what are some of the worst Warcraft stories and why?

[YUPPIE]

by now, Warcraft has a pretty vast Expanded Universe, much like the old Star Wars canon now "Legends." But since it hires a lot of different writers, stories can vary in quality of course.

Although Warcraft's EU and sub media in size can't possibly compare to the scope of SW Legends, I think it's big enough to where I can ask what some of the shittiest stories ever written are. What do you think they are and why?

[Pebrocks The Warlock]

I usually try to block them out and forget them. If I could I would say WoD as a whole and what it does to Warcraft's lore.

[Aucald]

I would say my top picks are:

World of Warcraft: The Comic Series: Bad and inconsistent characterization, bad continuity, and worst of all it introduced Med'an to the existing canon.

War Crimes: The first 2/3's aren't so bad for a strange Warcraft-based "Law & Order" episode and court procedural. But then the ending pretty much tanks the entire story in ways I can't adequately describe without major spoilers.

War of the Ancients Trilogy: Completely unnecessary time-travel shenanigans damaging the WC3 Night Elven characters like Malfurion and Illidan, and the shoehorning of characters that have the feel of author inserts.

Warlords of Draenor: A sad inclusion, but WoD is a continuing source of damage to WoW's overall plotlines and continuity. It hurt the Burning Legion as a whole and ripped open paradoxical holes in the metacosm as concerns alternative universes or timeways.

[McNeil]

WoD was like a fan fiction coming to life. Maybe it would have been somewhat decent if they didn't start scrapping corners everywhere.

The entire faction war is horribly executed. It always ends up with the Horde looking like the villain with a batshit crazy warchief, the Alliance are supposedly the pure good guys, some big bad always has to interrupt so that the factions have to band together anyway and they will just go back at each others throat in a few expansions.

The entire story and motivation behind Sylvanas' plans after WotLK. The way Sylvanas was portrayed in WC3 was spot on, where she vowed to find a place for her Forsaken on Azeroth and is willing to fight and survive, while also holding a hatred for Arthas. Now she has gone way out of character, she will probably end up being right all along and everyone praises her for her deeds, she comes over as way to edgy and for some reason has this interest in a total simp like Nathanos (I know its you Danuser).

Thrall stepping down was a huge misake and made me lost any interest in his character. Garrosh should have been handled much better aswell, as it was apparent that there were different writers who wanted to do different things with him. Now look at the warchief roulette we have gotten.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

War of the Ancients was really meh and forgettable. I liked Krasus... and that was it.

Day of the Dragon was also really meh and forgettable.

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War Crimes

I actually liked War Crimes. The trial was pretty silly (no one disputes that Garrosh is a mass murderer and every country in Azeroth has the death penalty. There was no reason not to just up and kill him. Also the arguements presented at the trial were pretty stupid), and the ending was awful, but I rather liked it overall. The part where Sylvanas is tempting Alleria to defect had me on the edge of my seat. The best part of the book were the Garrosh-Anduin conversations down in the basement. I was on the edge of my seat when I thought Garrosh might have had a chance at redemption.

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Warlords of Draenor

I do think that the premise of WoD was absolutely stupid, but the actual content of the 6.0 questing was pretty good. The post patch story was awful, though.

[Daedius]

The only one I read was an incredibly thick comic book focusing on Kalecgos.

It was 'meh'.

[Triceron]

I mean there's always Warcraft Adventures if you want a good laugh.

Bearded Dwarf women, Deathwing smoking a hookah, Zul'jin being a fat antique shop salesman...


Also Night of the Dragon Raptor Army.

[Aucald]

I actually liked War Crimes. The trial was pretty silly (no one disputes that Garrosh is a mass murderer and every country in Azeroth has the death penalty. There was no reason not to just up and kill him. Also the arguements presented at the trial were pretty stupid), and the ending was awful, but I rather liked it overall. The part where Sylvanas is tempting Alleria to defect had me on the edge of my seat. The best part of the book were the Garrosh-Anduin conversations down in the basement. I was on the edge of my seat when I thought Garrosh might have had a chance at redemption.

That was, for me, actually what made the ending of War Crimes so terrible - up until the last portions of the book the story was actually pretty good. Ignoring the whole trial thing (which is itself an outgrowth of the in-game ending of MoP, so I don't really consider it the fault of the book so much) the interactions between characters like Anduin and Garrosh, and Sylvanas and Vereesa, were quite good. I wasn't even put out by the fact the fact that that Garrosh ultimately escape and evades justice, so to speak, as it was kind of given based on what we already knew of WoD. But how he escapes, the role of the August Celestials in the whole affair, just made the entire novel wash out as fundamentally pointless. It was a disappointing coda to what would've otherwise been a good storyline.

I do think that the premise of WoD was absolutely stupid, but the actual content of the 6.0 questing was pretty good. The post patch story was awful, though.

Agreed. WoD was best when it came to leveling and dungeon/raiding content, but unfortunately the lore binding it to the rest of the Warcraft universe (or multiverse) was complete dreck. I would argue WoW's overarching story still hasn't (and may never) recover from the damage done to it by WoD.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I would argue WoW's overarching story still hasn't (and may never) recover from the damage done to it by WoD.

