I used to be a hard core WOW player when it originally came out, and quit right before WotLK expansion came out. Now that WOW let’s you have a trial account indefinitely (up to lvl 20) I figured I’d come back for free to check it out. (needless to say I’m hooked again and will almost certainly re-up once I hit 20, but that’s another story)
My question is wtf happened while I was gone? There’s only one continent, and unless I’m misremembering a lot seems to have changed. Would anyone be able to summarize what I’ve missed since BC came out, storywise. Obviously Some of the mechanics are different, and I’ll figure those out as I go. I just don’t want to spend 100 hours of gameplay talking to npcs trying to figure out what happened to the world!
I came back for the last expansion and played for a month or so. A LOT has changed, but the biggest thing for me was flight, especially in the old lands (there is more than one continent or land btw). Also, the quest system had been seriously re-vamped and made the game a hell of a lot more fun to play than I remember. Plus, being able to queue up for dungeons or PvP was a hell of a nice feature, even if most of the groups are PUGs with folks who have played through a given dungeon seemingly a thousand times and who are just there to rush through as quickly as possible (without any unnecessary chatting or telling you what the hell you are expected to do).
That was the biggest downside to me…I had quit but a lot of folks had played through seemingly the entire time I was gone, and had done everything and been everywhere so many times that it didn’t seem to be a fun game for them anymore, just something they did. And, in the end even with all the changes it was still, well, WoW…and even with all the cool new stuff and flight as well it just couldn’t hold my interest for more than a month or so, after which it because a grinding job again, instead of a fun game.
Hopefully YMMV and you’ll enjoy the changes. Create a Worgen (druid IMHO) and you’ll have some good fun with the early game, or a Death Knight…both have a lot of scripted story in the beginning and were enjoyable to play through IMHO.
Burning Crusade: We take the fight to the Burning Legion in Outland, the fragments of what used to be Draenor (the orc homeworld). The draenei crash-land on Azeroth and join the Alliance. The blood elves join the Horde; many turn evil from tapping too much fel energy (the playable ones are the good guys), but the good ones and the draenei lead the charge against the Legion. Illidian is killed in the Black Temple. Heroes disrupt a ritual at the Sunwell that would have allowed Kil’jaeden (second biggest Big Bad in the Legion) to enter Azeroth. The Sunwell is then purified.
Wrath of the Lich King: King Varian returns to Stormwind. The Lich King mobilizes the Scourge to attack the rest of Azeroth. The Horde and Alliance each send forces to Northrend to deal with the Scourge. Malygos, Aspect of the Blue Dragonflight, regains some semblance of sanity and decides that mortals are using too much magic; he wages war on the mortal races but is soon slain, leaving Azeroth without a Guardian of Magic. There is some semblance of cooperation between the Horde and Alliance until the Battle of the Wrathgate. Bolvar Fordragon and Dranosh Saurfang are slain. Putress leads a Forsaken splinter cell (or Scourge sleeper cell embedded within the Forsaken?) to disrupt the battle and take control of Undercity. The Horde and Alliance leaders each lead strike teams (which include the player character) into Undercity; the Horde to regain control of the city, the Alliance to capture it. While the Horde team kills the traitor Varimathras, the Alliance team kills Putress. King Varian is infuriated by the experimentation on live human prisoners (even though they’re no doubt Scarlet Crusaders hellbent on genocide against the Forsaken), and he and Thrall nearly come to blows (Jaina Proudmoore prevents it). War erupts between the Alliance and Horde, and jeopardizes the more important war effort against the Scourge. Tirion Fordring of the Argent Crusade barely manages to keep the two factions focused on fighting the Scourge rather than one another. The Lich King is ultimately destroyed.
Cataclysm: While the heroes were busy preventing an undead apocalypse, they failed to prevent a dragon apocalypse. Deathwing, an insane adamantium-plated dragon demigod of a Big Bad ruins everyone’s shit. Kalimdor and the Eastern Kindoms are kinda wrecked (still separate continents). Thrall must temporarily step down as leader of the Horde to devote himself full-time to the path of the shaman in order to hold the world together. His replacement is Garrosh Hellscream (son of the hero Grom Hellscream); Garrosh is aggressive and headstrong, and more than willing to fight the Alliance for precious resources in a shattered world. Deathwing’s lackeys are the Twilight’s Hammer cult, who want to bring about the end the world. Go kill them.
There are actually 4 continents - Kalimdor, Eastern Kingdoms, and Northrend on Azeroth, and then Outland. Plus there are island/underground areas in Azeroth that you can get to at level 80+. Why are you just seeing one - and which one - I wonder? Probably due to the trial account?
