The big panic retcon button Blizz now has.

[Orange Joe]

Aside from the entire premise of the expansion. And the conclusion.

What premise is that?

Illidan is still the bad guy in BC. Just because we now know he was building an army to fight Archimonde doesn't mean he was right in what he did.

The only real retcon that happened was him surviving. And even that was long debated after bc


Learning new things about an event after it happened isn't a retcon.

[TheFirstOnes]

"So we beat N'Zoth and saved the world from being gripped by the nightmare of Nyalotha thus saving Azeroth.

Or did we?

A lot of folks have complained about them having wasted something so huge as the last old god as just filler in a rather mediocre expansion where the lore was entirely eclipsed by systems that constantly needed patching.

The thing is though that they can totally say "oh well, you didn't actually defeat him. You've been stuck in a weird nightmare for the past 2, 3, 5 or whatever many expansions. Here's a nice cool old god expansion where you have to reclaim the sanity of a corrupted Azeroth!"

Just the very nature of N'Zoth makes this happen. They can entirely nullify any lore from this point forward at any time and just play the hackneyed sitcom cliche of it all being a dream."

He's dead. The only thing left is both his presence and the Void Lords potentially spawning him back.

- - - Updated - - -

Aside from the entire premise of the expansion. And the conclusion.

None of that changed. Illidan, even in Legion, was still a power hungry dick. However, here, we learn that he had a goal in that power brigade.


The ending still happened. The premise was still the same, with Kazzak, etc. KJ was still the final boss, and all that shit.

[Wilian]

Considering Blizzard's entire storytelling has been based around retconning everything at first convenience, why'd they need any extra buttons?

[FrostHate]

Idk if this was discussed, or I'm the only one looking too deep into it, but after you kill Wrathion, an effect appears on your screen. This effect, AFAIK, only occurs when you enter some form of a vision. I personally do not remember seeing it for the entire raid, afterward, which could imply that we're fighting within a vision. So..maybe the entire that we saw Ny'alotha was just a dream after all

[Aucald]

Idk if this was discussed, or I'm the only one looking to deep into it, but after you kill Wrathion, an effect appears on your screen. This effect, AFAIK, only occurs when you enter some form of a vision. So..maybe the entire that we saw Ny'alotha was just a dream after all

The fight with Wrathion was itself a vision, a lie created by the Faceless One Ki'merax. Upon his death it's more or less dispelled and you see the real Wrathion who chides you for thinking he'd betray you so readily. So this would likely be the effect of a vision dispelled, not one entered - well that and Ny'alotha itself is a vision you're entering.

[Stardrift]

Oh please. People always get their nipples twisted when they are talking about WoW Lore. But the lore is not that bad. Also they won't throw out years of work because some forum posters are not satisfied.

N'zoth is a boring premise in the first place. Way to homogenous. I am glad it was only one patch where we have seen him. Build up was way longer btw.

They threw out a decade of build up and storytelling with the way they ended N'zoth lmao

"Lore is not that bad"
"Boring premise, way too homogenous"
Which is it?

[Azerate]

Not very much into lore but I'm amazed that people don't even seem to understand what a retcon is but still flaunt the term around.

BC wasn't retconned. It still happened. Nothing changed.

Retcon doesn't mean that you are deleting something from the story. It means adding new information and events retroactively to the story, which supposedly did take place anyway, but we didn't know about them at the time of originally experiencing them.

That isn't a retcon tho.

That is horrible writing, but not a retcon. The only people who told us that we defeated N'Zoth were the Azerothians, and they could be wrong.

Yes it is.

Neither the premise nor the conclusion changed, it was just re-contextualized via new information about Illidan's actual plans, his actions off-screen, etc. etc.

This is literally the definition of retcon.

[Lord Pebbleton]

That's not really a retcon, it's more like bad writing that allows a possibility in the future.
A retcon would be if they said "N'zoth is dead for real" and then later on said "No wait, let's pretend we didn't say that, N'zoth is alive but dormant".

Both things are pretty crappy with regard to storytelling. I will say though that WoW is one of the most retconned pieces of the fantasy world that I know. Last year I stopped following the ongoing lore and now I feel like every lore fact I know from before can be debated because it got changed 5 times in this time span. Not very compelling.

[Xorzor]

Fighting and killing (did we really? o_O) N'zoth might have felt better if Ny'alotha wasn't attached to a crap, overly-grindy expansion.

[A Chozo]

Yes it is.

