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

[Amarys]

While I really really hate MoP.. probably TBC and retcon all the sci fi elements out.

[Koryn123]

While I really really hate MoP.. probably TBC and retcon all the sci fi elements out.

I didn't even think about that. I'd definitely agree that spaceships have no place in WoW. If Draenei stay, just say the Naaru used magic to teleport them places. No need to be a spaceship.

[Saltysquidoon]

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

This.
People have been so busy 'muh humble journey' posting about vanilla lore for 15 years they forgot people hated vanilla's lore for being irrelevant to the universe. Which of course resulted in the Blizzard over-correction and blowing their load too soon and wiping out the illidari (and kael's indefensible 'noyouarethedemons' heel turn).

For that reason, I'd pick TBC with a view to making the story more measured and sustainable. On top of that, you could redo wrath with modern tech so the Arthas gang could do more then impotently shake their fists at you like Dr Klaw.
This would have the added bonus of Betauser not being able to ruin the story with three consecutive expansions focusing on his waifu.

[Alanar]

Burning crusade is the only good awnser.

That expansion broke their own class in so many ways.

[Koryn123]

This.
People have been so busy 'muh humble journey' posting about vanilla lore for 15 years they forgot people hated vanilla's lore for being irrelevant to the universe. Which of course resulted in the Blizzard over-correction and blowing their load too soon and wiping out the illidari (and kael's indefensible 'noyouarethedemons' heel turn).

For that reason, I'd pick TBC with a view to making the story more measured and sustainable. On top of that, you could redo wrath with modern tech so the Arthas gang could do more then impotently shake their fists at you like Dr Klaw.
This would have the added bonus of Betauser not being able to ruin the story with three consecutive expansions focusing on his waifu.

My feelings exactly. It wasn't until WotLK finished that Blizzard seemed to be like "oh...people really like this...I guess we should start developing new villains because this might last a while," and their storytelling began to improve, even if the stories themselves aren't that great, except Garrosh whether you think he was right or not.

I'm hoping Shadowlands helps them correct their mistakes in BC and possibly WotLK by having the WC3 gang do some cool stuff in their covenants, then at the end, all go to Ardenweald to get the same revival treatment the Wild Gods get, and come back to life and do something cool in Azeroth. If they were willing to do WoD just to get a Gul'dan to summon the Legion when they could've used any warlock or demon on Azeroth to do it instead, then this isn't that big of a stretch by comparison.

[Florena]

WotLK though the only major issue I have with it is I never liked the 'there must always be a lich king' thing. It felt like a forced way for Blizzard to not have to let go of the Scourge and have it be dismantled/fractured severely after Arthas' death.

Or maybe back to BC to give Kael'thas a bit of a better end, I don't mind him and Illidan becoming villains but another pass to better flesh out their descent would have been nice. I'd definitely hit things way befoer Legion and it's overcorrection on Illidan, if he gets a redemption arc he's gonna have to earn it not just retcon to make him right all along and the only person really effectively doing anything to the Legion.

[Brubear]

WoD

The end of MoP really should have lead to both factions becoming closer and lead to more diplomatic inroads between the two factions while the more extreme elements would have broken off. This would then lead to/require either the ability to swap factions (we already have rep mechanics and a proof of concept with the Scryers/Aldor and Oracles/Frenzyheart swaps and cross-faction Pandaren), the creation of a third faction, or a full-blown rep system closer to what Everquest had where each individual rep was it's own standalone faction and you could choose who you built rep up with and who you killed no matter which side of the Alliane vs Horde division they fall on.

Then, instead of the WoD storyline you have something similar to BfA but instead of a forced Red vs Blue faction war it's more of a free-for-all where the different camps form alliances that might work with other groups but are opposed to others and players get to choose faction groups to help in a more in-depth way than Horde vs Alliance. You could still bring in all of the allied races that would have more of a Pandaren-level of neutrality for their overall factions, but you could also choose to be an Alliance player that's friendly with Vulpera or even be a Zandalari who is friendly with Kul Tiras and play them as a troll trying to broker a peace. You could still let it play out similar to BfA where the main story is the conflict between Kul Tiras and Zandalar only now it's more of a South Seas-themed expansion (which also plays into the idea of conflicts between all factions instead of the Horde vs Alliance as you have a whole privateer thing going instead of a foot soldier in the grand war thing).

