History Fridge / WorldOfWarcraft

** Sounds like a license to retcon to me. "It's okay, we just had inaccurate records all this time!" Rationalize all you want: the writer in question came out and admitted that he "forgot" how he'd written the backstory originally, but stood by the changes because he thought they were "cooler." Agree with him or not on that is a matter of taste, but it wasn't hidden brilliance: it was blatant stupidity and ineptitude on the part of someone who knew his own story less accurately than his fans.

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* It annoyed me that at the last minute, ''Burning Crusade'' dropped warrior as an available class for blood elves in favor of the more popular paladins. Though it was clearly a balance issue, many forumers tried to justify it with the lame excuse that, "Elves are too delicate to enter heavy melee," which to this day is still stupid. But now that blood elf warriors will be available in ''Cataclysm'', it becomes Fridge Brilliance for a different reason. Anyone who's aware of how World War I destroyed the entire generation of young men for countless villages can draw a chilling parallel. There were no blood elf warriors until now not because elves are somehow ill-suited to fighting. It's because, as the Scourge blighted their kingdom, rode a scar from south to north, threw engines of unliving flesh at the walls of their city, ghoul-gnawed through their homes room by room, and unhallowed their holiest of places, anyone who could pick up a sword did. It's ten years later that we'll finally have the first level 1 elf warriors, where Silvermoon's best and finest used to be. Instead of being a fandumb-appeasing move, it becomes something profoundly sad. I'm being dramatic. But this is how I kinda see ''Warcraft 3'', with its crap graphics, in my head.

*** It becomes even clearer at the end of the fight against the Lich King, as a scripted event kills every player still alive and he boasts how Icecrown, and indeed every event of the expansion, was really [[spoiler: just a massive plan to corrupt and ultimately attract the greatest heroes of Azeroth to die at his feet and be raised as his new champions. Unfortunately he hadn't counted on his father's soul returning to resurrect the heroes and hold him helpless as they finish him off.]]

* Why does the starting gear for Death Knights sell for poor amounts, even though similar items in the world would vendor for far more? Ignoring the obvious GameplayAbdStorySegregation reasons, its twofold: one, the items are too closely linked to the Lich King that nobody wants them. Secondly, as a Death Knight suddenly freed from the King's control, ''you actively want to get rid of the things that remind you of who you were.'' Your own person again, you jump at the chance to get an Outland clownsuit.

** The ''Wrath of the Lich King'' expansion has a surprisingly great deal of MoralDissonance in it. In order to complete quest lines (which is where most of the fun and experience points lies) have to [[http://www.boingboing.net/2008/12/08/torture-in-videogame.html torture prisoners]], kill game hunters on a quest for an AnimalWrongsGroup (and in a different area you end up killing animals on a quest for those same game hunters, so whatever the morality of the situation, you are doing ''something'' wrong), kidnap children, beat up adorable baby monkeys, and just generally do things [[DesignatedHero that doesn't make you feel like you're much of a hero]]. And then it dawns on you that the BigBad of the expansion is the Lich King, a paladin who set out to fight evil but who in the course of doing so kept finding himself with the decision of either performing some evil deed or giving up his fight against evil. Each time, [[WellIntentionedExtremist he chose to perform the evil deed]], and thus he lost his soul one piece at the time and finally turned into an EvilOverlord. And come to think of it, in the trailer for the expansion he threatened you that if you came to Northrend to fight him, the same thing would happen to you. OhCrap...
** It makes even more sense as you find out about [[spoiler: Yogg Saron, the EldritchAbomination whose physical mass is under nearly all of Northrend and whose presence drives people insane.]]
** With Patch 3.2 of ''WorldOfWarcraft'', a few new instance dungeons were added. One of these had a boss that used to annoy me greatly. While he was originally a human Death Knight, in the instance he returned as an Undead Death Knight, with partially decaying skin and everything. When you killed him, he'd return as a skeleton, claiming the flesh was only holding him back. And even when you killed his skeletal form, he returned AGAIN as a ghost yelling how he didn't even need his bones to kill you. It took me three runs to figure out the significance of his name: [[{{MontyPythonAndTheHolyGrail}} The Black Knight]]. --{{Neopolis}}
*** And that's (so far) the last time you fight him, too. Before that, you uncovered and fought him on horseback, after which he fled, and then uncovered his scheming AGAIN to lead into the ToC boss fight. He just won't stay dead. Nothing compared to Anub'arak, though.. Nothing in the Scourge ever stays dead, really.