Setting aside how unsatisfying it was for Blizzard to turn around and go "no no, the Night Elves' sacrifice at the end of WC3 to kill Archimonde meant nothing, the worse part was the introduction of the Void Lords, and retconning the nature of the Light from being a spiritual force of righteousness, to just being another element like fire and water with materialistic goals.

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I'd also consider the introduction of the First Ones in Shadowlands to be the same problem as the Void Lords. Blizzard just can't stop adding further levels of "man behind the man" or "even BIGGER bad guy!". it's an infinite chain that will never stop.

[Zig Zug]

For me, sanctioned Warcraft story telling sort of slid off a cliff during the transition from MoP to WoD.

The story for War Crimes to the end of WoD was just a shit show. Uber dragon busts Orc out of jail to transcend reality and go to another timeline. Gets cloven in twain about 30 minutes in....Really?

Industrialized Army that wants to conquer everything, changes heart, fights ... original masters? Yrel said she'd help if we needed it.

Or how the Alliance has effectively destroyed the Horde thrice, yet they're still considered a threat to the Alliance, who (in addition to enlisting the help of basically Space Marines and Elves that have weaponized the Void) now have enlisted a massive navy, and a subterranean army.

I'm sure the Vulpera will hold the line against the Lightforged.

However, factions - that's a different discussion. But if the occupation of the enemy's capital city isn't victory, what is?

In general though, any of the stories that are really just big references to other IPs usually falls flat.

In fact, if you remove references to other games, and solely force "organic-Warcraft" lore, you're really left with a thin game. Which is really sad, because there is an enormous amount of potential.

But creating these stories would take time to plan and weave, adjust, re-write, critique etc.

Then add on the layer of "virtue-craft" and it becomes a bit more difficult to write compelling stories that feel natural.

Warcraft in general never really rested on its story. Story was nice, but you don't need to know the story at all to play the game.

Deep lore franchises are always great, (WH:40k for ex) but Warcraft lore has been a bit of a patchworked retcon filled with plot holes and random characters (Medan?) that are never heard from again.

I doubt when the original creates of the franchise sat down, they said - "Ok, we're creating a 25+ year story......go."

[YUPPIE]

I would say my top picks are:

World of Warcraft: The Comic Series: Bad and inconsistent characterization, bad continuity, and worst of all it introduced Med'an to the existing canon.

didn't the comics introduce Darion, a rather well liked character who has been a recurring mainstay since

[StillMcfuu]

WoD: Time Travel is a terrible choice, especially alternate universes.

Legion Illidan: story was executed well but its too hard to unmake 15 years of lore. It also takes the teeth out of tbc.

Legion tyrande/malfurion: shame xavious didn't kill them both.

[Aucald]

Setting aside how unsatisfying it was for Blizzard to turn around and go "no no, the Night Elves' sacrifice at the end of WC3 to kill Archimonde meant nothing, the worse part was the introduction of the Void Lords, and retconning the nature of the Light from being a spiritual force of righteousness, to just being another element like fire and water with materialistic goals.

I don't disagree, but those are less stories in an of themselves and more story elements. None of them good, mind you, but none of them cohesive enough to rightly call a narrative.

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I'd also consider the introduction of the First Ones in Shadowlands to be the same problem as the Void Lords. Blizzard just can't stop adding further levels of "man behind the man" or "even BIGGER bad guy!". it's an infinite chain that will never stop.

Unfortunately, I think this is unavoidable in an IP as old as Warcraft. They'd pretty much exhausted all the old content that WC1, WC3, and WC3 had built-up over the 90's and early 2000's - and the nature of an MMORPG type offering is more or less built on the idea of continual and inexorable power-creep (both in-game and in the story). Not to mention that despite the chorus of people bemoaning the "man behind the man" or "Titan++" with memes and so forth, there's still the fan outcry you get when a particular expansion villain doesn't measure up to expectation. I still remember people coming off of WotLK and into Cata greeting Deathwing with things like "LOL, who?" and "after the Lich King this is all just anticlimax." Blizzard has been taught that the playerbase needs a growing and immanent threat, so that one is as much on us in the general sense as it is the Blizzard developers and writers.

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didn't the comics introduce Darion, a rather well liked character who has been a recurring mainstay since

I believe Darion was introduced in the Ashbringer comic, which is a different series than the main imprint. World of Warcraft: The Comic was written by Walter and Louise Simonson, whereas Ashbringer was written by Micky Nielson.

[Varodoc]

The worst part of WoD in my opinion was what happened to AU Ner'zhul. I don't particularly care about him, BUT I found it very unfair how Grommash got redeemed while Ner'zhul was slain as a villain... when Grommash pretty much blackmailed Ner'zhul into joining him (the alternative was genocide for his entire clan).

Aside from that, I also found it annoying how weak Ner'zhul was. Like, he controlled the Dark Star, such a powerful entity, and yet he was relegated to a 5-man dungeon... at least Blizzard rectified their mistake in Mac'aree one expansion later, where they gave a true demonstration of the devastating power of the Void.

