Yap. Rate the Lore of each expansion (you can explain why but is not necessary) I will edit the post to answer why after i read the comments 
Vanilla = 9.5
TBC = 9
Wotlk = 10
Cataclysm = 8
Pandaria = 8.5
WOD = 7.5
Legion = 10
BFA = 7.5
Shadowlands = 5.5
Dragonflight = 6
TWW = 7.5
Midnight= ??
The Last Titan = ???
Your score is pretty close to what I would put⌠But in my case I donât feel Like I can rate Vanilla as much, I barely played Vanilla (I was playing Aion), or Cata and WotlKâŚ
I was pull away at the end of Panda by a friend and man was the Warlock Class fun⌠but I think I canât rate this one either⌠cuz I literally donât remember much of the expansion besides doing the Dungeons, LFR and the Green Fire quest⌠man that quest got me SOOO hook⌠no one had done that in an MMO before⌠I remember as soon as I drop WoW and return to Aion I was posting about it in their forums to add something similar! 
Confining this to lore is likely a very different ranking than just ranking my favorite expansions.
Vanilla (9.9) â Vanilla set the stage for everything. It deliberately treated the world as its own character and spent most of its creative juice fleshing out the player races, their cultures, and the interplay/friction between them. Grounded storytelling made it easy to invest in. Everything still had an element of mystique where the extraplanar stuff was involved.
TBC (7.4) â Strong start, but the frantic nature of its development that decided to cannibalize existing characters to offer raid bosses with name recognition was ⌠awful. Draenei, as much as I like them, were a total butt pull that undercut existing Legion characterization.
WotLK (8.9) â Mostly satisfying conclusion to Arthasâ story that competently served faction buy-in while simultaneously juggling huge lore tangents (Titan/Earthen/Ulduar, Dragonflights, vrykul, trolls). This would likely be closer to a 9.5 if not for the Argent Tournament and absence of Sylvanas & Jaina from the final confrontation with Arthas.
Cataclysm (6.4) â Pretty mid, honestly. Cataclysm didnât really do anything too egregious until Dragon Soul. Dragonflights serving their great purpose of solving a problem that only existed because of the Dragonflights existing was one of the worst cases of this game failing the âsay it out loudâ test. Otherwise, the faction war stuff didnât go off the rails and some of the world revamp was interesting. Green Jesus. Thrall should stick to being Green Moses.
MoP (8.1) â Pandaria itself was peak world building imo, even if the pandaren stuff veered into goofy territory at times. The Mantid should be a permanent case study in âhow to do Old God content without us deleting Old Gods.â The Mogu and The Sha were great. Garrosh going full cartoon villain and going against his core principals to placate Alliance upset with Cataâs redrawn faction lines with a Horde capital and Warchief raid ⌠not good.
WoD (6.9) â This will probably be my controversial take. The final patch was dogturd, admittedly, in basically every way that matters. Doubling down on âOrcs are bloodthirsty savages, they canât help themselvesâ after Garrosh and his orcish loyalists in Cata-MoP was dumpster tier writing. Having said that, I still think WoD had the best questing/leveling experience to date. As a self contained story, if you ignore the timeywimey entry point, it was great. If the final campaign had been a different story culminating in a split between Blackhand and Grom (instead of an aborted expansion mined for a Legion tie-in to the next expansion) I think it could have been a strong 8 in spite of time travel. (Actually went back and lowered the score a bit because I forgot how hard they fumbled Orgrim)
Legion (7.8) â Maybe another controversial one. Suramar and Stormheim are strong standouts for the leveling track. Legion surrendering more ground to the Felpunk vibe didnât land with me. Sacrificing lore and characters to give the players iconic weapons didnât land with me (Doomhammer and Ashbringer especially). Only bringing Draenei along for the final showdown with the BBEG of the setting was monumentally stupid in a way that probably shaves off a full point by itself. Runas likely remains the single best sidequest character ever.
This is running longer than I expected it to, so Iâll have to return for BFA, SL, DF, and TWW in a followup later. Spoiler: donât expect much praise.
Vanilla: 8/10. Great introduction to the world. Storylines expanded across several zones with a reasonable pace towards the ending. However I canât give it anything higher than an 8 due to the fact that some zones were unfinished and remained unfinished towards the end. Along with certain quest lines just abruptly ending really drags it down. Such as the questline that begins from the corrupted essence of Eranikus. You are told to hand it in to some guy in Winterspring and it ends. No follow up or anything. Also given how expansions usually have an escalation in the types of threats you face, it feels odd that we go from an Old God to a Lich. I feel like it shouldâve been the other way around but that is just me.
TBC: 4/10. Sorry but the butchering of several characters massively drags it down. It is clear that Blizzard was running on a ârule of coolâ mentality during TBCâs development. Where they were like âwouldnât it be cool to battle these iconic WC3 charactersâ. Also the lack of payoff with the Infinite Dragonflight in the Battle for Mount Hyjal raid. Why have the attunement quest for the raid and the tour quest for the Caverns of Time mention that the Infinite Dragonflight are up to no good at the Battle for Mount Hyjal if they donât show up at all when you do the raid? Finally the shift from making Illidan look like the main antagonist via all of the marketing only for him to be defeated with the first patch makes TBC look bad from a development standpoint. Hell the quest from Kaelâthas that states that he survives Tempest Keep: The Eye was added in patch 2.1.
Wrath: 9/10. Really solid expansion. I love the build up for Yogg-saron, the curse of flesh and Ulduar throughout Howling Fjord, Grizzly Hills, Dragonblight, Borean Tundra and of course Storm Peaks itself. The nexus war is probably the weakest plot point out of the major three when it comes to Wrath. The fact that most of the build up was in secondary material, mainly the Dragons of Outland manga duology really brings it down.
