i miss the "medieval" fantasy of WoW

[Derpleton]

'muh simple 'venturer' posting. How does this still exist in a post-classic world?
The final boss of the first raid in WoW was the elemental incarnation of fire. The player stopped being a simple adventurer before they even capped in vanilla.

I think that there's a pretty large distinction between fighting a depowered elemental lord who was summoned "TOO SOON!" and traveling to the Legion (you know the guys that were so powerful in BC that supposedly if KJ had gotten out of the Sunwell Azeroth would've fallen and even then the adventurers were losing so Anveena had to sacrifice herself) homeworld on a spaceship with the most powerful weapons known to us mortals in hand and fighting the literal titan of Death, not to mention that we do that after fighting Aggramar (another titan and pretty much the creator of the Orcs), now yes I know I know, depowered titans too. But I'll also throw out there that the trash leading up to Aggramar were Titan Keepers, entities powerful enough to have been raid bosses in their own right a few expansions ago demoted to trash.

[Eurhetemec]

Yeah, there's no religion like the Holy Light or different religious institutions like the Scarlet Crusade, the Silver Hand, the Argent Dawn, the Brotherhood of the Light and of course the Church of the Holy Light and holy wars are definitely not a concept. Kings like Varian, Terenas, Anasterian, Anduin, Daelin, Genn and the concept of what makes a good King obviously also don't play any role in Warcraft games. One of the biggest and most iconic figures in Warcraft lore also wasn't a King whose name starts with "Arth" and who wielded a magical sword that was encased in a solid block and who had a mentor/father figure named Uther.
Absolutely preposterous.

But there absolutely are a few minor races who possess some degree of steampunk technology that always blows up in their faces. So I guess gyrocopter go brrrrrr.

ROFL so by your logic a ren-faire is "medieval"? This is a ridiculous and laughable position. This is the equivalent of you prancing around in a doublet and hose and going "thee" and "thou" lot, and saying "IM MEDIEVAL!!!!!". It's all superficial and derivative. But most importantly, superficial. Look at the Alliance war machine. A medieval war machine works by calling up the lords, who call up their knights, who call up the peasants, and form into this huge army, which is mostly idiots with spears and pitchforks and no armour, who are untrained.

The Alliance doesn't have that. Not even Stormwind has that. There are no knights in the "landed gentry" sense. There are barely any peasants. There are precious few lords.

Instead what we see if a society either more like ancient Rome, or modern (1800s or later) society. Certainly it's not "medieval" in any way except a ren-faire hat or two.

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I think that there's a pretty large distinction between fighting a depowered elemental lord who was summoned "TOO SOON!" and traveling to the Legion (you know the guys that were so powerful in BC that supposedly if KJ had gotten out of the Sunwell Azeroth would've fallen and even then the adventurers were losing so Anveena had to sacrifice herself) homeworld on a spaceship with the most powerful weapons known to us mortals in hand and fighting the literal titan of Death, not to mention that we do that after fighting Aggramar (another titan and pretty much the creator of the Orcs), now yes I know I know, depowered titans too. But I'll also throw out there that the trash leading up to Aggramar were Titan Keepers, entities powerful enough to have been raid bosses in their own right a few expansions ago demoted to trash.

What's the "large distinction"? You didn't specify or elucidate.

All you're really describing is a difference of scale. And we're talking level 110 vs level 60, so you'd expect quite an enormous difference of scale.

I'd have a lot more sympathy for this kind of stuff if WoW wasn't a treadmill MMO, about getting better gear, more levels, and fighting bigger threats, then getting more levels, better gear, and fighting bigger threats, and so on, repeat into infinity.

If this was Dark Age of Camelot, and the same level 50 characters who took down a dragon or a devil, were suddenly taking on six dragons at once, or some kind of "god of devils" or something you could make a decent case. But this is a treadmill MMO, mate, and that means scope and scale will inevitably increase. It would be WEIRD AS FUCK if a level 110 character was still fighting basically the same stuff as a level 60 one.

