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Know Your Lore: The Third War, part 2
The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how, but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft. A few months back, I started on an overview of the Third War. As you can see from reading it, the following week, I did not in fact talk about the Third War at all. If you're familiar with my Thrall piece for KYL, you understand this is something that happens to me from time to time. I fully intended to go into more details about the war, but I got sidetracked by something shiny or a colorful ball of twine or what have you. But with Wrath of the Lich King a month from its exit from center stage, it's time to look back again at the war that made it all possible. After the Culling of Stratholme, Arthas Menethil had taken his first steps into obsession. The Culling itself is often treated as an indefensible act that proves Arthas was already evil, but I personally see it as the first tipping point, when a young and idealistic man who wanted to do right by his people was presented with an untenable choice and let his own impulsive nature decide. Waiting outside the city for the residents to turn into undead and destroying them as they attempted to escape was, after all, neither a more merciful nor a more prudent option. In the end, Arthas made the choice he did, and in so doing alienated both Uther, his direct superior as a paladin (and one who has his father's ear, to boot) and Jaina, his on-again, off-again romance. This left him free to pursue Mal'Ganis to Northrend. His actions would change the face of Azeroth and her nations forever.
Breakfast Topic: When goals are so close, yet so far
This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW.com. Kingslayer. Bane of the Fallen King. The Light of Dawn. These are the titles that one gets for slaying Arthas on various difficulties -- Kingslayer for normal difficulty, Bane for 10-man heroic and The Light of Dawn for 25-man heroic. Kingslayer is cool. Bane of the Fallen King? Even cooler. The Light of Dawn? It's over 9,000 on the cool meter! I want The Light of Dawn so hard. I mean, how cool is it? So-and-so, the Light of Dawn. I'm pumped, I'm ready to go, I'm going to kill Arthas! I know the fight by heart, got my flasks and feasts, I got this! Except for one small hiccup: I don't have a guild. Well, I do -- but they've gone "on hiatus till Cataclysm," which translates to "problems filling the raid, so taking a break will totally fix it." I'm relegated to watching trade chat desperately for 10-man PUGs that sound like they'll get to Arthas. They rarely do. Or they down Sindy, and then they call it, and I'm left angry. Come on, Arthas is right there! Can't we at least try? I've relegated the Light of Dawn to the category of Very Cool Things I Will Never Have. I find it unlikely that Blizzard will leave such a prestigious title in game and let 12 level 85s get what was once solid proof that you and your guild were The Epitome of Amazingness. Something else I'm trying desperately to do is get my Hydraxian Waterlords and Wintersaber rep up -- but again, sometimes life doesn't lend itself to in-game goals. Are you in the same plight as me, left grasping desperately for a Very Cool Something, but knowing that there's a 99 percent chance that it won't happen? What are you looking for? Do you think you'll be able to get it, or have you relegated yourself to sitting in the corner and pouting (like me)? Or are you one of those people who reached their goal, and scoff at the rabble/are bored with the game?
15 Minutes of Fame: Raiding on 8 hours a week
From Hollywood celebrities to the guy next door, millions of people have made World of Warcraft a part of their lives. How do you play WoW? We're giving each approach its own 15 Minutes of Fame. What marks the line in the sand between "hardcore" raiding and "casual" raiding? Is it an attitude, time spent ... both? We're not going to get into the debate here -- but you're sure to come away with new food for thought after this interview with the GM of <Skunkworks>, which recently downed the Lich King in 25-man heroic mode -- the 244th guild in the world and only the 70th in the United States to do so -- on just 8 hours of raiding per week. 15 Minutes of Fame: Let's start with some introductions. Chupa: My former main (I'm currently on sabbatical for school) is Chupadruid, a healer in <Skunkworks> on Balnazzar (US-H). Before that I raided on my warlock, Chupavida. I founded the guild as <Casually Serious> on Crushridge (US) in September of 2008, in anticipation of the release of Wrath of the Lich King. How did you arrive at the idea of a limited-schedule raiding guild? I started playing the game in August 2006 to join some friends from work in their extremely casual adventures. As a married student dragging myself through undergrad, I didn't have time to join any of the guilds on my server (which all raided three to five nights a week). I also had no interest in joining a raiding scene where racism, vulgarity and general internet douchebaggery were the norm. As a consequence, my experience with raiding was limited to ogling the guys in T2 as they idled in Org and getting blown up in WSG by T3 premades. I did take my warlock to some feeble attempts to clear ZG and AQ-20, but those runs were lucky to kill trash, let alone bosses.
