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Lords of Dread Easter Eggs in Sepulcher of the First Ones
Live
Posted
2022/03/14 at 12:39 AM
by
DiscordianKitty
The Lords of Dread bosses in Sepulcher of the First Ones have several interesting details, including impersonating many NPCs from past expansions.
Dreadlords in Disguise
Mal'gais and Kin'tessa are two Dreadlords that we have
quite a long history with
, especially Mal'Ganis. A Dreadlord's favorite trick is to infiltrate and impersonate, and these two are no different. We first met Kin'tessa in a side questline in Korthia, masquerading as the Keeper Caretaker Kah-Than. As for Mal'Ganis, our most recent encounter with him was during the second chapter of 9.2's main questline, where we discovered he had been imitating us!
Mal'Ganis (disguised as you) says: Surprised?
Mal'Ganis (disguised as you) says: If I truly replaced you, would anyone notice?
The Lords of Dread encounter itself continues this trend of impersonation. During the fight, the mechanic
Infiltration of Dread
involves infiltrating our own raid group! In what is often referred to as the "Among Us mechanic", two players are marked as intruders who the rest of the raid need to quickly identify and "expose".
Not only that, but as we enter the raid room, we can witness the two Dreadlords transforming into several other NPCs from previous dungeons and raids.
According to a tweet by Senior Game Designer for Encounters, Kenneth Huang, this may be because we are seeing the Dreadlords practicing their abilities to mimic other people.
The NPCs that Dreadlords can mimic are:
Vanilla:
Pyromancer Loregrain
from
Blackrock Depths
Galgann Firehammer
from
Uldaman
Burning Crusade
Nethermancer Sepethrea
from
The Mechanar
Darkweaver Syth
from
Sethekk Halls
Wrath of the Lich King
Skarvald the Constructor
from
Utgarde Keep
Cyanigosa
from
The Violet Hold
Cataclysm
Warmaster Blackhorn
from
Dragon Soul
High Priestess Azil
from
The Stonecore
Mists of Pandaria
Wise Mari
from
The Jade Forest
Xin the Weaponmaster
from
Mogu'shan Palace
Battle for Azeroth:
Knight Captain Valyri
from
Tol Dagor
Manceroy Flamefist
from
Battle of Dazar'alor
Lords of Dread Notable Loot
As another nod to the Dreadlords' history of impersonation and infiltration, some of the loot the Lords of Dread drop have some interesting flavor text.
Alandien's Tortured Twinblades
, a pair of Warglaves, reads, "A trophy from Kin'tessa's favorite deception." Alandien was a Demon Hunter instructor we killed during a questline for the
Aldors
or
Scryers
in Burning Crusade. According to the novel
Illidan
, she taught Demon Hunter recruits about infiltration.
Soft-spoken Alandien had laid out the tactics of infiltration. She claimed to have been trained by Illidan himself.
- World of Warcraft: Illidan
We've already reported about how the
Ruined Crest of Lordaeron
was given a
new exclusive appearance
that more closely matches its name. The flavor text reads "A memento of Malganis' favorite pawn.", referencing Arthas Menethil.
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Comment by
Revenor
on 2022-03-15T11:15:49-05:00
"Lol what XD" is more of a response to people that does not know about lore and try to look like they know... Like you or anyone with the sentence of "They ruined 20 year of lore BS".
;)
Lol what xD
Comment by
Revenor
on 2022-03-15T11:18:46-05:00
As for Mal'Ganis, our most recent encounter with him was during the second chapter of 9.2's main questline, where we discovered he had been imitating us!
Huh. Guess I miss a lot of stuff not reading quest text and skipping every cutscene.
So then you didn't even do the quest chain.. Because you end up fighting "yourself"/him.
and I'm sorry, but "easter egg" or not, when are they going to stop him from butchering the lore.
When are they going to stop you from meme'ing for clout? There's next to nothing wrong with the lore. There's only something wrong if you completely avoided quest text and in game lore sources. I mean my god next I'm sure you'll say Dark Souls has terrible lore when 90% of the lore there comes from reading random pieces of gear.
Dark Souls doesn't need to have lore, but it does a fair job at worldbuilding. WoW moves with lore, it's a required component. There are no breadcrumbs in SL, dialogue is subpar (seriously, who talks like a cartoon villain?), and the execution is decided at the last minute (since BFA in fact, when they couldn't decide what Sylvanas' purpose was in Beta testing). All you need is fundamental literature to know they've broken all the basic rules, and the fact these comments exist make me wonder who paid attention in their class.