[Ealyssa]

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.

He's right tho, and you wrong.

Since it's inception we are fighting against galactic threats who want to destroy/corrupt Azeroth.
Even back in classic, almost every single threat are linked to either Sargeras and the legion or their ennemy the void.

Why are we fighting Onyxia ? Because her dad went mad from old god wispers.
C'thun is also a direct "galactic threat" (He was sent by the void lords to Azeroth through "space")

The helm of Arthas is a direct cosmic fabrication, ment for a cosmic agenda.

You may not like how the story of wow developped, that's allright. But it never was "grounded" to some non fantastic cosmologic lore like you seems to think.

The story just naturally expend has we go higher and higher in the ladder of the bad guys.
Sure they could do a "hey there is a pirate faction taking the ocean by force" expansion, having no single link to any of the cosmic forces at play. But THAT would be the actual akward and non grounded lore.

[Jastall]

ROFL so by your logic a ren-faire is "medieval"? This is a ridiculous and laughable position. This is the equivalent of you prancing around in a doublet and hose and going "thee" and "thou" lot, and saying "IM MEDIEVAL!!!!!". It's all superficial and derivative. But most importantly, superficial. Look at the Alliance war machine. A medieval war machine works by calling up the lords, who call up their knights, who call up the peasants, and form into this huge army, which is mostly idiots with spears and pitchforks and no armour, who are untrained.

The Alliance doesn't have that. Not even Stormwind has that. There are no knights in the "landed gentry" sense. There are barely any peasants. There are precious few lords.

Instead what we see if a society either more like ancient Rome, or modern (1800s or later) society. Certainly it's not "medieval" in any way except a ren-faire hat or two.

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What's the "large distinction"? You didn't specify or elucidate.

All you're really describing is a difference of scale. And we're talking level 110 vs level 60, so you'd expect quite an enormous difference of scale.

I'd have a lot more sympathy for this kind of stuff if WoW wasn't a treadmill MMO, about getting better gear, more levels, and fighting bigger threats, then getting more levels, better gear, and fighting bigger threats, and so on, repeat into infinity.

If this was Dark Age of Camelot, and the same level 50 characters who took down a dragon or a devil, were suddenly taking on six dragons at once, or some kind of "god of devils" or something you could make a decent case. But this is a treadmill MMO, mate, and that means scope and scale will inevitably increase. It would be WEIRD AS FUCK if a level 110 character was still fighting basically the same stuff as a level 60 one.

Even then we still regress in threat level at the beginning of every expansion. Late Cataclysm you're fighting Elemental Lords, the minions of the Old Gods and Deathwing himself but the leveling in Pandaria has you tussle with monkeys, giant rabbits and yaks for a long while. Late Legion you're a god-slaying murder-machine with a powerful artifact that brings down scores of demons and kills nascent Titans, but early BFA as Alliance has you fight the Horde's half naked footsoldiers, pirates and witches. Horde fights comparable midgets in armor, angry natives and sneks.

The leveling is where we do the whole "simple adventurer" business. Endgame is where the big boys with the big lewt come out to play. Welcome, one and all, to how WoW has always been.

[tommyhil622]

Even Classic had Uldaman where at the end of the dungeon, you interacted with a console that processed discs to project holograms.

Excellent point. Warcraft has always dabbled in technology. It's not new.

[Nerovar]

ROFL so by your logic a ren-faire is "medieval"? This is a ridiculous and laughable position. This is the equivalent of you prancing around in a doublet and hose and going "thee" and "thou" lot, and saying "IM MEDIEVAL!!!!!". It's all superficial and derivative. But most importantly, superficial. Look at the Alliance war machine. A medieval war machine works by calling up the lords, who call up their knights, who call up the peasants, and form into this huge army, which is mostly idiots with spears and pitchforks and no armour, who are untrained.

The Alliance doesn't have that. Not even Stormwind has that. There are no knights in the "landed gentry" sense. There are barely any peasants. There are precious few lords.

