If Blizzard makes a new Warcraft RTS, should events from WoW affect the story?

As someone who passingly enjoyed Warcraft 3 but was never able to get into WoW I would rather they pick up where 3 left off and not touch on events in WoW. I understand why they wouldn't want to ignore all that stuff, but at the same time it makes me wonder how many other people out there are like myself who enjoyed the RTS but never got into the MMO. After watching a video about the Panda expansion for WoW, and seeing how weird they are getting with that world, I was just wondering what others thought about this topic.

I guess as long as they preface the game with a good video to catch up those that never got into WoW it wouldn't really matter all that much. Yet at the same time a lot of shit has happened in the world of world of warcraft, so even if/when they go back to the RTS where would they pick up from? They can't just pick up where WoW is at hat point and go from there can they?

well seeing as how the story in WoW is gimmicky as hell and designed to accomodate an mmorpg I would say no. Also I doubt they will ever make a warcraft rts at this point (or at least it would only be a shallow cash grab for nostalgia). The warcraft brand is world of warcraft at this point.

it doesn't matter.

if we didn't like what they did we could just play up fuck on the internet, cry like bitches and start a petition to change it until it suited exaclty what we thought we were entitled too .

simple

As a former Warcraft lore nerd (and having the neckbeard to prove it) I don't think they could make Warcraft 4 without incorporating the story from WoW without just confusing everyone, unless they just retold the events in WoW.

@Bell_End said:

it doesn't matter.

if we didn't like what they did we could just play up fuck on the internet, cry like bitches and start a petition to change it until it suited exaclty what we thought we were entitled too .

simple

that's scary stuff I know I heard tell on the "this week in tech" show that bioware is actually thinking of appeasing them. Also I lost all respect for that show listening to them talk about how "really cool" it was and how "it's nice to see them being so responsive to their fans concerns" I mean seriously. Is that what gaming is going to become? A bunch of whiny nerds on the internet voting for crowd sourced story archs? I don't want to play games if that becomes totally cool with developers.

I imagine if they make a new Warcraft RTS (which i suspect will show up sometime in the coming decade) they would have a timeline split at the end of Frozen Throne. Where one string carries on through WoW and it's inevitable sequel, and the other tells the RTS story.

I've been thinking about that, and if feels to me as if this Warcraft-story arc should be at an end. Should there ever be a Warcraft IV, then I would like for it to be set in a different time with different characters. Perhaps with some lore about characters in WoW and Warcraft III, but not a frozen part of Arthas' nose lying dormant somewhere and suddenly awakening.

I used to think like Donkeycow but I despair..
What haven't they retconned..
Makes Mass Effect 3 make sense..

WoW is Warcraft 4,5,6,7,8.....

Of course the events should affect it. Otherwise you're creating a parallel universe. There are two options, either they annoy the fans that never liked or got into WoW, or they tell all of the fans that got into WoW "oh, uh, all that story stuff... that never actually happened." Which do you think would piss more people off? I'm guessing the latter. So the evens effect the story. Now, is that to say that if they ever do another Warcraft RTS that it has to cut into the middle of what WoW is doing. It could be an "After the fact." It could take place hundreds or thousands of years after WoW with a greatly changed environment and world and a story that doesn't have anything to do with the previous Warcraft stories other than acknowledge that all of those events happened in the past.

The events in WoW also aren't that crazy when you consider the story stuff that happened in Warcraft 1-3 plus all of the novels. There's a lot of story there, and most of it doesn't really matter and is most often best just summed up in some brief way or another, but it's not inherently that much crazier than anything that came before it.

@Cloneslayer said:

WoW is Warcraft 4,5,6,7,8.....

but...! (no, I see what you did there^^)

seriously, I never understood or cared much for the lore in WarCraft ... I just want to hear peons grunt "work work" before they go off to build a tower and I'm happy.

If they ever made a new Warcraft RTS, they would simply have to include all of WoW's events in the story, lest they render WoW's story obsolete. And that game makes a lot of money.

@FateOfNever: I guess my point is just that there has been so much lore in WoW at this point, the world has been destroyed and remade for crying out loud, that to just pick up where WoW is at the some point seems silly. Even if they did a video to catch people up who are not into it, it would have to be a good 20-30 min long thing to get all the major story events in there.

Anyway, it's certainly a complicated situation and I would not envy the poor folks that got tasked with deciding how to go with it.

