This post is just a way for me to lay out my thoughts on what people seem to think is a dichotomy between old and new lore, and how I think the way people think about these two things is actively harmful to the story of the game. Obviously this is just an opinion and disagreement is expected, but I’ll provide sources where I can so we can at least agree on the basic facts of things.
This will be broken down into a series of categories I’ll go into one at a time.
Links used to all work but trust level is dumb. Links in citations will still work if you remove the ’ symbol though.
The Tone of New vs. Old
One common thing I see discussed by fans of the Warcraft franchise is how the tone of new lore is far too distant and removed from the ‘darker’ tone of old Warcraft. This does make some sense, after all [Warcraft 1 was originally intended to be created as a Warhammer game [1]. This gave the early Warcraft story (Pre-WoW) a good bit of dark fantasy edge to it owed to it’s original inspiration. However, this overall “dark” tone did not survive well into the World of Warcraft stories as many think.
Even in it’s early years World of Warcraft presented massive amounts of tonal whiplash both in the world it created to explore and in it’s text. In this world you can travel quickly from the bright and whimsical fantasy forests of Elwynn into the dark and foreboding thickets of Duskwood. You can help a familiar green-clad Gnomish adventurer in a blatant reference to The Legend of Zelda [2] or face off against the fearsome El Pollo Grande [3]. Alternatively, you could take the time to find a heartfelt letter on a dead Dwarf. [4] Which is actually taken from the real life letter written by a dead Union soldier during the American Civil War [5].
This tonal whiplash is not a flaw of Warcraft, old or new, it is a feature and one of the most defining parts of the universe. Every expansion, every zone even, has a unique tone and story line it’s trying to tell. The writers should not feel it necessary to have to adhere to a tone that encompasses an entire zone or expansion story line because simply put that is not Warcraft. The Warcraft universe is many genres, themes and tones sloppily mixed into this melting pot which unashamedly wears its inspirations on its sleeve. After all this is the game where a widely considered ‘darker’ expansion has a raid boss created by a Gnome accidentally summoning an Eredar Lord [6] and a ‘light-hearted’ expansion begins with unarmed Orcs being mercilessly gunned down after being defeated [7].
Constantly expecting that Warcraft lore ought to adhere to one end of this tonal range or the other is only setting yourself up for disappointment. Every expansion will have it’s serious moments and it’s goofy moments and that’s perfectly okay. That is not to say that every serious moment hits home and that every joke is funny, in fact I’d say most of the time the serious moments fall completely flat, but that is about execution and not concept. Many people will see something executed or built up poorly and blame it on the very idea being unworkable rather than not enough time or care being put into that execution.
I strongly believe that Shadowlands and it’s story are a result of a (poor) attempt to appease long-time Warcraft fans with constant callbacks and references to old lore. The return of many old characters such as Bolvar, Uther, Kael’thas and Kel’thuzad combined with constant callbacks to Wrath-era bits of lore such as the destruction of the Helm of Domination being the inciting incident to the entire expansion. Even the Jailer being a stoic and enigmatic figure with a cloudy motivation outside the domination of the Shadowlands is a look at the sort of villain that was represented by The Lich King himself during Wrath. In many ways I see Shadowlands as a shallow attempt to cater to those who believe Wrath was a peak of Warcraft, and as a result any interesting story that could of existed was muddied by nostalgia and poor writing choices.
Classes, Races, and How They Relate
When you boot up World of Warcraft for the first time the character creation screen is the first thing you’re greeted to, so it makes sense that many people care greatly about the selection of classes and races in the game. To this point many seem to believe that from a lore standpoint having strict class/race combination restrictions was a good thing. There are a myriad of reasons why from a gameplay perspective people may prefer the game with or without these restrictions, but this is not about those and focused solely on from a lore perspective.
With the move towards giving every race every class there are some things which people have gotten up in arms about, warlocks in particular being a contentious one. Some have even claimed that Blizzard has given many races the warlock class without any explanation whatsoever, though this is not entirely true. In a rare show of some amount of care Blizzard did include new warlock class quests [8] where you can see members of these races on their journey through learning the dark arts and they give you some personal insight on why they wish to do so.