Instead what we see if a society either more like ancient Rome, or modern (1800s or later) society. Certainly it's not "medieval" in any way except a ren-faire hat or two.

This is the most embarassing rant I've read in this thread so far. Of course it's "superficial and derivative" because this is medieval fantasy. It doesn't have to hold up to any actual standards of historicity because that's not the point. It's a fictional setting. It's about invoking feelings, imagery and themes associated with the medieval ages.

Besides, what you described is pretty much the case in the for Stormwind/Lordaeron. Knights and Paladins are noblemen (named characters usually lord over certain places like e.g. Mardenholde Keep in the case of Tirion Fordring) who make up a small elite part of the forces and most troops are common footmen. The only things that stand out are the fact that the current Alliance seems to employ some form of standing army and that footmen wear fantasy armor instead of chainmail/gambeson/whatever would be affordable in a "realistic" medieval setting. At the end of the day, that is completely irrelevant though because we're talking about a world full of magic and dragons.

I'm starting to feel like the only thing that would qualify as "medieval fantasy" in your eyes would be a fictional story set in our world during medieval times and that is laughable.

[Gurahk]

The medieval fantasy of WoW, that lasted for 2-3 years

[Eurhetemec]

This is the most embarassing rant I've read in this thread so far. Of course it's "superficial and derivative" because this is medieval fantasy. It doesn't have to hold up to any actual standards of historicity because that's not the point. It's a fictional setting. It's about invoking feelings, imagery and themes associated with the medieval ages.

Besides, what you described is pretty much the case in the for Stormwind/Lordaeron. Knights and Paladins are noblemen (named characters usually lord over certain places like e.g. Mardenholde Keep in the case of Tirion Fordring) who make up a small elite part of the forces and most troops are common footmen. The only things that stand out are the fact that the current Alliance seems to employ some form of standing army and that footmen wear fantasy armor instead of chainmail/gambeson/whatever would be affordable in a "realistic" medieval setting. At the end of the day, that is completely irrelevant though because we're talking about a world full of magic and dragons.

I'm starting to feel like the only thing that would qualify as "medieval fantasy" in your eyes would be a fictional story set in our world during medieval times and that is laughable.

Dude, you've picked the wrong person to try and gaslight on this.

I've read huge amounts of medieval fantasy of many different kinds. I've been playing TT RPGs since I was 10, which was a very long time ago. I've played countless medieval fantasy games.

And WoW doesn't even try to be "medieval fantasy" - trash like Dragonlance is about 4000% more "medieval fantasy" than WoW has ever been. WoW is an anything-goes fantasy kitchen sink, full of guns (which are entirely reliable and relatively quick-firing), tanks (again, perfectly reliable in WoW, this isn't Warhammer Fantasy, mate), helicopters, planes, spaceships of various kinds, societies which don't operate on remotely medieval principles and so on.

Science and modernity are everywhere, from archaeology to plumbing to the way the military is organised - again this is a little bit like ancient Rome, but that's a whole other story (and we'd have to discuss how the renaissance lead to society resembling Rome in some ways).

It's basically a fantasy 1800s if you want a time period for it, maybe 1700s at a stretch, but it's a lot nicer than the 1700s, in terms of how society is organised, how people approach science/thinking, and so on.

If you want, I can named "medieval fantasy" novels until the cows come home. We could start with big names you might have heard of like A Song of Ice and Fire (A Game of Thrones is how you may know it), and Lord of the Rings, which fit well with what I'm describing, and we could move on to stuff like Robin Hobb's Assassin trilogy, which is very much medieval fantasy to the point where it's almost more like Crusader Kings only some people have psychic powers, or on further to things like The Lions of Al-Rassan or Tigana, which do indeed verge on the historical-novel. If we go broader, well, the term "medieval" becomes increasingly meaningless. A lot of Dungeons and Dragons settings are often called "medieval" but ask any bunch of D&D fans and they'll agree that it's more a 1600s-ish or later setting which just has typically 1400s-ish weapons and tactics. Even Warhammer Fantasy, the biggest inspiration for Warcraft, isn't medieval fantasy, it's late-Renaissance.

