If you could choose a point to rewrite WoW's story, what expansion would you choose?

[Skirdus]

To clarify, the expansion in question gets overwritten with a plot of your choosing to follow up the previous one.

Me personally? I would take Cataclysm and merge it with Battle for Azeroth to create a fully-fledged Great Sea / PvP expansion, complete with some sort of naval travel / combat system that would allow you to explore the entirety of the ocean. Following the events of the Wrathgate, it would feature a renewed conflict between the Alliance and Horde that takes place on the open seas.

The main antagonist of the expansion would be Varian Wrynn for the Horde, and Garrosh Hellscream for the Alliance. Both characters would be developed as protagonists for their respective factions - complete with moments highlighting their positive qualities - while they would be developed as antagonists for the opposing factions - complete with moments highlighting their more negative qualities. Their foils would be Anduin Wrynn and Thrall (who is still Warchief) respectively, who would both be urging the other down from the faction conflict. The "war campaign" of the expansion would essentially consist of two options: a pro-war approach - led by Varian / Garrosh - and an anti-war approach - led by Anduin / Thrall.

The final raid of the expansion would culminate in a naval assault on Stormwind City that mirrors the events of the First War, with a defending Varian as the final boss for Horde players and an invading Garrosh as the final boss for Alliance players.

[arandomuser]

get rid of wod

[Kyphael]

Cataclysm is when it all started going south. I mean, Burning Crusade was bad, but Wrath was pretty good, yet Cataclysm went off the rails and lore has been in the shitter since. Illidan and Kael'thas were done dirty, but Illidan was redeemed in Legion, and Kael'thas is getting his in Shadowlands. Deathwing, Garrosh, Warlords as a whole, Argus, Sargeras, Sylvanas, Baine, and Anduin were all fucking terrible though, irredeemably so.

[Powerogue]

Hard to say. They've redeemed the worst story moments from nearly every expansion I had a problem with. Cata's Green Jesus, BC killing off Illidan as a loot pinata with no discernable story (and we'll see vashj and kael in SL, that could be interesting), Jaina going nuts in MOP, Malfurion being a useless damsel in Legion....

And people wonder why I say Blizzard's greatest writing strength is taking story elements that seem shoddy and weaving them so they all seem like part of the grand plan all along. I genuinely can't think of anything anymore. Maybe the anticlimax of the Old Gods ending with patch 8.3, but I'm absolutely convinced they'll pick that up down the line and do the same thing. Plus that would mean "rewriting WoW's story".....starting now.

[bagina]

The poll is missing Vanilla, because that's the point where I would rewrite the lore. Starting with Forsaken and Night Elves. I keep saying this and will keep saying this, they should've never been members of the Horde and the Alliance. This was the first domino tile that started the absolute avalanche of nonsense. That's the biggest change I would make. Also, I would tone down the Halloween aesthetic of the Forsaken, they would never become Scourge 2: Electric Boogalo and instead I would focus on their struggle in regaining freedom and trying to find humanity again. They'd still be morally dubious, but nothing close to "death to all the living, I hate flowers and birdies >" -this kinda stuff diminishes and trivializes their backstory and it's very one-dimensional.

But if we're talking only about expansions, Cataclysm, for sure. It took a massive shit on Sylvanas and lore in general, I would erase most of it from existence.

[Varodoc]

I would remove WoD altogether, since it was clearly just a filler expansion to promote the Warcraft movie. Instead Garrosh is killed at the end of MoP, and the Legion invasion is not ushered in by Gul'dan, but by another warlock (maybe an entirely new character, or a rogue member of the Warlock council).

You know when in anime you have that one filler arc with trash and forgettable villains that exists just because the mangaka needs more time to develop the manga? That's basically WoD.

Also I would replace Shadowlands with the inevitable Void expansion, because I really don't care about the Jailer and co., I'd rather see more of Alleria, Turalyon, and the cosmic battle of the true deities. I predict that Shadowlands will be another filler expansion like WoD. It is therefore not a surprise that the Jailer is such a shallow villain with a forgettable personality and generic motivations.

[Taqaroph]

Either Cataclysm or Mists of Pandaria.
Garrosh story got screwed, went from an ruthless but honorable orc to mass genocide without much reason. Meaning Stonetalon Mountain questline vs Theramore bombing and SoO.
Should have been a tyrant from the start even in Cata or more in depth in Mists.

[Squigglyo]

The final raid of the expansion would culminate in a naval assault on Stormwind City that mirrors the events of the First War, with a defending Varian as the final boss for Horde players and an invading Garrosh as the final boss for Alliance players.

So then who would win?

If lorewise, both Alliance and Horde won their respective battles, then effectively Alliance wins, they defended and won.

