I made a bigger thread about this. The number of changes become a lot. They have already stated they want the stories to be closer to what has been rewritten after 2004.
Reason why I support the changes are simple, it is new content instead of old. Blizzard have also been preparing the WoW userbase for a Warcraft strategygame and having a ruined Suramar populated with Murlocs would only confuse the new players.
I guess as someone who grew up with Wc3’s lore, the argument that “new people playing the campaign as it is would be confused,” doesn’t seem to make sense. Wc3’s story is entirely self-contained, why would someone be confused about the story? Like if we’re talking about new players, lets be real they’re going to be younger kids. Which means that most, if not all of them, have never played Vanilla, and probably not BC or WotLK. That implies to me that if they run into something that contradicts what they saw in WoW (assuming that they’re well versed in the current state of WoW’s lore), they’d figure that it came about as a result of say, Cataclysm or any of the other major map-changing events that have happened. Wc3 does pre-date all of those events after all.
I guess my point is that, changing the base material seems more confusing/complicated than leaving it and/or treating WoW as a diverging timeline for instance. Sylvannas’s character arc is really the tip of the iceberg when you account for the issues that arise when you change the geography of the world-map. And you can’t really change aspects of these core characters without either cheapening their story (obviously none of us want that, Warcraft 3’s story is arguably the best storytelling Blizzard has done), or significantly altering the characters themselves (which is obviously unwanted by everyone as well.)
WoW lore is the canonical lore, even when it is worse.
Not much needs to be changed.
There’s still a body of water around Silvermoon in WC3. In WoW, Arthas crossed this body of water.
So it’s really not a big of a change. The Sunwell should be made too look like how it does in WoW though.
i dont want them to make warcraft 3 a “WoW” Rts…
As someone who’s looking forward to the classic lore just as much as the classic gameplay… #nochanges.
They’ve already messed up the lore of the mmo, don’t spread those changes to the rest of the setting.
Please.
Every single buyer of Warcraft 3 Reforged will get a copy of the old games with the old campaign. If they want to experience Warcraft lore pre WoW then that will readily be available as an alternative.
I have personally played over 10 000 hours and played the campaign 6 times. I know it is confusing for new players who learn about the stories for the first time (but knows the WoW stories). Millions of players will get to listen closely to the origin stories for the first time and get confused and search the web for wikipedia answers.
Honestly I’d prefer any “retconning” over keeping the original material. The game and its lore have evolved over the years, and whether we like it or not, WoW is the canon. I personally like things to be consistent, as it makes me feel a lot more immersed. So far I’ve only seen the changes to Stratholme and I can say with certainty that it blew me away how good it has become.
Changing the starting location of a level as an homage to the WoW dungeon is a very tolerable retcon and if that’s what they have in store I am not worried. But forcing sloppy WoW lore changes, ex. a new look/history for the Draenei, into the game is a terrible idea. I think it would be better for current WoW players to learn the history of all the lore shifts that have been made over the course of the game than to force people who idolize the warcraft III lore to stomach 15 years of hackneyed retcons. Then at least Blizzard is being transparent about how little diaregard they give internal consistency over long periods of time. If I hear one reference to the “Kingdom of Stormwind” in game I’ll be very disappointed.
I agree with the concerns. Honestly I’m ok with them making changes as long as they offer an option to make it back to the old way.
When I go back and play old games again, often part of the fun is to see things that where different than described/shown in the newer games. Seeing a glimpse of what was before.
Look. Changing a map that is non-diegetic is not a retcon. The game maps do not and never have reflected the actual world. Remember that it’s supposed to take several weeks to travel by ship from Darkshore to Azshara, when we can just fly there in minutes.
This isn’t the same thing as a retcon. The things that are actually going to be retconned are things like the “Moonglade” map, which, originally, said it was completely corrupted when the opposite was true in World of Warcraft.
We don’t know enough yet to say whether any of these things are actually retcons. They are just a different depiction of the same events, with no repercussions on the actual lore.
