And
here's part 2, now extra ridiculously long in length.
V
– And now for something completely different
With the main offensive broken, it's gonna be a
while before we're on the assault against the lich king again. As
such, there's some other stuff we need to look at. In particular,
there are three zones that aren't really connected to the major
plots.
Grizzly Hills
First are the grizzly hills. I may already be
hearing some of you say “Hey! That zone should totally be counted
under part II! It's part of the horde and alliance war effort, and
the main enemy is the scourge.” Technically, you are correct.
However, the reason I put it here is that it really doesn't really
fit anywhere.
Part of the problem here (Problem #13: The
Grizzle Hills quests) is that most of the plot lines in the zone come
out of nowhere and go away just as quickly. For example, Arugal is
back, raised by the scourge to serve them. He has infected the local
human communities with the curse of the worgen to raise a new army or
something. It's pretty clearly a last-minute addition to the game, as
we don't see worgen anywhere else in the expansion. Plus it raises an
obvious question: Why have Arugal deal with this small group of
humans, rather than just going directly for stormwind or kul tiras?
Also, a minor note, but why doesn't Arugal have his own necropolis?
Similarly to Arugal, the Venture Co. appear as
villains in this zone. It goes nowhere, and doesn't really make a lot
of sense (the venture co. exploits undeveloped areas. Grizzly Hills
is the site of an offensive by the horde and the alliance, has
several strong and united native groups and is likely to get overrun
by the scourge). The alliance and the horde fight over the wood of
the region to serve in their war effort. It goes nowhere, as neither
the alliance nor the horde construct any more bases. The polar
furbolg have been corrupted, and we have to kill Ursoc. They also
never appear again.
Actually, let's talk about those last guys.
Back in the RPG (Lands of Mystery), it was established that the
furbolg lived in a large tree named Grizzlemaw. Here, it's shown that
Grizzlemaw is the city inside the tree. The name of the tree?
Vordrassil. Yes, as the name suggests, it's a world tree.
What. The. Hell? Okay, short history. The first
world tree, Nordrassil, was created to shield the second well of
eternity from future demonic invasions. The night elves made a pact
with three of the dragonflights that gave them a great degree of
power to better protect the tree. At the end of the third war, the
night elves weaponized this pact, using it to kill Archimonde.
Seeking to regain their powers, the night elves grew a new tree,
Teldrassil, and asked the dragons for their blessings. For the full
silliness of that idea, look at the night elf section in my special
look at the alliance. However, the dragons thought that the night
elves were being arrogant little pricks and refused (it didn't help
that the person asking, Fandral Staghelm, wasn't exactly in good
favor with the dragons).
So when and why was Vordrassil built? It can't
have been before Nordrassil, because there was no well of eternity to
shield. I've heard some people speculate that it was to somehow
contain Yogg-Saron, but the few bits of information we have seem to
contradict that (with the ancient druids tearing down the tree as
soon as they discovered the corruption). It can't have been between
Nordrassil and Teldrassil, because the night elves already had a
pact. And it can't have been after Teldrassil, since the tree is
referred to as ancient, and Teldrassil is only six years old.
Actually, while we're at it, when did the
furbolg get corrupted? Quests refer to it as a recent event, but we
know Vordrassil has been corrupted for thousands of years and
Grizzlemaw is not a recent construction. Why has this ancient
corruption only become active now? The furbolgs also used the power
of the world tree to resurrect Ursoc, which apparently only went
wrong because of the corruption inside the tree. As established
before, the night elves also had a world tree for a very long time.
If a world tree is capable of resurrecting ancient guardians, why
haven't the night elves done so for any of their dead ones?
Zul'drak
One of the better parts of Grizzly Hills was
the Drakuru storyline, where you encounter a frost troll named
Drakuru. Hoping to make an alliance with the frost trolls (or at
least maintain an additional enemy for the scourge to fight), the
player recovers several artifacts that would help Drakuru hold off
the scourge that's invading his home. His questline leads into
Drak'tharon Keep, right on the border between Grizzly Hills and
Zul'Drak, where the scourge and Drakkari are fighting. As the player
defeats the final boss of the dungeon, Drakura reveals that he is
actually an agent of the scourge and that you've just conquered
Drak'tharon Keep for the scourge. I'll admit, that was a really nice
reveal that made a lot of sense, and leads right into the excellent
Zul'drak questline.
In Zul'drak, the scourge is invading, now led
by Drakuru. In desperation, the Drakkari have drained the power of
their loa, much like Hakkar did in Zul'Gurub. It's really one of the
few instances where the scourge reaches its old level of threat. The
Drakkari are an ancient empire, who have consumed the power of their
very gods, and they're still losing despite facing only a small
portion of the scourge army.
This zone also spells the return of the Argent
Dawn and the Ebon Blade, who battle the scourge. The argent dawn has
joined with the remaining knights of the silver hand and the
brotherhood of the light to form the argent crusade. The most notable
questline regarding the scourge is where the player uses an amulet to
infiltrate them, and encounters Drakuru once more, now commanding the
necropolis of Voltaris. Because of the past history with the player,
he actually assumes that you've also joined the scourge. Working from
the inside, you manage to kill Drakuru before he is able to unleash
his new blightblood trolls. Okay, I'll admit that his storyline was
pretty damn great overall. However, there is just one thing that's
bugging me, returning all the way to problem #3: Arthas is an idiot.
During the questline, you actually encounter
the lich king twice. First is at the end of Drak'tharon Keep. This
appearance is actually pretty cool and rather sensible. Drakuru only
introduces the players as the people who helped him, so it kind of
makes sense for the player to not be instantly slaughtered. The lich
king is not omniscient, so he probably just assumed that you were
mercenaries, or even people seeking to join the cult of the damned.
However, the second appearance doesn't make a
lot of sense. As you face off against Drakuru, you use one of his own
blightblood trolls against him, overwhelming him. Beaten back, he
decides to actually use previously established powers smartly (gasp!)
and summons the lich king once more. However, then the lich king
kills Drakuru for being incompetent, and lets the player go because
he amused him. It's completely ridiculous and doesn't make any sense.
Drakuru was by no means incompetent. Through clever manipulation, he
managed to take Drak'tharon keep for the scourge. With his knowledge,
the scourge then scored victory after victory against the Drakkari
trolls, which were used to create a new batch of super-soldiers.
Drakuru is one of only a handful of character in the entire expansion
that acts even remotely intelligently. And he gets killed for it.
Furthermore, the player was only able to
infiltrate the scourge because his superiors screwed up. The choker
that gets enchanted to be your disguise was originally a trap from
the scourge higher-ups to specifically kill the player (when seeing
the choker, the target feels an almost irresistible urge to put it
on, turning him into a ghoul). Since Drakuru is in charge of the
zone, and he definitely didn't order the creation of the choker, it
must have been ordered by one of his higher-ups, possibly even Arthas
himself. And the choker then got altered by the ebon blade, which
only exists because Arthas is an idiot. And again, Arthas just lets
the player go because he amused him. Even the “the lich king is
keeping the player alive for a later trap” explanation doesn't work
here, because, again, the player was specifically, personally
targeted by the scourge.
Sholazar Basin
Sholazar, like Grizzly Hills, has few
connections with the rest of Northrend. Unlike Grizzly Hills though,
this makes perfect sense. Sholazar's storylines are mostly
self-contained because they actually don't have a lot to do with the
rest of Northrend. In the parts where it feels they should be
crossing over, they do. You even teleport to Un'goro during one of
the questlines.
