Warcraft Lore: Where to start?

Сообщение от 139500

This post was from a user who has deleted their account.

Сообщение от Patty

To be honest, I've only read Rise of the Horde and the new Arthas book, I tried War of the Ancients but was quite bored with Knaak and his little Sue pets. Wowwiki is my main source of info, along with the Official sites.

Wowwiki, or another user here, should know the order of the books, chronologically.

Sorry I couldn't be much more help. :'(

Сообщение от Adamsm

Go to WoWWiki, start there, as you read things, buy the novels. There you go. War of the Ancients/Day and Night of the Dragon are good, but I like Knaak so..... meh heh.

Сообщение от Patty

I like Knaak so..... meh heh."I'm going to have a BF!"
"A what?"
" A bïtch fit!"

Сообщение от Adamsm

Tauman I like Knaak, I know patty hates him, I have nothing else to say on the subject.

Сообщение от Arkham

If you're very sensitive to retcons, I'd say avoid the pre-WC3 games and just read the novels dealing with that period. (Though, honestly, if you're overly sensitive to retcons, you've picked the wrong franchise to be a fan of in the first place. heh.)

If you're not bothered by that kind of thing, I'd say go ahead and play Warcraft 1 and 2, followed by 3, and after that, then read all the books. Maybe I'm just a nostalgic old fan wearing his rose-colored glasses, but I still think the feel and story aesthetic of the first two games is something interesting and different from the later Warcraft games, and is still entertaining to experience firsthand, instead of only reading about the events in the books. (I've been recently replaying Tides of Darkness for the first time in years, and much to my surprise it's still as fun as it used to be.)
If you've never played them before I can't guarantee you'll like them--they are older games. But you might like them anyway.

Regardless of which you pick in the case of the older games, you definitely need to at least play Warcraft 3 and it's expansion. It's got a lot more character interaction, and the story is much more consistent with the lore as presented in WoW. And it's just plain fun. Oh, and even if you never plan to make any serious effort at mapmaking, the map editor is great to mess around with too, just for the hell of it.

As far as the proper chronological order of the books... this page doesn't list them in a clear timeline, but it does explain which books come at what point during the overall Warcraft timeline (and in relation to which games.)
http://www.wowwiki.com/Novel_guide

EDIT: Also, this timeline appears to have the order of the books interspersed between a lot of other events.
http://www.wowwiki.com/Timeline_(unofficial)

Сообщение от Patty

If you're very sensitive to retcons, I'd say avoid the pre-WC3 games and just read the novels dealing with that period. (Though, honestly, if you're overly sensitive to retcons, you've picked the wrong franchise to be a fan of in the first place. heh.)You probably think I'm hugely sensitive to retcons, but I'm not, as long as they're done tastefully. The Draenei one was okay, even though people see it as "LOL WE R ALIEN SPACGOATS!" Whereas I don't.

The War Of The Ancients Trilogy is to me...blergh. Well, no wonder I.W.I.N buttons don't work, Knaak used them all on his Sues in that series!

Sorry for derailing, but hopefully you've now got the info you were after.

Сообщение от Queggy

A very excellent link that helped me get hooked on lore when I first started out was this. Besides that, read Wowwiki, read the books, and play the other Warcraft games.

Сообщение от Rankkor

the manual provided by warcraft III has a huge lore chunk to chew on.

start with the history of the titans, and the origins of the burning legion, then go on with the starts of azeroth as a land ravaged by the elemental lords and the old gods.

and then the titan's reorigination of azeroths.

followed by the rise and fall of the night elves (this has 2 storys, the original timeline, and then the altered timeline set on War of the ancients)

and after that, just go nuts, you can either read on wowwiki, or play the games on this order:

1: Warcraft: orcs vs humans

2: warcraft II: tides of darkness.

3:Warcraft II expantion pack: behond the dark portal

4:Warcraft III reign of chaos

5:Warcraft III frozen throne.

