You proved nothing, I proved all of your arguments wrong. Including that one.
I think what Blizzard does doesn’t have to be perfect as long as it’s entertaining.
We can pick and choose what entertains us and what doesn’t and stick to our preferences. That’s why I embrace what Reforged is doing. Even if it comes out and I don’t like it, I can mod it to my liking. Dreadlords don’t have tails - I will mod them back in. Trolls don’t have the hind-toe, I will mod that in. Arthas’ shoulders are 20x too huge, I will mod that to my liking.
And I can release that to the public to use as well if I want. As can others. That’s the beauty of it. We can all play Warcraft: Armies of Azeroth if we don’t like Reforged.
I own a lot of the novels, comics and RPG books too. A lot of it is rendered non-canon, but there are certain elements from the external media that was way better planned out than the original.
I’m actually a big fan of the WC3 Alpha, when we had 6 Heroes per race. Spirit Walker and Warlord for Orcs, Crusader and Ranger for Humans, the Abomination and Necromancer were still heroes for the Undead and there was an Arch Druid hero for the Night Elves. I wish we could have seen that version of War3 too; and tbh we can through custom mapping.
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You call WOW’s drivel entertaining?
I’m just sick of how Blizzard is treating the Warcraft series, honestly… I’m also sick of how many people defend this knowing that WOW changed the entire lore for gameplay reasons, refusing to accept that people can see an issue with it.
Yes, I do, because it’s called having a different opinion.
You treat your opinion as objective truth. You call it drivel.
And you wonder why people argue with you?
But no, I don’t enjoy all of it. There are good and bad parts of WoW lore like anything else. War3 is no exception; Horde turning good was a terrible revision. Just the same, Night Elves on Alliance and the watering-down of Druids was terrible too. I hate what they did to the matriarchal society too; there should be male-only druids and female-only warrior/priests. And no arcane magic.
But WoW also brought in some really good stuff. Vrykul and the San’layn are welcome additions. I love the Old Gods and the Silithids and the whole War of the Shifting Sands. I really enjoy what they did with the Loa and expanding the Island Troll voodoo lore. It’s not all good, it’s not all bad.
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You haven’t even given an opinion until now, you’ve just come here to tell me that I’m wrong.
Additions to the lore are one thing, retcon is another.
I’m gonna start with one that really boils your goose right off the bat.
- Was really hoping for Diablo 2 Remastered over Warcraft 3 Remastered at BlizzCon.
- Diablo 3 had its own angles and aspects that it worked to a degree but especially with Reaper of Souls hitting the game like a truck (and ultimately improving it, but to an awkward degree) I don’t like that it was a loot pinata game where the only thing that mattered was uniques and sets. Rather than Diablo 2 being more of a treasure hunting game where the items you find and use along the way are good and there’s lots of rungs on the ladder until you get your “best” items.
- Overwatch characters are abysmally frustrating because while they’re really fun to play as, fighting against them feels like pulling teeth sometimes.
- Sunsetting Heroes of the Storm instead of maybe trying to push it harder than before feels like a mistake and, despite being out for 3 and a half years, that it could’ve been way more successful. Especially when it’s a game meant to celebrate all Blizzard material.
- This might be me speaking from an amateur hour place but Legacy of the Void feels a bit too fast what with the increased workers at the start. I’m sure getting into the nitty gritty of it, it does promote higher level play overall because it trains you more to the snap-reactions and decision making from scouting and reading your opponent and getting your openings and builds down.
- Despite having a record year in 2018, the laying off of those 800 employees where a lot of them (tournament folk, GMs, public relations, that whole sort) were bridging the gap between the company and the community. When Blizzard was already having a huge amount of communication issues prior and it really doesn’t seem to be improving at all (shocker) since then.
- In an ideal world, the writers come up with the major story beats and narrative for the World of Warcraft expansions. This unfortunately isn’t the case so it’s left to the story team to slap bandages and make weak or outright awkward connections between all those points. Hence BFA’s current state.
- There is absolutely WAY too much time gating for such minimal content in World of Warcraft.
