Why the Shadowlands make me depressed

[chrisisvacant]

The only disappointing one for me is Black Empire. Having it be a weird superimposed thing with the normal reality was a let down.

[Raisei]

Point 1. Blizzard retconned a lot of lore to make them happen
This point has already been beaten to death by other posters but I feel like I have to go over it again. Retconning lore on a grand scale like they did with the Shadowlands cheapens everything that happened in the old continuity. Kil'jaeden is no longer a powerful, ingenious demon lord who created the Scourge. He's just some cheap hack who had his goons steal some artifacts from the Shadowlands and then borrowed Maldraxxus' magic. By extensions the Nathrezim are lame too now since they aren't the masters of necromantic magic and the creators of Frostmourne and the Helm of Domination that we thought they were. And this example is just the tip of the iceberg. I won't be buying WC3: Reforged now because replaying the campaign knowing that Kil'jaeden, Ner'zhul & co were just cheap hacks who borrowed or stole stuff that wasn't theirs won't feel right.

You complain about retcons and then make a retcon of what was said on Blizzcon to support your argument. Nowhere that I have seen has that story about KJ stealing the Helmet and Frostmourne been stated. The wording was "We will learn more about the origin" of them. Sure this might mean what you said is true, but there are dozens of alternatives how this could have happened. For example, KJ could have made the sword and sealed a bit of the Jailers/Maws power in it (which allows it to suck out souls and keep them in agony, just like the Maw), this would satisfy the announcement without being a retcon, it is just suplimentary information that we did not have yet.

Other lore simply doesn't work in the new continuity. If all the souls have been going to the Maw since (at the very least) Teldrassil and no one escapes from the Maw, how did Delaryn and Sira get raised? It's just a glaring plothole now.

This very much depends how long it takes for souls to be dragged into the Maw. Our playercharacters certainly have lots of time to get back into their bodies. But also since the Val'kyr raise them and we see the Val'kyr in the Maw with Sylvanas it is reasonable to assume that the Val'kyr CAN bring a soul back from there. I mean they DID bring back Sylvanas TWO times, even if that cost one of them their life. I assume when they say "no one escapes" it means that no one can escape by their own power.

But worst of all, it's hard to care about the lore when Blizzard keeps making shit up on the spot and coming up with new "biggest threat ever" every other year or so and waylaying established characters. Why get invested in the lore of the Shadowlands when it's a given that the Jailer will end up being a mook for some other cosmic threat? Speaking of waylayed characters...

I do not understand. The last few expansion have ALL been about previously established characters. Garrosh, Gul'dan, Grommash, The Legion, Sargeras, Sylvanas and now N'zoth. All decades old. Now they bring a character we are TOLD is unfamiliar thus developing the lore further, creating new possibilities for stories after we have killed off all the "old looming threats" and that is somehow a bad thing?

And yes, of course there is a new threat. There has to be a new threat, how else would you continue the game's story?

Point 2. Why do the Shadowlands deserve their own expansion in the first place?
People were hyped to go to Argus for at least a decade. It ended up being a couple of barren rocks floating in space and Sargeras' main base of operations was somehow less impressive than Scourge fortresses in Icecrown, who were supposed to be the Legion's proxies. Did you want to see the purple heels of Mac'Aree? Fuck you. Advanced Eredar technology? Fuck you. Grandiose Burning Legion strongholds? Fuck you.

Same goes for Nazjatar. The branch of Naga in the Outland somehow managed to have a more impressive presence in Zangarmarsh than in their own capital on Azeroth. At least the Coilfang facility had 3 dungeons and a raid. Nazjatar was just one small raid surrounded by a barren seafloor and... that's it.

Won't even get started on Ny'alotha. What they did there after a decade of build up is an atrocity. Argus at least got 3 zones. The "great and terrible city of Ny'alotha" ended up being two cramped, instances temples. Which brings me to...

Sure, we could have gone somewhere else and I personally would have prefered to see N'zoth eat Sylvanas at the end of this expansion and be done with her instead of getting another expansion where she can be a god-level genius now with god-level death powers. But that is not gonna happen. We barely know stuff about the Shadowlands to answer the question if they deserve an expansion.

