As one of our readers, Izzie, pointed out to me, there was recently a great lore interview with Chris Metzen and Micky Nielson at New York Comic Con that you can check out here:
The most important part of the interview, however, is confirmation of the upcoming novel by Richard A. Knaak, Worlf of Warcraft: Stormrage, due in 2010. This story will tell us everything Malfurion Stormrage has been up to throughout his absence from Azeroth in WoW. It will also explain the Nightmare, what’s behind it, and go into detail about what has actually been going on in the Emerald Dream this whole time.
But look at what this is really saying…
Why would Blizzard Entertainment commission this veritable tome we’ve all been waiting for about the Emerald Dream, and schedule it for 2010, if the next expansion were the Maelstrom?
Wrath of the Lich King had its intro novel, “Night of the Dragon.” It looks like the Emerald Dream Expansion now has its intro novel too.
The Emerald Dream : Coming 2010
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Ya know, we’ll find out by BlizzCon 2009! Timing’s about right for an Expansion 3 announcement there, if not beforehand.
I have to say that Knaack is not my favorite WoW author, especially due to the character incongruencies between Warcraft III and the War of the Ancients novels. It felt like he took a character with some depths and distilled him down to “yet another heroic archetype.”
The same can be said for what he did with Illidan and even Tyrande, two characters that were much more interesting in Warcraft III than their novel counterparts.
The upcoming Arthas novel by Golden, however, I AM looking forward to…
Glad that interview came in handy. I didn’t realize Stormrage wasn’t coming out til next year, thought it’d be sooner. But early 2010 definitely seems like the perfect release date for a prelude, espeic
I’m not sure about Blizzcon being an announce-date, though. It seems just a little bit too early to me. Unless your guess of of 5/2010 for ED to come out, then it would be spot on.
Bah, I’ll just leave the guesswork to the experts, heh.
Izzie, my next post is actually going to be entirely about that interview and what else can be milked from it when we scrape the surface. Thanks again.
As for BlizzCon , don’t forget that Burning Crusade was announced at the very first BlizzCon in ’05 and it wasn’t actually released until January of ’07.
Awesome. I’m very much looking forward to it!
kind of late comment here, but I’m curious how Night of the Dragon ties into Lich King. I just read the book and I can’t think of/find any connections there.
“Night of Dragon” ties into “Sartharion’s Lair”.
If “Night of the Dragon” introduced Sarth and it is not an expantion, would this new novel lend itself to say that the Dream is going to be a sub-plot of the next expantion?
Previous to the launch of Wrath, we knew little about Sarth and the twilight dragons, and when Wrath launched, we still knew little (in game) about him still. The novel was there to fill the gap of lore that was not filled in during the game because Sarth is a side story, even in the dragon story arc.
I see the next expansion having both the Dream and the Maelstrom. Look at Wrath, there is the main story arc of Arthas and the undead with the dragon arc as something breaking up the monotony of killing undead, and some titan lore to give us more to look into. Blizzard has put many storylines into this expansion and I don’t see them making 2 expansions when they could fit that and more in one.
I see the Maelstrom (the naga and the portal) as the main story arc (Arthas and the undead in Wrath) in the next expansion, with the Dream/Nightmare being the secondary (The dragons in Wrath) and filling in the gaps with troll and goblin arcs (titan lore in Wrath).
if you haven’t already, you should read the new arthas novel.
there’s a nifty malfurion reference at the very end of it.
So how about that Emerald Dream as the next expansion?
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