Title says it all. You get unrestricted power to retcon, add in, remove, or otherwise alter the Warcraft story. What would you do, and why?
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Lorewise… The macro Jailer thingy with Azeroth’s main characters. Shadowlands Lore zones were good because it has a full circle, though.
-Anduin’s story was doing great , beggining in Vanilla, Cata, Mists of Pandaria was great for Andy. We follow his trajectory to become the King of Stormwind and leader of the Alliance , in a great fashion that usually the community could praise more. And then…Jailer makes him an Arthas 2.0? Anduin is cleary a totally different personality than Arthas but… what is done is done…
-Baine’s Trajectory is going great with a rough start from the community perspective. I would add the Maghora fight between Cairne and Garrosh that stayed only on the books.
-We need more Horde characters. Calia is a great addition.
-We need more exposure to Druids and Hunters and their role in protecting Azeroth’s wildlife that is great on questing zones. Hyjal back on Cataclysm had great daily quests that catch this tematic.
-More Tauren ,Vulpera , Dwarven lore like the Zandalari on BFA(Blizz did a masterpiece with the Zandalari that was needed by the Trolls since the begining of wow).
One thing that is very cool in new expansions is the zone questline that leads to the final zone dungeon or raid and it’s very lore friendly and widely accessible for everyone, so most of the community is at pace of what happens in Zaralek Caverns for instance.
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Full reset of the story from Legion. BFA and Shadowlands would be completely overhauled if not outright abandoned in favor of other expansion ideas. Old World zones would be given gradual updates with flavor text and quests to both modernize the setting for older players and make the leveling process less confusing for new players getting into the story.
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I could go on for awhile but if i kept it to shlands i would:
remove thrall jaina and baine from the expac since they didn’t really have a reason to be there and instead have the POV characters be tyrande and the desolate council members. The reason would be like only the dead or someone with divine protection are able to enter the shadowlands, the Second big change would be removing all the first ones stuff, instead the head of the covenants would instead be powerful mortal souls who have gained enough power over anima that they create their afterlife realms for their people/purpose along with this i would have the jailers origin instead be a victim of the legion world who invented domination magic to try and invade the material world with an army from the shlands and was instead sealed in the maw for this crime. Which the dreadlords then steal this magic and give it to the legion to make the scourge
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For what I would do, we would need a new game. Maybe turn Classic+ into it.
To start with, the factions. The Forsaken and Night Elves would never join the Alliance or the Horde, but be neutral races like the Pandaren, each with a narrative focused on one of the planet’s two greater threats. For the Night Elves, this would be fighting the Legion. For the Forsaken, it’s all about their war on the Scourge.
The Horde’s on-going Vanilla narrative would focus on the individual races and trying to bring them together. Where the Orcs are concerned, this is a little bit of an inverse as now that they are free, they begin to divide into Clans once more (something Thrall approves of as the old system of many different clans kept Orc massive violence in check). Included in this would be a resurfacing Stormreaver Clan made up of the offspring of it’s founders, whom seek to redeem their clan’s name, delving into arcane magic. The largest of these clans would be the Warsong Clan, whom have a reputation for battle, and are the Orc’s defacto military. While no clan lacks warriors, the Warsong is the clan you call upon when you need some muscle.
With the Darkspear Trolls, their narrative would focus on taking in the refugees of other troll tribes into their own, and developing into a sanctuary for trolls seeking a new way of life, free from the Empires of old. The Horde would have troll settlements for every kind of troll out there, with quests to expand on each group’s culture and beliefs, with NPCs specifically present to compare and contrast, sharing ideas.
For the Tauren, this narrative focuses around a young, cocksure Baine Bloodhoof. His capture in WC3:TFT would be retconned. Instead, we meet this paragon of Tauren war prowess as young, arrogant, and drunk on life. Cairne laments his son’s happy-go-lucky attitude. Your first interact with him is going to his tent to tell him his father summons him, only to have a number of half-naked women giggling and leaving that tent (and maybe a few guys too). From there its a reprimand from Cairne, and then off to help the tribes. Does Baine really grow during this time? No. You’ll find him sparring with the Warsong Orcs as the only men and women whom can give him a proper challenge, otherwise he’s usually looking for some form of entertainment. His growth into an actual leader would happen over the course of expansions.
Every 10 levels, the Horde player attends a, ‘Hordemoot,’ atop the tallest of the Barren’s rises, wherein the leaders of tribes/clans gather alongside the racial leaders and discuss the Horde’s progress, the needs of individual settlements, and dangers both old and new alike. A representative from the Kaldorei and Forsaken are in attendance as well, to share news about the threats they face, and seek volunteers to fight. The point of these Hordemoots from a mechanical standpoint is to give the PC a more immersive reason to travel to other settlement and render aid. Each Hordemoot should feel a bit like a party with food and drink, dancing, etc… The vibe is relaxed, festive, and should give an idea of a bright future being built together.
The Alliance would be an inverse of the above scenario. While the focus is on exploring the races and houses/clans and the likes, the Alliance’s questing ends with Alliance Councils, in which the leader of each nation is accompanied by up to two additional individuals from their faction/kingdom. Where a Hordemoot is festival and a chance to seek new glory, the Alliance Councils are hotbeds of political antagonism, manipulation, and subversion. Bad blood and old grudges start out as nasty japes and quips, but each council session eventually devolves into a shouting match of placing blame or making excuses not to commit armies to one cause or another, leaving the Alliance player to pick up the pieces.
Pull out Shadow Lands root and stem. There’s some good story telling there, for another game. It’s gone.
Heavily prune BFA to focus properly on the war and it’s resolution with no side-show distractions of Old Gods or whatever else happened in that expansion. Remove the war of thrones and decentralize Sylvanas from the narrative. Teldrassil burning is the climax of the action, not the inciting incident. The Alliance assault on Lordearon would be the opening event of the war.
