(Note from Ego : guest post from one of our commenters, Shatter, helping me squeak out some more time to finish my NaNoWriMo novel before the end of the week! If he had a blog, I’d link it for you.)

As a long time proponent of the fact that Blizzard doesn’t care about its lore or its RPers, I’ve been forced to admit that Wrath of the Lich King seems like a game made just for those two types of people – loremongers and roleplayers. With all of the raiding content being cleared in three days, it’s clear that they didn’t aspire to create a game that was so difficult the people that wanted to learn about their lore would be incapable of seeing the final pieces to the puzzle, and with the fact we can’t fly until 77 well, you have to assume that they want you to take your time and soak in all the brilliance that is the story of this expansion.

Initially, as a pessimist, I was worried about this expansion. The zombie event was fun to me but they pulled it early because of whining and that made me fear Blizzard wouldn’t go full-tilt again, or they’d water down aspects of the expansion to keep people from returning to Mode QQ. Much to my relief, though, this game provides for me what TBC did not at all and Classic only did at one point of the game – excitement. It’s like for the first time we’re actually trapped inside of a war; a series of battles that range from zone to zone and lead up to the raid instances in a way that just embarrasses TBC. Who is the only person we saw build a story to their fight in TBC? Panthaleon. OoOoO, that was so inten… zzz… oh, sorry. Yeah, so intense.

You know that feeling you got when you walked into Ashlam Valorfist’s camp in Classic? Yeah, that same excitement that you’re done with the precursors and now about to really get into the game? Well, they made ALL of Wrath feel that way. From start to finish you’re IN it and your character isn’t just collecting 5 stones for someone to make a… thing that takes 5 stones. You’re helping the war effort and knocking Arthas down a peg or twelve.

Wrath of the Lich King has brought back the RPG feel to WoW, in my opinion. We land on the shores of Northrend and we’re already in the middle of a fight be you Horde or Alliance (I’ve played Alliance more, but the Fjord for Horde was under attack by the North Fleet). More importantly than that though, Blizzard is doing what I wanted them to do and forwarding the stories of the WoW-created characters into WotLK (and ending some. Alas, Abbendis, you were my first Blaumeux). I won’t spoil anything but quite a few characters that we knew from the past resurface in different places, and that alone is the kind of throwback you need for any epic story to truly be epic – heroes from all over coming together to make a final drive against an evil that has plagued the land for quite some time. I’m surprised there hasn’t been a Naaru stationed in Northrend, but I suppose Blizzard wanted to leave a lot of that for Outland (even though as far as I can tell, the threat there is finished. Illidan dead, Magtheridon dead, Kael’thas stopped, and the Gronn brought under control).

Beyond the fact we get an actual cinematic in the game (which is awesome), there are some quests that make me feel like I’m playing Secret of Mana or some other SNES classic. Hell, the music in Sholazar Basin + the creatures you find there are beyond nostalgic to me. I have a feeling that Blizzard saw the errors that came with TBC and rectified them in an amazing way. I haven’t felt out of the loop at any point in the game, and as Team Shaman burns through more content we’re pulled deeper into the story and lore that exists. Granted, I think Mistryza will pull out my heart and crush it if I mention Alexstraza one more time, but it’s not every day that you get to see the Dragon Queen standing around in mageweave, outside… in a coooold area. – I mean, yeah! It’s just very detailed and the amount of lore characters we are introduced to with Wrath is enough to make me feel like this could be WC4.

And that’s the truly amazing part (thanks to phasing), the story is MOVING forward! In TBC we had probably two story shifts… Kael’thas’ betrayal and Kael’thas death. In Wrath, as you complete content the areas change and you’re rewarded with knowing your addition to the game will have a lasting effect on your character.

Dalaran in and of itself, from the epic music that plays to the fact they set it up like an actual city is by far one of the most alluring things I have seen in this game, and while I cannot say that I don’t wish I could fly, at the same time I know it adds more to the city feel if everyone has to walk around instead of zipping about. Shattrath was just a bad time, bad bad time, and I’m glad that they didn’t remake the Exodar’s lack of navigability. It’s a nice change of pace, definitely.

Then of course, there are the Death Knights. As someone that has loved Scourge lore since forever it’s amazing that I didn’t level a DK first, but I wanted to wait so I could enjoy all the lore that came with it. I will say that the little bit I did play was fun, and having done some of Naxx long ago the people you see in the quest lines make them even better. I was hoping they’d throw in a story for the three Horsemen that weren’t Mograine, but you can only take so much from something I suppose. A book would be nice on them.

So, anyway, I suppose what is important in the end is that Blizzard has given the RPers a reason to stop saying “Blizz doesn’t care about us!” If you play this expansion and you don’t feel Blizzard thought about you, then you should just quit the game and try something else. The hope that this game presents is amazing, especially since they’ve even incorporated things have been asking for (Hello, Vehicles? What’s cooler than riding on the shoulder of a Titan’s weapon while slaughtering scourge, frost wyrms, and all kinds of baddies?), and makes you wonder what future expansions will hold. Guild housing? Cross factional communication? I admit, after Wrath I feel that I may just stick around and find out.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 25th, 2008 and is filed under Mailbag. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.