I loved the Warcraft 2 lore but didn't really like everything they released since then in the Warcraft universe. It became too childish, especially with WoW. And now ... Pandas ... *sigh*

THEY KILLED ARTHAS!!! No excuses.

With all the ways wow has been revised & nerfed over the years, anything new using the wow lore would probably be just as junky as wow is with all the pop culture/fan service in it.

How could anyone possibly say no? They'd never ignore all that's happened, no matter how much you whine about it.

@CptBedlam: I agree with you to an extent, but i did still really enjoy the human and undead campaigns in WC3. That being said i think humanizing the Orcs and some of the tonal shifts were a mistake. But also prior to WC3 the Warcraft fiction was not unique enough and needed to grow.

No, I just think they should put a middle finger up to all the hard work put into continuing the story and make us do it all over again with a couple of minor changes in an RTS format.

Sarcasm, btw.

Maybe if there actually is anything to salvage story wise, wasn't the story in WOW mostly random and incoherent? But generally no, I think WarCraft 4 would do better without motorcycles or characters named after members of The Beatles, though there could be room for some in-jokes about the nature of WOW rather than what it brought to the universe story wise, I could see gathering resources by sending a billion "you are the chosen one" warriors on fetch quests.

@crusader8463: But what's the alternative? You go "Ok, well, let's just go back and revisit this story that we already wrapped up and did once and that before we wrapped it up had been haunting us for six years already and drag it out for another six."? That would probably be worse. Even if I didn't keep up with the WoW story, I don't want to live a theoretical ten, twenty years in the past. I also don't think the key points of WoW are as difficult or long to summarize as you think.

Vanilla - Cult rises that worships elementals, tries to summon evil fire lord to destroy the world. Black dragons are evil and are the sons and daughters of Death Wing and need to die. Horrible ancient insect race. Arthas tries invading Eastern Kingdoms again and fails.

Burning Crusade - Section of High Elves form the Blood Elves and join the Horde. Space goats called Draenei fall to Azeroth and join the Alliance for no good reason other than they met them first and the blood elves are kind of ass holes. Kael'thas undermines Illidan and joins the Burning Crusade proper and tries to destroy the world with Kil'jaeden. Illidan pouts in his castle and gets beat by Mai'ev and the old Broken Draenei guy from War3. Also wrap up some other loose ends like Lady Vashj.

Wrath of the Lich King - Take the fight to Arthas, find out about ancient Azeroth and the Titans and the Old Gods and that the Old Gods have been the ones manipulating Arthas all along. The Alliance get the greatest hero of all time and the only one that can take the crown of Lich King from Arthas and keep the Scourge under control to keep them from running wild over the entire planet. Also dragon aspects.

Cataclysm - Deathwing breaks free from his 'prison' and the Old God make another play for power on destroying the world with Deathwing and the Twilight Hammer Cult (which appeared in Vanilla.) The world gets a make-over due to Deathwing, Thrall gives up the Horde to take care of the whole world falling apart, some leaderships change hands but seriously if you don't care enough to have followed the story before this point you don't care about power heads changing. Goblins joins the Horde because of Thrall and a shitty leader and some truly bad writing. Worgen join the Alliance because the Night Elves are to blame for everything and feel guilty about the situation. Deathwing and the Twilight Hammer's Cult get wiped up pretty easily and quickly but the Dragon Aspects lose their power and status to make it happen.

Ok, there, I just gave you a brief run down of the events of WoW to date. The thing is though is that if you stopped following the story at War3, none of that matters to you. You're not actually invested in the story. And if you're not invested in the story, then why should the next chapter in the story be aimed at only you? (And I don't mean just YOU you, but you the figurative "people that haven't stayed with the story so far.") Did more than that happen? Yes. But the thing is the finer points don't matter to someone that doesn't go out of their way to find them anyway. Your average person that doesn't really follow the story probably doesn't care that Malfurion was trapped in the Emerald Nightmare, finally got free, and that the Dragon Aspects finally blessed the "new" world tree to be the ACTUAL world tree instead of just the Night Elves saying it was the world tree despite the fact that they made it against the wishes of the Dragon Aspects. None of that matters because none of that means anything to someone that isn't already that deep or has no urge to be that deep in the story. And if you have a desire to know the story, you can brush up on all of the WoW lore without ever even touching the game. Between the books and online Wiki's and everything, you can learn pretty much everything there is to know about the WoW story if you want to go that deep in the lore.