Breakfast Topic: I am the lucid dream
Recently, I was talking to Matticus and Kinaesthesia on one of our podcasts about Ruby Sanctum. Toward the end of the discussion, Kina mentioned how much he loved Halion's voice actor, Matthew Mercer (granted, we didn't know that was his name at the time.) We agreed his voice acting was excellent, and Kina suggested Blizzard ought to keep bringing him back for more parts. To date, Mercer also has done the voice of General Vezax in Ulduar and Overthane Balargarde in Icecrown. Anyway, some days later while we priests were tossing the PoM around, the subject came up again, and Kina quoted the line Halion says when you enter phase 2: "You will find only suffering in the realm of twilight. Enter if you dare." He gushed at the inflection on the word "suffering," while I stated my preference for the way he taunts you with, "Enter if you dare." Our talk led to other memorable lines from Wrath. I immediately brought up Sara from Ulduar and quoted her haunting, "I am the lucid dream." Plus, who could forget a first visit to Ulduar? I remember my sleepy raid's wandering into the Antechamber around 1 a.m. the first night that patch 3.1 went live. After accidentally completing Crazy Cat Lady and distributing loot, we stood around deciding where to go next. Vent had gone quiet while we all tabbed out to read up on Hodir until a deafening scream cut through the silence of the Observation Ring. Everyone on Vent promptly freaked out: "What the hell was that!?!" I loved it.
Raid Rx: Healing the Lich King
Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand pooh-bah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a WoW blog for all things UI-, macro- and addon-related. Welcome to the end boss. It is possible to heal through Arthas with a less than ideal composition -- my first kill with 25 players was done without the presence of any holy paladins. If your guild is still struggling with it and the issue might be from the healing side of things, maybe I can help you out here with some additional pointers. If you're not quite sure about the overall mechanics of the encounter, refer to Kinasthesia's awesome tutorial videos: Part 1 and Part 2.
Wrath Retrospective: Lore and the art of storytelling
With the final content patch of this expansion on our doorstep and Cataclysm following close behind, we'll be taking the next several weeks to look back on Wrath of the Lich King and everything that made it what it is, for better or for worse, in WotLK Retrospective. Wrath of the Lich King wasn't just an expansion -- it was an experiment in progressive storytelling featuring story lines and lore that we haven't seen since Warcraft III. While Burning Crusade tackled new issues and races, it did little to further any of the Azeroth stories we'd seen in the earlier Warcraft games; Wrath took a step backwards to move the prior stories forward. Along with this change in direction, we saw the introduction of a few things that hadn't been seen in Warcraft before that made a large change to the way we view stories and quests in World of Warcraft, and a re-introduction of many of the heroes and prominent figures that we'd only caught glimpses of in vanilla. Today, we're going to look at Wrath lore: what worked, what knocked it out of the park and what failed to impress. Phasing Quite possibly the biggest technical advancement in storytelling was the introduction of the phasing mechanic. This allowed players to play through quests, and as the stories progressed, so did the world around the players, giving a new and unique feel to story line progression. Suddenly, instead of playing through a zone with no indication that you'd made any changes to the status quo, the world changed around you -- the chain of events in Conquest Hold in Grizzly Hills and Frosthold in the Storm Peaks both actually ended with NPCs being replaced as a direct result of player interaction. In the quest chain of The Battle for the Undercity, both Alliance and Horde players are teleported into a phased version of Orgrimmar, designed as a vehicle to further the story line -- and as a way for Alliance players to interact with Thrall without being attacked.