On the other hand, I'm still not too
enthusiastic about Sholazar Basin. Some of its questlines just don't
really feel like stuff an adventurer should get himself mixed in,
especially not during times of war.
Nesingwary is already a bit questionable, but
its at least understandable why the player would help him. Big game
hunting is prestigious and a source of money. It's not something a
hero should be spending time on, but definitely something for an
adventurer. The oracle/frenzyheart questline on the other hand...
Okay, summary. A member of Nesingwary's
expedition wants the skin of a specific lion, so she can turn it into
a trophy. However, as the player kills the lion, he is approached by
an angry wolvar who says that you stole his kill. He declares you his
slave, and sends the player to serve his High-Shaman. For some reason
I could never figure out, the player goes along with this. Various
wolvar give you odd jobs, while being various degrees of jackass.
And, for some reason, the player does them.
For one of the odd jobs, the player is sent to
capture a rainspeaker oracle, so a wolvar hunter can torture him. The
rest of the clan would just kill the oracle on sight. As you grab the
oracle, you are attacked by a crocolisk and fend him off. However,
one wolvar saw you and thinks you were helping the oracle, so
declares you a traitor. The oracle however takes you to his home,
where you meat the High-oracle. He and the other gorlocs give the
player various odd jobs, while being various degrees of smugly
superior. Though, to be fair, they do give the player a bit of an
incentive to help, being a slightly better developed culture, not
treating you like a slave and trying to save lives and make peace
rather than stirring up trouble. In the end, the player fights a lich
that resides in a destroyed sacred pillar (actually a shielding
mechanism left by the titans), and can choose to kill either a gorloc
or a wolvar, which allies the player with the opposing side. I just
don't get why the player would want to help either of them, other
than for out-of-universe reasons (experience, gold for completing
quests even if there is no reward in-universe, chance at rare pet and
mount).
Azjol-nerub
While we're at it, let's talk about the two
“missing” zones of WotLK. Azjol-nerub was supposed to be World of
Warcraft's first subterranean zone, centered around the ancient
nerubian spider kingdom. Based on what we can see in-game, it was
roughly beneath Wintergrasp.
However, either due to time constraints or due
to problems with the engine, the zone didn't get into the game, which
I find a bit of a shame. Instead, the zone was split into two
dungeons, Azjol-Nerub and Ahn'kanet. Not everything made it in,
sadly, though you can see (but not visit) some additional bits of
designed terrain while exploring the dungeons.
Crystalsong Forest
Unlike Azjol-nerub, Crystalsong forest can
actually be found as a zone in the game. However, the amount of
quests in the zone can be counted on one hand, and it's only notable
due to the presence of Dalaran hovering in its' sky.
While there is no way to know for sure, you can
probably make a pretty good guess about the original contents of the
zone. It would have likely continued the storyline of the blue
dragonflight. The reasoning for this is rather obvious. First,
Dalaran, main enemy of the blue dragonflight, hovers in the sky.
Second, it takes an important place in the backstory of the blue
dragonflight, as it was created when Deathwing used the dragon soul
to slaughter them during the war of the ancients. Third, the
crystalline creatures in the zone are also found in The Nexus,
suggesting a link. With the nexus war storyline as it is, the
presence of this zone is sorely missed.
However, I don't think that's the only missing
feature that would have been in the zone. With the large amounts of
ancient night elf architecture and the presence of crystal fey,
there's a pretty good chance that that the night elves, probably in
the form of the cenarion circle, would also have had a storyline. As
I said before, their presence on the continent is oddly small, and a
missing encampment would go a long way towards explaining that.
Considering Lands of Mystery was based on early plans for Northrend,
it's also a fair bet that the green dragonflight (who were one of the
two races present in the zone in the RPG) would have been involved,
tying the nexus war and the cenarion stuff together.
Architecture
While we're between arcs, we might as well
discuss some other various bits. Both the horde and the alliance get
new architecture for their military bases.
I'm rather fond of both new horde architectural
styles. The warsong offensive architecture is a mixture between
Hellfire Citadel and the orcish architecture of Warcraft III. As the
warcraft III-styled bases were a tad flimsy (wood, skins and what
appears to be drywall), it makes a lot of sense that the new bases be
built in a different style.
The forsaken architecture is also excellent,
combining dark metal with a mad scientist's laboratory, perfectly
capturing the feel for the forsaken this expansion. Like the new
orcish architecture, it makes sense for the forsaken to be building
in a different style. They can't keep using old, damaged, rotten
human buildings forever, can they?
I'm less fond of the valiance expedition
however. First of all, there is no reason for there to be a new style
of building. Both human and dwarven architecture would be perfectly
serviceable for the frozen north. Mixing the two would make some
sense, but that's not what the designers did. Instead, we just get a
different style of quasi-medieval human architecture. Nothing wrong
with that, I guess, just not very interesting.
On the flipside, the human architecture in
grizzly hills is very well-designed. The fact that it is different
from normal human architecture is logical (quarries are very far away
and local wood is in abundance), and it definitely adds to the feel
of the zone. You can also see a close resemblance to the vrykul
architecture, hinting at the connection between humans and vrykul.
The scourge also get some new architecture.
Previously, their architecture had resembled that of the ancient
nerubian empire, one of the first conquests of Ner'zhul. Arthas' new
bases are instead built out of saronite, and made to resemble his own
armor as a monument to his ego. How lucky for Arthas that saronite
has the exact same colour as the otherworldly metal the dreadlords
used to forge the armor of the lich king. Joking aside, it looks
good, though it's nice that the designers haven't entirely forgotten
the old style and still use it for the scourge architecture outside
the Icecrown fortifications.
The architecture of the new cultures is also
very good. Special points for the taunka, gorloc and drakkari
architecture, which bear a close resemblance to their sister cultures
while still maintaining a unique flair of their own. I especially
love the drakkari architecture, though that may be due to my love for
troll architecture in general. I'll admit that the wolvar and frost
giant architecture leaves me a bit cold though. Not having building
interiors hurts a lot.
Naxxramas
Moving Naxxramas from the Eastern Plaguelands
to Dragonblight in order to recycle the raid was absolutely lazy.
Don't get me wrong though. From a gameplay perspective, the laziness
was absolutely understandable. Thanks to old WoW raids requiring a
RIDICULOUS amount of preparation, being RIDICULOUSLY hard, and
Naxxramas being the highest tier of vanilla, there were probably
entire servers where no one had ever finished the raid until TBC came
out.
My problem lies with the laziness from a story
perspective. More specifically, the naxxramas bosses are dead. One
quest explains the resurrection of Kel'thuzad (his phylactery was a
quest item in vanilla, but the person who you handed the phylactery
to was a secret agent of the scourge), but what about all the other
bosses? And why wasn't Naxxramas destroyed or taken over by the
argent dawn after adventurers had conquered it? In fact, the
explanation for Kel'thuzad's resurrection makes less sense, since we
could otherwise just say that the entire raid was non-canon.
However, even then, it doesn't quite work.
Several of the naxxramas bosses have canonical deaths outside the
raid. I pointed out Patchwerk all the way in the beginning, so I'm
just going to count these resurrections as the same problem. I'm
specifically talking about Anub'rekhan, Grobbulus, Thaddius, Lady
Blaumeaux and Thane Korth'azz, who were all killed during the events
of the Ashbringer comic.
