It was the glimpses of the various cultures that got me. Starting in Warcraft 3 with Elune and the Night Elves. I was kind of excited to see this ancient civilization. But it wasn’t until BC that I got invested. Maybe it was just being older then but, for all that expansion’s faults it had a quite a few chains that drew my attention and made me actually give a crap in a way that the previous stories really hadn’t.
The Forsaken are what first lured me in. I was born around Halloween so I’ve had a soft spot for spooky stuff for as long as I can remember. Ghosts, ghouls, vampires, zombies etc. Unsurprisingly this led me to play undead factions or powered characters whenever possible. Unfortunately though these factions were typically bereft of character. Maybe if you were lucky you’d get a Necromancer or Vampire Count with a motivation for wanting to kill and raise everyone beyond “Because I’ve a skull for a face and I can”.
But with the Forsaken they made the rank and file undead, who are usually meat puppets bereft of everything, actual people. Then they gave them gallows humor, mad science and horned skeletal horses. I absolutely adore the deaders.
But what made me return to WoW after years of not playing was by far the world. I dabbled in other MMOs here and there and they all had something neat, but nothing holds a candle to the World of Warcraft. Every zone is a damn work of art. It all feels so storied and lived in. You can get completely lost in the rich history and flavor of the world as you explore ruins in a dense, wild jungle or storm foreboding keeps in haunted forests. Every area is it’s own self contained story and adventure that blends seamlessly with the others. It’s truly a one of a kind gameplay experience that never really let’s you go.
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My imagination really runs wild with what the writing team leaves unresolved. Specifically plot points where the consequences aren’t elaborated on. Kul’Tiras just underwent a HUGE change in leadership, with three of its main houses under new leadership and/or regency, and with House Ashvane without a leader. How will life change for Kul’Tirans? Who will own all the Ashvane businesses? Did we replace four selfish isolationist overlords with three people who actually have hearts? Or did we end up installing a new set of selfish pro-Alliance overlords?
Another thing that made my imagination run wild is the situation in Duskwood and Westfall. We have a bunch of refugees from Gilneas and Teldrassil who are proficient in both the light and druidism(and Gilnean druids specialize in agriculture). We’ve seen that when the Cenarion Circle and Argent Crusade work together, the scourge can be pushed back. Why don’t alliance priests and druids work together to deal with the barren farmland in Westfall and the combined issues of feral Worgen and Undead in Duskwood? And once those problems are solved, the refugees have a bunch of abandoned land in Duskwood to settle near the druid portal.
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That’s why I think Cata was so interesting. For context I stopped playing after Wrath and didn’t start up again till Legion. I made a new character and started fresh.
My first immediate reaction was sheer delight that the plot had moved forward. Hillsbrad was now firmly in Forsaken control. The Scourge in the Plaguelands was now a mop up operation and the factions were fighting eachother over territory. All the old dungeons had new bosses, the old ones were rightfully dead! It was so cool!
Of course I learned later that this was just Cataclysm. I legitimately thought the world had just been incrementally changed overtime. I was immensely dissatisfied when I arrived in Outland, excited to see how it had changed in my absence, only to learn it hadn’t at all.
As stated I wasn’t around for Cata so I’ve no idea how it was received. But while I am excited for Shadowlands I’d be totally on board with just an upgrade and update to everything. There’s so many plot threads that’ve just been dangling in the wind for a decade now. Let’s clean up everything we already have and then build some new stuff.
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I’m one of those nerds that fell in love with the Horde during wc3. At the time I read a lot of Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms. I also read a lot of Redwall, so I was used to evil monster races being just evil because they were an evil race. The Hordes more understandable and frankly human motivations drew me to them. It’s the reason wod and bfa have been so disappointing to me.
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I vaguely remember watching my babysitter play a bunch of WC2 as a small child and I later got pretty into WC3. I liked the game and played online as the Scourge a bunch but the setting never really grabbed me. I’d played my fair share of fantasy games and Warcraft was just another one in my mind.
Wasn’t until I tried WoW that it sunk it’s claws into me. I’d played Runescape and Star Wars Galaxies before so I wasn’t new to the concept of MMOs. I started off with an Undead warlock and set off into the world. I immediately fell in love with the Forsaken and the Undercity but the moment I saw Orgrimmar sticks out in my mind.
I came there with an attitude. I was so enthralled with the Undercity I was convinced this silly Orc town was going to be lame in comparison. That opinion was obliterated when I turned the corner from the entrance gate right as the iconic bum bum of it’s theme kicked in and my jaw dropped.
It’s funny how much your imagination fills in the blanks. In my memory I would swear I vividly recall battalions of Orcs marching around as zepelins floated in and out of the city above. I’ve since revisited it in Classic and that’s decidely not what it looks like but that’s what I mean when I say capture your imagination. The game had handed me a sense of what I was looking at and my mind filled in the blanks the limited tech of the time couldn’t.
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It started with Warcraft 3. It then evolved into the world-building potential that WoW provided–and has only remained in that state. I never personally played Dungeons and Dragons (yet), but WoW–even when the story gets over the top–seems to offer a channel through which to explore various character concepts that appeal to me. A “playground” of sorts, kept in check by the general lore.
