I think some are under the impression I disliked the video, which is just wildly untrue. I found it very impressive that he was able to put so much detail within a short time frame. The issue I have is the the concept of that itself, not his execution of it. I personally think, if the summary was longer he could have included even more details without having to rush to cram it all within 23 minutes. I personally struggle to retain info if its given to me extremely fast, that's not a problem with the video. I reacted to this in a way that would ensure I'd retain as much as I could. Pausing, rewinding, stopping when necessary. If people don't like that? That's okay.
Whatever you do, take name pronunciations with a grain of salt. If you ever play the game, you'll hear most names pronounced at least once. I just wanted to say that because the way that specific youtuber mispronounced some names drives me up a wall lmao *archimonde, you pronounce the "ch" like a "k"*
the part about deer and squirrels is made up, I feel bad they recommended this to you cause you're gonna be left wondering all this dumb shit lmao. Also the "curse that turns things into meat" is more accurately "the curse of flesh" Basically every single species on the planet of Azeroth is formed by multiple coinciding circumstances that make them what they are. We just don't know what origin species Trolls came from, but Blizzards MOBA Heroes of the Storm has skins for the troll Zul'jin that suggest Trolls may have evolved from flesh cursed elementals. But yes, that means Trolls are essentially one of the only humanoid races of Azeroth that is actually native to the planet.
Pausing, rewinding, and reacting is definitely necessary if you're new to the story. Also, this video is like 2.5 expansions behind in lore but is a decent video for a cliffnotes version of Warcraft lore.
agreed, talks like Blurr in Transformers: The Movie, doesnt give enough detail and it is inaccurate/outdated. for example the Trolls of Zul'Farrak are called the Sandfury tribe, Zul'Farrak is their kingdom.
Nobbel87 is a serious Warcraft lore enthusiast (he expanded out to FFXIV during the great migration at the end of Shadowbringers) and his narrations are pretty entertaining so he's definitely worth checking out.
I cannot second this enough. Nobbel's deep lore video are long and informative (and accurate!) He's a passionate WoW lore enjoyer and deserves all the good that comes his way.
Your missing something KEY as to why Arthas killed the people of Stratholm Before they turned into zombies. Before Arthas made it to stratholme, He and a massive army he had, fought a small group of zombies and they barely won the fight. So Arthas having fought the zombies before, knew if the city became zombies the entirety of Azeroth would fall. As it would be too many zombies to fight off. This is the primary reason the Culling of Stratholme happened while they were still humans... but its lots of these decisions that add up to completely break Arthas and make him evil.
And then idiots today keep saying stuff like "he could have evacuated the town, established a quarantine, etc" seemingly willingly forgetting Mal'ganis had an undead army of his own and was going around making things far worse. I really do want to know what these people expected Arthas to do when there was a literal demon with an undead army running around trying to "recruit"
He didn't have the manpower to quarantine an entire city, and help was very far away. In game Strathholm isn't far from Lorderon but the game doesn't show scale correctly. And halfway through the culling, all the citizens did start turning, so Arthas wasn't wrong
with jaina and other friends, it was possible. It's why they don't want that. They things there are another solution. Maybe yes, maybe not. Arthas was already corrupt and choose the more easy solution (for him)@@coreyg3658
@yannym4605 imo uther and jaina were the arrogant ones. Arthas had like 5 minutes to make the call and he made the right one. He was not taking that decision lightly and was so fucked up about it he lost his ability to lose the light, which is based on self confidence and self righteousness. If uther and jaina wanted to find another way why did they both just walk away? They said "nuh uh theres something else" and ran away instead of trying to do something else
There is extra animated cutscenes that explain some character motivations even more: Harbingers: Illidan, Khadgar, Gul’Dan Warbringers: Sylvanas, Jaina, Azhara and Lords of War tell the story of a few major orc clanheads and the orc vs draenei battle on Draenor. Bonus: The lessons of Shaoshao (famous pandaren emperor). They are all very good!
Bro, i am so impressed by your diligence to understand the lore of the game youre wanting to dive into. I've played WoW for over 15 years and I am so hyped to see your journey into its storytelling. In the recent years it has gotten a bit muddled, but its such a rich and diverse world full of unique and pronounced characters. I hope you have a blast discovering the story and the character arcs, and cant wait to watch. Much love to you
For context about Bolvar being a "good" Lich King - a special ability of the Red Dragon's fire is that creates life. So when Alexstraza and the Red Dragons burned away the plague at the Wrathgate, it not only burned away the plague within Bolvar, but it also kept him alive. Albeit he was very, very crispy.
Arthas is the Crown Prince of that kingdom, and the Plague spreads FAST and is uncurable ((like 99% how the fk do we cure this guys?!)) and Stratholme is STILL one of the LARGEST dungeons in the game. Its a HUGE town in the lore. If they were left, they would easily spread and then leave and spread it ALL OVER so as the crown prince, he had to make a really hard choice that, logically is correct. ARTHAS DID NOTHING WRONG
If you want a slower one where the person doesn't talk too fast then I suggest you watch this video: The Story of Warcraft - Full Version 2.0 [Lore]. ua-cam.com/video/RKsNKZi5Ct8/v-deo.html It is made by Nobbel87 who is a legendary lore channel in the warcraft community. His voice is soothing and it is well explained.
Yeah Nobbel’s more or less the OG when it comes to well put together WoW lore videos. He’s been at it for over a decade. It just difficult making an entire lore of Warcraft video because one it’s a MASSIVE amount of information when you get down to it. It would take hours to explain all of. Further made more difficult by the numerous retcons added intermittently over the years with possibly more to come. It’s certainly been a long and wild ride.
great vid, cool to see how much you like the lore, nobbel87 is a really good channel as well if you want more in depth stories / specifics of the events so far.
In the video, where they talk about the First War, Second War, Third War those are basically the plots of the first three games in the series. WoW started with an already established lore and story, and that was a major part of the draw that excited us older players about the game.
I'm loving that you are doinig this. I love when gamers from other narrative driven games give their takes on our game. Actually helps me give better feedback to blizzard by seeing outside opinions. So, thank you brother.
Man. You really need to watch Everything you need to know about dragons by Platinum WoW. Dragons are a very important part of this universe (more than you imagine) and the best thing is that video wouldn't be nearly as chaotic and difficult to grasp as this one. You'll enjoy it and actually learn more I promise :)
Ty, I was looking for a better video rec, the narrator of the original info video does not make it easy or even desirable to listen, and didn’t even give a good slowdown speed recommendation at that :/
23:45 Part of the reason arthas killed those people was because they would become a MASSIVE army of undead, stratholm was a city that rivaled their capital in terms of size.
13:10 That mage woman is called Aegwynn. The mage you saw in the long cinematic video is Jaina Proudmoore. They are not related, and definitely not the same person.
It's A LOT to digest. I appreciate your effort, and it's cool to see when things click into place for you. That video is a little hyper lol. It's hard to even process it with the little blurbs he puts here and there. Kudos to you for diving in.
Thank you for watching this video; despite the breathneck pace and some comedic bias reframing, it is a fairly good primer for the lore as it has evolved over the years, stopping just prior to the Shadowlands expansion (which really throws lore for a loop). As WoW does not have one big continuous main quest line, there is no 'starting at the beginning' for a player. Instead, a lot of the stuff before the 14-minute "here's where WoW starts" mark is dealt with in novels, graphic novels, time travels and lore explanations throughout the game. The really old lore is still being slowly unraveled - the old gods being truly dead-dead is one of the things currently being contested, same with the 'Burning Legion is the same in all timelines' paradigm and a LOT of titan lore. Turns out, all we knew of the deep past was told by the titans, and they weren't neutral storytellers. The nice thing about the flexibility of this is that you *can* time travel back to say ten thousand years ago and witness those events unfold in-game. Or at least a pocket dimension version of them. It's also more than a little mind-boggling, and has led to a fair few revisions of the lore over time. At this point, the players have tampered with time so much that the bronze dragon guardians of time have nearly given up maintaining it, and we've also cajoled over to the afterlife and sorted things out there in a truly horrid way - yet apparently without acknowledging just how much that broke every races' established religious beliefs. With this primer, it'll be easier to look up more in-depth lore videos on topics mentioned in this one. Virtually every second in this one could be expanded to a novel of lore in another format (and many of them actually are; I've lost track of how many WoW novels there are by now). I really do hope you'll enjoy the game when you try it out, and will definitely throw a follow over on Twitch for when you do. WoW does have a lot of fairly satisfying storylines, just be aware the bulk of them are 'chaptered' - either contained in one local area/zone, or in segments across each expansion. Side note, did enjoy the VOD of yesterday's livestream; do hope you'll watch the rest of that video too. Will look forward to more WoW reaction vids. :)
Thanks for your kind lengthy comment, it's kinda put into perspective of how much there's still for me to learn. But I'm excited to dive deeper into things!
