Who created the Warcraft series and characters?

[Bitehattori]

Just thinking way back, who was the one that wanted to make this come to life with Orcs vs humans and the backstory already had with the dark portal.

Who created Sylvanas, Illidan, Maiev, Arthas, Blackhand, Grom, Gul'dan and Orgrim Doomhammer?

Did they just one day say ''Hey, lets mash up a few characters and throw them in an RTS'?

[Wilian]

Well, it's mostly Chris Metzen as creative leader I guess though they did have plenty of creative people throughout. They started with fairly simplistic (yet surprisingly intriguing) story with Warcraft 1 and then expanded on it over time with each game, adding new characters and perspectives.

Blackhand for example was the leader of Orcish Horde in Warcraft 1 which player then replaced as Orc Chieftain in the end of the game whom in turn was made(slight retcon) to be Orgrim Doomhammer, character created for WC2

[Aligerous]

Chris Metzen wasn't really involved in the story until Warcraft 2. Initially, he was just an artist.

A lot of Warcraft 1 was influenced by the fact that Blizzard initially wanted to make a Warhammer game, but couldn't secure the license. I believe the lead designers on Warcraft 1 were Allen Adham (Blizzard cofounder) and Ron Millar. Warcraft 2 is where the universe really started to take shape, and recognizable characters were created - the first game really just laid the foundation, and because it was successful, the story was developed in-depth.

[Deleted]

Chris Metzen wasn't really involved in the story until Warcraft 2. Initially, he was just an artist.

A lot of Warcraft 1 was influenced by the fact that Blizzard initially wanted to make a Warhammer game, but couldn't secure the license. I believe the lead designers on Warcraft 1 were Allen Adham (Blizzard cofounder) and Ron Millar. Warcraft 2 is where the universe really started to take shape, and recognizable characters were created - the first game really just laid the foundation, and because it was successful, the story was developed in-depth.

Wc2 is when it started getting some shape, but WC3 is really what created the world as we know it and added all the depth to the game. WC2 was still just evul orks vs good humanz.

[Deleted]

Chris Metzen wasn't really involved in the story until Warcraft 2. Initially, he was just an artist.

He made some of the artwork and the manual's illustration in WC1, though. So, the involvement was there since day one, especially when Warcraft was supposed to be a Warhammer game and the story was quickly slapped into the game after the license fell.

[Wilian]

Chris Metzen wasn't really involved in the story until Warcraft 2. Initially, he was just an artist.

Actually Chris Metzen was the one whom provided the rather cool background stories on Warcaft 1 manual while Samwise provided the art. And definately a lot of influence was taken from Warhammer, but it was original game from getgo. It wasn't started at all until after the license thing.

[Aligerous]

Metzen's repeatedly stated he had little to no involvement on the story aspects of Warcraft 1. I believe you're correct in saying he added bits to the manual, but the majority of the story was there before he got there.

Chris Metzen: Just for the record, I should note that I actually didn't work on Warcraft I at all. But at the time I think the design team, led by Allen Adham, Ron Miller – guys like that – they had generated a number of ideas around a series of map scenarios that they wanted to roll through the single-player component where the general conception was just a small little kingdom called Azeroth as the orcs were invading in from another world – and it really all centered on this little kingdom. There were notable characters, Sir Lothar, King Llane, the half-orc Garona, Blackhand the dark orc warchief, and a brother named Bill Roper handled most of the scripting duties on that first single-player campaign. And I think most of the ideas were really generated to substantiate this flow of maps, you know, this flow of game play. I think in that sense the game design really kind of came first; and it was an attempt to create this cool fictional flow through that sequence of levels. It created a really cool little nugget of a world there that was fairly Tolkien-based, but just had some great potential for some kingdoms and storylines, and certain of those original characters really had a lot of flavor.

From http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/communi...episode12.html

Also, here. http://youtu.be/0GLxejJ-yYQ?t=31m45s

[Gimlix]

The person who made it deserves the biggest promotion in history, for making such a great franchise!