ErikVKing
Erik the Viking
Premium
join:2008-06-19
Kuwait
| LORE-LOVERS - UNITE!
I'm not, and probably never will be, on the up-and-up when it comes to that part of Warcraft preceding this part of *World* of Warcraft, or Race C in WoW being related to Race Ab in Warcraft... But I know a lot of people that are.
And I do love to hear an expert, or a supposed expert, talk about something they love. So on that note, spill it out lore-lovers! Tell me all the juicy details of why this race or that race should or should not have ability A, weapon X, starting area XY, etc. Or why boss G should or should not be fought by class A, with weapon C, or in area XYZ. There are so many "scenarios"... |
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Jakiel00
join:2007-12-12
Mckinney, TX
| From the 3 part series that I read on WOW history (don't remember the names of the books but it was the series written by Richard A. Knaack) the Tauren were actually allies of the Elves when the elves let the burning legion into azeroth long before the time we currently play in today. That is how the barrens became such a desolate place, the burning legion destroyed all the land that it crossed.
I haven't read any of the other books yet, but I am hoping to find out when the tauren became allied with the Horde of the today. Now that I think about it, I guess that makes sense that the Tauren and Night Elves share similar classes. |
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Dunm
@saic.com
| The Tauren became allies to the Horde when Thrall saved them from the marauding centaurs during the events covered in Warcraft 3 and allowed them to establish their homeland in Mulgore. However, the night elves have welcomed the Tauren as a nature-loving race into the Cenarion Circle and taught (re-taught?) them about druidism, and hence why there are druids of both races.
Speaking of druids, one thing that has never made sense to me is why there are female night elven druids... in the original lore as first presented in Warcraft 3, all druids were males who were hibernating in Barrows walking the Emerald Dream, while the Sentinels were a group of female warriors who watched over the moonwells and the world tree and were charged with awakening the druids should the need arise. This is the basis of the night elf campaign in Warcraft 3, as the Sentinels awaken the Druids to help protect the world tree from the Burning Legion. Suddenly, when WoW comes along just 4 years later in the timeline, there are now all of these female druids running around! Never made sense to me how a 10,000 year old caste system could be changed so quickly, although I suppose when the Night Elves lost their immortality with the destruction of the world tree they may have become more open to drastic changes. |
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Jakiel00
join:2007-12-12
Mckinney, TX | reply to ErikVKing
Well there you go! Answers my question  thanks for the well informed reply! I guess I haven't played much of the warcraft games before WOW. |
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Hazmat
join:2007-07-10
Laveen, AZ
| reply to Dunm
said by Dunm :
... although I suppose when the Night Elves lost their immortality with the destruction of the world tree they may have become more open to drastic changes.
No immortality = pressing need to keep race alive = need to have both male and female elves around for procreation purposes!
Besides, NE females are hot, and Blizz never wasted an opportunity to keep young males...involved |
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beatsnpieces
join:2007-12-17
edit:
June 24th, @03:57PM
| reply to Jakiel00
said by Jakiel00  :I am hoping to find out when the tauren became allied with the Horde of the today. After escaping from the Humans who raised him, Thrall was visited by Medivh (the jackass who brought the Horde to Azeroth from Draenor [now Outland] in the first place) under the guise of The Prophet. Medivh warned him of the impending Legion invasion and told him that the only hope the races of Azeroth had was to unite together against the Legion on the continent of Kalimdor. Thrall gathered as much of the Horde as he could and travelled across the ocean to Kalimdor. While exploring the new land the Horde came across Cairn Bloodhoof and some of his Tauren under furious attack from raiding Centaur. Thrall and his Horde forces saved Cairn from certain death and went on to take the Tauren people from their dangerous home in the Barrens to a new safe home in Mulgore. For doing this Cairn swore a blood oath to Thrall and the Horde and founded Thunder Bluff as a Horde capital shortly after Thrall founded Orgrimar (named for Thralls father Orgrim Doomhammer) |
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Jakiel00
join:2007-12-12
Mckinney, TX
| reply to ErikVKing
Nice! Thanks for the info! Pretty decent story line that WOW has going. Read alot of science fiction/fantasy books and I have to say the WOW stuff is pretty interesting (what limited amount I have read). Might have to jump into some more to check it out. |
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beatsnpieces
join:2007-12-17 | reply to ErikVKing
also the Warcraft 3 manual is an excellent source of lore. It's actually more stories than game info. |
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Dodge
join:2002-11-27
clubs:  | reply to ErikVKing
Can someone explain (in the way that makes sense, and not the blizzard trailer way) the whole blood elf, draenai thing that they dumped into the game? Where do they even fit in? |
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Jakiel00
join:2007-12-12
Mckinney, TX | reply to ErikVKing
My brother told me that they were in Warcraft 3 in an expansion game.....other than that I have nothin..... |
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ErikVKing
Erik the Viking
Premium
join:2008-06-19
Kuwait
| reply to ErikVKing
This is exactly what I was looking for! Now that I think about it, I *did* play small portions of some of the Warcraft series. I remember at the end the guy who turned back into a humanoid creature (after coming to him as a crow) talking to Thrall about escaping these lands and uniting to sop the Legion.