If you want in depth and something relaxing Nobbel87 is where you want to go. He doesn't make videos like this that feel more like bullet points than a story. Nobbel does some of the best work in WoW lore imho. You feel entertained and informed while watching them. Like when you had a nice fun teacher in school.
Platinum wow has some of the best/entertaining lore videos to react to, and the hurricane trailers for each of the patches are interesting to see the environments and super hype
I think you're right, man. Honestly I think the videos like this one are best for people who play the game but don't know all of the background lore, so they're able to pick up on more things. What would be better for new people/potential players would be 15-20 minute videos about different lore eras.
Actually Warcraft 1 is just the part from opening of the Dark Portal to fall of Stormwind (The First War). Warcraft 2 is follow up until the fall of Horde under the Blackrock Mountain (The Second War). Warcraft 2 expansion is Alliance expedition to Outlands. Warcraft 3 if part from the Thrall escaping camps until death of Archimond (The Third War) and its exapnsion is followup until Arthas puts the hat on and becomes Lich King. Everything else is in World of Warcraft and/or books.
I discovered your channel just a few days ago, and I'm loving this WoW content. I've been playing since 2002 Friends and Family Alpha, and love the game-world so much, that it's reinvigorating to see it all over again through fresh eyes. The lore is incredibly deep, with multiple novels spawning from multiple games. Even I can't possible absorb all of it, but that doesn't stop me from loving it when I hear/see it. I genuinely appreciate your takes on WoW. Having also played FF, I know it'll be a bit of a shock, mechanically. The two games share a bit, obviously, so the comparison vids will be great, and I can't wait. If you find yourself on the Hyjal server, or one of the servers in our Battlegroup (the server cluster), we'll have to run a dungeon or two once you get in the game. Love the content, and keep up the great work! :D
First third is books and lore they made up for WOW backstory, the middle third is the RTS series (Warcraft 1, Warcraft 2, Warcraft 2 Beyond the Dark Portal, Warcraft 3 Reign of Chaos, Warcraft 3 Frozen Throne), and last third is WOW.
first time watching your channel. One thing I really liked is that you genuinely seem interested in the lore rather than just seeking views. Like you try to remember who is who and what is what. I also like that you don’t talk over the video. You’d be surprised how few people meet both criteria.
One small correction... Deathwing didnt stay in Ironforge for 10,000 years until after TRotLK, he was one of the "hero" charaters in the 2nd war expanaion from the first part of the 2nd war. Warcraft 2, Beyond the Dark Portal. He was given armor between Warcraft 2 and Warcraft 2 expansion.
If you want some more long form versions of the wars and stories, I would check out the flying buttress. He's got basically audio book videos up with some humor thrown in and gets a lot of the details through. 4 hour ish videos though
So just for some additional context, most of this lore is actually in fact delivered in game, it's just that the video is gonna in chronologically by the in-universe timeline, not release timeline. There are bits and pieces in this video where it discusses lore that's delivered to the player like 10+ years apart, lol. Like the first few minutes alone is stuff we only found out in Legion which is -- holy fuck that was 8 years ago already.
Another great vid! It was a speedy vid you watched, but there's tons of lore he tried to cover quickly. For the un-initiated, that should make your head explode. There's probably hours upon hours of content that could be delved into (which the call to Nobbel is spot on for as I can testify I've watched hours of his vids lol). There's books, multiple games and expansions that make up the universe. One of my favorite books was "the last guardian" (really goes into the details of Medivh's descent into madness). My first raid was actually "Karazan" where you dive into his old castle which has some strong "haunted mansion" vibes. The war of the ancients trilogy was also quite good (basically when the legion first invaded). Anyway, hope to catch you playing the game sometime!
Really enjoying you learning the story, and also really looking forward to seeing you run around Azeroth; like what character you make and everything like that. There's a lot to see and do out here! I started playing in 09 (during The Burning Crusade) and there are Still classes I haven't tried ^.^ They have it set up now where a new character starts out doing the questing zones for Battle For Azeroth, and its pretty good stuff--then people can do the Dragonflight zones. Have you thought about whether you'll be Alliance or Horde to start?
23:20 Fun Fact: The guy who developed "The Culling of Stratholme" campaign level in Warcraft 3 runs a youtube channel called DesignerDave. If you're ever interested about how designing Warcraft 3 went back in the day he's the channel you wanna watch.
There were some inaccuracies in this video, and some things the movie did differently than the game lore did. Garona in particular has been innocent in both game and movie, but in the game she was mind controlled, in the movie the king asked her to kill him to end the war and she does so tearfully. Also, this video completely glosses over Suramar and the Nightborn Elves. In Shadowlands, you don't need to kill yourself to get there, we got into the afterlife while alive because the sky was broken open.
If you *really* want to play the game from the beginning, I *strongly* suggest playing through WoW Classic first. Just so you can experience the game in almost the same state as when people fell in love with the game. It might be a little rough around the edges, but it's a pretty special experience for a first time player. An experience that the modern game sort of lacks. No additional cost, btw. It's free with your subscription.
I would actually not advise a new player starting with classic. Classic is ok for old players wanting a bit of nostalgia. If a new player just wants to see what it was like I can see that. But I dont know if I would recommend a complete playthrough of classic for a few reasons. 1. Classic does not have the quality of life improvements made to the game over many years. 2. Classic content in terms of story can still be experienced within retail via chromie time and timewalking campaigns. There is a bit of a catch though in that i believe you already need to have reached level 60 on one character to use timewalking campaigns. This is a restriction they should remove imo. But the problem is that classic will only take you to cataclysm. Which leads me to... 3. It is a bit of an ask to expect a new player to roll a 2nd character on retail and level through Vanilla, Bc, Wrath and Cataclysm content all over again having just done it on classic. To each their own. But i could see that potentially being offputting because your characters dont transfer from one to the other. So if a new player wants to experience the most story content? Retail may be a better option. Again not saying its not worth checking out classic for a bit. I joined between BC and Wrath. So when classic first came out I too was interested what it was like to experience how the game first launched. There were so many people that lines formed just to turn in quests. It was cool but after you have seen bc, wrath and cata several times leveling alts? I feel like classic will lose some of its appeal as it continues to get more recent classic expansions. I don't think people wil be particularly wanting shadowlands classic ;). Anyway just my thoughts
If you want to understand the Warcraft universe better, I recommend reading the Warcraft Chronicles books volume I (it's about the mythology up to Warcraft I) volume II (it's about the events of Warcraft i and ii - more about orcs before WC i) and volume iii (events of Warcraft 3, World of Warcraft, Burning Crusade, Wrath of the Lich King, and Cataclysm).
Bruh, you said you want to play ALL of World of Warcraft??? I mean, i genuinely can't think of a better goal but holy crap do you have your work cut out for you. We are talking years if not DECADES long of a task. To cover all the content you don't just have to play a character from both the Horde and the Alliance, but a character from each race AND each class. Even doing this on just one character - trying to experience all the content from all the past expansions is a serious undertaking. BEST of luck to you though! This game has brought me some amazing times with amazing friends! I look forward to seeing your content. FOR THE HORDE!!!! Er... I mean, FOR AZEROTH! =D
So to give the "Player Characters killing Old Gods" bit some context. Originally when we did these things Blizzard implied that we just weakened them enough for their jails to work again but after we defeated the "last" imprisoned Old God in Battle for Azeroth they said that we did indeed kill them. Players debated on if we actually killed them or if the Devs are working us into believing they are dead. Also in certain cases Big Bads that are obviously out of the player characters power to defeat usually have context to how (Like The Titans helping us kill Argus, a newly born World Soul Titan")
Warcraft 1 starts with the "First War" (16:59) - the Orcs vs. Humans. Everything that came before that is just lore that is explained retroactively throughout the game series and books. Which is also why there is some level of ambiguity about the events that haven't been directly observed in any of the games - there's been a number of retcons, continuity errors, etc. that makes the story somewhat confusing these days. The first game's premise was extremely simple: Orcs invade the Human lands and the Humans fight back. The second game was a little more complex, but ultimately boiled down to a continuation of the Orcs vs. Humans premise, with some additional bits of lore. The third game was when the story actually started getting more nuanced and complicated, with multiple factions, ancient lore, betrayals, plot twists, and a few retcons. WoW and it's many expansions have since both elaborated immensely on the lore AND made a complete mess of the continuity - leading to a lot of debate among fans.
