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1For YMMV tropes applying to the ''VideoGame/{{Warcraft}}'' games, click [[YMMV/{{Warcraft}} here]].
2----
3The following has their own pages:
4[[index]]
5* [[AwesomeBosses/WorldOfWarcraft Awesome Bosses]]
6* [[BaseBreakingCharacter/WorldOfWarcraft Base Breaking Character]]
7* [[BrokenBase/WorldOfWarcraft Broken Base]]
8* [[Monster/{{Warcraft}} Complete Monster]]
9* [[EnsembleDarkHorse/WorldOfWarcraft Ensemble Dark Horse]]
10* [[FanNickname/WorldOfWarcraft Fan Nickname]]
11* [[FranchiseOriginalSin/WorldOfWarcraft Franchise Original Sin]]
12* [[GameBreaker/WorldOfWarcraft Game Breaker]]
13* [[MagnificentBastard/{{Warcraft}} Magnificent Bastard]]
14* [[Memes/WorldOfWarcraft Memes]]
15* [[MoralEventHorizon/WorldOfWarcraft Moral Event Horizon]]
16* [[Narm/WorldOfWarcraft Narm]]
17* [[NeverLiveItDown/WorldOfWarcraft Never Live It Down]]
18* [[ScrappyMechanic/WorldOfWarcraft Scrappy Mechanic]]
19* [[ThatOneBoss/WorldOfWarcraft That One Boss]]
20* [[ThatOneLevel/WorldOfWarcraft That One Level]]
21* [[TheScrappy/WorldOfWarcraft The Scrappy]]
22* [[TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter/WorldOfWarcraft They Wasted A Perfectly Good Character]]
23* [[TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot/WorldOfWarcraft They Wasted A Perfectly Good Plot]]
24* [[UnintentionallyUnsympathetic/WorldOfWarcraft Unintentionally Unsympathetic]]
25* [[Woobie/WorldOfWarcraft The Woobie]]
26[[/index]]
27
28[[foldercontrol]]
29
30[[folder: A-E]]
31* AccidentalNightmareFuel: An [[GameBreakingBug unfortunate bug]] happened on 9.0 prepatch release week, and as a result of new improvements and features added to the barber shop, a player can end up looking completely like this with the game mixing and mistaking textures. Examples includes [[https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/jaq43m/if_you_change_your_gender_and_cast_mirror_images/ drag queen mirror images]], [[https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/jap9j0/something_aint_right_here/ bizarre races mixtures]] and [[https://imgur.com/a/tF5bL4G a creepy elf]].
32* AlasPoorScrappy:
33** [[spoiler:''Garrosh,'' of all people, gets this at the end of the Nagrand storyline in ''Warlords of Draenor''. The final cinematic displayed his final showdown with Thrall, during which Thrall says that Garrosh failed the Horde. This leads to Garrosh beating his former mentor to the curb while yelling at him for putting the mantle of warchief on his inexperienced shoulders and leaving him to pick up the pieces of Thrall's mistakes; Thrall refusing responsibility for the part he inadvertently played in Garrosh's downfall (at least during the scene itself), combined with the obvious feelings of anger and hurt on Garrosh's part, had a profound effect on many fans. Although his pages on Wowhead are full of angry commentators rattling off the things they don't like about him, the cinematic caused many people to take Garrosh's side in their fight even though [[ForegoneConclusion he lost]], and to dislike Thrall even more.]]
34** Rhonin in ''Literature/TidesOfWar'', who died saving (then)-fan favorite Jaina and his wife Vereesa.
35* AlasPoorVillain:
36** Murlocs are found in almost any zone with water in it, and cause no end of trouble; until players reach the Blasted Lands, and find an entire Murloc village [[AlwaysABiggerFish enslaved by the Naga]]; and no matter what players do, [[PerpetuallyStatic they cannot be saved]].
37** And the Naga get some of their own medicine in Northrend, when they are attacked and almost wiped out by the Kvaldir; one Naga questgiver is completely unrepentant, but has no choice but to [[EnemyMine ask for help]] as the Kvaldir are about to awaken a SealedEvilInACan.
38* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation:
39** Illidan: Was he a hero who was willing to go to extreme lengths to save his friends, family, and the world? Was he an AntiHero who still ultimately did the right thing? Was he a WellIntentionedExtremist who didn't realize his own evil? Or was he just a power-mad loner who did a couple of good deeds to justify it to himself? Notable in that the writing of the games have slowly slid from the first to the last in the way it portrays both his current and ''past'' actions over time. ''Legion'' and its supplementary material, in particular, posit that ''all'' of these interpretations are valid to some extent, and various other characters lean in one direction or another over him (the split between Kayn and Altruis being the most obvious).
40*** Another one has emerged after the Antorus raid where Illidan [[spoiler:chose to stay behind at the Seat of the Pantheon while the surviving Titans imprisoned Sargeras. The Titans gave no indicator that they wanted or needed Illidan's aid, except allowing him to stay. Was Illidan staying to ensure Sargeras' imprisonment? [[UltimateShowdownOfUltimateDestiny Did Illidan want the chance to fight Sargeras himself]]? [[KickThemWhileTheyAreDown Or did Illidan just want to torture]] [[PayEvilUntoEvil Sargeras for everything he had done]]?]]
41** Arthas, before he took up Frostmourne was he a genuinely good person wanting to do the best for his people, or was he a spoiled brat who set the stage for his own fall? As Death Knight to what extent was he aware of his actions and should be held accountable or was he also as much as a victim as those he killed? Was Stratholme an act of callous cruelty or what had to be done in those circumstances?
42*** With the revelation of The Jailer, [[ICanRuleAlone did Arthas truly want to take over the world for himself]], [[KnightTemplar or did he see himself as a]] NecessaryEvil [[GreaterScopeVillain fighting an even greater source of death and suffering]] [[NoSell with a tainted army that would logically resist]] TheCorruption? Or both? With the reveal that the player characters, his would-be generals, are resistant to The Maw's endless corruption, this theory becomes far more nebulous than expected.
43** One debate is whether General Hawthorne, who destroyed Camp Taurajo. Was he a war criminal responsible for civilian deaths, someone who tried to win while showing more mercy than his comrades, or someone who wanted to show mercy but wasn't competent at doing it? [[note]]To explain, each faction gives you one piece of the puzzle. Camp Taurajo is a civilian town that doubled as a recruitment and training center for Horde soldiers The Horde knows General Hawthorne as the Butcher of Taurajo, due to the massive civilian causalities that resulted from the battle as well as him hiring Wildhammer Mercenaries to firebomb Taurajo, leading to the Horde player assassinating him. As an Alliance player, you learn that General Hawthorne went against the expectations of his superiors, by not taking the civilians hostage, instead leaving a gap in the battle lines open for them to escape. He even goes as far as to hire the Alliance player to arrest soldiers looting the camp. However, many civilians were killed regardless, and the gap in the battle lines led directly into quilboar territory. In ''Literature/TidesOfWar'', Baine says the camp was a military target and exiled anyone who disagreed or defended themselves, however this just made Baine UnintentionallyUnsympathetic in the eyes of the Horde player base.[[/note]]
44** Was Kael'thas a good man DrivenToVillainy by unfair prejudice and a set of impossible circumstances in ''Warcraft III'', or was he an incompetent commander who should have been able to overcome the odds stacked against him without accepting forbidden help? The RTS and various [[WordOfGod supplementary materials]] suggest the former, but ''The Burning Crusade'' stripped away most of the sympathy fans had for him and turned him into an unambiguous villain.
45** Is Tyrande a good-natured and fair leader or a dangerous zealot? Is Thrall heroic and selfless or foolish and naive? And so on.
46** Garrosh during his final battle with Thrall. Does he have a point, and did Thrall give him a responsibility that he wasn't ready for? Or is he simply making excuses and refusing to accept responsibility for his actions (throughout Mists of Pandaria, he'd mocked Thrall as being too soft to be an effective leader or a "true" orc)?
47** After the "Rejection of the Gift" scenario, a ''very'' big one has happened: [[spoiler:Is the Light legitimately an ultimately benevolent good in the world? Or is it just the Order opposing the Void's Chaos and is just as bad at the farthest extreme? Xe'ra's forcefulness and sinister behavior when she tries to force Illidan to become a champion of light and dark has created a lot of the latter sentiment, especially since, as ''the'' Prime Naaru, the buck for the Light's purpose ultimately stops with her until we get proof that Elune is in fact a Light overdeity (which has scant proof to back it up). That the lightforged draenei can come across as the KnightTemplar trope and show light-based mutations not so different from fel-corrupted eredar furthers this for some. Many fans are now considering that LightIsNotGood may now be in effect for everything to do with the far extreme side of the Light, and not just the forces who use it for evil actions. This was furthered when people were shown a scrapped design for an Argus invasion world that was extremely close to the Light (a WorldOfSilence covered in crystals with no living thing in sight besides the demons players fought) despite the fact that [[WordOfGod Blizzard explicitly scrapped that idea because it didn't match their intended depiction and characterization of the Light]].]]
48* {{Altitis}}: Everybody who plays the game for long has multiple characters. Even if it isn't to experience life in the opposite faction, there are still seven races per faction and 12 classes, not to mention the advantages of having multiple professions and weekly lockouts available on one account. Some players ''never'' get a character to max level, instead rolling dozens of alts. And then Blizzard added the Recruit A Friend program, allowing players to level alts with their friends at triple the normal rate.
49** In ''Wrath of the Lich King'', the addition of "heirloom" class items makes this even more highly encouraged, as they can be traded among characters on the same account, scale to character level and increase the rate at which experience is gained, making leveling up additional characters easier.
50** In ''Cataclysm'', the heirloom system was expanded to guilds, with heirloom capes and helms only being available once your guild reaches a certain level. Further, ''Cataclysm'' revamped the leveling experience in old Azeroth in order to attract players who are bored with the original content.
51** Then comes ''Mists of Pandaria'' which introduces a playable neutral race and a new class, yet more incentive to make a new character. On the other hand, people can pay to race change their character into a pandaren, like they could with worgen and goblins.
52*** Supported even further later on in [=MoP=], in which all Pandaria factions have an item available upon reaching Revered that doubles all reputation gains for that faction for every character on that player's account. Additionally, if you get the maximum amount of 1000 Valor points (currency for buying and upgrading raid gear) in a given week on one of your characters, all your other characters get 50% more Valor Points for the rest of the week.
53** ''Legion''. Every class order has a distinct storyline with its own plot, villain and characters, encouraging having at least one of every class at max level if you're a lore nut who wants all the story, plus the divergence of each class/spec that was a focus of Legion's design makes it a unique experience for every character. However, the way that Artifact weapons grow more powerful puts a soft timer on your character's power that you must devote time to, thus you'll be having to spend much more time on your main to power up the artifact you'll actually use for endgame (and this makes alt-specs hard, too), as well as the return of reputation gates (you need to be at least friendly with all the factions, including the Nightborne who only open after you hit max level) before you can do World Quests, although this requirement was made unnecessary for alts come patch 7.1. It's sort of hard to tell if Blizzard wants you to mess around with alts or focus on your main, as while the ''Story'' certainly does, the ''gameplay'' and gating discourages it.
54** Blizzard seems to be encouraging players' Alt-itis with the introduction of several new allied races in ''Battle for Azeroth''. The world was changed so that everything scales to the end of that arc's max level (1-60, 58-70, 80-90, 90-100, 98-110), but also drastically slowed down levelling with the altered XP requirements to make it take much longer than it used to, as well as nerfing heirlooms to be less omnipotent and making enemies have more HP. As for the Heart of Azeroth, Essences bring this into full aversion, as while it's simple enough to get a fair number of rank 1 essences, getting them up to rank 2 or rank 3 is a much more significant timesink and effort, and with how powerful they are not spending the time to get the best essences can majorly cripple anyone wanting their character to be raid-ready. That some of the best ones come from higher-up Reputations and [=PvP=] Honor rewards can outright stall out an alt's growth, as they aren't account-wide.
55** One of Blizzard's intentions in ''Shadowlands'' was to streamline the alt levelling process. Not only did they rebalance levelling again along with a level squish so that characters will be able to proceed into current content after completing a single previous expansion's content, but after main characters have completed the main ''Shadowlands'' story and reached endgame content, all further characters on that account will be able to 'skip' the story and level how they like, and gain endgame rewards at the same time.
56* AngelDevilShipping: Since ''Battle for Azeroth'' and the two have fully settled into their new roles, it's been a growing trend to ship High King Anduin Wrynn (AllLovingHero blessed by the Light) and Warchief Sylvanas Windrunner (Attractive but ruthless undead) together.
57* AngstWhatAngst: In ''Legion'' [[spoiler:Nazgrim, Thoras Trollbane, and Sally Whitemane]] are resurrected as Death Knights. None of the three seem worried about their new condition. Some have, however [[AlternateCharacterInterpretation interpreted one of those as]] as [[spoiler:being freed from the corruption of the Scarlet Crusade]].
58* AntiClimaxBoss: N'zoth in ''Battle for Azeroth'' was heavily criticized as one. Despite the years of build up and mystique, not least of all in his own expansion, the intriguing Old God itself ultimately didn't leave much of an impact and was taken out rather anticlimactically in a very brief, very underwhelming cutscene that released to much mockery. Such were the complaints about his poor showing that Blizzard backtracked a bit and suggested he [[ThanatosGambit may still be playing the long con]].
59* {{Anvilicious}}: A common criticism of the story is that despite the game being called ''War''craft, many characters go out of their way to talk about how both factions need to put aside their differences and fight against a common enemy. Not only does it seem contradictory in spite of the series' namesake, but many players feel that the factions fighting each other ''is'' in fact justified even when fighting bigger threats, due to one or the other's tendency to betray or backstab the other while dealing with the GreaterScopeVillain, so being told to hold hands and get along comes off as disingenuous at best, completely ignorant at worst.
60* {{Applicability}}:
61** Sylvanas comes off as a rape/abuse survivor to many people, particularly women, with the way her being raised into undeath is often framed as a particularly obscene act. This is often reinforced by the way Sylvanas' treatment is so different to most Undead.
62*** Arthas raised her entirely out of spite for putting up a fight against him, and [[AndIMustScream kept her self-awareness intact]] so that she could witness his destruction of her people and to torment her further. The narrative even frames it as if his decision to wipe out the elves is a supposed punishment for her defiance. Her body is even kept in an iron coffin for the specific purpose of preserving it so it can be used to further torture her. Arthas even went as far as to keep a vial of her blood among all of his supposedly "sentimental" trinkets.
63*** Arthas' line "After all you've put me through woman, the ''last'' thing I'll give you is the peace of death" is delivered in an especially creepy way for many people.
64*** Sylvanas is not only profoundly affected by what has happened to her, she is frequently [[UsefulNotes/VictimBlaming blamed and looked down on]] for what happened to her, with many people claiming that she is simply an obscene mockery of who she once was and people who were her friends, family or colleagues in life treating her with disdain even before ''Battle for Azeroth.'' Many people, especially women, see the way she is treated by others and even her own sisters as being frighteningly similar to victim-blaming and gaslighting tactics used on victims of rape or abuse.
65* AssPull:
66** TheReveal that Fenris Wolfbrother was Durotan's big brother and Thrall's uncle. Totally out of the blue, not supported by any prior lore and almost certainly just a hat trick pulled to make Fenris even more of a scumbag and account for Garad's absence.
67** Many accusations of this were hurled at [[spoiler:Grom Hellscream's redemption]] at ''Warlords of Draenor'''s climax, not helped by Blizzard themselves admitting that the [[FinalBoss planned fate]] for this character changed while the expansion was already well into development. [[spoiler:The end result is most of the expansion depicting him as a genocidal and unambiguous villain ultimately responsible for most of the Iron Horde's many invasions, campaigns, and atrocities, which is then promptly forgotten as his victims, the two most prominent of whom have suffered not only the threat of their peoples' extinction at his hands, but also very personal loss, somewhat blandly decide to let [[TurnTheOtherCheek bygones be bygones]] after an EnemyMine. That this occurred without Grom showing a ''single shred'' of remorse for bloodying Draenor with war and conquest makes it all the more jarring.]]
68** The idea that "There must always be a Lich King". At the end of [=WotLK=], it's said that there needs to be a Lich King to keep the Scourge in check, and without one they'd destroy the world. The idea is based on the misconception that a leaderless army is more dangerous than one with proper direction, despite the fact that players spent the entire expansion killing the Scourge's best generals and mad scientists. Arthas reveals (with a bit of WordOfGod and AllThereInTheManual) that the reason he didn't kill the players right away is that he was grooming them to be his champions, and that he was holding the Scourge back so that he could corrupt champions to ease a wound in his remaining mortal pride about being duped by Mal'Ganis. This itself is a swerve because he had already killed his 'humanity' (meaning his good side) in a novel and again in a major quest chain, yet a piece of it (pride) still remains holding the Scourge back. There's also no explanation for why [[spoiler:Bolvar]] doesn't have the same level of control over the Scourge as Arthas, and why he can't apparently order them to destroy themselves. Ultimately, the idea seems to exist solely to ensure that the Scourge are still an active force, and so Blizzard can reuse them when they want to.
69* BadassDecay:
70** Thanks to proximity, territory conflicts and plot the Night Elves have gone from independent faction on equal footing with the Horde and Alliance to the Horde's punching bag.
71** Simarily, Tauren went from BewareTheNiceOnes to a collective ExtremeDoormat.
72** Baine started out as a ProudWarriorRaceGuy, similar to his father, who was willing to give peace a chance, [[BewareTheNiceOnes but woe behold anyone]] who [[AFatherToHisMen attacked the tauren]]. This can be seen as early as [=WoW's=] debut where Baine killed dwarves invading Mulgore after they refused to leave and his DummiedOut lines [[https://youtu.be/xGdJ6CQu_k4?t=1885 in Cataclysm.]] Starting from ''Literature/TidesOfWar'', Baine was turned into an ExtremeDoormat, infamously brushing off a tauren town being firebombed when the military personnel were away and saying it was ok because it was a military target. This was followed by [[{{Hypocrite}} hypocritically]] exiling tauren who [[CrimeOfSelfDefense defended themselves]] against Alliance military forces trying to invade Mulgore, [[TheMillstone actively crippling]] the safety of the tauren.
73** Pandaren went from a ProudWarriorRace (Just look at several of Samwise's drawings of them) into a utopian society.
74** A major theme of Lor'themar Theron's narrative (the transformation from a front-lines war hero to a politician stuck behind a desk in Sunfury Spire) [[InvokedTrope invokes]] this trope.
75** Prince Kael'thas and Lady Vashj, the two [[ArcVillain Arc Villains]] of Outland, suffered from this too in ''The Burning Crusade'', despite being incredibly badass in [=TFT=]. The former had an off-screen FaceHeelTurn and was eventually reduced to a corrupt, power-crazed mana zombie, while the latter was simply DemotedToExtra.
