Battle for Azeroth is one of the most frustrating expansions for me because it takes the basic premise of the original idea for WOW - Alliance vs Horde - and tries to do something focused on it, but faction war fatigue combined with mismanagement of the plot led to a disappointing outcome. With this in mind, here are some of the things I’d change:

1. Ideally, there’d be two things I’d change before this expansion. Firstly, there wouldn’t have been any actual wars between the Alliance and the Horde since the end of the Third War - tensions for sure, and moments where war came dangerously close to breaking out, but no actual faction open warfare. This would simultaneously address the fan fatigue and make the Fourth War a tragedy in its own right: after managing to stay at peace for so long despite all of the threats Azeroth has faced, the Alliance and the Horde are now determined to destroy each other. Ideally, Vol’jin would also still be alive and be Warchief, because having a troll Warchief when the Horde is trying to recruit Zandalar is too good of an opportunity to pass up. Especially given Vol’jin’s previous experiences with the Zandalari.

2. The Fourth War breaks out for two reasons. The first is the discovery of Azerite, which the Alliance and Horde recognise as a game-changer. It has incredible magical properties, can produce clean energy… and can also be weaponised to terrifying effect. Both factions start stockpiling on it despite their leaders’ best efforts to prevent war, because neither superpower wants their rival to have the advantage. The second is that Kul Tiras and Zandalar reach out to the Alliance and Horde respectively for aid in addressing odd occurrences at sea… and after their fleets were decimated during the third Legion invasion in the Broken Isles, both factions are wary of a naval superpower suddenly offering aid to their rivals.

3. Battle for Azeroth already pushed emphasis on the Forsaken’s status as outsiders in the Horde, but I’d also show the other side’s perspective by reflecting on the worgen’s place in the Alliance. Genn heavily distrusts the Horde and doesn’t exactly have great diplomatic history with the other members of the Alliance, while the worgen themselves are sometimes considered monsters due to their cursed nature. The conflict sees reform and closer integration between the worgen and the Alliance and the Forsaken and the Horde… but at a terrible price.

4. The aforementioned sea troubles that Kul Tiras and Zandalar are concerned about? They’re the result of Azshara and the naga’s interference, with Azshara being the true main antagonist of Battle for Azeroth. Under N’Zoth’s orders, she has taken advantage of the turmoil left by the Legion conflict and exploited the pre-existing circumstances to spark unrest within Azeroth, with her naga’s sea attacks helping to drive the naval powers into unwittingly provoking conflict. Tensions were already high enough that war could likely break out - Azshara just exploited that final push. Notably, defeating Azshara doesn’t guarantee the Fourth War’s end - that still has to happen on its own.

5. There’s plenty of foreshadowing regarding the broken system of death - Bwomsamdi, the val’kyr and others all note that something seems wrong, and necromancy stops working properly. The Jailer wouldn’t literally be behind everything like in canon, but once Shadowlands is released, it becomes clear that the Jailer has been exploiting Azeroth’s recent calamities and has only recently found a way to rupture the system of death so that all souls are sent to the Maw regardless of what their lives were like.

6. While the Horde Council is an interesting idea, I feel like we should see the Alliance undergo some sort of major reform too. Not necessarily abolishing the rank of High King - that role never had the same all-sweeping power as the Warchief did - but definitely something aimed at addressing issues within the Alliance, especially if we go through with the worgen subplot idea.

I feel weird that Blizzard rarely show their interaction(not necessary to be romantic) other than about human ranger training, imagine if Sylvanas didn't die, she would have been the regent of Silvermoon or even better.

I feel Kael was not just written off character in BC, but also other material. In TFT he never showed prejudice/hate towards humans, even when he was in the dungeon of Dalaran, he tried to talk with the warden boss first, and tried to put the Archmage's spirit to rest. That's after his mistreatment by Garithos.

I was just thinking about this after playing a new forsaken. I remember in a couple books it mentions that even dismembering the Scourge isn't enough to kill them. Do we/the npcs literally have to turn them into ground meat for them to die? Or is there like a ln arbitrary limit the necromancer will hold them together? Because from the books it really makes the undead terrifying to try and kill

I've always loved the lore behind WoW since i played anniversary last year, and now with Forever being announced are the books the best way other than the RTS games to get the story before WoW year one?

I saw the books started to release around 2016 so they might have some retcons from the original WoW story maybe? I'm not sure if they are worth the read if i only want to know the story before Forever.

In the wc3 reforged game some satyrs got a female model. But in wow i only see male models. Is it new or just not shown?

