“...like a really fancy Cliff Notes version of Warcraft.”
July 18, 2017 7:39 PM Subscribe
WoW Lore TLDR: The first Warcraft lore tl;dr on the internet to use nesting. “Warcraft's lore is intimidatingly complex. It's a chronicle that spans millennia, from the dawn of time and to World of Warcraft's latest patch. Unless you've taken the time to read every book or sift through the wikis, it's not always easy to understand what's going on, who certain characters are, or why the hell it even matters. That's a shame because the lore, while intimidating, is one of the richer mythos in gaming. Fortunately, Reddit user SinanDira has a solution. WoW Lore TLDR is a website that takes the entire backstory of Warcraft and condenses it into digestible bullet points that you can quickly sift through.” [via: PC Gamer]
Agrh it ends exactly where I want it to begin
posted by tofu_crouton at 8:54 PM on July 18, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by tofu_crouton at 8:54 PM on July 18, 2017 [1 favorite]
Like you're going to trick me into reading The Silmarillion that way.
posted by Artw at 8:57 PM on July 18, 2017 [15 favorites]
posted by Artw at 8:57 PM on July 18, 2017 [15 favorites]
Also, I turn every page and read every word in all the books I pick up in Skyrim.
Lore is life.
posted by Fizz at 9:08 PM on July 18, 2017 [1 favorite]
Lore is life.
posted by Fizz at 9:08 PM on July 18, 2017 [1 favorite]
TL;DR, they've gotten to the end of WC2.
I think WoW pretty much ruined WC lore and WC in general because Blizzard keeps on sequentially expanding the lore at the far end by adding the new real big bads behind the old big bads and increasing in-lore power levels exponentially. I think there are other franchises that can avoid lore power creep by doing prequels and interquels and focusing on side stories and mid-bosses instead of saving the world by defeating the big bad over and over again.
posted by The arrows are too fast at 9:21 PM on July 18, 2017 [7 favorites]
I think WoW pretty much ruined WC lore and WC in general because Blizzard keeps on sequentially expanding the lore at the far end by adding the new real big bads behind the old big bads and increasing in-lore power levels exponentially. I think there are other franchises that can avoid lore power creep by doing prequels and interquels and focusing on side stories and mid-bosses instead of saving the world by defeating the big bad over and over again.
posted by The arrows are too fast at 9:21 PM on July 18, 2017 [7 favorites]
Looks like they haven't gotten around to WoW's best NPC, John J. Keeshan, yet.
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:23 PM on July 18, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:23 PM on July 18, 2017 [2 favorites]
Wow.
posted by Phssthpok at 9:33 PM on July 18, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by Phssthpok at 9:33 PM on July 18, 2017 [2 favorites]
I can't read Warcraft lore without thinking of of Reamde's Apostropocalypse. Warcraft is great, the design is generally wonderful. The Warcraft aesthetic has been incredibly influential in video games; for better or for worse.
Let's be honest though, the world building in terms of the history is pretty trite. I'm not knocking the world building when it comes to cultures or races. The use of real world cultural designs, reappropriated and tweaked for a fantasy setting is pretty good. Centaur Mongols, plains indian anthropo-bovines, Meso-American/Caribbean trolls, Japanese-inspired elves etc. It lends a real richness to the fantasy world. Much better than Tolkien's working class/cockney evil races. It all gets a bit noble savage here and there, but it's a fun universe. I'm sure plenty of people on Metafilter can bemoan the cultural appropriation elements, but that's a creative dead end and probably not within the scope of this post.
The actual history of the lore though is pretty prosaic. It's definitely a hodge podge of plot elements smooshed together for sake of expansion continuity and retconning. The characters from Warcraft 1, then Warcraft 2/3 and WoW have certainly been stretched in different directions as the new product demands. The original material is so shamelessly Tolkien/Warhammer derivative that it sort of limits the post hoc infilling.