The story is told chronologically, so even though 14 minutes of it are pre-WoW, a lot of those details are present in the lore from within WoW. You see backstory told and referenced in books and quest text.
This video starts long before Warcraft 1 or 2. When he mentions "First War" and "Second War" that was warcraft 1 and 2. Warcraft 1 was when the horde came through the dark portal for the first time.
"Jaina went crazy" Is perhaps an inaccurate way to describe the trauma of seeing all of your friends and your home destroyed by a group you felt you were on good terms with.
She kinda lost the plot before that when she allowed her allegedly neutral city to be used by the Alliance as a military staging ground to assault the Horde.
@@yannym4605 Oh sure I can see the logic of "this is clearly a military target that is the keystone to winning the battle for the barrens" but that doesn't make Jaina less traumatized
This game's story doesn't always make sense and it never will, we just went along with it and is kind of the beef players have with the story. They retconned a lot over the years but this video caught most of the big important stuff as it is currently. I would recommend watching any video on wrathion's story, he was a new character in cataclysm, and he's still around, he influenced some events in the story. Another character's story worth looking into is xalatath..
So, Warcraft 1 didn’t kick in until the opening of the dark portal. The rest was all pre-games history, though a lot of it wasn't known until much later. So, the info is newer, even if what happened was thousands of years ago.
everything up to WoW can be played in Warcraft 1 Orc v Human. Warcraft 2 Tides of Darkness, Beyond the Dark Portal. Warcraft 3 Reign of Chaos , Frozen Throne
Some of the planets in the Warcraft universe have souls in them, which when they grow powerful enough, break free from within the planet, which unfortunately destroys them in the process. There are some planets, like Draenor, that do not have world souls in them.
29:17 Actually Warcraft 1 doesn't come into the picture until the 17:00 mark in this video. Everything before that has been novels or flashback/time travel scenes in WoW.
You know like 70% but you have the general idea. You're missing lots of small details here which isn't a problem (this video you reacted to was a hyper-condensed summary) you got the general framework You now know way more about the story than the average wow player :D. Loved the video Keep them coming. I hope to see your journey and hopefully join you. Remember kids Eren Did nothing wrong Illidan Did nothing wrong Emet-Selch did nothing wrong Arthas Did nothing wrong and Garrosh did nothing wrong.
I recommend the Warcraft Lore Recap playlist by Lawllin. So far his lore recap playlist are summed up from warcraft 1 to World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth
Arthas's story was a pretty wild one. Storytellers love _love_ the idea of making those who are truly do-gooders make sadistic choices. Where every option is failure. To me, the lesser of two evil choices, would have been to quarantine the city, make sure that nothing gets in, and nothing gets out. True, this is a bad decision in and of itself, but it would have spared Arthas the heartache that led to his rise as the Lich King. I feel like with his story, he was essentially doomed at birth. All his actions would inevitably end with him becoming the Lich King.
I think it was a two party job: Gul'dan on Draenor and Medivh on Azeroth. Medivh having been corrupted by that piece of avatar in him, and Gul'dan doing his eredar master's bidding.
You should probably watch the movie. Its not the same continuity then the games, but its a great starting point. And Trust me, he sumerized ir A LOT. He wasnt entering into details at all.
Ive seen this video before and listening to it again is just funny because he does leave a LOT of detail. You should probably just do nobbel87's video where he explains the lore of the entire wow universe because he has links to other videos in that video for specific characters or events while explaining the lore almost the same as the guy in this video does. SO its still very little detail (more then this one) but you can pause at any moment and go watch one of those linked videos to dive deeper into a specific character or event in the lore and then come back to the main one and continue it. However, from memory the big video is already 1hour 30 ish i think, let alone if youre gonna pause and watch almost every single in depth video, you'll be sitting for a very good number of hours. Honestly though if you ask me, fully worth but im slightly biased to wow ^^
Funny enough as fast as he's going, summing up not just 20+ years of a video game, but countless books written around the game, not to mention the Warcraft games before World of Warcraft.
Hello from Ukraine! By the way, there are quite long 10-hour videos where the entire history and lore of this game is shown in cut scenes and game moments - it’s not as intense as this video, but it’s longer (much longer), but if you’re really interested in the lore of the universe and you’re passionate about it, it’s very I advise
I think it’s very important to note with Arthas and the Culling of Stratholme, the plague of undeath that was spreading at the time was very, VERY fast acting. So fast, in fact, that by the time Arthas got there, the people of Stratholme were literally minutes from turning undead. This was an entire level in Warcraft 3, you have to cull the city as Arthas, and while you’re doing that, the people are already actively turning undead. There was no time for another option. They couldn’t say “let’s try to find another way, let’s try to cure the plague before they turn”, their turning was inevitable and coming VERY soon. Had the city not been culled, countless more people would have died and become slaves of the Scourge. If you ask me, Arthas actually made the right call here. He did what a king must do; he made the hard but necessary decision. If you disagree, then tell me what other options there were. Jaina and Uther had none. They scolded Arthas, and then turned their backs, not offering any alternative. Should he have just allowed the people to turn undead in fear, pain and suffering? Allowed those undead to then terrorize the surrounding land and continue spreading the plague further, costing even more lives? We even have evidence to suggest that after the people of Lordaeron turned undead, they retained a bit of their consciousness while their bodies were forced to kill and consume other humans against their will. I dunno, man. People cite this event as an example of Arthas being capable of evil well before he found Frostmourne, but in this instance, I think those people are just not looking at the situation with any amount of nuance. The man did what had to be done, even though it wasn’t pretty. It was a mercy killing; there truly was no other way.
Playing trew wow from the very beginning isnt possible anymore sadly. You only can play the newest expansion chronologically and not even that anymore The old stuff is fragmented and also even often removed. So at some points the story doesnt make much sense anymore. If you wanna learn about the lore keep watching videos. The game doesnt tell you much about the lore sadly.
You said it was odd that the titans can't kill Old Gods yet players can. This is hinted in one boss fight at some point, where the Titans's method of dealing with the Old Gods were extreme (Flat-out plucking them and the ingrained corruption leaving a tough scar, OR slamming them in a prison watched over by mechanical wardens) and the players, whom were given more free will than the Titans, have access to more methodical ways, such as isolating their physical forms and destroying them. While this does not 'kill' the Old Gods (They're hinted at being so different that they can neither be alive or even dead) it does cut off their actual occupation of the physical plane, and their psychic presence is wounded. So in technicality, you can't kill an Old God, but they'll drop dead if their HP falls to 0. Only makes sense in context, seriously.
41:56 Min.: Everything up to Shadowlands. The Shadowlands story is there fully missing and Dragonflight also is fully missing. Shadowlands cames out 4 years ago in the Year 2020 where this thing happens with the bat you know ^^
im sure someones told you, but that point where it says "now were in wow" most of that lore prior was from the first 3 rts games but also a lot of retconned lore
The lore is significantly better than the state of the game today. Something to consider about the current version of the game is that you can't really experience previous expansions as they were in a linear sequential order like you can with the FFXIV MSQ. Whether this is better or worse is hard to say though. Some people hate having to run through the MSQ, but at least the story is still there if you don't skip it. You don't really have that option in WoW today.
