I know we don't talk about World of Warcraft much on Giant Bomb, because World of Warcraft is for nerds, and Giant Bomb is only about cool stuff like guns and boobs and anthropomorphic domino men that refuse to be halted. So it makes sense that serious discussion of WoW tends to take place....well....anywhere but on Giant Bomb.
 
But with today's release of the much anticipated Wrath of the Lich King patch 3.3, I thought I'd take a moment to tell you why this patch may be the most exciting thing to happen to the Warcraft Franchise since 2004......and why even Non-WoW players might be interested to see what goes down.
 
You see, Patch 3.3, along with adding a slew of new game systems, quests, dungeons, and stolen ideas(they TOOK the Tome of Knowledge Questing Map straight out of Warhammer! Those devious jerks!)  3.3 also adds the Icecrown Citadel raid, where teams of 10 to 25 can face Azeroth's toughest enemies and, potentially, take the fight to the Lich King, the Traitor Arthas.
 
Let me reiterate that with the proper emphasis.

The Players of WoW are Going to Kill the Lich King

I know we don't talk about World of Warcraft much on Giant Bomb, because World of Warcraft is for nerds, and Giant Bomb is only about cool stuff like guns and boobs and anthropomorphic domino men that refuse to be halted. So it makes sense that serious discussion of WoW tends to take place....well....anywhere but on Giant Bomb.
 
But with today's release of the much anticipated Wrath of the Lich King patch 3.3, I thought I'd take a moment to tell you why this patch may be the most exciting thing to happen to the Warcraft Franchise since 2004......and why even Non-WoW players might be interested to see what goes down.
 
You see, Patch 3.3, along with adding a slew of new game systems, quests, dungeons, and stolen ideas(they TOOK the Tome of Knowledge Questing Map straight out of Warhammer! Those devious jerks!)  3.3 also adds the Icecrown Citadel raid, where teams of 10 to 25 can face Azeroth's toughest enemies and, potentially, take the fight to the Lich King, the Traitor Arthas.
 
Let me reiterate that with the proper emphasis.

The Players of WoW are Going to Kill the Lich King

It's kind of bittersweet. No more Arthas, but hey, everytime a door closes another one opens. (is that how you say it?) 
I just hope they don't pull a Kael'thas.

It's in fact so interesting that Blizzard is stretching out this patch with Gates between the wings of the dungeon, that won't open for months. Because they know everyone is going to quit after this. Hope you got your subscription fee money ready!

Wow.

" It's in fact so interesting that Blizzard is stretching out this patch with Gates between the wings of the dungeon, that won't open for months. Because they know everyone is going to quit after this. Hope you got your subscription fee money ready! "

" Wow. "

Even though I quit wow a long time ago, I'm really excited to see how this ends. As players have slain the "last boss" of this expansion, I'm beginning to believe that they're going to "pull a Kael'thas".
However, Blizzard always finds a way. Always.

Too bad WoW is just a grind fest.  It's impossible to get into a raid without "OMG SUPA SHINEY MEGAH GEAR!!"   

Wish I still had time to play.

I kind of would have liked it better if we killed Arthas in some sort of Warcraft 4, but that definitely wasn't going to happen.
Oh well.

" @MAN_FLANNEL: That is a gross exaggeration. "

Oh man, this almost makes me log on and pay for more gametime. But since I know what it takes to raid and that I'm severly behind in progression, I won't.  Maybe in about a year when Arthas is a 5 man dungeon :P.

" Oh man, this almost makes me log on and pay for more gametime. But since I know what it takes to raid and that I'm severly behind in progression, I won't.  Maybe in about a year when Arthas is a 5 man dungeon :P. "

Loved Warcraft 3, great post.

" I kind of would have liked it better if we killed Arthas in some sort of Warcraft 4, but that definitely wasn't going to happen. Oh well. "

My account is still active but I haven't played in a couple months (I paid for 3 months at a time :P) - and even with an active account, I'm going to Youtube this one.  It's a bit ironic - I loved the game, and I think it's still one of the best examples of game design out there, but i can't bring myself to climb on that treadmill anymore.
 