WoW.com's Guide to the Lich King
The Lich King is not only the titular character of this expansion, but is the ultimate raid boss in the Icecrown Citadel. Finally, after two years, members of the Horde and Alliance will have the opportunity to settle up their scores with Arthas. Befitting the final boss of the expansion's raiding progress Table of Contents Composition General strategy Abilities Other Resources
Know Your Lore: Current Alliance politics -- the dwarves, part two
The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how, but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft. WARNING: The following post contains small spoilers for Wrath of the Lich King. Players who are still playing through the expansion and wish to avoid spoilers may want to avoid this post. In addition, theories behind the new Cataclysm race/class combinations will be discussed. The dwarves of Azeroth have had a somewhat rocky start politically speaking -- the War of the Three Hammers caused a rift between the three major dwarf clans that looked as though it would never be repaired. However, current events as well as revelations regarding new class combinations suggest that the dwarves may not remain as fractured as they've been in World of Warcraft's history. When we left off last time, it was to an introduction of the woman pictured above -- Princess Moira Bronzebeard, daughter of King Magni. Why is she so important, you may ask -- well Moira's been in the clutches of Emperor Dagran Thaurissan, leader of the Dark Iron clan since World of Warcraft's launch. How'd she get there? Why isn't she dead? What's Magni doing about all of this? Let's take a closer look at Moira and her role in what could possibly be upcoming conflicts.
Know Your Lore: Current Alliance politics -- the dwarves, part one
The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how, but do you know the why? Each week Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft. Last week we covered the gnomes, who much like the night elves have a history that spans centuries, but unlike the night elves, much of this history is unknown. Also unlike the night elves, the gnomes don't appear to have much going for them in the way of future conflicts. Today we're going to talk about the close friends of the gnomes -- the dwarves -- who are decidedly far more important than any have given them credit for to date. To summarize their origins: Way back in Azeroth's history, the Titans created a race of guardians called "earthen" to help protect and watch over the planet. There were a few different "types" of earthen originally created. The first type was prone to a "matrix destabilization" when in high-stress situations, and a nasty thing called the Curse of Flesh. This destabilization in conjunction with the curse led to the creation of the troggs. Yes, the same troggs that are currently plaguing the gnomes and Gnomeregan. These first earthen were sealed away in vaults all over the world including locations such as Bael Modan. Apparently the Titans seem to have this thing for locking bad things under the earth. The second round of earthen creations were just fine, and left as they were. Except that they weren't "just fine." These earthen were also susceptible to the Curse of Flesh, much like the gnomes were, and it worked on them oh-so-subtly. Over a gigantic chunk of time, they degraded into what we know today as the dwarves of the lower continents. As for Northrend, according to the Tribunal of the Ages, the Titans created the Forge of Wills to make yet another series of earthen, these designed to avoid the Curse of Flesh altogether. This is why you see earthen up in Northrend today.
Know Your Lore: The lore reveals of Wrath, part two
The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how, but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft. Hi, guys! Last week, we talked about big lore reveals in Wrath of the Lich King, and I listed two of my favorite "lore chains" (for lack of a better phrase) in the expansion. This week, we'll be talking about more of the same. As was the case last week, these are fairly subjective. I'm listing lore moments that grabbed my attention and interest, not just compiling a list of all the lore that we were hit with over the course of the expansion. This of course leaves you all free to throw around those moments I didn't get to or list yours in the comments, which is, in my opinion, win/win for us all. I'm going to open with a fairly Horde-specific bit of lore that was entirely self contained within Wrath: the Conquest Hold situation in the Grizzly Hills. For me, this series of quests does more to explore and explain the typical Horde power structure and chain of command than all the big moments with figures like Saurfang, Garrosh and Thrall possibly could. I'll start detailing it behind the jump, so be warned: If you haven't done these quests yet, there will be spoilers.
