Thread 96150287

You are given the task of making a new warcraft RPG, you can reset the timeline to any spot and continue on from there making any new lore or story you want.
How do you save warcraft?

I let the deal between blizzard and gw actually go through

Setting: WotLK-wea
Solution: thicc latinas
Ruleset: WFRP styled d100 system

>>96150295
so more goblins?

>>96150294
I meant the warcraft timeline, not real life.

>>96150334
Then I dont fucking know. Maybe make the goblin and halfling girls skimpier.

>>96150347
I don't think that'll help.

>>96150358
you'd be surprised.

>>96150287 (OP)
>Delete everything that happened after Legion >RPG starts 50 years after Sargeras fucks off
Things have been relatively peaceful, the Cataclysm is a distant memory for most, Bolvar still napping on the Frozen throne. Most of the non-immortal characters from WoW era are effectively retired. The lack of constant war means most races only loosely stick to the old Horde vs. Ally divide. Night Elves and Forsaken in particular would become more insular. For the most part, let players choose their allegiances. Return to the vanilla formula and focus on regional threats that make the world feel bigger and not cosmic god-tier bullshit. Basically, you wipe the slate clean and make WoW2.

I have no opinion on system, but you want something basic and capable of meeting the fiction.

Time wise, I would sort of Season of Discovery it.
Go back to Warcraft the RPG or Classic and drip-feed the later expansions.
Focusing more on resolving storyline’s from each expansion, skipping Warlords of Draneor and cumulating in Legion where the Day Is Saved for good.
Keep levels within limits, Outland and Northrend might be higher but they aren’t higher than Molten Core.

Lore stays at Wrath at latest. Pulling from the Warcraft RPG first. Dranei are weirdos and not an entirely different species, longer between games.

>>96150287 (OP)
Video games.

>>96150663
Return to classic is really the only choice. Take what blizz did with outland and northrend as base for those places but completely ignore the story they made. They're just setting elements.

>>96150287 (OP)
Would go back at wc3 frozen throne. Would make a system in which players are the leaders of small retinues.

>>96151575
and?

I know this is supposed to be a lore and bitching about Blizzard thread.
But it always bothered me how night elves in the rpg had this very standard + DEX, - CON. When they are actually buff and huge.
Suggestions: Make night elves males have a bonus for strength, give the girls the bonus for dexterity. For the malus... God, I fucking hate D&D.

>>96150287 (OP)
>current timeline, so customer can play all the new races and classes
>detailed setting guide for continents, pulling them out of eternal cataclysm statis and filling them with new local scale dangers
>big, overarching villain factions that can be inserted anywhere (legion, void, undead, old gods, naga, you name it)
>self contained local adventures like "stop a crazed titan keeper in Ungoro crater" (level range 10-12)
>large campaign modules like "grand multi location conspiracy of a dreadlord trying to kickstart the fifth war, travel to EK and Kalimdor and have a climactic showdown on Outland" (level range 1-20)
>deep dives into local regions and cultures, add new places and people (like old arathi empire ruins in the arathi highlands. Or in general more towns and cities in the former human hearthland than just a single one)
>scale. Scale, scale, scale. Make it big. Make it vast. Make it comic book & cheesy metal album cover cool and epic

Essentially i would pull a Pathfinder with their focus on adventure books, regional setting guides and focussed class shit like "This is the crunchy magic book, this is the martial book, this is the nature stuff book"

>>96150287 (OP)
>>96152505
if you want a bit more narrative fluff:

>Kalimdor North
In the north, the shadow council stirs again, after having kept low. New warlock cells and demons arise in the shadows, cults are formed within horde and alliance societys. Meanwhile, Satyrs are split between bringing back the emerald nightmare under a new leader (sexy female coombait saytr) and the legion remnants

>Kalimdor central
Centaurs, Harpies and Quilboars are still local dangers and new leaders arise to unite them to fuck with horde and alliance. In dustwallow march, new theramore is build and requires the players aid to establish itself. Deathwing cultists moved in at onyxias lair. The ogres are getting uppity and try to leave the horde. The southsea pirates are a constant danger, as are the naga. Desolance has a huge shadow council presence, trying to corrupt the centurs with fel

>Kalimdor south

Tanaris is pirate, sand troll and desert human fuckery, as well as goblin crime. Un Goros is elemental & primal & nature & titan fuckery. The Quiraji stir anew because of some Aquir generals left over from BFA. Uldum still has the hostile Tol Vir from BFA causing trouble

>EK North
Scarlet Crusade is back in force, filled by many former alliance soldiers fucking mad at the peace with then horde. Nobles finance them. Scourge Warlords are still a presence, the argents are trying to rebuild, the amani are still uppity, the syndicate influenced by the argus wake. New Dalaran is build in the crater. There is lots of political tension between Gilneas, Stromgarde, New Lordaeron (at southshore), Undercity, the Frostwolves, Stormpikes, Wildhammer. Quel Thalas split between horde loyalists and those who want to return to the alliance.

>Central EK
Twilight hammer and twilight drakes and Skaryn are back and a problem, corrupting ogre tribes, kobolds and Troggs. Dark Iron have a large scale ragnaros cult within their society

>>96152546
>EK south
Stormwind still struggles with corruption, Defias see new rise with people mad at peace with the horde. Duskwood still haunted, bloodsail pirates and trolls raid the southern provinces. Some new (or old) evil stirs in Karazhan, blasted land still filled with demon cultists

>South Seas
Kul Tiras still struggles with pirates, naga and old god shit, but also troll raids from zandalari spliter groups. Also internal politics and lingering drust fuckery. Pirates and trolls and Naga everywhere, Zandalar split between peacemongers and warmongers

>Pandaria
Someone trying to fuck with the Mantid again, old god fuckery, new Mogu warlord, rogue titan construct shit

>Northrend
Filled with scourge warlords, ice trolls trying to make a comeback, settlement efforts by horde and alliance, strongpoint of the scarlets, titan fuckery and Vrykul being a problem for everyone

>outland
Demons, local people, ogres, politics, world falling apart, ethereals

>>96150287 (OP)
I embezzle money for years and then leave before it is finished.

>>96150287 (OP)
>How do you save warcraft?
Actually releasing it

>you can reset the timeline to any spot and continue on from there making any new lore or story you want.
Not so important for a RPG setting. What is important is to provide the world in a state that can be used as a background for DMs to fill it with adventures. So you cant really set the timeline at a point that is too narrowly focussed. There also cant be one single overarching story, it must be vague and open enough to allow for all kind of stories. If you want a new concrete story like "Magathan Grimmtotem finally making her big play", thats the stuff for published adventure modules or plot hooks left to the DMs to flesh out

>>96150287 (OP)
Not your personal army Blizzard, but make sure you have a breastmilk meter

>>96150370
This image has never been true

Make futanari draenei canon.

>>96152721
They are

>>96152465
You don't HAVE to stick to true D&D norms even if you keep the d20 system. And you can divorce from it even more than Mutants & Masterminds did if you want, even shit like turning every single in-universe "power system" into its own complex subsystem.

>>96150287 (OP)
Really the crux of it all is having a supported game system at all. Whether or not you cast crusader strike, pyroblast or moon beam during the vanilla, wc3, wc1 or Battle for Azeroth timeline is irrelevant. Its the same spell. If anything, if i wanted to make a buck i would sell a generic players guide, a generic DM guide and then cash in extra by selling them "classic era setting book", "burning crusade era setting book", "Mists of Pandaria Setting Book" and so on. With this you can sell way more products and give each expanion book some optional flavour rules like enviromental dangers for Wrath or some Apexis bullshit for WoD or some class order hall system for the Legion book.

>>96150287 (OP)
I go all the way back to Blackthorne.

I'd move the timeline forward until Azeroth resembles modern-day Earth. I'd have all the gnome girls work office jobs in generic OL outfits. The game system would be called Gnome OL Fucker Simulator 2000.

>>96150287 (OP)
Already doing it. Post-TFT and Rexxar's campaign. Making the lore actually make sense based on WCIII alone, avoiding the current hellscape of piling retcons upon retcons.
Modifying the d6 system family to do it.

>>96153948
Keeping anything from The Mess, or just gutting the whole thing anon? I always like hearing about people's takes on the WC setting.

>>96154216
There's a number of cool concepts, or at least popular things that aren't wholly bad, that can be cannibalized.

Dark Iron Dwarves are commonly brought up in a positive light. I even think Draenei can have a place with a different name as an offshoot of Eredar. Just not as a sci-fi race that replaces the original Draenei.

Personally I'm a fan of Vrykul and the Valkyr, and the latter's involvement with Sylvanas, but with a saner context.

On the other hand, Illidan, Muradin, killed demons... they're all dead and gone for good. Everything involving the titans doesn't exist in WCIII, and I don't really want to shove it in and unhinge the setting.

>>96154559
> I even think Draenei can have a place with a different name as an offshoot of Eredar. Just not as a sci-fi race that replaces the original Draenei.
Are there really, i mean REALLY people who care about this? I have never encountered anyone who actually gave a fuck

>>96154648
That and the kael/blood elf changes are a few of the most egregious things TBC did and I've seen being talked about over and over

>>96154728
Sure, its being talked about here on /tg/ or /v/, but outside of that ive never encountered anyone who gave a fuck. And 4chan is usually the place of utterly buck broken wow haters who made it patholocial

##96153830
You'd turn them into pudgy vtubers with no real world skills and a socially approved aversion to magic with dependance on goblin grown food stuffs and an addiction to Tale of Southern Wonder Land Forsaken Men. Oh I have been away haven't / ?
Good to see you,, Cloud!<
My apologies for activating your Draeneibergers!!
>Vi ĉiam antaŭenigas la "templinion" por povi retiriĝi en la eternan pasintecon de senkonsekvenca infanaĝo! La lastan fojon, kiam ni havis ĉi tiun konversacion ĉe la tria okulnivelo, vi petis, ke la fina fantazio-sekcio de Fulptown Newgrounds estu forviŝita! Mi diris al vi, kion mi farus, se vi aperus denove!!!
>>Shìdài sēnlín zài shénshèng de chóngbài zhōng shēngzhǎng_
>>>Rocket to insanity! Space Ni, Row achtzhen<<<
>>>/mlp/

I set it during the War of the Ancients. Whole world is going to hell and it's primarily about you trying to hold your little corner of the world together.

>>96154897
War of the Ancients basically means the majority of Warcraft races/factions that people want to play don't exist yet.

>>96154949
Yep you gotta play as races native to Azeroth. Elf and some variants, Tauren, Furbolgs, Earthen, Trolls, early Humans. You could release expansions for Pandaria and Northrend. Game could cover the chaos of the War and then the insanity of the sundering.

>>96154816
No one cares about pre-WoW lore in general compared to WoW, so I don't see your point

>>96154648
I'm not sure how many people could be said to actually care about it, but for me it's kind of like oldcrons vs newcrons - both are cool, but losing one for the other sucks (even if we technically still have TFT draenei via the Broken).

>>96153830
Goblin OL >>> Gnome OL

>>96150287 (OP)
Cataclysm 2.0, but the world is actually destroyed and everything is reset to zero.
Starts off with the Alliance Rebellion. Peasants and soldiers that are sick of constantly working with races that slaughtered their families overthrow the king and start a civil war that ends the Alliance.
Without the Alliance to focus on, the fragile bonds between the different races of the Horde break down, and it collapses without any outside influence.
Some new or ancient threat shows up like it always does, but there's no more Alliance or Horde to band together, so it ravages Azeroth, causing another sundering like event.
Draenei flee to another planet. Gnomes are wiped out by Troggs and go extinct. Goblins devolve slightly. It becomes every race for themselves. Without a central power, the old noble human kingdoms regain their power and territory. The world and its people are divided. The lands between settlements are filled with monsters, warlords, bandits, and demons. The elves are restarting their empires. The Dwarves have abandoned the surface. The undead lose their minds. Orcs go feral. Trolls disappear. Tauren get bullied by centaur.
(You) play as a Arthas, who has finally rez'd at a spirit healer and is ready to rebuild Lordaeron

>>96150287 (OP)
after defeating the j'hlor, reality starts falling apart without the sigils, so the player has to meet the female personification of azeroth herself in the deadlands where they find out that an AI-like construct like j'hlor tasked with maximizing happiness and minimizing suffering went rogue and became the embodiment and nhilism and entropy. after proving yourself worthy to ms. azeroth, the old gods give you their blessing by giving you a magic spaceship, sending you to a place filled with dead worlds and you have to use the power of hope and the friends that you made along the way, defeating the villain by delivering that the existential answer to life was on azeroth all along.

