No I really wouldn’t. If they’re just going to copy WoW’s lore, I won’t even bother dropping the cash to see how they did it. I’d rather Wc3 treat it like WoW doesn’t exist, and go it’s own direction.
For many reasons iterated in other threads, WoW’s MMORPG styled storytelling bottlenecks you into a ton of unfortunate and sometimes silly/nonsensical situations.
I’d rather if they made an expansion to Wc3, or a Wc4, I’d like them to just come up with a new story and continue the more mature style of the Warcraft RTS franchise. I have faith in the writers that they could do that, as you can actually step into the shoes of the heroes in an RTS, whereas you’re confined to being a common denizen of Azeroth who watches the heroes fight (and sort-of join in yourself).
If there ever was WC4, I think the safest and maybe the most interesting thing would be to make WC4 co-exist with WoW and they would be looking at the same events at the same time, but from different perspectives, taking the lore onward where WoW lore is now.
That could actually be quite interesting and it would dodge some the other problems:
Rewriting WoW lore could potentially anger many fans, or if nothing else, it would divide players - also, RPing and future lore of WoW could get very confusing unless they were separate timelines, where WC4’s events never happened in WoW’s lore. If a yet another timeline really is a good thing, is questionable. And it still might not even solve the angry fans part…
Pre-WC1 stories would have a hard time creating a one story, that would be coherent overall and include both orcs and humans. And making a totally new Warcraft tittle without either, would not be a good idea, in my opinion. Or a spin-off, sure, but not WC4.
Singular events, from here and there from the lore, has the same problem as the previous point: the stories would have a hard time connecting to each other and it would hardly feel like a new amazing story. As single bonus campaigns, they work well, but not as a main story of WC4. It’s like a TV-series could have different stories in each episode, but a movie that jumps from time and place to another every 20 mins would just make no sense.
I’d be quite happy to see some more storylines at any time, really. It could be a story-heavy remake of earlier games or books, or campaigns that fill the gap between WC3 and WoW or even covering early WoW conflicts (even on small scale).
This might seem odd, but I’d also love a mini-campaign that was something of a sidequel to WC3 as well. Gnomes aren’t the most loved race in the setting, but they were entirely absent in WC3. I’d love a small campaign, even if only 3 or 4 missions long, that covers what happened in Gnomeregan. That way Blizzard can correct a small oversight and give them more content.
I think it’d be better if they try to make more original stories because there are definitely people out there who play Warcraft for the lore and “hey it’s WoW again” may not be interesting to them.
TBH every numbered game in the series tells its own story and treats all previous games as historic background. Everything else is changed to fit the setting of the latest game.
Horde was changed from Blackhands Orc-centric, demon-summoning warband to Doomhammer’s ‘mock Alliance’ that does not use Warlock magic, to Thrall’s shamanistic-rooted Horde living in the Barrens. Characters like Uther and Grom were reimagined to fit the setting of Warcraft 3. Thrall didn’t even get a proper introduction.
WoW is already building towards some key events that may usher in a WC4 in the future. We have Anduin vetted into position as High King with a few potential romantic interests being written in. We have Zekhan being a Saurfang successor, and potentially a Warchief in the future. We have Sylvanas doing her own thing and her devout followers behind her, including those she raises from the dead. And we still have Wrathion in the shadows.
The way I imagine it, WC4 would just be a continuation of the series focusing on a new story, new characters and new setting with a bunch of political intrigue and historic references thrown in. I would imagine much of the series would be taking place on different worlds too since magic portals has been a thing since the original, and we’ve only used it to cross to Draenor. It would be a good time to explore other Titan planets and fight the corruption of the Old Gods and Legion on a universal scale. It opens up the High Fantasy genre to something far greater.
Excellent suggestions! Ah, just imagine revisiting Hearthglen as Taelan Fordring for example… Human OST… Scarlet Crusade banners… So damn good!
These could be of interest to both WC3 and WoW players. They would not interfere with current WoW, retain a more traditional setting and even complement the revival of classic WoW.
Like I said though, this would be incredibly boring from a narration perspective. You literally already know what’s going to happen, who’s going to die and when. Maybe some minor details get changed, but, no offense, even reboots of series get more identity than this kind of route.
I mean that the story would be all new story we’ve never experienced before, taking off where WoW is now. All players don’t play both games. And still, it would be quite a different experience to see some of the stuff from different perspective, even if the events themselves would be the same.
Also, WoW is much more detailed: as a single hero, you could get into detail of some minor events through quests, that wouldn’t even be shown in WC4. And on the other hand, WC4 would show you a much larger scale and you would see the big picture, not just one fight at a time.
And even if the story was more the same, no good story gets boring by the second time you go through it. Just the fact, that it would be a totally new story, would make it more interesting than just rerunning through WoW in RTS perspective (though, that, too, could be interesting, but there’s still quite a lot of other problems, so I don’t simply see it a very likely scenario).