someone probably answered these already, but: 3:00 would have to consult the books, but i believe World Souls just *are* one day, one of the titans awakened into being and set out to find other world souls, to make titans out of them. i think. been a while since i read about it. and sargeras could defeat the other titans because he was their champion. the strongest fighter, the dude they sent out to kill whatever nasties there are, thats how he learned of the horrors of corrupted worlds in the first place. and got into contact with the void lords, i think. maybe. also, as you pointed out, its hard to learn about 20 years of lore, a lot of it which isnt even WoW, but warcraft or even things mentioned in either game that happened before either. its extremely densely packed. and the video is titled the _complete_ history, so cant really leave stuff out (though at the 7min mark, he already left a bunch of stuff out). but there is nothing wrong with pausing the video to digest, going back and forth or even coming back later, to reference stuff. 8:33 i've never heard of trolls stemming from deer and stuff, i dont think its mentioned in the Chronicles books, but they are a couple years old now and i've not played i na couple years. sounds like fan fiction to me though. and yes, humans are essentially double-cursed titan construct offspring. 10:45 why they are turned into fish? how else would you survive underwater? also because old gods are d*cks and dont keep their promises, not to the letter, at least. also also because warcraft/blizzard games really like taking stuff from pop culture and this is just lovecraft/eldritch horror stuff. 13:47 this is actually one of the things the video left out. Aegwynn was extremely hot-headed and self-assured, even before she became the most powerful human on the planet. she believed only she could properly defend azeroth from demon invaders, iirc, and that the council that gave her the power had no clue. then she decided it'd be a good idea to teach her son to do the same duty she did and eventually give him her power. all these bad decisions were nurtured by the fragment of sargeras spirit hidden inside of her. 15:25 you're doing a good job there, going back and looking over it again, to really digest what was said. 16:55 oh yeah, another detail glossed over, only mentioned by the funny text: they sacrificed thousands of draenei souls, men, women and children, to open the portal on the side the orcs were on, since they werent as powerful as medivh. they then used their bones to create a highway between the portal and their largest keep nearby. 18:40 another small bit left out: up north in lordaeron the horde (which was only orcs up to that point) allied with the amani trolls, who were enemies of the high elves. dont remember if they also allied with the gurubashi trolls from the south or if those were too problematic, them liking cannibalism so much. 22:08 there is *a bunch* more to thralls backstory and its pretty tragic. oh jesus and right after he skipped the stuff from the WC3 intro cinematic, of medivh warning thrall and others about the coming invasion, which is why thrall went to kalimdor. jaina went with some of her people to kalimdor later, arriving a bit after thrall. but there was also a huge story chunk that ended in jaina betraying her father (one of the human kings) and aiding thrall in killing him, to secure peace between horde and alliance on kalimdor. (this didnt sit well with jainas original people, as it turned out later). 27:03 ehhh, people used to discuss it every now and again, but "single largest" is exaggerated for comedy. its just a bit weird to have a race in the alliance that has been present since vanilla, but still cannot be played. 29:15 i have never played them, but i _believe_ warcraft 1 & 2 play during the 1st and 2nd war (you might notice something there), so about 17min into your video. warcraft 3 is mainly set around the 3rd war (noticed it yet?), which is Alliance, Horde and NElves (
Loves these videos man I been playing wow for 12 years and I enjoy watching people get into it because it does have such a good world building! About retail after BFD.. ehhh I dunno I dropped off but the core is classic. No pun intended haha
EDIT: Just wanted to say it's not your fault man. The video is fast. It would be hard for someone completely new to digest that. WoW's lore has a lot of detail. I posted a comment on your other video. If you really want to get into the weeds of warcraft lore? As I said, check out the war of the ancients trilogy. That pretty much covers history of WoW from 10,000 years ago. That includes stuff like the sundering, the fall of Suramar and the highborne, the demonic invasion, the relationship between Malfurion, Tyrande and Illidan. Warcraft 3 is really the lynchpin for modern World of Warcraft. Most of the stuff in the cinematics you watched with Sylvanas, Uther, Arthas, Thrall was set up in WCIII. WCI's events covers the orcs first invasion into Azeroth from Draenor. The 2nd game chronicles the 2nd invasion. It's worth noting the orcs were corrupted by the fel and Guldan. (This is referenced in the Warlords of Draenor cinematic where Grom Hellscream rejects the blood of Mannoroth.). Warcraft 3 is of course the 3rd war and sets up the foundation for vanilla wow. You get the kind of origin of the blood elves, the battle for hyjal, etc. Warcraft 1 and 2 can be bought on GOG if you are interested. I again recommend the Warcraft Chronicle books as they are pretty comprehensive even going into the cosmology of WoW. Also again recommend the Warcraft movie (essentially the story of WC1 albeit with some changes here or there). But I also realize not everyone wants to read a book and prefers a video. I've seen someone suggest Nobbel. I would second that. He does great lore videos. I feel they may be a bit easier to digest too.
When you play WoW don't expect it to be as story focused as FF XIV. In WoW there is an overarching story, but it's mostly in the raids and maybe a few quests in the world. The game is actually more about making your own story, because you choose which quests you do and which you don't. There is no MSQ like in FF XIV. But this also allows you to just skip expansions you don't like.
this video makes sure that you don't remember anything or understand anything about wow, its great! but no for real Watch nobbels vidoes for lore, he is not a speed junky and does a fantastic job.
The biggest reason we can kill the Old Gods compared to the Titans is because the Titans tried to rip them physically out of Azeroth. The Old Gods are embedded into the planet like parasites, so trying to rip them out caused damage (when they did it it made the Well of Eternity, which was Azeroth's natural magics bleeding out).
The culling of Stratholme wasn't out of some sense of offering the infected a mercy killing. It was a strategic decision If he hadn't done it, the infected people would have turned, infected the rest of the city, and then over the course of a single horrific day, a massive army of about 25 thousand undead would have started an unstoppable rampage across Lorderon, growing larger with every town and village they destroyed. It would almost certainly have been the end of Lorderon.
Don’t worry, the Zandalari are ok, but their empire shrank to the places nearest to their capital city, which stayed above water when the old giant continent broke up sank underwater
I'm not sure what else you already have lined up but Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos (also 1 and 2 but especially 3) and it's expansion The Frozen Throne give some fantastic and more-detailed backstory about most of the major WoW characters such as Arthas, Illidan, Thrall... and many more. Thus I would highly recommend at least checking out the cutscenes, if not playing that game before WoW. (It's a strategy game so it plays very different to mmos, i don't know how broad your game knowledge is sry). edit: also I've been watching your warcraft videos and they're great!)
I know a bunch have said it, nobbel is a great creator for lore. Really good and gets into the lore. If you want something kinda fun platinumwow is a great character with lot of fun lore videos
@kingdomace id love to see you do a warcraft 3 playthrough its so crazy and so much of the Lore is spawned from that Game its a great way to understand characters and lore for the World of warcraft and its first 2 expansions
34:55 the question that everyone asked since it happened. Bad writing made Garrosh put on the idiot hat and just go full berserk mode attacking everyone for no reason other than he could.
I tell you this, if you really want to understand or dive in World of Warcraft history you should watch the trailer of each expansion 1 at the time and when you end the trailer watch in-game cinematics then hop to the second trailer, and so on, and you will understand it for sure.
![Final Fantasy 14 Fan Reacts to EVERY World of Warcraft Cutscene For The FIRST TIME! [3]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Xyhb2a5e_8c/mqdefault.jpg)
I think some are under the impression I disliked the video, which is just wildly untrue. I found it very impressive that he was able to put so much detail within a short time frame. The issue I have is the the concept of that itself, not his execution of it. I personally think, if the summary was longer he could have included even more details without having to rush to cram it all within 23 minutes. I personally struggle to retain info if its given to me extremely fast, that's not a problem with the video. I reacted to this in a way that would ensure I'd retain as much as I could. Pausing, rewinding, stopping when necessary. If people don't like that? That's okay.
Whatever you do, take name pronunciations with a grain of salt. If you ever play the game, you'll hear most names pronounced at least once. I just wanted to say that because the way that specific youtuber mispronounced some names drives me up a wall lmao
*archimonde, you pronounce the "ch" like a "k"*
the part about deer and squirrels is made up, I feel bad they recommended this to you cause you're gonna be left wondering all this dumb shit lmao. Also the "curse that turns things into meat" is more accurately "the curse of flesh"
Basically every single species on the planet of Azeroth is formed by multiple coinciding circumstances that make them what they are. We just don't know what origin species Trolls came from, but Blizzards MOBA Heroes of the Storm has skins for the troll Zul'jin that suggest Trolls may have evolved from flesh cursed elementals. But yes, that means Trolls are essentially one of the only humanoid races of Azeroth that is actually native to the planet.
Maybe you should also checkout Warcraft the movie.
Pausing, rewinding, and reacting is definitely necessary if you're new to the story. Also, this video is like 2.5 expansions behind in lore but is a decent video for a cliffnotes version of Warcraft lore.
agreed, talks like Blurr in Transformers: The Movie, doesnt give enough detail and it is inaccurate/outdated. for example the Trolls of Zul'Farrak are called the Sandfury tribe, Zul'Farrak is their kingdom.
Nobbel87 is a serious Warcraft lore enthusiast (he expanded out to FFXIV during the great migration at the end of Shadowbringers) and his narrations are pretty entertaining so he's definitely worth checking out.
