This isn’t exactly lore related, but let’s face it, a lot of us are fascinated by the changes Blizzard has had to make to WoW’s Chinese game client in order to get past China’s censors.

As we saw with The Burning Crusade, one of China’s biggest no-no’s is showing bones.

This of course, should make the Chinese version of WotLK interesting… and it has.

That’s right.  At long last, WotLK is being released in China.

Here’s one of the best articles I could find on the subject.  Note that there are six pages of photos.  Enjoy!

http://chinagame.178.com/201008/75942001505.html

Originally posted at: Loregy.com

WotLK in China, The Differences

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So beta is upon us.  The NDA has been lifted, and those of us who have been playing are finally able to speak.  Of course, this is a game lore discussion site, so it helps if a number of us have had a chance to check out the content.

Suffice to say, spoilers abound.  I’ll do my best to not blatantly dive into any big reveals, but we’re making no promises.

Throughout Cataclysm’s testing phase, Garrosh has been a character of contention (when is he not?).  Is he an asset to the Horde?  A liability?  We’re used to this argument.  But there’s a new debate that’s come along with Cataclysm.  The question is simple, “Is Garrosh consistent?”  For some players, he now seems erratic.  They’re wrong.  When seen from the correct point of view (Garrosh’s), he’s as consistent as ever.Let’s back up.  Where does this argument come from?

Garrosh, yet again, has evolved with this new expansion.  Namely, he’s now Warchief of the Horde.  Thrall is absent, but his presence still felt.

Every race, except for the Orcs and Tauren, have been thrown out of Orgrimmar proper.  Trolls, Forsaken, Blood Elves?  Untrustworthy.  Goblins?  Slaves.

Spoilers re: Garrosh?  I’ll say this much:  Implications of treachery against Thrall and of course… Cairne.

As players outside Blizzard began experiencing Cataclysm, the first discussions were black and white.  Do we or do we not like what Garrosh is doing?

But then something strange happened, within the game we found Garrosh’s line.  A line even he himself would not cross.  While playing through the Stonetalon Mountains, we met an officer of the Horde whom even Garrosh believed had gone too far, and for the first time we as players realized that Saurfang had actually made a dent in Garrosh’s world view during their time in Northrend.

After this, the Garrosh debate was turned on its head.  What was this?  Garrosh’s line just seemed so out of place.

“Inconsistent” was the word.  Was Garrosh inconsistent?

So here we are.  And as you know, we believe he’s not, and you will too once you understand the underlying truth that is Garrosh.

That truth?

Garrosh is not evil.  He is ruthless.  And his ultimate loyalty is to the concept of the Horde itself instead of any one particular individual.

No matter how outlandish, or inconsistent Garrosh’s actions may seem, they all make sense when one understands that through the eyes of Garrosh everything he does is based on one simple question, “Will this strengthen the Horde?”

We may disagree with Garrosh’s answers, but that is still nonetheless the question he is asking himself with every decision he makes.

According to Garrosh, the Horde would be stronger streamlined down to the Tauren and Orcs.  According to Garrosh, the Horde may even be better without Thrall.  And… according to Garrosh, the moment the Horde steps over the line, it’ll find itself on collision course with becoming the Horde of old, the one that failed and was enslaved.

That is where the line comes from.  It is not random nor inconsistent.  To cross that line would weaken the Horde, therefore Garrosh will not do it.

So…Where will it all lead?  Who knows.  Blizzard is a lot less predictable these days, often throwing story elements in from completely left field.

Could Garrosh still ultimately become a villain?

Certainly.  Consider this… Emotions reverse.

It goes back to the beginnings of storytelling (not to mention human nature).  The more an individual loves something, the more they’ll hate it if they’re opinion is ever reversed.

Garrosh lives for the Horde, and would die for it if he needed to.

Eventually Thrall will return.

The question is, will Garrosh ultimately come to feel betrayed by the Horde?  If so, will his emotions be reversed?  Were that to happen, Garrosh could arguably hate the Horde even more so than King Wrynn.  At that point, you have your Villain.

We’ll just have to wait and see.

Originally posted at: Loregy.com

Garrosh in Cataclysm

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If you’re interested in WoW Lore, this is a must read:

WoW Lore Thread

Enjoy!

Originally posted at: Loregy.com

A “Must Read” Forum Post

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Blood Knights.

When “The Burning Crusade” was released, those two words were enough to send countless Alliance players into rabid frenzy.

Hit squads were formed.

