Forum:Unfinished Business?

So as we progress from Wrath to Cataclysm and say our final goodbyes, I can't help but notice that we're left with so many unanswered questions. Not just questions, but outright plotholes.
 * 1) Nerubian Viziers
 * In the official lore, these guys are supposedly serving an unseen emperor that may one day save Azjol Nerub...huh? Though Northrend is full of viziers, all but one serve the Scourge. This Lone Ranger/Spider Man stands outside of Ahn'Kahet and asks you to burn crypt fiend bodies. He also happens to be the only Nerubian left alive. There is no "resistance" of spider people, and certainly no one to lead this group. All lore on the viziers seems to be retconned, leaving us with a Nerubian type that has no story. And speaking of...
 * 1) Nerubian Flyers
 * So as we step out of Warsong Hold, we find ourselves assailed by winged...things. I don't know what these things are supposed to be, but they look like Zerg drones flying through the air. Sometimes they spit fire, sometimes they spit acid, but ALWAYS they have absolutely no story whatsoever. In a world where every mob has a backstory, every race has an origin, we find ourselves getting killed by...spiderbats that don't even have a name.
 * 1) Azjol'Nerub and Ahn'Kahet
 * Why are the Twilight's Hammer here? I understand they're connected to the Old Gods, but seeing that Yogg Saron inexplicably went from living free in Ahn'Kahet to living imprisoned in Ulduar, what are they even doing in the sunken city?
 * 1) Arch Mage Arugal
 * I was excited when I read that Arugal would be returning to sic his worgen pets on us. I was even more excited when I saw him disappear at the end of the questline, with the questgiver saying the equivalent of "We havent seen the last of him...". But apparently, we have. Where once it was suspected that he would return as the lord of Heroic Shadowfang Keep, he has been replaced by some previously unknown tart. So...where did Arugal go?
 * 1) Crystalsong Forest
 * So...what's this all about? I have read the lore, about the battle that crystallized the forest that's now haunted by highborne ghosts, etc...but a World Tree is KINDA a big deal. There have only been two in existence. When one was almost destroyed, it could have meant the end of the world. When the other was made, it almost CAUSED the end of the world. And they want to throw in a story that some half baked druids just made a World Tree on a whim and let it get turned to crystal? Is this lore even in-game? Having the Loremaster achievement on my main, I don't remember a single quest explaining what in Cthulhu's name happened there. I had to go hunting through wowpedia just to find out that zones backstory.
 * 1) Wintergrasp and Strand of the Ancients
 * Now, I understand that these zones have the very purpose of "Fighting over Titan Artifacts". My question is...where are these artifacts? Vault of Archavon holds just that: Archavon. Were fighting to open a Titan facility to gain access to pissed off giants? And Strand...NOTHING in that vault. Or at least, nothing to fight over.
 * 1) Horde and Alliance expeditions
 * Why do these guys even have rep?
 * 1) Vrykul types
 * I understand the flesh, iron, and undead varieties this species come in. I'll even grudgingly accept the Frost Vrykul, even if there's absolutely no explanation about how they turned blue. But why is there a variety made of seaweed? Are they supposed to be ghosts? At least the frost vrykul had SOMETHING of an explanation. Speaking of frost...
 * 1) Frostborn and Taunka
 * So apparently, these guys have been inducted into the Alliance and Horde, respectfully. Yet in Wrath we see absolutely no evidence of their existence. Was their induction fake? Kinda like saying the fat kid can be in your club just to pick on him? "Sure you can join our club....hehehehehhahahahahaHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! What? No, I'm serious, kid. I just remembered a blonde joke I heard the other day, don't worry about it...."
 * 1) The Black Dragonflight
 * Why in Dagon's name are these guys members of the Wyrmwrest Accord? Not only are they nihilistic abominations to all dragons, they contribute absolutely nothing to the Nexus War except for guarding the Black Dragonshrine with one of the single coolest characters in Warcraft history.
 * 1) Mamtoth
 * Okay, so if the Mammoth God blew himself up to avoid the fate of the other Laos, how can there be a mammoth boss in Zul'Drak?
 * 1) Anub'Arak
 * One of the coolest characters, with some of the coolest lines...what happened to him? "Lines like "I'll consume the living AND the dead" and he's stuck enraging in Trial of the Crusader, screaming like the Incredible Hulk after eating a horse laxative. It's almost embarassing to listen to his audio without seeing what's going on. Plus, things were kinda looking up for him, seeing that his Azjol'Nerub death quote is "Never thought... I would be free of him...", but no. He comes right bck, enslaved once more. Oh how the mighty have fallen...
 * 1) Forgemaster Garfrost
 * What is this guy? A flesh giant made from a bunch of Frost Giants?
 * 1) Lord Marrowgar and the Devourer of Souls
 * ...What are these guys? I understand Lord Marrowgar has a story, but it still doesn't explain why he was made from a thousand dead warriors instead of a thousand zombies.
 * 1) Plague Eruptors
 * "Plague eruptors are the latest experiment of the Lich King, designed to spread horror and chaos across the world of the living. These walking corpses have quickly earned a reputation as the most destructive of the Scourge army: hyper-violent, incredibly strong, and deceptively fast. The most terrifying weapons in the eruptors' arsenal are the myriad pulsing nodules that dominate their rotting skin. It is from these nodules that the undead plague festers and bursts, insuring that wherever the eruptors go, they quickly spread the Lich King's apocalyptic contagion."
 * In what way is that any different from an Abomination, with its disease cloud?
 * 1) Iron Dwarf, Vrykul, etc.
 * How do you fight a man with iron skin when your using anything shy of a two handed mace?
 * And now for the big question!
 * 1) Why does there have to be a Lich King?
 * I understand it was to show that Bolvar was being heroic by making a sacrifice by giving up a life he couldn't possibly go back to by entrapping the creature to whom he owes his continued existence...well, when it's put that way, it doesn't sound too heroic, considering he didn't give anything up. "Pick me! I've got nothing to lose!" But he says that there has to be a Lich King or the Scourge will run rampant...isn't that what they've been doing? If they have no leader, they just stand there or (Shub-Niggurath forbid) regain their free will and become even more Forsaken. Anyone remember what happened last time Ner'Zhul lost control? Sylvanas and her people got some semblance of their lives back. They didn't run rampant (dpenending on your perspective...) but rather celebrate their freedom every year by burning a giant wicker man, pointing to Northrend, and hold up a giant sign that says "You".
 * So all in all, I loved playing Wrath. It had alot of cool stuff...it also had alot of...stuff...