So in regards to a theoretical Warcraft RTS coming along in let's say... ten years. What good does it do them to sort of "reset" the story back to Arthas? Why not just find a way to start from a figurative clean slate that takes place after all of the events of WoW and gives that game itself closure? The RTS could reference events from Warcraft 1 to the Ending of WoW, but none of it would be mandatory. It would be the same way that Warcraft 3 picked up from a new starting point after Warcraft 2. It continued the universe, but the actual events of 1 and 2 weren't vital to understanding the story in Warcraft 3 (it helped if you did follow the lore and was more of a pay off, but you could also enjoy the game without being knee deep in the lore already.) And the only reason Starcraft 2, for example, needed a "recap" of Starcraft is because the story was a direct continuation. If Warcraft 4 wasn't a direct continuation, there would be no reason to have a recap.

Well I don't think we will see a Warcraft IV in the next couple years. And by that I mean 5+.

Anyways, when they do develop it, they can't just ignore the WoW stuff. That would be super weird and you should never do something like that with your franchise. It's just bad for infinite obvious reasons that 2 different paths just suck.

@FateOfNever: Sounds good to me.

Warcraft 4 would in theroy take place after the events of WoW. Stuff like traveling to outland, Northrend, and the Sundering of the world happened.

People focusing on the Tuaren Cheiftens and motorcycles are just being silly. That stuff has always been just the side story. The "Main" story of WoW is just a continuation of the Warcraft games.

This issue is though WoW still killed off too many important and interesting characters without introducing enough new ones that are of any proper interest. It would be a bland game without many familiar faces or continuing story beats if they picked up from the end of WoW.

As an outsider, I was interested in everything up until Arthas' death. I was looking forward to a new Warcraft game where I would get to do that. I was just never the MMO kind of person. But yeah, it's not going to be ignored. Actually, I don't think they'll make a new RTS, and if they do, it'll be so far into the future now that no one will remember me saying that.

Besides the fact that WoW and SC2 (and Diablo 3 soon) have sold like (and still are!) hot cakes, I see a lot of potential for Blizzard to make a new RTS for Warcraft in a few years.
 
I hope they continue where WoW will leave off eventually, the mere idea of Blizzard making a RTS like SC2 but with all the new tech....sounds amazing!

It is hard to imagine Blizzard going back to Warcraft rts. First off, Starcraft is huge in the rts world, bigger than warcraft ever was, and they are currently developing expansions for that game. Diablo 3 is coming out, with undoubtedly expansions soon to follow. Titan is currently in development. Blizzard dota looks like it should be coming out in the near future. Even a new WoW expansion is coming out soon. I wouldn't worry about the story, but whether or not it will even be released in the next decade.

Considering the majority of wow at this point is pop culture references and gags, I hope not. I can't imagine them doing a new RTS unless they decide to do something to bridge WOW and WOW2...if that ever comes.

@Grimmy616 said:

THEY KILLED ARTHAS!!! No excuses.

Yep and now they've killed Deathwing. They keep killing off the best characters in raids and it keeps slowly killing my interest in ever going back to WoW.

@MariachiMacabre said:

@Grimmy616 said:

THEY KILLED ARTHAS!!! No excuses.

Yep and now they've killed Deathwing. They keep killing off the best characters in raids and it keeps slowly killing my interest in ever going back to WoW.

Because it's better when a story stagnates and nothing ever happens, right?

I don't really care, because I only play WC3 for the TD gametypes.

@FateOfNever said:

@MariachiMacabre said:

@Grimmy616 said:

THEY KILLED ARTHAS!!! No excuses.

Yep and now they've killed Deathwing. They keep killing off the best characters in raids and it keeps slowly killing my interest in ever going back to WoW.

Because it's better when a story stagnates and nothing ever happens, right?

Killing off the best characters of the series is not my idea of good story development. No need to get defensive. I just don't like the idea of Deathwing dying in a fight with a bunch of unimportant warriors. It just means that, unless they start giving us more villains than just the Old Gods, they're going to run out of good antagonists. Garrosh is already confirmed to most-likely die at the end of Pandaria so that actually interesting story is done soon. I just really want some more good villains.

@MariachiMacabre said:

@FateOfNever said:

@MariachiMacabre said:

@Grimmy616 said:

THEY KILLED ARTHAS!!! No excuses.