No joke.  For those of you newer to WoW, when “The Burning Crusade” was released, there were literally groups of Alliance players roaming as packs searching for Blood Elf Paladins to gank.

…And there were Horde players cheering them on.

When I posted “The People of Lordaeron” article, I was reminded by one of Loregy’s readers of another pet-peeve misnomer…

And it has to do with the Blood Knights.

To get through this, I’ll need to recap some lore.  But I’ll do it fast.  For those of you who want more:  WoWWiki is that way ——>

Alright, for the newer WoW players:  In “The Burning Crusade” the Blood Elves captured a Naaru named M’uru and forcibly syphoned its powers to create a new faction of Paladins with a much darker tint known as the “Blood Knights”.

Obviously these Blood Knights were seen as remarkably evil.  The Naaru are beings of light, WoW’s equivalent of Angels.  The Blood Elves were effectively torturing one.

The Blood Elves themselves, of course, are High Elves who became addicted to fel energy after the Sunwell was destroyed.

So– this is all old news.  Why does it matter?

Because for most, it seems, this is where their Blood Elf knowledge stops.  But even with this tidbit, there is a seed that should be noticed.

The Naaru are beings of light.

The Blood Elves are fel addicts.

By feeding off of M’uru, the Blood Knights were effectively drug addicts breaking into a health food store every night to gorge on healthy snacks.

The light is the light, whether stolen or not.  Angelic beings are selfless.  And… as it turned out, M’uru allowed himself to be captured so his essence could help purify the Blood Elves.

Alright, cut to the end of Burning Crusade.  (Stick with me, we’re going someplace.)

M’uru is captured again, taken from the Blood Knights.

Lady Liadrin, leader of the Blood Knights, approaches the leader of the Naaru, A’dal, a veritable god.

A’dal forgives her.  Admits that this was the plan all along, and…

*Lady Liadrin pledges the Blood Knights’ allegiance to A’dal’s forces and the restoration of Silvermoon.*

A battle is fought.  M’uru dies, his sacrifice fully playing out.  And in one final piece to bring the story full circle, M’uru’s life force reignites the Sunwell.

NOW….

Cut to present day WoW.  The most recent WotLK patch.

The Battered Hilt quest-line to reclaim Quel’Delar.

Minor spoiler… you end up seeing the restored Sunwell.

And who is there in the background?  Lady Liadrin, preaching salvation and the hard work the Blood Elves now have ahead of them breaking their fel addiction.  And how do the Blood Elf NPC’s react to her speech?

They cheer.

Long time readers will know I tend to point to answers somewhere in the gray area…

But in this case?  No.  At this point, the idea that the Blood Knights (and by extension, all Blood Elves) are evil is completely absurd.

Their power once again stems from the Sunwell.  Their paladins are sanctioned by the Naaru, who also sanction the Draenei.

Sure, you can claim they’re former bad-guys now doing community service–

But consider this… in literature some of the most driven heroes are former villains desperate to prove their redemption.

The Blood Elves and their Blood Knights are not evil.  Anyone who says otherwise is basing their point of view on out-dated lore.

Originally posted at: Loregy.com

Blood Knights, Evil?

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Varian Wynn has a misconception.  Yeah, so what?  Every player with a Horde symbol on his or shirt would tell you the same thing.  But this misconception is particularly interesting.

What is it about?

It’s about the Undercity.

Say what you want about King Varian Wynn.  This isn’t a judgement of his character… more or less just criticism regarding something he said, and more specifically the sheer amount of players one runs across who didn’t pause to consider what Varian said.

So what was this line?  Let’s set the scene… Go back to when WotLK was new… to the Wrathgate.

As an Alliance player, you storm the Undercity with King Wynn.  Together, you defeat Grand Apothecary Putress.  Then, with Putress dead at your feet, King Wynn yells:

“Look around you, brothers and sisters. Open your eyes! Look at what they have done to our kingdom!”

This line is fine in and of itself.  It works with Wynn’s character.  He’s going to feel that way.  Players, however, should know it makes little sense.

“Look at what they have done to our kingdom!”

…”our kingdom”?

When did Lordaeron belong to the people of Stormwind?  Or to the Alliance as a whole?  It never belonged to the dwarves or the high elves or any of the other human kingdoms.

Lordaeron… belongs to the people of Lordaeron.

And who are these people?

They’re the former Scarlet Crusade/Onslaught.

They’re a portion of the Argent Dawn/Crusade.

They’re a small number of exiles in Stormwind.

And finally… they’re also the Forsaken.