Facts
I absolutely will check em out 🙏🏾❤️ thanks for the recommendation and support on this video!!
Agree
I cannot second this enough. Nobbel's deep lore video are long and informative (and accurate!) He's a passionate WoW lore enjoyer and deserves all the good that comes his way.
aside from his pronunciation of Archimonde - Archymonde instead of Arkeymonde
Your missing something KEY as to why Arthas killed the people of Stratholm Before they turned into zombies.
Before Arthas made it to stratholme, He and a massive army he had, fought a small group of zombies and they barely won the fight. So Arthas having fought the zombies before, knew if the city became zombies the entirety of Azeroth would fall. As it would be too many zombies to fight off.
This is the primary reason the Culling of Stratholme happened while they were still humans... but its lots of these decisions that add up to completely break Arthas and make him evil.
And then idiots today keep saying stuff like "he could have evacuated the town, established a quarantine, etc" seemingly willingly forgetting Mal'ganis had an undead army of his own and was going around making things far worse. I really do want to know what these people expected Arthas to do when there was a literal demon with an undead army running around trying to "recruit"
He didn't have the manpower to quarantine an entire city, and help was very far away. In game Strathholm isn't far from Lorderon but the game doesn't show scale correctly. And halfway through the culling, all the citizens did start turning, so Arthas wasn't wrong
with jaina and other friends, it was possible. It's why they don't want that. They things there are another solution. Maybe yes, maybe not. Arthas was already corrupt and choose the more easy solution (for him)@@coreyg3658
it's not about why he did it, it's about how arrogantly and coldblooded he went about things.
@yannym4605 imo uther and jaina were the arrogant ones. Arthas had like 5 minutes to make the call and he made the right one. He was not taking that decision lightly and was so fucked up about it he lost his ability to lose the light, which is based on self confidence and self righteousness. If uther and jaina wanted to find another way why did they both just walk away? They said "nuh uh theres something else" and ran away instead of trying to do something else
There is extra animated cutscenes that explain some character motivations even more: Harbingers: Illidan, Khadgar, Gul’Dan Warbringers: Sylvanas, Jaina, Azhara and Lords of War tell the story of a few major orc clanheads and the orc vs draenei battle on Draenor. Bonus: The lessons of Shaoshao (famous pandaren emperor). They are all very good!
PlatinumWow makes great lore vids, they're well explained and pretty funny too
Nobel87 is THE lore guy. Every expansion he is on top of all lore in game and has several videos of the lore because the game has a TON per expansion
I love how you pause to take time to absorb the information, neat detail and I love the lines you put together
Also could have just slowed it down more.
Nobel87 is the guy you want for the lore, specially if youre totally new to WoW. He is a great narrator/storyteller too
Bro, i am so impressed by your diligence to understand the lore of the game youre wanting to dive into. I've played WoW for over 15 years and I am so hyped to see your journey into its storytelling. In the recent years it has gotten a bit muddled, but its such a rich and diverse world full of unique and pronounced characters. I hope you have a blast discovering the story and the character arcs, and cant wait to watch. Much love to you
For context about Bolvar being a "good" Lich King - a special ability of the Red Dragon's fire is that creates life. So when Alexstraza and the Red Dragons burned away the plague at the Wrathgate, it not only burned away the plague within Bolvar, but it also kept him alive. Albeit he was very, very crispy.
Arthas is the Crown Prince of that kingdom, and the Plague spreads FAST and is uncurable ((like 99% how the fk do we cure this guys?!)) and Stratholme is STILL one of the LARGEST dungeons in the game. Its a HUGE town in the lore. If they were left, they would easily spread and then leave and spread it ALL OVER so as the crown prince, he had to make a really hard choice that, logically is correct. ARTHAS DID NOTHING WRONG
Bro really said “you have to leave stuff out”. Bro he left ally out lol wow lore is wild and expansive.
If you want a slower one where the person doesn't talk too fast then I suggest you watch this video: The Story of Warcraft - Full Version 2.0 [Lore]. ua-cam.com/video/RKsNKZi5Ct8/v-deo.html
It is made by Nobbel87 who is a legendary lore channel in the warcraft community. His voice is soothing and it is well explained.
The video I am talking about also have a deeper dive into it, which is something someone like you (who likes ff14 story and such) might enjoy more.
Thanks so much for this!!
Note that Nobbels video stops earlier on than this video.
Yeah Nobbel’s more or less the OG when it comes to well put together WoW lore videos. He’s been at it for over a decade. It just difficult making an entire lore of Warcraft video because one it’s a MASSIVE amount of information when you get down to it. It would take hours to explain all of. Further made more difficult by the numerous retcons added intermittently over the years with possibly more to come. It’s certainly been a long and wild ride.
great vid, cool to see how much you like the lore, nobbel87 is a really good channel as well if you want more in depth stories / specifics of the events so far.
I may have to take you up on your recommendation, thanks so much for it and supporting my video!!
In the video, where they talk about the First War, Second War, Third War those are basically the plots of the first three games in the series. WoW started with an already established lore and story, and that was a major part of the draw that excited us older players about the game.
I'm loving that you are doinig this. I love when gamers from other narrative driven games give their takes on our game. Actually helps me give better feedback to blizzard by seeing outside opinions. So, thank you brother.
Man. You really need to watch Everything you need to know about dragons by Platinum WoW. Dragons are a very important part of this universe (more than you imagine) and the best thing is that video wouldn't be nearly as chaotic and difficult to grasp as this one. You'll enjoy it and actually learn more I promise :)
Ty, I was looking for a better video rec, the narrator of the original info video does not make it easy or even desirable to listen, and didn’t even give a good slowdown speed recommendation at that :/
23:45 Part of the reason arthas killed those people was because they would become a MASSIVE army of undead, stratholm was a city that rivaled their capital in terms of size.
Bless you for attempting to understand this story so deep in. Regardless how deep it goes, its a great story. Even though it feels like a fever dream.
13:10 That mage woman is called Aegwynn. The mage you saw in the long cinematic video is Jaina Proudmoore. They are not related, and definitely not the same person.
It's A LOT to digest. I appreciate your effort, and it's cool to see when things click into place for you. That video is a little hyper lol. It's hard to even process it with the little blurbs he puts here and there. Kudos to you for diving in.
Thank you for watching this video; despite the breathneck pace and some comedic bias reframing, it is a fairly good primer for the lore as it has evolved over the years, stopping just prior to the Shadowlands expansion (which really throws lore for a loop). As WoW does not have one big continuous main quest line, there is no 'starting at the beginning' for a player. Instead, a lot of the stuff before the 14-minute "here's where WoW starts" mark is dealt with in novels, graphic novels, time travels and lore explanations throughout the game. The really old lore is still being slowly unraveled - the old gods being truly dead-dead is one of the things currently being contested, same with the 'Burning Legion is the same in all timelines' paradigm and a LOT of titan lore. Turns out, all we knew of the deep past was told by the titans, and they weren't neutral storytellers.
The nice thing about the flexibility of this is that you *can* time travel back to say ten thousand years ago and witness those events unfold in-game. Or at least a pocket dimension version of them. It's also more than a little mind-boggling, and has led to a fair few revisions of the lore over time. At this point, the players have tampered with time so much that the bronze dragon guardians of time have nearly given up maintaining it, and we've also cajoled over to the afterlife and sorted things out there in a truly horrid way - yet apparently without acknowledging just how much that broke every races' established religious beliefs.
With this primer, it'll be easier to look up more in-depth lore videos on topics mentioned in this one. Virtually every second in this one could be expanded to a novel of lore in another format (and many of them actually are; I've lost track of how many WoW novels there are by now).
I really do hope you'll enjoy the game when you try it out, and will definitely throw a follow over on Twitch for when you do. WoW does have a lot of fairly satisfying storylines, just be aware the bulk of them are 'chaptered' - either contained in one local area/zone, or in segments across each expansion.
Side note, did enjoy the VOD of yesterday's livestream; do hope you'll watch the rest of that video too. Will look forward to more WoW reaction vids. :)
Thanks for your kind lengthy comment, it's kinda put into perspective of how much there's still for me to learn. But I'm excited to dive deeper into things!
If you want in depth and something relaxing Nobbel87 is where you want to go. He doesn't make videos like this that feel more like bullet points than a story. Nobbel does some of the best work in WoW lore imho. You feel entertained and informed while watching them. Like when you had a nice fun teacher in school.