I have heard the counter-argument that these
resurrections do make sense, as the scourge still had access to their
bodies, and there really shouldn't be much of a difference between
raising the body of a person who died once and a person who died
twice. Okay, that's a fair point. However, it's hard to imagine that
the people who have been fighting the scourge have made absolutely no
plans for keeping killed enemies dead. Even if the guys in ashbringer
had no time to take extraordinary measures, they still had a mage
capable of casting fire spells with them. Even if we assume that the
mage didn't think of burning the bodies and/or did know any fire
spells, there are still two other resurrected characters. Patchwerk
was killed in Acherus when it was conquered by the ebon blade. There
is no way the scourge had access to that body. And Thane Korth'azz
was killed by being struck by ashbringer, which is named for its
distinctive trait of turning killed undead to ash.
On the plus side, everything related to the
Atiesh storyline was cut. You may remember me referring to that as
one of the dumbest storylines in WoW, and I stick to that statement.
I guess this is as good a time to elaborate as any. First of all, the
quest was given by a highborne member of the Kirin Tor whose life's
work was the reforging of Atiesh. While the idea that a highborne
could have joined the Kirin Tor is possible, he should be over ten
thousand years old by this point. Atiesh was shattered four years
before vanilla. Rebuilding it can hardly be called his life's work
with those timescales. Second, he was a lone highborne hanging around
in Naxxramas. How the hell hadn't he been killed yet? Third, how did
Brann Bronzebeard end up with the base? Fourth, why did Brann
Bronzebeard carry it into Ahn'qiraj? Fifth, when did the greatest
knights of Lordaeron get murdered in a small passage in Stratholme
and how did it turn that spot into the holiest area of the planet?
Sixth, why is the demon inside the staff named Atiesh, when Atiesh
was already named Atiesh before it became corrupted? I'd almost say
that the comic version made more sense, but comparing two infinitely
stupid things is impossible. Hurray for this stupid, STUPID, quest
line being removed.
Inscription
Inscription in WotLK was the single most boring
trade skill in the game. All you did was make glyphs and scrolls.
Glyphs and scrolls. Glyphs and scrolls. Oh look, I have learned how
to make a new glyph! Maybe next I'll get a scroll...
Compare this to Jewelcrafting, which was
focused on creating socket-filling gems, but also gave the player a
lot of other recipes to add some variety. The glyphs themselves are
also a lot more boring than the concept would seem. There are few
things I praise cataclysm for, but one of the things it did right was
expanding inscription to make it less boring.
Dalaran
Problem #14: Dalaran. I hate the way Dalaran
was handled in Wrath of the Lich King. Just for those of you who
didn't read my special look at the alliance, I'm going to repeat what
happened to Dalaran during Warcraft III. It was invaded by the
scourge, crushed by Archimonde, overrun by the scourge, overrun by
the naga, overrun by night & blood elves, overrun by the scourge
once more, mostly taken by the new alliance with some scourge left,
left by the new alliance, and then finally taken from the scourge.
Vanilla then added attacked by the forsaken. Wrath of the Lich King
added attacked by blue dragons.
Long story short, there is no way in hell
anyone in Dalaran should have survived all the way from the start of
the third war to the start of the nexus war. If I really suspended my
disbelief, I could buy that there were enough citizens away from
Dalaran at the time (and not with the expedition to Kalimdor or in
Nethergarde, as those mages seemed to have stayed there) that they
could founded a minor community. Emphasis on minor. Maybe something
like Goldshire, or The Den. A size similar to Theramore would already
be too large. However, the Dalaran of WotLK is an outright capital.
Another nonsensical development was how diverse
Dalaran suddenly got. While there always had been an established high
elf community within the city, and its nature made a diverse
population probable amongst the wizarding population, it was still
regarded as one of the seven human kingdoms. Yet here, less than half
the population seems to be human.
Actually, speaking of that high elf community;
How did they survive until now? While we're clearly taking some
'liberties' with the backstory of Dalaran, the stuff with Garithos
and the Blood Elves explicitly still happened. Garithos was ready to
execute all elves in the city. They only survived with the aid of
Lady Vashj. So how exactly do so many high elves remain? The only way
I can think of is that the silver covenant had already distanced
themselves from Silvermoon before Garithos tried to execute the blood
elves (we know that more than a few of them were Silvermoon-loyal at
one point, because some still hold the rank of magister/magistrix).
Except the Silvermoon Elves hadn't really done anything all that
questionable by that point (and the silver covenant can't have
defected later on, since the mages of Dalaran didn't let anyone into
their dome shield). Really, the only things they did was change their
name, their national colors and fight to free their homelands along
the alliance. Since the silver covenant has no problem working with
the alliance, the only explanation that remains is that they were so
offended by the name and fashion change that they defected in large
numbers.
Comedic Elements
Problem #15: Excessive and unfitting comedic
elements. The amount of comedic elements in the expansion once again
grows, though it at least does me the courtesy of not messing up any
important stories. The ones that annoy me most are probably the books
lying around in the death knight starting zone which, when read,
completely mess up the atmosphere the game was actually succeeding in
achieving.
Second on my list of hated comedic moments is
probably the D.E.H.T.A., a group of druids campaigning for animal
rights by murdering hunters. It's once again trying to force druids
into the role of environmentalists, but it just doesn't fit either
the night elves, who are xenophobic and a tad militaristic, or the
tauren, who are traveling hunters. There is no way either society
would have accepted someone who kills hunters. There is so much about
the D.E.H.T.A. quests that doesn't make sense, and we're all supposed
to ignore it because it was intended as comedy. But I play World of
Warcraft to see, well, the world of Warcraft. Not to see half-assed
parodies. It's not like you can't have any comedy that works from an
in-universe perspective.
Death Knights
While the concepts of Death knights is really
cool, I've never really liked them from a gameplay perspective. They
were like this weird mixture of warriors, mages and warlocks, and
they never really seemed to get much of a class identity of their
own.
Of course, Death Knights were created to be
different from the other classes, a hero class rather than a normal
class. However, I think the entire concept of hero classes was a big
mistake, mostly because there was so little to distinguish them from
regular classes, but also because there was only one hero class
introduced. Why should this one class start at level 55, while other
classes start at level 1? Sure, Death Knights likely had a long
career behind them when they were raised, but no one starts out as a
paladin or a warlock either, and I don't see them starting at higher
levels.
Then there was the fact that every race was
able to become a death knight, several of which really didn't have a
justification. The tauren, night elves and jungle trolls were in
completely different areas of the world (they did face the scourge,
but that part of the scourge was loyal to the legion, not Ner'zhul),
while the gnomes were busy dealing with the trogg invasion during the
third war. And hey, that's two alliance races and two horde races,
meaning the class availability is perfectly balanced.
Caverns of Time
The alliance becoming the monarchy is now also
working retroactively, as we travel back in time to Stratholme, when
the alliance was still called the alliance of Lordaeron. And the
sigil of Stormwind is freaking everywhere. It's patently ridiculous.
The sigil of Stormwind wasn't even the symbol of the alliance back
then. Yet it's much more widespread than the sigil of Lordaeron,
which was both the symbol of the alliance at the time and the nation
to which Stratholme belonged. Arthas, who was the prince of Lordaeron
at the time, has the sigil of Stormwind on him five times! You'd
think they could have spared a couple of reskins for this.
Phasing
This expansion introduced a mechanism that was
absolutely vital to story-telling: phasing. Basically, it allowed the
player to see a different version of an in-game area depending on
which quests he'd completed. Finally, we got to see the world change
as the result of a storyline.