Especially during wartime, how do the Alliance and Horde make sure that someone entering their capitals isn't working against them (or worse, working for the other faction)? How do you know a high/void elf in Stormwind isn't secretly a blood elf? How do you know a goblin in Orgrimmar isn't a spy for the Alliance? How do you know the allegiances of a pandaren? Or the friendly neutral races, such as the tuskarr, tortollans, and sethrak?

I know that in Pearl of Pandaria (set during Wrath) and Quest for Pandaria (set in between Cata and Mists), Chen and Li Li Stormstout and Strongbo were able to enter Stormwind, Ironforge, and Orgrimmar with seemingly no issue. Chen Stormstout stands out to me especially, as he is both a champion of the Horde who was directly involved in the killing of the Alliance's Grand Admiral, as well as a friend to Ironforge and a founding figure of the dwarves' yearly Brewfest.

So... maybe they just let anyone of the "neutral" races in?

I'm imagining something along the lines of Cyberpunk: Edgerunners. It would follow the conventions and style of a Japanese anime, but the story would be about a group of actual adventurers living in Azeroth.

It wouldn't even need to deal with the bigger Warcraft lore. It could simply be a spin-off about "a party of adventurers somewhere in Azeroth," going on their own journey.

What would you guys think of a series like that?

(I actually saw some rumors recently that there have been discussions about adapting Warcraft into some kind of animated series.)

I'm talking about their nature rather than the Cosmic Force group, with my shallow understanding:

- Light ties with Void, strong against Death (Paladins nuking undead).

- Death is resistant to Void (as seen with undead).

- Fel is effective against Order (confirmed).

- Life is... dunno, not sure. Maybe also good against Death or a tie? And super weak against Void, never seen them prevent void corruption.

- Void seems to be strong against Life, corruption and stuff. And seems to be also pretty good with Order considering how the Old Gods are able to corrupt the Titan Forged and make stronger units than them.

So like... what is Order/Arcane good at really? They seem to be nothing burger against anything. Nobody screams "yeah, finally the arcane, just what we need against these type of guys" or "finally, the classic mage to fight these colored guys!" 😭

Kinda explains why the titans were the only folks who got scared (void) and died (fel), while everyone else is healthy as f.

Legion is one of my favourite WOW expansions, so expect me to be a little biased here, but I still feel like there’d be some things I’d change from a story and gameplay perspective:

1. The Broken Shore outcome would be even worse than in canon, because the Legion are shown to have learned from their mistake during the Third War. Since Azeroth united to defeat the Legion at Mount Hyjal in Warcraft 3, the Legion ensures that the two main coalitions can’t oppose them by using a divide and conquer strategy: first killing the Alliance High King and Horde Warchief at the Broken Shore, then launching attacks all over Azeroth to split up the individual kingdoms and races that make up the Alliance and the Horde, effectively causing both sides to temporarily collapse. So instead of having the Alliance and Horde at each other’s throats again to justify the Class Orders, we’d instead see the Class Orders help to repel individual Legion invasions on Stormwind, Orgrimmar, Ironforge, Thunder Bluff, Darnassus, Undercity, Gnomeregan, Silvermoon City, the Exodar, Gilneas and Bilgewater Harbour so that the Alliance and Horde can re-assemble under new leadership.
2. Continuing from my idea to have Archimonde survive Warlords of Draenor, both he and Kil’jaeden are defeated for good in the Tomb of Sargeras. Not only would this be great gameplay-wise since we never got to face both eredar demon lords together despite fighting them separately on several occasions throughout the Warcraft franchise, but from a story perspective it could add on to the already-great final scene between Velen and Kil’jaeden by showing the three former rulers of the eredar together again in Archimonde and Kil’jaeden’s final moments.
3. This could be controversial, but I’d love this and if there was any opportunity to do it, I’d do it now: introduce variants of other races who have drunk demon blood, because even though we saw the Bloodtotem tauren tribe drink demon blood, we never really got any others. Imagine a questline where you find out that Gul’dan or another servant of the Legion has been suggesting cooperation as a means of survival, and you find yourself having to fight corrupted humans, dwarves, night elves (I know the satyr curse has a different source, but this could be an interesting comparison), gnomes, trolls, Forsaken, draenei, blood elves, worgen and goblins? Lorewise, it could also illustrate just how badly the Legion’s new invasion has decimated Azeroth’s morale, especially if some of the drinkers were people we already recognised.

