I could never get the hang of RTSes, so my love of WoW's world comes from WoW itself. Accelerated levelling and quest arrows killed the game for me, and community pressure to level didn't help either.

WoW original maps were awesome, delicious to explore. Say, you're wandering around in a forest, and there's that unclimbable hill. You look up and see lanterns shining on the path high above. Follow the lanterns and find a hidden path leading to the top of the hill; kill the monster, collect treasure, enjoy the view. The grayed quests sent a message: "you're not doing anything awesome". Why thank you for the reminder, game.

Concerning private servers: since questing is not a priority for a majority of WoW players, it follows that it is not a priority for most private servers, too. Which means quests, including quest scripting and especially phasing (environmental solipsism), may be plain broken there. If you find a private server that does quests well, please tell me.

It depends on the people who you meet. I've met a great friend from the Netherlands and while I stopped playing WoW, we are still in touch via e-mails. The guild he had was not a hardcore 1337 raiding or PvP guild, but more of a "bunch of friends" type. People were helping each other. Many things are broken on such servers. I've tried one because a friend asked me to (I was playing WoW on official servers atm). After maybe 30 minutes I have logged out of there and never looked back. I mean, fish coming after you and attacking you ON THE GROUND?

On the other hand I hate what they started in W3 and then done with the story and lore in WoW.

First two games are my favorite game universe and the managed to ruin it...
I still replay them from time to time. I count those replays in double digits now.

Know that there are others who do like the changes. Although I haven't experienced them as changes actually, becouse I played W3 first and then the previous parts, so I've seen the originals through the lenses of the new ones. I think what you probably mean by changes for me sets the world of warcraft apart from your general epic fantasy. It's very eclectic and very diverse that way, while still having its own general identity. It has many different faces as opposed to one, I like that. Of course that means there's more chance you won't like some of these faces.

I'd even defend the Pandaria expansion.

I completed Warcraft 2 two times now, so I understand its charm. Still have to finish Beyond the Dark Portal though. Well, RTSes are extremely tense and demanding, not the laid back "errand boy" kind of quests in WoW. Raiding and PvP is probably more less laid back but still, you control only one character, in RTSes you have hundreds of things to do at the same time, so it's absolutely different kind of game, i would say hectic. Though on easy difficulties it could may be some fun for you too... unfortunately Warcraft 3 has only normal. I came during the cataclysm era, but I think nostalgia is working here, especially the starting areas are beautifully designed, you should give them a chance. I can absolutely relate with what you wrote, as I spent a lot of time time doing gray quests once. But I get what they meant by this design - they want you to have many, many toons, and to have a unique leveling with each one. So you max level of your one char having done only a fraction of quests possible, you start with other choosing other quests instead. Then the other not doing quests at all but just dungeons. Then the other where you level with pvp. And so on. It could still be fun too, actually, after I gave it some thought.

Though actually I think, it's kind of controversial, but there are others who think the same I know, and changes made in Guild Wars for example prove that i'm not alone, that the whole concept of levels doesn't work in multiplayer games at all, espacially when paired with concept of gear. After all it was just taken as a legacy from tabletop games where everybody level at quite the same pace. It worked good in single player, but when you compete with others in MMO it unbalances the game. So I'd love to see an MMO which gets rid of levels totally, there would be just gear and spells/abilities. Yeah I know, but recent implementations make some "random encounters" hard, apart from guild interactions.

I also found a very nice guild on a Defias Brotherhood server (RPPvP). I participated in a wedding they organised for a new couple in their ranks, the level of preparation was jaw dropping, they even have their chauffeurs drive them in a bike, there was a whole ceremony, people were giving presents (hard to craft items for example). That was one of the most interesting experience, almost all the guild was there on a predefined time, and most of all - the couple didn't know beforehand, they were shocked!

The problem is, most of them are old timers, and weren't, of course, interested in exploring WOW from scratch as I was. Actualy all mature and interesting players I met were old timers, the new players were mostly dumb. So I felt, i'd have a good time with that guys, but not until I hit level 85 and get experienced with the game. Thanks for the warning. I guess i'll just have to earn some money for WoW.

Hm. I'm not a big fan of RTS games. Still, I finished both ROC and TFT mutiple times. That should tell you what I think of the lore and the story-telling in those games. :)

I was a long time Warcraft fan before I got to playing Age Of Empires.