>>96150287 (OP)
Reset the timeline to start of Classic, but include various regions that were only elaborated on later: Gilneas is fighting a civil war over Genn's Wall and dealing with the first outbreaks of the Curse, Arthas up in Northrend is consolidating power to launch a new invasion of the world, the Blood Elves are casting about for allies, etc. Fix all the Blizztardation and lore contradictions, hire some writers who actually care about the setting and some editors who actually care about quality. Many of the racial/minor plot hooks from Classic were actually pretty good, so keep those and use them to give GMs some easy ways to make adventures.

Change the mouthfeel of the world and art from what it became, lean more on how empty and devastated the world of Azeroth is. Lordaeron and Alterac have been obliterated, completely depopulated apart from some undead squatting on the ruins. Stormwind is in ruins, the city itself a massive refugee camp still being rebuilt from the devestation of the First War. Stromgarde has collapsed into banditry and petty warlords. Kul Tiras and Gilneas have shut themselves off from the world and the latter is about to consume itself. In Kalimdor, the Night Elves are broken race trying to build a new home. The orcs have found a home, but their numbers have dwindled from a mighty horde to a few tens of thousands, with only one tribe of tauren and trolls each as allies. This is a new Dark Age, and while there's hope and light and the worst of the Apocalypse is over (for now), things are still going to get worse before they get better.

As for systems, obviously a in-depth race/class system with plenty of gameplay implications is important. Some sort of adventuring band system like >>96151575 suggested. Move the plot forwards slowly with adventure books and new editions, taking vanilla the expansions as a rough guide (but ignoring any and all shitty Blizz writing) up through perhaps MoP. After that, go in a new direction

>>96154648
I do. I care. Akuma was a real nigga and draeeifags deserve the futa allegations for retconning him.
>>96155077
>it's kind of like oldcrons vs newcrons
It's honestly even worse, since the two concepts are completely divergent from one another and the retcon to stitch them together just makes it even worse. It'd be like if oldcrons were replaced with tau and then they retcon oldcrons to be time traveling tau from a future where Chaos won all along before shunting them off to a distant corner of the galaxy and discontinuing their range.

I guess you could liken it to the squats => votann change over the oldcrons => newcrons.

>>96154648
>Are there really, i mean REALLY people who care about this?
Yes, there were and are. Draenei were very controversial when they were first introduced. The entire thing came way out of left field and they took over the w3 draenei completely. The fact the women were super hot definitely helped smooth things over but their initial implementation was handled awfully.

>>96155976
Yeah but what if a player decided to Jailer Trance?

>>96156237
>tfw everything related to that project is gone cause it was all on a forum that 404'd
Man I wish it was archived. Looks like there was a lot of good stuff but the only thing left are those eastern kingdoms maps cause the guy who made them crossposted them to deviantart

>>96150287 (OP)
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/2lf1663yv21q3/WarCraft
There were two editions of a d20/3.5e adaptation for WoW, and the second one is actually really fun if you add a bit of homebrew here and there.

>>96154559
>Everything involving the titans doesn't exist in WCIII, and I don't really want to shove it in and unhinge the setting.
Actually, the titan story is originally told in the Burning Legion history for the Warcraft 3 user manual (http://ftp.blizzard.com/pub/misc/Warcraft%20III%20Manual.pdf).
There are still a ton of retcons between Sargeras' origin in Warcraft 2/3 and the WoW story.

>>96150287 (OP)
What parts of Warcraft's lore are actually better than replacement for a TTRPG? I only really played WC3 (bit of WoW for the first couple expansions, but never past 20-ish), but the only thing that seems at all interesting in particular are Night Elves. Maybe Orcs too, at a stretch? So much of it is just "our elves are like this" (elves) or "here is lore piled on lore" (unless the players played WC3, trash).

https://davidmaynard.itch.io/throne-of-chaos

Found some rules. Bolt what you like from the original Warcraft RPG and go nuts.

>>96158687
Its personal preference and matter of taste, really. At its very basis, it doesnt really matter wheter or not you´re fighting a necromancer cult in the Kingdom of Keoland or the Kingdom of Lordaeron. There isnt a objective answer of which one is better. Maybe you like the warcraft visuals more. Maybe you think that a place Stormwind has more interesting neighbours, with trolls to the south, orcs and dark irons to the north, than Cormyr. Maybe some warcraft place or people just gives you a warm fuzzy feeling of nostalia that Solamnia and Warforged cant. Wholly depends on the individual

>>96157313
chris metzen hire this body type 2

>>96150287 (OP)
I don't even try, because Warcraft is for fags.

>>96158351
>manual
The manual is... weird. It was in part written by map designers and who knows who else on the staff, and it shows. It mentions unicorns and tries to build lore around what are clearly just gameplay elements, like reviving fallen heroes at altars. It's similar to how the tabletop books also have random parts that don't really fit.

So I don't think it's a good source for lore. The game itself is consistent and serves as the best basis imo. Anything outside it is merely secondary.

>>96159792
Yeah, but if I asked that question about a lot of fantasy settings, you could say something other than "personal preference and matter of taste."

Like, Eberron has changelings, warforged, the Last War; Elder Scrolls has its active gods and rich mythology (in the literal sense of Aedra and Daedra, not Deep Lore); Dark Souls has its world-running-down vibes; and that's just off the top of my head, in the subgenre of "trad fantasy" material (versus, say, Zelda or Mistborn or whatever).

It's fine, for the purposes of a video game, that Warcraft's world basically looks like any generic D&D setting, because it's based around caring about the characters (Arthas, Jaina, Illidan, Maiev, Thrall, Sylvanas, etc) and plot, but I'm not playing out the characters in a TTRPG, and I'm certainly not playing out the plot.

>>96150287 (OP)
Obvious answer is obvious. You set the RPG during the 5 year timeskip after Shadowlands.
>No mega big bad to conflict with WoW content meaning anything can happen
>Lots of room for adventuring opprotunities
>Most big name factions still exist as remnants for the GM to asspull as they wish
>Post Horde vs Alliance world state lets you mix and mach races easily for any character
>Smorgasboard of locations from all the previous xpac continents that are all reachable without big asspulls that you'd need for earlier date lore
Blizzard really should do this as there are no downsides. And before grognards sperg out, Horde vs Alliance was shit writing ever since Vanilla and should have stopped with AQ event.

>>96160095
Well i mean, you can say Warcraft has its factions and their evolving will-they-wont-they rivalry and as big selling point core to the IP. And they have been a forerunner for the whole "monstrous traditionally evil races can be good guys too" with the Horde. Its just so common by now that people rarely even bother bringing that up. And if changelings count, you might as well mention stuff like spacefaring magitech- cosmic force of good Draenei, warcrafts unique take of jungle/ forst/ ice/ sand trolls who arent just dumb brutes but have whole civilisations going, or stuff like their goblins arent random low level mobs but crazed hyper capitalist mad inventors.

>>96158687
At this point Warcraft has a treasure trove of unique cultures, races, creatures and locations all bound together by decades of story that connect them all. I would 100% preffer it over DnD's settings like Faerune because it gives waaay more flavor right out the gates. For example, every characters race will already tie them down to the world by where they come from, what are their relationship with their faction, how they likely view other races (a Kul Tiran and a Zandalari in one party is like a Serb and a Croat in one bar), what they know of the world from what they seen. As a GM you can pick from a whole library of enemy types and evil organizations to be the antagonists and all of them will have different goals and ways of operating just based on who they are. Meanwhile in basic fantasy settings anyone can be anyone because the world really is one big blender where you can drop a random castle in whatever field and it will work as a dungeon - it just has no flavor unless you work hard to add it.

>>96160303
>At this point Warcraft has a treasure trove of unique cultures, races, creatures and locations all bound together by decades of story that connect them all.
The issue is that most have near-zero depth as one-off expansion-fodder, whereas basically any effort digging into Faerun shows enormous volumes of lore about the particulars for quite a few. Granted, even that surface-level exposure in WoW is better than quite a lot of the monstrous humanoids even when you count Dragon Magazine articles, but you don't exactly get detailed logistical considerations on underground cities or exact street layouts complete with amenities out of Blizzard.

>As a GM you can pick from a whole library of enemy types and evil organizations to be the antagonists and all of them will have different goals and ways of operating just based on who they are.
I'll agree that it's at least easier than D&D official settings, because the limited depth of most cases doesn't matter much for disposable antagonists and most of them are downstream of something with more depth, even if only marginally.

>>96160303
I would add a strong visual identity on top of that. I have no fucking idea how the average soldier on the various kingdoms in Toril, Greyhawk or Ebberon even look like. Warcraft on the other hand has very distinct and recognizable identities for its factions.

>>96158687
Seemingly eternal human and elven kingdoms and magic cities which bested the uncivilized orcs, brought to the threat of extinction from a unified undead and demon host. So much so that the remnants had to resort to consorting with the demons, being subjected to the undead if not reanimated themselves, become radical zealots, or rely on the same orcs they thought were inferior.

In Kalimdor you have a various mix of tribal societies: the shamanistic, warmongering orcs struggling to find a new existence and leave behind the old, the jungle islander trolls escaping an apocalyptic event of their own, and the nomadic, land-revering tauren under onslaught from savage raiders. And of course there's the night elves who had to renounce their magical splendor and extravagance and live as moon-worshiping forest dwellers. And after these cultures had to come together, what's left is a land of ancient ruins and mysteries, forests scorched by the elves' age-old enemies and new corruption, and their past coming literally crawling out of the depths.

To round it all out, there's a plethora of independent factions, old feuds, dissention in both the undead and demon ranks, and the prospect of war between these two vast, unholy forces.

>>96150287 (OP)
Legitimately, start with Dragonflight.
>Rough truce era; can utilize both mixed-faction parties and 'PVP' parties
>Larger variety of races/backgrounds available, as well as larger location variety
>Can utilize pretty much any villain faction remnants to work as the bad guys. Legion remnants? Scourge remnants? Iron Horde remnants? All on the table.
Despite the shit in BFA and SL, DF actually does offer a proper starting point for an RPG party. And bad as it is to say, you can always pull in the Bronze Flight to let the party get involved in any of the big historical fights, as that precedent has been long set.

>>96150287 (OP)
I go back to the end of Warcraft 3.

That's it. I saved it.
I preferred WC2, but WC3 was OK.
It didn't go to shit until TFT was used completely as a set-up for WoW, and even then TFT had some cool aspects to it, like the Blood Elves.

>>96160429
>Start with Dragonflight
Yes and no, as I said here >>96160273. Starting 5 years BEFORE DF is best as it guarantees no tripping on WoW's toes, while basically achieving the same as Dragonflight. An added bonus is that Blizzard can use this as a way to fill in the timegap and even make some official campaigns like a war against the Scourge that happened off-screen.

>>96160273
>Obvious answer is obvious. You set the RPG during the 5 year timeskip after Shadowlands.
This is not obvious and pretty stupid. Keeping shadowlands as canon is a bad idea.