No allied races. Kul Tiran and Zandalari are races proper.
I would make Argus a joint Orc/Draenei effort. Lots of tension as an orc army lands on the shores of Azuremyst the eve of the Vindicaar’s departure. The armies square up. Tension is high. The draenei are evacuating civilians, the orcs are banging war drums. Everyone’s hastily forming ranks. It looks like there’s going to be a battle. Then the orcish general walks through no man’s land and hands Velen a note in the prophet’s own handwriting calling for heroes to invade argus. Cheers go up.
Orcish demolishers and berserkers flood Argus supported by dreaenei vindicators and mechanized protectors. This is the prophesied army of light. Lightforged don’t exist but the features of lightforging are unlocked for all races through the narrative.
Illidan’s involement is downplayed heavily.
Warlords of Dreanor is cut. This added nothing at all to the narrative other than Gul’dan. We can get the legion to azeroth without Gul’dan.
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I would mandate that you will never have your faction leaders play the role of antagonist in your story. The other faction’s leaders may play the role of the antagonistic villain but you will never face off against your heroes and champions.
That said I would bring back so many characters and give some a home other than a raid or dungeon.
Kael’thas, Zul’jin, Vol’jin, Sylvanas, Nathanos, Varimathras, Garrosh, Kargath Bladefist, Teron Gorefiend, Saurfang, Cairne and I can’t think of any others.
This of course would change the story on a crazy level and would be a pretty massive undertaking.
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I would eradicate the concept of “evil monster races.”
NO
10/char
…okay, lemme think of anything I’d actually do… huh…
Well, as much as I hate some ideas (see above) I don’t actually have it in me to just destroy them… it’s still possible some good ideas can eventually spring from them, so why waste them? Just act as much as reasonably possible that they don’t exist until that comes up (example, no character mentions anything that happened in Shadowlands barring the possibility of Vol’Jin becoming a loa, and comment on Anduin and Sylvanas currently being MIA, likey never to return).
Just… move forward. New expansions, new ideas. A new world revamp maybe? We find a new continent on the other side of Azeroth? A giant Titan facility on the moon?
Plot threads that were left open would be closed.
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Unironically actually make shadowlands all a Nzoth dream. Someone else can figure out the rest.
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I immediately pass it to someone who’s actually competent at the job, like Ursula K. LeGuin (who’s unfortunately dead), Mercedes Lackey who isn’t, or the writers at Paizo who built Golarion.
- Fixing racial identity
- Uplift race identity above faction identity
- Ettablish a seperat identity as horde or alliance
- Delete the first ones
- Change shadowlands
- Kill sylvanas
- Start creating interesting new horde casts
- Even the scales in between horde/alliance representant
- Fix bfa by writing a real war conclusion, the war will end in og, but not by sylvanas random stupidity, neither by saurfangs sacrifice but by bringing up a last battle, og will heavily damaged in the process
- A quarter of stormwind burned down because of zul
- Zul survived as prophet and will.be a long lasting scheme
I start the 5th war and bring back that sweet WarCraft 2 goodness.
I would change the antagonists in the Blood Elf starter zones from sentinels to SI:7 agents, for introducing crack to low income neighborhoods
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After defeating Legion, I would focus Azeroth attention to start healing the cosmos. First, I would retcon sword in Silithus. No Sword, no Azerite, no faction war, no Teldrasill, Evil Sylvanas, or dead Saurfang. Everyones wins.
Thanks to Exodar, we have ability to travel in space, so we would start repairing all damage that Sargeras caused thanks to the pillars of creation. In lore, they have a power to create and destroy planets. Thanks to this, we would have interesting stories like the repair of Draenor by Orcs, or attempt to save what was left on Argus by Draenei. It would also open the door to new aspects of Warcraft’s cosmology. We wouldn’t need to visit SL to know more about First Ones, Elune or this great evil that Zoval wanted warned us, we could find information about them on some dead planet or thank to other civilisations.
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I keep reading that as the Sith War.
So we market it as a new game of Knights of the Old Azeroth
If we don’t get trademark sued, sure why not.
- Death gods are not robots.
- Ardenweald does not exist.
- Druids have absolutely not one mote of power over anything that is not animals, plants, or moon magic. No more cyclone. No more elemental/weather magic.
- The first druid is a troll before nelves were created.
- Bwonsamdi was never a troll, but is an ancient benevolent old god that likes trolls.
- Frozen Throne and Helm of Domination are not destroyed.
- Bolivar is not a magically perfectly mentally healthy individual. He does not care about anduin, nor his daughter. He wore the helm. That changes you.
- Sylvanas never seeks any power outside of what she was introduced with in wow.
- None of wows horde characters are dead except Garrosh.
- Elune is no more powerful than any of the eternal ones are individually. Thusly, her night warriors are no more powerful than any other god’s champions.
- Anshe exists on Elune’s tier for the horde and is mentioned 1 for 1 for every time she is. POSITIVELY.
- Trolls and tauren get exactly as much narrative relevance and power as nelves in the past.
- Only orcs can be blade masters.
I’m sure there’s more but this is off the top of my head.
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I’d ask them to keep it for 3 years, and then I’d come back and start. I’d either do two things.
- Leap forth several thousand years
- Reboot the @%@#er but, start it at Warcraft 1, following older lore for a time, following the same roots but, using Legion as an actual ending and retconning everything after.
The Three years would be for storyboarding, writing up quests and visualizations! Trust me, as a crazy writer myself, this would be necessary! Give me three years, and enough time, and maybe some of those Chow Mein Baggies and I’ll have something that’ll not just play on Nostalgia but, remind people what Warcraft used to be.