[SunspotAnims]

WoD would've been more fine if the devs weren't coy about the implications of alternate timelines existing and being able to cross over into our timeline, but they were too scared to make any definitive explanation of WoD's premise and are dealing with the consequences of that to this day by having to elaborate every lore interview on if/how the Legion, Shadowlands, Old Gods, etc. are influenced by other timelines, the answer of which usually only leads to more questions.

If WoD had to happen the way it did, I wouldn't have shied away from the fact that it's basically a time travel expansion and actually explain how the mechanics of Garrosh's time-tampering led to this. This is presumably the Bronze Dragonflight's wheelhouse, so I would've given them more prevalence as guides to this timeline, which would help in normalizing the occurrence of WoD as something more akin to a large-scale Caverns of Time dungeon than to allow it to be the lore anomaly that haunts the writers to this day.

[mrsohta]

I think I would start with MoP but only change the parts about Garrosh and time stuff, tho it would have to end very differently in that case. I wouldn't even introduce further time magic/travelling or parallel universes.

[Paula Deen]

Anyone who doesn't choose WoD wasn't paying attention to what could have been.

They had the idea of an actual Time Travel Expansion, originally, that they tried to shy away from to preserve lore but in the years since has only muddied waters.

They had, originally per Metzen at Blizzcon 2013, two unique as hell ideas. One to literally make the expansion in Outland itself and instead of focused on a Chronal Spire (Cut in Alpha) focus on the Skull of Gul'dan and another to make the expansion focused in Kalimdor with a Mongrel Horde of Gnolls, Quillboar, and others.

The original expansion concept, before the massive and deep cuts showed some kind of actual Time Travel idea. Old videos still exist of the Chronal Spire and Alpha Tanaan.

You really have to wonder if the cuts were really to preserve time, if the systems weren't great, or if it was simply because the Warcraft Movie was delayed.

So much of WoD had so much potential that I honestly do wonder every single time I step foot through that Crimson Portal and into Tanaan what the ever loving fuck they were thinking cutting it down.

[loras]

To clarify, the expansion in question gets overwritten with a plot of your choosing to follow up the previous one.

Me personally? I would take Cataclysm and merge it with Battle for Azeroth to create a fully-fledged Great Sea / PvP expansion, complete with some sort of naval travel / combat system that would allow you to explore the entirety of the ocean. Following the events of the Wrathgate, it would feature a renewed conflict between the Alliance and Horde that takes place on the open seas.

The main antagonist of the expansion would be Varian Wrynn for the Horde, and Garrosh Hellscream for the Alliance. Both characters would be developed as protagonists for their respective factions - complete with moments highlighting their positive qualities - while they would be developed as antagonists for the opposing factions - complete with moments highlighting their more negative qualities. Their foils would be Anduin Wrynn and Thrall (who is still Warchief) respectively, who would both be urging the other down from the faction conflict. The "war campaign" of the expansion would essentially consist of two options: a pro-war approach - led by Varian / Garrosh - and an anti-war approach - led by Anduin / Thrall.

The final raid of the expansion would culminate in a naval assault on Stormwind City that mirrors the events of the First War, with a defending Varian as the final boss for Horde players and an invading Garrosh as the final boss for Alliance players.

I would have rewritten cataclysm too, but as a more all out war between the elementals and the old gods and the world caught in the middle.
I'd end it with the breaking of the seals and the reinstatement of the elementals a more neutral destructive faction in the world, but one that has been firced to contend with the existence of life, the old gods and the titans (and eachother of course).

Personally i deeply dislike that the elemental powers were made so inferior to the more "spiritual" cosmic forces,but i suppose that's Christian influence for you ("dark vs light" dichotomy).
The only good thing is that they've hit the reverse on the stupidly plain good vs. evil trope.

[Viikkis]

WoD because of time travel alternate universe nonsense. That crap works if it is the core for the story (back to the future for example) but feels out of place and just creates plotholes if it is thrown in the middle (HP & the prisoner of azkaban).

[Skirdus]

So then who would win?

If lorewise, both Alliance and Horde won their respective battles, then effectively Alliance wins, they defended and won.

The idea is that both sides "win" in that Varian and Garrosh are both slain, but this leaves both sides weakened and vulnerable, which is when the Old Gods decide to strike; which in turn forces the two factions to begrudgingly work together in the wake of their combined defeat. Pretty much where people thought BfA was heading

[Koryn123]

Burning Crusade was where Vanilla raiders whined that they weren't killing notable enough bad guys to get their purples, so Blizzard started cannibalizing WoW's lore because they didn't expect WoW to last 15+ years, and they just threw Illidan, Vashj, and Kael'thas to the dogs when before, at least Kael'thas had potential as a good guy. Setting WoW on a different path by making new enemy factions in BC more like enemy factions in Vanilla, where you didn't destroy them after doing their questing zone, you just temporarily weakened them, but they were still just a reality of life you'd have to deal with, unlike in BC where you utterly destroy the enemy groups in their raids and basically eliminate them from the story. I think BC was where things went very bad from a story perspective and where a new path could make things much more enjoyable for lore nerds.