>>96163803
its really irrelevant and there is next to no reason to even refer to the shadowlands or make them relevant in any way, shape or form, unless you actually go out of your way to do so.

I go back to The Burning Crusade and let the pandaren make it as the Alliance race, removing the bullshit sci-fi elements from the draenei and the Burning Legion.
Alternatively, I go back to the end of MoP and let the Mongrel Horde ending come to fruition.

>>96164041
>its really irrelevant and there is next to no reason to even refer to the shadowlands or make them relevant in any way, shape or form
Sounds like setting it after shadowlands is making it relevant in some way, shape or form.

>>96164041
The fact that you can just go through a stable portal to the afterlife and talk to dead people has massive consequences on the setting and story telling. That fact you can do that, and then take the same portal to the world of the living is even worse. Simply not mentioning this doesn't make it go away.

Made for doggy style

>>96164148
>>96164213
>Simply not mentioning this doesn't make it go away.
It does tho. Blizzard does it that way in Dragonflight and TWW and every single roleplayer i know off does so too for the last ~ 5 years

>>96152698
Yeah goblinfaggotry is just a push of "safe horny" to pretend subversively ugly women are hot

>>96164400
Naw, they can try to run but everyone still remembers the shitshow that was shadowlands

>>96164429
Bottom image is based, tho. Mirko, Momo, and Mina are best girls. Oinkchako is for fags with the most plebian taste.

Durotaur should be irrigated by the southfury and turned into the hordes bread basket.

>>96167804
Wouldn't that basically turn the Barrens into an a desert?

>>96164429
>"safe horny"
Safe-suicide yourself, man, think Canada and Switzerland offer an option

>>96164429
Not even, it's just all downstream of Midna. Not a single person got horny for WoW goblins until they were drawn egregiously off model

>>96150287 (OP)
Everything I don't like from Warcraft started in W3 but W3 is also where Warcraft really became Warcraft. The honorablu orc samurais, dumb pandas and gay Scourge are too much part of Warcraft to have it any other way. If I want simple human knights vs evil orc demons I'd just make my own setting I wouldn't take Warcraft. Which is what I've done.

>>96150287 (OP)
You're asking the impossible. Warcraft franchise died the moment they made sylvanas the poster girl boss bitch. Also magical wheelchairs, also gay parade and helping gay npc quest

>>96170357
>helping gay npc quest
This is so fucking annoying. I tried out the dragon expansion when they had a free weekend. One of the first quests it makes you do is count fish for a gay dragon couple. Really made me feel like a great fantasy hero.

>>96170357
I don't know anon by your standards it seems the setting was fine for over a decade. Those things are very recent.

>>96170445
Anon, Sylvannas became warchief since Legion, that was 2016. She has been one of the stories main focus since then up until shadowlands. Three expansions worth of Sylvanna's girlbossing

>>96170491
That's yesterday to my boomer ass and still over a decade after WC3

>>96170357
>TTRPG
>DM and player have full narrative control about what to include in their game and what not
>muh wheelchair and gay parade npcs
Holy mother of nogame

>>96168313
>Not even, it's just all downstream of Midna. Not a single person got horny for WoW goblins until they were drawn egregiously off model
The fucking irony.

>>96164078
>removing scifi elements
Actually souless. The fact that Warcraft isn't your grandpa's basic fantasy and that it is ready to do its own thing is its main appeal.

>>96168025
No? The southfury doesn't lead into the barrens, it runs out to the sea from durotaur

>>96171033
>mixing fantasy with sci-fi is unique
Hows it feel to be woken up from cryogenesis?

>>96171222
The particular breakdown of actively juxtaposing at least two takes on Mad Science with the Goblins and Gnomes, "Sufficiently Advanced Technology" with a lot of the Titan stuff and some of the Gnome's work, and "Sufficiently Analyzed Magic" with the Legion and assorted Arcane magitech (including other Titan stuff) is pretty unusual. If only because few settings get the volume of content to do a kitchen sink of such magnitude even as little justice as WoW manages.

>>96170442
Plus the gay human couple that teach you about work order. Plus the gay centaur couple that you have to play wedding planner for. And all three of those relationships are portrayed as this saccharine sweet, lovey-dovey shit. It's not just that there were gay couples, it's how performative it all was. "Look! we have the gays now!"

Skub as it is, I've been idly tinkering at a WC hack for MorkBorg for the past month or so, just because its a quick system to hack for and I've not done homebrew in about a decade at this point.

Simple shit- two Meta-factions, four races apiece, four stats, etc.
>Alliance: Human, (Thalassian) Elf, Dwarf, Gnome
>Horde: Orc, Troll, Tauren, Goblin.
You might ask why I've dropped Nelf, Forsaken, Draenei, Worgen- so I can quietly hand out racial stats without worrying about stepping on toes until I feel ready to tackle that shit. Tentative race-stat 'alignment':
>Stamina: Human, Orc
>Strength: Dwarf, Tauren
>Agility: Elf, Troll
>Intellect: Goblin, Gnome
As I said, just idle tinkering done on a system I've not actually worked on before.
>>96171299
Don't forget the Horde rep for the Dracthyr is genderfluid.

>>96150287 (OP)

I guess I'm a 3.5aboo so I'd just do that again (more or less), but timeline-wise I'd include enough material to frame something like OG Warcraft 1 up through about Legion so you can run the long-term mega-campaign if you want.

>>96171033
>removing scifi elements
>Actually souless. The fact that Warcraft isn't your grandpa's basic fantasy
The sci fi stuff just makes it something like a worse Might & Magic

>>96171406
I don't see why you'd keep the two faction system. It's such a drag. How more dynamic factions.

>>96171848
Less directly keeping them, and more just using them to cleanly organise the baseline while I figure out what direction I'm actually going in.

>>96171848
I don't intend to keep them in the long run, it's more I'm using them at the moment to keep things neatly organised while I'm getting my feet under me.

>>96172234
>>96172207
Huh. I guess the post I made without knowing my broadband wasn't working- the first one -went through somehow.

>>96170269
>The honorablu orc samurais, dumb pandas and gay Scourge are too much part of Warcraft to have it any other way
The honorable orcs are just one faction. You still have the demon-worshipping Blackrock orcs. Pandaren are a joke race.
I don't get the Scourge hatred. Is there something particularly wrong with them?
>If I want simple human knights vs evil orc demons
You still have that until TBC or so, when the theme clearly becomes humans and orcs allying against greater evils. Ironically, Cata and MoP brought orcs v. humans back.

>>96150287 (OP)
I make a exact 4e clone with the names of abilities all changed to match shit in WoW.

>>96173538
I actually liked the Scourge itself until Shadowlands but my problem with it is how weak it was and that it was never a real threat.

In W3 Illidan breaks the Frozen Throne so Arthas has to abandon his conquest to fuse with the Lich King, then Sylvanas makes a joke out of his remaining forces and takes back Lordaeron. In WoW the Scourge is only present in two regions and the Lich King sits in Northrend doing nothing until WotLK where he gets raiding and obliterated without ever doing anything.

>>96173538
>Pandaren are a joke race.
It's really baffling to me that people still say this. Like there was never any reason to say this in the first place but especially after pandaria was one of the best expansions this should be dead and buried. No dev ever said pandas were a joke race, people just made that up.

>>96171033
I still don't understand how it works. How are the dwarves/gnomes fielding tanks and giant mecha and bombers and shit, and the orcs are just using big axes and stuff, but they fight as peers? Why don't the orcs copy the mecha designs? Can nobody make gunpowder but dwarves?

>>96174794
They say it because Chen Stormstout was just a one-off WC3 hero Sam Didier made for shits and giggles.

>>96176249
Because its a rule of cool kitchen sink that works on comic book fantasy logic, not on cause and effect. Orcs have loincloth and axe because its cool and their vibe, human have sword and armor and shield because they are a medieval fantasy realm, gnomes have crazy technomagic shit because its a tinker race.

>Can nobody make gunpowder but dwarves?
Gilneas and Kul Tiras would like to have a word with you

>>96176249
>Why don't the orcs copy the mecha designs?
They have Goblins to compete on tech terms "as needed" and Tauren were supposed to be such huge slabs of beef as to smash them anyways before MMO race balance kicked in.

>>96176843
>Sam Didier made for shits and giggles
No, he made them because the guy loves pandas.

>>96174794
They are a joke, not canon and no one likes or accepts them except "ironically" to "own the haters."
>especially after pandaria was one of the best expansio
Anyone stupid enough to defend Shitaclysm will also defend Cringelords of Pandaland.

>>96150287 (OP)
I sit on the license for as long as possible using every tactic of procrastination, delay, and legal wrangling to prevent it being used in any way whatsoever, in the hope that by the time they are able to wrest it back from me this shitty IP has finally fucking died and can stop blighting the rest of fantasy gaming.

>>96176249
Magic compensates tech. Gun, bow, sword - its just a delivery mechanism for your enchantments unless we go into really high tier tech, which usually is just tech that harnesses some type of magical resource.

>>96177170
>Because its a rule of cool kitchen sink that works on comic book fantasy logic, not on cause and effect.
And that's fine for a video game, but it doesn't really work in a TTRPG, that expansive form of fiction where players can reach out and touch anything. Either the PCs can easily change this (in which case all the canon orcs look retarded), or the PCs can't (in which case there needs to be some explanation as to why).

>>96178232
false flag posts like this are so obnoxious

>>96174513
>I actually liked the Scourge itself until Shadowlands but my problem with it is how weak it was and that it was never a real threat.
Fair. I think them being fairly weak makes sense, though, since they were meant to soften Azeroth up for the Burning Legion.
WotLK is where I felt it started to get butchered, though. Shadowlands was just the coup de grace.

>>96174794
>Like there was never any reason to say this in the first place
Picrel is their debut. They're the ending of an easter egg tower defense mission. MoP is when they actually became a serious race, and even then people were drawn in by the memes.

>>96174794
The only people I've seen to be really into worgens, tuaren, and pandareians are furfags.

>>96179565
>furfags
Funny way of spelling customers. And – looking at amount of lousy commissions on FurAffinity and Xitter – they have MONEY.

>>96179565
When I was growing up, I played a Worgen because I thought werewolves were cool and a Pandaren because I thought they were funny

>>96179011
>>96176249
To be fair, distance, both physical and socioeconomic, can do a lot to shape a setting. Dwarves and gnomes obviously wouldn't want to share their tech directly with the Orcs, the Goblins would try to reverse-engineer it but to make it more explosive (and comically blow themselves up in the process), meanwhile the Tauren (and Night Elves) don't trust technology anyways, and the Forsaken have their own mad-scientist stuff going on anyways.

As we all know, the Chinese had gunpowder for years before Europeans weaponized it the way they did, and it took another 300+ years for them to develop the economy of scale for it to become the mainstay of warfare. Plate armor and gunz co-existed for centuries, its why we have the word "bullet-proof."

If anything, varied tech levels in Warcraft make it more believable.

>>96181775
That being said, any DM running a Warcraft campaign (as I am, set at the start of Vanilla era) would do well to consider how the world will continue to change in terms of technology. It's not a medieval-stasis type setting, it's more like the Renaissance or even the Age of Exploration, which any DM can really have a field day with.

>>96179676
Epstein also had money, didn't stop his degeneracy either. You losers seem to think that just because you have no real responsibilities or outgoings so you have more spare cash, it somehow legitimises your deviancy. It doesn't, you're still pathetic freaks.

>>96174794
OK, Pandas are NOT a joke race. They represent Acti-Blizz sucking Chinese dick at the lowest. Better?
>>96182139
Ladies and gentlemen, this is your brain on /pol/.

>>96182518
>They represent Acti-Blizz sucking Chinese dick at the lowest. Better?
No, I already told you the reason, the lead artist just really liked pandas.

>>96150319
With FAT tits and asses, yes.

