Patch 5.3 interview with Ghostcrawler
Mystery of the Unborn Val'kyr
The latest patch 5.3 news
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 5 of 8)
Whyisretgimped Dec 31st 2009 9:33AM
How about all of Ulduar. We're here to kill the Lich King... but first let's take a break and kill all of the Norse gods. I get the whole Yogg Saron connection (and if he's so evil, why can we make all of our stuff out of his mucous, saronite, and not become evil ourselves), but it feels like a forced detour that was squeezed into the game much like AQ was. Same lack of logic "You're going to kill everyone in Blackrock Mountain and then take a break and kill some old god..."
Didn't make any sense... neither did Ulduar. Also makes ICC less climactic because people are all burnt out on running an instance that's tangential to the main story at best.
Phil Dec 31st 2009 9:44AM
To be fair, once the civilized races figure out that an Old God exists and is awake and plotting, he's pretty much top priority. Sure, your usual villains want to cause some havoc, but the Old Gods literally intend to end the world.
Basically, if something can infect your planet to the point that it can never be removed, you beat it back into submission so it at least doesn't kill you while it's down there.
B1ue Dec 31st 2009 10:47AM
In regards to Ulduar, the simple answer is that the Argent Crusade and Ebon Blade were not ready to take on Arthas yet. The Crusade was still playing king of the mountain while the Ebon Blade was carving itself a niche in north-western Icecrown, and both the Alliance and Horde were still at the grandstanding stage, only ready to let their feet dangle in the water. But mercenary forces had already arrived with loot bags in hand, and they had to do something with us all. So why not shuffle us off on a police action against some iron dwarves that were beginning to rise above nuisance levels? Like the Kirin Tor's last couple of bright ideas, this turned into a bigger deal than it should have, but Timear was busy, and we might assume he was the only foreseer on their staff.
I suppose Naxxaramas can be viewed in the same light, since there is no clear reason why we are, right now, laying the smackdown upon KT's treehouse. Yes, there are quests all over the place and in Dragonblight in particular why Naxx needs to be taken out, but there's no real quest (up until the weekly raid quests came out) as to why this is a priority move. My guess is that, like the daily quests in Icecrown, Naxx was a target of opportunity and a bid to free up the major rear action forces tied up watching it float.
VOA defeats my rationalization capabilities. From what I can see, Achevron (sp?) could not be bothered with this decade's owner of the Titan Relic, so it looks to me like we mercenaries came upon someone minding his own business and kicked him until he gave up his lunch money.
Ringo Flinthammer Dec 31st 2009 11:33AM
Uh, Ulduar makes complete sense. Did you not do any quests in Northrend and encounter all the people Yogg-Saron was driving insane and converting to his cause, or even hear him whispering to you, yourself? This thing is WHY much of the Warcraft series happened the way it did, and that was when he was mostly locked down, and now he's almost free. It's one of the most needful raids ever, in that regard.
And if you ever did Uldaman or played through the dwarf newbie zone, you also know that Ulduar is the capper on a storyline that began at level 1. Yogg is responsible for the existence of dwarves, gnomes, humans, troggs and who knows what else and is why Algalon wants to hit the reset button on the planet. Putting Yogg down and stopping Algalon are easily the most important fights in the history of the game. (Every time you fail to kill Algalon, the planet dies because of you. Oops.)
Neyssa Jan 4th 2010 8:11AM
@Ringo:
I totally understand your point. However, right after we defeated Yogg-Saron and Algalon, gathered the totally-awesome-armor left behind him.
Then, you go on a tournament, kill some beasts and Anub-Arak (who you were able to kill even when you were lvl73, big deal), and Alliance/Horde hands you out better gear they had on stock than what you gathered from the ancient titan city. Why didnt they give those to me before going to Ulduar?
Gamewise: Ulduar-> Tournament -> Icecrown doesnt seem logical to me.
Tournament -> Nax -> Ulduar -> IC would be much better. Welcome heroes to Northrend, congrats you leveled up, here are some big beasts for shiny armor, and then get ready to do the job.
RetPallyJil Dec 31st 2009 9:39AM
Hey now. Don't bag on my Scarlet homeboys like that. There's no crime in defending your homeland from stinking, illiterate undead.
ZMES_Matt Dec 31st 2009 10:00AM
Stinking: maybe
Illiterate: What?
Phil Dec 31st 2009 9:42AM
Maraudon makes a little more sense if you've ever done either the Gelkis or Magram questlines to completion. The connection's tenuous, but it's there. Maraudon: you'll visit for the centaurs, but stay for the elementals!
ZMES_Matt Dec 31st 2009 9:58AM
Stormwind Stockades:
Yes, I understand why it's there and the story behind it, but what I don't understand is why there's a dozen level 60 (or now 80) gaurds just sitting outside of it, and just one of them could handle the whole thing on half their friggin' lunch break, but instead figure they'll let a bunch of significantly weaker people actually risk their lives to handle it...
Tenjin Akuma Jan 1st 2010 5:20AM
A standard trope in fantasy games is that in-game mechanical level and "level" are two different concepts. Stormwind guards are level 80 because they have to preset a vague threat to Horde invaders, but from a story perspective they're just your average John Q Law with six months' weapon training. The inmates in the prison do in fact present an honest threat to a force of guards from an in-character perspective.