If i remember correctly someone did create a custom map for this exact thing (create custom campaigns for the WoW story) and from what i remember they were fairly well made. Unfortunately i lost all my maps recently and can’t remember the youtube channel i found that on. I’ll get back to this if i remember them. It was interesting though whoever it was had created their own custom heros with custom models including a Lich King.
I’d definitely love this to happen though I’ve always enjoyed the wc3 storyline yet i could never really get into WoW.
I think pre-wow period between Wc 3 and WoW would make great expansions and they could even add more if they wish say like what we never saw or know before but happened before WoW, that even opens up content for WoW patches
I mean maybe. But that depends on your definition of a “good story.”
It’s been so long since Warcraft’s RTS side has been touched, I’d rather they just come up with something unique to itself, rather than follow the railroad tracks. It would probably be a lot more interesting than WoW’s story if it followed the RTS path, which I akin more to a Game of Thrones’esque everyone-out-for-themselves versus the WoW’s Harry Potter’esque Good vs Evil kinda thing goin on.
But ultimately it just goes back to my main point. Why do what’s already been done? Warcraft was the innovating, cutting edge game when it came out. It had an unprecedented editor and musical score for it’s genre, not even mentioning its story. Why would we want to become like the FPS genre and just borrow pieces from other games to incorporate? If they’ve put off making a Warcraft 4 for 14 years, they should do it right, and not use any other game for it’s crutch. Even if it has to use Wc3 as a purely historical backdrop.
I would make an argument that WC4 would be creating a new story that has nothing to do with WC3 or WoW other than carry the name and history.
It wouldn’t be about Malfurion and Tyrande. It wouldn’t be about Illidan or Arthas. It wouldn’t be about Sylvanas or Jaina or the Lich King or Azshara. If we want more stories about these characters, then an expansion is where we should see them. However, any big numbered game should only treat all of what’s happened in Warcraft as history. It would be about new threats, new Alliances, and loose ties to historic figures.
As for the Good vs Evil nature… that’s always been a part of Warcraft’s overarching themes. That was the entire basis for WC1 and 2. Even RoC was driven by banding the three races against the Legion and Scourge. Arthas becoming the big bad is still typical of the Good vs Evil trope. TFT was the only outlier and that’s because it decidedly focused on anti-heros/villains vying for power.
WoW’s story, for the most part, works if condensed as history like Warcraft 3’s manual. I mean honestly, the lore as a whole works. It’s only the minutia that we fret over like Light-based Nathrezim or Harrison Jones’ adventure in Uldum. Those things aren’t the broad story. We just need to know the big things - Bolvar became Lich King, Deathwing was killed, Pandaria was rediscovered and Sargeras is imprisoned. Entire expansions jotted down in bullet form, that’s exactly how they should be treated in WC4.
And tbh anything that doesn’t make sense can be rightfully ignored or rewritten. They left out gnomes entirely out of WC3 for no real reason, and wrote them back in WoW.
That’s literally what I said up above. I would rather see a Wc4 that’s disconnected from an already established storyline. Why read a story when you already know everything that happens in it? (Outside of nostalgia that is.) That’s not going to sell, nor be as good of a story as a completely new one that’s tailored both to the genre it’s in and the medium it’s telling it through.
That was in 1 and 2 sure. But I’d argue 3 broke away quite a bit from that. For instance, Arthas in the Undead campaign did help summon the Burning Legion, but he also helped Illidain gain the Skull of Gul’Dan and hindered the Legion wherever he could.
You never really play as the Legion, only the other characters in the story. So sure while every story has a chaotic-evil group, most of the content in Wc3 is actually focused on more morally grey characters.
A prime example would be the Orcs. Is Grom a hero? A villain? An anti-hero? Is Thrall justified killing all the humans on his way to the Prophet? What about the events in Ashenvale? These are not black-and-white things, which is what gave RoC a lot of it’s character, and why I’d argue it’s more akin to a Game of Thrones trope.
I don’t think I’d call Arthas’s WoW rewrite a minutia. Or Muradin’s survival. Or the Draenei-Broken Ones-Lost Ones rewrite a small change. I don’t legitimately believe anyone can non-ironically argue that WoW treated it’s cast of characters well, or kept them faithful to their characters. They all suddenly veer off into mass rampages to justify us murdering them for a raid encounter. Look at Sylvanas right now. Look at Garrosh and Vol’jin; Kael’thalas and so many others. Even Deathwing and Arthas had such unsatisfactory deaths and story lines.
I mean, Ashbringer was retconned what, 5 times since WoW’s inception? Even the Wiki for it is just a mess. And somehow it beats Frostmourne, a creation of Kil’jaeden and the Nathrezim themselves. But somehow, a sword made from a crystal of pure chaotic energies, to the point that touching it caused a literal unheal-able wound which was made only after the Scourge began, could shatter it.
