World of Warcraft/Tropes I-P: Difference between revisions

** While on one of your periodic murderous rampages through Northern Stranglethorn Vale, you come across an adorable baby raptor who adopts you as a parent and follows you around. Dawww. A few totally unrelated quests later while she's tagging along, she digs up a troll skull which you feel the need to take to an NPC for examination. You inexplicably agree to try to resurrect the troll to whom said skull belongs. No points if you guess early on that the skull belonged to someone who should have remained dead, possibly even by your hand a long time ago. The resurrected bad guy kidnaps your newest friend and as of 4.1 is the source of no shortage of trouble in the area.

** A quest chain in Alterac Valley starts with a dwarf suggesting you go investigate strange voices in the ruins. The voice claims to be a princess and has you undertake a series of quests that will free her from bondage. Turns out she's not a princess, and when you report back to the dwarf he is nonplussed at your actions. Fortunately he knows how to reverse the effect.

* [[Nice Job Fixing It, Villain]]: The Forsaken invasion of Gilneas drives the Worgen to rejoin the Alliance.

** An Alliance ship shooting down the goblins and the hostile SI-7 lead the goblin refugees to team up with the orcs.

* [[No-Holds-Barred Beatdown]]: The ''players'' get to do this to, of all people {{spoiler|''the Lich King''}}. Granted, you have had three phases of fight with him beforehand not counting Remorseless Winter, and he's just been the victim of Tirion.

* [[Noisy Nature]]: Every thing that attacks on both planets will make a lot of noise in the process, even (sometimes especially) when it shouldn't.

* [[No OSHA Compliance]]:

** Blackrock Depths is built inside a volcano, and is populated by evil dwarves. What makes them evil? The handrail-less bridges and walkways that are nothing but giant chains built over pools of lava. Even the capital cities feature these.

** Gilneas has several ''very high'' bridges with no railings whatsoever.

** Grim Batol, a high-end dungeon, prevents you from Mind Controlling enemies to prevent abuse of this trope, since there are pits everywhere.

* [[No Plans, No Prototype, No Backup]]: [[Word of God|According to the lore]], Gnomes are a complete aversion of this. They plan meticulously, taking more time to draw schematics of things than it takes to actually build them, and will often test, redesign and upgrade their inventions until they are perfect. Those tanks that go backwards and teleporters that get you to your destination but hundreds of feet in the air, those are the unperfected prototypes.

* [[North Is Cold South Is Hot]]: Azeroth fits this trope to a T. In the south, you will find [[Shifting Sand Land|Tanaris]], [[Jungle Japes|Stranglethorn Vale]] and the [[Bubblegloop Swamp|Swamp of Sorrows]]. In the north, you have [[Grim Up North|Northrend]], and the snowy Winterspring in northern Kalimdor.

* [[Nothing Is the Same Anymore]]: ''Cataclysm'' brings this to a head with Deathwing devastating Azeroth ''simply by reemerging from his hideout''. Yes, he is ''that'' powerful now. In addition, many races will be gaining access to previously unavailable classes due to their constant exposure to different cultures, and rumors have circulated that several major faction leaders will be stepping down as well.

* [[Not Quite Dead]]: Pretty much everyone from Warcraft III whose death wasn't shown on screen returns, and even some whose ''were''. This continues throughout the expansions, with bosses defeated in world zones or 5-man dungeons frequently putting in appearances in later raids.

** The quests for the Forsaken in Cataclysm seem to say this about them compared to the Scourge. The actions in Hillsbrad disturbingly mirror the actions of some of the Scourge scientists.

** In Duskwood, when [[Cain and Abel|Tobias Mistmantle confronts his evil brother Stalvan]] over him [[If I Can't Have You|killing the]] [[Teacher-Student Romance|student he had a crush on]] [[Murder the Hypotenuse|and her lover]], the now undead Stalvan confirms the accusation and says that Tobias is now feeling what he felt- enough rage to want to kill someone, prompting Tobias to assume his Worgen form. After Tobias and the player kill Stalvan, Tobias has a [[Big No]] and runs off, but when you turn in the quest, he's decided that it's up to him whether he lives as a monster.

* [[Not Worth Killing]]: One has to wonder why so many minor threats are allowed to exist in the starting areas, which are near major capitals, instead of being wiped out to secure the area. In the case of the Frostmane Trolls south of Anvilmar, the Dwarves simply don't consider them a major threat, focusing more on the Troggs, the still warring Dark Iron Dwarves, and the other Trolls.

** Arthas plays with this, as a necromancer he wants to kill the mightiest warriors in Azeroth, and raise them as part of his undead army; so unlike other cases of this trope where the killer doesn't feel the victim is worth the time or effort to kill, he spends a lot of time and effort looking for the strongest warriors, and using challenges to make them [[I Need You Stronger|as strong as possible]] before killing them.

* [[Obvious Beta]]: A more mild example. The game was playable but there were still a lot of bugs and issues with balancing, and in some cases, the developers intentionally left things as an [[Obvious Beta]] so that they can go rework it or add more stuff in a later patch. Some of these include:

** The endboss of a lot of raids was intentionally made [[Unwinnable by Design|unwinnable]] so that players wouldn't storm through the dungeon so fast and be on the boards complaining that there's nothing to do. Nefarian was not even ''completely coded'' into the game yet, but when he was, it turned out to be worth the wait.

* [[Only Sane Man]]: At various times, Thrall, Jaina, Tirion Fordring, Cairne, Varok Saurfang, or Anduin Wrynn.

* [[Orcus on His Throne]]: Illidan in ''The Burning Crusade'', who does practically nothing but wait for players to come kill him. This may again be explained by the fact that he's under siege by the forces of Kil'jaeden. Arthas also gives this impression during some Northrend events, however it is eventually revealed that {{spoiler|instead of going out and attempting to kill you while you level, Arthas has merely been waiting for you to arrive so he can one-shot your entire raid and turn the most powerful heroes in all of Northrend into his Scourge minions in one masterful fait accompli. Too bad for him it doesn't work out.}}

* [[Our Angels Are Different]]: The Naaru, which are basically extremely powerful, [[Lawful Good]] shards of light.

** [[Starfish Aliens|And an alien race.]]

* [[Pirate|Pirates]]: The "Booty" in Booty Bay refers to pirate booty, not the other kind. There's even a quest where players become pirates, and kill [[Ninja|Ninjas]].

** There's also a commonly available food that will turn you randomly into one or the other, as well as costume wands given out around Hallow's End that let you turn other people into them.

* [[Plaguemaster]]: The Forsaken of the Royal Apothecary Society, who as of ''Wrath of the Lich King'' have brewed a plague capable of destroying both the living ''and'' undead.

** Death Knights are the only player class capable of casting diseases and the Unholy talent tree grants numerous bonuses to them.