Apr 16
WoWE Lore Fluff
Yeah, yeah, lore is fluff. But a lot of people (myself included, actually) find WoW’s backstory kind of interesting. I certainly agree with David’ assessment over at Timesink – WoW has more compelling lore than EQ2 as an example.
I am fully aware that a lot of this is completely subjective, and people’s opinions will vary. I love EverQuest II, it’s a great game, but when compared to WoW, EQII does not feel like a “world” as oppsed to a bunch of loosely connected zones. I’m not criticizing EQII’s use of zoning, that never really bothered me, rather, EQII’s zones feel like zones. They feel like arbitrary areas created to adventure in with no connection or relation to any other parts, nor do they evoke any sense of historical importance.
I try to unravel the complicated threads of the Alliance racial backstories in my weekly WoW Exposed column for GameSetWatch.
3 commentsWhile sci-fi’s played-out tropes have been rehashed and thinned down somewhat in recent years, we haven’t had a truly great genre shake-up for fantasy fans. The result is that even World of Warcraft, as successful and entertaining as it is, bogs down with an endless amount of backstory and genre cliches. Despite that, the lore of Warcraft is interesting stuff. There are a lot of compelling elements, individual tales that you can follow along through the thousands of years of sketched out storyline.
If you ignore the clap-trap about who specifically did what when or the endless back-and-forth between all-powerful entities, there are interesting characters and situations to focus on. Consider this the first in an ongoing series of articles looking at the backstory of Warcraft, with an eye towards making the material as approachable as possible.
3 Comments so far
I actually find WoW’s lore VERY interesting, far more than what SOE have ever done with the EQ franchise.
I’ve been a huge fan of the Warcraft lore for years now. I’ve read most of the books, the RPG, played all the games, and I read the quests in the game. I love all the characters, the racial stories. That’s what draws me back to WoW, is the storyline that I’m actually INTERESTED in.
I actually became interested in Warcraft lore for two reasons.
1.) I read up some Warhammer lore as I was following the game’s MMO development and I was astonished! All the characters and the world itself is filled with deep war torn anti-heroes.
2.) My last big MMO was FFXI which had arguably the best stor-arc in an online game. You pretty much had to be level 75 to enjoy it, but it made the game feel more “epic”
That said I didn’t find WoW’s lore and characters to be as epic as Warhammer, or as well implemented as it was FFXI. It’s pretty good though, and it’s always exciting to run into a major player while questing like Jaina Proudmore or Thrall.
As for EQII I would have to agree, when I tried it, it had a very “vanilla MMO” feel to it. All the quest elements and characters were there, but not once did I ever feel part of a living world it was always just a game to me.
I like the Warcraft lore alot, but it’s also had longer to grow and has been grow more deeply in more forms (RTS, board game, books, MMO). I’ve read the books, non of which will win literary awards, but all of which add color to the characters we see everyday.
This has actually made me more interested in the WarHAMMER lore. Which isn’t odd for me. I didn’t read Lord of the Rings until I started playing Everquest :)