This is a genuinely insane and moronic take, and you are being incredibly uncharitable to peddle some cheap, politically charged polemic.
There is literally no debate that there’s been a significant shift in terms of tone, focus, interactions between characters, races, organizations, etc. between WC2/WC3 and now.
How is this even remotely debatable?
“Wow, Anduin is dealing from PTSD over his shenanigans with the Jailer.” Okay, but the sovereign City-State of Dalaran got turned into Hogwarts for the whole of Azeroth. Races are now thoroughly homogenized and flattened, represented wholly by their incredibly flanderized leaders. Factions within the Horde and Alliance now act more like Marvel characters, instead of relating to one another and playing off from one another in a way that actual independent peoples might, etc.
Edit:
Re: “Lore illiteracy” I don’t think it’s a coincidence that half of the regulars for in-depth, citation-heavy Lore Discussions from third party sites (eg, MMO, SoL, etc.) have fallen off and genuinely pulled back from talking about Lore over the years.
Pretending every critic is some lore illiterate who simply “doesn’t get how great modern Warcraft is” definitely ignores many people who were heavily invested in Warcraft’s story until something snapped (different for each person) and they just stopped caring.
It isn’t debateable.
Some of the most iconic moments from WC3 is mischaracterized endlessly.
Orcs weren’t brutish, it was the demon blood who made them as such. The orcish culture were one of nurturing, honour, and trade - primarily with the Draenei. When the Orcs came to Azeroth the number one issue throughout all of Warcraft III became “how do we deal with the demon blood” - including to the very end where Grom sacrificed himself to save himself, and Thrall points out he saved his people.
Afterwards the Orcs joined up with Jaina and then eventually the Night Elves to fight against a greater threat and this allegience became in part a friendship that led to the events at Theramore. Where their friendship of trust of each other culminated with the death of Jaina’s father.
Yes, I’m oversimplifying the orcish storyline but the reason I’m doing this is because the Warcraft III story arc is essentially a mega charged version of “the power of friendship to overcome a greater foe.”
You tell anyone that and explains that this is what went wrong with Garrosh that he didn’t understand that the Horde but especially the Orcs weren’t bloodthirsty warmongering lunatics and people blow a gasket.
For this point I literally just need to wave slightly in the direction to the responses that I have received. Including yours where you opened up with “genuinely insane and moronic.”
People don’t care for the lore, people just want to argue, because they want their version of their headcanon for the lore to be accurate.
I’m not pretending every critic is lore illiterate. I’m saying that people who use the phrasing, thinking, or type of logic that comes with “Doesn’t feel like Warcraft” as that requires this type of individual headcanon for that statement to even be possible to be made.
Otherwise, what doesn’t feel Warcraft about Warcraft if it is Warcraft but doesn’t adhere to your version of Warcraft? This is why it is a requirement for people to have their own individual headcanon of what the lore is supposed to be, rather than what it actually is.
Warcraft’s lore is massively convoluted and have gone through plenty of changes that have made people turn away from it. But none of it has been because it “wasn’t Warcraft” but rather “because it went in a direction I didn’t like.”
Those two statements are world’s apart, and I have yet to see anyone who think along the ways of “it isn’t Warcraft:y” to be able to portray the lore in a way that comports to reality.
Therefore I don’t call every critic of Warcraft or its lore lore-illiterate. But I do stand by that I have to come across a single person who says “It doesn’t feel like warcraft” who doesn’t have an egregious misunderstanding of the lore at best, or ignores it flat-out in lieu of an actual individualistic headcanon.
Take a broom. Replace the brush. Then later replace the handle. Same broom?
If it wasn’t made by the creators, and it doesn’t feel like it was made by the creators… why do you insist it was made by the creators? Yes, it went in a different direction than the original creative direction + it isn’t made by the original creators of this franchise, that’s enough to say it isn’t Warcraft. That’s just making a statement that’s true.
Guy, they’re not paying Metzen to come out of retirement for no reason. They want to wash away some of the stigma they’re facing on the story front. And it does seem to be working as I’ve heard quite a few people say they’re keeping an eye on Midnight now that Metzen is back.
Modern Warcraft lore feels like it fits in FF14 or maybe even in Kingdom Hearts. Friendship power is one of the core powers in the franchise at this point.
I don’t… I feel like just broadly gesturing at Warcraft lore should make you just concede this point. Low-key I don’t believe you believe what you’re arguing.
Preconceived based on Metzen’s previous work on the franchise.
I’ve talked about this before. Metzenian DNA. That’s what we’re looking for. It should feel like it came from him or it doesn’t feel Warcraft. This is very, very straightforward.
