Ow...my head hurts...

[Jarulf]

Is it just me, or do they just look like Night Elves with a tail??? How boring. I excpected something different, like for races currently existing in the game.

[Yurup]

Was thinking the same thing.. But from Blizzards point of vieuw, why change a winning concept?

[Arnulf]

The books in the game may contain the information in some form, but the game's writers may have added the "slant" of the supposed author.  I have read a book in game claiming that the trolls came before the elves, and a book in the game claiming that the elves came before the trolls (I think...this was a while back).  I believe each book was in an area of the race that supposedly came first.
[..]
[right][snapback]109574[/snapback][/right]

This is an excerpt from Chapter 1 of the World of Warcraft history:

The eredar, an insidious race of devilish sorcerers, used their warlock magics to invade and enslave a number of worlds. The indigenous races of those worlds were mutated by the eredar's malevolent powers and turned into demons themselves. Though Sargeras' nearly limitless powers were more than enough to defeat the vile eredar, he was greatly troubled by the creatures' corruption and all-consuming evil. Incapable of fathoming such depravity, the great Titan began to slip into a brooding depression. Despite his growing unease, Sargeras rid the universe of the warlocks by trapping them within a corner of the Twisting Nether.

Link.

Concerning the new race and its foundation in the Warcraft universe.

My first reaction was: "This won't do, back to the drawing board!"

I have played Warcraft II and its expansion, Beyond the Dark Portal. Never have played Warcraft: Orcs and Humans, though. I enjoyed it back then, when C&C Tiberian Dawn was also a big hit. (And I have played that, too.) The Warcraft story was raw and funny at the same time. I didn't pay it much heed, though. Oldmandennis, I think you can still get both WC2 and its expansion in the battle.net edition.

When WC3 came I thought the night elves to be a poorly crafted plot twist. However it played out better than I thought it would. I enjoyed playing WC3 and following its storyline. Also the expansion was great. And in hindsight it all works quite well together. I have to give credit to Blizzard how they added bits and pieces to the Warcraft universe and managed to keep it together as a whole.

There are sometimes conflicting pieces that jar the whole picture. For example, Deathwing, the big black mean dragon introduced in the WC2 expansion, was originally one of the five aspects of Azeroth. Yet he was located on Draenor in the expansion. I still have the old manuals from the games, and it is entertaining to compare their contents with the "official" lore. I also started to read all the Warcraft related fiction. I especially liked "The Last Guardian" by Jeff Grubb. For someone who has played WC2 almost ten years ago that is some unique experience.

Anyway, the expansion is still far off. And I expect the release date to be pushed back at least once. I will give Blizzard the benefit of doubt what they'll make out of it. The Warcraft universe was always evolving with each new game and each new expansion that got released. I think that developers who take an existing franchise like Warhammer or D&D have a much harder job to fit it all together. Whereas Blizzard has full control over their own stuff. They could even rewrite it completely. Although I think that is very unlikely.

[Raelynn]

This is an excerpt from Chapter 1 of the World of Warcraft history:

The eredar, an insidious race of devilish sorcerers, used their warlock magics to invade and enslave a number of worlds. The indigenous races of those worlds were mutated by the eredar's malevolent powers and turned into demons themselves. Though Sargeras' nearly limitless powers were more than enough to defeat the vile eredar, he was greatly troubled by the creatures' corruption and all-consuming evil. Incapable of fathoming such depravity, the great Titan began to slip into a brooding depression. Despite his growing unease, Sargeras rid the universe of the warlocks by trapping them within a corner of the Twisting Nether.

Link.

Concerning the new race and its foundation in the Warcraft universe.

My first reaction was: "This won't do, back to the drawing board!"

I have played Warcraft II and its expansion, Beyond the Dark Portal. Never have played Warcraft: Orcs and Humans, though. I enjoyed it back then, when C&C Tiberian Dawn was also a big hit. (And I have played that, too.) The Warcraft story was raw and funny at the same time. I didn't pay it much heed, though. Oldmandennis, I think you can still get both WC2 and its expansion in the battle.net edition.

When WC3 came I thought the night elves to be a poorly crafted plot twist. However it played out better than I thought it would. I enjoyed playing WC3 and following its storyline. Also the expansion was great. And in hindsight it all works quite well together. I have to give credit to Blizzard how they added bits and pieces to the Warcraft universe and managed to keep it together as a whole.

