beoweasel ([info]beoweasel) wrote in [info]wow_ladies,
@ 2007-07-12 11:54:00
Previous Entry  Add to memories!  Tell a Friend!  Next Entry
Entry tags:blizzard, lore

Opinions of the Warcraft Heroes?
A friend of mine voiced his discontent at the fact that Zul'Aman's last boss will be Zul'jin (Dunno if thats true or not, however, lets continue.) As he put it:

"Yay, yet another great character in Warcraft lore gets brutally murdered by a bunch of leet speaking kiddies."

He isn't alone on this matter, a lot of people thought it was wrong that Illidan, Kael'thalas, and Vjash are all raid bosses, even though they've all major characters in the Warcraft Storyline (Lets not forget Kargath Bladefist, though he's just a 5-man boss). Now Zul'jin is added to that list of killable bosses.

Of course, Zul'jin hasn't been in Warcraft lore since WCII and was only present in two missions (and technically, he was killed by DoomHammer's forces during the Tomb of Sargeras Mission.) but by all accounts, he's a important character none the less.

So, what do you all think of this? Is it okay for player raid groups to kill important Warcraft Characters, or should their deaths be dictated by the lore?


(Post a new comment)


[info]nerglish
2007-07-12 04:22 pm UTC (link)
They have to die sometime. Sure these characters can be pumped up so much that they seem immortal, but they aren't.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]beoweasel
2007-07-12 04:31 pm UTC (link)
It should also be noted that these deaths are subject to retcon.

In the original Warcraft: Orcs and Humans, your forces are sent on a mission to storm Karazhan and slay Medivh (which you do) however, over the years (and since 'The Last Guardian' was published) this has been changed, it was Khadgar and Lothar that slew Medivh.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]nerglish
2007-07-12 04:45 pm UTC (link)
retcon?

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]endsville
2007-07-12 04:48 pm UTC (link)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retcon

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]gaederon
2007-07-12 05:31 pm UTC (link)
... Ok, this is a term pretty deep in the Jargon barrel to most people, since it's most often used in the RolePlay community or the periodical publishing industry.

I believe the term predates the "Comic Book" use of the term, since online text-based RolePlay such as Mudd/Mush/Moo etc have been around since the 80s and I have seen some pretty old email traffic to uphold this belief. (I first went onto what is now called the interned back in the early 90s) I feel there is substantial evidence that it is probably sourced in that community. I suspect the term was swiped by someone who was familiar with text-based role play.

I have to grant Kudos (congratulations), since WoW is an MMORPG (Roll Play), and does have RP (Role Play, not Roll Play) servers, it is actually a new variation of a pre-existing passtime with a graphical environment. So your use of the term, as noted, is within a reasonable bounds for casual use.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]pinkpolarity
2007-07-13 08:08 am UTC (link)
... Ok, this is a term pretty deep in the Jargon barrel to most people, since it's most often used in the RolePlay community or the periodical publishing industry

...and every single, solitary kind of media fandom imaginable.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]the__ivorytower
2007-07-12 04:23 pm UTC (link)
They'd been saying Zul'jin was "missing" for a while.

All of these heroes are mortal. They aren't invincible, they aren't perfect. Particularly the ones with lists of enemies as long as their arms. Someone would have killed them eventually. What I'd really like to know is what exactly happened to Kael because he's completely gone off the deep end, and why Vashj is making like an James Bond/Captain Planet villain and stealing the water from Zangarmarsh.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]beoweasel
2007-07-12 04:29 pm UTC (link)
I don't remember the exact logic behind Kael's madness, but I believe it stems from his magical addiction and greed for more power.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]the__ivorytower
2007-07-12 04:37 pm UTC (link)
All jokes about oral sex aside, my friends and I figured that Kael was looking for bigger demons to suck the magic out of, and now he works for Kil'jaeden. He speaks of "The Master" whom he used to call Illidan, but now is someone else. From the notes and missives written by Kael, it seems like his personality's completely changed, as he now refers to himself as the Sunstrider King, which he has been for a while, but just never used the title, and speaks very... oddly. As my friend put it, he was still proper and polite when the Alliance locked him up and threatened to execute himself and his followers, why this sudden change? I'd just like it, I dunno, explained a little more. It seems very random.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]nightambre
2007-07-12 04:57 pm UTC (link)
For some reason my first thought was 'PMS'.

