What do you hate and love most about the lore in WoW?

Lore Story Forum
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Just genuinely curious to see folks opinions’ so I suggest we keep things civil, no arguments plz.

What I love: The Horde. Just my favorite thing about the WC franchise is its depiction of races generally perceived as nothing more than mere monsters, brutes, and villains. As their own “civilized” people capable of empathy and emotion as much as any Tolkien Human, Dwarf, or Elf. A people with their own societal/political structure and their own way of life far different from that of a majority of fantasy worlds to date.

What I hate: The Hordes’ constant misrepresentation and BfA. Just, like, the whole expansion, it’s not a new sentiment to have around here, I’m sure. But the whole expansion really broke everything I liked about the Horde. How the majority used to oppose unchecked aggression and power-mad dictators, how it stood for virtues such as freedom, honor, and hope(as the current description on the website so graciously details), how while not completely opposed to war with the Alliance wouldn’t go out of its way to antagonize the conflict unless provoked, ect. Now yes, while this mold has been broken since MoP, but BfA took what was literally in the process of being fixed and broke it even more so that it would take even longer to fix(if it can be considered fixable at all) and still can’t help but miss the Horde of W3-Wrath in which despicable tactics like that displayed in IC at the Broken Front are reprimanded and concepts like mercy are not lost upon races generally perceived as having none.

K guys, your turn.

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the way it seemingly destroys the higher brain functions of the people who play it

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What I loved: The Night Elves before their total destruction in BfA

What I hate: The writing with the rule of cool in mind and no consistent characters or concluding plot holes. I liked the honorable Horde and hate what it has become, and how many Horde characters had to act out of character for it to happen for seemingly no purpose at all because everyone was left unhappy.

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Love: The ancient world stuff. Like the origins and history of Trolls, Orcs, Qiraji, and Dwarves. I love the viking theme of the Vrykul.

Hate: that “Rule of Cool” supersedes a cohesive and consistent story. I hate the Horde havin’ to “find itself” every other expansion. I hate the Alliance bein’ stuck on Lawful Good/Stupid.

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Favorite part: How serious people take it and how much it can upset them. How people see the races and factions as almost real things.

Least favorite part: See favorite part.

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/10 characters

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What I love: How passionate we can get as players about certain characters or story beats, that leaves us eager to learn more or what happens after/ the impact it may leave on the story, most Class Halls for example.

What I Hate: When blizzard waste good characters or subplots for no real good reason or ignores them when they should be active.

Thrall, Garrosh, Sylvanas, Carine, Alleria, Turalyon, Void elf v. Lightforged, Yrel going full zealot, Archimonde lowkey dying in a throwaway xpac,

khadgar being absent all xpac and only hearing about him at the start to never be seen again? (Atleast let us hear some stuff about him studying in the tower so we know he’s alive)

Azshara wasted, now if we fight her again the hype is gone villains tend to lose their impact if they’ve been beaten before and at that point you’re just killing what was great about them Looks at Kael’thas

Why did N’Zoth die in such a pitiful way when his minion that’s way weaker than him managed to destroy/ crack/ shake the world to it’s core forever changing many zones?

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Love: I’ve always felt that both the post-BC Draenei and the BC-era Blood Elves were incredibly unique takes on dry concepts. It required some colossal retconning on the Draenei’s parts and they were slow to really get their representation concrete instead of merely conceptual, but they’re relatively unique to the genre in cultural moods while still being familiar enough to be approachable for someone with different preconceived notions, which is my favorite kind of twist/remix of a conventional concept.

I also think the Tauren are capable of this element, but I wish they would push Tauren engineering and arts more to the forefront. There’s an interestingly scientifically advanced society (c.f. Great Lift, Thunder Bluff, Highmountain tower proper) lurking under the shallow Native American pastiche, and I’d love for them to get the kind of layered writing that went into Zandalar. Same for gnomes, who used to have a heavy implication of being quietly self-sacrificing that’s been lost over the years.

Oh, and Bwonsamdi and Rezan, congratulations for being the first gods that feel like gods. Honorable mention to Odyn.

Hate: I’ve long felt that Blizzard didn’t have the maturity as a company to really handle the full implications of what they were doing when they turned the orcs into bloodthirsty conquerors that were then unjustly subjugated and victimized by humans. They love the ideas of redemption and revenge and to use them as story beats, but they don’t put in the work to have these ideas actually stick and have some meaning to them. They love the ideas of morally grey and of constant war, but don’t understand that ultimately, most real world conflicts either have an aggressive belligerent that can be viewed as ultimately at-fault, or they’re fought over entirely uninspiring, undramatic moments of minutiae and confusion.

