Warcraft III Lore retconning to match WoW is a terrible idea

General Discussion
281

TBH, that’s a very narrow view of what WoW brought.

Yes, it is terrible in many aspects. But it brought a ton of good too.

Yes, there are many big lore characters from WC3 that were effectively ignored in WoW. But that perspective comes from only seeing WC3 and expecting it to be touched upon. For most players whose first foray into the Warcraft universe was WoW, they don’t really have that bias or expectation. What I actually liked about early WoW was how they didn’t glorify characters like Malfurion and Rexxar and Jaina. They simply existed as characters in the world. What that did was allow us to explore the world and focus on our own story, rather than follow in the shadow of epic heroes who run the show.

Arguably, IMO the lore has turned for the worse once they actually started characterizing these established heroes. So its a catch-22. From what I gather of your particular argument, what you wanted wasn’t a World of Warcraft, what you wanted was WC3 Expansion in MMO form. That’s not exactly what the game was about, even if we did have some big notable characters front the story.

By and large, WoW was about our adventures. That’s what I realized very early on, and what really gripped me about the game even when I was a lore buff interested in the post-WC3 storyline. It’s only the recent shift to becoming a linear narrative that’s really bugged me about WoW. I wouldn’t be able to pinpoint where things went astray, since linear story is so interconnected with our own character-driven story. It’s just messy.

But I don’t think there’s a question of what WoW brought to the table at all. It brought to us a much wider world to explore than the RTS could ever have hoped to. WoW is a fully immersive realization of the ‘Role Playing Strategy Game’ that Blizzard initially wanted out of Warcraft 3. There’s much more to the game and what it brought than just its linear storyline. There’s the races they introduce, the locations we visit, the enemies we fight, and much more.

I am fully aware of WoW’s story downfalls, but I don’t think that’s a sum of the whole. Half of everything that made WoW so good was its immersion and the stories it told without saying a word of text. There’s nothing in WC3 that compares to getting on a boat to Darnassus the first time, or getting stomped on by a ninja Devilsaur, or seeing Naxxramas appear high above in the Plaguelands. That’s immersion at its best, and I don’t think it should be overlooked for the sake of ‘LOL Arthas got pwned by 10 people’

Even from a lore perspective, all of those immersive experiences added to the slowly-unfolding mystery that lead to a lot of exploring, and eventual revelations. Oh, the Night Elves built their capital city on the new World Tree. Oh, these dinosaurs are here because of a Titan experiment. Oh, Naxxramas is here because of KEL’FRIKKEN’THUZAD!

The journey is what made WoW memorable.

2 Likes
282

Sir,

I don’t think you were paying a close attention to what i said.

But thats ok… I did write a hell of a lot up there so will repeat myself .
“WoW had the potential of making a fun game, which will bring billions to the company, enjoyable, fun and competitive… It was supposed to be a game that will develop new stories and expand the universe.”

That is preety much it… You say WoW was about new content and expanding our views, which i partially agree, because then the game would not suck.
Yet they decided to bring all the Big Boys back into the game, why? because they kept losing subscribers with each year, so they needed to bring new people in… and what better way to do so, than to create hype with some of the Biggest wc3 names, only to kill the entire lore, but hey, it helped them keep their profit running, right?

The point why story of wc4 should not follow WoW is because you say, WoW brought and expanded new content and races etc… Well… for a short time i will agree, then i will ask you this*?

Where have you seen more orc clans? wc 3 or wow? and who was more detailed about it?

I never said WoW never brought anything good to the table… They did, and to me, Pandaria is the most awesome expansion… New world was preety cool, arena was super fun and got width, raids were refreshing and almost no Big Names were mutilated in the lore. (You will pardon me if someone was mutilated, because at work atm i struggle to remember all the details from MoP).

I am fine with Vanilla WoW, because it was fun game, with some new things introduces, based about OUR experience and OUR adventours…
The thing you say about entire WoW being that, well sorry bro… that’s not truth.

In TBC alone you killed Illidan, Lady Vashj, Kael Thas, OFC, why not play Battle of Mount Hyjal again and defeat same enemy as in WC3? (Archimonde),
Kil Jae’den, “shade of akama” can surely be here as well…

So when you say that TBC or WotLK are super awesome and amazing (i did like the raid tbh) but as we keep talking about the lore and lore only, that was biggest butchering the world has ever seen…

Most of the guys i see commenting here are perfectly fine with WoW having alternate universe where you have to kill people you already killed at least twice?
But when you say, wc4 should have different lore than WoW than " oh, that would be stupid and would put away all they have done since 2004" well… fu*ck WoW, how bout that?