Cata: 3/10. Turning Deathwing from a cunning, scheming villain in the novels to a raging monster for ALL of his appearances was a massive let down. If it was only Madness of Deathwing that had this it wouldâve been great. I mean at that point nothing is left but the monster Nâzoth created with his lies. The only real highlights for me are Nazgrim in Vashjâir (THRALLS BALLS!) and Wrathion. I hate how a lot of the old world updates were either nothing but pop culture references (looking at you Westfall and Redridge) or they, for whatever reason, refused to acknowledge the events of vanilla. For example, Colonel Kurzen was killed by players in vanilla, but according to Cata he wasnât. He was instead killed by his own men.
MoP: 9.5/10. What can I say? Pandaria is a world that you can just fall in love with. The rich lore and backstory to a throwaway line from Chen in WC3: TFT is honestly something to be proud of. The subtle build up to the Sha of Pride, the vice that Shaohao could not overcome. Hell not even a God could. Xuen allowed his Pride to cloud his judgement during his battle against Lei Shen. Speaking of the Thunder King, what a villain to introduce. All of his lore (at least prior to Chronicles vol 1 explaining exactly how he died) was in the game itself. No need to buy a novel, a comic etc. Just find the various tablets, scrolls etc scattered around the continent. While I can understand some peoples frustrations with Garrosh and his decent into madness, I feel MoP handled it well, at least to a higher standard compared to some of Blizzards other writing, both past and present. Tying his arc to his encounter will always be a highlight for me. And how Garrosh is an example of how misplaced pride and blind ambition can bring ruin to not only yourself but others around you. I love how Nazgrim had an inner conflict about his own personal code of honour. You can tell that he disagrees with Garroshs methods, even more so when it comes to the sha and Yâshaarj but Garrosh is still his warchief. Either way he breaks an oath he made to the Horde.
WoD: 4/10. Oh what a missed opportunity you were. Butchered until you were nothing but an empty husk due to Blizzards reckless ambition. Ironic given we just came off an expansion about that. Time Travel is always a mess when it comes to story telling. Let me just say that out of the gate. Before the negatives, letâs talk about some positives. I liked the Gorian Empire. WoW romans being ogres was a smart move imo. I liked the Arakkoa and Spires of Arak. My only nitpick is that the quest where we have control over AU Terokk shouldâve been used against Skyreach, not a randomly appearing Kargath. And now the negatives. I did not enjoy that the Garrison campaign was disjointed until the very end. Having a whole raid tier and zone cut also damaged WoD in my eyes. Not to mention AU Orgrims whole character arc was cut in half due to Gorgrond being reworked. Ruining the perception that the Orcs were turned into bloodthristy monsters due to consuming Mannaroths blood by having uncorrupted Orcs being just as ruthless and âsavageâ all because of Garroshâs shattered pride. Overall WoD was a massive let down. I would say it is Blizzards worst story when it comes to WoW expansions but sadly another has taken that place.
Legion: 7/10. Legion is fine. The highlights are of course Suramar. I enjoyed Return to Karazhan as both a character study for Medivh and Khadgar. Showing us that Medivh had no chance of being an actual Guardian due to Sargeras. The line his shade says as you approach it sums up the tragedy of his story perfectly.
âThis is who I am. I was tainted from birth, polluted from before my conception, a bad seed grown to bear bitter fruit.â
Due to this, Medivh makes it clear that being the Guardian has nothing to do with the powers. It is about your character. It is your courage and heart that makes one a guardian. Other than that I donât really have anything overwhelmingly positive or negative about Legion.
BFA: 5/10. Honestly the only good things about BFA were the respective leveling campaigns for each faction. Everything else was either crap or disappointing. Azshara and Nâzoth deserved better. The Burning of Teldrassil shouldâve been done by Azshara as a way to frame the Horde. Even more so with Jainas comment of how âshe wanted us dividedâ at the end of Eternal Palace.
Shadowlands: 2/10. The ONLY positive imo is Daddy D. Easily the worst expansion story Blizzard has ever produced. If you look up idiot plot in the dictionary, Shadowlands will be the image next to it.
Dragonflight: 7/10. Another âit was fineâ expansion for me. The only negatives I can think of are the following. Tyrs secret vault plot goes nowhere. Sarkarath stole our research and despite being the main antagonist of the Embers of Neltharion arc, he does nothing with it. No mention or reference to the Twilight Dragonflight despite Neltharionsâ legacy being a core story beat of the expansion. The Primalists donât really make much sense with their whole motive of âtitans bad cause reasonsâ. Azeroth would still be an Old God paradise if it wasnât for the Titans. Did the Titans do some questionable things? Yeah. That goes back to Wrath but to paint them as pure evil in the Primalists eyes was honestly stupid. If the Primalists were former Twilights Hammer then sure, it would make sense. As the Twilights Hammer want to return Azeroth back to an Old God paradise. But the only TH presence we have is in a gag side story.
TWW: Given that it is not yet over, it would be disingenuous to give it a score at the current moment.
Vanilla - 2
Effectively 0 main story, most of the questlines were meaningless and were uninteresting.
Kalimdor left completely forgotten and empty, alike most zones.
Onyxia questline effectively only relevant for the Alliance.
0 story for Horde beyond basic âkill x thingâ quests.
0 narrative appeal.
TBC - 7
Functional story with massive hickups.
Blizzard had an actual idea for what they wanted to narratively explore with the story, particularly with Belves.
Belves made one of the most thematically interesting races in the game, immediately stripped of that at end of expansion.
Wotlk - 3
Boring story with some small interesting tidbits.
Lich King neutered into a cartoon villain âIll get you nexttime!â and proceeds to run away.
Interesting additions to the lore of the game, origin of humans, tuskarr, dalaran, etcâŚ
Cata - 5
Main story is trash.
Zone revamps made certain zones actually interesting and explored/fleshed out a lot of what was left 2-dimensional and empty in vanilla.
Small storylines in questing zones are the only interesting part of the game, goblins and worgen are interesting races which add a lot to their respective factions narratively.
Only time Horde v. Alliance conflict was interesting and culturally relevant.
Pandaria - 7
All good qualities of Horde v. Alliance conflict on display and made interesting.
Ending of faction conflict lackluster, but passable.
Pandaria is interesting, narratively complex, adds a unique spin and needed fresh look at Warcraftâs setting.
Sha were an interesting way of exploring larger themes, albeit ham-fisted, but what you expect out of WoW.
