Oh World of WoWCraft Lore...how have you fallen, so?

Zeraki

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Drathnoxis said:
I played WoW for a couple months around the time Lich King came out and I've played Warcraft 3 a couple times, but I didn't understand any of that. I never could put in the time to try and understand Warcraft's labyrinthine lore.
It's easier when you're already invested from the previous games in the series, in my case WarCraft III.
 
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Although WoW is one of the greatest games ever made, it's storytelling has never really been it's strongpoint, so the War of Thorns storyline being a mess is about par for the course.
 

Hawki

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Agema said:
On the other hand, I've never played WoW - but I figure it's hardly Tolstoy in narrative stakes. If it's anything like the Warhammer world, god help it there's barely anything worth calling a story in it.
Warcraft is antithical to Warhammer in a number of ways, never mind that Warhammer is literally a dead world at this point. Warhammer (and 40K) operate in the context of status quo being king. The setting can never change overmuch, and in the case of Warhammer, the setting was nuked to the ground in a 180 from the events of Storm of Chaos (people complain about Blizzard's retcons, but Games Workshop is much worse on this front).

The idea of "status quo is king" applies to Warcraft to some degree (the Alliance and Horde always have to exist in some form), but apart from that, pretty much anything is fair game to change, plus there's an overall narrative that extends through the game's development. Warhammer Fantasy gives you a setting, and over the course of its history, never really changed its setting at all before nuking it.
 

n0e

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Anyone remember when The Burning Crusade was released and they got hell because they completely changed the storyline regarding the Draenei? They went from refugees who escaped through the portal, weakened by the oppression of the Orcs, to flying around space in their city-ship that crash-landed on Azeroth with advanced technology (or whatever) and a super-close connection to the light.

Blizzard had to make an official apology for that massive blunder in the storyline given it was so pivotal to the expansion's plot. Even then, they basically went with "Oops! Our bad, oh well. Deal with it. We're not fixing it."
 

n0e

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Hawki said:
Agema said:
On the other hand, I've never played WoW - but I figure it's hardly Tolstoy in narrative stakes. If it's anything like the Warhammer world, god help it there's barely anything worth calling a story in it.
Warcraft is antithical to Warhammer in a number of ways, never mind that Warhammer is literally a dead world at this point. Warhammer (and 40K) operate in the context of status quo being king. The setting can never change overmuch, and in the case of Warhammer, the setting was nuked to the ground in a 180 from the events of Storm of Chaos (people complain about Blizzard's retcons, but Games Workshop is much worse on this front).

The idea of "status quo is king" applies to Warcraft to some degree (the Alliance and Horde always have to exist in some form), but apart from that, pretty much anything is fair game to change, plus there's an overall narrative that extends through the game's development. Warhammer Fantasy gives you a setting, and over the course of its history, never really changed its setting at all before nuking it.
If I recall correctly, Blizzard wanted to make a Warhammer game but Games Workshop said 'no'. Instead, they created Warcraft, which is why it's so eerily similar (at least in the RTS titles) to Warhammer with regard to races, plot and whatnot.
 

Hawki

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n0e said:
Anyone remember when The Burning Crusade was released and they got hell because they completely changed the storyline regarding the Draenei? They went from refugees who escaped through the portal, weakened by the oppression of the Orcs, to flying around space in their city-ship that crash-landed on Azeroth with advanced technology (or whatever) and a super-close connection to the light.

Blizzard had to make an official apology for that massive blunder in the storyline given it was so pivotal to the expansion's plot. Even then, they basically went with "Oops! Our bad, oh well. Deal with it. We're not fixing it."
That's true to a point, but it's a simplification of it. The draenei we saw in the Frozen Throne were the Broken (krokul), not the original draenei. Velen's draenei were originally on Draenor as well, they were just the ones that escaped unscathed from fel energy. I also don't recall draenei escaping to Azeroth before that, unless you're referring to the Lost Ones.

What did change is the origin of the eredar, making them and the draenei originally the same species (whereas originally it was stated that the eredar had corrupted Sargeras).
 

Hawki

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n0e said:
If I recall correctly, Blizzard wanted to make a Warhammer game but Games Workshop said 'no'. Instead, they created Warcraft, which is why it's so eerily similar (at least in the RTS titles) to Warhammer with regard to races, plot and whatnot.
https://wow.gamepedia.com/Warcraft:_Orcs_%26_Humans#Development

That's true to a point - certainly Warcraft was originally intended to be a Warhammer game at one point during development.

That said, I think the whole "Warcraft = Warhammer" thing is pretty exagerated (even with the RTS games), unless one's arguing that Games Workshop owns the tropes it uses.
 

wizzy555

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Hawki said:
n0e said:
Anyone remember when The Burning Crusade was released and they got hell because they completely changed the storyline regarding the Draenei? They went from refugees who escaped through the portal, weakened by the oppression of the Orcs, to flying around space in their city-ship that crash-landed on Azeroth with advanced technology (or whatever) and a super-close connection to the light.