76** Similar to the Kael and Vashj examples, we have the crypt-fiend king, Anub'arak. He was the badass [[TheLancer Lancer]] to Arthas in [=TFT=] but was DemotedToExtra even worse than the treatment Vashj got. At least in Vashj case, she was the final boss of the Serpentshrine raid. All Anub'arak got in [=WotLK=] was an early dungeon and a mid-expansion raid.
77** [[spoiler: The Bolvar!Lich King went from potential new Undead BigBad to Sylvanas's punching bag]].
78** Game-wise, the Apothecary Hummel fight from the "Love is in the Air" event has degraded from a serious fight to a joke. When this boss (and the two that come with him) first debuted, it was a tough fight involving poisonous perfume and cologne that you had to use a "neutralizer", picked up from a nearby table before the fight began, to counteract. You could die quickly if you weren't using them, and it wasn't unusual for healers to warn other team members that they wouldn't bother trying to heal people who weren't using the neutralizers. And each boss joined the fight on a timer, so part of the challenge was taking the first one down while handling the second before the third joined in and made things too difficult. Today, the poisons do so little damage that no one bothers using the neutralizers, and the bosses are all so weak[[note]]both in terms of the damage they can deal, and damage they can take[[/note]] that most groups don't even bother with a dedicated healer, and just pile on with 4 DPS. Even the tank staying in DPS mode isn't unusual, as high-geared parties can literally take each of them down in seconds, which makes the party actually ''wait around'' for the next one to activate, rather than desperately trying to avoid being triple-teamed.
79** After ''Burning Crusade'', Blizzard felt that it was necessary to give the [[BigBad Big Bads]] more on-screen time and involvement during the leveling phase as a means of making them more familiar and recognized to the player. However, because it would be annoying to have multiple scripted events in which the villain kicks your ass, most of these encounters involve you either thwarting the villain or being spared by them. This leads to having the player constantly witness the villain failing to do anything right, and being belittled or fooled every time they show up. The Lich King had this the worst, from retreating the battlefield while coughing as a result of gas exposure to having his heart destroyed and collapsing to the ground.
80** Deathwing was an interesting case in that the threat he posed became less and less threatening in ''the same expansion''. A low level player's first exposure to Deathwing would most likely be when he shows up and scorches the entire zones with flames that do nearly a million damage a tick, making him a horrific threat. And yet despite being this terrifying, ever-looming threat, by the time players are level 85 and starting the ''Cataclysm'' content, Deathwing's EstablishingCharacterMoment as a villain instead of a deadly force of nature is him resurrecting Ragnaros and... letting you and the green dragon you're riding on escape so you can bring word back to Ysera, restore Hyjal, revive the ancients, and ultimately kill off Ragnaros for good. While you can make the case that Deathwing is insane, it's been shown that yes, he's crazy and omnicidal, but he's still ''lucid'', making his acts of mercy bizarrely out of character. Throw in some SmugSnake, and you have a villain who's almost comical and boring when he actually has personality instead of mindless destruction.
81** The titular Warlords of Draenor are parallel versions of mainstay ''Warcraft'' villains (and [[AntiVillain Anti-Villains]]), introduced one by one in a gauntlet of quests that ultimately has the player and their allies fleeing to safety so they can build their strength to fight the Iron Horde. They are generally seen as being pushovers after that, with two dead before the expansion's first patch even hit (in less than impressive places as the final boss of a low-level 5-man dungeon and the introductory boss of the Highmaul starter raid). The Iron Horde as a whole is then pushed right back to Tanaan and only hold out there because [[EvilerThanThou alternate Gul'dan and the Legion take over]]. Grommash Hellscream, despite initially being promoted as the BigBad of the expansion, ends up deposed, chained and tortured, singing the praises of Azeroth's heroes (who were his mortal enemies up until that point) as he waits for them to rescue him.
82** Some people are rather disappointed at how easily N'Zoth, who had been built up as a major antagonist for a long time, is defeated, both in terms of gameplay and story, and how he only has a single patch devoted to him. He's even unfavorably compared to his puppet Deathwing above, and some people [[CharacterPerceptionEvolution have somewhat kinder things to say about Deathwing as a villain now that N'Zoth has been defeated]].
83* BannedInChina:
84** The Chinese government has historically taken a dim view of [=MMOs=] and [=WoW=] in particular, and has cut off all access to the game nationwide on two occasions. (Too bad this doesn't stop [[RealMoneyTrade gold farmers]].)
85** In China, anything having to do with death or anything representing it is a very taboo subject. Because of this, Forsaken character models have their bones covered up and Death Knights are called Fade Knights. Among [[https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/49x7m0/chinese_wow_censorship_comparisonlots_of/ many other changes]], the ground clutter in some dungeons of bones and corpses was replaced with... bread, of all things. (Cue jokes of Scholomance being a haunted cooking school rather then a school of Necromancy)
86* BestLevelEver:
87** Shadowfang Keep, Upper Blackrock Spire, and Scarlet Monastery were among the most well-liked dungeons. So much that they got a remake.
88** The Badlands and Thousand Needles were among the most well-received old world reworks of ''Cataclysm''. Thousand Needles for its unique boating mechanics (Something never used outside of this zone), and Badlands for its storyline.
89** Warlords of Draenor was considered the worst expansion, but it definitely had some of the game's best zones. The storylines all led into one another and contributed to the Metaplot. (And even ''Legion'''s as well.) The Spires of Arak in general is considered to be one of the most legitimately interesting (and depressing) storylines.
90** Deepholm in ''Cataclysm'' manages to provide a very EldritchLocation in the sense this is an elemental plane of earth with floating rocks, ecosystems made out of living stone, rivers of quicksilver, sinister music showing just ''how'' much is at stake here, and nothing but pure SceneryPorn. Plus it features a CallBack to another level...
91** Maraudon, the first dungeon added to the game. Set in the middle of Desolace, you would think it's a cave full of blank stone... but it's not. It's full of bioluminescent fungi, plants, and just pure GaiasVengeance. Plus Earth Song Falls is just... [[SceneryPorn beautiful]].
92** Drustvar and Vol'dun for their very bleak atmospheres and having some legitimately interesting storylines. Their associated dungeons also probably didn't help matters, either.
93* BigLippedAlligatorMoment: One Alliance quest in the Blade's Edge Mountains has you transform nether drake hatchlings with a device you got from one of the gnomes at Toshley's Station. Occasionally you'll end up turning the hatchling into a mature black dragon named Nihil the Banished, who will chide you for releasing him from his imprisonment and you can then turn him back into a hatchling, causing him to let out a BigNo.
94* BreatherLevel:
95** ''Dragonflight'' as a whole is much ''much'' more light-hearted than the expansions since ''Legion'' which were much darker and grimmer in tone. In addition, the dungeon and raid mechanics were usually kept fairly simple outside of higher tiers of difficulty.
96** ''Mists of Pandaria'' was itself somewhat of a breather after the world-shattering events of ''Cataclysm'', though this didn't last very long
97* CaptainObviousReveal: The true identity of the Runecarver [[spoiler:as the missing Primus of Maldraxxus]] received an unusually large amount of foreshadowing in the main ''Shadowlands'' campaign such that fans originally attempted to argue it's misdirection because it would have otherwise been too obvious.
98* CatharsisFactor:
99** Running old content and curb-stomping enemies far weaker than you, especially in dungeons and raids where it might yield new transmog appearances, mounts, pets, and toys.
100** Defeating any villain that has previously sparked your ire, usually either from [[CutsceneIncompetence screwing you over in a cutscene]], [[VillainExitStageLeft repeatedly getting away before you can kill them]], [[KickTheDog screwing over other characters that you like]], or simply talking down to you during gameplay. Athissa, Dargrul, and Xavius in ''Legion'' and Queen Azshara in ''Battle for Azeroth'' are just some examples.
101* CharacterPerceptionEvolution:
102** Garrosh Hellscream, upon his introduction in ''The Burning Crusade'', subsequent rise to prominence in ''Wrath of the Lich King'', and ascension to power as Horde Warchief in ''Cataclysm'', was hated by players for his JerkAss attitude, warmongering stances, and extreme anti-human and anti-Alliance attitudes that escalated to outright [[FantasticRacism racism]]. Many players cheered at the opportunity to take him down when it was revealed that he would become the BigBad in ''Mists of Pandaria''. Over time however, Garrosh would be much less hated. This is in part due to the perception that he tried his best to overcome the responsibilities Thrall left him when he was appointed as Warchief, which was something he himself claimed ([[VillainHasAPoint not without reason]]) to be doing in his final moments, along with the fact perception that his actions in ''Cataclysm'' were a justifiable reaction to the moves of the Night Elves against the Horde. The reevaluation of Mists DoubleStandard with Garrosh where he was vilified for what other characters like High Marshall Twinbraid[[note]]whom wiped out an entire tribe of native people before the Horde/Alliance war out of sheer FantasticRacism, but was still depicted sympathetically in Mists quests[[/note]] and Gallywix[[note]]who sold his own race into mass slavery out of pure greed, yet was shown as having the moral high-ground over Garrosh[[/note]] did. As a result, many players have expressed the idea that [[DracoInLeatherPants "Garrosh did nothing wrong"]], or even believed Blizzard should have developed on Garrosh's more sympathetic traits in ''Cataclysm'' alluded to in a few quest lines[[note]]albeit quest lines was allegedly done by a developer "supposedly" unaware of the plan for Garrosh to develop into a villain, despite the developers promising on the forums, Garrosh would not be evil.[[/note]] rather than throwing them away.
103** Zul'jin becoming a raid boss was always divisive, with many upset that a character previously hyped as a hero of the modern Horde wound up being a raid boss. That said, there were also a large amount of vocal fans that felt Zul'jin always evil and that his warfare with the Highborne elves for settling in his people's ancestral land was inherently wrong. Over the years, the increased knowledge of the fandom with the harm of colonization and marginalization of native people by European superpowers, Zul'jin came to be almost universally viewed by the fandom as a [[TragicVillain Tragic]] AntiVillain at worst.
104** While Arthas Menethil/The Lich King was always regarded as the franchise's best villain, at the time of ''Wrath of the Lich King'', the motivations surrounding his fall from grace were originally heavily debated among fans. At the time of ''Wrath of the Lich King'', the fanbase was divided between those that saw him as a TragicVillain and those that viewed him as driven purely by pride and selfishness over a genuine desire to avenge his people. Since then, opinions have shifted towards the former due to the plague remaining incurable, which in turn made his actions in Stratholme appear more understandable. This shift was also in part due to the shift in perception in the fanbase of Sylvanas (whose defenders often supported more negative interpretations of Arthas' character) from a tragic victim of Arthas to a even worse villain that the narrative fails to humanize in light of increasingly evil or at the very least excessively dispropotionate actions on her part.
105** The BigBad of ''Cataclysm'', Deathwing, was at the time criticized for being a one-dimensional villain who didn't accomplish much after his devastating emergence from Deepholm and had a somewhat disappointing final battle. However, some people have come to view him more favorably compared to N'Zoth, the GreaterScopeVillain from ''Cataclysm'' who served as the FinalBoss of ''Battle for Azeroth'', since despite being a major threat in the lore as the last remaining Old God (albeit supposedly the weakest), he's dealt with in a cutscene. Compare Deathwing, who'd defeated his fellow Aspect Alexstraza in Twilight Highlands, and who could only be vanquished by the rest of the Aspects combining and sacrificing their powers, thereby resulting in a PyrrhicVictory.
106* CharacterRerailment:
107** Some fans consider the ''Legion'' expansion did this for Illidan. Many ''Warcraft'' players felt that his descent into tyranny during ''The Burning Crusade'' was poorly executed. Blizzard apparently agreed, seeing how ''Legion'' has gone above and beyond to rerail Illidan into an UnscrupulousHero bordering on NominalHero -- which is much more in line with his character before ''The Burning Crusade''. Make no mistake; Illidan is a WellIntentionedExtremist that's ALighterShadeOfGrey at best, more than willing to PayEvilUntoEvil and is a TokenEvilTeammate, but given the foes he faces, he is never an outright villain.
108** It's a common fan agreement that the ''Battle for Azeroth'' expansion went about doing this for Jaina due to a lot of people feeling that she went way too far off the deep end from ''Mists of Pandaria'' onward. While her anger towards the Horde was justified due to Garrosh bombing her home off the face of Azeroth, Jaina turned into such a warmongering genocidal maniac from then on to the point that she's basically an entirely different character. Thus, leaving a lot of people feeling that her transformation was too sudden and poorly executed, and people were just outright sick of it by the time of the ''Battle of Azeroth'' beta, which looked like they were going to push forward Jaina's warmonger persona even further. After a bit of rewriting, the released version of ''Battle for Azeroth'' ends up really toning back on this character shift with her acting a lot more like her original ''Warcraft III'' persona.
109* ClicheStorm: The LargeHam bosses' favorite way of CallingYourAttacks. Originally done so you'd know how to prepare for an incoming attack but nowadays it's just tradition.
110* CommonKnowledge: A lot of fans like to bring up that magic is forbidden in Mak'gora and therefore Thrall cheated in his final duel against Garrosh. In reality, the only two consistent rules of Mak'gora are that once dropped, a weapon can't be used by either combatant and that all duels are to submission or death. Every other rule is decided by the participants beforehand, such as Cairne's and Garrosh's duel where Cairne declared they'd fight without armor and have one weapon each (blessed by a shaman of their choosing). If neither side declares any additional rules, then only the aforementioned rules apply. Further, Thrall and Grom dueled in the prelude to ''Wrath of the Lich King'' and Thrall used magic there without anyone insisting he was cheating. The issue stems from ''Legion'' having Thrall feel both his connection to the Elements and Doomhammer weakened following his duel with Garrosh, which many took as a sign the Elements felt he had cheated, when the game itself states it was because of his guilt instead. Also the [[Film/Warcraft2016 2016 film]] wherein magic was forbidden in Mak'gora, even though said movie isn't canon to the game lore[[labelnote:*]]For example, in the movie, King Llane insisted Garona kill him so she'd gain enough reputation among the Horde to latter negotiate for peace. In the games, she was mind controlled by Gul'dan into killing Llane. Also Garona of the film is explicitly Medivh's daughter, whereas in the games, she's half-draenei and the niece of Vindicator Maraad.[[/labelnote]].
111* CompleteMonster: See [[Monster/{{Warcraft}} here]].
112* CrackPairing:
113** While some considered Thrall/Jaina to be this, there was actually some justification for it.
114** Another one which is coming out is [[InterspeciesRomance Li Li and Anduin]]. Others prefer Anduin and Wrathion for similar reasons. Both may qualify as a ToyShip.
115** Varian/Garrosh is the fandom's favorite non-serious ship.
116** Illidan/Maiev have been touted since ''Warcraft III'', then made a comeback with Legion.
117* CrazyIsCool:
118** Most of the Goblin starting experience, to wit: One of the focuses right at the beginning is to set everything up for a party, naturally, you succeed and start to have a pretty rad (by Goblin standards) party... only to have it be crashed by ''Party Crasher Pirates''. After the volcano starts to blow, you're trying to get enough money to get off the island. So you break into the bank, steal your life savings back, but it's still not enough. So what do you do? Why, burn down your corporate headquarters to get the insurance money, of course! You do this by overloading your generator, [[RuleOfFunny turn on your "Leaky Stove"]] And then drop a cigar on your flammable bed. It only goes upwards from there, there are many examples later, but one truly stands out. Once you're on the Lost Isles, a Goblin asks you to take care of a giant shark. How do you do this? Well, after getting a bunch of shark bits, he makes a shark submarine with [[Film/AustinPowers Freakin' Laser Beams]], then you fight the shark in it.
119** After his bout with debilitating insanity in ''Wrath of the Lich King'', Budd Nedreck has stabilized into this.
120---> ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Meb-2c-1z0g I'M A MANATAUR!]]''
121** The whole defending the shard thing became really annoying after a while, so Azuregos entrusted it to a construct of his called Maws, which is a very special minnow. The player has the option of calling him insane for this, while a pleased Azuregos claims to be a genius instead.
122*** He gets worse in ''Cataclysm'', it's implied being farmed so much may have caused permanent damage to his brain, eventually he decided just to stay dead for a while and wound up ''falling in love with a Spirit Healer''.
123* CreatorsPet: Several of Richard Knaak's characters.
124** Rhonin: He becomes leader of the Kirin Tor over several better candidates. He marries one of the Windrunner sisters and gets to be connected to that famous high elven family. He gets to travel back in time and fight the Burning Legion. Though the backlash over him may be why he was KilledOffForReal in ''Tides of War'', which ironically [[AlasPoorScrappy made more people like him]].
125** Jarod Shadowsong: Some see him as being shoe-horned into the setting in the ''Warcraft'' novel ''Wolfheart''. He's Maiev's brother, Shandris' love interest, friend to every major Night Elf character and a military commander whose skill is great. He also gets no lore between the War of the Ancients and the Wolfheart novel but in the latter he's welcomed back with open arms after several thousand years of isolation, implying he spent several thousand years resting on his laurels yet is still held in high esteem in the Night Elves meritocratic society. Supporters state that [[IJustWantToBeNormal he made it clear he only did what he thought was necessary and just wanted to live in peace after helping to save the world]], and again, he was a major factor in saving Azeroth back then and many night elves remember him for that, like Malfurion and Tyrande. Detractors point out how his absence in ''Warcraft III'' seems to indicate he didn't consider the return of [[OmnicidalManiac Burning Legion]] enough to get him to take up his sword again even though they're the reason he took up his sword the first time, not to mention how Furion and Tyrande remain on top of Night Elf society by continuously proving themselves the best. This makes it look like Jarod, [[BrilliantButLazy despite his often-toted abilites, just retreated to a private home and stayed there]] while everyone else did the hard work rebuilding Night Elf society and fighting the Burning Legion again.
126* CriticalDissonance: Every version of the game has generally been well-received by critics, but the playerbase has been more divisive for expansions after ''Wrath of the Lich King''. On Metacritic, ''Battle for Azeroth'' has the lowest critic score of any version of the game at 79 against a much harsher user score of 2.6, trailed by ''Shadowlands'' with a critic score of 83 and a user score of 3.0.
127* DemonicSpiders:
128** Some raid trash mobs have earned this reputation for having more complex mechanics than most trash, and having a very small chance of dropping loot. The six ritualists prior to Dark Animus in Throne of Thunder are largely considered to be, in some ways, more difficult than the boss itself because of their devastating Ritual Lightning.
129** In the Timeless Isle, while the mobs are meant to vary in difficulty, with some too strong to defeat alone (and they typically reward accordingly), the Molten Guardians are exceptionally difficult, typically attacking in either a frontal cone or a large radius around them that hits for massive damage, making them very difficult to defeat. Unfortunately, griefers often like pulling them to where the rival faction is fighting Ordos.
