Over the past week, particularly in the last few days, the crisp Internet air has been abuzz with news from the upcoming expansion, Wrath of the Lich King. Fear you're out of the loop? Here's a quick round-up of all the information being released, along with analysis and opinion:
Dungeons and raids
An analysis on Arthas as a ten-manned event, including its impact on the 25-man raiding structure, as well an exploration of its consistency with the lore.
Did you know that all expansion raids will have a 10-man setting, as well as a 25-man?
Alex has written an excellent overview of the Grizzly Hills, a soon-to-be zone for low to mid-seventies. With old factions reappearing, along with other surprises, it's definitely something to look forward to!
If news of the Dragonblight has intrigued you, you'll be pleased to know that more information has been made available.
While we're brushing up on our lore and learning about new areas and factions, Alex thought it fitting to illuminate the lore behind Azjol-Nerub, as the Nerubians will have their own role in the expansion.
Continue through the break for new information on Death Knights, as well as video and interviews with key people, as well as our full-range of Wrath galleries..
So one of the most exciting announcements from the recent flurry of news about WoTLK, at least from my point of view, is the that there will be 10-man and 25-man versions of every raid. Think about that for a moment. Yeah, that's right. That means that you and 9 other friends will be able to scale the heights of Icecrown Glacier and topple Arthas himself from his frigid throne.
I've examined the Dragonblight before when Blizzard first gave us the preview of the zone, but some other news about the region has come into the spotlight in the last few days. I'm sure you've noticed, the Wrath news is everywhere, especially here on WoW Insider. Below I have a little breakdown of what we know so far.
The Dragonblight is both the beginning and the end of the dragon life cycle. The Titans granted the Dragonflights their powers here, and this is also where dragons go to die.
This zone contains a shrine for each of the Flights which surround Wyrmrest Temple. These shrines are under siege by the Scourge.
Alexstrasza herself is lending a hand in recruiting for the war effort in the Dragonblight.
The Scourge has been twisting the remains of fallen dragons into Frost Wyrms and potentially other monstrosities.
The Scarlet Crusade returns in this zone, renamed the Scarlet Onslaught.
We hit on this one with Mount Hyjal before, but Ironcog brings up an interesting point: why exactly are we going to be mucking around in the old city of Stratholme via the Caverns of Time? In Escape from Durnholde, we're obviously trying to make sure Thrall gets out of the prison camp, and the Infinite Dragonflight is fighting to stop us and ruin history. Same deal in the Black Morass -- the Infinite Dragonflight is trying to keep Medivh from opening the Dark Portal. But in Hyjal, the dragonflight is nowhere to be seen, and we're basically just time tourists. You'd think the Bronze Dragonflight would want us to stay out of there.
Of course, we don't exactly know what's happening in the Stratholme of the past -- maybe the Infinite Dragonflight is causing problems there that we need to stop (or, even better, maybe we'll get to see an as-yet-unknown reason why a Paladin of the Silver Hand, headstrong as he might have been, decided to slaughter an entire town even before he was under Frostmourne's corruption -- maybe there's more to Arthas than we saw in Warcraft III).
But hopefully the Infinite Dragonflight storyline will be continued in some way -- mucking about in time isn't exactly safe, so there should be good reasons the Bronze Dragonflight sends us back to these past events. Watching history firsthand is fun and all, but the lore of the Bronze Dragons falls apart completely if they just start opening up theme parks in the past.
As we continue down the road to Wrath of the Lich King, we get more and more information about what factions we'll be coming across. The Taunka, the Tuskarr, the Scarlet Onslaught, things like that. The one that seems to have gotten the most people excited is our beloved Silver Hand. The inclusion of the Silver Hand has even sparked a great amount of debate on the official Wrath forums, yammering for or against the Horde being welcome in the Order. Because of all of this, I've decided we'll take a little look at the Silver Hand this week!
Contrary to what most people believe/know, the Order of the Silver Hand was not founded exclusively by Uther the Lightbringer. At the time, Uther was actually still an apprentice. His teacher, Archbishop Alonsus Faol, was the true founder of the Order, though Uther was at his side, naturally.
Blizzplanet has a list of all the bidders (for public humiliation purposes?) -- the "winner's" (if you can call someone out $20k a winner) name was Xeophonix, apparently from Italy. Only the first two bidders went all out -- there's one more $20k bid, and then it drops to $12k, $5k, and then on down from there to the much more reasonable bids around $500. But grats to Xeophonix -- hope the $20,000 sword is worth it. And watch your back -- we don't know exactly how you kill a Lich King, but if Weaponmasters didn't quite get Arthas' sword away from him for good, you might have an angry Menethil/Ner'zhul showing up at your door.
