Do you care about WoW lore?

[ro9ue]

So I started getting interested with Warcraft with WC3. Absolutely loved the lore delivered in the RTS. However it just seems that as time went on, my interest in the lore diminished greatly - a death by a thousand cuts.

• First little scratch was going a little too far in the sci-fi direction. BC felt like they ported over Starcraft with Draenei, and later the Legion. As cool as it was on it's own - for me it took away originally what Warcraft was. There was also a threshold crossed with goblins. It went from rough explosives and steampunk machines to going all out with like motorcycles and things like that.

Overall though I think I was okay with that.

• The second was time travel. And I want to distinguish two different kinds. The first being the Caverns of Time dungeons and then I'll talk about WoD. Caverns of Time was a little more interesting because it felt like we only could participate in snippets of time (the zones have these weird sand partitions like the bronze dragons were able to just make a small wormhole for us). And it was within our own timeline. This means we had to make sure things played out the way they did before - and means we had to do interesting things like help Medivh summon orcs to Azeroth.

It was a neat way to sort of allow players to see things that happened prior into the story without larger ramifications.

Now let's get into WoD. This nearly dealt the deathblow to my interest in the game. It's not the same timeline so nothing mattered. It was also like, everything you did over there didn't matter. It was a weird alternate planet. Also there were weird things like, oh no someone died. But do I care? We have another copy of them back in our real universe...?

Things like Grom coming back where he already had a heroic end and he's going to now lead the fake orcs from WoD to become an allied race...

Yeah honestly I just can't seem to care about the lore anymore.


Where is everyone else at? What are your thoughts on the things I listed above and what makes you agree/disagree?

[Nyel]

I do. I love Warcraft lore. And it is very important for me.

[yjmark]

Warcraft lore is one of the major reasons I still play. I'm actually more into the lore now than I was back in Vanilla/TBC (when I started playing). I used to be more into dungeon/raid grinding back then. Now, grinding bores me to death, so I don't do it. Instead, I really enjoy the lore/stories within the Warcraft universe and the game.

[Magistrate]

It has many faults, but it's fun to argue about them. And there's tons of interesting stuff that gets thrown in over the years, little bits you didn't expect get re-examined. I love how far back it goes in specifics with the origins of the universe, its discussion of magic (however much it might retcon or not jive with established rules), evolution of races.

I do feel what you're saying, though, with the former issue. I don't think it's even so much a sci-fi overload as it is making it lean too much toward the overly comical. I honestly felt WC3 was the beginning of that departure--I liked the much darker, grittier tone of WC2. This was my big complaint with Diablo III, as well. Doesn't even fit in the franchise--ROP was the only part that got close. (Absolutely fun gameplay, unfaithful stylization and story tone.)

[Deleted]

So I started getting interested with Warcraft with WC3. Absolutely loved the lore delivered in the RTS. However it just seems that as time went on, my interest in the lore diminished greatly - a death by a thousand cuts.

• First little scratch was going a little too far in the sci-fi direction. BC felt like they ported over Starcraft with Draenei, and later the Legion. As cool as it was on it's own - for me it took away originally what Warcraft was. There was also a threshold crossed with goblins. It went from rough explosives and steampunk machines to going all out with like motorcycles and things like that.

Overall though I think I was okay with that.

• The second was time travel. And I want to distinguish two different kinds. The first being the Caverns of Time dungeons and then I'll talk about WoD. Caverns of Time was a little more interesting because it felt like we only could participate in snippets of time (the zones have these weird sand partitions like the bronze dragons were able to just make a small wormhole for us). And it was within our own timeline. This means we had to make sure things played out the way they did before - and means we had to do interesting things like help Medivh summon orcs to Azeroth.

It was a neat way to sort of allow players to see things that happened prior into the story without larger ramifications.

Now let's get into WoD. This nearly dealt the deathblow to my interest in the game. It's not the same timeline so nothing mattered. It was also like, everything you did over there didn't matter. It was a weird alternate planet. Also there were weird things like, oh no someone died. But do I care? We have another copy of them back in our real universe...?

Things like Grom coming back where he already had a heroic end and he's going to now lead the fake orcs from WoD to become an allied race...

Yeah honestly I just can't seem to care about the lore anymore.


