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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsBreakfast Topic: What do you think about Onyxia's return?
by Lesley Smith 
Aug 14th 2009 at 8:00AM
And now she's back. I don't understand it either but finding out is certainly going to be exciting. Plus there's finally a 310% dragon mount that I actually want. So, constant readers, what do you think about this revelation? How do you think she will be brought back into the picture? Is it just something to keep us entertained until patch 3.3 or could it be part of the bigger picture? After all, this announcement has come just over a week before BlizzCon. It's gotta mean something, right?
Filed under: Blizzard, Breakfast Topics, Expansions, Raiding, Lore, Bosses, Wrath of the Lich King, Cataclysm
Reader Comments (Page 3 of 6)
Jon Do Aug 14th 2009 10:55AM
I'm not sure I'd go that far.
But I have to say that Naxx was once the pinnacle of WoW lore. When you take something that's legendary and bring it back for everyone to try as the 'starter raid' it will lose something.
Kind of like Michael Jordan's seasons with the Wizards.
Realmreaver Aug 14th 2009 8:40AM
I think this is a prelude to the idea of all the older instances having a 'Heroic' mode. To see if there is a true desire and how much effort Blizzard has to make to adjust the old material to fit the new diagram imagined hence forth. Lore-wise? Her return could be 'Instanced' otherwise if you never taken her out you could be involved in helping Varian take her out and stealing some of his glory.
I mean let's be real if he took her out previous to his return he was prob close to 80 and she was as we would see her NOW not then anyways. It could work.
I just hope again this is a prelude to instancing quest chains that could effect azeroth not to emntion all older instances
t0xic Aug 14th 2009 10:45AM
"Instanced" meaning we all go to the Caverns of Time? That would make a little sense. Especially since trekking all the way to Dustwallow doesn't really appeal to me.
Andrew R. Aug 14th 2009 8:39AM
It was just a setback!
Ya know because we're gonna be taking on a headless Onyxia.
Mr Woof Aug 14th 2009 8:44AM
Anyone else see the new Onyxia (and any others) as part of 3.3? Kill new Onyxia, and now Arthas comes and enslaves her? I see big potential here. ZOMBIE ONYXIA FTW? Here's hoping! See you in Icecrown!
Maori Aug 14th 2009 8:52AM
There is no lore implications, they've already stated that. It's just a 5 year anniversary present, the lore stays the same. She's not coming back, even Blizz would have a hard time explaining how she still goes on while her head has been hung over two cities. Now if it was Kael'thas you'd have a case but Onyxia? She dead. Enjoy the birthday gift and don't look too deep into it.
SarahTheGnome Aug 14th 2009 10:07AM
Could you give me a source on the statement of 'no lore implications'? Because I can't seem to find that any where.
SarahTheGnome Aug 14th 2009 10:13AM
Nevermind! I found it!
I absolutely hate that they are starting to implement things without backing it with lore. Really.
Let's open the floodgates and put Frodo the enraged hobbit awoken by Arthas in the game as a last boss! Because, hey, who needs lore in an RPG right!
Maori Aug 14th 2009 11:11AM
Can't you just for once look past something like that and just enjoy a birthday present of sorts? Even the RPers should be able to take a break from their (uninteresting) character stories and just have a good time doing an old favorite. It's not going to hurt you if you don't do it at all so if you have that many issues with the lore don't go in there really but if you want to enjoy a fun raid that used to be a stepping stone for every guild in the early days of WoW raiding does there really need to be a story to back it up?
Nick Aug 14th 2009 12:55PM
Sarah, it's nothing Lorey. They're not changing the encounter, they're just switching a few things around to make it level 80 as a 5th anniversary gift. That's all. Just bringing up the numbers in one of the best old world encounters.
Donegan Aug 14th 2009 8:53AM
Started in WoW just before Sunwell was added, so I missed the days when Onyxia was raided often but I did do the attunement questchain all the way through and hope they'll add a Drakefire Amulet FoS. Last I checked, Horde could still do the chain all the way through but Alliance could not.
As for the chain itself, I enjoyed it thoroughly from a lore perspective, but perhaps the most enjoyable thing to me was when I got to the last step and all the leet battleground AFK'ers in Varian's throne room got killed by Onyxia's guards when she was "unmasked". :)
"ZOMG WTF where are all these dragons coming from???"
"WHO DID THIS???"
Me: (laughing on the inside)
Too bad I couldn't get a group to kill her until the achievement patch came out and gave people a "reason" to go back.
Donegan Aug 14th 2009 9:12AM
Well it wasn't Varian's throne room at the time, but you know what I meant...
