Funniest dialog in the game

Loudspeaker: Zeppelin arrival in six minutes.

Hobart Grapplehammer: Boarding the Spear of Durotar, are we? You are to be envied, Horde marine!
Hobart Grapplehammer: You are about to rip the horizon a new sky-hole aboard a sensational new era in aeronautical innovation.
Hobart Grapplehammer: It’s been recklessly engineered with a merciless disregard for both budgetary concerns and those cumbersome, inefficient “laws of physics.”
Assistant Greely: Not a penny was wasted on comfort or personal safety!
Hobart Grapplehammer: While you wait for its arrival, my assistant and I will momentarily demonstrate some of the features of this remarkable aircraft.

Loudspeaker: Zeppelin arrival in five minutes.

Hobart Grapplehammer: As you know, air weighs nothing. So to create a lighter-than-air vessel, we had to bend a few rules.
Assistant Greely: We bent the crap outta them!
Hobart Grapplehammer: The Spear of Durotar is filled to the bursting point with combustible, super-heated gas.
Hobart Grapplehammer: Bilgewater engineers have taken advantage of its inherent high-altitude instability and resultant low-cost.
Assistant Greely: We passed the savings on to us.
Hobart Grapplehammer: We’ve mitigated the explosive instability of the gas by putting it under IMMENSE pressure.
Hobart Grapplehammer: Doing so required the removal of a number of safety valves that kept erupting.
Assistant Greely: Ask yourself: what good is a “safety” valve if it keeps going off? That doesn’t sound very safe to me.

Loudspeaker: Zeppelin arrival in four minutes.

Assistant Greely: Tell ’em about the engines, boss.
Hobart Grapplehammer: Oh my, yes. In order to maximize both range and payload, we’ve concocted an unorthodox blend of rocket fuels for the state-of-the-art engines.
Assistant Greely: We call it “Doom Juice.”
Hobart Grapplehammer: It is so energy-dense as to combust at the slightest provocation.
Assistant Greely: Even verbal.
Hobart Grapplehammer: This stuff is so volatile, it probably shouldn’t be moved. Much less… flown.
Assistant Greely: To ensure a crew response in case of a fire, fuel storage has been moved away from the crew quarters and placed beneath the passenger compartment.

Loudspeaker: Zeppelin arrival in three minutes.

Hobart Grapplehammer: Your course today will take you directly across the great sea.
Hobart Grapplehammer: An enormous, unforgiving expanse of pounding grey waves, freezing temperatures, and ravenous sea life.
Assistant Greely: In the unlikely event of a water “landing,” please reach under your seat cusion where a cyanide capsule has been located for your convenience.
Hobart Grapplehammer: Trust me, friend, a rapid pill-induced death is far preferable to the long, agonizing process of hypothermia and subsequent dismemberment by sharks.
Assistant Greely: For those of you allergic to almonds, our cyanide capsules come in an assortment of other flavors.
Hobart Grapplehammer: Don’t ask how we know what they taste like.
Assistant Greely: You’ll also find a complimentary bag of peanuts.

Loudspeaker: Zeppelin arrival in two minutes.

Hobart Grapplehammer: Should your zeppelin be attacked en-route, panic is advisable.
Hobart Grapplehammer: Instead, look for a number of deck-mounted flak cannons positioned for just such an emergency.
Assistant Greely: Nothing keeps a fleet of combustible dirigibles safer than randomly flinging molten metal in every conceivable direction!
Hobart Grapplehammer: Greely, show them how the guns work.
Assistant Greely: With Pleasure!
Hobart Grapplehammer: Simply aim and pull the trigger. Or don’t aim. I wash my hands of the whole thing.
Assistant Greely: I can hit my house from here!

((Greely proceeds to fire off a few shots.))

Hobart Grapplehammer: Greely, you’re not randomly firing that thing into Bilgewater Port, are you?
Assistant Greely: No.
Assistant Greely: Maybe.
Assistant Greely: A little.

Loudspeaker: Zeppelin arrival in one minute. One minute.

Hobart Grapplehammer: In the unlikely event that a catastrophic failure does not instantly kill everyone aboard…
Hobart Grapplehammer: …a number of parachutes will appear along the railings.
Assistant Greely: We call them “Emergency Rampless Debarkation Devices.”
Hobart Grapplehammer: Simply grab a nearby parachute to be vaulted clear of the burning zeppelin. Hopefully onto dry land.
Hobart Grapplehammer: Greely, would you like to demonstrate how our parachutes work?
Assistant Greely: Oh hells no! Those things are death-traps!
Hobart Grapplehammer: Very well then. I see that the Spear of Durotar has almost arrived.
Hobart Grapplehammer: Your safety and well-being are no longer any concern of mine.
Assistant Greely: From all of us at Bilgewater Harbor…
Hobart Grapplehammer & Assistant Greely: Have fun storming the Highlands!.

Warcraft novels and lore

I have always been interested in Warcraft lore – if you run mindlessly from questgiver to questgiver, why even bother to play? But I had never read any of the Warcraft novels, or any books based on a game. So I felt I missed out on a whole lot of lore – majority of the lore is not explained in World of Warcraft, we get just glimpses of the big picture.

So I purchased all the novels and started to read them.

