This IP needs more than retcons. It needs an entire reboot. Makes me wish the, ‘leaks,’ over at MMO-Champion were real. No way they’re real, but it’s nice to dream.
For anyone interested in them:
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Great. It really is gg then, all the way to the point of anything that had been enjoyable and what one might look forward to being gutted.
It’s almost eerie in a way how they conduct themselves as if it’s still 2000 and late, and they’re still the biggest baddest company on the block and still outshining everyone and have no reason to prove themselves.
As far as game companies go they’re the aged, abusive jock who still insists they’re in their prime and their glory days never faded.
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Napoleon Dynamite = the players
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This would be far more believable if it were called, “Hindsight”.
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it’s only eerie how they reflect riot games, ubisoft, and so many others.
it’s so rampant.
how much do we not know?
and by god, do we really want to know?
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Want to know? No.
Need to know to get people angry enough to vote for change with their credit cards to force the corporations who rely on those credit cards to change? Yes.
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Damn I hope that’s not real. I agree that it’s unlikely but I’m afraid of the off chance it could be true. I’d be devastated if they stopped working on WoW, or totally invalidated all of its lore to make something new 
sarestha idk what to tell you but this is so obviously fake that i dont even need to entertain the idea that it’s real
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Eh…would anyone really be upset if they just invalidated all of Shatowland’s lore?
I would be fine if they made it all just a really bad dream or the players smoked a bad batch of peacebloom.
I mean is there even one piece of new lore from Shadowlands that made you think…“Oh wow that’s a neat development I want to see where this goes” or “oh that explains that character’s motivation and I really feel engaged in this story”? Honestly, I’m trying to think of something but I’m coming up nill
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It’s not real. If they went for a WoW 2 with revised lore, they’d probably still keep some combined server going for all the people still willing to spend money on “WoW 1”.
If they did use the WC/WoW material to make a new Warcraft game and revise the IP, I’m sure it would be a lot better than what we have now or will ever get with the current state IP.
They invalidate their own lore all the time anyway.
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Personally, I’m vaguely intrigued by the dreadlords being sleeper agents even within the Burning Legion. It feels like a nice link to their initial introduction as leaders of the Scourge and explains why they were so good at that role, and able to command Undead. I actually thought that was neat.
Otherwise, nah I could do without SL haha. But that wasn’t the point. The “leak” said that “wow 2” wouldn’t be a sequel but instead a totally different story, which implies to me an invalidation of everything we’ve achieved up to this point.
Personally I’d say they frequently alter it, tweak it in often unexpected and at times silly ways, but I’ve never felt they’ve outright destroyed it.
To be fair, WoW is running on an engine almost two decades old. It really needs a new engine, desperately, but that’s not happening without a new game.
If they’re doing a new game, I’d want a reboot. WoW had a few good lore moments or developments, but so much of the story has been utterly ruined. There is no fixing it without retconning entire expansions worth of content. Even Vanilla didn’t make a lot of sense at times either. Story elements that I (speaking for myself only) feel have made a botch of Lore include:
- Forsaken joining the Horde - It never really made sense for Thrall of all people to welcome the undead former oppressors of the Orcish peoples (Lordaeron primarily ran the internment camps). To top this off, Thrall also allowed a Dreadlord into the Horde at the same time, in a position of authority. It felt like a massive slap in the face to Grom’s sacrifice during WC3. To wrap up this complaint, the Forsaken easily could’ve worked as their own faction independent of the Horde and Alliance, and I think their story would’ve been better if that could have happened.
- Night Elves joining the Alliance - We’ve been told over the years we’d eventually learn the details behind how this happened. So far, that’s never been delivered on. The Night Elves during WC3 were portrayed as a power unto themselves, a force equal to the combined might of the entire Horde as well as the Alliance’s Kalimdor expedition. Joining the Alliance caused the writers to push the Night Elves out of their Amazonian, ‘perfect warrior,’ identity and made them into purple High Elves; damsels in distress to be rescued by the real Alliance.
- Kael’thas being made into a Villain - I don’t think more damage has ever been done to a race in the lore than happened to Blood Elves when they turned Kael’thas into a villain. During WC3:TFT he was devoted to his people, to helping them survive, to finding new allies, and then they made him into a loot pinata and a meme in BC. Blood Elves ceased to be Blood Elves and were delegated to just red High Elves instead. I also find it pretty unbelievable under any circumstances that the elves of Quel’Thalas would join a faction that was the home to races which had historically been attempting genocide against them: Trolls, Orcs, and Forsaken. One can argue the Darkspears never wanted to wipe out the elves, but the Revantusk were part of the Horde as far back as Vanilla.
- There must always be a Lich King - I didn’t always think this was a bad element of the story. Then again, I never once imagined that what they do with it is… well, what we’ve gotten in Shadowlands. I think a definitive end to the Lich King would’ve been a better story.
- Thrall, Garrosh, and the Warchief Position - Thrall stepping down as the Warchief was just terrible. Putting Garrosh in his place was dumb and felt like forced writing. Turning Garrosh into a villain was such a waste of character potential. Finally, all of these mistakes ultimately led to removing the Warchief position, which is an iconic part of the Horde.