There are sometimes conflicting pieces that jar the whole picture. For example, Deathwing, the big black mean dragon introduced in the WC2 expansion, was originally one of the five aspects of Azeroth. Yet he was located on Draenor in the expansion. I still have the old manuals from the games, and it is entertaining to compare their contents with the "official" lore. I also started to read all the Warcraft related fiction. I especially liked "The Last Guardian" by Jeff Grubb. For someone who has played WC2 almost ten years ago that is some unique experience.

Anyway, the expansion is still far off. And I expect the release date to be pushed back at least once. I will give Blizzard the benefit of doubt what they'll make out of it. The Warcraft universe was always evolving with each new game and each new expansion that got released. I think that developers who take an existing franchise like Warhammer or D&D have a much harder job to fit it all together. Whereas Blizzard has full control over their own stuff. They could even rewrite it completely. Although I think that is very unlikely.
[right][snapback]109588[/snapback][/right]

To be honest, Arnulf, I have no idea how the post related to mine. I was not dicussing anything concerning the lore behind the Eredar. I was just saying that the in-game books may not be the entire truth, so *in general* I don't feel they should be fully trusted when it comes to lore.

[Olon97]

History is only as good as the accuracy of your sources. Sargaras corrupting the Eredar or vice versa? Who knows for sure? Maybe there's a little truth to both. Maybe the bulk of the Eredar were immoral to begin with and their relationship with Sargaras snowballed the evil corruption process both ways except for a handful who jumped off the train before it got out of control.

A historical analogy. History teaches you the Nazis were evil. They helped bring hitler to power and supported his plans of Genocide, or did he singlehandedly turn a nation of good people towards evil? Either way, is it inconceivable that during that process some Germans who didn't like the way things were going tried to get the hell out?

The Drenai being allied with the forces of the light is no harder to swallow than some of the Orcs being not so bad morally in WC3&WoW after seeing them in WC1&2. I like moral complexity in lore and Heterogenious moral strengths amongst individual members of a race myself. :D

[JustAGuy]

Is it just me, or do they just look like Night Elves with a tail??? How boring. I excpected something different, like for races currently existing in the game.
[right][snapback]109579[/snapback][/right]

I'll be upset if they flip when they jump... ;)

[Quark]

http://lorelol.ytmnsfw.com/

-- and --

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.a...l&T=8279544&P=1

Tseric:

Since the announcement of the new race and the lore behind it, we have seen a great deal of commentary and feedback from the players regarding this aspect of the Warcraft franchise. In fact, lore as a topic of discussion has been more prevalent on the forums recently, than in previous months. We take this as a good sign that so many are invested in this topic and we do not wish to disturb some of these long-held appreciations.

We will be addressing such concerns more actively, once we have E3 behind us and can get back to our regular duties of creating the immersive game that you have all come to love. We know many have a lot of unanswered questions regarding this and rest assured, we will address such concerns in the near future. Stay tuned!

[Watto44]

Hehe, I was just about to post that first link. Sums up my feelings on the subject nicely. :)

[lemekim]

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.a...p=1#post8279544

I am intrigued.

[Drasca]

Orcs being not so bad morally in WC3&WoW
[right][snapback]109617[/snapback][/right]

Alliance players still hate those horde Orc (*$&(&*# :D

It is still retconning, and sometimes, poorly.

I like moral complexity in lore

The sargeras / eredar change makes it less complex, not more.

I played all the major WC games, WC, II:ToW/IIx:TDP, III/IIIx:FT, and most of WoW. I have their manuals too.

The deathwing/nefarian change made me wince, but I'll bite. His origins in WCIIx didn't specifially say the orc homeworld, but he did seem evil of his own choice. Twisted by someone else? That's ok. Some backstory wasn't filled in yet, and this didn't change his appearance on Draenor. Dragons were already in WCII, controlled by orcs via their queen. Deathwing was a badass dragon of his own evil will with cool voice quotes.

History is only as good as the accuracy of your sources. Sargeras corrupting the Eredar or vice versa?

Since the 'eredar' are newly written by blizzard, they're the hackjob. We're not talking about history by different people over long periods of time with better pracitces, technology and cultural perspectives. We've got the same company overwriting their previous works within a short timespan. Sargeras existed as a corrupted by others god and champion before of this dimensional ship, other draenor races survived nonsense. Guldan in WCII raised an entire island from the ocean for the Tomb of Sargeras. In a cinematic, he conjured open the tomb gates" entered it, faced a demon inside and offcamera went splat. The demon he faced was too much for him. (Daemons in WCI rocked hard as an 'ultimate summon' , more individually powerful than any other melee unit, but were extremely weak flying creatures in WCII).

