I have never felt more involved in the story than when we killed the Lich King.
Have to go with either Wrath or Vanilla here, leaning Wrath...
Wrath > MoP, in that order.
Won't list vanilla nor TBC as they didn't really have consistent story per say and were more about exploration and helping out with localized issues with few non-related larger arcs in the end.
Cataclysm was so plain shit it doesn't deserve to be ranked.
Modern gaming apologist: I once tasted diarrhea so shit is fine.
"People who alter or destroy works of art and our cultural heritage for profit or as an excercise of power, are barbarians" - George Lucas 1988
WotLK the xpac that shit all over WC3's scourge story line. If you actually played WC3, you will know what I'm talking about. Anub'arak and Kel'thuzad who should have been major villians of the xpac and tied heavily into quests then lead to their epic raid got trashed over by Blizzard. WotLK was the xpac with the most potential to have the best lore because it got the most famous villians but Blizzard destroyed it themself. As WC3 fan I feel so sad about this wasted potential. If only Blizz writes WotLK's story the way they are writting MoP's story then it would have been epic.
Last edited by Wildmoon; 2013-02-17 at 08:13 AM.
WotLK had a lot of established lore from WC3 to build on. Knowing the lore already, the expansion was grea for me lore-wise. But the way the lore was presented I find still comparatively weak to MoP. The Shieldwall Offensive and the Wrathion questchain completely hooked me lorewise.
Wrath of the lich king definitely provided the best over-arching storyline, though i have to say on the small scale, the quest line with Lili and Chen Stormstout, some of the best quest based storytelling i've ever seen. Especially if you kept lili as a companion and cleared most of the zone with her.
Well they ruined the KT story by putting the Naxx raid in the game too early in vanilla. It should always have been a Wrath raid and they could have made a different one for vanilla or released TBC earlier. I think Anub was shafted after they couldnt do the Azjol Nerub zone. Its still better than TBC where they made all the best characters villains and forced you to kill them.
Originally Azjol Nerub was supposed to be an entire underground zone but that proved a little ambition at the time and an underground zone got put on the back burner till cataclysm. It would have been neat to see and would have given Anub'arak a better story. Oh well, at least he got to be the end boss for an entire raiding tier. Though I would have put anub'arak at the first tier and left KZ for second to last tier, but they couldn't do that since they had already put naxx out in vanilla and since nobody WENT to naxx they redid the dungeon, but because it's a redo and you can't have a redo as the second to last raiding tier they put him first.
All that aside, the story was never about the lackies, it was always about arthas, and in that respect it did not disappoint.
Lets be real, vashj was always a villain, and illidan was always an anti-hero at best. Kael was the real interesting story in BC, he went from trying to protect his people to a magic addict trying to feed his need. Feeding on those demons corrupted him and his followers and led to his downfall. I found it perfect that he became a villain.
Last edited by Sivick; 2013-02-17 at 08:32 AM.
everyone who voted for bc is either lying or just plain dumb. however im tired of always having to explain to the people who never played warcraft 3 or who dont know anything about lore why it was so fucking awful. so from now on whenever it comes up im just gonna post this
"I was a normal baby for 30 seconds, then ninjas stole my mamma" - Deadpool
"so what do we do?" "well jack, you stand there and say 'gee rocket raccoon I'm so glad you brought that Unfeasibly large cannon with you..' and i go like this BRAKKA BRAKKA BRAKKA" - Rocket Raccoon
FC: 3437-3046-3552
"I was a normal baby for 30 seconds, then ninjas stole my mamma" - Deadpool
"so what do we do?" "well jack, you stand there and say 'gee rocket raccoon I'm so glad you brought that Unfeasibly large cannon with you..' and i go like this BRAKKA BRAKKA BRAKKA" - Rocket Raccoon
FC: 3437-3046-3552
Ok, then Sargeras would be just another demon. The single biggest baddie of the game would just be another low-ranking demon of the Burning Legion. In fact, would the BL even exist?
All we need is MORE characters in a story with many? It can be a pain to keep up with what is there as it is.
I try to think of it as less retcon and more that we didn't know the whole story yet.