Sadly, it didn't seem that blizzard realized
the full story-telling potential of their new tool. Specifically,
they didn't seem to realize that there was no more need for one-time
events and patches changing areas that took place at a different spot
in the timeline. The event that led up to Wrath of the Lich King
should really have been told through quests so that new players could
get the full events. The zeppelin towers and docks to Northrend
should have been phased to only appear after the introductory quests.
Phasing would also have been really good for
content introduced in patches, most notably the argent tournament.
The starting quest-chain in Icecrown is all about the argent crusade
establishing a base in Icecrown. Yet, if you do the quest after the
patch that introduced the coliseum, there is this massive structure
belonging to the argent crusade already in Icecrown. This seems like
the thing phasing was invented for! Sadly, blizzard didn't wise up
about this until Mists of Pandaria, and even then its not used
consistently.
VI
– Ulduar
Lead-up
I mentioned that there were two other wars
going in Northrend. One of these was the nexus war. The other was the
war against Yogg-Saron. AND IT IS GLORIOUS! No, seriously, the
questlines are awesome.
Okay, the plot. Unlike the nexus war, there
isn't really an overall story. Instead, we have a number of
independent interactions with the remnants of the titans, which add
to the final story in the Storm Peaks, but aren't necessary to
understand it.
In the borean tundra, a gnomish expedition has
discovered several parts of a machine, buried some distance from one
another. Being gnomes, they put the machine back together, revealing
it to be a gnome-like creature called a mechagnome. The individual
unit's name is Gearmaster Mechazod. Mechazod reveals that he was a
creation of the titans, and wishes to return to their time. As a
start, he removed the curse of flesh from the gnomes that found him,
revealing that they are actually the descendants of the mechagnomes.
In Scholazar, evidence of the titans can be
found far and wide, with the five pillars in the basin actually
acting as a shield. Like the crystals of Un'goro held off the
silithid, the pillars hold off the scourge. Eventually, Scholazar and
Un'goro are revealed to be testing areas, where the life that now
covers Azeroth was developed. One of the pillars in Un'goro has
failed due to sabotage by living servants of the scourge, and they
are now invading in massive numbers. However, holding them off is an
avatar of a mysterious creature named Freya, who enlists the player
to help drive them back.
In the Dragonblight, Wyrmrest Temple and the
path that goes through it turn out to be titan creations, as shown by
the massive titan golem, Jotun, patrolling the path. Shame he isn't
actually involved in any quests though.
In Howling Fjord, there's three events of
significance. First, you discover that the vrykul are the distant
ancestors of humanity (and they later turn out to be titan creations
themselves). Second, we see a war that's been going on for a while,
with stone-skinned titan creations fighting creatures of metal.
Third, we get to see the first signs of the true nature of saronite
as the player enters a quarry and the stuff starts whispering to him.
I've already mentioned the Grizzly Hills, where
Yogg-saron has corrupted Vordrassil. From his name, it should already
be pretty obvious that he's connected to saronite. The war between
stone and metal also continues in this zone, with the iron dwarves
possessing several strongholds. The player also discovers that a
being named Loken is the one behind the war.
In Zul'drak, the scourge is once more messing
with this sub-plot, as they are attacking and imprisoning storm
giants, cutting them into bits to make flesh giants.
In Icecrown itself, we see the scourge once
again mine saronite, though this time more of the relation between
Yogg-saron and the scourge is seen, with scourge forces having
exposed parts of yogg-saron's tendrils in their quarries, and having
captured one of his minions. While the scourge may use the blood of
Yogg-saron, they are also his enemies.
Storm Peaks
Then, we get to the storm peaks, where this
plot reaches its climax. The exact events still aren't told linearly,
but with a bit of warcraft knowledge, you should be able to figure
out a rough picture. In early stages of Azeroth's development, it
suffered from infection by the old gods. When the titans came, they
fought and defeated the old gods, as well as their elemental armies,
and sealed them away. When the titans reshaped Azeroth, they created
a number of species to assist, including the earthen.
However, the old gods had not been truly
contained. They “destabilized the matrix” of the titan creations
that had been left behind in order to fully take over the world
again. The destabilization was dubbed the curse of flesh, and its
effects would only worsen over time. The titans returned to kill the
old gods, but they discovered that the old gods had so thoroughly
infected the planet that their death would result in the
extermination of the planet.
So, additional security measures were needed.
The titans constructed the Forge of Wills to build new earthen, as
well as create the storm giants and earth giants, whose purpose was
to defend azeroth (unlike the sea giants and mountain giants, whose
primary job was help shape the world). Loken was appointed Prime
Designate, responsible for leading the new defenses, while the
dragonflights would keep track of the development of the planet.
However, Loken was manipulated by Yogg-saron
and slowly corrupted. The first act in their plan was to once more
neutralize the titan creations. Using his skill at lies, he secretly
manipulated the storm giants and the stone giants into a global war.
With halting global war as an excuse, Loken put most of the
titan-created species into stasis. During this stasis, some titan
species were overcome by the curse of flesh and woke up again, no
longer in the titans' service. Loken then moved on to corrupting the
other watchers of Ulduar: Thorim, Hodir, Freya, Mimiron and Tyr, who
maintained a temple and guardians of their own.
Thorim's wife Sif was killed by Loken, who then
blamed the frost giants. This caused a war between the servants of
Thorim, the Frost Vrykul (and possibly frostborn), and the frost
giants, servants of Hodir. Thorim himself retreated to the temple of
storms in mourning, staying there for thousands of years.
Using the absence of Thorim, Loken strengthened
his position, attacking and taking out Hodir, Freya and Mimiron. Tyr
also vanished during this period, though he wasn't taken out by
Loken. We're not sure what happened to him. With no one to watch over
him, Loken forged an army of iron servants, made at least partially
by converting old stone creatures. Around the time that the horde and
the alliance made landfall, a war had begun between the remaining
stone forces and the ever-growing iron forces. The stone forces are
holding up remarkably well, but they're still losing due to not
having any way to restore their numbers, while the iron armies have
the forges of ulduar.
The player has had contact with this war
several times, the alliance more so than the horde, generally
fighting on the side of the stone beings. However, it isn't until the
Storm Peaks that the player actively becomes a player in the war.
The alliance story here is one of my few
problems with the arc. First, because some of the quests should
definitely have been neutral, most notably “Fate of the Titans”,
which revealed that there were watchers other than Loken and Thorim,
and that they'd already been taken out.
The other one is obvious, and one that many
people had. Problem #16: Muradin Bronzebeard. During the questline it
is revealed that frostmourne didn't actually kill Muradin when Arthas
took it from the pedestal, it merely knocked him out and gave him
amnesia. Him surviving was actually shown in an earlier quest in the
dragonblight. While not a strict retcon, it is a very, very stupid
development. This was Arthas' turn of darkness, an incredibly
important moment in WoW lore. Why would you change that? It's also a
change that makes very little sense. When Arthas picked up the
weapon, it had an inscription that it was cursed. Presumably, this
was a final personality test set up by the lich king to see if Arthas
was suitable to become his champion. When Arthas told the sword that
he was willing to accept any curse to save his kingdom, the pedestal
burst open in a shower of frozen shards, one of which hit and killed
Brann. Initially, this seemed like part of the curse, but the later
reveal about frostmourne's true nature would suggest it wasn't. A
coincidence also seems unlikely, because having random lethal ice
shards spraying around and killing the person who's supposed to pick
up the sword is not a good idea. You may be able to raise him later,
but there's lots of not-so-happy things that can happen to the body
in the meantime, what with the local wildlife. We know the scourge
wasn't keeping a close eye on the cavern either, since they would
have just killed and raised Muradin while he was unconscious if they
were. So, that leaves one logical option. The ice explosion was a way
to wipe out everyone in the room except Arthas, leaving no witnesses
and/or potential enemies. But in that case, why not just kill the
people in the room? You're an evil legion of undeath. You can always
use more corpses. Plus, giving people amnesia generally takes more
effort than just killing them. And the amnesia was not very
effective, as it's broken the instant Muradin sees Brann. There is no
way Muradin should have been able to survive frostmourne cave.