Point 3. Blizzard doesn't care about the integrity of Warcraft's lore
It would have made sense if Argus, Nazjatar and Ny'alotha / Black Empire had gotten their own expansions. They were, after all, very important places. Arguably more important than Pandaria which did end up being a fully-fledged continent.

Unfortunately Blizzard doesn't give a fuck about what makes sense and what doesn't. They listened to a bunch of bogus complaints that people were tired of fel green / underwater zones / tentacles and decided to quickly ax those stories despite them being fundamental, long-running parts of the Warcraft universe. Guess what? Shit storytelling and gameplay makes games unenjoyable, not color palettes. People still play Counterstrike decades later despite it having a relatively boring and same-y color palette.

And even if we assume that a same-y color palette has any bearing on the enjoyability of a game, who's to say Argus, Nazjatar and Ny'alotha couldn't have been colorful and diverse? After all, Blizzard managed to take a barren black / white / grey dimension and turn it into something that resembles and acid trip and based an entire expansion around it. Too bad Argus didn't get the same treatment.

How can you get invested in the lore of a game when all the shots are called by investors and the "boohoo who cares about the lore, give me colorful enemies to slay" crowd rather than the writers? You can't. Speaking of the writers...

This is simply wrong. I am pretty sure few people care as much about the WoW Lore then the writing team, but your are not wrong in that the people calling the shots are the ones giving the money and they couldn't care less. This however is hardly Blizzards fault, every company has a boss and if you don`t do what they want you are fired. Blizzard cannot just do what they want.

That being said, just because the plot develops in ways you did not like does not mean that they do not care or that they retcon their entire lore, but the story has to develop, it is not static never-changing sacred entity. Besides, as I explained at the top, many of the things people call retcons are simply informations that we did not have at the time. Maybe they did not exist from an outgame perspective, but that does not make them retcons. Retcons have to CHANGE things.
As an easy example. A few years ago our knowledge was "Kil'jaeden drove a green car", this is our lore and our headcanon builds a picture of this, picking a certain car type plus accesories.
The dev-team now state in the new expansion: "Kil'jaeden drove a green sports car with chrome plates." This is information that supplements what we knew and while it might offend the people who always figured the "green car" from Classic was a Hummer it does not qualify as a retcon. For that the new expansion would have to state: "Kil'jaeden always drove a red car."
Tldr: None of the things stated for now qualify as a retcon since our knowledge of the Shadowlands is very limited.

Point 4. The current writing team has no respect for the efforts of the OGs like Metzen
The current writing team just jumps on the latest twitter bandwagon and bases the entire story around it. WC3 Sylvanas, Jaina and Tyrande were strong women and Thrall embodied non-toxic masculinity. BfA Sylvanas, Jaina, Tyrande are just caricatures of their WC3 selves. And Anduin is non-toxic to the detriment of common sense.

This is again a problem with modern society and not a "Blizzard has no respect" thing. The internet in all its glory has allowed people to be accused of ridiculous things while protecting the accuser with nearly perfect anonimity and other people jump onto that bandwagon and will push such stories.
The best example being that the american friggin senate send a letter to Blizzard because of that China happening (just an example, I am not defending anything). You should not underestimate the power that the internet community especially Twitter has. Many people will take everything said there as truth and WILL act on it. Reputations and companies have been destroyed for years to come by the Internet, so do not blame Blizzard for the toxicity that is todays media. They HAVE to be on the lookout for minefields.

Point 5. Blizzard just does whatever the fuck they want to
Blizzard wants Dracula's castle in WoW? Blizzard makes Dracula's castle in WoW. Which leads me to believe that the current team is completely unversed in Warcraft's lore if they have to do complete asspulls and retcon existing lore to create something interesting.

Or even worse, they DON'T care about WoW's lore. They just sit down and and come up with whatever generic fantasy trope they want to draw / write a story about on a given day and roll with it. Existing lore be damned. Speaking of genericity...

Well, we had vampire elves in lore since WotLK with the San'layn. I don't see how another race of vampires is such an asspull and it certainly is not a retcon. I also just do not understand this constant dislike for everything fresh and different. The first raids were always somewhat disconnected from the main story of the expansion, EN only had very late connections that we see play out now and Uldir is basically over and done. Personally I find that theme sounds awesome and I cannot wait to see all the memes and hints at Dracula lore we will get in there.

