The ebon blog

Wow has never been a game that forces you into lore, in fact you can grind your way to level 70 without knowing who the hell “The heir previously known as Arthas Menethil” is and why is he that angry all the time (I’ll tell you a secret, wearing plate on a frozen land makes your nipples hurt like if the whole Zul’Aman was doing voodoo with them). This is going to change and for the better, dog’s new tricks: Phasing environment and in-game cinematics, are going to change the way you’ll experience the lore in wow. Better late than never but this was tecnically possible since day one. Shame on you blizz. Beware of the huge spoilers coming after the jump.

Damn about time.

Phasing has been since day one in wow (In fact, each time you die, you’re phased until you recover your body), relatively forgotten to veterans that only experienced it in lowbie quests in darkshore and other places we now ignore. This technique was recently brought to the light again and revamped by the quest Maintaining the sunwell portal, maybe the popularity that gained this quest for the I’m-on-other-plane-of-existence feeling or just wiping the dust on this old tome of ancient techniques lit a bulb on a few brains at blizzard which they have wisely used to make this coming expansion much, MUCH more inmersive than any previous content we may have seen. I fact, the starting questchain for the deaf death knights makes intensive use of phasing to guide you along the timeline of events. It’s really an experience that everyone should go through, even if you delete the char just after they kick you out of the ebon hold.

Cinematics, are also another sadly wasted lore-inmersion tool.  I can’t even remember a single cinematic until quel’danas and the magister’s terrace kicked into the game. It seems that blizzard used that patch as proof-of-concept and probe baloon, for what they were preparing for wotlk.

Can you spell AWESOME?

Yesterday, a new beta build was released, and revealed the existance of a cinematic, related to the quest chain that introduces you to icecrown glacier. This cinematic alone would the most epic thing you’ve ever seen in wow if the meaning of ‘epic’ wasn’t abused so much in this game already. Seriously, when you see it, you’ll shit bricks.

WTF? I’m on a new faction now?

Now, many players that haven’t played WAR III and even some that did will get some erroneous impresions of this video. Yes, hordies and allies can talk to each other, interfaction commuication is only forbiddent for game balancing (Stupid measure if you ask me). And what is worse: No, the forsaken won’t split from the horde.  You haven’t probably noticed if you’ve never played horde, but the forsaken are a split society already. They have their own extremist subgroup called the Royal apothecary society. Founded by Lady Sylvanas herself. Sylvanas, since it’s transformation into an undead has only one thought in her mind: Vengeance, this has led her to take a few cuestioable decisions while ruling the Undercity, first of them being allying a dreadlord. The Royal apothecary society, other huge mistake, plans wiping the Scourge and all the living. They are developing a new plague to do so.

Now back to the video, wonder what’s next?  Summarized, Grand Apothecary Putress and Varimathras conquer the Undercity, the horde wants Sylvanas un-undead, and the Alliance marches against the horde to avenge it’s fallen hero. What a mess!

To me, this expansion’s content was pretty lackluster, yes, we have more talents, skills and a new class that I love to play, but the content itself seemed more of the same we had until now. This video has filled me with expetation and I hope you too. Having watched the wotlk teaser left me with a feeling of ‘nice, really nice, but it’s just a pretty render with no background story’. This video has actually teased me far more thant the ‘teaser’ did.