Comment by
Soifon
on 2022-03-15T12:22:49-05:00
Christ, so many people are to quick to jump to conclusions. It's a fun thing they put in the game, it doesn't mean they've retconned earlier expansions. Everyone wants to be part of the discussion, and are so eager to jump on the bandwagon of the week. Pathetic.
I don't blame people for assuming this is yet another retcon in a series of nonsensical ones meant to hype up the Jailer's ever-elusive master plan. In fact this would be one of the less ridiculous ones...
I will blame the people. WoW players sure do love to suck all the fun out of the game. I found it hilarious that they would just be transforming into different characters, like you know they would be speaking in mocking voices as well to each other.
I saw the outrage people were having on the official forums and thought to myself “this is why we can’t have nice things”.
You blame the players for being spat on by an incompetent writer?
Man, you can have your opinions in this heavily polarized world but you mock them, too. Taunting them. WoWhead comments have always been this way. In Metzen era, it was the same, except in Metzen era things were actually fun and from narative point of view things made sense even if they retconned things. Between Metzen and Danuser I would take Metzen without a doubt.
People are frustrated because they $%^& on a lore they loved and Danuser presented it as if it was a Masterpiece or something they worked very hard on when it is plain to see they have not. It is very off-topic.
We cant have nice things because they cant make nice things. They have proved this since Metzen left, time and time again. They have no love for the warcraft lore and they dont know their playerbase at all. It is almost as if they purposefully mock the playerbase that loved the warcraft lore Metzen put together up to Legion when he fixed the vast majority of problems within it.
I am well aware that most users here exist and breath negativity. This Dreadlord things is nice but then again, I do not agree with your take to blame players for how bad WoW storytelling has been in the past 4 years. I mean, they retconned things I loved before while Metzen was the lead but Danuser set the bar even lower. I never thought there is someone that can outdo Metzen but in a bad way.
No, I blame the players for calling him incompetent when they couldn't be bothered to actually pay attention to the game. You literally have people claiming on the comment section here: "We still don't know Zovaal's story". Weird since we actually know more about him than WQ and Archon and pretty much the other 2 as well. It's only a terrible story if you, you know, ignore the plot points just to come here and complain about it when you really don't even know half of what went on.
He is incompetent because he is. They %^&*ed up BFA, they &*!@ed up Shadowlands which is a mess and they tried Jedi mind tricks on themselves "This has gone as planned". The questing is the one that should do the introduction and the expansion should revolve around the main villain where the side-quests are the quests where the consequences of his actions left upon the zone is presented. In fact, Danuser #$%^ed it up so good that they switched the models. The Runecarver was supposed to be separate character and the model Primus has was supposed to be The Jailer. You can see him in the concept art they presented before closed beta was launched. In fact, even the shadowy figure presented in the launch trailer fits 100% Primus's model.
BFA had content enough for 3 expansions and they cut corners and spit and $%^& on Rastakhan. Danuser or whoever had the terrific idea to write Rastakhan as an incompetent fool, instead of paying respect to the character, only character, that managed to beat with his army minions of C'thun and pushed them back into Ahn'Quiraj. He is the leader everyone seeked for council and his people were seeked for help whenever tribes were at each other's throats. How can you be a decent writter and butcher an awesome character? Instead of writting him off as the king his daughter admired. Fine, kill him, but do it as a powerful and wise king. Make us feel something for his death. Makes feel satisfaction when we hunt down Jaina and finally force her to retreat.
Another character that needed an entire expansion to flesh her out: Azshara. Dont get me started on the wasted opportunity on reuniting Illidan, Malfurion, Tyrande & Cenarius. Fans, both horde & alliance would have absolutely loved the nod to the books. We get to see Illidan, Malfurion & Tyrande work together. It would have been a nerdgasm. It would have made alot of people very happy. What did he do? Dropped the atomic bomb and spat on it!
The villain that they hyped for 10 years, the dude the drove mad Neltharion. They did him dirty. The Black Empire deserved an entire expansion. My disappointment in his writting was expected but he managed to plunge it down below. Where the winds dont blow, in the cold below. Where there's a man with a golden hand that can kick you or console you! (Hah, see what I did there? a reference. No? Ok....)
