So I read Rise of the Horde, and now I'm confused about WoD.

[Deleted]

That's a gross overestimation, given that they had their reinforcements cut off from them in Alterac by Stromgarde and, if i'm not mistaking, the Alliance had ships ready to provide aid from the recently reclaimed Tol Barad. So no, they wouldn't have conquered shit and Gul'dan's betrayal only sealed the outcome one way whereas if he wouldn't have deserted it could have ended either ways

From http://wow.gamepedia.com/Second_War



That line alone tells you that the Alliance had at least equal footing, if not the upper hand.

If I recall correctly, the original Warcraft 1 storyline is canon and the Horde sacks Stormwind.

Also, the original Warcraft 2 storyline is canon for the most part as well, first it follows the Horde storyline (except for the last mission or perhaps last 2 missions, in which Lordaeron is conquered) and then follows the complete Alliance storyline.

So what I was saying is true, except if they retconned it with the books that follow the Warcraft 2 storyline, I never read those. They were only written a few years ago.

[JustRob]

From the Hellscream short story:
"How long do we have, stranger?" "Months. Beyond that, I do not know."

I guess I misread it on WoWpedia then, this makes a bit more sense. I don't know over which timespan Rise of the Horde takes place, but it seems plausible that it wasn't more than a few months before they drank the blood that they started attacking the draenei.

[Orly]

If I recall correctly, the original Warcraft 1 storyline is canon and the Horde sacks Stormwind.

Also, the original Warcraft 2 storyline is canon for the most part as well, first it follows the Horde storyline (except for the last mission or perhaps last 2 missions, in which Lordaeron is conquered) and then follows the complete Alliance storyline.

So what I was saying is true, except if they retconned it with the books that follow the Warcraft 2 storyline, I never read those. They were only written a few years ago.

Yeah, they sack Stormwind. I never disputed that.

The first two Warcraft games stopped being canon and got heavily retconned since way back when WoW launched.

[RageAgainst]

WoD should just be left out of future lore discussions.

[ro9ue]

We all are friend. We all are.

[JustRob]

I just realized, Rise of the Horde also says Velen and the surviving draenei hid in Zangarmarsh. There is no Zangarmarsh in WoD.

[Stormspellz]

At this point it would of been more believable to just pull a guldan soul was sent to the twisting neither and was given a new body to lead the kor'kran loyalists back to the legion.

[Thage]

I just realized, Rise of the Horde also says Velen and the surviving draenei hid in Zangarmarsh. There is no Zangarmarsh in WoD.

As mentioned in another thread, WoD is Draenor in much the same way Ultimate Marvel is Earth-616: so many things are changed and different that you really shouldn't bother using Rise of the Horde, Beyond the Dark Portal, or the games as any kind of handbook. Blizzard dropped the ball because they have no internal consistency; the novels were building one internally-consistent world that, around the Shattering, the game completely destabilized for shock value. Despite promoting the WoD Draenor and its Iron Horde by riding on the back of the main-universe Old Horde and Draenor/Outland, it's almost entirely In Name Only.

So don't bother trying to figure it out, the devs sure haven't. They just shat out whatever seemed cool and didn't bother trying to maintain internal consistency beyond occasionally shaping a mountain or hill here and there to look like it does in Outland.

[Khaza-R]

I just pretend WoD never happened. Besides killing Maraad and Garrosh, it really has no effect on the story.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

In Warlords of Draenor, Garrosh arrives a couple of days before the orcs are supposed to drink the demon blood. Just in time to warn them and stop them from doing so. Grom Hellscream then becomes warchief of the Iron Horde.

When compared to Rise of the Horde, that makes no sense at all. In the novel, Blackhand had been elected warchief of the Horde long before they ever drank the demon blood. They had slaughtered hundreds of draenei long before drinking the blood. Hell, even their skin was turning green already. The warlocks already existed, and the Shadow Council had been in power for as long as Blackhand had been warchief. They only drank the demon blood when only Shattrath was left, the draenei's last stronghold.

In WoD, things are completely different. Blackhand isn't warchief yet, the clans are divided, there's no apparent Shadow Council in place, and most jarring of all, the draenei are still numerous and prospering.

It seems like there are huge differences between the main timeline and the alternate timeline, even before Garrosh intervened. In fact, Mannoroth is not even present when the orcs drink the demon blood in the novel, yet he's standing right there in the WoD opening cinematic.

Weird.

Also, I have one more question about the main universe itself, something that doesn't make much sense. Right after invading Azeroth, it says Gul'dan banished the Frostwolves to Alterac Mountains. Now how the hell did they get there? The orcs came through the portal in the Swamp of Sorrows (then the Black Morass), which is at the very south of the Eastern Kingdoms, and the Alterac Mountains is in the far north. The Frostwolves would have had to travel through human and dwarven lands to get to Alterac, even through Lordaeron. How did nobody notice that?