>>96182944
Have goblins invented implants yet? I fee like thats something they'd do.

>>96179676
>furfags spend money of furfaggotry
A shocking revelation to be sure.
>>96179686
And now?

I will never forgive blizz for what they did to the dark trolls

>>96150287 (OP)
>You are given the task of making a new warcraft RPG
I commit suicide.
>How do you save warcraft
I don't.

>>96182518
>being against degenerates is /pol/
Doesn't sound like a problem.

what are /tg/s opinions on the troll elves? Im kinda glad their storyline got seemingly dropped and abandoned, because i got to admit, i didnt gave a single fuck about them. From everything we have gotten they looked like just another generic druid race, barely distinguishable from your average druid fag we had in the DF emerald dream patch. The "we stay away from outsiders" angle didnt help. But for some weird reason a subset of people, including from my guild, have been really hyped about them. And i just dont get it.

>>96189069
I've never even heard about them

>>96189304
introduced in the current TWW expansion but not featured heavily

>>96189312
I really dislike the lore of this expansion

>>96189317
aparrently the whole story team switched about 8 months into developement, so thats why its a giant mess. Stuff too far into production to be changed still came out but then the rest got scrapped to make way for the new stuff. Thats why plotlines from launch are seemingly abandoned entirely (like the Harranir, the echo of azeroth or the black blood or the lackluster explanation on what Beledar is) and suddenly we get the final patch on the Ethereal Homeworld out of left field. Now mind you, Karesh is far more interesting than some gay ass coreway or some rootlands, but its still a narrative mess.

>>96189344
Didn't blizz do this exact same thing back in WoD? When will they learn their lesson.

>>96189344
Oh yeah because before this WoW expansions had GREAT storylines.

>>96189365
And dragonflight too

>>96189368
Legion at least had a logical flow

>its the legion
>we fight the legion in the launch patch
>mini patch, lets give closure to the Odyn stuff
>next mini patch, lets finish the suramar rebellion
>next patch, lets go to the tomb of sargeras we teased
>alright, member that portal keystone we introduced in the demon hunter campaign? We gonna use it for Argus. We gonna meet the army of the light there, introduced in the launch content patch.

It made sense. It had very little abandoned storylines and little patches that came out of left field.

>>96189397
Legion was also ages ago already

>>96189399
Fun fact: the perception of the flow of time rapidly increases as you age, so what seems like "ages ago" to children feels more like "just yesterday" to olds.

>>96189411
It also seems very recent to me but objectively there's been like 4 expansions since then. None of which were good.

>>96189418
I wouldn't know, the last one I played was Burning Crusade.

>>96179451
Chen was a pretty important character of the Founding of Durotar.
I never liked Pandarens but the "they were just a joke" really is a cope to defend the idea that "old good new bad". They were an integral part of the setting and not just a dumb easter egg.

>>96183668
>And now?
These days, I play humans and undead. Love my Royal Apothecary Society LARP.

>>96189397
Legion is also considered the last good expansion

>>96189397
>BFA
>Initially starts with Sylvanas starting another fucking war becaude she's a God damned retard
>Progresses to a sea-based conflict as the Alliance is pushed out of Kalimdor and the Horde is pushed out of EK
>Naturally this requires bringing in each faction's respective Navy, which gives the Alliance a massive advantage just like in any othrr conflict
>Suddenly itcturns out Zandalar has a huge amazing armada that literally nobody has ever seen and also they're super duper awesome and strong and amazing and they blow up the Alliance fleet in a single cutscene
>Thus the Alliance goes to Kul Tiras, who they manage to win over by stopping an attempted political coup
>This boils over into a conflict between Kul Tiras and Zandalar
>Zandalar gets utterly fucking demolished, like holy fuck they stood no chance whatsoever, their King makes the dumbest fucking speech ever and then just gets beaten to death while Bwonsamdi laughs at him
>Horde retaliate; it fails
>Suddenly... Azshara patch! But only one patch!
>Suddenly... N'Zoth patch! But again only one patch
>Sylvanas stuff is resolved baaically off-screen; Night Elves get sidelined despite losing their capital outside of one battle where Tyrande gets clowned on by Nathanos, Anduin is depressed because War is bad, and Saurfang gets clapped because Sylvanas has better plot armor.
>Uhhhhhh NEW EXPANSION ALL ABOUT DEATH!
Man how do you go from Legion to that

>>96150287 (OP)

Been working on my Warcraft RPG setting. Let me know how schitzo my ideas are

Vanilla:
>Ashbringer and the Scarlet Crusade origins returned to their vanilla status. Comic retconned.
>The afterlife is still the Twisting Nether and other unknown realms like the Light or w/e
>Titan aesthetics remain Hellenic in origin an none of that Nordic viking slop with Sci Fi technology we got in WoTLK. Magic, stone, clay and other more fantasy technology is permitted.

TBC:
>Eredar are still demons. Draenei are still Broken native to Draenor.
>Draenei's story is replaced by the Arrakoa. Their story is blended with the Draenei and their own in . their downfall and corruption. They are native to Draenor. They would join the the Alliance as corrupted Arrakoa who hate the Horde.
>Velen is still a prophet. It is not known what race he is, perhaps even Titan in origin. He travels from world to world in an attempt to teach races how to fight the Burning Legion.
>Whole TBC plot is the Alliance and Horde getting tricked into fighting Illidan's forces by provoking the attack but with the Alliance wanting to punish Illidan and the Horde elements wanting to reclaim Draenor
>Kael'thas is not a raid boss and doesn't become evil. He let's Illidan fall seeing the overwhelming odds and decides to commit to the Horde with a stronger bond with the Forsaken. Both groups now focus on destroying the Lich King instead of hiding away in Outland.
>Blood Elves are not redeemed and become thematically Dark Elves. TBC follows them still using Fel but becoming committed to blood magic. They effectively become living vampires to sustain themselves.
>Blood Knights still use the Light, but not as a religion. They harness the Light as a magical source and have a similar belief in conviction like the Scarlet Crusade?
- Sunwell remains dead. Blood Elves are a cursed people with a way to sustain themselves which the Horde tolerates; the Alliance reviles as unholy. High Elves are doomed to extinction.

>>96190078

Wrath:

- Arthas and Ner'zhul are the Lich King. Ner'zhul was not cast out and the two have blended together through the Crown of Domination. The Alliance see's the Lich King as Arthas but the Horde see him as Ner'zhul (with exceptions to
Forsaken and Blood Elves).
- Arthas soul was taken by Frostmourne still. His soul (good part) is the reason the Scourge is being held back ultimately. The story largely leads the same way.
- There is no Vrykul forgotten civilization that springs up out of nowhere. Vrykul at most are isolationist giants living in small communities which we learn are human progenitor. They look more like Keepers than Nordic hunchbacks
- Howling Fjord is mostly fighting Scourge and Scarlet Onslaught.
- Val'kyr are enslaved spirit hosts, not Nordic angels.
- The Horde force is largely Forsaken with Blood Elves in the Howling Fjord with Sylvanas and Kael'thas.
- Icecrown is at the top of the Northrend for thematic purposes. The gateway to it still Dragonblight.
- Storm Peaks is very toned down and is largely ruins and exploration over exposure to Titans. The design of the Titans is still classical Hellenic / Egyptian as seen in Uldum before. Exploring Ulduar is more involved with the Explorer's League and not helping living metal robots. Ultimately we still stop Yogg. But there are no conversations or alliances with Titan constructs beyond aiding some Keepers.
- Wrathgate still happens and war between Alliance and Horde breaks out. There's no Alliance attack on the Undercity however, just full out conflict in Northrend. This coup is stopped by the Horde with Sylvanas and Kael'thas. Thrall and Garrosh go batshit over Forsaken experiments, potentially even more darker Blood Elf involvement with Fel / Blood magic too.

>>96190097

- Icecrown citadel comprises of Kael'thas, Sylvanas, Tirion, Jaina and others personally effected by the Lich King. Argent Crusade, Ebon Blade, Forsaken and Blood Elves are primarily behind the assault while the rest of the Alliance and Horde are fighting a desperate war at Icecrown itself.
- Lich King fight largely carries out the same way, but the final is a team effort with Sylvanas, Kael, and Jaina is there with Tirion and arrives towards the end. Kael shatters Tirion's icey prison which allows him to smash Frostmourne. Sylvanas damanges the crown with a super special arrow arrow she had been working on (harken back to WC3).
- We see Arthas soul return to him, same cutscene plays out but we understand the good part of him was holding back. The Crown of Domination lays dormant. Ner'zhul is gone with Sylvanas damaging the crystal (host is gone).
- There must always be le lich king etc. Sylvanas wants to destroy the crown. Bolvar scene plays out, Tirion reluctantly plays along. Sylvanas refuses to make such a choice and leaves knowing she cannot change things. Kael conflicted but satisfied with his revenge.
- Sylvanas goes missing for a time. She is left conflicted and angry over Arthas realization. Tormented by all of this, but wishing to finally have peace with her duty fulfilled she kills herself.

>>96190120

Cata:

- Buildup largely remains the same. Alliance and Horde are at war, though depleted since the war against the Lich King. Negotiations are attempted but fail due to Old God cultists etc. Alliance is full warhawk mode.
- Horde is fed up of Thrall's constant attempts at appeasement, and with bigger threats incoming, he still makes Garrosh warchief hastily. Things largely pan out the same.
- The Horde is very close to removing the Forsaken and Blood Elves under Garrosh. However, despite outward appearances the warchief is pragmatic in understanding he needs them both on the Eastern Kingdoms.
- Instead he plans to use the Forsaken as cannon fodder against Gilneas. Which we learn has been in negotiations with the Alliance during the Worgen crisis under Night Elf support. In return the Alliance want to Gilneas as a new front against the Forsaken.
- Alliance have also been building up in Hillsbrad as the Horde is focused on Kalimdor. They want to retake Lordaeron lands under Stormwind, and to push on Tirisfal for revenge for Wrathgate. Complete crisis for the Forsaken as they also cannot use the Blight under Garrosh.
- Sylvanas returns from death with a similar story from Edge of Night. She learns the Forsaken (and herself) are cursed and unable to pass into the afterlife. There is something wrong with them in a spiritual level. Sylvanas has made a pact with the spirit hosts. She begins to take direct control of the Silverpine warfront.
- Gilneas starting zone storyline is largely the same. Albeit with more Alliance interaction and offering to give assistance in return for access. They also help the Gilneas population flee at the end as war breaks out in the land fully.
- Spirit hosts are used on mass similar to the Val'kyr to resurrect not only the fallen Forsaken, but those who have attacked them. Realising they are getting no support from the Horde in the east they decide to go Scourge mode.

>>96190197

- The Alliance attempted to strike at Andorhal and Tarren Mill. The strike at Tarren Mill is pushed back by assistance of Blood Elves but the town is largely on the defensive until the Hillsbrad questline begins.
- Hillsbrad questline largely plays out the same way. But rather Southshore already being Blighted this happens at it's conclusion. The Forsaken have to use the nuclear option to stop the vastly larger Alliance army pushing further and cutting the Forsaken off from W. Plaguelands, Hillsbrad, and reinforcing Gilneas. Using the Spirit Hosts on mass to resurrect the fallen which is a mirror to the Scourge.
- Southshore for world purposes still remains functional for future lore update and foresight. But at this moment it's uninhabitable at the end with some phasing during the final battle.
- The Alliance as a result have to redirect their efforts into Gilneas further. Landing troops here has become very difficult due to the Cataclysm damage to the land.
- There is no Sludge Fields. It was just similarly overrun. The refugees fled into Gilneas.
- Durnholde Keep has become a bastion for the Defilers campaign on Arathi Highlands which has been cut off from the Cataclysm with it's bridges ruined. The questlines here play out similarly, but with an emphasis that Stromgarde has been abandoned by the Alliance to focus on Lordaeron.
- Silverpine campaign plays out largely similar. Blood Elves and Forsaken work together pushing the Worgen and Alliance forces back. The conflict remains indecisive as Gilneas becomes a bitter battlezone with the Forsaken and Blood Elves in the north and Alliance in the south. Gilneas is a ruined contested battleground simlar to Osgiliath.

