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[Bronzebeard]

Sorry, but orcs are unrelated to elves; they come from Draenor, whence they were usurped by Kil'Jaeden and the Legion (via Gul'dan) in their search for Velen and the draenei across the cosmos!

Tolkien needs to get his facts straight.

WHAT? You are questioning the infallibility of the Great Prophet Tolkien! Heresy!

And besides, Blizzard change the backstory of their characters way to often to be taken serious as an authority on anything as far as I'm concerned.

Not really. Most people say this in regards to the Blood Elves, with very little knowledge of the lore; the Blood Elves were enslaved and discriminated against by the humans with only a short, ad hoc alliance to Cenarius' night elven expeditionary forces to Lordaeron.

The depth and breadth of their lore is amazing, but many people are oblivious to it since Warcraft is better known in the form a game rather than the novels holding its "backstory" up -- and mind you that WoW doesn't strictly follow canon. Arthas, for instance, never had a motorcycle. That's just in fun for the sake of the players of the MMO. :3

Once upon a time there were Eredar.


Then suddenly, Windchimes!

The Eredar's leaders, Archimonde and Kil'Jaeden (on Argus, a world that never appeared in Warcraft 3 -- which took place well after -- to violate whatever preconception one would have of them) fell to the sway of Sargeras, whom had promised them great power. Velen, however, remained ambivalent and became opposed when he saw what the draenei were becoming, so he fled Argus. "K'ure appeared before him, reassured Velen that his plight had been heard, and instructed him to gather up his followers and go to the highest mountain on Argus, during the longest day of the year." Kil'Jaeden and Archimonde became vested in hunting Velen and the remaining draenei down across the cosmos. They fled to many worlds before they came upon Draenor, where they were introduced to the game. With no former mention of the Eredar, and thus no way to break their own canon, attacking Blizzard for simply perpetuating their own universe seems a bit unreasonable.

[Kogan Loloklam]

Sorry, but orcs are unrelated to elves; they come from Draenor, whence they were usurped by Kil'Jaeden and the Legion (via Gul'dan) in their search for Velen and the draenei across the cosmos!

Tolkien needs to get his facts straight.

WHAT? You are questioning the infallibility of the Great Prophet Tolkien! Heresy!

And besides, Blizzard change the backstory of their characters way to often to be taken serious as an authority on anything as far as I'm concerned.

Not really. Most people say this in regards to the Blood Elves, with very little knowledge of the lore; the Blood Elves were enslaved and discriminated against by the humans with only a short, ad hoc alliance to Cenarius' night elven expeditionary forces to Lordaeron.

The depth and breadth of their lore is amazing, but many people are oblivious to it since Warcraft is better known in the form a game rather than the novels holding its "backstory" up -- and mind you that WoW doesn't strictly follow canon. Arthas, for instance, never had a motorcycle. That's just in fun for the sake of the players of the MMO. :3

Once upon a time there were Eredar.


Then suddenly, Windchimes!

The Eredar's leaders, Archimonde and Kil'Jaeden (on Argus, a world that never appeared in Warcraft 3 -- which took place well after -- to violate whatever preconception one would have of them) fell to the sway of Sargeras, whom had promised them great power. Velen, however, remained ambivalent and became opposed when he saw what the draenei were becoming, so he fled Argus. "K'ure appeared before him, reassured Velen that his plight had been heard, and instructed him to gather up his followers and go to the highest mountain on Argus, during the longest day of the year." Kil'Jaeden and Archimonde became vested in hunting Velen and the remaining draenei down across the cosmos. They fled to many worlds before they came upon Draenor, where they were introduced to the game. With no former mention of the Eredar, and thus no way to break their own canon, attacking Blizzard for simply perpetuating their own universe seems a bit unreasonable.

Blizzard botched their world about seventeen ways to Sunday, and then wasted their talent to justify the crap they did. Their design paths hint constantly to them breaking cannon as it currently stands constantly, but they chose the path they did, and therefore made it cannon despite common sense. Tolkin's worlds are infinitely more believable than Warcraft's, because they aren't a hodgepodge cobbled together.

Of course it worked out for Blizzard, sitting on top of that large pile of money. Still, they are teetering on the edge of their capability and contradictions will become cannon if they put out Warcraft 4 or too many more books. Too much variance for even the best writers in the world to keep together. Best they keep it to WoW and pray that none of their quests go over the rapidly thinning line they have.

[Bronzebeard]

Sorry, but orcs are unrelated to elves; they come from Draenor, whence they were usurped by Kil'Jaeden and the Legion (via Gul'dan) in their search for Velen and the draenei across the cosmos!

Tolkien needs to get his facts straight.

WHAT? You are questioning the infallibility of the Great Prophet Tolkien! Heresy!