WoD - 1
Boring.
Uninteresting.
Ruined both Draenei and Orc lore in one go.
Much of what made orc lore bad was dialed up to 10 here and actively goes against what was set up about them previously.
No content.
No relevant story.
Legion - 4
Nightborne are interesting.
Iâm not personally a fan of turning demons from being⌠demons⌠into space alien invaders in space ships oozing green goo.
Boring, for me.
BfA - 2
Questing experience of Kul Tiras was good.
Everything else boring and uninteresting.
Terrible faction conflict story that tries to emulate Cata & MoPâs and actively fails/does it infinitely worse.
Shadowlands - 1
Boring.
Wrecks massive parts of former stories to restructure into terrible new story to build up lackluster and boring villain.
Explored things that should have been left vague and up for interpretation.
Made death not matter/uninteresting.
Dragonflight - 4
I donât like dragons, personally.
Story was fine, passable.
Unnoteworthy.
TWW - 5
Story still ongoing so might change.
Not personally interested in it, but story is passable.
Undermine(d) was one of the greatest story patches in all of WoW.
Earthen arenât all too interesting, but Arathi are.
Lots of set up for the future atm.
BFA (4.3) â Something worth keeping in the back of your head throughout all of BFA is ⌠Volâjin died for this. He died to serve up part one of Sylvanas being irrevocably ruined, Saurfang emasculated into mopey âkill me kill me LET ME DIE LET ME DIE!â Sadfang, Baine being Baine, Horde being villain-batted again except this time (unlike Cata and MoP) the story canât be bothered to build the road there, it just happens and everyone loves Sylvanas so much they wonât question her ever until Anduin pep talks Sadfang hard enough about how the Alliance was totally just as bad as the Horde because ⌠uh, Old Alliance Princeling Arthas or something, and Jainaâs dad who wasnât even Old Alliance at the time and who was kinda proven justified in his crippling racism by subsequent depictions of orckind from Cata onward.
In spite of this, the leveling content (except for the acid trip that is Rexxar and Stormsong Valley) was stellar, especially Volâdun and Nazmir. The Drust are great and need to be more than Ardenweald fodder going forward. Bwonsamdi is one of the greatest characters in this entire franchise, period. Talanji beat the odds and somehow managed to be a compelling character, only to be locked in the freezer because she hates Jaina (which is ironic, I suppose). Zelling was a great questline, and it is a shame they decided to kill him off at the end. Gallywix went from a total nothingburger to one of the best characters in the franchise in BFA. Azshara was great and Iâm glad she escaped to fight another day. Nâzoth was disappointing, unless it was all a ploy and heâs coming back, then it was ⌠well, still not good, but not as awful.
SL (0.2) â Shadowlands was a deliberate attack on Warcraft consisting of a long list of missed opportunities that felt so deliberately anti-fan in their formulation that calling them âmissed opportunitiesâ feels like a ruthless understatement. Excited to finally have Bolvar the Lich King show up and do something? Lol how about we let Sylvanas clown on him instead. Then we can put him on the box cover and be utterly worthless for an entire expansion but sad about his daughter or something. Afterlives? Want to meet Warcraftâs greatest dead heroes? Nah kid, you get Macro Titans 3D Printing Gods and Realms, Zulâjin locked in a corner in Revendreth, Kaelâthas devolved into his angsty late teen princeling phase, and Kelâthuzad doing his best Skeletor impersonation. And weâll be sure to very publicly mention that we want to be careful about how we handle Arthas, lol just kidding fart wisp time. Necromancy doesnât need Death, anything can do it lols. Calia is Forsaken because the undead lady who hates undeath changed her mind and likes it now said so, just accept your bland Sylvanas replacement you stupid plebs. All thanks to the Jailer who was responsible for literally everything in the entire history of the Warcraft franchise, explicitly, despite being the most garbled, boring, absolute nothing-burger of canned Villain One-Liners ever written in this game (AND HOO BOY is that saying a lot).
Not a fan. Can you tell? I started with 0.1, but I figured I better keep a tenth of a point on standby in case they somehow manage to make an even worse expansion some day.
DF (3.5) â Dragonflight is the second expansion that made me quit out of disinterest (guess what the other one is! guess!) Iâll list some positives first, however: Fyrakk was a fun villain, even if there wasnât really a lot of depth to him. I liked the Megatron and Starscream vibe Iridikron and Fyrakk had going on. I liked Sabellion and his kin returning from Outland. I enjoyed most of the Blue Dragonflight content and am glad to see that the entire flight is officially back on the clock, so to speak.
Things I especially didnât care for: Not really a fan of the dracthyr, and super not really a fan of Ebonhorn/Ebyssian basically ditching his Highmountain connection to play papa to them. Alexstrasza is such an absolute nothing knob of a character that I canât wrap my head around why she is the Queen of Dragons. Cool model though. I wanted to like Vyranoth, but her arc is nonsensical and Blizz is seemingly obsessed with giving half of their female cast a breathless Galadriel imitation voice. Chromie somehow is the main star of Nozdormuâs story, and they seemingly subvert the very thing that makes the Bronze Flight and Nozdormu (Murozond) a compelling/tragic story. Oathstones were stupid and went nowhere. Baineâs questline was stupid and confusing (never miss a chance to pull out an obscure Horde old timer and kill them off, I guess?). Expansion #3 of being forced to play through Blizzardâs doomed attempt to apologize for Teldrassil when the only option that could actually accomplish was never on the table (executing Sylvanas). Beginning of Titan villain arc. Probably the full swing moment of what feels to me like a boiling over resentment of the gameâs existing conventions and characters (what I commonly label WoW deconstructionism).
Ultimately, I just donât vibe with the wholesome overload that Dragonflight was brimming with. I feel like WoW needed to cleanse the palate after SL and DF was probably the right call, even if it wasnât for me at all. My concern is that it hasnât stopped and it really needs to.