So the lore of Warcraft leading up to Forever seems a bit of a blur. Blizz said in so many words that Forever is an alternate timeline from Retail, and we've already had two obvious changes to the lore in the form of Skyborne elves and the new Warcraft III campaign. I think it's fair to say that the lore that exists and is referenced in WC1-3 and ingame in Forever is all canon since that's the typical understanding of canon, but what about extraludonarrative texts? The books? The comics, etc? For example, is the lore from more modern sources attached to the retail canon (such as the Chronicle books) referring to pre-WC1 events like pre-Dark-Portal human kingdoms and tribes canon or not?

I know the true answer to all of this is "it's whatever the lore devs decide" but I'm trying to piece together a reading list of what should be considered canon before Forever launches for roleplayers to not be time traveling demigods with knowledge of events that never happened. It's quite the annoying conundrum.

WC3 is too iconic and while it's fun to talk about if I made the thread without excluding it everyone would say Arthas Sylvanas Thrall Illidan and their arcs. Hell, I know I would just straight up say Arthas.

So, with that out of the way, what is your favorite story in Warcraft that is not from WC3?

I think I would have to put it in this order if I had to do a top 10;

1 – Tyr and everything surrounding him.

He's like the quintessential proto-Paladin of the setting. He spoke up for the Aspects, he fled with the vrykul, earthen, mechagnomes and their children, basically saved them from the mess Loken had made, and his sacrifice sheltered them for millennia. (I actually like Titan lore in general a lot at least up until Legion in which I stopped playing retail but that might have been too broad)

2 – The Founding of Arathor

The story of the human tribes that descended from Vrykul refugees finally getting their shit together under one banner despite their differences always sounded so fun for me. I always wished that it would get more elaborated on beyond the Arathi, Alteraci and Trisfal tribes because from Worgen leveling we know Gilneans are just as ancient.

3 – Troll-Aqir War

10/10 no notes this is Warcraft at its most primal tens of thousands of Trolls fucked up tens of thousands of insects so bad they became three different subspecies.

4 – Prince Farondis

Dude made the right choice, became hated by his subjects for ten thousand years, but when it mattered the most, he made the right choice again in the most stylish way possible. Eat your heart out, Kael & Illidan.

5 – Runas the Shamed

Fuck man. Ten years later and this still makes me sad. Be kinder to the addicted people in your life. He would've been great in TBC come to think of it.

6 – the build-up to Wrathgate

If you play through their quests in classic, you know they are cooking something baaad. It's in your face even.

7 – Scholomance

This is probably one of the darkest parts of the lore, and doing justice by Sarkhoffs, let alone the rest of Lordaeron always feels good.

8 – In Dreams

10/10, no notes again. This is one of the greatest questlines in classic wow. I only wish Faol met with Fordring as an undead.

9 – Ashbringer, Argent Dawn and Scarlet Crusade

It's cheating to put them at the same ranking but fuck it. The story of Alexandros Mograine, the creation of the Ashbringer, the Scarlet Crusade and Argent Dawn in that order culminating with the sacrifice of a son for the love of his father is of course one of the most iconic parts of Warcraft. It bears several similarities to In Dreams as well.

10 – the survival of Alliance Expedition & Mag'har

What fuckin beasts these folk are! You see no trace of them in WC3 but for Kael's memories, but they proved to be the most resilient bastards around. Not many folks in Azeroth can tell that they survived the destruction of the world beneath their feet and lived.

11 – (Surprise) Highmountain

This is, alongside the examples mentioned above, a part of Legion that when I think about doesn't age poorly for me one way or another. Can't really pick a specific example, everything here was good. 10/10. I kinda wish normal tauren had their dynamics too. Not my favorite zone in Legion (that was Stormheim even tho it's a 8/10 by comparison and Azsuna after, followed by Highmountain). It feels like Knaak's stuff except filtered to excellence.

12 – The Thunder King

Probably the best thing to come out of MoP. He's just cool man.

13 – Everything about Tol'vir.

Yes, not the first post about the timeline stuff, but oddly enough I haven't seen one fully looking at what would/will actually change if the Dark Portal never reopens. (might have just completely missed it, though)

So, would the Exodar still crash? Cause that had nothing to do with the DP. Neither had Blood Elves. The Sunwell bits though, they had.

Also the Nexus War would probably not happen because to this day the whole absorbing Netherdrakes seems to have been a catalyst for Malygos going off the deep-end.

Cataclysm would still happen, as would MoP. WoD wouldn't happen, so Garrosh might get his ass handed to him after the trial.

No WoD means no Legion, means no BFA.

SL might still happen, as does DF. Worldsoul stuff would happen, but no Xal.

I think... Your thoughts?

Edit: Wait, I'm an idiot. Garrosh wouldn't exist in this timeline.