And besides, Blizzard change the backstory of their characters way to often to be taken serious as an authority on anything as far as I'm concerned.

Not really. Most people say this in regards to the Blood Elves, with very little knowledge of the lore; the Blood Elves were enslaved and discriminated against by the humans with only a short, ad hoc alliance to Cenarius' night elven expeditionary forces to Lordaeron.

The depth and breadth of their lore is amazing, but many people are oblivious to it since Warcraft is better known in the form a game rather than the novels holding its "backstory" up -- and mind you that WoW doesn't strictly follow canon. Arthas, for instance, never had a motorcycle. That's just in fun for the sake of the players of the MMO. :3

Once upon a time there were Eredar.


Then suddenly, Windchimes!

The Eredar's leaders, Archimonde and Kil'Jaeden (on Argus, a world that never appeared in Warcraft 3 -- which took place well after -- to violate whatever preconception one would have of them) fell to the sway of Sargeras, whom had promised them great power. Velen, however, remained ambivalent and became opposed when he saw what the draenei were becoming, so he fled Argus. "K'ure appeared before him, reassured Velen that his plight had been heard, and instructed him to gather up his followers and go to the highest mountain on Argus, during the longest day of the year." Kil'Jaeden and Archimonde became vested in hunting Velen and the remaining draenei down across the cosmos. They fled to many worlds before they came upon Draenor, where they were introduced to the game. With no former mention of the Eredar, and thus no way to break their own canon, attacking Blizzard for simply perpetuating their own universe seems a bit unreasonable.

Blizzard botched their world about seventeen ways to Sunday, and then wasted their talent to justify the crap they did. Their design paths hint constantly to them breaking cannon as it currently stands constantly, but they chose the path they did, and therefore made it cannon despite common sense. Tolkin's worlds are infinitely more believable than Warcraft's, because they aren't a hodgepodge cobbled together.

Of course it worked out for Blizzard, sitting on top of that large pile of money. Still, they are teetering on the edge of their capability and contradictions will become cannon if they put out Warcraft 4 or too many more books. Too much variance for even the best writers in the world to keep together. Best they keep it to WoW and pray that none of their quests go over the rapidly thinning line they have.

You've yet to have cited anything to back any of that up and, frankly, it sounds like it stems from unadulterated ignorance of the lore. Further, Tolkien didn't have "worlds", he had a "world." To my knowledge, Warcraft is the only fantasy universe to employ the concept of space and different planets to develop something truly rich and beautiful. Having done that, they have a lot more to work with, such as adding a backstory to something that was previously a 2-dimensional idea. They do that, though, and people groan because it isn't what they're used to and those with an inclination against Warcraft use it as fodder to attack it. "Draenei? What are those? Screw this, they're just making stuff up like there's no tommorow!" With all due respect, lol.

[TheBronzePickle]

Warcraft is the only fantasy lore other than tabletop fantasy to use the concept of multiple worlds. A particularly long game of DnD can have you spiraling through the very planes of existence to literally infinite possibilities. GURPS has thousands of scenarios pre-made, and a talented GM can make up many more. Blizzard just became the GM in this case. If you don't like the lore they create, that's too bad.

P.S.:

[Robocorn]

So Deities are unresponsive pricks, and you get a sweet tile if you become a high priest exactly one goblin was smart enough to find out that being a high priest gets you out of raiding dwarf forts for a thousand years.

[Spartan 117]

So Deities are unresponsive pricks, and you get a sweet tile if you become a high priest exactly one goblin was smart enough to find out that being a high priest gets you out of raiding dwarf forts for a thousand years.

Exactly.

THREAD'S OVER, MOVE ALONG, NOTHING TO SEE HERE.

[Kogan Loloklam]

Sorry, but orcs are unrelated to elves; they come from Draenor, whence they were usurped by Kil'Jaeden and the Legion (via Gul'dan) in their search for Velen and the draenei across the cosmos!

Tolkien needs to get his facts straight.

WHAT? You are questioning the infallibility of the Great Prophet Tolkien! Heresy!

And besides, Blizzard change the backstory of their characters way to often to be taken serious as an authority on anything as far as I'm concerned.

Not really. Most people say this in regards to the Blood Elves, with very little knowledge of the lore; the Blood Elves were enslaved and discriminated against by the humans with only a short, ad hoc alliance to Cenarius' night elven expeditionary forces to Lordaeron.

The depth and breadth of their lore is amazing, but many people are oblivious to it since Warcraft is better known in the form a game rather than the novels holding its "backstory" up -- and mind you that WoW doesn't strictly follow canon. Arthas, for instance, never had a motorcycle. That's just in fun for the sake of the players of the MMO. :3

Once upon a time there were Eredar.