--Blacktouch (talk) 08:35, 25 November 2010 (UTC)


 * My answers:


 * 1. There's that gent outside Azjol-Nerub, Kilix the Unraveler - not exactly an "organized" resistance to the Scourge, but it is there. Even if we have to do all the friggin' work. As for the viziers, people are still hoping there is some kind of Azjol-Nerub raid like it was rumored way back when, but I don't think it will happen. (Ditto for the raid that everyone seems to think will be in Gundrak.)


 * 2. Blizzard makes both games, of course there will be similarities. "Argus" appears in some fashion in StarCraft and Warcraft, and in Diablo too. And unfortunately, no, not every mob has a storyline.


 * 3. Yogg-Saron's physical manifestation is in Ulduar, but his..."spirit", if you will, is all over Northrend, most evident in any location with large amounts of saronite, such as the mines in Icecrown and the inner halls of Ulduar, and reaching as far out as Grizzly Hills. The Twilight presence was really only in the inner halls of Ahn'Kahet, everything past Prince Taldaram - Azjol-Nerub was more a Scourge stronghold, and the first two bosses of Ahn'Kahet are both Scourge - and I'm assuming it has something to do with the nerubians' affiliations (prior or otherwise) with the Old Gods, since they were an offshoot of Old God creations, the aqir.


 * 4. Arugal is dead. Period, end. The thing we fight in Northrend is his spirit, because he was killed by agents of the Horde and his ghost brought back by the darkfallen princes, as seen in that vision from Grizzly Hills. You're not the only one to complain about Godfrey - though the complaints largely come from Alliance characters, who are bummed that the Horde gets to see the extension of the Gilneas storyline leading up to Godfrey taking over Shadowfang.


 * 5. The "World Tree" you refer to is actually not like Nordrassil or Teldrassil (and you left one out - Vordrassil, aka Grizzlemaw, is also a World Tree...a failed World Tree, but a World Tree nevertheless). They're actually called "Great Trees", and there are five of them - two in the Eastern Kingdoms (the Twilight Grove in Duskwood and Seradane in the Hinterlands), two in Kalimdor (Bough Shadow in Ashenvale and Dream Bough in Feralas), and one in Northrend (simply named "Great Tree" in Crystalsong), intended as portals into the Emerald Dream.


 * 6. The Titan artifact in Wintergrasp, the way I understand it, is the strange floating sphere thing in Wintergrasp Fortress - which is what the attackers must capture in order to win.


 * 7. So engineers can get their motorcycle patterns. *grin*


 * 8. I think the novel "The Shattering" implied they were indeed restless spirits. Which doesn't explain why they're not marked undead in most cases, and why they leave intact bodies when killed in the water, but eh.


 * 9. The taunka had a much larger presence than the Frostborn - they had villages in both entry zones and in Grizzly Hills, their besieged capital is in Dragonblight, and there are some major story developments up in Storm Peaks. Frostborn were just a plot device to reintroduce a still-very-much-alive Muradin. As to why they didn't play a larger part, chalk that up to Blizzard being lazy.


