To people complaining about Retcons in WoW

[NED funded]

Retcons arent the problem. Its the retcons Blizzard makes. Like the whole one legion throughout infinite timelines or the demons can only be killed in the nether stuff.

[Dastreus]

Those were understandable. However, making a three part series of Chronicles to act as official lore, and SOLD as such, then saying "lol not cannon" is such bullshit.

[Th3Scourge]

Allow me to introduce you to:

-The First War retcons

-Second War retcons

-Illidan retcons in TBC

-The Old Gods and their entire existence

-Sargeras' entire backstory

-The Draenei

-The Demons from WC2/WC3 to TBC

-The Void's story

-Northrend going from all undead and icey to...well...y'know

And so much more

What, is your point that retcons exist? People complained about many of those things now. They were shit then, and they're still shit now

[Mehrunes]

Not until MoP and WoD actually from what I've seen. I don't ever remember people talking about retcons during vanilla, tbc, or wrath. Cata idr if they did or didn't I wanna lean on 'no', but I really remember the word coming into mainstream use in regards to wow during MoP

People complained about the TBC Draenei retcon so much that Metzen wrote an apology.

[Trollokdamus]

Yes, if you want an mmo to keep going you have no choice but to edit the lore. Many people just don't like change in the story and that is reflected in the way people are in real life as most people when set into a routine do not like it changed.

A good author realizes that his fans are into his older work the way it is and finds a way to progress the story without invalidating what was said before. He expands the story, not rewrites it. A mediocre author, on the other hand, doesn't care and just follows the path of least resistance.

Would you rather have authors that admit they wrote themselves into a corner and thus there'll be no more books, merely spin-offs in the same universe, or accept that there be retcons so that the saga continues?

There is no such thing as writing yourself into a corner. Careless writing can lead to things becoming more difficult sure, but if you're good and actually care about what you're writing you'll always find a way out.

[Soon-TM]

Not until MoP and WoD actually from what I've seen. I don't ever remember people talking about retcons during vanilla, tbc

People were straight roasting Metzen for his retconned Draenei back in BC. And Metzen himself had to apologise.

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A good author realizes that his fans are into his older work the way it is and finds a way to progress the story without invalidating what was said before. He expands the story, not rewrites it. A mediocre author, on the other hand, doesn't care and just follows the path of least resistance.

Before the Storm was a prime example of this. I imagine Golden "hmmm I quite don't understand the Forsaken nor their leader". After turning everything Forsaken on its head as she saw fit, she would say "Now I understand the Forsaken" in a rapture of glee.

[Darknessvamp]

I'm fairly certain people have been complaining about Warcraft Lore and retcons as far back as Warcraft 2, the reason you're seeing a whole bunch of complaints now is that they're of a terrible quality, appear to be Blizzard's writers standard go to without willing to accommodate existing lore now and the frequency with which they keep on coming. Retcons are meant to be a cheeky story fix done in small inoffensive amounts, not a complete rewrite and trashing of what came before to give yourself something completely different to work with. You introduce unrelated new stuff if you want to do that and see if it works then. Ask yourself, why be interested in the story of Warcraft if it's structured as well as a rickety old house and you can see the foundations giving way already.

[cparle87]

Retcons arent the problem. Its the retcons Blizzard makes. Like the whole one legion throughout infinite timelines or the demons can only be killed in the nether stuff.

I always envisioned it like the Bleed from the DCEU. The space between dimensions but belonging to none of them. And we already had "beings can only permanently die in a certain place" in the form of the Elemental Lords, so it's not like it was an alien concept.

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Not until MoP and WoD actually from what I've seen. I don't ever remember people talking about retcons during vanilla, tbc, or wrath. Cata idr if they did or didn't I wanna lean on 'no', but I really remember the word coming into mainstream use in regards to wow during MoP

People started screaming about retcons as early as BC with the change to the eredar going from demons who corrupted Sargeras to beings HE corrupted into demons.

[Goldielocks]

No. If you've actually bothered to notice, people have always complained about the sloppy retcons. This entire expansion is no different.

[Vakir]

Retcons themselves aren't the issue, it is the quality of said retcons.

For example, I thought the draenei were an interesting idea. It's more fascinating to have a connection to a race that has been corrupted that we were already familiar with than to have it be one of two evil boogeymen that made Sargeras have a sad. Prior to the Void Lords being the reason for his fall, one of either the Nathrezim or the Eredar was just redundant for the other to sufficiently prove a cold and dark universe.

Outland having surviving biodiversity isn't bad, either, as it would be boring to just explore an expansion that is Hellfire Peninsula multipled over many areas. Ditto Northrend no longer just being Dragonblight. I guess neither of these are "technically" retcons, as we didn't see the entire scope of each continent, but it was inferred that the tileset was the norm. (Still not a fan of Wrath Icecrown, though.)

Some retcons are arguably course-corrections as well, such as how dirty they did Illidan and Kael in TBC. It sucks to have Xe'ra fangirl about how he didn't do anything wrong or whatever, but once they took that away with some eye lasers, it was more in line with the WC3 Illidan of doing all kinds of shady, fucked up shit in the name of some greater goal that was self-serving and reckless, but ultimately targeted our mutual enemy. Whether this is a whitewashing or not, it's hard to argue against it being more interesting than "two asshole addicts and a snerson went to space, had no real plan, died insane."