130** The Sentries in Suramar (any unit with the Detector ability) have drawn some ire from the fanbase as well. They can see through illusions, will mob the player and can even see through stealth abilities such as Shadowmeld and Invisibility.
131** During classic, two enemies in low-level areas (Westfall and Silverpine Forest) were this:
132*** Defias Pillager for Westfall. It was one of the first enemies (if not the first some players could encounter) who could attack with magic from range -- and unlike the ones faced before, this actually would deal quite a bit of damage. StatisticallySpeaking, during Classic it was one of the ''deadliest'' mobs ''in the game'' because of the sheer amount of player deaths caused by it.
133*** Son of Arugal. While not as deadly StatisticallySpeaking (players were able to retreat and Silverpine wasn't as popular as Westfall or Barrens) it could still [[ParanoiaFuel appear with virtually no warning]] and was probably a lot higher level than you. Some players even took this as a hint that they shouldn't go to that zone yet.
134* DesignatedHero:
135** It's certainly arguable that a large amount of the Alliance and Horde leaders have become this type of character as the expansions have progressed into DarkerAndEdgier territory. Many players feel that, as the factions player characters are most loyal to, and thus the people we should root for in the end, it's difficult to really feel for or side with either one; not only have many of the major lore figures been accused of being idolized by Blizzard's story devs, but it has often fallen to the "neutral" factions to actually save Azeroth while the Alliance and Horde are too busy [[ConflictBall fighting each other]] to team up against the BigBad of the expansion.
136** Odyn is such a fun, honorable and friendly ReasonableAuthorityFigure that it almost makes you forget that the rise of Helya and her Val'kyr, and everything that they've done, is ''entirely his fault''.
137* DesignatedMonkey:
138** Jaina Proudmoore. After everything she suffered in Warcraft III, things have still been going badly for her (especially after the bombing of Theramore). After Mists of Pandaria, despite seemingly toning down her hatred in ''Literature/WarCrimes'', the writers always find a way to make Jaina [[TookALevelInJerkass take levels in jerkass]] and stick to hating the Horde as if the events of the novel never happened, such as being obstructive to the Horde during ''Warlords of Draenor'' and having Khadgar replace her as head of Dalaran because he decreed Dalaran to be a neutral hub and she refused to accept any of the Horde in "her" Dalaran. It kind of felt like someone in the writing team feels like the peaceful but strong-willed Jaina is a pussy and the angry war hawk Jaina is wonderful while the fandom might not generally agree. Things continue this way in ''Battle for Azeroth'', with Jaina still staying off the Kirin Tor's Council of Six, keeping her distance from her boyfriend Kalecgos and being blamed for her father's death. Then when she finally met her mother face-to-face after many years, Katherine [[OffingTheOffspring sentenced Jaina to death]] (at [[FalseFriend Lady Ashvane's]] insistence) and declared [[IHaveNoSon Jaina to be "no daughter of (hers)"]]. '''Ouch.'''
139** The Horde has become this in later expansions, especially Battle for Azeroth. They are increasingly depicted as committing atrocities against the Alliance while the Alliance's own crimes against them are glossed over or [[{{Retcon}} retconned away]] and the idea that the Horde was a noble group that was tricked into evil is shredded by Warlords of Draenor showing a Horde untouched by demons is just as bad as before. The Horde's main characters are killed off regularly and the ones that remain are increasingly depicted as inferior to their Alliance counterparts. The Alliance in turn is not just shown to be morally but also militarily superior with some side stories showing individual Allaince characters (namely Malfurion and Jaina) as capable of wiping out entire Horde armies singlehandedly. Battle for Azeroth has the Horde losing every major battle of the Fourth War with the only exception being yet another atrocity designed to paint them firmly as the villains of the conflict. It includes such highlights as the Horde suffering such a crippling defeat at Dazar'alor that Baine, their moral compass, urges them to surrender outright to the Alliance and Saurfang, the Horde's main character of the expansion, giving a speech about how the Horde is inherently evil and should never have existed.
140** As of Battle for Azeroth, Tyrande and the Night Elves have been repeatedly suffering from countless atrocities such as the burning of Teldrassil and a genocide committed by Sylvanas Windrunner, [[DramaticIrony not all that different from Arthas' genocide against the HighElves]], and were denied justice and a proper passage into the afterlife by their god, [[UnintentionallyUnsympathetic Elune]], [[StupidSacrifice who allowed her people to get massacred by the Banshee Queen]] under the idea that they were flowing into Ardenweald. In Dragonflight, Tyrande ends up losing Malfurion to bring Ysera back from Ardenweald, even pointing out that she's tired which many of the players frequently cite as what they see as pointless abuse against the Night Elves as a race.
141* DracoInLeatherPants:
142** Sylvanas. The fandom is quite aware of her grey (and greying) nature and, [[KarmaHoudiniWarranty until]] ''[[KarmaHoudiniWarranty Legion]]'', her status as a KarmaHoudini. Despite this, she has quite a few fans who overlook her morally questionable actions and defend her.
143** A milder example lies in Illidan, since the potential for great good certainly existed in him, but it's there. This is further exacerbated by Blizzard's attempt to redeem him involving whitewashing via retconning elements of his lore (one example; Originally, Illidan did side with the Highborne and by extension the Burning Legion because of his addiction to magic and envy of his brother. This was later retconned into Illidan acting as a double-agent and telling no one). This is further compacted by the fact that the one character outside the Illidari who endorses him, Xe'ra, is a BaseBreakingCharacter because of her CharacterShilling of Illidan and (according to her detractors) her HolierThanThou attitude ([[MoralMyopia of course, some of those same fans who hold Xe'ra in contempt also whitewash and shill Illidan]]).
144** Arthas. The necessity of purging Stratholme is debatable, but after this point, he gets more and more evil over time.
145** Garrosh. He was hated by many players when he appeared in [=WotLK=] but he later appeared sympathetic early on in Cataclysm in scenes such as despairing over Magatha's poisoning of Cairne, publicly executing a Horde general that bombed an Alliance village full of innocent people (by dropping him off a cliff), and telling Sylvanas off for using the val'kyr to raise more Forsaken, saying she is going against nature and is no better than the Lich King. However, due to much of the early backlash, he was established as a full-on villain in ''Mists of Pandaria'' with the goal of killing anyone that wasn't an orc and loyal to him. As with Kael, many lost sympathy for him at that point, and tended to focus on his more sympathetic characterization during ''Cataclysm'', though you can still find players claiming he's the best Warchief the Horde has had even when he became a full-on villain. His death in ''Warlords of Draenor'' only added fuel to the fire with his NeverMyFault speech laying all the blame for his actions at the feet of [[TheScrappy Thrall]] and has [[VillainHasAPoint just enough truth in it]] that some fans were happy to blame Thrall for everything he did, in spite of the fact that this flies in the face of his arrogantly saying that the Horde is better off without Thrall, [[EnemyMine even as the combined Alliance and Horde are closing in on him]].
146** Even Garithos, a fairly [[SmallRoleBigImpact minor character]] from ''Warcraft III'', has his defenders now saying his actions against Kael'thas were justified despite Blizzard themselves clarifying that the guy was driven entirely by [[FantasticRacism personal racism]] and set the blood elves up to be killed.
147** Likewise many Alliance fans try to excuse Daelin Proudmoore's actions, especially after Garrosh and Sylvanis, claiming that he was right about the Horde being evil and that Jaina should have just killed them all. Even though he launched an unprovoked assault against a non-hostile power, took no prisoners, destroyed the countryside (including the Darkspear Trolls' home the Echo Isles, even though the Trolls had nothing to do with the First and Second Wars, for no real reason other than "they're Horde so they're evil" mindset), violated a parley and attempted to assassinate Rexxar, forcibly seized the city of his daughter when she attempted to protest based on Theramore and the orcs' shared history, refused all attempts at diplomacy and finally was killed in a direct frontal assault after multiple chances to surrender by all parties involved. Indeed, it was Daelin's actions that played a massive role in revitalizing the Orcs' and Trolls' hatred the Alliance, with people treating events after his death as if somehow they were destined to happen.
148** Lei Shen. Some people claim that he was a true hero who brought order to Pandaria despite the fact that he killed the last queen of the mogu and condemned her to undeath, abused the powers of Ra-Den after ripping it out from him, enforced a MasterRace mentality on everyone else, and enslaved all the other races to build his temples and walls, and completely destroyed the old Pandaren culture.
149[[/folder]]
150
151[[folder: F-L]]
152* FandomEnragingMisconception: And, with the game's two factions system, they actually contradict each other:
153** Thinking that the [[BlackAndWhiteMorality Alliance are the good guys and the Horde the bad]]. The Alliance/Horde conflict is ''supposed'' to be GreyAndGrayMorality, even if (mainly due to bad writing) it doesn't always seem that way.
154** Conversely, after ''Battle For Azeroth'', thinking that the Alliance is equally as bad as the Horde will get you a long list of Horde atrocities compared to the fewer (some having been [[AdaptationalSelfDefense retconned out]]) ones committed by the Alliance, alongside a complaint that while it may be what's ''intended'', what's ''actually shown'' is that the Alliance has far less blood on its hands.
155** For OlderThanTheyThink reasons, do not call the ''Mists of Pandaria'' expansion a rip-off of ''WesternAnimation/KungFuPanda''. The Pandaren race debuted in the ''The Frozen Throne'' expansion for ''VideoGame/{{Warcraft}} III'', five years before the first ''Kung Fu Panda'' movie.
156* FandomSpecificPlot: Jaina and Sylvanas being forced into an arranged marriage to put a stop to the ongoing war between their two factions is quite popular in Jaina/Sylvanas fanfics. In these fics, both start out hating each other before slowly falling in love.
157* {{Fanon}}:
158** The idea that Xe'ra was trying to brainwash Illidan into being her champion is popular among part of the fanbase, despite the fact she was only trying to replace his fel magic with the Light (admittedly by force), and even being Xe'ra's champion he would've still carried out his plan: their already shared goal of ending the Burning Legion.
159** The idea that the Light's authority ended at Xe'ra, despite the fact that [[spoiler:the Light wasn't weakened or dimished by Xe'ra's death, as is shown with Turalyon in the ''"Before the Storm"'' book and Anduin in the ''"Battle for Azeroth"'' expansion, along with the scant but still plausible evidence that there is at least one Light overdeity who may or may not be Elune]].
160** Related is the idea that the Lightforging process brainwashes people and comparing it to Fel or Void corruption. This is despite the fact that Fel is degenerative dark magic, the Void is degenerative dark magic and induced insanity while Lightforging involves a VisionQuest where a person confronts and defeats a manifestation of their personal demons (reminiscent of the Amalgam of Corruption boss fight in ''Mists of Pandaria'') and becoming an EmpoweredBadassNormal (not to mention, apart from Xe'ra's actions with Illidan and ''maybe'' Lothraxion, every Lightforged Draenei was a '''willing volunteer'''). The only part of the canon that even implies that it does is with Lothraxion, the Light-infused Dreadlord, and even he was still able to talk Xe'ra out of killing Alleria and didn't come to her aid [[spoiler:when Illidan attacked her]], something a brainwashed character wouldn't have done. Also in the ''Before the Storm'' book Turalyon reminded Anduin to let the Light guide them, but not command them, which shows Turalyon's dissatisfaction with Xe'ra's methods.
161* FanonDiscontinuity:
162** ''Mists of Pandaria'' would seem to serve as this for the ''Warcraft'' fandom. People who give it a chance often praise how detailed the culture and history of the new continent is. But a lot of people just can't get past the fact that it focuses on talking pandas or the focus on the faction conflict.
163** ''Shadowlands'', as in the entire expansion, is treated as if it never happened by a large portion of the player base. The amount of retcon the expansion required, that all events from the very beginning of WarCraft were to lead to it, already had the players belief stretched thin. That [[TheScrappy The Jailers]] master plan, ultimately ending in [[VaguenessisComing claiming his universal genocide plan was to stop something even worse]] was attached to the worst villain in franchise history, the treatment of the established deities rather than being disparate pantheons all being just part of the Shadowlands with Elune notably getting hit the hardest as under Shadowlands lore [[spoiler:[[UnintentionallyUnsympathetic/WorldofWarcraft she willingly let all the Night Elves at the Burning of Teldrassil die rather than intervene just to send their souls to Ardenweald because her sister The Winter Queen asked for help and she thought allowing genocide was a good idea]]]] making her seen as uselessly insanely stupid, the Sylvanas storyline being pushed down the audience throats ending with an [[UnintentionallyUnsympathetic undeserved redemption]] along with an asinine "I will never serve" declaration, that the feeling of none of it being either foreshadowed in any real way meant the changes to decades of lore - such as Shadowlands being the origin place of the Dreadlords whose sole purpose was to lead to this expansion - and its reception being retrospectively the worst expansion ever and rather cosmic out there nature has people viewing the whole thing as [[AllJustaDream it was all a dream]].
164*** Some argue that this discontinuity is important to the game itself, as by revealing the Shadowlands and exploring them the game has rendered death as ultimately having no meaning to the conquests of what happens in life. Why should the players care if they succeed or fail to stop world or even universe destroying cosmos stories when there is literally a heaven that all characters go to and rather than being mysterious its all explicitly laid out? This is most explicitly seen in the actions of Elune where killing someone in life has no meaning as they will be going to somewhere better in their opinion. A variant of this is that as Shaodwlands is heavily Azeroth and Draenor-centric, and thus meakes the entire universe looks like it resolves around just characters from just those two planets makes the universe seem very small, with one of the few exceptions being the real identities of Inquisitors in Revendreath who are named as galactic conquerors... that now are just vampires. Therefore, the best thing is to outright render Shadowlands as a possibility of life after death rather than set in stone, or to ignore it entirely, just so there's motivation to keep fighting in the living world.
165* FoeYayShipping: Despite them being on opposite sides of the war ([[ShipsThatPassInTheNight along with barely interacting in canon]]), a lot of fans ship Jaina Proudmoore and Sylvanas Windrunner together, due to their similarly tragic backstories and the fans feeling that they would understand each other like no one else can. On [=AO3=] for example, Jaina/Sylvanas is the most written about pairing for either character.
166* FountainOfMemes: Arguably the game itself, but for more a more specific example, Garrosh Hellscream has a few in the ''Cataclysm'' expansion: "YOU. ARE. DISMISSED!", "GET OFF MY SHIIIP!!" and "Watch your clever mouth, bitch!"
167* GeniusBonus:
168** A fan noticed that some of the blue- and purple-quality items in the first tier of Cataclysm are named after lines from Keats' "Ode to a Nightingale". The more she looked, the more references she found to 19th and 20th century poetry, [[http://flavortextlore.wordpress.com/2012/02/03/your-justice-point-gear-is-named-after-famous-poetry/ from Wordsworth to T.S. Eliot.]]
169** Many sets of gear have themes of naming, such as references to the boss's abilities or the boss itself. For example, [[https://warcraft.wiki.gg/wiki/Flameweaver_Koegler Flameweaver Koegler]], a boss of the revamped Scarlet Halls who is burning books, drops "Bradbury's Entropic Leggings", which is a reference to Creator/RayBradbury, who wrote Literature/Fahrenheit451
170* GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff:
171** While a DracoInLeatherPants fandom for Warchief Sylvanas is a thing everywhere, it is particularly strong in Russia, where numerous popular YouTubers have made videos in her defense, whether as a plot device (i.e. Sylvanas is an interesting villain) or as a character (i.e Sylvanas is at least somewhat justified in her ruthless actions). It does not help that what is supposed to be a MoralEventHorizon moment for Sylvanas -- bombing her own city so that it would not fall into enemy hands -- is an [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_of_Moscow_(1812) integral]] [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scorched_earth#World_War_II part]] of Russian defense policy.
172* GoddamnedBats:
173** Famously, Murlocs, which hang out in close packs that love to aggro en masse on unwary players. ''Burning Crusade'' for its part introduced true flying enemies, the most annoying of which are the Kaliri, which attack out of nowhere and can knock you off your flying mount if they hit you from behind.
174** The minor elementals (fire, earth, water and air) deserve a mention. They're extremely irritating and have erratic pathing. Which results in you being forced to fight them (usually thanks to the dazed mechanic). It doesn't help they're immune to their respective element, but they're usually easy to kill.
175** A swarm of twilight drakes attacks before the Ultraxion battle. They have low health, but there's enough of them that it can be somewhat tedious fighting all of them.
176** One Vale of Eternal Blossoms daily requires you to go into the spirit world and free the souls of some Pandaren. There are ghost-like monsters in there that can attack you, which forces you back into the real world. You have to defeat them and walk back over to the device that sends you to the spirit world before you can continue freeing souls. It used to be possible to avoid the ghosts by freeing the spirits from a flying mount, but now, freeing a spirit dismounts you, leaving you vulnerable to attack on the ground.
177** Some actual bats -- Greater Cave Bats, to be precise -- in Throne of Thunder before the Tortos encounter have a raid-wide interrupt that must be interrupted, and you have to pull at least three at a time, among other mobs. The vampire bat adds on the boss also count, as they can replenish their own health if the person tanking them drops too low.
178** ''Everything'' near a resource node you're trying to harvest. They will, without exception, suicidally start a fight with you to defend that resource node, forcing you to deal with them as their ScratchDamage interrupts your farming. This goes double for those near your level, as they have larger aggro radiuses, and take more than an offhand spell to deal with.
179** Cove Seagulls in Eye of Azshara are strangely overpowered and possess a rapid-fire stun ability. Though neutral at first, accidentally aggroing them in higher Mythic+ runs often resulted in a wipe.
180** Almost everything in ''Battle for Azeroth'', due to the new zones being much smaller, yet ''far'' more dense than ''Pandaria'' and ''Warlords'', which were much larger zones. Most of them are clustered together with overlapping aggro radii, and often accompanied by a pet or are next to someone else meaning you're ''constantly'' fighting groups of two or more. It's not as bad if you're a Frost death knight who constantly spams AreaOfEffect attacks or an Affliction warlock who can [=DoT=] everything in sight, but if you are say, a paladin or a rogue focusing mostly on single target damage it really gets annoying forcing you to pop defensive cooldowns ''on trash mobs''.
181** The scrappers in the Motherlode constantly dropping bombs around and forcing everyone to back up.
182** Raptora in Zereth Mortis! These birds have no health to speak of, but they have a ridiculous aggro radius and seem to exist for the sole purpose of annoying players.
183* GoddamnedBoss: Several of them, typically ones that immobilize the raid at certain points or ones in which overleveled groups must take care not to break the encounter with their increased DPS (for example, before he was patched to make him solo-able, it was easy to defeat Kalecgos, but if you defeat his dragon form before Sarthrovarr inside him, you would have to try again).
