World of Warcraft patch 5.4 is set to be one of the most important recent patches in terms of lore development. The Alliance and parts of the Horde are putting their war on hold to conduct their Siege on Orgrimmar to oust current Horde warchief Garrosh Heallscream. Since the PTR of 5.4 went up, there have been a ton of spoilers that flesh out this conflict. Read on at your own risk.
The video in the header is a confrontation between Thrall and Garrosh that pits the former warchief of the Horde against the successor he appointed. Although it’s not even on the live server yet, this has become one of my favorite pseudo cinematics in the game. The voice actor who plays Garrosh does such a fantastic job of being a tyrannical asshole that it’s hard not to love this scene.
There is one question that the showdown between Thrall and Garrosh in WoW 5.4 raises that many fans have already pointed out: if Thrall, canonnicaly the most powerful shaman, cannot manipulate the elements, how can the player character shamans do so? This just seems like one of the (many) moments in the game where cannon is broken for game mechanics. Oh, well, at least the dialogue was cool.
The above links are of the dialogue for Jaina Proudmoore, Lor’themar Theron, and Sylvanas Windrunner in WoW 5.4. They all seem to be from the same encounter against Warlord Zaela, the leader of the Dragonmaw Clan; Jaina’s bit is for the Alliance encounter, and Lor’themar and Sylvanas’s are for the Horde encounter.
I really love the banter that goes back and forth between Sylvanas and Lo’rthemar. In the short story, In the Shadow of the Sun, Sylvanas forced Lor’themar’s hand into having the Blood Elves join the war effort in Northrend, threatening to cancel the Forsaken support of the Blood Elves in the Horde if he did not agree with her. He complied there. Yet, here, it seems he is not as afraid of Sylvanas as he once was and has some pretty hilarious back and forth with her.
Warlord Zaela‘s dialogue in WoW 5.4, while not the most well written or lore changing, is great because she sounds like a complete bad ass.
Eitrigg and High Overlord Saurfang both get a bit of dialogue in this raid. Eitrigg adds some exposition about Garrosh’s activities in the Ragefire Chasm; Saurfang’s speech mentions Nazgrim remaining loyal to Garrosh.
Speaking of Nazgrim, his sound files give the listener a sense of what’s going to happen in the battle with him. If you are a Horde character, he gets sentimental with you, which I enjoy.
What is surprising about the sound file is that Nazgrim mentions dying by Gamon‘s hand. Considering his later bit of speech, it seems like the developers might have wanted Nazgrim to die to a Horde character and provided Gamon as a way for this to happen during an Alliance raid. Why Gamon? Why not?
Gamon also has a bit to say in WoW 5.4. This dialogue seems to accompany the fight against Nazgrim. If you ever wondered what Gamon sounded like all those times you killed him, now you know!
In Wrathion‘s epilogue, we get to find out what his true intent was the entire time. I don’t want to spoil too much on this, as the sound files are worth listening to themselves, even if just for the fact that he says “Auntie Onyxia” at one point.
There are a ton of other sound files available to listen to, like Vol’Jin, Tyrande, Mekkatorque, and others. Adriacraft, once again, does a brilliant job of providing players with everything they need to know for upcoming patches. If you want to listen to the rest of the WoW 5.4 sound files, check out their youtube page.
