The biggest mysteries in Warcraft

[Mace]

Warcraft chronicles really revealed and unfolded many long and old mysteries of the world, some of you feel that perhaps we should never have learned these.. however, it hasn't revealed every mystery yet, there are still some remaining whiles some new ones have been introduced.

What mysteries can you think of that still remain or that you have noticed, and which ones do you want to find the answers to the most?

e.g. Elune - still a huge mystery as a goddess, in relation to the night elf, what she is- there is still a whole area and wonder left to discover.


Fair warning - with the revelation of mystery can come disappointment, how well do you think blizzard have handled some of its long term mysteries? The revelation of the burning legion in WC3, was a mystery that was fantastically revealed, as was the revelation of the nigh tleves, the original elves, also fantastically revealed - since then nelves have been a disappointment where they could have instead boosted that fantasy.

What mysteries and fantasies do you think have been a let down, could be improved, should be made into something wonderful

Personally I feel much of the awe and fantasy is not as amazing as it either can be or should be. Some of it has been as good as any we see, the destruction and the devastation has been truly incredible, but the hope and aspiration been woefully short. To be excited about a race or an individual in warcraft has been a long time. The nightborne were the first in the long time that really excited me, but their handling so far going horde (the how)) a disappointment.

They show a lot of tragedy with the race sin wow, but very few wow moments and really exciting things. The last race i really felt had an exciting development going forward were the blood elves who had an awesome ending to TBC in contrast to the kaldorei part of the night elves (the shal'dorei got a nice ending) - seems like the horde races get nice endings. Well, what's happened to the Darkspear trolls after losing their best character?, gnomes still in gnome man's land? forsaken finally got the potential for something really exciting in Before the Storm but ofc we could all see that was just to cruelly let our hopes rise, to sink them for the upcoming conflict.

I want mysteries to be unveiled with something incredible, something wonderful. Wow does destruction and devastation well even now, but hope and wonder that use to be accompanied so fantastically in earlier days is lagging behind.. your thoughts?

[Aucald]

Stripping away mystery is seldom a good thing, but it does eventually have to be done if you wish to bring a specific narrative arc to a conclusion of some kind. The human mind has a kind of self-defeating or self-limiting "defense" mechanism when it comes to mystery - a mechanism that is often the enemy of authors and other creative types. I think Stephen King explained it best (which I will paraphrase here):

"Eventually you have to sell some steak with all that sizzle. You have to open the bat-wing doors on whatever horrible monster or elder thing you've been describing as 'cloaked in shadow' or 'you would go mad just to look upon it.' And 9 times out of 10 the audience is going to settle back and go 'oh, it's a 10-foot tall bug? I can handle that, I thought for a minute it was going to be a 20-foot tall bug.' Bam, you've just lost the ballgame in the last inning."

The Old Gods are the perfect example of this, in my mind - when they were first introduced in the WoW universe they had Lovecraftian overtones, steeped in mystery and ill-defined at the best of times. Some claimed they were greater threats than even Sargeras (who was at this point still the "big bad" of the Warcraft universe), and they had an active cult of followers getting up to all kinds of freakish things. Generally speaking, the old Old Gods of Classic and TBC were a narrative treat - a more or less unique set of villains with vague and undefined powers full of unknowable and eldritch menace. Then in WotLK it starts to go a bit downhill as they become too familiar to us, and we kill Yogg-Saron, who was hyped up a great deal, without much of a real effort or effect on the story. Then, in the final stripping away of their mystique, "Chronicle Vol. 1" reveals them to be the servants of an even greater "big bad" (which has now inherited all their general mystique and mystery), with the Old Gods being relegated to just being a planetary disease vector - the equivalent of giant space-fleas from nowhere. It goes back to King's analogy, ripping away their mystery by concluding their story just allows us to consign them to the category of "not a threat" with a sigh of relief and/or plenty of mockery (the Internet equivalent of whistling past the graveyard).

The Legion has also been the sad recipient of this treatment because, in terms of the story, they had to be defeated by us *at some point*. They were built up as an infinite, unstoppable, implacable foe - but deep down, we knew they would eventually fall to us because that's what the game is sort of built on. Multiple exposures to them probably did this equation no favors - and many have mocked them for their multiple defeats to us despite success everywhere else in the universe (implied if not shown outright). It's the same basic mechanism at work, though; removal of the obfuscating curtains between us and the mystery is accompanied by that same defensive reaction: the true enemy of a good story.

