A Closer Look At World of Warcraft's Beginning Lore
Posted by 
iTZKooPA on Wednesday, June 17, 2009 - 16 Comments Tags: PvE, cinematic, commentators, content, early levels, early lore, grabbing the player, grinding, information overload, new players, one hour rule, onyxia, plot points, questing, reader points, story, the experiment, wow is a chore
iTZKooPA on Wednesday, June 17, 2009 - 16 Comments Tags: PvE, cinematic, commentators, content, early levels, early lore, grabbing the player, grinding, information overload, new players, one hour rule, onyxia, plot points, questing, reader points, story, the experiment, wow is a chore 
Lilyterrain's final adventures in Azeroth went out with a whimper, or perhaps a fart. Barely hours into her career as a hunter, sans pet taming abilities, and the character was left for dead, never to be seen again. I chalked up the loss of a subscriber to Blizzard's inability to grab Lesley with a compelling story in the early going. Sure there were quests for her to tackle, but few of them were more than a collection or kill quest, let alone interesting enough to grasp her brain stem and demand its undivided attention.
Due to the very nature of the early levels, how fast you get out of them, it makes sense that Blizzard didn't spend an obscene amount of time creating memorable stories. Why invest money into something that players will complete in a few hours? To leave a good impression on new characters of course! Leave it to a commentator to prove myself, and various other readers, wrong, at least partially. {swc}Ebek.Frostblade (known in the future as Ebek) was the first to point out that there is a sense of cohesion in the opening territories of the game.
Paraphrasing from the comment:
- Humans: Initially the race is worried about a Kobold threat, only to realize that VanCleef and the Defias Brotherhood, a disenfranchised group of blue-collar workers that rebuilt Stormwind, are far more troublesome. Arguably the earliest, least subtle and best starting chain in the game. WoW.com & WoWWiki have fantastic wrap-ups of the whole ordeal, one that stretched into vanilla WoW's endgame.
- Dwarves: Players will continue the civil war with the Dark Iron clan while battling pockets of Trolls in their lands.
- Gnomes: No longer secretly battling the Troggs that managed to take over Gnomeregan. Even though the race is playable there is not much known about Gnomish culture outside their affinity for invention. Chalk it up to the destruction of their capital city, which caused the pint-sized race to be scattered across the lands. Starting alongside the Dwarves, you'll likely encounter a mess of trolls and dark iron mobs.
- Night Elves: Young Night Elves battle with demons attempting to taint nature, an aspect the Night Elves hold dear. Sound familiar?
- Draenei: The spacegoats attempt to make contact with the rest of the Alliance while they recover their own people from the crash and clean-up the ecosystem that their ship, Exodar, tainted with foreign energies. The story actually makes the MMO staple kill and gather quests quite logical.
- Orcs: Orcs continue to fight for survival in Azeroth, which to many of the clans means defeating the Shadow Council that have tainted and controlled the noble creatures.
- Trolls: The most diverse, and least played, race remains close to the Orcs who rescued them. Thus, you pretty much go through the same things as the green skins.
- Tauren: The Horde's nature lovers will tackle the wild bristlebacks before moving on to two factions they believe are defiling the world, the Venture Company and Bael'Dun. Tauren players enjoy the most impressive early experiences for the Horde thanks to quest pacing, introduction to reoccurring factions and the art design of the opening lands.
- Undead: In a twisted variation of the Draenei's starting quest (although this obviously came first), the Undead are also trying to find their place in the world. Severely isolated from their un-trusting allies of the Horde, the Undead are left alone to fight pockets of the Alliance sooner than any other race. As if that weren't bad enough, members of The Forsaken remain in constant struggle against their former master, the Lich King, and his Scourge.
- Blood Elves: Although destroyed by Arthas during his initial campaign across Azeroth, the area around Silvermoon City is strikingly gorgeous. The rapid rebuilding of the once decimated land is thanks to the race's heavy use of magic. However, players will quickly come across numerous abominations of the magical kind in the fabled woods.
Ebek does have a point. There is a semblance of a story in each of these zones, but most of them are entirely unremarkable and that is the issue. Generally speaking, the content is little more than fleeting connections to land that surrounds your "birth." Aside from the human struggles with Van Cleef, a questline that eventually leads you to Onyxia, not a single opening story will follow you past level 10. The homogeneous experiences also offer little incentive to start alts outside of class boredom or to fill a role in a guild.
Why is it that the humans alone are guided into such an awesome questline? The rest of us struggle with monotonous grinding, while they are off saving diplomats and putting down rebellion. Heck, for the most part the connections between the early racial quests are far to subtle to reconize while you are doing them! We are hit with so much information up front, especially new players, that subtlety isn't the best route.