For me, that isn’t the point. What’s exciting is the idea of eventually having new stories. Building upon something that’s already great. Warcraft III is sort of a “clean slate”, relative to WoW, that would allow this. On the other hand, connecting it to the MMORPG would lock WC3’s story in a box. A box that has many undesirable traits. New stories would be forced to retread a path left muddy.
As great as World of Warcraft was, and as much as I personally enjoyed it, it had to sacrifice a big part of what made Warcraft 3 great and memorable. I really appreciate this revival, and I love much of what’s being done, but I can’t help but feel like potential is being squandered.
I don’t want the original campaigns changed at all, I want them exactly the same, but this would be a good time to get some new assets for multiplayer.
Woah there. They want to retcon Warcraft 3 to fit with WoW? Just… why? I want my old Warcraft 3 campaign in HD, because this is what I grew up with and loved. Let WoW have its lore, and Warcraft 3 have his.
There actually already is a reference to Stormwind in the original campaign. In the last level of the Rexxar campaign Admiral Daelin Proudmoore says to Jaina something like: “You were too young to remember what the Orcs did to Stormwind.”
But I agree with you. They shouldn’t put any unnecessary references into the game.
One retcon that is probably goint to happen is that they will change the Sea Witch in the Tutorial campaign when you’re on the isles with the Dark Spear Trolls into an actual Naga. I actually don’t mind this but I hope they won’t change too much.
What I’m afraid of is that they will actually put the retconed Draenei into the Outland missions of the Blood elf campaign. If that happens I’m out.
I think they can’t do this with Draenei there. There was Akama after all, so they will not change also characters. They will be broken draenei I think. Also I will not like any map changes like in “The Culling” but it’s more known for WoW players - so we have it like this, without Zoo for example.
I hope in this matter they will not change a lot. You mentioned about Human campaign - what about Outland’s map differences from Warcraft 3 and WoW (Black Citadel/Temple)? Or for example Vandermar Village location in WoW? What they think about this in Reforged? This is something what interested me a lot. Some time ago I asked some retired Blizzard employee (David Fried who also done for example original “The Culling” mission for RoC) and he said:
“The differences between WoW and War 3 were byproducts of being different games with different level designers and very little oversight on cohesion. It was up to the individual area designers of WoW to use or not use as much of War III as they wanted. Similarly when we made the War III maps, we loosely looked at maps and areas from Warcraft lore, but most of us just made whatever served the gameplay best.”
-I hope doing Reforged Warcraft they will look more carefully on Warcraft 3 details.
I’m mostly worried for the Easter Eggs in the levels. While I liked that they swapped bandits for orcs as a little touch, I don’t think it was as good as the Zoo. This, and some of the secrets (like the Secret Level you unlock in the Blood Elf prison level) were (imo) vital parts of making the campaign interesting, and made you explore the levels, rather than just blitz through them. (I’m fine with minor cosmetic changes to make the level designs smoother/more defined, so long as the actual levels are faithful to their sources. I just don’t think you can make significant changes to the reasons people do things/what order they do things in, and not diminish the story).
Also, if I remember correctly, Akama mentions that he is some of the last of his kind, being hunted to extinction by the Orcs. So making him just a variant to the Draeneis pretty much undercuts his entire backstory.
I definetely see them creating a new Tile Set for the Black Temple mission in the Blood elf campaign. It’s just gonna be Shadowmoon Valley instead of Hellfire Peninsula.
They will also have to change Mulgore in the Rexxar campaign. In Warcraft 3 Mulgore looks exactly like the Barrens. In WC3R they will probably just make it more green.
Well for example I do not like it and it’s probably for a while till they will have bandit’s models done. Why not Orcs - well Orcs are ok, but Darkspear Trolls there - I don’t think so it’s good idea from lore perspective. I understand Grunt and some Forest Trolls (Amani - those who were allied with Horde in the Second War) but not Trolls from Island, where they for the first time met Thrall and Orcs and they travel with them to Kalimdor. Those are not suppose to be there, outside Stratholme and be reference to the Second War.
So again small details but make huge difference:
Grunt+Forest Trolls; Amani > Grunt+Darkspear Trolls
True. But they probably just haven’t remastered the Forest Troll models yet. They probably still have to remake all the Creeps.