But other than that, no clue. :/ I've not seen any of the raid stuff (WOE) so I don't know how they're all acting. :/

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]gaederon
2007-07-12 05:34 pm UTC (link)
Yes, it's true, although Male PMS is not hormonally driven, it does happen.

I will now return to my Happy Place.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]nightambre
2007-07-12 06:18 pm UTC (link)
... Now I wanna somehow icon 'Male PMS, it does happen' with a Warcraft hero.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]pinkpolarity
2007-07-13 08:09 am UTC (link)
"I am the Lizard Sunstrider King, I can do anything!"

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]mousekinn
2007-07-12 04:33 pm UTC (link)
Mmm yes and no. They seem to be a bit watered down, but its' cool to see them in game. Killing them though.. it makes me sad.

Especially since Kargath has yet to drop my gloves. *stare.*

(Reply to this)


[info]imaginary_guilt
2007-07-12 04:37 pm UTC (link)

I honestly think they released the content too fast. It’s like, “Oh, Illidan’s finally in the game? .. meh. SSC and TK attunements are gone? .. meh. Lore being butchered? Damn it, but .. meh.” I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel, because I’ve only been playing for a year, but I’m overwhelmed by the mediocrity.

(Reply to this)


[info]ktknievel
2007-07-12 04:42 pm UTC (link)
"Is it okay for player raid groups to kill important Warcraft Characters, or should their deaths be dictated by the lore?"

I'm just a gamer, not a lore fan. So to me, I just see it as new content that will potentially be a lot of fun. From my viewpoint they could add in a boss shaped like Lasagna and I'd want to give him a whack to see what each layer did.

But I also don't get up in arms like some do when their city of choices leader is killed during PvP.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]yisca
2007-07-13 12:46 pm UTC (link)
Hmm.. tasty :-)

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]pyoska
2007-07-12 04:44 pm UTC (link)
I was rather upset when I found out that Illidan was killable. Illidan is one of those characters that should be too much to handle for anyone. They've been alluding to Illidan's madness. If he wasn't at least a little insane before, would he have done what he did in the storyline? I doubt it.

<--- big time Illidan fangirl

Who's next? Malfurion? Arthas?

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]beoweasel
2007-07-12 04:52 pm UTC (link)
Well, being confined for centuries under the ground with only Maiev for company would certainly have anyone lose their grip on their sanity, compounded by the fact that what little he had left, was lost when he was defeated by Arthas in the Frozen Throne.

I definitely see Arthas as a possible raid boss, you could add Northrend to Azeroth (and people will finally come back from Outlands.). After all, Arthas is the Lich King, he's melded with Ner'zhul, he's almost god-like now, who wouldn't want to try their hand at fighting him?

I doubt Malfurion would be a boss.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]pyoska
2007-07-12 07:14 pm UTC (link)
I doubted Blizzard would actually put Illidan as the endboss for an instance when I first started playing. A more lore- related death would have been so much more fulfilling. Maybe a Malfurion vs. Illidan type thing (doubt it would ever happen, but hey, it would be cool), or Illidan vs. Arthas, or something thats more involved than beating trash mobs in an instance.

And while killing Arthas is definitly doable, it just seems so... I don't know. He's like the Ultimate Goal. The guy everyone wants to kill. It just seems wrong to have player charaters killing lore characters. Just my 2 cents, though...

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]asciident
2007-07-12 08:42 pm UTC (link)
Northrend is supposedly the next expansion (rumors) so Arthas could well be next.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]centauress
2007-07-12 11:20 pm UTC (link)
Yeah, 'great, so, who's my hero now?'

It's just stupid that we're killing the equal to our supposed leader.

Why can't any of these guys get away to fight another day? The raid instance designers are just pumping out the same experience, the same story, but with different names and art.

And all the epic raids in the last year have had some story character to kill at the end. There's a finite number of story characters.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]pinkpolarity
2007-07-13 08:12 am UTC (link)
Illidan shouldn't be killable. Boy that emo, he should open up his own chain of Outland Hot Topic and make bazillions. ;)

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]endsville
2007-07-12 04:47 pm UTC (link)
You're that guy on girl_gamers. :o 'Sup.

