Lich King ending lore discussion.

[Lucavi]

I 100% agree with you that they messed up Frostmourne. Originally it was supposed to enslave a soul to the will of the Burning Legion, but that somehow got retconned to being a psuedo-servant to the final entity of what the Lich King was supposed to -become-, to just being enslaved to the sword itself and all kinds of mess.

I always figured that Ner'Zhul was never loyal to the Burning Legion, and was originally supposed to merge with Arthas in order to, as you said, simply be free to be mobile. That thought changed when instead of ordering Arthas to return immediately to him after destroying Lorderon, he instead sent Arthas to be the Legion's temporary errand-boy in helping Big K reach Azeroth.

I think it again goes back to having problems modifying lore to suit the MMO frame. They wanted to hype up TBC, as that was going to be their then-current expansion, not WotLK. Why not have arthas run a few errands for the Legion, set up a lovely forsaken plothole, then retreat to icecrown and merge with the Lich King to become this... hodgepodge mass of personalities and ambitions.

Perhaps all that time the Lich King was sitting up in Icecrown after the merge was him sorting out the minds and souls within that body. I don't know. I'd like to see them release a series of books that would simply tell the straight story, without interference from either the Warcraft games OR World of Warcraft. I really enjoy the plot, but throwing us adventurers in the way and making things revolve around us just makes it too hard to separate fact from fiction and retcon from original idea.

Just look at what they did to everyone's favorite Space Goats.

[Vobent]

Spoilered for largeness.

Spoiler: show

http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/..._king_kill.jpg

Is it me, or does bolvar look really, really weird in this pic? (he's sitting on the throne in the back, kinda ruins the whole "lich king and bolvar died here" thing.)

[Siniroth]

Spoilered for largeness.

Spoiler: show

http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/..._king_kill.jpg

Is it me, or does bolvar look really, really weird in this pic? (he's sitting on the throne in the back, kinda ruins the whole "lich king and bolvar died here" thing.)

Helmet looks too big yeah o_O

And how does it ruin it? We're supposed to tell others that, why would anyone else go up there?

[Vobent]

Really can't say, I havn't seen the in-game text after you beat him. But, there's really no mention of the 'hero' in the cinematic, just tirion & bolvar.

[Onorgul]

Players are irrelevant in WoW.

[Siniroth]

Players are just helping the NPCs do all the work, haven't you heard? He says the line in the CS, and they're certainly not going to include any player in any CS

[Lucavi]

The only time I can remember in -any- MMO where we, the people, were considered badass or relevant to the plot was right at the beginning of WotLK where some of the NPCs were talking about how glad they were that we were here.

They spoke of our victories in outland and on Azeroth, and I even remember them saluting my Orc and calling him "Sir Gaiasfist". That made me feel a lot more immersed in the game than the typical "you may have been a big shot in the last zone, xxx, but you'll have to prove yourself all over again here!" text in just about every vanilla and TBC zone.

[Vobent]

"Bolvar Fordragon: Do it, Tirion! You and these brave heroes have your own destinies to fulfill. This last act of service... is mine. "

Yea, whoops. Forgot about that in the cinematic.

Still waiting for the full text of the end of the fight on wowwiki.

[Onorgul]

I'd almost pay for Blizzard to make some serious RP script that actually incorporates the players. They'd need to base it on actual performance, though.

"Were it not for the valiant efforts of Johnnytank and Susiehealer, we would all be lost. However, Dumbassdps who stands in the fire and 3point2kdps who was carried through the entire instance should be hurled immediately from the spire of Icecrown Citadel. Now let us never speak of the Lich King, Bolvar Fordragon, or this terrible raid ever again."

[Lucavi]

Alright, that sounds like something out of a Monty Python script.

I likes it.

[Plow]

The thing I'm contesting with you Plow is that Ner'Zhul never came in contact with Frostmourne. He never touched it, and his soul was never sucked into it. In the lore, he mentally flung the sword out of the frozen throne, knowing that whosoever claimed the blade would have their will completely enslaved to Frostmourne.

