I have a simple question for you. What’s the story of Azeroth (levels 1-60) right now? Do you know the story? If you answered yes and don’t have the loremaster achievement then you’re probably lying. Azeroth is currently a create-your-own story kind of world where each zone was sort of its own story that wasn’t connected with anything else. Everything you do is just preparing you for the assault against the remnants of the Lich King’s invasion in the plaguelands and the silithid in Silithhus. After that, you move into the Black Dragonflight storyline in Blackrock Mountain, take down an old god in AQ40, and finally defeat Kel’thuzad before the Dark Portal opens ending one story and starting another.

The story is a veritable cornucopia of stories mixed into one. You can go to Ashenvale and help in the fight against The Burning Legion vs. the Horde vs. the Alliance vs. the Furbolgs or travel to Tanaris and help the goblins fight off the pirates. You could skip STV and never battle the other pirates and participate in the great hunt. Each of these stories was inconsequential and could easily be skipped without much consequence. It wasn’t until The Burning Crusade that we got one solid storyline that continued from start to finish.

Say hello to Goku, added in patch 3.0, and the true slayer of Onyxia.

It’s only natural that the old world gets a revamp now, especially when trial accounts seem to never get past level 10. Who could blame them with how frustratingly difficult questing is through your first fifty eight levels. However, we have to ponder what parts of the lore that Blizzard will keep canon and which parts will disappear or never really happen. That’s not assuming they merge in third-party media like the official comic into the mix.

Recently in the comic AQ40 was destroyed by the new guardian who used it to defeat Cho’gall. Cho’gall is the one who resurrects C’Thun and its Med’an with the restored Atiesh who defeats Cho’gall and crashes Ahn’Qiraj on top of him. Theremore, lorewise, is nothing at all like it’s represented in the game. It now houses the New Council of Tirisfal which is a combination of different class representatives. Of course there is also Broll Bearmantle and Valeera Sanguinar which are leftovers from the Varien storyline.

This may not be merged into the lore in Cataclysm, but I have to ask why it wouldn’t? It’s a canon story, the comics (even the mangaka) affect the in-game world, and we’ve been shown proof before by Varien’s storyline and the Sunwell Trilogy both being added into the game. What does this mean though when there are two conflicting stories? Did we defeat C’Thun or did the new guardian do it? What do all of our old achievements mean now?

I remember the days leading up to the opening of AQ. When the doors opened the entire server was there. Our guild was ready, rushing into the instance, and began the epic battle against Skeram. He fell that night to our steel and magic. It was a beautiful experience. The combination of weeks of planning, nights of farming, and one large event into an event that was so epic that it’s something you’ll never forget.

Of course, now, it doesn’t really matter because Cho’gall was the one inside of the temple. He sat inside of it going mad with the Old God’s voice. A crappy Ogre from before Warcraft III is the central plotline – not us, the adventurers.

They may opt to keep Cenarion Hold and the in-game story, but there are a lot of things that will have to be rewritten to work in the new story. Events will have to be changed or referenced differently in order for the mechanics of the game to work out. Entire quest lines will have to be forgotten, especially if they want to make leveling as fluid as it is now. You can’t have all 1,200+ old world quests be a requirement to hit level 60 in any speedy manner.

Of course, some of the events will port over and change the world. Like the entire Wailing Caverns plotline actually leading to vegetation in The Barrens. That’s something comforting to think about. I mean, after all, this is supposed to be the future. We’re supposed to see how our actions shaped the world after we jumped through the Dark Portal and never looked back.

We won’t really know until the NDA is lifted, but I do hope that the actions of the nameless adventurer are not forgotten as the series gets a reboot. I’d hate to think that I grabbed all of those bear pelts for nothing.

Speaking of the passage of time…  on the PTR Anduin Wrynn grows up and the assault on Gnomeregan will soon be taking place it seems (unofficially speaking). Perhaps we’ll get some good lore from that and a look at how the Cataclysm lore merger will work out.

As a small update, in some of the data mined content we can see Cho'gall showing up in some of the questlines. This means that he's coming into the game, but will he

Lore Theorycrafting

This week’s theorycrafting is a question. Would you be alright if Blizzard rewrote your victories and credited them to a hero in the game? For example, like Onyxia being defeated by King Varien or the silly story of Cho’gall in AQ.