>>96190208

- W. Plaguelands storyline plays out largely the same way. Alliance is cut-off here however and unable to hold onto the city. The Forsaken come into political conflict with the Argent Crusade over territory. Much of it's Horde members having left with the conclusion of the fight in Northrend, and it's former Lordaeron members looking to rebuild their homes.
- Scarlet Crusade is still active in Tirisfal and parts of Tyr's Hand. The SoD timeline is embraced here and there are no Risen Scarlets under Balnazzar. The Argent Crusade are stretched attempting to fight them, Scourge warlords, Burning Legion cultists and attempting to cleanse the Plaguelands.
- The Scarlet Crusade in a mirror to the Forsaken have unlocked the powers to resurrect their fallen under Whitemane. However, constant resurrection can drive it's members mad which gives the order it's reputation. They largely hold out against the Forsaken and harbour the last living population of Lordaeron civilians within Solliden and the Whispering Forest.
- Similarly, the crusade is being funded and used by the Alliance by disgruntled nobles, generals and civilians. The Alliance turns a blind eye to this if it means they can achieve their goals. We learn Kul Tiras and Gilneas also fund this group indirectly in order to weaken the Horde.
- Alliance relations with the Night Elves is severely restrained in all of this. With the Horde pushing on them in Ashenvale while it largely focus's on Lordaeron and Gilneas. Genn and his forces at least try to repay their debts to the Kalodorei.
- The rest of Cataclysm largely plays out the same way.
- Uldum would be similar but a focus on the Ahn'Qiraj pallet. Here we would see the origins of humanity under an Ancient Egypt vibe with Titan themed tech. The rest of this kingdom was lost in the Sundering and it's Vrykul population slowly begin more human, cut off from the rest of the world.

>>96190011
>>Suddenly itcturns out Zandalar has a huge amazing armada that literally nobody has ever seen and also they're super duper awesome and strong and amazing
Hasn't that already been set up since MoP? The Thunder King's island got invaded by a huge Zandalari force and that was just a tiny expedition or something.

>>96190222

MOP:

- Storyline largely plays out the same. But I would make the Panda designs not so cute and friendly looking and bring back the clan system.
- Pandaren are a difficult to put into one faction. While their older lore aligns them more with the Alliance (RPG), we have iconic characters like Chen who helped the Horde with Rexxar. The two clans would need to be shown as quite different in philosophy. Alternatively, Alliance get pandas, Horde gets Ogres under Garrosh.
- Monk is restricted to Pandaren at the beginning, then given to some races at the end. We learn of other martial styles under Humans, Orcs, Tauren, Draenei (Broken) and other races with a previous connection to the monk theme.
- The war is still ongoing from Cataclysm. Theramore is bombed, Jaina is fully committed to the Alliance, but they are losing against Garrosh and in particular their gruelling stalemate in Gilneas.
- Jaina's attack in Dalaran against the Blood Elves plays out. It is a much more involved affair and filled with tension as Kael'thas is involved (former love triangle etc)
- The whole Sha thing plays out and the civil war brews with Rexxar, Vol'jin and Chen being crucial in it's origin.
- Civil war breaks out. For the Horde we get to work with the original crew from the Founding of Durotar. The Alliance is much more focused on Kaldorei with Tyrande and Malfurian, Gilnean Worgen and Theramore under Jaina.
- The raid itself is canonically largely done by the Horde rebels, but this decimates the Hordes overall forces down to Alliance levels. With assistance later by the Kaldorei, Worgen and the likes of Jaina and her magic. Sylvanas and Kael'thas are much more concerned about their own borders. So we are interacting more with Rexxar and Vol'jin, Rokhan, Nazgrel, Baine, Chen and Thrall etc
- Conclusion is largely the same. Instead of Varian making the threats it's Tyrande. A tentative ceasefire is reached as either side cannot beat the other.

>>96190259

WoD (the most insane expansion to retcon so far):

- Wibbly wobbly timey wimey. Instead of a rogue Bronze Dragon coming up with some mad scheme it's the Infinite Dragonflight ready for their biggest trolling opportunity yet. This isn't AU but the main timeline.
- Garrosh returns at a precarious moment when the Draenei (Arrakoa) and Orcs are already in conflict under the deceived Ner'zhul made a puppet by the Shadow Council post Oshu'gun events. Blackhand is the new warchief and Gul'dan has already began spreading his demonic teachings to the Blackrock. It is Garrosh who reveals the deception of Gul'dan to the other clans as they begin to plot to overthrow the Gul'dan and Blackhand both.
- Kil'jaden sensing something is afoot demands Gul'dan offer the Blood of Mannaroth sooner, and this is where Garrosh, Grommash, Orgrim and Durotan strike (queue cinematic). Grommash slays Mannaroth, Orgrim later strikes down Blackhand. The Shadow Council is captured with some effort along with Gul'dan.
- Despite this victory the elements will still not speak to the Orcs. Garrosh spins this as the elements abandoning the Orcs for being deceived by the Burning Legion and shows the clans the way of Dark Shamanism. This power harms the land similarly to how the Fel did, albeit in a less corrupt manner (more draughts, environmental damage). Garrosh explains this as the Fel used by the Shadow Council having harmed Draenor and the world slowly dying. Clans like the Frostwolves begin to believe the have traded one tyrant for another.
- Garrosh shows a very distorted view of what is to come to the warlords and says what the Burning Legion tried to do here is what they are teaching the humans on Azeroth. He shows the Orcs in interment camps as corrupted slaves, the Sons of Lothar invading Outland, demons everywhere etc. They must strike first in order to stop this threat and to heal their world from the corruption of the Burning Legion.

>>96190296

- Garrosh fully introduces Blackfuse technology to turn the orcs into the Iron Horde and begin work on the Dark Portal.
- Orgrim is the new warlord of the Blackrock, Ner'zhul is the puppet figurehead of the Iron Horde but Grommash is the warchief of it (Gul'dan and Blackhand vibe) - mainly due to his victory over Mannaroth. It's obvious Grom is a good warrior, but not a statesman. Ner'zhul is conflicted by Garrosh and is starting to see him as a new Kil'jaden and Gul'dan figure (as he realises he's a puppet).
- Lots of retracing the First War elements. Dark Portal is built by enslaving Gul'dan and his minions. Iron Horde invades through the portal to attack Stormwind. Maybe we get a siege of Stormwind raid with Orgrim and the Iron Horde attack.
- Iron Horde meeting the current Horde is confusing, but the Mag'har see them as Fel corrupted and need to be killed alongside their inferior trolls, tauren and literal undead and blood elf allies.
- The Blood Elves and Forsaken come to aid Stormwind in a mirror to WC2's siege of Lordaeron.
- All this timey-wimey stuff is seriously harming the timeline and it is massively distorting events. The Bronze Dragonflight is doing all it can to stop all the magical timey stuff completely breaking the timeline entirely. The Infinitate Dragonflight's plan to completely destroy this reality seems to be working as the world is becoming distorted. Big group meeting of the Azeroth heroes and main characters not changed.
- So begins the expansion fully. Instead of the Alliance and Horde both going to Draenor however it is only the heroes. The Bronze Dragonflight state any more direct alterations to history and full on invasions will completely shatter reality.
- The siege does not go as planned due to clans like the Frostwolves learning the truth and returning through the Dark Portal.
- Perhaps the Frostwolves team up with the heroes / characters to help them fight through the Iron Horde back to their home?

In the short lived campaigns I've run over the last decade using the 1st edition Warcraft 3.5 books I've found that the time period I find the most enjoyable and teeming with adventure possibilities is post Warcraft III Reign of Chaos.

The first session starts off in the Barrens and involves finding out what happened to a lost ship which has been shipwrecked along the eastern coast. Since at this point in the story the truce between the Horde and Alliance is still in effect I allow for a mixed party which leads to interesting RP scenarios, especially the mana crack addict high elf vs. the calm serene night elf/tauren druid. However as the story goes on the two factions inevitably start feuding again.

The Barrens is undoubtedly the best location to run a warcraft D&D gaming, I mean just think about it:
-goblin trade cartels
-burning legion in the hills
-quillboar dungeon crawls
-dwarven archeologists digging for treasure in the ruins
-killing centaurs
-hunting exotic creatures
-wailing caverns
-horde warriors trying to complete their rites of passage
-secret high elf city
-espionage between the horde and alliance
-extreme hot weather makes carrying water crucial, can even do some survival/hex crawling.
-you can also join arthas going to northrend or illdian's journey into outlands.

>>96190251
Nah, the Zandalari in Pandaria were there to resurrect the Thunder King in order to RESTORE Zandalar to power, as they had ancient pacts with Lei Shen up until his original death in Uldum.
BFA Zandalar is just suddenly a world super power since the writers REALLY wanted to make a Wakanda copy, down to Rastakhan shouting "ZANDALAR FO-EVA" right before the Alliance beats him to death.

>>96190078
i dont get it. Why do so many people want to remove the TBC redesign draenei in favor of the old wc3 ones (who are still around anyways). Not once have i encountered anyone genuenly giving a fuck about the wc3 draenei, nor anywone actually wanting to play as one. WoW Draenei on the other hand, i´ve seen tons off.

So how comes?

>>96191302
Personally I don't want to remove them, I just want them to stop being draenei. Just make them eredar instead.

>>96150287 (OP)
I reset it to WC2
The aesthetic will be strictly of WC2 and WC3 battle fantasy inspired art
Erase everything post wotlk and most of the stuff prior to it, save some cool ideas that I like
Erase all the gay shit like titans, dragon aspects, space and war of the ancients, high elves coming from Kalimdor
I bring back God, Hell and Daemons
I change Lordaeron to be more like Scarlet Crusade human kingdom by default, a kingdom of brutal knight badasses
I populate Northrend and some parts of Kalimdor with different humans - they are as different to EK humans as Night Elfs are to High Elfs

Scrolled through this thread and most of you are writing the same Blizzard-like gay shit. You don't understand Warcraft. You are posers and faggots.

>>96191409
>I'd remove everything interesting about the setting to show everyone how contrarian I am
You're so cool anon!

>>96191302
Why do so many people want to rename the Eredar and replace an already existing race with them? The Eredar are still around anyways. Even the blue ones always existed.

>>96191535
It's not interesting. It's gay shit that creates limitations and is breeding grounds for Marvel Cinematic Universe troonery, but for the likes of you it may seem cool.

I remove Pandaren and Pandaria
/thread

>>96191610
>It's gay shit that creates limitations and is breeding grounds for Marvel Cinematic Universe troonery
And so you would replace it with WC2 lore, which is a literal nothingburger, a few pages of generic fantasy backstory that serves only as an accessory to the gameplay to explain why your good blue guys are fighting the bad red guys. Why even call it Warcraft then? Go write your own tabletop or novel about good knights fighting evil orcs in the magical land of Medievale Aenglande, I am sure it will be a huge hit that would thrill both players and investors alike.

