In case you didn't know where WoW's story picks up from

[Genoism]

I know that a lot of people never played warcraft 1/2/3/3xp so they probably don't know a lot of the story behind WoW so I figured i'd post a little fun recap(youtube video format) for everyone to see.

I'm not going to bother posting everything - if your that interested you can easily find it all on youtube yourself.

Here is medivh...the guy you thought was evil...well he was for a bit but changed his mind and here he attempts to warn lorderon (ud starting area) about the burning legion
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_mcTRSNpw4&mode=related&search=
he fails - so he goes to thrall - the orc cheif guy in orgrimmar who listens to him and thats how he ended up on kalimdor.

At any rate - as everyone knows next patch we'll finally be able to take out illidan(god knows why we would...i dont agree with blizz there).
Sadly most of warcrafts biggest enemies are people who were betrayed by the 'good guys'.
Here's is where illidans story is told in a cinematic short.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVFM8U9EfkI&mode=related&search=


Anyways, right before illidan headed out to the outlands his goal was to take out arthas(the guy in charge of all the undead save for the ud you see on the horde side). Essentially arthas is like the big motherload of bosses, one of them anyways. So here's a video of a short skirmish between arthas and illidan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eB82pF_64mw&mode=related&search=

and here is where arthas(ex. prince of leorderon(the place where the UD now start) got possessed by the lich king while attempting to save his people...and ended up slaughtering them) ascends and completely merges with the lich king. His new kingdom known as the frozen throne in Northrend(hopefully blizzards next expansion).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kmv6n125cLU
if you listen carefully you'll hear voices of arthas's past (that occured in the game) that tried to stop/help arthas from going down his ultimate demise. It's rather sad really, a lot of misunderstanding led arthas to this point mostly from his friends.

Here's a short video of arthas finally turning completely evil and killing his father, u might recognize the area as the UD starting place. This happened before he met illidan.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A20Dcw9Izyo&mode=related&search=

as a side story - if anyone wondered how that big pink bubble came to be north of southshore, here is what happened to the city within the bubble
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n55qfvZxuFk&mode=related&search=

In the warcraft campaign the burning legion attempted to destroy the world tree
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIsqGko7SR4&mode=related&search=
it failed - but the caverns of time time dragons or whatever, are attempting to sabotage this event so we need ot go experience it and stop them. Mainly because the world tree is the life of the planet or something of a sort.

anyways hope you enjoyed.

[Tolwen]

gr8 post Geno
I played warcraft3 and frozethrone myself but that's about all. great to see all the demos again

[Arcdelad]

Very nice post Geno..

I recently read the "Well of Eternity" Trilogy by Richard Knaak, as well as the book about Medivh by another author...if you read those you will get a VERY good undestanding of the forces at play in WOW...

Illidan for example if a VERY tragic figure...he was supposed to be the more talented Stormrage twin (of Malfurian and Illidan), but his lust for power and his lust for Tyrande got the better of him...he actually got his eyes burnt out by accident...he pretended to be on the Burning Legion's side when they first attacked azeroth, and Sargeras gave him that "gift"...

Malfurian is stuck in the emerald dream (portal is in twlight grove in DUskwood)...next expansion going to be walking the emerald dream?

Medivh didnt exactly "change his mind" about being evil...Medivh's mom was also a Guardian of Tirisfal, and she killed Sargeras' physical form here in Azeroth...at that point Sargeras implanted himself into her uturus, and when she seduced a Lordearon mage to have an heir, Sargeras inhabited Medivh's body...Medivh was normal until at the age of 14 he he went into a 7 year coma, where Sargeras finally asserted total control over Medivh...when Medivh opens the portal to the orcs, its really Sargeras doing it...Khadgar (the guy in the middle of Shattrath) was Medivh's only apprentice, and sadly had to kill Medivh/Sargeras...this set MEdivh's spirit free, and thats why he does what he does in WC3 - to make ammends for what Sargeras did in his body...

Moroes actually wasnt a bad guy either...he was always weird, but he very tragically gets killed by Medivh after Khadgar "outs" Sargeras....

[fiere redfern]

Makes me sad I can't view video at work =(

I'll just have to take a look tonight!

[Grendeel]

Blizz also has  a link to 6 small chapters dedicated to the history of WoW. 

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/story/index.html

[un4]

Very nice, thanks

Great cinema 

[Arcdelad]

Also, for more on what happened to Dalaran, see "South Park: The Movie" and reference Kyle's eventual run in with Dalaran towards the end of his mighty quest

[Air]

There's so much that your missing 

For example, did you know that Burning Legion knew about the Orcs during their first visit to Azeroth.  Or that Wow may very well be an alternate timeline to what it originally was supposed to be.  Its fun reading up on lore on wowwiki

[Genoism]

There's so much that your missing 

For example, did you know that Burning Legion knew about the Orcs during their first visit to Azeroth.  Or that Wow may very well be an alternate timeline to what it originally was supposed to be.  Its fun reading up on lore on wowwiki

not missing anything - i just mentioned that that was only a little of the whole story and they could find out more on their own :p