Two Bosses Enter: Spectators break tie for Tyrannus; PvP champs face Devourer
Two Bosses Enter ... but only One Boss Leaves, in WoW.com's series of fantasy death matches. Your votes, along with the decisions of our distinguished judges (representing WoW.com staff and readers), determine who makes it out alive. Grab a seat, and let's get ready to rumble! It took a boost from Thunderdome spectators last week to push the Lich King up enough to catch Eadric the Pure, but even his fans weren't enough this time. The crowd turned away from Arthas this week to swing a split decision in the judges' box in favor of Scourgelord Tyrannus. The DK-on-DK battle ended up sending Tyrannus on as the first victor of the ICC-5/ToC quarter-finals. Join us after the break for the judges' decisions and final results of Lich King vs. Scourgelord Tyrannus, then cast your vote in the next Thunderdome mix-up: ToC PvP Champs versus Devourer of Souls. You know how Dr. Dealgood calls it: Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls ... Dyin' time's here.
Know Your Lore: Current Horde politics -- the Forsaken
The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how, but do you know the why? Each week Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft. While the politics of Horde races such as the orcs, blood elves, tauren and trolls span literally thousands of years, and feelings and current beliefs held by both races are deep-seated within that history, not all of the Horde races have such an extensive past. In the case of the Forsaken, the history goes back not thousands of years but approximately six or seven by Blizzard's timeline. A relatively new race, the Forsaken were introduced in World of Warcraft as playable members of the Horde faction, a move which confused some of the player base as the Forsaken were most definitely up to no good. Why would Thrall, who has been presented as a good character, agree to ally with a group that were presented as primarily evil? This was never directly addressed other than being waved off as an alliance of convenience, but most of the Horde seemed to either distrust or share outright loathing for the Forsaken. While other races started out on good terms with the rest of their Horde brethren, players rolling Forsaken found themselves at neutral standing with all three of the other Horde races available. There are exceptions, however. The Tauren -- particularly Magatha Grimtotem -- seem interested in working with the Forsaken and possibly developing a "cure" for their undead state and aren't quite as unforgiving when it comes to dealing with their undead comrades. While the relative time of the Forsaken on Azeroth has been short, in the few years of their existence they've managed to accomplish much -- largely due to the efforts of their leader, Lady Sylvanas Windrunner. Sylvanas had quite a history of her own prior to becoming the banshee queen, and it is doubtful that the race would have accomplished anything, much less banded together, without her leadership. I've covered some of the history of the high elves in last week's post, but this week I'm going to look at Sylvanas in a little more detail as the leader and the driving force behind the Forsaken.
Two Bosses Enter: Grand Champions gang up on Marwyn; Eadric faces Lich King
Two Bosses Enter ... but only One Boss Leaves, in WoW.com's series of fantasy death matches. It's a brand new season and a brand new format, introducing judges from WoW.com and the WoW community at large -- and of course, your votes. Grab a seat, and let's get ready to rumble! Last week's matchup between Marwyn and the entire ToC PvP Champions team was a good set-up for this week's deathmatch between Eadric the Pure and the Lich King (5-man version). It's all about balance. Yes, lore comes into play. But inside the Thunderdome, lore isn't the only factor. Every point must be balanced against the others. This week, a group of five adventurers -- the ToC Grand Champions -- made short work of Marwyn (just as your own groups probably do whenever you face Marwyn in a random). Step into the Thunderdome with us after the break, where we'll hear the judges' decisions and consider what many of you have been waiting for: the first of many bouts involving some version of the Lich King himself. Oh yes, it's finally time ... And in the words of Dr. Dealgood: "Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls ... Dyin' time's here."
