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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsBreakfast Topic: We're doing what now?
by Matthew Rossi 
Dec 31st 2009 at 8:00AM
But I always had a terrible time understanding why I was running Maraudon. Okay, there's some centaurs, and they're... bad? I guess? And then there's one of Cenarius' two sons buried here, and he and an earth elemental named Princess Theadras had sex which, okay, I guess that's bad? And we're going to kill her for having centaur babies with him, and... there's a pretty decent set of plate legs in there? The instance itself isn't poorly designed, mind you, and there's a nice lore element when you bring Zaetar's seed to his brother Remulos in Moonglade, but in terms of why your characters run Maraudon at all, well, it's really hard to come up with anything like a compelling reason. Unless you're a tauren, I guess. Tauren don't need a reason to kill a bunch of centaurs. They just need to be told where they are.
This is always my biggest problem with Zangarmarsh and Coilfang: why are the naga stealing all the water? Just to have it? How does this benefit Vashj or Illidan? I don't really understand that part of the plan. I'm sure someone, somewhere explains it, but I guess I missed that part. (Dread Lord Ziebart hastens to mention that she does have a throwaway line basically saying 'Dudes need water, so we're gonna have all the water and then y'all will have to do what we say' but it conveniently ignores places like Nagrand and Terrokar.)
So now I turn to you, Breakfast Topic readers. What instance or quest most made you say "huh, why is this even happening" and why?
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, Breakfast Topics, Instances, The Burning Crusade, Wrath of the Lich King
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 8)
Alexander Dec 31st 2009 8:53AM
Colonel Kurzen is a level 40 human found in The Stockpile in Kurzen's Compound in Stranglethorn Vale. Originally a noble and talented soldier from Stormwind, he led an expedition from Stormwind to Stranglethorn Vale. Unfortunately, sometime during the expedition he fell victim to foul magic; his mind becoming possessed by Mai'Zoth, a powerful Ogre mage of local Mosh'ogg Ogre clan, seeking to use Kurzen and his men for their own deeds. Although majority of Kurzen's men still follow their leader, a small group of his men, troubled by this sudden change in Kurzen, rebelled and estalished their own group at the Rebel Camp. Unlike Kurzen's force, the rebels loyalties still lie with Stormwind. Lieutenant Doren, leader of the rebels wants Kurzen's head to bring an end to his madness.
thus it is the second rebellion, a rebellion against a rebellion.
source: http://www.wowwiki.com/Kurzen
flint Dec 31st 2009 9:30AM
He's also a reference to Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad.
Anathemys Dec 31st 2009 10:44AM
Reasoning behind Coilfang:
1. Steal water
2. ?????
3. Profit!
Jabadabadana Dec 31st 2009 5:12PM
Mara has interesting pieces of lore.
It is however, more like a less important waling caverns.
You get this awesome change from putrid, corrupted areas, to this pristine journey to the center of the earth moment, once you pass Celebras.
There are some reasons why you might want to accomplish something in there, from old magic, to centaur, to dead demi-god's sons, but Mara gets to be one of those classic sort of dungeon crawls of the sort you (sorry, geekdom is dead on the internet so probably not) used to play D&D for. The point is awesome looking areas, some loose quests, and shinies.
It's one of my favorite places. Desolace made me realize that once upon a time they cared about the world as a world.
Now Cataclysm shows me that they'd rather blow it up, than think about it.
Fletcher Dec 31st 2009 8:16AM
Obsidian Sanctum. It took me /ages/ to figure out what was going on in there, as it's not explained in-game at all; apparently there's a book about it though. Apparently Sartharion is a lackey for Neltharion, who as we all know by now is a Big Bad.
The Vault of Archavon is another one; what justification do we have for beating up those poor delicious loot pinatas?
Alanid Dec 31st 2009 8:17AM
You answered your own question I believe.
Glaras Dec 31st 2009 8:19AM
Justification? For loot pinatas? Um... I thought that *was* the justification...
Toia Dec 31st 2009 3:37PM
Ironically, Archavon knows that we're fighting over his vault, and he knows that we want the "Lewts" from it.
If you read his journal, you will see that he actually listens to us fighting (and preparing to fight him) outside, and fall asleep to the sound of it.
He is protecting the loot, but for some reason he also wants us to have it, and sneaks out at night, gathering up all the armour scraps from dead soldiers and uses it to repair himself and make new titan loot.
Its a very weird storyline and it supposedly stands true for all 4 watchers (Koralon, Toravon, Emalon and the big guy himself).
But we must remember that this is a very important milestone, as this is the first enemy boss to have a lore reason for respawning, just lie the wolvarr are the only NPC race to notice respawning!
A lot of breaking the 4th wall this Xpac! :D
Nazgûl Dec 31st 2009 10:45AM
In Obsidian Sanctum, Sartharion is guarding a host of Twilight Drakes and their eggs for Deathwing. Twilight Drakes are experiments of Sintharia, Deathwing's consort, and once she died Deathwing decided to take over her experiment. Twilight Drakes are really powerful and strong against other dragons.
artifex Jan 1st 2010 12:58PM
Toia: hmm, when you put it that way, he reminds me a little of Grendel.