I was pushed into guild and raid leadership from early on while playing WoW, and it's ironic that the sense of accomplishment was taken from the game alongside the introduction of the achievement system.  Back in vanilla you had all manner of flaws with the way raids were made up, the pure huge size of them (can you say you "know" 40 people well?), and fact that the major challenge was one of organization.  Molten Core was easy.  Recruiting 40 people to fill it was not.  Having said that, there were some accomplishments my guild achieved that were never cheapened at any point in the life of that initial release.  Taking a motley group of people who on the whole weren't very good gamers, and weren't very organized, and beating ZG in blues, and surviving the Ragnaros, Razorgore, Vael trio of guild killers was something that I'm always going to be able to look back on and think of as a real accomplishment.
 
Fast-forward to BC and a slew of good improvements in the formula.  "Hybrids" became viable play styles.  There was content progression (albeit limited) 5 and 10 people at a time - or even solo.  The content was released at a good difficulty and was compelling to complete, but they had a measured way of making it easier/more accessible as they went.  Still, some challenges were difficult pretty much until the end.    Amani War Bear is probably going to be the most treasured achievement I obtain for the forseeable future because I remember so much of the dozen or so learning runs and near-misses that preceded it.  Getting a group of gamers that coordinated was a blast and the accomplishment was a thrill.  And even with the "easy T6 epics" you could get from badges, beating Lady Vashj (the last 25-man raid thing we managed to do) was a legit challenge at every level. 
 
When Wrath came out, and it looked like we'd be able to do that kind of content 10 people at a time I was stoked.  But Naxx was a joke.  Artificial attempts at difficulty via achievements weren't really interesting my raiders.  Ulduar was much better, but just when we're getting to the point of beating hard modes, Blizzard started pushing 3.2 and the added effort to get all the hard-mode gear (and it is about the gear for some folks - always will be) took the wind out of our collective sails.  Total gear resetting every expansion made sense to me, but when you only have a couple months to beat anything 'as intended' before the gear inflation trivializes it, I just stopped being excited about WoW and realized that the lasting accomplishment aspect of the game was dead for most of the content in the game and took my exit.

Not to take away from the point of this blog - Arthas (and arguably, Deathwing before him) are both fantastic characters and I look forward to seeing how the story plays out, but WoW doesn't owe me anything anymore.  But I hope those who continue to play enjoy the ride.  It's probably the leader in me that's burned out on the formula, but I'm sad they overcorrected a problem that wasn't really there.  They could have had the "everyone interacts with Arthas" without the gross dumbing-down they did to get there.

As a BIG WC3 fan I would have rather seen Arthas' story end\continue in WC4 or in a other Warcraft related game, cause I loved WC3 and have played it and the expansion pack to death and they are on off my favourite games to this date.

Slight WoW Spoilers: 
 
Being the huge WoW lore nerd that I am (if you take the time to follow it, it's pretty amazing stuff), I have to point out that Arthas hasn't really gone mad.  The Lich King is now a completely seperate entity, and it's the small fragment of Arthas that remains that prevents him from sweeping the Scourge across the world and engulfing it in a plague of death. 
 
If you wanna be technical, Arthas is still the good guy here.

" My account is still active but I haven't played in a couple months (I paid for 3 months at a time :P) - and even with an active account, I'm going to Youtube this one.  It's a bit ironic - I loved the game, and I think it's still one of the best examples of game design out there, but i can't bring myself to climb on that treadmill anymore.

Im with Riff and Symphony, I stopped my subscription about half a year back, started up when I wanted to see all the Lich King content. Im not ready to go back into that again, and I can easily find the fight online.
 
Also, Kombat and Bigandtasty, Im pretty sure that in quests in the Icecrown Blizz has confirmed this- You run into this kid who is showing you all this stuff about Arthas, and find out that he is a part of him, and Arthas cut out his heart or something. When he thinks he is getting through to Arthas, he kills that part of him, and kills Nerzhul, and Arthas alone now is the Lich King. Pretty sure thats how it went, of course missing a small thing here or there, but thats what I remember.
 
Though as much as I love Blizz, its obvious some of this stuff got messed up because of WoW and since there isnt an actual Warcraft game to continue the story of WC3. Being an mmo, I guarantee they would of done things a lot different if it hadnt been. 
 