Consider that.  Love ‘em or hate ‘em, the Forsaken are the people of Lordaeron.  The liberated undead tend to be treated by NPC’s and players alike as if they appeared out of the thin air.

The Forsaken, like the Blood Elves, are a former Alliance faction who have joined the Horde.

The Forsaken are the people of Lordaeron… still living in Lordaeron.

So with respect to King Varian Wynn, whether we like it or not, it’s the people of Lordaeron’s city and they can do with it what they want.  The only parties who have a right to complain either don’t exist anymore (Scarlet Onslaught), don’t care (Argent Crusade), or are a minuscule minority (exiles) compared to the liberated undead.

Consider that the next time you’re in a lore forum or witness an RP’er prattling on about “taking back the Undercity”!  It was already taken back from Arthas by the people who originally lived there.

Originally posted at: Loregy.com

The People of Lordaeron

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For those of you who are sensitive to spoilers, you might want to back out now.  For the rest of you… I’ve got a big problem with this book.

So, what’s my problem?

When we play World of Warcraft we take it as a given, an unconscious assumption, that the game will provide us with the core narrative.

What the heck does that mean?  It means we expect the game to provide us with all of the “need to know” lore.

The “Stormrage” novel breaks that.  There is now a kink in the spine of Warcraft’s lore.

We’re lore-dorks.  Face it, to whatever degree, we are. Consider what a huge concept it is for us that WoW will now skip an entire expansion’s worth of material between WotLK and Cataclysm.

The real problem?  Imagine now someone who isn’t a lore-dork trying to wrap their head around that.  When an aspiring lore-dork asks me to explain something to them, it’s often as basic as “What’s Sylvanus Windrunner all about?”  I can only imagine what it’ll be like trying to explain to them that, “No no… the Emerald Dream expansion as we all imagined it has already happened.  No, it didn’t happen in game… Blizzard skipped over it. They only released it as a book.  Malfurion is back and married to Tyrnade, Eranikus is dead, the morrowgrain mystery was answered.  Fandral is in a straitjacket.  Oh, and Teldrassil is no longer corrupted.”

One could counter that players, who don’t care about the lore, aren’t going to mind if there’s a hole in it.

Wonderful.  So what’s the plan here?  To ensure that players who don’t care about lore keep right on not caring?  Aren’t these the players we should be *encouraging* instead of making immersion and lore that much more difficult?

Before “Stormrage”, the biggest hurdle was convincing people to pay attention.  Read the quests and boss dialogue, you’ll learn a lot.  As long as you give the game the attention it deserves, you’ll know WoW’s core storyline.  When Cata is released, this will no longer be the case; you will now also need to read a 400 page book.  Unfortunately, most people aren’t going to do that.  They’ll throw their arms up and decide it’s a lot less “work” to simply ignore WoW’s storyline.

We’re going to lose a lot of would be lore-dorks because of “Stormrage”.  It doesn’t matter how well we can summarize the book for them; all they’ll hear is, “To follow WoW’s core story, you now need to read a big thick book… yech.”

—

So, the book itself… how is it?

It has a lot of great moments and lost opportunities.

Remember the night elf civil war speculation?  It happens… but it only lasts for a couple paragraphs, and it doesn’t involve much more than a conversation.  An entire city of Night-Elves who went against Malfurion’s wishes by seeking to regain their immortality?  Yeah… we’ll just sweep that little inconvenient truth right under the rug.

Malfurion’s return is also underplayed.  Here it is… Azeroth’s darkest hour… the closest it has ever come to being conquered.  And then, right as hope runs out, the mythological messiah returns.  In the story, no one witnesses this.  No one is there falling into despair, only to see Malfurion step out of his barrow den.

A great moment that will very likely be milked later on is when Malfurion briefly becomes aware of every individual living being on Azeroth.  Why will this be milked?  Because it means Malfurion now knows of every hidden hero and danger on the planet.  And yes, that means Malfurion probably now knows where Jarod Shadowsong is.

…

Before I’m done, I need to give a shout out… and this one might interest you.

During the WotLK beta there was a guy on the beta forums, who declared himself as the “Official Lore-Dork of the WotLK Beta”.  In one of this posts, he came up with this crazy idea that Xavius was the Nightmare.  My reaction was to argue with him that this was only possible if Xavius was backed up by an old-god.