Platinum wow has some of the best/entertaining lore videos to react to, and the hurricane trailers for each of the patches are interesting to see the environments and super hype
I think you're right, man. Honestly I think the videos like this one are best for people who play the game but don't know all of the background lore, so they're able to pick up on more things.
What would be better for new people/potential players would be 15-20 minute videos about different lore eras.
Arthas was right to cull Stratholme. Morally, it was messed up but it was the right call at the time.
Actually Warcraft 1 is just the part from opening of the Dark Portal to fall of Stormwind (The First War). Warcraft 2 is follow up until the fall of Horde under the Blackrock Mountain (The Second War). Warcraft 2 expansion is Alliance expedition to Outlands. Warcraft 3 if part from the Thrall escaping camps until death of Archimond (The Third War) and its exapnsion is followup until Arthas puts the hat on and becomes Lich King. Everything else is in World of Warcraft and/or books.
I discovered your channel just a few days ago, and I'm loving this WoW content. I've been playing since 2002 Friends and Family Alpha, and love the game-world so much, that it's reinvigorating to see it all over again through fresh eyes. The lore is incredibly deep, with multiple novels spawning from multiple games. Even I can't possible absorb all of it, but that doesn't stop me from loving it when I hear/see it.
I genuinely appreciate your takes on WoW. Having also played FF, I know it'll be a bit of a shock, mechanically. The two games share a bit, obviously, so the comparison vids will be great, and I can't wait. If you find yourself on the Hyjal server, or one of the servers in our Battlegroup (the server cluster), we'll have to run a dungeon or two once you get in the game. Love the content, and keep up the great work! :D
First third is books and lore they made up for WOW backstory, the middle third is the RTS series (Warcraft 1, Warcraft 2, Warcraft 2 Beyond the Dark Portal, Warcraft 3 Reign of Chaos, Warcraft 3 Frozen Throne), and last third is WOW.
Dude I love how you INSTANTLY had an opinion on the Culling of Stratholme. Brother you are HOME. YOU PASSED THE CHECK.
first time watching your channel.
One thing I really liked is that you genuinely seem interested in the lore rather than just seeking views.
Like you try to remember who is who and what is what.
I also like that you don’t talk over the video.
You’d be surprised how few people meet both criteria.
One small correction... Deathwing didnt stay in Ironforge for 10,000 years until after TRotLK, he was one of the "hero" charaters in the 2nd war expanaion from the first part of the 2nd war. Warcraft 2, Beyond the Dark Portal. He was given armor between Warcraft 2 and Warcraft 2 expansion.
If you want some more long form versions of the wars and stories, I would check out the flying buttress. He's got basically audio book videos up with some humor thrown in and gets a lot of the details through. 4 hour ish videos though
So just for some additional context, most of this lore is actually in fact delivered in game, it's just that the video is gonna in chronologically by the in-universe timeline, not release timeline. There are bits and pieces in this video where it discusses lore that's delivered to the player like 10+ years apart, lol. Like the first few minutes alone is stuff we only found out in Legion which is -- holy fuck that was 8 years ago already.
Nobbel is my guy. he gets real deep into the lore. love his videos; love your video!
Nobbel87 is def much more digestible and much easier to hear.
Another great vid! It was a speedy vid you watched, but there's tons of lore he tried to cover quickly. For the un-initiated, that should make your head explode. There's probably hours upon hours of content that could be delved into (which the call to Nobbel is spot on for as I can testify I've watched hours of his vids lol). There's books, multiple games and expansions that make up the universe. One of my favorite books was "the last guardian" (really goes into the details of Medivh's descent into madness). My first raid was actually "Karazan" where you dive into his old castle which has some strong "haunted mansion" vibes. The war of the ancients trilogy was also quite good (basically when the legion first invaded). Anyway, hope to catch you playing the game sometime!
Bro, your voice... man, is deep.
I don't know if you already work in this, but you could be a singer, narrator or something like that.
Really enjoying you learning the story, and also really looking forward to seeing you run around Azeroth; like what character you make and everything like that. There's a lot to see and do out here! I started playing in 09 (during The Burning Crusade) and there are Still classes I haven't tried ^.^ They have it set up now where a new character starts out doing the questing zones for Battle For Azeroth, and its pretty good stuff--then people can do the Dragonflight zones. Have you thought about whether you'll be Alliance or Horde to start?
23:20 Fun Fact: The guy who developed "The Culling of Stratholme" campaign level in Warcraft 3 runs a youtube channel called DesignerDave. If you're ever interested about how designing Warcraft 3 went back in the day he's the channel you wanna watch.
There were some inaccuracies in this video, and some things the movie did differently than the game lore did. Garona in particular has been innocent in both game and movie, but in the game she was mind controlled, in the movie the king asked her to kill him to end the war and she does so tearfully.
Also, this video completely glosses over Suramar and the Nightborn Elves.
In Shadowlands, you don't need to kill yourself to get there, we got into the afterlife while alive because the sky was broken open.
Putting the work in to understand goes a long way. Well done.
If you *really* want to play the game from the beginning, I *strongly* suggest playing through WoW Classic first. Just so you can experience the game in almost the same state as when people fell in love with the game. It might be a little rough around the edges, but it's a pretty special experience for a first time player. An experience that the modern game sort of lacks.
No additional cost, btw. It's free with your subscription.
I would actually not advise a new player starting with classic. Classic is ok for old players wanting a bit of nostalgia. If a new player just wants to see what it was like I can see that. But I dont know if I would recommend a complete playthrough of classic for a few reasons.
1. Classic does not have the quality of life improvements made to the game over many years.
2. Classic content in terms of story can still be experienced within retail via chromie time and timewalking campaigns. There is a bit of a catch though in that i believe you already need to have reached level 60 on one character to use timewalking campaigns. This is a restriction they should remove imo.
But the problem is that classic will only take you to cataclysm. Which leads me to...
3. It is a bit of an ask to expect a new player to roll a 2nd character on retail and level through Vanilla, Bc, Wrath and Cataclysm content all over again having just done it on classic.
To each their own. But i could see that potentially being offputting because your characters dont transfer from one to the other. So if a new player wants to experience the most story content? Retail may be a better option. Again not saying its not worth checking out classic for a bit.
I joined between BC and Wrath. So when classic first came out I too was interested what it was like to experience how the game first launched. There were so many people that lines formed just to turn in quests. It was cool but after you have seen bc, wrath and cata several times leveling alts? I feel like classic will lose some of its appeal as it continues to get more recent classic expansions. I don't think people wil be particularly wanting shadowlands classic ;).
Anyway just my thoughts
If you want to understand the Warcraft universe better, I recommend reading the Warcraft Chronicles books volume I (it's about the mythology up to Warcraft I) volume II (it's about the events of Warcraft i and ii - more about orcs before WC i) and volume iii (events of Warcraft 3, World of Warcraft, Burning Crusade, Wrath of the Lich King, and Cataclysm).
Bruh, you said you want to play ALL of World of Warcraft??? I mean, i genuinely can't think of a better goal but holy crap do you have your work cut out for you. We are talking years if not DECADES long of a task. To cover all the content you don't just have to play a character from both the Horde and the Alliance, but a character from each race AND each class. Even doing this on just one character - trying to experience all the content from all the past expansions is a serious undertaking. BEST of luck to you though! This game has brought me some amazing times with amazing friends! I look forward to seeing your content. FOR THE HORDE!!!! Er... I mean, FOR AZEROTH! =D
So to give the "Player Characters killing Old Gods" bit some context. Originally when we did these things Blizzard implied that we just weakened them enough for their jails to work again but after we defeated the "last" imprisoned Old God in Battle for Azeroth they said that we did indeed kill them. Players debated on if we actually killed them or if the Devs are working us into believing they are dead. Also in certain cases Big Bads that are obviously out of the player characters power to defeat usually have context to how (Like The Titans helping us kill Argus, a newly born World Soul Titan")
New fan here. Loving your WoW stuff. Keep up the good commentary and not just silently watching like others do.
Warcraft 1 starts with the "First War" (16:59) - the Orcs vs. Humans. Everything that came before that is just lore that is explained retroactively throughout the game series and books.
Which is also why there is some level of ambiguity about the events that haven't been directly observed in any of the games - there's been a number of retcons, continuity errors, etc. that makes the story somewhat confusing these days.
The first game's premise was extremely simple: Orcs invade the Human lands and the Humans fight back.
