The Fall of the Lich King

[Lansiron]

True that, just something that was nagging at me.

TRI can RP as it will, but fact is you guys are going to down him long, long before the group I'm with does.

[Delion]

Well, same with a lot of us, Lans. People miss out on TRI (or the other raids they're in) every week. I haven't been in Icecrown Citadel for about a month or more, and I'm lucky enough to be able to sub for two raids.

[Lansiron]

Well, it would stand to reason, then, that TRI's first Lich King-25 kill, while awesome, might not be the best time to go right to /ExileIC with the proverbial "show's over". >_>

[Tarq]

I hesitate to declare the results of any TRI raid canonical, considering how much time Tarquin spends dead on the fucking floor.

In seriousness, I lean towards a "Where were you when..." style of storytelling as the pre-Cata patch hits, because I also hesitate to declare that my PCs were necessarily the d00dz to deprive Arthas of his existence.If we want a shared experience, maybe a consideration - that there was a bigass battle at ICC, and X scripted event did happen with Y NPCs, and our various characters could have been involved at any point therein. And that involvement can extend (and should if that's what you feel like writing) to actually tossing some spells or swinging some axe at the Lich King himself, or any other form of play-by-play for the encounters and what have you. I trust everyone here not to godmod anything to an extent that puts other PCs on the outs.

It seems that the question is one of timing, to which all I can answer at present is "not just yet, IMO."

[Threnn]

I don't think anyone's looking to rewrite the battle, by any means, but having a place where we can write up our characters' thoughts and feelings at various points in the battle lets us do what others have suggested: make it possible for people who don't see it happen in the same raid (or at all) have their characters interact. For instance: I don't go to ICC in the same group as Aely. But if we wanted to have Threnn and Aely bantering or doing some crazy cinematic healing standing back to back, that'd be the way to do it. So, this lets us say "Holy shit, big ass assault on Icecrown Citadel. Anyone who wants to have been there, was."

I dunno if we need a whole subforum for it. I'm thinking a sticky like the Wrathgate thread might work. But, if there are going to be stories that people would rather keep to their own threads for one reason or another, it takes like thirty seconds to make a subforum. We have time to figure that out. Maybe I'll even make a poll!

In conclusion. I fell like the final battle is something we all know happened, but no single account exists, or should exist--the entire point of the scene is how, canonically, it's changing the world of Azeroth--this is no one person's moment, and there's a certain beauty in the near-simplicity of what actually happens (man, I could go on about that for paragraphs). We can deal with the buildup. We can deal with the fallout. An attempt at delivering a cohesive retelling of it from all of our individual perspectives, though, just seems redundant at best, and a potentially huge mess at worst.

I might be misreading you a bit here, Lans, but my thought on it is, if someone (or several someones) want to include the battle itself as part of their stories, that's totally fine. Some of the beats of the battle will be the same, I suppose, if there's significant NPC dialogue/actions that everyone sees at certain moments (I've only seen the Dalaran cinematic, haven't read up on the fight itself), but everyone's stories will still be different because they'll be personal to that character. I see it more as expanding the story than rewriting or repeating.

Timing-wise, I'm in the not-just-yet camp. Do we have a guess on a date for the next content patch? I didn't think its PTR was even up yet, so it's still going to be a while. If it's still way the hell out, my suggestion is to set Arthas' death in the next month or two, so we're not waiting 'til June for the patch.

[Denne]

To be clear, I wasn't trying to suggest that people base it off of TRI. All I meant was that it shouldn't (nor will Denne consider it to have been so) happen any time -before- that transpires. I'm personally not taking 10-man accomplishments into consideration, ours or anyone else's.

I do feel that there should be a period that is after the fall of Arthas and before the preparatory content for Cataclysm. It wouldn't be right to go straight from "The Lich King is an imminent threat" to "He's done with but now the world is threatened by apparent dragon activity." There should be a time of triumph and revelry.

[Yva]

Yva two cents. Three cents. Four cents.

