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Welcome to Airee.net, a World of Warcraft themed blog maintained by theorycrafting enthusiast and avid roleplayer Cynra.
11Nov

A Different Way of Preparing for Wrath of the Lich King

Categories General, LoreComments

While I’ve been frantically checking every fifteen minutes to see if the servers are back up1, the significant other has decided to get ready for the imminent release of the second World of Warcraft expansion in an entirely different way.  He took the opportunity this afternoon to reinstall his copies of Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos and Warcraft III: Frozen Throne and has been gleefully slaughtering Scourge minions.  Since our computers are in the same room, I’ve been reliving the experience vicariously through him.

In between bouts of cursing at the server’s damnable reticence and goading on the significant other in his fight against the Scourge2, I started thinking about how this really was a wonderful way of preparing for the expansion.  This Thursday Wrath of the Lich King will become available to World of Warcraft players and features the next phase of the campaign against the forces of the Scourge.  The events that we will see in upcoming months were precipitated years ago in the Warcraft III game and its expansion.  Now is a wonderful opportunity to review the history of those games in order to have a better understanding of what will happen in Wrath of the Lich King.

In particular, I’ve been looking forward to the Reign of Chaos campaign “The Culling.”  Prior to this campaign, Arthas Menethil has realized that the Scourge are spreading the plague through infected grain carried in caravans that are being delivered to various towns, cities, and settlements throughout the Lordaeron kingdom.  Following this discovery, the young prince is reuinited with Uther the Lightbringer, his mentor, and their forces make their way to Stratholme.  When Arthas learns that the grain has already arrived in the city and has been disseminated to the populace, he orders Uther to take his forces and purge the city of its inhabitants — both living and undead.  Uther refuses and, maddened by this seeming betrayal by his closest friend, Arthas disbands disbands the Knights of the Silver Hand and undertakes the gruesome task himself.

In the Wrath of the Lich King, players will be able to exprience this pivotal event from Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos in the Caverns of Time instance The Culling of Stratholme.  Players will watch the exchange between Arthas, Uther, and Jaina, and then be tasked to help the Prince in preventing Mal’Ganis from acquiring more slaves of the Scourge in the people’s death.  They’ll fight through waves of undead, make their way through the city, and then take on the mastermind behind the corruption of Stratholme, the nathrezim Mal’Ganis.

And this is just one example of where the lore of the previous games will collide with the future expansion!

Want to bone up on your lore for Wrath of the Lich King?  Consider perusing the following links:

  1. Megs of Out of Mana described the situation best in her post “Last Tuesday before WOTLK and Breaking News.” ↩
  2. Seriously, man.  When I say go after the infected caravan, do it! ↩

Related Posts

  1. Enemy at the Gates: The Scourge Invasion
  2. Searching for the Golden Ticket
  3. Zombies Ate My Inn Keeper

Responses

I always loved WC3, even if I’m not very good at the RTS genre as a rule.

I have to admit, I’ve always had a soft spot for Illidan.

Awlbiste’s last blog post: That Guy From The War

Awlbiste said,

11 November 2008 at 8:47 pm

The Know your Lore link is mislinked. Here’s the one you’re probably looking for!

Ooh! have you checked the caverns of time lately? the stratholme instance portal is marked with a lordaeron-ish flare akin to that of durnholde, black morass, and mount hyjal. Just hanging out outside of the portal is enough to send chills down your spine!

I’ve always loved the culling of stratholme as a major event in the annals of Warcraft. The Caverns of Time are perhaps the most brilliant means of bringing that gameplay event into an interactive, immersive MMO experience without going through the trouble of retcons, or messing up the lore too terribly.

Neat little piece as always, cyn! I can totally see the potential into an RP character, an obsessive historian (probably a dwarf) who revels in the idea of being an agent of the bronze dragonflight.

krizzlybear said,

11 November 2008 at 9:02 pm

Awlbiste: I love RTSes, but I always liked the Use Map Settings (UMS) feature more. I’m a big defense player!

Krizzlybear: Mislinked, yups, but not the one you listed. I’ve updated the post with the one I had actually intended to link. Thanks for the heads up!

And I saw Old Stratholme a while back. I think it looks wonderful! I’ve avoided researching too much into the instance — even including screenshots of what the instance looks like prior to its fall — and I think that I’m really looking forward to seeing this event in particular. Hell, I still remember getting goosebumps the first time I went into Old Durnholde with the perky priestess. The thought “This is Csilla’s history” kept running through my mind.

And definitely an interesting idea for a character. I’ve always wanted to write up a couple of posts on characters that could have been but never were. Ah well!

Cynra’s last blog post: A Different Way of Preparing for Wrath of the Lich King

Cynra said,

11 November 2008 at 9:38 pm

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