It isn’t that I don’t trust Blizzard to handle a reboot correctly (I don’t), but it’s how many, many, many pitfalls come with a reboot.
Let’s presume we reboot back to Vanilla. Cool, so now Deathwing and Athas and Illidan and the Old Gods are all threats again, and we can face them again. But with modern graphics and mechanics.
Why should I as a player care? I beat all those guys already, now I have to beat them again? Twenty five years (by the time Last Titan ends) of stories, including the good ones, just got wiped away just so you could retell most of them?
That plain sucks. That’s franchise-killing.
In comics, DC comics has tried two full reboots. One in the 80s and one in the 10s. The one in the 80s worked only because the universe was so convoluted that you’d need someone to officially tell you which version of Earth the story took place in, and even then sales suffered a bit. Luckily there hadn’t been too many iconic stories told that weren’t just dragged wholesale into the new continuity, so the reboot was relatively seemless.
In the 2010s, that reboot? Widely panned. Not universally, but you’ll find few people who look back fondly at it, and while initial sales surged, they quickly dropped below pre-reboot levels. People didn’t want their favorite stories retold, they didn’t want to see rehashes of what came before, and they wanted to know the stories they had been invested in mattered.
Movie reboots; for every one success, there’s a dozen or more failures. Same for TV shows.
A reboot is the creatively bankrupt solution to fix a creativity problem.
Reboot shouldn’t happen, but I would be onboard for some kind of new world, near distant future thing. That would necessitate most of their NPC die of old age, though, so no shot.
I think WoW needs to stop operating in the Epic Level Campaign range at the very least. Grounded stories with grounded stakes are just infinitely more relatable than Godslayer, Hopper of Dimensions, Chosen of the Forerunners.
Blizzard has never had any problem moving beyond the evil things the Alliance does. And, in fact, most of what people worry about is only “the Horde” by concept of racial guilt.
The only thing the Horde needs is for Blizzard to give a crap and invovle them in the plot beyond being villians for the Alliance.
The lore is more retcon than consistency, you cant undo the damage to the Horde, Zovaal permanently worsened everything that came before him by being the puppet master of everything and everyone.
It’s done. Pack it in. Start over. Either COMMIT to this new Chronicles lore for the reboot or go back to the vanilla lore and evolve it from there.
I still love WoW and will keep playing because I love the gameplay and the environments. But as a story? Until they reboot it, all of this is just weird fanfic for me.
The fact that not everything in the game(s) is 100% canon is hilarious, as the game that we pay a bunch of money for in expansion purchases + sub cost should be the primary source of the lore; the books and stuff should be secondary.
Reboot will never happen while WoW is still active. I think you would be surprised at how much the old mistakes stop mattering with consistently strong writing.
I’d argue it’d even be easier for the horde to whitewash themselves since their main perpetrators are all dead or effectively so. Even the more sympathetic ones like Nazgrim/Saurfang who were unwitting/uncomfortable co-conspirators died.
If you’re alive and non-imprisoned in the horde and lived through the 2 faction wars, you probably fought against Garrosh/Sylvanas, or at worst took up arms with a knife to your neck.
Out of all the warmongers blueside the only one that died as a result of their hawkishness that I can think of is Twinbraid. Everyone else gets plot armored (literally, in one case) and just randomly declares that they’re good now and its done and over.
I was thinking about how these two ideas, Durak or not, are contradictory. It is difficult to have a confederation of equal nations while simultaneously having a singular all powerful individual.
I would argue, as I have before but dont feel like finding it, to make the Warchief title one specifically for war and have it put to a vote from the council. War times require singular leadership and focused action. So why not introduce the title of Warchief as it was traditionally/historically used, a title just for war. They have little power or influence over the domestic and civil policies of the various nations but when they say “I need 1,000 soldiers” you say “200,000 clones are ready with a million more on the way.”
I still dont exactly think Durak would be our guy, I’m voting for Lor’themar (or really Rommath), but hey if they think he can lead a war then more power to them.