Now I'll admit, the scene where the brothers
Bronzebeard finally reunite is very good, one of the best scenes
warcraft ever did. However, even that isn't worth the stupidity of
Muradin's resurrection. Now a reunion between the sisters Windrunner,
that's something that should have been in the game.
Anyway, back to the main titans plot. Players
of both factions get drawn into the main plot when they go recover a
group of kidnapped men, who have been taken to Brunnhildar Village,
the only village of frost vrykul not to follow the lich king. The
people of Brunnhildar are all female, kidnapping men to work as
slaves. However, amongst their captives is also another female vrykul
named Lok'lira, who, due to her gender, they treat relatively well.
Lok'lira helps the player free the captives by transforming him into
a frost vrykul.
After her assistance, she herself requests the
player's aid. She wants the player to reinvigorate Thorim so that he
will reunite the races of frost and retake Ulduar, killing the vile
Loken in the process. It sounds like something that's both heroic and
will result in epic lootz, so the player agrees. To reach Thorim, the
player must compete in the Hyldsmeet, a contest between the women of
Brunnhildar to see who is most worthy of becoming Thorim's wife. If
this was made in cataclysm, it would have been a parody of one of
those weird reality shows where people look for a partner. But no,
this is wrath of the lich king, with a better questing experience
than any other expansion, and it is played seriously, developing the
culture along the way.
The player, being a god-killer clad in 80
levels of some of the best magical weaponry on two planets, naturally
wins, reaching Thorim. Luckily, the wedding did not have to be
consummated, and Thorim realizes fairly quickly that the player is
genuinely trying to help him come back. During another long series of
quests (seriously, this quest-chain is enormous), you help Thorim
recover to his former glory, become friends with the frost giants
again and even help capture his old mount. With a fully reinvigorated
Thorim at your side, you fly to the temple of wisdom, confronting
Loken.
Who then reveals that this was his plan all
along. You see, Loken was actually Lok'lira, and this was all a plot
to lure Thorim away from the temple of storms, where he would be at
his strongest, to the temple of wisdom, where Loken could be
empowered by Yogg-saron. Woops. Loken quickly takes out Thorim with
his dark powers, also capturing his mount. Loken leaves the player
alive. Unlike what happened after Drakuru's death, I'm not going to
complain about this, because A) You actually were doing stuff that
helped his cause and B) It's possible that Loken was already planning
his own death.
Two dungeons now. Halls of Stone and Halls of
Lightning. In Halls of Stone, you work with Brann Bronzebeard to get
information from the tribunal of ages, which gives most of the
backstory I wrote above, and take over the Forge of Wills, which was
built by the titans to create their second series of earthen. As in
all dungeons, you are successful, and Brann starts pumping out new
earthen soldiers. I'm sure that they're going to play a huge role in
future events!
Halls of Lightning is pretty much just a battle
to reach Loken and kill the bastard. When you take him out
(Yogg-saron doesn't appear to be empowering him this time), he gives
one last cryptic message about his death damning the planet. Woops.
Again.
Ulduar
And then, it's finally time for Ulduar itself,
added in the first patch for WotLK. Part of the story is told through
the trailer, which really should have been an in-game cutscene.
Unfortunately, it involves the alliance/horde conflict, so it is
really, really stupid. Problem #17: The Ulduar trailer. Brann tried
to explore Ulduar after Loken's dead, but he ran into some trouble,
being forced to flee for his life. He went to the Kirin Tor, seeking
assistance from the two major factions. The alliance delegation
arrives first, consisting of Varian and two guys I don't recognize.
Jaina is also present, but she's already been informed, so she just
stares from the balcony, slightly bored.
At that point, the horde delegation, consisting
of Thrall and Garrosh, arrives at the bottom of the violet citadel.
If you remember the battle for the undercity, you will recall that
Varian has some problems with orcs (and possibly the rest of the
horde). Jaina, deciding to be sensible, quickly teleports to greet
them and keep them out of sight of the alliance negotiation while
giving them the same exposition Varian is getting. I'm again
wondering why the hell Garrosh has been taken along. Thrall mentions
he got here as fast as he could, which means teleportation. Thrall
was in Orgrimmar (or possibly in Nagrand). Garrosh was somewhere in
Northrend. That means Thrall went out of his way to bring Garrosh,
and only Garrosh, along. Why?
Garrosh demands to see Brann, so he can see the
fear in his eyes and decide whether or not the tales about Yogg-saron
are true. The fact that he says it without condescension actually
makes me hope for one minute that Garrosh is evolving as a character.
But no. He enters the room, sees Varian, draws his weapon, ignores an
order by Thrall, punches Jaina out of the way and attacks Varian. WHY
IS HE STILL IN CHARGE OF THE WARSONG OFFENSIVE AFTER THIS?
What makes the entire thing even weirder is
that Garrosh tells Rhonin that a true warchief would never ally with
humans, and the horde will thus not aid the expedition into Ulduar.
Thrall is standing like ten feet away. How is this decision up to
Garrosh? And no, the horde doesn't help the ulduar expedition. Thrall
just says he's disappointed in Garrosh and walks away, apparently
unable to do anything about Garrosh' decision despite him being the
warchief and thus being his absolute ruler. This entire series of
events make no sense. And why is Garrosh still in charge after this?
No, really, I want an answer. ANSWER ME, GAME INCAPABLE OF RESPONSE!
ANSWER ME!
On the alliance side, Varian says that he'll
never work with the horde because of their betrayal at the wrathgate
and teleports out. Well, shucks, if only there were nations in the
alliance other than Stormwind. It would especially be fortuitous if
Jaina Proudmoore was a monarch. Or if Muradin's brother was a king.
Or if Rhonin's wife was the leader of her own army of high elves. But
alas, there is sadly only one nation in the alliance.
The amount of stupid concentrated in this one
trailer is just staggering. I still stand by the statement that this
(with maybe some better editing, and cutting out the last few lines)
should have been an in-game cutscene, as it is a necessary part of
the story. But man, is it stupid.
Luckily for the planet, the player doesn't
follow orders from his superior officers, and joins the Ulduar
expedition anyway. The ulduar raid is absolutely fantastic, my
favorite after Karazhan (and I'll admit it would probably have been
my favorite if it didn't remind me of that stupid trailer). The
layout of the raid makes sense from both the gameplay and an
in-universe perspective, and looks really cool. The boss encounters
are cleverly designed, with good lore for almost all of them. Unlike
Icecrown later on, the bosses for this raid were actually thought out
up front, with plenty of foreshadowing were necessary. Even the sound
of the raid is fantastic, with great music and some very impressive
voice acting, especially on Yogg-Saron.
The basic idea of the raid is that you want to
stop Yogg-Saron. To get to him, you have to fight your way past a
load of defenses, including some orbital weaponry. No, really.
Ancient titan satellite cannons. Awesome. Arriving in the heart of
Ulduar, you set out to free the watchers from Yogg-sarons control.
Naturally, you do this by beating them up, because that's all the
player character knows how to do. It's surprisingly effective though.