In short, WoW makes almost little to no effort to "invoke feelings of the middle ages", as we storm the palaces of techno-viking-gods (with Jack Kirby watching and smiling), wander through super-machines invented by the Titans, storm flying fortresses, or scale gigantic Mordor-esque towers with the help of heavily-armed airships that would have been extremely advanced in 1918. It never really has. Nothing about MC or BWL was particularly "medieval". AQ has entirely to the side of that, and evoked Sword and Sorcery tropes, if anything. TBC had plenty of mechanised and high-tech locations, including tons of robots and lost civilizations and so on.

Calling WoW "medieval fantasy" is basically like calling 40K "Elf fantasy" because it has the Eldar in it.

[Nerovar]

Dude, you've picked the wrong person to try and gaslight on this.

I've read huge amounts of medieval fantasy of many different kinds. I've been playing TT RPGs since I was 10, which was a very long time ago. I've played countless medieval fantasy games.

And WoW doesn't even try to be "medieval fantasy" - trash like Dragonlance is about 4000% more "medieval fantasy" than WoW has ever been. WoW is an anything-goes fantasy kitchen sink, full of guns (which are entirely reliable and relatively quick-firing), tanks (again, perfectly reliable in WoW, this isn't Warhammer Fantasy, mate), helicopters, planes, spaceships of various kinds, societies which don't operate on remotely medieval principles and so on.

Science and modernity are everywhere, from archaeology to plumbing to the way the military is organised - again this is a little bit like ancient Rome, but that's a whole other story (and we'd have to discuss how the renaissance lead to society resembling Rome in some ways).

It's basically a fantasy 1800s if you want a time period for it, maybe 1700s at a stretch, but it's a lot nicer than the 1700s, in terms of how society is organised, how people approach science/thinking, and so on.

A lot of Dungeons and Dragons settings are often called "medieval" but ask any bunch of D&D fans and they'll agree that it's more a 1600s-ish or later setting which just has typically 1400s-ish weapons and tactics. Even Warhammer Fantasy, the biggest inspiration for Warcraft, isn't medieval fantasy, it's late-Renaissance.

In short, WoW makes almost little to no effort to "invoke feelings of the middle ages", as we storm the palaces of techno-viking-gods (with Jack Kirby watching and smiling), wander through super-machines invented by the Titans, storm flying fortresses, or scale gigantic Mordor-esque towers with the help of heavily-armed airships that would have been extremely advanced in 1918. It never really has. Nothing about MC or BWL was particularly "medieval". AQ has entirely to the side of that, and evoked Sword and Sorcery tropes, if anything. TBC had plenty of mechanised and high-tech locations, including tons of robots and lost civilizations and so on.

Calling WoW "medieval fantasy" is basically like calling 40K "Elf fantasy" because it has the Eldar in it.

Moving the goalposts at light speed, I see. First you went from "There's really no religion, kings and queens and knights and so on are of relatively little importance" which is so obviously wrong that it hurts to read it, then you moved over to claiming that it can't be medieval because there are no noble land owners (even though there are) and barely any peasants (even though they're described as "the backbone of the Alliance") and now you're at a point where you just name random things that didn't exist in the real middle ages and mostly came after Classic (which misses the original point of discussion).

The starting point of Warcraft lies in very traditional medieval human kingdoms. The setting started to explore different fantasy tropes through different races at a pretty early stage but the focal point was always the story of the human kingdoms with their knightly/templar orders, fantasy catholicism, "crusades" etc.
At its core Warcraft was just a run-of-the-mill medieval fantasy setting with some "quirky" technology added by funny looking fantasy races. Tell me: what major roles do Gnomes and Goblins play in the story of Warcraft up until Classic? What big influence did their technologies have on the story? Did Arthas purge Stratholme with napalm bombs? Did the Alliance of Men, Elves and Orcs destroy Archimonde with tank companies and gyrocopter squadrons?

