Long Live the King

The Lich King is dead.

For those who don't know their WarCraft lore, here's a really long story made short that tells you everything you need to know about the game's storyline. I'm not a giant fan of it myself so I guarantee it will be brief, and I'm only trying your patience so we can discuss the consequences of today's events.

Long ago, WarCraft was a game called WarCraft: Orcs and Humans. It was a real-time strategy game. It was successful. WarCraft2 came out, then WarCraft3. The story behind WC3 was that the human-elf-dwarf faction was fighting the orcs, and then there were scourge (zombies, cultists, etc.). The leader of the humans - Arthas - was obsessed with fighting the leader of the scourge - the demon Mal'Ganis. Along the way Arthas' resolve was weakened and he became less of a holy warrior and more of a bloodthirsty one. Then one day he hears about Frostmourne, a sword that would grant him the power to vanquish the demon and same his kingdom. So he goes and gets the sword, and the sword turns him into a nasty villain. He returns home and kills his dad the King, and then ventures north to become the Lich King.

World of Warcraft was all about learning to live in Azeroth. The Burning Crusade expansion was about the old orc world Draenor, and the source of the demons. The Wrath of the Lich King expansion was all about both the humans and the orcs getting together and fighting the Lich King. So that's the simple version. What it means is that the main character in WarCraft since 2002 has been Arthas. He's been the blond-haired blue-eyed hero-turned-villain main character for eight years.

In the latest patch of World of WarCraft, Arthas - the Lich King - dies. I'm not going to say anything about how or why, but we all knew it was inevitable that we'd fight him, and he dies, so that's it.

Much silence. Tumbleweeds blow by.

Ok, now what?

The whole game has been overshadowed by this dude forever - there is an entire playable race of undead who are scourge that were freed from the Lich King's control - does this world even know how to go on without him? There will always be a Lich King in the game of course. Blizzard has hinted several times that in order to keep the scourge from overrunning the world there must always be a Lich King, but the man who is currently the Lich King - Arthas - is dying and will not be back.

This guy was on the cover of two titles. When kids reached for the box and slapped down their $45 it was his face they saw. If you end his storyline, how many other storylines die with it? There will have to be a focus and energy in another direction with other characters, but will anyone really care? Can they possibly care as much as they did about Arthas?

George Lucas waited about 15 years to make the Phantom Menace. It was a pretty good movie in spite of Jar Jar Binks, a good space adventure film in the same universe as the other movies, but it was missing something that it couldn't get back. Where was Han Solo? If you were a fan of Han, the first three movies were where its at. The last three couldn't touch it. The series was entertaining, but you didn't love it the way you did when Han the space cowboy was flying in with Millenium Falcon to shoot up the bad guys and argue with the princess.

See, the trade was Han for Jar Jar. And after waiting 15 years we felt shafted by that deal, and that's why no one loves the second trilogy.

So here we are, heading into the first expansion after Arthas - the Cataclysm. We lose Arthas, and we get Deathwing in return. I don't really know anything about Deathwing. Yeah, I read the lore and stuff and he's a powerful dragon, etc. So what. Telling me I should care is not the same as caring because of familiarity. They're going to revamp a lot of the old world in the next expansion, and many of the classic zones will be destroyed and remade. Considering how many other things they will also be changing - PvP, character stats, goblins and worgen - how much of this game will we recognize?

And with Arthas gone, will we care? Do we have the energy to care enough to learn the game all over again? Is it too much for the average player? That's the really scary thought I would imagine if you're Blizzard - too much change is a completely different game. There are already people leaving because of the nerfs to raid content, I can imagine people finally waking up and saying "this isn't the game I started playing six years ago" and just decide to log out for good. Will it happen? Will it invigorate people, or finally drive them away? I'm not sure if the change is good or bad, all I know is the whole world is changing and its poster boy is buried.

The kind is dead - long live the King...?