TWW (5ish so far) â I feel like all of us have probably beaten a lot of dead horses lately for TWW and where it is going or could go. Iâll try to keep it shorter for this one: Hallowfall was really cool. I hope the new cosmology book was an actual attempt to jettison Shadowlands and not just a joke. I worry Beledar is going to be the âWhat Sword?â of this saga. Undermine was mostly great except for the out of pocket Bilgewater stuff and killing off Gallywix for Renzik instead of the Bilgewaters who had been under his boot since Cata. Even the Arathi questline wasnât awful, though some parts of it were rancid (Magâhar wasted on nothing to tell a Human story, Witherbark punching bagdom, virtually every aspect of the ending).
I will say that Kâaresh looks amazing so far. Iâm not stoked about Locus-Walker joining the cast of emotional spastics, especially after them establishing he has dabbled in the Void for (likely) over 100,000 years without succumbing, but I think it is otherwise a strong example of retcons done well (in a way that improves upon rather than some hamfisted author insert because theyâre too lazy or creatively bankrupt to make anything else work).
Overall, Iâm hoping Metzen can help this game get back to its roots in some way, especially with the characters. Things have only occasionally felt vaguely âWarcraftâ to me in recent history, and I feel like the setting at large desperately needs to claw back some of the edge it has been willfully ejecting.
Iâll post the first 5 here, and the others in a separate post.
[Vanilla: 5.5]
Thereâs a lot to like here, with it cementing a lot of franchise mainstays, such as the Elemental Lords, the Old Gods, the Twilightâs Hammer Cult, etc. - but it also has a ton of issues.
The quests really like to waste time doing barely any actual world-building OR just amounting to a glorified reference at times, making combing through Classic for actual old lore that could be important to take note of a complete chore. Thatâs not to mention all of the plot threads that sound extremely interesting, but get NO meaningful development whatsoever (a notable example would be the Bael Modan Digsite or the Titan ruins in Thousand Needles).
[TBC: 6]
TBC does so much right, but at the cost of completely wasting so many legacy characters. Itâs cosmic world-building, even if unintentional at the time, was absolutely peak - the Naaru, Dimensius the All-Devourer, Murmur, more lore about the Twisting Nether and the Great Dark Beyond, Argus, The Infinite Dragonflight, the Arrakoa and their gods, etc.
But on the other hand, we got the oft-talked-about characterization of Illidan and his allies, Zulâjinâs quest for vengeance being cut off by a treasure-hunting party hired by a guy named âBudd Nedreckâ (no hate to Budd, but still), and the Sons of Lothar taking a backseat to the entire plot.
[WotLK: 7.5]
A TON of good lore in this expansion. Dalaran was an excellent quest hub, the Light lore in the Bridenbraid questline is still cosmically interesting with its implications of a Light realm, Yogg-Saron has been a point of interest for years since, Arthas was a great villain, the Wrath Gate was an amazing moment (even with half of its content missing in the current version), the Dragonflights were interesting, etc.
Itâs not âthe best of the bestâ or anything, and it has its fair share of moments that feel like they went nowhere - either because they were never meant to, like the snake tail in Gundrak, or other reasons, like Malâganis just leaving the story outright after we confront him in Icecrown.
[Cata: 4.5]
Everything involving the Goblins was peak. Kezan was awesome, the Lost Isles were fun, and every time they played a role in a zoneâs questing, it made for an enjoyable time. Many of the revamped zones were improvements⌠but Cata had so many issues.
The zone revamps often had major corners cut, with them often being sequels to their Classic incarnations⌠but then theyâd also just leave some old quests/quest chains in - making the question of âdid we do this in Classic or is this only a problem now?â a reoccuring issue - ESPECIALLY when a zone would tie into a Classic dungeon. This could easily be seen with ZulâFarrak, whoâs boss Gahzârilla, was fought and killed in the pre-event (implying it hadnât died yet), before inexplicably coming back in the expansionâs launch with a whole new quest to kill it⌠again?
Thatâs not to mention times when the plot just takes a backseat to making pop culture references, the most egregious of these being Uldum - a zone potentially ripe with interesting Titan lore and implications regarding the neighboring AhnâQiraj, having way too much of its runtime spent on being a Raiders of the Lost Ark parody. Or how the raid Blackwing Descent just⌠brings back Nefarian and Onyxia⌠somehow?
Or how important the IRL books were to this expansionâs story, and yet despite the plot owing a large amount of its material to things first found in Knaakâs books (the Dragonflights, Grim Batol/Sinestra, the War of the Ancients, etc.), it felt as if it almost wanted to avoid them as much as possible - with Krasus being killed in a book, Rhonin and Vereesa being completely absent, Broxigar getting no mention outside of the Stormrage novel, and the Rhonin, Krasus, and Brox all being absent from the Well of Eternity dungeon.
[MoP: 8]
It was peak.
Garrosh was a great villain, and at this point we hadnât hit the âHorde villain-batâ fatigue yet. The daily grinds, for as bad as they were, almost all culminating in some grand finale quest/lore reveal/reward is something I genuinely miss. The way in which they were able to write entirely new lore, that outside of it obviously being based upon the Pandaren and Chen Stormstout, felt almost completely divorced from the first three Warcraft titles while still feeling at home in the universe, was something that made for a very welcome change of pace.
I could go on, singing its praises, but Iâll instead just lay out my complaints - it provided WAY too much external media. Short stories, novels, comics, etc. felt like they hit an all-time high in this expansions with the âDestination: Pandariaâ, and yet it much of their importance still feels lacking, as there was never really a noticeable âfulfillmentâ thatâd cause me to ask âhuh, whatâs thatâ and go to see how we got here by reading them in the way that Xaviusâs appearance in Legion did to his roles in the War of the Ancients and Stormrage (though I plan to eventually get around to reading the âDestination: Pandariaâ content).
Scenarios also werenât utilized to their storytelling potential until near the patches of the expansion, with scenarios such as Dagger in the Dark and Secrets of Ragefire being great ways to either give us a small narratively-significant adventure or put us in a place our characters wouldnât normally be. With them being cut in WoD-onwards, those highlights just kind-of feel like an unfortunate âwhat could have beenâ for the gameâs storytelling.
bc - paladins in space
wrath - heman fights skeletor
cata - rushed deadlines
mists - kung fu panda (yeah its an old one but it works)
draenor - time travel anime arc not in the manga
i got nothing for legion
bfa - battle for south seas
shadowlands - hurr
Odyn is that you?