>>96191743
Soulless husk

>>96191409
I admit to WC lore getting whack around WC3-WoW like with the nelves joining alli and forsaken going horde, and I wouldn't even really bother with anything after WotLK bar a few ideas
>reset it to WC2
>Erase everything post wotlk and most of the stuff prior to it, save some cool ideas that I like
>rest of the post
lol I wonder what are those cool ideas that you like, because you pretty much erase everything
what a buffoon

>>96191805
Zuldrak taunka mammoths borean tundra vrykul(to an extend) darkfallen(still doable)

>lol I wonder
what a buffoon

>>96191743
Btw, my dumb little shitboy, the knights of warcraft are inherently americanized, not a "medievale aenglande" as you describe; but you're just a brainwashed blizzdrone piggy so you don't understand what and how true warcraft should be

>>96191895
I don't particularly care much about anything Warcraft post-TBC, WC2 is one of my favorite games and I haven't paid for a Blizzard product in many years. Your juvenile contrarianism simply amuses me. No one would care about WC2's story if it was put to paper as it was, without later lore additions or without a good game accompanying it. WC3 actually made Azeroth worth contemplating as something more than just a game storyline.

Also, WC2 knights literally say "what ho" and "sire". They're Aenglish.

>>96192037
>No one would care
You care too much about other people caring, retarded faggot. not the first post where you are bringing this up as some kind of "point"
Depraved disgusting fagg

>>96192037
And where do i ever imply there will be no "later lore additions" ? I simply erase all of the idiotic shit that does not belong in Warcraft, and I will write it anew from the foundation that I like

>>96191302

>i dont get it. Why do so many people want to remove the TBC redesign draenei in favor of the old wc3 ones (who are still around anyways).

The Draenei retcon in TBC is the where the timeline divergence begins in WoW's lore due to Chris Metzen forgetting Draenei were Eredar. it is the start of corporate writing to sell product and what will be played. They were made to be WoW's coomer bait tieflings (90% of them are females) to sell video game boxes. Same reason they added Void Elves. But we're just talking lore here, not trying to sell a product.

I also don't like their lore of being another elf-race but with sci fi space ships, space marine crystal armour and being another super Light race. They don't add anything to the faction and their addition to the lore was way too intrusive and stepped on everyone's toes (i.e - Velen restoring the Sunwell as a martyr figure despite all that was done to them).

Arrakoa on the other hand have the same downfall story and also use the Light (sun) with some limited scope of technology that lets them dominate over Orcs. If you were to replace them with the nu-Draenei not much changes. It would have added a Shadowy based 'ugly race' to the Alliance that could add some meaningful conflict (and a race that absolutely hates Orcs / the Horde).

>>96192286
>It would have added a Shadowy based 'ugly race' to the Alliance

That's one of the reasons modern warcraft feels so lackluster.
No, the Alliance doesn't need an "ugly and evil" race. No, the Horde doesn't need a "pretty and good" race. The Alliance doesn't need Shamans and the Horde doesn't need Paladins. No, both factions don't need to act "morally grey" to fulfill everyones wishlist.
Give the factions some real identity, for fuck's sake. When every faction has every flavor, then nothing has flavor. It all becomes shallow window-dressing.

>>96190011
To be fair, the Alliance side of Kul Tiras was actually fun.

>>96150287 (OP)
Break down WoW classic and make all the quests inside that (limited) game playable at a level-less setting. No levels involved, attack any quest. Only limits is gear/party number reprequisites and faction standing.

It promotes their current cash cow online while feeling like "theres no level like my RTS game"..

>>96192473
>theres no level like my RTS game
what?

>>96150287 (OP)
Best spot in the timeline to set an RPG is between WC3 and WoW. From there, make your party the main characters instead of the story blizzard told.
As for changes,
>Forsaken and Night Elves remain independent instead of joining alliance/horde
>Blood elves stay in Illidan's army instead of joining the horde
>No TBC draenei retcon
>No woke shit
From there, use whatever stories from the main game you want or invent your own

>>96191895
>>96191761
Absolutely buttblasted lmao

>>96150287 (OP)
>you can reset the timeline to any spot and continue on from there making any new lore or story you want.
We reset to the end of Legion and please let me finish before you lynch me.
>there's no longer a single, cosmic-level threat that all lesser conflicts ultimately point to
Yes, we'd still have the void and its corruption and the thing that Sargeras was working to avoid, but that's also a higher-tier and longer timeframe issue. With Sargeras in the chair, you can have a splintered Burning Legion with bickering would-be demon lords that fight and squabble amongst themselves and are no longer really unified by a specific cause. N'zoth still hasn't been dealt with, but he can remain as a background threat, a doomsday scenario that can be threatened without ever happening. Bolvar's still being the edgy jailer of the damned, but you can have breakaway Scourge groups headed by liches, much like Sylvanas originally was. You don't end up with the scenario you had at the end of WC3, where there are still a bunch of specific major threats out there--you end up with scattered sources of conflict that can be proximal issues to a lower-level party without implying a new world-ending threat.
>retcon: draenei live no more than two hundred years, as do most elves in the absence of a ___well
Specific individuals receive various blessings (Velen from the naaru, for instance) that allow them to have been around since the beginning, but the average PC shouldn't be able to say they were at the War of the Ancients or the flight from Argus.

>cont

>>96193350
>new event in the post-Legion but pre-campaign-book timeframe: Draenor
Some draenei, orcs, ogres, and other races that came to Azeroth from Draenor feel a irresistible urge to return to Outland, which ends up lining up with an Infinite-vs-Bronze showdown at the Dark Portal. The unstable alternate timeline is deteriorating, and the net effect of this is to collapse Outland into a present-day AU Draenor. The people who were drawn back to Outland were those whose AU counterparts were still alive and well, and they end up with both sets of memories even as the world tries to reconcile its pasts. I don't like time travel and WoD wasn't great, but the version of Draenor it showed off was fantastic and combining it with Outland gives you more of a "world to be explored and rebuilt" angle to go with. You can get some good mileage out of magical fuckery and it gives the bronze dragons something to be doing so we don't have to figure out why they let bad things happen.
>all references and breadcrumbs expunged, rewritten, and retconned: anything to do with Shadowlands
It was a fucking mistake and seriously warped the setting around the new overriding plot. Sylvanas isn't in a death pact with mega-Satan, she's just veering into sunk cost fallacy while confronting questions about eternity and oblivion.
>where does all of this lead
A good campaign setting is not the same thing as a good book setting or even a good video game setting. You want a world in which a myriad of plot hooks might be set, all of which might seriously matter to PCs, and none of which raise questions as to why they haven't been solved by high-powered setting fixture characters. Leaving the Legion broken without promoting any other cosmic forces gets you a variety of POSSIBLE conflicts without settling on any single one of them as THE conflict, while the other changes can be used to justify any given named character being otherwise occupied.

>>96150287 (OP)
Warcraft is gay as hell, I'd rather not.

>>96183405

Have they invented a version of the Mr Studd, some steampunk fucking piston dick that shoots fireworks?

>>96196085
Of course!

I love trolls, we need more trolls

I do wish we got maps without the zone border mountains. They always fealt so artifical.

>>96189312
Trolls were one of the original, native races on Azeroth. Some Trolls tapped into the Well of Eternity at the center of Azeroth for magic power. Those Trolls over time turned into Night Elves. Some of those Night Elves continued to abuse the powers of the well which turned them into Naga. The well exploded, created the Maelstrom, and spit Azeroth into two continents.

Creating a new race that runs counter to your 30+ year lore because this new race is "secret" is lazy story writing and further proves that Blizz doesn't even understand their lore; which is no surprise since their original writing staff had all left before Cata.

>>96150287 (OP)
My oldfag answer would be anything after WotLK is erased. Maybe borrowing some newer story beats, but very little to none.

No idea about the system for the RP. I like Savage Worlds way of having dice scale upwards, I like systems that are success vs. failure like White Wolf, and the WEG d6 system is one of the best Star Wars games I've played and ran. So maybe a horrible combination of all three and then play test the fuck out of it until it works.

>>96203733
there is a 99,9% chance we will get some form of troll content in Midnight. Probably helping the good amani (led by a woman) against the evil void-amani (led by a man). Then they hug it out with the blood/ high elves and 3000 years of arch-rivalry is forgiven and forgotten in an instant.

>>96204780
I am willing to bet a substantial amount of money that this is essentially what happens.

>>96204780
Complete with some nauseatingly sweet cinematic staring a character like Chromie who explains that war is le bad and you should get along with neighbors, no matter how cannibalistic they may be.

>>96203807
Closest we got is the kuusinen map, man I'm so disappointed the kalimdor and draenor maps are lost media

>>96207500
some official map in larger scale would be so sick. Give me a map with locations we didnt know about. No way a kingdom like stromgarde consists of one single city. Give me Hasic and Venetia and more. Every roleplayer and their mother can do it, so surely so can Blizzard.

>>96207551
>blizz
>ever doing anything good
What year do you think it is?

>>96192374
>The Alliance doesn't need Shamans and the Horde doesn't need Paladins
Tbh both Alliance shamans and Horde paladins could be explained, even without including designated races for them like Burning Crusade did.
>Alliance shamans – Wildhammer dwarves
>Horde paladins - Orcs who converted to the Church of the Light while in internment camps after the Second War; their emergence as paladins is the result of their search for a new source of spiritual strength, after the failure of demon worship, combined with orcs own martial traditions

>>96212035
Sure, it's possible to come up with lore-consistent explanations for adopting core principles that were once exclusive to certain factions in each of the examples I mentioned. However, my main point is that doing so weakens the distinct themes that make each faction unique, ultimately diminishing the richness of the setting rather than enhancing it.

>>96212477
Few understand this and that's why most modern fantasy settings are like a circus.

>>96212035
>Orcs who converted to the Church of the Light while in internment camps after the Second War
While I don't think horde should get paladins this is a good point that thralls horde should have a lot of religious tensions between the revisionist shamanism shamanism promoted by thrall, imported human religions from their internment and the remnants of the demon worshippers. Maybe also some minor imports from trollish loaism and whatever you wanna call the taurens religion.
Good make for an interesting religious power struggle in orgrimmar.

>>96190011
Yeah but BFA also had a complete writing team change halfway through when the main writer got fired for party rocking.

>>96213084
I don't get class exceptionism. Every race can be every class. What matters to me as a GM if you explain to me why and how.

>>96215556
Letting every race be every class makes the world feel like a mono-culture. The fact that your race can or cannot be say a barbarian says a lot about that races culture.

>>96215584
I mean, okay, I agree that in-practice it can lead to monoculture because players are retards and will probably all pick the extended grioire ultra deluxe elephant man races in DnD because it sounds cool. However in theory, no restrictions, if used by actually good roleplayers, would even boost the cultural strengths of Warcraft worldbuilding. For a ridiculous example - Gnome Druid - would probably have to sweat his balls off to make a compeling story about how he was trained by Cenarion Circle and had to unlearn his Gnomish ways for it to work, but settings rules wise nothing prevents it.

>>96215636
>However in theory, no restrictions, if used by actually good roleplayers,
Yes and theoretically unicorn semen will cure cancer and end world hunger

>>96215909
>Anon has to think of something that only occur theoretically
>First thing that comes to mind is slurping unicorn semen

>>96152465
What the hell are you talking about?
The original Warcraft RPG has them at +2 Wis, -2 Int. The World of Warcraft RPG has them at +2 Spirit (AKA Wis) and -2 Cha instead.

>>96160003
Unicorns are used as a symbol on elven destroyer's sails in WC2.

>>96216973
Yeah, WC2 and WC3 have a lot of inconsistencies between them.

>>96203807
They ARE artificial per the (granted, non-canon) Warcraft RPG, set up by Titans to keep the races segregated, Deathwing then screwed with the setup when he went insane to get the races to fight each other.

>>96204401
>Some of those Night Elves continued to abuse the powers of the well which turned them into Naga
Naga were created because of Azshara's deal with N'zoth after the well had already exploded, not the continued usage of the Well of Eternity

>>96190011
>Initially starts with Sylvanas starting another fucking war becaude she's a God damned retard
She started the war because ANDUIN was a god damned retard and snuck Calia fucking Menethil into a Human-Forsaken peace conference to stir a rebellion but this was all supplementary lore shit so nobody actually knew this

Plunder isle should be a bigger thing in warcraft. Pirate republics are awesome.