- Sylvanas - They’ve quite simply butchered her character from Cataclysm onwards. Sylvanas was a brilliant military strategist, using cunning and guile to defeat her foes and bend them to her will. During Cataclysm she gave all of that up to just throw Blight and Val’kyr at everything in her line of sight. Her becoming Warchief, the entire Shadowlands storyline, etc… and now their attempt to redeem her, have all just destroyed any kind of integrity this character ever had. “I will never serve!” Except for every moment since you joined the Horde, and then every moment after you betrayed the Horde to serve Zovaal, etc…
- Jaina - The flip-flopping between naive peacemonger and bloodthirsty warmonger that has been going on from the end of Cataclysm up through BfA has been nothing short of cringe-inducing. Seeing her become the Head of the Council of Six and rule Dalaran felt good, it made sense, it was a natural progression of her character: Antonidas’ pupil succeeds him at last. Then they removed her so Dalaran could go neutral again for Legion, and decided to make her the High Admiral of the kingdom of Kul Tiras. She conspired with the Horde which led to the death of her father and many soldiers, and then Kul Tiras just forgives her for reasons. This was so stupid. Jaina should never have had any kind of authority in Kul Tiras ever. Mend some bridges? Fine. But returning to it to rule? Just stupid.
- Tyrande - Where to begin? “Hush Tyrande!” Its as if Blizzard has gone out of their way to make that infamous line from Malfurion into an omen. Every time she opens her mouth she apparently ostracizes some race and makes them join the Horde. The 10,000+ year old High Priestess, Avatar of a Goddess, was shown up by Varian Wrynn just to elevate him for the High King storyline, which Blizzard couldn’t even be bothered to finish, deciding that humiliating Tyrande was plenty enough. I don’t even want to get into the nonsense with BfA and Legion. Night Warrior? Absolutely pathetic. She struggles to 1v1 Nathanos while Jaina’s water elemental takes him and Talanji on alone during the Battle of Dazar’alor!
- Elune - Powerful, immortal goddess who can reshape a race in her image, yet lets her favored people die to send souls to her sister without ever realizing she was actually sending them to the Maw. Incompetence, Stupidity, and Impotence do not make for a Goddess.
- Faction Conflict - Blizzard cannot write it. It’s beyond stupid every time they do. No one is happy when it comes up. Absolutely no one likes it. There is no way to have a faction conflict story where the players are happy by the end of it.
Honestly, there’s more. Plenty more. I could keep typing all night. I think I got my points across though. There’s been rot in this story since Vanilla, and it largely stems from them bending the lore to make something, “cool,” happen.
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If we could keep the part of Vol’jin becoming a Loa that would be good.
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In a reboot, I’d rather Zul’jin become a Loa. Vol’jin just really hasn’t had enough time to shine as a character, which is a sad commentary unto itself. Turning him into a Loa feels more like a consolation prize or an apology from Blizzard for killing him off before he’d even warmed the Warchief’s throne.
I was honestly more upset Rastakan got killed. I’d sooner Rastakan became a Loa and they just brought Vol’jin back to life somehow.
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Any self respecting person will not be bothered or remotely upset if they did. Shadowlands managed to make everyone angry in some shape or form. The easiest way to retcon it and make it fit; is to make an Old God expansion. We were in a mad delerium the entire time.
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I feel like this would also piss off the playerbase tbh. I dunno, two IRL years of your life doing stupid dailies everyday and you’re told “It’s a dream and it meant nothing.”
Idk. Despite Shadowlands being literally the only expansion ever I’ve actively disliked, I feel like this’d be a kick in the teeth, personally. “Clever Blizzard owns players lol get rekt” just feels dumb.
Step one to solving this issue.
Stop treating the trolls so horrifically lore wise. When you’re treated worse than night elves but with 0 percent of the sympathy, it’s a problem.
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Seriously. Feels like every expansion until WoD, we had some raid or dungeons where we were committing unrepentant genocide against some Troll Empire. Of course, so few players ever questioned it because our trolls weren’t the ones being wiped out. In Vanilla, it was the Gurubashi, and between getting some revenge for the mistreatment of the Darkspears, and the Zandalari presence tricking us into justifying it, no one raised a fuss.
Then in BC it was the Amani we were wiping off of the face of Azeroth, and again no questions were asked. The Blood Elves had joined the Horde, so of course the Horde is going to have to go kill their former allies for their new ones. Speaking outside of the story, but it felt slimy. Still, they were enemies, they weren’t our trolls, so there was little actual guilt involved in getting rid of them.
Then in Wrath, we had the Drakkari, except they’d mostly doomed themselves, and we were just giving them some assisted suicide. Likewise, the Zandalari were once more present, giving the whole situation some kind of false sense of sanctioning. There was no real feeling of, “this is bad,” but rather, “Wow, these jerks turned on their Loa because they thought it’d save them from the Scourge? They deserve to be wiped out!”
Then Cataclysm rolls around and suddenly the Zandalari turn into our new enemies because what’s left at that point? They call forth all the tribes, and the Darkspear, our Trolls, decide to remain loyal to the Horde. Good for them. Too bad the Amani and Gurubashi have decided to try being evil again. Time to go put them down, and it’s totally okay because our Trolls didn’t side with them, so obviously they’re evil.
Mists of Pandaria comes around and suddenly all the Trolls are trying to bring back ancient evils at the behest of the Zandalari, and now we’re saving the Pandaren from their ancient Oppressor, the Thunder King. Well, all of Pandaria, not just the Pandaren, but you get the idea. Why should we feel bad about killing these trolls at this point? They’re desperate to regain their old glory rather than reflect upon their failures and improve.
Warlords of Draenor finally gave us a break on the Troll genocide, and Legion mercifully kept it pretty light. Then Battle for Azeroth crops up and it’s back to slaughtering trolls, except this time the Horde’s forgotten everything the Zandalari have done for the last three or four expansions and ally with them. Guess its up to the Alliance to commit the genocide this ti- Oh wait, no. It’d make us too much like the Horde to kick them while they’re down, never mind the fact our suicide army sacrificed itself for that express purpose.
. . .
This IP needs a reboot, desperately.
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