Old Lore.

[Azgarzîr]

Is there any way to find informations about old lore up until classic World of Warcraft? I love the old lore up until 2006 when Rise Of The Horde made it's relase. I love those books aswell but I still prefer the lore up until then. Any chance there are some bundles of informations up until that point?

 

[Gnuoy]

I don't know any website that focuses specifically on pre-2006 lore.

but isn't it pretty much just jumbled together with more current lore? i guess focus on wc1-3 campaigns / books. WoW wiki might be a good place to start then narrow down your search to pre-2006 canon (History of Warcraft). This Youtube channel focuses on post 2006 but he also references earlier lore a lot: (https://www.youtube.com/c/PlatinumWoW)

 

[deepstrasz]

Are you interested in the Warcraft RTS series manuals which contain lots of story pieces?
How about the World of Warcraft manual, do you have that one?

https://bnetcmsus-a.akamaihd.net/cms/template_resource/LO0VQ46XB1281555957773363.pdf

It has some story pages.

 

[Azgarzîr]

I don't know any website that focuses specifically on pre-2006 lore.

but isn't it pretty much just jumbled together with more current lore? i guess focus on wc1-3 campaigns / books. WoW wiki might be a good place to start then narrow down your search to pre-2006 canon (History of Warcraft). This Youtube channel focuses on post 2006 but he also references earlier lore a lot: (https://www.youtube.com/c/PlatinumWoW)

That's the thing I wanna find. Where the lore then isn't jumbled together with the current one and maiby there are also people that have cool theories in that time.

Are you interested in the Warcraft RTS series manuals which contain lots of story pieces?
How about the World of Warcraft manual, do you have that one?

https://bnetcmsus-a.akamaihd.net/cms/template_resource/LO0VQ46XB1281555957773363.pdf

It has some story pages.

I have played warcraft 3 since 2010. I have read the manuals of warcraft 2-3 aswell but not the WoW manual, thank you. It's the people theories or opinions of the old lore that intrigues me. Especially Warcraft 3 to WoW Classic and that's about it. Because I find it interesting that without the influence of the Rise of the Horde novel in 2006. This stament of Grom Hellscream "Ah, Thrall. You always believed that the demons corrupted our race, but that's only half true. We gave ourselves up willingly on Draenor! The other chieftains and I... we drank Mannoroth's blood, Thrall. We brought this curse upon ourselves!" It basically implies that they almost knew what was about to happen when they drank the blood first time, but they still did it out of their own will. And I want to find similar to wowpedia some thing that's explains all if you click on sometimes like "Orc." and gives you the whole story of the orcs up until WoW Classic without the influence of new lore. And maiby some theories or opinions of people in that time without the influence of new lore.

 

[Brandoch]

Hello, it just so happens that I recently started to research this subject as well As of now I think that I compiled a list of sources which would give you a full picture of preWoW Warcraft lore. I'm not sure however as of canonicity of many of the sources which I was able to find, perhaps we will be able to sort through them.

Games:
Warcraft: Orcs & Humans (1994)
Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness (1995)
Warcraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal (1996)
Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos (2002)
Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne (2003)

Game manuals:
Warcraft: Orcs & Humans manual (1994)
Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness manual (1995)
Warcraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal manual (1996)
Warcraft II: The Dark Saga manual (1997)
Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos manual (2002)
Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne manual (2003)

Books:
Warcraft: Of Blood and Honor (2000)
Warcraft: Day of the Dragon (2001)
Warcraft: Lord of the Clans (2001)
Warcraft: The Last Guardian (2002)

RPG books:
Warcraft: The Roleplaying Game (2003)
Warcraft Roleplaying: Magic & Mayhem (2003)
Warcraft Roleplaying: Manual of Monsters (2003)
Warcraft Roleplaying: Alliance & Horde Compendium (2003)
Warcraft Roleplaying: Lands of Conflict (2004)
Warcraft Roleplaying: Shadows & Light (2004)

That would be all? RPG books are potentially very rich source, but, again, I'm not sure of their canonical status... Even relative to preWoW era. RPG books, on the other hand, seem to align with WoW lore the most. As far as I know it's in them that night elves are introduced into the Alliance for the first time for example.

 

[Brandoch]

Actually, after giving it some thought I think that RPG materials should be discarded. I spent some time recently to read all of the books which were released for the first iteration of the tabletop game and it seems to match WoW, like, 80% of the time. Night elves are already part of the Alliance, dwarves had already discovered their titanic origin, we already know about Deathwing's disappearance etc. etc. There are some differences - no Teldrassil, Nighthaven is night elven capital and is much more prominent than in WoW, for example - but they are minor. Night elves joining the Alliance here is especially jarring for me, I always liked that they're a different entity so to speak in preWoW lore.

 

[Azgarzîr]

Well yeah, but that's the point about preWoW... What if I was making a custom campaign (Which I am trying to make, I worked on maps even 1 month and after deleted it cause I didn't like it, I did that at least 13 times, even abandoning the project at times...) so if you wanna make a custom campaign but want to add things from the new lore without contradicting the old lore.

Another example would be the Draenei.. We can keep the Draenei as they were in warcraft 3 without making it the same as the Eredar. With clever writing, or bad writing depends if you like the idea:

"Kil'jaden, Velen and Archimonde all of them practiced different form of magic and they found about fel, they began practicing and only Velen managed to let it go while the other two didn't...A civil war begins on the WORLD Argus not PLANET (Keeping it fantasy not sci-fi) because of Velen, because he didn't want his race to become maniacs, evil, twisted, etc, and some side with Velen, they eventually flee the WORLD helped by the Naru via portals! Not a ship! While the rest of the population turned into the evil Eredar on Argus Becoming demons because of the infusion of fuel over thousands of years or hundred years. Eventually, the Eredar begins invading other worlds and the story goes on from the warcraft 3 manual. While the Eredar that is led by Velen are pursued by the Man'ari... Eventually they cannot run anymore from the world Draenor because x reasons you can come up with the story. Now that they are trapped there, you can say that they formed a strange symbiosis with the Draenei tribes from the Terokkar forest. And now that they formed this symbiosis they no longer call themselves Eredar but Draenei... And boom... With maybe bad writing (fan fiction) or good writing (fan fiction), you just got the old lore infused with the new lore but keeping the old lore mostly intact. Or maybe even have that they didn't call themselves Draenei until the Eredar brought that notion and the Terrokar Forest tribes took that name as well.. While in other parts they had other names... Maybe the Arrakoa could be also Draenei, but that's the name they gave themselves in the Spires of Arak."

That was long. But this is my point about old lore made to work with the new one without retcons..You just build on what you had in the past not just erase it...And this intrigues me about the old lore and what people opinions and theories we're back in the day...They might have been fascinating... But sadly I was 6 years old in the golden age of warcraft and only discovering it at the age of 10.. And I didn't have the brain from now to read those cool theories or opinions..

 

[stein123]

You can read Warcraft Chronicle's: https://readcomiconline.li/Comic/World-of-Warcraft-Chronicle-Vol-1/Full?id=106975#1