The next time Blizzard adds a playable race (Pandaren please) I want to see two changes. Mostly, I want the player to be handed a lengthy quest chain that will follow him throughout the game till the late levels. Rather than forcing players to bounce all over creation, phase the chain so it can be completed in numerous towns. Roaming NPCs anyone? As for the chain's direction, it should be used to show the history of the applicable race at the get go, before moving in the direction of the current main conflict (ie Arthas for Wrath). Second, the opening racial cinematic should set the stage for the quest clearly. If Blizzard had grabbed Ms. iTZKooPA's attention with the opening machinima, shown her race's importance to her from the start and strung her along with interesting plot points as she became accustomed to the game, I think she'd still be playing instead of labeling MMORPGs as a chore.
Reader Comments (16)
they should go back and redo them to make them more like the Death Knight starting quests. that was probably the greatest starting area ever.
For Undead, Almost from the start your testing a plague to use against the scourge and the living, Thus all that leading upto the wrath gate event. Thats the only one i know that moves through out the whole game.
I fully agree, I never even saw the continuous story for the humans until I took a minute to think about it. It's also really annoying for the Gnomes and Trolls to not have their own starting area. That makes it very hard to get any kind of character development for them as a race (outside the opening cutscene, at least).
Also, Pandaren MUST be included in the next expansion.
I found it difficult to read the rest after reading "The next time Blizzard adds a playable race (Pandaren please) I want to see two changes.", I just get really annoyed when people constantly go on about how Pandaren should be the new playable race -- Alliance or Horde? Neutral? Who would be their allies if they were Neutral, no one wants to play a one-race Faction.
Choosing sides doesn't really make much sense, since they are known as the "Peace-keepers" between the Alliance and Horde.
"Also, Pandaren MUST be included in the next expansion."
Do Pandaren fit into the Emerald Dream and/or The Great Sea theme? If so, please enlighten me.
I don't particulary want to see the Pandaren either :S.
Adding a 3rd faction will be far too difficult to include in an established MMORPG and I really can't see it happening. Either you're on one side, or the other. End of story.
Also I'm happy with the races in game. 5 for each faction is more than enough to keep everyone happy. All I'ld like to see though if there was another 2 races added to the game is that they could become paladins, shamans and druids. I'm sick of having to be a cow if I want to be a druid and a BElf if I want to be a paladin. I imagine the Alliance die-hards aren't that happy about having to be a space-goat if they want to be shaman or a Nelf if they want to be a druid.
Naturally, (as with the DK) any new classes should be made available to each race (Undead Archdruid would be epic lol) with them becoming allied with their chosen race's faction at the end of their beginning questline.
In WC3 they were mercs, that would make it very easy for them to be written in on either side. No need for a third faction (although three factions is a good thing IMO, just doesn't fit with the current WC lore).
I enjoy there being restrictions to classes, but understand why people would want more than one race to chose from for specific classes. An Undead Archdruid seems like an oxymoron to me. They are supposed to be lovers of nature, yet the Undead are an abomination of it.
They needed specific low level bosses to prove your worth in the game. More interactivity with enemy factions.
@Dyra
The easiest way they could add 2 new races in the next expansion is to have a sect of Pandarens break away and join the alliance and a clan of Goblins be hired by the horde. It wouldn't make sense for any other race to be druids. The lore behind them doesn't support it. Cenarius only taught the Taurens then the NEs how to tap into the emerald dream and therefore be druids. Also druids are neutral and don't really belong to the horde or alliance. All they really care about is healing Azeroth from the scourge. They would never let the Undead or the B elfs into it because they pervert nature and bend it to their will.
Archdruids aren't really a different class from druids. They are just the more elder and powerful druids of the Cenarion Circle. If the next expansion has Archdruids as another hero class then only the 2 races that already are druids would be able to do it. There only 2 sensible hero classes that all races could be: Monk and Bard.
**I suppose Ebek is much easier to read**
I agree. Most of the stories have some hold in the game somewhere, but there's a no-mans land of lore from levels 15-40 (with some special cases) where the first stories are brushed off a bit and broke out, but in the mean-time you're running around trying to find stuff to do that has little to do with your original quest.
Humans, for example, fight the Defias until level 20, when they run VC. Then it is on hold til you get to Theramore and do those quests, which seems to have been rehacked together more times then I can remember, to the point now to where I have no idea HOW the king escaped or was captured, and I don't care.
Dwarves are the same way, where the Dark Iron civil war isn't really brought back until you leave Loch Modan for the Searing Gorge (ignoring Uldaman and Badlands because there's a whole 5 Dark Irons there...). The Draenai don't see the Burning Legion until level 58, the Orcs don't see the Shadow Counil much after RFC until then either. Gnomes FINISH their quest-line after Gnomer around the mid 30s...
