Making a Case for a Re-Tuned Onyxia in the Lore
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iTZKooPA on Thursday, August 13, 2009 - 17 Comments Tags: Lore, Zarhym, anniversary, lore, nozdormu, onyxia, onyxia's lair, patch 3.2.2, retune
iTZKooPA on Thursday, August 13, 2009 - 17 Comments Tags: Lore, Zarhym, anniversary, lore, nozdormu, onyxia, onyxia's lair, patch 3.2.2, retune 
Blizzard blue Zarhym revealed yesterday that Onyxia would be making her gallant return to World of Warcraft in celebration of the title's fifth anniversary. Following last year's random non-combat pet that players got for the four year mark, we'll be granted a Black Dragon Whelps to go along with the our bear. Obviously I am in favor of nostalgia, adding more vanity pets and content to the game. I did have one reservation upon hearing the news. I instantly thought, and entered into numerous discussions about, "how is Blizzard's creative team gonna pull that off lorewise?"
The lengthy brainstorming session caused much WoWWiking and some heated discussion. Believe it or not the mind melds came up with some well-crafted ideas, and of course, not so good ideas.
- The "Who Cares" Approach - More than a few people I have talked to spouted this defense. Simply put, many players, hardcore and casual, don't feel that the lore is important. They claim that they won't care how she went from a head displayed across Stormwind (read dead) to a level 80 boss (alive). While I personally believe the lore holds more water than this group realizes, it's possible that Blizzard will just retune the encounter and ignore everything else.
- Retcon - Retconning is the fine art of changing a storyline after it has already taken place (meaning absorbed by the audience). It's a popular mechanic in today's large franchises (Star Trek, Star Wars, too many comics to name), and Blizzard has employed the technique themselves. Considering that Onyxia's quest chain has been removed, and her human disguise vanquished from the halls of Stormwind, a retcon with a new storyline is entirely plausible.
- Infinite Dragonflight - I posited this as my little baby. We know very little about the Infinite Dragonflight. We do know that they are messing with the timeline, but that's all we have. Their actions could be at the request of Nozdormu himself, but it could just as easily be another flight created by Deathwing for his own nefarious purposes. Assuming it is Deathwing's latest scheme, then the new encounter can be explained as an alternate timeline's Onyxia making her triumphant return.
It should be quite obvious what I want Blizzard to do, the Bronze Dragonflight. Just think of how cool it could be. First off, the process can be explained in the lore easily. It'll also offer the encounter designers a chance to experiment with new moves for Onyxia (she's different after all). Perhaps a Really Deep Breath? She'd have to perform her asthmatic move more often of course. Lastly, and most importantly, it'd offer a perfect time for Deathwing and his Black Dragonflight to rear their ugly heads.
The overall consensus is that Blizzard may very well take the "Who Cares" approach. After all, it's just a bit of added content to effectively pat themselves on the back for sticking around a half decade (has it really been that long? *checks /played*). Unlike the rest of the Internet, I am not a pessimist, and I expect the developer to deliver something to us. Retconning seemed to be as equally likely from the poll. You'll recall that Blizzard said Onyxia's chain would be modified to fit into Wrath's timeline upon its removal. That little diddy fits my Infinite Dragonflight hopes even more than a retcon. Hmm.
Which scenario is most likely in your mind? Have any other ideas as to how Blizzard can write in the retune? Do you think Blizzard will remove/replace the old encounter with the new one?
Reader Comments (17)
Strange mabey blizzard doesnt got any more ideeas :| .
With it being for a special event, it might simply be considered "outside" the lore, more like a treat for players rather than an attempt to work with the storyline.
Who cares?
You can go and kill VanCleef a bazillion times and nobody cries fowl. Why should it be any different if you can go back and kill Onyxia a few more times?
BFD. Period. End of discussion.
I posted this under the first blog regarding the Ony redux:
You know..upon further reflection, it really DOES make sense to ‘ressurect’ all these old raids and perhaps even put them all together in some kind of conglomerate raid settting.