No it isn't. That's just normal story development that provides new light into something. There's no actual revision of facts, otherwise stories about investigations would be shock-full of retcons.

If we discover that N'Zoth faked his death, it wouldn't be a retcon, it would be usual Old God sorcery. There's a reason lots of players doubt he's truly gone.

Learn the word's meaning before making weird comments.

[Aucald]

This is literally the definition of retcon.

The word "retcon" is short for "retired or retroactive continuity," and generally requires that a previous continuity be retired and replaced/altered for the new continuity to exist. The Eredar/Draenei controversy is a retcon, as it quite literally changed the original story of the Eredar in order for the playable Draenei to come about. Learning the actual context of past events is not a retcon - just like a twist ending of a horror movie isn't a retcon, even though it forces you to re-evaluate your original assumptions about the story being told.

[Wyattbw09]

I'm not sure why people get so worked up about retconning. Any game that is around for long enough that was put together piecemeal is going to end up having some retcons to make it all work.

Also, people use the word retcon way to loosely. A new aspect, perspective, or growth on a story does not automatically make it a retcon.

[RCA]

Man, just learned about the Ras Winterchill quest in classic that brings him back to morality. Always thought going Lich was pretty much a one way street, If speaking of recons it’s obvious the LK half assed that ritual and we should fix that weird curveball and give him jar like the rest.

Anyway the point is after so many years, people and ideas, the unfortunate recons are inevitable. If I ever created anything of this magnitude I would finish the story and never look back, but money talks right?

[Florena]

They had a story going in Outland. Nobody would argue it was particularly good, but they had one. It was a story of an otherwise-good person's descent into madness due to their lust for power.

Just because you chose not to pay attention doesn't mean there wasn't a story there.

Saying "they won't retcon because people didn't like it" when they did in fact retcon an entire expansion's story because people didn't like it is a silly argument.

- - - Updated - - -



This is what makes the least sense to me.

I get the story, it's the whole "Our paranoia is what led to N'zoth's ability to create Nyalotha in Azeroth in the first place and that was his whole master plan to begin with" but... WHEREVER we were, in the alternate possible vision future of Nyalotha or whatever you decide to call it... If that's where N'zoth has been this whole time, how tf did he manage to do anything? He didn't fucking exist prior to us creating the tool which allowed him to create the future in which he existed.

Some people might say he 'moved' there or whatever... But I find it hard to believe an Old God managed to move anywhere without detection. Nevermind to a place that didn't exist yet. Have you seen the damn things?

Yeah. I get that people don't like the story of BC. Or that they don't like how Illidan and Kael'thas specifically were handled.

But there was a story, there was a reason we went to those raids. Did people just forget that there was story along with those raid attunement quests?

[Kallisto]

You cant really kill an old god though, you can only inprison them again. At least according to old lore.

Ah this bullshit again which every blizzard story writer has basically called out as bullshit and said yes, you kill the old gods.

You know who says who can't kill Old gods? Their insane followers. It's like asking cultists following a guy who claims they're immortal asking them if their cult leader can be killed. They're going to say no.

[Akibaboy]

So we beat N'Zoth and saved the world from being gripped by the nightmare of Nyalotha thus saving Azeroth.

Or did we?

A lot of folks have complained about them having wasted something so huge as the last old god as just filler in a rather mediocre expansion where the lore was entirely eclipsed by systems that constantly needed patching.

The thing is though that they can totally say "oh well, you didn't actually defeat him. You've been stuck in a weird nightmare for the past 2, 3, 5 or whatever many expansions. Here's a nice cool old god expansion where you have to reclaim the sanity of a corrupted Azeroth!"

Just the very nature of N'Zoth makes this happen. They can entirely nullify any lore from this point forward at any time and just play the hackneyed sitcom cliche of it all being a dream.

Yes folks, we could get Newharted.

Personally I wasn't even expecting what we got in BfA Old God wise anyway. Absolutely 100% of the Old Gods in WoW have been filler content in middle patches or just a reference - C'thun - introduced and killed in a middle patch, Yogg - introduced and killed in a middle patch, Y'sharj - already dead and a minor plot detail in another big bad's plan. So when they first announced BfA at Blizzcon 2017 and initially said that Azshara was going to a "Gul'dan-like 8.1", I totally pictured that we'd be doing N'Zoth in 8.2, and then the conclusion of the Faction War in 8.3 since THAT seemed to be BfA's focus... and since again, there's never been an Old God centered expansion anyway.