Point 6. The Shadowlands are completely generic
The Night Fae, the Necrolords, the Kyrians and the Venthyr are just caricatures of the Wild Gods, the Scourge, the Val'kyr and the San'layn respectively. But whereas the latter factions have rich backstories and were introduced into Warcraft in an organic, non-jarring way, the former factions are just asspulls that Blizzard came up with on the spot to fill the Shadowlands with variety. There's nothing new or interesting about the Shadowlands Covenants. They're just regurgitated and less interesting versions of what we already had for years.

You cite yourself the connections that the new factions have to the lore then claim these are again asspulls. Huh? And of course we do not yet have backstories for these guys. The expansion comes in 1 YEAR. We will be slapped with lore like crazy until then. Don`t doom things before they even had a chance to happen.

Point 7. The Shadowlands are extremely childish
If you're a good man - you go to WoW heaven. If you're a bad man - you got to WoW hell. It's dogmatic, it's simplistic, it's browbeating. There's absolutely zero need to say "oh yeah Kael'thas was a bad man so he's getting tortured by BDSM vampires in hell for eternity". It reads like something a 5 year old child would write to "punish" a bad character he dislikes. Kael'thas already got his punishment and that was the legacy of the Sunstriders being completely destroyed and all but forgotten about. It's a way more fitting punishment for a character's misdeeds than saying "oh yeah he was a bad man so he's going to burn in hell."

Well, yes, an expansion that deals with the afterlife takes aspects of religions that are well established and BELIEVED by countless ADULTS on the planet. I can see nothing childish there. Revendreth is quite clearly based on the christian idea of purgatory which is NOT hell, only with vampires, because why not? Just don`t make them sparkly.

But worst of all, Blizzard just can't or refuses to write satisfying story arcs anymore. Everything drags on for years and years and the gets wrapped up in the least satisfying way imaginable. Give us something fun, concise and enjoyable like the Blood Elves' redemption arc in TBC. Not more of Sylvanas' edgy adventures.

I am with you on this one. I would have loved to see Sylvanas smushed by Bolvar with all her plans vaporized, but oh well, I like this game too much to let a bit of a time gap stop me from getting my revenge on the undead elf.

[Mehrunes]

This. To give an example for Mass Effect to work, you need element zero. A fictional mineral that creates mass altering fields when exposed to an electric current. It's obviously a bullshit thing that the setting requires. But it is one thing and everything built around it is consitent and coherent.

For Last of the Jedi to make sense you need the assumptions that

Both the Resistance and the First Order buy ships from arms dealers.
They only buy weapons for their sides and not the enemies for covert operations.
The First Order is too broke to buy or develop turrets fast enough to counter commercially available X-Wings.
You can die from overusing the Force
Force Ghosts can cast force lightning they just didn't do it before.
Snoke's telepathic powers can be countered with semantics.


That's a lot of assumptions. WoW nowadays is closer to TLJ than Mass Effect

There is nothing in TLJ that would salvage it enough for it to make sense. You could throw all other Star Wars canon out and TLJ alone is still enough to make it devoid of sense. Because the main plot of the movie is the plight of the Resistance in regards to not being able to jump away due to Fist Order's tracking combined with limited fuel (aside from the ending Rey's story is just a bunch of exposition dumps and Rian Johnson shitting on previous Star Wars movies for the sake of "subverting expectations"). Particularly the whole deal with Finn and what's-her-face having a plan to disable the tracking device of the First Order.

And that simply doesn't work. Because at the start of the movie we are told that the reason the Resistance can't jump to the hyperspace while being tracked because that would consume their fuel and make them sitting ducks waiting for slaughter. The alternative is fly for three days till the fuel runs out from sublight flight. So the X amount of fuel we had at the start of the movie can either be used for one jump OR three days of sublight flight.

