Warcraft Lore and RPG Discussion

its more like the ogres will probably be led by their two headed mages because they are smart enough. The presence of the ogre legion and merc camps means that ogres were smart enough to hire themselves out as hired muscle.

the funny thing about the draenei = protoss thing is that Blizzard's taken it so far that in WoD we find out that the draenei even had dragoons before the Horde destroyed Shattrath and Auchindoun

Ezarch Artaanus when

...

>the draenei even had dragoons before the Horde destroyed Shattrath and Auchindoun
U wot? You mean those new constructs they have? Pic related.

yeah, they're supposed to have draenei souls inside them

So they're like Eldar Wraith constructs? That sounds somewhat out of character for the Draenei.

Is it really Thorium..or is it Tiberium?

Are those shields? Damn..my boner's gonna split if they are. I fucking love shields

shields that they punch you with

from the dungeon journal entry for the first boss of Auchindoun
>The greatest warriors of the draenei may be called upon for one final service as they stand on the precipice of the afterlife: inhabiting one of the armored constructs that serve as the eternal protectors of Auchindoun and the draenei civilization on Draenor.

you also see one of them get made in HFC (and then fuck it up and kill the soul going into it)

>shields that they punch you with
shit user I just came everywhere

The Draenei use Vigilants mainly for defence in Auchindoun. They're not used as warriors, nor are the souls tormented in any way.

Or got a lift from some giant flying animal.

Draenei becoming more protoss and old gods becoming more like zerg.

Yeah I guess.
I mean it's along way, but he is a beastmaster, already has a bunch of animal companions, there are stops like broken isles.

He could've had boat by himself and then if he got in an accident he could've flown away with some animal.

Headcanon is now that he freed a horde war turtle from the second war and used it to get to kalimdor

How do you see the armies of the seven kingdoms in relation to eachother around wc1-wc3?

These please me.

dragons with human forms was a mistake

They did weird soul shit since the beginning, but we only seen the ruins of it in BC. I think it was a pretty good way to show how advanced they were with both technology and magic. Even the ethereal are attracted to their stuff like flies to shit.

>Stormwind
outstanding cavalry but their infantry is poor at anything other than holding the line until someone saves them

>Lordaeron
unskilled conscripts bolstered by foreign auxiliaries and extreme faith in King Terenas and the Light

>Stromgarde
an unbroken warrior tradition dating back to the first human in the EK, man for man the greatest infantry force to ever exist

>Kul Tiras
effective marines that are basically useless when not supported by a fleet

>Gilneas
pretty average troops that look good because they never go on the offensive and therefore always have an advantage

>Alterac
peasant rabble, their mountains are a more effective defense than any army they'd ever raise

>Dalaran
powerful mages supported by neighbors with a vested interest in not seeing the most powerful foci of magical energy outside of the Sunwell fall to hostile forces

Nice thanks.
Mostly similar to what I have gathered and prefer.

I'm not sure I agree with Stormwind having especially poor infantry, but maybe you have some good reasoning for that?

I agree with their cavalry, I think Lordaeron has good cavalry too especially through paladins come the second war.

My impression was that Azeroth/Stormwind was the most powerful nation. While Stromgarde was a martial nation, Dalaran a magic nation, Azeroth was a large nation with a bit of jack of all trades master of none deal going on.

I think a stromgarde footman is the most likely of all footman to beat down a grunt 1vs1.

>I'm not sure I agree with Stormwind having especially poor infantry, but maybe you have some good reasoning for that?
it's pointed out quite a bit that the only thing that stopped the Horde from burning Stormwind directly after exiting the Dark Portal was the Brotherhood of the Horse's knights. Every engagement where cavalry wasn't brought to bear was a crushing defeat for Stormwind, but other kingdoms managed to hold their own much better with infantry based armies

I thought that had more to due with them not knowing who they were fighting. The orcs were beaten back by the knights in the prologue and then the campaign started.

You might be right, I'l definitely keep poor infantry into account.

>I thought that had more to due with them not knowing who they were fighting.
that was probably a factor, Stormwind's infantry might have not been as bad as I make it sound, but if they aren't then there isn't much to distinguish them from Lordaeron since both make use of capable but not noteworthy infantry buoyed by outstanding knights

>but if they aren't then there isn't much to distinguish them from Lordaeron

I guess religion, but Stormwind is probably #2 in religion anyway.
Navies are possibly comparable.
They're the largest nations, so not sure if anyone can claim a major numerical advantage.