- Hearthstone really stopped being interesting to play (or even watch when I was starting to fall off the train) several expansions/adventures ago. Which is a shame because it still does retain a lot of fun and charm but that’s mostly in the visuals and audio for me now.
- They really shouldn’t have cut official support for the Heroes of the Storm tournament scene as abruptly as they did.
- Them polling Hearthstone players about how they feel about THEIR professional scene really doesn’t bode well.
- World of Warcraft is just an old game now. I was hoping Legion was their last expansion, I hope Battle For Azeroth is, and they move on to fresher, greener pastures and develop a World of Warcraft 2 with more interesting gameplay and looser class design without the homogenization that’s really kind of blurred it.
These ones are just all off the top of my head right now, so. Eat my shorts, dog.
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Except you view what you don’t agree with as retcons; like the Dreadlords losing.
And you don’t view Orcs being good guys as retcon because you don’t have problems with it.
Besides, you didn’t care to listen to my opinion. You never asked for it, nor do I honestly think you would care if I told you. We were well beyond discussing opinions considering you were trying to push your narrative as fact.
Orcs became good guys the moment that Warcraft became a story driven game and the orcs having that history is still very plausible. We didn’t know what they were like before they came through the dark portal. Besides, the fact that Medivh, the guy who brought them in was summoning demons is kinda suspicious in itself… almost as if he has something to do with the orcs being the way they are… or at least a connection. Daemons were in Warcraft 1 you know…
Sylvanas joining the Horde would never happen because it goes against the Horde’s constitution. They won’t work with undead because of what the power that makes undead did to their homeland. Nor would they have any interest to begin with.
And is a retcon. Which is no different than the plausible scenarios of WoW which I’ve also illustrated and made examples of with Kael’thas above.
Did Kael’thas die after WC3? Or did he run away? Or did he turn evil? All is a possibility once you consider WoW is a game about players vs NPCs and Kael’thas turning evil and forcing the BE’s into the Horde is just as much a possibility as him joining the Horde himself. Blizzard so happened to choose a more dark, twisted approach based on what they think fans would be interested in seeing.
I’m a big Kael’thas fan, so I didn’t like the outcome whatsoever. But you know, it’s not my story.
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But Warcraft 2 was not a story driven game, it was just an RTS with mission objectives and a manual with a vague idea of what the world is like. The game was too abstract to argue that the lore changes really mattered.
Warcraft 3 on the other hand fully fleshed out the lore, retconning warcraft 3 is nonsensical and really ruins the connection that the player had to the world of the game that the story carefully built.
Warcraft 1 and 2 also had multiple endings so only one of them can be canon. The rest would have to be retconned out.
Of course it’s nice to be able to mod the game. But wouldn’t it be better if Blizzard had done things right from the beginning? (and by that, I mean creating a coherent lore without continuous retcons)
All of us can’t mod the game. I, for example, have no skill in modeling whatsoever.
I think Reforged could have been a great opportunity to give the Warcraft universe a new fresh start. And then we could imagine a Warcraft 4 or a WoW 2 which would pick up where TFT has stopped, as we mentionned earlier. I’m afraid that’s not gonna happen 
Yes, WoW has brought great stuff. I love the Old Gods and the Silithids too, and the Dark Iron and all the story about Blackrock Spire, and the Defias, and many more. These things were nice additions, and didn’t imply retcons, that’s why I enjoy them.
About Orcs turning good: I don’t see it as a problem, although I see what you mean, being a huge WC2 fan myself. I’m not bothered with it because it’s still plausible: the explanation that was provided is coherent, and thus the lore can move on. It’s not really a retcon in my opinion, it’s just an evolution of the scenario, because it doesn’t imply to change something from the previous games. Orcs were savage in WC1 and WC2, that wasn’t changed; but now, we know why.
The only flaw I see (maybe you have more, I’m curious) is about internment camps and Doomhammer becoming a good guy. It’s not totally bad, but it’s too “easy”, imho.
The campaign was story driven, there is no arguing that. The only difference is you had two parallel stories at once. If there was no story, then Lothar wouldn’t have died or Gul’dan would never have betrayed the Horde and we wouldn’t have any setup at all in WC3.