The problem usually comes in the form of how the retcons are bad. Blizzard's quality is spotty and it means that it's hard to feel a sense of enjoyment if you can anticipate that there's so numerous retcons that it effectively doesn't matter what is currently happening.

For example, Sylvanas' internal monologue not reflecting her intentions later means you can't reliably trust character motivations. Making a document like Chronicle suddenly Watsonian instead of Doylist means that anything presented as a lore bible runs the risk of being false advertising and/or inaccurate in the future. Swerves like "There must always be a Lich King" opens logical holes and contradicts character motivations already distinguished and established in that very same expansion - like when your villain is established as having nothing left of himself and literally destroys his heart, but it apparently did nothing and in the back of his mind he still didn't wanna wipe out all life, guys. Things like this make it hard to be invested in the story and to truly take it at its word.

[Stardrift]

My argument was more towards the idea that people are complaining about them now, despite them existing since the very beginning. Mind you, I'm not saying any of them are good or bad. I just feel the criticisms toward retcons currently feel extremely weird, especially now...

People complained about them back then too.

[Die]

Yes, if you want an mmo to keep going you have no choice but to edit the lore. Many people just don't like change in the story and that is reflected in the way people are in real life as most people when set into a routine do not like it changed.

I think its VERY important to avoid a GoT season 8 situation, where years are spent building up a threat and then it gets swept away in 1-2 episodes because the writers want to do something else. Customers get extremely mad and stop investing their emotions and money into your product. Blizzard made this mistake with Nyalotha. Nyalotha was built up for years as a major threat and it sparked awe and wonder in fans, then they blew thru it in 1 patch to focus on a jailer no one cares about.

[NED funded]

I always envisioned it like the Bleed from the DCEU. The space between dimensions but belonging to none of them. And we already had "beings can only permanently die in a certain place" in the form of the Elemental Lords, so it's not like it was an alien concept.

Im not familiar with DC so no comment on that. I did not like the whole beings can only permanently die in a certain place specially with the legion bc it kind of cheapens the entirety of WC3 particularly the sacrifce the night elves made to defeat Archimonde

[Your Mommy]

Just because there's so many retcons doesn't mean we have to like it nor accept it...

[cparle87]

Im not familiar with DC so no comment on that. I did not like the whole beings can only permanently die in a certain place specially with the legion bc it kind of cheapens the entirety of WC3 particularly the sacrifce the night elves made to defeat Archimonde

https://www.cosmicteams.com/docs/multiverse-map.html

The Great Dark Beyond is literally outer space, the physical place. The Twisting Nether is the metaphysical, magical place between worlds. Or universes in this place. Besides, we were told right after we beat him in vanilla that he wasn't dead and would be back. So it's not like it's something they made up in Cata just as an excuse to make him a raid boss again.

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Just because there's so many retcons doesn't mean we have to like it nor accept it...

And just because they're retcons doesn't mean they're bad. They have to happen for the story to grow and evolve. As for accepting it, that's your problem. If you want to live in headcanon land instead of reality that's on you.

[VinceVega]

The only retcon that actually was bad and did matter was the weird infintie timelines one legion thing. Because it created so many problems and was just completly unnecessary.

The rest is stuff 99% of the playerbase does not even see or is utterly incosequential. It is a MMO. You ahve to take liberties here and there. No way around it.

[XalAtoh]

Blizzard's incompetent and inconsistent lore writing is because of their large corporates structure... every worker is a number. So if you write a story this year, and after 3 year you leave the company, and someone else join it, he may not read all the lore of Warcraft, he just knows the basics and writes his own story.

That's why WoW lore and Warcraft lore in general is such a chaotic story.

Hence why logic should be more valuable than what's written in lore by a developer from a specific year.

[Ardenaso]

a retcon I wish to happen is that Tyrande kills Nathanos and then Signe and the last Val'kyr sacrifices themselves to revive Nathanos, since the last two Val'kyrs are practically irrelevant anyway

also, here is a nice thread made by Warcraft 3 purists long ago https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wa...etcon-wow/7983

[Unholyground]

A good author realizes that his fans are into his older work the way it is and finds a way to progress the story without invalidating what was said before. He expands the story, not rewrites it. A mediocre author, on the other hand, doesn't care and just follows the path of least resistance.



There is no such thing as writing yourself into a corner. Careless writing can lead to things becoming more difficult sure, but if you're good and actually care about what you're writing you'll always find a way out.

I think the issue is people. Not everyone Blizzard hires to write is 100% invested in the original lore and I would be very surprised if they did that in depth of research before they get hired on as writers. I know how people think and sometimes even if you think a job is awesome and you would love to have it the person who does actually have it may not really care all that much. This happens in every industry, to me it is just a lack of caring which is understandable based on how the player base acts 90% of the time lol.

[cparle87]

That is true I forgot about that. Were there anymore from TBC that you remember?

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People keep saying this single example, but were there any more that y'all can remember?
One retcon in what, 6-7 years vs now to what seems like every other month there is complaining about something else being retconned.

Can't say that ruins my initial point too much.

That's the earliest big one I can think of. Besides the whole part of heaven/hell/demons/god/religion stuff that was in WC1 that was quietly dropped and replaced with the Light and Twisting Nether.