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Know Your Lore: Intermezzo Part One - Return of the Horde
Welcome once again my friends to the lore that never ends, we're so glad you could attend, come inside, come inside Know Your Lore. This week, we look at the aftermath of the Second War and the years between it and the Third. A lot happened in this intermezzo between the drums of two wars, because in general it seems that Azeroth basically reels from crisis to crisis. I should also point out that in at least one case, a major lore figure dies in one source and yet is said to be alive later in a previous source. If you pay attention to Warcraft lore this will no doubt not surprise you terribly. At the end of the Second War, the Alliance forces destroyed the Dark Portal in a rather impressive bit of CGI for the time. Generally, it was hoped that Khadgar's little bit of pyrotechnics would end the threat of the Horde forever, as (the theory went) there would be no more reinforcements coming in through the portal. This act effectively broke the back of orcish resistance to the Alliance of Lordaeron's forces, and in so doing ended the war, as even Orgrim Doomhammer found himself captured and chained by the Alliance. Only Kilrogg Deadeye and those few forces directly under his command managed to evade capture and remained free. This would come back to cost the Alliance. However, in the immediate aftermath of the War, the nations of the Alliance found themselves divided on the question of what to do with the orcs, many of whom had sunk into a strange despondent lethargy with their defeat. Should they all be killed? If not, what else could be done with them?
Know Your Lore: The Second War
Welcome once again my friends to the lore that never ends, we're so glad you could attend, come inside, come inside Know Your Lore. When last we got together over the nonexistent campfire to share stories of Azeroth and Draenor and the peoples of both, our heroes were either fleeing the destruction of Stormwind or destroying Stormwind, depending on who you think of as the heroes. Once again, the 'canonical' nature of these events has shifted somewhat from the time they were first presented to now, so bear with me if you see any inconsistencies as I attempt to work several disparate accounts together. Also, wow, did a lot happen in the Second War, so please forgive anything I miss or merely allude to from the Alliance and Old Horde KYL's. We know that following the loss of Stormwind (and by following I mean that they could probably see the buildings burning as they sailed away) the survivors, led by Anduin Lothar, sailed north for Lordaeron and the court of King Terenas Menethil. It was this journey and Lothar's arrival that led Terenas and Lothar to begin the diplomatic work that created the Alliance of Lordaeron. It's important to keep in mind that, at the time, not many people actually knew much about the orcs aside from the survivors of Stormwind. King Llane Wrynn had an adviser who knew a lot about the orcs but that ultimately ended in Stormwind's destruction as we covered last week. Still, Lothar was the one person both connected enough through his descent from the ancient Arathi bloodline and knowledgeable enough about the enemy to command the military of this new Alliance.
All the World's a Stage: What's love got to do with it
Character roleplay tends to be rooted in fundamental human emotions. Rage, fear, friendship, curiousity, and hope are all well within the spectrum of your character's feelings. And without getting into a bunch of sophomore psychology, I'd argue that all these emotions are fairly key to hitting the difference between a believable character. Without acknowledging and displaying these emotions, your character is simply a cardboard cutout -- a silhouette moving through the game without any real motivation or gravitas. I might be overstating that argument a tad, but a believable character can be a complex little critter. And the most complex emotion of all can be . . . love. (I had to take a moment here not to bust out in "What's love got to do with it?") Love stories are hard. I think they're actually the hardest story to roleplay successfully. It's incredibly easy to take your roleplay in the direction of a sticky-sweet romance. And then, for everyone of those stories I've seen, I've equally seen a cold, hard, son-of-Illidan whose heart was torn asunder, and he wil no longer be capable of love. So, if these are the two ends of the love spectrum, how do you successfully hit the middle? What's the believable range? What's the viable, interesting roleplay stories, when the whole idea of a love story is so fraught with pits and traps?
