Like everything from BC to DF I can easily remember but Vanilla is like…
One minute I’m stabbing moths in Azuremyst Isle, some blurs of side quests, then we end up killing C’Thun.
Any got a synopsis? Lol
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It didn’t have a single main plot, it was a series of adventures built around existing lore from WC3.
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Azuremyst didn’t exist back then. Don’t you mean stabbing boars in Elwynn?
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Saying it from the POV of myself, still had to go through Vanilla to get to BC
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A lot of little unconnected stories from what I can recall. But I’ve never been big on the story honestly.
There were some larger plots like the black dragon stuff and the insecty stuff leading to C’Thun. And then smaller stuff like stiffing workers and not paying them or something lead to defias groups and deadmines dungeon.
Ooo undeady stuff with scarlet crusade.
I recall it feeling kind of aimless, but it worked. I was distracted by playing the game anyways. Kind of how having long time leveling worked too. Both are paradigms I’m happy they changed.
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Expose Onyxia, follow the Missing Diplomat breadcrumbs that lead to absolutely nothing until Varian returned in Wrath.
Then settle the unrest at Blackrock Mountain above and below before jaunting off to Kalimdor to take care of their bug problem. Hopefully the kal’dori have learned not to leave food out overnight.
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Blizzard during Vanilla seemed undecided on what path to take. Either multiple dungeon or raids for end game(s). Raids are usually (well now) thematic to the expansion, while dungeons are often just zone specific or just somewhat random.
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So it was just a bunch of small random stories with barely any cohesion
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Correct, it was far less narrative and a bit more sandboxy.
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Each zone had its own self contained stories, with a few exceptional questlines that had you going from zone to zone but I don’t remember those being terribly common.
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the old story was great. you also felt like a random adventurer doing things and not this world saving hero with 79 different titles. the maw walker one was so stupid
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It was a lot of small issues, like people needing mail delivered, or bandits kill’t, which slowly built up into killing old gods and dealing with veritable undead gods.
The pacing is pretty great, I think. Everything about the early game is building up the mid game, everything about the mid game is about building up the late game and so on and so forth etc. and etc.
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You’re just a no name adventurer basically which was great wish they’d go back to that rather then us being some all powerful champion
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Wouldn’t make sense narratively, these days some run of the mill bandit isn’t gonna be dumb enough to charge at us with a bent dagger
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Like previously said mostly all side stories/quests with a few that culminated in a bigger end game raid.
Black rock mountain being probably the overall largest story. You have Ragnaros corruption of the dark iron dwarves and dealing with them in black rock depths and then Molten Core. You have the black Dragonflight controlling the orcs in blackrock spire and then in Blackwing Lair.
In Kalimdor the major threat is the silithid you first see in Feralus/Tanaris and builds through Ungoro then finally Silithus and AQ.
Then you have the undead/scourge story in the plague lands (west and east) that culminates with Naxx.
There are some other side stories like the ogres of Dire Maul.
I feel like Winterspring/Azhara are two zones that kind of got left hanging, like they could have had more end game there. I would add blasted lands as well, but since the first expansion is TBC which starts from Blasted Lands going through the dark portal I’ll give it a pass.
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Reminds me of this.
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The biggest thing I remember was the Onyxia plot which involved Varian, the Defias Brotherhood and a long quest chain.
But that was only if you were Alliance, Horde had no such overarching chain. And the FOCUS was less on the story for either faction and more just being an adventurer who drifted in and out of the lives of different NPCs.
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Vanilla was back when the game had an actual living world and everything wasnt a handheld experience.
Your race choice actually meant something because you would start out in your races starting zone, experiencing a story created for your race the first 2-3 zones depending on what you made. Once you got out of those, you started to get into zones where other races were also being sent.
Each zone had its own story, its own life, feel and each races storyline was vastly different from the others. You actually got a sense of the culture and motivations behind each one and the story actually made you HATE the other side. There was open world PvP and often after the first month of release you would find some players of the other factions attacking your quest hub, killing quest NPCs and it wasnt that rare to see players engaging in PvP. By month 5 you started seeing player raids on the others capital city.
As you got deeper into later zones, the stories expanded in taking out the lesser factions and pushing you towards the dungeons the game had, before the first expansion came out, the story was building towards the first raids.
While the expansions added a great deal of story and “end game”, it really started to become more and more mundane and guide railed, lacking soul.
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Plot was introducing everyone to Azeroth and adventuring in it. From the jungles of Stranglethorn to the badlands. To castle Stormwind to Orgrimmar.
There didnt need to be an end boss as the world was the game.
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This is the only answer you need.
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