WoW was nothing more than golden cow, which would sacrifice anything just to keep the profit up to a level.

Let’s be honest… If they continue with lore where they stopped at TFT?
pfffuf… only the sky is the limit…

I can only say adding extra campaign to wc3 reforged or some day at wc4 is their chance to redempt everything they did to make profit, apologize to fans, and make profit all over again…

Because from all the theories you can come up with (which make sense, unlike WoW), we could be talking about at least 2 or 3 expansions of Warcraft… So many things to show about Jaina, Lady Vashj, Kael, Illidan (if not dead, even though he should be), and last Arthas… the main character of this freakin game… 2 expansions we guided him to destroy darkness only to turn him into one of THE greatest villains the game has seen… and now when he finally fuzed with Ner’Zhul, he should be at his peak of power… Everything he did in TFT was purely from Frostmourne, and LK was trapped in ice cage with his powers being firstly limited, secondly, he was cracked and started to lose power, so now… we finally get to see, what a full power Arthas the Lich King can do to Azeroth.

People saying he had still good inside of him is preety redicoulus to say, considering he killed his Uther, Father, Captains and all the people who ever knew him or Helped him… He even used his fathers urn to summon Kel Thuzad as Lich… c’mon… what “good” inside of him are we really fooling ourselves with.

The guy is a badass, and you all have a chance to support a proper game, with proper campaign, and hopefully, a proper movie or tv series that will circle everything and put the icying on the cake.

Whoever says, that he played WoW for all the expansions, and can justify “logic” of WoW writers is just silly…
1.) What can be sillier than reviving Muradin Bronzebeard after you can even read that the Arthas the Paladin himself tried to revive him upon claiming Frostmourne and has failed to do so,
2.) Bringing Gul’Dan over and over and over
3.) Bringing Illidan over and over and over

It feels like the WoW lore writers haven’t read the books themselves, but rather just say, Oh you know what would be cool? if we bring Gul’dan and illidan again… oh yea man… super awesome

2 Likes
283

The problem I see with this is that there’s simply no guarantee that disregarding WoW would change anything.

If we’re to criticize WoW for having to bring back the old characters because of dying subs, and writing their lore badly, I don’t see how a WC4 would avoid doing the exact same thing.

Think about this hard. Wrath/Arthas gets rewritten - think of the best scenario you can for how it plays out. Now realistically speaking, do we trust Blizzard to be able to meet those expectations? Because even with a WC4 (that continues WC3), I don’t trust they could do it right. We’ve seen what they did with SC2. We’ve seen what they’ve done with Diablo 3’s storyline. We’re seeing now how WoW. If you’re gonna criticize the story telling, you might as well be honest admit that Blizzard storytelling is bad across the board. We don’t even have an example of a current Blizzard game that has good writing.

As for WC4-

l think they’ll treat WoW and WC3 the same way as WC1 and WC2; as history told from the ‘manual’. WC4 should first and foremost tell its own story and expand its own part of the universe. Anything else from WC3/WoW can be treated as world-changing history much like how WC1+2’s big wars inform us of the current setting. I’d say it should be a completely new story that simply uses post-WoW Azeroth as a setting. It doesn’t even have to take place on Azeroth.

I don’t expect good writing out of this either way. Gameplay and art is what draws me back. Nowadays, I just treat every Blizzard title the same way I treat Heroes of the Storm and Hearthstone.

1 Like
284

Honestly, they just ended the “4th War” in WoW. Seeing as Warcraft 1, 2, and 3 were the other numbered wars, it seems logical that Warcraft 4 would be the fourth war. Which would be disappointing for many fans but following their numbering pattern it makes sense.

Honestly, mini campaigns made by the community and maybe one official dlc from blizzard if reforged is really successful seems more likely than Warcraft 4. It’s too soon to consider a sequel.

1 Like
285

I’d hardly call that the 4th war. It was an odd story to tell TBH. I don’t think BFA is a very high point in the overall lore. A lot of nothing happened, a lot of setup to things left unexplained, a lot of alliances that have no place outside of convenience for players to have subraces.

1 Like
286

I agree. It was not what I was hoping from the fourth war. But they released an achievement for completing the ‘War Campaign’ called Veteran of the Fourth War. Logically, that suggests that the Fourth war is finished and the only conflict that was anywhere near close to that was BFA, though you could consider MoP and some Cataclysm to be part of that too. Apparently there was global conflict being alluded to through the warfronts.