6:world of warcraft.

and as arkam said, brace yourself for massive retcons, this is a lore that changes acording to the wims of the writers, everything they say or write is NEVER set on stone, and is subject to change without warning or aparent reason, if u don't like that sort of thing then this is definitly not the best saga to worship :P and if u don't mind that sort of things then:

Welcome back ^_^

Сообщение от warlock454

This is what helped me:

Create a new character. Whether you RP with that character is up to you (it helped me).
Wowwiki your character's race to some level of detail (but don't overdo it).
Wowwiki your character's starting zone to get some kind of overall understanding of it.
Pay attention to the quests you are given. If it helps, instead of snatching 13 quests at once, focus on one chain at a time to get a feel of it. It'll take longer so it depends on how much of a rush you are in to level. But it helps with retention if you do this rather than accepting and trying to complete a bunch of quests at once.
As you go to each new zone, wowwiki the zone to see what the deal is.
Finish the zones to the best of your ability. Don't rush to the next zone just because you are high enough level to. It's okay to complete zones that are in the same level range. You can do both Ashenvale and Duskwood to their completion if you are Alliance. In fact, you'll be much better equipped to deal with Stranglethorn Vale or Arathi Highlands if you do. (For example, with my most recent character, I did every quest in Duskwood, Ashenvale, and Hillsbrad and was nearly level 40 before I stepped foot in Stranglethorn Vale).
It's hard to do these days, but will be easier with cross-server 5-man dungeons but try to complete the dungeon quests as well. Most people skip them these days and I don't blame them because of the difficulty in finding groups. But there is some lore education to be had there.

Now you could argue, of course, that ALL of this information is available in wowwiki, even information that can be found from the books in the game, the quests, even the dungeons. But, at least in my case, it stuck better when I actually did the quests myself. If you've mixed it a bit with you own character's RP and storyline, it works even better.

Сообщение от Rankkor

Сообщение от Adamsm

but will be easier with cross-server 5-man dungeons

o_O am I reading right?

can you elaborate what's that? is it posible that we can group for 5mans with plp form other servers?¿ O_O

who?, how?, when?, where?, why? (ok the why is kinda ovious)

Uh no heh, what it is the instance servers are tied into the Battleground groups, that's why some of servers no longer have the "Additional Instances cannot be launched."

Сообщение от Rankkor

Сообщение от Arkham

Uh no heh, what it is the instance servers are tied into the Battleground groups, that's why some of servers no longer have the "Additional Instances cannot be launched."Well, wait, they ARE implementing cross-server LFG in Cataclysm, aren't they? So we can't do it yet, but it will eventually be possible to group for 5mans with plp form other servers?¿ O_O
right?

Сообщение от Adamsm

No clue, I don't remember hearing anything like that.

Сообщение от Arkham

I swear I remember reading about that. I'll have to go poke around the Cata info and see if I can find it.

Сообщение от warlock454

For those who missed it:

Blizzcon announces Cross-server instances

It should be launched in 3.3, before Cataclysm.

Сообщение от Gnub

Think I started with Warcraft III (and Frozen Throne) when hearing about World of Warcraft when it got announced, to get a warm-up on the story. I slightly remembered different bits of Warcraft II, but never really payed it much detail.

The various books has been helpful too, and - as everyone mentions - Wowwiki if in doubt. Playing Warcraft III is probably the best you can do however, eventhough it means plowing through campaigns with "whosyourdaddy" active.

Сообщение от Adamsm

Heh, I played WC2 and that expansion first, went to the first 3 books, then warcraft 3 and expansion, then WoW, after that point, I devoured the books/comics/manga as they came out. And a lot of the Lore is retcon'ed to match the books now so older stuff; like Brann watching the Doomhammer Lothar fight and seeing him ambushed, have been replaced by the Rosenberg Duel between the Leaders with Turaylon picking up the Broken Sword of Lothar and wtpwn'ing Doomhammer with the power of the Light!

Warcraft Lore: Where to start?

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