Not the Grendel as traditionally portrayed in Beowulf, but the first-monster retelling in "Grendel, Grendel, Grendel," etc.
Possum Dec 31st 2009 8:20AM
The answer to Why? is and always will be: For Pants!
Tokkar Dec 31st 2009 8:31AM
For Pony!
LilBanshee Dec 31st 2009 9:11AM
For pony!
For those who may not get the reference, it's from the WoW-based webcomic Looking For Group:
http://lfgcomic.com/page/42
http://lfgcomic.com/page/66
Vaishevik Dec 31st 2009 1:00PM
/facepalm
"For Pony"... Pony was a character in SE Hinton novel The Outsiders. It's a line in the book (which the writer for LFG would have been forced to read in grade six)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Outsiders_(novel)
:D
Zanathos Dec 31st 2009 2:43PM
Not familiar with the outsiders (or all that familiar with LFG), but from following all those links I'm not seeing a necessary connection. Sometimes a battlecry about ponies is just about midget horses.
Chris Anthony Dec 31st 2009 3:21PM
Sorry, Vaishevik. "For Pony!" (or any variant) does not appear in "The Outsiders". Interesting thought, but ultimately probably wrong.
Ctmcstomperq Dec 31st 2009 8:27AM
Now that I replied to the idiot.
The lore for most of the instances is available in the quests associated with the zone they're in usually. Huge places like Blackrock Depths are designed to be done following a certain path. I honestly think they expected us to get to the Ring of Law, die horribly, and on the way back see The Architect on his sarcophagus waiting with a quest he can only give a dead man.
That's my main gripe is that even though Blizz is getting way better in conveying the scale of an event or a story point(see Wrathgate), they seem to have lost the ability to just let the place itself be epic. BRD is fecking HUGE, so is Dire Maul for that matter, they're not just instances but whole zones in they're own right.
That said there are a few things I would like to see from Cataclysm:
The continuation of the superb storytelling that Blizz has learned to convey.
A mild return the unique art stylings from late game Vanilla with a real focus on consistency if not quantity.
The problem that people had with BC on this avenue was the so called "clown costumes". That is indicative that someone in quality control didn't give the rewards a look-over with an eye toward consistency, which is just as important and also seemingly left behind in certain areas in Wrath as well. Case in point, all the DPS plate rewards in Borean Tundra are a spiffy crimson/black scheme, except for the boots, which are blue and gray. That should have been spotted in the F&F Alpha, if not Closed Beta. I realize that by the time that phase is reached things are moving extremely rapidly, but still, that's a correction that should have only taken a few minutes.
Finally, and I know this won't come with Cataclysm, I would love to see Blizz dump they're 10 year old engine and either build a new one of they're own or license one that is more able to handle what they and we want. The current engine has served honorably and well for the better part of a decade, but it's aging and may be part of the reason that stuff like what I mentioned above makes it through because it may not be as simple as we think it is or it should be.
Tyr Dec 31st 2009 8:34AM
I don't Blizzard dares to change the entire engine of the game because it might alienate people with a basic system running it at the lowest graphic setting who don't want to buy an entirely new system just to play one game.
Brian Dec 31st 2009 8:54AM
A new engine always comes with consequences. That said, the changing of vanilla wow could usher in a new engine easier than having to still support it. SoE tried to change out the whole engine, and failed miserably at it. Blizz has been steadily increasing the poly count in the world and on the player armor for years now (look at vanilla armor vs the greens in Northrend) and upping the quality of the base player models is hopefully in the works as well. In the original beta and stress test the poly count for the players, along with animations, were MUCH higher than in release. I believe they reduced the poly count and texture details in release to support more systems.
As you stated, the engine has done well for Blizz for years, and honestly the engine is the paper of the story. Just like replacing the paper with a higher quality variety doesn't add to the content of a book but may subtract, just having a higher quality graphics engine doesn't automatically add to the content experience but may make it a lot more difficult. Honestly I have an easier time with the suspension of disbelief when the content is a little less detailed, personally.
Drakkenfyre Dec 31st 2009 8:55AM
Where the hell do you get "10 year old engine" ?
Are you one of the people who think because the game started development in 2000 that that makes the engine 10 years old? The engine wasn't finished then. You don't date an engine to the moment work was started on it. When they first started working on the idea. the game originally ran on the WarCraft 3 engine. They realized that couldn't do what they wanted, so they scrapped it, and started working on a new engine. When you see video from 2001 of early gameplay footage, the engine wasn't even complete.
And you also don't just replace an engine in a game. That would mean reworking everything. That would takes years. You want to wait almost as long as the original game's development for an expansion pack? You know one of the reasons Duke Nukem Forever never got released? Because they kept switching the engine. It started out on the Quake 2 engine. Then swiched to the Unreal engine when it came out. Then the Unreal Tournament engine, then, altho unannouced but I believe so, switched to the Unreal Tournament 2004 engine, then finally stopped at the Unreal Tournament 3 engine, I believe. Each time they switched, they had to completely redo everything (technically, they didn't have to redo everything each time, but they were trying to be perfectionists). They weren't happy just using a damn engine, they had to keep switching to the latest and greatest, and it kept pushing the game back.