Now here's where my personality forces me to
nitpick despite loving the raid. You may remember that there were
originally six watchers. With Loken dead and Tyr vanished, only four
remain inside Ulduar. Yet the raid design doesn't seem to include the
two missing watchers at all. There are only four watcher rooms, the
doors only portray four watcher symbols and there are only four
sigils for the archivum console. The room thing can be handwaved,
since there are actually six rooms that can be reached directly from
the ring of observation (with the antechamber likely being Loken's
room and the descent into madness formerly belonging to Tyr).
However, the other two really can't.
After you free the watchers from his influence,
you face Yogg-saron during the single best boss battle in the game.
Parts of the fight take place inside Yogg-saron's mind, as the player
sees three visions. First is the creation of the dragon soul,
indicating that Yogg-saron is probably one of the three old gods
responsible for the corruption of Deathwing (alongside N'zoth and
I-have-no-name-but-am-evil). Second is the assassination of King
Llane by Garona Halforcen. I'm not exactly sure why this vision is
shown at all. With the timeframe involved, it would be really hard
for Yogg-saron to have any influence on Garona at all. I'd dismiss
it, except that Yogg-saron's loot table includes a lot of items
related to the assassination. Maybe the Twilight's Hammer brought
those items to him? The third vision is one of Arthas, turning an
“immolated champion” into a death knight. We'll get to that.
Yogg-saron isn't the final boss of Ulduar
however. You see, when the player killed prime designate Loken, an
automatic signal was sent out to the titans, who responded by sending
Algalon, a creature of pure celestial energy. Algalon was tasked with
analyzing the planet and seeing whether the death of the Prime
Designate meant that the planet was irrevocably corrupted, or if it
was unrelated to corruption (perhaps he fell down some stairs or
something). Unfortunately, Azeroth has become just a tad tarnished
over the last few thousand years, so Algalon decides to give the
order to destroy the surface. Naturally, this results in the player
beating him up. Algalon states that the entire thing is futile as
there is no way for us to defeat him (and even if we did, the order
would be sent out automatically), but frankly, I'm calling his bluff.
By this point, the player has faced gods, demigods, watchers, dragon
aspects and a lord of the burning legion. Algalon is a powerful,
sure, but he's no Yogg-saron. The raid beats up Algalon pretty good,
and he gives in. Officially, he is amazed by the tenacity of mortal
life and wants to give us a fighting chance. Personally, I think he
read the records a bit more thoroughly to see where all the epic loot
we were carrying came from and discovered we were actually being
pretty successful in reducing corruption, but didn't want to admit
that he had send the signal before fully reading the records and risk
us pummeling him some more.
So he gives us the “all-is-well” code,
which, when sent, overrides the re-origination order. We need to send
the signal from a high location, which is where the the story does a
minor side-step in logic once again. From both an in-universe and a
narrative perspective, sending the signal from the temple of storms
would have made the most sense. It's the highest mountain on the
planet and played a very important role in the questline. However,
I'm guessing that blizzard realized that most people didn't read
quest text, so they sent the player to the more recognizable location
of Dalaran, where Rhonin gives an incredibly corny little
speech as he sends the signal. Seriously, that speech always makes me
cringe when I hear it. Still though, the raid experience was epic.
VII
– Assault on Icecrown
And, it's time for Icecrown. Since he became
the lich king, Arthas has constructed massive fortifications
throughout the region, making any direct assault impossible. The
scarlet onslaught and the argent crusade instead tried alternative
ways to get in. The scarlet onslaught tried an attack by ship, but
they failed rather miserably, getting their ass kicked before
ultimately being finished by the player (who discovers that Mal'ganis
was still alive and leading them, suggesting that Balnazzar's
survival wasn't a sign of Varimathras' betrayal, but an innate
power.).
The argent crusade instead decided to dig
through the mountain ranges around Icecrown to get into the area.
Unfortunately for them, their entrance turned out to be right at the
scourge stronghold of Scourgeholme, and a rather large battle ensued.
With some major aid from the player, the argent crusade prevailed,
establishing a minor base in the area.
But they're not the only ones. The horde and
the alliance have constructed massive aerial barges to attack
Icecrown from above (though they really spend most of their time
attacking one another). I love these things. Their designs are
ridiculously implausible, as I'm fairly sure both ships could be
brought to crash with a single well-aimed explosive, but they look
awesome nonetheless.
Problem #18: The shadow vault. The ebon blade
also establishes a base in the region. What I don't get is why they
need a base at all. They have a mobile, flying fortress, more
powerful than any of the necropoli commanded by the scourge. Just
park that thing over the ocean. Instead, they decide to conquer the
shadow vault.
Now remember problem #5, about the question how
the ebon blade is such a large organisation despite there only being
four people present at the place they were turned? That get's even
more bizarre here, as there is an ebon blade infiltrator stationed at
the shadow vault. Let's assume for a moment that there were a few
dozen unseen death knights. Then how would any of them infiltrate the
scourge? The fact that they're not in mental contact with the lich
king should have been a blatant give-away. They even mention during
the quest that the lich king can see through the eyes of his minions.
Now before you comment on the player infiltrating the scourge during
the Drakuru story, remember that the player was actually wearing an
item that was supposed to turn anyone into a ghoul. No real need to
double-check. However, a death knight that was present at a battle
during which a heaping lot of death knights turned? That's just
silly. Especially since its really easy to eliminate infiltrators.
Just kill them and then raise them again. The scourge does it
multiple times during the expansion, so that shouldn't be causing any
troubles.
Now there is actually an answer for this.
Unfortunately, it is a Voodoo Shark, an answer that makes absolutely
no sense and raises far more questions than the one it answered. In
this case, that answer is the sovereign rod, a torture device used by
the scourge to keep more intelligent undead in line. This particular
sovereign rod has been enchanted further, and is used to break the
hold that the lich king has over his minions by killing them and
using the rod to resurrect them. However, two problems with this.
First, the device is explicitly mentioned as not working on Death
Knights, so it can't have been the source of any of these death
knights. Second, why do we only use that device here? I can think of
dozens of better targets for the rod. It's like Thrall one-shotting
the necropolis in the comics. An ability this powerful should be a
major plot point and seen as a major factor throughout the story, not
during a single quest against a fairly minor target.
There's a few other major questlines in
Icecrown. One features a crusader that has been plagued, and has the
player looking for a way to safe him. This quest is actually a
tribute to the dead brother of an employee. The quest-chain is pretty
good, and has the player go to a number of major sources of curative
power, like Keeper Remulos, Alexstrasza and finally A'dal. While the
player is unable to safe Bridenbrad's life, three of the naaru arrive
as he dies, and guide his soul to a heaven equivalent rather than
letting him be corrupted by the lich king. While I'd complain about
the naaru once again acting as deus ex machinas, this one actually
makes sense. Given that the naaru are pretty much made out of the
light, they probably just absorbed his soul into themselves.
Actually, now that I think about it, that
actually makes a lot of sense. Would certainly explain why D'ore was
buried inside a naaru tomb. He was absorbing the souls of the
light-worshipping draenei to become undarkened himself. K'ure may
have been the opposite, with the demons making him absorb the
shamanistic orc spirits to dilute the light inside of him.
Another story ties interestingly into the
Arthas: Rise of the Lich King book. In that book, there were three
separate personae inside the lich king. Ner'zhul and Arthas should be
obvious. However, there was a third person, a small, sick child, on
the verge of death. You see, when Arthas first took frostmourne, his
soul was shattered. The arthas that became the lich king was
assembled from the aspects that Ner'zhul wanted in his champion. The
original Arthas was reduced to this small child. You'd think this was
all metaphorical or something, but apparently not, as we actually get
to meet the child, who has taken the form of a ghost (even though
corrupted arthas killed the child aspect in the book. I guess that
part was metaphorical).
