Let’s Tidy WoD’s Lore

I liked Warlords of Draenor’s story.

I didn’t love it, but I liked it. I fell short of loving WoD’s narrative because I saw too many missed opportunities, many of which I knew were very real possibilities because of what was seen experimented with in the expansion’s alpha and beta phases.

I often look back at WoD and wonder ‘what if?’ I have a feeling that many of you here do so, too.

If you could go back in time and toy with WoD’s narrative—improve it via your definition of the word—how would you?

Me? I’d do the following:

  • I’d alter the catalyst. I’d have it so that the Legion—the almighty force we found out in WoD was just a single force above all time and space—decide to purposely give the corrupting of the Orcs another shot in as close a timeline as the main’s so that they could invade the main’s Azeroth once more, this time being more careful with their handling of the plan. I’d have Kairoz know that they were doing this because of his innate ability to see the future, and have THAT be the reason why he took Garrosh to the Draenor that he did—the Draenor where the expansion was set. I wouldn’t do what we got. In other words, I wouldn’t have Kairoz take Garrosh to a Draenor of his choosing, and then just have the Legion show up by near-impossible coincidence. It makes no sense. The devs should not of done it that way.
  • I’d do what they were thinking in WoD’s beta: I’d have a lesser-focused meta story about the Bronze fighting the Infinite; the Bronze seeking to correct Kairoz’s action, the Infinite seeking to keep it. I’d have the outcome of their battle be that the magic they used accidentally ties that Draenor to the MU Azeroth.

  • I’d keep the Iron horde theme primary though the expansion’s course, and make the Legion theme far more secondary. In other word’s, I’d ignore the Orc fatigue charge and just stay on course.

  • Faralon. Simple. I’d deliver on it’s implementation.

That’s just some of my thoughts. What would you do?

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I’d get rid of the ridonkulous, “One Legion across all timelines and alternate realities” thing. That is so absurd it gives me a headache just thinking about it. To this day I can’t comprehend why Blizz decided that had to be a thing. I’d have it be an AU Legion that gets involved at the end, and Gul’dan flees through a portal to the MU on his own to escape Draenor’s retribution.

I’d keep the original expansion story, with the bigger focus on Orgrim, Yrel’s expanded story, original Gorgrond, and of course, Farahlon. The lack of Farahlon still hurts after all these years.

Some minor things: Shattrath raid would be back in, interior of Karabor would be finished, and Karabor/Bladespire would be the faction capitals, not those reused garrison assets on Ashran.

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I liked the idea of WoD, not it’s implementation.

In my opinion, just avoid the time travel story line all together.

In a reworked timeline, Garrosh was executed at the end of his trial following the events of MoP. Following a period of peace, the Legion successfully radicalizes one of Archmage Khadgar’s students: Cordana, who succeeds in retrieving artifacts of the late Gul’dan and after much strife opening multiple portals----allowing the Legion to invade Azeroth once again. Cue Legion.

After Legion ended, relative peace befell Azeroth as both factions try to rebuild. No giant sword.

Year 35:
Unbeknownst to the faction leaders of the Horde and Alliance, the Iron Horde prepare to attack.

Close to five years earlier, following the execution of Garrosh, one of his most loyal believers ----Warchief Zaela----inherited his role as leader, determined to carry out his will of a successful orcish Horde posthumously. She----along with the surviving Dragonmaw and Blackrock Clans-----disappeared from Azeroth shortly after Orgrimmar was conquered by Voljin’s rebellion and the Alliance.

In reality, they successfully fled to Outland and sealed off the portal connecting it to Azeroth before anyone was the wiser. They would spend the next several years raising the newest generation of Orcs—those born on Draenor after BC and most of the demons were driven out—radicalizing them against the Draenei, the Arakkoa, and the lesser races of Outland.

Warlords of Draenor
Due to the severing of the portals between Outland and Azeroth, the passage of time between the two worlds passed differently. What was barely a decade for Azeroth became 30 years for the denizens of Outland, with very few of the surviving Outland characters surviving into the new expansion.