184** For solo players wanting to clear out old content for transmog gear or achievements, there are several bosses which are easy to kill but near-impossible to solo due to fight mechanics -- the Twin Emperors (have to be kept away from each other) and C'Thun (you can't get out of his stomach alone) in [=AQ40=], and the first boss of Blackwing Lair (who must be mind controlled to destroy eggs and not die himself) as examples.
185*** Viscidus deserves a special mention, as a combination of things needed to kill him (Frost damage to freeze him, then a ton of physical attacks before he unfreezes) means that just about every class other than shaman, death knight, and hunter with a chimaera pet cannot solo him without preparing specifically for him. The best part? He is one of the bosses in [=AQ40=] that drops a pet needed for "Raiding with Leashes" achievement.
186*** Spine of Deathwing in Dragon Soul deserves a mention for its aggravating roll mechanic that throws people off if too many are on one side (meaning it's impossible to balance the sides with a single player). Thus, the player has to keep moving from side to side to avoid dying or clearing the adds needed to advance through the fight.
187** Bosses that feature [[FlunkyBoss waves of enemies]] can be somewhat annoying if you're overgeared, since if you have far more than the required DPS, you end up spending more time waiting around, instead of killing the boss more quickly. Examples include the Tribunal of the Ages in the Halls of Stone, Gothik the Harvester and Kel'thuzad in Naxxramas, the Commander Vo'jak encounter in Siege of Niuzao Temple (although there is a gong that causes the waves to come more quickly), Wise Mari, the Galakras encounter in Siege of Orgrimmar, and [[ThatOneLevel the entirety of the Battle for Mount Hyjal raid]].
188** Old raid bosses with lots of "roleplaying" script. The Lich King, for example, makes you wait over a minute for the fight to even start, and when you get him to 1 hp, he won't die, more script kicks in, and you get to sit around for over two minutes while what is for all intents and purposes an unskippable cutscene plays out.
189** Also, old raid bosses with weird mechanics, such as [[https://wowpedia.fandom.com/Immerseus Immerseus]], [[https://wowpedia.fandom.com/Galakras Galakras]], [[https://wowpedia.fandom.com/Spoils_of_Pandaria Spoils of Pandaria]], or the [[https://wowpedia.fandom.com/Spine_of_Deathwing Spine of Deathwing]]. They all force a player attempting to solo the content to spend lots of time completing objectives before you can actually inflict damage on the boss, making it take forever for players attempting to farm the old content, even when the raid itself is so big, you could spend a ''lot'' of time just running through it, even if you could kill each boss in a single blow.
190* GoodBadBugs:
191** For a month or two in ''Wrath of the Lich King'', any reputation meant to be earned for a Wrath faction that was maxed out would instead be given to a different faction. This worked for both quests and dungeons (if wearing a faction tabard), even with factions that didn't have a faction tabard, such as the Frostborn. Before it was removed, many players maxed out several reputations much easier than intended.
192** For a time in the revamped Shadowfang Keep, it was possible to use a Monk's Touch of Karma or a Warrior's Spell Reflection to reflect Baron Ashbury's "Pain and Suffering". Since "Pain and Suffering" reduced players down to almost zero health, this would inflict massive damage on the boss, often outright killing him in regular mode. This would later be patched.
193** In Lost City of the Tol'vir, a few ranged players discovered a glitch that allowed them to jump onto a statue during a boss fight with Lockmaw and plink away. The adds summoned by the boss never touch them, and for the most part it's impossible for them to pull aggro, and thus much easier to kill Lockmaw and get the achievement for killing all the crocolisks. This was removed.
194** For a while, it was entirely possible to progress on the "A Complete Circuit" achievement for Lei Shen, in which you must defeat him at least four times, overloading each of the four quadrants of the room, on Raid Finder difficulty. This enabled some people to get the achievement without having to do him on Normal mode, or if they were able to do it on Normal mode, overloading any quadrant other than Diffusion Chain (the most troublesome ability, a chain lightning that spawns adds for each person hit) first.
195** A bug with ''Battle for Azeroth'''s launch causes your character to occasionally T-pose from the waist up until they perform an action that requires the use of their arms, with the exception of emotes. This can be used to hilarious effect. Occasionally, [=NPCs=] are also affected.
196** Huntsman Altimor from Castle Nathria drops a neck item that lets you charm a Shadowlands beast for 5 minutes. When the raid first launched, it could be used to charm ''druids in Cat Form''.
197* GrowingTheBeard: The game was infamous for its questing: while trying to avert completely depending on LevelGrinding, it pretty much invented TwentyBearAsses, leveling was filled with boring, irrelevant sidequests no one cares about. With ''Cataclysm'', many locations were reshaped in such a way so each zone tells a story and most sidequests are directly tied to it. The game is becoming more and more convenient over the years too, with things such as Dungeon Finder that lets you forget about crying "LFG" for hours being drowned out by people selling things or arguing about politics.
198* HarsherInHindsight:
199** Thrall's comment in ''VideoGame/{{Warcraft}} III: Reign of Chaos'': "Perhaps this is our destiny -- to go on fighting the humans forever". ''World of Warcraft'''s gameplay ensures that as long as the game goes on, there will never be lasting peace between the Alliance and the Horde.
200** Infamously, the Horde-side questline in Stonetalon Mountains, specifically its ending where Garrosh executes a Horde general for committing war crimes and massacring noncombatants, became this following Garrosh's JumpingOffTheSlipperySlope in ''Mists of Pandaria''.
201** [[spoiler:Jaina's Resolution in ''Mists of Pandaria'', if you know what happens later. She goes on about how it's not right to force the blood elves to renounce their loyalty to the Horde, and merely days later, the blood elves take her trust, and stab her in the back, taking the [[ArtifactOfDoom Divine Bell]] from Darnassus, and all only possible because Jaina trusted them. And it's because Garrosh has the bell, that Anduin nearly died. If played from the Horde standpoint though, both Grand Magister Rommath and Aethas Sunreaver have this as well.]]
202*** [[spoiler:Rommath was originally Kael'thas's liaison with Silvermoon and spent all of his time reassuring the Blood Elves that yes, their Prince was going to save them. Flash forward to the end of Burning Crusade, Kael'thas is clearly nuts, tries to bring Kil'jaeden into the world, and is slain at Magister's Terrace. Rommath, realizing just how wrong he was, stands with his people and helps kill him. Several characters note however, that Rommath still hasn't gotten over this entirely however, as he believed in Kael'thas wholeheartedly, and tried to justify some of the Prince's more dubious actions before the end. Three expansions later, and he still hasn't quite forgiven himself.]]
203*** [[spoiler:Aethas Sunreaver was the leader of the Sunreaver faction of the Kirin Tor and openly supported his people rejoining Dalaran in the Nexus War, arguing that Dalaran had never wanted to betray them and just didn't have a choice because of Garithos. Later, in Mists, he is momentarily corrupted by the Sha, and reveals that he'd like nothing better than to split from Garrosh's Horde and heal old bridges with Dalaran and others of the Alliance. Flash forward to the end of the Dominance Offensive storyline, and his position in Dalaran is manipulated by Garrosh's agents who steal the Divine Bell without his knowledge, and Jaina Proudmoore marks him as a traitor. She then purges the city of all Blood Elves, killing or imprisoning all who aren't saved by the player and Rommath, and Aethas is barely saved and brought back to Lor'themar, now an exile of the city he wanted to rejoin so badly he risked himself for it.]]
204** [[spoiler:The ending cinematic for the Horde in ''Mists of Pandaria'' is now painful to watch, as Vol'jin got to do next to nothing as Warchief all through ''Warlords of Draenor'', and he dies after the introductory quest to ''Legion''.]]
205** The Isla Vista spree killer, Elliot Rodger, was a longtime [=WoW=] player and wrote at length about his experiences with the game in his manifesto. His viralled forum posts indicate that he was a fan of Garrosh Hellscream, the contentious former warchief of the Horde, a line from whom Rodger quoted nearly verbatim ("mountains of skulls and rivers of blood") in a much-publicised video posted to [=YouTube=] shortly before his killings.
206** In the ''Warlords of Draenor'' ending, Yrel, having defeated Archimonde with the help of Khadgar, Durotan (an orc) and even her former enemy Grom Hellscream, quotes the late Vindicator Maraad by saying, "In the light, we are one." At the time, this comes off as a heartwarming affirmation of how former enemies won the war together, but in ''Battle for Azeroth'', Yrel ends up becoming a fanatic for the Naaru and attempting to forcibly convert the orcs in order to unite all of Draenor under the Light.
207** In the Azsuna questline, Runas the Shamed is a hilarious addled Nightfallen that tries to help you and the blue dragons fight back the other Wretched and Nightfallen. [[spoiler:He stops being funny when he reveals he was on the cusp of degeneration into a withered, and [[SugarWiki/HeartwarmingMoments thanks you]] for making his last hours [[TearJerker mean something]].]]
208** All the jokes about Kobolds and their protectiveness of their candles and fear of the dark becomes this in Highmountain, as it is revealed [[spoiler: that they are actually afraid of the Uul'Gyneth the Darkness, Herald of the Old Gods.]]
209** All the quests and interactions where players help spirits pass on into the afterlife, originally presented as them finally finding peace, become ''much'' harder after the ''Shadowlands'' expansion reveals that the afterlife... [[CrapsackWorld isn't a very nice place either]].
210*** When you defeat Ursoc in the Emerald Nightmare, Malfurion hopes that he finds his way back to the Dream. Sadly the Ardenweald trailer for ''Shadowlands'' shows his soul was sacrificed to keep the forests alive.
211* HesJustHiding:
212** Calia Menethil, a minor character known for her unwitting [[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor betrothal to Deathwing]] and her status as Arthas's sister, had a vague fate after her brother's massacre of Lordaeron. Many fans believe she survived it, [[spoiler:which is confirmed in ''Legion'']].
213** Some have this opinion of Rell Nightwind, a minor NPC who is involved with the main Jade Forest storyline on the Alliance side. He is grievously wounded after the battle at Serpent's Heart and Mishka tells the player that all she can do is make him comfortable. Yet upon the release of patch 6.0 he is seen at the Celestial Tournament along with his companions and this was not the case when the Timeless Isle went live in 5.4.
214* HilariousInHindsight:
215** Said by a quest giver in Stormwind on a level 30 quest chain: [[spoiler:"The Defias Brotherhood, you say? Well, you're certainly the bearer of wonderful news, aren't you? Next you're going to tell me that Deathwing is still alive and attacking the city."]] Yeah, about that...
216** One of the loading screen tips says: "Bring your friends to Azeroth, but remember to go out of Azeroth with them as well". When Burning Crusade, which mainly takes place in Outland, came out there was a rather glaring loophole in that statement...
217** In the Alliance questline before Twilight Highlands, in which you help Anduin thwart a Twilight's Hammer plot to blow up Stormwind, the Black Bishop refers to you, Anduin's bodyguard and investigative partner, as a "pawn". Anduin's code name early on in ''Mists of Pandaria'' is "The White Pawn," which is an amusing coincidence.
218** The Pandaren have existed since 2002, but were not brought in the forefront (i.e., becoming a playable race) until around 2012, after which a franchise came out featuring a, for lack of a better term... WesternAnimation/KungFuPanda.
219** In 2013, a breed of cat was developed, called the [[http://lykoicat.com/ Lykoi cat]] (or "werewolf cat"). It looks more than a little like the worgen druid cat form, particularly with the fur pattern around the face.
220** A 2004 AprilFools joke involved Blizzard announcing that two-headed ogres would be playable in ''World of Warcraft'', with one player controlling each head. Over 10 years later, in the 2015 [=BlizzCon=], Cho'gall the two-headed ogre magi is announced as a new hero in ''VideoGame/HeroesOfTheStorm''... and two players are required to control him.
221** The Emerald Nightmare's resemblance to the Upside Down from ''Series/StrangerThings'' is uncanny (though the Nightmare was designed way before the show was released).
222** The WesternAnimation/SouthPark episode ''Make Love, Not Warcraft'' features the boys staying in the low level Elwynn Forest and killing a comically large number of boars to level up and challenge the BigBad (which in the actual game would not work, as enemies stop giving experience to players too many levels above them). One of the features in ''Battle for Azeroth'' is level scaling for low level zones, and while Elwynn itself doesn't scale very high, it will indeed be possible to grind your way to the then-maximum level of 60 by just staying in one place and killing boars.
223*** Similarly, in Hillsbrad Foothills, Orkus the Kingslayer is derided by an NPC as a bottom-feeder who has no business being in such a low level zone. Due to level scaling, you can now quest there while being thirty levels above the intended level range.
224*** The episode features Human Hunters, a race-class combination that wasn't possible during the episode's airing (''Burning Crusade'' was yet to be released). With the advent of ''Cataclysm'' Human Hunters are one of the new possible combinations added.
225** ''Animation/RPGMetanoia'' has an {{Expy}} of the Lich King who wears an item called Helm of Destiny, [[spoiler:which was broken during the movie's climax inside a ''church'']]. The item it's based on, the Helm of Domination, [[spoiler:would be broken by Sylvanas nine years later, leading to the events of ''Shadowlands'', an expansion that introduces ''[[FictionalReligion covenants]]'' that players can join]].
226** The Badlands quest [[https://www.wowhead.com/quest=27713/the-day-that-deathwing-came The Day That Deathwing Came]] ("I'm gonna punch that dragon in the face!") becomes even more hilarious with the release of the Visions of N'Zoth introductory cinematic. To wit, the first thing Anduin does when Wrathion shows up at Stormwind Keep is ''punch him in the face''.
227* InformedWrongness:
228** The Prime Naaru Xe'ra is said to be controlling and prejudiced against those who use powers besides the Light. The writers even intended to make her a case of exploring that not every Naaru is good from the player's perspective. Given that Illidan is coming close to HeWhoFightsMonsters and both Fel and Void often induce TheDarkSideWillMakeYouForget, she has a point about an aversion to non-Light powers; while it was wrong of her to omit that Naaru can turn into Void Gods, if she wanted to avoid that fate herself it makes her aversion to anyone using the Void understandable. Yet this purported prejudice didn't stop Xe'ra from recruiting people like the non-Light-using player characters, NCP Archmage Y'mera and Alleria (prior to Alleria's using the power of the Void, and even then Turalyon and Lothraxion talked her into being merciful. The fact that Turalyon and Lothraxion were both able to talk Xe'ra out of a more merciless approach proves that she's not controlling anyone, even the Lightforged Draenei). She's also a [[OurAngelsAreDifferent Naaru]] who's rallying people to help people fight the [[OmnicidalManiac Burning]] [[TheLegionsOfHell Legion]]. Not only does it turn her into a BaseBreakingCharacter, the story treats her as if she's some HolierThanThou fundamentalist and nearly everyone involved ends up disagreeing with her (except Turalyon). Despite Velen needing her help and being devoted to her cause (as recently as the ''Battle for the Exodar'' scenario, he [[spoiler:suddenly switches face and doesn't object to Illidan killing her, only criticizing her decision to try to force the Light on Illidan. No one else called him out on this either except Turalyon]]). It's also egregious as the story is obviously CharacterShilling for Illidan, but Xe'ra doing it is treated negatively.
229** A number of characters feel the Arbiter was unfair in how it decided what afterlife a soul goes to because it "Used cold logic and didn't account for what the soul wanted". Along with that, a couple characters explicitly state they expected to go to a different afterlife than the one they were assigned. However, the Arbiter makes its decision by experiencing the entirety of each soul's life before choosing where it will go and is never once shown to actually be wrong. Alexandros Mograine thought he should be in Bastion rather than Maldraxxus but learning the details of each made him realize the latter actually did suit him better. Likewise, Vashj admitted her envisioned afterlife of being pampered by servants for eternity would get boring very quickly and she prefers the intrigue of Maldraxxus. The only souls that ever go somewhere that isn't ideal for them are the ones where outside forces interfered, usually someone working for Zovaal sending said soul to the Maw.
230* IronWoobie:
231** Farseer Nobundo. His short story is inspiring, especially the end.
232** Tirion. The fact that he managed to remain determined and focused after everything he'd lost [[spoiler:including his son]] is quite remarkable.
233** Darion Mograine and Sylvanas stand out in particular, though the later can also be seen as a JerkassWoobie.
234** Lucille Waycrest. [[spoiler:The love of her life is murdered on their wedding day, and unbeknownst to her, her mother was responsible for ordering his death]]. She gets falsely accused of witchcraft and nearly gets hanged, but insists that if the Marshal and the PlayerCharacter want to free her, they must prove her innocence and not harm her captors. She finds out that her mother is a witch and the leader of the coven she's been fighting against, sees that her father's become an undead abomination, and watches her steadfast ally, the Marshal, become enslaved by Lady Waycrest, forcing her Inquisitors to kill him. Despite all this, Lucille never gives up fighting for her people, and she hardly ever cries, either, even though it's used as "proof" that she's a witch.
235* ItsEasySoItSucks:
236** Some people said this about ''Wrath of the Lich King'' and, to a lesser extent, ''Cataclysm'', claiming that getting gear for raids had become too easy and this enabled less competent players who would never have been able to raid before to participate. Others, however, believed that [[GrowingTheBeard this was an improvement over the grinding required to raid in vanilla and]] ''[[GrowingTheBeard Burning Crusade]]''.
237*** Of course, one rather funny thing is that people said heroics in ''Wrath'' were too easy...when most of the people saying this were decked out in top-of-the-line raiding gear, and with only a few exceptions (Namely Black Morass), the same thing that happened to ''Wrath'''s "Easy heroics" happened there. Even in 2011, people said that the "heroics" were "dumbed down" when, again, [[FacePalm they were once again all decked out in raiding gear that made them significantly overgeared for the simple heroics]]. This also isn't taking into consideration that several instances ''still'' require coordination and crowd control.
238** To an extent, ''Mists of Pandaria'''s Heroics got this, particularly in that the Heroic modes for the 5-man instances introduced in Pandaria [[NumericalHard do not have new mechanics]].
239** Leveling up fresh characters from Level 1. For the longest time, old zones and dungeons were a breeze to level through due to constant nerfs intended to streamline the process (especially with Heirloom gear.) For a comparison: while pulling one or two extra mobs was dangerous in the game's early years, later expansions had players able to easily exceed that before the pull became life-threatening. Because of how bored players were becoming with the leveling process, ''Battle For Azeroth'' and ''Shadowlands'' saw adjustments to low level enemy stats and Heirloom gear.
240* ItsHardSoItSucks: The Gnomeregan dungeon gained this reputation from ''Wrath of the Lich King'' onward due to a botched {{Nerf}}. Basically, the developers nerfed the FinalBoss from level 34 down to level 28, but they forgot to implement the 6 level drop to the rest of the dungeon. Thus, you'd have players in the mid-level 20 range queueing into Gnomeregan through the Random Dungeon Finder only to find out that they're going up against dungeon enemies that are 6 levels higher than they're supposed to be.