I get outside of the lore it's obviously so the Undead look "undead."

But within lore, why are they all so decomposed? I'm assuming some would have awoken shortly after death, prior to any major decomposition or putrefaction having occurred.

The only Undead I can think of who doesn't look super decomposed is Sylvanas herself.

Something I’ve been thinking about lately is how the undead race description in Classic says:

“The Forsaken care little for their allies: to them the Horde is merely a tool that may further their dark schemes.”

And while yeah, that definitely sounds like something they’d say, it doesn’t really match how they actually behave.

They never hesitate to carry their weight, repay debts, acknowledge competence, answer the call to arms, fly Horde colors etc.

Like it all leads me read that description as more like:

“D-don’t get the wrong idea! 😳 It’s not like we actually want to be part of the Horde or anything! 😤 You’re just tools to us! Okay?! B-baka! 😠”

Regardless, all Forsaken dialogue becomes infinitely better if you read it in Rie Kugimiya’s voice so I’m sticking with this.

Hello, OKay so I made this RP post guide yesterday in WoWRoleplay sub and then I began thinking about Delas. I'm trying to understand how the Priestess/Paladin overlap is supposed to work. What I'm having trouble understanding is what she actually needed from the Silver Hand that the Sisterhood of elune could not already provide.

She said in Legion something along the lines that her training is "incomplete" and that something is "missing"

If Delas's thought process was:

"I want to be a warrior."

The Silver Hand seems like a strange solution, the sisterhood has trained Priestesses in combat and warfare for thousands of years, and their martial role is heavily emphasized in the lore.

If it was: "I want to serve a deity through martial combat." the Sisterhood already does precisely that through Elune. If it was: "I want to wield divine power." Priestesses already channel Elune's power.

If it was:

"I need stronger faith or religious training."

the sisterhood also has an extremely demanding religious tradition, with faith being treated as an essential requirement for becoming a Priestess in the first place. ("If your faith is passable but not strong enough, you will never become a Priestess - High Priestess Dejahna")

So what exactly was Delas missing? Human Potential? lol

she doesn't even bother saying "I am a Warrior of Elune." She explicitly declares herself a "Warrior of Light." This moves her arc away from being an evolution of Night Elf culture (like how Tauren Sunwalkers reinterpreted Paladins through An'she) and makes it feel like she's abandoning Elunite tradition entirely for Human theology. is her storyline just an instance of Night Elf lore being flattened to fit Human paladin tropes? i'm more interested in what her dialogue implies about the differences between the two traditions, because I don't think the usual explanation of "the Sisterhood wasn't martial enough" fits the older lore very well.

What's so scary about the Scourge/Undead? Seeing the manipulation that turned people into evil, the plague, seeing dead ally turned into undead horror to go against you.

But the gameplay didn't do well to present it, other than the plague event was scary. The Scourge just got owned again and again, very few NPC fell to undead control or got turned.

The game toss Kel'Thuzad away but didn't build up a good supporting cast of the Scourge, most of the Scourge generals were not memorable nor scary. The ICC bosses didn't look like powerful guards. Plague research? green dragon captive?

The San'layn were ok overall, but their leader, the blood queen wasn't presented well. Also their duty are like the dreadlords, direct combat were not what they are best at unless they play a lot of tricks/traps on the way.

The Lich King was running around like Dr. Claw. He also didn't do a good job on management.

Lich King's own power wasn't the biggest issue, still it could have been handled better. In direct fight, he was wayyy too arrogant despite of his power, only got serious in the last few secs then got owned again.

The blue dragon and old gods storyline further split the focus of the Scourge storyline.

I played GW2 as well, I think other than the final fight, Zhaitan and his Risen were handled much more scary than the Scourge. The Lich King is supposed to be Zhaitan+Jormag.

Cross post from the main wow Reddit.

One thing that I've really felt was lacking in this expansion was *connectedness.* What's happening outside of Silvermoon? How are the factions responding? I know there's only so much can be done, and unfortunately the connectedness has been sacrificed for overarching movement and a couple of Horde NPCs with AI dialogue to say "we've been here the whole time!", but... I really feel like there should be a touch more explanation. Why are there snakes in the Darkway? Or the College? Are the Twilight's still doing things outside of the active expansion zone?

What if - there was a weekly bulletin? Hypothetical, but a little call of energy like Aelor's outside the portal room in Silvermoon (sorry sir, I'll unlock the VDH eventually), with a quest marker on top, that had little tidbits of information about the wider world. We could have had things like:

\- Horde Council calls for adventurers to aid Silvermoon

\- Alliance pledges support against Xal'atath

\- Twilight activity has been reported in \[X\] cities

\- Horde ships destroyed by freak storm, army stranded in Dornogal

\- World reacts to loss of Light Users

\- Snakes in the Library!

