Saturday, May 01, 2010

Ruins of Lordaeron

(Update May 1, 2010 - putting this at the top of the Blog since it's the video I created.)

One of my favorite tourist destinations in WoW are the Ruins of Lordaeron just outside the Undercity. If you walk through it with the music off and the environmental sounds on, you can experience the ruins and echoes of a former capital city.

Well, I finally documented those sights and sounds in a video clip. You might want to turn up the sound to hear the ghostly whispers.



When I brought the Ruins up to a friend of mine, he suggested I would enjoy the ambience ten-fold if I had played the human campaign of WarCraft III: Reign of Chaos. So I did.

Wow, was he right. If you don't know what Arthas went through to "save" his people, I would recommend either playing the campaign or reading about it (Arthas Menethil in WoWWiki or Wikipedia).

In short, Arthas was the prince of Lordaeron who would do anything to save his kingdom, even slay his own people - eventually setting his sights on revenge against his father, the king, for trying to stop him from doing what he felt had to be done. But of course, his chosen path corrupted him.

This video is the ending cinematic of the Human campaign. Arthas returns home to Lordaeron to see his father:

Warcraft 3: Human Ending Cinematic


Voila, context.
Those are Arthas's words that whisper in the royal chamber. Cross the same bridge in the courtyard. The hall is littered with the rose petals that welcomed home the tragic hero. The bells still toll for his return.

Perhaps the citizens wouldn't have welcomed him so heartily if they had known what he had done. Or that their graves and ghosts would litter the courtyard today.

Much appreciation to Blizzard for the tie in to the Lore. Thanks also go to Emp for suggesting I play the campaign. And kudos to this video creator who remixed the cinematics and added a great piece of music to really give Arthas's story the epic feel it deserves:

Arthas destiny - Loreena McKennitt by Ohkami

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

>.< im pretty greatfull for this thing since theres nothing left from this music in tbc :< This is the reason to play horde :d

Anonymous said...

I just went through undercity before i watched this and when he walks through that courtyard where the petals were in WROC i swear i could he the cheers of the citzens of loredaron cheering for arthas

The Healing Tree said...

I love the Undercity. Excellent post. Oh, and Warcraft III is great too. xD

Bokchoii said...

I always forget how epic those Warcraft 3 cut scenes were!

Jeff said...

Looking pretty sweet. Love the videos.

ffxiv gil said...

I got funny experience on that ruins, first I was amaze and I sit at throne (playing at night) and then suddenly I here whisper I got scared and quickly run to my door

Nonow said...

Sure, great cinematics !

TheGameBlog said...

grat wow video, thank you ...

Municipal Bond Tax said...

Arthas was by far my favoirte character in WoW. Also very nice :) I went to the UC throne room and tried that and you are right it's word for word.

wow keybinding said...

Did you know ruins of lorderon is a PvP arena? It came out in wrath of the lich king

Bruno 1986 Brasil said...

WarCraft 3 was better. Its plot, its soundtrack, its gameplay, all better. But World of WarCraft is not bad in any of these stuff.

I think WoW should bring back many good musics from WC3, they were incredibly beautiful. The gameplay is fine, it's fun. The plot is what bothers me more...

1) why are the blood elves in the Horde now? Okay, in WC3 Garithos was an irresponsible human general that made his army fight the blood elves, that's why they left the Alliance. But joining the Horde, even as a desperate act? No way! Their hurt feelings against the Horde should be much bigger, once in WC2 and 3 they had violent fights. Their fight against the humans (Garithos' humans, only) was more recent, but not that terrible. If I was the writter, I' put the blood elves back in the Alliance (with hurt and untrusting feelings, of course) and Rexxar's ogres in the Horde. That would make much more sense;

2) Sylvannas was my heroine, I loved her, but now she's a real bitch! She doesn't honor her contracts and agreements, lies to her allies, makes the fight against the Alliance much bloodier and invaded violently Gilneas only because they had something she wanted, when they even weren't part of the Alliance. She has become as evil as Arthas, the man she wants to kill so bad. If I was the writter, in the next expansion, the wise undead (even among undead there should be balanced people) would be convinced by Jaina's peaceful words that Sylvannas is making the fight worse, then kick her out of the throne of Undercity. Then the bitch and her followers would become enemies of both, Alliance and Horde. That's what she deserves.

Warcraft Conquest Review said...

I do miss these times, TBC/Wotlk is a lot better than Cataclysm :<

Arkiem said...

Nice post, nice video, one i haven't seen before!