Know Your Lore: The First War
Welcome once again my friends to the lore that never ends, we're so glad you could attend, come inside, come inside Know Your Lore. In the past two weeks we've talked about the formation of the Old Horde on Draenor, and the resulting rise of the Alliance of Lordaeron to oppose them. Unfortunately we were forced to give the actual events of the wars slightly short shrift in the interest of being done someday. So this week, we cover the First War. (Note: there are spoilers for the original Warcraft game and several books and comic books contained in this post. Be warned if you continue to read it.) When last we discussed the Old Horde, we mentioned that Gul'dan and his Shadow Council were feeling the strain after having been abandoned on a slowly dying world by Kil'jaeden after having apparently slain the draenei. As the demonic corruption slowly poisoned the land and turned the orcs (even orcs who hadn't partaken of the Blood of Mannoroth) a livid green color, two events occurred to forever change the fate of two worlds. The first was seemingly small: a plague known as the Blood Pox started spreading, forcing the establishment of a quarantine zone in Nagrand in the lands formerly held by the Frostwolf Clan. That clan, however, was no longer able to hold those lands due to the second and more immediately portentous event. Gul'dan was contacted by Medivh, the Guardian of Tirisfal and host to the essence of Sargeras himself, and offered to the dark orc warlock the one thing he truly craved. Power.
All the World's a Stage: A rose by any name
It could be considered a small, fine point, but I've always been a stickler about naming my characters. I've been known to sit around for days, repeatedly rerolling and renaming the same character until something clicks just right. I just can't bring myself to play a character if the name doesn't line up. For better or for worse, we only have a few basic customizable options for our character, so the name tag provides the first hints about our character to other players. If the first impression about your character is delivered by the name you've chosen, it becomes the most customizable aspect of your character. If you use one of the many mods that let you use a surname, then you'll even have two names to choose from. But, for the purposes of this article, let's just stick to the single word that everyone sees. Take a look behind the jump, and let's discuss some tips for naming your character.
Know Your Lore: The Old Horde
Welcome to Know Your Lore, WoW.com's weekly column about the story behind the game we play. Last week we discussed the formation of the Alliance in response to the Horde invasion of and destruction of the Kingdom of Azeroth via the Black Portal, and the Alliance's eventual triumph over the Horde, expedition to Draenor, and the events of Warcraft III that saw the destruction of Lordaeron and creation of a new order. This week, we talk about the events that caused those events. Yes, this week we're discussing the origins of the Horde, that organization that began as the manipulated, deceived and then ultimately demonic blood addicted orcs of Draenor. It's not a simple tale: we've already told parts if it before when we discussed Gul'dan, Ner'zhul, Teron Gorefiend, Grom Hellscream and many others. It all really began untold thousands of years ago on the planet Argus, home world of the Eredar and their Draenei, or exiled, cousins. Thus, ironically, while the existence of the Horde caused the creation of the Alliance, it was an Alliance race that helped start the events that led to the creation of the Horde. Symmetry in origin.
All the World's A Stage: Gift-giving in Azeroth
With Winter's Veil behind us, it is not too long until Valentine's Day is here. Between these two holidays, I'm frequently left pondering the best gifts available for our loved ones . . . in game. There's a subtle art to simulating gift-giving between characters, since there's obviously a few factors to be considered. First, it's difficult to be creative. Everyone has the same access to the items and gifts in-game, so you're going to be incredibly challenged to pull off something "no one else has considered." Second, it can be difficult to pick out just the right gift, since it can be a little hard to get excited over a trade window. Still, when it comes time for one character to give something a little special to his or her in-character spouse, it's good to have some ideas ready to go. Take a look behind the jump and let's talk about 5 of my favorite in-game gifts.