It's completely baffling to me how you can hyperfocus on these small elements when they simply play no role in the grand scheme of things (and for good reasons because Blizzard knows that they can't go too far with undermining the medieval fantasy roots of their game which is why they keep appealing to it) and at the same time accuse me of gaslighting.

But I totally get it. It's the 1700s. That's why we're seeing line battles instead of crusades and medieval sieges.

[Jastall]

This is the most embarassing rant I've read in this thread so far. Of course it's "superficial and derivative" because this is medieval fantasy. It doesn't have to hold up to any actual standards of historicity because that's not the point. It's a fictional setting. It's about invoking feelings, imagery and themes associated with the medieval ages.

Besides, what you described is pretty much the case in the for Stormwind/Lordaeron. Knights and Paladins are noblemen (named characters usually lord over certain places like e.g. Mardenholde Keep in the case of Tirion Fordring) who make up a small elite part of the forces and most troops are common footmen. The only things that stand out are the fact that the current Alliance seems to employ some form of standing army and that footmen wear fantasy armor instead of chainmail/gambeson/whatever would be affordable in a "realistic" medieval setting. At the end of the day, that is completely irrelevant though because we're talking about a world full of magic and dragons.

I'm starting to feel like the only thing that would qualify as "medieval fantasy" in your eyes would be a fictional story set in our world during medieval times and that is laughable.

Stormwind City's got a fucking metro since Classic and its neighborhood province reaps its harvest with autonomous, if non-sentient, robots while the local bandit gang is building an ironclad. It's medieval fantasy only in the vaguest of veneers and appearances. By Wrath it has a huge hangar for airships that we could barely build today, tanks lining up its massive port and sundry cannons and mortars at the ready. Not the themes and imagery I associate with the middle ages by any means.

[ymirsson]

As if WoW could only ever be either medieval fantasy or not.

[tommyhil622]

It's always been a steampunk type fantasy, not sure what the confusion is.

[Littleraven]

I get it but Warcraft and even WoW by extension has always been about crazy ass space aliens and shit lol. It is almost lost on people I think that the Orcs are literally aliens from another planet that came to conquer Azeroth. It wasn't until Metzen started writing them to be different in WC3 that this changed.

I do kinda miss when WoW was more simple but I feel like that is just chasing nostalgia. I personally welcome them essentially blowing the story up and going a new direction. Only so many things we can do on Azeroth.

[Jastall]

As if WoW could only ever be either medieval fantasy or not.

Well it's got elements and trappings of medieval fantasy obviously, different hugely depending on races. Humans have post-Renaissance technology but still have the whole armored knight look, and the various elven races shun technology in favor of magic and thus are more typical high fantasy than most. Other races just have too weird a contrast; Orcs are mostly shirtless dudes with axes living in huts but they're also capable of mastering fairly advanced technologies, especially the ones on Draenor who built stuff mostly equal to real life humans.

Draenei have spaceships and crystal tech but their head honcho is still a Priest and they still fight mostly with magic, swords and spears looks like. The Legion is if anything even more advanced than the Draenei but the vast majority of their forces are still barely armored brutes with melee weapons or spellcasters, with the backing of some artillery and huge mechas who... are also used to punch things mostly. High technology does not mean it is used very intelligently or practically, and lest we repeat ourselves this is after all a setting where a guy with an axe soloing a mechsuit with lazers is not only possible but a common enough sight, up to and including a human with a sword one-shotting a scycraper-sized giant robot from literal hell.

[Eurhetemec]

Moving the goalposts at light speed, I see. First you went from "There's really no religion, kings and queens and knights and so on are of relatively little importance" which is so obviously wrong that it hurts to read it, then you moved over to claiming that it can't be medieval because there are no noble land owners (even though there are) and barely any peasants (even though they're described as "the backbone of the Alliance") and now you're at a point where you just name random things that didn't exist in the real middle ages and mostly came after Classic (which misses the original point of discussion).

It's an outright lie to claim they "mostly came after Classic". That's not even arguably true. Complaining about "moving goalposts" is cheap hypocrisy.

