WoW Insider

Agreed.

This is the echo of wotlk game launch. Beta is going to be over soon and with a few more tweaks wotlk will be finished.

I predict Oct 14th.

Over soon? You're joking right? The Des have explicitly said they haven't gotten to brushing up paladins at ALL yet. They have a lot of significant work to do on all tanks still as well (Death Knight tanking talents are probably the most complete, according to them). They still have decided whether to make non-stack raid buffs available to different classes (for instance Druids having a Blessing of Kings buff equivalent) or to do something else. In short, there is still a lot of work to be done for a lot of classes and after all that they then have to balance threat and damage generation among all the classes.

There's no way this is coming out in October. At best the Beta will end that month.

What a coincidence--Warhammer releases its new trailer, and then Blizzard suddenly releases theirs.

Hmm...

It's up on time. Leipzig is on CET (Central European time) that's one hour ahead of GMT.

It's not early. They shown it at the Games Convention and then released it on the internet minutes later, as they have done for the other Cinematics.

Thank goodness.

The trailer was about the awesomeness of the Lich King. As it should be. But I'm going to say this, I saw a gnome in that massive army that got turned scourge. So now all of the 'omgz! we need gnomes in CG!' qqers can be squelched.

Like I said yesterday, there are gnomes - you just couldn't see them.

It's the same music as at the end of the TFT cinematic. Actually, Arthas often seems to have children singing sadly in his cinematic appearances (the human campaign cinematic in WC3 also had one).

OF COURSE he will be redeemed. This is an adaptation of the Monomyth. Joseph Campbell laid all of this out decades ago. Go read "The Hero's Journey" and you'll be able to predict what is most likely to happen.

Whenever Blizzard decides to finish this story, Arthas will see the light again, or see that he's been on the wrong side of it for a while now, conquer/convince his Ner'zhul half to again see the light, and then he will be an unstoppable force of good. Legion & Scourge will fall. Lordaeron will rise, and the Horde and Alliance will lose whatever uneasy truce they have now. In some way, he will be defeated, whether he ends his reign of terror himself or someone ends it for him, he will be redeemed.

That, or some new hero will arise, who has a troubled but talented past, reluctantly (read: be forced to) join the fight against the Scourge & Legion, fall from grace, be resurrected to the light, reborn more powerful than ever, ready, willing, and able to slay the Legion, Scourge, and Lich King.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I'll tell you what won't happen. The Lich King will not live out the remainder of his days ruling the known universe, and retire to the shuffleboard court of an afternoon. He won't see the end of his days living in conflict with the other factions of the world. He won't live on, immortal, happy with a stalemate.

I'll tell you what will happen. Someone will win. The era of the Lich King will end. During the final war against the Legion/Scourge/Whatever, those who fought in battle together will find unity in their success, for the most part, and a time of peace will be known. Scryer will hug Aldor. Jaina will renew her friendship with Thrall. The Well of Eternity will be recreated, peacefully. Something HUGE. Anyway, enemies will become allies, foes will become friends. Peace will reign. Slowly, old prejudices and old ways of thinking will slowly grow, forcing allies apart, slowly at first, like a wedge, and this whole story will repeat itself. A few races may change sides during the sundering of this new alliance, but ultimately it will split, and this will all happen again. World of Warcraft 2. A new evil leader will emerge. (S)He may not be called the Lich King next time, (s)he may be a completely different kind of horror, but trust me. Arthas will be redeemed, peace will prevail, and conflict will begin anew.

I'm really not sure that Arthas is redeemable at this point. He's not like Kerrigan, who was corrupted against her will. Arthas was committing atrocities and selling his soul to sinister artifacts even before he became an agent of the Scourge. He was pretty unpleasant even before he became the Lich King's slave/bodymate.

Heh, too late.

The lack of Gnomes doesn't bother me in the slightest, and my main is a Gnome. Lore-wise, Gnomes are the little periods at the end of every sentence. No Gnome has been highly influential, none have been legends, but they exist, and provide a means for others to do the work that needs to be done. When was the last time you heard of a carpenter who went on to do good things? Oh. Bad example. When was the last time you heard of a plumber who went on to do good things? Oh yeah, Mario. Hrm. You know what I mean though.

Without punctuation, the written word is a lot more chaotic. Without Gnomes, Azeroth would be a lot more chaotic.

I don't need to see Gnomes in the trailers. I just need to know that they're around, quietly letting their contraptions eat themselves with malfunctions, keeping too much chaos from breaking out.

Gnomes are almost pure chaos, not exactly goblin style chaos, but chaos the same. You ever seen a tauren turn a leper gnome turn into a rabbit?