Editing World of Warcraft (section)

===Burning Crusade===
BC was the first expansion of WoW and was centered around a couple of quasi-goat-alien creatures known as the "Draenei", a race of peaceful, holier-than-thou squid-faced goats who were devout to the Light but mutated whenever constantly exposed to Demon-energies. The other race was the "Blood Elves", a race of magically addicted, metro-sexual elves who crave magic like crack-whores. It also featured the Outland from Warcraft 3, which is the remnants of Draenor from Warcraft 2, which is a world of floating rock after a giant magic explosion caused by opening too many portals near each other ripped the planet apart. The game used a fair number of things from past Warcraft content, including heroes (and villains) from the RTS Warcrafts long since forgotten like Danath Trollbane and Kargath Bladefist. 

When BC was released was when many players felt the loreraep came into play. <del> BC practically abused the lore, pinned it down, had dirty BDSM-themed buttsecks with it, and threw it aside like a used glove. </del> Draenei, previously the vaguely humanoid whale-faced tribal monsters from Warcraft 3 became "Eredar".  "Eredar" went from being a race of demons who helped corrupt Sargeras into a race of magitek extraterrestrial tiefling-lookalikes weren't evil until Sargeras found them.  Eredar were apparently not even early in the Legion's history (having not even been demons when the Legion was founded), but simply made themselves the ones in charge after joining due to being fuckstrong in magic and magiteck.  Those Eredar who didn't sign on with Sargeras became Draenei, space Jews that split from their evil cousins as a subrace of Eredar that became 45% paladins, 45% priests and 10% shamans that learned magic from Orcs while the original mutated ones became mindless morlock mutant versions of the Draenei.  Oh, and the anti-heroes from Warcraft 3 went mustache-twirling evil to justify villains who weren't the Legion (not like you don't fight a metric fuckton of them in the expansion anyway though), and a couple of them even signed on with the Legion (like Kael'thas, whose story was so badly messed up that Blizzard themselves apologized for it).

The game also become a lot more enjoyable with numerous aspects of the game revolving around points and badges, rather than raiding for gear your faction could never even use (paladin and shaman gear). Basically, re-tuned for <s>casualfags</s> normal people who have a life outside the game. That is, right up until you had to grind for your netherwing drake (sparkly former black dragons) because that shit takes months.
On the good side, with the previously faction-exclusive Paladin and Shaman classes now open, you didn't have to worry about doing raids and getting Paladin/Shaman gear as a Horde/Alliance character. You also had the magnificence of Draenei <del>horsecock</del> booty shaking, and a simple way to track who the tryhards in the game were; they were the ones playing Barbie elves. 
Oh, and you could FLY. That alone was a huge deal back then.

The plot began with the two new races; Draenei, a mostly-extinct race, were attacked by Blood Elves (the ones you played back in Warcraft 3) because...reasons, and took their...one of their five magical flying crystal castles called the Exodar (okay, not a TERRIBLE idea since the same thing was used a fair amount in the 80's where Chris Metzen got stuck developmentally) in which they'd been hiding from the Orcs in since the Orcs tried to genocide them (being so successful they managed to pave a road halfway across the world two-columns wide with their bones), and flew it away. Actually, the castles belonged to the Naaru and the Draenei were hiding in a swamp, but it was theirs in the initial drafts and nothing says how they got from the swamp to the ship. As the Blood Elves slaughtered the fuck out of everyone like SS in Paris, the ship careened out of control and ended up above Azeroth. The ship continued careening across the majority of the planet until it finally crashed onto a small island off the coast of the Night Elf home. The Draenei set about finishing off the invading Blood Elves, then cleaning up the environmental effects of their ship crash (which includes riding elephants for some reason), which earned them the respect of the hippie elves and an invitation to join the Alliance despite the fact they looked like Demons and explained the fucking Burning Legion is lead by their distant cousins (it helped that the Draenei are the Eredar who turned down Sargeras' offer to join the Buring Legion and have been fighting them even more than the Night Elves have). Meanwhile, the Blood Elves who stayed in the ruins of Silvermoon get in contact with the Forsaken to join the Horde because they need allies to survive until the rest of their race rejoin them and bring back whatever vague "salvation" was hinted at by their prince. To sustain their racial addiction to magic, they have been suckling at the blood and energy of captive Demons while controlling the citizenry, who need to keep themselves focused at all times or they'll devolve into Elf Ghouls that chew on magic wands just to suck out the last bit of magic, with propaganda and more than a little bit of mind control when someone gets uppity. As Blood Elves have lost their connection to the Holy Light, Kael'thas had (shortly after the end of Warcraft 3, and as we find out shortly after attacking the Draenei) sent Silvermoon City a gift of a strange living being made of light named M'uru, who the Blood Elves also drained to utilize holy magic again.