Rise of the Horde is literally how the original story happened.


With WoD an alternate timeline/universe creating an alternate turn of events. It doesn't make it irrelevant. It still happened and the effects on Azeroth are still there. It's just we're dealing with the events WoD's alternate timeline.

[TheWindWalker]

As mentioned in another thread, WoD is Draenor in much the same way Ultimate Marvel is Earth-616

Unless this is a recent retcon, could have sworn "616" was the main universe canon. I remember whichever side series had Morph in it would often come back to 616 and be like "why is it always this one that stuff's happening to?!" and in their entourage would be people from the Ultimates universes who didn't know of 616.

That said, I totally agree with that last part. They can at any time just say "Oh well uh... actually they were just hiding on the shores around the Zangar Sea" or "There totally was a marsh at the time in the original universe, yeah" and we'll just have to accept that.

[Sorshen]

I just pretend WoD never happened. Besides killing Maraad and Garrosh, it really has no effect on the story.

You mean Maraad died so that players can boast about seeing and wrecking some orc warlods that were long dead.

[Draedarr]

In Warlords of Draenor, Garrosh arrives a couple of days before the orcs are supposed to drink the demon blood. Just in time to warn them and stop them from doing so. Grom Hellscream then becomes warchief of the Iron Horde.

When compared to Rise of the Horde, that makes no sense at all. In the novel, Blackhand had been elected warchief of the Horde long before they ever drank the demon blood. They had slaughtered hundreds of draenei long before drinking the blood. Hell, even their skin was turning green already. The warlocks already existed, and the Shadow Council had been in power for as long as Blackhand had been warchief. They only drank the demon blood when only Shattrath was left, the draenei's last stronghold.

In WoD, things are completely different. Blackhand isn't warchief yet, the clans are divided, there's no apparent Shadow Council in place, and most jarring of all, the draenei are still numerous and prospering.

It seems like there are huge differences between the main timeline and the alternate timeline, even before Garrosh intervened. In fact, Mannoroth is not even present when the orcs drink the demon blood in the novel, yet he's standing right there in the WoD opening cinematic.

Weird.

Also, I have one more question about the main universe itself, something that doesn't make much sense. Right after invading Azeroth, it says Gul'dan banished the Frostwolves to Alterac Mountains. Now how the hell did they get there? The orcs came through the portal in the Swamp of Sorrows (then the Black Morass), which is at the very south of the Eastern Kingdoms, and the Alterac Mountains is in the far north. The Frostwolves would have had to travel through human and dwarven lands to get to Alterac, even through Lordaeron. How did nobody notice that?

There is a quote from War Crimes, that may answer this, when Kairoz said to Garrosh that the timeline they were was perfect.
In this timeline Garrosh was never born, and a lot of things were different, maybe the leadership was different aswell

[JustRob]

There is a quote from War Crimes, that may answer this, when Kairoz said to Garrosh that the timeline they were was perfect.
In this timeline Garrosh was never born, and a lot of things were different, maybe the leadership was different aswell

Perfect is subjective though. Perfect for whom? Perfect for Kairoz? Perfect for Garrosh? Perfect for the Iron Horde?

[Deleted]

"blades of grass"

Alternate universe is a shitty excuse to tell a story without having to actually pay attention to previous. It doesn't have to fit in, because you can just say blades of grass.

[Draedarr]

Perfect is subjective though. Perfect for whom? Perfect for Kairoz? Perfect for Garrosh? Perfect for the Iron Horde?

Yes, it's really subjective.
And i made a mistake, the full Kairoz and Garrosh Conversation was in the short story, not in War Crimes.
But i think that the perfect of which Kairoz was talking about, was the non existence of Garrosh in this Timeline, and some of the things that happened there hadn't occurred in our Timeline.
I may be talking some nonsense, so sorry .

"blades of grass"

Alternate universe is a shitty excuse to tell a story without having to actually pay attention to previous. It doesn't have to fit in, because you can just say blades of grass.

Stories of Alternate Universes and Time Traveling is something really hard to work, in a way that viewers like.

I think that the intended idea is to have more places to visit in the future, in a timeline where the world was not shattered as Outland, there is a lot of potential in going to other places and visiting new continents (for us it ends up not being so good, because what happens there stays there, and not interfere with our world directly, but is nice to see some new places), and they can use this in the next expansions, as an idea from Wrathion.
It was never truly explained who else was working with Kairoz, maybe this whole thing of creating a new army was his idea, as he is in desperate search for an army to defend Azeroth (he even said that he was going to do whatever he could to create such army).