Vanilla: 6.5
BC: 8.5
WotLK: 6.5
Cataclysm: 7.5
MoP: 9.5
WoD: 6.5
Legion: 9.5
BfA: 8.5
SL: 2.5
DF: 7.5
TWW: 7.5
Vanilla: iâm not going to rank cause i never got to experience vanilla
TBC: 5, some questlines were good and it wasenât offensivly bad but man was it just all over the place
Wrath: 7, Would be higher if not for the ending, Horde and alliance got their stories, it started off strong with forsaken involvment in killing arthas, but failed at the ending by introducing a paladin with no history or emotional attachment to get the kill.
Cata: 6: This is where i hoped on, Deathwing was kinda just not all that interesting, its hard to make an insane person interesting and not just pitiable, I didnât much care for garrosh so him being villain bated didnât mean much to me at the time, it only became a sore story point as the story continued to play out.
MOP: 9: The vibes were immaculate, the music splendid, the themes not so much but pandaria was fun to explore and it did have the banger, ancestry questline and less banger painting questline.
WoD 7: I actually really liked WoD i didnât really care for orcs i saw them as kinda bland but getting to see the various tribal cultures was cool even if it was only as villains, Felt it did undermine a bit of orcs story.
Legion: 8: I liked this expac, I liked my Order hall, i wish they didnât drop them. Killing volâjin was one of the worst story decisions iâv ever seen only topped by
BFA : 1: This was the worst thing story iâv ever seen, you hyped me with the trailer, had me coping for months about the tree thinking âsurely they arenât dumb enough to make sylvanas burn it, surely they wouldnât make the horde bad againâ Curse the bloodlines of whoever wrote this atrocity. This made me quit for 2 years.
SL: 4: Not offensivly bad, but it was built on the foundation of bfa so it was always going to suck. you canât make me care for a character when i know they wonât matter in the long run. gave us the return to lordaeron questline, and them listening to forsaken fan feedback is the sole thing putting SL at a 4.
DF: 4: i just didnât care about anyone involved, it was a problem that didnât need to be solved, nothing offensivly stupid except that alexstraza questline where she tut tutâs at people for rebelling about being kicked out of their homes.
TWW : 7: only zone i didnât like was the arathi, disliked spending all my time with alleria and anduin, wish i could say i would never see those two again, But i enjoyed the earthen and the Nerubians. Also enjoy the hero class system.
alright letâs do this.
Vanilla: 0/10.
Established the world. But it was all alliance overdrive for most of it and its painfully obvious. Onyxia? Done by the alliance. Câthun? Done by the alliance. Naxxramas? Done by the alliance.
The alliance capital cities actually look good and the Horde quests were short and were forced to leave for contested zones early. Blizzard showed who their favorite kid was early and setting the stage for the next 20 years.
TBC: 2/10
Blood elves added to the Horde was the saving grace. The rest was awful. Draenei hero time and alot of good Warcraft 3 lore characters burned down for nothing because Blizzard was not creative enough to give them a proper way to the plot. Established 25 man raids and had some tie ins for both factions. Back when they still spend resources to different intro paths.
wotlk: 9/10 en epic sendoff fir Arthas and every threat presented in Northrend felt real and good. My only criticism for this otherwise cool expansion is by far the lack of Sylvanas and the blood elves for the downfall of the scourge who were their biggest victims.
Cataclysm: 10/10 In my opinion it was the perfect expansion which rivals bar none even by todayâs standard. Deathwing changed the world forever. The Horde finally got a proper leveling path which they lacked back in vanilla and all old zones were finally reworked so we red folks donât have to be ganked by male human paladins on our way to the next quest NPC. Added transmogs. Added tough dungeons. added LFR. Infact Cataclysm did so much good of mechanics we still use today it was basically the blueprint. And of course retaking echo isles. The Horde was eating good in 2010 I wish we could back to better times.
MOP: Nothing.
I didnât play that one due to me taking a gaming break during my iternship for 3 years. When I returned it was almost WOD time. So I leave the rating here to other players.
WOD: 0/10
Basically ruining the Orc story forever and making them irredeemable monsters without any qualities. The way Blizzard coded this while giving the alliance the Draenei in their glory time felt bad and unfair. And then they killed both Grommash and Durotan offscreen. Another lore where the Horde didnât matter despite Draenor being the Orc homeworld. Not to mention they gave the narration of the warlords to Varian. BAD BAD BAD.
Legion: 5/10
Not too bad. Not too good. I enjoyed it when it happened and the artifact system sold it. Not a single bad raid was detected and each zone story was natural. My only larger issue was the fact Alleria and Turalyon returned safe and sound to the blue team adding that extra fanservice cheese after Blizzard worked overtime to make it known how bad all original Orc leaders were. Fitting conclusion for the biggest threat to the mortal universe and I am sure Sargeras will show up again in Last Titan.
Bfa: -1000/10
sorry but they dropped the ball. Previously I could excuse that Blizzard treated the Horde not properly or equal but no this was brutal. There was no excuse to draw what remains of the Horde cast through the meat grinder and strip what we had left of faction pride. Saurfang died for nothing and Afrasiabi was on a personal vendetta out of spite against Sylvanas just to make the alliance community extra happy. Once again stood a human king unharmed in Orgrimmar and once again Thrall was there to get ride of a leader better then him. I almost quit the game but then the cavallry arrived.
Shadowlands: 9/10
not better then Cataclysm but the actual Warcraft 3 cameos, us unsolving the mysteries of the afterlife and of course expanding the cosmology with greater steps was just too awesome. I applaud Blizzard for doing something not popular so we get a good view at the creational forces that shape the world. And unlike WOD which suffered a content drought, the shadowlands always made sure there is something to grind your time in.
Dragonflight: 6/10.
Dragon therapy in cutscenes. I will say no more. It was mid.