Blizzard had to make an official apology for that massive blunder in the storyline given it was so pivotal to the expansion's plot. Even then, they basically went with "Oops! Our bad, oh well. Deal with it. We're not fixing it."
That's true to a point, but it's a simplification of it. The draenei we saw in the Frozen Throne were the Broken (krokul), not the original draenei. Velen's draenei were originally on Draenor as well, they were just the ones that escaped unscathed from fel energy. I also don't recall draenei escaping to Azeroth before that, unless you're referring to the Lost Ones.

What did change is the origin of the eredar, making them and the draenei originally the same species (whereas originally it was stated that the eredar had corrupted Sargeras).
At the time they were called draenei, there was never indication they were related to the Eredar, who were written about in the warcraft 3 manual. In fact previously it was said that the draenei resembled humans, that's why Garona looks human. I argued at the time that draeni could never be an alliance race. Just accept blizzard will rewrite things and move on.
 

Agema

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Hawki said:
That said, I think the whole "Warcraft = Warhammer" thing is pretty exagerated (even with the RTS games), unless one's arguing that Games Workshop owns the tropes it uses.
"Tropes almost seems kind." Seems to me virtually everything in any of GW's Warhammer universes is effectively plundered from other sources, where necessary changed just enough to avoid a copyright suit.
 

Hawki

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wizzy555 said:
At the time they were called draenei, there was never indication they were related to the Eredar, who were written about in the warcraft 3 manual.
Um, yes? That's what I said.

In fact previously it was said that the draenei resembled humans, that's why Garona looks human.
Was that ever stated though?

Garona shifting from half-human to half-draenei is convoluted, but keeping in with lore. She originally believed that she was half-human, half-orc, and Medivh stated that he believed that her lineage came from a near-human race from Draenor. It was later revealed to Garona that she was half-draenei. This was all stated in-universe. Now, it's certainly a case of retroactive history (certainly when WC1 was written, I doubt that Garona's true parentage was planned), but unlike the eredar gaff (which IS a retcon), I wouldn't call this a full-out retcon.

Again, "retroactive" /=/ "retcon."

I argued at the time that draeni could never be an alliance race.
If you'd told me that draenei would be an Alliance race before the reveal that the TFT draenei were Krokul, I...well, actually I would have believed it. The Krokul have every reason to hate the orcs after all, and that could extend to the Horde.

Just accept blizzard will rewrite things and move on.
Um, I have? Every thing I've mentioned is a case of rewriting to at least some extent. Point is that there's certain levels of grace you can have. Revealing that the draenei in TFT were Krokul and a variant of 'pure' draenei existed elsewhere? Fine. The whole "draenei were originally eredar, and eredar weren't originally demons" gaff? Far more jarring.

Agema said:
"Tropes almost seems kind." Seems to me virtually everything in any of GW's Warhammer universes is effectively plundered from other sources, where necessary changed just enough to avoid a copyright suit.
Eh, maybe. That said, Warhammer does at least have its own identity.

What's truly weird though is the whole renaming thing Games Workshop has done in recent years. In the conversion from Fantasy to Age of Sigmar...well, this list speaks for itself:

*Lizardmen are now Seraphons
*Dwarfs are now Duradin
*Elves are now Aelfs
*Orcs are now Orruks
*Goblins are now Grots
*Ogres are now Ogors
*Trolls are now Troggoths

Oh, and in 40K, the eldar are now the aeldari and the Imperial Guard is the Astra Militarum.

I think I read somewhere is that the names were changed so that GW could have a copyright over the names in question. Remember that time when they tried to claim that they held copyright over the term "space marine?"

That said, what's a bit sad for me is that from (my admittedly biased) perspective, Age of Sigmar has less of an identity than Warhammer Fantasy Battle, that in an effort to distinguish the setting as its own, the setting has become less distinct. In contrast, Warcraft became more its own thing since WC1, the plot of which could be boiled down to "orcs are invading, shit happens" (said orcs being your typical "we're evil gits"-type enemies).
 

Kerg3927

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Yes, it's pretty much an Anakin Skywalker ripoff, but Warcraft 3 has one of my favorite stories in all of video games. I've played through that campaign so many times. One of my favorite games ever.

Then came WoW, which I played as damn near a second full time job for 7 years. But I always thought the WoW storyline was trash compared to its predecessor. They basically took the epic WC3 storyline, and made all of the characters in that story raid bosses, with a bunch of bullshit excuses to do so, and killed them off one by one... then when they ran out, they started bringing them back to life. To make PvP make sense, they trashed the alliance between Thrall, Jaina, and Malfurion... and said oh never mind, everyone is too racist, so they have to hate each other and fight, all the time.

So you have WC3, which is a quality story on par with the original Star Wars trilogy. And then you have the WoW story, which is about on par with your average day time soap opera, where they just make shit up as they go along and rewrite old stuff as they see fit, just to come up with content to keep those $15/month subs coming in.