I think maybe their differences may have less to do with military.
Stormwind has more of a special dwarven relationship, while Lordaeron has an elven relationship.
Stormwind is perhaps a softer gilneas on the isolationist scale, while Lordaeron is very diplomatic.

Pic: some quick brainstorming

How well do you think the Quel'thalas navy compared to the human kingdoms? 2nd best, beaten only by Kul Tiras, or 3rd best with Lordaeron and Kul Tiras beating it?

And how much of their navy survived the Scourge invading?

that looks pretty good, but I think Alterac's natural borders give it more than a 2 in fortification, and their diplomacy should probably be a 5 considering they negotiated a peace treaty with the Horde

the elves built the best small warships in the world, but they didn't have any capital ships like the human navies do. Very few of their ships survived the Third War, most were left to rot in port or taken to Kalmidor

>How well do you think the Quel'thalas navy compared to the human kingdoms? 2nd best, beaten only by Kul Tiras, or 3rd best with Lordaeron and Kul Tiras beating it?
I'd say 2nd.

As for how much of their navy survived.
The scourge invaded by land, killing 90% of them.
Maybe most of those 10% survived by fleeing to the ships or large parts of it was already lost during the second war.

Shame blizz kinda gloss over the navies in wc3 and beyond.

Yeah fort should probably be higher.
I gave alterac high intelligence partly because of the horde negotiations, that they could keep it hidden. I think I'll move it up to four at least.

I also remember WC2 lore saying the Horde's small ships (Destroyers) were made by the forest trolls. So perhaps the high elves and forest trolls had constant naval skirmishes in form of the trolls doing Viking style raids? Maybe including going upriver in their small boats?

The Afterlife!
>Like the Emerald Dream, the Shadowlands are tangentially linked to the world of
Azeroth. Yet whereas the Emerald Dream represents life, the Shadowlands
represent death. They are nightmarish realms of decay, labyrinthine spiritual
planes teeming with the souls of the dead who have passed from the world of the
living.
The origins of the Shadowlands remain uncertain, but they have existed ever
since mortal life first arose in the physical universe. Many believe that mortal
souls are drawn into this dark place at the point of death, where they remain
forever after. Still others hope that their souls will go on to a brighter place, rather
than languish for eternity within the cold confines of the Shadowlands.

So.. do we all go to Warcraft Hell now? Or is this purgatory, where we're all judged?

Lets say you're a follower of the Light, what happens when you die? You suffer just as Kel'Thuzad supposedly does?

>in form of the trolls doing Viking style raids
Damn.
I can see a light ship going down river, being chased by elven ships.
Then they embark and the trolls start moving the ship across land and down another body of water where that elven party can't follow them.

the Shadowlands are purgatory for people with souls and hell for those without. You either suffer there for eternity, or you chill out until The Light/Bwonswamdi/the Wild Gods/etc. come to pick you up and take you somewhere better

You'd be my savior if you had a source, m8. Really.

I've been on the search for this answer for so long, it'd bring tears to my eyes.

I'm pretty sure it's a combination of Chronicles and the short story where Sylvanas kills herself. The problem with the concept of the Shadowlands is that it's Blizzard trying to give a lore justification for gameplay mechanics 14 years later, so it'll always be a wonky idea

So I'm guessing it's easier for necromancers to bind souls from the Shadowlands, before they're taken from the realm of whatever belief they believe in?

Wait, the Chronicles talks about the Light taking the souls of the dead? Where?

It's pretty fun to try and fill in gaps in the lore. Which I've figured was half the fun of being on a RP server, or trying to set up a campaign in the setting.

I guess, yeah. Seems most souls that Necromancers take are from those that didn't really have much belief in anything else if there sentience, which is hard as hell to pull back from death..

Or its a corpse thats been animated, and not really all that smart, I believe.