TWW: 0/10 once again I am forced to follow alliance leaders around who tell me how much they hate the Horde and would try to exterminate all Orcs if they could. I am not sure why I am even paying my sub considering Blizzard clearly doesnât want the red team to have any fun with the story anymore. Which brings me to the finish.
Midnight: We donât know yet but if they make the blood elves suffer another round I will be out of this franchise for good. Other games do their lore bits better(SWTOR, ESO And GW2) and I can imagine very well spending 14 Dollars to a company that actually deserve it.
Classic: 9
As others have said, it sets the foundation for the rest of the lore and expansions, it explores the world on more micro level, it introduces a lot of amazing grounded stories, and it gives everyone a place in the world with their own challenges. There are characters, factions, and aspects of Classic we all still pine for today that really speaks to the strength of its lore and world building. There was an attention to detail here that showed, especially for such a thin team and the tech available in the early 2000s.
Where is that last single point? The Horde was just ever so slightly under baked compared the Alliance. I dont want to turn this into a âwho had it worseâ discussion, but Horde was simply done second and therefore didnt have the same time and attention the Alliance got in its creation. There is a reason why things like the Scarlet Crusade, Syndicate, Argents, Defias, Explorers League, and SI:7 had some really strong staying power and remain factions we still are deeply involved with (for better or worse) but not the Burning Blade, OG Shattered Hand, or Grimtotem. Despite this, it still only gets docked a point.
TBC: 6
Visiting destroyed Outland and getting our first glimpse (in WoW) of Dreanei and Orc culture is the real strong point here. The story of also trying to find prince Kealâthas was also a great initial hook. Environmental story telling does a lot of work here as some of the lore itself was quite lack luster, could have been missed, or was otherwise shorted sighted. The untimely ends of Keal, Illidan, and Vashj, the using up of the remaining vials of the Well of Eternity, the quick reigniting of the Sunwell and dipping a Naaru in it, the Anveena debacle, really drags the story itself down and as time goes on this number for me seems to decrease. In Wrath it would have been an 8, by Legion a 7, and nowâŚ
Wotlk: 8
Immaculate vibes from the start. Howling Fjord was of course amazing environmentally and in design, had great stories from creating a foothold and how difficult it was to maintain it, to perfecting the plague. Borean Tundra doesnt get enough attention for also being good, just overshadowed. The Taunka were amazing, learning more about the Earthen and dwarven history (I guess human too), and this build up to the Wrath Gate when you suddenly had to find another way around.
It isnt a major gripe but a lot of the Titan stuff in the Lich King expansion was a distraction. Good lore but a distraction, so it doesnt take too much away from it. Argent Tournament was fine, there was probably a better way to âprepareâ to siege Icecrown, and as was said the lack of Sylvanas or Jaina at the end with Arthas was a misstep. I still dont know what they were on that made the Drakkari cannibalize themselves, especially in the 2nd half of Zulâdrak. Lastly the whole plan to âallowâ the champions of Azeroth to personally reach the Lich King, just to kill and raise them is a bit of a head scratcher. Like how many of your own forces did you lose in getting there my guy? Was that really the trade off for 10-25 murder hobos turned super DKs I guess? Really? Still, way too many positives that outweigh these.
Cataclysm: 6
I appreciate the effort of an updated old world. It was part mechanical of course, but continuing stories from where we left off after 4 years, especially after some major ones, like the Forsakenâs, being wrapped up is a great thing to do. We got to explore and be introduced to ânewâ kingdoms like Gilneas, see a new path for the Forsaken, get more Wildhammer stuff, nab the Dragonmaw, turn up the tensions between the Horde and Alliance now that theyâre both focusing back home and have stabilized some since Classic, all good things.
Deathwing was a cool introduction but certainly feel as if he was given too much power to just not have actually ended the world right then and there. He bodies Alex, Malygos is gone, what has Nozdormu ever done, and Ysera is⌠? All Iâm saying is that he could be beating them left and right, but make it difficult. Show that he needs time, and allies, and planning, and not can just go on a one dragon crusade.
We of course get a lot of upheaval (the point) to loved places and that is mostly a net neutral lore thing but they havent been touched since and again is starting to suffer âBC syndromeâ that the further time goes on, the worse Cata gets. We need a new old world update
Pandaria: 8
What a fresh and lovely introduction to an entirely new continent and people we didnât see. The Pandaren story telling was excellent, the Sha were cool and unique, all the peoples of Pandaria were fun and interested from ookin in the dooker to actual serious push and pull issues of Pandaren and Yongol, particularly with the Mantid. Even a lot of the faction war stuff brought to Pandaria was net lore positive. We got Blood Elves doing cool Blood Elf things, we got Spellbreakers back, Lorâthemar went from âwho?â to someone we all know and love now. Volâjin was given such great attention and story and the build up to the rebellion, narratively, was good. The gameplay of the rebellion and siege was something to be desired.
Now the siege of Org, Garrosh, some of the Alliance stories like Varian telling Tyrande to have patience, losing some loved characters and locations, the inaction of folks like Thrall, the âlets retell Gromâs storyâ basically, all not the most enjoyable things, but it was a story that could be done once and be enjoyed. The problem is it wasnât done once 
WOD: 6
We get so much more amazing orc and dreanei lore, ogre lore, and see Outland in its full glory. That itself would have given WoD a 8 or so rating. Unfortunately a lot of cut and rushed content really drags this down and a lack luster/hurried conclusion really hurts the lore here.
We lose 2 of the Warlords right off the bat and hardly get the chance to really explore their clans. Then another gets his own raid and couple dungeons right after (Blackhand was actually pretty solid tbh), orcs go fel crazy again (not the worst choice, but still), Grom is way too easily forgiven, and then we have to track down an AU Gulâdan? On top of that, as already mentioned, this idea that the orcs now were inherently war ready and blood thirsty? No thanks.
Legion: 7
Nighborne, Stormhiem, and Highmountain carry this by a lot. All of those had such deep and rich lore and/or great stories to follow. Without rehashing the entire story, the depth of the Suramar questlines, campaigns, and raid really hold up. Stormhiem was a great story and even better when it was current and seemed a lot more âmorally greyâ than what we âlearnâ later. Highmountain showed us how much love tauren can get, and I slowly wait for the OGâs to get the same love.
