Uldum & Indiana Jones

Wyrmrest Accord
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So… A while back I actually did the ENTIRE zone of Uldum right after watching all four Indiana Jones movies in a row. For the Indiana Jones parts, I streamed WoW to a friend who is a HUGE Indiana Jones fan.

Uldum is broken into 7 chapters now:

  1. Rescued by Outsiders
    You go in with the recurring smuggler characters.

  2. The High Council’s Decision
    You go do favors for the high ranking guys.

  3. Gnomebliteration
    The cursed gnomes.

  4. The Dark Pharaoh
    You lead the Ramkahen armies against the evil Neferset armies.

  5. These Obelisks Are Trying To Kill Us
    The first of the Indiana Jones quests.

  6. The Furrier, Shnottz
    Ostensibly more Indiana Jones quests.

  7. Promises.
    The end of the Indiana Jones quests.

(8) There’s also an unlisted(?) chapter about a sunken city to the west, but I guess they no longer count towards the zone’s completion? It more or less expands on why Al’akir is evil though.

  1. Is moderately entertaining, if goofy. You find out the first part of the Tol’vir story, and why the Neferset are evil.
  2. There’s decent character personality shown here, expanding on the characters of Ramkahen.
  3. These quests have absolutely no lore value. There’s a lot I could talk about here, but that’s sort of a different subject entirely. They’re presented as sidequests, despite being the “third” chapter, so I usually end up going here last.
  4. The end of the main storyline. You overthrow the evil Neferset leader.
  5. The beginning of the Indiana Jones quests. These are actually not as bad as I was expecting. The quests range from standard fair to actually being a bit enjoyable. The movie references are actually kind of humorous as well. While 5, 6, and 7 are all considered part of the “Indiana Jones” questline, this is the only one I would call “reference heavy”, and it’s honestly the most enjoyable of the three.
  6. So these quests were a surprise.
    The quests are essentially a murder mystery, but none of the characters are given names. It reads as being a reference to something, but it’s absolutely not Indiana Jones. Beyond Belloc Brightblade’s namesake, it doesn’t have anything to do with the Indiana Jones franchise. Like… at all. None of this stuff and none of these characters relate to anything in the four movies, and (according to my friend) they don’t even relate to the expanded universe of Indiana Jones novel plots either.
    Truth to be told, I found these quests the most annoying. They frame the story like you’re supposed to care about the other characters and the guy who gets murdered, but they don’t name anyone and barely give them any personality. Also, the guy gets murdered before you can really even get attached to him, so there’s that. You’re also not really behaving in character with how you were in 5 either. Like for some reason you’re trying to make a good impression on Schnottz?
  7. More Indiana Jones quests. These actually tie in to the franchise less strongly than 5 did. They feel more like they just tried to tell a boring story with a few characters’ names replaced with the names of characters from Indiana Jones, but they don’t really act like said characters. Like Sullah is there, but he owns a circus for some reason.
    There is the plane scene reference and the get-away, both of which are distinctly Indiana Jones and honestly the only parts I found charming. A lot happens in these quests, but it’s pretty bland and doesn’t really tie in to Indiana Jones. Your also character sneaks into a camp on two, maybe three, different occasions and plays a brief cutscene of sneaking out of said camp… twice. It’s weird.

All that said.
While the Tol’vir story is strong-ish (though I thought the ending was a little lackluster), most of the zone doesn’t actually relate to it. Or at least half doesn’t.
However, half of the zone isn’t actually as much of an Indiana Jones reference as people remember it as being.
There is a story beyond the Indiana Jones references but… it’s just not very good. The dragon reveal in 6 and blowing up the dragon in 7 are pretty much the only parts I’d even call memorable. Beyond that, the only parts that stand out are the parts that distinctly Indiana Jones.

My Hot Take: I don’t think Indiana Jones references are to blame for Uldum being bad. I think Uldum’s story beyond the Tol’vir is just boring in general, the Indiana Jones references sprinkled through it just add moments that are at least sort of funny and memorable.

EDIT:
Oh, Uldum’s soundtrack does bear a resemblance to the Raiders of the Lost Ark soundtrack though at parts.

Thank you for reading my late night rambling about a quest zone everyone is ambivalent towards.

8 Likes
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Ambivalent until you got to me, anyhow. Uldum is second only to Deepholm as my fave zone in Cata, and I use the portal to get there pretty frequently even today.

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I appreciate the hard work on this. It also nails why people hate pop culture references of this magnitude in a game.

Because you’re totally right. The story is boring outside of the Tol’vir. And Redridge’s story is boring once it gets into the Rambo references. Pop culture references are fine in moderation. Heck, they might even be fun as big questlines. But when they’re used to conceal a lack of content, they just feel like a middle finger.

10 Likes
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Unsolicited opinion:
I enjoyed The Crystal Skull more than Temple Of Doom.

The mine cart chase was really cool, and the alien at the very end was handled weird, but overall I still felt like Temple Of Doom was much more off brand than The Crystal Skull.

1 Like
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His name is Harrison Jones, actually.

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Those are the best. I’ve still got a few late night rambles to get on paper, like theories on Archmage Arugal’s fake worgen curse.

Y’know, you’re right, come to think of it. Weird though, cuz Doom might’ve been my favorite of the four. But I do enjoy darker R rated films in general, and that one certainly went down a dark path.

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People criticized Crystal Skull for a lot of things, but I don’t think all of them were fair.
The alien was mishandled at the end, I thought, because it was presented as a moral judge, similar to how the angels/whatever were in Raiders, punishing the Russian lady for her arrogance. But nothing leading up to that moment indicated that they should care about morals at all, and there wasn’t a cultural subtext of religious themes to support it either. The alien has no reason to be a moral judge - it’s just happy to not be asleep/whatever, but when it comes to life, it looks at her like a disapproving grimace, like it’s judging her for wanting knowledge. So that did bother me.

But I thought criticisms for the fridge and other cheesy stuff weren’t fair. All three of the preceding movies were super cheesy at times.

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I’ve always been of a mind that anyone who thought Crystal Skull was way off-brand for Indy never saw the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, where he met and assisted almost every major figure from the early 20th century - everyone from Pancho Villa to Nikola Tesla. The guy went everywhere, did everything, knew everyone, so dealing with aliens seemed like a typical day outside the office.

As for Temple of Doom, I’ve seen that one more than any of the others (246 times at last count), so it has a special place in my heart (though Mola Ram doesn’t need to know that, he likes hearts enough as it is). ToD took place in 1935 - one year before Raiders of the Lost Ark - so I look at Temple-Raiders-Last Crusade as a good-better-best scenario.

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Hey, so I know this is an old topic, but Uldum is relevant again, and when I shared this on the Dwarf Discord, Thulnir pointed out that the mysterious part 6 is likely a reference to this:

wikipedia .org/wiki/Operation_Valkyrie

I don’t know how I feel about it. On one hand, a real life reference would be neat, on the other hand… I still don’t like these quests because they don’t fit in with any other narrative presented in the zone. At least the Indiana Jones quests are mostly consistent with themselves.