Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Can someone offer LK a lozenge?

No. No. Definitely No.

This was not what I had expected.

Finally I was standing in front of the Frozen Throne, shivering with cold, facing the final boss of the end instance of WotLK.

It was time to fight The Lich King, and I should have been trembling with fear. I had pictured myself as a David in front of a Goliath, a small gnome, looking up at a mighty, powerful, superior giant of a man. The world should quake as he opened his mouth. He would make Jaraxxus sound like a whiny girl.

And this was when it all went wrong. So wrong. I tell you – if it wasn’t for the red yelling letters in the chat window, I wouldn’t have noticed that he was speaking at all. His voice was so weak and distant that it was barely more than a whisper. I wanted to cry out: “Speak up, LK, we can’t hear you!”

Thinking of it, I most feel sorry for the lord. You can’t really blame him for catching a cold and getting a sore throat after spending all that time frozen. Who wouldn’t?

Nevertheless I couldn’t quite rid myself of the feeling of an anticlimax.

The every so curious minded Tessy moved herself a bit closer to the event, hoping that she would catch something of what was going on. However she was quickly called back by our raid leader, who thought that hanging on the shoulder of LK might not be the best position for a healer as the encounter was about to start. And who could argue with that?

But like it or not, the whispering voices are there. The scene takes almost a full minute to play up, and unlike many other bossfights with cut scenes, we’ll have to see it over again after every single wipe recovery. The fast-forward button they’ve given to Stratholme hasn’t reached the LK encounter yet.

The best way to handle it is probably just to ignore the mumbling in the distance, taking the opportunity to grab a quick bio or just contemplate and focus for a minute, preparing for the fight.

Still I can’t refrain from secretly hoping that someone one day will show some mercy.

Give the poor guy a throat lozenge or at least a microphone!

18 comments:

Arceopteryx said...

The fantastic awesome voiceacting, plus an effect that makes it un-understandable.

They could have done so much more.

Anonymous said...

Are you kidding me? Seriously? So, I'm have spent the better part of year gearing up, anticipaing the climax - in all respects stalking this mofo and when (and if) I finally get there, I won't be able to hear him?

For the last how ever many months, during the long and late hours of farming badges, materials, , etc., the only thing keeping me going was knowing that at the end, good old Arthas was going to issue forth his challenge to me in a resonating clarion voice of war one last time and I was going to step right up to him and open up a metric ton of whoop ass right in his grill and now your telling me he can't even produce a voice that I will be able to hear? Humph, figures, even in the end, regardless of who wins, he still ultimately drains
my soul - prick.

Fair warning, today would not be a good day to be a snobold.

SpiritusRex

Yaggle said...

I have always said that it would be quite a surprise to everyone that right before the moment of Arthas' defeat, his armor would fall off, only to reveal a frightened man wearing pink panties.

Lantana said...

Oh say it isn't so! After all that, all the build up to the REAL big bad and he's....

This reminds me of this magnificent, giant, gray, long-haired cat I had. He looked FIERCE. Big, not fat, but BIG. And he would stalk into the room, glare at you with baleful eyes, and open that toothy maw, and out would come, "squeek squeek!" Like a mouse. Tiny, whiny little cat voice. I rolled on the floor every time. Poor guy. I think I was undermining his kitty manhood.

Hatch said...

Agreed. Being able to hear the NPC voices during these RP segments without having to walk right up to them or turn the sound up too high (so the fighting sounds drown out vent) is one of my most-requested technical fixes to WoW. There really should be a separate slider in the options menu for NPC voices.

Anonymous said...

When the former guild I was in happened to reach the LK, all I could hear was the retarded rambling of people on vent. The was supposed to be epic, yet their random coversations ruined what I had played endless hours for....

Pangoria Fallstar said...

sore throat.

not sour throat.

Sour is what a lemon is.

For more tips, check out churchofpangoria.blogspot.com

:P Hugs!

Carra said...

I don't know much about the new instance.

Does it contain tickling the nasty lich king to dead?

Tessy said...

Was a bit of an odd experience indeed.

The whole event was a bit bizarre, especially the fact that you got to crawl all over the place before you started it up. Like the LK was some museum exhibit or something :-)

Codi said...

Working on the LK now is like working on Kael'thas during TBC. You just kinda want the guy to shut the heck up and freaking -attack you.-

Dwism said...

I completly disagree. I am not sure what your raid was doing, but I never had any problem understanding anything the dead guy said.
Yes he is speaking, not yelling. Yelling is for shrivveled dragons not cool guys like Arthas.

But after 50 tries it does get old.

Larísa said...

@Arceopteryx: hm… maybe it was awesome. I just didn’t hear it.

@SpiritusRex: actually I considered giving a spoiler alert, but finally I decided against it. Sorry if I’m breaking your illusions.

@Yaggle: Haven’t come that far yet – it was the first time I was there and the server crashed after just a couple of tried. But who knows, maybe that’s what will happen. 

@Lantana: Ouch. Poor cat. Some creatures would have good use of some sort of voice changing device.

@Hatch: That would have solved the issue, indeed!

@Anonymous: that’s sad. At least the first time you see it, people should have the decency to shut up.

@Pangoria Fallstar: Thank you! I had a feeling something was wrong, but neither I, nor the spellchecker could get hold of it. It took me three updates to get it right in the end. Sigh. Sometimes I hate the fact that I’m not native English speaking. But I’m glad when my readers can help me out with the worst errors.

@Carra: I never heard of that strategy, but it could be worth a try!

@Tessy: Yep. You poked him and poked him and he just sat there, frozen. Felt weird.

@Codi: yep. It’s like CoS. But I guess they want to torture us a bit with it before giving out a shortcut.

@Dwism: The problem is, as Hatch pointed out, that the volume of the NPCs goes together with the rest of the game sounds. If I turn it up insanely so I can hear what he says, I’m pretty likely to get so high volume on other sounds that I can’t hear what is said on vent. There’s something wrong with the balance. I guess it can differ a bit between different computers and headsets. But I was definitely not the only one in our raid who had a hard time trying to hear what LK had on his heart.

Arceopteryx said...

It was a sarcastic remark. I agree with you that he might have some throat issues.

HP said...

I found Tirion's voice acting in the LK sequence to be much better. I kind of always tune out whatever Arthas says but then again, I do that with the whole RP event now.

=T

Fear said...

I certianly hope you will tell us about the actual encounter... I will likely never get to see what you are seeing, but I would love to hear some of your tales about that encounter...

Please, and Thanks!

-Fear
battlevortex.com

Larísa said...

@Fear: I hope I'll be back to it in a while. Now this first encounter was in a 10-man, and the server went down unfortuantely. I'm not sure when I'll be able to attend another 10 man that makes it the whole way to LK, but when it happens it will surely be worth writing about. In 25 man we have still Sindragosa to take down, but I don't think LK is all that far away for us, so yes, I'll definitely write some more about LK!
Hopefully a triumphant we-downed-him-story, if nothing else!

Jb said...

As Im one of those cassual players that rely heavily on pugs for raiding I will most likely never see LK on his throne. Im therefore curous if the voice from LK in HoR is better than for the LK encounter itself ?

Larísa said...

@Jb: I honestly can't answer that question since I couldn't hear it. Next time I might try turning up the game sound volume A LOT for the RP intro and the quickly, quickly turn it down again as the fight starts in order to be able to hear the vent channel for all the spell sounds. I don't know. I hope I will be able to enjoy this voice acting one day. This first time I saw it I couldn't.