Know Your Lore: The Alliance
Welcome back to Know Your Lore, WoW.com's column about the story behind the game we all play. This week on KYL, we move away from the Fall of the Lich King (although in the months to come expect more Icecrown related KYL's) and out to the larger world and the major factions that contend across it. I thought we'd start with the Alliance this week for a number of reasons, the first and most important among them being that the Alliance would not exist without the Horde, while the Horde's existence owes itself to forces transcending the Alliance. Because of this, doing the Alliance first will leave open questions that the Horde section next week will help answer. The Alliance as it stands at this moment in time is a far different entity than the one originally known as the Alliance of Lordaeron. That Alliance was one of seven human nations (Azeroth, Lordaeron, Stromgarde, Kul Tiras, Alterac, Dalaran and Gilneas) with the Dwarves of Ironforge, Gnomes of Gnomeregan and High Elves of Quel'Thalas. This Alliance was born directly out of the statecraft of King Terenas Menethil of Lordaeron and the military leadership of Anduin Lothar, the Lion of Azeroth and last living member of the original Arathi bloodline. Each member of this alliance had various reasons for being in it and varying degrees of loyalty to it (the High Elves, for example, were only in the Alliance because as the last Arathi, Lothar could compel their loyalty due to ancient pacts and abandoned it as soon as it was possible for them to fulfill said pacts, while Gilneas retreated behind the Greymane Wall not long after the end of the Second War over differences of opinion with Lordaeron) and it certainly lacked in coherence compared to the Horde it was opposed to.
All the World's a Stage: The curtain falls
All the World's a Stage, and all the orcs and humans merely players. They have their stories and their characters; and one player in his time plays many roles. It's a strange feeling to look back on four years of roleplaying in WoW, more than two of which were spent writing "All the World's a Stage," and feel as though the curtain is coming down on this part of my life, just as many new things are rising up to take its place. It's a sad thing, and it's a happy thing at the same time.Part of me doesn't want to change -- it just wants to go on having more of all those experiences I've enjoyed, which have helped me grow and become the person I am today; but the other part of me embraces these changes, and looks forward toward the experiences that will make me into the person I will be tomorrow.The fact is that I need to put WoW on indefinite hiatus, but before I go, let me share some of the things I have deeply appreciated about playing the game, especially how roleplaying filled an important niche in my life, and actually helped make me a better person.
Know Your Lore: Winter Veil
This week on KYL we get away from old god blood and crazy warlocks and instead look at Winter Veil. It's just as snow covered as Icecrown, but far less sinister. Sometimes that's a good thing. It can't all be death and destruction, you know. Sometimes it's running around doing fun stuff. Now, I know you crazy lore addicts. Well, I mean, I know what you're like. I don't know you all personally. That would be difficult. Not impossible, I guess. We could have a get together! We could get together and sing songs and have festivities, except of course that I'm a shaggy, unpleasant person and... the more I think about this, the more I realize I'm the Greench of this particular Feast of Winter Veil. There are two really interesting aspects to the Feast of Winter Veil in terms of lore: one is that both the dwarves and the tauren, two races with different but strong connections to the earth and elements celebrate it. The other is that in Azeroth the holiday celebrations have been almost totally co-opted by the goblins who run the Smokywood Pastures organization. So we have a holiday that crosses faction and racial lines and goes back into the dim past, resurrected by a pack of schemers for mercantile profit. Man, where do they get this stuff? Can you imagine how outraged people would be if a sacred cultural holiday was bent and twisted out of recognition by grasping corporate entities in order to make a buck? People wouldn't stand for it!
