Comments on: Where WotLK Failed: Arthas

By: Drakara

Drakara — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 11:36:05 +0000

So he set up Drakuru, Prince Valanar and Keleseth, Anuâ€™barak, Orbaz Bloodbane, the riders of Blood, Frost and the Unholy, Arugal 2.0, the huge giant in Zulâ€™drak and his cronies in Sholazar at the Avalanche (ctrl-c ftw) to get killed for no other reason than to what, drive me closer to corruption? The day I pull an arthas and run around killing neutral mobs with no good loot is the day I’m evil. He hasn’t done ANY corrupting or anything. Yogg Saron and Volazj try harder than him, and hell, the forgotten one in Icecrown REWARDS you for doing evil-ish stuff. The catch is… the threats HAVE to be empty. It can’t go “you lost to arthas, your character is now a DK”. It has to go “you lost to arthas, do a corpse run and try again on his failminion.” Gameplay issues – while it would be AWESOME to be scourged (properly) for a little while, it couldn’t be permanant. In the older warcraft games this wouldn’t be a problem – but because there are so many heroes, we can’t have people only getting one shot at Arthas before losing their mind to the scourge.

And then there’s Shadow of Death Undead DKs. That makes them triple undead – so the only thing stopping Necromancers from raising dead undead is the condition of the bodies. But hell, the bodies don’t matter, that’s why there’s ghosts, shades, and banshees. So as long as the scourge keeps training necromancers, they’re unstoppable.

By: Lilivati

Lilivati — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 14:58:40 +0000

@Drakara Yeah, the canned “I’ll let you live for now” gets old, but I see it as a separate problem. (Dialogue on the whole in WoW is not very robust or inventive.) Arthas is very cold, and so is his “anger”. I get the sense that although he threatens it’s in the same way a warlock trainer threatens a pupil- as motivation. The impression I get is that with every “victory” I have against him, in some chilling way I’m just getting closer to fulfilling the plan he has for me.

I know my character has done a lot of very bad things in the name of stopping the scourge in Wrath. It’s left Athorius wondering what right and wrong really is, and when you get in that position, you become more vulnerable to outside influences. Viewed in that light, the story can be seen as sick and twisted, but in more subtle ways than the dialogue itself suggests.

By: Drakara

Drakara — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 07:45:23 +0000

Double post, damnit, but I just remembered what else I was gonna write before I hit Submit.

@Lilivati
Seriously… he’s let me live after killing Drakuru, Prince Valanar and Keleseth, Anu’barak, Orbaz Bloodbane, the riders of Blood, Frost and the Unholy, Arugal 2.0, the huge giant in Zul’drak and his cronies in Sholazar at the Avalanche. Seriously, if he was gonna get rid of me at some point, shouldn’t he already have done it? If this doesn’t infuriate him, what the fudge do I have to do?

By: Drakara

Drakara — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 07:41:35 +0000

@Siha
… fine, you win. But at least he actually went “I’M REALLY ANGRY NOW AND IMMA FIRIN’ MAH LAZOR!” in icecrown, not the usual “oh, you killed another one of my minions. /shrug”

@Ashleigh
Maybe your char pulled too many mobs in EPL, some random necromancer goes “ooh, level 55 gnome, let’s rez him as a DK” and there ya go. You WERE a hero. And yeah, you were handpicked, but by Razuvious, that’s what he’s doing at the back. I gotta agree – LK ought to have appeared later on… in Acherus, I personally think Mograine and Lich King should’ve swapped places, so you don’t mean with LK until you’ve already pwn’d a couple hundred crusaders.

By: Ashleigh

Ashleigh — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 01:16:04 +0000

I disagree with you about the Acherus bits. You’re not just a minion, you are a fallen hero of the Alliance or Horde whom Arthas basically handpicked to serve as the spearhead of his assault on the Scarlet Crusade and Argent Dawn. You’re 55th level for a reason.

By: Kestrel

Kestrel — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 07:25:52 +0000

I’m torn. Good arguments on both sides, but I guess I’m on Siha’s a bit more, only because by now my friends and I are laughing at him when he appears (although I admit that I thought we were going to die along with Drakuru!).

And yes, he killed me in Howling Fjord. I thought the trigger was going near UK while in spirit form.

By: Lilivati

Lilivati — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 22:31:42 +0000

I have to admit I disagree. I find Arthas’ continual, almost universal presence in all the matters of Northrend to be chilling rather than yawn-inducing or trivializing. The idea that Arthas *is everywhere, and notices everything* keeps my druid up more at night than Illidan’s remoteness ever did.

By: Siha

Siha — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 18:19:25 +0000

@Drakara – both of those deaths are avoidable. He only kills you in Icecrown if you don’t take the portal when it’s up, and in Howling Fjord he only kills you if you go near him. I never even saw him when doing those quests in HF, and I’ve done them three times.

By: Drakara

Drakara — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 16:02:22 +0000

Oh, and sorry for the double post, but he DOES actually kill you twice. Once in icecrown, after the whole “wtfREDEMPTION heart” thingy, and once in Howling Fjord, when you get within 30 yards. Cutscene, death, rez, spirit world, he kills you again.

Bitch king.

By: Drakara

Drakara — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 15:59:53 +0000

I get the feeling he’s refraining from killing you because “hey, you helped Drakuru, maybe we can manipulate you more, you LIGHT BLINDED FOOL!”…

…

Either that, or Ner’zhul’s brain got mixed up with a goldfish. Anyone know WHERE the water to freeze into the Frozen Throne came from?