Spoilers: Wrath of the Lich King's peek into Druid lore
by Alex Ziebart 
Sep 29th 2008 at 12:30AM
Recently in both Ask a Beta Tester and Ask a Lore Nerd, Druids have been asking a lot about their class. Not class mechanics and things like that, but their quests, story, and background. Will the old quests go away? (They won't.) Will we see more of Druid lore in Wrath?Yes, yes we will. And there's video! If you don't want to be spoiled about upcoming Wrath of the Lich King quests and storylines, I would advise against reading the rest of this post and the video within. Like that cinematic-that-shall-not-be-named from last week, watching it could really spoil an awesome game moment, so consider that your final warning. Oh, and it's long, so free up some time for yourself.
Okay, so it's not an incredibly amazing cinematic like the last big video we posted, but it's still way cool if you geek out on stuff like this like I do. If you aren't quite sure what happened (since I am confident you couldn't read the quest text), I'll give you a rundown since I ran out and did this questline myself.
One of the Paladins of the Argent Crusade put his life on the line to rescue many, many others and pull them out of the line of fire. In the process, he became infected with the Plague. He quarantined himself off in an empty corner of Icecrown Glacier, but Tirion Fordring refuses to let him rot. Literally.
Tirion Fordring is not the type to give up on one of his men, so he sends you to talk to some of the most powerful benevolent beings in the world on his behalf. This video is only a fragment of that questline, so I won't spoil it all, but what you see above is the Emerald Dream, and its Nightmare taint. Remulos himself (you know, that guy in Moonglade) allows you to enter. Everyone is allowed to do this, by the way. Not just Druids. It's a pretty big deal for Druids though, the Dream is sort of important.
You don't spend a lot of time there, nor do you get to explore very far, but it's the first opportunity we've had to actually enter the Emerald Dream and see what's going on there. If you missed it: The Nightmare Figments are identical to you. They are actually supposed to represent your nightmares.
[ Video via Blizzplanet ]
Filed under: Druid, Expansions, Wrath of the Lich King
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
doug Sep 29th 2008 12:48AM
My palms are getting sweaty just watching
Barod Sep 29th 2008 12:52AM
I would really hope that this is somewhat of a clue for the next expansion.
Cowbane Sep 29th 2008 6:29AM
The Emerald Dream has always been an idea for the the next expansion. It's either this or the Maelstrom, not much else you can do in the lore. They'll think of more a long the way probably, but for now, those are the two most likely answers.
kabshiel Sep 29th 2008 11:17AM
My bet is that the next two expansions will be the Emerald Nightmare and Maelstrom. After that will come WoW2. Increasing the max level beyond 100 would just be too intimidating for new players.
Hesed Sep 29th 2008 12:52AM
zzzz...zzz.
...huh? Dang i slept through it. too long.
elprogramer Sep 29th 2008 12:53AM
I guess that's true for a paladin; that we would only fear our corruption.
bdjwill Sep 29th 2008 10:05AM
Very interesting. What did the flavor text for the Emerald Acorn say? I thought I saw something about waking a dragon.
Drakkenfyre Sep 29th 2008 1:08AM
I see the beta has the same problem as the PTR. Human workers constantly make the aggro sound, even friendly ones, lol.
And I like that Tauren pic. Any chance we can get the artist info on it so I can look up the full-sized one? Lol.
Dalehan Sep 29th 2008 2:41AM
It's supposed to make them sound as if they're working or hoisting around heavy stuff. At least it's not like the old Netherwing Ledge where the peons would make an aggro sound whenever you started to mine a node next to them. :p
Daelin Sep 29th 2008 1:13AM
wow! You could visit the Emerald Dream. this is getting kinda more epic, including the fact that Blizzard, implement better cutscenes in this expansion. And the previous one is just effing epic to kinda similar to Lord of the Rings like style!
I was kinda disappointed to not see Malfurion or anyone. But I just want to see that realm, Thanks!
kabshiel Sep 29th 2008 11:14AM
I was kind of disappointed that the Emerald Dream was just Moonglade with green fog.
squig_masta Sep 29th 2008 1:24AM
Wow, that really wasn't how I pictured the emerald dream at all. I always thought of it as it's own land as oppose to just a Zelda-esque mirror world of ours. So does that mean that when the Emerald Dream expansion comes out we'll be running around a green-tinted Kalimdor?
Discograndpa Sep 29th 2008 1:45AM
When I heard about it in game I didn't believe it.
And when I did the quest, I didn't want to believe it.
Going into the Emerald Nightmare to pick up magical acorns (which don't work) and fight your dopplegangers is boring.
Now if I were picking up acorns and using them to help Malfurion (who was grabbing demons and imploding them by the dozens), that would be a whole different cup of tea.
onetrueping Sep 29th 2008 1:56AM
While it isn't what I was picturing either, keep in mind that we aren't seeing much. In fact, from the looks of things, we aren't actually ENTERING the Emerald Dream, just dreaming of it. Plenty of time between here and there to make it more than just a screen effect, a foggy forest, and plant/dopplegangers and ancients with the Shadowform filters applied.
Ed Sep 29th 2008 1:54AM
No.. the real emerald dream is much more spectacular (see here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMxRtmXhJWw)
The whole quest was really a dissapointment, the story was... ok but the ending really sucked. The Emerald Dream is supposed to be what azeroth would resemble if the mortal races had not gone and fucked it up.
The emerald dream in that video looks somewhat completed, perhaps they will finish a small area and release it with the exp.
Clbull Sep 29th 2008 12:55PM
All it looked like to me was a phased version of the Shrine of Remulos in Moonglade, with just a green fog and loads of 80s and 80 elites.
Well it makes sense if it IS Azeroth if mortal races didn't screw it up but it still feels TOO similar to normal Azeroth to me.
Does this mean that an Emerald Dream expansion would just be a phased version of Azeroth? Or will it be one continent like it was supposed to be (SPOILERS: the great sundering was to do with the Burning Legion's first assault on Azeroth, and it split Kalimdor creating two other continents)
Baluki Sep 29th 2008 2:02AM
I didn't watch it yet (learned my lesson from that OTHER lore video) but it sure sounds cool.
I suppose you could probably expect just about everyone to come here and say "will be get to see any [insert class here] lore?" I certainly want to see more shaman lore.
Tsuaksasurfer Sep 29th 2008 2:02AM
lol i bet that paly nightmare was to be holy in BC XD
Renthas Sep 29th 2008 2:42AM
I was hoping for a little bit more than green tint on the green and mobs in shadowform.
Grimgore Sep 29th 2008 4:39AM
To be fair, from the looks of the video we never leave the Moonglade in the Emerald Dream. I would imagine that if there was one place that existed in nearly the same form in both our world and the Dream, it would be the Moonglade. I'd venture things would look much different if we were able to explore zones on the eastern coastline of Kalimdor.
And to the poster that said we only dream of entering the ED... that's how you enter it. That's why NPC druids visiting the dream spend hundreds of years down in the Barrow Dens slumbering.