Races
The Outland Draenei - A militarized and aggressive faction of the Draenei, determined to not fall victims to the orcs or the demons with the lofty passivity and peaceseeking that hastened their elders’ demise. Subscribing to a militant interpretation of The Light, and lead by A’dal. Alliance players follow Y’rel and assist her assertion to the role of Exarch, following the death of the previous one.

The Iron Order - A defected sub faction of the Iron Horde who—while embracing the industrial revolution and militarization of their parents’ backwards tribal culture, recognized Zaela’s mania and warmongering for what it is and want no part of it.

Representatives of the Iron Order and Outland Draenei strike a temporary truce as they succeed in contacting the denizens of Azeroth (Aethas and Jaina respectively), warning them of the oncoming invasion and allowing both factions enough time to beat back the initial invasion handily, as Azeroth once again travels to Outland to help subdue the threat of the Iron Horde.

New continents that did not exist in the original game, which were floating in the twisting nether relatively unscathed, including zones inspired(copypasted) by an undamaged extension of the Spires of Arak, and entirely new zone housing a resurgent Goran Empire, among others, rejoined Outland in the timeskip.

The Iron Horde would house a number of open world Warchiefs and their armies similar to the Sha in Pandaria, and the Iron Order and Draenei Outcasts would have been the first versions allied races introduced in game. While the Draenei maintain a far more dogmatic and aggressive stance than even some night elves, the Iron Order are unique in that they distinctly lack any sense of orcish honor or tribalism, and are far closer to the cold pragmatic Forsaken than Thrall’s orcs.

The expansion ends with Sylvanas appropriating the technology of the Iron Horde/Order and using it to modernize the Horde’s military, breaking a years’ long technological stalemate between the Alliance and Horde and reawakening the expansionist ambitions of the undead Warchief, setting the stage for BfA…

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Delete WoD. Gul’dan was resurrected by cultists and set to his unfinished business. Cordana, leader of those cultists, was just a bad elf.

There I did it.

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Eh. It was kind of cool seeing the first Horde and the draenei civilization on dreanor.
I just wish there was a better execution.

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The only thing wrong with WoD as far as I’m concerned is the lack of content. The amount of fun things/things to make you busy that WoD had was lacking.

If WoD had the Legion emissary questing. A Mage tower like challenge and its own artifact like item I think it would have been much better.

I would have used it as an opportunity to ‘revamp’ Outland, albeit I would have given an option to revert back to its BC counterpart via a bronze dragon NPC instead of like the total revamp Azeroth experienced with Cata. There’s a lot more that needs to be smoothed out but overall

