https://mobile.twitter.com/Zerde3/status/1268361516866080768
Obviously i goofed, should have added 4 on that question but whatever I assume he knew what I was talking about.
I mean, I feel Chronicles 4 will have an inherit trust problem because most of the people who would buy Chronicles did so because of their heavy investment into the story. We were originally told the Chronicles were some incredibly insight history of the world, and many bought into it thinking that it was like the word of truth on cannon.
Then parts of the lore it established were retconned or changed by future changes in the game / story. Blizzard then came out to say that the Chronicles were an unreliable narrator from the titans / their servants… which many did not believe was the case when they purchased it.
This creates a situation where people don’t trust the Chronicles to contain true information, and that anything in there can be undone by retcons or changes later, sometimes only months after release. Unlike other stories or books that have an entertainment value as a work of fiction, books like the Chronicle only really appeal to people who like delving into the world / story. So the fact that it is so easily retconned reduces the perceived value to a lot of people from the get-go.
Not to mention that I feel that BFA … dampened the enthusiasm many people have for the story in the first place. The market for a book like a Chronicle 4 is likely far narrower than the previous Chronicle books, which makes it a less certain strategy to print a new one.
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A long time ago Metzen once said Warcraft lore is like real life history. Things change, our interpretation of events can change etc.(I am paraphrasing btw) Obviously that is a more meta explanation but I have always taken it to heart. Ultimately WoW’s lore can change and if such changes do occur it is usually to try to improve WoW narrative and sometimes it wont pay off but other times it was probably the best decision anyone could make.
My main is from a race built on a retcon. Back then I was pretty upset about it but decided to give it a chance and I can definately say the draenei are one of my favorite WoW races.(plus they were the only shaman and young me read somewhere raids always need a shaman 
). Overall I think that retcon has been nothing but positive for WoW lore.
To a certain degree it still is. Look if there are certain changes to Chronicles, I expect them to be more “prespetive” based then anything major. I expect certain thing remain hard fact in WoW lore, the first war was preceeded by the second war, the orcs drank demon blood, everyone came together in Hyjal that sort of thing.
Sure they might change minor details(like who the spirit healers really are) but I dont think those will be too important.
I honestly think this applies to everyone on the story forums. Myself included.
Maybe, maybe not. Look I expect it will have more to do with SL success rather than anything else.
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I have not purchased one chronicle book.
I felt from the onset that Blizzard was too fast and loose with their lore to trust them with such a lore dump. I own many of the novels, comics, and outside media. But the idea of Chronicles seemed a bit questionable. Pandering for profit.
You know, if Blizzard released a Chronicles Series based on the perspective of various Godlike beings… that would be cool. But they should have been honest about it from the start. They should have called it “The Titan Chronicles” or “Chronicles: The Titans”. Instead, they left many fans feeling misled.
Maybe thats where Chronicles will head, going forward. Idk. Like, maybe in 5 years, the next round of Chronicles will be told through the perspective of the Void or Light or even Sargeras.
I consider myself a Warcraft fan and a fan of the lore. I play the game and dole out the coin to play. But the Chronicles released so far have only garnered a side eye of disdain from me. They would be wise to pause a while and reflect.
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In addition to everything Korzuk said (which is all 100% accurate), Chronicle 4 would also cover from MoP to the present. All content we’ve seen firsthand. There’d be barely anything new to learn about anyway.
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I expect the reveal that N’Zoth was more involved in the faction war of BfA by Blizzard as an attempt to flow the BfA story better.
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I’m not at all surprised to see that article illustrated by an image from a comic book. Personally, I think a global shift from individual original works to franchises, partly driven by changes in copyright law, is killing the idea of canon.
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Irrelevant. the only deciding factor on whether or not Chronicles 4 will be published are the sales factors of 1-3. You are beyond delusional to think that the discussions on this forum have any weight whatsoever.
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Not only this, but they’re a fun read. Problem is, people on this forum tend to forget they are a EXTREME minority of WoWs actual playerbase. Blizzard isn’t making business decisions based on a vocal minority.
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I was under the impression it was going to be a contained trilogy.
Well based on that tweet maybe not. Chronicles 3 does end with to be continued, and not something along the lines of “hey want more lore, go play WoW” or something with a similar message.
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I would like to have a Chronicles 4, though I don’t think I’d trust the people writing it to not have dumb parts in there. Metzen probably wouldn’t be writing it and would probably be replaced with Danuser. There’s still some gaps that could be filled in though from various expansions, particularly Legion and BFA. I want to know how the Titans returned after Sargeras killed them. I’m also curious as to who would be on the cover, as my headcanon from the start was that whoever was on the cover was the person who wrote that particular volume.
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I figure that Sylvanas would on the cover but then again I thought Arthas would be the Third volume cover. So…shrug who knows.
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My money says Saurfang or Zappyboi.
I can understand the sentiment, but that’s like buying one of those Star Wars/Marvel/Star Trek/Harrry Potter/Alien “Ultimate Guide to X” books and being at all surprised that a later installment includes stuff that contradicts it in some way.
These are decades old multi-media franchises that are being written as they go along by hundreds of different people (who come and go) within the constraints of various mediums that place very different priorities on different kinds of storytelling.
These kinds of books are something of a form of entertainment in and of themselves. They’re basically a bunch of printed wikipedia pages/field guides. They aren’t sold as the company’s lore bible.
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Those books always irritated me. “X character has 10 strength while Y character has 15 strength”, even though the source material contradicts it in every direction.
At least chronicle is a sequential telling of events. It isn’t a “database” with character power scaling and other nonsense.
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I don’t think it is.
Stand alone stories, by a single creative team, within the same work should still have some internal consistency in order for us to follow along. However, once a work starts to transcend creative teams, jump into different mediums, and continue growing, it’s going to change.
A lack of canon is, if anything, the original way in which all storyelling originally worked. Before widespread literacy and electronic communication, pretty much all stories were “non-canon” and individual storytellers took characters, plots, etc, but changed details here and there. There is no “canon” Illiad or tales of Robin Hood, or King Aurthur, or Gilgamesh, etc.
And even with the rise of books, lots of characters (many from oral traditions) got reinterpreted in different ways and featured in a lot of works by different authors. Recognized as the same character, but featured in stories that were not at all canonically related. All characters and stories back in the day were essentially “Free license.”
More than anything, it was probably things like copyright laws and economic interests that created canon. The idea that only so many people have the right to the correct representation/interpretation of any given character or mythos. Or that you had to pay for this product from this person in order to understand that product.
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Thats why I no longer follow mainstream comic continuity and only read oneshots, elseworlds, etc. Keeping a consistent canon when a property becomes large enough just becomes a giant mess. Look how many times media like this has to reboot.
It’d probably be Anduin
Magni would be my bet.