And that's fine. Don't get me wrong, I loved most of my time playing WoW. It's really hard to have a good story when the whole point of the game is to get you on a loot treadmill and keep you there. WoW was all about challenging raid bosses, PvP, loot, friends, and community. Completely different type of game.
 

Samtemdo8_v1legacy

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Kerg3927 said:
Yes, it's pretty much an Anakin Skywalker ripoff, but Warcraft 3 has one of my favorite stories in all of video games. I've played through that campaign so many times. One of my favorite games ever.
ARTHAS IS NOT ANAKIN/DARTH VADER!!!

ARTHAS IS LITIRALLY THE EVIL OPPOSITE VERSION OF KING ARTHUR AND ARTHURIAN STORIES!!!

Lordaeron = Camelot

Arthas's father Terenas = A good guy version of King Uther.

Kel'thuzad = Merlin

Frostmourne = Excalibur/Caliburn

Arthas destroys Lordaeron = Arthur founds and rules Camelot/England.

Ner'zhul Lich King = Very loosely the Lady of the Lake.

Death Knights = Knights of the Round Table.
 

Kerg3927

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Meh, most art is inspired by someone else's art before it. I don't hold it against them, as long as it's good art.
 

BloatedGuppy

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The warbringers: Jaina sea shanty is from the point of view of the Kul'tiran citizenship. You know the average Joe who wouldn't conceive of a reason a daughter would let people kill her father since they never saw Thrall or the battle of nordrassil etc.
Came here to say exactly this.

WoW's storyline is a fucking mess and has been since the beginning. It's a stew of anime tropes and pop culture references, and it hasn't been until very recently that Blizzard started undertaking even a cursory effort to start curating it, thus leading to a shitstorm of retcons and revisionism.

The Jaina Warbringers was one of the nicest pieces of in-universe fiction they've ever done with the license. The shanty was fantastic, and nicely captured what is evidently meant to be a major theme of BFA...which is that who is in the "right" depends entirely on where you stand. This is essentially Kul Tiran propaganda.

Of all the shit you could complain about in a fucking game that's featured memorable entries like Haris Pilton and Harrison Jones, OP is going to hold up THIS as the penultimate crime? THIS was the shark jump for you? You've hung around for fourteen years of preposterous horseshit, and this was the rubicon you couldn't cross?

Ok.
 

Samtemdo8_v1legacy

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BloatedGuppy said:
The warbringers: Jaina sea shanty is from the point of view of the Kul'tiran citizenship. You know the average Joe who wouldn't conceive of a reason a daughter would let people kill her father since they never saw Thrall or the battle of nordrassil etc.
Came here to say exactly this.

WoW's storyline is a fucking mess and has been since the beginning. It's a stew of anime tropes and pop culture references, and it hasn't been until very recently that Blizzard started undertaking even a cursory effort to start curating it, thus leading to a shitstorm of retcons and revisionism.

The Jaina Warbringers was one of the nicest pieces of in-universe fiction they've ever done with the license. The shanty was fantastic, and nicely captured what is evidently meant to be a major theme of BFA...which is that who is in the "right" depends entirely on where you stand. This is essentially Kul Tiran propaganda.

Of all the shit you could complain about in a fucking game that's featured memorable entries like Haris Pilton and Harrison Jones, OP is going to hold up THIS as the penultimate crime? THIS was the shark jump for you? You've hung around for fourteen years of preposterous horseshit, and this was the rubicon you couldn't cross?

Ok.
Hearthstone was the sharkjump moment for me, especially after this trailer:


And I don't care if its a spin-off, this besmirches the image of WOW, who did things like this:


And the Pandas was also Shark-Jumping moment.
 

Hawki

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Samtemdo8 said:
And the Pandas was also Shark-Jumping moment.
Okay, I'll bite. Why was the introduction of pandaren jumping the shark, and every other race introduction (which has happened since WC2) wasn't?
 

Samtemdo8_v1legacy

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Hawki said:
Samtemdo8 said:
And the Pandas was also Shark-Jumping moment.
Okay, I'll bite. Why was the introduction of pandaren jumping the shark, and every other race introduction (which has happened since WC2) wasn't?
The same reason people felt about the Ewoks in Star Wars. And really for me the best part of Mist of Pandaria is when they focused on the Alliance vs Horde conflict.

And are you suggesting that by this same logic Warcraft should have been JUST about Orcs and Humans? No Dwarfs, Elves, Gnomes, Trolls, Ogres, Goblins, etc.?
 

Hawki

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Samtemdo8 said:
The same reason people felt about the Ewoks in Star Wars.
Those people are silly. :p

And are you suggesting that by this same logic Warcraft should have been JUST about Orcs and Humans? No Dwarfs, Elves, Gnomes, Trolls, Ogres, Goblins, etc.?
No, I'm pointing out the logic people seem to have, or rather, the inability to articulate why pandaren are so obtrusive when everything else isn't.