[Imperator4321]

Warlords of Draenor: A sad inclusion, but WoD is a continuing source of damage to WoW's overall plotlines and continuity. It hurt the Burning Legion as a whole and ripped open paradoxical holes in the metacosm as concerns alternative universes or timeways.

Honestly the dumbest part of WoD to me is the thing about the Burning Legion/twisting nether all transcending all reality (from what i understand about WoW lore theres only one "true" reality which and the story takes place in the "prime" universe.) so we have Archimond, Kil'Jaeden and Mannoroth who have presumably all coincidentally regenerated in the twisting nether in time for AU Draenor to be created/made real/whatever who suddenly get a call on the Fel Wi-Fi from AU Gul'dan who's telling them about how hes ready to corrupt the Orcs and everything is going as planned.

Then theres how characters like Socrethar or other characters who became demons in both MU and AU universes, do they merge or replace the other what about the shadowlands and AU characters are there two Durotans in the shadowlands since both have died.

[Aucald]

Honestly the dumbest part of WoD to me is the thing about the Burning Legion/twisting nether all transcending all reality (from what i understand about WoW lore theres only one "true" reality which and the story takes place in the "prime" universe.) so we have Archimond, Kil'Jaeden and Mannoroth who have presumably all coincidentally regenerated in the twisting nether in time for AU Draenor to be created/made real/whatever who suddenly get a call on the Fel Wi-Fi from AU Gul'dan who's telling them about how hes ready to corrupt the Orcs and everything is going as planned.

Then theres how characters like Socrethar or other characters who became demons in both MU and AU universes, do they merge or replace the other what about the shadowlands and AU characters are there two Durotans in the shadowlands since both have died.

Yes, it's a terrible mess, all in all. They did some work to fix it in Chronicles, but they just reopened that can of worms in Shadowlands trying to reconcile multiple universes/continuities into a single afterlife (basically redoing the original problem with the infinite Legion/transcendent Nether). The worst part in my view, aside from the problem dealing with the characters like you mentioned, is that it basically made the Legion's mandate to destroy all life in the now-multiverse impossible. Because of the way Warcraft makes use of alternative universes, the "Many Worlds" model where every occurrence creates it's own set of universes with every possible resolution and/or outcome accounted for, that means them multiverse is infinite and beyond knowability in scope. The Legion could destroy worlds until the end of time and they'd never run out of them - hell, the very act of the Legion being in the primary universe would just spawn more and new universes with everything they did.

WoD is probably the nadir of doing something because it sounds cool, but not thinking the full ramifications of the story through beforehand.

[Volardelis]

WoD is probably the nadir of doing something because it sounds cool, but not thinking the full ramifications of the story through beforehand.

You can honestly tell that blizzard changed their initial idea for "WoD" (Garrosh recruits races like murlocs, kobalds, centaur etc to form a sort of mongrel horde) to the one we got because of "rule of cool" and Warcrafts 20th anniversary (and WoW's 10th).

[Imperator4321]

Yes, it's a terrible mess, all in all. They did some work to fix it in Chronicles, but they just reopened that can of worms in Shadowlands trying to reconcile multiple universes/continuities into a single afterlife (basically redoing the original problem with the infinite Legion/transcendent Nether). The worst part in my view, aside from the problem dealing with the characters like you mentioned, is that it basically made the Legion's mandate to destroy all life in the now-multiverse impossible. Because of the way Warcraft makes use of alternative universes, the "Many Worlds" model where every occurrence creates it's own set of universes with every possible resolution and/or outcome accounted for, that means them multiverse is infinite and beyond knowability in scope. The Legion could destroy worlds until the end of time and they'd never run out of them - hell, the very act of the Legion being in the primary universe would just spawn more and new universes with everything they did.

WoD is probably the nadir of doing something because it sounds cool, but not thinking the full ramifications of the story through beforehand.

If i recall they gave MU and AU Gul'dan the same backstory in chronicle (before MU Gul'dan was a shadowmoon orc instead of from a random clan like AU Gul'dan), i can at least sort of appreciate attempts to reconcile their retcons/story changes with older stuff (i'm not super opposed to retcons if they are properly done/make the story better overall).

If i understand how it works WoW normally on a single true timeline that is set in stone when choices are made, alternative timelines only 'exist' as possibilities that can be manipulated by stuff like the magic of the bronze/infinite dragonflight such as bringing in alternate universe versions of people or bringing into existence things like AU Draenor & that one Thrall was sent to in the books but they can only be maintained by said magic and fade out of existence without it, so the Burning Legion would only need to destroy everything in the 'true timeline'.

WoD was conceptually just "what if we brought back all those Orc chieftan characters from the 1st and 2nd wars" which yeah sounds cool but the execution was terrible and they didn't even treat the characters they brought back well such as Grommash's out of nowhere redemption, everything about Ner'zhul and Orgrim Doomhammer getting killed off with basically no fanfare

[Delano]

Anything written by the story team in the last decade.

[Newname1234567890]

WoD for its continual and enduring damage to lore.

WoD lasting legacy

Blizzard: Introduces a new Villain.

Community: So does new Villain transcend timeline likes the demons for are they bound to a single timeline like the Titans?