-No alternate timeline, Kairoz and Garrosh return to Outland to ‘repair’ it using the Vision of Time and Epoch Stones. Kairoz attracts other dragons who are disgruntled with the outcome of the war against Deathwing, they congregate around the Chronal Spire. The spire is a floating piece of Outland to the east of that Kairoz uses as his base of operations, and will be a first tier raid. Eye of Eternity will have disappeared, its disappearance will become relevant in the Legion that would follow this. But Netherstorm’s mana forges would be retuned to channel power into the Chronal Spire for Kairoz’ plan to reoriginate Outland back to Draenor.
-True Horde/Iron Horde is a cobbled together mess that has no chance at succeeding. They use the Epoch stones and Vision of Time to reverse the Fel taint of Fel Orcs at the Chronal Spire. This becomes a Reverse-Blood Furnace.
-Garrosh is killed off in Nagrand virtually the same as WoD’s, although the lead-up is different. Nagrand has been at peace since BC with Lantressor/Boulderfist, Kuranei, and the Mag’har working mostly together. Shadow Council forces have been forced out entirely but the non-Boulderfist Ogres and even some of the Mag’har are being tempted towards the True Horde. This leads to a siege of Garadar and a final duel between Thrall and Garrosh.
-Blade’s Edge Mountains is just eastern Frostfire Ridge. The western part of Frostfire Ridge is fused with Highmaul from Nagrand, which is cut off from Nagrand in Outland. These two areas form a new zone called Highmaul. Ogri-la from Blade’s Edge has moved here in the years since Outland and have been rebuilding the Ogre civilization. Ogron make their introduction here, who are being coaxed by the Ogre-Lords (themselves mostly brutes who only gained power among the Ogres because the magi had been dispersed) into joining them to fight the Ogri-la forces. The Ogre-Lords and their Ogron allies are part of the wider True Horde. This is essentially the Ulduar/Throne of Thunder of the expansion.
-Blade’s Edge has become a black dragon hovel of a zone. We will meet Wrathion here as he comes to meet his uncle Sabellian. Gruul’s Lair will become some sort of new Onyxia encounter (not Sabellian, he’s not gonna just be killed off like that) and an outdoor boss will be some sort of villain for Sylvanaar and Thunderlord Stronghold, having wiped both of these places out. Some kind of Ogre warband outdoor boss.
-Akama has made some effort in cleansing the temple but Shadowmoon Valley is still a vicious hellscape. The Dragonmaw Fel Orcs somehow still held onto territory here and willingly pledged themselves to Garrosh, being converted into ‘True Orcs’. There’s a rumor that Teron Gorefiend hides out in an asteroid field just south of Shadowmoon. We meet up with some of the Black Harvest council and Marius Felbane. This is the lead into a questline where we accidentally revive Gul’dan using an epoch stone, some warlock magic, and the Skull of Gul’dan.
-Hellfire is flyable but empty besides roaming bands of Fel Orcs and True Orcs doing battle. Hellfire Citadel sits eerily silent, with nether drakes without masters circling above it like vultures and fel reavers standing around it, as though they were guarding something. Sometimes, Cabal Orcs can be seen on the ramparts, but they disappear quick back into the fortress, and dragons will kill you too quick before you can get close enough to them. As the expansion goes forward, Hellfire will become eventually become like Tanaan was in WoD (not visually but functionally), with Gul’dan rallying the remaining Fel Orcs who resisted Garrosh and Kairoz’s efforts along with the Cabal and Shadow Council forces who had been gathering at Hellfire. Hellfire Citadel becomes a raid, Gul’dan fills the big canyon around the fortress with fel lava, he uses the bones of Magtheridon (in place of the Mannoroth fight) to resummon him, and we end it with a fight with Archimonde. And Gul’dan is flung into the nether, leading to a mostly same Legion. Other bosses include Fenris Wolfbrother in place of the Kilrogg fight, one of Gruul’s sons, a Cabal/Shadow Council council fight, and probably a Demon Hunter in there somewhere.
-Auchindoun and the Bone Wastes would remain a designated pvp area of some kind. There will also be an implied Spires of Arak island to the south of Terokkar Forest, with the Adherents/High Arakkoa invading to retake Skettis and slaughter all of the corrupt low Arakkoa. The low/BC Arakkoa seek us out for help against the Adherents. Spires and Skyreach become a raid, and we get the first inkling Naaru aren’t that trustworthy with some implied Naaru fidangling with the Adherent’s leaders.
-Zangarmarsh would be the center of Broken activity outside of Black Temple. They would be controlling the Steamvaults and the Naga presence would be virtually wiped out.
-Khadgar would still be a major presence with Shattrath making a return as the capital city. Arakkoa would probably flood the Lower City. The Ogre-filled areas right outside Shattrath would now be an Ogri-la area incorporated into the city proper.

I would tidy WoD’s lore by retconning it’s existance.

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I’d make it take place on another shard of Outland instead of an AU. Done.

Same story beats and enemies. But with new characters instead of rehashes of old ones. And no time travel BS.

Maybe give old Outland the Cata treatment as well.

I like the AU is the thing, the plot issue had to deal mostly with what was cut and rewritten then anything else, I would add Faralhon definitely, and also make sure we got our shattrath raid. I would have less orc tribes in the iron horde, but try and make the iron horde an actual threat. Finally I would make sure Grom stays the final boss.

A small fix, but I would remove the line of Yrel saying she’d never killed anyone before when we first met her. This is a character who was going to grow into a seasoned Exarch, this line just makes her come off as a Mary Sue.

