(This comes off another thread, really got into my reply. So decided to make it’s own post.)
Due to WoW’s age. WoW’s lore is not very accessible. Over the years, Blizzard has fragmented it’s lore across many different medias from the occasional short prior to a new expansion, to the dozens of Warcraft novels.
This isn’t good for new players and keeping new players around is vital. There is a very good reason, why Blizzard spent majority of Shadowlands development time on improving and overhauling the new player experience. Because what we had before Shadowlands hadn’t been touched since Cata (2010) and it showed. Thus isn’t very impressive to anyone booting up and trying the game for the first time.
This goes for the Story as well… Yes, anyone with a brain understands that there is no easy way to cram 20+ years of Warcraft lore into the game. But that doesn’t mean that Blizzard should not even attempt to give new players and players in general, a way to learn about vital bits of Warcraft lore that may have relevance at the time, or may not be relevant at all. But it’s something that I think the players really need the option of having access too.
Take Arthas for example, he’s a hot topic considering Shadowlands. Will he? Won’t he appear? etc.
For any new player who’s trying WoW for the first time, in order to even have an understanding of his lore, origin and why he’s such a beloved character in this universe. They would either need to play through Warcraft 3, Read the Warcraft 3 based novels and then quest throughout all of Northrend which is not very pleasant now a days considering those quests were made in 2008 for a substantially different game at the time.
Unless they are super story driven, NO ONE is going to resort to outside sources in order to learn about lore for a 15+ year old game which they’ve barely even breached the surface of. It would be overwhelming as heck.
That’s not good for WoW.
WoW’s a MMORPG, RPGs are highly dependent on a semi-coherent story. If I start playing a game, and start half way through the story I’m going to be lost as hell and honestly be uninterested, and not dedicated to what’s happening. Thus I’m less likely to continue to playing or attempt to play further.
The hypocrisy of it all, is Blizzard ignores this major flaw of their game. But proceeds to integrate absolute 
MMO / game design in general into their game. Then proceeds to use story / “RP” as the excuse for it. 
What’s the solution? You may say.
Make every cutscene / trailer / animated short / media that is Warcraft related accessible in game. Have it be based in both Stormwind and Orgrimmar, have nothing restricting the NPC to be used by Free Trials or new players in general.
Have it be organized by Expansion → Character.
Yes, it would just be names on a list that would mean nothing to new players. But at least they would have the option to learn about said characters who have media out there for players to learn about them.
As for the non-video related media, the simple solution would be to make an in-game version of the novels be purchase-able for those wanting to read those stories. Unfortunately that would be tied to the in-game store, but having the option would never the less, be welcome.
Example:
Warlords of Draenor
Grommash Hellscream
But instead of needing to go outside of the game, to find a video that’s 7 years old. It would be easily accessible from the purposed NPC based in each factions primary city.