What I find interesting about the dialogue found in these quests is that the implication is more focused on the individuals choices rather than entire races being represented by a few individuals (a trend in Warcraft I personally despise). These warlock aspirants delve into the occult for their own reasons, independent of what their peoples may think of it, which is a good way to handle giving stereotypically ‘good’ races stereotypically ‘evil’ classes and vice versa. This is a roleplaying game, after all. You made the Draenei or Kaldorei warlock, why did your character decide that dark magic was the route for them? It doesn’t need to be some big, institutional thing and it doesn’t seem to be. There’s no implication that substantial gangs of warlocks roam the halls of the Exodar or that the majority of Kaldorei now accept Fel magic.
Being so attached to the ‘old way of doing things’ is actively detrimental to player choice and freedom in this case. Many people view class restrictions as a thing that make the races more interesting, but why is that? Is the only way to make races feel like they have unique cultures and lifestyles to restrict others from the playable classes? Having to build up your world via rules of hard restriction like this is completely unnecessary. You can integrate these classes in unique ways that express a different culture, and in some ways Blizzard has managed to do this fairly well.
The Worgen druids being portrayed as having their origins as the harvest witches were a surprising example of this being done well. An out group following the Old Ways and once nearly hunted to extinction [9] gives them a unique identity and history with a tie to Gilnean society. Tauren Sunwalkers, Orcish Blademasters, Elven Spellbreakers, Kaldorei Warden, Forsaken Dark Rangers and Kul Tiran Tidesages are all good ways to create unique class fantasies that fit within the given playable classes while still playing into the races cultural flavor. THIS DOES NOT MEAN ALL X MUST BE Y, NOT ALL FORSAKEN HUNTERS MUST BE LIKE DARK RANGERS FOR EXAMPLE.
I feel that when a lot of people who believe that class restrictions are good talk about this, they are tapping into a real problem with Warcraft writing. The races do not do a lot to feel unique from each other, and Blizzard tends to be very bad at portraying culture. However, this is not a new problem. Races have always had extremely limited flavor with only a few exceptions, and even those exceptions tend to only last for a single expansion before they fade into the background. Going back to how things used to be done (restrictive class/race combinations) will do nothing to solve this problem, and people need to start looking forward on how to address this issue rather than backwards.
The Faction Conflict
The two faction system was a mistake
Horde vs. Alliance is fundamentally the most classic and well known conflict that ever appears in the Warcraft universe. Orcs vs. Humans is iconic, it’s memorable, it’s got a lot of great box art associated with it. But therein lies the problem, it’s marketing, it’s absolute style over substance in a fictional conflict that has gone on for 30 years of writing yet not produced anything meaningful. It was clearly seen as old by some of the writers as early as 2002, when Warcraft 3 was released, the game which ends with three of the playable factions banding together to defeat The Burning Legion [10]. Despite this the factions will always wind up back in an endless and unmoving war that has no established battle lines, will never result in real gains or losses, and is waged by leaders who seem to have no care for how many of their own they lose. Then a larger threat like the Lich King or Burning Legion may appear, cause the two sides to toss aside their differences, and work together… only for this same story to repeat for decades.
It’s dull, an absurd eternal war waged because it’s marketable in real life. Even worse when something threatens to change such as a sub-faction in the conflict debating to switch sides something must immediately make that impossible. This is because the game mechanics serve to halt the Alliance-Horde war from even having the chance to weave a compelling narrative. Sides cannot change, cities cannot be taken without another take from the other side to even the score, one side cannot win because both are playable factions with player characters in them.
One of the few exceptions to this formula is Mists of Pandaria, an expansion that surprisingly ended with the Horde and Alliance banding together to fight a different breakaway faction from the Horde. The Siege of Orgrimmar resulting with the two factions officially deciding to end the bloodshed between the two sides. [12] This truce was further cemented during the trial of Garrosh Hellscream where all sides consented to the trial and all faction leaders were present. [13]
One would naturally expect that this ending to a major expansion and the truce that followed in the next two would cement a peace for the Horde and Alliance. However, this is another instance where I feel the desire for nostalgic story lines served to disallow Warcraft from moving forwards. Battle for Azeroth was billed as a return to form, with the Alliance and Horde war reigniting and being showcased as the [centerpiece of this expansion by it’s trailer [14]. Despite that though after the War of Thorns and Battle for Lordaeron this faction conflict proceeds to take a backseat for the majority of the expansion.