The starting point of Warcraft lies in very traditional medieval human kingdoms. The setting started to explore different fantasy tropes through different races at a pretty early stage but the focal point was always the story of the human kingdoms with their knightly/templar orders, fantasy catholicism, "crusades" etc. At its core Warcraft was just a run-of-the-mill medieval fantasy setting with some "quirky" technology added by funny looking fantasy races.

This is absolute trash. There's been high tech in Warcraft since WC2 at the latest. There's no "core" of fantasy Catholicism, indeed, there's no "fantasy Catholicism" at all. There's a vague-ass Light religion which wasn't explored until WoW, and shares nothing with Catholicism except mitres and the odd title of people or organisations. That's exactly the kind of "thees and thous" ren-faire shit I've been talking about.

Tell me: what major roles do Gnomes and Goblins play in the story of Warcraft up until Classic? What big influence did their technologies have on the story? Did Arthas purge Stratholme with napalm bombs? Did the Alliance of Men, Elves and Orcs destroy Archimonde with tank companies and gyrocopter squadrons?

So you get to move the goalposts, again, here, with "major roles", but I don't get to present my argument? Ridiculous. Your argument is totally hypocritical. Technology was important to a lot of battles, including those in WC2/3 (the idea that submarines didn't matter in WC2, for example, is bananas).

Further, they didn't use "medieval" technology, either - the elves and horde were largely operating an ancient-world manner which further reinforces the fact that Warcraft is "kitchen sink fantasy", not "medieval fantasy" like ASoIaF or LotR.

It's completely baffling to me how you can hyperfocus on these small elements when they simply play no role in the grand scheme of things (and for good reasons because Blizzard knows that they can't go too far with undermining the medieval fantasy roots of their game which is why they keep appealing to it) and at the same time accuse me of gaslighting.

But I totally get it. It's the 1700s. That's why we're seeing line battles instead of crusades and medieval sieges.

You're the one pushing bullshit about "undermining the medieval fantasy roots", roots which don't actually exist, and which you've totally failed to show exist. In fact, every time so far you've weakened your own argument by including completely spurious nonsense like "fantasy Catholicism" (if anything, it's closer to Fantasy Jedi-ism, wearing Catholic titles and mitres, with the Scarlet Crusade, despite their name, operating more like a modern-day fanatical group, or perhaps the Inquisition of the 1600s and 1700s - certainly they don't seem to do any crusading).

WoW has never been "medieval fantasy". That's just an ignorant viewpoint that tries to lump all pre-modern fantasy together. And again your claims that this all somehow changed post-Vanilla are just ludicrous.

[Wadrak]

Yeah I know what you mean.

For example i disliked that steam ship alliance have which was introduced in wrath of lich king.
I dislked it was steam ship and that it looked really weird...

I would like if it was scaled down. Using just more primitive cannons etc.

Technology is fine but it should look more like Da Vinci designs.

im fan of scifi so I dont mind space ships too much in wow.

Excellent point. Warcraft has always dabbled in technology. It's not new.

Sometimes its just way too much for me. For example hearth of azeroth being technology
and using holograms computers etc ...

I dont think this is well handled at all. I have mixed opinions about it.
Not my favourite part of the story.

[Skirdus]

WoW hasn't been grounded in medieval fantasy for over 10 years. You know, when we travelled to another planet and fought intergalactic demons on spaceships?

It's better that they move forward with WoW's sci-fi elements than pretend they don't exist, because the latter is what leads to continuity disasters like BfA

[Luxeley]

I think there are three big culprits of WOW losing the "medieval" fantasy aspect. One, convenience taking precedence over task oriented immersion. In other words, things like creating poisons, needing reagents, leveling up weapon skills too mention a few. Two, your character is the main hero instead of a foot soldier in a greater scheme. Three, the AP grind and legendary grind offer characters a super power so to speak.