I absolutely adore WC2, and WC3 is neat too, plays a little cleaner - huge loss of atmosphere. Where are my water battles?

Knowing that the world is basically done as an RTS really blows. :C

Once I got to playing AOE though, I was like "Wow, if I had found this before WC3 I would have creamed myself."

If this is a Warcraft appreciation thread, count me in! :)

Roleplaying in WoW is so much fun, when you have the right people with you. I still have fond memories of me and my former guild mates having fun in Goldshire and a few similar places. Some would fish, some would cook, some would tell jokes. Fun, fun, fun! :)

Also, the world is awesome, do explore every part of it. :)

EDIT: You just convinced me to finally get around to play the Battle.net edition of Warcraft 2. :D

WarCraft 3 is my favorite RTS, I would also say more because of the lore than the gameplay. (which is great btw). I've only ever tried the WoW free trial for about a half hour as I never had the kind of disposable income for it till now, but I don't care for such MMORPG gameplay. I would love to see Blizzard release some kind of FPP/TPP sandbox type game set in the WarCraft universe, something in the vain of the Gothic series (I only say Gothic because I've never played Fallout 3+, the Elder Scrolls series, etc.). A true sandbox game, where you can go anywhere in the world, speak with any character, fight for any faction, and end the game having truly changed the world (or worlds?) however you wish, without all the MMO trappings and limitations.

Warcraft 3 actually do have an Easy setting but you must loose a mission first before you are given the option to restart on Easy - or you could do like i do when playing Warcraft 3 and that is to use a cheat-code that will make you instantly loose a mission and then restart on Easy. I still find the game pretty hard even on Easy but it's doable.

I cannot disagree more, i'm experiencing the atmosphere right now! a bit different I agree, but still strong! Although the experiences from WC1, WC2, WC3 WoW and novels melt in my head into one big Warcraft experience so I may not clearly know what i'm talking about. Who said that? Wait... AFAIK AoE is a historical game so it doesn't have a "world" to speak of, it's our world!

Somehow I don't like the mechanics of AoE that much... my other favourites gameplay and lore wise are Dawn of War (also terrific world, Warhammer 40k, love it!) and Starcraft (although lore-wise SC kind of fell down recently as there's to much copying there). Just remember that the game itself has not much story to speak of. There's some, but lack the narrative to connect the pieces together - it was all done in future retellings. What's more the campaign's exclude themselves, you sometimes even fight on the same maps, and whichever race you play wins, so theres a lot of uncanonical material. There is lot of story in the manual though, so have a look at it. At that time Blizzard was making huge book-like manuals, with pages of lore, the same with starcraft... yeah the times when game producers cared about the manuals. Is there even a manual for WoW? Haven't seen any, just a player guide.

But there's more story in the expansion Beyond the Dark Portal, and there the campaigns don't exclude themselves AFAIK. You learn the story of guys portrayed by the statues you can see in front of Stormwind in WoW.

---------------

that being said there are things in Warcraft lore i don't like, forexample -

there's too much killing as if killing is a solution to every problem, every race should be extinct by now, especially those poor trolls it seems Azerothians have a hobby of let's go out kill a tribe of trolls... I end up inventing stories softening this things a bit... like for example when I have to get some stuff from trolls by (of course) killing them i was thinking I just stole that or did some deceit or whatever...

i hate the pompous night elves and their religous fundamentalism when it comes to Nature and all that... they seem they can sacrifice anything just becouse of higher order, Elune or whatever demands... what about love, compassion, solidarity with other elfish being? I just think they are not right in what they do, they succeded in driving back the Legion whatever but they are not pure good... they are so pompous even Tolkien can hide... blood elves and the old elves from Quel'thalas were better, felt more human than those... things. Like with killing their fellow furbolg friends, i know their "corrupted" but jesus...

There's a 200 page manual with my copy of WoW. But there's nothing worth mentioning with the expansion packs.

This reminds me, I read somewhere that someone got to whatever the max level is in WoW without killing anything. I do like the idea of those "pacifist runs". I try do that in games once I realize you don't need to kill anyone to progress.

impossible without at least killing quest mobs, there is just not enough xp in discoveries and achievements. The only way then is to team with someone who kills for you...

I've never put much time into WoW so I don't know, but here's the original story:
http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/04/10/wow-player-reaches-level-85-without-killing-a-single-mob/