You read the old school WC2 manual (starting at page 29), even the fucking individual units had lore.
And you could feel this was writteb by people who only cared about creating something cool:
http://ftp.blizzard.com/pub/misc/War...%20edition.PDF
Then you got the fucking WC3 manual whose lore is still being used up to this day:
http://ftp.blizzard.com/pub/misc/War...I%20Manual.pdf
The only thing not mentioned in there are the shadowlands, because guess what, none of this shit was planned back then:
http://ftp.blizzard.com/pub/misc/War...I%20Manual.pdf
Then you got the original WoW manual that had a ton of lore too:
https://bnetcmsus-a.akamaihd.net/cms...5957773363.pdf
Compare that to modern Sylvanoos vs Tyrande ninja acrobatics, "BUT THERE'S A GREATER EVIL" endless trope and "Omg how come we don't have a gay alliance leader yet anduid + wrathion uwuwuwuwuwuwuwuuw".
WC2 intro:
WC3 intro:
Fucking weep-inducing the travesty that has become.
I will NEVER forget how metzen stepped on stage at blizzcon and had to call out "Guys this is not a joke" after they announced crapdaria, cause no one could believe how much they'd sold the franchise out just to appeal to chinese players.
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yeah, curious how with everything leading up to the original WoW and even WOTLK (BC announcement was a disaster), players were happy though.
Funny that, huh?