Players were forced to deal with the Old God, Yogg-Saron, who had been imprisoned in Ulduar, and then the Crypt-Lord Anub'arak attempted to stop their assault on Icecrown Citadel. Players familiar with the lore of the RTS games know all too well how Arthas Menethil became the Lich King, and during his assault, he caused the original deaths of Sylvannas Windrunner and Dranosh Saurfang. RELATED: The Best WoW Leeroy Jenkins Memes From The Past After a time of relative peace, the forces of The Scourge began a massive assault on Azeroth, which prompted The Horde and The Alliance to send armies to the continent of Northrend to defeat the Lich King.
Wrath of the Lich King is still considered to be the best WoW expansion, and for good reason.
With Illidan and the Legion defeated, Outland managed to become free again, and the Mag'har Orcs who inhabit the area have been trying their best to survive on their own. When players defeated Illidan atop the Black Temple, he was immediately imprisoned by Maiev, and he remained in a crystalized state until the events of Legion. World Changing Event: Illidan's Imprisonment & Outland's Freedom From The Legion The disgraced Blood Elf prince, Kael'thas Sunstrider also tried to summon Kil'Jaeden through the Sunwell. The expansion also saw the troll warlord Zul'jin declare war on The Horde and The Alliance, and he summoned ancients Gods to destroy both factions. This ultimately led to the defeat of Illidan Stormrage, who had declared himself the ruler of Outland. The Horde and The Alliance fought the Legion and even went through the portal to deal with the enemy at its source. Burning Crusade focused on the Legion's latest attempt to invade Azeroth, which happened because the Doom Lord Kazzak reopened the Dark Portal to Draenor, otherwise known as Outland (the original Orc homeworld). The Burning Legion is an army of ravenous demons who have invaded countless worlds while being led by some of the strongest beings in the WoW universe. No matter the expansion, there is always one or two events that reshape Azeroth to some degree, and some of these events have caused large-scale destruction.
Each expansion has multiple patches because it takes time to tell the full story, and these stories almost always have major implications for the lore and the world of Azeroth as a whole.
Players are not used to waiting that long for content, as previous expansions had pretty small major patch windows.
*Updated on June 7th, 2021 by George Voutiritsas: Prior to the recent Chains of Domination patch, World of Warcraft was in a content drought that spanned quite a few months. The lore is so vast in fact, that Blizzard could never hope to tell the full story in a single installment, which is why they have so far released eight extensive expansions.
The game's lore is incredibly deep and complex, and it includes a multitude of different characters, races, classes, factions, and locations. WoW is known for focusing on the conflict between The Horde and The Alliance, but the game is far more than that. RELATED: Rare Encounters Most Players Have Never Found In WoW World of Warcraft was first released in 2004, and it was a continuation of the story that was told in the original RTS games which were simply called, Warcraft. As a developer, Blizzard has created a lot of popular game franchises, but even they could not have imagined that they would have created the most popular and successful MMORPG of all time.