The plot kind of goes on hold as new Draenei and Blood Elves go about experiencing original content as if they had been there all along (an awkwardness that would continue in each expansion), until reaching Classic level cap (60). There, they are directed to the Dark Portal which has JUST reopened (despite quite a bit of time passing for Draenei and Blood Elf players) after it opened for some reason (a demon used an artifact to open it, but the artifact was never mentioned, instead, his minion leads a counterattack to find an unrelated sword that was never mentioned again). Demons have streamed out, so the Horde and Alliance have pushed in and rejoined their long lost kin from Warcraft 2. 

You reach a continent called Hellfire Peninsula best described as the surface of Mars, but with green fire and lava everywhere. After a brief skirmish, the old Alliance and new Horde come to a ceasefire in order to deal with the Demons. Players muck about for a bit here, coming into conflict with birdmen called Arakkoa who are apparently users of shadow magic which is all the explanation you need that they're bad, kill a lot of Demons and the mutated wildlife, and probably get stepped on five or six times by the giant Demon robot that wanders the zone. The Horde learn that the natural Orc skin color is actually brown after meeting a small group of tribal isolationist Orcs, and the green skin that's always been seen so far is the result of Demonic taint which carries generation to generation. The bulk of the zone fighting is against "Fel Orcs", which you come to find out are Orcs which have suckled the blood of a very powerful Demon players beat as Illidan back in Warcraft 3 named Magtheridon to mutate even further than their green-skinned red-eyed kin into hulking brutes with red skin and spikes painfully sticking out of their bodies. The area is home to a massive fortress players assaulted back in Warcraft 2 called Hellfire Citadel, containing multiple wings (Ramparts to the fortress, a lab where they inject Orcs against their will with Demon blood, the garrison within where you kill their leader Kargath, and finally the room where the Demon is kept as a raid where you kill him once and for all). 

Players are then lead to Zangarmarsh, a giant mushroom swamp hearkening back to Warcraft 2 where giant mushrooms were everywhere and you harvested them for lumber. If you had gotten sick of the colors red and green, you're in for a treat; everything is now blue and yellow for the next several weeks of your life! Players meet mushroom men called Sporeggar who look like mushroom Gnomes and are about as capable of defending themselves as the Polish. They also reconnect with the Druid organization which has for some reason decided to defend the animals of this world too. Like the last zone, the player spends most of the area killing wildlife without much progress towards the main plot other than "you were here". Horde players find that the Trolls have established a town for the purpose of hunting, and the Alliance find some Draenei who built a small town on top of one of the giant mushrooms to hide from the Orcs. The main plot involves the Naga of Warcraft 3, who have drained most of the water out of the surrounding area to make themselves a giant steam-powered underwater facility because...reasons. To control water supplies. Really. One dungeon against plant monsters within the steam machine, one against the slavers taking captive mutated Draenei, and one against the garrison of Naga leading to the raid where players kill Lady Vashj. 