Yet by the time Finn and Jar Jar's sister from another mother return with their mcguffin and infiltrated the First Order's flagship to disable its tracking some of the Resistance's ships already ran out of fuel while the rest flew on fumes. So by the time of their return the fleet had like 1% of X amount of fuel. But the movie doesn't realize that. The viewers are expected to be invested in Finn's plot. They are expected to believe that if not for the last minute betrayal of Del Toro's character the plan would have worked. Because if the movie didn't pretend that there would be no tension in the main plot of the movie whatsoever.

The sad thing is that even in light of the above your claim that WoW is closer to TLJ than Mass Effect isn't any less true.

On a side note, in regards to the turrets of the First Order (I assume you are talking about the opening here), all the First Order needed to do is using a formation that doesn't fucking suck. They had three star destroyers in the fleet with the dreadnought. Yet for reasons unknown (i.e. plot convenience required for Dameron's rule of cool moment) they stood behind. Had they been in the front protecting it, with TIEs out of hangars from the get go, the Resistance wouldn't be able to even fart in the dreadnought's general direction. On top of that if the dreadnought shot at Resistance's mobile flagship first and then bombed the base as it logically should have, there would be no movie.

From the posts I read people are upset that they said "Chronicle is from certain people's point of view and that there are others at the same time" which allows them to adjust anything if needed in order to fit the bigger narrative. As far as I can tell nothing directly was retconned from the book, just other points of view mentioned.

Nope, Chronicles had already been mentioned prior to this reveal.For example, the latest example is how according to Chronicle Trolls weren't on Azeroth yet during the arrival of the Titans (which in itself was a retcon). In BfA that retcon has been retconned back (in Nazmir, I think). The Blizzcon remark is nothing more than Blizzard covering their ass and excusing their sloppiness (by retroactively making the advertising for Chronicles false).

I will never understand the obsession with lore people have for a video game about slaying internet dragons for imaginary loot. There never seems to be any constructive criticism, just pointless "Blizzard sucks, {x franchise} did it better" echo chambers. Is suspension of disbelief that difficult for you guys? Or are you just looking for validation from other strangers on the internet that your idealized version of Blizzard would have written better stories?

There's a fine line between not caring and expecting WoW lore to be a carefully curated masterwork the likes of which the most legendary fantasy writers of all time would envy. It seems to me most WoW fans can't decide which end of the spectrum they want the lore in this game to occupy. The only thing I ever see anybody agree with is that "it sucks" and that is such a lame fucking criticism to see over and over again.

I noticed you have a bingo related stuff in your signature, so I've got to ask: are you going for "the worst 'defense' of Blizzard's writing possible" bingo? Because so far you've got:
- the typical mischaracterization of suspension of disbelief revolving around "there be dragons";
- "there never seems to be any constructive criticism, just pointless 'Blizzard sucks' echo chambers" in reply to a thread where the OP went point by point with what they believe to be Shadowland's flaws;
- the blatant and completely unoriginal straw-man of "so you expect WoW's lore to be a carefully curated masterwork";
- and, finally, some wild card about "seeking validation from other strangers on the internet that your idealized version of Blizzard would have written better stories".

If the criticism of Blizzard's writing was just "Blizzard sucks" like you want to pretend, in comparison to what you've got to say in Blizzard's defense even that would look like a carefully curated masterwork that you mentioned.

This isn't a retcon any more than the draenei were.

You mean the retcon so big Metzen outright apologized for it? Wat?

[TheFirstOnes]

Heaven / Hell are an extremely simplistic justice system. Everyone gets their due - Heaven and Hell or not. Kil'jaeden's punishment for selling his people out was seeing his homeworld get overtaken by the Fel and ultimately have all of his plans fall apart. Arthas' punishment for destroying his kingdom was dying alone, surrounded by enemies and full of regrets. Tirion's reward for having faith in the Light and leading a righteous life is being remembered as one of Azeroth's greatest heroes, even many years after his death.

"If you're bad you burn in hell" is extremely infantile by comparison.

There is no "Heaven and Hell" in the Shadowlands. There are many afterlife plains one is sent to, whether it be good or bad. You could say Helheim is hell, you could say the Maw is hell, that Antorus is "hell", etc.