 * 10. Because even if they are lunatics, they still take the protection of their dragonshrine seriously, and the quest-givers say as much. Plus if Malygos wiped out the world with his reckless crusade against magic, they'd go up with it. They don't want that - THEY want to be the ones who start the apocalypse. Which they did, through their father, Deathwing.


 * 11. Likely because his prophets were already empowered with a small portion of his essence - Mam'toth's self-destruction just means they can't get more.


 * 12. Chalk that up to major laziness on Blizzard's part. I still don't get that with Anub'arak coming back either - ToC just seemed to be a major filler, like Sunwell was when Wrath of the Lich King was taking longer than anticipated, or some such.


 * 13. He just hopes his giant underpants are clean. Save boss great shame...for later. *ahem* Sorry. Seriously, though...again, who says every single boss has to have an explanation in lore? There's a qiraji prophet in Outland and an arakkoa mage in Northrend - both being held in prisons, I might add. Do they say how they got there? Nope.


 * 14. No clue. (See last bit in response to Garfrost.)


 * 15. I think eruptors were intended to be the Six Million Dollar Abominations - they can rebuild them, they have the technology, they can make them stronger, faster, etc., etc.


 * 16. It's magic. (Literally in some cases.) Or more akin to game mechanics. Mechanics, in the end, often supercede lore. It's like asking how undead are suseptible to disease, when they're technically dead, or how you can kill (some) fire elementals with fire spells as a mage, shaman or warlock.


 * 17. Think back to the original StarCraft. When the Overmind went into a "catatonic" state after Zeratul killed Zasz and linked with him, the Swarms were listless, but not entirely rampaging (except for the Garm Brood, which without Zasz to direct it had to be wiped out by the other Broods, which made me wonder why the Overmind just didn't create a new Cerebrate to replace Zasz, but eh). Again when Tassadar destroys the Overmind in the finale. Prior to that, the Zerg Swarm moved with a purpose, driven by the will of their master. With the Overmind dead, the Zerg completely lost it, just destroying everything in their path, until first the new Overmind made up of the remaining Cerebrates, and then later Kerrigan, took control, bringing them back in line. Think the same thing, except substitute rampaging insectoid monsters with legions of shambling ghouls, the Overmind with the Lich King, and Kerrigan with Bolvar, and it's pretty much the same thing. Again, this is another throwback to one of Blizzard's own games to create a storyline.


 * And there you have it. --[[Image:IconSmall_Deathwing.gif]] Joshmaul, Loremaster of Chaos (Leave a Message) 12:07, 25 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Just to comment on a few points there...
 * There have actually always been Faceless Ones in Azjol-Nerub. Their very first appearance, in fact, was during the Frozen Throne expansion when Arthas and Anub'arak were going through Azjol-Nerub to reach Icecrown and fought past a rather large number of them.
 * As far as Trial of the Crusader and Sunwell being filler, I really can't understand why people keep perpetuating this (well, alright, so I can sort of see it in the case of ToC). Blizzard has talked about how their original plan was to have ToC in Crystalsong Forest (hence the Sunreaver and Silver Covenant bases that were ultimately never used for anything), but with Dalaran directly above it would have been way too laggy so they moved it to Icecrown instead. And in the case of the Sunwell, well... Besides the fact that really everything in the expansion was leading up to it storyline-wise, they said at BlizzCon when the expansion was first announced that we'd be getting the Sunwell in a future patch. The problem was that they kept hyping up Illidan as the ultimate villain despite that never really being the case, so everything after him kind of felt a little bit tacked on. Besides, with the amount of time it takes to create a fully-itemized raid instance with several bosses, new profession plans, new models, and an entire tier set (plus an associated five-man instance), there's no way they could have done something on that scale as filler. If you want an example of a filler instance, Ruby Sanctum is probably a lot closer. -- Dark T Zeratul (talk) 09:25, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
 * The Faceless Ones in Azjol-Nerub: Who's to say that this was not actually Ahn'kahet, even though it did not get that name and all the hype with it until WotLK? In fact, if my memory serves me, wasn't that part of the map marked "The Old Kingdom" on the campaign loading screens? --[[Image:IconSmall_Deathwing.gif]] Joshmaul, Loremaster of Chaos (Leave a Message) 10:16, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

11:56, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

I must say that ToC wasn't tacked on, but that doesn't stop it from being filler. It moved the story forward in no way. It was simply: Kill these...good job! Throwing Anub'Arak into the mix was just to ground it in the lore by adding an event of note beyond "Fordring hosts the Olympics, Mograine silently broods."

Sunwell Plateau was kind of the apex of the blood elf storyline, I was a huge fan of it. Black Temple really seemed to be more of the culmination of the Aliance story archs. Now Karazhan, THAT was a pointless raid from a lore perspective. Though it was rich in history, it had absolutely nothing to do with the story of the Burning Crusade.