* There was no draenei {{retcon}}. The story of the eredar being complicit in the corruption of Sargeras was created and deliberately disseminated by Kil'jaeden. And because he's such an apt...well, ''deceiver'', people in-universe actually thought that it was the truth, and that's why it appears in historical texts (which is how the [=WCIII=] game manual should be viewed). — @/FarseerLolotea

* There was no draenei {{retcon}}. In-universe, people actually ''believed'' that the eredar were complicit in the corruption of Sargeras, and that's what historical texts (which is how the [=WCIII=] game manual should be viewed) said. This is all [[ManipulativeBastard Kil'jaeden's]] fault: His sobriquet "the Deceiver" is, after all, [[MeaningfulName not ironic in the least]]. So of ''course'' he was telling fish stories about having corrupted a divine or near-divine being. — @/FarseerLolotea

* There was no draenei {{retcon}}. In-universe, people actually ''believed'' that the eredar were complicit in the corruption of Sargeras, and that's what historical texts (which is how the [=WCIII=] game manual should be viewed) said. Which is all [[ManipulativeBastard Kil'jaeden's]] fault: His sobriquet "the Deceiver" is, after all, [[MeaningfulName not ironic in the least]]. — @/FarseerLolotea

* There was no draenei {{retcon}}. In-universe, people actually ''believed'' that the eredar were complicit in the corruption of Sargeras, and that's what historical texts (which is how the [=WCIII=] game manual should be viewed) said. Which is all [[ManipulativeBastard Kil'jaeden's]] fault: His sobriquet "the Deceiver" is, after all, [[MeaningfulName not ironic in the least]].

* In the Storm Peaks, all of the Keepers of Ulduar were situated in some form of tower, most of them were elevated or up very high, save for Thorim and Freya. Thorim's tower was highest of all, which makes sense, since he is the keeper of thunder, so he can be closer to the clouds and lightning. While Freya's tower was completely on theground, not elevated at all. Why? She is the keeper of life, and earth, so she can be on the earth so that things can grow.

* When ''WorldOfWarcraft: Wrath of the Lich King'' came out, several Warlock demons had their abilties changed. The Felhunter (demonic bloodhound) lost his ability to find stealthed (hidden) enimies. This skill was added to the Voidwalker (big purple "darkness elemental" thingy)'s Consume Shadows skill (the skill is channeled for some seconds, during which the Voidwalker regenerates Health and, as of the Expansion, helps reveal stealthed enemies). At first, I though "well they just added the stealth detection to some random weak spell", but then I realized "Wait, if my Voidwalker consumes shadows, of course you can see people ''trying to hide in the shadows'' better. That makes sense."
** I thought it was a bit random and VillainBall-y that, in the ''Last Rites'' questline, [[spoiler:the Cult of the Damned infiltrator opted to brainwash Thassarian's sister, who had basically no strategic significance. The other victim was a ''general'', all Leryssa seemed to do was [[ItsPersonal piss Thassarian off]]. Then I realized: she ''[[HeKnowsTooMuch knew too much]]''. If she kept poking through the records and telling everyone who would listen about her brother, it would come out (as it did, when the player investigated) that he'd been sent on a suicide mission to get him out of the way. ''And the cultist, through the puppet general, must have ordered that.'' Obviously, the Lich King's minions wouldn't want his enemies to have Death Knights!]] It tied it together beautifully and moved the questline from "cool but flawed" to "OMG THAT'S AWESOME" in my mind.
** The ''Wrath of the Lich King'' expansion has a surprisingly great deal of MoralDissonance in it. In order to complete quest lines (which is where most of the fun and experience points lies) have to [[http://www.boingboing.net/2008/12/08/torture-in-videogame.html torture prisoners]], kill game hunters on a quest for an AnimalWrongsGroup (and in a different area you end up killing animals on a quest for those same game hunters, so whatever the morality of the situation, you are doing ''something'' wrong), kidnap children, beat up adorable baby monkeys, and just generally do things [[DesignatedHero that doesn't make you feel like you're much of a hero]]. And then it dawns on you that the BigBad of the expansion is the Lich King, a paladin who set out to fight evil but who in the course of doing so kept finding himself with the decision of either performing some evil deed or giving up his fight against evil. Each time, [[WellIntentionedExtremist he chose to perform the evil deed]], and thus he lost his soul one piece at the time and finally turned into an EvilOverlord. And come to think of it, in the trailer for the expansion he threatened you that if you came to Northrend to fight him, the same thing would happen to you. OhCrap...