The Light and How to Swing It: Holy versus unholy, how to survive the Lich King
Every Sunday, Chase Christian of The Light and How to Swing It invites you to discuss the finer side of the paladin class: the holy specialization. This week, we examine the most difficult encounter to date: defeating the fallen paladin Arthas. Turalyon. Uther. Tirion. Paladins have a rich lineage of heroes in their lore, dating back for centuries decades. These crusaders of the light dedicated their lives to cleansing Azeroth of the darkness that has plagued us for time immemorial. Every new paladin looks up to these paragons of virtue for guidance and inspiration. Our ancestors set the example for how we should conduct ourselves, and show us the courage it takes to fight. However, the story of our paladin heritage has not always been so pure. The greatest threat on Azeroth was also once one of the powerful paladins in existence. Arthas Menethil was a member of the Knights of the Silver Hand, before losing himself in his crusade to stop the scourge plague from spreading. He gave up his humanity in a failed attempt to save the world, and ended up becoming the half of the entity known as the Lich King. Now, in our final effort to rid the world of the scourge blight, we must confront one of our former brothers, and put the Light's strength to the test against the unholy corruption of Frostmourne.
WoW Moviewatch: A Dead Bug's Life
Today we feature the last of the European winners for Alienware's Rise to Power contest. A Dead Bug's Life is the creation of Erunno and Frozen DeathKnight, two of the luminaries who regularly post over on the Myndflame site. You should remember Erunno from his outstanding work with The White Drake, a movie that helped redefine visual storytelling in Wrath of the Lich King machinima. In contrast to the silent narrative in The White Drake, this Rise to Power movie had a great deal of dialogue. It displayed an amazing amount of wit and light-hearted characterization between the Lich King and Anub'arak. My favorite line was when Arthas complains how much fun it is to "constantly ressurect an oversized roach." I don't want to discuss the ending of the movie, since it would definitely give a significant spoiler. But let's say an old, ancient foe of the Alliance returns to join the Lich King's army. A Dead Bug's Life is a beautiful movie. The graphics are intriguing and well done, seamlessly integrating to the story. You can really see how A Dead Bug's Life won its prize. Interested in the wide world of machinima? We have new movies every weekday here on WoW Moviewatch! Have suggestions for machinima we ought to feature? Toss us an e-mail at machinima AT wow DOT com.
Shifting Perspectives: Tree 1, Arthas 0
Every week, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting druids and those who group with them. This week, we save the world (of Warcraft). Originally this week's article was going to concern stomping Karazhan from top-to-bottom as a feral/resto druid, and then I got Big Bad Wolf for the opera event. Suffice it to say that the stomping took an abrupt U-turn, and I never got pictures or video of the other Kara fights that I've successfully solo'd on dozens of other occasions (though I grant they were all occasions that did not include humiliating wipes to an overgrown dog). If I weren't in the middle of a time crunch it probably would've been doable, but regrettably I will have to run a feature on how to make 1,000 gold soloing Karazhan on a later date. In the meantime, Alaron's managed to solo Big Bad Wolf successfully, but my main is in the somewhat sticky situation of not being a night elf. With the upcoming Icecrown raid buffs going all the way to 30% damage/healing/health/absorbs eventually, more and more raids are going to find their way to Arthas. Buffs aside, a lot of Arthas' difficulty lies in execution, and I started jotting down a few notes that I hope might be helpful to other druids likely to attempt the fight. We were fortunate to get both the 10- and 25-man version down, and I got astoundingly lucky on one 10-man attempt with back-to-back selections as a Harvest Soul target while I was running a video capture. I've seen a lot of comments online that caster druids aren't well-suited to dealing with this, and that's just not true at all.
Western Plaguelands not so plagued anymore in Cataclysm
We addressed the implication that the Alliance might be retaking some lost lands in Cataclysm thanks to some mutterings by blues on the official forums. Now we've got confirmation from the latest Twitter dev chat that while Eastern Plaguelands will still be a hellhole, Western Plaguelands will be free of the plague when the expansion hits. Twitter developer chat Q. With the Lich King defeated, in Cataclysm, will the Plaguelands be green and beautiful again? A. Western Plaguelands will finally be free of the plague in Cataclysm. It's hard for the Scourge to survive without their beloved Lich King. I guess this means we need to rename the zone? source Just awesome. This is the kind of change I was hoping for in Cataclysm, to be honest -- not just earthquakes and floods, but actual passage of time and logical storyline progression post-defeat of Lordaeron's traitor prince. Wonder what this means for Scholomance or Andorhal! But, also, what does it mean for the name? I guess Eastern Plaguelands will likely become just The Plaguelands, but what will WPL become? East Lordaeron? New Lordaeron? Or, given the zone's proximity to the zone that's basically Azeroth's armpit, they could just go with the one that makes the most sense: Pennsylvania.