If I think of anything else from my small Warcraft time I'll post it. |
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Hardcore
The Cow Says
Premium
join:2002-08-23
Albany, GA
 ·Mediacom
| reply to ErikVKing
The Blood Elves and Night Elves were once one and the same. The high elves that realized their dependance upon magic broke away and took on a non-magical life. They became Night Elves.
The Blood Elves were High Elves. They became Blood Elves after the Scourge ruined their lands. They are still dependent upon magic, as you can see with the Wretched who are addicted beyond control. Otherwise, they are still High Elves. They joined the Horde after the events of The Frozen Throne, where they were nearly obliterated by the Scourge and were not assisted by the Alliance, as they had been in the past.
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Jesus Saves! Ask me how!
Only Team Starfire spams more than me! |
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Dunm
@saic.com
| reply to Dodge
Ok, this'll be a long one...
Before the War of the Ancients (10,000 years before game time) there existed a peaceful race on the planet Argus known as the Eredar. Sargeras, a Titan who had been corrupted by evil while battling the vampiric Nathrezim, founded the Burning Legion and approached the three leaders of the Eredar. These leaders were Archimonde, Kil'Jaeden, and Velen. He offered them great individual power if they would lead their people to join the Burning Legion in its crusade to undo the great works that the Titans had wrought in the beginning of time.
Archimonde and Kil'Jaeden gladly accepted and became Sargeras's right and left hand men. Velen, however, refused. The Eredar who joined the Burning Legion began to hunt and persecute those who refused, and so Velen, with the aid of the light-beings known as Naaru, managed to lead his people to escape to a remote, primitive planet. He renamed his followers the Draenei, or Exiled Ones, and the planet they landed on they named Draenor.
The Draenei lived a peaceful existance on Draenor, and soon came into contact and traded with the native Orcs, a race of proud and fierce warrior/shamans. However, the Burning Legion eventually found Draenor, and were intrigued by the latent ferocity of the orcs. The same deal was offered to the orcs as had been offered to the Eredar years before, and Nerz'hul, one of the foremost shamans of the orcs, became a powerful warlock and lead his people to drink of the blood of Mannoroth and become berserk killers. The new, blood-thirsty horde hunted and killed the Draenei, driving the few survivors into deep hiding. Those Draenie who had come to close to the fel powers of the orcs devolved into the Broken, and those unfortunate ones who lost their minds at the proximity of the burning legion devolved even further into the Lost Ones.
The orcs were then used by the legion to invade Azeroth, as Sargeras had not forgotten about the magic-rich planet that had defeated him 10,000 years prior. The events of the orc invasion, the fall of Stormwind, the eventual victory of Lordaeron, and the subsequent rending of Draenor to form Outland are covered in Warcraft 1 and 2.
The Draenei who had escaped the slaughter, along with some of the Broken who remained sane enough, commandeered one of the vessels from the Tempest Keep fleet and escaped Outlands through the Twisting Nether. That ship, the Exodar, crash landed on Azeroth. The Draenei had sought Azeroth due to the tales they had heard of the mighty alliance forces, and especially of the Paladins of the Light. The Naaru are deeply in touch with the Light, and the Draenei revere the Naaru as holy beings, so they naturally fit in with the alliance.
The Broken and Lost Ones, however, have lost contact with the light. This is how shamanism came to the Draenei, as Nobundu (spelling may not be right), a Broken, had gone on a vision quest to try to find his path. While in the wilderness, the spirits of the element spoke to him and taught him the way of shamanism, which he brought back to Velen. Velen recognized that shamanism would be a powerful asset for the survival of his people, and allowed Nobundu to begin teaching select Broken and Draenei the secrets.
Whew... I think I got most of it there... |
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POMPyroIsFun
join:2008-06-02
Pompano Beach, FL
| reply to ErikVKing
Ok, I have a question as well, but same thing with the Lore.
How come everyone references War3 and never War 1 or 2? The manuals for WarCraft 2 and its expansion both have a huge amount of storyline in it. The game characters may not have been as filled out yet due to technology limitations, but the lore was strong then. Now it seems like you never hear about that time in the history. |
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ErikVKing
Erik the Viking
Premium
join:2008-06-19
Kuwait
| reply to Dunm
@ Dunm ... woah is all I have to say. See, that is the kind of mind that I want to hit this thread and fill in all possible holes (or just enthrall people like me that are highly impressed by this sort of thing - nerdalert, I know!).