What about lore, you ask? Simple! With everyone’s attention focused on Icecrown, what better way to bring about the utter fall of Azeroth by pulling a fake-out on us?
All Arthas has to do is ressurrect the Black Dragonflight, Onxyia, and yes Van Cleef! I’ll reference a WoWhobbes video he released a couple of weeks ago. You can view it at
http://www.youtube.com/watchv=ODlkWHIZdy&feature=channel=page .
Pay attention at the .40 mark. Is that an opening meant to be taken advantage of by a sneaky Prince of Darkness that the vast majority of us don’t pay attention to or hardly even noticed? Ressurecting the Defias to undermine and perhaps even subvert Stormwind from within would be a perfect infiltration method!
And of course on the Horde side, Ragefire Chasm is entered into from Orgrimmnar itself! What a pefect way to storm the Horde and destroy it’s main seat of power from the inside! Garrosh seems pretty unsympathetic to Thrall’s problems as well. Just some food for thought.
Where does Onyxia tie in storyline wise? Given that Jaina Proudmore is stationed there overseeing the further eradication of a Defias spread in Dustwallow and has obvious ties to Thrall…wait, what’s located on the far western edge
(correct me if I’m wrong!) of Dustwallow? Why it’s nothing less than Onyxia’s lair!
Arthas has show us his power seems to reach across the whole of Azeroth…could the scourge invasion at the beginning which faded away into obscurity only have been an end run to divert our attention from something FAR more disturbing and destructive?
Only time will tell I suppose…
damn, even upon triple checking, the link above STILL doesn't work! Go to youtube, look up WoWhobbes and it was a scenery thingamabobby posted about two weeks ago!
@ PatrickD
Because we are talking about Onyxia :] I have many good memories of her back in Vanilla WoW. She IS important in the Lore, so many Roleplayers will dislike this if they just use the "Who Cares" option. While I consider myself as a Raider, I think we should also care about what the other players want.
I like option #3 btw.
I would be displeased if Blizzard chose the "who cares" route or do yet another retcon (space goats, 'nuff said). Is Blizzard running out of actual lore -- since retconning doesn't count -- to produce? And when did WoW become an MMO instead of MMORPG?
I really don't care how they explain this. I just think it would be fun to go back in there. I can't believe how many people are mad about a free raid they didn't have to give us. In general chat today someone was saying how lazy Blizzard was.
3.2 could have been just a PVP patch, but no they gave us a brand new raid, and a new 5 man dungeon. Usually subpatches are for fixing imballences but they are giving us a new and revamped Onyxia raid to reward the player base for sticking around this long and keeping money in their pockets. 3.3 is still coming people.
I remember that to fix the Naxx WotLK lore, they had an Argent Dawn double operative bring KT's phylactery (Sorry) to Arthas to revive him. So maybe,
1: A young whelp was hiding as he/she watched her mother be killed by 40(?) people and she took the name Onyxia to avenge her father.
2: The guy you turn Nefarion's head into "steals" Onyxia's head and takes it to the Cult of the Damned to resurrect the first dragon ... well, first dragon to challenge the heroes. (Players) And also, the guy you turned Onyxia's head into could do the same thing as the "Nefarion guy" if Blizzard turned him into a level 80 version.
Just a thought
Mother, not father. I'm stupid, :P
i personally dont want them screwing with ANYTHING pre bc, im in the process of making two 60 epiced out toons (& using the xp cap feature) already sucks i cant get T3 without them removing more stuff for re worked content, & i know for a fact lots of ppl love soloing old stuff for kicks also if they want to make new content for vanilla wow, see my post on the phasing blog on this site :)
Personally, Lore-lover that I am, I think the 'who cares' option works fine. Regardless of whether she's 60, or 80, she's stronger than the mortal races. (this part is all I can glean from conversations. I actually know nothing about this) When Varian killed Katrana Prestor, she retreated to her lair in Dustwallow Marsh to continue her plans.