Mechanical levels are what they are for gameplay reasons, so that the NPC in question presents an adequate challenge to the appropriately-leveled player. Taken in an NPC versus NPC context, mechanical level has no meaning and the wolves in Feralas aren't really any more "powerful" than the wolves in Elwynn.
Jayfitty Dec 31st 2009 10:07AM
I have the same issue with the coilfang instances, the naga there have this silly scheme that sounds like something out of a cartoon. Step 1: Steal Water; Step 3: Profit.
Back when they first started talking about Northrend it was mentioned that the naga were going to be in Borean Tundra trying to met all the ice, thank goodness that idea wasn't implemented.
There are a lot of dungeons (and even quests) that we are really justified in doing, but are poorly implemented so many do not realize why we are going there. Obsidian Sanctum, Zul'Farrak, Maraudon and many others. What is bacially comes down to though is that we, as players, have to make other peoples' problems our own. It's human nature.
It will be interesting to see what reasoning there will be to enter Heroic DDM and SFK in Cata.
macster Dec 31st 2009 10:11AM
Wasn't "Step 1: Steal Water; Step 3: Profit." the plot of the last Bond movie?
Jafari Dec 31st 2009 12:07PM
I have a feeling the SFK revamp will involve the local worgen population.
I love SFK so much I think I'm going to turn XP off on my next alt just to run it whenever I want.
Shides Dec 31st 2009 10:22AM
The whole deal with zangarmarsh and stealing the water, is that they are trying to move the water out of zangarmarsh and into other areas of outland. They are doing this without regard to the rest of the wildlife in zangarmarsh and this makes the cenarian expedition mad.
Tridus Dec 31st 2009 10:26AM
How about Zul'Aman? The only explanation the NPCs give you for that one is "hey, shinies!"
Obsidian Sanctum is another one, the Wyrmrest Temple guards let you just wander on in and start attacking Black Dragons for no apparent reason. It makes some sense if you read Night of the Dragon, but given how that is the worst of all the Warcraft books (and quite possibly the worst book I've ever read), its really better to not know what's going on.
How about Trial of the Champion? Hey lets go kill each other before we go kill Arthas because... umm... Icecrown Citadel wasn't ready in 3.2?
Ringo Flinthammer Dec 31st 2009 11:28AM
Every time Tirion says "alas, you are victorious" after we kill the Horde champions, I want to scream at him that the stupid trial was HIS idea.
Cyrus Dec 31st 2009 12:40PM
"How about Trial of the Champion? Hey lets go kill each other before we go kill Arthas because... umm... Icecrown Citadel wasn't ready in 3.2?"
NPCs in Dalaran AND at the tournament explain this several times a day.
According to Wowwiki, Tirion Fordring explains the point of the tournament every hour, on the hour. This is what wowwiki.com quotes him as saying:
"A massive attack with every able-bodied man would end in needless slaughter. Every soldier lost would rise as the enemy. Azeroth would be left defenseless against the undead threat.
Instead, we require a small, concentrated strike force for the attack to succeed. For that reason, we have created the Argent Tournament."
There's some more to it, but that's the important bit.
Marcosius Dec 31st 2009 2:45PM
Zul'aman, to my understanding needs to be dealt with as the trolls are preparing to attack the Blood Elves, to reclaim their former lands. Here's the trailer for it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ImrG0nyV0o
That would be the Horde's reason. I dunno about the Alliance. Maybe the logical conclusion would be, after decimating the belves and Forsaken they would come attacking everyone else, and the weakened alliance might not able to take it with most of the kingdoms destroyed. Amani at the height of their power pretty much lorded over all of the EK, and Trolls way way way way back in history had inhabited all of Azeroth, thus their ancient ruins can be found just about anywhere.
Amaxe Jan 2nd 2010 1:02PM
I can see it now. We get into the final wing of ICC, and face Arthas and have no need of jousting to do it. They come back triumphant and beat the hell out of Tirion for forcing them to muck about with the stupid horses to begin with
Mecer Dec 31st 2009 10:31AM
Ive been playing since classic, and have done more instances and quests than id care to remember. I really had to sit and think about this.
Upon release, there wasnt really a greater evil to defeat like there is now. Sure lore nerds knew about Arthas and the scourge, knew about the Black Dragonflight, but there wasnt the sense of urgency there is today. It let things like "Something is wrong in Maraudon, go check it out" fit because we dont have anything better to do. That said I understand most of the old world dungeons, there is always some sort of quest explaining your purpose even if its "Ill make you this sweet trinket if you gather these mats for me."
I guess my confusion comes from instances that seem too big. For instance Sunken Temple, the only reason you go in is for the class quest items, but there is a second half of the instance that contains the bosses with absolutely no connection to the class quests (that Ive found). Even in Northrend, Old Kingdom makes no sense, AN makes sense (we go to defeat the traitor king, conflict is even still going on there). OK seems very hodgepodge, take half scourge and half Yogg Saron lore, mash it together and sprinkle with a throwback Zangramarsh boss. Deffinately something they could have done alot better, either 2 smaller instances or move the scourge to AN and expanded the Twilight stuff (which unless you're a raider in Uldar you dont have any understanding the significance).