(if anyone wonders why some of my posts dont show punctuation, something fucks up and it doesnt let me use it, instead going into a quick find bullshit thing, so thats why)

Haven't played in about half a year, and as a huge WoW lore nerd, I really kinda want to get back in to nail Arthas. But I'd pretty much have to start all over - no guild to my name, only Naxx epics (excluding 1 or 2 pieces from the first 4 Uld bosses on normal 10man), and everything to prove as a tank. Not looking forward to climbing the sheer wall. I don't know, maybe I can be tempted... but I'm not sure it's worth the commitment.

"You see, the Warcraft 3 storyline presented players with one of the more interesting characters gaming has ever had: the Prince of Lordaron, Arthas Menethil, the Paladin who, despite his best wishes to save his people from the Undead Scourge, was corrupted. The Young Prince gave into his vengeance and lost his soul, becoming the first Death Knight, and, eventually, the Lich King himself.
 
Arthas is one of the few characters in gaming who we watched slowly go mad. The decent into madness isn't a new conceit in entertainment, by any means: Go read Macbeth or King Lear if you want proof that good men have screwed themselves over through their good intentions. However, very few of these characters exist in gaming, and for good reason: how do you empathize with a character who is slowly being corrupted? After all, you the player, are never corrupted, only your onscreen avatar. And, furthermore, watching a good-hearted character be consumed and warped by the evil he was sworn to destroy; kinda a bummer. So many video games
are convinced that, because the medium is inherently entertainment, that you can't provide players with an unhappy ending.
 
But Arthas is the exception to the rule; players of Warcraft 3 watched as the Prince of Lordaron saw the land he loved consumed by the shambling Undead. He saw firsthand how the Scourge distributed their undeath-causing plague in the grain served to the citizens of the land. The player watched as Arthas made one gaming's most gut-wrenching decisions; in order to save the City of Stratholme from becoming a breeding ground of Undead, Arthas purged the still living inhabitants of the city, turning his back on his loved ones in his desperate desire to save the land.  
 
And as Arthas dove farther and farther in his obsession to rid the land of the scourge, the spark of goodness that drove his actions was replaced by a desire for Vengeance, to kill all those entities responsible for the Scourge.  Arthas turned on his own men, sacrificed his friends, and, in a lust for the power to defeat the Scourge, found the Runeblade Frostmourne, a cursed sword that provided a direct link between the Lich King and Arthas. By the time the young prince had achieved his vengeance, the damage was done; the Prince had been corrupted by the sword. 
 
In the Undead campaign, the player watches Arthas commit acts of terrible evil in the service of his new master: he kills his father, destroys the High Elves, assaults the city of Dalaran, and corrupts half of Azeroth.
 
My point is simple: Arthas is, straight up, the most interesting THING in Warcraft. His fall from grace and rise to dark power was the most interesting part of Warcraft 3 and it's expansion pack. Indeed, the Arthas storyline seemed to be building up to a major event at the end of Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne, as Arthas accends the mountain of Icecrown to become the new Lich King.
 
But, at the end of the game, a strange thing happened: nothing was "resolved". Arthas sat on the Frozen Throne and the game ended. No resolution. No promise of peace. No good characters to defeat evil. The game just....ended.
 
And now, it's seven years after the release of Warcraft 3. Finally, we are going to see how the Arthas story ends. When patch 3.3 goes live later today, players will hit the slopes of Icecrown to END THE WARCRAFT 3 STORYLINE.
 
The players themselves will end the story of Arthas.
 
That's right, following in the illustrious footsteps of The Matrix Online (which was also a game that took place in "the story canon" and also featured a major story character--Morpheus-- die in an in game event), the story of Warcraft 3 will end at the hands of the players,  After eight years, the Warcraft 3 storyline is finally going to end, at the hands of Azeroth's new heroes. One of the most interesting stories in gaming is coming to a close, and players will have a front row seat to watch the end of the Lich King's Wrath.  So, buckle up, WoW fans and Warcraft 3 fans. The end of the story is finally here.  The Icecrown Cometh. "

YAY!!!! Got into the new instance and guess what!!? The shit crashed and now I can't log my 80!!!  Oh and LFG crashed too!!! And horrible lag!!!
 
