Recently, I was talking to Matticus and Kinaesthesia on one of our podcasts about Ruby Sanctum. Toward the end of the discussion, Kina mentioned how much he loved Halion's voice actor, Matthew Mercer (granted, we didn't know that was his name at the time.) We agreed his voice acting was excellent, and Kina suggested Blizzard ought to keep bringing him back for more parts. To date, Mercer also has done the voice of General Vezax in Ulduar and Overthane Balargarde in Icecrown.

Anyway, some days later while we priests were tossing the PoM around, the subject came up again, and Kina quoted the line Halion says when you enter phase 2: "You will find only suffering in the realm of twilight. Enter if you dare." He gushed at the inflection on the word "suffering," while I stated my preference for the way he taunts you with, "Enter if you dare."

Our talk led to other memorable lines from Wrath. I immediately brought up Sara from Ulduar and quoted her haunting, "I am the lucid dream." Plus, who could forget a first visit to Ulduar? I remember my sleepy raid's wandering into the Antechamber around 1 a.m. the first night that patch 3.1 went live. After accidentally completing Crazy Cat Lady and distributing loot, we stood around deciding where to go next. Vent had gone quiet while we all tabbed out to read up on Hodir until a deafening scream cut through the silence of the Observation Ring. Everyone on Vent promptly freaked out: "What the hell was that!?!"

I loved it.

While on the topic of Ulduar, who can forget Rhonin's speech in Dalaran when you turn in the reply code. "It's up to each of us to prove this is a world worth saving! That our lives ... our lives are worth living!" he says, twisting his last words with more emotion than I'm used to hearing in this game. In Kina's words, "You know his voice actor must have stayed up late practicing that one."

As the conversation went on, I eventually confessed, "You know, I don't think I can actually remember anything Arthas said." I thought for a minute more on it, struggling to find a line from the many attempts my guilds put into heroic Lich King, but there was nothing. "Maybe it's because there is so much post work on his voice; I don't know why." "No, I agree. It's completely overdone," Kina replied.

I wonder if I'm the only one who found nothing haunting about Arthas' voice? It just seemed much more appropriate for something like ... house music. Even the bite of his sarcasm ("Shall I lay down Frostmourne and throw myself at your mercy, Fordring?") disappears into all the synthesizing. By the time he revealed his master plan, it all felt so cliché.

So what were your favorite lines and voices from Wrath? What did you think of Arthas? How much did Sindragosa make you want to punch something?

Tags: arthas, facebookfeed, game-discussion, gamer-discussion, halion, icc, icecrown, icecrown-citadel, lich-king, rhonin, sara, ulduar, ulduar-raid, voice, voice-acting, voice-actor, world-of-warcraft-discussion, world-of-warcraft-topics, wow-discussion, wow-hot-topics, wow-issues, wow-topics, yogg-saron

Filed under: Breakfast Topics, Wrath of the Lich King