All the World's a Stage: Location, location, location
It's probably simply a reflection of my own, long habits in terms of MMORPGs, but I tend to put a lot of thought in where to roleplay. I mean, a lot. When I first started seriously roleplaying in Dark Age of Camelot, one of my favorite areas was out by the docks. The sound and sight of water lapping against the shore appealed to some mawkish, maudlin post-teenage angst in me. Then, in City of Heroes, I was introduced to a different way of roleplaying in video games. The heroes (and story-based villains) gathered in a small stretch of park next to a danger zone. Hunkered against a lake in Galaxy City, dozens of players would come together to roleplay with whoever happened to be around. That reminded me of my MUD days, of course, and it seemed the best option to get everyone involved. As I cruised different "servers," the roleplayers always seemed to gather in that same, exact area. The reasons were obvious -- it was a safe place for newb toons, and it lent itself naturally to the kind of casual roleplay most folks prefer. But now that I'm firmly in my World of Warcraft life, natural locations for roleplay seem a little harder to find. Every server seems to have their own preferences. If I'm not forearmed via the official forums, I'm regularly flustered when trying to find the roleplayers gathering anywhere. However, good locations for roleplay can be difficult to find. Where can you (safely) get newb toons and older toons together? What locations provide the right ambiance for casual, ad-hoc roleplay? Let's take a look behind the jump where I'll list some of my favorite (or infamous) spots.
Know Your Lore: Saronite
Welcome to Know Your Lore, where each week WoW.com brings you a tasty little morsel of lore to wrap your mind around. Sweet, sweet lore. Mmmm. Have suggestions for future KYL topics? Leave a comment below! It's nigh-ubiquitous in Wrath of the Lich King. You can pull it out of the ground pretty much anywhere. It's crafted into armor and weapons from powerful epics to crafted items to increase our skills. It makes up the walls of Icecrown Citadel, and the bones of Malykriss, the Lich King's planned replacement for Acherus. It makes up the bulk of the Scourge's material for its mindless warriors as well as its fortifications and siege engines, and the Vrykul even presses the living into slavery in Icecrown in order to meet their master's demand for more and more of it. But this is no ordinary metal: the Tuskarr call it the "Black Blood of Yogg-Saron" and whisper in hushed tones that it may yet shake the pillars of Heaven. (Well, I assume they do. Fella named Jack Burton told me that.) Unlike cobalt and titanium, the metals that seems to occur naturally in Northrend, saronite's presence is due to the presence of a trapped old god. As you no doubt deduced from the name, Saronite is nothing less than a creation of the terrible Yogg-Saron himself. The enslaved miners toiling for the Vrykul near Ymirheim eventually go mad, and even if freed, hurl themselves into the depths to seek communion with the god of death. In his hubris, the Lich KIng seeks to prove his mastery of death, his transcendance of the state by exploiting the products of Yogg-Saron's imprisonment. But as Yogg-Saron himself says, "No king rules forever." And as we storm the very gates of Icecrown Citadel and make our way through the Forge of Souls, past the Pit of Saron where even deeper veins of Yogg-Saron's Black Blood are unearthed, and stalk the Halls of Reflection themselves it seems clear that the dependence of the Scourge on the death metal may be its undoing... if it isn't ours first.
All the World's a Stage: Time to kill Arthas
It's been a year since the Wrath of the Lich King hit the shelves. Since that time, our myriad characters have stormed the beaches of Howling Fjord and Borean Tundra. We've fought and rescued dragons, worked with Murlocs, slaughtered each other in Wintergrasp, and clashed in the sea, land, and air. But with the final content patch of the expansion now chilling out on our hard drives, it's time for the final countdown. We're going to get to kill Arthas. And as excited about that as we are as players, you have to imagine the mounting incursion against the Lich King gets a much deeper and visceral emotion for our characters. This represents a relatively unique opportunity to roleplay your characters in an otherwise static world. After all, the entire game is about to change in some pretty radical ways. This is the purest possible fodder for roleplay, and it would be remiss of us to lose this opportunity. Join me behind the jump so that we can talk about the roleplay opportunities. The good, the bad, the ugly.