[Nerovar]

It's an outright lie to claim they "mostly came after Classic". That's not even arguably true. Complaining about "moving goalposts" is cheap hypocrisy.

we storm the palaces of techno-viking-gods (with Jack Kirby watching and smiling), wander through super-machines invented by the Titans, storm flying fortresses, or scale gigantic Mordor-esque towers with the help of heavily-armed airships that would have been extremely advanced in 1918. It never really has. Nothing about MC or BWL was particularly "medieval". AQ has entirely to the side of that, and evoked Sword and Sorcery tropes, if anything. TBC had plenty of mechanised and high-tech locations, including tons of robots and lost civilizations and so on.

Those are all post classic things so don't try to obfuscate by calling me a liar and a hypocrite. Also you did move the goalposts when being confronted with your obviously ridiculous claims like "there's no king" or "there's no religion".

This is absolute trash. There's been high tech in Warcraft since WC2 at the latest. There's no "core" of fantasy Catholicism, indeed, there's no "fantasy Catholicism" at all. There's a vague-ass Light religion which wasn't explored until WoW, and shares nothing with Catholicism except mitres and the odd title of people or organisations. That's exactly the kind of "thees and thous" ren-faire shit I've been talking about.

I know it's a terribly difficult concept but certain settings are chosen exactly so you don't have to explore everything in-depth and still give the recipient a wholistic feeling of the world because they can fill in the blanks with their real life knowledge. It's very effective. You allude to catholicism in terms of aesthetics, language (Paladins initially used the term 'God' for the Light), crusades etc. and people will immediately "understand" because they intuitively tap into their cultural knowledge. Blizzard even doubled down on these references in parts when they showed us more detailed events like Arthas' anointment in the Lich King novel.

So you get to move the goalposts, again, here, with "major roles", but I don't get to present my argument? Ridiculous. Your argument is totally hypocritical. Technology was important to a lot of battles, including those in WC2/3 (the idea that submarines didn't matter in WC2, for example, is bananas).

This is not moving the goalposts. I'm not talking about something unrelated to your argument, I'm refuting your argument by saying that, while these technologies exist, they're neither important in terms of narrative nor are they in the forefront when it comes to the depiction of the universe in terms of cinematics etc.
If you take away oil, submarines, gyrocopters etc. the story of Warcraft 2 and 3 would still function in the exact same way. None of the cinematics would change and none of the characters would have to behave differently. But if you took away i.e. the concepts of monarchy, Knights, etc. the setting would collapse like a house of cards.

Further, they didn't use "medieval" technology, either - the elves and horde were largely operating an ancient-world manner which further reinforces the fact that Warcraft is "kitchen sink fantasy", not "medieval fantasy" like ASoIaF or LotR.

The way the Horde operates is already in their name. The term "Horde" alludes to the medieval invasions of the Mongol hordes (besides the name they also share "shamanism" as a concept) which works really well in Warcraft 1 and then later dissolves as the Horde becomes sedentary.
Elves aren't really medieval by the time we see them but then again are the Children of the Forest from ASoIaF really medieval?

You're the one pushing bullshit about "undermining the medieval fantasy roots", roots which don't actually exist, and which you've totally failed to show exist. In fact, every time so far you've weakened your own argument by including completely spurious nonsense like "fantasy Catholicism" (if anything, it's closer to Fantasy Jedi-ism, wearing Catholic titles and mitres, with the Scarlet Crusade, despite their name, operating more like a modern-day fanatical group, or perhaps the Inquisition of the 1600s and 1700s - certainly they don't seem to do any crusading).

What is Warcraft 1 to you if not medieval fantasy? Also the Scarlet Crusade literally had their own enclaves (Scarlet Monastery, Tyr's Hand later New Hearthglen and Onslaught Harbor) i.e. crusader states from which they launched attacks on enemy territory they sought to reconquer. To say that they more closely resemble the inquisition instead of crusaders is pretty disingenuous.

[Eurhetemec]

If you take away oil, submarines, gyrocopters etc. the story of Warcraft 2 and 3 would still function in the exact same way. None of the cinematics would change and none of the characters would have to behave differently. But if you took away i.e. the concepts of monarchy, Knights, etc. the setting would collapse like a house of cards.

