How Lore was back in Vanilla

[Koward]

Hi there,

With the Classic announcement I thought about what was lore back before expansions. Each one of them added retcons (which are often required for gameplay) which in the end makes Vanilla Warcraft universe quite different from today's WoW.
Most of it was inherited from pre-WoW (Warcraft 3).

- Eredar were an evil race of warlocks who corrupted Sargeras;
- Draenei are Draenor natives that live in cliffs and mountains;
- Orcs were always green since the beginning and lived on a red world of green seas and big mushrooms everywhere;
- A dead demon stayed dead, no back to Nether thing, Archimonde dead;
- Same for Wild gods/half-gods-related and the Emerald Dream, Cenarius dead;
- Stormwind Kingdom is called Azeroth;
- Muradin is dead;

Vanilla itself introduced some retcons, to fit its gameplay
- Blackrock orcs become black to highlight their evil nature and differences with player orcs;
- Night elves are nerfed and become much more gender-neutral instead of being leaded by women and female night elves can become druids;


Are there any I missed ?
I think the old canon was a bit more consistent. Many good things were added later but I really disliked changes made to bring back named characters to slay them again. But maybe it was necessary for an MMO.

Also, I can't find the old source that said draenei (before the retcon) lived in the cliffs while orcs lived in plains. I think maybe it was an ingame book. I would like to find it.

[TheFirstOnes]

And I don't care, since half of this shit doesn't comply to now anymore.

[Teri]

Basicly the only Draenei in Warcraft 3 and Vanilla WoW were meant to resemble "Broken". Some npcs in Swamp of Sorrows (Lost Ones). (Removed)

And there was a Collector NPC in Blasted Lands, rares and regular mobs would randomly Imperfect Draenethyst Fragment or Flawless Draenethyst Sphere for a random Green or Blue BoE item on turn-in. (still in-game)

Swamp of Sorrows:


They resembled Warcraft 3 models, and not the Burning Crusade version.

[Venziir]

Hi there,

With the Classic announcement I thought about what was lore back before expansions. Each one of them added retcons (which are often required for gameplay) which in the end makes Vanilla Warcraft universe quite different from today's WoW.
Most of it was inherited from pre-WoW (Warcraft 3).

- Eredar were an evil race of warlocks who corrupted Sargeras;
- Draenei are Draenor natives that live in cliffs and mountains;
- Orcs were always green since the beginning and lived on a red world of green seas and big mushrooms everywhere;
- A dead demon stayed dead, no back to Nether thing, Archimonde dead;
- Same for Wild gods/half-gods-related and the Emerald Dream, Cenarius dead;
- Stormwind Kingdom is called Azeroth;
- Muradin is dead;

Vanilla itself introduced some retcons, to fit its gameplay
- Blackrock orcs become black to highlight their evil nature and differences with player orcs;
- Night elves are nerfed and become much more gender-neutral instead of being leaded by women and female night elves can become druids;


Are there any I missed ?
I think the old canon was a bit more consistent. Many good things were added later but I really disliked changes made to bring back named characters to slay them again. But maybe it was necessary for an MMO.

Also, I can't find the old source that said draenei (before the retcon) lived in the cliffs while orcs lived in plains. I think maybe it was an ingame book. I would like to find it.

Nope, WoW was actually the game that changed that bit. Also, WoW was the game that proved that demons could come back, Balnazzar in Strat did exactly that, with no explanation whatsoever. And Blackrock orcs weren't turned black because of "Dey bad 'n ebul", but because they lived in dark caves covered with soot and ash. And the gender thing about Nelves... What, how is that a "nerf"?.
Oh and there's no lore that supports your theory of Draenei living in caves or mountains. Even in TFT they lived in huts and houses.

[Josyel]

And in Warcraft 3 Grom Hellscream changed color after drinking Mannoroth's blood. So no, they werent always green.

[Deleted]

And in Warcraft 3 Grom Hellscream changed color after drinking Mannoroth's blood. So no, they werent always green.

Grom and plenty of others (actually all orcs when it comes to WC1 and WC2) were green when entering Azeroth. Grom drank it second time in WC3 turned into red.