The Questlines of Kul Tiras and Zandalar often appear to be disconnected from the larger conflict. Of course, the Fourth War is the inciting incident for the player characters to even go to these places, yet the questlines themselves are entirely focused around these new regions you’re exploring. You’ll be lured into a shipwreck by sirens with Flynn Fairwind [15], recreate a Monty Python skit in Drustvar [16] and watch as Rastakhan signs away his bloodline to a death god [17]. None of these introductions to these zones have much to do at all with the Fourth War, nor do most of the dungeons and raids in the entire expansion. Yet these parts of Battle for Azeroth are the most rich and character driven parts of it, when the faction war decides to intrude such as during the incredibly dull War Campaign, the Warfronts, or anything involving Sylvanas the entire atmosphere of the expansion comes crashing down.
I strongly believe that Battle for Azeroth was never originally meant to be an expansion about faction conflict. Fans wanted more faction conflict, and Blizzard gave them what they wanted knowing the advertising would cause a big upsurge in interest for the expansion. This shows as the writers likely hamfisted everything to do with the Horde vs. Alliance parts of the expansion, even going so far as to reusing entire character arcs from expansions ago. Within Nazjatar during the Eternal Palace raid tier there were many interactions had between Lor’themar and Jaina, most of them hostile yet as you progress through and eventually beat the raid you’ll see dialogue indicating reconciliation [18]. At a glance this dialogue seems nice, character driven, and helps drive forward peace once again between the two factions. There is, however, only one issue. This exact character arc already happened during Mists of Pandaria [19]. The repititions of the faction war looping over and over again mean you’re doing the same quests in different coats of paint, characters have the same arcs over and over, and you keep a status quo that can never change like a sitcom that’s run 30 years too long.
Characterization and Why the Cast Needs to Die
Jumping off the point of character driven narratives, World of Warcraft doesn’t do a very good job of creating those. This isn’t because the writers are incapable of making characters with distinct personalities and motivations or write dialogue, it’s because the cast of characters that has been built up over decades is stale and disappointing. This isn’t to say that every new character written by Blizzard is a home run, they definitely aren’t, but setting aside more and more of the old cast and bringing in fresh characters can only lead to an improvement to the story.
Characters that make an appearance, leave an impact, and leave when they’ve run their coarse is something that Blizzard rarely does well. A character like Varian Wrynn dying when he did was ultimately good for his character, they had nothing more to do with him and no more ideas, so they gave him a hero’s death and left it at that. Illidan Stormrage appeared for his single recent expansion he was relevant, served his role in the story, and then at the end left. When characters linger for over a decade longer than they’ve done anything in a story they become either bloated or set dressing, and either way as soon as that character is given the spotlight it goes awry.
In Legion the prohpet of the Draenei people, Velen, was truly given the spotlight for the first time since the Draenei were introduced in The Burning Crusade. This immediately becomes messy when the player character is called to the Exodar and it comes under Legion assault. At the end of the quest an Eredar is slain, who is then revealed to be Velen’s son Rakeesh [20]. This obviously becomes what is meant to be an emotional moment but… how can anyone who’s been playing for a long time take this seriously? Velen never brings up having a son, or really even having a family at all. Velen rarely speaks to anyone in a personal manner, we get very little insight into his thoughts or emotional state ever. A character so stoic needs a fair bit of exploration to make him have the emotional depth needed to make a scene like this work. This problem becomes even more apparent in the cutscene after Kil’jaedens defeat, where Velen shares his last moments in a former friend turned enemy [21], and any emotion that should be there falls completely flat.
Of course Velen is only one example of many for these kinds of characters. Thrall famously was taken out of the spotlight after Cataclysm, as the writers likely felt they had little more to do with him after the ending of that expansion. Yet because he is a fan (and Metzen) favorite, he will often appear in newer expansions. Despite this, he rarely actually does much of anything. The same could be said for a character like Malfurion, a legacy character from Warcraft 3 that they clearly have never had a direction for in World of Warcraft. To the point that as of the most recent expansion, he was unceremoniously trapped within the Ardenweald [22].