>>96203807
I actually like the border mountains, they add an element of strangeness to the world. For the same reason, I keep the regions season locked, so that it's always Winter in places like Winterspring. Does it make perfect sense? No, but it's fun and leans into the idea that the world was titan created

>Setting: Post-Warcraft 3 era
>Erase Goblins
>Erase Gnomes
>Erase Pandaren
>Erase whatever is in shadowlands and beyond
>Erase Dragon aspects
>Erase Old Gods
>It's imposible to time travel
>There are no alternate universes
>Keep Mogu
>Keep Vrykul
>Keep Dark Iron Dwarves
>Keep Draenei but change their name
>Keep Zandalari but erase any and all Black Panther references
>Night elves don't join the alliance
>Forsaken don't join the horde
>Belfs stay with Illidan
>Zandalari, Vrykul, Forsaken, Night Elves, and Illidari are their own independent factions that clash with the Horde and Alliance
>Azshara is active and doesn't glue her ass to the bottom of the ocean for years.

>>96219641
Actual good post.

>>96219641
Okay but why erase goblins?

>>96219641
Agree with everything except getting rid of gobs and gnomes, they're great and I'm tired of pretending otherwise.

>>96150295
Damn

>>96219641
>Erase Dragon aspects
Why tho? I can understand not wanting the Saturday morning cartoon-tier shit from DF, but what's wrong with the concept big dragons in your fantasy game?

>>96224307
NTA but if they're only there to job, they might as well not exist

>>96224421
But WoW is full of characters called "bosses" and jobbing is literally their, well, job.

>>96224489
Yes and WoW has a shit story and ruined existing characters that way. Why keep any of that crap for a tabletop setting?

>>96164429
>Yeah goblinfaggotry is just a push of "safe horny"
goblin shortstack fetish is just diet hyper and i'm tired of pretending it's anything else

>>96224571
Well, otherwise your players are just going to be doing the tabletop equivalent of grinding boars. I definitely agree WoW threw too many major lore characters into the meatgrinder, but you do need SOME interesting people to fight.

>>96224656
>diet hyper
So, normal?

So, does anyone have campaigns running in Warcraft? Tell me about your past or current games. In my last campaign, I played a Night Elf runemaster (the interesting tattoo magic NOTmonk class) but wound up dying during a demon encounter in Ashenvale. In my current campaign I have a level 1 human rogue and so far I've just been using the expanded alchemy crafting rules to make goods to sell in town, and have barely left the inn in Goldshire. This character dreams of becoming a master alchemist, hopefully they don't die right away and the dream comes true

>>96230146
>/tg/
>playing games
lol
lmao

>>96219641
>Goblins and gnomes are fine but without the WoW gayness.
>Pandaren are also cool without the MoP faggotry. See old Samwise art.
>Dragon Aspects should be just gigadragons of each color, no chosen guardians shit
>Old Gods as in ancient super strong evil monstrosities lurking in ancient dark places are fine. They barely need more than their names.
>Vrykul and Mogu are meh.
>Azshara is active but her ass is glued to my hips.
Otherwise okay post.

>>96230146
I ran a campaign few years ago with a group in Loch Modan working at that excavation site there and dealing with it's problems, mainly troggs. We used a 5E conversion because that was the easiest to do although I dislike that system.
Oh, there was also a one shot in Moonglade smacking Omen back into the lake.
Been planning a Kalimdor Horde campaign since then. Maybe one day.

Fel orcs are cool

>>96230146
I haven't played since they first released the original d20 version of the game way back when 3e was a thing. All I remember was the layout of the rulebook kind of sucked and it felt like a clone of 3.5 but extremely barebones. Is that what you're running your campaign in?

>>96235112
How does he pull down his pants and wipe his butt?
Oh...

>>96235306
Peons exist for that sort of thing

>>96235306
He's a fucking warchief he's probably got like 10 wives

>>96235112
>Kargath Bladefist (singular)
>Has two swords for hands
>Doesn't even look like Kargath
Blizz butchered him

>>96235154
I'm using the 2nd edition core rulebook and the various extra rulebooks, it's not so bad. They made some odd choices in copy pasting D&D content but then corrected many of them in the later books, mostly by ripping ideas directly from the MMO and porting them to 3.5 so your mage can conjure healing muffins and such. Anyway, my rogue made it to level two and can now make the "Weak Troll's Blood Philter", which will hopefully keep them alive. Technically, this character makes enough gold just crafting, that actually killing monsters for treasure is entirely optional.

>>96224307

Big dragons, okay, roots in Warcraft 2, great. A lot of the "aspect" specific lore (and even the dragon flights in general) was made up by Richard Knaak for Day of the Dragon, which is an awful read. Super lazy textbook Gary Stu tropes for Rhonin, starting right from his name. Bullshit mcguffin driving the whole plot, check. I think nobody told him he wasn't writing third-rate Dragonlance filler, and if memory serves I submit as evidence some dwarves that were basically gully dwarves with the numbers filed off. And of course, feeling like he needed to add a whole D&D-style framework of color-coded dragon families with extra plot significance before he felt comfortable writing for the setting.

>>96236480
What wasn't butchered in TBC? It took until Legion for them to attempt fixing Illidan, but the damage was still done to everyone else because they needed loot pinatas.

>>96239239
I thought the new twist on the Blood Elves and Lorthemar were pretty cool, though they did fix the Sunwell by the end of it.

>>96240295
New twist? You mean kael going insane and siding with the legion for no reason?

>>96240446
I meant the Blood Elves using Fel Magic and draining an angel's life force to stave off their magic addiction

>>96240451
I thought the angel draining was just to make paladins?

Warcraft's artwork always looked like shit.

>>96242805
It didn't back when they weren't afraid of depicting attractive women

>>96244398
This. Warcraft was always cartoony but it also had that 90s-00s fantasy edge to it, with chainmail bikini models and orks fighting big fuck-off demons. Modern WoW's greatest failure is losing that edge and not knowing what it wants to be tonally anymore. It's a game played by 40 year olds with content that feels like children's media.

>>96244557
I feel like you can say this for pretty much all american media nowadays. Blizz really is just following the trend. I really hate it though, why did every major american media company hope on it?

>>96189397
Legion was loaded with the actualization of loads of retcons that sucked. Like turning Sargeras into Big Arthas and the Old Gods into mere weapons of boring ass Voidlord blueberries.

>>96244398
>>96244557
>>96244764
The ever elusive modern audience that desires watered-down mass-market appeal with all the edges sanded off. I'm sure they all fell for the same delusion that if their product has the minimum amount of offensive material they could bag every demographic. Just a bunch of company leads beholden to share-holders deceived by marketers promising them infinite growth.

>>96238969
>and if memory serves I submit as evidence some dwarves that were basically gully dwarves with the numbers filed off.
They had Ironforge scouts and Wildhammers. Not sure what's Gully about either.

And eh, the flights worked okay, though admittedly only one being evil and the others just having a small percentage that went crazy is a bit limiting.


I appreciate keeping the Illidari together but the Old Gods are cool, though they should act more through intermediaries, make the Elementals a bit more important in their hierarchy.

>>96207500
Is he dead or just chased off the net by Blizzard lawyers?

>>96190011
>>Suddenly itcturns out Zandalar has a huge amazing armada that literally nobody has ever seen and also they're super duper awesome and strong and amazing and they blow up the Alliance fleet in a single cutscene
Eh we knew the Zandalari had BIG fucking boats since MoP on the Isle of Thunder and Isle of Giants... Though MoP also had them convinced their home was gone.


>>96190737
I mean a LOT of people were pissed that MoP was talking about Zandalar being destroyed so walking that back was nice, went too far on the Wakanda shit.

>>96203807
I mean at least for Kalimdor there's some degree of sense to it.

Mulgore was always hard to reach which is why the Tauren are trying to set up there as a fallback, Ashenvale is explicitly a valley between Stonetalon Mountains (themselves described as Hyjal Foothills) and Hyjal.

I feel like it makese sense for there to be barriers betwen the Barrens and Dustwallow but maybe those could be done without, same for Desolace and Feralas. 1Kneedles and UnGoro are basically defined by big elevation changes. Uldum needs its mystery wall, and Silithus needs a basin for the Scarab wall to seal.

EPL, WPL, and Tirsifal could maybe be smoothed out a bit, otherwise the majority of mountains make sense. And several zones use river borders, or Thoradin's wall.

>>96154559
The rules for Demon return getting more and more liberal amuse me. It started with... Balnazzar, who was "Killed' by Varimathras, meaning it could very well have just been the two of them faking his death. But then Mal'ganis comes back in a Wrath quest and so I guess Dreadlords can come back.

Then WoD and legion decide they can all come back. Now I guess that's not too incongruent with how many of WoW's inspirations like DnD and Warcraft also do banishment-only demonslaying when not on their home plane.

>>96246676
DnD and Warhammer*

>>96246612
>the Old Gods are cool, though they should act more through intermediaries, make the Elementals a bit more important in their hierarchy.
Should have kept them as originally conceptualized in the WC3 manual: the "gods" of Azeroth that called the shots before the titans arrived. They should be considerably powerful primordial beings, not space cancer from another dimension.
I think the big problem with WarCraft as a setting post rts was the removal of esoteric elements and overall demystification. They went way overboard on fitting everything into a neat category. I liked it much more when the titans were a lingering element of the world's ordering, most of the dragons weren't explicitly good or bad (besides the blacks), magic in general was downstream of pure chaos, but not a malicious element on its own. Also, the race bloat is absurd.

>>96250802
The people working at Blizzard really lost the concept of show, not tell and failed to realise that less is more. Everything has to be spelled out for the modern audience. I think it's also a symptom of dragging the series out for so long and making every expansion dependent on some existential crisis.

>>96246620
I never heard of blizz lawyers getting to him

>>96244398
boobies

>>96246676
I always felt Archimonde's death at Hyjal should've been a big deal. Sure, demons usually come back when you smack them, but that one was special circumstances and he's gone for good.

>>96250802
>most of the dragons weren't explicitly good or bad (besides the blacks)
Anon that's problematic

>>96252025
tatas

>>96230146
I've tried running a campaign set in vanilla Elwynn. It was back when 4e was a thing.
The premise was going to be that party was working for Katrana and unknowingly helping her commit dirty deeds.
It fell through in the first 20 minutes of the session 1, when the party Blackguard demanded the reward for the first quest in advance, multiplied by 10 and also the right to commandeer all of the crown's resources in Redridge if necessary.

Katrana told him "no", so he said he's not accepting the job and walked out. The rest of the party didn't really have it in their hearts to play the game without that guy to boss them around, so we ended up just not playing.

>>96252640
green gazongas

>>96244557
In the old Warcraft days, you could tell there was more of a focus on classic fantasy and heavy metal. Nowadays, it's much more Marvel-like, with the focus on multiversal adventures (Shadowlands, space fortresses). Unfortunately, that shit is all over the place these days and completely unappealing.

The WC3 credits would never be done today:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTIzpZXv3bc&list=RDKTIzpZXv3bc&start_radio=1

>>96253153
Also meant to upload picrel

>>96252071
I mean he was killed via Wisps, whose detonate ability is explicitly a banishment effect. As cool as the skeleton of him was, there is SOME logic to him just being banished.

>>96253031
mauve monk melons

>>96150334
Fuck you cunt, take me back to 1993.

God I want to be kicked in the head by a busty draenei

>>96254138
Man, fuck Safe Horny.

>>96150287 (OP)
For the era, anywhere between the end of WCIII and mid WotLK is golden, I also like the idea of core manual being Vanilla and the other expansions being sold as setting books.
I'd tweak the lore a bit, mainly so that some events are more spaced out and the more retarded things are explained better. Everything introduced after MOP (especially Shadowlands) should be ignored completely, be it retcon or new info.
For a game system, the classic 3.5 clone works fine (even though I'd prefer a Pathfinder 1e clone, fuck you there IS difference) I'd make an effort to make it more balanced and less crunchy, with less but more impactful feats and customisable racial features.
If I had to change system entirely, I think Savage Worlds and Fantasy Age could be good choices.

