Project Lore

Project Lore has been a bit hung up on the whole Arthas/Lich King tandem of late.  And why not.  Blizzard has been trickling information on patch 3.3 for over a week now.  Between the model updates - which elude to an awesome in-game Icecrown event - character bios refreshes and general patch updates, there's no better time to get excited. Earlier this week I posed the question, "How do you want Arthas to die?" Only one clear cut morsel of information came of that discussion; that the playerbase isn't in agreement that he should die.  Pixiestixy asked the perfect follow-up question, "Is Arthas capable of redemption?" Before you jump to your conclusion, here's all the well-known people he's screwed over the course of his life, including that as the Lich King: Jaina Proudmoore:  Jaina grew up with pretty boy Arthas, making her one of the few people, that still breaths, to know him through the course of his tumultuous life.  The leader ofTheramore loved the man, only to be pushed away by him during their formative years.  It's at this time that Arthas begins slipping, making ever worse decisions, and all Jaina was able to do was deny helping him.  The budding student of Dalaran witnessed his descent into obsession.  She was even party to some of his acts.  But she never once tried to stop his acts, not even in Stratholme, leaving the proud mage with an immense amount of guilt on her conscious. Even more soul crushing, Jaina knew him when he was good, a true bearer of the Light.  A believer.  That's something she is hell bent on returning, a good, true, loving Arthas.  Hopefully her emotions and feelings don't cloud her judgement if there's no alternative, or if her very life is on the line. Sylvanas Windrunner:  Jaina may agonize over Arthas for knowing him when he was good, but Sylvanas has only known the bad.  The two females have entirely different views of the man; Jaina reveres him as a man who lost his way, whileSylvanas despises him for destroying her home.  Ruining Sylvanas ' way of life wasn't enough.  Instead of turning her into one of the mindless undead, Arthas decided to teach her a lesson for standing up to his Scourge army.  Upon her death he allowed her to retain her memories as a banshee, but he remained able to bend her to his will when needed. That's until she broke free from his control, attempted to murder him (obviously failed), founded the Forsaken, and now continues to seek her revenge. It has already been confirmed that these two leading ladies will be partaking in the assault on Icecrown Citadel. Muradin Bronzebeard:  Muradin is in much the same position as Jaina, only without the sex (we hope).  The former Ambassador to Lordaeron helped train the young Arthas, enabling the prince to become a well-versed warrior in a variety of weapons.  Muradin was witness to some of the worst atrocities Arthas committed in his quest to rid the world of Mal'ganis, including stranding his men on Northrend, and murdering the very mercenaries who helped him get that far. If seeing your student go completely insane isn't enough to tear someone apart, how about a shard of ice through the chest?  That's exactly what Muradin was treated to when he tried to stop Arthas from retrieving Frostmourne and forever becoming bound to the Lich King.  Muradin has never been the same since. Muradin will be in attendance for the Icecrown Citadel festivities. Tirion Fordring: The next three people don't have much beef with Arthas directly.  They just happen to hate the Scourge with more venom than anyone else on Azeroth.  Fordring was one of the original members of the Knights of the Silver Hand before being exiled for saving a greenskin. During the Third War he routinely dispatched minions of the Scourge army to protect his small farmstead and trail his son.  Upon his son's death, Tirion set his mind to destroying the threat, the Lord of the Scourge.  To accomplish this goal he brought the old Knights of the Silver Hand and the Argent Dawn under a new banner, the Argent Crusade, that has been bolstered by the death knight faction, Knights of the Ebon Blade.  He continues to run the faction. Darion/Alexandros Mograine:  This father and son duo also lack a direct hatred of Arthas.  As both former Scourge minions, and wielders of Ashbringer, the pair still pose a threat.  Darion remains steadfast in his quest to eliminate the Lich King, while Alexandros' fate isn't known as of now.  It's suspected that Darion saved his father from the clutches of The Dark One when he impaled himself on Ashbringer, but it has not been confirmed. Their tales are told in-depth in the excellent one-shot comic by Wildstorm, World of Warcraft: Ashbringer.  Highlord Darion Mograine is another confirmed raiding member. Varok Saurfang: Saurfang is one of the more recent high profile characters to mix it up with the Dark Lord of the Dead.  He first got on the Lich King's tail when he was sent to lead the Horde warparty in Northrend.  Initially just a routine station, it became personal for Varok after his son, Saurfang the Younger, was killed by the Lich King during the battle of Angrathar the Wrathgate. The newcomer in the Lich King's matrix will be aboard Orgrim's Hammer for the horde encounter. Kil'jaeden:  The current leader of the Burning Legion isn't a nice guy.  He doesn't take failure very well, and he doesn't enjoy people turning against him.  Ner'zhul, whom was the original Lich King, and later one-half of the being, managed to fail and then betray his master.  That's two strikes when normally one is forty two too many.  Arthas himself was never a direct underling of The Beautiful One, but he was indirectly being controlled by manipulation through the nathrezim agents sent by Archimonde.  It's roundabout, but Kil'jaeden was ultimately the creator.  Like how Steve Jobs created the iPod. Kil'jaeden slips many people's minds when they think of the Lich King's enemies, but he'd love to possess the Lich King once more.  Or put him down for failing, and then betraying him.  Still, it's highly unlikely that the spotlight will return to the Burning Legion in this fashion, or any time soon. The list is in a specific order, my order of who deserves it the most.  I still believe that Jaina requires redemption more than anyone else.  You'll have to read the novel to understand all the intricacies, but she's been hurt by Arthas, when he was good and as he became bad, and then when he became the Lich King.  The triple threat.  She's also the only person on the list who isn't in it mainly for the revenge, but to try to save him.  She may gain something from saving his soul, but at least she'd be bringing a person back into the world, instead of dispatching one. I am fairly confident that that encompasses all of the major players.  If I've missed someone important, or overlooked a connection to another character, leave me a note in the comments or @iTZKooPA and I'll check it out.