Er, frostmourne was the same thing as the armor basically, but he was able to expel it to attract arthas... and he could then see through the wielder's eyes and communicate with him at any distance.

I think the Nazharehm intended for the Ner'Zhul to claim Frostmourne, have the last remaining vestiges of his will taken by the blade, and leave only "The Lich King", an entity that existed only to shepard in a massive army of undead for the Burning Legion's own personal use.

That's basically what happened >.> except there was some remnant of NZ himself left until the dream events.

Since Ner'Zhul wasn't an idiot, and didn't trust the Nazharehm (as evidenced by Kel Thuzad warning Arthas to "trust not the Jailers, for they are the Lich King's keepers), and wanted to rule his undead army in his own way, he never came in contact with the sword, knowing something was up. He wanted to break free of his jailers, not serve them, so he cast the sword out, mentally goading the strongest mind he could manipulate to claim the sword, and then use that person as his finest "enforcer"

I believe he only merged with Arthas because of his weakened state following our favorite Night Elf Demon's spell.

This could be wrong, because when Malganas saw Arthas with Frostmourne, he assumed that he was working for the Lich King, and thus, the Legion, so I don't know. They are my own thoughts.

You've got it right for the most part, but your understanding of Frostmourne is way off. It basically like... I don't know how to explain it, but it is its own entity, yet at the same time it's just another "part" of the lich king. It's not that he expelled it because he wanted to be rid of it, he simply set it out so that he could control whoever was strong enough and willing to take it.

Mal'ganis straight up told Arthas that the sword was part of the LK and had stolen his soul, Arthas then "killed" him, and that's basically when he officially became a DK.

For how it basically works:

The sword steals your soul, but keeps your abilities and memories for itself. At that point your body is basically a "shell" inhabited by Frostmourne. (and will become undead if it's not already)

then, (wowwiki):

The Lich King can take possession of a soulless body that comes in contact with him and Frostmourne at the same time. The soul within Frostmourne is destroyed unless it willingly merges with the Lich King, becoming lost as a separate entity for all eternity. If a soul merges with the Lich King, he gains all the skills and memories of the victim. He has only done this one time, with Prince Arthas Menethil.

"Bolvar Fordragon: Do it, Tirion! You and these brave heroes have your own destinies to fulfill. This last act of service... is mine. "

Yea, whoops. Forgot about that in the cinematic.

Still waiting for the full text of the end of the fight on wowwiki.

There's video of it up on youtube... I could give you what I remember verbatum if you want. It's a fucking hell of a lot more dramatic than the actual cutscene lol.

[Plow]

Frostmourne, from what I can tell, has been victim to Blizzard's lackadaisical lore department. Remember how the Lost Ones and Akama were retconned like crazy to make some light-infused, anti-demon aliens? Same thing here. Frostmourne went from being a cursed blade of somewhat indeterminate origin to a device that overrides both the Burning Legion's reason for creating the Frozen Throne (to have someone control their Scourge) and Ner'zhul's own personality. I mean, before the lore got bent over backwards for the billionth time, Ner'zhul wasn't interested in taking over the world, he just wanted to get out of that fucking block of ice. That's why I keep getting confused at the idea that Ner'zhul is lost and gone, because his luring of Arthas was to free himself; it wasn't part of some master plan to destroy the universe. That's Sargeras's bag.

Ner'zhul had one, and only one goal: moar powar. It was his own innate "evilness" in being willing to do anything, or endure anything, blah blah blah, in order to attain more power for the simple sake of more power.


Basically, I'll put it this way:

When Arthas, the light's most powerful weapon, had his soul drained and became a near-perfect being of evil, and that power was "under" NZ's control...

NZ definitely did a big ole Tim Taylor bark.

[Onorgul]

While I don't disagree on the power-hungry aspect, I still feel that Ner'zhul's motivations have been twisted and dropped by the wayside in an effort to make way for this band-aid attempt to cover what would otherwise be a huge plothole in a persistent world. The Illidan solution ("Ha ha ha, you didn't really get me!") and the Sunwell solution (ignoring the problem altogether) are similarly bad.