[Relapses]

There is nothing in TLJ that would salvage it enough for it to make sense. You could throw all other Star Wars canon out and TLJ alone is still enough to make it devoid of sense. Because the main plot of the movie is the plight of the Resistance in regards to not being able to jump away due to Fist Order's tracking combined with limited fuel (aside from the ending Rey's story is just a bunch of exposition dumps and Rian Johnson shitting on previous Star Wars movies for the sake of "subverting expectations"). Particularly the whole deal with Finn and what's-her-face having a plan to disable the tracking device of the First Order.

And that simply doesn't work. Because at the start of the movie we are told that the reason the Resistance can't jump to the hyperspace while being tracked because that would consume their fuel and make them sitting ducks waiting for slaughter. The alternative is fly for three days till the fuel runs out from sublight flight. So the X amount of fuel we had at the start of the movie can either be used for one jump OR three days of sublight flight.

Yet by the time Finn and Jar Jar's sister from another mother return with their mcguffin and infiltrated the First Order's flagship to disable its tracking some of the Resistance's ships already ran out of fuel while the rest flew on fumes. So by the time of their return the fleet had like 1% of X amount of fuel. But the movie doesn't realize that. The viewers are expected to be invested in Finn's plot. They are expected to believe that if not for the last minute betrayal of Del Toro's character the plan would have worked. Because if the movie didn't pretend that there would be no tension in the main plot of the movie whatsoever.

The sad thing is that even in light of the above your claim that WoW is closer to TLJ than Mass Effect isn't any less true.

On a side note, in regards to the turrets of the First Order (I assume you are talking about the opening here), all the First Order needed to do is using a formation that doesn't fucking suck. They had three star destroyers in the fleet with the dreadnought. Yet for reasons unknown (i.e. plot convenience required for Dameron's rule of cool moment) they stood behind. Had they been in the front protecting it, with TIEs out of hangars from the get go, the Resistance wouldn't be able to even fart in the dreadnought's general direction. On top of that if the dreadnought shot at Resistance's mobile flagship first and then bombed the base as it logically should have, there would be no movie.




Nope, Chronicles had already been mentioned prior to this reveal.For example, the latest example is how according to Chronicle Trolls weren't on Azeroth yet during the arrival of the Titans (which in itself was a retcon). In BfA that retcon has been retconned back (in Nazmir, I think). The Blizzcon remark is nothing more than Blizzard covering their ass and excusing their sloppiness (by retroactively making the advertising for Chronicles false).





I noticed you have a bingo related stuff in your signature, so I've got to ask: are you going for "the worst 'defense' of Blizzard's writing possible" bingo? Because so far you've got:
- the typical mischaracterization of suspension of disbelief revolving around "there be dragons";
- "there never seems to be any constructive criticism, just pointless 'Blizzard sucks' echo chambers" in reply to a thread where the OP went point by point with what they believe to be Shadowland's flaws;
- the blatant and completely unoriginal straw-man of "so you expect WoW's lore to be a carefully curated masterwork";
- and, finally, some wild card about "seeking validation from other strangers on the internet that your idealized version of Blizzard would have written better stories".

If the criticism of Blizzard's writing was just "Blizzard sucks" like you want to pretend, in comparison to what you've got to say in Blizzard's defense even that would look like a carefully curated masterwork that you mentioned.




You mean the retcon so big Metzen outright apologized for it? Wat?

You're one of the delusional Star Wars fans who can't handle TLJ existing so I doubt there's much I can say that'll change your mind about anything. (FWIW, TLJ is my favorite SW film since the original trilogy. Funny thing about opinions, right?) But for the sake of arguing on the internet, a few salient points which you've glossed over:

1.) There is nothing constructive about the OP's complaints. At no point is anything he's bitching about more substantial than, "I don't like it, therefore it's bad." It's wordy, yes, but hardly groundbreaking and, imo, hardly worth discussing.

2.) The importance of lore is different from player to player. I'm not defending Blizzard when I say that their disregard for its "integrity" doesn't bother me. I'm stating my opinion. WoW, for me, has always been about the quality of the game itself. The lore has always been backseat. I know I'm not alone in this, though I'm probably a minority posting in the Lore subforum. (Sorry.)

3.) When I mentioned a carefully curated masterwork, I was making an analogy about where most players stand on the quality of WoW's lore. At no point did I even suggest that WoW needed to be at that level, just that there do seem to be members of this community whose lofty expectations would only be reconciled if it were.

