Blizzcon 2010 - WoW Quests and Lore Panel

We've seen over the years the overarching dangers etc, it has been getting bigger bigger and bigger. Are there any plans to take some more bigger things down? Will we take down Alexstrazsa for example?
She's the Aspect of Life man, can you really punk her down for long? A careful way to answer this question is, obviously Deathwing is the bad guy and in the subsequent patches similar to how WotLK worked, ultimately when we develop the final combat with Deathwing to put him down, there is really good money on the fact the family will get involved. Their greatest and most horrible hour, the will perform the function they were created for. It's probably best to let the specifics breath at this point. Deathwing is so gnarly, how do you defeat something undefeatable? Can he be defeated by any martial mean? How will the family (AND THRALL) pull this off?

Oh I just have to say it, you know Thrall is a shaman now. So what Aspect is missing from the family? Neltharion is out, the family has been broken for 10,000 years, what of the 5 aspects are you missing? Earth. So I'm just saying. Maybe that's a way Thrall can distinguish himself helping the family back together for a big win.

Can you give any spoilers of a location of an Old God in this expansion. and elaborate on the theory that if all old gods are gone the world would explode?
OR IS IT? You haven't seen who pays Deathwing's bills. Have you played any Cataclysm? ... like where the world blows up? Have we publically announced the...? You might see it's name uttered in a few places in Cataclysm... Nezoth/Ni'zoth? He has was the creature responsible for the spark of the Emerald Nightmare, and he has all sorts of weird shit going on.

What are you guys doing with Kalecgos and the blue dragons?
- Metzen: Something amazing. (To Alex) Should I tell them..?
- Alex: Do it.
- Metzen: Kalecgos will be the new blue aspect. And just in time.

When we first met Garrosh Hellscream he was kind of an annoying kid? Now he's the leader of the Horde. Are we going to get a Warchief out of this guy?
We know that the whole Garrosh thing is "contentious" and it's part of a much larger storyline involving Thrall. Thrall is the most important person on Azeroth, the Garrosh storyline has a lot to do with Thrall. Thrall is a Clark Kent type character who doesn't really know his true strength, he was pushed into leadership very young and Garrosh is used as a counterpoint to Thrall. He's a hothead against someone who thinks a lot. Ultimately the story isn't about Garrosh, it's going to be some of the best storytelling that WoW has ever done.

Regarding Thrall, are Thrall and Jaina ever getting together and have a family?
Think Jaina got green fever going on? I don't want to spoil it, I dont mean this in a marketing way at all. Thrall is meeting a nice girl from Nagrand and gonna have little brown babies. Let's put it to bed. Funny choice of words there.

Will we ever see a redemption or resurrection of Illidan as a Character?
BOY DO I WANT TO DO THAT. That'd be badass. I don't think anyone at all has ever talked about that. But I love that shit. I'm a sucker for a good redemption story. Except Arthas. Not Arthas. He's dead.

Is there any update of the wow movie?
Metzen: You didnt get the memo? Kiefer Sutherland. I like Kiefer Sutherland. (/joke) Like a month ago we had a session with Sam Riami at which we kicked the shit out the story. It's really great, we are waiting for the green light seeing Riami's got multiple projects going on at the moment, but we broke through a very serious wall. We showed him what we had, it was like a geek cyclone.

Are we going to see another caster legendary weapon that isn't a mace?
- Metzen: What do you want? What would make you happy?
- A big stick.
- Metzen: A Staff, it's coming!

We are almost 2 expansions past outland, are we ever gonna find out what happened to High General Turalyon
We have every intention to deal with that character in a very important and epic way. no plan yet. you're gonna love it though." /sarcasm

Is there going to be anything in Cataclysm about CoT or the Bronze Dragonflight?
You can count on it. AND IT'S SO BADASS!

I'm a big fan of the Saurfangs but I never knew what kind of clan they're from.
- Metzen: Blackrock.
- You sure?
- Metzen: 80%

Did the philosophy behind the Burning Legion change, and did Kil'jaeden shape it for his own personal gain?
The philosophy hasn't shifted. (Really long and complicated question/answer, might go back to this one)

After the battle of Andorhal when our favorite Death Knight gets Chain Hooked back to us for Reeudcation is there going to be any revisiting to that?
The forsaken storyline is a complex one, you will definitely see that somewhere.

What happened to Kul Tiras?
We have to save something for the future patches, not now. We will deal with Kul Tiras in the future.

So for the story contest i wrote what might have happened to Kael'thas what happened between tbc and the bt
Actually a number of years ago, one of our lead writers wrote a 80 page novel about that, and its bitching, we've been struggling where to put it out, i would like to put it out at some time.

About Legendary caster weapons earlier, are you adding Medivh's staff back into the game?
No.