"There is no teacher but the enemy. No one but the enemy will tell you what the enemy is going to do. No one but the enemy will ever teach you how to destroy and conquer. Only the enemy shows you where you are weak. Only the enemy tells you where he is strong. And the rules of the game are what you can do to him and what you can stop him from doing to you." -Mazer Rackham - Ender's Game Orson Scott Card
Favoreite/Epic story lines
Vanilla:
- Onyxia revealed, Grand Masquerade, Varian Missing, Defias line
- Scourge Invasion, Naxxramas, Stratholme line
- AQ, opening the gates, C'thun mythology
- Abercrombie and Morbent Fel - old Duskwood
BC:
- Gorefiend questline?
WotLK:
- Wrathgate,Battle for Undercity
- Death Knight starting experience
- Frost trolls eating Loa, Troll Empire
- ULDUAR, Stormpeaks
- ICC, Arthas/Lich King
Cataclysm:
- Waking the Ancients, Firelands
- various zones and changes to old world
Pandaria:
- Shado-Pan monestary, Taran Zhu, Sha of Hatred line
- Operation Shieldwall, Divine Bell storyline
OVERALL: Wrath of the Lich King had the most appealing story lines and my most favorite one (Wrathgate/Undercity).
Vanilla would be a strong second place due to a fantastic storyline that stretched over the entire human questing experience: from the gnolls and murlocs of Elwynn and Redridge to the Defias in Westfall and Theramore, to the Dark Iron dwarves and Marshall Windsor, to Onyxia herself and eventually Nefarian.
Pandaria is a strong third with fantastic stories and dynamic questing, but much of the same story is spread across the entire continent making it come across as repetitive. Except for Valley... As someone who has slaughtered dragons and repelled demons, I did not appreciate being used as a farm hand.
Cataclysm will take fourth place because it's only redeeming storyline was Hyjal and the following Firelands portion. Trolls came out of nowhere and the rest of the higher zones were too isolated to have much story cohesion. There were many parts of the revamped leveling zones that I liked, but not enough to help the failure of the higher zones.
Burning Crusade was just terrible. The story lines were choppy with out much of a conclusion to the zone. There wasn't any real theme to the zones themselves save for various questing hubs. In terms of lore relevance, the only place that actually seemed to matter was Hellfire Peninsula, Shadowmoon Valley, and the Isle of Quel'Danas. Everything else was superfluous and uninteresting.
I can name about the same amount of stories WotLK has:
Introduction of the death knights in the Scarlet Enclave and their origin
The betrayal of the Lich King, with the Ebon Blade leaving the Scourge
The forming of a new faction, the Argent Crusade. With the return of Tirion Fordring
The vrykul and their origins
The blue dragonflight and their origins
The continuation of the Scourge storyline
Arthas
Yogg Saron
The Kalu'ak
The Nerubians
The introduction of the Oracles and Frenzyhearth, and their hostality
Ulduar and its titanic watchers
The Taunka
Major characters like Bolvar, Saurfang, Tirion, Darion, Jaina, Sylvanas and Muradin get some lore progression
There's just as much, but the thing is whether you like the stories from either WotLK or MoP more. And thats just personal opinion.
i ultimately voted for BC. even though i thought the arthas storyline and ICC was better i thought as a whole BC was better. the zones i felt were much better told than in WOTLK. im sure im one of the few who actually enjoyed hellfire (and still did back when i leveled alts in Cata), nagrand was so fun and my favorite zone in the game was zangarmarsh. its hard to give it to BC but it was the most enjoyable period of WoW for me
"I was a normal baby for 30 seconds, then ninjas stole my mamma" - Deadpool
"so what do we do?" "well jack, you stand there and say 'gee rocket raccoon I'm so glad you brought that Unfeasibly large cannon with you..' and i go like this BRAKKA BRAKKA BRAKKA" - Rocket Raccoon
FC: 3437-3046-3552
Wrath. The whole going back to Northrend to finally kick Arthas' ass was great. Just the nostalgic flashbacks I had from WC3 were awesome.
Also: Storm Peaks and Ulduar.