>>96255099
Outlands, northrend and pandaria are fine in terms of worldbuilding but the expansions had a huge problems with turning important characters into loot pinatas with flimsy justifications.

Lord Garithos is the main character now and the story gets a happy ending

>>96255845
>main character
Sir, this is /tg/, not /v/

>>96170269
Just make a campaign set during the First War bro

How much draenor lore should you take from WoD? I feel like theres a lot good in there despite the ass execution.

>>96259182
Who cares, there shouldn't be any time travel

>>96240451
Blood Elves resorted to the mass use of Fel crystals in order to stave off the affects of magic addiction, not the Naaru. And this was after the Blood Elves used magical artifacts and creatures to stymie their addiction.
>>96240759
>I thought the angel draining was just to make paladins?
you are correct
>>96259182
What do you mean? It was an alternate timeline that canonically deleted itself the moment the expansion ended.

>>96259240
>What do you mean? It was an alternate timeline that canonically deleted itself the moment the expansion ended.
NTA, but it should still be mostly faithful depiction of what Draenor looked like, up until Garrosh's arrival. I think there are some minor differences from the main timeline, like Rulkan being alive.

>>96255973
But Warcraft was so simple at that point I can make my own custom setting with what I like from Warcraft and ignore the rest.

>>96259182
>How much draenor lore should you take from WoD? I feel like theres a lot good in there
Well... the parts you think are good? Seems kinda self explanatory.

>>96259240
>What do you mean? It was an alternate timeline that canonically deleted itself the moment the expansion ended.
It also the only thing we have depicting draenor pre-shattering in detail. If you wanna include any outlands history that goes back further than the horde you need to reference WoD or make your own stuff up.

>>96259847
>Well... the parts you think are good?
I don't know much about WoD which is why I'm asking what the good parts are.

>>96259240
>that canonically deleted itself the moment the expansion ended.
The stupid cherry on a retard sundae, that.

>>96259988
The worldbuilding of the questing zones, really. The orcish clans, the botani, the plants vs elementals, the arrakoa, the draenei, the ogre empire. If you ignore the time travel and the meta plot, all that is pretty damn solid

>>96259182
Tbh I'm more interested in that south western continent that used to be just off the map in WoD before they removed it. I really wonder what the hell they had planned there other than ogre colonies. In fact it makes for a good blank slate for our own worldbuilding. What would you put there /tg/?

>>96260079
Anon who asked here, this is my take
>So since the present lore states that aggramar zapped a mountain to make grond and the draenor we know is made up of grond and the sporemounds bodies, this must be the continent that they came from
>but I do wonder why the evergrowth became a thing on draenor?
>also the old god the arakoa were trying to summon in outland gives me ideas
>the full history of draenor goes thus, in the beginning there was only the one continent, with no world soul the elements where calm thus letting the wild gods dominate
>that is until an old god crashed into draenor and she exerted her will over the whole of the land
>she spawned vast armies to tame the new world and fight the wild gods that wanted to take draenor back
>however with no world soul there was nothing to sustain the old god and she slowly withered away
>over time the wild gods push the old god spawn back then turned the tides and assaulted their god herself
>those that fed upon the old gods flesh where corrupted and became ravenous, devouring all they could get, becoming the 4 sporemounds
>this is the state aggramar found it in, he brought grond to life and killed the evergrowth
>except the old god spawn were never all killed, hiding in places too dry or cold or high for the evergrowth to get them and fighting a brutal guerilla war for eons
>and then suddenly this guy bigger than their fucking planet shows up and brings a fucking mountain to life to destroy their enemy
>this of course leaves quite the impression on them, they make a mythology about how aggramar was the husband of the old god, who after finding her killed by the evergrowth exacted revenge on it
>thus aggramar is their "father" and the old god their "mother"
>In less words, titan worshipping old god spawn
>since grond saved them, draenor the continent becomes sacred ground and they never step foot on it, building an empire on the old continent
>it lasts until they get invaded by ogres
What do you guys think?

I know prestige classes get a lot of guff in 3.5, but they work so well with helping a character expand out of the core MMO classes.

>Shamans becoming Shadow Hunters

>Warlocks becoming WC2 era Death Knights

>Demon Hunters aren't running around at level 1

It's just better

>>96150287 (OP)
>tfw retera will never stop making ai videos and finish warsmash

>>96260920
I have literally never heard a bad word against prestige classes.

>>96260079
Didn't blizz say this is where the ogre empire came from? That doesn't really make much sense now that I mention it.

>>96262687
Still, that was the plan before they scrapped everything because WoD was not received well.
Which is a shame.

>>96262694
I really hope the design docs of the stuff they had planned for that gets leaked someday. I'm really interested to see what they were aiming for. Shame the awful execution means it'll be at least years before we see any of it.
>>96260304
I have a soft spot for old god spawn so I like this idea, even if it means they'll be getting crushed by ogres. What exactly would the old god spawn be like? Tentacles, bugs or something else?

>>96262716
You've probably seen this before but it offers a good idea of how many ideas were never implemented

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lyfj2jCb4TQ

>>96262753
Not sure if it was that specific video but yeah I've seen the cut content. The problem for me is that the southwest continent was never implemented into the game beyond the map so besides the tiny bits the devs talked about in promos. I would guess theres actually quite a bit about the topic locked away in the blizz vaults but it only got to the concepting stage. It's all in writing and concept art. As an example heres an early map intended for WoW that was leaked by an old dev. A lot can change in development.

>>96262792
what happens in the giant ass Ulduar continent?

>>96262826
Unfortunately he says nothing about what the plan for that, he only provides the map. However here is the full pdf documenting all his pre-release stuff if you wanna read it.
Fuck, i was gonna post the pdf but I forgot it's still disabled since the hack, well just search up the the wow diary a journal of computer game development and you should be able to find it.

>>96260920
I'd like to try the Savagekin prestige class for the Druid. It gives you a pile of wild shape goodies in exchange for risks of permanent INT damage when leaving wild shape. Just such a wacky idea, I find it hard to resist

>>96259182
I mean aside from the different histories of some characters there most of WoD did a pretty good job of filling gaps in Draenor's lore.

>>96262984
Yeah WoDs worldbuilding is in general pretty good. Sadly blizzards character writing and dialogue are dogshit. And they still keep killing off interesting and useful characters.

>>96262867
Found a copy https://files.catbox.moe/35ildh.pdf
Been reading and surprised to learn that naga were originally planned to be a playable race.

>>96262826
I think that Ulduar continent likely just became southern Kalimdor

>>96264233
I doubt it. The only feature on that ulduar is "the maw" and theres nothing like it on current kalimdor.
I think it was originally intended to be the place the titans came from before they decided on them being planet sized gods.

>>96264123
Remember when people were allowed to be cringe?

>>96219641
>erase pandaren
>keep mogu
retard

>>96264866
Mogu are actually cool and make for fun villains. Bunch of asshole chinese lion giants trying to return to their golden age when they were indestructible stone gigachads via whatever means necessary

>>96265170
NTA but I think the point he was making is how do you have the mogu without the pandas? They're so intertwined you can't really separate them.

>>96265187
Turns out I was the retard all along. Maybe they died out, or the mogu enslaved the hozen instead who used to be more intelligent and civilized before degenerating into half-animal savages

>>96152465
>can transform into a bear
>still has claws as weapons

redundant character design

>>96265202
I don't think the hozen work as is, maybe if you make them look more like wukong it could. Sadly blizz is an american company so they can't do monkey people cause something something history of oppression.

>>96264123
the wow dairy is amazing. picked up a hardback on release. some of the old countdown to classic podcast episodes are also fantastic. staats was also on an episode of the theorycraft podcast iirc a few times. all intriguing stuff

>>96255973
>>96259670
they've release so much supplamentary material for those periods now, thats not quite true. there's also been retconning so you can even choose particular versions or go a la carte
imo wow set during the second war and just focusing on the eastern kingdoms would be great

>>96265202
If you're going to go through such lengths, why not change the pandaren?
They were originally intended to be more warlike, split between different clans
https://warcraft.wiki.gg/wiki/Shao%27din

>>96265436
>the wow dairy is amazing.
Former Blizzard employee detected.

>>96266171
how did you feel about staats' book?

>>96156237
Looking through and noticed a rare map was saved

>>96156237
and draenor

>>96262984
>>96263377
Zangar Sea was rather contradictory because Zangarmarsh definitely existed before the planet blew up. We saw it in one of the old comics about a Broken.

>>96262984
Hold on a second...
If draenor is the body of grond and his head is nagrand then that would make shadowmoon valley and gorgrond his arms and legs...
Then what part of his body is hellfire peninsula?????

>>96267354
His penis clearly. If you wonder why something designed to either not reproduce or to do so only when broken apart has a dong.

Well, you could ask the same thing about Earthen, ever since they threw out the original Vanilla Uldaman lore that on other worlds Titans had already made dwarves out of meat and only used stone on Azeroth because it was so hazardous it's not made much sense.

That basically meant the Curse of Flesh was just the Old Gods just hitting a version Rollback button on the Earthen

>>96267802
Personally I think the curse of flesh is a better idea than titans being lazy elsewhere. It also allowed for interesting things like degeneration or elementals being affected.

>>96266690
NTA but I'm enjoying it so far, very enlightening about how extraordinary game devs operate.
I post pic related cause it's relevant here. I think it's very telling that early blizz devs considered writing game stories to be easy. It really goes to show how excellent the entire team was cause as someone who tried to make a video game let me tell you, making a coherent story for a game is not easy. Theres a later part that I think combined with this explains much of blizzs current story telling issues. Basically he says that a good creative lead is flexible with the story and basically just provides a super structure for the devs under him to fill out on the fly. Also metzen praised comic books for always bringing the heros and villains back from the dead. You can probably see that this makes long term planning a rather distant concern, I've complained about blizz prematurely killing off important characters and this attitude seems to be the cause. The old team built up all this lore and the MMO has just been burning through it with nothing to replace it. But no issue, as I said blizz has some of the best writers in the industry and once they've played out all the concepts from the RTS they can just make more good stuff right? Except it took 20 years to do that and all those excellent writers are now retired and replaced by millennials trying to copy joss whedon and marvel movies. Hmm, maybe blizz should've planned for the future better...

>>96270145
I doubt they thought that they would still be trying to milk money out of this franchise, let alone the same game, 25 years later

>>96270199
I suppose theres some of that too, blizz's success came hard and fast in a young industry and when what you're doing is already working so well why change it? It's no black mark against them they had no idea what they'd be doing in 2010 let alone 2025. It's quite the testament that this worked out so well for them for so long. However blizz's current problems have their roots here, it's fun to analyze where they went wrong even if they couldn't have reasonably known at the time.

I really can't understand why they thought putting the dark portal in kalimdor

>>96270427
What the fuck was the concept for the blasted lands before they put the dark portal there? I thought the reason the blasted lands was the blasted lands was because of the dark portal.

>>96270433
He actually explains this one. Interesting to see that the original dark portal had nothing to do with it.

>>96266690
I was making joke about the dairy/diary typo. Milk has certain connotations when it comes to Blizzard...
I haven't had the time to check the book yet.

>>96270646
completely missed that. good one. im familiar with the breast milk heist pub crawls and even have an old screenshot from wowg when it was mentioned before the mainstream leaks, but am too lazy to look for it
books well worth it as someone who grew up on wow

Back to post warcraft 3 or 2 and have the humans do what they should have done in wiping out the races of the horde and turn the elves and other races into their slaves.