i miss the "medieval" fantasy of WoW

[Dug]

I feel like the medieval dropped off after BWL when we went away from basic fantasy (dragons, magic etc) to giant super bugs and an old god

But overall I agree I'd like it if WoWs story was grounded to azeroth and less inter-dimensional/space

[Aeluron Lightsong]

You go with sci fi when you brings "Orcs" from another world.

[Nerovar]

This whole cosmic nu-lore is utter garbage in my opinion.

I feel the same way. Ever since they started exploring/expanding the background of the setting at a cosmic scale, the actual story became more and more ridiculous and uninteresting.

[druchii5]

Yeah same, I wish it was more in tune with the vibes from Warcraft 3, with some smaller-scale technology elements. It's what made Dwarves stand out with their Rifleman, and why I still find the class fantasy of a Dwarf hunter with a rifle still pretty damn cool--it's not over the top and it hearkens back to a more nostalgic and grounded era in Warcraft.

Warcraft 3 and early stages of WoW had a healthy dose of technology that accompanied other medieval themes quite well, and added to the universe's immersion. But now it feels like we're in a Marvel cinematic universe.

[Sagenod]

it was only a matter of time before the scale of WoW got bigger and we ended up fighting inter-dimensional demons from outer space, traveling to different planets, and now even going into the afterlife.
but i miss the grounded sense of medieval fantasy in WoW.
sword and shields, dragons, magic, and the feel you get from (let's say) classic WoW.

now.....before anybody says "go play Classic" .... that's not what i'm getting at.
what i'm getting at is that, as WoW's story continues do you think it will ever be grounded again?
i thought that BFA was an attempt to do that but looking back we see that wasn't the case.
the stories lined up to be dealt with in the future point to this scale becoming bigger and more out there.

You may not have an interest in it, but RP servers are a good way of scratching that "return to your roots" itch. Lots of humble storytelling going on there, more swords and dragons, less existential threats to the universe.

[CheckThyself]

I'm triggered

we know. thank you for agreeing. try relaxing.

bunch of whining drivel

or stay triggered and once again to try to convince people of something that does not need convincing.
already 2 pages in and there are other people who share similar opinions as my own.
and also opinions that are in line with yours. but that's what the difference is. people sharing the opinions; to forcing them with a bad attitude.
this is not an issue of "your wrong" or "you people made it this way" or "it's not this, its that"

i think you need to log off the internet for the day.

Infracted.

[Jastall]

We talking about the same Warcraft? Where the second game had oil rigs, zeppelins, submarines, helicopters, mind controlled turtles, and gateways between worlds? The third one added shredders, robots, mines, rockets, lasers and tanks? That "medieval fantasy" Warcraft?

I'm also also not the biggest fan of the usually quite ineffectual starships, but let's not pretend it's beyond the pale for this game. Warcraft has always been a kitchen sink where tribal aliens in warpaint with spears beat up sawblade-toting mech suits.

[Rozz]

No, because it'd be insanely generic. The only medieval aspect of the game are human settlements if you even want to call them that.

[klogaroth]

i've played every Warcraft game since WC1. yes i am aware.
notice how i said WoW though.
i'm talking about WoW's story going forward as expansions come out.

So we, possibly as orcs from another planet, fight an elemental from a different plane of existence.
We fight the daughter of a dragon that was corrupted by an old god.
We fight the son of a dragon that was corrupted by an old god.
We fight an ancient race of insects and the old god they worship.
We fight undead, who were brought about by the actions of demons from space.

In a world full of the effects of forces from other worlds and other planes of existence.

It was never straight forward knights vs dragons. Ever.

[Nerovar]

So we, possibly as orcs from another planet, fight an elemental from a different plane of existence.
We fight the daughter of a dragon that was corrupted by an old god.
We fight the son of a dragon that was corrupted by an old god.
We fight an ancient race of insects and the old god they worship.
We fight undead, who were brought about by the actions of demons from space.

In a world full of the effects of forces from other worlds and other planes of existence.

It was never straight forward knights vs dragons. Ever.

You're deliberately missing the point.

Back then it was:
Force A influences faction/character B on Azeroth -> we fight faction B

Now it's more like:
Force A attacks us with space ships -> we go to space with our own space ship and beat the intergalactic menace to a pulp with our swords and then go back to being medieval peasants/orcs living in mud huts.

If you don't see a difference between these two things, I honestly don't know what to tell you.

[Powerogue]

it was only a matter of time before the scale of WoW got bigger and we ended up fighting inter-dimensional demons from outer space, traveling to different planets, and now even going into the afterlife.
but i miss the grounded sense of medieval fantasy in WoW.
sword and shields, dragons, magic, and the feel you get from (let's say) classic WoW.

now.....before anybody says "go play Classic" .... that's not what i'm getting at.
what i'm getting at is that, as WoW's story continues do you think it will ever be grounded again?
i thought that BFA was an attempt to do that but looking back we see that wasn't the case.
the stories lined up to be dealt with in the future point to this scale becoming bigger and more out there.

Were we not doing that as we fought pirates, witches, and sneeple this expansion? Not to mention even in vanilla we fought an old god.

Honestly this expansion was a lot more grounded than Legion, where we basically became superheroes.

[klogaroth]

You're deliberately missing the point.

Back then it was:
Force A influences faction/character B on Azeroth -> we fight faction B

Now it's more like:
Force A attacks us with space ships -> we go to space with our own space ship and beat the intergalactic menace to a pulp with our swords and then go back to being medieval peasants/orcs living in mud huts.

