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My 6 Favorite Points of Lore Interest in World of Warcraft
The invasion of the Iron Horde is upon us! Two years after Pandaria became a reality (squee!), the latest World of Warcraft expansion has dropped, bringing with it time travel, alternate realities, and a deep appreciation for the history of the Warcraft franchise.
Unfortunately, I won’t be joining the millions of gamers quite yet – my money is needed elsewhere, like bills. But hopefully it won’t be too long before I’m back questing and raiding against the Warlords of Draenor!
Like visiting with old friends
Being the huge Warcraft geek that I am, I’ve decided to celebrate the new release with a list about one of my favorite topics: Warcraft Lore. For those who don’t know, the wildly popular World of Warcraft MMORPG is based upon a whole series of wartime strategy games that came out in the 90s, games that I and my family grew up playing. But Blizzard, the company behind Warcraft, didn’t just build WoW up from scratch. Instead, the developers used the world, the characters and the storyline from those early strategy games to design World of Warcraft. And as someone who grew up with those strategy games, being able to continue that story in WoW is one of my favorite parts of the game.
Join me after the jump to see what I mean, and check out six of my favorite bits of Warcraft Lore that made it into World of Warcraft!
World of Warcraft Needs to Go Into Animation
In the build-up to the next expansion, Warlords of Draenor, the good people at Blizzard created a series of five webisodes detailing the back stories of the titular Warlords. Any fans of Warcraft lore like me will find a lot to love in this videos. They’re expertly animated and voice-acted, as we have come to expect from Blizzard. And they go a long way to selling the potential awesomeness for this expansion.
Though they’re not talking pandas…
For those who don’t yet know, the Warlords are all of the evil orc characters from the first and second Warcraft games, given a new lease on life in World of Warcraft through time travel. The whole thing is a little wonky, but like I said, I’m a huge lore fan, and I really dig this stuff.
Check’em out and immerse yourself in some amazing lore!
Kargath Bladefist
Grom Hellscream
Durotan
Kilrogg Deadeye
Maraad
I still haven’t decided whether or not I’ll be buying Warlords of Draenor. I haven’t played WoW for awhile now, and I’m kind of broke these days, but maybe I’ll give it a shot. I’m definitely eager to see the new, updated character models.
Any of you henchies going to snatch this game up on the day of release?
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Warlords of Draenor Cinematic Looks Badass
When it comes to video game storytelling, Blizzard has always had the best cinematics. Even going all the way back to Starcraft and Warcraft III, they blow me away each and every time. So, of course, the cinematic for the next World of Warcraft expansion looks dazzling!
Even if the expansion itself – Warlords of Draenor – is kind of insane.
Instead of expanding the known world like other expansions, this new one is instead about time travel. The villainous Garrosh Hellscream has opened a new portal and traveled back in time to when the orcs were living on the planet Draenor, prior to the events of the very first Warcraft game. At that time, the orcs, led by his father, Grom Hellscream, drank demon blood and became the green-skinned monsters that they’ve been all this time. But now, in the new expansion, the time-traveling Garrosh stops his father from drinking the demon blood, giving rise to the Iron Horde.
See it for yourself.
The story is absolutely insane, but at least the cinematic is gorgeous. I’m not entirely sure how time travel and alternate realities are going to impact World of Warcraft, but it’s not like they can just introduce new islands and new species every time they need another expansion. I’m confident they can pull this off.
I haven’t decided yet if I’m going to give it a try. I’m definitely going to spend at least a month in the new game, because I want to see the updated character models. That alone would be worth the price of admission…or at least the $15 it would cost for one month of playtime. We’ll see!
New World of Warcraft Expansion Revealed – Warlords of Draenor
The moment I get out, they drag me back in! I’ve been Warcraft free for a few months now, but here already comes the next expansion!
Personally, I didn’t care much for what I see in that trailer. For those of you who don’t know, Draenor is the ancient homeworld of the orcs and draenei, two of the game’s playable races. But Draenor was destroyed and exists in the game now as Outland, a barren wasteland on the other side of the Dark Portal. So it looks like this new game is going to feature time travel to some degree.
But it’s not going to feature any new playable races or classes. Basically it just looks like we’re going to get a bunch of new quests and places to visit, and considering I mostly play WoW for the lore, this expansion might not be for me. Though I do like the idea of improved character models. Still, I’ll keep my eye on things to see where they go.
Henchman-4-Hire 