If they don't save Kael'thas in a rewritten BC, he could just become the leader of the Legion's forces on Azeroth and escape the Sunwell. He could lay low through WotLK (or maybe have some demons attacking Arthas on the Legion's orders), Cataclysm, and MoP, then skipping WoD (by having Garrosh die at the end of MoP), Kael'thas could be the one to successfully summon the Legion like he tried to do in Sunwell Plateau, and then we continue as normal.

[Zarc]

There should have been a "none of the above" option. I'm not particularly fond of the game anymore, I don't play it except at the beginning of a new expansion every 2 years or so, but if there is one thing I do still enjoy it is the unfolding story of Warcraft. I would have so many of the changes done to the game over the years undone, but not the lore to be honest. I've had my own ideas for how the lore should evolve, but what they have done has been better than anything I ever thought of. The way they expanded the lore to make Illidan into an anti-hero, reveal the Void as the reason for the Burning Crusade and the justification of Sargeras' actions just as we defeat the Legion and need a new enemy. The way we now learn that the Dreadlords were working for the Jailer all this time. All this expanding the lore and making us see past events in a new light is stuff I've enjoyed. So there's not one point where I think the lore went astray and I would want to rewrite it form that point forward. That is true of the game itself (sometime during WotLK), but not the lore. However, I would very much like to just delete alternate Draenor from the lore, but keep everything else. Though that is self-contained enough that I can comfortably do that in my head canon. These alternate timelines and stuff just makes everything seem unimportant because it implies that every possible outcome happened anyway, we just see one series of outcomes out of infinite ones. That's not satisfying to me. Also, I don't see how it makes sense with the Bronze Dragons' long-established mission of preserving the timeline if there are infinite timelines. But I digress! Also, while I like the overall lore from a looking in sort of perspective, in-game it is not as good due to me not liking the whole our character being the main character thing. I'd rather be that anonymous adventurer on the ground roaming the world as a free agent. In fact I think the game has become too story-driven, and while I enjoy the story I don't necessarily think an MMORPG is the best place to tell that story. I'd prefer if they moved the story-driven part of Warcraft back into the RTS series of games, and let the MMORPG just be the world as it is after the story of the RTS games have unfolded. They could do like an RTS game set in the Shadowlands first where we'd play as Bolvar and Sylvanas etc. and then 6 months or a year later we'd get a new WoW expansion set in the Shadowlands in the aftermath of that story where we sort of pick up the pieces, explore the world and adventure.

[Syegfryed]

Everything went to shit when they decided to make Garrosh villain, if we change that timeline wod would never exist.

[Adam Jensen]

Cataclysm.

Get rid of Thrall the Green Jesus and bring back Thrall the Warchief.

[Heladys]

Burning Crusade was a story-telling disaster.

[Synical123]

I think it would have been cata. The idea behind destroying the world/recreating it was nice, but I just don't think it really resonated with the feel of wow. It just made the zones you knew and loved...sort of worse...

I personally think they should have had this turn to a point where deathwing won, maybe have raids where you are constantly fighting off deathwing in certain zones for raids, but the encounter is 'won' by getting him or a villain to a certain percent but then we just end up dying. Maybe completely incinerate the world we know and rebuild with a completely new wow. I think instead of ADDING things (like races, abilities, eventually classes, etc) they should have removed a lot.

Maybe not completely remove the horde/alliance races, but make the story be more so that they are in shambles, and that now our story is focused on a different area with different races and classes.

This isn't exactly what I was thinking but maybe this would be a good example. After destroying the world, all your characters are basically frozen in time/inaccessible. We then start over in this new area (maybe the broken isles for example) and now we can choose between races like the zandalari races or the kultiran, and we start off at level 1 with a completely different story, with completely different classes (maybe a couple stay in), and we the progress 2-3 expansions with this until we eventually get to a point where levels and abilities become too congested again and then have the story merge with the first three expansions. We go back to azeroth and save the old races and classes when they are basically scattered with no cities left and attempt to eventually work our way to defeating deathwing.

I think deathwings fall, for how big of a threat he was, was just silly. Also, gameplay wise, this was the point where it NEEDED a reset IMO. Things got too weird trying to merge the new with the old. They needed to just start at a clean slate.