Hurray for patch 3.3!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  ^_^
 
(the game is Five years old...Blizzard makes like 2 billion a year off of subscriptions....you would think they could launch a working patch by now)

" It's kind of bittersweet. No more Arthas, but hey, everytime a door closes another one opens. (is that how you say it?) I just hope they don't pull a Kael'thas. "

" @MattBodega said:

"You see, the Warcraft 3 storyline presented players with one of the more interesting characters gaming has ever had: the Prince of Lordaron, Arthas Menethil, the Paladin who, despite his best wishes to save his people from the Undead Scourge, was corrupted. The Young Prince gave into his vengeance and lost his soul, becoming the first Death Knight, and, eventually, the Lich King himself.
 
Arthas is one of the few characters in gaming who we watched slowly go mad. The decent into madness isn't a new conceit in entertainment, by any means: Go read Macbeth or King Lear if you want proof that good men have screwed themselves over through their good intentions. However, very few of these characters exist in gaming, and for good reason: how do you empathize with a character who is slowly being corrupted? After all, you the player, are never corrupted, only your onscreen avatar. And, furthermore, watching a good-hearted character be consumed and warped by the evil he was sworn to destroy; kinda a bummer. So many video games
are convinced that, because the medium is inherently entertainment, that you can't provide players with an unhappy ending.
 
But Arthas is the exception to the rule; players of Warcraft 3 watched as the Prince of Lordaron saw the land he loved consumed by the shambling Undead. He saw firsthand how the Scourge distributed their undeath-causing plague in the grain served to the citizens of the land. The player watched as Arthas made one gaming's most gut-wrenching decisions; in order to save the City of Stratholme from becoming a breeding ground of Undead, Arthas purged the still living inhabitants of the city, turning his back on his loved ones in his desperate desire to save the land.  
 
And as Arthas dove farther and farther in his obsession to rid the land of the scourge, the spark of goodness that drove his actions was replaced by a desire for Vengeance, to kill all those entities responsible for the Scourge.  Arthas turned on his own men, sacrificed his friends, and, in a lust for the power to defeat the Scourge, found the Runeblade Frostmourne, a cursed sword that provided a direct link between the Lich King and Arthas. By the time the young prince had achieved his vengeance, the damage was done; the Prince had been corrupted by the sword. 
 
In the Undead campaign, the player watches Arthas commit acts of terrible evil in the service of his new master: he kills his father, destroys the High Elves, assaults the city of Dalaran, and corrupts half of Azeroth.
 
My point is simple: Arthas is, straight up, the most interesting THING in Warcraft. His fall from grace and rise to dark power was the most interesting part of Warcraft 3 and it's expansion pack. Indeed, the Arthas storyline seemed to be building up to a major event at the end of Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne, as Arthas accends the mountain of Icecrown to become the new Lich King.
 
But, at the end of the game, a strange thing happened: nothing was "resolved". Arthas sat on the Frozen Throne and the game ended. No resolution. No promise of peace. No good characters to defeat evil. The game just....ended.
 
And now, it's seven years after the release of Warcraft 3. Finally, we are going to see how the Arthas story ends. When patch 3.3 goes live later today, players will hit the slopes of Icecrown to END THE WARCRAFT 3 STORYLINE.
 
The players themselves will end the story of Arthas.
 
That's right, following in the illustrious footsteps of The Matrix Online (which was also a game that took place in "the story canon" and also featured a major story character--Morpheus-- die in an in game event), the story of Warcraft 3 will end at the hands of the players,  After eight years, the Warcraft 3 storyline is finally going to end, at the hands of Azeroth's new heroes. One of the most interesting stories in gaming is coming to a close, and players will have a front row seat to watch the end of the Lich King's Wrath.  So, buckle up, WoW fans and Warcraft 3 fans. The end of the story is finally here.  The Icecrown Cometh. "

I think the big problem I have with World Of Warcraft is that nobody actually cares about any of this shit. It's all about ganking kids and getting new gear. The shared mindset of players is now to be more functional and less open to the developments taking place in the world around them. All this stuff you just wrote is going to go over the heads of about 99% of the playerbase. Which is a real shame, because it's actually quite interesting... "

" YAY!!!! Got into the new instance and guess what!!? The shit crashed and now I can't log my 80!!!  Oh and LFG crashed too!!! And horrible lag!!!  Hurray for patch 3.3!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  ^_^ (the game is Five years old...Blizzard makes like 2 billion a year off of subscriptions....you would think they could launch a working patch by now) "

Taking a motley group of people who on the whole weren't very good gamers, and weren't very organized, and beating ZG in blues, and surviving the Ragnaros, Razorgore, Vael trio of guild killers was something that I'm always going to be able to look back on and think of as a real accomplishment.