In comes Shadowlands and instead of grabbing the chance to COMPLETE, not wreck, COMPLETE the lore and leave the Lich King lore as it is, he managed it to ^&*! it up. Not only did he delete the Runecarver and followed a stupid speculation that did not make sense from timeline perspective. He replaced Jailer's model with how the Runecarvers model would look without that helm and Jailer's model gave it to the Primus. They !@#$ed it up big time. They cut any possible story to bone. Removed it completely from the questing. Gave us bogus questing, boring questing. Questing that was supposed to make us curious about the Jailer. Questing that is supposed to get us know the Jailer and said "Well, you will have to read the book!".
Legion was about the Burning Legion, the questing involved them directly. Through questing you build up the hype, you get to progress the story. You start in Aszuna, you get to know what the Legion is doing there. You learn that one of the keys you've been seeking is in Aszuna and you get to it and recuperate it and bringing to the main city hub. You learn that the Legion is after the same things as you are and you fight them for it. You move on, and learn that the Druid haven is being torn apart between the Old Gods influence the the Legion's allies you hunt down Shade of Xavius and recuperate another. You get to smack some sense into a ghost. You are involved in the story directly. What do you get from Shadowlands? Well, not that. In fact, each expansion before Danuser had the same formula. Introduced you to the zone and then the questing walked you through the situation. What has been done and then slowly get to know the culprits. It slowly builds up hype. It gives you something to feel about the villain you are facing.
In Shadowlands you get to quest to learn that there is a draught on all 4 zones. Ok, why should I care? You have not emotionally engage me in the story.
Do you understand my problem with Danuser? He not only retconns which it is fine and dandy IF THE STORY THAT GOT RETCONNED FOR WAS STUPID, FUN AND ENJOYABLE. What he did in Shadowlands was cold, calculated and thinking only about the money
Comment by
Schattensang
on 2022-03-15T18:23:15-05:00
In Shadowlands you get to quest to learn that there is a draught on all 4 zones. Ok, why should I care? You have not emotionally engage me in the story.
That's... huff... you wrote some interesting stuff, but completely failed in the very end.
You talk about the complete story introduction of Legion, but leave out a boatload of stuff from Shadowlands. Like not even mentioning the covenant stories. Sure, if you leave it after you have been send through all four zones and reach level 60, the story might feel incomplete. But that's basically because at that point it really is incomplete. But you have a villain before you, be it Sire Denathrius, or the Jailer himself.
If anything, the team tried to do too much. Tried to tell too many stories. But the different story threads meet each other a couple of times, show a little bit of what's happening for the other covenants. The best example with that is Maldraxxus, honestly my favorite of the covenant stories, although I played through it last. You get to meet and interact with the other covenants. Get to know some of their quirks, what makes them tick.
I am sorry if you didn't feel emotionally engaged with the story, but others certainly were. I can agree on other parts of your essay, like N'zoth being cut a lot too short. Some say suspiciously short, but that might remain to be seen. Aszhara on the other hand... I think I saw enough of her. She got enough coverage before as well, but that might just be me, and I might mix up different media. As much as I am not a fan of Blizzards policy of hiding important stuff in about WoW in books, short stories and comics, I still read a lot of those.
Comment by
tarax
on 2022-03-16T05:43:13-05:00
please delete
Comment by
Soifon
on 2022-03-16T06:42:13-05:00
In Shadowlands you get to quest to learn that there is a draught on all 4 zones. Ok, why should I care? You have not emotionally engage me in the story.
That's... huff... you wrote some interesting stuff, but completely failed in the very end.
You talk about the complete story introduction of Legion, but leave out a boatload of stuff from Shadowlands. Like not even mentioning the covenant stories. Sure, if you leave it after you have been send through all four zones and reach level 60, the story might feel incomplete. But that's basically because at that point it really is incomplete. But you have a villain before you, be it Sire Denathrius, or the Jailer himself.
If anything, the team tried to do too much. Tried to tell too many stories. But the different story threads meet each other a couple of times, show a little bit of what's happening for the other covenants. The best example with that is Maldraxxus, honestly my favorite of the covenant stories, although I played through it last. You get to meet and interact with the other covenants. Get to know some of their quirks, what makes them tick.
