Stromgarde
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Know Your Lore, Tinfoil Hat Edition: Alternate Azeroth
The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how -- but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft. Warlords of Draenor takes place in an alternate, splinter reality in which Garrosh Hellscream has gone back in time and prevented the leaders of the old orc clans from drinking the Blood of Mannoroth. In this version of reality, several events have changed dramatically -- leading players to ask many, many questions about alternate Azeroth, how its history has been altered, and how that changes the Azeroth we know and love today. The answer is very simple: it doesn't. Not in the slightest. That alternate Azeroth, and whatever future it may hold, has no bearing on Warlords of Draenor at all. We won't be exploring that world, and our Azeroth remains unchanged. However, people still continue to ask. So we're going to take a little trip into that alternate reality and explore what that version of Azeroth would theoretically look like without the Dark Portal. We're going to explore this alternate world, take a look at what likely never came to pass, and what happened as a result. And then we're going to quietly put all of that away, because this is all information and events that we are not going to see in Warlords of Draenor. But it'll be nice to get it out of our systems, won't it? Today's Know Your Lore is a Tinfoil Hat edition. The following contains speculation and history based on known material. These speculations are merely theories and shouldn't be taken as fact or official lore.
Patch 5.4 PTR: No Stromgarde scenario
Brand new Blizzard Community Manager Lore has posted to clarify the datamined information on the Stromgarde scenario. Unfortunately it seems like our enthusiasm may have been a little misplaced, as Lore explains: Lore Just to avoid any further confusion, there is no Stromgarde scenario in patch 5.4, and what you've seen datamined is little more than a developer experiment with a stand-in name. This happens quite often; developers will put something quick together to test out some new tech or functionality, and the remnants occasionally slip through to the PTR files where dataminers can get ahold of them. So, just to be clear, there is currently nothing related to Stromgarde in production. That's not to say it's a location we'll never revisit, but should that happen, it will not be in 5.4, and the recently datamined files will not be part of it. source Yet again, it's a good reason to take datamined information with a pinch of salt. Don't assume that, just because something is in the files, that it's in the patch. Even something being on the PTR doesn't mean it's going to make it into the patch. So, while it's fine to be excited about new content, it's best not to take datamining as gospel. Nonetheless, this leads to some interesting speculation. Just exactly what was this experiment? What else might the scenario technology be used for? And are there other scenarios you'd like to see? We'd love to see some more of the old world turned into scenarios.
Patch 5.4 PTR: New scenario, Stromgarde Keep
Tucked in among all the other patch 5.4 files dug up by Wowhead is a new scenario with little to no information in terms of maps, bosses, or achievements. You might overlook this scenario in favor of other information, but Alliance players in particular may want to look again, because it looks as though we'll be paying a visit to Stromgarde Keep. Players may or may not remember the deserted ruins over in the Arathi Highlands, once home to the Trollbane line -- unfortunately, the zone didn't get much of a revamp during Cataclysm. But the potential for this new scenario is huge, depending on what exactly we'll be doing while we're in there. There doesn't appear to be a faction requirement for the scenario, so it seems both Alliance and Horde players will be entering the zone -- whether or not we'll be able to keep our appearance, or be under another disguise effect, is currently a mystery. However, Stromgarde holds tremendous potential, because it represents a foothold steeped in a staggering amount of history for the Alliance, and the human race.
Know Your Lore: The humans, part 3
The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how -- but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft. Imagine for a moment that you are, right now, a human of the same age that you are, but living in Azeroth. Depending how old you are, you either lived through or were born into the aftermath of three of the most devastating wars your world has ever seen. Keeping in mind the trouble with timelines, every human alive in the Warcraft setting has endured loss and hardship on a scale almost unimaginable; many were driven from their homes by invading monsters or demons from other worlds, or were forced to flee in advance of legions of walking corpses that relentlessly tried to kill them and dogged their steps all the way to safety. The humans who congregate today in centers like Stormwind and Theramore have survived when vast numbers of their people died. Only the former high elves have lost more of their kind. The fact that humanity manages to remain a force to be reckoned with despite the loss of almost all of its former northern domains in the Eastern Kingdoms, the deaths of uncounted numbers of their people and the usurpation of their inheritance is a testament to their origin as a seed race of the Titan's first arrival on Azeroth. Indeed, much like their dwarven cousins (for now humans and dwarves truly know they share a common origin, as do their gnomish relations), humans harbor a stony resolve in the face of adversity that could crush or corrupt another people. Let us look at humanity's most recent travails.
Know Your Lore: The humans, part 1
The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how -- but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft. We've talked about their politics and their ancestors, but humanity itself has not really been described in detail -- and it deserves to be. The humans of Azeroth derive from the ancient servitors of the Titans, and their origins lie in the frozen continent of Northrend (indeed, before it was a continent of its own), but they've developed over time into a brash, persevering people of their own who rose to master the Eastern Kingdoms and who had endured two hideous wars with alien invaders, the plague of undeath that shattered their strongest kingdom, and times of chaos and uncertainty. It is humanity that holds the Alliance together today, serving to unite disparate peoples in a collective that grows more cohesive in the face of growing Horde expansionism. The ultimate drive to exist that has kept humanity going past world-shaking calamities must be respected. When war and strife come, humans have risen to the challenge. Although one of the shortest-lived of Azeroth's native races and possessed of one of the youngest cultures, human have risen on the strength of their determination.
A real-life tabard for the Keepers of Stromgarde
This is very cool -- Jellis of Keepers of Stromgarde on the Venture Company server (the guild is an RP-PVP guild that has taken root in Stromgarde and claimed it as their own) put together this real-life version of their tabard, and it looks great. It's a little different from the "official" Stromgarde tabard, but I think this is probably the best they could do with the guild interface. She's even offered to make copies for everyone in the guild (we're told there's 75 members), which is pretty darn incredible. Plus, if you're willing to wear a tabard around in public, clearly you're dedicated to your guild.This reminded me of the Scarlet Crusade t-shirt we saw made a while back -- you can check that one out in the gallery below. I'll admit it: I'm jealous. Maybe my guild needs to recruit some crafty people so we can start getting some cool real-life stuff of our own, too.%Gallery-26473%
WoW Lore: Zul'aman vs. Sunwell Plateau
So... how is Blizzard doing on Lore? Ever since the Burning Crusade came out, the battle cry of many a disgruntled fan has been "lollore," a cry which signifies a disgust with the direction the story has taken and a belief that many of the twists have betrayed the previous feel of the world or fallen short of some expected level of quality. Now honestly, There have been some lore twists I haven't really liked. Certainly, there were ways to give us the Draenei besides besides massively retconning the back story of the Burning Legion and making Sargeras corrupt them instead of the other way around. That said, I don't really mind that the Draenei came to us on a space ship. After all, the Orcs came to us through a Stargate! I also appreciate that Blizzard has, in the lore arena, learned where they tripped up and tried to correct it. This is very apparent to me in the differences between the Lore behind Zul'Aman and the Lore behind the Sunwell Plateau. Where Zul'Aman's lore felt lackluster and weak, the lore behind patch 2.4 keeps getting better and better.