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Kil'jaeden The Beautiful One Will Feel My Daggers! I play a lot of video games.  Since 2008 rolled into 2009 I have conquered worlds, become a demigod, twisted my brain, shot an ostentatious amount of bullets, dismembered countless meatsacks, heard more four letters words than I care to admit and even created an army of plants to defend against zombies.  Dozens of titles have fallen before me, and I plan on completing dozens more.  Even though I play like a fiend - much to the chagrin of TV and movie advertisers - I still miss my fair share of video games.  Metal Gears, God of Wars, Zelda, Halos, Final Fantasies (still not final!), even Mario; I've missed one or more titles in today's most popular franchises. What does this have to do with World of Warcraft you ask?  Well, like many of the commentators on yesterday's post, I have missed my fair share of raid content.  Although my break from WoW during The Burning Crusade's days was short lived, it put me far enough behind the raiding curve (and the finding a good guild curve) that I couldn't catch up in time.  Karazhan was the only raid to feel my wrath (sorry). With this sad fact in my mind I have decided to do what I do with my other video games, head back into my library of plastic and visit what I missed in my spare time.  From here on out this brand spanking new column, Deleting Old Content, will chronicle my travels to content that many of you have played to death.  I won't be running it level appropriate, so I won't acquire the same insight the Questing series possesses.  Nonetheless, it'll be interesting to see how this old, old school raider reacts to TBC's content. Of course I am under the gun of Cataclysm's impending release so I better get to work (not because it'll be deleted, but because I'll be busy with that new content)! </sarcasm>  If anyone is on the correct side of Magtheridon-US (For the Alliance!) and wants to join me in some Illidan, Gruul and Kil'jaeden destruction feel free to shoot Solidsamm an in-game mail.  Now for the magic words, free achievements! This should be enlightening. /me packs for Penny Arcade Expo.

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Anyone who attempted to login this morning realized why the servers were being hit with extended maintenance, it's officially patch

day.  I am sure most of your are feeling like the Nintendo 64 kid, as I am, but let's be realistic, I doubt the game will be very playable tonight.  My pessimism is based entirely on previous experiences, specifically that whenever a content patch is released, the day of its release is often a wash for a collection of reasons.  First and foremost, downloading the patch generally takes longer than the maintenance itself, then we must often update all of our add-ons.  And forget about raiding, most of my guildmates - past and present - don't bother to start the download until they get home from work, school or simply wake up.  While we can now pre-download most of the content, the majority of us still don't, which guarantees that we won't be ready for the day's raid.  But hey, I am not here to QQ, I have accepted these issues as necessary evils to new content.

Rather than complain, I figured we could dive into some of the lore for Secrets of Ulduar.  Specifically, the lore presented by the all new trailer.  Before reading on, check out the trailer here.

Welcome back.  How did you enjoy the machinima?  Personally, I thought it was pretty awesome, a far more captivating trailer than the one created for Sunwell Plateau.  In fairness, that may just be because I didn't care too much about the Kil'jaeden storyline.  That may be part of it, but the bulk is simply how inclusive the lore presented by the Secrets of Ulduar trailer is.  In the short clip, we see a collection of some of the most recognizable faces in the Alliance and a pair of big names from the Horde, together.  We watch as Brann Bronzebeard narrowly escapes some sick eye lasers.  With knowledge of Yogg-Saron's escape in hand, Brann rushes off to Dalaran to warn Jaina, Rhonin and Varian before they are interrupted by Thrall and a very agitated Garrosh Hellscream.  Varian and Garrosh quickly go at it, only to be separated by Rhonin.  After a promising speech, Varian and Garrosh leave the summit in rage, destroying any hope of the Alliance and Horde working together to take down a far greater evil, Yogg-Saron.

Aside from "who will face Yogg-Saron," the trailer does raise some other interesting notions.  Is the Alliance or the Horde even going to support our efforts as they did in the Isle of Quel'Danas - through the Scryer and Aldor - or are we on our own?  With Garrosh constantly disobeying Thrall, could he be planning a devious coup?  Will Varian ever get over his struggles as Thrall did, or is he to obsessed with his past - which doesn't differ much from the Warchief's - to let it go?  Perhaps he just needs to see Garrosh perish? Brann seems scared out of his wits, so I hope the Yogg-Saron fight is pretty epic.  At the very least, the trailer should get your pumped up for this new raid!

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