The Lore of Patch 3.3
In many ways Wrath of the Lich King can be considered the logical conclusion of one of WarCraft's major story lines. Arthas, the evil sovereign of the scourge, will meet his doom in Icecrown Citadel. Each Wrath patch up until now has lead to this defining moment -- the face off between Arthas and the players representing the next generation of heroes of Azeroth. Who will win? What happens after Arthas is defeated? Is Arthas defeated? These questions lend themselves to a spectacular conclusion to a great tale. In The Lore of Patch 3.3, Michael Sacco, Alex Ziebart, and I will take a look at all the various plots, characters, and environments that lead up to this grand confrontation with the Lich King. You'll want to know this story. You'll want to know this lore. For when you finally face off against the wielder of the Frostmourne, you'll know why you're going toe-to-toe against him, and why your fate can make or break the very face of Azeroth. This article, while containing essential lore, also contains heavy spoilers. Do not proceed if that bothers you.
All the World's a Stage: Anonymosity
All the World's a Stage, and all the orcs and humans merely players. They have their stories and their characters; and one player in his time plays many roles. Roleplaying is a journey of trust you take with strangers. You may now and then start out with a group of people you know in real life, but for the most part, the people you roleplay with have no idea who you really are, or why you are sitting here at the computer. You can tell them if you want to, but most people don't ask. Roleplayers tend to keep personal details private, and don't intrude on one another's space. Besides, other roleplayers don't necessarily care that much about who you "really are" either. They're there to get to know your character, not you as a person, unless your character first makes a very good impression and they decide that they actually want to be friends as real people. Even though you respect each other as people who share the same interest, there's still a distance between you which either (or both) of you may wish to maintain. And yet, the relationship you have is one of trust. It's not at all at the same level as a best friend of course, but you still have to trust one another in a very creative sense -- you rely on each other to create interesting things for your characters to share with one another. You're not just buying a shirt from a salesperson or holding the door for a passerby -- you're exchanging behavior and language in an unpredictable and totally interconnected way. Any little surprise a stranger brings to an interaction may completely alter the whole game session and stick in your mind as one of your most memorable gaming experiences. Roleplayers have to trust other roleplayers to help make those experiences positive, even without knowing anything at all about one another. Sometimes two characters can even become very close friends, even though the real people behind them do not.
Know Your Lore: Ner'zhul
Welcome back to Know Your Lore, WoW.com's column about the story behind the game we all play. We talked last week about Quel'Delar, a sword of emerging lore, and the week before that we covered Darion Mograine, a pivotal figure to Death Knights and part of the reason we're fighting in Northrend. This week, however, we're kicking our look at the lore of Wrath of the Lich King in the caboose with a look at possibly the most reviled orc to ever live. Sure, he probably wasn't the most evil orc ever (Gul'dan wins that one in a walk, boy howdy) but for sheer staying power and for having a role in the genocide of the orcs against the draenei, the sundering of Draenor into Outland, and for being the first Lich King, you really have to hand it to Ner'zhul. Here's an orc who manages to pop up a lot in the lore. If you did the Howling Fjord quests for the Alliance and made the mistake of walking too close to a certain King of the Liches (and other undead things) he delivers a line of dialog that perfectly explains why we're talking about Ner'zhul today. Before Arthas, there was Ner'zhul. Like Arthas, Ner'zhul wanted to save his people, to be a hero, to be respected and powerful. Like Arthas, Ner'zhul lost sight of the truth as he sought to achieve his goals. Unlike Arthas, however, Ner'zhul turned his face away from ultimate evil once he recognized it for what it was... but too late, far too late, and found himself damned for his hubris, forced to watch his apprentice do every evil thing he himself had refused to do. It was the first prison for Ner'zhul, but it would not be the last.