Short Version: I agree. I would have enjoyed my gaming experience with WoW if the story had been continued from level 1 to level 60, not level 1-15, then 20-34, then 45-52... If they do add a new race, it would be nice to see a few starter zones added to make the experience better, maybe tie the new race to the landscapes that exist, but make a race-specific quest that advances YOUR story by visiting.
*Kicks away the soap box and burns it*
"There only 2 sensible hero classes that all races could be: Monk and Bard."
Either you are being sarcastic or you are just plain dumb.
How is the Bard class sensible? And how does a musician fight effectively?
If the next xpac is The Emerald Dream, then the class is most likely going to be Nature related.
If it's The Great Sea, then it's going to be related to something like that, don't ask I have no idea what it could possibly be. =/
Pandaren race would be AWESOME, imagine a Brewmaster in ur raid, as for the whole Neutral thing y not just have it like the end of the DK quest, where u joind the Alliance or Horde(based on ur race) however u choose to become sided with the Alliance or Horde at the end of the starter quests
"Alright, Stickras now that u've helpd us be able to survive the naga's assult better we still need allys however, u will be our ambassador but you must choose one side as the two sides of the Alliance and the Horde wouldn't like haveing someone go into each others citys... speak with the Human or the Orc to learn more of the two side b4 chooseing a boat.." or something like that
also the Pandaren have a tie in with both the Emerald Dream( they are Druids of some sorts"Geomancers") and to the Maelstrom( they live in a island near [or far idk which]) so the Naga could attack them for a new base or something... Pandaren FTW! BREWMASTER POWER ACTIVATE!!!!
I think its funny that Trolls actually is the oldest race in Azeroth but one of those in the game with the least interesting stories.
Reading the historie books on WoW webside made me like the tall bastards but in the game i dispize them.
And its the same thing with Dwarfs (i always play dwarf myself). They have an ancient war between three clans behind them, dig in too that, more then just those paisty iron dwarfs.
Basicly they should buff up the lore. Even tho must people would say they dont care, when a interesting quest line comes along they wanna follow it and dig in too it. Bliz,can i get Blessing of Lore plz.
Next class to show up will probably be Runemaster. The only problem with this class is the race it will be put on. Runemasters are likely to be in between nature and spirit, so, races that can support druids or shamans (Draenei, NE, Tauren, Orc and Troll)...It makes sense when assimilating Tauren to Runemasters.
And this class should be something like shamans: a melee dps tree, ranged dps caster and healer...or else, blizz can make it an "all offensive" class, so, the trees would be a melee dps, ranged dps caster and maybe a tank?
Well, don't know about the trees, but the Runemaster seens to be the logical choice.
I have to admit, the trolls stole my heart after RTFM for WoW. I was never exposed to any of Warcraft's lore beforehand. Yet, I do agree that I felt mostly like a skinjob orc. Sen'jin is a ramshackle grouping of tiny huts with nothing of importance save the DINOSAURS we use as mounts and a witchdoctor who will turn you into various critters and give you various buffs after completing a couple quests.
What I want is to see a newly revitalized troll city and area using all of that gorgeous Meso-American architecture. The lush jungle zones are still some of my favorites. The Zul Aman trailer features the most convincing and powerful character in a WoW trailer I've seen.
*gush* Trolls are epic.
Well Blizzard made DKs because they can tank, and tanks were most needed at that time. Now we need more healers, my bet is a mix between a priest & druid (and warlock?)
Also my favourite lore: the Humans lore. :) Now I play Horde, but I like how the Humans try to lead the Alliance like they are high and mighty... the truth is they lost what 5-6 of there 7 human kingdoms. Stormwind isn't sending any reinforcments to Westfall, Redridge, and basicly forgot about Duskwood.
While questing in those 3 places you find Westfall made their own militia from the farmers there. Westfall sends you to Redridge, and you find they are struggling to build their bridge with a low supply of soldiers. They then both send you to Duskwood and the Night Watch is almost completly overrun by scourge.
Stormwind acts as if its strong but they were almost taken out from the inside from a certain dragon (Onyxia possed as one of the highest officials in Stormwind before she was removed in patch 3.0)
Love it :P
In new expansion I would like to see that Vrykul become a playable race, considering king Ymirion is dead and after we kill Arthas they will be free of his will. They would have shamans, warriors, hunters, death knights and mages. I love nordic lore and I can't wait to see the new quest hub with them at Argent tournament. I also like Troll lore, at first there isn't much of a lore for them but if you have done Zul'Gurub u will know how epic their lore is.