I don’t think it’s that unlikely, as they have already done it twice (WoD and the movie), also as you mentioned they’re already running out of characters to kill off so i hope that this awfull lore killing MMO called WoW it’s on it’s last days, so, if they want to keep getting money out of their most succesfull franchise, well it’s time for a reboot and retell their histories, this time the right way, in a RTS game, as it should have been from the beginning.
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Well one can always hope ofcourse, but considering how they are trying to do certain things in this remaster of Warcraft III to better connect it to WoW’s lore, It really doesnt give any indication that Blizzard would do anything to undermine what they have done in WoW, quite the opposite they have been changing things that happened in Warcraft RTS games…and yes even in that movie, for better or worse.
Anyhow since they have messed up with the timeline already in 2 different occasions, that would give them “reason enough” to do it again with Warcraft IV, but again because of all these risks of pissing off either Warcraft RTS fans or World of Warcraft fans, I somehow doubt that we are never going to see WC IV for exactly that reason…or if we will, it would not continue either the story from Warcraft III or World of Warcraft, but perhaps set many centuries after WoW (bad choice imho,c ause that would still leave non WoW players almost completely in the dark/lost and its not what we would want), or go back in history before the events of original Warcraft (like War of the Ancients or something, better choice, but still not something that most of us RTS fans would exactly want)
Either way, I hope that Blizzard are aware enough that not every Warcraft RTS fan have played WoW and all its damn expansions over the years and thus are fully up to date what has happened…or the other way around that not nearly every World of Warcraft player would be interested in Warcraft IV, no matter what the story would be, cause many of those people are not interested in RTS games period.
To me its very clear that Warcraft IV should be made mainly for Warcraft RTS fans, cause we would be naturally the main audience for that game, the ones who have been screaming and waiting for it to happen all these years…and its next to impossible to please both WoW and Warcraft RTS fans, so the choice between the two should be obvious one. Even if WoW had had much larger audience, not nearly all of them have been that much interested in lore in first place and secondly from those that are not nearly everyone have been interested in playing the RTS games and would not pick up Warcraft III: Reforged or Warcraft IV either (im not saying ALL, because ofc there are definitely also those who would)
But ye, clear seperation of story and timelines between World of Warcraft and Warcraft RTS games would be preferable solution, if they really want to make a compromise, then re-telling the same events as WoW in Warcraft IV could work, but I think everyone, even Blizzard would consider that boring choice.
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They can retell certain events that were the logical choice following TFT conclusion, that being the War in the Plaguelands, the Awakening of the Lich King, the Return of the Blood Elves, the Revenge of Kil’jaeden, the return of Deathwing, the Old Gods influence, Thrall and Garrosh’s history, Varian’s history, the Nightmare affecting the Night Elves, The Worgen Curse, heck even the Draenei survivors on Outland. With a nice RTS storytelling I’m pretty sure they can begin telling the history the way WoW portrayed it while slowly going it’s own way, seeing they no longer have the need to kill off important “evil” characters as raid bosses and they already maped most of Azeroth and other places and can go wild with the locations. For the past events, I believe Reforged is enough, they can release campaigns portraying the First and Second Wars, the War of the Ancients without time travellers, the Corruption of the Horde and the Draenei genocide on Draenor, the War of the Spider, the War of the Shifting Sands, the Troll Wars, etc. Releasing those campaigns would give the RTS team time enough to develop Warcraft IV
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I’m starting to get the same sickness I get when I think about the Star Wars remasters. Who shot first?
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Ye overall I feel like that would actually be rather good and really satisfying idea for everyone involved. Ofcourse it remains to be seen how much faith Blizzard themselves have in returning Warcraft back to RTS (while ofc WoW would still be running) form, all I can hope is that they see the buzz and excitment that people have for this remaster of WC3 and go ahead with the idea of creating those untold stories from the past in Reforged, perhaps even remaking WC1 and 2 campaings and then retell the events of WoW in larger and better way in WC IV.
Either way Im still feeling quite happy from this remaster alone, as it was more than I had hoped for to begin with. I had lost all my hope that Blizzard had any interest to returning back to Warcraft as RTS franchise in any shape or form, at most I was expecting them to do minor tweaks to original Warcraft III and just relaunch it in Battlenet app/launcher
cuz they’re dumb and don’t understand that WoW isn’t canon. WoW is completely separate and you should completely ignore WoW when it comes to Warcraft
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In the latest interview by Grubby from November 5th, Pete said there are citizens in the south-western corner of Stratholme who take arms to defend themselves referencing the future Scarlet Crusade chapel there in WoW. I think, it’s a perfect example of a subtle hint towards the future story.
Ye I definitely dont have anything against subtle changes like that…to be honest it all makes it exciting and fresh to explore the campaign maps again.
