Loremaster

While I do have [The Loremaster], I'm not exactly an expert on the Warcraft universe. It surprises me, however, that there are so many people who have an express disinterest in the story behind the game. It seems unfathomable to me to be able to experience the game, in fact any game, with such a deep, detailed background without paying attention to lore. I never skipped cutscenes and I read all the dialogue in the old RPG console games I played - part of the entertainment factor was that the game was telling a story. Part of the appeal of video games as an activity is that it's a story where I am a direct participant.

As I've mentioned, I started out my experience with Warcraft 3, so I was already familiarized with the universe when I started playing. I even based my first character off of my favorite unit from that game. While leveling for the first time in vanilla, I read every quest, talked to every NPC, and absorbed all the story that I could. Once I was max level, one of my favorite things to do was to just explore the world.

and wonder what happened to this guy, for example

Since quest tracker mods, followed by the built in quest tracker, and everything else they added to make ignoring the actual plot and story so much more convenient, it's become easy to not know what's going on and just kill the monsters and gather bear asses.

this guy knows some lore

Personally, I don't think it's possible to really enjoy a game and not have some interest in the background behind at least some part of the lore. Everyone has a favorite race or a favorite zone, and it typically goes beyond "I think it looks cool." If all your interest and enjoyment of the game is solely based on aesthetics and what color you like your spells to be, it's actually not surprising if you tend to lose interest or find yourself getting bored rather quickly.

If you find yourself getting bored of the game quickly, but you still love the game and you just don't know what you can do to get back into it, maybe you should invest a little more effort into getting to know what's going on.

Read the quest text, talk to the NPCs - even if they aren't relevant to the quest you're doing. People like to pick on questing for being an old fashioned mechanic that only exists as a way to move you around the world, but they're actually telling you a story. Obviously you're not going to be able to appreciate something if you don't pay attention to it. Next time you're wondering why you're even collecting bat poop, take a look around.