WC3 does not work in a bubble. It’s built on WC2. So while it wasn’t a story-driven game, the campaign was a story-driven narrative and that can not be disputed. It also was not abstract to the point where Orcs would ever be considered good-guys.
I honestly ask you- based on Warcraft 2 alone, could the Orcs ever be considered good guys?
Warcraft 1’s story: The orcs are attacking X build your base and fight against the orcs.
Sure there are a few missions like “You must save lothar from the Dead Mines” but they were few and far between, plus you were just getting a mission briefing, not actual characters interacting with dialogue in a cinematic.
Warcraft 2 was very much the same, mission objectives “Go find oil to build boats so we can use them to attack humans”
There was lore, yes but very little in terms of story.
Warcraft 3 was all about the story. It had cutscenes after nearly every single mission and characters with an identity. It was all fleshed out.
The WOW comes out and pushes the lore characters aside in favor of player avatars.
Based on Warcraft 2, the orcs could most certainly be considered good guys, people don’t do evil things without a reason… nothing is ever black/white. Heck you even get to play as the orcs and see their struggles.
I agree.
I also don’t have a problem with the Orcs being honourable today. It’s just not my personal vision of what Orcs are or should be, and even WoW has its moments going back on itself by having the Horde do bad things (though always explained later as being misguided or under false pretenses for war). I think if they had just adopted the Blackrock style and kept its course, the story wouldn’t be anywhere as convoluted. Warhammer is the best example of this.
But if we don’t consider this a retcon and consider it just an evolution of a scenario, then honestly what is happening in Reforged is also an evolution. By all means we don’t know the extent of ‘retcons’. Green eyes is a retcon… or is it just something that wasn’t well represented in the original War3? This is all subjective IMO.
My point is that there’s a differrence between retconning for the sake of fleshing out characters and retconning for gameplay reasons.
There’s also a differrence between convoluted and depth. Adding more orcish clans added depth to the story, making Sylvanas a member of the horde is convoluted, to the point that they had to retcon the lore for it to make sense.
But you’re dismissing the story on the basis that there was little of it. You used terms like abstract; yet there was nothing abstract about Lothar dying.
Yet what was written into WC2? Doomhammer honourably fought Lothar because he was painted as an honourable Orc whom Thrall looked up to. We can’t have Doomhammer using dirty ambush tricks as a role model for Thrall, right?
Based on War2, the Orcs conquered for the sake of conquering. Yes, Orcs do evil things without a reason because they are Orcs; whether they are of the LOTR variety or Warhammer variety which these are derived from. That is the whole history of Orcs in fantasy. Warcraft 3 was the first time this trope was broken, and War3 was the first time we saw the black and white being pitched as morally grey.
Abusive internment camps did not exist in WC2. They existed in WC3 as a means to show a dark side of Humanity. This is as much of an evolution as Forsaken joining the Horde. You either dismiss it or you accept it. I don’t think you get to pick and choose.
Yes, I think we should wait until we hear more about that kind of stuff, then we can pick up with this discussion 
If Blizzard reads their forum, at least now they know that many of us are worried about retcons. Now, wait and see 
I don’t know if they were abusive, but internment camps did exist in WC2 Beyond the Dark Portal. It’s in the manual.
About Forsaken in the Horde… That’s something I always hated 
How on earth can you compare the internment camps with the forsaken joining the Horde!?
The internment camps were plausible, the forsaken joining the Horde is not plausible.
I’d also like to add that you’re making an assumption that the orcs are made into “good guys” when you’re forgetting that in Warcraft 3, Grom Hellscream murdered Cenarius… and countless humans/elves. Things are not as Black/White as you make them out to be.
It’s plausible to the point where it happened.
You can’t just say it’s not plausible because you happen not to agree with it.
Trump is the president. That is a plausibility. What do you say to the person who says it’s not plausible despite it actually happening? Get real.
RE: Grom - and it was seen as a demon-influenced mistake. They blamed this event entirely on the demons. I didn’t say Orcs were infallible, I said they were painted as the good guys, and that’s what War3 did. Even moreso with Rexxar’s campaign.
On the grounds of what exactly?
Also I wrote a post listing things I don’t defend Blizzard on by the way, chief.