The child is imported for two things. First, it
gives players not that familiar with warcraft lore a bit of an
introduction to the character of Arthas, as we play him when he kills
his own men after first becoming the lich king, as well as during his
fight with Illidan. It's revealed that the fight was actually pretty
damn hard for Arthas, which is excellently reflected in the in-game
fight; Illidan is more powerful overall, but Arthas could beat him
through a clever use of skills. Thinking his weakness came from his
emotions, he does the second important thing: he rips out his heart
and throws it into a realm of madness. You'd think that was
metaphorical too, but no. You actually find his heart floating in a
pit infested with faceless ones. It's a bit weird, but in an awesome
way.
However, Arthas sensed you messing around with
his organ and realized that just throwing it away somewhere wasn't
actually all that secure. Instead, he planned to bring it to the
cathedral of darkness, which is pretty much the evil counterpart of
the light's hope chapel. The player, Mograine (leader of the ebon
blade) and Tirion Fordring disguise themselves to intercept the
heart. Tirion wants to see if Arthas is still redeemable.
Unfortunately, Arthas is very much irredeemable, and with the
advantage of standing on cursed ground, is too powerful for Tirion to
defeat. Tirion is forced to strike Arthas' heart, stunning him
momentarily, while Mograine opens a death gate for the infiltrators
to escape through.
The Argent Tournament
In patch 4.2, the argent crusade organized a
tournament to seek the strongest people on Azeroth, who would act as
an elite force to take out the lich king. It's a pretty sensible
idea, since you don't want to send an endless stream of cannon-fodder
inside the citadel only for them to be raised as undead.
So, pretty sensible idea. How to screw that up?
By having the tournament in Icecrown itself, far behind enemy lines.
Seriously, what the hell? There's at least two zones on the continent
that undead are unable to enter altogether. The tournament has almost
no defenses whatsoever. If the scourge just sent a single necropolis,
they would have captured all the best warriors on azeroth in a single
stroke.
The alliance and the horde both send
delegations. By this point I don't even have to tell you who the
delegates are. Seriously, Thrall, last time you had Garrosh with you,
he ignored your orders and punched one of your friends in the face.
The time before that, he tried to kill you. The time before that, he
tried to kill a prisoner before you got any information out of him.
Why do you keep bringing him along?
And every single time Garrosh opens his mouth
in this it is for another stupid reason. When he arrives on the
tournament, he insults Tirion Fordring and says he was totally in the
right for ignoring Thrall's orders and that he regrets not being able
to kill Varian. And Thrall is bringing him to a tournament where
Varian will also be present. The level of stupid on display here...
Plus, in Trial of the Crusader, Garrosh again makes a decision that
should be taken by Thrall (that the horde champions would fight the
alliance champions to the death, rather than both fighting argent
crusaders), despite Thrall sitting right next to him. How does he
keep getting away with this?
We know that Thrall isn't this stupid. We've
seen that in Warcraft III. When Grom proved to be uncontrollable,
Thrall sent him to a spot where he thought he could do no harm.
Granted, that resulted in war with the night elves, but based on the
information available to him, it was the smart thing to do. Yet here
he lets Garrosh do whatever he wants, even after the guy tried to
kill him.
Speaking of Trial of the Crusader, we get yet
another example of bosses resurrecting, as Anub'arak ambushes the
raid. Are we really supposed to believe the adventurers that killed
Anub'arak are stupid enough to not destroy the corpses of the
important undead they killed? Plus, I distinctly remember his broken
husk being a quest item. He still has his husk here. The hell?
The part that is missing
Normally, this is where we would move on to
icecrown itself. However, there is very obviously a plot missing
here. Throughout the expansion, we've been getting constant new
connections between the scourge, the old gods, and the titans. Just
on the confirmed side, we have the lich king pretending to be
Yogg-saron to get the titan-created vrykul to join him, the scourge
using the blood of Yogg-saron to create weaponry, the scourge using
ancient titan machinery from Azjol-Nerub to reenforce their armies
(though those guys were nowhere to be seen during the entire
expansion for some reason) and Arthas' heart being surrounded by
faceless ones. On the unconfirmed side, we have death knights using
runic magic, gargoyles exhibiting a power similar to the curse of
flesh, the scourge tolerating the presence of the twilight's hammer
in their nerubian outposts, val'kyr (along with spirit healers)
bearing a resemblance to the angels portrayed in titan architecture
and something that used the model of a revenant trying to prevent
Arthas from obtaining Frostmourne in Warcraft III.
Even Blizzard stated that there was something
that wasn't expressed well in the game, which had to do with “the
ability of mortals to become corrupted”. Most players assumed that
referred to Arthas, and thus called it stupid (which would certainly
be the case if it referred to him), but I'm actually thinking it
might have to do with Ner'zhul. Remember the flashback in
Yogg-saron's mind to Garona killing King Llane? While it's hard for
the old gods to be responsible for directly manipulating Garona, it
would be a lot more plausible for the old gods to be connected to the
shadow council. It's not like most orcish warlocks would care what
evil and dark sources their powers come from. And it would give some
explanation for when the twilight's hammer, agents of the shadow
council, came to serve the old gods.
So Ner'zhul gets turned into the lich king,
planted in the middle of nowhere and overseen by the dreadlords.
However, because of the knowledge gained from one of the old gods, he
knows of targets and magics in northrend that the nath'rezim do not.
Because of this, the scourge becomes far more powerful than they
anticipated. Anticipating a betrayal, they only take a small part of
the scourge to Kalimdor so that Ner'zhul can't claim the well of
eternity, leaving a vast portion behind in the Eastern Kingdoms.
Ner'zhul uses this opportunity to betray the legion, sending Arthas
to give Illidan information on the skull of Gul'dan.
Of course, that's just one theory. The
expansion provides no real indication for this theory, or any other
theory for that matter. The connection between the scourge, the
titans and the old gods is just kind of there, nothing ever done with
it. It especially feels like it would have been easy to do something
with the vrykul during the assault on Icecrown citadel, revealing
that the lich king was not the god of death and causing a rebellion.
However, that brings me to
Problem #19: The assault on Icecrown. During
Wrath of the lich king there was a lot of build-up for the eventual
assault on Icecrown Citadel. The taunka swore they would stand with
the horde. Oacha'noa commanded the Tuskarr to join the assault. Magni
Bronzebeard stated he would join. The horde and the alliance had a
ton of dailies to soften up the defenses of Icecrown for the
inevitable assault.
And then... there was no assault. An event that
the expansion had been building towards for its entire run was just
skipped over. The gates of Icecrown were just breached with patch
5.3. It wasn't even phased or anything. Of all the cut content in the
expansion (a lot of which I didn't even mention), this is by far the
saddest from a story-telling perspective. This could have been the
crowning moment for the entire expansion, like the battle of mount
hyjal was to warcraft III or the final charge against the Overmind
was for starcraft. But no, we never even get to see it. That's just
sad.
Icecrown
Time for
the final run (Ruby Sanctum really has no story, so we're skipping
it), as we enter Icecrown citadel itself. Patch 5.3, which added
Icecrown to the game, added 3 new dungeons that take place earlier in
the timeline. Remember Arthas' ghost child form? The kid mentioned
that Arthas sometimes left his sword alone in a place called the
halls of reflection. To reach the sword, Jaina and Sylvanas grab a
few individual adventurers like the player, as well as requisitioning
the champions from the coliseum (remember that the player is not one
of these champions, as it becomes important later).