The Class halls were hit and miss and became an overall net neutral thing. We get a lot of great lore from some, we get some pretty dumb lore from others. Warlocks? Great job. Priests? Boooo. Death Knights? Yep! Warriors? Nope. Rogues? I still dont get it or like the concept of the Uncrowned. Thats something youâd think would be squashed real quick once word got out. Kirinâtor? Was the Kirinâtor. The artifact weapons, cool, unique. The players getting them? Eh. Now if a lot of the named NPCs who were with us end up being the Class Hall leaders, much better.
The sword and stabbing the planet? Dumb. Only the Vindicar and dreanei going to Argus to end the Legion? Short sighted. The Legion suddenly becoming like this techno-fel almost Mechanicus army? Seemed off. Wanted a lot more magic and casting and what not, less spaceship in the sky. Also space travel? I know it exists, but Iâd rather we not. It leaves a poor taste and is disconnected from the stories we tell a lot. Argus itself though was pretty cool, so it gets a slight pass.
BFA: 6
What could have been is really the theme here. Zandalari? Amazing, A+, they can, and do, nothing wrong. All land is Troll land, and yall better get use to it. The pomp, the circumstance, the dinosaurs, the loa, the architecture, amazing. Kulâtiras also gets high praise and my god did Drustvar give me actually creepy vibes. I havent felt those since I first created poor Imfernal here back in OG Tirisfal having to find my way through there, Silverpine, and WPL. The Drust are fun and unique, the Order of Embers are a really cool, if not typical, witch hunting order. Stormsong is fun and unique, as is Boralas, and they all feel unique without being separated.
Then comes the rest. Oh boy does the rest come. War of Thorns, dumb. Siege of Lordearon, dumb (because of the War of Thorns). 4th War in Kalimdor and EK quite literately being a rehashed Cata, dumb. Battle of Dazarâalor, dumb (because it comes at the expense of the rest of the war) but really emotional conclusion. AU Magâhar, dumb. Baine, very dumb. Sylvanas, dumb. Azshara, cool but dumb. Nzoth, very dumb. Putting 3-4 expansions into one and ruining a alot of great characters, mega dumb! The saving grace here is truly the Zandalari and Kulâtirans
Shadowlands: 3
Shadowlands gets ragged on enough I dont think I need to rehash a lot of the problems. I will double down, however, on the lack of Forsaken in the Necromancy world, Calia deserves to be thrown in the Nether, Forsaken hands fall off when they clap, Golden should never write another word of Warcraft, Sylvanas is ruined, Tyrande seems dumb, and Bolvar is a chump (and everything else wrong with Shadowlands).
So what gives it its sparing few points? The afterlives were, mostly, well done in isolation. Bastion is beautiful, the Greek smurfs are cool, and their roll is quite needed and honorable, even if theyâre robotic doing it (though they do fix that). Maldraxxus was 10/10 what I wanted from an undead battle royal. The characters were great and enjoyable, the different houses, even if mostly destroyed, were fun to learn about and you really saw the inspiration and pull for Azeroth necromancy. Revandreath, sin stones, (basically) no one is irredeemable, and the vampire courts are still enjoyable.
Lastly, it shows that if we are going to have cosmic level whatever-ma-whose-its, that they do go to bat with one another. The Light invades here, the Void there, and surely theyâve gone there, and that these are powers in conflict with one another. Now do I ever want to go to another Shadowlands ever again and see this happen? No. Will I kinda enjoy it in its own little pocket dimension with a big âdo not openâ sign? Yes.
Dragonflight: 6
Dragonflight really lives and dies on specific storylines, mini patches, and most everything not directly tied to the dragons. The Centaur are amazing and Iâm so glad they decided to give them some love, story, and character, even if the story is a bit over done (1 group, usually the militarily strongest, defects to the villain, how could we ever see that coming?!). Sab and the Black Dragonflight are objectively the best. Bringing the Blues together (even if Kalecgos is a bit winy). The Dragonmaw questline. The Kosharg. The Tishamat. The Darkspear heritage. Forsaken heritage.
What really brings it down is Alex being ineffective as always, the Dracthyr kinda just being there and not having any real modern hooks or story, Tyr and every paladin lining up behind him (looking at you Liadrin!), Baineâs just kinda alright story, all the other not good-great heritage quests (sorry Worgen and Nigh Elves, Humans were okay at best), side stepping Teldrassil for Belâameth, and the overall shallowness of the Primalists. The Incarnates had something there, at least something to be expanded on, but the Primalists themselves were just goons. Few, if any really, had a lot of reason to be there, nor do we ever see them in the previous story to connect some dots of a building cult/threat, or even as a major schism in the Earthen Ring.
Overall its a lot of peaks and valleys without inspiring or giving much.
TWW: 6
Ongoing of course, but similar to DF its a lot of peaks and valleys without inspiring or giving much. The Arathi and Nerubians carry alot of TWW proper. Such fleshed out and well characterized peoples, stories, history, and culture. Undermine is a gold mine for goblin vibes and stories. The Stromgarde Arathi story line gives us some good attention and lore to the old world, so an overall positive despite its disappointing execution and details.
Dorn and the Earthen are uninspiring and kinda boring. Theyâre robots so what do we expect but still. We kinda ping pong around from the Isle of Dorn, to the Siren Isle, to Undermine, to Zandalar, and now to Kâaresh (what did I say about space travel!?). So some of the story itself is fine, but just not really great or cohesive. Weâve dropped story lines and people like Orweyna and the Harronir. Now I know TWW has gone from its own expac to part of a trilogy so Im willing to cut some slack, but nothing is really great, so it remains just above average.