Arthas at this point was a literal embodiment of death. The millions of souls killed by the Scourge gave him individually power rivaling all of the Elemental dragons combined, and even surpassing that of Kil’Jaeden if I’m not mistaken. For him to be killed by a simple avatar is plot armor at its literal thickest. A disappointing end to such a great character. (Not even mentioning the later reforging of the weapon as a collectible for DK’s in a later expansion…)
So ultimately I return to my central point. Following WoW’s story would be silly and an unnecessary limiter for a potential Wc3 expansion or a Wc4. They should do their own story with what they feel is a good direction for the characters (whether they use Wc3 characters, or come up with new ones).
But those are not issues with the story rather it was issues with how the lore was presented piece-meal for the purpose of MMO story telling.
If the Ashbringer story was told in a WC3R expansion, then ideally that would become the latest canon and not the 5x retcons in between. I see this as simply as I see how the multiple endings in WC1 and 2 were tossed away in favour of a definitive victor, or Chronicles cleaning up loose ends in lore and drawing new lines in the sand. In the case of the Ashbringer, the crystal was always hinted to be a cleansed Naaru corpse, and to me that’s latent power that would rival a creation of the Burning Legion. Would it be better if we didn’t have the Ashbringer altogether?
As for characterization in WoW, disappointments or retcons of characters living/dying/plot armor… If we regard WoW as history, none of it matters. It is minutia in regards to WC4. I don’t see the portrayal of Kael’thas in WoW having any relevance here, since it is a story that ends in WoW and would not continue in WC4. Same with Arthas, same with any issues with the Ashbringer, same with Sargeras himself.
We can disagree with WoW’s direction, that’s fine. But there’s no need to disregard the lore as a whole. We wouldn’t get a better WC4 just by having Arthas left as the Lich King or having Kael’thas still be leader of the Blood Elves or Muradin being left dead. None of that really matters to a new setting.
If Blood Elves had their own new faction in WC4, then it doesn’t matter if Kael’thas was still alive because he wouldn’t be the leader of this faction; ideally it would be a new successor. If Forsaken get their own faction, it wouldn’t be Sylvanas, ideally it would be a new successor. It wouldn’t be Lorthemar or Nathanos or Lillian Voss or anyone we know from WoW, it would be new characters created for the purpose of WC4.
Whatever we feel about characters in WC3 regarding WoW has no bearing in WC4. The story’s main focus would primarily be on the new characters and new environments. Tabula Rasa.
I agree, we could debate WoW’s validity till the cows come home, and it wouldnt change a thing. However, I don’t think that a complete wipe from Wc3 into a Wc4 is either necessary, or necessarily a good idea. I don’t think you can end TFT with Arthas taking the Throne, and all his unanswered questions, and then wipe him from the map. He’s just too big of a threat to go poof.
I think that the only realistic way they pull what you’re suggesting off is if the people under them were the ones we were playing as, and the MC’s from Wc3 become contextual characters with their own rise/falls from power. Similar to how the Silver Hand is in Warcraft 3 versus Warcraft 2, they show up and they do things, but you don’t play as them, and they serve a more supporting role in the story (rather than just wiping out the previous characters, and from-scratch inventing new ones to take their place). Personally, I think that several of the characters, Illidan for example, or Arthas, would be fine as recurring characters. With short, tasteful intro’s in Warcraft 4, players could be caught back up on where Illidan / Arthas / Jaina / Whoever stand. For instance, if Illidan is introduced as he makes his way back to Outland with his surviving forces, and bows before Kil’jaeden and is admonished for his loss in Northerend, that would be a pretty exposition-free way of showing the conflict Illidan had (and lost), and the position he is in following the events. (I’m not saying this has to happen, only that this is a viable option for re-introducing some iconic, central characters from Wc3. This was done for Uther from Wc2 to Wc3 anyways, so it’s not without precedent.)
It sounds all well and good until you realize that the Warcraft lore is strained far more now than it was in the 90s. The devs have said definite things about the universe such as “the Legion is big” and “the Void Lords are even bigger”. The canon from WC1 or WC2 did not pretend to touch upon everything, so things could be added, entire stories created. Now, the wells are dried out.
It’s even difficult to come out with anything that won’t be a banal repetition. Uniting against a common enemy? Fracturing because of subfactions getting corrupted? Going back to the roots? Going upwards into space? Everything has been done.
I’m not even mentioning that DeathlyGod wants to disregard all WoW altogether (and create sensible stories in its place), whereas you would prefer WC4 to be after WoW with the focus on unnamed at this point lackies of Sylvanas that pick up scraps after some cataclysm (possibly) and get appreciated by the players just as much as the original cast of WC3 were…
Your idea has two challenges - first, WC4 after WoW makes little sense (especially considering that you don’t hate WoW and wouldn’t want to kill it for no reason), and second, making up a completely new story would be a titanic work that we can’t even properly speculate about.
What made the transition from WC2 to WC3 possible? The exhaustion of both the Alliance and the Horde after a cataclysmic war, and the addition of two new threats in the Scourge and the Legion. Can anything of such scale be done with the current state of the WC universe? Can’t see it.
![:smiley:](https://dou48tnq0ocoa.cloudfront.net/en/warcraft3/images/emoji/twitter/smiley.png?v=6" ":smiley:")