I can be a Dwarf Paladin? Nice. How about a Dwarf Warrior-Priest devoted to a specific Titan?
A Night Elf Monk? Cool. What about a Druidic Wardancer who prefers to eschew animal forms and is enhanced by nature magic as he pummels foes?
A Pandaren Warrior? Or how about a Wardancer, loyal to his Shao’din.
And so on and so forth…
It’s why I wish the WoW RPG was still canon (maybe an unpopular opinion).
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This is also true when we are reading the novels where is all in your head, the situations, the emotions, the battles, everything.
that is pretty good to be honest.
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I do love that relative freedom as well.
I call my Belf Destro Lock a Blood Mage. It already has that Verdant Spheres (Fel Shards) glyph. If only there was one that turned your infernal into a Phoenix.
Likewise I consider my Forsaken Monk a Field Apothecary. It actually works surprisingly well so much of the class is about throwing or consuming liquids.
My undead warrior I say is a Vargul or Undead Vyrkul as portrayed by a crippling addiction to growth potions. It’s fun to imagine the shouts as Skaldic war poems and the zombie Conan vibe is just fun.
For Benedikt here I don’t change much but I do suggest his Shadow Magic is more Dracula than Cthulu. Mental manipulation, turning into a mist, vampiric touch/embrace etc. It fits pretty well and gives me an excuse to call humans a miserable pile of secrets.
My parents played Warcraft II a lot when I was in diapers, and sometimes they let me sit in their lap while they played the campaign or what have you. I thought the setting was pretty “metal,” for lack of a better term, and I really enjoyed it in a blood-and-thunder sort of way.
The human campaign in WC3 was the first bit of gameplay to ever affect me as a story, though. Up to that point, I had never played a videogame with a downer ending, so I wasn’t expecting Arthas to take the path he did. I found the possibilities this opened up captivating, so I picked up the lore booklet that came with the game and started reading.
To date, WoW and Starcraft are the only games where I’ve invested much time in external lore / media.
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What WoW Captured about my Imagination is the World, Factions, Amazing Races on Azeroth, All kinds of Magic, Medieval Stuff mixed with Steampunk and SCI Fi stuff, Art Style, and etc.
But my experience starts in Warcraft 3 where it all started with the awesome lore and everything else.
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The subversion of established fantasy tropes is what got me into Warcraft. Warcraft 3 was an excellent subversion of established tropes.
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I started playing this game as a kid during late Vanilla, and my first character was a night elf rogue. Teldrassil blew my mind. I was enraptured with the night elves’ world. I still remember entering Shadowthread Cave and fighting Githyiss the Vile for the first time. Ironforge did a lot for me, too. Seeing a whole city built inside a mountain was surreal. It’s still my favorite capital by far.
At some point, I decided to try out Horde. That’s when I truly fell in love. Talking to Thrall for the first time was the pivotal moment. Here was an orc who was talking about honor and showing compassion to one’s enemies. I was amazed that I could play an orc and not instantly be shoehorned into evil. Then after seeing how even lawful good races like tauren could be in the Horde, my mind was made up. I switched to Horde and never looked back.
It’s been a ride.
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Same here.
First off, Sylvanas and the Forsaken.
The ruthless will to survive, and do whatever it took to conquer their enemies and secure their place in the world, even if it was on top of a mountain of Blight-riddled corpses, was exceedingly refreshing to me for a “protagonist” race.
I was going into High School at the time Cata came out, and running alongside Sylvanas all across Silverpine while we beat back the Worgen and Alliance with whatever underhanded tactic or biological weapon we could come up with was something I very fondly did many times through all the alts I made back then.
It was through my love for Sylvanas and the Forsaken that I came to love the Horde, especially under Garrosh with how many times I did Cata leveling content in both Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms on the aforementioned alts.
But now Sylvanas is gone, and looking at the Forsaken and Horde with her gone I only seem to feel like I did nothing but utterly waste my time enjoying all that I did from Vanilla up until BfA. Just a hollow feeling of frustration at everything I loved just squandered.
Oh well.
Secondly, the Night Elves.
Yeah, sure, I enjoy wholesale genocide as much as the next guy, but really Teldrassil is my favorite starting zone still, even after playing it 1 million times, and then 1 million more in Classic.
I’m a sucker for ancient history, so the Highborne past always captured my interest in the way that only the Forsaken had managed to also do.
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As someone who hates Sylvanas in cata after she pooped on gilneas and southshore I am happy that everyone knows what I did then that Sylvanas was gonna be a villain horde was gonna a lose her
How very thoughtful of you Kat.
The story of the fall of Lordaeron and rise of the Scourge in Warcraft 3 really got me into the WoW universe. To this day most of my characters are humans or undead. I just found the whole story very compelling - a victorious Kingdom in a time of peace facing its own demise from within.
Following into the WoW universe I had a strong interest in the Scarlet Crusade, the remnants of Lordaeron, struggling to survive against the Scourge and Forsaken.
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What your who existance in this game is hating on blue team I am her just to remind you blue team has paying players too
Now now, let’s be fair.
I don’t just hate them, I revel in killing them too.