Patch 3.3.3 PTR: Cull Stratholme faster than ever before
The dungeon finder has really changed what players get excited about the most in the World of Warcraft. It's a strange world when one of the most anticipated updates to the game is the ability to tell Arthas to shut his yap. No, we don't mean kill him in Icecrown, we really do mean telling him to shut the hell up. Just in case you missed it in the patch notes we posted a little while ago, there's this waiting for us in patch 3.3.3: Culling of Stratholme: Players may now skip the initial introduction dialog to this dungeon once they have completed it at least once. The pre-Culling of Stratholme dialogue is really cool to experience the first few times, but after that it just starts to feel like a waste of time. The dungeon finder made it even worse, because as awesome as it is, it eliminated some of the social stigma of ditching a group early. Oculus and Culling of Stratholme are the two instances I can always expect some dip to drop from. Hopefully this change and the deserter debuff becoming 30 minutes will discourage that sort of behavior.
Know Your Lore: The Third War part one
There's always more lore to discover here at Know Your Lore. I had intended to go over the events of the novel Day of the Dragon this week, but I decided to save that for a more Cataclysm oriented post and instead work on this, the final of our overview of the wars that made the Warcraft setting. In a very real way, Wrath of the Lich King is basically a third chapter in the saga of the Third War that unfolded in the Reign of Chaos and Frozen Throne storylines. Furthermore, while a great many aspects of the setting debuted before it, the Third War introduced the Kaldorei, or night elves, to the setting, helped bring the Burning Legion to prominence, first showed us the Draenei, and otherwise helped set the stage for the world of Azeroth as it appeared when World of Warcraft launched. You can trace the existence of the Forsaken, the loyalty of the Trolls and Tauren to the formerly purely Orcish Horde under Thrall, the establishing of a human colony on Theramore Isle, and even the activities of former and current luminaries such as Illidan Stormrage, Kael'thas Sunstrider, and even the Lich King himself to the events of the Third War. It's hard to say when, exactly, the Third War actually began, since it was really a rather complicated affair. Certainly, the capture of Ner'zhul by Kil'jaeden and his transformation into the Lich King is of great importance to the Third War, but it's not the beginning of that comflict. Not even the moment when a nascent Lich King was hurled into the glaciers of Northrend can be called the start of the Third War, nor the moment when the sorcerer Kel'Thuzad answered the summons of that dread entity and made his way north to become the kernel of the Cult of the Damned. These moments are all important, for without them there would have been no Third War, but they are not the war's starting point.
Know Your Lore: The Lich King
WARNING: The following post contains spoilers for the novel Arthas: Rise of the Lich King, and the final battle with the Lich King in Icecrown Citadel. They're all pretty much contained on Page 2, and I'll give you another warning later just in case you forget about it. Most players are, by this point in Wrath of the Lich King, more than familiar with Arthas Menethil and his fall from supposed grace into the arms of the Lich King. Players may be slightly less familiar with Ner'zhul, the orc shaman who originally took on the mantle of the Lich King, but we've got an article for that. This article on the other hand, isn't so much about Ner'zhul, or Arthas, as it is about the Lich King -- the position that Arthas, and Ner'zhul before him, had foisted upon them. What exactly is the Lich King? What is its purpose, and why does it exist? To answer these questions, we have to go very, very far back into Azeroth's history. Azeroth was created by a group of creatures known as the Titans, a group of almost god-like giants that roam from world to world for a very distinct purpose -- to create and make order. There are a lot of conflicting stories surrounding the Titans, their origins, and the creation of Azeroth -- however, one story stands out above all others; the story of the corruption of Sargeras, champion of the Titans.
