Please do not change the original Lore!

General Discussion
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When I heard about this remaster I was excited to finally play Warcraft 3 with new models and new cinematic cutscenes.

This excitement dwindled the moment I read a Polygon article saying that the developers were going to re-write the story to line up with World Of Warcraft.

Article: Warcraft 3: Reforged is more than just a remaster of Blizzard’s classic RTS - Polygon

Now I don’t know about anybody else but I absolutely despise what they did with the story in World Of Warcraft, the Forsaken joining the Horde? What the hell!? Worst of all, it was retconned so that the tauren were responcible for encouraging Thrall to allow her into the horde which is absolute nonsense IMO. Sure they mentioned some kind of cure but let’s be real here, not only does allowing the Forsaken into the Horde go against the constitution of Orcish Society, it goes against the laws of nature as well. Given that the Tauren worship the Earth Mother, the Forsaken are the last people they would let into the horde because their very existence defies the laws of nature and Sylvanas and her forsaken should be “cleansed” from the world, that’s what the earth mother would want, kill the forsaken and lay them to rest.

The silly thing is that in World Of Warcraft, Sylvanas jumps off of Icecrown Citadel after Arthas’ death and survives. If she wanted to die so badly, why didn’t she just hand herself in to the Argent Dawn so that they could give her a peaceful death instead of falling off a tall building potentially having a painful and crippling death? It makes no sense.

The worst part about all this is what happened to Varimathras. You see, Legacy Of The Damned shows the Dreadlords setting up this scheme, the Ashbringer reinforces this by implying that it was all a set up to use Sylvanas as a figurehead to take control over the renegade undead forces without direct contact, only to later userp her after she had served her purpose.

This plan would have worked if it wasn’t for World Of Warcraft retconning the Forsaken into the Horde, because when Varimathras joined Sylvanas, the Forsaken were not a part of the Horde and if they were part of the Horde, there is no way Varimathras would ever have joined her.

My point is, the Dreadlords had a lot of potential and there was a lot of lore built up for a very eventful moment that would have, for once put the Dreadlords in their rightful spotlight but instead, Blizzard decided to squander it and ruined their plans in the most anti-climactic way rendering all of the build up in Legacy Of The Damned completely and utterly pointless, it’s as if the Dreadlords might as well have not been there to begin with.

Blizzard claim that Nathrezim are supposed to be these cunning demons who manipulate and corrupt all those around them but they never gave them the opportunity to actually put these talents to good use or have a major impact on the game’s lore, instead they were cast aside, wasted potential, they could have invoked a massive plot twist that could have been epic but instead they were dumped into the waste bin.

I always thought that the Dreadlords were the most interesting characters in the series and part of why I loved Warcraft 3 so much. In a way, you could say that the Dreadlords played a very important role in the story that very few people appreciated, they existed to guide the player through the story in their own twisted way, in a way you could argue that the Dreadlords play the role of the Narrator in The Stanley Parable but for Warcraft 3 instead, they were constantly influencing the characters and guiding them along a certain path, usually one that would lead to chaos.

You could also argue that they were guiding the player as well, Mal’ganis’ constant beckoning wasn’t merely directed at Arthas, it was directed at YOU the player, just like how Tichondrius was guiding Arthas the whole time, even though Kel’thuzad also played a strong role in doing that, Tichondrius was the first person Arthas meets in the undead campaign and is the first person to instruct Arthas on what to do. Not only that, he also tells the player “You are evil now, this is what evil people are supposed to do” so that you could get a better idea as to what playing a bad guy was like.

Then you have the part where Tichondrius plans to use Mannoroth’s blood to corrupt the orcs, while he did not directly instruct the orcs, he baited them… and we, the player fell for it because we were overwhelmed by Cenarius’ forces and as such we saw it as our only hope, little did we know it would lead to Grom turning evil and fighting for the Legion again.

And finally you have the Night Elves, Tichondrius planned to use the Skull Of Gul’dan to corrupt the forests, you could also say that he planned to corrupt the world tree before Archimonde could even reach it.

In doing so, he essentially set the bait for Illidan to acquire power, we fell for it yet again, we took the bait and grew powerful but at a price, this caused Illidan to be banished from the forest which caused more tension among the night elves.