Yep and now they've killed Deathwing. They keep killing off the best characters in raids and it keeps slowly killing my interest in ever going back to WoW.

Because it's better when a story stagnates and nothing ever happens, right?

Killing off the best characters of the series is not my idea of good story development. No need to get defensive. I just don't like the idea of Deathwing dying in a fight with a bunch of unimportant warriors. It just means that, unless they start giving us more villains than just the Old Gods, they're going to run out of good antagonists. Garrosh is already confirmed to most-likely die at the end of Pandaria so that actually interesting story is done soon. I just really want some more good villains.

Sorry, it's just a thing I've been hearing since like Burning Crusade. "Oh no, they killed Illidan, this story sucks now!" "OMG! How could they kill Arthas!? He was the main character of Warcraft!" etc. It's an old tune that's incredibly short sighted. If you want more villains, that's fine. But this idea that people seem to have that villains should never die or be defeated or anything simply because they're well written is silly. Isn't it better for a well written villain, or character, to die off at the end of their story than to be dragged out into the mud every couple of months for some easy fan service? Do people really want Arthas coming back up as the main villain in two, three, four more expansions because every time he somehow escapes being killed? How does that make him a good character if that happens?

On the subject of WoW needing more villains though, I believe they have them. People just don't look in the right places. Garrosh is a great villain. Sylvanas is a great villain. Moira is a great villain. Lorthemar (the Blood Elf leader) has potential to become a good villain, Gallywix is a great villain that they'll admittedly probably never touch (sadly almost all of the great possible villains are resting in leadership roles Horde side though...) And with Blizzard explicitly stating that their goal moving into Pandaria is for faction conflict, I think that's where people need to start looking for their villains; the other factions. Not to be looking to the outside for more villains, and that's a good change of pace from always running into "Big Bad Guy #X That Could Destroy the Whole World but We Still Won't Set Aside Our Differences Completely to Beat Them." I agree that there need to be good villains and that sooner or later there need to be more third party antagonists. I just think the idea that characters that are well written become "untouchable" just because they're well written is bad logic.

Now if you want to make the argument to me that Arthas died in an unsatisfactory manner, or that something more should have been done with Deathwing, or things along that line, I think there can be good conversations to be had there. I don't think that they should be immune to dying or having their stories come to a close, however.

@FateOfNever said:

@MariachiMacabre said:

@FateOfNever said:

@MariachiMacabre said:

@Grimmy616 said:

THEY KILLED ARTHAS!!! No excuses.

Yep and now they've killed Deathwing. They keep killing off the best characters in raids and it keeps slowly killing my interest in ever going back to WoW.

Because it's better when a story stagnates and nothing ever happens, right?

Killing off the best characters of the series is not my idea of good story development. No need to get defensive. I just don't like the idea of Deathwing dying in a fight with a bunch of unimportant warriors. It just means that, unless they start giving us more villains than just the Old Gods, they're going to run out of good antagonists. Garrosh is already confirmed to most-likely die at the end of Pandaria so that actually interesting story is done soon. I just really want some more good villains.

Sorry, it's just a thing I've been hearing since like Burning Crusade. "Oh no, they killed Illidan, this story sucks now!" "OMG! How could they kill Arthas!? He was the main character of Warcraft!" etc. It's an old tune that's incredibly short sighted. If you want more villains, that's fine. But this idea that people seem to have that villains should never die or be defeated or anything simply because they're well written is silly. Isn't it better for a well written villain, or character, to die off at the end of their story than to be dragged out into the mud every couple of months for some easy fan service? Do people really want Arthas coming back up as the main villain in two, three, four more expansions because every time he somehow escapes being killed? How does that make him a good character if that happens?

On the subject of WoW needing more villains though, I believe they have them. People just don't look in the right places. Garrosh is a great villain. Sylvanas is a great villain. Moira is a great villain. Lorthemar (the Blood Elf leader) has potential to become a good villain, Gallywix is a great villain that they'll admittedly probably never touch (sadly almost all of the great possible villains are resting in leadership roles Horde side though...) And with Blizzard explicitly stating that their goal moving into Pandaria is for faction conflict, I think that's where people need to start looking for their villains; the other factions. Not to be looking to the outside for more villains, and that's a good change of pace from always running into "Big Bad Guy #X That Could Destroy the Whole World but We Still Won't Set Aside Our Differences Completely to Beat Them." I agree that there need to be good villains and that sooner or later there need to be more third party antagonists. I just think the idea that characters that are well written become "untouchable" just because they're well written is bad logic.