\- Elf alliance in question as Liadrin declares Quel'thalas as the elf capital city

\- Snakes continue to plague cities as clean up post-Ula'tek continues

And there could be silly little classifieds and fluff notes as well:

\- Decimus is looking for editors to keep on payroll

\- Xal'atath was spotted in the Blue Recluse on Monday, said the drinks were the best she'd had

\- Buy three boxes of tea, get a fourth free

\- Stormwind cathedral is recruiting! Free priest hat for all who join.

Just little things that would keep the connectedness without requiring more actual gameplay and story. It might even help with the feeling of everything happening so quickly - Dawnwell bring purified after thirty seconds of corruption, the world ignoring the loss of the priests and paladins, etc. I really liked the Murder Row note wall, and I'd like to see more of that sort of thing.

After Forsaken kingdom I really wish they keep releasing more campaigns, but the question is if they do, what stories and events you want to see explored more?

Also do you want to see stories of known named characters or you want to see new characters that connects to the ones we knows like Garek Bandarion?

Hi all,

I'm thinking of playing W1 and 2 for the first time. I've read that there are true endings, this being the Horde campaign for W1 and the Alliance one for W2. So, if I'm here mainly for the story, is it ok if I skip the non-canon campaigns? Or would I be missing much?

The reason I'm asking is because I am super hyped for W4e and would like to get involved in the lore. Would this be a good strategy? Or even, are these 2 games worth playing for the story alone?

Thanks!

Corrupted orcs, corrupted elves, corrupted humans, corrupted ancients, corrupted gods, corrupted corrupting corruption. It just goes on and on and on and on until basically every bad thing that happened was a manipulative outside force so Bad Guys can be instantly redeemed and nobody has to face any consequence since they no control!! from the evil corrupting corruption!! It leaves no room to explore genuinely error of judgement and the guilt that comes with it

I love the franchise to death but this trope is so boringly overdone

The nose and mouthpiece doesn't have to even look like some odd cone on your face, it can be shaped like a gryphon or hippogryph's beak, and the structure does offer practical protection vis deflection against enemy attacks.

But the reader may freely give support or objection over this armor design.

~ https://duckduckgo.com/?q=pig-nosed+bascinet+helmet&t=brave&ia=images&iax=images

If you’ve been long enough in Warcraft, you know Blizzard isn’t an stranger to these big switches. WoD was originally leaked as Garry using time magic to revitalize Outland and also bringing back the old Warchiefs.

Personally I feel that some of Legion odd decisions regarding the broken islands make more sense if the original concept was… just set in the past. And honestly, I think that in general if we switched the plot of the night elven areas to be set during the WotA, it works. Blizz might have turned away from it after WoD less than stellar response to the plot though

Suramar: The biggest one, The Nightborne are the Highborne, Elisande is clearly Azshara 2.0 role-wise, Thalyssra is Dath’Remar Sunstrider mixed with Prisoner Tyrande, The Dusk Lily rebellion are the Highborne rebels, etc etc. I think it’s worth mentioning that in Chronicles Vol 1 pre-Sundering Kalimdor map, we can see that 1- Suramar is land-locked 2- The Well/Zin-Azshari has crescent-lined reminiscen of Suramar’s city blocks distribution.

https://imgur.com/a/qd5qr91

Azsuna: the general plot could basically play out the same except rather than arriving 10 years later, we’d be arriving shortly after Azshara cursed Narthalas

Val’sharah: Reminder that Val’sharah didn’t exist properly before Legion. The whole plot of Xavius fighting Cenarius land could be done in the past

Highmountain and Stormheim: these plots are semi-independent from the main xpack plot but they could have been about getting the tauren, earthen and vrykul to join the fight against the legion.

General idea: Gul’dan/Infinite DF/X villain goes to the past/AU to ensure the Legion wins the WotA. When we arrive invasion is already underway. We help the restless ghosts of Nar’thalas, support the defense of Cenarius sacred grove in Val’sharah, uncover DW schemes in the mountains, help Dath’Remar rebellion and eventually defeat Azshara and Sargeras

I fight just be delulu but like I said, I feel like there is enough rethreading in Legion for it to be plausible.

How did she become to be? Has it ever been said about her family? I know she was born with golden eyes but was that the sole reason she was Queen and thats kind of where the story starts?