Remember that the dreadlords were responcible for causing all this, this alone proves that they are cunning and intelligent, if so then why does World Of Warcraft show them as being weak and incompetent? It is for this reason why I hate what World Of Warcraft did to the lore and why I want to experience Warcraft 3’s storyline as it was back in 2002 without being tainted by those retcons because I’d rather pretend that WOW never happened.

If Blizzard do change the story then I refuse to buy this remaster.

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I’m a long time fan of WarCraft, I started playing wc1 and wc2 back in 1996 or 97, and I purchased wc3 on the day it was released

I appreciate WoW for what it is, but I never got into it and so I really dont care to see anything WoW related added into the greatest game ever made :frowning: unfortunately its too late for that

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The problem with WOW is that it is an MMORPG and as such the developers had to change the story in order to balance things so they made certain races able to be classes that they never were in Warcraft 3 and make certain independent factions (Forsaken + Night Elf) part of either the Alliance/Horde so that people could play as them while keeping the PVP balanced.

Ultimately this caused major issues in the story long term, hence the fact that blizzard feel the need to change Warcraft 3’s story.

The issue I have with this is that people who play the remaster who have never played the original will never be able to see what the story was like originally and this means that people will grow to accept it as the original lore, making the original lore fade into obscurity. I don’t want that to happen, I preferred it when the Forsaken and the Night Elves were independent, it made them stand out more as factions and caused greater conflict as a result.

In Warcraft 3, The Night Elves were a force of nature, loyal to nature/elune and no other. It is not in their nature to pick a side as they clearly prioritize their own interests over the Alliance’s interest. After all, they did fight with Thrall at Mount Hyjal as well so why would they pick the humans over the orcs?

Now WOW retconned this like everything else but if you think about it, does it really make sense that the Night Elves would fight alongside the Humans? Sure they tolerated them in the end but I wouldn’t go as far as to say they would form an allegiance to them.

But when you realize what WOW actually is, it all makes sense, it’s an MMO, Blizzard wanted players to play as Night Elves so they put them in with the Alliance, that’s all there really is to it, no justification really changes that fact because otherwise there would be no need for them to do it.

My point being that they could have wrote it better than they did if they made a Warcraft 4 instead of World Of Warcraft.

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I feel your frustration bro, I also mislike alot of the lore they changed. But sometimes change is for the greater good, even if it feels like it is not at first.
They have basically killed off or emancipated most of my favourite characters, but every now and then they bring forth new and intersting stuff.
Right now Saurfang is my last Fav guy alive. The thing is for the game and story to thrive it needs to move forward and sometimes they change lore to make it happen/fit, hell even sometimes they change and do unnecessary stuff, like the with the dreadlords. But that is what makes a story intresting in my book, it is when stuff doesnt go the way I want and get the feels of bloodrage :slight_smile:

I agree the dreadlords are cool AF and have not seen alot of glory since WC3, they are portayed as incompetent plebs, and this sucks because they should really use them more in the story cause they have alot of potential.

But blizzard owns the WC universe and can do with it what they please, we are just bystanders loving the lore and universe. All we can do is try to come with feedback and hope they listen. Instead of coming with childish threats about not supporting the franchise if they dont what you want. Rather try to talk to them, I can promise you that it is probably alot of people over at blizzard that love dreadlords also.

For the story to develop more, the game needs to grow, now they are finally making WC3R which I honestly thought never would happen because of WoW and the lore implications. If WC3R goes well, it could very well be a WC4 someday, and it doesnt necessarily need to follow WoW footsteps in lore. It could be cast in another time area, or follow completely new set of heroes on another planet. You understand what I am trying to say.

Be a little grateful of what they are trying to do, instead of be negative. They are trying to revive the greatest game of all time, which is no small feat.

And ultimately if you dont like what they are doing, you can still play original WC3 until the day you… :slight_smile:

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First of all, it is important to remember that this is a product that they are trying to sell. If they were giving the game to me for free, sure I would be grateful but I’m not going to spend my hard earned money on a game that is clearly pandering to World Of Warcraft’s story because I know for a fact that I won’t enjoy it, it really is that simple.

The thing is though that I really do want to like this remaster, it does have potential, especially with these new cinematics, there’s potential for machinima to be made and some great custom games too.

Thing is that what matters to me the most is that the story stays the same as it did in Warcraft 3, otherwise this game is less of a remake/remaster and more of a reboot.