2 Likes
287

Well… I must disagree…

I just think Blizzard has magnificent lore to tell, both in the beggining of the SC and WC3 and that is preety impressive.

I would say however that in WoW writing was poorly done, and i would compare it to how Dan & Dave ruined GOT with last season…

You can simply say that they rushed to conclude it, and it was poor and rushed writing.

I honestly believe if they really want that they can make really good sequel to the lore we have… Let’s be honest… it can’t be any worse than it is now…
Whenever they run out of ideas, they just keep doing circles…

Alliance and horde unite, someone commits treason, then they are at war again, and then over and over and over…

You have Azeroth with Jaina, Thrall, Rexxar etc…
You have Lich King in full power with the Scourge
You have Burning Legion
You have Illidan and Kael and Lady Vashj (if Illidan is alive).

So many ways for this lore to take turn… will Arthas wipe out Azeroth, will he kill Jaina, Will he turn to fight BL and ignore Azeroth…

Whichever option they choose i am sure it will be damn good…
Then again, you have Sylvanas, which in my opinion had way too much credit in WoW and for some unknown reason was made the most important character…

Plently of options, and each and every one of them is better than Lich King being afk in his fort and waiting for us to raid him…

1 Like
288

You saw the Warcraft Movie, right?

1 Like
289

Heh… thats why i say some SERIOUS movie or tv show like whats gonna be next LotR with financing over 1 billion $.

To keep this story short… I hope wc3 reforged remains the same lore wise, that they don’t improvise with stupid storylines which don’t fit.

I am very happy to see all cutscenes getting reworked, updated models and new competitive ladder.

If they decide to add more missions out of TFT or give any extra…
Then i hope for their own good that they don’t mess up (Again)
Because the backlash will be huge, as it should be.

All of us gave more than enough money to Blizzard to earn enough respect not to be treated like mentally ill people.

No one is asking of them to make an oscar worth movie or game lore, but at least not to insult peoples and customers intelligence.

290

Well, I understand. But honestly, the Warcraft movie was a serious take, and with a relatively big budget and hollywood talent behind it. It’s not some Made-For-Netflix special, and it’s not some random studio cashgrab like the Resident Evil movies were.

They really tried to tell the Warcraft Origin story, and as a result there were lots of odd changes and odd choices like having Doomhammer be a Frost Wolf and having Garona be some random slave who might be the daughter of Medivh…

It had Metzen and Duncan Jones (Moon was fantastic!) behind it, and it still fell short. I don’t know what you could really do with a post-WC3 story that would have fans super happy. Everyone seems to have their own vision of what that should be, and I’ve seen none of them which were technically better than what we already have in WoW.

I feel like this is a revisit of ‘Classic+ will fix WoW!’ argument. It’s wishful thinking.

3 Likes
291

SC2: LotV was incredibly glorious. WoW lore is incredibly deep.

Stop with this nonsense. WoW lore is about philosophy. WC3 is about politics. Different genres.

292

Its a reasonable concern, but at least they won’t be constraining the plot to fit an mmo framework. I doubt we would get my afore mention scenario of every main character dying to 25 random plebs with dumb names. Still you have a good point. Maybe Blizzard should hire new competent writers, or get the WC3 team back.

A completely new story untouched by WoW could work, but it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. WC3 fans will never know what happens post WC3 unless they pay a monthly fee to play through a grind of subpar story quests in dead abandoned zones.

1 Like
293

I’ve always been pretty open about preferring the movie’s version of the lore to the games’ for how grounded it is in comparison. The games go a little too crazy at times.

294

did you know orcs are what happens when a bunch of plants fight a bunch of rocks

2 Likes
295

Which lore is that?

Sounds like Warhammer to me.

296

It was introduced in the Chronicle series. It explains the whole gronn evolution/devolution.

1 Like
297

OH.

Yeah when you break it down like that it does sound stupid.

Actually reading it in context made it sound pretty awesome though.

1 Like
298

It’s both. I think it’s the stupidest “fantasy logic happened” that just makes me love orcs even more.

299

Also proves that orcs and ogres are related. Explains why something like Rexxar can happen.

300

In fairness’ sake, draenei are from another world and can reproduce with orcs. And orcs can reproduce with humans.

There are no rules. Chaos reigns.

1 Like