** This Troper thinks it took him ''far'' too long to realize that Saronite, a metal which is known to drive people to madness, is named after Yogg-Saron.
*** Rightfully so, too: [[spoiler: it's supposedly his solidified blood.]]
** The end of the final battle with the Lich King [[spoiler: in which he declares that [[XanatosGambit he allowed Tirion to lay siege to Icecrown Citadel so that whatever champions Tirion brought with him, the greatest of all of Azeroth's adventurers, the Lich King could kill and raise them as the generals of his army.]]]] At first it sounds like just an excuse for the Argent Crusade getting as far into his territory as they did; but then this troper realized that the Lich King has been operating under a "survival of the fittest" pattern for new recruits ''ever since the beginning''; it's how Death Knight initiates determined ranking, and how his Vrykul servants determined who would become elite guard and who would be shamed as zombies.
* Anyone who played around the initial release date of ''WorldOfWarcraft: Wrath of the Lich King'' will begrudgingly recall how overpowered Death Knights were. They were given buffs, debuffs, pets, powerful armor, a starting level of 55, and were even, at one point, able to keep fighting for a while after death. Nearly every WoW veteran despised the new class, and held those who played it in contempt. However, when you think about it, this makes perfect sense; [[spoiler: Death Knights are just as reviled and despised in the Warcraft lore as they are in the context of the game, even among their own allies. They were designed to be hated.]]

* Horde players who go through the Stonetalon Mountains do a major quest chain where [=NPCs=] will constantly tell you that "Hellscream's eyes are upon you." I just dismissed it as the growing fanatisicsm of Garrosh's Horde. Throughout the chain you are fighting the Alliance, and you begin to take more and more drastic actions, ending with Overlord Krom'gar attacking a Tauren camp and bombing an undefended druid school to ash. Garrosh portals in, crushes his army, and reminds Krom'gar that mindlessly killing innocents is the Old Horde's way and the New Horde will never forsake honor in battle. he then throws Krom'gar off a cliff and reminds you that his eyes are always on you, so if you cross the line he ''will'' find you.

* Horde players who go through the Stonetalon Mountains do a major quest chain where NPCs will constantly tell you that "Hellscream's eyes are upon you." I just dismissed it as the growing fanatisicsm of Garrosh's Horde. Throughout the chain you are fighting the Alliance, and you begin to take more and more drastic actions, ending with Overlord Krom'gar attacking a Tauren camp and bombing an undefended druid school to ash. Garrosh portals in, crushes his army, and reminds Krom'gar that mindlessly killing innocents is the Old Horde's way and the New Horde will never forsake honor in battle. he then throws Krom'gar off a cliff and reminds you that his eyes are always on you, so if you cross the line he ''will'' find you.

** Keep in mind that for a Blood Elf to be a warrior, they need, to an extent, to overcome their crippling addiction to arcane magic. A Blood Elf warrior is one of the most noble heroes of their race, and for them to rise up at the time Azeroth needs them most is pure poetry.

* It annoyed me that at the last minute, ''Burning Crusade'' dropped warrior as an available class for blood elves in favor of the more popular paladins. Though it was clearly a balance issue, many forumers tried to justify it with the lame excuse that, "Elves are too delicate to enter heavy melee," which to this day is still stupid. But now that blood elf warriors will be available in ''Cataclysm'', it becomes Fridge Brilliance for a different reason. Anyone who's aware of how World War I destroyed the entire generation of young men for countless villages can draw a chilling parallel. There were no blood elf warriors until now not because elves are somehow ill-suited to fighting. It's because, as the Scourge blighted their kingdom, rode a scar from south to north, threw engines of unliving flesh at the walls of their city, ghoul-gnawed through their homes room by room, and unhallowed their holiest of places, anyone who could pick up a sword did. It's ten years later that we'll finally have the first level 1 elf warriors, where Silvermoon's best and finest used to be. Instead of being a fandumb-appeasing move, it becomes something profoundly sad. I'm being dramatic. But this is how I kinda see ''Warcraft 3'', with its crap graphics, in my head.