Thing is, there already is a reboot, it’s called Warcraft: The Beginning, I absolutely loved that movie because it brought me back to what Warcraft used ti be, sure they changed things but it’s a reboot so it doesn’t matter really as it is a separate universe.

The point is, the Warcraft Movie illustrated the Warcraft I know and love to a T.

I’m all for seeing Warcraft 3 being brought back but if you change the story, you’re not bringing Warcraft 3 back.

I’m very passionate about this franchise to the point that I have a love/hate relationship with it. I don’t ask for much, people can still enjoy WOW if that’s their thing, I just want to enjoy Warcraft 3, thing is that I can’t enjoy Warcraft 3 if the story is changed to be more like World Of Warcraft.

Plus if they make a Warcraft 4 with a completely different story to World Of Warcraft, why do they need to change the lore to begin with?

It’s pretty clear that if a Warcraft 4 is made, Blizzard will want it to be the exact same story as World Of Warcraft for that very reason.

Oh and the part where you mentioned “They should use them more in the story”, as much as I agree with you, remember that many of the major Dreadlord characters have been killed in the Twisting Nether in Legion. As such the likeliness that Blizzard would ever return to the Dreadlords is very low.

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I understand :slight_smile:
I think we all are pretty passionate about this game hehe! :slight_smile:
I also have developed a love hate relationship to the story, alot of the time mostly hate hehe :slight_smile:

I have not been paying much attention to lore in the later expansions, so I did not know that they killed of many Dreadlords in legion, which is a darn shame.

But that is the problem with WoW and story, because “we” are playing heroes, “we” need to constantly bash and kill people, this is the main goal. That is the nature of the MMORPG genre, this does not make a suitable enviroment for good stories, because the good side always wins kinda(kills the raidboss eventually). While bad side (or other sides) this case dreadlords are just made punching bags. I mean they could have done a hell of alot better job in writing alot of the stuff, but they didnt and here we are.

That is why i openly welcome WC3R even with some of the stupid changes made to the lore, because a RTS is a better enviroment for a story. Because the Campaign can tell the story in whatever way it wants and be left alone. It can also be told in the different perspectives of the different factions (good, bad, neutral). Because the main game is the multiplayer (for most players) where they can kill as many orcs,human,undeads,nightelfs or even dreadlords, and it has zero impact on the lore. If you understand what I mean? English is not my main language :slight_smile:

WC3R will probably have some of the new lore, but I will happily swallow my pride and do all I can to make it thrive, in hope of a WC4 where they can continue to tell the story in a better manner than with a MMORPG.

The warcraft movie I Loved, it was awesome, but also in that movie it was some wierd choices made and lore changes, If Im not completely wrong Orgrim Doomhammer was originally of the blackrock clan, he was Blackhands second in command in the original lore. But in the movie Orgrim Doomhammer was a frostwolf second in command for Duraton. Which was a stupid change by my opinion, but they did it because they didnt have time to explain how Orgrim and Durotan became such close friends even though from different clans. there were alot they didnt explain, but I naturally know because ive read boks and played the games.

I did love the movie, but the story seemed rushed and alot of wierd changes to the lore was made, that was one of them. But they did it to try to make it work and be more understandable for the wider audience so it would be more popular, and maybe be able to make Warcraft 2 the movie.

I also hope that the major plots and events and the important lore stays mostly unchanged, but if there are some tiny changes I do not care much for it. They have in a way already changed alot of stuff, so I just want them to breathe life into the Warcraft RTS genre and hopefully make WC4 one day with a new story arc which does not follow the WoW story line tbh, with new and awesome characters. but thats me hehe :stuck_out_tongue:

I cannot answer all your points because I simply do not know, or have a good answer. Im just hyped that we are finally get something else from the Warcraft universe other that WoW hehe :slight_smile:

I still hope you will reconsider and come play WC3R even though it may not be exactly the version you hoped for :confused:

I think it is good that you voiced your opinion!
Hopefully some of it will be answered satisfactory one day!

Blood and Thunder my brother! :smiley:

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Wc3 story is why world of warcraft took off and now they are coming back to poop on what made them successful.

they shouldn’t change it, remake it with nicer models is aight but not change it.