The end result has been that every force that has ever had a major conflict with the orcs as well as the orcs themselves just become an endless cavalcade of nonsensical posturing, rapidly shifting between innocent victim to brutal monster, and while it is natural for a belligerent in a conflict themselves to undergo these changes, the story is framed in a way that is implicitly omniscient yet deliberately designed to obscure the overall picture of what happens.

And at the end of the day, that’s basically ruined humans, orcs, and draenei for me. They have a similar thing going on with the Light now, which is just wild when it happens to a literal cosmic force – kind of makes cosmic forces feel not-very-cosmic to me – and I think they’re gonna keep doing it to everything. And I just don’t think this universe is well-designed for the complex morality plays they seem to think they can write.

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The concepts and world-building. The mix of fantasy and science-fiction. The non-typical environments and races.

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In a meta sense, what I like is how polarising it can get - people having wildly differing views and opinions on various topics. Say what you will, but I think that’s a mark of good “faction” storytelling.

What I dislike is all the forgotten/ditched plot threads; it can really make the story (at that point in time) rather flaccid. The Cho’gall nonsense in Draenor comes to mind.

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I love how blizzard does crazy stuff like playable undead or death knights, if they think its cool they find a way to implement it

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I like the range of accessibility that WoW has in terms of playable races.

What I despise is the lack of resolution that’s apparent behind the game. There should be more significant consequences and death to challenge the status quo of our factions. To push them to the brink by killing off leaders, laying waste to capitals on a more casual basis and mindless hatred.

We only get those things in pussyfooting snippets.

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Love: How it took the typical D&D setting, and outlook, and twisted it all into something truly unique, and different from the years of norm, that preceded it.

Hate: All the lore inconsistencies, and plotholes.

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I like the magic systems in WoW. It’s extremely well-organized, with each piece of the puzzle falling into place with what schools come from where, what creatures use them, what abilities they may grant, etc. Magic schools in D&D or the Elder Scrolls for instance just fall along the lines of what they do, such as evocation/destruction, enchantment/alteration, illusion, whatever. But when a player tries to conjure up an image of an evocation spell, there’s no vivid idea there, it’s a very vague and flavorless concept in my opinion. The only difference between fire-themed or ice-themed evocation spells, for instance, seems to be the type of damage it does.

Whereas in WoW’s magic system, a Frost mage and a Fire mage are two very distinct images! In a sense, the magic schools have all been “branded” much more effectively. A bolt of demonic fire and a bolt of shadow energy might both be classified as evocation magic in D&D, but in WoW, they’re recognized as spells which are both cast to hurt something, but nevertheless exist at very different intersections in the system. And it makes sense! I’ve always felt bothered that wizards in D&D can just pick and choose what spells in a given school to cast, even if they should realistically be very different to learn.

As for the stuff I hate in WoW? Everything. I hate WoW. I’m trapped here, please someone help. None of my friends IRL know anything about WoW lore and I keep venting to them about it and they don’t know what to do anymore.

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In general I do like the Warcraft-universe. It’s just extremely colorful and has plenty of options for potential stories and plots even from various different genres: You can tag along with the draenei and go on a cosmic-space-adventure, visit dozens of different plantes with potentially unique cultures and races…or you can follow a cursed detective in a 19th-century-England while he chases down Jack the Ripper.

Warcraft also has a unique spin on several classic fantasy-races: Orks (purposely written with a “k” here) before Warcraft were mostly chaotic evil beings, then Metzen came along and created the honorable-shamanistic-warrior-culture of the Warcraft orcs. Or the aforementioned draenei. Or even trolls and gnomes.

And Azeroth itself. Just take a look around at official artwork or fanart of for example Quel’Thalas and Teldrassil. Or look at Stormwind in the Warcraft-movie. It’s a world where you want to jump in and go on an adventure, and experience this gigantic, colorful and magical world.

Now what I dislike is Blizzard failing to live up to this world. They are capable of creating such a beautiful setting, but then fail to fill it with life. So many cultures, nations and races are only touched upon on a surface level. We never really see or experience how their societies work, how they live together, their traditions and so on. We have a great world, but it is missing the world-building.

What I also dislike is how several authors at Blizzard constantly shrink the world. Traveller 3 you can seemingly see Stormwind from Redridge…how small are the Eastern Kingdoms? A tauren can run across the entire Barrens in a single day, and Varian can jog from Stormwind to Ironforge through the Deep Run Tram. What the hell?

What I want is better world-building…and a larger world. In Elwynn Forest alone there should be dozens of villages and towns.

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May 30, 2020

“I am once again in complete agreement with something Elesana said, I think I will be needing a visit to the psychiatrist soon.”