While I understand the simple cool factor of incorporating a lore character into the game as a killable boss mob, I would have rather seen lore-dictated death for most of them, especially Illidan. There's a whole ridiculous argument on the official forums already about whether or not Zul'jin really counts enough as a bad guy to play a boss. But the cool factor on being able to cash into the Blizzard fans who played the RTS games is too profitable to pass up, I assume. I think it would be interesting if a raid group actually roleplayed all their 25-man experiences within the context of their own guild and the raid. But because another guild is just going to down them again tomorrow, roleplaying raid situations either gets looked down upon--even if they're limited to just the guild's storyline--or the guild creates too many problems for the rest of the server should they go around telling every blood elf nationalist they see that their beloved prince is dead.

I don't know, I haven't ever raided before and I doubt I'll get to see any of that content, so I can't really form a fair opinion of how Blizzard executes it.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]beoweasel
2007-07-12 04:56 pm UTC (link)
*gasp* You've found me out! You know too much...*discreet stab* XD

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]gaederon
2007-07-12 05:37 pm UTC (link)
I don't hide the fact that I am a guy who plays mostly female characters. I don't have a problem listening to or talking to women about playing female characters. However, I leave the advice from woman to woman alone though ... I don't have the proper perspective.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]sventhelost
2007-07-12 04:57 pm UTC (link)
"Yay, yet another great character in Warcraft lore gets brutally murdered by a bunch of leet speaking kiddies."

Does he classify himself as a leet-speaking kiddy? I personally object to the classification LIEK W00A!

Seriously, the entire point of an RPG is to interact with the world, including major characters. One of my most favorite moments is the culmination of the Greatmother questline in Nagrand, because it allows you to participate in a cool event. Now, with WoW, it's more complicated, because everybody has to have a crack at the same content, so the big bads die over and over again. It's kind of silly, but that's the way the game is set up.

All RPGs that I've ever seen, both table-top and computer, run into the same problem. Mechanics that support the game side don't always support the story side. That's just the way it is.

That's still no reason not to include a fight with someone from previous games, especially because, well, not everyone is a lore junky. Many people aren't, I assume. I only sort of played previous Warcraft games, and mostly with cheat codes so I could strip-mine and deforest at rapid rates.

And enough rambling from me for now. :)

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]gwengothelf
2007-07-16 01:09 pm UTC (link)
One of my most favorite moments is the culmination of the Greatmother questline in Nagrand, because it allows you to participate in a cool event

That's so true - Doing that made me feel so proud - We had pretty much all of the guild in Nagrand waiting for 'The Man Himself' to turn up and we all watched the whole show and cheered and everything, it was fantastic!

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]tonko_ni
2007-07-12 05:09 pm UTC (link)
All I've ever heard is people being happy to be able to encounter characters from lore.

Doesn't bother me personally, but of course, I tend not to know if they're from lore or not, WoW is the first Blizz game I've played.

(Reply to this)


[info]sophiaserpentia
2007-07-12 05:09 pm UTC (link)
Think about it this way. They can introduce new characters, never seen in any Warcraft RTS, into the lore through WoW. But for many, this doesn't have the same impact as killing a character you came to know and 'love' in Warcraft.

It's a balancing act. When you play the Warcraft RTS games, you are participating in world-changing events. So eventually you might want your WoW character to have the same level of impact. One way to do this in a powerful way is to have major Warcraft characters as killable bosses in WoW. But they've done it in such a way that killing them is not routine; as raid bosses, only a relatively few characters will ever actually participate in killing them.

I also think Blizzard is using the major characters as a way to control the pace at which WoW thrives and matures. I suspect they figure they've got another two or three good years before they have to change it in some big way -- coming out with Warcraft IV followed by WoW II. Whenever we see Arthas appear as a killable NPC, the current incarnation of WoW has entered end-stage.

(Reply to this)


[info]12_drakon
2007-07-12 05:31 pm UTC (link)
Yes, there is a thing that (vaguely) bothers me about doing any storyline quests. It's the repetition of the world. I mean, you save some hostage, and there she is the next day, again, freshly captured or what?! You kill some famous villain, but then you kill him again next week, and the week after that, and three months later on your alt when it's not even challenging anymore.

The only way I can reconcile the lore with all that repetition is through the idea of parallel universes. Peoples of Azeroth (Outlands, Exodar, etc.) live in a massively branching world, where each branch is the same, but its dramas are not any less real for that. As a hero, you go and fight some battles (for hire or for your believes) in any branch you find at the moment, helping some of this universe's inhabitants and killing others. Some parts of the world branch faster, like the place in the woods where Hogger lives, so if you kill him, you will slide into the world where he's alive some ten minutes later. Sometimes, the parallel universes collide, and you see like three corpses of one named mob at once. And in some places, it takes a week before you can enter another universe, say, where Magtheridon is alive again after you killed him; if you try to enter his prison earlier, you'll just be stuck in your old universe where he's already dead.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]pinkpolarity
2007-07-13 08:15 am UTC (link)
I do have to admit it was kinda odd to do the quest where I poisoned Stanley, cry over his corpse, and apologize to a living Stanley literally three seconds later. "See, you're back! I mean, that wasn't that bad, right?"