Are the stories well written? I hadn’t heard of this book- but I like the sound of it.
Also, I wonder if Blizzard just looked at all the cutsie Hello Kitty popular games and merch, and decided to add a ‘cute’ race to get some of that action.
Just like I would bet they finally added housing to garner some of the Cozy Game trend.
Yes, it quite literally is debatable. Especially because the reply you’ve given me has been, in your words, an “oversimplification” of a storyline that wasn’t brought up in my post.
How are you going to call people “Lore illiterates” when this is your take? Did the Orcs trade with Draenei? Yes, but you’re leaving out some very important context:
Both had seen the draenei before, of course, but only at a distance. They came now and then to each
clan, ready to trade their carefully crafted tools and weapons and decorative pieces of carved stone in exchange for the thick pelts
of the forest animals, brightly woven blankets, and raw materials the ores culled from land and stone. It had always been an
occasion of interest in the clans, but the exchanges only lasted a few hours. The draenei—blue-skinned, soft-spoken, eerily
arresting—did not invite closeness, and no clan leader had ever asked them to stay and share their hospitality. Relationships were
cordial but aloof, and everyone involved seemed to want it that way.
–“Rise of the Horde,” p38
Even as the Orcs interacted with the Draenei, they did so at a distance, and remained skeptical and wary of the Draenei. That’s part of the entire tragedy of the story. Unfamiliarity, and parochial attitudes were exploited by the Legion to turn the Orcs against the Draenei. That is what makes the story beats like Durotan participating in the assault on Telmor, and Velen’s meeting with the Orcs during the beginning of hostilities.
This is largely the problem with your line of thinking. You take 1 or 2 lines out of context, completely ignoring what they do for the story, and use them to cobble some half-baked point like: “WoW has ALWAYS been borderline Marvel-slop.”
It wasn’t necessarily friendship, it was genuine necessity, and it was incredibly divisive within Orcish & Human societies (See: Nazgrel & Daelin Proudmoore for the two different directions of dissent).
Even as friendship between Thrall & Jaine grew, they didn’t act like “BFFs who could sort their problems out with a few lines of text and a couple of epic witty quips xD.” Instead, tensions between their peoples persisted. This is best exemplified in the meeting between Thrall & Jaina in “The Sundering,” where Thrall is explaining to Jaina how the (gruesome) attacks on the Night Elves are being recieved by sections of Orgrimmar, and the limits of what he can and cannot do re: Concessions to Alliance.
There are plenty of examples here, but I think I’ve sufficiently established that the ways factions and characters interacted with one another were much more nuanced and grounded than now.
What are you talking about? Half the reason the Garrosh storyline worked, is because there was a fundamental philosophical split in Orcish society as to WHO THE ORCS WERE. The authors literally beat you over the head with this in “The Shattering,” “Heart of War,” and “Glory.”
Those three pieces (as well as a host of Northrend quests), build on the PRE-EXISTING sentiments of Orcs who chaffed under Thrall’s leadership, which go back to Warcraft III.
In the early portions of “The Shattering” there are passages suggesting that Thrall feels he is out of step with his own people, and other allusions are made to Garrosh being the “man of the hour.” The rising popularity of “Garrosh-ism” (which came to encompass sentiments that pre-existed Garrosh’s joining the Horde), coupled with a more proactive Alliance, and the Horde’s resource crisis in the wake of the Wrath Gate Trade dispute & the Cataclysm served as perfect kindling for a multilayered conflict.
This is also relevant to a point that I brought up in my own post, that you completely failed to address by the way, that races and factions used to be much more complex & now they are developed fully through their flattened and bland leaders.
The Garrosh arc felt natural, because we saw both in-game and in stories, that there were Orcs who agreed with him. There were fundamental splits within Orcish, Human, Forsaken, Night Elven and Blood Elven societies that were explored from multiple angles and led to races feeling a whole lot more fleshed out.
This allowed Blizzard to do justice to both unity and conflict between peoples, because they had many different angles to explore story beats from.
“You don’t care about the lore, because you were hostile to me in your opening post.”
Not an Argument/10
You don’t get to whine and pretend I’m being unnecessarily caustic after accusing people who disagree with you of being “misogynists” and “lore illiterate.” Give me a break.
You’re completely glossing over the fact that something “not being Warcraft” is incredibly subjective.
“You’re allowed to criticize Warcraft Lore, but only in ways I deem acceptable in pre-established bounds that I have set. If you step outside of that, you don’t know Lore.”