Now if you want to make the argument to me that Arthas died in an unsatisfactory manner, or that something more should have been done with Deathwing, or things along that line, I think there can be good conversations to be had there. I don't think that they should be immune to dying or having their stories come to a close, however.

This is my thought exactly. It's not that they're killing the villains, it's that they're doing it in a way that makes me wonder how it took so long for these villains to die because they die in such a lame way. They paint the picture that the activities of these villains are detrimental to everyone but then the way they die is never befitting. That's why I was hoping they wouldn't kill off Deathwing because it opened the possibility for more involvement in future content. Hopefully with the Siege of Orgrimmar at the end of MoP, it'll give a good inner-evil for the Horde to rid itself of and a possibly awesome fight between Garrosh and Thrall (dear god I would enjoy that).

I think most fans of Warcraft 3, wish WoW,never happened, we'd probably have Warcraft 4 by now.

So no, if they ever make a 4th game, they should just forget everything about WoW.

@BPRJCTX said:

I think most fans of Warcraft 3, wish WoW,never happened, we'd probably have Warcraft 4 by now.

So no, if they ever make a 4th game, they should just forget everything about WoW.

I think you would be wrong in thinking what most fans of Warcraft 3 wish. Unless you're psychic. That would be kind of nifty if you were though.

@Buscemi said:

I've been thinking about that, and if feels to me as if this Warcraft-story arc should be at an end. Should there ever be a Warcraft IV, then I would like for it to be set in a different time with different characters. Perhaps with some lore about characters in WoW and Warcraft III, but not a frozen part of Arthas' nose lying dormant somewhere and suddenly awakening.

Warcraft 40k?

@FateOfNever said:

@BPRJCTX said:

I think most fans of Warcraft 3, wish WoW,never happened, we'd probably have Warcraft 4 by now.

So no, if they ever make a 4th game, they should just forget everything about WoW.

I think you would be wrong in thinking what most fans of Warcraft 3 wish. Unless you're psychic. That would be kind of nifty if you were though.

Well, i am.

Warcraft lore is pretty good, or at least I thought so when I played the games. WoW lore is actually not very good by comparison. Nevertheless, they already decided what happens after Warcraft 3 and written it considerably further on from there. It's way too much for them to retcon.

I loved the Warcraft 2 lore but didn't really like everything they released since then in the Warcraft universe. It became too childish, especially with WoW. And now ... Pandas ... *sigh*

@SeriouslyNow said:

@CptBedlam said:

I loved the Warcraft 2 lore but didn't really like everything they released since then in the Warcraft universe. It became too childish, especially with WoW. And now ... Pandas ... *sigh*

Pandas were part of the lore in WC3.

Really? I played only half-way through WC3 because I didn't like it that much, so I may have missed it.

They were in a mission or two. It was just one Pandren, but he was a traveler from, you guessed it, Pandaria.

Yes.

Yes it's all cannon.

If they ever made a new Warcraft RTS, they would simply have to include all of WoW's events in the story, lest they render WoW's story obsolete. And that game makes a lot of money.

@CptBedlam said:

@SeriouslyNow said:

@CptBedlam said:

I loved the Warcraft 2 lore but didn't really like everything they released since then in the Warcraft universe. It became too childish, especially with WoW. And now ... Pandas ... *sigh*

Pandas were part of the lore in WC3.

Really? I played only half-way through WC3 because I didn't like it that much, so I may have missed it.

Yup. They had a hidden little thing in one mission and then the orc campaign for Frozen Throne had Chen Stormstout, a Pandaren Brewmaster that helped out Rexxar in helping build up Ogrimmar.

@DystopiaX said:

@Buscemi said:

I've been thinking about that, and if feels to me as if this Warcraft-story arc should be at an end. Should there ever be a Warcraft IV, then I would like for it to be set in a different time with different characters. Perhaps with some lore about characters in WoW and Warcraft III, but not a frozen part of Arthas' nose lying dormant somewhere and suddenly awakening.

Warcraft 40k?

Oh, for sure! In this case I would actually be for Arthas returning in the form of a dormant ear. He could control a war machine with his ear lobe.