After that, players find themselves in Terokkar Forest. Filled with more animals to kill, and the Arakkoa make a reappearance (as well as a few friendly ones that fled from their kin, with still little to no explanation as to why either group behave the way they do). The players meet back up with the members of their faction who are actually trying to get shit done with the Blood Elves and Humans having both established towns to strike at some evil Orcs in the area. Also in the zone, two giant mostly-destroyed Draenei cities. Auchindoun being a giant Draenei mausoleum city full of their ghosts, which thanks to the mucking about of the Orcs back in Warcraft 2 was filled with Demons. A few years earlier, it had blown up for no known reason (except the sound god they summoned, but the area was there before that, so whatever) leaving a giant ash and bone strewn waste around it. Inside are four dungeons, one being fighting against insane Draenei priests and ghosts, one against...energy mummies who are interested in commerce, one against Arakkoa in which you collect relics of a mysterious god-king named "Terokk" to prevent his resurrection which would apparently be a bad thing, and finally a wing against Demons and Demon worshipers. The second Draenei city is Shattrath, which was retaken from the Orcs by Draenei not long ago. An army of Blood Elves were dispatched to take it from them, but after receiving a vision of the future their prince was leading them to they swore loyalty to the Sha'tar, the Naaru (giant angelic living runes made of pure light) who guard the city. Shattrath was the first in a long tradition of a single city where Horde and Alliance both use, with a buff preventing them from fighting each other within the city (although not preventing rude emotes). Players pick between two factions, the Blood Elf Scryers or the Draenei Aldor to grind rep with representing a political divide in the city. No matter your choice, you still work on reputation with the Lower City refugees of all races from Dwarf to Arakkoa, and the Sha'tar defenders of the city. At level cap, after learning to fly in Outland, players could access cliffs where Arakkoa have set up a city and attempt to do vague shadow magic which is a threat to Shattrath for reasons, slaughtering the fuck out of them every day and bombing their village to earn enough reputation to buy a pet, a mount, and cosmetic tabard (great life lesson). 

Players then progress to Blades Edge Mountains, the dominant feature of which is giant dead Dragons impaled on giant spikes everywhere. Also, more volcanoes and some forest. The area is mostly populated by Ogres, which players discover are actually the devolved kin of giants called Gronn, the first of which was a mountain that came to life (no explanation given beyond that) named Gruul which players kill in a raid. Alliance sees their own Druid forces take an interest in the wildlife, while the Horde gets the bulk of the story as they reconnect with the lost Thunderlord Clan, which is now lead by the old Warcraft 3 favorite Rexxar. At level cap, players can access a mountain range where the minds of the Ogres have been uplifted by mysterious Apexis Crystals. Calling themselves "Ogri'la", they seek to bring the Ogre race to Nirvana. Players get involved in the action by collecting large bunches of the crystals by killing everything that moves, then either using them to bait down large monsters to kill or by playing a game of Simon on mysterious ancient devices where you get electrocuted if you fuck up. The energy mummy Ethereals are also here, because reasons. 

Players then progress to Netherstorm, resembling a giant purple Hellfire Peninsula but with lightning instead of lava. Once again, you will hate the color by the time you're done. Here players take their missions either from Goblins who have established a town called Area 52 dedicated to launching rockets and having Men In Black Goblins wiping your memories periodically (if you don't take a flying mount in anyway), and Ethereals which have set up "Eco Domes" and created jungles within because reasons although players finally learn some of the backstory of the Ethereals; creatures of the void called Voidwalkers (which Warlock players use as their damage-taking pet) destroyed their home planet ages ago, and only by becoming beings of pure energy could they survive and thanks to all the magic everywhere have taken an interest in Outland. Most of the fighting (that isn't mutant animals) is against the Blood Elves of Kael'thas, which by now you have found out are up to something shadowy and against the interests of Shattrath and the Horde/Alliance. At the culmination of the zone is another set of grouped dungeons and a raid, which are the four floating crystal castles (the Exodar was the fifth in the set). One is Blood Elves with a botanical garden growing abominations with magic for reasons, the second is a giant prison for Demons and other monstrosities, and the third is a garrison full of Demons and Blood Elves. In the raid, players find that Kael'thas has separated himself from Illidan (although both are utilizing Demons and have the plan of wiping out everyone else, Kael'thas has apparently decided that Illidan's plan is stupid and has relied more on magitek to...do all of jack shit other than siding with the Burning Legion itself over Illidan and his rebellion against it). Players kill him. You may have noticed by now that most of Outland follows a pattern. 