I liked the Wrathgate post. I liked everything ABOUT the Wrathgate post. We took an in game event, didn't muck with the lore-based events, and added "What we did" in there without being redundant about the cut scene's events. Even if people peppered the thread with placeholders and didn't fill them out ("Oh I meant to get back to that") - the people that did actually go ahead and fill their portions in did a damn fine job. If "the collective you" considers the Wrathgate post a failure, that's a personal failure. The essence of group RP THRIVED there, so assuming it wouldn't work for a during or post Arthas battle baffles me. Shit, we are STILL posting Wrathgate updates on the WTT:RP blog -now- and we've been posting since April at least one to three posts a a week. That says something. There was that much work by the writers. Did it take a long time? Damn skippy it did, but that thread's fucking artwork, guys. Seriously. The wait was worth it. If people still want to respond to it and fill in those placeholders? Do it, man. Do it. That thing is a little legend IMOS.

TL:DR of first paragraph: Wrathgate worked, saying the model didn't is flawed. I would follow that model again for other major story arcs in game in a heartbeat.

SO! My opinion on how to handle the Arthas thing. First things first - /if you've watched the cinematic in Dalaran or anywhere else/ - that is OOC knowledge that you have. It is from a first person PoV of Tirion (I don't think that's a spoiler), he is even told DO NOT TELL ANYONE WHAT HAPPENED HERE, GO BACK TO YOUR HEROES, which pretty clearly suggests there aren't 25 cows standing around watching the exchange and eating popcorn. All we know is Arthas fell down, anything beyond that we're not privy to. If you RP it out that you are Tirion's personal sounding board, that he spills his dark deep secrets to you over a pint of beer later, I probably don't like your rp anyway. You might as well be a dragon girl with fairy wings. I sincerely doubt anyone in this crowd has sunk to that level. If you have, I'll stage your intervention now.

How would Yva handle the Arthas thing. I disagree that we don't need a hard date. Shit, Uthas's return to Stormwind caused Chaos without it. I think we need a marker of some sort that people can start talking about it in IC/OOC. I know it's not ideal to not wait for everyone, but here's the problem: is everyone who wants to RP Arthas stuff part of a raid? NO. So by the logic of "Let's wait til everyone sees a kill!" . . . no one gets to see it and we're punishing non-raiders. I'd personally go with "When have the most people killed it". Yes, some people are going to see it later than others, but . . . shit. There is no perfect solution and it does come down to making the most people happy so they can experience other rp that will make them happy.

Solution: pick a date, stick to the date. In the meanwhile, start an "Arthas is dead, I GO TO DISNEYLAND" thread along the lines of Wrathgate. Have a set number of script writers for the italics post, and see what kind of beautiful baby part deux we can make.

[Lansiron]

I feel like Tarq and Yva hit the nail pretty well on the head.

I know I don't do a ton of writing, but I've been RPing Norvallen based around the particular fact that the downfall of the Scourge is currently the lynchpin of her existence. The fall of the Lich King is going to have intense ramifications for this character. I'm still feeling out exactly what these are, though one thing I hope to have the opportunity for is in-game RP dealing with it (I kind of think, rather than deciding a direction, having some help via live interaction will make the course of events from here out feel more authentic). Not sure how I'll present it 'for the record', but if what you guys are suggesting works out well, I'll surely go with it. I definitely feel like my part'll be conducive towards "expanding" on the story, rather than embellishing. (incidentally, is any other character tied closely to the Ebon Blade? Guessing Jak.)

As an aside, I can say for sure that, with the knowledge that the Wrath Gate story isn't "locked down" by you guys' reckoning, I'm a lot more motivated now to fill in with my ever-belated contributions, peripheral to the central "Riders story" as they may be.

[Chrystenise]

Carystin soloed the Lich King.

Well, duoed, if you count the fact she threw Slimer in his eyes before he tried to flee from the cuteness and fell from the citadel; impaling himself on a giant spike.

Sorry, you were all too slow.

[Lansiron]

...and fell from the citadel; impaling himself on a giant spike.

Shows how much you know. Impalement on the spike? Didn't do nothin'. Disney villain death. Patch 6.5: ICECROWN CITADEL WAS MERELY A SETBACK.