241* JerkassWoobie:
242** Sylvanas is quite sympathetic, but she also holds the living in contempt, [[TookALevelInJerkass starts forcibly converting them into undead despite hating that it happened to her]] and can often be fairly icy and brusque to those with whom she deals. Having said that, her [[ALighterShadeOfBlack increasingly grey nature]] is starting wear out the sympathy for some fans; regarding her tragic backstory, explanation does not equal justification. This becomes especially evident in ''Battle for Azeroth'' where she starts forcing undeath on her enemies, putting them through what Arthas put her through.
243** Fandral Staghelm. Sure, he's an arrogant bastard, but seeing what he's been through, it's really hard to blame him. Seeing how patriotic he is when it comes to night elves, it probably pained him a lot to see what happened to his race, and not to mention how the silithid butchered his beloved son just as a way to [[RevengeByProxy break him]].
244*** Then, in ''Stormrage'', we learn that [[spoiler:he was manipulated into committing a series of terrible deeds by Xavius, who disguised himself as Fandral's son. When enlightened, Fandral falls into a coma caused by GoMadFromTheRevelation, and is taken to a Barrow Den to heal his mind, but some fear he may never recover.]]
245*** In Patch 4.2 it only gets worse. He's become the leader of the Druids of the Flame, servants of Ragnaros the Firelord, but his Woobie points are built up even further. It turns out, his son left behind a wife and daughter, who were living in Ashenvale at the time, and he made a promise to his daughter-in-law that his granddaughter would always have his protection -- meaning, retroactively, [[FridgeBrilliance that all his territorialism and anti-Horde feelings stemmed from a desire to protect what was left of his family]]. As for being a servant of the Firelord? He's driven to reduce the world to ashes because [[PutThemAllOutOfMyMisery he can't stand to live in a world without his beloved child]]. Poor guy.
246*** His coin in the Dalaran fountain just adds the woobiedom:
247---->'''Fandral Staghelm's Silver Coin:''' The War of the Shifting Sands... I wish I could forget it ever happened.
248** Genn Greymane, due to the events unfolding in Gilneas, including the Worgen curse and the Forsaken invasion which cost him his kingdom and the life of his son Liam. He's a GrumpyOldMan who sealed his kingdom off from Lordaeron for arguably selfish reasons, but he loves his people, and everything they suffer is quite hard on him.
249--->"My people have suffered so much. If only I could shoulder more of their burden..."
250** Oh, sure, Illidan's not exactly a nice guy, but the poor bastard's been suffering for ''over ten thousand years''. His entire life is a litany of failed attempts at heroism and greatness [[UngratefulBastard and nobody appreciating his efforts no matter what he does]].
251** Leyara, mentioned above. In her first appearance, she's a Druid of the Flame and burns Hamuul Runetotem to death ([[OnlyMostlyDead almost]]), after she kills several of his students, and attempts to kill the player. Later when Malfurion finally confronts her, she strikes him down, and while [[EvilGloating gloating]] over how she killed Hamuul, said Tauren appears and kills her. Shortly after, players are mailed a locket found in the Molten Front that reveals that she was the wife of Fandral Staghelm's son, and they had a daughter before he was killed in Silithus; later her daughter was killed during a Horde attack, and she blamed Malfurion for not doing anything to save them. Not surprising she'd follow her father-in-law to joining Ragnaros for revenge.
252** Varian Wrynn has a great deal of responsibility for the escalating Horde-Alliance tensions, and is hot-tempered and impulsive, often with many negative consequences. As a child, he lost his father to Garona and saw Stormwind overrun, lost his wife to the Defias riots, and now has a strained relationship with his son Anduin, which motivates him to try to work on his temper.
253** [[spoiler:Jaina Proudmoore]] is heading toward this after ''Literature/TidesOfWar'' and Patch 5.1. Her ruthless devotion to fighting the enemy, such as [[spoiler:considering destroying Orgrimmar and expelling the Sunreavers from Dalaran]] gets her multiple WhatTheHellHero speeches from neutrals and members of the Alliance, even hard-liners like Varian, and she often coldly brushes them off, sometimes while calling the person a coward. However, not only did she lose [[spoiler:her entire city]], but she has had a history of fighting for peace, only to be let down or betrayed by virtually everyone else, making her bitterness understandable.
254** Atramedes from Blackwing Descent is somewhat sadistic in battling the players, but he was also blinded in a failed experiment to grant him "sight beyond sight," almost disposed of right then and there, and only kept along out of a belief that he might be useful. When defeated, he says "This miserable existence finally ends..."
255** Ragnaros in Molten Core. He's been summoned there against his will by the Dark Iron dwarves. While he is definitely a bad guy he mostly just wants to find a way to get back home.
256* LikeYouWouldReallyDoIt: King Varian and Regent Lord Lor'themar talking peace, trying to get the Blood Elves to leave the Horde, too bad Jaina ruined it. For the sake of gameplay balance, as well as the hassle to players who find their Horde toons suddenly Alliance-aligned, the Horde isn't going to lose any of its races even though Garrosh Hellscream has given more than half of them (Blood Elves, Forsaken, Tauren, Trolls) plenty of reasons to bail. [[GameplayAndStorySegregation Storywise]], it comes down to Garrosh threatening anyone with treason if they try to leave, or pissing off the Alliance so they counter attack and cut-off a chance at peace negotiations. The overall plot of ''Mists'' is having Garrosh piss off everybody so that the entire Horde dumps Garrosh, instead of leaving one at a time.
257** Apparent again at the end of ''Mists of Pandaria''. Jaina's ignored counsel to "dismantle the Horde" might have been logical InUniverse, but players knew it would amount to nothing.
258* LoveToHate: Many of the villains, in particular Arthas, Ner'zhul, Kel'Thuzad, Gul'dan, Cho'gall, Gallywix, Illidan, Kael'Thas, Deathwing, Azshara, Drakuru, Lei Shen, Kil'jaeden.
259** Through people either hate him for being a poorly and inconsistently characterized {{Jerkass}} turned Warchief and giving the Horde a bad name or like his characterization in ''Cataclysm'' better and view his role as a villain in ''Mists of Pandaria'' as an AssPull that furthered said characterization problems, there are some fans that genuinely like Garrosh as a villain in ''Mists of Pandaria''. Sylvanas in ''Battle for Azeroth'', who went through a very similar arc, was viewed in a similar light, although her kind of charisma was much different to that of Garrosh.
260** Special notice goes to Nefarian, whose GenreSavvy, [[BlackComedy darkly funny]], [[NoFourthWall fourth wall-breaking]] trolling made him so much of a hit among fans that he came back in ''Cataclysm''. His ''Hearthstone'' rendition performed by Creator/MatthewMercer takes these traits even further.
261** Grand Magistrix Elisande and her loyalists also qualify. While Elisande is [[TragicVillain somewhat more sympathetic]], the Nightborne under her put the horrors of the dictatorship she ushered in [[ShowDontTell on full display]]. Any chance to fight them directly tends to be [[CatharsisFactor immensely satisfying]] (if not [[DemonicSpiders annoying]].)
262** As of Dragonflight, Iridikron is well-regarded as a return to form for Warcraft villains after two expansions of villains generally seen to be extremely lackluster, being a cunning master manipulator manipulating all of the lore characters within the Dragonflight expansion for his own goals, many were happy to find that he would be an recurring villain going into the Worldsoul Saga.
263* LowTierLetdown: Although the player's character race is insignificant in terms of damage impact, Vulpera and Lightforged Draenei will almost always perform the worst out of all the races for one reason: their racial active ability that contributes to damage is on the global cooldown, while other races either have passive abilities or active abilities that are off the global cooldown. Using the racial is usually less damage in the long term than another relevant class ability, to the point that those two races often deal less damage ''than having no racials at all''.
264[[/folder]]
265
266[[folder: M-S]]
267* MagnificentBastard: See [[MagnificentBastard/{{Warcraft}} here]]
268* MemeticBadass:
269** Saurfang is practically the Warcraft universe's Creator/ChuckNorris, having several [[https://warcraft.wiki.gg/wiki/Saurfang_facts Saurfang Facts]] to his name.
270---> ''Area-effect target caps were implemented after Saurfang used Cleave on Stormwind and it shattered Draenor.''
271** Hogger, the boss capable of being [[DeathOfAThousandCuts brought down by level one gnomes]], also applies. This eventually escalated to where the best guild was pitted against an elite, ''level cap'', '''''nigh unkillable''''' version of Hogger. The Armory website also tracks each character's stats for [[AscendedMeme "deaths by Hogger."]]
272** Darius Crowley, an NPC from the Worgen starting zone, is also shaping up to be this. He, too, [[https://warcraft.wiki.gg/wiki/Crowley_facts has his own page of Crowley Facts]].
273** Theldurin the Lost in ''Cataclysm''. His quest has you chase after, and then proceed to land a haymaker on, ''[[BigBad Deathwing]], [[DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu in the face]]''.
274** John J. Keeshan, due to him jumping ''into a dragon's mouth and gutting it from inside'' [[VideoGame/GodOfWar Kratos-style]].
275** The Dalaran wishing well is a Memetic JackassGenie. If you make a wish in it, it ''will'' twist it nine times out of ten. (The actual "twist" rate isn't ''quite'' that high, but comparing the wishes to the number that got twisted, it's ''not'' a favorable rate for the wisher.)
276** Broxigar, the only mortal to ever land a wound on Sargeras. He often avoids the hate that Richard A. Knaak's characters usually get.
277** While it has changed due to Cataclysm, mobs like Hogger and the Defias Pillager were considered deadly. Statistics done during Classic showed that the Defias pillager ''was one of the top 5 deadliest mobs'' due to the fact it was responsible for a ''lot'' of player deaths!
278** Basic Campfire, or rather [[http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/09/18/ask-a-faction-leader-garrosh-hellscream/2 Abesik Kampfire]], at one time lauded as a better replacement for Thrall than Garrosh.
279** Master Woo Ping, the former weapons trainer of Stormwind, became a minor Memetic Badass after being the subject of Game Master Rishgure's tale [[https://wowpedia.fandom.com/The_fate_of_Master_Woo_Ping about his fate after he disappeared in]] ''[[https://wowpedia.fandom.com/The_fate_of_Master_Woo_Ping Cataclysm]]''.
280* MemeticLoser:
281** Garrosh Hellscream may not be very bright, but fans take it and turn it into "Stupider than a sack of small rocks" seemingly out of spite. This includes jokes like being politically outmaneuvered by a basic campfire (now known as [[MemeticMutation Abesik Kampfyr]]), thinking that [[https://www.engadget.com/2009-09-18-ask-a-faction-leader-garrosh-hellscream.html tying a large rock to himself and jumping into shark-infested water after throwing chum in it]] is a good idea, and [[http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/6470987401?page=1 not being able to spell "pleased"]].
282** Ji Firepaw, [[OutOfFocus with him not really doing anything since]] ''[[OutOfFocus Mists of Pandaria]]'', and only really appearing in gathering with all the other Horde leaders just to remind you he exists. He has become the punching bag for Horde players.
283** The Iron Horde from ''Warlords of Draenor'' received considerable mockery from fans, who love to point out that their only real victories were destroying the undermanned Dreadmaul Hold and Nethergarde Keep and taking over the unoccupied Blackrock Mountain. Notably, even before the first content patch, only a ''third'' of their leadership was still alive[[note]]]Fenris, Garrosh, Azuka, Ner'zul, Zaela, and Kargath were all dead, leaving only Grom, Blackhand, and Kilrogg alive[[/note]].
284** The Trolls, Dear god the trolls. Once being mighty in the lore, they have just constantly lost over and over again. Being humiliated by the Night Elfs, Pandaren, High Elfs, the Humans, the Scourge, and the player characters. They've only won two conflicts in the lore period, against the Aqir, and Bleeding Hollow Clan (the latter conflict so insignificant it was only mentioned in the Chronicle Books). They've also been used in a bunch of raids and dungeons to the point fans joke their will also be a troll raid every expansion.
285* MemeticMutation: So many that they had to be listed on the [[Memes/WorldOfWarcraft Memes]] page.
286* MemeticTroll: The Dalaran Fountain, with a side dose of MemeticBadass. Not only did it survive Teron Gorefiend and Archimonde's attacks on Dalaran, but the long list of coins tossed into it and the sheer irony of what happened to the characters who tossed them in (see [[https://wowpedia.fandom.com/A_Penny_For_Your_Thoughts these]] [[https://wowpedia.fandom.com/Silver_in_the_City three]] [[https://wowpedia.fandom.com/There%27s_Gold_In_That_There_Fountain lists]] for more information) has earned it a reputation as a JackassGenie and KarmicTrickster par excellence, which grants the wishes of the people who make them in horrible ways they were definitely not asking for and responds to any kind of threat, condescension or mockery by arranging for the offending person -- be they a powerful demon, an undead warlock or even a black dragon -- to die.
287* MisaimedFandom:
288** No matter how profoundly ''wrong'' Blizzard make their characters, there will always be someone on the official forums to claim they're right.
289** You're not supposed to agree with Malygos in ''Wrath of the Lich King'', people.
290** Garrosh became an increasingly tyrannical Warchief, and even Blizzard themselves have stated from Cataclysm that his tenure as Warchief was intended to be short.
291* MisBlamed:
292** The mob respawn rates at the start of ''Cataclysm'' actually weren't entirely Blizzard's fault; they were a programming oversight. The insane respawn rates were due to so many players clogging the zones at once that they respawned almost instantly. This was because during ''Burning Crusade's'' launch, the mob respawn rate stayed at normal levels, and with the area packed with new players, any mob that spawned and was necessary to kill for a quest would be instantly tagged and wiped out. Players would form groups so that at least 5 people at once could get credit for a kill, but it didn't help much. Thereafter, Blizzard made respawn rates dynamic, at least in these heavily-populated areas, which led to the opposite problem.
293** On the forums, people tend to blame players of the other faction for story direction they have no control over.
294** Warlords of Draenor's short length is often blamed on a desire to put out expansions more quickly. However, the gap between the expansion before it and the expansion after it were comparable to any other expansion. The reality was that several major overhauls coincided with a rocky team size increase and an unexpected turnout of players, leading to all the resources being tied up in things that weren't strictly new. See TroubledProduction under the Trivia tab for more details.
295** Head writer Steve Danuser is often held up as the main reason for the story's DorkAge starting in ''Battle For Azeroth'' and ''Shadowlands'', but the inciting incident of the Burning of Teldrassil actually wasn't his idea, but was something that former lead writer Alex Afrasiabi envisioned and put the team to work on, shortly before bailing on Blizzard. According to Blizzard devs at the time, Afrasiabi told the team to write the Burning and Sylvanas being the perpetrator as a moment of pure [[WhamEpisode shock value]] without any consideration for what came after, then left the company, leaving the newly-promoted Danuser and the writing team scrambling to figure out where to take the story from there, causing a blend of confusion and constantly changing plans that resulted in what's considered the two worst-written expansions. Though some of his story decisions are still controversial, when given the chance to breathe in ''Dragonflight'' without the shadow of Afrasiabi's last choice hanging over him, Danuser proved that he can be a perfectly fine writer.
296* {{Moe}}:
297** Mylune, a Dryad with PuppyDogEyes that gives you quests to save the critters that roam around a burning forest. She even ''squees.''
298** In general, female gnomes are really, ''really'' cute.
299* SugarWiki/MostWonderfulSound:
300** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOb5McbEl2M Bloodlust/Heroism's sound effect]], a savage growl or a mighty cheer depending on if the caster is Horde or Alliance. When you hear it, you know your raid's DPS is about to go into overdrive.
301** Similarly, Tranquility, a very powerful channeled Druid heal with a whistling sound. While using it properly is key, it's fairly reassuring to hear that your Restoration Druid is giving everything they've got to counter the enemies' damaging abilities.
302** The rythmic "whoosh" of a holy Priest's Divine Hymn is another, as one of the strongest non-target-capped healing skills in the game. Hearing the noise and watching it return 25 people from near-dead to full health is a thing of glory.
303** Arugal's voice clips from vanilla world of warcraft.
304** [[https://youtu.be/luxWtJjo5WQ?t=49s BY FIRE, BE PURGED! Taste the FLAMES of SULFURON!]]
305** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_n1An8buCQ Yogg Saron's voice clips]].
306** "Arise, my champion!" "At your side! Milady!" These two voice clips became so synonymous with ''World of Warcraft's'' Scarlet Monastery dungeon that when it was remade with one of the [[DualBoss bosses]] changed and the voice clips re-recorded, this was kept. It was that popular. In fact, despite Whitemane having a different voice, [[NarmCharm people asked for it to be kept anyway]].
307** The sound whenever a boss dies. Especially if it gave you a lot of trouble.
308* ObviousBeta:
309** Many raid dungeons were initially bugged, partly because they weren't completely tested. The first guild that killed Vashj had her instantly respawn and kill the raid. It was also possible to kill Arthas by throwing bombs at him, which resets the outer ring and thus makes the val'kyr unable to drop people off in Phase 2. When players are able to ignore the val'kyr, they have more freedom to position Defiles appropriately and can spend more time [=DPSing=] the boss, making Phase 2 shorter and easier.
310** Silithus was an ObviousBeta ''zone''. The zone was left unfinished at launch with minimal quests leading into the zone and by patch 1.8, it was actually finished.
311** This was one of the criticisms of ''Cataclysm'', which was rushed to make the release to make sure it actually made it on time. Vashj'ir had problems with mob density and respawn rates but the respawn rates weren't [[MisBlamed entirely Blizzard's fault]]. Amongst other things, it was released with a lot of bugs but was still playable. There were still some bugs after the first major content patch, too.
312** Death Knights, at release. Also Paladins in patch 3.0. There was a time in ''Wrath'' beta when paladins could solo the fel reaver. They both got nerfed in short order.
313** The ''Cataclysm'' 4.2 patch completely broke the targeting system. This was especially hard on melee classes. You would hit an ability, the game would switch your current target to the closest dead enemy, give you a "your target is dead" error, but STILL put your ability on cooldown. The only workaround was to make a macro for EVERY ability to /focus current target, then cast ability on focus. It remained in this state for over *2 months* and required multiple patches to fix. 4.2 was when the Firelands raid was released, so progress in this raid was VERY VERY difficult for everyone except healers.
314** ''Mists of Pandaria'' had ''Cataclysm'''s issues with respawn rates, as well as quite a few bugs. For example, the Lorewalker Stonestep encounter could pit players against [[DualBoss Strife and Peril]] or the Zao Sunseeker encounter, and the latter often glitched before it was removed until 5.2.
315** Kul Tiran [=NPCs=] were clearly rushed for 8.1; they were added to the game without a ''sleeping animation'', which was very apparent in the barracks in Sagehold when they were sleeping standing up, or support for most helmets, and when they were made playable in 8.1.5 they were ''still'' unfinished with horribly bugged animations. Female Zandalari trolls, meanwhile, had a GameBreakingBug that caused the damage of some spells to take longer than usual to proc.