That was so lame. I can’t say I’ve been wanting Gelbin to bite the bullet, because gnomes are underrated, but that was so lame. He could have just conventionally beat Gallywix and then ditched.
I still think its ridiculous he got a friggin powerup from that.
Gnomes are supposedly peaceful by nature and to this day still in a fairly dangerous situation population wise. Gelbin coming back dead or maimed as the result of the Alliance choosing to expand the war to a nation that wasn’t actively threatening the Alliance could have made a hell of a story, and kicked off the start of the end of the war.
instead he’s now Iron-gnome and is double king of the gnomes.
If Cacame Awemedinade existed in this setting, it’d be acceptable, but yeah, no.
Look yall won’t let me put Ritssyn on the throne cause apparently demons are still looked down upon in these parts, we don’t like, even remorseful, traitors so Shokia is out, and simping for Gorgonna to crush my skull like a watermelon isnt going to get me anywhere.
I’m just saying, putting the human-flavored elves at the top to address the complaints of Horde identity being lost is not de way.
I think Thura would probably work for the same reasons Durak would in that they are next generation blank slates, both have strong names in their lineage, but she already has history with Malfurion and an iconic weapon.
I would be happy with a Tauren that isn’t Baine or a Troll, but that leaves us back at the hanging question: okay, but literally who? The roster is chirping crickets. Crickets don’t even get an adorable Forsaken vendor hanging out under the stairs in Undercity.
The Horde is historically treated as one entity. The Forsaken are Horde. Tauren are Horde. Etc.
But they’re also historically… Not that.
The Forsaken had their own thing, their cult of personality dedicated to Sylvanas. The tauren also had their own deal, and so did the blood elves.
I like that. Each nation is its own thing, each people their own thing. But they’re also Horde. I like the dichotomy of that. I like how Sylvanas is being all sketch, and Thrall did end up getting involved, but only after it stopped being a Forsaken issue and became a Horde issue.
That’s how the Warchief should be. He rules the Horde. He does not rule Orgrimmar or Thunderbluff or Lordaeron or so forth. These places are their own places. They’re also the Horde.
See, personally I do not want it to be a pre-established character, because they all come with pre-established baggage. Lor’themar twice considered leaving the Horde because of how evil they were, and twice didn’t. Rommath lacks baggage, but he’s so closely associated with Lor’themar and Aethas that seeing him suddenly lead is… A stretch.
I also prefer a new character as part of a “fresh start” for the Horde at large. And because one valuable resource the Horde has depleted are characters. This is also why I’d want this new warchief (who again, would have his rise to the position done over time and in-game, not overnight in a book) and new characters associated with the new warchief. If losing the warchief title broke the heart of the Horde and the BfA and MoP broke its body, then the depleted ranks of interesting or even mildly boring NPCs to associate with is what damaged its soul. And relying on the same A-Tier and B-Tier characters will only worsen this problem.
Ironically, I would have found it much easier to accept that Jaina was “good now” if they had even just had her admit that what she did was wrong. Instead, it feels like “good now” is a phase that could end at any moment.
I wouldn’t let some bad writing ruin the best faction in the fantasy genre. The Alliance has some very unique factions amongst them but can’t seem to focus on anything but humans and elves. Dwarves feel outright refreshing and as much as I love to diggy diggy hole they’re also pretty generic.
Meanwhile the Horde has stuff unheard of outside of Azeroth like Trolls, Tauren and Forsaken. And even the old hits they play are played well. WoW’s Orcs are basically the race’s postal child for the genre and the Sin’Dorei might be your standard High Elves but they’re made more interesting for hanging out with tusked witch doctors and undead mad scientists.
Them writing exclusively for the Alliance characters (or just about - Thrall was there and Voss had a cameo, yipee) just shows a lack of creativity on their part.
I mean there’s a Shadow Goddess threatening Azeroth with Mind Control Magic and somehow the army of free willed undead that are, to a man, resistant to shadow magic and mind control have featured for approximately one questline about invading Arachnopolis.