I’ve been an off-and-on subscriber to World of Warcraft since 2007, shortly after the release of the Burning Crusade expansion. I am by no means a hardcore player—I rarely get to serious, end-game raiding—but I am not exactly a casual player either. My expertise, dare I call it, is with the franchise’s iconic characters and lore. I couldn’t care less about DPS charts and pet battling systems because I’m on the edge of my seat awaiting the next tidbit of lore we’re about to get spoon fed at the end of the current questline.
What I admire most about World of Warcraft is how Blizzard managed to tell a progressing story for over two decades (WoW released in 2004, but the Warcraft storyline/franchise started earlier). In that time, Blizzard largely avoided almost every storytelling pitfall that other mediums fall into; comic books, for example, kill and resurrect main characters so much it’s hardly worth noting when someone dies anymore; television shows simply end after a few years with very few examples of decades+ continuity (Walking Dead is the only show I can think of that is the exception here); and books take so long to get to us that a few years of story can take decades to deliver.
Meanwhile, World of Warcraft’s story grows a little every few weeks.
But, unfortunately, at one point Blizzard made the decision to involve one major storytelling problem that is truly the worst aspect of the World of Warcraft experience: they messed with time traveling.
It’s my number one rule as a writer to never, ever include time travel into a story. It opens up so many narrative issues and floods pages with narrative tropes that have been ripped apart and stitched together so many times you’d probably need to time travel to have enough time to examine them all.
But because World of Warcraft is a video game, the consumer (the player) isn’t just turning a page or hitting a Play button on a remote. In World of Warcraft, new players begin their experience by wading through the narrative fallout of time travel that is now embedded in the game’s long-running story.
Players who have been with the game for years, decades even, take for granted having the loosest understanding of the game’s narrative. We know why the Lich King was an international villain but now he’s just chilling on his throne and we leave him alone unless we happen to be find ourselves in a particular dungeon or raid. We know why the green orc who lead the Horde is now an orange orc who is angry and we know why the lady with the echo-y voice is mad at him and why suddenly everyone else is mad at her. But a new player? Good luck figuring much out.
In almost every example I can think of, regarding my favorite franchises, part of me wishes I could re-experience it all for the first time. That is not the case for World of Warcraft. The storylines Blizzard has woven for us over the years have made sense (mostly), but in the effort to expedite the player to the current Big-Bad-Monster-We’re-All-Trying-To-Kill event, the player is flung through decades of narrative events that are not properly explained or are at all cohesive.
There are countless examples you can find online of the narrative basically caving in on itself through the gameplay systems required to efficiently navigate the maze of events you’ll be yoinked through until you get to the latest content that is happening as you read this.
My advice for new players is to ignore the story (as much as I love it), focus on learning the game’s mechanics and systems. If you end up loving the mechanics and systems start paying attention to the current story, the history and lore will always be there for interested players to rummage through. Just put on your horse blinders and grind out that XP. Then take a look around and see how you feel.