The way to the sword is long and hard. First,
you have to fight through the forge of souls, where the scourge
produces its' weapons, followed by the pit of saron, where they
harvest saronite from an exposed tendril of Yogg-saron. Finally, you
get to the halls of reflection. While you aren't able to destroy the
sword, you are able to summon one of the spirits within; King Terenas
Menethil, Arthas' father. Unfortunately, the intelligence he gives
you is really stupid, but we'll get to that. Arthas himself also
shows up, beats Sylvanas/Jaina rather handily, and then pursues them
and the player until they manage to escape.
What always struck me about these dungeons is
that the story was clearly designed only for Jaina's powerset, not
Sylvanas'. Specifically, teleporting the player during the encounter
with scourgelord Tyrannus in the pit of Saron and breaking through
walls of ice during the flight in the halls of reflection are mage
powers. They are definitely not ranger powers.
Another
important factor of the dungeon was Quel'delar, an epic-level blade
that was obtained through quest-chain. It was created to be the
sister blade of Quel'serrar, with the idea that the dragonflights had
forged the two blades, giving one to the night elves and one to the
high elves. Nice story. Except it made no sense. Problem #20:
Quel'delar's backstory. Quel'serrar was a specific type of blade, established as
first being created before the war of the ancients (so before the
high elves even existed), though the specific example the player
wielded was forged during the questline. Basically, they threw out
the entire backstory of the original sword just for the sake of
calling their new sword its' sister sword.
What makes the entire thing even sillier is the
backstory of Quel'serrar did contain a reference to another sword
that could have easily taken the place of Quel'delar: The Prismatic
Blade of Quel'serrar. While lesser blades of Quel'serrar were simply
forged by a dragon, the prismatic blade contained the power of all
five dragon aspects. Even Neltharion lent his power, before he became
deathwing. It would have been so easy to say that the prismatic blade
belonged to a highborne, and that he took it with him when the
ancestors of the high elves were banished from night elf lands. Bam,
you've got a backstory!
The quest itself is pretty good though. You
obtain a shattered hilt, infiltrate the sunreavers/silver covenant to
obtain a copy of a “how-to-reforge-awesome-elven-sister-blades”
book, reforge the blade with saronite for some reason, bless the
blade in the sunwell because you were dumb enough to make it out of
saronite and then you've got yourself a sweet blade. You even get to
see a phased version of sunwell isle, now under complete blood elf
control.
Before we enter Icecrown itself, we should
discuss the revelation of king terenas. Problem #21: The revelation
of King Terenas. The good king reveals to us that, without a lich
king, the scourge will run rampant and destroy the entire world.
There's three layers of stupid to this.
First; we've seen what happens when the lich
king loses his hold over his minions: they gain self-control, though
often a somewhat corrupted personality. Sylvanas and her forsaken are
living (undying?) proof of that.
Second; if the scourge is already capable of
conquering the world with ease, why aren't they doing so right now?
Third; I don't buy the idea that a scourge
running rampant could destroy the world. Sure, they're the most
powerful faction on the planet, but a large portion of that power
comes from their intelligent members. The way its worded here implies
that they become a mindless horde. That means no or extremely limited
magic, including necromancy. No one able to fly necropoli. None of
the vrykul variations. No liches. No siege weaponry. No battle
tactics. The scourge has massive numbers, sure, but not to the point
of being able to compensate for that. Especially not in a world with
high-grade explosives.
So, onto icecrown itself. The goal here is
simple. Get in, murder the last few leaders of the scourge, then kill
the lich king. Of course, what would wrath of the lich king be
without miraculously resurrecting bosses? Say hello to Prince
Valanar, Prince Keleseth and Prince Taldaram. Yes, that's right,
three resurrected bosses for the price of one.
However, that's not the only boss encounter
that makes no sense. Problem #22: Bolvar Fordragon, raised as a death
knight. Remember the battle of the wrathgate? Well, apparently,
Arthas has now raised Saurfang the Younger and is trying to raise
Bolvar Fordragon as death knights. Even though when Arthas retreated
through the wrathgate, he wasn't carrying any bodies...
Okay, let's try for suspension of disbelief.
Maybe Arthas somehow used the souls he absorbed into frostmourne to
create new bodies and... Hold on! Arthas didn't kill Bolvar! In fact,
Bolvar didn't die until Arthas had already retreated into the
wrathgate! There is no way he could have gotten either Bolvar's body
or his soul. I'd call it a retcon, except Bolvar's body is still
covered in marks from the dragonfire, which can't have been there if
the lich king took Bolvar when he retreated into the gate. What the
hell?
Finally, we ascend to the apex of the original
Icecrown spire and face the lich king himself. Honestly, as far as
boss fights go, it's not really all that epic. I guess its the
surroundings. Sure, fighting on top of the original icecrown spire is
kind of cool, but it's a rather small area with nothing going on but
the fight. Yogg-saron had a massive chamber and portals into his
mind. Illidan had the entire world floating in the sky. Arthas has a
platform.
Anyway, I promised you stupidity, and hence I
shall deliver. Arthas uses a devastating spell to kill the entire
raid, when he finally reveals his plan. He has sacrificed armies,
allowed all of his champions and commanders to be killed, invited the
armies of the horde and the alliance to his very doorstop to get...
10/25 random adventurers.
Now, while some of you are currently dead due
to caved in skulls (which is rather annoying, since I only have like
10 readers), I know there are a few people who defend Arthas' plan.
After all, the player beat all the lieutenants, so he was clearly
better. First off, every kill was a group effort. Second of all,
we're not even the faction champions. Remember, the guys who invade
Icecrown canonically aren't the same as those that won in the argent
tournament. Those guys all died during the assault on the Pit of
Saron. Third, we're 10/25 guys on foot. There's an airship with big
guns circling the citadel. The second anyone steps outside, they get
an explosive to the face. Even if we get turned, we took out all the
guardians of Icecrown. By this point, an actual army will be enough
to break the might of the scourge.
Honestly, I was expecting something like a
fleet of necropoli buried beneath the caps of Icecrown, ready to
assault the army that would come to finish the work we started. This
is just terrible. But even when you write a bad story, you just have
to go along with it, so Bolvar Fordragon, who resisted becoming a
death knight, sacrifices himself by placing the crown on his own
head.
Now if I had become the lich king, I'd simply
order all of the scourge to go throw themselves off the top of
Icecrown Citadel, ask the red dragonflight to torch the remains and
then take off the crown (okay, I'd probably try to take over the
world, but Bolvar is supposed to be a good person). But no, we have
to end on a final note of idiocy, as Bolvar just goes sitting around.
It's not like a person in full control of the scourge could order
them to do anything, right?
Ending Thoughts
Is it weird to say that I still like Wrath of
the Lich King after all the problems I've just pointed out and spent
ages complaining about? Sure, the plot is stupid, the characters have
become unlikable idiots and there are blatant gaps in several places.
But it still expands the world with interesting new ideas. Ulduar and
the stories leading up to it added so much to the setting, as did the
various new cultures of the northern continent. I'm especially
interested in learning more of Oacha'noa, see the magnataur play a
role in a conflict and maybe see the interaction between the returned
Freya and the other goddesses of nature; Ysera, Elune and Aessina.
Unfortunately, blizzard took the wrong lessons
from Wrath of the Lich King. Join me next time, as we dig into the
hell of the cataclysm era.