[sillag]

the biggest mystery is whats going on in the writers room. do they still have one? are they understaffed, or have they just given up? were people lying in wait to ruin metzen's universe the second he turned his back, or do the actually think they are writing a good, well-considered story? most importantly, do they really think they are writing morally grey, or was that just an excuse?

[Shibito]

Biggest mystery is that chest in tirisfal glades pre cata

[Taeldorian]

Honestly, the old gods. The mystery surrounding the old gods was awesome as you had cultists everywhere trying to “summon” them or commune with them, you had people going crazy at the thought of them, they could corrupt leaders, etc. It was so fun to wonder about what kind of things they were way back when and what they could do.

The fact they affected the in game world in such a heavy way but were never seen made them very interesting. I just liked seeing cultists and wondering what they were summoning or trying to communicate with.

Even after Wrath when we had Cata, we had some shit going on in twilight highlands with cultists trying to summon a huge servant of the old gods or something like that which turned out to be the maw of something (forgot the name). I thought this was awesome.

Another example is the huge snake thing in that dungeon (gun’drak I think) We can see it but we have no idea what it is. We were told it’s nothing iirc but people talked about that for years and still do because it was mysterious and ominous.

I’d love to have more shit like that in the game. Things we don’t know about but they affect the world (like cultists trying to summon something or working for something) etc. I don’t really feel that with the void lords but I think they nailed it with the old gods. I’d really like to see more ominous and mysterious beings like that in WoW that hopefully don’t get ruined through datamining.

[AbalDarkwind]

What in the world is Tel'Abim other than a banana exporter?

What's the true story of Xal'atath, Blade of the Black Empire? If it is from a fifth Old God, what happened to it?

Is there another continent on Draenor and, if so, what's it all about? Related, what's Farahlon all about?

What's Bolvar's planning?

How does Nozdormu fall to madness and become Murozond when he already knows his fate?

Why are there no Sha-like remnants from C'thun and Yogg-Saron?

What is The War that the Blingtrons talk about? Related, where are the Molten Eternium Sea and Magnetic Chasm?

What happened to the Undermine?

What is Ny'alotha?

Will the world of Azeroth die when the titan Azeroth awakens?

What is the Crooked Serpent with No Eyes?

[Friendlyimmolation]

The biggest mystery is if they're trying to ruin the game's lore or not.

They'll keep you guessing forever.

[Deleted]

x

farahlon was supposed to be another isle offshore with an orc stronghold( originally kargath fled in highmauls encounter and was supposed to have a continued story plot barricaded up on farahlon) they scrapped all of that though in favor of bringing in legion subplots to lead into the legion expansion and just straight up have kargath die in highmaul.

and the sha thing is explained aswell, it was his dying breath when he was ripped out of azeroth that cursed the land with sha like creatures(yogg and cthun didnt "die" like this and got imprisoned instead)we also didnt really kill of cthun and yogg fully moreso destroyed their physical manifestations on the surface
not sure about evrything else tho

[AbalDarkwind]

yogg and cthun didnt "die" like this and got imprisoned instead

They're dead now, though. Yogg-Saron even says "The shadow of my corpse will choke this land for all eternity" That seems almost like a direct reference to his own Sha, in retrospect.

As for Farahlon, while that explains what the plans were for it, it still remains a mystery in lore because it definitively exists, and we know almost nothing about.

[Aerisot]

Mine was the Infinite Dragonflight, they were my favorite mystery, why were they going through all these lengths to stop Thrall, and too what purpose?

Although the mystery of who the leader was and what their purpose was, was truly a letdown, there is still some Mystery here, how did they start? Was Norzdormu truly the main leader?

I personally think the leader is Chromie, or least she is the one that creates them on accident, she is constantly there when shit goes bad, Why are multiple people trying to kill her, why she doesn't require portals to step through time or send others through time, she is truly unique, and it is her innocence that will start the Infinite Dragonflght.

[Mace]

I still don't understand how the dragon's and magic are connected/related.... what is the life binder's main magic type? Do all dragons know basic arcane spellsl /teleports - or is magic more an instinctive thing to them as part of whatever their flight was endowed with unlike elven magic which is broader and more on the fundamentals of magic itself.

[Wildmoon]

I still don't understand how the dragon's and magic are connected/related.... what is the life binder's main magic type? Do all dragons know basic arcane spellsl /teleports - or is magic more an instinctive thing to them as part of whatever their flight was endowed with unlike elven magic which is broader and more on the fundamentals of magic itself.

Alex's magic is nature magic derived from the cosmic force of Life. Not sure what's mysterious about it.