Can someone explain how WoW works plot wise, now that i'm so late to the game

i got a free copy of WoW for having starcraft 2 and i got a free month. I literally don't know a thing about the plot of warcraft. My real question is, even though i dont own any of the expansions, the game is still assuming the plot as it has developed in cataclysm? Like, some of the npc's have mentioned the burning crusade and they've talked about how the lich king's power has waned and stuff like that (i'm a forsaken, btw).

does this mean that I can't do quests that related to previous periods in the game's history? or can i still do them but they just aren't really supposed to make sense anymore

oh, and is there anywhere i can find a summary of events going from the start of WoW through all the expansions so i can have some idea of whats going on? Honestly, I'm clueless at the moment.

On an unrelated note, how do i sell stuff? I've found a blacksmith and have bought a better sword, but i can't figure out how i sell the old one...

WoW has no story plot. NerubianWeaver

Go kill 10 goblins. Come back to me so you can go kill 15 more.

Before Cataclysm, the 1-60 quests didn't really have any story. Like one NPC asks you to beat back the wolves that are getting too strong. Another guy wants you to gather herbs to help his research. No overall storyline. There were some long questlines, but they didn't have any big consequences that mean anything in Cataclysm. Burning Crusade and Wrath both had some sort of story progression which you can still do if you get to those levels. Yes, when you go to Outland you are actually going "back in time" as far as the story and lore is concerned. On a timeline it would be WoW Classic->Burning Crusade->Wrath->Cataclysm. WoW Classic is gone now, so a new character goes through the new timelime Cataclysm->Burning Crusade->Wrath->Cataclysm. It's kind of messed up. Blizzard said they ran out of time to update all the expansion with the new Cataclysm storyline.

There is a wikipedia for WoW with all the lore stuff if you want to read it.

http://www.wowpedia.org/World_of_Warcraft:_The_Burning_Crusade#Lore

http://www.wowpedia.org/World_of_Warcraft:_Wrath_of_the_Lich_King#Lore

WoW has no story plot. NerubianWeaver

It's poorly presented, and full of holes, like 1-58(60) is cata, then you go back in time to bc 58-68(70), where they talk about Ilidan's influence in a present sorta way, then wotlk 78-80 where it's all 'bout the lich king, who is now Sylvannas (essentially), who kills Ilidan in a particular quest, which makes sense, since I killed Ilidan plenty of times in BC, so clearly they should have a quest of LK killing him. Then back on to cata.

So yes, you can do the bc/wotlk quests, but they don't make any sense. "

Blizzard said they ran out of time to update all the expansion with the new Cataclysm storyline."

They also, clearly, couldn't be bothered to va 98% of cata, make unique animations for any of the garbage ingame cinematics, or redo the old races to get them upto par with the new ones.

However, luckily they didn't half ass SC2 :D, good trade imo.

[QUOTE="NerubianWeaver"]WoW has no story plot. neo_violence

vanilla wow has a story you are correct but its about as "in plain sight" as trying to find the humor in the bible.

its all in text bubbles and its very poorly explained and you arent directed towards any of it.. the burning crusade didnt improve on this formula much and it wasnt unti wotlk that we really saw it show its face and be obvious. dont say its there when technically it requires more digging than trying to get to the earths core.

basically you can ignore looking for it its about as pointless to try and follow as trying to count the blades of grass in your front yard.

and dont start even TRYING to associate the WoW storyline to that of warcraft II or before it and the books.. the books are a different breed of horse entirely and warcraft II and I almost never really get discussed.. they just get cheap cameo's in the burning crusade.

warcraft III's story basically is where the meat of the issues is a good 95% of wow's storyline is based on the events there. and its a damn shame they dont try and include more of the older stuff itd probably bring me back in again despite their customer service quality being so poor it actually hurts to think about it.

It's an MMO, it has not plot. NPCs can explain the lore behind the game but there's no real story.nintendog66

Before Cataclysm, the 1-60 quests didn't really have any story. Like one NPC asks you to beat back the wolves that are getting too strong. Another guy wants you to gather herbs to help his research. No overall storyline. There were some long questlines, but they didn't have any big consequences that mean anything in Cataclysm. Burning Crusade and Wrath both had some sort of story progression which you can still do if you get to those levels. Yes, when you go to Outland you are actually going "back in time" as far as the story and lore is concerned. On a timeline it would be WoW Classic->Burning Crusade->Wrath->Cataclysm. WoW Classic is gone now, so a new character goes through the new timelime Cataclysm->Burning Crusade->Wrath->Cataclysm. It's kind of messed up. Blizzard said they ran out of time to update all the expansion with the new Cataclysm storyline.

There is a wikipedia for WoW with all the lore stuff if you want to read it.

http://www.wowpedia.org/World_of_Warcraft:_The_Burning_Crusade#Lore

http://www.wowpedia.org/World_of_Warcraft:_Wrath_of_the_Lich_King#Lore

James00715

You had trolls trying to summon a blood good in Zul Gurub, but we defeated Hakkar and found out that this troll god thing was corrupting the emerald dream in the sunken temple dungeon.

You had two centaur clans at war with each other and you could side with one and make it the dominant faction in desolace.

You also had the AQ war effort, were both horde and alliance players had to farm lots of resources and give it to the war effort. In the meanwhile, you could do an epic quest chain that led to getting the scepter of AQ and the scarab lord title if you finished within 10 hours of the gates of AQ opening after the server got enough resources, and we killed an old god.

There was lots of little stuff going on too. Some tauren were plotting against Cairne and recently killed him, the emperor of the dark iron dwarves kidnapped/brainwashed the princess of ironforge, the dwarves discovered who the titans were, the defias brotherhood kidnapped the king of stormwind and it took the king 4 years to get back to stormwind, and Malfurion Stormrage was MIA due to being stuck in the emerald dream because of Fandral Staghelm.

Arugal unleashed the worgen and brought them to this world (they were originally meant to be from another planet or dimension), the scarlet crusade is pretty evil but epic and has marginal success in containing the scourge, humans lose stromgarde to a faction of old alterac nobles and ogres, and many many more.

WoW actually does have a very rich lore, and the books actually doreflect the lore. Those who say it doesn't either: don't read the quest text, like 90% of players, or they don't read the books. Either way, you don't have to read the books to get the lore. Just check out WoWwiki. The players who are true lore buffs for the game are likely playing it right now and highly unlikely to respond. Sorry. =/

Those who don't also fail at realising how hard it is to keep an MMO up to date with lore. Blizzard has to generalise in game -- they can't account for each individual player's playthrough.