The second game was a little more complex, but ultimately boiled down to a continuation of the Orcs vs. Humans premise, with some additional bits of lore.
The third game was when the story actually started getting more nuanced and complicated, with multiple factions, ancient lore, betrayals, plot twists, and a few retcons.
WoW and it's many expansions have since both elaborated immensely on the lore AND made a complete mess of the continuity - leading to a lot of debate among fans.
The story is told chronologically, so even though 14 minutes of it are pre-WoW, a lot of those details are present in the lore from within WoW. You see backstory told and referenced in books and quest text.
This video starts long before Warcraft 1 or 2. When he mentions "First War" and "Second War" that was warcraft 1 and 2. Warcraft 1 was when the horde came through the dark portal for the first time.
"Jaina went crazy" Is perhaps an inaccurate way to describe the trauma of seeing all of your friends and your home destroyed by a group you felt you were on good terms with.
When you feel like you ONLY have 23 minutes, ya gotta sum things up as quickly as possible. Alongside feeling the need to add some comedy to things
She kinda lost the plot before that when she allowed her allegedly neutral city to be used by the Alliance as a military staging ground to assault the Horde.
@@yannym4605That doesnt excuse what happened to Theramore though.
@@yannym4605 Oh sure I can see the logic of "this is clearly a military target that is the keystone to winning the battle for the barrens" but that doesn't make Jaina less traumatized
No no, I disagree, "she went crazy" is a very accurate way to put it, I would maybe add "she went murderously crazy".
The culling of Stratholme is a full mission on Warcraft 3.
This game's story doesn't always make sense and it never will, we just went along with it and is kind of the beef players have with the story. They retconned a lot over the years but this video caught most of the big important stuff as it is currently.
I would recommend watching any video on wrathion's story, he was a new character in cataclysm, and he's still around, he influenced some events in the story.
Another character's story worth looking into is xalatath..
After this whole journey, I need to see your reaction to the Broken Shore cinematic.
So, Warcraft 1 didn’t kick in until the opening of the dark portal. The rest was all pre-games history, though a lot of it wasn't known until much later. So, the info is newer, even if what happened was thousands of years ago.
everything up to WoW can be played in Warcraft 1 Orc v Human. Warcraft 2 Tides of Darkness, Beyond the Dark Portal. Warcraft 3 Reign of Chaos , Frozen Throne
Some of the planets in the Warcraft universe have souls in them, which when they grow powerful enough, break free from within the planet, which unfortunately destroys them in the process. There are some planets, like Draenor, that do not have world souls in them.
29:17 Actually Warcraft 1 doesn't come into the picture until the 17:00 mark in this video. Everything before that has been novels or flashback/time travel scenes in WoW.
Nobbel & PlatinumWow have great lore videos. Sone even the tiniest of groups/characters
You know like 70% but you have the general idea. You're missing lots of small details here which isn't a problem (this video you reacted to was a hyper-condensed summary) you got the general framework You now know way more about the story than the average wow player :D. Loved the video Keep them coming. I hope to see your journey and hopefully join you.
Remember kids
Eren Did nothing wrong
Illidan Did nothing wrong
Emet-Selch did nothing wrong
Arthas Did nothing wrong
and Garrosh did nothing wrong.
Thanks so much for supporting the video! Glad you enjoyed and LOOOOOOOL the ending of your comment deserves a freakin trophy 🏆
I'm loving hearing your thoughts man, you have some good insights. Definitely getting a sub from me! Keep doing you!
I recommend the Warcraft Lore Recap playlist by Lawllin. So far his lore recap playlist are summed up from warcraft 1 to World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth
yeah man gotta watch nobbel. dude is a freaking legend when it comes to lore telling.
Nobbel87 and Platinum wow are the best for lore videos (imo), hell Platinum narrated the latest official wow video for Classic
Arthas's story was a pretty wild one. Storytellers love _love_ the idea of making those who are truly do-gooders make sadistic choices. Where every option is failure. To me, the lesser of two evil choices, would have been to quarantine the city, make sure that nothing gets in, and nothing gets out. True, this is a bad decision in and of itself, but it would have spared Arthas the heartache that led to his rise as the Lich King. I feel like with his story, he was essentially doomed at birth. All his actions would inevitably end with him becoming the Lich King.
Something i never understood is who build the portal to draenor to begin with
I think it was a two party job: Gul'dan on Draenor and Medivh on Azeroth. Medivh having been corrupted by that piece of avatar in him, and Gul'dan doing his eredar master's bidding.
You’re my new favorite content creator/streamer. Cheers!
This means so much to me, thank you 🙏🏾❤️
You should probably watch the movie. Its not the same continuity then the games, but its a great starting point.
And Trust me, he sumerized ir A LOT. He wasnt entering into details at all.
Would love to see a reaction to the movie!
The whole point is the humor of the fast speech and wild condensing of the story.
Ive seen this video before and listening to it again is just funny because he does leave a LOT of detail.
You should probably just do nobbel87's video where he explains the lore of the entire wow universe because he has links to other videos in that video for specific characters or events while explaining the lore almost the same as the guy in this video does.
SO its still very little detail (more then this one) but you can pause at any moment and go watch one of those linked videos to dive deeper into a specific character or event in the lore and then come back to the main one and continue it.
However, from memory the big video is already 1hour 30 ish i think, let alone if youre gonna pause and watch almost every single in depth video, you'll be sitting for a very good number of hours.
Honestly though if you ask me, fully worth but im slightly biased to wow ^^
Funny enough as fast as he's going, summing up not just 20+ years of a video game, but countless books written around the game, not to mention the Warcraft games before World of Warcraft.
Hello from Ukraine! By the way, there are quite long 10-hour videos where the entire history and lore of this game is shown in cut scenes and game moments - it’s not as intense as this video, but it’s longer (much longer), but if you’re really interested in the lore of the universe and you’re passionate about it, it’s very I advise
I think it’s very important to note with Arthas and the Culling of Stratholme, the plague of undeath that was spreading at the time was very, VERY fast acting. So fast, in fact, that by the time Arthas got there, the people of Stratholme were literally minutes from turning undead. This was an entire level in Warcraft 3, you have to cull the city as Arthas, and while you’re doing that, the people are already actively turning undead.
There was no time for another option. They couldn’t say “let’s try to find another way, let’s try to cure the plague before they turn”, their turning was inevitable and coming VERY soon. Had the city not been culled, countless more people would have died and become slaves of the Scourge.
If you ask me, Arthas actually made the right call here. He did what a king must do; he made the hard but necessary decision. If you disagree, then tell me what other options there were. Jaina and Uther had none. They scolded Arthas, and then turned their backs, not offering any alternative. Should he have just allowed the people to turn undead in fear, pain and suffering? Allowed those undead to then terrorize the surrounding land and continue spreading the plague further, costing even more lives? We even have evidence to suggest that after the people of Lordaeron turned undead, they retained a bit of their consciousness while their bodies were forced to kill and consume other humans against their will.
I dunno, man. People cite this event as an example of Arthas being capable of evil well before he found Frostmourne, but in this instance, I think those people are just not looking at the situation with any amount of nuance. The man did what had to be done, even though it wasn’t pretty. It was a mercy killing; there truly was no other way.
You didn't see Aegwyn in any cutscenes. You've probably seen Jaina.
PlatinumWoW has some pretty good lore videos that deliver story in an entertaining way
30:05 it does make sense considering we're born from azeroth and azeroth is the key to defeat the void lords
Nobbel and Platinum wow are the Lore kingpins.
Playing trew wow from the very beginning isnt possible anymore sadly.
You only can play the newest expansion chronologically and not even that anymore
The old stuff is fragmented and also even often removed.
So at some points the story doesnt make much sense anymore.
If you wanna learn about the lore keep watching videos.
The game doesnt tell you much about the lore sadly.
"Again, I could fix her" As an undead character for over 10 years, I can tell you her cuckholding spells are indeed that powerful.
You said it was odd that the titans can't kill Old Gods yet players can. This is hinted in one boss fight at some point, where the Titans's method of dealing with the Old Gods were extreme (Flat-out plucking them and the ingrained corruption leaving a tough scar, OR slamming them in a prison watched over by mechanical wardens) and the players, whom were given more free will than the Titans, have access to more methodical ways, such as isolating their physical forms and destroying them. While this does not 'kill' the Old Gods (They're hinted at being so different that they can neither be alive or even dead) it does cut off their actual occupation of the physical plane, and their psychic presence is wounded.