I think this Atlas Obscura article might have made its way to the blue, but I didn't check. It does a nice job of talking about class assumptions and classic Tolkien tropes.
Why do Dwarves Sound Scottish and Elves Sound Like Royalty?
posted by Telf at 9:36 PM on July 18, 2017 [4 favorites]
Let's be honest though, the world building in terms of the history is pretty trite. I'm not knocking the world building when it comes to cultures or races. The use of real world cultural designs, reappropriated and tweaked for a fantasy setting is pretty good. Centaur Mongols, plains indian anthropo-bovines, Meso-American/Caribbean trolls, Japanese-inspired elves etc. It lends a real richness to the fantasy world. Much better than Tolkien's working class/cockney evil races. It all gets a bit noble savage here and there, but it's a fun universe. I'm sure plenty of people on Metafilter can bemoan the cultural appropriation elements, but that's a creative dead end and probably not within the scope of this post.
The actual history of the lore though is pretty prosaic. It's definitely a hodge podge of plot elements smooshed together for sake of expansion continuity and retconning. The characters from Warcraft 1, then Warcraft 2/3 and WoW have certainly been stretched in different directions as the new product demands. The original material is so shamelessly Tolkien/Warhammer derivative that it sort of limits the post hoc infilling.
I think this Atlas Obscura article might have made its way to the blue, but I didn't check. It does a nice job of talking about class assumptions and classic Tolkien tropes.
Why do Dwarves Sound Scottish and Elves Sound Like Royalty?
posted by Telf at 9:36 PM on July 18, 2017 [4 favorites]
Warcraft's overall mythology, and big stories about big bads and dragons and titans, is often silly.
But the lore at a human (or orc or elf) level is very very good. That was my favorite part: the way the different nations interacted, and either distruted each other or worked together (or, frequently, both). All sides have their saints and sinners, those pursuing destruction and those pursuing redemption. Some who look for redemption by destroying all they can touch. The orcs who look for redemption by simultaneously decrying and celebrating their genocidal past.
At this level, in WoW at least, the lore creates a multipolar world which feels lived in. Where the motivations are complex and no one is completely in the right (or the wrong). Where there can be a big bad threatening everything they know and love, and they still insist on fighting each other, sometimes betraying their own side. Or sometimes, people can cross lines and commit acts of great kindness and sacrifice on behalf of their supposed enemies. It's a great setting for role playing and feels so very human (or orcish or elvish).
posted by honestcoyote at 11:58 PM on July 18, 2017 [5 favorites]
But the lore at a human (or orc or elf) level is very very good. That was my favorite part: the way the different nations interacted, and either distruted each other or worked together (or, frequently, both). All sides have their saints and sinners, those pursuing destruction and those pursuing redemption. Some who look for redemption by destroying all they can touch. The orcs who look for redemption by simultaneously decrying and celebrating their genocidal past.
At this level, in WoW at least, the lore creates a multipolar world which feels lived in. Where the motivations are complex and no one is completely in the right (or the wrong). Where there can be a big bad threatening everything they know and love, and they still insist on fighting each other, sometimes betraying their own side. Or sometimes, people can cross lines and commit acts of great kindness and sacrifice on behalf of their supposed enemies. It's a great setting for role playing and feels so very human (or orcish or elvish).
posted by honestcoyote at 11:58 PM on July 18, 2017 [5 favorites]
Why do Dwarves Sound Scottish and Elves Sound Like Royalty?
It's a tangent, but ugh, do stock-central-casting Scottish dwarves irritate me. It's almost the laziest fantasy shorthand there is these days, and I'll always be grateful to the Dragon Age series of games for doing something different with their dwarves. They're still miners and crafters as you'd expect, but they also have an intricate class and caste system, and they (mostly) speak with American accents. It's refreshing.
A lot of other games, though, still stick with the Scottish thing, and some of them...okay, I've been sucked into this free-to-play MMORPG called Neverwinter lately, which is your pretty standard D&D-based fantasy game. All of the quest givers are voiced, which is generally pretty okay and easy to put up with, even if you've run through the same quest a few times.