Or maybe it's just that I've never been a huge Old God fan in WoW anyway. They try to pull off some of the obviously Lovecraftian inspiration, but it always just kind of comes off as a Saturday cartoon version of its inspiration. That and we lose an entire patch cycle's transmogs to dumb-looking tentacle piles.

[Hitei]

Ah this bullshit again which every blizzard story writer has basically called out as bullshit and said yes, you kill the old gods.

You know who says who can't kill Old gods? Their insane followers. It's like asking cultists following a guy who claims they're immortal asking them if their cult leader can be killed. They're going to say no.

This argument has never really made sense because death has never been permanent in the first place. Every lifeform in the game is able to be brought ressurected, reanimated, reborn as a shadow of itself, possess others, etc. The Old Gods tend to be even less dead than those other normal things. They are all confirmed dead.

But how dead are they really, when the absolute most "killed" of them still had to have its disembodied organs locked up under guard, could still whisper and corrupt people and the land, and still spawned essentially permanent ghosts? The reality is they never needed "visions", because all it takes to bring an Old God back is a sufficiently powerful energy source to attempt it, just like any other thing in the warcraft universe.

[StationaryHawk]

Not only was Illidan NOT power hungry

I don't know what could possibly have brought you to this conclusion.

Including but not limited to filling the Black Temple with concubines, because sex will stop the Legion for sure.

The Den of Mortal Delights was provided for his blood elf followers as a reward for their loyalty, even after Kael'Thas had vanished and eventually betrayed Illidan.

Including attacking us when we arrived on Outland, because it was more convenient for their retcon to not re-explain that part, so he was just so inept that explaining his situation to us was too much - We just had to die obviously.

I'll give you this one. Illidan is described as leaving the Illidari except his demon hunters to their own devices most of the time, which leads to the conflict between them and the armies coming from Azeroth. Still, he made no attempt to defuse the situation, supposedly because he was too invested in his own work.

Including feeding the orcs of Outland the blood of Magtheridon to turn them into ruthless killers bound to - you guessed it - a Legion pitlord.

I don't recall anything that suggests the fel orcs were on the verge of betrayal.

[VinceVega]

They threw out a decade of build up and storytelling with the way they ended N'zoth lmao

"Lore is not that bad"
"Boring premise, way too homogenous"
Which is it?

Doesn't mean it is bad. I think the first Lord of the rings is boring as hell still loved what it told.
N'zoth build up was good. But in the end all of this lovecraftian stuff has been done to death. Warcraft had to finish it. And they did. Thankfully

[Gaidax]

Nobody doubted that Illidan had a goal in BC. Despite what many people believe, BC actually set up Illidan as a villain fairly well.

His fear for having failed the Legion multiple times, knowing Kiljaeden would eventually come for him, drove him to insanity, causing him to hole himself in the Black Temple as "Lord of Outland", and kill anyone who stood in his way. No power was too great to seek out for him in order to hold Kiljaeden back, and his safety in his temple as 'lord' brings him to lavish himself in wealth and gifts - Hence the whole areas leading up to the various bosses being filled with flair, concubines, partygoers.

They didn't recontextualize this - They literally reversed it. Not only was Illidan NOT power hungry and NOT afraid of the Legion, he was in fact plotting the whole time on Outland to get back at the Legion, and his actions were supposedly all towards that end goal. Including but not limited to filling the Black Temple with concubines, because sex will stop the Legion for sure. Including attacking us when we arrived on Outland, because it was more convenient for their retcon to not re-explain that part, so he was just so inept that explaining his situation to us was too much - We just had to die obviously. Including feeding the orcs of Outland the blood of Magtheridon to turn them into ruthless killers bound to - you guessed it - a Legion pitlord. Makes a lot of sense for someone fighting the Legion right?

The entire premise of the BC expansion isn't true. The conclusion is ALSO no longer true, as we didn't kill Illidan despite Outland being partially in the Nether, apparently Maiev trapped his body in a crystal instead of destroying it for some reason - Especially strange, since that only further negates the "The hunter is nothing without the hunt" line at the end, since Maiev fully expected Illidan to someday return, hence putting his body in prison.

All in all: The retcon ends up making less sense.

Yeah, keep pushing that head canon, my boy.

TBC was not retconned, you can keep trying hard to claim it was, but in reality it is as people say - you simply had no idea what Illidan was actually planning to do - that's why for many TBC Illidan made no sense to begin with and now when we know the context his power build up in that dustball makes much more sense.

Getting post factum insight is not a "retcon".