This would have led into Legion (playing out pretty much the same way it did) where the various open hostilities between difference reps would revert to a cold-war as everyone bands together to defeat the Legion but you could still have it boil over again at the end with Forsaken and Night Elves escalating to an all-out war like we had. Only now the Taurens/entire Horde isn't complicit in the burning down of Darnassus, the Ally story of the Night Elves becoming estranged from the Alliance works out better and creates more internal conflict for both factions (the Horde/some Forsaken say Sylvannas went rogue and distance themselves from her, Anduin helps attack the Undercity but won't commit the entire Alliance to hunting down/eradicating the Forsaken causing a rift between him and the Night Elves, Worgen are torn between the Night Elves as they become more ruthless and militaristic in their response and the Alliance who seems to prioritize peace over helping Alliance members, Blood Elves a torn between the Horde and their abhorrence of Sylvanas' actions and the Forsaken and the kinship they feel with them, all sorts of cool storylines would form from the way the individual factions/reps would band together).

Then BfA would still start with the Burning of Darnassus/Battle of the Undercity but instead of N'Zoth being just a patch he becomes the main villain and BfA now becomes an Old Gods-focused expansion with Ny'alotha being a full-fledged zone/continent instead of just a raid, and N'Zoth and his influence being more more prominent from the start. By the end you start to wonder if all the various clashes between factions that were normally allied/extremist actions taken by the Forsaken/Night Elves and even doubt whether Sylvannas really was as bad as she seemed or if she was just being manipulated by N'Zoth. You've now given Sylvannas the "morally grey" uncertainty of her actions Blizzard has being saying was there while still letting you lead into Shadowlands (to give us a break from all the Old God/the Void theme but fully resolving the story) and whatever story they have planned with her there.

No time travel/alternate timeline shenanigans, N'Zoth is given the attention he deserves, Sylvannas gets a lot more nuance to her actions/character and isn't so cartoonlishly evil, and the BfA conflict doesn't feel so forced because it becomes more of a cold-war conflict between the various factions while they fight N'Zoth's manipulations while still leading into Shadowlands and leaving you room for a Void Lords expansion. Ah what could have been.

[Maxilian]

Cataclysm.

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

Yes, please!

That way we don't end up with evil warchief Garrosh, just with Alliance Hater advisor Garrosh, that one was a nice Garrosh (i hated him still but was the interesting version of Garrosh, as he was literally the Varian of the Horde at that moment with daddy issues)

- - - Updated - - -

I didn't even think about that. I'd definitely agree that spaceships have no place in WoW. If Draenei stay, just say the Naaru used magic to teleport them places. No need to be a spaceship.

I mean... i have no problem with the Draneai type of spaceship as they look and feel quite magical IMHO.

As long as they don't go forward with Area 52 type of stuff.

Though BC had a lot of problems though.

[Mungho]

I would re-write vanilla, and have the goblins on the Horde instead of the forsaken. They dragged the entire Horde down with their evil and black-hole character, Sylvanas. The Alliance would have High Elves instead of Night Elves to prevent the next 16 years of complaining.

Then in the next expansion, the Horde would get satyrs as a new race with cute saytr girls so East-Asian players would have a cute race for their girlfriends to play.

[Zandalariprelate]

Vol'jin death at Legion, just that to be honest and the rest will change for the better as a snowball effect.

[Soon-TM]

I would declare non canon everything after MoP, starting by that cringey, preachy, at times senseless PoS that was War Crimes. WoD was a complete !@#$show when it comes to lore (among many other aspects), Legion was more or less OK, but only after a couple of very heavy handed retcons. Also, Illidan was quite cringeworthy tbh, and the whole Suramar chapter, while very nice when it came to gameplay and some RP, was completely pulled out of the writers' collective ass. I mean, Maiev was there some 20 years ago... and she saw nothing aside from a few ghosts and murlocs? C'mon.

