So many questions and so many amazingly wonderful, story filled answers. I have been playing WoW since just before BC and I have never had a character reach end game yet because I am still loving the lore far too much. I also cannot understand why some people can play WoW and not care what the storyline is that is being revealed to you as you play. To me thats one of the most important aspects of the entire game.

And with the race + class thing, I am totally with you. I have wanted a Dwarf Mage since I played one in Beta. I can finally get one in Cataclysm. I am also glad I’ll be able to make my Shaman more than just a Draenei, finally. And my Paladin will likely always be either a Human or a Dwarf unless I go Horde, at which point he will most certainly be a Tauren. The fact that I can’t already get the combos I really want is irritating, especially when trying to get new players to try the game because often their race/class desires are unavailable.

I can’t wait for the Arthas cutscene if it’s anything like the Wrathgate one.

Andrew’s got a point: the players don’t impact the world in WoW like they do in EVE. I wish we could. Phasing technology has the ability to let us make choices, but it’s not as independent as EVE because that’s all that’s there. I think that may be why I loved UO and SWG so much: the players were everything.

The lore in LOTRO is actually one thing that turns me off from it; there is so much there that can’t be messed with, I don’t see how the game can be anything but fixed and linear, a super theme park. The players can’t ever impact the main narrative, or even be given they illusion they can.

I’m with you on WoW lore being choppy. Some things I get and care about; others, I don’t. I hope that TOR takes storytelling mechanics out of straight up quest text.

While I understand the reasoning behind the limitations because of the lore, I don’t enjoy it. It was my biggest gripe in D&D back in the day, and it’s my biggest gripe now with WoW. Cataclysm will address some of that, but certainly not all of it. I think lore is more important on the NPC side than on the player side. So what if none of the NPC Draenei are Warlocks because they’re so “good”, I want mine to be BAD dang it! Gnomes can’t be hunters? Are you kidding me? Why is the most engineer-friendly race, the master of crafting guns not going to put them to use? Do they make engineering devices that create all their food so they don’t have to hunt? Please.

But, enough of that little side tangent.

The lore that matters most to me is anything that can tie into something either in the real world or something that I can otherwise relate to. Whether it’s something that relates to real life, or something that relates to other forms of entertainment, such as your example of C’thun/Cthulhu. Being able to tie those things together allows my imagination to fill in other details that might only be hinted at or might be left out all together, but the point is it gives me a foundation that I can build onto myself without have some random bit of lore thrown out there that I really can’t do anything with because I have no idea where it comes from.

Lore is also more interesting to me when it ties strongly to a place, a person or a thing. (OK, NPCs can count for people in this context.) It’s nice to think that some war happened sometime and something happened to make Life As We Know It possible, but standing in places of power, with history, maybe with someone who Knows About Stuff from firsthand experience, trading stories as we dig up some Artifact That Changed the World, well… that sort of lore makes a game come alive, and I love it.

Then again, I’ve dabbled in worldbuilding and writing here and there, so it’s hardly a surprise that I’d appreciate that more than any mindless repetitive combat mechanic.
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