Either way, if I'm to believe your interpretation of Ner'zhul, then he's pretty much the most poorly-written character to come anywhere near Azeroth. Whatever else may be said of Blizzard utterly destroying their own lore, they usually build characters whose motivation and complexities are compelling enough to warrant debate (e.g., the long-standing feuds about whether Varian Wrynn is a dick or not -- PS, he is).

[Plow]

While I don't disagree on the power-hungry aspect, I still feel that Ner'zhul's motivations have been twisted and dropped by the wayside in an effort to make way for this band-aid attempt to cover what would otherwise be a huge plothole in a persistent world. The Illidan solution ("Ha ha ha, you didn't really get me!") and the Sunwell solution (ignoring the problem altogether) are similarly bad.

Either way, if I'm to believe your interpretation of Ner'zhul, then he's pretty much the most poorly-written character to come anywhere near Azeroth. Whatever else may be said of Blizzard utterly destroying their own lore, they usually build characters whose motivation and complexities are compelling enough to warrant debate (e.g., the long-standing feuds about whether Varian Wrynn is a dick or not -- PS, he is).

It's actually extremely well done if you check into it--

He's basically arthas, if arthas was an orc shaman that turned into a warlock instead of a pally turned dk, and like... instead of having all the shit to emo about, he was doing just fine and dandy as king, and just craved more.

[sb]

The only time I can remember in -any- MMO where we, the people, were considered badass or relevant to the plot was right at the beginning of WotLK where some of the NPCs were talking about how glad they were that we were here.

I would say by way of CS and npc interaction, FFXI did that pretty well actually. Yes the story involed key NPC's, but your character was deeply immersed in it and interacted differently with npcs based on how far you had progressed throughout most of its expansions, particularly in CoP.


(Not trying to make a XI vs. WoW statement at all)

[Siniroth]

Yeah, ffxi went with the 'only your character had anything to do with anything' route, whereas WoW and most MMOs go with 'oh, don't worry about them, they're random people I conned into helping out'

[Lordshin]

I Like to see us players as the random units the heroes had in Warcraft. So we are pretty insignificant even though we might do most of the work

[Lucavi]

I would say by way of CS and npc interaction, FFXI did that pretty well actually. Yes the story involed key NPC's, but your character was deeply immersed in it and interacted differently with npcs based on how far you had progressed throughout most of its expansions, particularly in CoP.


(Not trying to make a XI vs. WoW statement at all)

Bah.. I want to comment on it, because I disagree, but this isn't the right place for it. I may PM you and we can go from there.

[Kaylia]

Dunno, both approach are fine with me (especially if you take into account previous game in their respective series). I think FFXI did a better job with the story in overall, but WoW is doing better and better each updates, and cataclysm is suposed to be story heavy...so we will see.



That said, I think they did a poor job in FFXI to integrate my characters in the story. I literally do everything, but my presence is still incredibly weak. WoTG cutscene involved my character a little more, but it still feel weird.

[Lucavi]

That's what I meant. The story is great, and the characters interact with eachother very well, but not when it comes to us. It always comes down to:

"You, go to XXX and secure yyy! Then go to ZZZ!"

There's literally no respect for the guy or girl that fought and defeated the Shadow Lord, the Zilart princes, every God in (the) Sky, Bahamut, the God Promathia himself, and not to mention of our exploits in the east, where we were once again reduced to cannon-fodder by Naja and the entire empire and almost arrested for treason.

Just once I want to hear someone outside of the rep NPCs in each city talking about how great of a job we've done with something -- anything. Hell, your own nation barely treats you any different through text when you hit rank 10.

I'll never forget that one little line in WoW when you first suited up to hit Northrend:

"Welcome, xxx Champion of Azeroth. It is good that we have veterans such as yourself to aid us on this dire undertaking."

Finally, SOMEONE recognizes me after essentially years of going from quest-hub bitch to quest-hub bitch.