Then suddenly, Windchimes!

The Eredar's leaders, Archimonde and Kil'Jaeden (on Argus, a world that never appeared in Warcraft 3 -- which took place well after -- to violate whatever preconception one would have of them) fell to the sway of Sargeras, whom had promised them great power. Velen, however, remained ambivalent and became opposed when he saw what the draenei were becoming, so he fled Argus. "K'ure appeared before him, reassured Velen that his plight had been heard, and instructed him to gather up his followers and go to the highest mountain on Argus, during the longest day of the year." Kil'Jaeden and Archimonde became vested in hunting Velen and the remaining draenei down across the cosmos. They fled to many worlds before they came upon Draenor, where they were introduced to the game. With no former mention of the Eredar, and thus no way to break their own canon, attacking Blizzard for simply perpetuating their own universe seems a bit unreasonable.

Blizzard botched their world about seventeen ways to Sunday, and then wasted their talent to justify the crap they did. Their design paths hint constantly to them breaking cannon as it currently stands constantly, but they chose the path they did, and therefore made it cannon despite common sense. Tolkin's worlds are infinitely more believable than Warcraft's, because they aren't a hodgepodge cobbled together.

Of course it worked out for Blizzard, sitting on top of that large pile of money. Still, they are teetering on the edge of their capability and contradictions will become cannon if they put out Warcraft 4 or too many more books. Too much variance for even the best writers in the world to keep together. Best they keep it to WoW and pray that none of their quests go over the rapidly thinning line they have.

You've yet to have cited anything to back any of that up and, frankly, it sounds like it stems from unadulterated ignorance of the lore. Further, Tolkien didn't have "worlds", he had a "world." To my knowledge, Warcraft is the only fantasy universe to employ the concept of space and different planets to develop something truly rich and beautiful. Having done that, they have a lot more to work with, such as adding a backstory to something that was previously a 2-dimensional idea. They do that, though, and people groan because it isn't what they're used to and those with an inclination against Warcraft use it as fodder to attack it. "Draenei? What are those? Screw this, they're just making stuff up like there's no tommorow!" With all due respect, lol.

Okay, Griselda.
'nuff said.

As for "Multiple Worlds", it was cliche long before Warcraft was thought of. What the heck do you think "Underhill" is? Let's use Dwarf Fortress though, it's a good example of multiple worlds.

I prefer D&D's works of fiction in general though, because they don't do convoluted things with their storylines to try to make interesting play experiences for others.

Oh, just a note. Ultima Online was pulling multiple worlds since Ultima 8, which with it's March 15th, 1994 release date beats warcraft's with it's november 1994 date. Of course the whole "You are really from earth in Britannia" shows that running theme going the whole way.

Sorry, but blizzard isn't the first. Not even the first to make a teetering mess of their storyline in the name of games.

[zarmazarma]

Yeah, joining a religion let's you talk to god just about anywhere, at any time.

I have yet to see god reply.

From what I reported, you need to send him a "message" at least two hundred thousand times.
That means - open up the chat window and hold the enter key down with something heavy. Leave for a few hours. Come back and check if it works already.

Sounds like one of those things people invent to annoy other people

Default key repeat thing is .15 seconds, change it to .01... 33 minutes later and...

(Not my fault if it brakes anything >.>)

[Askot Bokbondeler]

YOU GUYS SEE THE SIZE OF THAT QUOTE PYRAMID? IT SCARED THE SHIT OUT OF ME!! PLEASE HAVE SOME MODERATION

[Glanzor]

Not really. Most people say this in regards to the Blood Elves, with very little knowledge of the lore; the Blood Elves were enslaved and discriminated against by the humans with only a short, ad hoc alliance to Cenarius' night elven expeditionary forces to Lordaeron.

The depth and breadth of their lore is amazing, but many people are oblivious to it since Warcraft is better known in the form a game rather than the novels holding its "backstory" up -- and mind you that WoW doesn't strictly follow canon. Arthas, for instance, never had a motorcycle. That's just in fun for the sake of the players of the MMO. :3

No, I've played Warcraft III and The Frozen Throne and liked their backstory. If it wasn't good, I wouldn't care about WoW's inconsistency.
The Blood Elves were almost extict and fled to the alien plane in the WCIII-expansion but in WoW, which takes places only a few years later they suddenly have a large, advanced civilization back in Azeroth for no reason. The Eredar are now the Draenei and are not evil any more, no explanation given (at least no good one) while the old draenei are ... still the draenei but not the real ones anymore.
Most of the protagonists of the RTS-games have their motives turned upside down to be turned into generic villians. A lot of characters who died in the old games are now alive again. Elves in the horde. Several monster races in the alliance that was portrayed as xenophobic and bigoted in the RTS-games. Free thinking Death Knights and Worgen and other stuff that makes no sense storywise but allows Blizzard to reach more into the goth teen market etc.
They usually justify this stuff in some strange and barely logical way but the point is that they have to do it in the first place.
Warcraft is a game, not a book, so story is obviously a lot less important than gameplay but if they absolutely must have such an extensive backstory then it would be nice if they had at least a minimum of consistency as well.