316*** ''Battle for Azeroth'' as a whole has been criticized for this trope [[https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/9enoap/battle_for_azeroth_bugs_problems_megathread/ and it's not hard ]] [[https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/900wiu/blizzard_the_80_patch_is_a_level_of_quality_that/ to see why]]. To add insult to the injury, most bugs were reported on beta but didn't get fixed until some time after the content was live. And even then, some content was clearly never tested properly, as dungeons on Mythic+ difficulty were often impossible to complete on time due to poor affixes and dungeon balance (several major nerfs were required in some cases with Teeming affix and dungeons like King's Rest and Shrine of the Storm), [=PvP=] titles from season 1 of the expansion rewarded ''the very second the first [=PvP=] season started'', random bugs still happening until 8.1, and so on.
317* OlderThanTheyThink:
318** Lor'themar actually wasn't invented for [=WoW=] and first showed up in a Korean-drawn comic.
319** Goblins have been called "Gnome wannabes", ignoring that goblins and gnomes both showed up at the same time in ''VideoGame/{{Warcraft}} II'' and the former had a much larger role. In the next game gnomes were PutOnABus and goblins had a major role as a neutral force and were almost their own faction according to concept on Sons of the Storm. [[http://wow.4fansites.de/artikel0001.php Even in World Of Warcraft, goblins were considered to be the fourth Alliance race until they decided to bring gnomes back]].
320** With the ''Mists of Pandaria'' leak, some of the playerbase had accused the Pandaren concept of (among other things) ripping off ''WesternAnimation/KungFuPanda''. The Pandaren started out as an April Fool's joke by artist Samwise Didier that proved so popular that it led to their debut as neutral heroes in ''Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne'', years before ''Kung Fu Panda'' even came out.
321*** To quote one person on the forum, "How can you tell the people who've been playing since ''Frozen Throne''? They're the ones who aren't saying the Pandaren are ''WesternAnimation/KungFuPanda'' ripoffs."
322** When ''Cataclysm'' was announced, there was outcry from the fanbase declaring that Deathwing is a GiantSpaceFleaFromNowhere, while in reality, he has been a fixture in ''Warcraft'' lore since ''Warcraft II'' -- albeit a largely [[WhatHappenedToTheMouse unseen]] and [[OrcusOnHisThrone inactive]] one whose nature and backstory were largely covered in a few tie-in books rather than in front of the players.
323** ''Dragonflight'' introduces Sabellian and several other Black Dragons who, like Wrathion, were also immune to the corrruption of Neltharion, as well as several other dragons who were in Outland. Players thought this was RememberTheNewGuy - except this plot thread was actually left dangling since ''The Burning Crusade''. In fact, Sabellian himself was a questgiver in the Blades Edge Mountains as "Baron Sablemane".
324* OnceOriginalNowOverdone: This game was a pretty big trendsetter amongst [=MMORPGs=], and frankly it shows.
325** At the time, it's very hard to appreciate that this game set a ''lot'' of AntiFrustrationFeatures that became commonplace in games today. When you died, you were not at risk of losing your inventory nor did you receive an experience point penalty. These were both ''very'' big things back in 2004, but now most people can't even imagine playing an MMORPG without them. Even games that ''do'' have the player lose items upon death don't make items irreplaceable.
326** The game has even had this trope happen with ''itself''. For example, most bosses from Classic and ''Burning Crusade'' feel very simplistic, borderline "tank-and-spank". Mechanics that were previously seen in raids were later implemented in ''five-man dungeons''. And most importantly, the standards for the worlds and dungeons have increased a ''lot'' over the years, making Outland (at the time, cutting edge) now seem disjointed, bare-bones, and monotonous after the increased standards by ''Cataclysm''.
327*** To put it into perspective, some people like Wowcrendor mentioned that mechanics from ''Classic'''s Naxxramas of repositioning, by ''Wrath'', became ''five-man'' mechanics. By ''Battle for Azeroth'' (ten years later), a simple quest boss [[GetBackHereBoss requires the player to chase them around the arena]], while repositioning around environmental hazards -- mechanics almost completely ''unheard'' of in classic.
328* OnlyTheCreatorDoesItRight: Despite many of the complaints of the story during his run, Chris Metzen is seen as the person who got ''World of Warcraft'''s story the most, and after his retirement around ''Legion'' from everything but voice acting, many saw a huge dive in terms of writing quality with ''Battle for Azeroth'' and ''Shadowlands''.
329* PlayTheGameSkipTheStory:
330** Most players ignore what [=NPC=]s actually ''say'' and just look at the quest requirements. Story? Plotting? To the majority of players, it may as well not exist. Interestingly, Blizzard is aware of this and WordOfGod says that quest designers are explicitly limited in the amount of text they can put into a quest description to avoid "Too Long Didn't Read" syndrome.
331** Players typically skip the cinematics after bosses (the Lich King, Ultraxion, Spine of Deathwing, Madness of Deathwing) in order to roll on loot. In Siege of Orgrimmar, players typically skip the cutscenes, such as the one that happens just before the trash before Siegecrafter Blackfuse, especially if it's LFR and a [[LeeroyJenkins over-zealous member of the raid decides to pull before everyone else has finished watching]].
332** The developers seem aware of this to an extent. In many cases, if you've been to a dungeon before, it's possible to talk to an NPC to get an abridged version of a dialogue scene, such as asking to skip the pageantry before Trial of the Champion's first battles. It's also become increasingly common for bosses to give a relatively long speech as you're approaching them, and a simple one-liner as you pull them. This has actually been made fun of in ''Dragonflight'' in which the player can admit that they don't really read quests when signing the registrar in an Inn.
333** Another contributing reason for this trope in regards for most the game's expansions is that the overarching plots tend to be viewed as [[SoOkayItsAverage okay but flawed]] at best to downright bad at worst. Indeed, one reason why 'Wrath of The Lich King' and 'Legion' are viewed as the fan favorite expansions is due to having stories that are nearly as satifying as the gameplay.
334* ParanoiaFuel: In the revamped version of the Blackfathom Depths dungeon, the Old Gods themselves talk to the players about the futility of their actions. After clearing the final boss of the dungeon, the Old Gods give you a parting message.
335-->'''The Old Gods''': Savor this small victory, mortals. [[TheCorruption Now that you have heard our whispers,]] [[FaceHeelTurn it is only a matter of time until you belong to us.]]
336** The Sons of Arugal pre-''Cataclysm''. They stalked around Silverpine Forest and could on occasion jump the player out of ''nowhere''.
337** Rogue players in PVP servers. You'll never know if one is stalking you, ready to strike when you're at your weakest...
338* PlayerPunch:
339** ''Mists of Pandaria'' has some elements of this. While every other expansion dealt with the player characters as heroes fighting demonic corruption and trying to save the world, Pandaria would have likely been a better place if you (the players) simply never showed your faces there -- the first zone's story arc involves both factions conscripting the help of the locals (causing them to turn against each other), turning two other indigenous peoples against each other and unleashing the Sha.
340** One of the last Death Knight quests involve you having to kill a former friend of yours. It's at its worst if you're a Night Elf, where the victim is [[spoiler:the one who raised you from infancy.]]
341** [[https://www.wowhead.com/quest=12085/a-letter-for-home A pair]] [[https://www.wowhead.com/quest=12067/a-letter-for-home of quests]] in Dragonblight - one for each faction - definitely qualifies as a player punch. Players of both factions are sent across the Dragonblight to prevent the Blue Dragonflight from redirecting the ley lines, which involves killing mortal agents to obtain their foci. In both quests, you find a letter on their person -- unknown to you, they were forced to work for the blue flight under threat that their family would be killed if they didn't. Most players end up feeling like an ass for having to kill the person in question.
342** ''Legion'' is shaping up to be the PlayerPunch expansion. [[spoiler:So far they've killed off Tirion Fordring, Varian Wrynn, Vol'jin, and Ysera. And that's not mentioning the minor zone characters that are killed throughout the Broken Isles.]] The game also has an entire quest chain dedicated to showing why [[DesignatedHero the players may have been the bad guys]] when it came to their killing Illidan in ''The Burning Crusade'' (though this one has been met with no small amount of backlash due to the shaky nature of these accusations).
343*** This has become so contentious that some players who focus on the game's lore [[TakeAThirdOption have put forth the idea that the players aren't being retconned into loot-hungry psychopaths, Illidan's actions aren't being whitewashed, but that the questgiver might be manipulating the player character to demoralize them.]] with the excuse that ''is'' the Burning Legion after all, and Kil'jaeden is a boss in the Tomb of Sargeras (this is later proved to be false and the questgiver is legit, they're just part of a questionably-written retcon)
344** During [[spoiler:the burning of Teldrassil]], Alliance players are tasked with saving civilians from [[spoiler:the burning Darnassus]]. The objective is to save almost 1,000 civilians within the time limit... and exceptionally fast and diligent players might save ''50''.
345** The plot of the Ardenweald zone in Shadowlands features a [[spoiler: replay of Ysera's death. From ''her'' perspective.]]
346* PopularWithFurries: To the ire of many of the vocal minority, Warcraft is filled to the brim with anthropomorphic animal races that each have their fans and have drawn sections of the furry fandom into the Warcraft fandom, though the three playable furry races really stand out;
347** From the early days of the game's life, carrying over from Warcraft 3, the Tauren have stood out as a draw to furries because they were a race of heroic anthropomorphic minotaurs and at the time of [=WoW=]'s initial release the only beast race options in other [=MMO=]s were either LittleBitBeastly (The Mithra from ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXI'', which were also a OneGenderRace) or AlwaysChaoticEvil (The beast races from ''VideoGame/EverQuestII'', which were only available to the darker factions), so a lot of furries back in 2005 saw the possibility to play as a beast race in an MMO and have them be heroic, highly intelligent, and with a noble sense of honor as a major draw. With the furry fandom having grown and being less of an internet punching bag, the release of Highmountain Tauren had a lot of people openly excited for the option to play as a moose minotaur.
348** Worgen were another one that people saw as inevitable that a lot of furries would flock to, being cockney british werewolves who spend more time in wolf form than human form. Though it used to be a bit more nuanced than that as some people were turned off by them looking more fierce than stylized and (until the 8.2 model updates) somewhat poorly crafted by the model team. After 8.2 redid the models to include several more normal faces and made the females look ''much'' better, Worgen started growing steadily in popularity and how many people play or have alts of them, and the Customization Update in ''Shadowlands'' was ''extremely'' good to Worgen, meaning a lot more people now play them.
349** And then there's Vulpera. Cute, short fennec fox people, a lot of people when they saw them confirmed to be playable in 8.3 immediately branded them as the "furry bait" race and it's not hard to see why with their cute aesthetics and designs. Within just months of them being released furry artists were indeed all over the race, and looking at any of the official art pages makes it very clear people that do furry art for a hobby or a living either play or at the very least happily draw large amounts of fanart, and within 5 months since their release, Vulpera came ''very'' close to exceeding the popularity of Blood Elves on a lot of server's horde-side, with likely the only factor keeping them from going over being the time investment involved in unlocking them, and when ''Shadowlands'' removed that reputation requirement, Vulpera quickly overtook the horde.
350** Dracthyr are androgynous (their gendered tells are only in their mortal disguises) anthropomorphic dragon people with a much lither and athletic build than most of the game's other races. They flat out ''avert'' the ReptilesAreAbhorrent nature of most reptilian races in Science Fiction & Fantasy. Being what they are, it's perhaps inevitable that a great deal of scalies had [=WoW=] put on the map (or retired furries intending to return to the game taking notice) because of the option to play as dragon people that aren't LittleBitBeastly (history repeating, the only other race that gets close is ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'''s Au Ra, and it's more of an AmbiguousSituation even then despite debuting in an expansion with dragons as a vocal point). While there's a bit of a divison over just how lithe Dracthyr are when compared to Drakonids - the other anthropomorphic dragon people - there's no question it drew eyes from dragon fans towards the game, especially when the full breadth of their customization showed they have more customization options than a majority of the game's other races ''combined'', ensuring it's extremely unlikely any Dracthyr looks identical to another.
351* QuicksandBox:
352** There is no real "main quest" telling you where to go next and nothing barring your path if you decide to skip some story arcs in a zone. As a result it is pretty easy to get lost. Until later expansions began marking the zone levels on the map, the only hint on what zones were a good idea to go to next was ''maybe'' a quest chain that would end or eventually lead you there as well as talking to other players. Otherwise, all you could do was wander around until you found an area that had enemies of the right level to be fighting, and hope to find quests. Later expansions have gotten better at {{railroading}} players through each questing zone and leading them to the next zone when it's time to move on.
353** The sheer backlog of content from more than a decade of game development is staggering. As of ''Battle for Azeroth'' a new player would need to level their way through the base game and seven different expansions just to reach the max level. Most players will see only glimpses of each expansion before outleveling it. ''Shadowlands'' includes plans to ease this by allowing players to select a single "era" of the game to level their character through, experiencing a single expansion pack from beginning to end.
354** Reaching max level is where the real quicksand sets in for new players. As of ''Legion'' there are four difficulty settings for dungeons and raids, countless factions to earn reputation with, a mission system to manage, treasures to find, and more.
355* ReplacementScrappy:
356** Garrosh Hellscream replaced Thrall as leader of the Horde. Considering that Thrall is well-loved both by the player base and in-universe, some of this is bound to happen. Even if Garrosh's character was becoming [[RescuedFromtheScrappyHeap more likable and competent]], he would [[NeverLiveItDown still get some scrappyism]] for the act of displacing Thrall alone.
357*** Though, since Thrall has become more and more of a blatant CreatorsPet throughout Cataclysm, more and more players are changing their minds about this, and now there was a new outcry starting [[spoiler:now that the creators have stated their intent to reinstate Thrall as Warchief at the end of ''Mists of Pandaria'', until Vol'jin actually became Warchief.]]
358** Some fans see Lor'themar as this to Kael'thas as leader of the Blood Elves. The real reason is more that he was [[RememberTheNewGuy content to just stand around despite always being there]] and since The Burning Crusade, has [[OutOfFocus been a wallflower next to Gallywix while Thrall and Sylvanas dominate the horde]] storyline. It didn't help that Lor'themar is much closer to Kael'thas' original portrayal, and not the out-of-left-field FaceHeelTurn version from Burning Crusade that got KilledOffForReal with not even so much as a RedemptionEqualsDeath.
359** Khadgar taking over the Kirin Tor leadership position from Jaina hasn't been received favorably by her fans, especially considering the fact that she is one of the few remaining female leaders in the game and he got the leadership by Jaina continuously [[TookALevelInJerkass taking several levels in Jerkassery]].
360** Baine is this to both his beloved father, Cairne and himself. Early on Baine was a Horde patriot who reflected the tauren's ProudWarriorRaceGuy culture. While willing to try peace, Baine would also fight those who rejected it such as the dwarves of Bael'dun. Starting from ''Tides of War'', Baine became a practitioner of SuicidalPacifism. Baine saying Taurajo deserved destruction and exiling the tauren defending themselves replacing his original lines about avenging Taurajo and driving back the Alliance military has been much bemoaned.
361** In the Stromgarde warfront, the Alliance gets Danath Trollbane, a beloved hero from [=WC2=] who has been sitting in limbo since the ''Burning crusade'', whilst the Horde gets Eitrigg, an extremely elderly orc who has been retired from combat since of ''Literature/OfBloodAndHonor'' and has already been used ''[[WolverinePublicity everywhere]]'' in the Horde war campaign solely to have an orc of note after so many were killed off in Mists of Pandaria. Orc fans were particularly annoyed Eitrigg was used in Stromgarde over both:
362*** Nazgrel, a strong youthful warrior who has always been willing to fight those who threaten the Horde, including the Alliance. Nazgrel was directly presented as Danath's counterpart in ''Burning Crusade'', yet unlike Danath who finally got his chance to step back into the spotlight in BFA, Nazgrel was left to rot in limbo in BFA once again.
363*** Jorin Deadeye was introduced per [[WordOfGod Metzen]] to add some new blood into the Horde, showed himself as a capable orc general, and had a connection to beloved orc hero, Kilrogg Deadeye. Not only that, but Kilrogg himself was viewed by Danath as his WorthyOpponent as seen in ''Literature/BeyondTheDarkPortal.'' Like Nazgrel, the writers chose to keep Jorin in limbo, furthering limiting the minuscule orc cast.
364** ''Legion'' showed the Kor'kron was still around and active in the Horde, meaning all the beloved Kor'kron [=NPCs=] were still around. In ''Battle for Azeroth'' beta, they were used and like the 7th Legion acknowledged the player as a longtime champion of theirs since ''Wrath of the Lich King''. Unfortunately, a later PTR replaced them with generic organizations like "Horde vanguard" or "Honorbound" who say nothing to the player.
365** A common complaint about the Alliance's allied races is that they are poor man's substitutes for the races people actually wanted -- void elves instead of high elves or ethereals, Lightforged draenei instead of Broken draenei or man'ari eredar, Kul Tiran humans instead of vrykul, and Mechagon mechagnomes instead of Northrend mechagnomes. Dark Iron dwarves have largely avoided it, as have the Horde's allied races.
366* RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap:
367** Garrosh. Due to [[TheScrappy how he was viewed in]] ''Wrath of the Lich King,'' this arguably happens to him in ''Cataclysm'' where he is given a couple genuine honorable moments such as calling out Sylvanas for beginning to turn herself into the next Lich King, and a {{Jerkass}} orc in the Stonetalon Mountains for bombing innocent Night Elves... but it ends up all going south when he is turned into a villain for ''Mists of Pandaria'' due to the player backlash towards Garrosh not dissipating as much as Blizzard was hoping for. However, people started turning heads again once his death comes around in ''Warlords of Draenor'' where [[TheWoobie people started to feel bad for him]] due to Thrall leaving him so much on his plate the moment he was given the role of the Horde's Warchief, and was forced into a role that he clearly wasn't experienced for; driving him to do certain things if it meant that it would truly help his Horde survive the harsh times it was currently experiencing.
368*** Long story short, a lot of people are starting to blame Thrall over Garrosh more for the misdeeds the Horde did throughout ''Mists of Pandaria.''
369*** That being said, DracoInLeatherPants plays a big role on this sentiment. See AlasPoorScrappy for the details.
370** Attempted with Gallywix in the short stories, but like Garrosh, time will tell if it is successful...
371** Like Garrosh, Varian was a huge BaseBreakingCharacter with his introduction in ''Wrath of the Lich King'', which is unsurprising since they were played as {{foil}}s to one-another. However, over time his zealous streak against the Horde became less his defining feature and was moved to a cross between a wise king who meant well for his people but didn't bend the knee to his foes. By the time [[spoiler:his death]] occurred in ''Legion'', even Horde players had great respect for him as a character, and his [[spoiler:HeroicSacrifice against Gul'dan to save the Alliance forces]] is hailed as one of the most memorable moments in Warcraft history, with both factions proclaiming him a true hero.