Nothing you’ve posted thus far in this thread really suggests you’re a “lore expert” or a qualified arbiter of “Lore competency.” Quite the opposite, actually.
They’re fine I guess. It’s tie-in media so it’s nothing special. They’re all short stories so they don’t really have the time to delve into the psyche of characters, they mostly just tell the events of the story they want to tell.
If you are going to ship of Theseus me, just say it.
Regardless though, this isn’t a ship of Theseus because a ship once built is finished. The reason why that philosophical question can be asked is “At which point does an object seize to be that object” - a story is continuously developed as long as it is continuously written and developed upon.
Back during Cataclysm folks were saying “This isn’t Warcraft” to quests like “The Day Deathwing Came” or with the quest of “Peacebloom VS. Ghouls.” Yet I can point out that one of the most nefarious and cruel individuals in the entire Warcraft universe, Nefarian, had a devastating attack … where he transformed people into giraffes.
And the OG Blizzcon polar bear had sunglasses and a Blizzcon flag.
The sentiment of “That isn’t Warcraft” has literally no bearing outside of how it is used; and on these forums it is nearly universally used as a dog whistle because people are angry that Thrall, Anduin, Varian, or any other character displays emotions and want to talk instead of fight - after that it devolves further but that’s the starting point.
Citation needed. Otherwise I’m going to opt with what makes far more sense: since folks have been saying that they disliked where the story was going, they asked Metzen if he wanted to work on the game again, he said yes, and we got The War Within - yet another expansion that people have said “didn’t feel Warcraft:y.”
Because again, that means nothing.
Here’s the issue…
I’m the only one who is actually referencing the actual lore of the game and the universe. Each one of my statements actually come from the lore. Also if you think “Friendship power” hasn’t always been around, let me show you two things from Warcraft III:
Grom fighting to end the bloodcurse by killing Mannoroth. A truly epic scene where he and Thrall fights Mannoroth and he does so thus freeing his people. It wasn’t for glory, it wasn’t for the thrill, it was to save his own people from the rage he had brought back to them. Which Thrall recognized by how his friend had saved them all.
Sacrificing oneself for the sake of one’s friends and families is literally one of the versions of the “Friendship/Family/Love” archetypes in storytelling. Of course this one also had the sacrifice archetype to it but again, relatively common as part of it.
Then you have three factions of people working together to stop Archimonde from reaching the tree too early. Didn’t provide a video with the sassy quips from Jaina and others, but they each helped each other to stand together. All so then Malfurion would have the time to summon the spirits of the elves to “make the ultimate sacrifice in a final stand together.” This time a mass sacrifice for the sake of one’s friends and families - not quite the same way since these aren’t each individual characters we have come to care for, but it is still within the same field or archetype.
Literally all of Warcraft is about people of different cultures and backgrounds, putting down their differences, coming together as allies, to overcome insurmountable odds together. Weak individually, strong together - hell, you have the original dialogue between Wrathion and Tong as part of the legendary questline that literally states it out loud:
Every single foe, every single game, and every single expansion has been tailored around this point. This is what people refer to as “Friendship coded” or the “Power of friendship” (of which we have more specific examples over the years but the point is this; all of my examples come from the lore, yours come from your own headcanon and emotions).
That crowd is all: “creatures from other planets traveling across time and space doesn’t feel like Warcraft!” Meanwhile, that’s what happened with the Dark Portal to begin with.
It basically means they think their desires are psychically foundational to the franchise. Almost delusional.
Fairly often, one sees this crowd hold up titles like WC3 or WotLK as peaks in terms of storytelling. WC3 featured the implosion of the Alliance and a Legion invasion, WotLK featured an Old God and the Scourge.
Both had fairly large threats that went beyond the scope of “Horde and Alliance,” but the way the factions and races acted was markedly DIFFERENT from today.
In prior iterations of the “Large threat that requires us to put aside our differences” plots, the factions themselves, as well as individual races within the factions act as INDEPENDENT peoples jockeying for advantage and indulging in natural skepticism of the other, with boundaries between the two being established and pushed.
That is entirely different from factions and races themselves totally falling into the background to be replaced by a cast of a few bland, flanderized characters trading Marvel-tier quips at one another.
I never understood why people think Dracthyr doesn’t feel Warcraft.
Is it because of all the colorful options available for their visage customization? Because otherwise they look like a pretty standard fantasy/warcraft universe race.
I find those Sureki things lame and not very Warcrafty, the ascended Nerubian things. They just look bizarre in this game. Anthro dragons, anthro spiders, anthro this, anthro that, you know not everything needs to walk on 2 legs and look like a person.