[Kralljin]

Nope, WoW was actually the game that changed that bit. Also, WoW was the game that proved that demons could come back, Balnazzar in Strat did exactly that, with no explanation whatsoever.

While never outright stated, most people assumed that only Dreadlords were able to return, which was further supported by the return of Mal'ganis in Wotlk and later on stated in the revamped Strat that Balnazzar returned to the Twisting nether to plot alongside his brothers.


A bit more subtle thing, during Vanilla the distinction between Twisting Nether and the Shadowlands (or whatever you want to call the plane for ghosts / dead things) wasn't clear, a lot of quests and npc's refer to the twisting nether as some sort of spirit realm.

Even the Shaman ability Astral recall says that the Shaman is yanked through the Twisting Nether.

[Beloren]

Gosh some of you are spouting lore out of your arses. Pffft. Grom Hellscrean onlybturned greenbin WC3?! You having a laugh. Vanilla didn’t really advance the lore, it just told stories about the lives of the people in He zones you met. Not over riding story arc or anything. That would have been where WC4 was to come in. But wow exploded on the scene and for TBC due to vanilla’s huge success they decided to carry on the story in he Mmo. Which was a huge mistake seeing they were not prepared to prioritise the lore or allow it to take precedence even over gameplay. With some wiggle room

[hulkgor]

Most of those examples are not even accurate man, what's the point?

[Apolyc]

Hi there,

With the Classic announcement I thought about what was lore back before expansions. Each one of them added retcons (which are often required for gameplay) which in the end makes Vanilla Warcraft universe quite different from today's WoW.
Most of it was inherited from pre-WoW (Warcraft 3).

- Eredar were an evil race of warlocks who corrupted Sargeras;
- Draenei are Draenor natives that live in cliffs and mountains;
- Orcs were always green since the beginning and lived on a red world of green seas and big mushrooms everywhere;
- A dead demon stayed dead, no back to Nether thing, Archimonde dead;
- Same for Wild gods/half-gods-related and the Emerald Dream, Cenarius dead;
- Stormwind Kingdom is called Azeroth;
- Muradin is dead;

Vanilla itself introduced some retcons, to fit its gameplay
- Blackrock orcs become black to highlight their evil nature and differences with player orcs;
- Night elves are nerfed and become much more gender-neutral instead of being leaded by women and female night elves can become druids;


Are there any I missed ?
I think the old canon was a bit more consistent. Many good things were added later but I really disliked changes made to bring back named characters to slay them again. But maybe it was necessary for an MMO.

Also, I can't find the old source that said draenei (before the retcon) lived in the cliffs while orcs lived in plains. I think maybe it was an ingame book. I would like to find it.

I gotta say a lot of these are actually wrong.

-Eradar were considered evil but were corrupted by Sargeras, not the ones who corrupted him (im sure just grammar error)
-Only Draenei that were introduced were Broken, never showed the Draenei we know today.
-No, even in novels and games predating WC3 and Vanilla, orcs turned green due to their proximity to fel magic, only the ones that drank the blood also developed red glowing eyes
-Half-true. Only Dreadlords were thought to be immortal and cant be killed. This was widely known an accepted fact. The retcon is that any demon is this way unless killed in the nether.
-Half-true again. While wild gods i think stayed dead like Aggamaggan, a demigod's spirit like Cenarius' still existed and could be communed with. But it was never really explored.
-Also wrong entirely. So very, very, VERY wrong.
-Muradin thought to be dead, correct yes.
-Blackrock orcs were not black to highlight their evil nature but the fact t hey were blacksmiths and lived in a volcano. Constant exposure to soot and ash colored their skin.
-The only form of retcon was Female Player Druids. Aside from that no still insisted on a society led by women.

So all in all, 95% wrong, a few half truths and some just flat out wrong.

[Syegfryed]

- Orcs were always green since the beginning and lived on a red world of green seas and big mushrooms everywhere;

i liked a lot this, can't see why they retcon then in brown, guess it was to be more different from th "normal" rpgs, pretty bullshit for me

-Only Draenei that were introduced were Broken, never showed the Draenei we know today.