Will we see a reuniting of Sylvanas, Vereesa and Alleria?
We'll have that wrapped up along with the Turalyon storyline.... in Stromgarde... with Atiesh. TWO YEARS AGO! (sarcasm)

Will we see more lore about the Eredar and the Draenei in the future?
You know, we haven't really explained it all that well. We had it in the War3 book where Sargeras came across the Eredar and they were this bad race. Then I wanted to revamp it with TBC and the Draenei to where the Eredar corrupted him. That went over as well as a fart in church. But I still stand by the new story.

How are Trolls related to Moonkin at all?
We've developed a lot of the Troll Druid lore in-house. I'm not sure if we're going to release all of that with Cataclysm, but it will be explained.

Will legendaries from the past scale to be useful at 85?
Yeah we don't have that planned. We don't want to make items that last forever. I won't say never, you may see Atiesh at some point, but we don't really have it planned.

[...] missed a couple of questions there, will update in a few.

In Burning Crusade Illidan didnt seem very involved in quests, Arthas on the other hand was everywhere in Wrath of the Lich King, how about Cataclysm?
In WotLK we might have cartooned Arthas out a bit, with Deathwing its a little harder for him to show up and not just kill you. What does happen that when you see Deathwing, he will kill you 99% of the time. His name ain't Socialwing for a reason!

In the book Stormrage serious stuff happens which in my opinion is a little more intense than cataclysm, is everyone going to forget what happened to them in cataclysm? Regarding the nightmare taking over the world.
So the question would be: do we reference the events of Stormrage in Cataclysm? A there are things in our literature that are harder to pull off than other, that's one of them, especially in a expansion in which you destroy the world things get cluttered, it will be softly touched upon but nothing big. We will be talking about it.

I'm an old school tabletop roleplayer, I can assume you are too, I'm in a guild of an rp server, we absolutely love storytelling, will there be any tools implemented into the game for Roleplaying?
Yes. You mean sort of a character story panel? I wouldn't rule it out, we don't really discuss it but we can bring it up again.

There's a lot of lore with deathwing in the old RTS games and is there going to be any connection to the Demon Soul or anything like that? In Outland there was a hint that the Netherwing might be related to Deathwing, will the relationship be clarified?
Yes. can't really too much bout it, but you'll see something (soon). Metzen: SOMETHING AWESOME

I know that the Paladins got a lot of attention, Silver Hand, Argent crusade etc, EPL and WPL being rebuilt etc, are the Paladins still playing a big part in cata?
The Argent Crusade is cleaning up atm, the Plaguelands was their base of operations. Theyr'e spreading out with the Cenarion Circle cleansing the lands. Will there be a dungeon? No nothing planned.

In WotLK, it seemed in endgame raiding content from Ulduar to Coliseum to Lich King wasn't very coherent. In Cataclysm is there going to be more cohesion?
Yes. That's a tricky question isn't it? interesting. Lich King's raiding there actually was a story there, was it pulled off as masterly as it should have been? No, I dont think so. I definitely think that in this expansion there will be a lot more.

Nerz'hul/Bolvar storyline; is it finished or whats going on..?
Yes, uh.. yeah Nerz'hul is done. The lich king idea is the ultimate expression, Nerz'hul is done. Relative to Bolvar its kinda weird, where my instinct goes regarding storyline, but seeing were not building a new Northrend expansion anymore its kind of an issue with the present day like we dont have any outland stuff either. Bolvar is keeping a lid on the scourge, we are unlikely to chase that for the next little while

I hear all this stuff about Caster DPS and Ranged DPS Legendary Items, but what about Tank DPS?
You are preaching to the quire here, I want one. Yeah! So you said it right, when we do a legendary it covers a role, unfortunately the tank role is smaller than dps role, maybe even than healer role. So not out of the question we're gonna do that staff (from earlier) first.

GC promised us a moose. WHERE IS OUR MOOSE?
Yeah. He did. Damn that guy. We gonna find him. and ask him. Yourself. No damn idea. I want a moose, Chris (Metzen) wants a moose. Muhh. Where is it? No idea?

About Ragnaros, I remember back in the Molten Core days when you woke him up, and he just one shot everyone is he gonna do that again?
Yeah... yeah.. you want him to do that? Like three guys.. five? seven? MORE DEATH. Firey glorious death

Now that Arthas is dead how or will you be able to make Worgen or Goblins or any other race Death Knights?
There is actually a story here, so when you play the DK area Arthas still exists. So why is he still alive? It's a different pocket of time. The Worgens back then are probably minions of Arugal something, Goblins are already around so no problem regarding that. Metzen: Necromancy is not exclusive to the lich king, it existed before nerzhul changed to the lich king. It's not a new thing, really.