If you don't see a difference between these two things, I honestly don't know what to tell you.

If you don't see how that isn't medieval fantasy, I don't know what to tell you.

We fought an old god in the base version of the game. That's beyond just the influenced. We killed a source of influence.

Playable orcs and most of the rest of the horde - also well outside of the realm of traditional medieval fantasy. Even if they're terrestrial orcs isntead of ones from another planet.

[Feanoro]

It's long since gotten absurd though. Huge cosmic threat versus swords and shields, bows and arrows. Like others have said, as they've expanded the scope, they've had to ignore more and more of their own setting and rules.

[McNeil]

I'd say this is one of the things BFA did right. We just traveled with space ships to a broken world, got shot down by lasers, we make our own laser and blasts the gates of Antorus, we travel to other realms in the meantime, then once in Antorus we are literally fighting God's. Maybe on paper it sounds really cool but for me it was just alienating as I was never a fan of spaceships and lasers in a world where we once fought with just swords and bows.

In BFA we got back to the world, found new kingdoms and allied with them, waged war by just bringing in soldiers and a few tanks and a gunship, none of this ''the world is constantly in danger of being destroyed'' threats other than when we got to N'Zoth at the very end. Warfronts also brought in some old fashioned medieval wars which I missed. They really should have done a bette rjob to make them more interactive.

[Harbour]

I dont tbh. There are too much medieval fantasy settings around, and WoW setting feels unique and vibrant and entertaining in comparison.

[huth]

I feel like the medieval dropped off after BWL when we went away from basic fantasy (dragons, magic etc) to giant super bugs and an old god

But overall I agree I'd like it if WoWs story was grounded to azeroth and less inter-dimensional/space

Even basic high fantasy is hardly medieval, frankly. WarCraft never really had medieval, magic played far to big a role.

I very much disagree with any claims of "SciFi" though. At most, it's SciFantasy, but mostly it's still strongly in the Fantasy corner of speculative fiction, with the explanation for most things being some variation of "because magic".

You go with sci fi when you brings "Orcs" from another world.

Not when you do so with a magic portal. It very much torpedoes the whole "medieval" thing, though.

[Echeyakee]

You say that classic is not what you mean, but it was literally the only time wow story has been somewhat grounded. Everything after that has been off the scale end of the world kind of stuff. You miss something that never really existed.

I've mentioned this before and I will say it again, considering how many times the world (of warcraft) was about to cease to exist, all in the span of about 10 years, I'm truly confused why most, if not all, denizens of Azeroth are not either a complete neurotic mess or spent, jaded and apathetic.

[Nerovar]

If you don't see how that isn't medieval fantasy, I don't know what to tell you.

We fought an old god in the base version of the game. That's beyond just the influenced. We killed a source of influence.

Playable orcs and most of the rest of the horde - also well outside of the realm of traditional medieval fantasy. Even if they're terrestrial orcs isntead of ones from another planet.

What the hell are you talking about? Fantasy Orcs were literally invented for and popularized by medieval fantasy settings. If you think that the center of the Warcraft world (the human kingdoms) isn't rooted in medieval fantasy then you're simply wrong. This is such an inrcedibly absurd claim.

You say that classic is not what you mean, but it was literally the only time wow story has been somewhat grounded. Everything after that has been off the scale end of the world kind of stuff. You miss something that never really existed.

"Classic was grounded but it's only classic so it doesn't count and you're wrong."

I've mentioned this before and I will say it again, considering how many times the world (of warcraft) was about to cease to exist, all in the span of about 10 years, I'm truly confused why most, if not all, denizens of Azeroth are not either a complete neurotic mess or spent, jaded and apathetic.

For some reason they started retconning the passage of time between expansions in Cata. Before that, the time that passed between two expansions was greater than the IRL duration of the expansion. Now it's the other way around. If you ask me, they should have had even bigger time skips in-between expansions but that would have involved putting some thought into world building which Blizzard is physically unable to do.

[RobertMugabe]

it was only a matter of time before the scale of WoW got bigger and we ended up fighting inter-dimensional demons from outer space, traveling to different planets, and now even going into the afterlife.
but i miss the grounded sense of medieval fantasy in WoW.
sword and shields, dragons, magic, and the feel you get from (let's say) classic WoW.

now.....before anybody says "go play Classic" .... that's not what i'm getting at.
what i'm getting at is that, as WoW's story continues do you think it will ever be grounded again?
i thought that BFA was an attempt to do that but looking back we see that wasn't the case.
the stories lined up to be dealt with in the future point to this scale becoming bigger and more out there.

Not even Classic was what you are describing...

[Venziir]

it was only a matter of time before the scale of WoW got bigger and we ended up fighting inter-dimensional demons from outer space, traveling to different planets, and now even going into the afterlife.
but i miss the grounded sense of medieval fantasy in WoW.
sword and shields, dragons, magic, and the feel you get from (let's say) classic WoW.

now.....before anybody says "go play Classic" .... that's not what i'm getting at.
what i'm getting at is that, as WoW's story continues do you think it will ever be grounded again?
i thought that BFA was an attempt to do that but looking back we see that wasn't the case.
the stories lined up to be dealt with in the future point to this scale becoming bigger and more out there.

Warcraft hasn't been "medieval" since 1995 with the release of Warcraft 2. WoW itself was never medieval, even in Vanilla we had tanks, zeppelins, guns, lightsabers, bazookas, a train, rocket launchers, robots etc. We fought inter-dimensional demons in The Blasted Lands and had several quests where you had to die and go to the afterlife to commune with specific npc's.