[Glanzor]

Doublepost. Mistook the qoute-button for the edit one.

[Sfon]

I associate the DF elves and golbins with the seelie and unseelie courts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classifications_of_fairies

They both are much less mundane than most. Elves are like the seelie: not inherently malicious, but weird which can make conflict easy. Goblins match the unseelie even better, right down to the baby-stealing.

---
WARNING -  SELF-RIGHTIOUS RANT - WARNING
As for Warcraft or even Tolkien being some sort of authority, gimme a frikken break! They are just getting material from old myths which themselves were inconsistent. They didn't invent these things and neither did D&D. I understand there are many fans of such works, but they themselves could not exist without the ability to re-imagine these things.

If anything is a problem, it is that there is so little creativity in fantasy. Like if all SF had Klingons and Romulans clearly ripped from Star-Trek, and SF fans argued if every Klingon/Romulan in everything wasn't like the ones in whatever SF they happened to like most at the moment. It is because of stuff like this that fantasy is such garbage compared even to space operas like Star Trek which barely do enough research to be believable to those who stayed awake through half of science class.

TL:DR Stating Tolkien/Warcraft to others as some sort of authority is juvenile nonsense. The closest to a legit source is a messy wad of very inconsistent myths. Not saying debating/discussing them in general is bad, just the claims of authority.

[Akura]

I found a temple adjacent to the tower filled with human priests worshiping a deity of loyalty and marriage. Strange, I thought, since I imagined that the gods of goblins or any humans they have under their sway would symbolize something more evil.

Say what?

[DarthCloakedDwarf]

WARNING -  SELF-RIGHTIOUS RANT - WARNING
As for Warcraft or even Tolkien being some sort of authority, gimme a frikken break! They are just getting material from old myths which themselves were inconsistent. They didn't invent these things and neither did D&D. I understand there are many fans of such works, but they themselves could not exist without the ability to re-imagine these things.

If anything is a problem, it is that there is so little creativity in fantasy. Like if all SF had Klingons and Romulans clearly ripped from Star-Trek, and SF fans argued if every Klingon/Romulan in everything wasn't like the ones in whatever SF they happened to like most at the moment. It is because of stuff like this that fantasy is such garbage compared even to space operas like Star Trek which barely do enough research to be believable to those who stayed awake through half of science class.

TL:DR Stating Tolkien/Warcraft to others as some sort of authority is juvenile nonsense. The closest to a legit source is a messy wad of very inconsistent myths. Not saying debating/discussing them in general is bad, just the claims of authority.

Have you ever noticed how easy it is to work with fantasy? To make a RPG campaign? To play in one? You know the basics of what's there. You know there are elves, and how they work. You know there are dwarves, and how they work. You know there are goblins, and kobolds, and how they work.

Have you ever noticed how hard it is to make something coherent in sci-fi working with others? You have nothing that is standard. No races. Nothing. In order to play a character in a setting, you need to do a CRAPTON of research into their species, their culture, their history, or you will NEVER get it right.

Ever noticed how easy it is to play an Elven character in D&D? It's a template you're familiar with, you know how they work, you've had plenty of exposure to them.

Now, try playing a Sullustan. Good freaking luck.

[Eric Blank]

ignoring my inability to conjure up the definition of a sullustan... Admittedly I do know somewhat of how fantasy races work but Let myself go nuts wherever I damn well feel like it.

I usually thought of goblins as they are in the elderscrolls physically, especially the head, with varying skin tones and more powerful physique, including a spinal column better resembling a human's, culturally like any medieval society with a emperor-gone-m/bad, being a bunch of loyalist assholes that swoop down and fuck up everybody's lives, and individually fairly dim-witted, like uneducated medieval people, but with some amount of cunning and bravery that only stretches a few yards in the opposite direction of their opponent.

Dwarf fortress' goblinoids are fairly vague. Trolls I accept from someone else's opinion in some thread I don't remember (something to do with caves) to be goblin mutants, being huge, disfigured, grey-skinned with plenty of bumps and warts and leathery texture, and a head of similar size to normal goblins, with a pronounced double chin and short(1-1.5 feet on a 10-12 foot humanoid) tusks from their lower jaw, housing a brain that supports the idea that they're utterly retarded.