The upcoming patch, patch 2.4, now known as The Fury of the Sunwell, revolves around... well, the Sunwell! I guess there's something in there about a huge demon by the name of Kil'jaeden, but I'm sure he's not important. Like my previous installments of Know Your Lore, I'll give a little bit of background information on our subject, so you understand the foundation of it. This bit isn't quite as exciting as my last installment or two, but this took a lot more research, and a lot more piecing together half-told bits of story from multiple authors. It's a bit like playing Connect the Dots, but instead of getting a flower or a sailboat, I get Richard Knaak flipping me off. Sorry it's so dry, but on with the show!
A little over 10,000 years ago, the Night Elves lived under the rule of Queen Azshara and the upper class of society, the Highborne. Their culture was rich in magic and the arcane, very different from the down to earth, nature-centric society of the Night Elves today. Queen Azshara and her Highborne were extremely hedonistic, using the nearby Well of Eternity for personal power and gain. At some point during all of this, Azshara heard a dark whisper, promising power beyond her imagination.
Does this sound familiar? Yes, Sargeras was up to his old tricks again. Like he lured Kil'jaeden and Archimonde to the Legion's cause, he did the same with Queen Azshara. Whereas Kil'jaeden and Archimonde seemed to have needed a little trickery from the Destroyer, Azshara was far more welcoming. She was pretty okay with hanging out with demons, and rather enjoyed the whole fire and brimstone thing.
Yeah yeah, lolRP, but even though I'd never seriously do an emote with my character (though I do enjoy /coughing at inappropriate times), I do kind of enjoy thinking of what my characters did before I started playing them in the game. As I've said before, my Orc Shaman was actually a prisoner in Durnholde Keep along with Thrall (and though I've tried to find him among the Orcs down there, I don't look too hard -- wouldn't want to cause a paradox).
But for my Undead Rogue, I've never thought about this questions: What did he die of? Whether it was choking on a gnome, one too many enchantments (never knew those could kill you), or the old standby of, y'know, cancer, every Undead character out there used to have a life (and now they just play WoW, ha!). So how'd your Undead lose theirs?
I'd like to think mine was something poetic, like his family was murdered by roving noblemen, and he arose from the afterlife and became a backstabbing rogue to avenge his lost ones. But it's probably more pathetic: like most of the Forsaken, he probably just got trampled underneath the onset of the Scourge. Of course, that'll make an appointment with Arthas more interesting...
All the World's a Stage is a source for roleplaying ideas, commentary, and discussions. It is published every Sunday evening, (though it was delayed somewhat this time by technical difficulties).
Mary Sue is extremely unpopular with roleplayers. She comes along pretending to be the only daughter of Illidan and Tyrande's one-night stand, secretly spirited away and raised by furlbogs until she underwent a mysterious transformation that turned her into a human, seduced Arthas away from Jaina, and learned from him more than you will ever know about how to be a Death (i.e. Retribution) Paladin.
In fact, Mary Sue isn't just one person -- she is a demon-spirit possessing all those characters in roleplaying and fan-fiction, both male and female, who rely on clichés, melodrama, and/or supposed intimate relationships with one or more characters in the original story to such a degree that they actually try to upstage those characters, their fellow roleplayers, and indeed, the entirety of the original lore. Other roleplayers often see this sort of thing and get frustrated out of their minds.
And yet there's something about Mary Sue: she keeps reappearing all over the place, from seductive blood elf hunters who claim to be Thrall's secret lover, to angst-ridden human warlocks who insist that they are the half-demon offspring of Kil'Jaeden. What is it that continually attracts people to these ideas, couched in phrases like "tragic past" and "missing one eye" and "emits a deep sorrow that makes you want to cry?"
The answer is darker, more disturbing, than you can possibly imagine.
Lore-wise, I can't say I understand the direction they've taken with a number of characters from classic Warcraft games in BC, but I suppose that's the reason that the term "lorelol" was coined in the first place. Mike Schramm's pointed out that the canon can probably take the abuse, but there's one character in particular whose upcoming story arc kind of appalls me.
If you're trying to stay unspoiled for patch 2.4 -- why are you reading WoW Insider anyway? -- I'll slap the rest behind a cut.
All right, let's put this issue to rest once and for all. Seems like every time Blizzard releases a new patch, we get someone saying "you're killing the lore!" on the forums, and complaining that Blizzard is killing off all the figures we know and love around the Warcraft universe. And apparently patch 2.4 is going to be no different.
So let's have the final word on this right now: Blizzard has tons of people to kill off, and even if they started running out of people, they've created enough heroes since WoW started (an all-Saurfang instance, anyone?) that they'd be fine on lore for at least the next decade of expansion. There. Now when it is discovered (and it hasn't been discovered as of this writing yet) that we're killing Arthas off in the next expansion, no one needs to raise a fit. Besides, I kind of like that Blizzard is starting to put out some hits on heroes we know and love. I'd rather mix it up with famous Warcraft faces than kick around some nobodies just so the almightly Lore gets protected.