Where is everyone else at? What are your thoughts on the things I listed above and what makes you agree/disagree?

I fell in love with Warcraft lore with Warcraft 3, Reign of Chaos. The Frozen Throne only sealed that love.

All the reasons you listed, plus many others, indeed had the same effect on me when it comes to love for lore. A death by a thousand cuts indeed.

I think that Warcraft 3 had this aura of "mysticism" around it, there was something about that game, the way it showed Warcraft world to us made that game a cult classic.

[Lochton]

I do, I love Warcraft lore. Of course, I have a few favorite things but I do like to explore it all.

[Deleted]

I used to care a lot about it, since I care about all kinds of lore. But when the devs stopped caring I slowly lost interest. Now I just hope that change will come. Positive change mind you.

[Sky High]

Not since it was announced Garrosh was an end boss. Everything slide into madness from there as far as I’m concerned.

[Netherspark]

Used to be 10, probably 4 now. They've twisted and turned it in so many ways that I've lost interest as a whole now.

[Mirn]

I have the same feeling toward the Time Travel storyline. When they announced WoD and it's alternate universe "what if?" storyline I kind of swore off WoW lore and never bought or played the expansion until just before Legion was announced.

"What if?" is fun for one episode, but then the character wakes-up revealing it's all a dream and we get back to the real story. With AU orcs coming back with AU Grom now being alive but substantially less interesting than the original Grom it's going too far. It's wonky and out of place and feels like a cheap way to resurrect characters that died in what a lot of people feel was the high point of WoW lore, the RTS.

Right now, I follow it because I want to see what happens at the end. But honestly it's mostly a lot of disappointment and disinterest with the main story, every now and then hit with what is often a too-short gem of a questline. A highlight for me in Legion was the character and storyline of Runas the Shamed. I enjoyed that rather short character more than I do what my old favourites became or are becoming.

I feel like the lore is stuck in a constant circle and isn't being allowed to go anywhere but old, retreaded ground. And BfA, at the moment, looks like it's going to do the same. The lore was important to me, but it's slowly becoming less and less so.

[Deleted]

I enjoy a nice story, some fun quests or a good cutscene but thats about it. The lore never really interested me at all and I've been playing since the end of vanilla / early TBC - not all the time but all the expansions since.

Its just not for WoW, I find myself caring less and less about the story / lore in other games as well.

[Rendark]

Much like Witcher 3 the story went to shit when they added alternate universes.

[Kathranis]

I've said this before, and I'll say it again: the problem with the Warlords of Draenor story is that they didn't tackle the time travel stuff head on, but instead tried to use it as just a plot device. There's nothing inherently wrong with time travel if you go through the effort to weave it into the story well. They just... didn't. "We're doing time travel but don't think about it, it's just to get us to the place" is not the right way to handle it.

• Instead of linking the Dark Portal to the past, they really should have done all the time travel through the Caverns of Time, as that was already well established as a source of time fuckery. Hell, revamp the Black Morass instance and use that as the entrypoint.
• Instead of the Iron Horde invading Azeroth through the Dark Portal, it should have (at least initially) been about Kairoz and the Infinite Dragonflight trying to erase our timeline and replace it with the alternate one.
• The first raid tier should have been the scrapped Chronal Spire instead of Highmaul. Kairoz creates a giant tower in the middle of Draenor that pulls bosses, characters, and locations from various points of different timelines, and we fight him at the end. And thus the first arc of the expansion would be about stopping the immediate threat of our reality from being erased. It could then conclude with Garrosh betraying him and taking the Shard of Time, leading to the second arc about fighting the Iron Horde.
• From there it could progress more-or-less unchanged. Maybe weave Wrathion into the plot a bit more, and ultimately try to come up with a more comprehensible explanation for the crossover into Legion -- have Gul'dan learn about our timeline and rather than forging a pact with the Legion, simply take the Shard of Time and use it to escape into our timeline, where Kil'jaeden reaches out to him.

It wouldn't have taken that much more work.


As for the lore in general... at the end of the day, Warcraft is pulp fantasy, so I don't expect high literature. I think there have been a ton of missteps along the way, and there are definitely problems with Blizzard repeating story arcs, but I can only hope that they learn from their mistakes and work to improve the story.