The eredar demons appear in War 3, Archimond, kil'jaden and other demon, just like the draeneis today

-No, even in novels and games predating WC3 and Vanilla, orcs turned green due to their proximity to fel magic, only the ones that drank the blood also developed red glowing eyes

this was only stated in TBC before, orcs were always green

[Koward]

I gotta say a lot of these are actually wrong.

-Eradar were considered evil but were corrupted by Sargeras, not the ones who corrupted him (im sure just grammar error)
-Only Draenei that were introduced were Broken, never showed the Draenei we know today.
-No, even in novels and games predating WC3 and Vanilla, orcs turned green due to their proximity to fel magic, only the ones that drank the blood also developed red glowing eyes
-Half-true. Only Dreadlords were thought to be immortal and cant be killed. This was widely known an accepted fact. The retcon is that any demon is this way unless killed in the nether.
-Half-true again. While wild gods i think stayed dead like Aggamaggan, a demigod's spirit like Cenarius' still existed and could be communed with. But it was never really explored.
-Also wrong entirely. So very, very, VERY wrong.
-Muradin thought to be dead, correct yes.
-Blackrock orcs were not black to highlight their evil nature but the fact t hey were blacksmiths and lived in a volcano. Constant exposure to soot and ash colored their skin.
-The only form of retcon was Female Player Druids. Aside from that no still insisted on a society led by women.

So all in all, 95% wrong, a few half truths and some just flat out wrong.

- Before TBC, Eredar and Nathrezims both corrupted Sargeras
- Subforms were introduced in TBC
- No. It was big debate back then. And in fact it was not even solved by TBC, the leading theory was that Maghar were green and became brown as a consequence of the disease known as redpox. It was only truly clarified for Warlords of Draenor.
- Added in WotLK when they added back some named Nathrezims
- I'm not aware of any indication of that. Back then what was dead mostly stayed dead beside necromancy. IMO it added weights to what Fel orcs did in WC3
- No I swear Azeroth was the name of the human kingdom, that's everywhere on the net. It was retconned later to be fully named Stormwind to avoid confusion when they started to use Azeroth for the planet. I don't know when that was used the first time by the way, but I think the WoW manual has a warning "we will both use the name Azeroth for the kingdom and the world".
- They went from dead to thought to be dead, well that's probably the most minor change, it's true this may not be a retcon.
- The gameplay reason was definetely to designate them as evil enemies and to differentiate them from Horde orcs. Lorewise in fact the soot explanation is fan made. No official reason was given until WoD made them a subrace of orcs born this way.
- They became more WC3 like from Cataclysm (where we saw back actual Sentinels and night elves that have real power over nature), but in Vanilla they tuned done that aspect a lot compared to WC3.

[Venziir]

- Before TBC, Eredar and Nathrezims both corrupted Sargeras
- Subforms were introduced in TBC
- No. It was big debate back then. And in fact it was not even solved by TBC, the leading theory was that Maghar were green and became brown as a consequence of the disease known as redpox. It was only truly clarified for Warlords of Draenor.
- Added in WotLK when they added back some named Nathrezims
- I'm not aware of any indication of that. Back then what was dead mostly stayed dead beside necromancy. IMO it added weights to what Fel orcs did in WC3
- No I swear Azeroth was the name of the human kingdom, that's everywhere on the net. It was retconned later to be fully named Stormwind to avoid confusion when they started to use Azeroth for the planet. I don't know when that was used the first time by the way, but I think the WoW manual has a warning "we will both use the name Azeroth for the kingdom and the world".
- They went from dead to thought to be dead, well that's probably the most minor change, it's true this may not be a retcon.
- The gameplay reason was definetely to designate them as evil enemies and to differentiate them from Horde orcs. Lorewise in fact the soot explanation is fan made. No official reason was given until WoD made them a subrace of orcs born this way.
- They became more WC3 like from Cataclysm (where we saw back actual Sentinels and night elves that have real power over nature), but in Vanilla they tuned done that aspect a lot compared to WC3.

That stuff about mag'har being teorized to be green was never ever a Thing.