 Fast-forward to BC and a slew of good improvements in the formula.  "Hybrids" became viable play styles.  There was content progression (albeit limited) 5 and 10 people at a time - or even solo.  The content was released at a good difficulty and was compelling to complete, but they had a measured way of making it easier/more accessible as they went.  Still, some challenges were difficult pretty much until the end.    Amani War Bear is probably going to be the most treasured achievement I obtain for the forseeable future because I remember so much of the dozen or so learning runs and near-misses that preceded it.

But Naxx was a joke.  Artificial attempts at difficulty via achievements weren't really interesting my raiders.
 

They could have had the "everyone interacts with Arthas" without the gross dumbing-down they did to get there. " 

 Fast-forward to BC and a slew of good improvements in the formula.  "Hybrids" became viable play styles.  There was content progression (albeit limited) 5 and 10 people at a time - or even solo.  The content was released at a good difficulty and was compelling to complete, but they had a measured way of making it easier/more accessible as they went.  Still, some challenges were difficult pretty much until the end.    Amani War Bear is probably going to be the most treasured achievement I obtain for the forseeable future because I remember so much of the dozen or so learning runs and near-misses that preceded it.

Quoted for comparison with the following quote:
 

But Naxx was a joke.  Artificial attempts at difficulty via achievements weren't really interesting my raiders.
 

The above two quotes are the parts of your post that puzzles me most.  I fail to see the difference between the difficulty involved in running Zul'Amon and beating the timer than say running Naxxramus and beating several encounters and completing the challenging achievements involved.  Effectively the only difference between ZA and Naxx is that ZA has only one difficult thing you must do while Naxx has ~10+ on the various bosses.
 
The achievements are effectively tests of skill (some hard, some not) which is exactly what true raiders should be interested in.  Doing things like completing the entire instance without allowing a single player to die, doing certain encounters without getting hit by a certain aoe, or killing a boss without utilizing really nice buffs that float around the room give guilds an opportunity to play at a higher level.  I understand that achievements aren't for everyone however the skill involved with accomplishing some of them is just as legitimate and authentic as trying to beat a ZA timed run.  These are optional, far from necessary, no one has to do them if they don't want to do them but there is a reward for those who do.
 

• There was no lore behind them.  This was part of what made them feel more artificial than the bear run.  There's an achievement to speedrun the spider wing. As a raid leader, I can get behind that - if I'm not chain pulling I get antsy - but there's no reason for that particular speedrun except the achievement.  Mind you, that was one of the achievements types I liked because it rewarded you just raiding, but raiding right.  (Safety Dance and Shocking are two others like this that I liked).  But why are we killing all 4 horsemen at once?  In 10 man in particular that made the fight harder for sure, but there's no lore behind it. (and no material benefit - more on that later)
  
• Some of them were too lucky for their own good - we never got the "no deaths in a clear" achievement, though we played perfectly twice.  Because the wrong person would lag out at the wrong time and that was that.
• Some of them were just stupid.  For Spore Loser, I kinda want that 10 minutes of my life back.  "Do this fight without the thing that makes it fun" is not achieving.  I felt kinda taken advantage of, but with a raid achievement it was all of us or none of us, so I sucked it up.  "Gotta Go When the Volcano Blows" is best "achieved" by having the raider in question dead on the floor.  WTF?

They could have had the "everyone interacts with Arthas" without the gross dumbing-down they did to get there. " 

I'm not sure I agree with this statement.  Arthas wasn't dumbed down, he's always been dumb.  Most of Blizzard's stories have been.  They're entertaining most of the time but far from smart... but that aside Arthas' interactive presence in wotlk added a lot more to the game for me though some parts felt a little odd it was nice seeing something of a meta story in this expansion. "

I hate WoW, but thanks anyways, now I guess I'll know what my brother will be talking to me about for an hour today, maybe I can just give him the old "I already know" excuse now.

Nice post...Im so tempted to re sub for 3.3...trryyyyinnngg to staaayy cleeeeeaannnn :p must not click re sub!