372** Vereesa Windrunner was hugely disliked for being a SatelliteLoveInterest towards Rhonin and not being as interesting as her sister Sylvanas. The fanbase began to warm up to her ever since Rhonin was killed off and she was allowed to develop separately from him, most notably playing a huge part in the Purge of Dalaran. The reintroduction of her fan-favorite sister Alleria and her interaction with the other two Windrunners has only solidified this sentiment.
373** The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLKS0Jq9U_E Terror of Darkshore cinematic]] seems to have finally redeemed Malfurion in the eyes of the fanbase. Not only is his suicidal neutrality gone, he's finally properly leading the Night Elves alongside Tyrande. Most of the comments on said cinematic are proclaiming the long overdue CharacterRerailment with joy.
374** Anduin Wrynn was not exactly a well-liked character around ''Mists of Pandaria'', especially by Alliance lore fans, with many perceiving him as being painfully naive and suicidally pacifistic during the war with the Horde at the time. His struggle in ''Legion'' to take over from his father bought over some people, but ''Battle for Azeroth'' made most people change their tunes about him, showing him as a conflicted young king thrust into leadership and still wishing for peace, but willing to take the fight to the Horde to protect his allies. His awesome moment of shielding and healing his entire army at the battle for Lordaeron especially helped.
375* RonTheDeathEater:
376** For some players the faction is a SeriousBusiness, this causes demonization towards the members of the other faction.
377** Xe'ra, and by extension the Army of the Light and the Light itself, have gotten this treatment from some fans following the ''"Rejection of the Gift"'' cinematic, the "A Thousand Years of War" short story and [[spoiler:the war between the Mag'har empire and the faction led by Yrel dubbed the [[AppropriatedAppelation Lightbound]] who want to convert everyone to follow the Light willingly or not]]. See AlternateCharacterInterpretation and WhatDoYouMeanItsNotDidactic for more details.
378* RootingForTheEmpire: Thanks to some very unpopular story beats since the end of ''Legion'' (and, for many players, the end of ''Mists of Pandaria''), many lore-focused players have expressed support for the Jailer's plans to unmake reality, hoping for a fresh start for the universe.
379* SalvagedStory: Many fans didn't like how the alternate Grom was EasilyForgiven at the end of ''Warlords of Draenor'' once the Burning Legion was driven out of Draenor. The Mag'har Allied Race quest reveals that after the high of victory wore off, no one was as forgiving to Grom for leading the Iron Horde's genocidal conquest. He spent the next thirty years of his life as TheAtoner to earn that forgiveness. [[spoiler:He also [[RedemptionEqualsDeath sacrificed himself]] to [[HoldingTheLine hold back the Lightbound]] long enough for as many of his people as could be saved to escape to Azeroth]].
380* SavedByTheFans: Grand Magister Rommath, who was slated to join the Twilight Cult in ''Cataclysm''. This incurred some fan outrage, many seeing it as a contrived attempt at parity (a prominent Alliance figure joined the Cult as well) and doing an interesting character a disservice. Blizzard took this in and scrapped the idea.
381* SequelDisplacement: What are these "classic trendsetting strategy games" of which you speak?
382* ShipToShipCombat:
383** Thrall's love interest Aggra is apparently the [[DieForOurShip target]] of many a RevengeFic from Thrall/Jaina shippers. It gets pretty vicious. Even before Aggra existed, there was already a bit of a ship war between Arthas/Jaina and Thrall/Jaina. It quieted down for bit only to come back roaring in full-force in ''BFA'' where Thrall and Jaina are given a moment together that comes off like ShipTease.
384** With Wrathion's [[TheBusCameBack return]] in ''[=BFA=]'' and his handsome "[[MrFanservice upgraded]]" humanoid form, two camps of shippers seem to be emerging, judging by the comments on websites like [=YouTube=] and Reddit: people who ship him with Anduin, and those who ship him with their player characters. Both sides have fervently defended their positions.
385* ShockingMoments:
386** The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wq4Y7ztznKc opening cinematic]] for ''Cataclysm'' ranks pretty high.
387** Stepping through the Dark Portal into the broken world of Outland for the first time (and right into the middle of a battle between the Alliance & Horde and an army of demons) in ''Burning Crusade'' was up there as well.
388** The first time players took a flight point somewhere is probably a lower-level version of this. After spending all that time fighting through the game world at ground level, suddenly seeing it all spread out below you, with other players doing the things you just went through, was a fairly awe-inspiring sight.
389* SilentMajority: Did you know there are people who actually ''don't'' play this game for 14 hours a day? Did you know that there are plenty of people who actually play ''other games'' too? Or that there are people in the military playing it, college students, or people with 40-hour-a-week jobs and a family? The way the BrokenBase carries on about it, you probably wouldn't believe so.
390* SlidingScaleOfSocialSatisfaction: Categorized as "True Neutral".
391* SoloCharacterRun: Acknowledging that high-level characters can [[CurbStompBattle curb-stomp]] old content, Blizzard has tweaked the old raids to allow this. These tweaks are not {{nerf}}s, they merely remove restrictions that require more than one person[[note]]though many players argue that at the same time, they have been buiding raids specifically to make solo runs - though not impossible - considerably more tedious; the Siege of Orgrimmar is particularly notorious for this[[/note]].
392* SpecialEffectFailure: In the ''Warlords of Draenor'' expansion, key characters and Garrison buildings are given a 3D-like text. You can see the text being clipped through Kargath's blade hand during the introduction quests of that expansion. When buildings are finished in the Garrison, careful inspection reveals it's not really 3D, either.
393* StrangledByTheRedString: Thrall must have had one hell of a whirlwind courtship with Aggra when the books weren't watching, because there's not much of a transition from VitriolicBestBuds to OfficialCouple.
394* StrawmanHasAPoint:
395** Often treated as the Alliance's resident Garrosh counterpart and a Horde-hating {{Jerkass}}, Fandral Staghelm's lack of faith in the Horde holds a lot of water after Garrosh makes plans for a war-march on Ashenvale with the intent to build a city in the middle of an ancient forest ''regardless of people already living there''.
396** For his part, Garrosh became the guy-who-is-always-wrong during ''Mists of Pandaria'', but as Vol'jin attempts to call him out during the introduction to the 5.1 storyline for being too aggressive and warmongering, Garrosh shuts him up with, "This is the difference between you and me, Vol'jin: I won't let MY people starve to death in the desert". Although even this is a poorly developed result of a retcon. Originally, Thrall chose to settle where he did on purpose because it resembled his homeworld of Draenor. There was an entire campaign in ''Warcraft III'' where you fought hard to secure Durotar. Only later was Draenor retconned to have Azeroth-like biodiversity. Garrosh is right in pointing that problem out now, but it's really now just a PlotHole that Thrall chose to fight hard to settle in a barren desert.
397** In general, Alliance characters that espouse open hatred for The Horde are at best presented as [[TragicBigot tragic figures whose trauma prevents them from seeing the bigger picture]] or at worst [[FantasticRacism fanatical bigots]] who represent the very worst of the faction. However, the narrative in these scenarios often overlook how The Horde have legitimately committed many atrocities in its name (most notably The Bombing of Theramore in ''MOP'' and The Burning of Teldrassil in ''BFA''.) and faced few long lasting repercussions for them. As such it becomes understandable why some of these characters would still be holding a grudge against the faction and those within it.
398* SurprisinglyImprovedSequel:
399** ''Burning Crusade'' was alright in the gameplay department, but a lot of people lamented the story it put forth, the scattershot villains, the feel of the setting and the fact that very little was improved on base game mechanics. ''Wrath of the Lich King'', on the other hand, was praised for how it allowed the player to actually affect the status quo of the world (at least for themselves), the much more "Warcraft-ish" feel of Northrend, the much tighter plotting and far more engaging villain groups (ranging from Arthas Menethil to a new villain who finally tips his hand in Storm Peaks and rockets to near the top of most fans' MagnificentBastard list). It did have its own problems, but Blizzard has shown an admirable ability to learn from their mistakes with expansions and ''Cataclysm'' seems to have been a successful attempt to combine the best of ''Burning Crusade'', ''Wrath'' and vanilla [=WoW=].
400** ''Legion'' was this even more than BC and ''Wrath''. ''Draenor'' was one of the worst-received expansions in the game's history, with lots of serious gameplay[[note]]flight availability and garrisons -- see the GoneHorriblyRight entry[[/note]] and story [[note]]few new story bits, the players win at every step[[/note]] missteps. ''Legion'' not only fixed most of these issues[[note]]class halls dropped the bad stuff and kept all the good stuff from garrisons, while maintaining a "group" feel and still pushing the players to go out into the game world, the players ''lost'' most of the time in the early part of the expansion[[/note]], but added cool, often lore-important artifact weapons, and introduced the widely-acclaimed "World Quests", which simultaneously largely took the place of dailies, but gave a huge amount of latitude in what players could choose to go do. While not without hiccups, it's currently widely considered one of the best expansions the game has ever had.
401[[/folder]]
402
403[[folder: T-Z]]
404* TaintedByThePreview: Or rather, the lack of one. When ''Dragonflight'' preorders opened on June 21st 2022, the information included the line that the expansion would be available on or before December 31st of the same year. This immediately made a lot of people wary that the expansion was being ChristmasRushed, since hardly any gameplay had been shown up to that point and there was no sign yet of the expansion's traditional open beta, and the prior expectation had been for the expansion to release early- to mid-2023.
405* TakeThatScrappy:
406** Some people interpret certain hated [=NPC=]s becoming bosses as this, such as Fandral Staghelm in the Firelands, Garrosh Hellscream (this one was confirmed) in Siege of Orgrimmar, and [[spoiler:Three Sha-corrupted spirits of Golden Lotus members, and the Klaxxi Paragons]], some of the questgivers for the reviled daily quests, also from Siege of Orgrimmar.
407** Nathanos Blightcaller earned a major Scrappy badge in ''Legion'' and ''Battle for Azeroth'' for being an overpowered {{jerkass}} with what looked like JokerImmunity. Especially since he overpowered ''Tyrande Whisperwind''. Come the pre-''Shadowlands'' event, [[spoiler:he can be killed as a boss at the [[BookEnds Marris farm]], and the cinematic that follows his defeat at the hands of the players has Tyrande overpowering and eventually killing him. Nathanos [[MyDeathIsJustTheBeginning hints at coming back in the Shadowlands]], but it's still satisfying to many.]]
408* ThatOneAchievement:
409** Some of the meta-achievements, such as Glory of the Hero have at least one achievement that is significantly harder than the others (Less-Rabi and Zombiefest are two examples). What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been requires the completion of all holiday meta-achievements and most holiday achievements, which includes several luck-based achievements, and generally requires that players be 80 or above for at least a year.
410** [[https://wowpedia.fandom.com/Veteran_Nanny Veteran Nanny]], for the sheer amount of time it takes to get. It requires that the player get three specific pets on one character. The problem being that the pets are obtained from a quest chain that can only be done once per year, and only allows you to choose one of the pets. Which means, you have to play for ''two years minimum''[[note]]Assuming you happen to be ready to participate in Children's Week shortly after starting, then do so again the next year and the year after that[[/note]] to get this achievement. Thank god it's ''not'' of the achievements needed for "For The Children" meta-achievement.
411** [[https://wowpedia.fandom.com/Insane_in_the_Membrane Insane in the Membrane]]. It requires that the player get certain reputation levels with multiple factions. And while Steamwheedle Cartel towns are easy, Darkmoon Faire is time-consuming but also relatively easy, it's the remaining two factions that cause problems. First we have Bloodsail Buccaneers, a faction that exists solely to be an antagonistic force in Cape of Stranglethorn story, and for one other achievement, and the only way to get their reputation is to routinely slaughter your way through Booty Bay -- ruining reputation with Steamwheedle Cartel in the process, though as a silver lining, you only need Honored with Buccaneers. Finally, there's Ravenholdt, who give you ''nothing'' for raising their reputation, and only gain reputation from killing Syndicate mobs, or turning in Heavy Junkboxes. It gets worse when you reach Revered with them, and realise that mobs no longer give reputation -- which means now it's Heavy Junkbox farm time, except the ''only'' way to get them is by [[VideoGameStealing stealing]]. Which only rogues can do. As such, the only ways to raise reputation further are: 1)being a rogue, 2)having a rogue alt, 3)have a friend with a rogue character, or 4)spending ''tons'' of money and time, trying to get junkboxes at an auction house. And you need ''1400'' of them to get to Exalted.
412*** The achievement was even worse before ''Cataclysm'', as it required the player to have all reputations simultaneously (which was a problem, considering enmity between Steamwheedle Cartel and Bloodsail Buccaneers), and it also required Exalted with now removed Shen'dralar faction, whose reputation grind was both slow and RNG reliant, since it relied on running through Dire Maul over and over in order to get [[RandomlyDrops randomly dropping books]] that only give 500 reputation per book and also require other, also randomly dropping items, to be turned in in addition to books.
413** [[https://www.wowhead.com/achievement=11137/a-legendary-campaign A Legendary Campaign]]. It requires one to complete ''every single class order campaign'', which meant getting ''twelve'' characters of different classes to 110 and doing class order campaigns on all of them to the end. Which will take a while. ''Shadowlands'' made this achievement significantly easier, as you can start working on ''Legion'' content from level 10, but you still need 12 level 45 chracters.
414* ThatOneAttack: '''Deep Breath''', an attack used by most dragon bosses has been a bane since ''Classic'' due to a mixture of factors. For one, it's not telegraphed well, meaning it's easy for players to not know they're in the danger zone until it's too late. Two, it often requires players to look ''up'', which is something that most games ''period'' struggle with as players almost ''never'' have any reason to tilt their camera up at the sky. And three, a few bosses were still not fully clear on just where the safe zones were - since players will have to [[InterfaceScrew rapidly tilt their camera up, then tilt it back so they can match the apparent danger zone to where the dragon's breath is]]. Presumably for this reason, Fyrakk in ''Dragonflight'' has the AreaOfEffect marked clearly on the ''floor''.
415* ThatOneBoss: Lots, depending on the skill of the player(s) and the makeup of your group. See [[ThatOneBoss/WorldOfWarcraft here]] for a (partial) list.
416** When players gain levels and better gear from newer expansions, many become less difficult, but others remain difficult because of certain mechanics. One example is Razorgore, who will instantly wipe raids that kill him without destroying all the eggs in his room.
417* ThatOneSidequest:
418** Every single escort mission. Not pretty much every escort mission. Every single one of them. Not because you're weak, not because the person you're guarding is weak, but because the person you'll be working with will all be disgustingly stupid and charge after enemies that probably wouldn't have seen them otherwise. One of the worst is escorting this guy out of the Lost Ones territory in Swamp of Sorrows. You end up fighting three warlocks and their imp minions. Even several levels above the quest, either you, or your human companion, will not make it. The only exception would be a Zangarmarsh escort quest where your target just tags along instead of slowly following a predefined pattern, is hard to kill, doesn't aggro mob packs for no reason, spams Wrath instead of meleeing people with a wimpy staff, and constantly casts Regrowth on you to ensure you aren't going to die as well. By that corollary, many of the parts of the dungeons that involve mandatory escorting, especially The Escape from Durnholde and Halls of Stone, become ThatOneLevel.
419** Mankrik's goddamn wife. Takes ''forever'' to find her, even if you use a guide, not least because you think you're looking for a person instead of a poorly-marked corpse. This has led to quite a bit of MemeticMutation. In ''Cataclysm'', Mankrik is still alive and has a quest chain, along with a good bit of {{lampshad|eHanging}}ing. In ''Warlords of Draenor'', you meet Mankrik as a child and help him rescue his girlfriend.
420** "City of Light", the introductory quest to Shattrath was easily the most hated quest of the Burning Crusade expansion, requiring players to follow around a summon for nine minutes as they're given the history of Shattrath City. While easily skippable once Wrath came out, back in the days of Burning Crusade it was outright required due to being the only way to unlock the Aldor and Scryer factions, which were incredibly important back then.
421** The Shado-Pan dailies, especially the Wu Kao ones, are disliked, especially since the enemies are harder than usual and your companion is relatively weak.
422*** Speaking of Shado-Pan dailies, the "Getting Around with Shado-Pan" achievement, due to taking way more time to get than it ought to .It requires that you complete 15 dailies with each companion, with 5 dailies available every day. You will reach Exalted with Shado-Pan before you are even halfway close to completing it.
423*** For Melee classes there is also "Know Your Role", which requires you to complete every single Shado-Pan Blackguard daily in a NoDamageRun. Take as much as a ''single point of damage'' anywhere between accepting the quest and turning it in, and it's void.
424** If you're into collecting battle pets, there are certain pets[[note]]specifically, the Baby Ape, Silithid Hatchling, and Arctic Fox Kit[[/note]] that not only appear in one zone, but only under specific weather conditions (rain, snow, sandstorm, etc.) making it a royal pain to hunt for these pets. (Fortunately, these pets are common while the weather is in effect; it's just a pain to wait for the weather to start.) Also, the Minfernal, while not a weather-specific spawn, is on a rare spawn timer in a specific part of Felwood, and as such, is in high demand. Good luck finding one before the other players get them all. Since many of these pets are required catches for the "Safari" achievements, this overlaps with LastLousyPoint.
425*** The worst of this type is the Unborn Val'Kyr. It doesn't have a weather requirement, but you will wish it had that instead of how it does work. Specifically, it has only one or two spawn points in each zone in Northrend, only one shows up on the ''entire continent'' at a time, and it has a long, irregular spawn time. A nightmare for completists, and it's mostly luck if you find one. Even worse when you try to look up battler strategies and realize ''how goddamn many'' high-end PVE pet battle strategies involve using it -- very few even acknowledge the difficulty in finding it, much less offer an alternative.
426** The leatherworking profession quest "Mounting Made Easy" is referred to as the worst quest in the game. Completing it allows you to create a profession-specific mount, or rather, the saddle for such a mount. The "that one" part comes from the process of catching the mount: it is necessary to first locate the animal (not hard), lasso it, mount up before it charges away (harder, but not overly so), then follow it while it charges hither and yon all over Stormheim. Literally. It visits every single location in the zone, leaps in ways no other mount can leap, charges up surfaces nothing else can climb, and if you get too far from it, you have to start over. Granted, there are checkpoints, but in the end, the only way to complete it is run the course again and again and again until you memorize every last twist, turn, and trick. It is by far the most irritating of all the profession mount quests, and can easily take several hours. And the mount, though it does look great, is nothing special in terms of performance and can't even be traded with others.
