“I can wait no longer” -Grommash Hellscream (and most of the classic community)
So if you’ve seen any of my posts, I’m a lore junky, and so I’m very excited for this trip back in time. I can’t wait to experience a time when the story was just beginning (and not the jumbled mess it is nowadays with all the retcons and weird addendums to the storyline).
So I’d like to ask, what is your favorite part of Wow’s lore, relegated to Vanilla and the lore preceding it. No expansions here, no matter how much you liked Pandas punching Garrosh or whatever you’re into.
I’d like to start with mine, that being the lore of the night elves and more specifically the Druids. I remember seeing them for the first time when I was a kid while playing my brother’s copy of warcraft three, it was the first time a fantasy setting really gripped me at that age and the idea of purple skinned guardians of nature just seemed so cool to me. So naturally I held onto that love for the night elves, and honestly seeing Teldrassil for the first time was a magical experience. I could go on about all things I love about them NOW, now that I’ve read into their lore a great deal more but for now I’ll leave it at that.
Funny that in just another thread I was beginning to muse about simpler times.
For me, I felt alienated by the Horde in Cataclysm and have been Alliance ever since. But now we get to go back to a time with Thrall, Vol’jin, and Cairne in charge. We get to go back to a truly honorable Horde, and it feels like coming home for a guy who was 100% Horde starting out in TBC and into WotLK.
Plan to be on both factions in Classic, though.
While not specific, I REALLY miss the atmosphere of the zones. Knowing what’s out there and having the uniting presence of Deathwing in every zone in Retail makes the atmosphere and inter-zone stories of the old world feel petty and trivial.
But back in Vanilla, the world mattered a lot more. The world wasn’t just Stormwind, Orgrimmar, and whatever the new zones or raids were at the time. It was Stranglethorn Vale, Stonetalon Mountains, Ashenvale, Desolace, The Plaguelands, Silithus, etc. Every part of the world felt lived in and important. In Retail you’re just riding Deathwing’s wild ride of linear hub questing.
While this isnt specifically lore, I feel this so hard. Eastern kingdoms and Kalimdor were so great and honestly it’s a travesty what blizzard did to them in cata. Like once the novelty of “Zomg everything is goin crazy” wore off, it just got annoying to look at. Each of the old zones felt distinct and had their own encapsulated stories and lore with cata just being the over arching “Everything is on fire” storyline.
Not only that, but if you’re Alliance, a lot of your zones got turned into zone-wide pop culture references. Because that’s all the old world was good for in the eyes of the quest designers at the time. There were some references in Vanilla but they were so few and far inbetween that they were funny when you seen them and the rest is genuine story or at least a side quest that makes the world feel lived in.
I though there was a sense of mystery and foreboding to the Stonetalon Mountains. It was just a never ending up hill climb with Grimtotem savages and giant beasts along the way. I still remember the first time I went through a pass and seen Windshear Crag, where the tiny pass opened up into a huge valley being cleared by the Venture Co., with the waterfall in the distance and a Venture Co. base held up next to it by scaffolding.
No idea what it was for, but I know the Venture Co. are trying to exploit Tauren lands and that’s reason enough to smack some goblins and explore the place, making my way up to that building on the scaffolding.
Now it’s just Horde vs. Alliance junk that goes nowhere with that Garrosh flip-flop weirdness.
If you’re a lore buff, read the novels if you haven’t already. I’m not a lore nut, and I still read them all! They are so good. My favorites are, “Day of the Dragon” and “Lord of Clans”. Such great books with an excellent backstory on Warcraft.
i was amazed at how indepth the lore was. but i gotta say, until they fix the high elf situation (which they may never do), i’ll always view the lore as less than it should be. i mean, high elves that didnt go with kael’thas, didnt leave the alliance in w3, so when they ended up on the horde in tbc, it cheapened the lore.
for example, why would the high elves abandon the alliance because 1 leader was a fruit loop? thats like saying garrosh made trolls quit the horde and become alliance. and not only that, join a faction composed entirely of groups that have been killing them non-stop since the sundering. it makes no sense.
I’m a mainly Horde player here but its funny you say that because my favorite lore story is the Defias and how that carries through from Northshire Abbey into Westfall into Redridge and still carrying but shifting focus in Darkshire.
I foundy it very corny when I played through CSI:Westfall and playing A-Team Keeshan I’ll admit was fun but very dramatic.
For me it had to the WC3 scourge stuff. Making your way to Frozen Throne. Watching as Arthas is seduced by Frostmorne. Hearing them saying “My life for Nerzuuuuul” and the whole Anubarak sequence and going into free Illidan from his prison.
Watching Thrall and his visions. Outland was a mysterious place filled with demons. It was a great segue from doom95, TNT, plutonia. Their presence felt more tangible than the Eldritch stuff which feels like jumping the shark lore.