4.) And finally, the bit about seeking validation from internet strangers: When the only topic of discussion in most threads is "Blizzard sucks," followed by chains of players responding with variations of, "I agree, Blizzard sucks," it grows tiring. I understand the cynicism (and some of it is well-founded), but it does grow old to see the same sentiments being run into the fucking ground in every thread on this forum. It doesn't help that anybody who tries to have an even slightly positive take on Blizzard is immediately marginalised as a "shill."

/shrug - I'm sure you'll have some witty response about how unoriginal it is to try to unjerk the circlejerk but that's where I stand.

[Steelangel]

This whole thing that KJ and co creating the armour and frostmourne being retconned is a fallacy.

Page 17, chronicles vol 3

"The dreadlords bound his disembodied spirit to a specially crafted set of armour and a mighty runeblade called Frostmourne"

As such there is nothing to say KJ didn't make a bargain with the jailor for this armour to be crafted and the dreadlords, being masters of necromancy as they are, weren't the ones to assist in the creation.

This.

The writers have always been coy as to the origins of the helm of domination and Frostmourne. Just because folks made up some head canon about it doesn’t make it real.

[Talrath]

Argus should have been an expansion, instead of green they could have gone with a lot of red when you go to the heart of argus (throne zone).

Nazjatar should have been an expansion. Do you know how disappointed i was when i heard that Azshara would be in bfa, because of datamining we knew first raid was about uldir and an experimental old god. Where tha hell did they came up with that! It just got dropped like that. If bfa was about infighting AND the armada azshara had gathered in those 10.000 years where she is actively trying to take out the horde and alliance in their weakend state, then i would have been happy as a pig. But nooooo.
She is the greatest spellcaster but gets beaten by some idiots.

Shadowland, they shouldnt even have touched that or they could have made it entirely different. More ghostly, scary with scary music. A place where if you go out of the zone, youll encounter a being that eats souls so you die instantly. A lot of white sand would be nice aswell (bone dust). Make it as horrifying as possible. But nope we get elfs, emo vampires and holy crap.

[Nefastus]

Yeah, the retcons are again awful. Seens every expac they have to destroy the lore. Started with TBC, with the space goats/eredar/sargeras retcon that was garbage. From there on they felt they could retcon stuff all the time. Its pointless to invest yourself in the game lore, people should know better. I managed to endure the terrible retcons in TBC but cataclysm was my breaking point, had to quit. Was actually tempted to come back and try out classic and current retail but the whole thing with Blizzard supporting the comunist tyrants vs Hong Kong made me give up the idea.

Now it seens they are shitting all over Kil'jaeden and the scourge. Typical Blizzard.

[arandomuser]

im fine with the new direction of lore, lore 2.0 was basically created after the wod back to the future alternate dimension fiasco. I think maybe even now they have classic they will take more rissks because if you hate current wow you can go play classic.

[Nefastus]

Nazjatar should have been an expansion. Do you know how disappointed i was when i heard that Azshara would be in bfa, because of datamining we knew first raid was about uldir and an experimental old god. Where tha hell did they came up with that! It just got dropped like that. If bfa was about infighting AND the armada azshara had gathered in those 10.000 years where she is actively trying to take out the horde and alliance in their weakend state, then i would have been happy as a pig. But nooooo.
She is the greatest spellcaster but gets beaten by some idiots.

Shadowland, they shouldnt even have touched that or they could have made it entirely different. More ghostly, scary with scary music. A place where if you go out of the zone, youll encounter a being that eats souls so you die instantly. A lot of white sand would be nice aswell (bone dust). Make it as horrifying as possible. But nope we get elfs, emo vampires and holy crap.

Agree with everything I quoted. I still think they gave up giving Azshara a whole expansion was due to the fact the underwater zone in cataclysm was very poorly received. Seens people hated it and it would be impossible to make a proper Azshara/naga expansion without vast underwater areas. Its a shame, really. Azshara was to me one of the top 5 characters to deserve her own expansion, way more than Illidan or Deathwing that was always lame.

[letgoit]

It’s a video game. The writing has never been good or important. It’s literally all made up.