This problem expands beyond individual characters too, it reaches out to entire races at times. Some races are simply linked eternally to the past and will never be allowed to move forward with new developments in lore. The Blood Elves are my personal favorite example of this. When The Burning Crusade launched the Blood Elves were depicted as outright wicked and nefarious. Kael’thas and Lor’themar lorded over a totalitarian state where dissidents were brainwashed [23] and happiness was mandatory [24]. The Blood Elves on Bloodmyst who arrived from Outland were not only okay with slaughtering the Draenei, they reveled in it [25]. This is all to say that the writers of zones such as Eversong did an excellent job of taking the foundations set by Warcraft 3 and extrapolating them to create an interesting, dystopian setting that gave the Blood Elves of TBC something truly unique to them.
Now after the death of Kael’thas Sunstrider and the restoration of the Sunwell, how has Sin’dorei society changed over the years? We… don’t really know. They don’t tell us very much about this playable race because it isn’t relevant to current content. This wouldn’t so much be a problem if the occassional bits of lore we did get about them gave some indication of how things are currently. Unfortunately, though, anytime there’s something about the Blood Elves it’s always about either Warcraft 3 or things that happened in The Burning Crusade. Even for something as relevant as the heritage armor quest the only thing we do is kill more Scourge in the Ghostlands [26]. Aside from details about Lor’themar’s love life, there really is not much more information to gleam about the Sin’dorei as a race since 2007.
The end point of all this is that feeling the need to stick so closely to nostalgic and familiar concepts ultimately creates a stale and boring experience. Old characters can only go so far, old lore details can only be brought up so many times, references to old expansions get boring eventually. If we want good, fresh storytelling from warcraft they will inevitably have to move forward. Make new characters with fresh perspectives, put new spins on old details and locations, let some more of the old cast die off or retire already. 2002 was a long time ago we can stop pretending like a story that’s King Arthur but with an evil twist is the best they can ever accomplish for character driven storytelling. Sure, new characters and new locations will not always be good… in fact they’ll probably often be bad. But that’s okay, because at least making an attempt at doing something new is better than never even trying at all.
Citations
[1] h’ttps://kotaku.com/how-warcraft-was-almost-a-warhammer-game-and-how-that-5929161
[2] h’ttps://www.wowhead.com/classic/quest=3961/linkens-adventure
[3] h’ttps://www.wowhead.com/classic/npc=659/el-pollo-grande#comments
[4] h’ttps://www.wowhead.com/classic/item=4432/sully-balloos-letter#provided-for
[5] h’ttps://www.stratford.org/uploaded/faculty/jjordan/US_History_Lecture_Notes/Microsoft_Word_-American_Civil_War_Letter.pdf
[6] h’ttps://www.wowhead.com/wotlk/npc=34780/lord-jaraxxus
[7] h’ttps://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/The_Right_Tool_For_The_Job
[8] h’ttps://www.wowhead.com/guide/lore/dragonflight-warlock-pet-customization
[9] h’ttps://www.wowhead.com/quest=14283/moonfire
[10] h’ttps://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Eternity%27s_End(WC3_campaign)
[11] h’ttps://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/What%27s_in_the_Box%3F
[12] h’ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXKMHMQNo8I&ab_channel=8-BitTavern
[13] h’ttp://wow.joystiq.com/2013/11/18/exclusive-first-look-at-christie-goldens-new-novel-war-crimes/#continued
[14] h’ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSJr3dXZfcg&ab_channel=WorldofWarcraft
[15] h’ttps://www.wowhead.com/quest=48419/lured-and-allured
[16] h’ttps://www.wowhead.com/quest=48111/trial-by-superstition
[17] h’ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnNNCXndjCM&ab_channel=WorldofWarcraft
[18] h’ttps://www.wowhead.com/news/lorthemar-and-jaina-dialogue-on-factions-following-the-eternal-palace-finale-293698
[19] h’ttps://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/The_Fall_of_Shan_Bu
[20] h’ttps://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/High_General_Rakeesh
[21] h’ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Omg8_DNQ5oE&ab_channel=MMO-Champion
[22] h’ttps://www.wowhead.com/quest=66188/storms-rest
[23] h’ttps://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Lyria_Skystrider
[24] h’ttps://wowwiki-archive.fandom.com/wiki/Arcane_Guardian
[25] h’ttps://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Matis_the_Cruel_(quest)
[26] h’ttps://www.wowhead.com/guide/blood-elf-heritage-questline-rewards-mount-paladin-transmog-polearm