When WC3 came I thought the night elves to be a poorly crafted plot twist. However it played out better than I thought it would. I enjoyed playing WC3 and following its storyline.

That's pretty much my attitude too. I enjoyed it overall. I wasn't stunned or amazed however. Some of it was just... lame. Now I realize there was definitely early teen targetting. Downfall of a great and noble king is one epic tragedy everyone with wit appreciates. Spoiled child prince going beserk? There's nothing fun to watch about Arthas. Girl mage, practically royalty, in a 'secret love' with the psycho emo boy 'paladin' prince? That's a teen melodrama. So so shallow <_< Luckily the human campaign wasn't the only plot around

[oldmandennis]

What was stunning and amazing at the time - other then the lame insertion of the NE - is that it's a video game. A genre not really known for deep plots. I'm curious what video game plot you think is better. I bet there's not many.

Now they have completly butchered it. If the Protoss showed up in patch 1.13, I wouldn't blink, I'd just say "What purps do they drop, and is that arcane resist or what?".

[Drasca]

What was stunning and amazing at the time - other then the lame insertion of the NE - is that it's a video game.&nbsp; A genre not really known for deep plots.&nbsp; I'm curious what video game plot you think is better.&nbsp; I bet there's not many.

Games of the WC to WCIIIx era? Better than WC3? Easy. I'll even skip other blizzard titles, since they're a given. Let's see how good my memory is... Fallout (I,II), Arcanum, C&C (original & RA), Full Throttle, Escape Velocity (all three), Morrowind, Marathon (I, II, and Infinity), Geneforge, Exile/Avernum series, Final Fantasy (various), Art of Magic, Age of Wonders, HoMM campaigns (various), Myst classic, Myst: Riven, Baldur's Gate series, KotoR, Dark Forces, Starfleet Command I & II, Planescape torment, Vampire the Masquerade: Redemption, Spellforce, heck even Dungeon Keeper I & II did pretty well.

The list goes on as I dig through my old games. I've named at least a dozen games with good plots. The only reason I don't name more console games like Secret of Mana, Lunar, Xenogears or Chrono Trigger, is because I've never had or played them, though I hear they do have great plot and story.

Its not stunning when you've been to greater heights and depths of story, character, and drama, and intrigue. Sometimes, weak plot and lame character is just that. I like dWCIII 'enough' for its cool factors but it had a lot of poor dialogue, overly trite cheesy characters and soap opera level drama. There were good moments, but there was a lot for me to shake my head and groan at.

[Monkey]

Here, I think you're not allowing for variety within races.&nbsp; We haven't heard the full story of The Broken, but one idea off the top of my head is that while most of the Dreanei and orcs remained seperate on their world, some of the Draenei chose to associate more with the orcs than others and learned and adopted a shamanistic tradition from them.&nbsp; In effect, some of them "went native."
[right][snapback]109545[/snapback][/right]

We don't know enough recent history of this particular group of Dreanei or their ship, so we can't say.&nbsp; Heck, it's possible that the Naaru arranged for them to crash land on Azeroth precisely for the reason you describe. *shrug*

I still don't see how a dimensional ship is any less believable than the Dark Portal.
[right][snapback]109545[/snapback][/right]

Sorry it's taken me a few days to get back to this thread; I had to do work after obsessing over the new Alliance race for most of the week ;).

My original fervent statements came from a common place--I (like others?) really enjoyed considering where the new race would come from. It was an enjoyable meta-game. And some of my anger comes from the same place that one might feel anger about a bad referee call in a favorite championship game. It feels like Blizzard changed the rules. We were, as Tseric noted, invested in the lore and this feels like we were robbed.

The rest of my irritation is that they changed the rules badly. To the specific points Mongo and I were discussing above (which are the three core issues that others come from):
1. Sargaras and the Eredar--This is the biggest problem, and we agree here.

2. Paladin Draenei becoming Shamanistic Draenei. Although I think 'going native' isn't a good explanation, there is a reasonable possibility. The Broken were on the run and hiding for 30-40 years from blood-crazed orcs. They were certain to turn to whatever they could find to keep themselves alive. That's a good explanation for why the nDraenei don't have rogues, as well.

