IDK, sounds like every post-Tolkien fantasy setting. Orcs, humans and dragons don’t particularly ring the Warhammer bell to me; Forgotten Realm and Greyhawk have been doing it just as long, if not longer. Demons being the super-bad? Literally those same settings, plus countless others written by Christian writers (and of course, plenty of non-Judeo-Christian writers too). A God-being that ordered the cosmos, or even a pantheon of them? Also present in those settings.
Warhammer didn’t invent these ideas, nor is it the most popular representation of them. Pretending that by continuing to have these elements, WoW is still highly or even loosely connected to Warhammer is just weird.
One way most of them deviated from Tolkien was by making their dragons non-evil (or potentially so) and they didn’t have the cultural, religious and mythological underpinnings he had for his stories (for examples - Tolkien elves partially derive from the concept of humans if we hadn’t fallen to sin). In fact, Michael Moorcock is Tolkien’s polar opposite who seems to envy Prof T quite a bit. Many writers derive from religion and mythology.
The closest connection to Warhammer is the idea that Warcraft started as a Warhammer game before Games Workshop pulled the plug, so Blizzard made their own setting and went from there.
while many felt that the scene of tyrande vs sylvanas left to be desired, I don’t think they failed to show how powerful the Night warrior power is, the chains that basically managed to make Lich King bolvar helpless were nothing to Tyrande, she didn’t break a sweat, the power was enough to kill Sylvanas, maybe even the Jailer, but we gotta do raids.
-Maiev’s character development from her lowest point in Wolfheart to what she became now through legion, bfa and now DF is excellent.
Looking through this and other threads seem to show otherwise.
That was Reign of Chaos, not Frozen Throne.
Also, no, it wasn’t portrayed all that ‘dark’.
It also wasn’t the main tone of the game, just the subject matter for one campaign within the game.
Not true.
Chen Stormstout was one of the main characters of Orc’s Campaign in TFT.
Pandaren were always canon, so was Pandaria.
No it didn’t.
These are common fantasy tropes that Warhammer didn’t invent.
Warcraft takes more from D&D than it ever did Warhammer.
Warcraft hasn’t taken anything from Warhammer since WC1 and arguably names of things in WC3 (which were retconned out in WoW and WC3:TFT).
Yes, it does.
I don’t think you realize how every single race in WoW is pretty much a carbon copy off of D&D, some with certain twists to them.
Metzen’s main inspirations when coming up with the lore and backstory for WoW came from D&D.
Races like Night Elves and Blood Elves were concepts created on the basis of D&D but with a certain ‘twist’.
‘What if we had Good Drow, but their culture if Wood Elven?’ (Night Elves)
‘What if we had Evil High Elves, but their culture is like the Drow?’ (Blood Elves)
‘What if we had Lawfully Good Tiefling race with a mix of Aasimar?’ (Draenei)
‘What if we had Peaceful Minotaur?’ (Tauren)
They’ve never tried to not portray it this way.
Some races are actual carbon-copies of D&D races:
Dwarves, Gnomes, etc.
These races don’t change at all between them culturally or aesthetically.
Okay?
I wasn’t arguing whether you liked that particular theme or not, just that it wasn’t born from this original ‘Warhammer’ idea that you’re trying to portray it as.
Instead of trying to be Warcraft, apparently.
Dunno man, seems like you just like Warhammer…
Warhammer and Warcraft aren’t the same thing, and you just can’t accept that.
Warcraft has never been grimdark.
The most iconic city in this setting was designed to look like Cinderella’s castle.
Grow up.
Most brainrotten comment I’ve ever seen on this forum, my God.
Classic’s popularity has been fluctuating since the start.
If you think classic is so much better, why do you even care about the story going on in retail atm.
On classic there’s nothing to do at endgame but raid.
On retail there’s M+ and other gameplay avenues you can take and completely ignore raid.
Naturally, those who want to raid will choose Horde races for the advantage they give in that aspect of the game.
Yeah, and Arthas is only ‘deep’ and ‘dark’ to 13 year olds.
Notice how most people who love Arthas started liking him when they were teenagers who didn’t care about him beyond him looking aesthetically interesting and having a mildly dark backstory (to the mind of a teenager).
As an actual character he’s nothing more than aesthetic, trying to portray a simple lesson.
He’s literally just evil King Arthur.
The original lore is paperthin and isn’t any better or worse than it is now.
The story of Warcraft 3 wasn’t high art.
As I’ve said before, most WoW players don’t know or don’t care about the story/lore.
The lore of Warcraft could be entirely ignored in vanilla because most of it was written in the RPG books.
If you’re braindead, yeah, you’d probably think that.
I’m not ‘hating on old lore’.
I’m pointing out that the actual story/lore of the game has been consistent in quality since it began back in WC1.
Grrr… Change…
Almost like that was the narrative catalyst of the story.
Nobody cares about WoW.
Even during the height of its popularity WoW only reached 12m subscribes.
Compare that to the most recent Pokémon game at 23m…
Compare it to Terraria at 44m.
Diablo III at 30m.
Compare it to Overwatch which has sold 50m copies, dwarfing WoW.