Basoiche Aug 14th 2009 9:41AM
That was epic. Yep, you learned where to afk and where NOT to afk, or else suffer the consequences.
Heck, I had a RL emergency the other day and left my Ulduar DK Tank afk'ed in Westfall, and came back to find myself having been killed by a knoll. Looked like it only took him 20 mins or so. :P
Millitus Aug 14th 2009 9:03AM
I could totally see some resurrectable moment by the wyrmrest guardians and sticking her in a different wing down below wyrmrest temple.
I'd love to see the "basement" of wyrmrest temple become something similar to what vault is in wintergrasp.
Maori Aug 14th 2009 9:07AM
She's no way powerful enough to be worthy of that. As far as dragons go she's damn weak.
VegetaPrime Aug 14th 2009 9:23AM
Leaving the old world instance as is and in the same place while adding the new and improved version through one of the wyrmrest portals would be a great idea.
golffuul Aug 14th 2009 9:09AM
I'm with muddy on this. I think Blizz is starting to lose me as a customer. I've been in since closed beta for this game and with 3.2 and now Onyxia, you're forced to come up with a couple of conclusions.
1) Since a blue said that you won't see Onyxia until November, that they are WAY behind on their expansion deadline (which was estimated at 14-16 months from this past February..which would put you at April-June. This is a trickle down effect to Icecrown because you won't see Icecrown until Jan-Feb at the earliest and they'll let us munch on that for at least 6 months with 2 months of pre-expansion beta. So the earliest you will see the next expansion is July or August.
2) The developers are starting to lose their edge. I say this because recycling old material is just bad. It's a novelty that wears thin. I was ok with Kael'thas cause "technically" you didn't kill him...blah blah blah. Onyxia died and died hard. Twice a week, after a fashion, because she was the one boss you only needed like 8 people and 32 others to tag along. I don't appreciate developers who have such a lack of vision and ingenuity that they can't operate correctly without their "A" team being around to guide them through the process. 5 years is a good run, and the cracks are starting to show in the ability to keep things fresh. No harm in that. I'm not saying WoW is dead. I'm just not interested, in the next little while, of re-visiting old raid instances because the developers can't come up with any better ideas. There's tons of lore and tons of map (both in-game and yet to be put in) to work with, so you can't say that that is the problem. 3.2, for me just made me realize that Blizzard wasn't even willing to care about their artwork and the "journey" that one makes through a dungeon. Instead they wanted to give us the feel of arena combat. Umm...we've done that already...about 5 or 6 times, it seems. And if you're going to make it a good instance...at least make it last more than 20 minutes. I can't tell you how many people were excited to see the new instance, only to go "Is that it?". If this continues to be the trend, than I can't imagine WoW sticking around for very long. Just the EQ/DAOC-type fans will stick with it.
(Insert giant walls of flame, HERE)
Maori Aug 14th 2009 9:18AM
I think you are missing the point of this. It's not supposed to change lore, it's not supposed to be a major game changing dungeon, it's to celebrate 5 years. It's an entirely optional fight with some nostalgic items and I for one appreciate the throwback. For people like me who fondly remember raiding her I appreciate having a reason to go back and for people unlike me who has to listen to people like me talk about how much fun it was they get to see why it's so talked about.
Expansion or not this was coming in November because it's their 5 year, not to pull the wool over our eyes as they go back to playing ping-pong instead of coding. I really don't see why you see November as some omen when the game was released November 23rd 2004. OW, LOGIC, IT HURTS.
golffuul Aug 14th 2009 9:30AM
I don't care about the lore aspect. I care about a "freshness" aspect. Someone in the Blue Tracker said that the game is becoming too easy and Blizz's only counter to that was that Yogg+0 is still there and I don't see everyone flying around in Mimiron heads. Well..that's because there's a new raid instance, moron, and there is gear that is better than that, already. I mean seriously...developers just don't have any common sense, now. I'm just saying that I think the devs have seriously missed the boat on how to proceed with this game. You can tell that WOTLK, up until 3.2 was developed by a different set of folks than who created the current system. The Argent Tournament was a cute idea, but didn't need its own raid instance. 3.1, with that hybrid of Ulduar and Argent Tournament, to me...is the defining moment of WoW's future. It's a departure from one set of devs, in my opinion, to a new set. And the new set just thinks they can throw anything at us and we'll go..."OOH!! SHINY!!!". Which, unfortunately, alot more people are not.
Kylenne Aug 14th 2009 10:16AM
As I tell everyone who spews massive amounts of QQ every time Blizz does something cool and threatens to pick up their toys and go home:
Don't let the door hit you. We could all use less lag.