Haha I'm certainly well aware of the Faceless Ones being in Ahn'Kahet in the Frozen Throne, and I must say that was an astute observation that it was The Old Kingdom. But my point was that if Yogg Saron's avatar had been killed by Arthas, why would the Twilight's Hammer even be there? Nostalgia? But Joshmaul, while your post answers some of my questions and I thank you for it, I must stand by a few of my statements. Kilix the Unraveler in Azjol'Nerub hardly speaks of an "Unseen emperor" that Blizzard still has posted in their bestiary. Apart from that one gent, all other Viziers serve the One True King.

I'm not asking for everyboss to have lore, but rather every race. The Horde spends the first 40 levels learning the storylines of harpies, quillboar, and centaurs. These are races that, while interesting, have little to no bearing on the storyline of the series. They are simply the descendants of ancients and demigods that have lingered too long and don't like the orcs in their homeland. Then we go to Northrend and can just stare at Viziers, plague eruptors, Nerubian flyers, and all the other Unnameables and wonder....What the Hel is that?!

But this isn't Starcraft. Same makers, different series. While they do have nods to each other, the story of Arthas is not one of these. What happened when the Overmind died and lost control of The Swarm? The zerg went apesh*t and killed everything they saw. What happened when Ner'zhul lost his control in The Frozen Throne? Sylvanas and all the other Forsaken. Even in the novel Arthas, when the necromancers teleport away, the Scourge they control either stand there...brainless, or they try toweakly fight back. Undead are nothing without their necromancers, their puppeteers, and Ner'zhul is the grandaddy of them all. Without him, the Scourge would just be a buncha emo guys in the Cult of the Damned and some wandering undead. Blacktouch 11:56, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Thing is, Ner'zhul wasn't dead when the Forsaken broke free. Weakened enough to lose control over some of his minions, yes, but not a total collapse like with the death of the Overmind. The Lich King was not killed, just rendered powerless, very briefly. The Overmind was outright killed, blown up, scattered to the four winds, banished to the Nine Hells...erm, wrong universe.


 * My theory is that his power is dependent on some kind of "recepticle". For instance, the Frozen Throne sustained (and contained) Ner'zhul's essence - not quite physical form, but not quite noncorporeal either. Once the Helm of Domination was taken out of the Frozen Throne, the lingering essence of Ner'zhul within it had only a short time to gain some kind of host (Arthas in the first merging, and Bolvar in the second) before its hold over the Scourge waned enough for the undead legions to go completely apeshit. The same applies for when the crown's wearer is killed, as Arthas' body became the recepticle of the Lich King's powers; but when Arthas died, the Scourge was completely without control or direction, and in order to keep them from the apeshit phase, someone had to take up the crown himself and use their body as the new recepticle of the Lich King's powers. Enter Bolvar.


 * You think this is not a direct lift off the original SC storyline - how are you so certain? Blizzard rips itself off all the time. *chuckles* --[[Image:IconSmall_Deathwing.gif]] Joshmaul, Loremaster of Chaos (Leave a Message) 16:00, 30 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Receptacle. Just FYI. ---[[Image:gengar orange 22x22.png]] Fandyllic (talk &middot; contribs) 2:02 PM PST 30 Nov 2010

But I don't understand that line of reasoning. "If the Lich King's control wanes, then they regain their free will. But if it collapses, they go nuts." I don't quite follow. If the power level is at 9000, they're being dominated by his will. But if it drops to 4500, hes too weak to control them. And if it drops to 0, they become to weak to control themselves. Are the Forsaken's collective sanity all reliant on the Lich King's existence? If he dies, do they go insane? ~Blacktouch 05:42, 2 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I have a theory about the Lich King in relation to that. Despite the wording in ICC, I think it would fit best if the Lich King holds the bloodthirsty middle management back, and his death does not frenzy the fodder. Bolvar commands the more intelligent Scourge to wait to kill everything, and they must obey.-- 17:43, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
 * To use your power level comparison, at 9000 they're dominated. At 4500, he loses control of the more strongly-willed undead. At 0, he loses all control, and the mindless undead just start killing indiscriminately. Not to mention what Sandwichman pointed out, which is that all of the powerful liches and death knights and necromancers would just take control and use them to their own ends. -- Dark T Zeratul (talk) 18:22, 2 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Last I checked, the Lich King's power level is OVER 9000!!!! ... sry, couldn't resist.  22:00, 3 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Perhaps it's not about controlling mindless zombies from rampaging across the world, perhaps it's more about not letting the Legion develop a chance to reclaim them.-- Sir Tristram (Speak, mortal. My Conquests.) 14:57, 4 December 2010 (UTC)