I don’t see a benefit either. People seem to feel that since WC3R is newer than WoW, it should follow WoW’s story, when WC3R is just a remake of WC3 and WoW follows its story… no clue why we need or want retroactive changes. For those who never played WC3 and came from WoW, so they are not confused? Hmm iunno…
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I think it’s good to retcon just so there’s consistency in the story. It’s hard for me to enjoy the plot if Blizzard says one thing and then changes it later. Warcraft 3 already was a retcon if you compare it to Warcraft 1 and 2 (maps and user manual descriptions).
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Can I just say, I appreciate your username a lot.
While sure 3 was a retcon of 1 and 2, they didn’t reforge 2 to fit now with 3 did they? No. If you want consistency in a story, don’t even bother with WoW. Characters change personalities at the drop of a hat so that they can become the next raid boss. (RIP Kael, you crazy mofo). Not to mention all the class inconsistencies (holy Dreadlords???) and all the other factors that WoW brings.(Ashbringer being equivalent to Frostmourne? Really?). If consistency is what you’re going for, it’s honestly simplest to just call WoW a different timeline and rinse your canon’s hands of it.
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While it is little more than a pipe dream, I would rather the retcons in WoW to stay out of Reforged, simply because Reforged would then create a much needed opportunity to re-imagine the story that is told in WoW (TL;DR).
Understanding that many of the story developments in WoW were made to meet certain content and time benchmarks, they were made not for the purpose of creating a well fleshed out and coherent story the way Warcraft III was able to. Adding in some of the other things many grew to distrust and outright resent such as “Wait and see” and the “rule of cool” and I found myself agitated by “gameplay before lore,” the story and all of the characters and races/cultures in the game suffered as a result.
Imagine Azeroth where the there is no need graft druids into Tauren culture for the sake of gameplay, and instead flesh out some of the spirituality that the original Warcraft III suggested through their Elders and Spirit Walkers.
Imagine an Orgrimmar that is not placed in a desert and right on the border of Ashenvale Forest, forcing an ongoing conflict between the Orcs and the Night Elves. While not a fan of the Faction War, however, greater geographic space between the two peoples would allow Blizzard more room for their Orcs vs Humans plans.
Imagine that the Orcs were more nomadic and after establishing Orgrimmar as their political center and major trade hub, the Orcs began separating into their specific clans and exploring the very things that make them distinct from one another. The result being that the Orcish Horde is clearly a confederation of the clans in the time of need with allies among the Bloodhoof Tauren and the Darkspear Trolls.
Imagine that the Alliance and Horde did not develop in such a way as to include Forsaken and the Night Elves, but that they remained separate, and should the Draenei, Blood Elves, Worgen, and Bilgewater Goblins be introduced, that they would create alliances with them respectively instead.
Also, dream bigger and re-imagine the very geography and scale of Azeroth, still using WCIII as a guide. Imagine that the Feralfen River in Ashenvale was one of many tributaries of an Ashenvale River that flowed out to the coast, of which Zoram Strand was only a part. Imagine that Theramore was not built in a Swamp, nor that it was the only settlement that the survivors of Lorderon would establish. That it was the capital of a kingdom that could come to rival Stormwind.
I suggested imagine so many times simply because next to none of it is within the realm of possibility. However, that does not change the fact that we should take a page from Nietszche and create room for new creating. While he was talking more specifically about creating new values in that story, that seems to me what the exploration of different cultures is about. Azeroth is a world full of cultures that are different by dint of being monstrous, and I for one, am far more interested in exploring the vast majority of them from the perspective of WCIII than WoW.
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I am beyond 100% with you. That sounds like such a cool direction the game could go with. In terms of what it would mean for Reforged, I hope they stick with the core content that already exists, and then once that’s done and launched they begin working on something like this. I hope that only because they need to get people re-introduced to the foundations that are Wc3 for them to build this amazing lore tree that you’re pointing out. This is part of why Warcraft 3 was just so much better than WoW.
The sky truly was the limit for the amount of directions and nuances the story could take. I had a whole post about how the intricacies of the Undead, and the friction of Arthas becoming the Lich King and regaining much of his lost power versus the Forsaken and the roaming feral bands of Undead. These sorts of open ended story threads were utterly squandered in WoW, but I believe in an RTS format, they could really flourish!
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Don’t forget the burning legion is involved in the conflict as well.