As expected, literary quality was for the most part pretty mediocre, to put it kindly. I do not understand why Blizzard even keeps hiring Richard A. Knaak, is he really that cheap? His Night of the Dragon is one of the worst books I’ve read in a while – which is a shame, I like Krasus/Korialstrasz a lot. Strangely, Knaak’s earlier books are much better than latter ones. Perhaps he had a tighter editing for the first books?

Christie Golden is in the other end of the scale. She writes well and flowingly, both her skills and knowledge of the lore seem to be improving from one book to the next. Her The Shattering: Prelude to Cataclysm is well above all the other books, being both well-written and interesting.

Am I happy with the time spent reading the novels? Yes. A lot of things in the World of Warcraft make a whole lot more sense now, especially the “old” things – War of the Ancients and Second War. A lot of things from these times were not explained in the games… and maybe inadvertedly, we do get glimpses of what will/may happen in the World of Warcraft in the future. I will do a separate blog post about my speculations on the topic.

Unfortunately, Warcraft comics cover a lot of the lore as well – and I honestly cannot say I want to bother with them. Comics don’t have the depth of a book, even if the book is not especially well written. I’ve never been able to get “into” the story in the comics – they just remain picture books for me.

Warcraft Archive

Of Blood and Honor

Chris Metzen, 2001. A short and mediocre book. Tirion Fordring meets Eitrigg and discovers that not all orcs are blood-thirsty savages. Not much lore covered in the book.

Day of the Dragon

Richard A. Knaak, 2001. As far as Knaak’s writing goes, one of the better books by him. Set during the Second War, a good backstory for both Rhonin and Krasus. Explanation of Deathwing’s influence on Alliance. Destruction of the Dragon Soul.

Lord of the Clans

Christie Golden, 2001. Good and solid book about Thrall’s childhood and gladiator days – his upbringing and escape. I started to understand Thrall’s character much better after this book. I wish there was a direct sequel to the book, though.

The Last Guardian

Jeff Grubb, 2001. The story of Medivh and Khadgar, something that was always a bit hard to understand based only on  the games. Well written and interesting book. Must-read for everyone who has raided Karazhan or plans to do so in the future.

War of the Ancients

• The Well of Eternity
• The Demon Soul
• The Sundering

Trilogy by Richard A. Knaak, 2004-2005. Still his good early work – we finally understand how Sargeras became interested in Azeroth and what happened to queen Azshara. Many more important things start in that trilogy – druidom in Azeroth, nagas and satyrs. Sundering of the world, of course. Illidan’s imprisonment, origins of Xavius and so forth.

Unfortunately, most of the characters feel “flat”, lifeless. While Malfurion and Tyrande pretty much stay the same way always, the struggles of Illidan really should be described better.

World of Warcraft series

Cycle of Hatred

Keith R.A. DeCandido, 2006. Set one year before the beginning of World of Warcraft, this is surprisingly well written account of growing tensions between Horde and Alliance – and reasons for them.

Rise of the Horde

Christie Golden, 2006. Story of the corruption of the orcs in Draenor and their war with the draenei. Well written, but feels somewhat detached and I am not sure why. Perhaps Blizzard should have given Golden more freedom with the characters?

Tides of Darkness

Aaron Rosenberg, 2007. Events of the Second War. Not great, but a reasonably good book that recaptures the storyline of Warcraft II. Probably due to that, one-dimensional characters.

Beyond the Dark Portal

Aaron Rosenberg and Christie Golden, 2008. Continuation of the previous book. Alliance heroes follow orcs to Draenor, where Ner’zhul is attempting to open portals to new worlds. Shattering of Draenor.

Night of the Dragon

Richard A. Knaak, 2008. An attempt to describe the origins of Twilight Dragonflight. By far the worst Warcraft book (…so far), Knaak simply doesn’t have the writing skills to pull of a complex multi-character story. Doesn’t add much to the lore, skip this book unless you are a diehard lore-head.

Arthas: Rise of the Lich King

Christie Golden, 2009. Well-written account of Arthas’ youth and way to the Lich King. A lot of the content is known from previous books, Warcraft III and World of Warcraft, but described from a different perspective or viewpoint. Well worth reading, my only gripe is that the most extensive storyline in the lore would have only won, if it would have been longer and more detailed.

Stormrage

Richard A. Knaak, 2010. Unfortunately, a novel about Malfurion and not Illidan. Coming of the Emerald Nightmare and the fight against it. Somewhat strange timing for the novel, as I would have thought that something like that would come before an expansion related to the Emerald Nightmare. Xavius gets defeated and killed, which was a surprise – but then again, maybe we haven’t seen the last of him.

As a book, a bit too jumpy. Too many viewpoints, too many characters – we won’t get into any in-depth before going to the next character.

The Shattering: Prelude to Cataclysm

Christie Golden, 2010. Best Warcraft book so far and pretty much a must-read for everybody who are interested in the lore. Rumblings of the elements, Thrall’s re-education as a shaman, murder of Cairne Bloodhoof, Garrosh becoming a (temporary?) warchief. My only gripe is Cairne behaving like a total hothead when he challenges Garrosh, without taking time to analyze all the facts. Same applies largely to Thrall appointing Garrosh to warchief in his absense.

Hopefully the next, upcoming novel Thrall: Twilight of the Aspects will be as good as this one.