3. The ship--Two issues; It is a 'technological' ship (See http://lorelol.ytmnsfw.com/ from Quark's post). The other is: if dimensional ships were possible on Draenor, why didn't Sargaras nab it or the technology for it? He could have used that technology to invade Azeroth in WC3. Or Kil'Jaedan could use it today to crash dimensional ships filled with demons into every capital on Azeroth simultaneously? Limiting ALL interplanetary travel to temporary or semi-permanent magical portals also limits the strategic moves of the Legion to said portals (in WC3, there's a mission to defend Ner'zhul while he uses Ley Lines to open a temporary portal for Archimonde). Now, you could write a hack around this (you have to use The Light to travel by ship), but it's still a hack with bad implications.

If Blizzard had employed some form of the Wisp-Archimonde explanation, the above problems wouldn't exist and there would have been ample reason for those nEredar to hate the Blood Elves and be Paladins. The nEredar would have been demon-children seeking to control their Archimonde-sourced impulses (think The Wanderer in Diablo 2). Getting Paladin help with that would definitely be a good idea. As for the Blood Elves, you would be completely appalled by a race that was voluntarily addicting itself to demonic magic. They don't need to steal from you for you to consider them a serious threat.

[Olon97]

They should have gone with Macgyver IMO.

[Rinnhart]

They should have gone with Macgyver IMO.
[right][snapback]109830[/snapback][/right]

Agreed.

[Quark]

And the result is:

Hey y'all,

I wanted to drop you guys a line and explain whats up with some of the recent changes you've all been seeing in the lore and specifically address your concerns about the draenei and their revised backstory. Bear with me here, I tend to get a bit wordy as I build up steam.

Anyway, here we go:

Hit #1: Lore Train-Wreck
Right To be totally up-front with you guys, its my bad, straight up. The obvious lore contradiction with Sargeras and his encounter with the eredar was clearly documented in the Warcraft III manual. I wrote those bits about four years ago, and to be totally honest, I simply forgot. Genius, right? With my excitement to get the draenei up to speed and root them more firmly in the setting, I forgot to do my homework and go back over my earlier writing. I can assure you, no ones more crushed about this mistake than I am. Ive spent the last few days kicking my own ass over this one. Sucks to fail. It may not always be evident, but we take this story stuff really seriously at Blizzard. Its been one of my personal missions at this company to maintain a high level of integrity throughout the Warcraft game setting (all of them, actually) and I think weve done a pretty decent job of upholding the continuity over the years.

I think its important to note that world building is far bigger than just storytelling, and it requires (in my humble opinion) a certain amount of flexibility. Sometimes you need to expand certain ideas or retcon whole sections of continuity to broaden the scope and accessibility of your setting. There are a good number of these types of situations already (like totally revising our timeline, suggesting trolls were the progenitors of all elven subspecies, etc. theres a hundred other examples). To make an omelet, ya need to break a few eggs, and WoWs one big omelet.

The trouble is, this has become a pretty big setting. There are literally thousands of characters, hundreds of locations, and all sorts of creatures, items, and plot themes that all define this world. As you can imagine, its a lot to police. Sometimes things do fall through the cracks mistakes get made and were forced to scramble to come up with clever solutions to continuity errors. (Hakkar, anyone? ). You not only have me jamming ideas, but a ninja team of quest designers, an army of freelance RPG writers, and a commando squad of red-hot novelists who are all involved in fleshing out the lore and making it more than just wallpaper on a game.

Im explaining all this not to excuse this particular mistake, but to give you some understanding of how the mistake was made. Ive read a fair amount of posts over the past few days and I know theres a lot of confusion and frustration surrounding the whole eredar/draenei train wreck. Believe me I know exactly how you feel. At the end of the day, were all just a bunch of geeky fanboys and fangirls, and we all get pretty fired up when people start screwing with the worlds we love. If anything, all of the venting and creative suggestions Ive seen over the past few days have reinforced for me the fact that you guys really do care about this world and its troubled denizens.

While I cant promise that these types of mistakes will never happen again, I do want to state clearly that we take the responsibility of crafting and maintaining this lore very seriously. You all pay good money to adventure through this world month by month, and you deserve the best we can give.

Dont lose faith well do ya proud!

Hit #2: So Whats the Story, Blizzard?
Ok, so whats the real scoop behind the eredar/draenei story then? At this point, even though the NEW lore directly counters the Warcraft III manual, were still going to run with it. There are a lot of reasons for this, not the least of which is that I think its far stronger than what I crafted back in the day. The eredar were not necessarily all evil. Sargeras did come to them and tempt them with power. They did NOT make Sargeras crazy. This gives the eredar more dimensionality and roots the draenei to a key moment in Burning Legion history.