427** The "Root of All Evil" quest became this after stat squish if attempting to do it without overleveling. The enemy you need to kill has a poison aura that damages players near him every two seconds (and by near him, meaning 40 yards away -- a distance most spells are used from) -- the problem is that after ''Legion'' stat squish, said aura now deals around [[InstantDeathRadius 3-4k damage per tick]], killing ''everyone'' at appropriate level for the quest in seconds. Oh, and if you overlevel enough to oneshot the enemy? You don't get the credit. As a result you should level just enough not to get killed by the aura, while not enough to oneshot the guy.
428** The Tortollan world quest “Calligraphy”, specifically drawing the triangle. The circle and square can be challenging, but a poor choice of corner placement makes the triangle quest fundamentally [[UnintentionallyUnwinnable impossible]] to complete.
429** The Forgotten Cove questline. An awesome reference to ''VideoGame/DarkestDungeon'' to fans of that game, one of the worst things ''ever'' added to this game to everyone else. The questline is started from a letter which sends you to a ruined estate on an island - the problems already start here, since there is no easy transportation there, so let's hope you have something that allows you to walk on water like the Anglers mount from ''[=MoP=]'', otherwise you'll have to ''swim'' there. Once there, the horror begins. There are 8 quests in the questline after the introduction, all of them extremely boring, repetitive and tedious (most of them consisting of just "kill X mobs in Y place" or "check all of these places" quests around an area with a confusing layout full of tough mobs), with quest descriptions full of the PurpleProse present in any Creator/HPLovecraft derived work (such as ''Darkest Dungeon'') but far from what ''[=WoW=]'' commonly uses. After completing each of the quests, you're prevented from starting the next one until a random number of several real-life days later. Remember that the questline takes place in a remote area, with no flight points, and accesible only after a trip across water. Each day, you'll have to check the map to see if there's an exclamation mark showing an available quest there, and then, make the long trip ''again''. Initially a glitch allowed players to immediately start the next quest if the player killed the own character after completing the previous quest, but this being a beneficial glitch, [[HumorMode evidently]] Blizzard didn't take too long in fixing it. There's also a debuff that the player can acquire while doing the quests that hampers combat - while the method to remove it is explained early in the questline, since the questline is so heavily timegated, players are very likely to forget how to remove it. The worst part? The questline leads nowhere. It has an abrupt end (with the questgive merely saying "Victory... foolish and meaningless", and nothing changing), the questline is inconsequential for the Crucible of Storms raid that also takes place in that area (so no lore relevance), and the reward is a mere chunk of azerite that wasn't worth the time even back when azerite was relevant, and the unlocking of three world quests that A) almost never appear in the first place, B) have been reported to be quite bugged, and C) don't give anything that couldn't be acquired with other, easier-to-unlock world quests. Word-of-mouth given to players asking about this questline was just "avoid it".
430* TheyChangedItNowItSucks:
431** BALANCE! Also, many old-school players tend to complain that the game has gotten too easy, while others note that there are challenges available to those who seek them out, and Blizzard is trying to make more content for the majority of players instead of just the hardcore. In general, though, people have been saying this pretty much since the first patch, but mysteriously still play.
432*** Shamans v Paladins, unique to the Horde and Alliance, respectively, until ''Burning Crusade''. The developers admitted there's no way to balance them while still making their mechanics and abilities unique.
433** The changes in Battlegrounds have been subject to this as well, with the alterations to Alterac Valley (to prevent hour''s''-long matchups) being one of the first to get this complaint.
434%%** Sylvanas' voice since patch 3.2.
435%%** Tyrande Whisperwind's voice as of ''Cataclysm''.
436** Theralion's voice, going from a CampGay voice to a generic deep and evil voice.
437** The reduction in talent choices, going from a point every level before ''Cataclysm'' to a point every other level from 10-80 and one per level from 81-85, to six talent selections with three options each in ''Mists of Pandaria''. Detractors say that it makes the game too simplistic. This trope was {{invoked|Trope}} by Blizzard as a reason people don't like their changes.
438** Anything that reduces the amount of time it takes to level or gear up draws fire from players who say it makes it too easy and enables bad players to get ready to raid.
439** The game managed to do this to a quest that was ''already'' disliked. The Tortollan quest that involved protecting turtles as they headed to the safety of the water was almost universally loathed for taking much longer than the "matching" or "maze" quests. Then they released a quest that would occasionally take its place, where you played as a crab and killed the turtles in the name of "balance of nature". But now you had to dodge far more incoming fire than you could ever put out, it was easy to die and have to restart the quest (though fortunately not your count for it), you ''still'' had to kill far more turtles than you previously had to protect.
440** Many players felt that one reason why the trope is a perpetual issue for the game is that when Blizzard makes changes, they tend to go to extremes, especially if there had been a fan backlash; "the pendulum swinging too far", so to speak.
441** ''Shadowform!'' Its iconic transparent purple appearance was changed to resembling a purple version of Pigpen of ''Peanuts'' fame. ''Many'' shadow priest players were (and still are) quite unhappy with this change.
442** Male goblins' updated models in 8.2, mainly because of their lips. The new models for worgen and female goblins in that same patch were comparatively better received.
443* ToughActToFollow:
444** ''Wrath of the Lich King'' is not only considered by many to be the game's best expansion, but the moment where it met the peak of its history.[[note]]As evident by the fact that the expansion's run had the highest number of subscribed players at 12 Million.[[/note]] Thanks to its improvements to the game design, coherent zone and art design, Introducing a well received (if then overpowered) class in the form of the 'Death Knight', acclaimed raids and dungeons, and an engaging plot that manages to satisfyingly wrap up one of the series most popular [[VideoGame/WarcraftIII storylines.]] Its popularity was a likely factor in why the game's next expansion ''Cataclysm'' in comparison was met with a great amount of criticism, especially when it came to the [[TheyChangedItNowItSucks changes to the world design]] and a generally weaker received story [[note]] Some common criticisms, Thrall being replaced by the then ill-received [[ReplacementScrappy Garrosh]] as Horde Warchief (as well as Thrall himself taking center stage to [[SpotlightStealingSquad most characters),]] The BigBad Deathwing, for most players felt like He came [[GiantSpaceFleaFromNowhere from nowhere,]] and a greater sense of attention being given to The Horde over The Alliance.[[/note]] Even the expansion's main villain Deathwing, while liked well enough on his own, is considered to be a weaker character than the titular Lich King, Arthas. The same arguably extents to the later expansions as well, since even before their individual releases, A common question is or was "How does it compare to ''Wrath''."
445** ''Legion'' as well. While there are plenty of reasons to dislike ''Battle For Azeroth'' and ''Shadowlands'' as it is, coming on the heels of such a well-received expansion makes them both look even worse.
446%%* UglyCute: Broken draenei.
447* UnfortunateCharacterDesign: Playable mechagnomes tend to be joked about as looking like they're wearing diapers due to their models removing the pant legs from any pair of pants they wear. They do the same with sleeves and the result was clearly intended to look more like a leotard, but given their height and gnomes being historically made fun of often, people tend to gravitate toward the diaper comparison.
448* UnintentionalPeriodPiece:
449** The male Blood Elf /silly, "Don't you wish your girlfriend was hot like me?" was added because of the song by the Pussy Cat Dolls was popular at the time of ''The Burning Crusade'''s release.[[note]]This /silly was removed in Patch 9.1.5[[/note]]
450** An Alliance [=NPC=], Moi'bff Jill, was renamed that after a late 2007-early 2008 meme, idk My BFF Jill was also popular.
451* UnnecessaryMakeover: Lor'themar, Aethas and Vereesa each got new outfits for the Siege of Orgrimmar. In the former's case, it's simply pointless, while the latter two have total downgrades from nice looking ''Wrath of the Lich King'' gear to a standard robe and mashed-together brown quest greens, respectively.
452* UnintentionallySympathetic:
453** Even with the retcons about the Zandalari having an empire in the past with the Mogu, many players feel sympathy for them. Considering the Zandalari's home is lost, they were friendly to people of all races, befriended the player characters, and want to save themselves from extinction, this isn't surprising. Fortunately, [[AuthorsSavingThrow Zandalar is a major player in]] ''[[AuthorsSavingThrow Battle for Azeroth]]''.
454** Obsidian Destroyers get this trope after the retcon that they aren't creations of the Twin Emperors, but instead Titan constructs enslaved and corrupted by the Nerubians and the Twin Emperors who forced them to fight on the frontline.
455** Tyrande Whisperwind was supposed to come off as arrogant, her dismissal of the Nightborne causing them to go to the Horde. The problem is most of her grievances were reasonable and she still went out of her way to aid Thalyssra's rebellion. The Nightborne joining and staying with the faction that [[spoiler:burned down Teldrassil, killing thousands of night elf civilians in ''Battle for Azeroth'']] made her concern came across as completely founded, and made Thalyssra's reaction to Tyrande's criticisms seem ridiculously petty and childish.
456** Characters like Daelin Proudmoore, Sky Admiral Rogers, [[spoiler: Yrel in ''Battle for Azeroth'', and Tyrande in ''Battle for Azeroth'' and a good deal of ''Shadowlands'']], proponents of the "exterminate all Horde" Alliance, are supposed to be seen as TragicVillain, who could not let go of their hatred to see the bigger picture, and whose past trauma made them see all Horde as evil. While they're intended to elect some sympathy, they're still supposed to be seen as villains or at the very least as being in the wrong. But the fact that the Horde became worse over time (see the Horde section on this page [[UnintentionallyUnsympathetic/WorldOfWarcraft here]] ) make them come across as even more sympathetic than originally intended, making it look like exterminating the entire Horde would, while tragic, be much better for the Alliance in the long term. At least, Daelin's case can be said to be a SelfFulfillingProphecy one, since his attack on the orcs was part of what convinced them to keep a militaristic attitude afterwards.
457** Devos telling Uther to cast Arthas into the Maw is meant to come across as them crossing a line into extremism, but a vocal chunk of fans, especially Sylvanas loyalists, didn't see anything wrong with it. To them Arthas did so much evil that him being tossed into the Maw was justice, and the rest of Bastion had blatantly ignored Uther and Lysonia's warnings that Maw magic was at work. If anything, this action, at least, was fixing the natural order. (To say nothing of how blase most of the Ascended Paragons and the First One herself are once they find out that with the Arbirter disabled, [[spoiler:every soul they ferry, regardless of who it is and what they've done, is immediately and without recourse chucked into the Maw.]])
458* VindicatedByHistory:
459** ''Mists of Pandaria'' was a top contender for TheUnfavourite among [=WoW=]'s expansions, with only ''Cataclysm'' rivaling it for the spot. This stemmed from over-reliance on daily quests in the raid-gearing curve, some users not liking the Pandaren and calling them a rip-off of ''WesternAnimation/KungFuPanda''. However, as ''Warlords of Draenor'' went on, many have started to feel nostalgic about Pandaria instead. While it certainly had its flaws, as listed above, people admitted that it brought plenty of content ([=WoD=]'s problem was that it had barely any). The faction war storyline is still disliked however.
460** ''Warlords of Draenor'' had dethroned ''Mists'' as TheUnfavourite, although players have started to appreciate the expansion for the things it did ''right'' -- such as providing an actually fun questing environment, not having anywhere ''near'' the rep grinds of ''Mists'', ''finally'' making the Draenei relevant for the first time since 200'''8''', nudging the Wrynn family out of the spotlight to enable other characters (such as Khadgar) to take it, and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking successfully upping the standards for beautiful environments in the game]].
461* {{Wangst}}: While Arator the Redeemed has a legitimate grievance of how he thought his parents were dead for nearly thirty years, only for them to turn up alive and well, his complaints about them never contacting him fall flat when you remember that they've been fighting a war against the Burning Legion [[ForeverWar for over a thousand years]] on multiple alien worlds. Furthermore, the only time Turalyn and Alleria managed to send a message to Azeroth, the Legion tracked it.
462* WarShip: Jaina is a member of the Alliance and Sylvanas is a member of the Horde, two armies that are at war with each other, but that doesn't stop them from being one of the most popular ships in the fandom, due to many feeling like they would understand each other due to their similarities.
463* WhatDoYouMeanItsNotDidactic: Illidan killing Xe'ra was supposed to be a contentious moment and Blizzard's only [[WordOfGod (stated) intentions were to appease fans and consider the possibility that not all Naaru are good from the player's perspective]]. This didn't stop fans from not only being glad of Xe'ra's death but some anti-religious fans have tried to use it as a rallying cry -- even to the point of [[RonTheDeathEater calling Xe'ra no different from]] [[OmnicidalManiac Sargeras and the Void Lords]].
464* WinBackTheCrowd: While ''Warlords of Draenor'' is almost unanimously regarded as the single most-botched expansion in [=WoW=]'s history, with its focus on private garrisons, severe lack of endgame content, and only one major content patch, ''Legion'' went in a completely opposite direction, showering the players with content and lore for its entire duration. And the quality of the writing has improved too -- just see Suramar.
465** Shortly after Blizzard released the extremely contentious Sylvanas Warbringers short, the game's Horde fanbase quickly began ripping itself apart, with many of them absolutely disgusted by Sylvanas' choice of actions as well as the fact that the entire Horde seemed to be blindly following her into dishonorable actions and to their deaths at the hands of the vengeful Alliance. Later that same week, Blizzard dropped the 'Old Soldier' cinematic starring Saurfang, which made it abundantly clear that not all of the Horde agreed with Sylvanas' actions, as well as introducing a new troll character that quickly achieved memetic status. Many of the Horde players disillusioned by the Warbringers short rallied to Saurfang's position and the beautiful new cinematic.
466** ''Dragonflight'' attempted to do this after the universally reviled ''Shadowlands'' and the controversy from the Activision Blizzard workplace harassment lawsuit. It removed borrowed power, invested in evergreen systems that don't get obsolete the next expansion, went back to Azeroth and adventurer fantasy after a whole expansion of cosmic lore, gave players the huge and long-awaited Dragon Isles to explore, and instead of locking flying mounts behind a reputation grind, gave everyone an improved flight system from the very start. Unfortunately, [[AcclaimedFlop despite being much better critically received]] than ''Battle for Azeroth'' or ''Shadowlands'', it sold fewer copies than either of them, which may have contributed to ''Dragonflight'' not getting a 10.3 content patch.
467* TheWoobie: [[Woobie/WorldOfWarcraft Has its own page.]]
468* WoobieSpecies:
469** All races have their moments be it in-game or in the lore, but Forsaken possibly take the cake. They were killed by either Kel'Thuzad's Plague of Undeath, the Scourge, or Arthas himself after he became a Death Knight, and then reanimated as mindless slaves to the Lich King. After they regained their consciousness and free will, they were driven away from their old homes, lost everything they knew and loved, and left with no place to call home until Sylvanas claimed the Undercity as their home.
470** A quote from Forsaken writings sums this up.
471---> "When I clawed my way out of the grave, I thought my family would welcome me with open arms. Instead, they drove me out of the village, screaming in a language I could no longer understand."
472** Undead death knights double this up. As humans, they contract the plague and die, come back as a mindless zombie, wrest their self-control back and join the Forsaken, are killed again, brought back again, mind-wiped and enslaved again, and have to fight for their freedom AGAIN. They are hated and reviled by all their former loved ones with each iteration and have to rebuild their lives from scratch. It's little wonder they're so bitter.
473** The draenei were forced to flee their homeworld after most of their brethren were corrupted by Sargeras and turned joined the Burning Legion, with many seeing their own friends or family members turning into demons and their mortal enemies, have been running for their lives for 25,000 years, have seen the destruction of countless planets, were almost killed off entirely by the Orcs right after they thought that they could finally stay on Draenor, with said genocide having been orchestrated by Kil'jaeden who was one of their own and one of their most respected and loved leaders once, and when it seems they finally catch a break in retaking the Exodar, the blood elves crash it. And most of them were alive for all of it.
474** The blood elves had it rough too. After the Scourge destroyed Quel'Thalas and corrupted the Sunwell, they started suffering a magic addiction which they became more and more desperate to cure. They tried joining back the Alliance to help fight the Scourge, only for their superior to be a racist asshole who did everything to get them killed before flat-out trying to have them executed for "treason" (read: accepting help from an enemy species to fight the Scourge after ''he'' put them in a situation where they would have died otherwise). Their prince eventually tried to save them through a deal with a demon, only to end up corrupt in the process and eventually betraying the same people he was so devoted to by joining the Burning Legion.
475** Voidwalkers, if you listen to their quotes. For instance, upon being summoned: "I don't like this place...", or being dismissed: "Release... at last..."
476** As of ''Battle for Azeroth'', the Night Elves can be added to this category. They had to endure two civil wars (one of which was sparked by some of their people, including [[VillainWithGoodPublicity their well-loved queen]] siding with a world-destroying demon army, the other was because some of their people didn't want to give up magic and violently disagreed), lost their immortality, had their lands ravaged again and again (by the Burning Legion and fire elementals in ''Cataclysm'') and served as the Horde's punching bag since Vanilla ala TheWorfEffect. Years later, they lost Teldrassil and ''their entire ancestral homeland of Kalimdor'' to the Horde. Only the Draenei have endured anything near as bad among the playable races (since [[spoiler:the Goblins got to return to Kezan and the subraces have had longer periods of peace]]).
477** The history of the Dragons hasn't exactly been rosy. The War of the Ancients saw Ysera ForcedToWatch her beloved partner Malorne's brutal, torturous death to Archimonde, Deathwing and his Black Dragonflight betraying the other Dragonflights and slaughtering countless dragons, including all but a small handful of the Blue Dragons, which ended up driving Malygos to insanity and seclusion. The Red Dragonflight goes on to be enslaved by the Old Horde for decades, ''Wrath of the Lich King'' sees Malygos come out of hiding only to go even ''more'' insane and try to forcibly take control of Azeroth's magic in a ritual that could destroy the world, causing the surviving Aspects no small anguish as they're forced to kill him. ''Cataclysm'' not only reveals that Nozdormu is doomed to become twisted into Moruzond and be killed by heroes, but ends with ''all'' dragons in Azeroth being stripped of their immortality ''and'' being rendered sterile. ''Legion'' has [[spoiler:Ysera corrupted by the Nightmare and the heroes forced to kill her, and the Death Knight mount questline can potentially end with the Deathlord slaughtering the last of the Red Dragonflight's eggs, dooming them to extinction]]. ''Dragonflight'' at last throws dragonkind a bone as they return to their homeland, the Dragon Isles, begin to rebuild and repopulate, and at the end, [[spoiler:the Aspects get their powers back]].
478* {{Woolseyism}}: In the Chinese version, [[https://warcraft.wiki.gg/wiki/File:Lord_Marrowgar.jpg Lord Marrowgar]] gets a [[https://warcraft.wiki.gg/wiki/File:Chinagar.jpg different look]] because bones aren't allowed to be shown in video games there. Likewise, many bones and such littering the game are replaced, though some are questionable. Most of the ones inside Scholomance are replaced with loaves of bread, leading to jokes that it's just a haunted bakery, not a school of necromancy.
479[[/folder]]

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