Given that my subscription is running out I won’t be able to reply, so it’s just a few point to consider:
- add Shadowls Rising and the upcoming Sylvanas book to the list IMO;
- there are some lore bits in the 2 more cookbooks. They are not some serious world building, but things that the flavour texts and NPC conversations could utilize to make the world more rich. Some lore bits could be found in
https://warcraft-lore-archives.tumblr.com/post/652929485230997504/wow-cuisine-lore-facts-the-flavors-of-azeroth
- it goes just as planned?
Here is the deal, the current lead designer is S. Danuser. He worked on a few other projects in the last decade which share some common traits.
The projects eventually commercially failed. That includes the declined EverQuest 2; Project Copernicus did not live till the release window, although there is another sister project in the same world, Kingdoms of Amalur, which also was a commertial failure; EverQuest Next, which after motenization attempts and questionable Landmark release also seaced to exit.
What else is common? Maybe it’s pesonalized search from google, but when I looked for presentations / articles about “transmedia” Danuser was on the first page.
EQ Next was a lore reboot to use nostalgia of the players and push the project into “transmedia”, aka have more monetization opportunities on the lore side of the game. (you can check EQ Next: Lore Panel @ SOE Live if you want)
Project Copernicus was also supposed to be a transmedia franchise spawning a bunch of various extra things: comic books, novels, maybe animated or whatever series, etc.
Can’t say much about EQ2, but maybe the work done there led to a lore reboot for the Next.
So, here you have it. Assuming mr. D. stays in blizzard, I’d expect an animated series which could be praised initially for visuals or something, but will become another paywalled part of the lore if it manages to get positive reception.
Of course, the way this “transmedia” approach is sold is usually tries to either use a lot of gibberish or to appear pro-consumer, like “some people do not play games but still can enjoy the world of %placeholder”. Where in reality it’s not even a novellization but a straight new lore info. Fake marketing being marketing.
edit: almost forgot. To add extra parallels to what was done with EverQuest, here is an interview with Danuser about Shadowlands being built from the ground up rather than based on older lore, so it’s technically a soft reboot for the lore as well. Although the devs lack decency to call it for what it is and you can find excuses like "there are no retcons, it was all just PoV’.
https://fr.millenium.gg/news/380364.html
gl hf