Yeah WOW story does kinda suck and I wish it was in a different timeline. Would still like to see WC3 changed so we get something fresh. WC3 is by far one of the greatest RTSs out there. But there still are some things that could be better or even redone entirely. Like I think the only characters to have eyes in the game were humans. Mission wise, Culling of Strathholme map feels kinda empty and should be redone entirely. Plus a couple new units would be nice if they come out with expansions
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I am beyond 100% with you. That sounds like such a cool direction the game could go with. In terms of what it would mean for Reforged, I hope they stick with the core content that already exists, and then once that’s done and launched they begin working on something like this. I hope that only because they need to get people re-introduced to the foundations that are Wc3 for them to build this amazing lore tree that you’re pointing out. This is part of why Warcraft 3 was just so much better than WoW.
The sky truly was the limit for the amount of directions and nuances the story could take. I had a whole post about how the intricacies of the Undead, and the friction of Arthas becoming the Lich King and regaining much of his lost power versus the Forsaken and the roaming feral bands of Undead. These sorts of open ended story threads were utterly squandered in WoW, but I believe in an RTS format, they could really flourish!
I am actually quite surprised that someone, especially the first reply was a validation. I am used to getting flamed for mentioning such heresy.
My hope is that Reforged will enable and encourage people to put some of their creative energy to use in the direction of imagining what the world after TFT could be, not just what it could have been.
I hope then that instead of shutting down that part of the conversation (which is far more likely), Blizzard embraces it and looks at their story decisions from a perspective different from the one they currently do.
However, I share the fear many others do, that they will instead take that approach with WCIII and leave WoW unchanged.
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You can still simply play the warcraft 3 you grow with, this is a new warcraft 3. Don’t want anything new? Just play the broken game called warcraft 3, that is FAR from perfect as some people make it looks here. Specially in hero design.
Not to be an a**, but if you actually read the current lore of how he got there, you would see the explanation. Not much changed, the Sunwell is in an island behind Silvermoon, which had the only bridge connecting the continent to the island. Arthas carved his way to Silvermoon and Sylvanas dies trying to stop or delay him from getting into Silvermoon and accessing the bridge, giving time for a last defense on the island be assembled by their king, Anasterian Sunstrider, father of Kael’thas. Anasterian destroys the bridge to stop Arthas, since his army has no ships to sail there, but he instead uses Frostmourne to freeze the water and create an ice bridge there. He then faces Arthas in combat and holds his own for a while, but eventually falls and Arthas claims the Sunwell, corrupting it to ressurect Kel’thuzad. While another mission would be interesting, maybe instead they could just add a cutscene showing this, like the Illidan fight at the end of TFT. This would be interesting for someone playing the game since they would know more about Kael’thas’ father, the blood elves origins and how the Scourge destroyed the high elven civilization.
As many other said, the things that they will likely change (and they will, they are already giving interviews about it and saying that all voice overs are being redone) are minor, lorewise. They will add more context, show more of the world, change the maps to reflect locations in WoW, that kind of thing. For me, as someone who played the campaings over 10 times and has been playing WoW for the past 12 years, it will be great to finally see everything fit the same narrative and tell a cohesive story.
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Much of this, I wish they would forego doing. Especially changes in the maps and geography. There are problems in the WoW depictions too, and I would prefer that they use WCIII as a means of fixing them instead.
I mentioned this to address those very problems. There are several locations in WoW for settlements and geographic features that just don’t make sense. Orgrimmar is built in a desert, Theramore, a swamp, and the Feralfen River terminates not in a large body of water, but just ends at the bottom of the map of Ashenvale.
In addition, the very scale of WoW is much too small. If you were to ride a land mount from Nordrassil to the Gates of Ahn Qiraj, by way of Stonetalon, Desolace, and Feralas before getting to Thousand Needles, and then swimming to Tanaris on your way, it would take about 45 minutes. This is about the time it takes me to run about 4 or 5 miles. Let’s pretend that the mount is not 100% faster than I am, but three times as fast, that would still only be between twelve and fifteen miles.
Scale is important, because to increase the size of the map so that it expresses thousands miles rather than twenty would require that the spaces between major geographic features gain expression.
To do this in WoW would probably be overwhelming. But an RTS is not bound to the same constraints. It makes more sense then, to use the RTS as a means of expressing the world in a way that WoW is not able to. I would hope then, that Blizzard would change their mind on the manner in which they are going to approach redrawing the maps in WCIII, and instead of redrawing them, use them as a springboard to redraw the map of WoW.
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My issue is that some of the changes are not going to be minor. They’ve implied heavily that some missions may be removed our swapped out to allow more missions showcasing “underrepresented characters that became a lot more important in WoW, like Sylvanas and Jaina.”
I don’t know about you, but removing parts of the campaign is a big iffy point for me. I would rather they just add missions in at that point, or a side campaign. I don’t think anyone would be upset if they kept the original stories, and just added missions in. No one would be upset then. It’s removing original content that I have a problem with primarily. Whether that be easter eggs that were in the game, or removing some character interactions in favor of WoW-favored characters, I don’t think those would improve Wc3 in any real way.
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