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]mypersonal_myth
2007-07-12 06:33 pm UTC (link)
i don't particularly like it myself.
i would much rather their deaths be recorded in the lore rather than exploited by the masses.

(Reply to this)


[info]ink_faerie
2007-07-12 06:48 pm UTC (link)
Now, I havn't really done any of the bigger Outlands instances, so I havn't had the chance of meeting one of the characters... But I really loved all of the "bad guys" in WC3. I love Kael'Thas and Illidan to pieces, and Lady Vashj is just cool (I've always wanted to play a Naga), and I've played these characters, I've been responsible for their actions, I don't want to kill them! :(

Also, when time comes to kill Arthas I'll cry, I have such a crush on him, I don't care that he's all Lichy and stuff, he's too hot to die! XD

(Reply to this)


[info]ayashi
2007-07-12 06:52 pm UTC (link)
I don't mind it :) I really like the idea of seeing a character from lore, whether it is Khadgar or Kargath Bladefist or Illidan or whoever. Without these characters, WoW would not be the game that it is for me, and without being able to actually encounter them (especially in the battlefield like Illidan and Kael'thas) it just seems like it would be a little silly to play this game.

Yay, we get to play a Warcraft game and be a part of its universe, but we won't affect the storyline at ALL because all of these characters are completely made up and the "main storyline" characters don't die? That would be really lame IMO :) There were leet-speaking kiddies killing the bosses in Warcraft III as well, the only difference is they were doing it in campaign mode instead of in an MMORPG. The only thing that ever does bug me is how things change over time (various lore things being changed to better suit an instance or a boss or whatever) but in most cases it hasn't been that severe, and I don't mind it. It isn't MY story after all, it's Blizzard's!

(Reply to this)


[info]msbunburyist
2007-07-12 07:11 pm UTC (link)
Part of the deal with playing games in a series is that they're subject to retconning, or the lore going in a way you don't like.

This is why, for example, I play Heroes of Might and Magic II (but not III). I like the storyline in II. I don't like some of the changes in III. That's fine. I don't have to play it if I don't want to. If I write fanfic about it? I can write fanfic that ignores III. It's just like the Harry Potter books: were people pissed that (SPOILER LOLZ) Snape killed Dumbledore? You bet. That didn't stop them from rereading the first four or five books and liking them just as much.

I guess maybe my instinct is to say "someone call the waaaaahmbulance." I know people get really attached to the story, and that's fine. It's fine if you don't like it. But sometimes companies make choices you don't like; perhaps to you the lore has been "cheapened," but that doesn't mean that the people who first discovered the Warcraft universe through World of Warcraft feel that it's been cheapened, and your feelings don't necessarily trump theirs.

As for me, it doesn't bother me that "leet speaking kiddies" can kill the big bosses. Leet speaking kiddies can play any video game they want to. The difference is, you might actually run into them in World of Warcraft, whereas non-MMOs provide a more secluded, personal experience (so if you want to be into heavy RP and focus on the story, you can go for it). That's why choosing your guild carefully is important, and part of why people don't like PUGs. Ignoring people you don't want to think about or deal with is an important part of enjoying World of Warcraft. Make sure that everyone in your raid group is interested in the same type of play that you are, and you can forget those leet speaking kiddies exist, if you like.

(Reply to this)


[info]centauress
2007-07-12 11:14 pm UTC (link)
They certainly aren't making any new legendary characters.

So what happens when we've killed all the legendary characters?

It's stupid to make them into these one-off adventures... Especially when we have to 'kill' them repeatedly.

(Reply to this)


[info]lynstraine
2007-07-13 03:57 pm UTC (link)
Isn't Kael not actually dead? I'd read that when a raid kills Kael'thas and returns to Shattrath, he howls at them from the comfort of his lair about their failure to finish the job.

(Reply to this)

Create an Account
Forgot your login or password?
Login w/ OpenID
English • Español • Deutsch • Русский…