Players then hoof it to Nagrand, which by polls from Blizzard was proven to be the best zone in the entire game according to the player base. Looking mostly like Africa except with floating rocks and beams of magic in the sky, Nagrand is home to the bulk uncorrupted Orcs called the Mag'har. Thrall travels to Outland and sees how his people once lived, and while there meets a whiny little emo kid named Garrosh that players have been trying to cheer up. Thrall, after finding out Garrosh is the son of Grom Hellscream, takes him back to Azeroth and appoints the sad crying hunter boy to be a member of his cabinet. Meanwhile, the Alliance quest for a group of Draenei in a city called Telaar. The zone continues the tradition of fighting Orcs, Ogres, animals, Demons, and Ethereals on behalf of other Ethereals as apparently the GIANT diamond ship the Draenei first used to reach Draenor, the Oshu'gun, draws Voidwalkers and enterprising Ethereals like a magnet. In the center of the map is a ruined Draenei city on a hilltop surrounded by cliffs called Halaa, which Horde and Alliance fight over for...reasons. 

The final zone is Shadowmoon Valley, the place where the original Orc Warlocks originated. The entire land is dark gray/black and green with molten green lava on almost every surface. Kurdran Wildhammer, the Warcraft 2 crazy Dwarf riding a gryphon, runs the Alliance garrison in the area while the Horde are a newly established site. Demons and mutated wildlife are almost the entirety of the zone, with evil Blood Elves making up the last bit. The area is full of Draenei ruins as the bulk of their race once lived there. Scryers and Aldor both have towns in the area, and fight against the Blood Elves loyal to Illidan. In the southeast, a floating rock is home to a race of Dragons which were the mutated eggs left by Deathwing in Warcraft 2 which were cleansed of their "Always Chaotic Evil" curse as well as mutated by the magic radiation bathing the land. These "Netherwing Drakes" represent the single longest grind most players would undertake, doing multiple daily quests and hunting for their eggs to return for reputation in order to earn some as mounts. In the easternmost part of the zone is the Black Temple, once the Draenei equivalent to the Vatican which was taken over by Orc Warlocks when the genocides began and has since become the single most evil place anyone could visit, with the golden crystals turning black from pure evilness. Here Illidan has made his palace, and has given fully into insanity. Players undergo a long quest chain, starting with Akama and Maiev Shadowsong from Warcraft 3, and ending in gaining access to the temple via a broken hole in the courtyard where players slip in while the Sha'tar and a Naaru bolstered by both Aldor and Scryter battle the endless waves of Demons as a distraction. Beginning in the sewers, players slaughter their way through the remaining Naga, then wipe out the command of the remaining Fel Orcs from behind, and make their way into the temple where the kill the reborn Teron Gorefiend as well as a harem full of succubi and inebriated Blood Elves, finally working their way up to Illidan himself where players kill him. Logically, this would be the end of the expansion; all of the main villains dead, every single plot thread explored and finished. 

Blizzard then released one addition; a zone existing north of Silvermoon was added, Sunwell Plateau consisting of an island full of Blood Elf buildings plus the building containing the Sunwell. The Blood Elves of Kael'thas regrouped and attacked the Well, slaughtering all of their player-faction Blood Elf kin they met and stole M'uru along the way. Here they seek to summon Kil'jeaden into the world through the Well, effectively fucking over Azeroth in it's entirety; all in a bid to save the Blood Elves loyal to him from what he sees as inevitability by signing up with the guys who wrecked his homeland and messed his people up in the first place (full-retard reliant storytelling). The Aldor and Scryers finally unite into one faction, the Shattered Sun Offensive, and fight to take back the Sunwell. Each day players would complete daily quests, and each contributed towards an unlock point where players would take more and more of the city, eventually pushing the Demons back to the Sunwell itself. A dungeon on the island contained more Demons and Blood Elves, the final boss of which was none other than the partially undead Kael'Thas himself. After his defeat (whereupon he apparently used magic to trick players into thinking they'd CUT OFF HIS FUCKING HEAD AND PRESENTED IT TO THE SHA'TAR) he wound up with magical crystals embedded in his body, keeping him barely alive. Players kill him again, permanently this time, then move onto the raid. After fighting your way through a metric fuckload of Demons and Blood Elves, players come to the Sunwell room proper. The plot that follows is completely reliant on a Warcraft manga that had wrapped up not long before, where [[What|the Sunwell energy had formed into a human girl named Anveena with amnesia who fell in love with the crown prince of the Blue Dragons Kalecgos]]. Players fight M'uru, who was drained so much of his magic that he reversed polarity and became a being of pure darkness instead of light. Upon entering the Sunwell chamber, players find Anveena suspended in midair. Kil'jeaden claws his way through the portal and his upper half fights the players (one can't help but imagine his army on the other side of the portal watching his legs flop about as he fights) before they defeat him and he is pulled back through the Sunwell. The girl sacrifices herself to once again become the Sunwell, which is purified by the leader of the Draenei Velen and the leader of the Blood Elf Blood Knight Paladins Lady Liadrin by adding what remains of M'uru to it, making it both a source of holy and magical magic (arcane is the generalized unflavored magic of the setting). Thanks to being bathed in magic once again, the Blood Elves no longer drink from Demons and the Demonic taint is burned from them thanks to the holy magic of the Sunwell (although they keep the green eyes, as apparently that's permanent; note that the Orcs kept their green skin). Both races kiss and make up, then none of this is ever mentioned again except in one quest chain for a fucking magic sword later that just kind of goes "yeah, that happened" as Blizzard mainly focuses on the new groups before reverting back to Orcs and Humans being the main characters of the setting. 