World of Warcraft, even at its peak, was never one of the most popular video games and hasn’t held as many people as other Blizzard franchises.
MMOs have always been a niche genre, most regular people do not care about them.
Keep in-mind, 12m was also WoW’s peak subscriber count. Back when WoW and mmos were a gaming fad, meaning the number of active people in retail and classic is miniscule.
As I’ve tried telling you before.
The actual lore of Warcraft was paper-thin and hardly fleshed out.
The lore of the game came from the RPG books, which you’ve yet to mention at all.
The actual lore within the games was puny and largely ignorable during WoW’s first three expansions.
Beyond that, you had the main narrative which has always been comic booky shlock, whether you’re too nostalgia-blind to see that or not.
Your entire perception of what Warcraft’s story is wrong, sorry to break it to you.
This entire franchise isn’t grimdark, nor has it ever tried to be like Warhammer, nor has it ever been anything but a cartoony world that borders into many different genres depending on what the writers want to portray aesthetically within a zone or storyline.
The fact that you just schizo posted your weird gamergate addled talking points as some form of defense against your brainrotten ideas about WoW makes responding to you useless.
Believe whatever you want, I can take comfort in knowing that Blizzard will recognize your inability to form a coherent or unique thought and ignore whatever gamergate derived twisted reality you live in.
Probably the hottest take I’ll ever give: Arthas was a boring rehash of Kerrigan, and I’m amazed he took off in popularity as much as he did (though the Lich King suit is badass, I’ll admit.)
Kerrigan, at least Brood War Kerrigan before SC2 blamed her evil streak on the Space Jailer, was on a revenge spree against the Terran government that treated her like a lab rat and the rebel leader who treated her like a pawn. The Zerg might look disgusting but they’re the only place in the universe where she has any value. Arthas by comparison was just too desperate to fix things, but there is no good logical reason why paladin Arthas would do what DK Arthas did, so the game fades to black and says “and then Arthas went insane” the moment he takes Frostmourne.
WC as a setting and narrative has never made much sense beyond the “I’m 14 and this is deep” crowd, and that’s OK for what it was. I think its narrative should have grown with its audience more than it did and what growth in maturity it has had does offer some tonal clashes rather than organic growth with the basic setting; coherence has just never been a strong point of the franchise in any respect.
but ultimately, Arthas’ strength was entirely vibes. SC1 is the only Blizzard game I’ve played that I felt had a good story worth some examination even if it’s still not particularly novel, and SC2 threw that in the trash.
(I’m here mostly because I like to know what I should watch out for when RPing and to kill time.)
Now now, before I am summarily dismantled and used for spare parts, let me explain.
When Before the Storm came out, I was right there with you. I raged against the narrative that so clearly wanted to replace Sylvanas with this weird Light-risen psuedo-Undead who was antithetical to the vibes of the Forsaken.
All throughout BFA I dreaded what would happen when they finally divorced Sylvanas from the Forsaken, and what might fill that void.
But then came the pivot. Lordaeron’s reclamation showed that the devs were aware of the criticism and were responding to it. Calia wasn’t the new leader, just a leader among several (yaaay Councils)
We still had to be dragged along with her as she got validation from Maldraxxus, but it was a good start.
And they kept walking it back. Sure, she’s still around, but Voss seems to be the new face of the Forsaken.
Calia’s involvement in Forsaken heritage amounted to her covering her eyes and humming loudly while we blight, bombed, and befouled the Scarlets.
And I can live with that.
I even think there’s potential for her moving forward. A specific story niche she could fill, but that’s a different discussion. For now, I can live with a Menethil.
Not Derek tho.
Get him outta here.
Launch him back into the ocean.
It’s where he belongs.
Shadowlands as a whole wasn’t that bad of an expansion thinking about it. My MAIN issue is that there was no lead up to the Jailer being the big bad behind everything. His character had the potential to be really cool, just poor writing and planning made him a dull, bland and predictable character.
Grounded local and regional narratives are the way to go and a return to a largely contested world with smaller faction strongholds is what makes the world feel alive. The cosmos can remain unexplored.
Constantly rehashing the old world should be done about every decade, most expansions should have a similar treatment. Nothing has to be Cata level, but it has to be revamped and show even mild narrative progression.
Calia is a narrative sink hole and should be put down. The other characters should take the lime light. Should never have come back tbh.
Sylvanas should still be revered within the Forsaken.
Forsaken should be a lot more powerful and scary than what they’re currently depicted. Undeath, seemingly, has no downsides in this world beyond mood swings, they can be sewn back together, have no need to eat, drink, or sleep, and only thing that is strong against them is the relatively rare holy light user and yet they get cut down in droves.
Blood Elf paladins (in the Argent/Holy Light sense) are an affront to the Blood Knights and what they as a people had to go through and Liadrin dangerously skirts that line.
The overall success of the Argent Crusade in EPL has corrected it for the worse and no longer feels like an actually dangerous and zombie ridden zone. They sacrificed world building for narrative (an unserious one at that)
Scarlets are a staple villain and their recent ‘success’ or upsurge is easily explained by Sylvanas destroying the helm and releasing the previously contained Scourge to do as they wish.