Give Yrel a few notches in her belt BEFORE we arrive.

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I always thought they did a pretty poor job explaining exactly why Kairoz turned after 5.4. So I would’ve liked to see more of that storyline, although that probably would’ve been in MoP.

I think it was a mistake to not have Wrathion at all in WoD (and especially in Legion) since he was one of the major catalysts for the expac. The only thing I can think of is that he was so ashamed that his master plan to save the world from the Legion backfired so miserably that he went into voluntary exile. But I still would’ve liked to see some interaction with him.

Probably the biggest thing would be to expand the primary threat of the whole expansion (the Iron Horde) past 6.0, meaning not killing off nearly all of the Warlords prior to 6.1. This would be accomplished by adding another content patch or two where after killing a few of the warlords in the beginning (maybe Ner’zhul, the Thunder bone guy whose name I can’t remember, and the Burning Blade woman whose name I also can’t remember), the remaining leaders of the Iron Horde try to advance the war by trying to wipe out the Draenei and Frostwolves completely which would provide new questlines for each faction similar to those in 5.1 (and maybe kill Kargath at the end).

If another new content patch was added, the remaining Warlords could stage a coup against Grommash because he’s such an incompetent leader. Then Blackhand would assume command which is where the Blackrock Foundry raid would come in. Then Gul’dan takes command as it was for the last content patch with Hellfire Citadel and Tannan (although I probably wouldn’t wait till the end to add that zone in).

Finally, I hate how they handled Grommash at the end of the expac. It’s not even that they let him stay Warchief. It’s that there was no acknowledgement of all the crap he did to his enemies for the whole expac. If we weren’t going to kill him outright (or if he didn’t die in one of the extra patches), we should’ve either placed Durotan as Warchief and Grommash under him, or (if the backlash would be so strong because for some inconceivable reason, the Iron Horde still love him), they should’ve gotten rid of the title Warchief and replaced it with a dual leader system (Grom and Durotan). Or at the very least, we should’ve left one of our guys there (maybe Thrall) to just keep an eye on Grom and make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid again.

Also we should’ve been able to call on the Iron Horde and the Draenei to help in Legion like they promised us. Granted, that would change the Mag’har Allied Race questline, but that could very easily be done.

Other than that, just gameplay stuff like being able to put our Garrisons in whichever zone we choose and better faction capitals. In other words, keep the stuff they originally promised us.

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It really felt like they were teeing up the origin story of the Infinite Dragonflight with Kairoz, yet they dropped the ball entirely in favor of… well, nothing really. People have been asking for a conclusion to their story, as well as Nozdormu’s turn to Murozond, for a while now. Real missed opportunity in the expansion wholly about time travel.

To be fair, if they didn’t establish this as a fact, it would make the players wonder why such a powerful Titan as Sargeras wouldn’t simply hop timelines like he hops through space until he’s amassed an army larger than the number of molecules on Azeroth to unmake us more easily than when we kill tiny little bacteria every second just by existing and breathing.

I think it stands to reason that entities such as the Void Lords, Titans, Elune etc. exist in a realm beyond the grasp of time or some other nonsense. Otherwise…yeah, same issue I just laid out as above.

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Then explain why there were two sets of Mannoroths or Archimondes?

Both died in Azeroth but still alive in WoD.
If there is only ONE legion then shouldn’t these two only be singular as well?

Bro I have a long-standing history of pointing out the inconsistencies in the lore. This question’s between you and Blizzard, I can’t explain their mistakes away for them. I’m floating on a raft made of two sticks and some twine at this point.

Cuz they made that retcon where if a demon dies somewhere that isn’t Argus or saturated with Fel energy, they eventually regenerate in the nether and respawn on Argus.

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I doubt I ever would’ve wondered that. I’d always assumed timeline stuff was limited to the Bronze Dragons and, by extension, Aman’thul. That it was unique to him and those he empowered, not that all Titans were capable of multiverse travel. Especially since, outside of portals, Sargeras was limited to (relatively) conventional means of travel.