So you think monarchy is a medieval concept? Well that explains an awful lot. You also seem to think "the setting" is pretty much just the "Humans" part of everything, which is pretty silly.

You could take away a hell of a lot more than the oil, submarines and so on in WC2/3, too, and have the same stories. You don't need knights at all, not even slightly, for example. Any kind of elite warrior would do. You don't need kings. Any kind of leader would do. But you're getting into a silly counter-factual realm when you "take away" stuff, because it's there. You can't deny it. You can't take it away. The designers went out of their way to add it - pushing WC2/3 technologically ahead of Warhammer, you could argue, for example.

The way the Horde operates is already in their name. The term "Horde" alludes to the medieval invasions of the Mongol hordes (besides the name they also share "shamanism" as a concept) which works really well in Warcraft 1 and then later dissolves as the Horde becomes sedentary.
Elves aren't really medieval by the time we see them but then again are the Children of the Forest from ASoIaF really medieval?

The Children of the Forest are indeed not medieval, and the people beyond the Wall are borderline, I agree.

The idea that the Horde refers solely to the Mongol horde and is thus "medieval" is pretty laughable. They're a collection of tribal cultures (and later the Forsaken) who are at best "medieval neutral", and that's stretching it. They also operate nothing like the Mongol Horde, but I'm not here to give you a history education. And the idea that Horde Shamans are analogous to practitioners of Tengri is pretty insulting to both. Horde Shamans literally have more in common with Jesus (walking on water, self-resurrection) than they do with Tengri practitioners.

What is Warcraft 1 to you if not medieval fantasy? Also the Scarlet Crusade literally had their own enclaves (Scarlet Monastery, Tyr's Hand later New Hearthglen and Onslaught Harbor) i.e. crusader states from which they launched attacks on enemy territory they sought to reconquer. To say that they more closely resemble the inquisition instead of crusaders is pretty disingenuous.

I can certainly agree that WC1 was basically very broadly medieval fantasy, if you want a point of agreement (I disagree re: Scarlet Crusade - they're more like a rebel group/insurgents or even arguably the more organised kind of terrorists than crusaders).

WC2 an WC3 however? They've already left medieval fantasy far behind, especially with WC3's expansion. WoW then leaves it even further behind - and yes, even in Vanilla.

What's particularly striking about WoW is that it often has opportunities to be medieval fantasy - and it rejects them. Westfall is a good example. You could tell the entire story of Westfall, and it's aesthetics, language, and so on, as a medieval-style fantasy story. But they don't. Instead it's very much a modern story, with various references, but particularly the Dustbowl. And then Cataclysm absolutely double-downed on that Dustbowl deal.

Other stories in WoW are typically the same way - they're not medieval concerns, they're modern ones - deforestation, pollution, contracts not being honoured leading to worker uprisings, industrialization, radiation accidents, and so on. There's some stuff that's "neutral", like the Plaguelands, which is neither really medieval nor not medieval, it's just fantasy, so that doesn't count against, but the number of zones which are solidly medieval fantasy is extremely small in WoW even in Vanilla.

Once Cataclysm hits, it goes down even further. The Goblins are basically a piss-take of the 1980s, and the Worgen are very much the aesthetics and vibe of a Gothic horror movie likely set in the 1800s or 1700s (c.f. their clothes etc.). The zones that get revised all double-down on non-medieval concepts.

So your best-case scenario here is that WoW has absolutely never been medieval fantasy as an overall aesthetic, but arguably WC1 was. WoW has always been kitchen-sink fantasy. The kind of fantasy where knights, voodouns, shamans, 1700s-style pirates (replete with 1700s-style ships), mechanical engineers, psuedo-Celtic tribal warrior women and so on can all equally be found, and where that shadow overhead might equally be a dragon or an airship, that tremor in the ground a mole machine or a burrowing monster or just some miners, and so on.