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I think the OP is misunderstanding the intention and scope of tweaks that may or may not be coming depending on feedback. First of all, the Forsaken joining the Horde is something that happened after WC3 in WoW. Warcraft 3 Reforged is still the story of Warcraft 3. It’s simply not going to cover those events as it’s not part of the Warcraft 3 story. The only way I could see those events covered is if Blizzard create Post-Launch Campaign Content DLC for WarCraft 3 Reforged, which personally I would love to see happen. There’s plenty of opportunity for Blizzard to tell new stories with old fan favorites in the 2 year time frame between Frozen Throne and World of Warcraft.

Now let’s look at what tweaks they have done so far in the demo and extrapolate on what similar things they could do. The Culling’s level design and appearance has been tweaked to match it’s appearance in WoW. There are no changes to dialogue since there’s no point to it. It’s purely an aesthetic and level design change which is perfectly fine in my opinion.

Now, this may be controversial, but I can think of another such circumstance where a small dialogue change would be warranted for the story to match current lore. Specifically Maiev chases Illidan to the Broken Isles and is surprised to find the ancient ruins of Suramar City. Back then, the lore was that Gul’dan had raised the entirety of the Broken Isles in Warcraft 2. With WoW: Legion, this was changed into Gul’dan having raised the island Thal’dranath next to the majority of the Broken Isles instead. The Tomb of Sargeras, now the former Temple of Elune in lore, is located there, with Suramar City itself remaining intact and isolated from the world on the main island.

I’d like to hear some opinions on this one. The only dialogue that would need to be changed is to simply change “Suramar” into “Thal’dranath”, and perhaps some exposition on the Temple of Elune. Naturally I expect the Tomb itself will get the same treatment as Stratholme and match it’s Night Elf themed WoW appearance more closely.

I understand the aversion to change, but I don’t see the problem with small changes like this.

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In that case i don´t think you have to worry. Sure, there could be small tweaks to the story here and there, but i doubt it will be something major, considering everything in wc3 is supposed to be before WoW even happened. As for “lineing up with world of warcraft” … Isent that basically what its doing already? xD

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I heard what Blizzard delete from the lore half of the Rexxar campaign, is that true?

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It’s not that easy. I can see why people don’t like the Night elves joining the Alliance and the Forsaken the Horde. From a pure cultural standpoint the Night elves don’t fit into the Alliance and the Forsaken don’t fit into the Horde. But WoW actually explained it pretty well.

The Night elves lost their immortality during Warcraft 3. Now that they are mortal and Kalimdor is being settled by an entirely new faction that poses a threat to the Night elves since the Horde is still cutting down their forests they are forced to go out into the world and find new allies. The Night elves are powerful on their own. But not powerful enough to deal with all the threats on Kalimdor. So they looked for new allies. The Alliance was candidate number one. They are over there on that whole other continent and helped them out beating the Burning Legion. So there is some trust already.

Now, the Horde is in conflict with the Night elves to the north and the Forsaken are essentially hated by everyone. The Forsaken promise the Horde to give them an important Foothold on the Eastern Kingdoms in exchange for being accepted into the Horde. The Forsaken absolutely need allies since they have enemies EVERYWHERE. The Scourge to the east, The Scarled Crusade to the North and the East and the Alliance to the south. They don’t have any other possibilities than to join the Horde if they want to survive. So the Horde accepts them after Magatha Grimtotem vouches for them. She is a Tauren supremacist and probably has her own reasons to get them into the Horde. She is not the typical nature loving Tauren. WoW even acknowledged that the Forsaken are not well liked within the Horde in game. In the Forsaken intro it is said that “they don’t harbor any true allegiance to their new allies” and “it is an Alliance of convenience”.
Even the gamepay represents this since if you play a Forsaken you start out with lower reputation with the other Horde Capitals and the Orcs, Trolls and Tauren start out with lower Reputation in Undercity.

This happens a few years after TFT. Even in Cycle of Hatred which takes place one year prior to Vanilla WoW the Forsaken and the Night elves still haven’t joined their respective faction. So they probably joined not long before WoW actually starts.

It’s not the most creative explanation why the Forsaken and the Night elves have Joined the Horde and the Alliance. But is a sufficient explanation. It actually makes a lot of sense.

