what they do and they knocked it out of the park with Ulduar. The city and the zone preceding it, the Storm Peaks, ooze an atmosphere of ancient mysteries and power. You are trespassing in the domain of the ancients, a world your kind was never meant to walk and whose mysteries are beyond the understanding of your greatest minds. It also helps that there's a slow, steady build-up to Ulduar throughout the entirety of Northrend - more obvious in the Howling Fjord and a zone I didn't comment on called Sholazar Basin, but the Titans and the Old Gods are hinted at in every zone. In a lot of ways, the Ulduar story in Wrath is very representative of a phenomenon many WoW lore buffs including myself have noticed: the core storyline of each expansion tends to be pretty badly written, filled with melodrama and poorly written characters, but there's a B team at Blizzard that consistently puts great (relatively, at any rate) material into WoW's side stories that are typically completely unconnected to the nominal main threat and story of the expansion: Ulduar in Wrath, the Ethereals (a minor race I didn't mention because they're irrelevant to the story) in The Burning Crusade, and others in future expansions. The next expansion after Wrath, though, is where the crazy train officially leaves the station. Up through Wrath, WoW primarily dealt with threats and stories well established and grounded in existing Warcraft lore. Expanded on significantly in many cases and outright retconned in others, but generally there's a strong effort to hew to pre-WoW characters, factions, and ideas. Cataclysm departs from all of that with a vengeance, and so do the next two to follow.
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Jan 15, 2016 23:35
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Up Circle posted:I don't mean all these posts in this thread, I mean the endless bloat of lore Blizzard churned out since TFT. A lot of it, yes. You need quest lines to follow, after all. I don't think these posts have even touched on the expanded universe (novels, comics and the like) which may or may not have happened without WoW.
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Jan 15, 2016 23:45
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Wasn't there a bunch of quests involving totally-not-giant-vikings and you being deceived by totally-not-Loki?
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Jan 15, 2016 23:54
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Poil posted:Wasn't there a bunch of quests involving totally-not-giant-vikings and you being deceived by totally-not-Loki? That was part of the Storm Peaks, yeah. Loken = Loki, and the vrykul I mentioned are said giant vikings. Also, the forthcoming expansion is apparently bringing us this: [img]http://i.imgur.com/mEpeXKY.png][/img]
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Jan 15, 2016 23:55
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The Vrykul, yes. Basically giant vikings, yeah. Also the ancestors of modern (Azerothian) humanity. Kind of a long story. And yes, there are LOTS of parallels to various mythologies in various Titan characters and locations. The difference is, this time the Loki expy is supposed to be the guy in charge of keeping stuff not-corrupted, but he ended up getting turned into a slave to the big bad in Ulduar. That questline where you get fooled by him does a lot to help setup what's going to be happening inside Ulduar, as it culminates in Thorim (one of the bosses in said raid, but had been helping you through the questline) getting captured. EDIT: As for Ursoc... I can't see them getting rid of ALL the bear puns, unless they simply have the bear god not talk at all... but that text is marked as Placeholder. It's not final. Don't overreact this early on.
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Jan 15, 2016 23:59
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Cythereal posted:The Jailor of the Damned: However, a quiet subplot throughout parts of Icecrown was the idea that Arthas still retained a tiny shred of his humanity, and that fragment of who he once was managed to keep the Lich King from completely wiping out the world in the years since Warcraft 3. Without a Lich King to control the undead, the Scourge would run rampant across Azeroth. However, it turned out that Bolvar Fordragon had not died at the Wrath Gate after all, and willingly donned the Helm of Command to become Jailor of the Damned and keep the Scourge contained. This idea won't be revisited in WoW until this year with the forthcoming expansion Legion. Probably the most stupid plot point of the expansion, and even then it could be somewhat salvaged: declare that 1 a full war between scourge and rest of the world would leave the winners easy pickings for the Legion 2 no LK means the Legion simply takes control of the Scourge (as it was a Legion weapon to begin with) and we're back to point 1 done Omobono fucked around with this message at 00:43 on Jan 16, 2016 |
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Jan 16, 2016 00:30
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I wish they'd have just done away with the entire scourge at the end of Reign of Chaos
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Jan 16, 2016 00:36
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The Jailor of the Damned isn't that bad in my opinion, it's dumb but it allows the scourge to still be around for future plot. Spoilers incoming for later in this game, for one thing Kel'Thuzad is probably still alive, we didn't find his Phylactery the second time through Naxxramas so he can be resurrected whenever his followers get around to it, and without the Jailor leadership of the scourge would probably fall to him. I think the stupidest thing in Wrath is the constant confirmation that Arthas really was the only thing in there and that he'd definitely killed off the personality of the previous Lich King. Which Legion is proving to be wrong and if they hadn't done that would've allowed the Jailor sub-plot make more sense.
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Jan 16, 2016 01:54
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Lord_Magmar posted:I think the stupidest thing in Wrath is the constant confirmation that Arthas really was the only thing in there and that he'd definitely killed off the personality of the previous Lich King. Which Legion is proving to be wrong and if they hadn't done that would've allowed the Jailor sub-plot make more sense. According to Legion, this is wrong and we were fooled. Ner'zhul isn't an idiot.
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Jan 16, 2016 01:59
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I think you'll find that Warcraft is a metaphor for Blizzard itself.
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Jan 16, 2016 02:41
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