>the Chronicles talks about the Light taking the souls of the dead?
no, but it's where the whole "Shadowlands is purgatory and not hell" thing comes from, and there's people that refer to "becoming one with the Light" at death

like I said, the whole idea of the Shadowlands is inherently kind of fucked and nonsensical

It's really just Blizzard suddenly deciding that they need a lore explanation for something that's been a blatant OOC convenience for ten years. Next they'll be trying to give an explanation for hearthstones and the dungeon finder.

hearthstones are extremely rare in the lore. IIRC, anduin has a HS given to him by jaina.

So.. basically through research and interaction I've learned some interesting things.

The Light isn't sentient, any more than Arcane is. It's just another force.

But Void? Apparently has sapience, its also evil.

Worship is meaningless in warcraft, and you all end up in hell regardless of anything, unless you've made an even darker bargain.

God, this is just like Warhammer now..

nah, warhammer has a lot more sense than wow

The naaru are light personified.

>It's really just Blizzard suddenly deciding that they need a lore explanation for something that's been a blatant OOC convenience for ten years.
exactly, it's like people asking about why headcrabs don't one shot Gordon Freeman despite him not wearing a helmet. because enemies one shotting you is a huge pain in the ass and in lore Gordon never gets hit anyway

Nope, theres nothing to personify.

Apparently Elune is also a real God. Like Judeo-Christian God.

But was created by the Light, which is non-sentient.

I don't think Void is any more sentient than Light is (both seem to have some ability to react to things, but no true mind of their own). However, Void has Void Lords, which are pretty much personifications of the Void. Light has the Naaru, which might be similar but are much less powerful (since if the Void Lords got into the universe, they'd apparently fuck everythigg up). Maybe there's also a direct equivalent, which like the Void Lords exists outside the universe, but nobody's heard of them because they don't do anything (Void Lord want to consume the universe because they're personification of nothingness and seek to turn all things into nothingness, but hypotethical "Light Lords" would probably be fine with the universe being a thing and have no need to mess with it).

Although the Chronicle cosmology makes the Naaru turning into Void-beings upon death a bit weird. Does the same work in reverse?

No, the theme about Blizzard's lore is its all Nobledark.

If the heroes don't pull snowflakes every couple of years, the whole universe gets munched instantly.

Eh, the naaru are giant light elementals, and Chronicles goes so far as to say that the humans started worshipping the light because naaru mindfucking.

>Does the same work in reverse?
yes, AU Velen kills himself on a void being to turn it back into a naaru in WoD

Thought it was all but confirmed that Elune is the worldsoul of Azeroth (ie. the soul of the unborn titan that Azeroth will turn into). The Well of Eternity is literally supposed to be the titan's blood (apparently titans bleed pure arcane energy), and it's mentioned that early night elves (or the trolls who became night elves) believed that Elune slept in the Well when she wasn't being the moon. In the Legion prologue questline Magni explains that he telepathically spoke with Azeroth's worldsoul after being turned into stone, and describes it as being female. There's pretty strong evidence that Elune is Azeroth's worldsoul, or at least the night elf intrepertion of it.

>warhammer has a lot more sense than wow

Sigmarines.

Ehh, I dont think people mind hearthstones existing and being a rare but not unusual magical relic, we had plenty of those over the years. I just hate how hard they are pushing trying to explain every single little thing in detail to billy mccasual who wont give a shit anyway. Like that retarded chronicles book laying out gods and myteries of creation and cosmology like a recipe for apple pie. Where is the mystery, the weight, the discoving of finding clues about how the universe ticks?

>Worship is meaningless in warcraft

Unless you're a night elf worshipping Elune

>Sigmarines

My god.. Demon Hunters.

Welp, yeh, thats it. I'm cancelling my sub. Been a good 4 years on and off, but this thread convinced me it's not worth.

To all the WrA shilling, ignore. It's shit. The lore, that is, WrA is an amazing server.

Warden is the night elf answer to a dex paladin

>Sigmarines.
...and?

Something like that has been running through my head. It would be the same deal how Gwyndolin's Darkmoon miracles in the Dark Souls games deal magic damage, only it scales off faith instead of intelligence. It also puts more of an emphasis on retribution compared to other faiths.

Night Elf paladins (be they Wardens or Priestesses of the Moon) would deal arcane damage instead of holy damage. On another note I also remember one of the TCG night elf priestess being a shadow priest, with her flavor text being along the lines of referencing the dark side of the moon.