[Nefastus]

Point 4. The current writing team has no respect for the efforts of the OGs like Metzen
The current writing team just jumps on the latest twitter bandwagon and bases the entire story around it. WC3 Sylvanas, Jaina and Tyrande were strong women and Thrall embodied non-toxic masculinity. BfA Sylvanas, Jaina, Tyrande are just caricatures of their WC3 selves. And Anduin is non-toxic to the detriment of common sense.

I think all your points are fantastic but I have to disagree with this one I quoted. Metzen is by far one of the main problems with Warcraft. He was the one responsible for the very first (and probably worst) retcon during WoW time, the whole space goats/eredar/Sargeras retcon. It was so bad he came personally to the oficial forums to apologize for forgetting main lore points. This is how much he cared about it, he forgot and didnt even take the time to check it before writing more nonsense. It was not his first offense though. Looking closely a lot of the story in Warcraft 3 is a copycat from Starcraft. As much I liked the human/scourge campaign it has a serious Kerrigan/Overmind similarity. I also absolutely hated the whole noble Horde crap from Trhall's campaign and overall didn't like the night elves story besides a mission or two. I am still a huge fan of the warcraft franchise, having started with the very first Warcraft game that I got in those huge ass disks back then. Still have my warcraft 2 game box from the original release and I keep the manual around because I do like a lot Metzen art on it (even if sadly he lost all his passion for the franchise in the past years).

- - - Updated - - -

Shadowlands shown us one thing... that Blizzard can, and will, change everything they want as long as it sells and keeps the game alive. Nothing is sacred and consistent anymore.

Thats actually their main rule since The Burning Crusade that was the first offender (and maybe the worst) when it comes to ruining the lore.

- - - Updated - - -

Warcrafts lore used to be good. Maybe not the best thing ever but it was fun. Ever since they made it into a mmo the story has been going down hill. The "there must always be a lich king" thing was so dumb but the lore really fell off at WoD. Now the story of the game is so broken there is no fix it.

Oh God, I try to forget the "there must always be a lich king". That was 10/10 garbage. They kinda took that idea from the zergs that as much as they are also a huge "army" have nothing to do with medieval fantasy undead like the Scourge. I recall that in Starcraft 1, after the overmind died in Aiur the zergs in there ran rampant destroying stuff. Its simply not the same thing with the undead. First, most of them are contained in Northend thats very distant from the main continents. Second, the zergs had countless amounts of creatures that could fly, unlike the scourge that as much it has some frostwyrms and gargoyles they pale in comparassion to the ammount of ground troops they had. Third and most important fantasy undead work based on commands. You say "defend this area" they will do it until they got a new command. Not having a Lich King just means they would keep their previous one forever and again even if they didnt we are back in the point of most being contained in Northend. It was showed the ones in plaguelands are still under control of the scourge leaders, mostly scholomance and stratholme commanders.

Ah, comparing the scourge to the zergs once more, zergs were still countless after the overmind death in Starcraft 1. The scourge was devastated and that is easy to prove with the game lore as the Argent Crusade organized a fucking TOURNAMENT in the suposely most dense undead populated area in whole Northend, Icecrown, plus the cinematic that shows Tirion and the Argent Crusade assaulting Icecrown fortress itself. Its pretty obvious that if they got to siege the thing it means there were no more undead around to attack them. So yeah, the story of "the scourge will ran rampant and destroy everything was plain bullshit.

[chrisisvacant]

But what else could it be? The Black Empire fell thousands of years ago and the Titans did their best to erase their existence. For a proper Black Empire expansion we'd either need N'zoth to win and then also have a timeskip so they have time to build back up or we'd need to travel to the past. Alternatively we could do an Underground or Underwater expansion but the second will never happen because players hate 3D combat and the first may still happen.

I think the nature of Nyalotha and the Black Empire were ambiguous enough even with Chronicles that they could've gone pretty far out with it. It could have been a different dimension or a different plane of existence that threatened to spill into our world or the gateways between the two would be open everywhere with old god biomatter splurging through like a prolapse and keeping them open. Or an underground area like Azjol Nerub/Ahnkahet that led down into a portal which went to Nyalotha.

