LAGWAR | GAMING'S BEST IN TOP NOTCH MEDIOCRITY

Sometimes you can sacrifice lore for gameplay and it’s ok.

This week marks the debut of patch 3.2.2, and with it the return of Onyxia.  True, she never really left, but now has been updated to relevance as a level 80 raid boss available for both 10 and 25 man groups.  Overall, the announcement of the new patch and the return of Onyxia were greeted warmly by players.  Blizzard pushed the revival of Onyxia as part of the celebration of the 5^th anniversary of the game.  People were happy with the addition of another “quickie” instance (does anyone remember trash mobs anymore?), and liked the additional fanfare of squaring off with Onyxia again.

Disconnect and death ensues.

There was just one problem…Onyxia was dead.  Remember?  We already killed her.  Her head was hanging up in Stormwind dripping nasty on everyone that walked under it.  She had met her maker.  As one forum poster pointed out, she had even been killed in the WoW comic that Blizzard acknowledges to be lore.  One of the things that I have always admired about Blizzard as a company is their fierce commitment to story continuity and lore in their games.  So after reading the forum post I was fully prepared for a blue response to the post detailing an intricate plot in which Onyxia had returned to Azeroth from wherever dragons go when you separate their heads from their bodies.  I was sure that whatever story had been concocted would fit with all the existing lore and maybe even set up some new storylines for future content.  But there was nothing.  Blizzard simply stated that Onyxia could now be encountered at level 80 despite the fact we had all killed her at level 60.  Deathwing hadn’t reanimated her corpse, and it wasn’t even actually her twin sister Onxyia (notice the clever spelling inversion there) we would be fighting.  Blizzard had just “bent” its lore.  Which made me wonder-is it OK to occasionally sacrifice lore for gameplay?

I think sometimes it is.

Sacrificing lore for gameplay feels dirty-but not quite this bad.

Wow.  That sentence was tough to write.  I feel kind of dirty for having written it.  To be honest, I rewrote different versions of it about fifteen times, each with a slightly different wording (which is pretty tough with only 5 words).  I was surprised that after some thought I realized that I was OK with Onxyia’s return at level 80.  If you listen to MMOWeakly (yup another shameless plug), you know that I am a huge lore fan.  (Channel Al Michaels here-”A UGE lore fan”)  So how could I stand by while the rich game lore was bastardized by a 5^th year anniversary celebration?

Insert joke here

When I thought about it there were a few reasons I felt it was OK to sacrifice lore for gameplay in this instance.  First off, it doesn’t really break the lore to have Onyxia return as a level 80 raid boss, it just sort of bends it a bit.  After all it’s not like the storyline only makes sense at level 60.  At level 80 the story still fits.  There is a dragon, she is running amok, and taking a page out of Daddy’s book and messing around with politics while in human form.  It still works.  It’s not like we needed to kill Onxyia to open the portal to Outland.  The Lich King wasn’t created by demise of Onyxia.  The story module can fit  at any level in the game.

Secondly, this is a nice way to remind players of Deathwing before Cataclysm.  Last time we actually saw him it was in Warcraft II (remember that level in the expansion?  It was freaking impossible).  Deathwing will be the main antagonist in the next expansion.  With Cataclysm looming on the horizon what better way to remind players of Deathwing than by sending them out to kill his kids again.  (I feel there is a Mike Tyson joke that needs to be made here, but I can’t quite place it-give me some suggestions in the comments).

Deathwing is green!?!?! Lore contradictions abound.

Lastly, (and I think this is what really swayed me) the Onyxia raid is just so cool.  It was one of the first raid encounters Blizzard designed that required more strategy than “let’s all stand in a circle and DPS like crazy while the tank attempts to hold agro”.  You had to watch out for the tail, you had to control whelps, you had to remember to dot when she was in the air to bring her down again.  I think everyone remembers the nights we spent trying to figure out exactly what made her “deep breath”.  The Onyxia wipe animation is still practically required viewing for all raiders.  (If you haven’t seen it shame on you…shame on you)  Yes, Onyxia is nostalgic.  It brings back memories of Jailbreak runs on my priest (shudder) to get guildies keyed.  Bringing back Onyxia brings a little of that Old World flavor back into WoW before Cataclysm hits.  And that is good for the game.  And what is good for the game is good for the gander (?).  I didn’t think I would say it, but I am OK with giving up a little lore for gameplay here.  So next time someone in your raid comments on how Blizzard has broken the story by bringing Onyxia back, kindly tell them to shut up…and to pass on revamped tier 2 helm.

But like always this is just what I think.  What about you?  Did Blizzard do right by bringing back Onyxia, or is this just a shameless promotion?  Let’s hear from you.