So in technicality, you can't kill an Old God, but they'll drop dead if their HP falls to 0. Only makes sense in context, seriously.
41:56 Min.: Everything up to Shadowlands. The Shadowlands story is there fully missing and Dragonflight also is fully missing. Shadowlands cames out 4 years ago in the Year 2020 where this thing happens with the bat you know ^^
Nobbel87 is hands down the best and his narration is absolute gold
im sure someones told you, but that point where it says "now were in wow" most of that lore prior was from the first 3 rts games but also a lot of retconned lore
The lore is significantly better than the state of the game today. Something to consider about the current version of the game is that you can't really experience previous expansions as they were in a linear sequential order like you can with the FFXIV MSQ.
Whether this is better or worse is hard to say though. Some people hate having to run through the MSQ, but at least the story is still there if you don't skip it. You don't really have that option in WoW today.
someone probably answered these already, but:
3:00 would have to consult the books, but i believe World Souls just *are*
one day, one of the titans awakened into being and set out to find other world souls, to make titans out of them. i think. been a while since i read about it.
and sargeras could defeat the other titans because he was their champion. the strongest fighter, the dude they sent out to kill whatever nasties there are, thats how he learned of the horrors of corrupted worlds in the first place. and got into contact with the void lords, i think. maybe.
also, as you pointed out, its hard to learn about 20 years of lore, a lot of it which isnt even WoW, but warcraft or even things mentioned in either game that happened before either. its extremely densely packed.
and the video is titled the _complete_ history, so cant really leave stuff out (though at the 7min mark, he already left a bunch of stuff out). but there is nothing wrong with pausing the video to digest, going back and forth or even coming back later, to reference stuff.
8:33 i've never heard of trolls stemming from deer and stuff, i dont think its mentioned in the Chronicles books, but they are a couple years old now and i've not played i na couple years. sounds like fan fiction to me though. and yes, humans are essentially double-cursed titan construct offspring.
10:45 why they are turned into fish? how else would you survive underwater? also because old gods are d*cks and dont keep their promises, not to the letter, at least. also also because warcraft/blizzard games really like taking stuff from pop culture and this is just lovecraft/eldritch horror stuff.
13:47 this is actually one of the things the video left out. Aegwynn was extremely hot-headed and self-assured, even before she became the most powerful human on the planet. she believed only she could properly defend azeroth from demon invaders, iirc, and that the council that gave her the power had no clue. then she decided it'd be a good idea to teach her son to do the same duty she did and eventually give him her power. all these bad decisions were nurtured by the fragment of sargeras spirit hidden inside of her.
15:25 you're doing a good job there, going back and looking over it again, to really digest what was said.
16:55 oh yeah, another detail glossed over, only mentioned by the funny text: they sacrificed thousands of draenei souls, men, women and children, to open the portal on the side the orcs were on, since they werent as powerful as medivh. they then used their bones to create a highway between the portal and their largest keep nearby.
18:40 another small bit left out: up north in lordaeron the horde (which was only orcs up to that point) allied with the amani trolls, who were enemies of the high elves. dont remember if they also allied with the gurubashi trolls from the south or if those were too problematic, them liking cannibalism so much.
22:08 there is *a bunch* more to thralls backstory and its pretty tragic.
oh jesus and right after he skipped the stuff from the WC3 intro cinematic, of medivh warning thrall and others about the coming invasion, which is why thrall went to kalimdor.
jaina went with some of her people to kalimdor later, arriving a bit after thrall. but there was also a huge story chunk that ended in jaina betraying her father (one of the human kings) and aiding thrall in killing him, to secure peace between horde and alliance on kalimdor. (this didnt sit well with jainas original people, as it turned out later).
27:03 ehhh, people used to discuss it every now and again, but "single largest" is exaggerated for comedy. its just a bit weird to have a race in the alliance that has been present since vanilla, but still cannot be played.
29:15 i have never played them, but i _believe_ warcraft 1 & 2 play during the 1st and 2nd war (you might notice something there), so about 17min into your video. warcraft 3 is mainly set around the 3rd war (noticed it yet?), which is Alliance, Horde and NElves (
Nobbel87 is amazing at telling world of warcraft lore! Highly recommend watching him.
Loves these videos man I been playing wow for 12 years and I enjoy watching people get into it because it does have such a good world building! About retail after BFD.. ehhh I dunno I dropped off but the core is classic. No pun intended haha
Would love to see you react to the movie!
Video : history of WoW in 23 minutes;
Reaction: 43 minutes
Me : seems a few hours short
EDIT: Just wanted to say it's not your fault man. The video is fast. It would be hard for someone completely new to digest that. WoW's lore has a lot of detail. I posted a comment on your other video. If you really want to get into the weeds of warcraft lore? As I said, check out the war of the ancients trilogy. That pretty much covers history of WoW from 10,000 years ago. That includes stuff like the sundering, the fall of Suramar and the highborne, the demonic invasion, the relationship between Malfurion, Tyrande and Illidan.
Warcraft 3 is really the lynchpin for modern World of Warcraft. Most of the stuff in the cinematics you watched with Sylvanas, Uther, Arthas, Thrall was set up in WCIII. WCI's events covers the orcs first invasion into Azeroth from Draenor. The 2nd game chronicles the 2nd invasion. It's worth noting the orcs were corrupted by the fel and Guldan. (This is referenced in the Warlords of Draenor cinematic where Grom Hellscream rejects the blood of Mannoroth.). Warcraft 3 is of course the 3rd war and sets up the foundation for vanilla wow. You get the kind of origin of the blood elves, the battle for hyjal, etc.
Warcraft 1 and 2 can be bought on GOG if you are interested. I again recommend the Warcraft Chronicle books as they are pretty comprehensive even going into the cosmology of WoW. Also again recommend the Warcraft movie (essentially the story of WC1 albeit with some changes here or there). But I also realize not everyone wants to read a book and prefers a video.
I've seen someone suggest Nobbel. I would second that. He does great lore videos. I feel they may be a bit easier to digest too.
When you play WoW don't expect it to be as story focused as FF XIV. In WoW there is an overarching story, but it's mostly in the raids and maybe a few quests in the world. The game is actually more about making your own story, because you choose which quests you do and which you don't.
There is no MSQ like in FF XIV. But this also allows you to just skip expansions you don't like.
this video makes sure that you don't remember anything or understand anything about wow, its great!
but no for real Watch nobbels vidoes for lore, he is not a speed junky and does a fantastic job.
Edited. Forgot the word "not"
The biggest reason we can kill the Old Gods compared to the Titans is because the Titans tried to rip them physically out of Azeroth. The Old Gods are embedded into the planet like parasites, so trying to rip them out caused damage (when they did it it made the Well of Eternity, which was Azeroth's natural magics bleeding out).
The old gods aren't dead. Just sleeping.
The culling of Stratholme wasn't out of some sense of offering the infected a mercy killing.
It was a strategic decision
If he hadn't done it, the infected people would have turned, infected the rest of the city, and then over the course of a single horrific day, a massive army of about 25 thousand undead would have started an unstoppable rampage across Lorderon, growing larger with every town and village they destroyed.
It would almost certainly have been the end of Lorderon.
Don’t worry, the Zandalari are ok, but their empire shrank to the places nearest to their capital city, which stayed above water when the old giant continent broke up sank underwater
I'm not sure what else you already have lined up but Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos (also 1 and 2 but especially 3) and it's expansion The Frozen Throne give some fantastic and more-detailed backstory about most of the major WoW characters such as Arthas, Illidan, Thrall... and many more.
Thus I would highly recommend at least checking out the cutscenes, if not playing that game before WoW. (It's a strategy game so it plays very different to mmos, i don't know how broad your game knowledge is sry).
edit: also I've been watching your warcraft videos and they're great!)
I know a bunch have said it, nobbel is a great creator for lore. Really good and gets into the lore. If you want something kinda fun platinumwow is a great character with lot of fun lore videos
@kingdomace id love to see you do a warcraft 3 playthrough its so crazy and so much of the Lore is spawned from that Game its a great way to understand characters and lore for the World of warcraft and its first 2 expansions
34:55 the question that everyone asked since it happened. Bad writing made Garrosh put on the idiot hat and just go full berserk mode attacking everyone for no reason other than he could.
I tell you this, if you really want to understand or dive in World of Warcraft history you should watch the trailer of each expansion 1 at the time and when you end the trailer watch in-game cinematics then hop to the second trailer, and so on, and you will understand it for sure.