Also, on the Horde side, Garrosh and Cairne Bloodhoof (leader of the Tauren) quarreled so furiously over the direction of the Horde that they had a duel. Magatha Grimtotem “blessed” Garrosh’s weapons (because no one else would), but actually poisoned them. Garrosh was getting his ass kicked until he got in a small hit on Cairne, killing him. His son, Bayne, now leads the Tauren.
Meanwhile in the Eastern Kingdoms, beyond the Greymane Wall, the Gilneans (human separatists) end up getting infected by lycanthropy and turn into Worgen; NElven druids come help them cope with their animal urges. They hook up with the Alliance, as Sylvanas starts going over the deep end into Real Crazy Lady territory and also tries to wipe the Worgen off the face of Azeroth.
Goblins out in their island nation of Kazan get a wakeup call when Deathwing comes to say hi - and blow the shit out of the place. Newbie goblins play through a quest involving their escape. Sadly, they end up in the middle of a Horde/Alliance fight and the Alliance fire on their escape vessels. Make your way to safety and you end up taking refuge in Orgrimmar under the leadership of Boss Mida, Her Tallness. (Trade Prince Gallywix is too busy remodeling a mountain out in Azshara into a pleasure palace to be bothered with that.) Oh, and speaking of remodeling in Azshara, the goblins have been very busy there too - it’s their semi-newbie zone now, after the whole lowbie escape process.
According to the facts known to the world at large, a band of heroes (actually, ever 10-man or 25-man raid that has ever succeeded at clearing the entire Icecrown raid instance) slew The Lich King with the aid of Tirion Fordring.
The rest of the story?
There must always be a Lich King, as long as there’s a Scourge. The undead are out there, but with the death of Arthas Menethil as the Lich King, they would run rampant. Without guidance, they may actually be more immediately dangerous to the world than with. So… the fate of the two commanders at the Wrathgate comes into play. If you do the Icecrown raid, you know what happened to Dranosh Saurfang: he’s scourged as the Lich King’s greatest death knight, and a very fun raid boss. As to Bolvar Fordring… the fires of the Red Dragonflight, used to end the battle at the Wrathgate and drive off the renegade Forsaken forces (and destroy the toxin on the ground) also “purged” the soul and dying body of Fordring. The Lich King tried to scourge him, but Bolvar resisted to the end, retaining his own will while his body became a magical avatar of flame and suffering. When the Lich King fell, Fordring offered to accept the mantle (actually, the helm) of that duty and use his own will to supress the Scourge for all eternity. So, now Bolvar is an immortal being of flesh and flame, as Arthas became an immortal being of flesh and ice; but Bolvar must wrestle eternally with the forces of frozen hell in order to keep them in check.
I just now noticed that wherever I meant “Bolvar Fordragon” in my spoiler writeup, I often said “Fordring”. My bad. It was Bolvar Fordragon. He’s the one who has to… well, if ya wanna know, read the spoiler. Just mentally substitute one name for the other.
Geez, Blizz, did you have to make two critical NPCs in this event have excessively similar surnames like that? You know that, to the average Orc, all humans look alike! Give 'em nearly-identical names and you’re just begging for confusion.
If any of you WoWers ever want to sample old school multi-player adventuring, come (re-?)visit Dragon AberMUD… after 20 years it’s almost the same as I remember it from college!
In a fit of nostalgia I Googled to see if it was still running and was surprised to find it was! What a flashback…
Yes, I suppose I left that part out. I sort of wish they’d resolved that differently. My idea was: Without the Lich King to control the Scourge, Sylvanas easily takes control of their remnants, adding them to the Forsaken. This throws a wrench into Thrall’s plan of having the Forsaken lose most of their population (and therefore the danger they’d pose to the rest of the Horde in the event of a betrayal) through attrition in the Northrend campaign. Sylvanas uses her new forces to rampage around Lordaeron and consolidate her territory (including attacking Gilneas etc.). Before too long she decides she has no further use for Horde membership and severs ties with them. Cue Warcraft IV, where the Forsaken are enemies to both Alliance and Horde.
[spoiler]AHAHAHAHA yeah right. Only if it made someone else look good. Blizzard decided to steamroll over all the women in the series, and Sylvanas doubly so since they can’t use the belfs as scapegoats anymore. If Sylvanas was male, Blizzard would let her do something like that, and then kill he-Sylvanas off to make Garrosh look good. But Blizzard doesn’t let female leaders do much of anything.
Wow, I guess I have missed a bunch! Thanks for the great responses guys it was exactly what I’m looking for. The original reason that I left the game was because my guild fractured and split. I’m hoping I can roll with the sdmb guild this time around.
