Sort of redundant[]
This can be merged with either The Alliance of Lordaeron since it's the exact same text. Or perhaps make this page redirect to the game Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness. --Magnus 19:15, 10 December 2006 (EST)
- As much as I admire all of your work, and respect your opinion, I think you are wrong. This page is clearly showcasing the new novel and NOT about the game or in game novel. Obviously this page will be filled out more as time progresses and will be vital to catalog the novels publishing. (Sern 14:11, 15 March 2007 (EDT))
Before or after War of the Ancients?[]
Reading Tides of Darkness, there's several significant deviations from the game. Most notably, in the novel the elves and dwarves join the Alliance much later than they did in the game (the second Alliance mission for the elves).
The differences can be explained as part of Rhonin/Krasus's interference in the War of the Ancients trilogy, but the question is… which happened when? I'm almost tempted to say that the book should be the original version, and the game the post-time travel version. Why? In the trilogy, the dwarves, furbolg, and others are brought into the war to help the night elves. Seeing the success of that, it would make sense that later on down the line, they would be willing to repeat that, as opposed to the reluctant involvement depicted in the novel.
Does anybody else have any thoughts? ATimson 17:31, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
- Do we even know how much time passed between first and second/third mission of the game? I don't think it stated specifically. Also in warcraft II, it was explained to be a "mysterious Elves of Silvermoon have sent a contingent of Archers south to survey the supposed Orcish threat for themselves." The elves don't actually join the Alliance until the third mission according to the narration.
- Also is the battle even covered in the novel? It could have been deemed non-essential to the main plot, since it doesn't include any famous heros, and is a fairly mundane event, and left out of the novel. But it could have still occured as one of the battles during the war, just not one of the important ones.Baggins 17:36, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
- Also consider in-game background story, The Alliance of Lordaeron it confirms that a very small contingent of Elves were already allied to the Alliance. The whole bulk of the elves didn't come until later.Baggins 17:40, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
- Additionally, Brann's accounts, which make a few references to events from second timeline, like death of Hakkar the Houndmaster during the War of the Ancients (He has references to other versions of the accounts too, he kind of blends them down the middle), also discusses some high elves and dwarves with the alliance before the main bulk joined.Baggins 17:47, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
Goblins[]
Actually, I'd say the main change are that the Gnomes and Goblins are nowhere to be found. The gnomes can be explained away by saying that there involvement in the war was helping out Ironforge (Though Brann says that the gnomes were essential to winning the war) but the goblins are just gone.
Anyway, I doubt that the WotA trilogy factors into this. They've already made changes to what we've seen in the game, and the Blue Dragonflight aside we've never really gotten an idea of how Krasus and Rhonin affected the timeline. --Austin P 21:48, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
- The goblins were definitely involved though, the author probably just didn't deem them important enough for the details he wanted to cover, rather than being outright removed from history. There are nough references to their involvement in plenty of other sources, including Brann. Baggins 07:07, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
Gap[]
By the way it seems the six year gap between Warcraft I and II was shortened in the novel. I got the impression the Horde invaded Lordaeron some months after they conquered Stormwind. However this creates another inconsistency in the storyline since earlier sources have kept the six year gap (and even the intro movie to Warcraft II mentions it) (Omega2010 (talk) 02:32, 6 June 2008 (UTC))
- Warcraft 3 shortened it to a one year gap, which long precedes the novelization. -- Dark T Zeratul (talk) 08:29, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- However Blizzard's timeline still lists the six year gap between the two games. (Omega2010 (talk) 06:59, 2 July 2008 (UTC))
Actually most of blizzard's timelines have a two year gap beteween Warcraft I and Warcraft II. Blizzard's online timeline doesn't actually specifically list when the first war was over, only when it began. The war lasted approximately 4 years in other timelines IIRC. In other words two years between the games.Baggins (talk) 07:13, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
before or after Day of the Dragon[]
I haven't read the entirety of WOTA yet (time travel? egads!) but since Vereesa (introduced in the pre-WC2 novel Day of the Dragon in 2001, the origin of the "Windrunner" surname AFAIK) appears in this, I guess it's worth asking...
TOD seems to have no mention of Ronin whatsoever which seems strange unless Vereesa hadn't met him yet...
- "Alleria, where have you been? And what‘s going on? There are fires! All over Quel‘Thalas!"
This sounds like maybe what happens near the end of WC2 but prior to Beyond the Dark Portal when Alleria goes out to avenge her family...
WOTA makes reference to Vereesa's uncle becoming a ghoul and being killed by her grandfather, and of her elder brother (maybe a death knight?) leading an army of flesh-eating undead to kill her younger brother, so that sounds like events of WC3 when the Scourge invade after the events of Beyond the Dark Portal, which would definitely be after this TOD novel, so I don't even know why the previous section is debating that.
DOTD ends with "Rhonin and Vereesa continued their tour of the various kingdoms—and grew closer in the process" which sounds like things are peaceful again after the WC2 resolution preceding WC3.
So this TOD novel I really think has to be a prequel to DOTD: it's where we probably see the last time that Vereesa and Alleria were together prior to Lireesa going missing in her WC2expansion mission.
The WC2expansio might actually be happening concurrently with DOTD if you think about it, ie basically what the "humans left behind in Azeroth" are up to while the rest of them ventured over to Draenor. Tycio (talk) 04:42, 8 February 2021 (UTC)
- There's already a note about this on the Day of the Dragon page. Short version is that it was written before Warcraft 3, when a lot of the lore (and the timeline) hadn't really been nailed down yet. Since then, it's been consistently framed as being after Beyond the Dark Portal. -- Dark T Zeratul (talk) 05:24, 8 February 2021 (UTC)