If I had some Warcraft manuals or some sites I could get to from work I'd probably *still* read these posts because I love to hear how much someone keeps in their head about a game I love. |
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Dunm
@saic.com
| reply to POMPyroIsFun
You don't hear as much about WC 1 and 2 because the lore expanded exponentially with the release of WC 3 and The Frozen Throne.
Warcraft 3 was the first mention of the Burning Crusade, which is really the whole foundation of the current story arc. The Burning Legion has been retconned to be the reason that Sargeras became a bad apple, to be why the orcs turned bloodthirsty and invaded, to be the source of the Lich King to soften Azeroth's defenses once the orcs failed, to be the corruptor of Illidan to exact vengeance on the Lich King once he rebelled, and as basically the overall baddies that they are.
In WC1 and 2, all we knew was that Sargeras had corrupted Medivh, and Medivh had subsequently contacted Nerz'hul in Draenor and the two worked together to open the Dark Potal in the Black Morass. The "Canon" campaign for WC1 is the one where the bloodthirsty and evil orcs win and sack Stormwind, forcing Anduin Lothar to lead a ragtag bunch of refugees across the sea to seek aid from Lordaeron. WC2 picks up here, when Lothar has convinced the alliance of human nations and elves and dwarves to battle to take back Stormwind (known as the "Kingdom of Azeroth" back then before Azeroth came to mean the whole world). The "canon" campaign in WC2 is thus the human campaign, which has the player drive the horde of Orgrim Doomhammer back through the Dark Portal and imprison those who remain. The expansion pack had Khadgar leading a group of alliance heroes through the portal to Draenor, where Nerz'hul was attempting to open up more portals to find other worlds to plunder.
Nerz'hul succeeded in opening the portals, but not before Khadgar and his band committed a selfless act by destroying the Azeroth-Draenor portal. The multiple portals that Nerz'hul created tore Draenor asunder and created Outland as we know it, but Azeroth was saved from destruction because the Dark Portal had been closed.
Here is where WC3 picks up, and everything changed (for the better I believe). The whole story of the Night Elves and the Well of Eternity, the Burning Legion's attempts to invade Azeroth both past and present, the High Elves fall from grace as former Night Elves, the existance of Kalimdor and the Great Sundering that caused the world to be split into multiple continents, and the use of Nerz'hul as an unwilling tool to spread the undead plague. Good stuff.
So, to sum up, WC1 and WC2 were very simple, black and white stories of Orc = evil, Human/Elf/Dwarf = Good, good eventually triumphs over evil. WC3 was where all the layers and shades of gray were added that make the story-line so compelling. We find out the orcs weren't always bad and could be good again. We find out that the High Elves using arcane magic is an addiction and a key reason that the Burning Legion is able to find Azeroth. Night Elves and Tauren. The Undead plague arises. Basically, the whole story and history as we know it was created for WC3, and WW1 and 2 were sort of retconned to fit that image. A truly impressive piece of workmanship by Chris Metzen.
And yes, I am a complete lore geek, lol. (Not to say I always get it right, but I usually get the big details right when working from memory) |
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Murrain
Premium
join:2002-12-11
Riverside, RI | All I can say is Wow (pun intended..heh)! Nice lore recall from memory, Dunm! Hell, I have enough trouble remembering what I had for dinner 2 weeks ago.  |
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Kearnstd
Elf Wizard
join:2002-01-22
Mullica Hill, NJ | reply to ErikVKing
we blood elves are not addicted to magic. *Twitch**Twitch**twitch*. ok give me some!
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[65 Arcanist]Filan(High Elf) Zone: Broadband Reports |
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beatsnpieces
join:2007-12-17
| reply to ErikVKing
said by ErikVKing :If I had some Warcraft manuals or some sites I could get to from work I'd probably *still* read these posts because I love to hear how much someone keeps in their head about a game I love. go to www.replacementdocs.com to view PDF versions of the Warcraft manuals. Unfortunately the Warcraft manuals arent on the site atm but there is an alert saying they will have all the Blizzard manuals back up shortly. Once they get them back up you can view the full manuals in Adobe Acrobat. |
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Jakiel00
join:2007-12-12
Mckinney, TX | reply to Dunm
That is simply amazing Dunm! Feel free to right more if you like! I read it about 4 times because I couldn't stop reading it and I am bored as hell at work! Thanks again for putting such great posts up for the rest of us! |
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