Know Your Lore: Quel'delar, the Sister Blade
Welcome back to Know Your Lore, WoW.com's column about the story behind the game we all play. A featured questline in Patch 3.3, the story of Quel'delar is available to any player who attains the Battered Hilt, which can drop from any mob in the Icecrown Citadel 5-man dungeons. But what's the story behind this ancient and powerful weapon? Long ago, the night elves and the five Dragonflights worked together with great ceremony to forge a set of incredibly powerful prismatic swords, intended to be the first line of defense against any evil that would challenge the races of Azeroth: Quel'serrar, the High Blade, and Quel'delar, the Sister Blade. Quel'serrar was gifted to the night elves, but ultimately nearly destroyed. For thousands of years it remained partially intact with the Shen'dralar of Eldre'thalas, who anticipated that one day it'd be possible to reforge the blade. Only recently did this occur, with heroes reforging the blade in the flames and black heart of Onyxia, broodmother of the Black Dragonflight. The blade's triumphant return to its full glory brought great joy to the night elves, who thought the blade lost forever. Its sister blade, however, followed a different path. This writeup contains spoilers from the Quel'delar questline and should be avoided if you want to be surprised when Patch 3.3 launches.
Know Your Lore: Highlord Darion Mograine
Welcome back to Know Your Lore, WoW.com's column about the story behind the game we all play. Put simply, the Knights of the Ebon Blade are traitors to the Scourge. Like the Forsaken, they've broken free of the grasp of the Lich King due to the intercession of an external source - Sylvanas and the Forsaken escaped the Lich King's grasp when he was weakened due to the crack in the Frozen Throne and had to recall Arthas to Northrend, while the Knights were more autonomous than the average Scourge and regained their freedom following the events at Light's Hope Chapel. At LHC, the Knights were freed due to the actions of their Highlord, Darion Mograine. If you played through the events of the Death Knight starting area, you already have a basic idea of the origins of the order, especially if you ran around Acherus reading books like I did. Some are funny, some are meaningful, and from them we can glean certain information about the history of the order before the events leading up to its break from the Lich King. If you've read the Ashbringer comic series, you're of course informed of some of this anyway. But there's still devils in those details for us to discuss.
All the World's a Stage: Player housing, interactivity, and other possible features
All the World's a Stage, and all the orcs and humans merely players. They have their stories and their characters; and one player in his time plays many roles. Playing Warhammer recently has made me think of more features that WoW could add in order to create a better roleplaying experience. Far and away the most important one, to my mind, was the Tome of Knowledge. WoW players really need an in-game resource they can refer to as a standard for information about the Warcraft universe, and having this at hand, roleplayers could do a lot better than they can today. Knowledge is the most important thing, of course, but there are other features Blizzard could add to the game that would help roleplayers too. I'd like to address a few of these things, and see how much they could really do for us. Player housing is a possible feature that gets talked about a lot, but I have my doubts as to whether or not it would really help roleplayers all that much. Another issue is one that is more important to me personally, and is another feature inspired by my trial with Warhammer Online: looking at interactivity between characters.
All the World's a Stage: How to bring Warhammer's "Tome of Knowledge" to WoW
All the World's a Stage, and all the orcs and humans merely players. They have their stories and their characters; and one player in his time plays many roles. Some time ago, I had my first look at Warhammer Online, and wondered if that game treated roleplaying any differently from World of Warcraft. I wrote at some length about the significance of a written warning whenever someone signs up for a roleplaying realm for the first time, but I also noticed that Warhammer actually had another very special feature that could be beneficial for WoW roleplayers, namely the "Tome of Knowledge." Playing around with this a little bit made me think about how Blizzard could make something similar, which would go a long way toward enriching the experience of the game, not only for roleplayers, but for all players. Warhammer's Tome of Knowledge is not without it's flaws, of course -- I can surely imagine a better one for WoW to adopt, but at the moment WoW has nothing at all like it, which is unfortunate. But what is the Tome of Knowledge? Basically, it's is an in-game database full of all kinds of information you might be interested in. This includes gamey things like achievements, titles, and quests, but also contains a lot of info about the story and lore of the game, such as some history for each major region, descriptions of noteworthy persons, and a bestiary of all the enemies in the game. When you visit an important location, encounter an important questgiver, or defeat a new enemy in battle, information about that entity will appear in your Tome of Knowledge. A little popup will even let you click through to it right away.