But the worst part has been BfA. It has been a crapshow almost as big, or even bigger than WoD - but unlike WoD, it's going to have much deeper repercussions, especially for the Horde, and for NEs. No matter the writers' intent, NEs will be forever remembered as the eternal losers of Warcraft, and for the Horde it means that its reputation as the evil faction has been cemented. The best writers can do now is to leave the Horde alone for quite some time, because the constant flipflopping between "bloodthirsty moronic warmonger" and "wise noble savage" is exhausting. And I say it as a long time Hordie fan.

[NED funded]

Kinda surprised Burning Crusade is not at the top.

That expansion was a mess in terms of lore.

I would add a lot of the lore we get from the books and following expansion so at least it makes a little bit more sense

[Soon-TM]

Kinda surprised Burning Crusade is not at the top.

That expansion was a mess in terms of lore.

I would add a lot of the lore we get from the books and following expansion so at least it makes a little bit more sense

BC was in fact a mess, but it was at least salvageable, as Legion proved. WoD and BfA definitely aren't, or at least not without some Draenei-type (i.e. HUGE) scale of retcons.

[Pandaria was a scam]

Open all pandaria related code, CTRL + A, backspace, CTRL + S, use all the dev wasted time to make Warlords good, then send metzen to jail for life.

[Tyris Flare]

Vanilla?

I have never thought this game had a good or interesting story. It has always been pretty divorced from WC3 (which frankly, after replaying the new edition after 15 years, didn't have a particularly engaging story for the most part either).

The only legitimately good stories in the game are pretty much all side quests where one writer put together something interesting. Almost everything featuring the main characters (with some exceptions) is very cringe, it's like being dragged along in fan-fic. Our characters just exist to ferry along some actually important lore character who weirdly doesn't do anything.

Honestly Khadgar is probably my favorite in WoD and Legion, because he breaks the 4th wall all the time and that's the only way the story in this game should really be told because it is so inherently silly.

[Lodreh]

BfA was fucking stupid. You go from the leader of your Class Hall... a Paragon / Pillar of your trade to being conscripting into a race war. Umm, no thanks. As a Warlock you had all races coming together to further the knowledge of your craft. You were deemed to be the HNIC... and to walk away from that to just hit each other over the head with sticks for lols... yeah GTFO.

[Mungho]

But the worst part has been BfA. It has been a crapshow almost as big, or even bigger than WoD - but unlike WoD, it's going to have much deeper repercussions, especially for the Horde, and for NEs. No matter the writers' intent, NEs will be forever remembered as the eternal losers of Warcraft, and for the Horde it means that its reputation as the evil faction has been cemented. The best writers can do now is to leave the Horde alone for quite some time, because the constant flipflopping between "bloodthirsty moronic warmonger" and "wise noble savage" is exhausting. And I say it as a long time Hordie fan.

This is what I've been saying for years. The Horde is never EVER going to recover from attempted genocide. It will hang over the Horde until the day the servers are shut down. Why the writers decided to make a playable faction of their game commit such a heinous crime is beyond me.

[Stickiler]

BfA was fucking stupid. You go from the leader of your Class Hall... a Paragon / Pillar of your trade to being conscripting into a race war. Umm, no thanks. As a Warlock you had all races coming together to further the knowledge of your craft. You were deemed to be the HNIC... and to walk away from that to just hit each other over the head with sticks for lols... yeah GTFO.

"Hmm, these heroes are the greatest of their class, incredibly powerful, AND they've sworn loyalty as part of the armed forces of our faction, should they take part in the war we're waging? Nah, that'd be dumb LOLZ"

[Lodreh]

...they've sworn loyalty as part of the armed forces of our faction...

This is the part I take issue with. After the defeat at the Broken Shore it became apparent that the Alliance nor the Horde could not protect us... we had to rely on ourselves. Part of that was taking a leadership role that transcended petty political bickering... so yeah it was fucking stupid to back pedal to a 'Hero" role... those old allegiances were broken when the Broken Shore assault failed.

[Villager720]

BC had ..."issues" but I liked much of the downstream effect it's had (draenei, naaru, blood elves into the Horde, etc).

WoD is a nearly completely worthless hot dumpsterfire of lore, retcons, cognitive dissonance, and face-palm level story arcs.
The only effect it had on the narrative (Gul'dan + Legion) could have been handled many, many, many more logical and simple ways.