I am sorry if you didn't feel emotionally engaged with the story, but others certainly were. I can agree on other parts of your essay, like N'zoth being cut a lot too short. Some say suspiciously short, but that might remain to be seen. Aszhara on the other hand... I think I saw enough of her. She got enough coverage before as well, but that might just be me, and I might mix up different media. As much as I am not a fan of Blizzards policy of hiding important stuff in about WoW in books, short stories and comics, I still read a lot of those.
My point with what you quote is that there is no overarching story. ALL other expansion had an overarching story that we get by moving the plot. In Shadowlands you dont move the plot. The plot stays the same which is "The Jailer wants to do something by breaking free". What? Well, I have found that he tried something because something is coming. In Metzen style we would have an overarching story. We would move the plot with each leveling zone we finish, with each patch we learn something of the villain we ALREADY KNOW of. The Shadowlands, does not have one. You have these 4 zones starved of Anima and you find what is causing this was Denathrius feeding it to the Maw. Good, you have moved a plot that does not contribute to the story of the expansion because the Jailer is already free and he only needs what? Wind to attach chains to Aribitrer's chamber? He is already free. He is supposedly stronger than the 4 covenants. He could have done that without the anima siphoning. If chains is what he needed to leave the Maw he could've done that at any point in time since he broke free. The same way Anduin could've broken free if he wanted that hard enough. Which brings us to the "keys" the covenants have. What? They did not know before? Then what he tried when he got imprisoned? If he tried the same thing shouldnt they ALREADY KNOW what those are for? Apparent not even the genius mastermind Primus didnt knew.
You have a major villain that is involved in nothing. Fine, he cant talk to us, interact with us in these 4 zones but atleast have Sylvanas try to stop this. Compete with us, have that choice we made in BFA matter somehow. The players that chose her in BFA have found out what she is planning BEFORE the raid, make new players go back and do the quest line or mention it "*Complete X quest chain if you want extra options". Hear her inner thoughts while the players that did not find out by trying to find her and in our pursuit for her we find out what she is planning and, obviously flees. Give context to her choices, remove the frustration of the players. It was what Metzen did with Illidan. Without giving him context to his actions, even if retconned, in Legion he would have had the same stupid inexplainable existance like Sylvanas does now. Without giving context to Illidan's choices, why he did what he did we would have had this drama in Legion and not now. I dont even like Illidan and the cinematics with him was so cool (stupid but cool) that I forgot how pissed off about his retconn I was. Man, I was so happy when I was given context. I started enjoying Illidan by my side. Hype up the story, make it flashy, make it cool.
In Legion you have this overarching story where we gather artifact weapons to have a chance against the might of The Burning Legion. We find out that they are after the 5 pillars of creation. So we fight their allies & Shadow of Xavius for it. We push them back. We manage to tell them to F off but Illidan then said: "No, dude. We need to end this for good" and then BOOM you have this epic skybox with Argus on it. One of the most awesome or if not THE MOST awesome zone introductions. While the zone from gameplay perspective was not much given the color palette we grew annoyed of, from story perspective that was epic. That was exciting.
Shadowlands, ironically, lacks any soul put in the expansion. Its almost as if it was created by an AI that never had the source material in its database.
For the Jailer to make sense and us being engaged in this mistery and him needs to be hyped up over time. You mention him in 1 expansion, you start to slowly build the plot and then when you visit his homeworld, you already know why he is doing what he is doing. Where he is and what his "brothers and sisters" have done. When you build a baddie "bigger than Sargeras" you do what Metzen did. What any competent writer does. You hype him up. You slowly build a puzzle and when we finally get to confront him we have the puzzle completed. All we need is to fight through his allies to get to him. You dont just drop a Sargeras and say "Here, fight him. He is a big baddie.".Next expansion? Even a bigger baddie. That is a soulless and meaningless way to write a story in a MMORPG. That is how you write a video game you just want to milk money out of. Imagine if Sargeras was dropped at the end of the Burning Legion expansion. It would have sucked, wouldnt it? Wasted potential. What Danuser did is: !@#$ the introduction. @#$% the intermediate act. FULL THROTTLE TO THE END. Want to have the intro and the middle of the story? BUY OUR BOOK!
Which is fine if you want to write a story to add more context and cover every bit of plothole. You already know that Blizzard has done this in the past but it did not gave us a barebone story.
Players are frustrated when they are left in the dark and on top of it all, they retconned what they love. They !@#$ed up 20years of story. They *!@#ed up a big chunk of story most players love. Let's not talk about those that will complain about everything.
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