The dwarves, though...some of the voice actors' grasps on the whole Scottish accent thing is "community theatre Macbeth" tenuous at best, and I actively skip past as much of their dialogue as I can.
"Och! Aye, laddie, I need ye tae--"
"YES YES I WILL KILL OR FETCH WHATEVER YOU WANT, JUST PLEASE STOP MAKING THAT NOISE INTO MY EAR HOLES"
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 6:24 AM on July 19, 2017 [1 favorite]
It's a tangent, but ugh, do stock-central-casting Scottish dwarves irritate me. It's almost the laziest fantasy shorthand there is these days, and I'll always be grateful to the Dragon Age series of games for doing something different with their dwarves. They're still miners and crafters as you'd expect, but they also have an intricate class and caste system, and they (mostly) speak with American accents. It's refreshing.
A lot of other games, though, still stick with the Scottish thing, and some of them...okay, I've been sucked into this free-to-play MMORPG called Neverwinter lately, which is your pretty standard D&D-based fantasy game. All of the quest givers are voiced, which is generally pretty okay and easy to put up with, even if you've run through the same quest a few times.
The dwarves, though...some of the voice actors' grasps on the whole Scottish accent thing is "community theatre Macbeth" tenuous at best, and I actively skip past as much of their dialogue as I can.
"Och! Aye, laddie, I need ye tae--"
"YES YES I WILL KILL OR FETCH WHATEVER YOU WANT, JUST PLEASE STOP MAKING THAT NOISE INTO MY EAR HOLES"
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 6:24 AM on July 19, 2017 [1 favorite]
All this is doing is making me long for pre-Cataclysm WotLK WoW. Hardcore longing. I can feel my rsi activating in response.
posted by ApathyGirl at 6:44 AM on July 19, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by ApathyGirl at 6:44 AM on July 19, 2017 [1 favorite]
Ends exactly where it ends in my heart. An exquisite site. I used to read the Warcraft II manual in the toilet as a child, and my brother and I would write each other earnest trivia quizzes about Cho'gall. I have chosen to make a tactical retreat to the world in which all I need to know about Warcraft is contained in the Tides of Darkness manual, because:
1. Dragons are shit, Blizzard, and your dragons are the shittest. Deathwing was fine. All of this dragonflight stuff is, put scientifically, crappo.
2. Thrall/Jaina was canon and Chris Metzen is a bum.
I feel this usefully condenses everything that comes after. Lok'tar.
posted by monster truck weekend at 8:48 AM on July 19, 2017
1. Dragons are shit, Blizzard, and your dragons are the shittest. Deathwing was fine. All of this dragonflight stuff is, put scientifically, crappo.
2. Thrall/Jaina was canon and Chris Metzen is a bum.
I feel this usefully condenses everything that comes after. Lok'tar.
posted by monster truck weekend at 8:48 AM on July 19, 2017
Dragons are shit, Blizzard, and your dragons are the shittest. Deathwing was fine. All of this dragonflight stuff is, put scientifically, crappo.
ahem.
no seriously, I'm starting to twitch a little.
posted by ApathyGirl at 9:40 AM on July 19, 2017 [1 favorite]
ahem.
no seriously, I'm starting to twitch a little.
posted by ApathyGirl at 9:40 AM on July 19, 2017 [1 favorite]
ahem
I see your point and respect it, and withdraw from her specifically accusations of being crappo; but put to you that Alexstrasza is best as God intended, fighting the battle against big oil.
posted by monster truck weekend at 10:36 AM on July 19, 2017 [1 favorite]
I see your point and respect it, and withdraw from her specifically accusations of being crappo; but put to you that Alexstrasza is best as God intended, fighting the battle against big oil.
posted by monster truck weekend at 10:36 AM on July 19, 2017 [1 favorite]
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posted by rhizome at 7:45 PM on July 18, 2017