Well he nailed it.  Granted, I did too, but stating, “The old gods did it!” is hardly earth-shattering when it comes to WarCraft lore speculation.  I can’t remember the guy’s name (hopefully I’ll find him during the Cata beta), but credit should be given where it’s due.  I also know for fact he went to BlizzCon in ’08 and told Knaak his ideas.

So… there you go.  Blizzard’s creative development department certainly has their work cut out for them, proving they can now work around the kink in WarCraft’s spine.

Will they pull it off?

We’ll just have to wait and see.

Originally posted at: Loregy.com

Stormrage

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How so?  Picture everything we surmised would happen in the Emerald Dream Expansion.  Forget spoilers, this is the stuff we could easily extrapolate from what we already know:

The expansion begins with the Nightmare gaining power, threatening Azeroth, and ultimately needing to be defeated by Azeroth’s heroes in the final boss fight.  We’d also find out what happened with Malfurion Stormrage, and answer any other druid-themed questions posed so far.  What is the Nightmare?  What’s up with that Morrowgrain quest-line Hamuul and Fandral had us do in Un’Goro?  What happened after we freed Eranikus during the opening of AQ40?  What’s going to happen when Malfurion finally confronts Fandral regarding the questionable things Fandral’s done during Malfurion’s absence?  Speaking of Fandral, what’s up with Teldrassil, the tainted world tree he created despite Malfurion’s warnings?

On the first day you log into Cataclysm, all of these things will have already happened.  All questions answered.  The Nightmare is effectively no more.  (And don’t pretend that’s a spoiler.  The whole point of an end-boss is to be defeated.)

I have to confess, on a personal note, the Stormrage novel really threw me for a loop.  Obviously, we speculated that the Emerald Dream would be the next expansion since, “Why on earth would Blizzard release a novel about Malfurion Stormrage if they were doing anything else?”  We now have our answer.  Blizzard skipped over the Emerald Dream expansion entirely to go straight to Cataclysm.  They then released the book to fill in the large gap created in the lore.

So is this good, bad?  Sure, we can complain we missed out on a great expansion, but more-so… aren’t players going to be confused in Cataclysm when the NPC’s are all referring to this great war that recently happened against the Nightmare involving every citizen of Azeroth? (Yeah, it’s that big.)  Hopefully Blizzard’s creative development department will be able to bridge enough of this in the game, so it doesn’t harm the immersion.

Suffice to say, if you’re into WoW’s lore then you need to read this book.  It’s not a question of “neat flavor” as it is with all of the other books.  If you don’t read this book, you’ll likely be very confused when you jump into Cataclysm.

Is the book any good?  I enjoyed it.  It’s not my favorite, but it’s a good one.  I’ll add this… Brox fans will like it, but I won’t say why.

Was there anything I noticed in it that made me raise my eyebrow?  Yes.  This isn’t direct, and I’m curious if anyone else catches it… but lets just say Malfurion Stormrage likely now knows where Jarrod Shadowsong is.

I have more to say about the book, but it’ll be spoiler heavy, so I’ll allow some time for everyone to read it.

I hope you do.

Originally posted at: Loregy.com

The Next Expansion is Emerald Dream

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Yes, Sark Ragetotem is in game. You can find him in Thunder Bluff over on Hunter Rise. I’ll be honest, I’m not much of a fan of “fan-fiction”, mostly because the stories come completely out of left field and are (dare I say) masturbatory, “Here’s the story of *my* character and how awesome she is!” There are countless NPC’s, even major ones, lacking any backstory. Personally, I love it when I’m reading WoW based fiction and I come across the characters in game. I’m not an RP’er, but even I pause and think, “Heh… there he is!” Ker Ragetotem is also in game, and it was my decision to make her Sark’s daughter. In hindsight, I worry that I missed something in the WoW tabletop RPG about these character’s, but… que sera.  I think I’m safe.

Fantasy fiction as a whole suffers from a large problem, Mary-Sues. What’s a Mary Sue? To quote Wikipedia, “A Mary Sue (sometimes just Sue), in literary criticism and particularly in fanfiction, is a fictional character with overly idealized and hackneyed mannerisms, lacking noteworthy flaws, and primarily functioning as a wish-fulfillment fantasy for the author or reader.” Ever read something in which the main character just runs around being awesome for the whole story until you finally stop cheering, and want to just punch him in the face? Yeah, that’s a Mary-Sue. For “The Crows of Thunder Bluff”, I was adamant Sark would not be perfect. He fails to notice the Grimtotem in time. He fails to save the bridge to his people. Heroes mess up; what makes them heroes is they keep trying.