Midnight: High hopes, low expectations
This is their chance of showing they can do old world updates. Quelâthalas has about 20 years of development to show, meaning a lot can/should have changed. I want to see so much Blood Elf love, so much Amani love, I want to see the Horde be heroic, I want to see all the Blood Elf stories be continued and expanded. The runestones, Thasâalah, the arcane sanctums, the Reliquary, all the sweeping brooms and Saltherilâs benders. The Amani should be given story and care rather than mindless villains and if we do battle the void (obviously seems like the theme here) what better than void killing trolls.
However, the past few expansions do not give me hope and I somewhat expect Vereesa to run a Purge 2.0 on SMC and Thrall just go âWell maybe she was just having a bad day,â Umbric throws Rommath through a nether portal, Tyranda chastises Thalyssra for not having Elune in her life, the city gets a fresh coat of High Elf blue and the Amani are Zandalari target practice.
The Last Titan: Moderate hopes, moderate expectations
Everything about Northrend is fun and cool and they have the time to cook. Really similar to Midnight we get to revisit a place again that should have 20 years of story we can expand on from whats left of faction outposts and settlements, the Taunka, Zulâdrak, Wyrmrest Temple and the dragonflights, and the Ebon Blade and all the undead.
While I still dont have a lot of hope, Wrath was such a crucial expansion for WoW and anything that touches that again (especially, hopefully) needs to do well and Blizzard I think knows that. That if nothing else, they need to nail Northrend or they will never hear the end of it. So theyâll give it the attention it deserves after having 4-6 years to work on it, knowing its coming.
Agree and will simplify my own opinion down to:
Zandalar and Kul Tiras Lore: AWESOME SAUCE
Faction War Lore: SAUCE MADE FROM RUNNY DOG POO AND SHARDS OF BROKEN GLASS
Câthun was a joint effort. But I guess even if one alliance NPC shows up, that means it was done by the Alliance then. Like you think when it comes to Gâhuun.
Most based take of all time.
People donât seem to realize that almost everything âestablishing the worldâ in vanilla was literally taken one-to-one from the Warcraft RPG with some small adjustments or they just cut all the interesting stuff (Kalimdor cough cough)
Faction system ruined any chance at Horde having any light. Everything on Kalimdor was an afterthought.
Not really. Both of these were created at the same time. Metzen commented on the RPG, saying that he utilized them to illustrate details that couldnât be included in the game. And if you read the RPG, youâll notice how much worldbuilding effort and thought went into Warcraft back in the day. This alone elevates Classic to S-Tier. Itâs indeed the very foundation. If you donât like it, youâre not a Fan of Warcraft. 
Alliance characters consistently dominate neutral and mixed storylines.
The only way the horde gets its own stuff is when there is conflict between the factions.
⌠which means you need factions.
I largely agree with Immy about Classic. We both played the same server and killed the same Alliance. Good times.
I donât feel like writing a lot so basically:
TBC: Warlocks were so overpowered that I quit the game. Priests and manaburn were also cancerous.
WotLK: I love WC3 DK lore, but it took my brother begging me to come back, so I did. I liked it a lot. I hated how almost all weapons were axes for Warrior specs.
Cataclysm is the only expansion where I quit IMMEDIATELY. I hated everything about it. Garrosh is trash and shouldâve died immediately. Neon sucks for armor. Cairne died and Baine bent the knee to the Alliance and has served them ever since.
MoP: I joined in the last patch, I loved it. The story was fantastic, and it had the most balanced pvp patch there has ever been, or will ever be. Shame Nu-Blizzard thinks theyâre smarter and is rebalancing everything for MoP Classic.
WoD: First patch content was great.
Legion: I LOVED the Death Knight Order Hall so much. Hated the expansion because it was the first blatant Alliance-Only expansion. Killing Voljin was stupid parity that is only ever applied negatively to the Horde. Horde loses heroes left and right and the Alliance doesnât for parityâs sake. Also, âBAINE WILL HAVE A STORY, HORDEâ,
BFA: Worst expansion for story content. Irreparable damage to the Horde. Also, âTHRALL WILL HAVE A STORY WITH VOLJINâS REMAINS, HORDE.â
Shadowlands: Second worst expansion for story content. Thrall and Baine sat on the floor as Jaina/Bolvar/The Alliance solved everything for the longest patch in Warcraft history. Also, âCAIRNE/BAINE AND LORâTHEMAR/KAELâTHAS WILL HAVE STORIES, HORDE.â
DF: Horde vacant.
TWW: Metzen lied. The Horde isnât equal in this expansion. Horde doesnât even have agents in Undermine outside of Gazlowe and the one chick whose name escapes me. The Bilgewater Cartel are specifically stated to not be Horde. Stupid. I quit before Goblin patch launched. Came back for Forsaken stuff. Probably quitting again shortly.
I donât doubt that they were in development at the same time, but Warcraft RPG was released first so if we want to say something âestablished the worldâ to the public it was effectively the RPG.
That isnât story, though.
Worldbuilding works as a nice layer of frosting on top, but the cake itself is the narrative.
A nice example of this is Pandaria, which had a lot of detailed worldbuilding that worked to strengthen the main narrative of the expansion.
Massive logic leap, but alright.
I donât like a singular piece of Warcraft, most of which served as 2-dimensional filler until it was fleshed out in later expansions (defias, all of kalimdor, gilneas/human kingdoms, worgen, all the playable races p much, etc).
Just because I think vanilla had 0 actual narrative doesnât mean I hate Warcraft.
Such a doomer mindset.
âThe only way to have characters that arenât human is the force the writers into writing lackluster faction conflictsâ
Like, no.
What stops them from writing these things is that the writers donât have interest in it. Interest is what brought Blizzard to create them in the first place.
Not to mention that the framework of âAllianceâ and âneutralâ wouldnât exist in this context.
Characters like Nelves or whatever wouldnât be âAllianceâ they would just be their own thing.
The faction divide is what guts them into being 2-dimensional villains because the people forced to write them donât know what else to do.
To give them their spotlight, Blizzard would just need to actually care about them.
Something they arenât going to do when forced to write them.
Not quite âŚ
The Horde were facing of the qiraji armies and the Alliance solely went down to face off the mightiest of the old godâs lieutenants followed by Câthun themself and they alone defeated them.
SOURCE: Chronicle Volume III