Tyr’s Hand should have remained a living Scarlet Stronghold. Archerus never stuck around to finish the job.
Dwarves should the central power of the Alliance.
The Ashenvale slog between Night Elves and Horde is good. Its needed practically for Horde travel to Felwood, Winterspring, and Hyjal, and thematically the narrative is engaging for both factions to tussle a bit.
Reducing the Defias to bandits rather than continuing them as a separatist/anti-monarchical movement was a waste.
I dont mind Ebyssian, but Sabellion should have been aspect.
Alexstraza is kinda bad at her job and shouldn’t be the unofficial leader of the aspects and crew.
Meh, don’t necessarily believe the Alliance needs a ‘central power’.
I think portraying Stormwind as the neutral multiethnic multiracial hub of the Alliance is fine enough, they just need to push that aspect of it better and distance it from being solely human.
Think the best portrayal they could do for the Alliance is portray it as just that, an Alliance of equally-participating nations bound together to keep Azeroth in peace and vowed to work together if a major threat presents itself to the world again.
The United Nations of Azeroth or European Union of Azeroth, in a way.
I think the idea of racial ‘capitals’ within the game is weird.
Can have demographics of a city tend towards a certain race, but being entirely monoracial or being a ‘racial hub’ regardless of the individual allegiances of that race/people is weird.
100%
Most interesting thing about the Defias was that they were the only group among humans that appears to actually disavow monarchal thinking, and that should’ve been explored more (along with monarchy as a whole being a net negative for people living under it)
Kinda feels like a natural shift for the world to take at this point imo.
The Scourge is largely fractured and consists of many break-off groups post-Arthas, and the actual state of the Scourge post-Helm of Domination’s destruction hasn’t really been explored yet.
Think it’d be neat to delve into the actual beliefs/practices of the Cult of the Damned if we’re going to tackle the Scourge again, but if not…
Eh, I’m fine with the idea of Lordaeron being slowly healed by Druids.
In hindsight I would’ve wanted them to have left the Scourge for a while and not immediately go off and kill Arthas…
Should’ve let all that stuff brew for a while imo.
This was more of a ‘Ironforge has had literately 0 problems since WC1, even while under siege for years. Why aren’t they the capital and major player instead of SW?’ Its baby King Chin, who isnt even around in Classic, and barely rebuilt and unstable SW vs 200+ year old Magni and pristine IF.
My own line of thinking is that it was the first ‘Alliance-built’ city, being rebuilt by the Alliance of Lordaeron post-Second War and was therefore built with a multiethnic makeup in-mind (Dwarven district and other ethnic enclaves built within the city) and has persisted a multiethnic makeup since it was rebuilt.
Admittedly that’s entirely my own headcanon reason for it, realistically Blizzard only picked it because it matched with the basic ‘Alliance aesthetic’ and it served as a good travel hub since it was a port city contrary to IF which is entirely landlocked with no real travel options.
Based and Alliance-pilled. Players who think otherwise were just too cowardly to roll Horde. The King Chin people liked was just an Orc in a human body.
You know why. It’s not human-oriented.
Also SW is literally the least interesting city in the game. Its the travel-equivalent of visiting Europe and eating exclusively at McDonald’s.
Very little of it involves the cultures of Stormwind or Lordaeron as opposed to notable individuals within them, or the city of Stormwind which is indeed very basic and feels like a theme park. The only good parts of Stormwind visually are the Park (RIP), the Harbor, and Lion’s Rest. 2/3 of those are newer additions and the Park was ruined for a cheap bit in Cata.
Theramore was beautiful by vanilla standards, Gilneas is pretty solid, Boralus is the best city in the game.
And most of the bland pablum stuff is also among the most pervasive stuff in the game, which will induce resentment from those who prefer anything else.
Isn’t that most game lore? We explore the world through or alongside the POV of particular individuals. Rarely do we view the game through the lens of the entire nation or faction.
Regarding Stormwind, I think the Cathedral district is one of the most beautiful locations historically in the game (it has fallen behind as the old world has not been revamped but nevertheless for its time it was gorgeous). Compared to other capitals, I think it’s definitely up there in appeal.
I leveled a Paladin in classic hardcore and the Protection talent background being the Cathedral of Stormwind had me feeling things. Looked straight out of a fresco.
There are occasionally glimpses of other cultures which provide backgrounds on very different ways to live. They’re occasional, but they’re there. Stormwind is largely written with an assumption that you are familiar with the vague fantasy milieu and just want to plop a character in.
From the earliest quests, it’s easy to learn that Ironforge has a Senate and that three clans were once united but split; that Silvermoon was ravaged by the undead but has restored its magical largesse through any means necessary. What is the compelling hook that humans offer? Well, if we’re to look at the old character creation screen it’s that Stormwind humans can reclaim the lost glory of … other human civilizations.
Cath district is OK. It’s nothing to write home about.
Overall Stormwind has aged from about a 4 to about a 7, which is the exact reverse course of what I’d give Orgrimmar over the years, but it still falls short of the average city in this game imo.
