I like both setting (even painted a 40K and AoS armies) but they are different and the further Warcraft stays from being budget Warhammer the better. I am well aware that the franchise started basically this way but you can’t say that it was peak story telling time. What most people would agree on being the golden age of Warcraft story telling and lore is WC3, the time when the franchise decided to take its distance from its inspiration to affirm it’s own Identity: a fantasy setting where the traditionnal “bad” races could be good and the traditionnal “good” races could be bad as we followed Orcs on a quest for redemption, a Human prince on killing spree and ended in all the races coming together to defeat a greater threat. They kept this narrative in vanilla were both factions had some skeletons in their closests and evil counterparts of their races, for example dwarves and dark iron dwarves. The faction conflict was then at a minimum with an uneasy peace and some skirmishes.
Now they switched focus in cataclysm and we had since two full on faction war, but now we reached peace again and some are up in arms saying that this isn’t world of peacecraft. Sure, but being at each other throats all the time for no reasons is just as dumb, if not more. This isn’t Warhammer, all the GW settings were build with one idea in mind: justify that everyone is fighting everyone all the times to give a justification to the players battles. As much as I love Warhammer we have to admit that such storytelling has some issues, enter the main evidence: the End Times.
For those of you who Don’t know the End Times are a storyline set in the Warhammer Battle universe telling of one final war against the forces of Chaos (the baddies) leading to the end of the world and the start of a new one to introduce a new setting ; age of sigmar. 99,9% of players hated the End Times for the same reasons people hated BFA: super-powers escalation. Basically GW kept giving each factions op stuff and characters to make their more attractive to their customers and justify the fact that they could stay at war all the time, however they ran into a problem when they actually had to bring a resolution to the war. How can anyone actually loose ? So they did like Blizz in BFA, turned some characters stupid and nerfed others in the ground. Wow has the same problem, why doesn’t Sylvanas just blight everything ? Why the Lightforged Don’t nuke Orgrimmar for orbit ? It’s even made worse in Wow by the fact that we can’t actually have a resolution, satisfying or not, at least in the End Times it made the story progress.
Basically we are stuck to hit ourselves with wet noddles for no reasons and no actual conclusions possible. Warcraft isn’t Warhammer, war all the time doesn’t make a good story.
Eh. Turning the orcs into pacifist klingons with a weak reboot of the trolls (the old trolls were mean, so we kicked them out, but let’s rescue these new kind pot-smoking trolls!) wasn’t exactly the best way to do the horde, nor great story-telling.
Hellooooo dwarf guns, gyrocopters and steam tanks. Not to mention night elves = wood elves; distrusting xenophobes hiding in their forest. Hell Cenarius is basically Orion. And there’s plenty of scummy mass-mudering zealots in the Empire, so Arthas wasn’t exactly original in that aspect either.
And you say people hate End Times? Maybe the spesific campaign, but not the game (Fantasy Battles) itself, which is why it’s getting a new version because there seems to be more people who hate the D&D/White Wolf style “lol lets kill everything and dumb the remains down” based on that and the fact almost all licensed computer/video games are set in End Times, not Age of Space Marines.
Who for some reason got turned into hippies in WoW. At no point in WC3 did what was left of the Alliance have any contact with the Night Elves yet for some reason this xenophobic faction joined an Alliance halfway cross the globe.
WoW should never have been “Alliance vs Horde” since that story ended with WC2. If anything the Human starting zone should have been Theramore since almost all other human nations were either sacked or turned isolated.
That’s level 0 similarities, they have also a completly different society with their matriarchy and gender roles.
Except mass murdering zealots are the norm of the empire while arthas is clearly shown as doing things unnacceptable by his peers, Uther didn’t rushed in Stratholme saying for the Emperor.
Never said people hated battles, but the End Times storyline is widely disliked.
Well, story is childish and stupid compared to Warhammer, so yeah, the further it stays from being BUDGET version writing-wise, the better. Same goes to the “it will cost you a raid tier”.
No, in warhammer everyone’s not fighting everyone, you are not into its lore like at all.
BFA is not about super-power escalation, Legion was. BFA is toned down compared to Legion in that.
Overall message, if i understand you correctly, is that war is unnecessary and came out of the blue in BFA (which is true), and writing is bad (which is true too). However, war can be played via diplomatical means and by the hands of “mercenaries” and other third parties. But currents writers wont be able to pull it. Yes, Danuser, if you are reading this, prove me wrong.
Sounds more like the OP is describing Lord of the Rings than Warhammer. LotR came before both and is set on even older stories of Nordic and Scandinavian folklore, hell even English and Irish Folklore.
Or you just don’t know Warcraft that well.
I think claiming x think stole y things from z is abhorrently retarded.
People seek and get inspiration from everywhere and everyone.
Warhammer might have had a huge impact worldwide, but nowadays? I hardly think it is the case.
All I saw from Warhammer was war war war gods, war war war gods and conquering.
That’s it.
If you say that’s more unique or vast, aight fam lol
Look, friend, i did not claim anything is stolen from anything, but now ill do. In warhammer the barbaric mongolian horde-like orcs were introduced, not in warcraft. Same with skin colour and fangs/tusks.
War war war war gods? Are you literally ignoring the biggest part of warhammer and only focusing on End of Times bashing (i dont mind it, kick it, KICK IT AND BASH IT AGAIN!)? Gods dont play much of a role in that universe really. You clearly dont know the subject.
Until now there were little-to-no tensions within factions in WoW, and there were in Warhammer. No inner threats in WoW, no real focus on what a horrible and dying world Azeroth is. In warhammer a walk into a forest or just turning down the wrong alley can result in you being eaten alive by mutants/skaven/whatever. There is no chance in WoW you will be born malformed child eating your mother from within and fleeing into a forest to grow up and find your father to deform him into a chaos spawn with the touch of chaos. Universe in warhammer is dread, and people are harsh and dangerous. Compared to that WoW is actually way more friendly and glowy.
This discussion topic started as questionable at best, but right here
99,9% of players hated the End Times for the same reasons people hated BFA: super-powers escalation
is where you totally lost me. Please get off your high horse, if you don’t like a thing that does not automatically mean everyone does not like said thing. Projecting stuff like this is extremely immature.
Also, a couple fun facts to add fuel to this dumpster fire: it has been confirmed in multiple interviews with Blizzard founders that Warcraft was heavily inspired by Warhammer from day 1 and throughout the years. Also, Andy Chambers, widely recognized as one of the founding fathers of Warhammer both as games and settings, is currently employed at Blizzard as a Senior Game Designer and story writer and has been for over ten years. So if you want your Warcrafts have nothing to do with your Warhammers you might be a couple decades late to the discussion.
Bonus amusing fact, I remember seeing a clip where Asmongold went off on a rant about how WoW should be made by passionate nerds and not bean counters and corporate executives. He had some kind of promotional Blizzard anniversary thing in the background and Andy Chambers popped up on the screen to talk about the game. Being the uninformed loudmouth, Zack of course started cussing at him because ‘we need real nerds and not old British corporate guys to make the game’. If he just googled the name he would know this old British guy has been a nerd, genre writer and a game designer for longer than Zack has been alive, but I guess informed opinions don’t really sell well on Twitch…