Of course, there was a side diversion where in the old Warcraft world the "Caverns of Time" was opened in which players were sent by the Bronze Dragonflight (guardians of time) to go back in time to important events in disguise and prevent shadowy mysterious Dragons from mucking up time. Thrall's initial escape from the Humans, Medivh opening the Dark Portal, and finally the big climactic Warcraft 3 battle where the Night Elves, Alliance, and Horde fight the Burning Legion. 

Maiev Shadowsong becomes free again in the aftermath of the expansion and appears to have schizophrenia as she spends half her time teamkilling and half her time thinking about teamkilling.

The plot continues in a comicbook series (western this time, although really REALLY shitty) when the king of Stormwind named Varian Wyrnn came back and acted like a whiny little bitch causing there to be tension between the two factions when they had already done everything except SIGN a fucking treaty (A trade agreement consisting of lumber and food from the alliance for ore and exotic goods from the horde specifically. It's seriously that fucking simple apparently to have world peace). In the time between Nagrand and this, Garrosh has completely abandoned his weepy persona and has instead become a roid-rage dick who spends half his time openly criticizing his leader in front of foreign dignitaries, who he greets by telling them they are inferior to Orcs and threatening them if they don't line up to lick the boots of Orcs. Despite this, Thrall just shrugs his behavior off. 

In another post-expansion patch, the giant tower of Medivh (guy who kickstarted the entire plot of Warcraft off) which exists as a giant mindfuck of magic temporal anomalies and undeath was added to the game as a raid. Inside players fight ghosts, Demons, Ethereals, and numerous other things before reaching the top of the tower which instead of leading to the top of the tower leads to the fucking asteroid void of evil where the Burning Legion makes their home. Yikes. Hints existed that like Castlevania, there was a second inverse tower underneath the first one (this was in one of the novels, but in-game the final boss is in the aforementioned fucking asteroid void of evil which the top of the tower overlaps with). Similarly, there was a creepy as shit crypt out back which players could bug their way into (usually exploring a bit before receiving a big fat ban for breaking the rules) although it was never implemented. 

The expansion ended with a lead in event to Wrath of the Lich King (which was covered in the comics as well) where the giant floating pyramids of death used by the undead appear outside of racial capitals and spew undead (as well as a zombie plague that affected players). Eventually, the king of Stormwing rides a gryphon and crashes the one outside his city while Thrall (pissed his duel for leadership of the Horde with the uppity Garrosh was interrupted) simply throws the Doomhammer at it causing it to blow up. Both factions remember who the main villain of the setting has been built up to be. The Alliance sends Bolvar Fordragon, the regent in charge of the city while Wyrnn was away that players remember fondly for being the guy to turn in those fuckhard dailies to in Classic while for some reason Thrall appoints Garrosh to a position of authority over the Horde forces (alongside the Horde's Bolvar equivalent, Varok Saurfang). Que Wrath.