To ramp up the level and loot shouldn't change anything lore-wise. The lore can be the exact same, the only difference being that Onyxia is stronger than we previously thought now. It's no biggie.
up till WOTLK release i ddint care a damn about the lore, the lore is a HUGE part of the game and they can't just ignore it to bring some idiotic raid to 80s i would be disappoitent if blizzard did it . why would you ever farm epics at level 60 just doesnt make any sance. every time we kill VC every time he is the same level same stats same look same everything plus he is a part of a quest taht people do daily it is a neccery that he keeps respawning otherwise no one but the first person will be able to get his head see a neccery wrinkle in the game but onyxia after being farmed and farmed and farmed all of a sudeen becoming 80 with no explanation whats so ever that is an unneccery wrinkle in the lore cause either way you would get the quest get it? her respawning after every kill neccery her gettign a large boost and all of a suden becoming 80 with some new tectics and better loot unneccery so if bizz is doing that which apparently they are i would expect it that it fits with the lore since it is unneccery and i would like to see the whole femily nafarian, onyxia, and natherian, in one big raid. i think it would be a good way to fit it into the lore another idea lich king could rez onyxia like he did sindragosa and many other members of the blue dragonflight
and one final thing its not the quantity of the content that makes players say that blizz is getting lazy or desprat its the quality of their the content players feel that the last patches were just fillers something to do untill the ICC opens which i happen to disagree with but not going into that now allthough i am not dismissing the idea that blizz is getting lazy or desprat the leak about worgens and golins becoming playeble just strenghed that theory and now they are recycling another raid. goblins and worgens an obvious desprate attemp to recruit more players and onyxia could be a sighn of blizz slacking of or it could be just an attemp to bring back a great a raid raid i guess weather they choose to go with the "who cares" or put some work into and create a nice story with it that explains how she was raised to the status of the modern villain will show weather they are trying to answer the pleas of the many though sometimes idiotic players or are getting lazy only time will tell
As they have done before with Escape from Durnholde and The Culling of Stratholme, the new Onyxia encounter could be ancient history on where she came from and what drove her to her lair in Dustwallow.Marsh. We didn't kill Mal'Ganis just drove him to Northrend, so this time we drive Onxyia to Dustwallow Marsh. Sounds good to me.
I think that lorewise it'll be easy enough to work out. Something like along the lines of it being infinite dragonflight or something will make it all cool. I personally don't have a huge issue with it lorewise as it's simply updating a raid, rather than have her show up in icecrown or something stupid like that, it's just increasing the difficulty. Anyhow, I'd kind of like them to update a fair few more dungeons like that, I think there was even an episode of project lore where you guys were talking about redoing classic instances but with a heroic mode for level capped characters. I think it's nice to revisit Vanilla content, it'd be quite cool if they'd update something like black temple or something, I think that as when the next expansion pack hits we'll all be geared up in our level 90 gear and Illidan will be soloable and whatnot and that just sucks lorewise.
Wasn't the Infinite Dragonflight attempting to "help" the timeline every time we encountered them? I'm thinking of the time they wanted to keep Thrall imprisoned and stop Arthas from becomming the litch king, stopping the orcs from comming to Azeroth, ext. So why would they want to bring her back? I mean, it could be worked around, but it would be one heck of a work around.
I believe the Lore should be added on to Like to go along with the Lich king. somthing kinda like this.
Many Days Had passed Sense The Broodmother had been slayed. Hearing of the news arthas had a scout rush down and bring him her Remains. Striking a Deal with The Devil him self Onyxia Begged for a second life to protect her spawn. Arthas accepted without a second thought... Now a slave of Arthas she vows to destroy all those who enter her nest and harm her spawn.
see somthing like that then We go in there and kill her again... and then 3.3 comes out we go kill all the trolls then 3.4 comes out we go and kill all the vrycule then 3.5 comes out we go and kill Arthas and in the nik of time the lich king finds a new host(hopfully Morgaine becus he will be there) and he flees.... Then 3.6 we kill morgaine then 4.0 comes out with the new Xpac