Icecrown’s here, we’ve already tackled the 5 man thing with Bricu’s previous post, so I won’t beat that dead horse. I’m disappointed, most A-Side folks I know are disappointed, we move on.

I’d like to touch on what I’m afraid of going forward. If you ever did the Illidan fight in BT, you saw Maiev come in and pretend to be helpful. She dropped traps all over that would hurt Illidan. There were a few snippets of dialogue here and there that came across as needless color commentary (OH LOOK LORE, WEEE). To be fair, Chaos pretty much ignored the traps (and her) unless a trap got dropped right near where Caulle tanked him, but . . . point being, there was NPC help and scripting. I’m fearing NPC help on the Arthas fight, BIG TIME, mostly because YOU KNOW WHO will be back to BE OUR GREAT SAVIOR.

No, no thank you. No PLEASE.

I have two major concerns with Jaina popping in during the Arthas fight:

a) They martyr her. She dies and we’re all supposed to cry. We won’t, but we’re supposed to think about crying. Maybe.

b) She saves the day, you don’t actually beat Arthas, she’s a total kill stealer.

Either of those scenarios do not please me. Let’s tackle A first. If Jaina pops in, realizes HEY I KILLED TONS OF FOLKS WHEN I WAS TRYING TO FIGURE OUT IF YOU WERE REALLY THAT EVIL, and throws herself in front of him to take the brunt of his magic so we can nuke him . . . that’s dramatic lame at its finest. It’s overly done and cliche, reeks of the actor who grabs his chest and totters around a stage for five minutes before he finally falls to the ground. The bright side? At least the bint is dead so there won’t be anymore dungeons with her bitching about how she’d rather be studying.

Scenario B would actually bother me MORE, though, because . . . well, no one likes a kill stealer in PvP, and if you already loathe the npc going into the fight thanks to terrible writing, how the heck are you going to feel if she’s like THANKS FOR DOING THE BRUNT OF THE HARD WORK, I’M HERE TO FINISH HIM OFF. SQUEE!

No, no no no no.

I guess it’s safe to say that the 5 mans have made me dubious about the end of Citadel. I will admit that the first four bosses in ICC 10s/25s have made me happy (especially the Saurfang bit, which was VERY WELL DONE), but . . . yeah. Fingers crossed that I’m wrong about those two scenarios. Time will tell I suppose.

(One thing worth noting, thank you itanya, Sylvanas is abrupt and bitchy through the hordeside equivalent dungeons, which makes me want to watch Gharr or Davien one day just to get some exposure to an NPC that doesn’t make me want to rip my eyes out. I don’t mind NPC influence if the NPC is written well.)