The empire itself could have fallen into deep disarray without the leaders around. Or been simply dormant with the bug people all asleep or whatever the case.

What we got is Azeroth while wearing corruption colored glasses.

[TheFirstOnes]

A lot of stuff to debunk here. But, I'll let this forum play out for a bit.

[Hctaz]

you forgot about the Chronicles.

most canon thing you can find.

no retconing anymore, fam.

...except they RETCONNED THE CHRONICLES TOO!!!
They were asked in an interview about this very thing and their response was that the Chronicles were written from the point of view of the Titans and they don’t actually detail everything 100% accurately since it’s from one non omnipotent point of view.

So yeah.

- - - Updated - - -

What have they retconned from Chronicles? Since that's the only canon that exists for lore now

So above post for clarification: the Chronicles habe effectively been retconned by Blizzard’s decision to limit the scope and accuracy of the information based on the Titans point of view.

[Aucald]

So above post for clarification: the Chronicles habe effectively been retconned by Blizzard’s decision to limit the scope and accuracy of the information based on the Titans point of view.

Given that Aman'thul is quite literally in control of and cognizant of all Time itself, can the point of view of the Titans actually be inaccurate?

[Hctaz]

Given that Aman'thul is quite literally in control of and cognizant of all Time itself, can the point of view of the Titans actually be inaccurate?

Yes it can since he is shown to be a character who has his own moral code. Bias leads to inaccuracies.

Not only that but he’s proven to be an unreliable narrator if there are aspects of the universe that have escaped his grasp. And I don’t mean stuff like.. there was a planet that was not discovered by him so all lore was not written down. I’m talking the entirety of the Shadowlands had nearly zero lore written about it in this book they’ve now claimed was written by the Titans who should have been very familiar with all aspects of Azeroth.

They very well have opened the way to retcon Chronicles and then just say that Aman’thul was wrong or didn’t realize a plot point or this or that instead of making sure their new lore doesn’t contradict their old lore.

[Aucald]

Yes it can since he is shown to be a character who has his own moral code. Bias leads to inaccuracies.

Not only that but he’s proven to be an unreliable narrator if there are aspects of the universe that have escaped his grasp. And I don’t mean stuff like.. there was a planet that was not discovered by him so all lore was not written down. I’m talking the entirety of the Shadowlands had nearly zero lore written about it in this book they’ve now claimed was written by the Titans who should have been very familiar with all aspects of Azeroth.

They very well have opened the way to retcon Chronicles and then just say that Aman’thul was wrong or didn’t realize a plot point or this or that instead of making sure their new lore doesn’t contradict their old lore.

Depends on the nature of and scope of the bias - can a being with full cognizance of time possess bias? What would they be biased toward, or against? Would their bias even matter in the face of such knowledge?

The "Chronicle" series doesn't actually touch on elements that are beyond the physical universe - it doesn't explore the Emerald Dream, for example, beyond telling us what it is. It doesn't explore the Shadowlands beyond basically defining them as "the afterlife." Those realms aren't part and parcel of the physical universe the Titans are part of, and thus aren't in the scope of the Chronicles. "Chronicle" doesn't tell us the nature of Elune (who is beyond the physical universe), or the Void Lords, except that they exist and are powers that touch on the universe in places.

In this sense, the "Chronicle" series was also a bit of an outlier in the annals of Warcraft canon, but I don't think the idea that it is written from the Titans' perspective really changes an awful lot about what it covers, canonizes, or otherwise defines. It's not all-comprehensive insofar as the vast multi-dimensional nature of Warcraft is concerned, but then it never was to begin with given all the things it explicitly didn't touch on. Nothing of value was lost in this redefinition and statement of its intrinsic scope.

[Swnem]

The only thing i gotta say about it in lore terms is that it's dumb how they make the shadowlands this whole populated world, but the Emerald dream, nonono it's too much green! No good for an expansion! They could just as much have created different zones/tribes in it. So, it feels like they just do whatever they feel like and they like edgy nonsense.

[Itori]

Lore of WoW has turned into a side thing for a while, no point in getting involved anymore, just imagine the leaders pointing at the new baddie and screaming "HE BAD, YOU SMASH!" and you go hulk on them for new things to add to the wardrobe.