Jokes aside:

Love: The typical monster race of trolls being this mesoamerican/caribbean influenced ancient imperial species that evolved in a largely hostile world and have been slow to adapt to a world that has since changed and diversified in terms of the intelligent life there. Granted, this is half interpretive headcanon

Hate: What Elesana said, I still feel off for agreeing.

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I love that the lore is original yet it draws from other fantasy sources, be it one liners your unit croaks in a multiplayer match or the /yell of a raid boss.

I loathe the underrepresentation of crafters in the World of Warcraft. Not going to say the name, but there’s this game, and the blacksmith is always hammering; you can hear him from upstairs when he’s downstairs. He is always working and pivotal to the plot.

Both in gameplay and lore, professions and craft (spell craft, witch craft, apparel/accessory craft) are what makes the game good but we’re so distracted by figureheads that we tend to skip over the ones working so hard to keep it running. That may be a real life problem, complain about the steak and don’t tip the waiter. Some story elements seem tacked on because of a lack of profession, and the glaringly obvious example is Preserved Contaminants. If the story was preconceived and crafted thoughtfully, Preserved Contaminants would not have to be patched in. Some lore explanations for inclusions of currency tables should have been thought out in advance. Just sayin. It seems like a made up story to explain the necessity of a system to facilitate and reiterate upon a poor systems implementation.

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Love: magical sentient zombies being a prominent political faction.

Hate: the constant churn of world building being fully fleshed out – and then partially (or wholly) retconned to fit a new narrative.

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I really like the cultures and settings WoW provides. They truly feel unique and interesting. Plenty of zones as beautiful and as OP said, the quite different approach to monstrous races which didn’t outright shown them as evil- just different.

What I dislike is : constant retcons, rule of cool, very primitive narration at times*
, that factions/ characters makes less and less sense. Pumping up one race/character too much to the point that it devalues other races strenghts or eventheir own’s allies.

** regarding narration:
-Alliance is portrayed as super white and super united for past couple of years, despite them being supposed alliance of different nations, so, therefore, various sub-factions should have different politics, needs and type of involvement. For example Anduin freeing Saurfang should’ve escalate some big trouble as by doing that he betrayed his allies. Especially nelves.

-Regarding orcs- they really could’ve have deep dive into warrior/ barbarian culture without villanizing them this much. It is possible, in Heroes of Might and Magic 3 : Chronicles they did that with Tarnum. He explain how barbarian society works with great insight and while they are prone to violence and are brutes, they still have lots of positive traits to balance it out and actually make them three dimensional. It felt like recent writing was just capitalizing on how evil and warmongering orcs are and the only good ones are those connected to humans!

-regarding the Amani who are constantly portrayed as evil despite just wanting their home back and justifying both elves and humans as invaders. This game never really bothered to give us troll narration, their point of view, never showcased their martyrology. And they were set to lose despite having lots of strengths. If technology and other types of magic aren’t their strength they should’ve really shine in martial prowess, but apparently creatures that are half their size at best, and much more fragile can without a problem beat them up as well, which is impossible. Imagine adults fighting with kids - the only time kids would win against adults would be if they had an advantage in numbers.

-Powerful characters that are so OP that they can pose a threat in engaging storytelling. I have no problem with actually established god characters, but when mortal does the job of a god then there is where I see a problem. How can you then write a convincing war story when you have a literal superman who can undo the effort of armies all alone?

these are quite a huge issues which hinders in fully enjoying the experience.

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There is a lot to love. What do I love most?

I love how Blizzard manages to make characters that people care about. The small details.

Kiro and Nisha made the Vulpera an awesome group to work with right from the start.

Lothraxion… sheds some light on the Nathrezim.

Thalyssra portrays the Nightborn situation well.

Cyrus, Flynn, and Taelia show us Kul Tiras on the ground level while also teasing the looming Fordragon storyline.

There are characters that can rise above the often convoluted story. Characters that really express an interesting perspective or plot thread.

Whether or not I liked the direction and outcome of BfA as a whole… there are constantly new Characters that give the game new life. And the Old Characters linger in the background, to make cameos. BfA was great on that front. Rexxar and Garona were prominent and fighting for the Horde! While the Nightborn and Highmountain from the previous expansion make a big show in helping Talanji escape as BfA began.

What do I hate?

The blatant disregard for consistency.

They could do better at smoothing over retcons. They are pretty heavy handed, and they push the suspension of disbelief. And sometimes it seems like their lore is building up multiple plot points, but then half of them are forgotten or put on the back burner in ways that make little sense.

I suppose the nature of a subscription based video game mmorpg has something to do with the way that 1000 stories are seeded and built upon over time. But then they are sort of criss crossed, mashed together hastily, or forgotten entirely.

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