But I do have to agree with Vorith's other point: it might be kind of nice to do something with these NPCs besides kill them. I think he forgets that Maiev played a nice role in the Illidan fight, and that we've already been told we're going to interact with Arthas a lot outside of the actual raid, but yeah, the raid boss killing us might make for a nice change.
Blizzard's cinematic team deserves as many awards as they can get, in this writer's humble opinion. Even back in the Starcraft days, when graphics were 2D and it was all sprites and jumpy animation, the cinematics were exquisite. And now they've been nominated for yet another award-- Blizzard says their team has been nominated to receive honors from the Visual Effects Society's 6th Annual Awards for the Burning Crusade's cinematic seen above. And I don't disagree-- even more than a year (and a few runs through ten levels of Outland) after it's come out, Illidan's growl still rocks.
And man oh man I can't wait for the Wrath cinematic. As fun as it was to see Blood Elves, Draenei, and Illidan and the Skull of Gul'dan, seeing Arthas in cinematic form again is going to be even more awesome.
Blizzard has a torrid history with the Legendary items in World of Warcraft. The first such item to raise a stink was probably Ashbringer, the sword of Highlord Mograine of the Scarlet Crusade. Though stats have been found in the game (and a Corrupted version is available), the item itself isn't obtainable by players at all (though it still may be in the future). And reader Scott recently brought another one of these not-quite-Legendary items to my attention: the Skull of Gul'dan. This is probably one of the most powerful items in all of Azeroth-- it's been used to close and open the Dark Portal, it's responsible for tearing apart Felwood, and it turned Illidan from just an emo elf into a superpowerful demonic badass. And yet, it's no more than a rare trinket in the game.
Shouldn't an item with that much legend behind it be called Legendary? Illidan's twin blades are labeled legendary, but they're hardly the stuff of modern legend-- Illidan took them from a doom guard commander 10,000 years ago, and they've done nothing but sit in his whirling hands since then (heck, they couldn't even take down Arthas). I agree with Scott-- there's no reason those blades should be Legendary when the skull isn't. Sure, the skull might not be as powerful as it used to be, but it's still got a load of legend behind it.
And the Legendary debate isn't over yet, because there is one more big item looming on the horizon: when we head to Northrend, we'll all, Horde and Alliance alike, be looking to find the item that kicked off this Arthas trouble in the first place: Frostmourne. Will that be wieldable by players, or labeled Legendary? If Blizzard's previous experience with Legendary items is any indication, the answer may not be what you expect.
Sure, as Bornakk says, everyone who's gotten some has pretty much deserved it (and even though we don't know what's happening with Arthas yet, let's not forget that he murdered, y'know, all those people, including his father). And Blizzard has told us before that they feel that they have more than enough lore to go around-- even if they kill off the Warcraft stars, they've got other folks on deck to rise up into the storylines.
But the most interesting thing to come from this iteration is that we have to kill these people-- if we didn't, we wouldn't be the heroes of Azeroth that we're supposed to be. Back when WoW first came out, the devs told us that it would take a raid of level 80s (this was back when level 60 was the max) to take down Arthas, and guess what-- when we see Arthas in a combat situation, we will actually be level 80. We may be killing off all of the heroes of Warcraft III, but it's only to make room for the new heroes of World of Warcraft-- namely us.
We've had some moves recently for Oceanic and European realms, but these are the first North American free character transfers I've seen in a while. As of noon PST today, and until 12:01 PM PST a week from today, December 28th, players can make the following transfers free of charge:
From: Arthas, Illidan, Mal'Ganis, Warsong
To: Azshara
As always, players are urged to make the transfer as soon as possible if they intend to, since the transfers do sometimes close early if desired population levels are reached. Drysc promises that the realms they choose for transfers are based on exact population statistics, which seems to imply that, out of the North American reals, the source realms are the most overpopulated and Azshara is the most underpopulated. Those of you on these realms, does that ring true? Do you plan on taking advantage of the transfers? Azshara folks, do you welcome the newcomers?
Over the past week, particularly in the last few days, the crisp Internet air has been abuzz with news from the upcoming expansion, Wrath of the Lich King. Fear you're out of the loop? Here's a quick round-up of all the information being released, along with analysis and opinion:
We hit on this one 
Yeah yeah, lolRP, but even though I'd never seriously do an emote with my character (though I do enjoy /coughing at inappropriate times), I do kind of enjoy thinking of what my characters did before I started playing them in the game. As I've said before, 
All right, let's put this issue to rest once and for all. Seems like every time Blizzard 
Blizzard has a torrid history with the Legendary items in World of Warcraft. The first such item to raise a stink was probably 
This conversation seems to come up
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