That said, coming back to the topic at hand. I still hope they won’t change anything that is unnecessary. Just keep the game as close to it’s original as possible.

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It feels more like a last minute attempt at justification than a sufficient explanation to me.

I also found Sylvanas boldly declaring herself as queen of Lordaeron to be rather absurd. In Warcraft 3, the Forsaken were more of a rebellion than a nationality but that all changed in World Of Warcraft where Sylvanas becomes a queen.

You don’t just declare yourself a monarch and expect everybody not to react to that.

It’s like in Mount And Blade when you take over a castle and name yourself king, every single faction in the game becomes hostile to you because you don’t have the “right to rule”.

As such I never expected Sylvanas’ “reign” would last for so long. It’s one thing to lead a small band of renegade undead, another to be a queen of a nation.

In a way, the Forsaken were no different from the Syndicate in terms of stature.

Come to think of it, the Dreadlords were in control of Lordaeron before Sylvanas came into the picture.

Does that make the three of them kings?

While Christie Golden stated that Detheroc was the leader of the 3, the original game heavily implied that Balnazzar was the leader of the 3.

As such does that mean that Balnazzar was a king?

Hmm… King Balnazzar, has a good ring to it don’t you think…

Or King Detheroc if you want to talk facts…

But of course this was not the case, they were merely using Lordaeron as an outpost, much like how the Syndicate occupy Stromgarde in World Of Warcraft.

I expected Sylvanas to do the same… but nope, she became a monarch.

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Thing is, WoW explained it. I’m not hot on having that in Warcraft 3.

Not entirely true. They added Arthas saying “Father, forgive me for what I must do” which was not in the original, and they added a named necromancer that can pop up if you destroy a house.
Still relatively harmless as it is, but I wouldn’t want anything more significant.

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Also that like “Father, forgive me for what I must do” feels out of place considering Arthas’ state of mind at that point and his character arc. Arthas is a Psychopath, The Culling existed to prove this point.

He didn’t think twice about murdering those people, he just went and did it because he was consumed with rage and wanted to slay Mal’ganis so badly that he let his rage consume him.

And I say that he is a Psychopath and not “evil” because at the time, it is arguable whether or not what Arthas did was evil, his solution was a brutal, yet somewhat practical one but it showed just how psychotic he is.

Arthas chose to kill his way through his problems than look for a more humane solution. As such, Arthas saying “Father, forgive me” feels out of place since his mind is consumed by rage at this point to the point that he literally has no empathy and no concern for his father’s people, let alone his father.

I really enjoyed how Warcraft 3 depicted Arthas’ character at this point because it helped distinguish what it truly means to be a Psychopath, you can be the nicest guy in the world with the most noble of intentions but you can still be a Psychopath and that’s precisely what Arthas was and Psychopaths are dangerous people.

It’s important to remember that being a psychopath means that you have a chronic mental disorder.

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I did a quick check: the minibosses they have added are the ones from the WoW Caverns of Time dungeon: Meathook and Salramm the Fleshcrafter. So they are adding cameos from WoW characters.

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They’re not rewriting the story necessarily i don’t believe, but are lining up the cutscenes/cinematics and the games visuals, most notably the maps of some missions, to reflect on what those events/places, etc are like in WoW. eg. The Culling mission having Stratholmes gate on the south of the map, working your way north, similar to how that works in wow, in comparison the to northeast starting point in original Wc3.

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WoW story was not meant to be canon, please do not change the old story!

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While I absolutely hope that they don’t change the lore, whatsoever, I do actually approve of the idea to make the maps fit in more with the WoW part (So attack Stratholme from the south, rather than north-east. REALLY wish they didn’t remove the zoo though.)

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I get that WoW lore sucks and bla bla bla, but how exactly that’s gonna ruin WC3’s story? They are not telling WoW’s story in WC3 Reforged, but Warcraft 3’s. In Warcraft 3 Forsaken are independent, night elves don’t belong to Alliance. This all happens after Warcraft 3 and I don’t see how any of WoW’s lore is gonna ruin WC3’s lore, other than making a little detail changes, like that the draenei in Outland are actual draenei, not some frog mutants, and so on.

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I don’t want the draeneredars in Outland. At all. And there is no reason to do that, since Akama-like draenei also exist in WoW - precisely because they were shown in The Frozen Throne. BC calls them “the Broken”.

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