Weve also woven all of this new lore into an upcoming novel by Christie Golden (author of Lord of the Clans) that depicts the draeneis escape from Argus and the RISE OF THE HORDE on Draenor. The book DOMINATES, and youre going to really dig it. Durotan, Nerzhul, Guldan, Doomhammer, Hellscream, Kiljaeden, Velen this story is the one youve been waiting for. Im getting geeked up just thinking about it

However, this new lore does leave a large hole how did Sargeras go nuts? What drove him to fall and begin his Burning Crusade? I dont know yet. It will be his encounter with some evil race (who dares me to use Old Gods???), but it wont be the eredar.

Ill chew on this. Maybe well solve this by the end of the expansion. See this is that flexibility stuff I was talking about earlier

Hit #3: World of Spacecrafts
Another concern Ive been hearing about is the inclusion of certain sci-fi elements into the setting. I appreciate that this stuff is pretty far out, but thats the whole point: Outland and the greater universe out there in the void ARE far out. Change is always difficult I remember people getting really upset about dwarves with guns, steam-tech, Gnomeregan as a hi-tech city many people had a hard time rolling with those technologies in a fantasy setting. But I ask you all can you imagine WoW without those elements now?

Were definitely throwing some new concepts at you all, but Im very confident that when youre able to see these elements in context, over the course of the game play youll understand why weve been so excited to include them.

To be clear, were not talking about having the Millennium Falcon cruising around the Twisting Nether (Im certain there would be some legal issues there, to say the least). The draenei nether-ship youve been hearing about is far more than it seems. Its part of a larger dimension-traveling fortress called Tempest Keep that essentially teleports through alternate realities. It doesnt bank and roll or shoot proton torpedoes (not yet, anyway).

While we will be introducing a number of naaru technologies (like this ship, for instance), were not planning on going hog-wild. Conceptual balance is everything. For those of you who are fearful of seeing jet-packs and laser pistols filling up the AH, never fear. If you did see them, theyd likely be goblin engineered and get your character killed anyway.

Hit #4: Blood Elves Sure Get Around
I also saw some strangeness about the apparent contradiction of how the blood elves could have sabotaged the draenei nether-ship since theyre all holed up in QuelThalas. Remember, there are twisted blood elves in Outland who have been there since TFT campaign. Its those creepy elves who sabotaged the draeneis flight to Azeroth.

Id love to elaborate on this further, but Im afraid Id spoil your appetites for dessert.

In conclusion, I just want to reiterate that we do take these continuity errors very seriously.
Its very important to me that you all feel you can trust us as developers and know that were out to build a world thats worthy of your time and your passion.

Thanks for bearing with me here. See yall on the other side of the Portal!

Chris Metzen
5-12-06

Edit: endquote helps, duh.

[Monkey]

And the result is:

[right][snapback]109890[/snapback][/right]

Allow me to Paraphrase:

"Yeah, we screwed up and I'm sorry, but we're not changing anything. You didn't have a problem with Steampunk, why do you have a problem with technology-based alternate-reality-hopping dimensional fortress?"

Lorelol, indeed.

Edit: Upon further review, it's better to say that Metzen seems terribly earnest and interested to 'doing right' by the lore. However, I'm not terribly excited by where it's headed anymore. I don't really want to journey through space and time and alternate realities combating the Legion of Doom. That just doesn't interest me as it's been presented thus far; time will tell if I am wrong.

[Quark]

Edit: Upon further review, it's better to say that Metzen seems terribly earnest and interested to 'doing right' by the lore. However, I'm not terribly excited by where it's headed anymore. I don't really want to journey through space and time and alternate realities combating the Legion of Doom. That just doesn't interest me as it's been presented thus far; time will tell if I am wrong.
[right][snapback]109908[/snapback][/right]

To be fair, if they do it right, this "ship" thing fits in with what the game world already has. When Draenor was split apart, portals to many worlds opened up (that reminds me, one thing I always want to see is what happened to the Alliance Heroes left in Draenor). Instead of acting as a portal to things that enter it, the fortress portals itself through worlds.

It leaves holes, certainly, like how the Orcs so easily dominated the Draenei without them doing something like simply running away. It all depends on what Blizzard does with it.

It is a shame that they are abandoning the old lore concerning Sargeras, but we'll just have to see and wait.

[Tuftears]

I don't really want to journey through space and time and alternate realities combating the Legion of Doom. That just doesn't interest me as it's been presented thus far; time will tell if I am wrong.

Speak for yourself, I'm up for that. :D

[Swiss Mercenary]

Blizzard re-writing history? Please, something new, people!