Maybe it could be an aspect of the Light that favors vengeance over compassion and justice?

>Sigmarines.
you know, no one mentioned AoS

Oh and I also forgot night elf priests had Starshards (it was a DoT that did arcane damage) as their unique racial until Cata removed all that cool stuff.

Tbh I don't think the problem is them giving a lore explanation for the corpse run world itself. The concept of something called "shadowlands" already existed (DK mount quest involves being transported there, and I think there's also another quest in Wrath where you enter it to kill some shades). Making it a sort of purgatory where souls go on their way to their afterlife even makes sense and would explain why resurrection spells (which do exist in the lore, although are obviously much rarer and difficult than they are in came) don't work on everybody: the spell only works if it can catch the soul while it's still hanging around in limbo and hasn't entered its proper afterlife.
The problem is that they explanation we got is very vaque and mostly just raises questions nobody previously asked (like whether the Shadowlands is a purgatory/limbo state or the entirity of afterlife, and how do various ideas what what happens after death tie into it), while mostly answering stuff nobody really gave a damn about (everybody's always assume the corpse run world is a purely game mechanic thing).

It was just a game mechanic, night elves hated everything arcane related.

Presumably it's the same deal with Darkmoon miracles in Dark Souls. For whatever reason, lunar faith being mistaken for magic has always intrigued me whenever they do that in fantasy settings.

>... much like Illidan
wat

Well, it IS Auchindoun.

Blizzard decided that moon magic does arcane damage for some reason. Balance druids have the same thing with their lunar spells

So where does moon faith magic come from? The Light? Or does it likely come from Elune. If the theory that Elune is the Titan world-spirit of Azeroth is true, and Titans had unparalleled control of the the arcane, does that mean Night Elf Priestesses and druids in general have been using the arcane granted to them through a Titan? This is all just speculation on my part though.

>killing Turalyon and Alleria like some bunch of secondary characters
>handing Ashbringers left and right to every retardin out ther
>Random ass demon killing Tirion

its a night elf only thing, at least it was in the lore.
Priestesses of the moon had starfall.

>the two biggest Mary Sues in Warcraft history get BTFO and we take over for them
based Blizzard

>Turalyon and Alleria
>Tirion motherfuckign Fordring
>mary sues

Nigga, those characters predate Warcraft 3. If anything, our own characters are mary sues for taking the limelight from them.

it comes from a shitty retcon

Which one?

Faith isnt a thing any more. Its like Arcane.

Light/Holy/Divine is all the same, its a different flavor of the same magic kool aid. Its kinda what drove me away from WoW was they cant even get a simplistic pantheon/faith based magic lore correct. Or, at least with less holes than the rest of their lore.

Tirion kind of became a sue in WotLK. Original Tirion (the one in the story, and the one you meet in Plaguelands in Vanilla) was a guy so devoted to his duty that he was willing to have his rank stripped and be ostracised by all his friends to help an orc who had saved his life and shown to be an honorable person.
Wrath Tirion is Lord High Lord Super Paladin, who mostly acts pompous, holds a fucking fair on the Lich King's backyards, and killsteals Arthas.

That's always been one of the biggest problems with WoW. When you don't write the personality of the character a player controls, you can't write an arc for them. If the game were still an RTS, Tirion Fordring would be your hero unit, and no one would complain about him being plot important.

Instead, the players create their own self inserts to play, that the writers then have to slip in between the plot they write and the actually fleshed out characters they write, and can only hope that the players don't get upset about being narrative middle-men.

Argent Tournament was all kinds of stupid. The only good thing was that it gave Anub'arak a fight slightly more befitting his importance.

What would you have done to avoid that problem? I've never liked the idea of my characters being a huge mover-and-shaker in WoW rp, so big lore characters stealing the show never bothered me too much. As far as I'm concerned, I'm just another Blood Knight in his order. But that's just me.

>Argent Tournament was all kinds of stupid.
some of the fights in Wrath were ridiculously stupid. Who the fuck thought the gunship battle was ok?

It was even more stupid because of how pointless it was. The landing crew gets unceremoniously killed off by Saurfang and the ship just disappears instead of giving fire support or anything. Same with all the lore characters huddling in the basement. At the very least I've expected Muradin, Malganis, Sylvanas, Mograine and the King/Warchief take a part in the fight. Or tirion doing anything instead of killstealing us.