Hamuul Runetotem was tough. It’d be easy to write him as a god, turn him into a Mary-Sue, and even give the whole story a deus-ex machina style ending (omnipotent force shows up and sets everything right). I tried to avoid that with the choreography of the fight. Hamuul screws up. Magatha blasts him when he should have seen it coming. Hamuul’s response is to fight dirty. My attitude was that he was beyond gentlemen’s rules. Too much tragedy had already happened, and his job was to end it quickly. He’s old and wise. He’s not going to be flamboyant. Since Malfurion is effectively “balance-specced”, I decided to write Hamuul as feral. We’ve never seen him in action before, and his comments in early quests about how old and tired he is left me with a, “Yeah right…” attitude that he must be covering up his quiet physical power.

As for easter eggs? Ten points to anyone who noticed the Eagle Spear. In “The War of the Ancients”, the Tauren leader Huln Highmountain wielded this weapon, which was already at that point in time a tauren artifact. Some of Huln’s descendents are in the game, the most famous probably being the Tauren Death Knight Trag. Obviously by giving the Eagle Spear to the Bloodhoof’s I was subtly stating that Cairne and Baine were also his descendants. Another ten points to any of the StarCraft fans out there who noticed that Hamuul announced his arrival by quoting the Protoss.

Someone asked me if there was anything I wanted to put in the story that didn’t make it in. Not particularly. Although I was tempted a couple times to have Sark look across the central rise and see the tauren weapon master Ansekhwa defeating a mob of Grimtotem sent to kill him.

The story of “The Crows of Thunder Bluff” is obviously very simple. It’s effectively an action sequence. Some might criticize that it could have been longer… more epic. More angles. More dialogue and backstory. My response? Sometimes your audience doesn’t want a steak dinner; they want a cheeseburger with fries and a coke. Your job as a creative writer is to entertain, not show off how awesome you are.

So there you go.  One of the biggest problems with being a writer is the amount of time it takes your audience to experience your work. For that, I’d like to thank everyone for the time they took to check out the story. Thanks again. And if you have any other comments or questions, by all means, let me know.

Originally posted at: Loregy.com

Writer’s Commentary: The Crows of Thunder Bluff

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Several things fell into place, and…. here you go.  The story is titled “The Crows of Thunder Bluff”.

So, is Loregy now a fan-fiction site?  Good god, no.  Consider this a one-off, a proof of concept,  or even a, “Hell, why not?”  I make my living as a writer, and don’t usually get requests, so I thought it’d be fun.  Enjoy!

Click here to download “The Crows of Thunder Bluff” (.PDF file).

Feel free to leave comments.  I’m fairly thick-skinned.

Originally posted at: Loregy.com

The Crows of Thunder Bluff

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One of them was Fallout 3, which I’ve successfully milked dry thanks to the “Game of the Year Edition”.

One of those addons is The Pitt.

This week, Heavy Rain was released for PS3.

Why do I bring these up?  Because they both deal with gray decisions.

Take my word for it.  If you’re into game lore, and you enjoyed Fallout 3, but never tried out The Pitt, go play it.  It’ll only take you a few hours to beat it.

The teaser tags for The Pitt talked about your character needing to make decisions that wouldn’t be so cut and dry.  I gave the typical, “Yeah, yeah, you wish.  You say that every time.  Shaddup.”

Here’s a typical game’s “gray” decision:

Do you want to:

A) Save the Kingdom.

B) Save yourself.

Yeah…. edgy.  /golfclap

This all boils down to a much larger underlying problem.  Namely, “Video game writing typically sucks.”  Why?  That’s a matter for another post, but it has a lot to do with hiring math geeks to do an artist’s job.

Some studios get it right.  Blizzard of course… and Betheseda (sometimes).

So, back to The Pitt. I sat down, started playing, and here’s what shocked me:

I was playing an all out good guy, and I actually got to a fork where I was stumped what the right decision was.  Both were quasi evil.  Both were quasi good.  Some bastard over at Bethesda actually figured out what a gray decision was and had dumped it in my lap to deal with.

Now this isn’t jaw dropping.  You’re not going to scream for your friends to come in and watch.  But it shows something.  Games aren’t as black and white anymore.  They’ve claimed to not be for ages, but they’re finally over the past couple of years finally beginning to live up to those claims.

So like I said, “Heavy Rain” came out this week.  I haven’t had a chance to check it out yet, but all I’m hearing from everyone is how gray the story telling is.

Wonderful. It’s about time.

Originally posted at: Loregy.com

Gray Decisions

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