I think Legion was for the most part handled very well. Gul'dan made for an excellent villain (despite the weird method of getting him back into the story), and Illidan's arc felt very satisfying to me.

The real test will come with Battle for Azeroth. If the expansion just becomes a rehashing of the same core plot from Mists of Pandaria, with Sylvanas becoming Garrosh 2.0 and the end result being the Horde having to find yet another Warchief, I'll be incredibly disappointed.

[ro9ue]

A highlight for me in Legion was the character and storyline of Runas the Shamed. I enjoyed that rather short character more than I do what my old favourites became or are becoming.

I feel like the lore is stuck in a constant circle and isn't being allowed to go anywhere but old, retreaded ground. And BfA, at the moment, looks like it's going to do the same. The lore was important to me, but it's slowly becoming less and less so.

I agree with you especially on that last point, but I'm glad you brought up Runas. I was a huge fan of that character. Even with WoD, I kinda liked some smaller characters like Ga'nar. It's almost like Blizzard is doing a great job on the micro level storytelling but on the macro level are all over the place.

I don't know why it was so bad to just let old legends die. Why not just let us explore a new continent in Outland. Ga'nar could've been the new leader wrangling up the clans. By the end of WoD build him up to be the Draenor orc leader.

Blizzard seems to not trust their own abilities. Rehashing already dead characters just makes me believe they want to rest on their laurels, constantly bring back old shit, and either a) don't care enough to or b) don't trust their own abilities enough to make new fresh characters and story arcs.

It's probably a bit too late now but they should've viewed WoW as a TV show like GOT instead of ... I guess a Marvel-like beast. Instead of retelling the same stories, slowly introduce new characters. Have a side character evolve into a larger character.

[Lodreh]

I enjoy the lore... I like the little twist and turns... but for the love of all that's holy and good can we please move beyond a race war? The Horde and Alliance have helped each other since WotLK... we are actively working together in our Class Order Halls... can we please stop trying to hit each other over the head with sticks? My one hope for future Lore is that Battle for Azeroth is the death knell for the race war. The Alliance and Horde are broken and we become mercenaries in the aftermath working for/with whatever subgroups we choose. A Human wants to aid a Tauren in driving out some insane centaurs... great! A Goblin has a new machine to clean up Gnomeregan... sure let's try it.

[Flurryfang]

It is really, REALLY important to me. I think it is the only element, that if done wrong, can all on its own make me quit WoW. If they make choices in the game, that makes no fucking sense or waste good characters in an expansion, those things will make me wonder to quit.

Like, the only time i have ever thought about quitting is in WoD, not because of the content, but because they played around with the idea of using Wrathion for something good and yet they never got to him. That made me so pissed off, that i did not play for months and thought about just quitting in general.

So while lore is important, i am not saying that Blizzard are actually good at portraying lore....They are actually quite bad, with a few lucky strokes of genius every once in a while to keep me going. If they did not have the huge back-catalog of characters, which they have build up over the years, giving them a huge source of good story-telling potential, i would proberly play Wildstar and FF

[ro9ue]

I've said this before, and I'll say it again: the problem with the Warlords of Draenor story is that they didn't tackle the time travel stuff head on, but instead tried to use it as just a plot device. There's nothing inherently wrong with time travel if you go through the effort to weave it into the story well. They just... didn't. "We're doing time travel but don't think about it, it's just to get us to the place" is not the right way to handle it.

Yeah I agree with this and your follow up points. I actually enjoy time travel when it's handled with care (Life is Strange for example), but it's like none of us we're even given the opportunity to buy into the idea of all the time travel/AU stuff. The fact that all of that happened outside the game is hilariously bad and I have no idea how it even got approved.

[Kathranis]

The Horde and Alliance have helped each other since WotLK... we are actively working together in our Class Order Halls...

Legion wasn't "Horde and Alliance working together in our Class Order Halls," it was always "Class Orders coming together to fight the Legion because the Horde and Alliance are too busy fighting each other."

Maybe could have been conveyed better, but that was always how Blizzard explained the role of the Class Orders.

[Deleted]

Nope, no cares were given. I play a game for the game element, I read books for real immersive fantasy worlds and adventures. So I don't care why I am farming livers again or killing another boss.

[Divada]

When it comes to an MMO if I don't like the lore I don't play, simple as that.