ICC was a clusterfuck of wasted potential. It had nothing but empty blue hallways. Just compare it to Naxxramas. Naxx was a fucking base with barracks, factories, research labs and dance floors.

Me as well. Never really saw the point of making Your PC (tm) the Chosen Hero. Like how in WoD every PC is the commander of Alliance/Horde forces on Draenoer, and in Legion every PC is the leader of his class. Seems just kind of dumb to have 900 paladins running around with the Ashbringer, claiming to be the high lord of the Silver Hand. What's the point of it being an MMO, when the fluff is presented so you alone are the only guy that matters? If I'm the commander of Draenor, where the fuck did these 24 other guys I'm raiding with come from, and why am I taking orders from one of them?

I much prefer it when multiple PCs are aknowledge to exist, and they're treated as powerful heroes but not each of them being One True Savior of Azeroth.
Like in Wrath, lorewise the Lich King was killed by Tirion Fordring and his hand-picked group of elite soldiers (ie. us); if it were an RTS, Tirion would be the hero unit and we would be the rest of the units accompanying him. In WoD, most bosses are canonically killed by the Alliance/Horde commander (ie. you, specifically) and some random chucklefucks (everybody else).

Blizz talks about "class fantasy" a lot these days, but when playing on my warlock, the whoe setup in WoD just felt stupid and annoying. Like, I can see my Alliance paladin being the commander of the Draenor garrison; paladins are respected and often hold position in the military (they're pretty much knights with holy powers). I can't see that for a warlock. Damn, it I want to be treated as that guy nobody likes or trusts, but people keep around because he's very good at unleashing hellfire on the bad guys, not have everybody treat me as a paragon of respectability while ignoring the literal demons I have in tow!

I wouldn't have made an MMO in the first place, but that's partly just me being salty. While I do think that the players being important movers and shakers in an MMO can work, I also think you have to build for that from the ground up; it worked for EVE because EVE was never anything but an MMO. Warcraft's historical scale has never been suited for it, and the change was poorly thought out. Ideally they should have set WoW a hundred years after WC3, not a bare handful of years.

>dance floors

If Blizz ever introduces those fucking dance studios (christ those were announced almost 9 years ago), they better reference Heigan.

Yeah, it's a shame how classes that would normally be shunned don't get treated as much. It always annoyed me when you'd have warlocks (especially in WoW's earlier years) who would IC'ly have their demon out in cities and towns that ought to have lynched their summoners on sight. It really did make me appreciate those few warlocks that did hide the fact they were warlocks even more.

The time compression of events in the lore is another thing that annoyed me. I find it incredibly hard to believe the entirety of the Second War took place over the course of one year.

I designed a way to completey circumvent elevator bosses forever. Find some way of justifying creating a "High speed swimming" area in every dungeon with a vertical movement requirement.

Ogres were mostly the crews and cannon loaders, but yeah they still had access to a lot of ships at the end of the second war.

Bah, Knaak was mediocre but some of the dragonflight stuff was decent.

>>killing Turalyon and Alleria like some bunch of secondary characters
they are alive and immortal and like matt ward's grey knight who is killing demons in the warp.

Following situation.
>You are Uther
>Arthas explains the disease and demands the massacre of Stratholme
>You refuse.
>Arthas asks for an alternative. (At the place of "You are now a Traitor!!!"

I wring my hands and act like a pompous know it all elder.

Surround the city, quarantine it, and wait for reinforcements.

Arthas didn't explain shit. He said they were too late, so they have to purge the city. That was the beginning and end of his explanation.

I think this just make it worse.

its alright. they were losing their 1000 year war against the legion that illidan was going to win for them in an exceptionally ott style, but then illidan was killed off.

>Bah, Knaak was mediocre but some of the dragonflight stuff was decent.
Knaak was awful at plots and storytelling, but his general lore ideas were pretty decent. I've yet to see anyone name a flaw with them aside from "they were written by Knaak".

>but his general lore ideas were pretty decent.
Time travel is too powerful.

Thousand year old dragons who can appear as any humanoid they want diminshes the humanoids.

The whole onyxia/bolvar thing in vanilla was fucking awesome though tbf it just can't be overused