But Wait, There’s More…
Wrath of the Lich King includes even more new content, some of which was distributed before the expansion pack’s release, including two new arenas, a guild calendar, barbershops where you can customize your character’s look, and more. Brack recalls a zombie event initiated by the development team to prepare players for the changes to come. Characters were turned into zombies who had special abilities and could attack Horde and Alliance players.
“We found that players would get together to fight zombies, and then one of them would get turned into a zombie, and they wouldn’t hesitate to attack their friends. It was an unconscious decision that was fascinating to watch,” he says. “One player was turned into a zombie and killed an innkeeper. Then her zombie-fied character was killed, so she logged out and logged in as another character who commented to the same innkeeper about those awful zombies.” (Non-player characters typically regenerate after being killed.)
The expansion pack also allows characters to reach 80th level, with their professions now capped at level 450. A new profession, inscription, allows you to augment your characters’ abilities and spells with scrolls and glyphs that, for example, increase the damage of an attack or lower the mana required to cast a spell. A new sub-skill of inscription, milling, requires you to gather herbs and turn them into the reagents required to create those scrolls and glyphs.
Finally, the new achievement system lets you keep track of all the cool stuff you’ve accomplished during the game, with a running point total. You can view other characters’ achievements by right-clicking their portraits.
Once There Was a Prince Named Arthas…
Arthas Menethil is one of the main characters in Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos. He is the son of King Terenas Menethil II of Lordaeron, who aligned the human, elvish, and dwarvish kingdoms against the orcs during the Second War. The years of peace following that conflict were broken by the outbreak of a mysterious plague that Terenas sent the sorceress Lady Jaina Proudmoore to investigate.
Meanwhile, the orc Thrall escaped from an internment camp and met Grom Hellscream, who was in hiding with his Warsong Clan of orcs. The two led the Warsong Clan in attacks that freed more imprisoned orcs. After fighting forces led by Arthas and his mentor, Uther the Lightbringer, they fled Lordaeron for the continent of Kalimdor, where they founded the city of Orgrimmar.
Arthas and Uther then turned their attention to Jaina’s report of an undead army called the Scourge. Arthas soon learned that the plague was turning innocent people into zombies who swore allegiance to a demon named Mal’Ganis. When Arthas found out that the town of Stratholme would also fall under Mal’Ganis’ control, thanks to contaminated grain, he ordered the slaughter of its inhabitants, rather than let them become zombies too. Uther was horrified at the idea and left, taking many soldiers with him.
Arthas carried out the grim task on his own, helped by those troops who remained loyal to him. Mal’Ganis goaded Arthas into following him to Northrend, where the original Lich King, Ner’zhul, was trapped in the Frozen Throne. In Northrend, Arthas and his men met a contingent of dwarves, led by Muradin Bronzebeard, who sought a mystical runeblade called Frostmourne. Arthas assumed Frostmourne would help him kill Mal’Ganis, so the two groups joined forces.
Power Scars the Spirit
Arthas, Muradin, and their men eventually found the powerful weapon and killed the Guardian who watched over it, despite its warning that they should leave Frostmourne alone. Muradin had second thoughts when he read the inscription on the blade — “Whomsoever takes up this blade shall wield power eternal. Just as the blade rends flesh, so must power scar the spirit.” — but Arthas ignored him, so great was his desire to defeat Mal’Ganis and end the Scourge’s presence in Lordaeron.
Wielding Frostmourne, Arthas defeated Mal’Ganis, but he became mad and abandoned his soldiers and Muradin, who was mortally wounded. Months later, Arthas returned to Lordaeron and killed his father with the weapon, becoming King. He realized that the Lich King had left Frostmourne in Northrend for him to discover, so he would become a Death Knight and do Ner’zhul’s bidding. Seeking to learn more, Arthas set out to reincarnate the body of Kel’Thuzad, a human who had also become corrupted by the Lich King and who had been killed by Arthas.
Arthas reanimated Kel’Thuzad as an undead Lich and discovered that Ner’zhul was indeed planning to undermine Lordaeron by controlling him; that information didn’t affect Arthas, however, because by this time he was fully under the Lich King’s influence. Lordaeron fell into ruins and Arthas crushed what little human resistance remained, with the help of Kel’Thuzad and Sylvanas, a former high elf who Arthas had slain and reincarnated as a Lich. Sylvanas wanted revenge against Arthas, however, and she rebelled, creating a splinter group of undead known as the Forsaken, who are currently part of the Horde.
Arthas continued to hear the Lich King’s summons in his head, so he left Lordaeron under the control of Kel’Thuzad and returned to Northrend. After several adventures, including attacks by a group of dwarves loyal to Muradin and a fight with Outland ruler Illidan Stormrage, Arthas found himself at Icecrown Citadel. There, Ner’zhul begged him to use Frostmourne to release him from his icy confines, but when Arthas did so, the two merged into one. The new Lich King sat on his Frozen Throne, commanding the Scourge to carry out his bidding.