" It's in fact so interesting that Blizzard is stretching out this patch with Gates between the wings of the dungeon, that won't open for months. Because they know everyone is going to quit after this. Hope you got your subscription fee money ready! "

 This is a great question, and it's one I grappled with while trying to understand why the goals in Naxx weren't getting the same response from my raiders that ZG were.  The achievements are skill, but they are (more) artificial than the timed run.  There's a couple problems with some (not all) of the achievements in Naxx:  

• There was no lore behind them.  This was part of what made them feel more artificial than the bear run.  There's an achievement to speedrun the spider wing. As a raid leader, I can get behind that - if I'm not chain pulling I get antsy - but there's no reason for that particular speedrun except the achievement.  Mind you, that was one of the achievements types I liked because it rewarded you just raiding, but raiding right.  (Safety Dance and Shocking are two others like this that I liked).  But why are we killing all 4 horsemen at once?  In 10 man in particular that made the fight harder for sure, but there's no lore behind it. (and no material benefit - more on that later)
  
• Some of them were too lucky for their own good - we never got the "no deaths in a clear" achievement, though we played perfectly twice.  Because the wrong person would lag out at the wrong time and that was that.
• Some of them were just stupid.  For Spore Loser, I kinda want that 10 minutes of my life back.  "Do this fight without the thing that makes it fun" is not achieving.  I felt kinda taken advantage of, but with a raid achievement it was all of us or none of us, so I sucked it up.  "Gotta Go When the Volcano Blows" is best "achieved" by having the raider in question dead on the floor.  WTF?    

 Now compare that to the bear run.  Hex Lord is going to sacrifice people unless you move fast, and in a game where people are (I'm sad to say) loot motivated, you're going to have a couple people who won't care unless they get a shiny ring or mount for their troubles, which you do as you progressively get better at the run.  And it was in line with what you want to be doing in a raid zone anyway.  Add to that that it was a fantastic challenge 10 at a time, and you have one of the best-design challenges in the game.
 
The case where Blizzard did them right imo was Ulduar.  The hard modes at least had an effect on the fight that made it harder, vs. you tying one hand behind your back while doing them.   
 
While I banged that "real raiders should want these achievements" drum, I found that even my relatively hardcore small guild was just not that "real" about it.    

 I don't mean dumbed down lorewise, I mean in terms of difficulty.  I never got to Illidan (I know, I teh sux0rz), but I'm perfectly OK with that.  Your raid progression was a meaningful indicator of your success as a guild.  I felt pretty good for having gotten to and killed Vashj.  

  Now they have at as a design goal that you WILL get to and defeat Arthas if you want to.  They got the "want to" right with the leveling process in Northrend.  The "kill" tho?  Create some 5-man content that  you kill his double, or force him to flee.  Let people interact with him without making the "end boss" of the expansion something any guild can beat.   

  I don't like that the last dungeon in the game is balanced to be beaten.  It cheapens the experience for me.  I'm not saying Blizzard is wrong to have done it, they were just wrong by me to have done it, which is why I removed myself from the equation.
 
Very insightful comments on your part :). 

 @Sweep and Pause422 
 
I disagree about the magnitude of Arthas' fall. I think this is the most anticipated event since the expansion was released, given the fact that the Lich King made personal appearances in many quests on the way to 80 and the entire starting story for the death knights.  
 
I went into it more on my blog:  
http://averagespacegoat.blogspot.com/2009/12/death-to-lich-king.html     
 
While many players may just be wanting to drop Arthas for the loot, it's kinda irrelevant given the fact that there won't be another raid after this until Cataclysm, which will have it's own gear. The only thing Icecrown loot will do is make killing the Lich King easier. 
 
timejumper

" Slight WoW Spoilers:  Being the huge WoW lore nerd that I am (if you take the time to follow it, it's pretty amazing stuff), I have to point out that Arthas hasn't really gone mad.  The Lich King is now a completely seperate entity, and it's the small fragment of Arthas that remains that prevents him from sweeping the Scourge across the world and engulfing it in a plague of death.  If you wanna be technical, Arthas is still the good guy here. "

" You run into this kid who is showing you all this stuff about Arthas, and find out that he is a part of him, and Arthas cut out his heart or something. When he thinks he is getting through to Arthas, he kills that part of him, and kills Nerzhul, and Arthas alone now is the Lich King. Pretty sure thats how it went, of course missing a small thing here or there, but thats what I remember. "