Blizzard would be wasting a huge opportunity not letting Murozond wipe out bad lore

[Shadowferal]

It would be kind of cool, if there was some time event that sent us back into 2004 Azeroth and effectively rebooted the game in a world that has been remade with a new engine. So all the villains and everything would be back alive somewhere and then they go about the story in a different way with dramatically more lore to start from.
It would be nostalgic and also refreshing.
Classic would exist to visit the old world.
I don't think it'll happen and probably a lot of game issues to figure out, but it'd be bold and interesting.

I'm all about rewriting the lore just for that. But "you" would be part of the changes that occur. And since the full story would be already written (unlike Blizzard's haphazard off the cuff crap), it should all be logically coherent, at least through the 4-5 expansions that I foresee.

[loras]

Good luck trying to retcon anything outside the laws of time I.E the Shadowlands, and the other Cosmic Domains.

Time still flowed there, just mildly differently.We've experienced it ourselves.

No point in pretending it is truly different anymore, since our whole stay there time flowed just asit does on Azeroth and elsewhere.

And why not? If time works relatively normal on Argus and in the Twisting Nether of all places then what is death going to be able to do about it when even chaos is forced to let it flow as it always does.

[Nerovar]

Wipe out bad lore? Like all the shit made by the same team of writers that is currently working on the game?

They had one opportunity to wipe away 'bad lore' and that was Classic+. They didn't do it then and they won't do it in the future and even if they did, there's absolutely no chance the current team of buffoons would do a better job at tying up all the loose narrative threads. The last thing I want to see is a modernized World of Melodrama version of all their greatest hits.

Warcraft as a setting has no future and thanks to Danuser and co. it doesn't have a past either. Best not to invest any creative energy into fruitless what-ifs.

[Mic_128]

high elves deciding to join the Horde

The humans had actively tried to exterminate them, and their weakened city is isolated and within close distance to a Horde city. How does that not make sense to ally with them?

Warhammer didn't remove the old world from continuity, it destroyed it in universe and continued on into a new setting.

I don't suppose there's a novel that goes into that? Would be an interesting read.

[mysticx]

Meh, why not?

The lore is such a mess now, i'd settle for my characters waking up in a Pandaria inn with a "Pounding headache"-debuff, the past expansions being a dream after a particularly heavy post-SoO party, TBH.

A lot of fuss was made of small changes causing big problems in the Bronze oathstone questline, with one misplaced murloc creating a Murloc-version of Azeroth, that could just be a throwaway joke, or the precedent for something bigger.

[Mojo03]

I'm all about rewriting the lore just for that. But "you" would be part of the changes that occur. And since the full story would be already written (unlike Blizzard's haphazard off the cuff crap), it should all be logically coherent, at least through the 4-5 expansions that I foresee.

Well I actually was thinking more that something happens in the beginning that starts a butterfly effect and causes everything to happen differently.

Let's say Murazond wakes up Deathwing from the get go. Or the portal to Outlands gets destroyed and it leaves Illidan there unbothered and he gets stronger without us there to prevent it and 2-3 expacs down the road, assaults Azeroth. Things like that.

They have a lot that's already created that they can reuse in a different way, since the lore and art exists of who people and places are already. Like they wouldn't be starting at little to nothing like they are now. So it "should" go significantly faster and smoother for most things and it gives them a chance to revisit everything and flesh them out more or change them up.

Ideally it would also be planned out like 3-4 expansions ahead so they can weave things in and setup multiple expo story arcs, etc.

[Ameonna]

Using Murozond as a retcon tool would enable Blizzard to explain away any inconsistencies or plot holes in the lore by attributing them to changes in the timeline.

The thing is, the fact Murozond even exist IS already a retcon and a plotholes in itself ><

[Al Gorefiend]

Going to the afterlife was fun. But Bfa ruined it all and took all foundation the Horde had before.

Going to the afterlife was absolutely not fun. First expac I dreaded the moment they revealed it. Death being a bad and mysterious thing is what makes things like war crimes and genocides and uh, killing people a shitty thing to do. Shadowlands coming along and basic saying "never grieve! Killing people in this universe isn't a bad thing at all, they get sent to a paradise tailored specifically for them in the afterlife".

The stakes are lost forever now.

[Skytotem]

Going to the afterlife was absolutely not fun. First expac I dreaded the moment they revealed it. Death being a bad and mysterious thing is what makes things like war crimes and genocides and uh, killing people a shitty thing to do. Shadowlands coming along and basic saying "never grieve! Killing people in this universe isn't a bad thing at all, they get sent to a paradise tailored specifically for them in the afterlife".

The stakes are lost forever now.

It's not even hard to go visit! Ol'Emma can bribe guards at the portal and go for a walk in THE HEART OF ALL AFTERLIVES and people from the afterlives can just... wander off and visit the living world apparently?

[ONCHEhap]

Going to the afterlife was absolutely not fun. First expac I dreaded the moment they revealed it. Death being a bad and mysterious thing is what makes things like war crimes and genocides and uh, killing people a shitty thing to do. Shadowlands coming along and basic saying "never grieve! Killing people in this universe isn't a bad thing at all, they get sent to a paradise tailored specifically for them in the afterlife".

The stakes are lost forever now.

Completely ripped the identity of death knights as well. Until Shadowlands, one of the pain points of being a death knight was knowing that staying "alive" forced you into an existence of suffering, but accepting death would send you to the Shadowlands, which (at the time) was a terrible, desolate place where doomed souls went to be tormented forever.
Now we know that the shadowlands are just another place where you get to be technically alive and have a cool time. There's literally no reason for the Knights of the Ebon Blade that didn't kill themselves after ICC to not do it now

[Aucald]

Completely ripped the identity of death knights as well. Until Shadowlands, one of the pain points of being a death knight was knowing that staying "alive" forced you into an existence of suffering, but accepting death would send you to the Shadowlands, which (at the time) was a terrible, desolate place where doomed souls went to be tormented forever.
Now we know that the shadowlands are just another place where you get to be technically alive and have a cool time. There's literally no reason for the Knights of the Ebon Blade that didn't kill themselves after ICC to not do it now

Considering most Death Knights are likely candidates for Revendreth and would endure centuries of castigation and torture at the hands of the Venthyr, if I were a Death Knight then I'd probably opt to remain on Azeroth and work toward some manner of redemption in my extended unlife, as it were. I assume after that the most probable realm they'd end up in was Maldraxxus, which also isn't what I'd define as a "cool time," either.

[Flaks]

Mortal Kombat did exactly this with the 2011 reboot and created a new timeline, scrapping a bunch of poor characters and decisions. The new timeline isn't perfect either, but it's a lot better than what the old timeline spiraled into.

The problem isn't going to fix itself by creating an alternate timeline.

The original planners for the story are long gone and the new people at Blizzard are attempting to have the story fit a new narrative. One that is very "modern" in it's way of delivery.

The old devs didn't shy away from things like genocide and did so without having it be considered a truly bad thing because it's fucking world of WARcraft. A fantasy universe that doesn't care about your geneva convention.

Not to say that the old guard had awesome stories or story telling. But they had A LOT of high points in between their many MANY low points. The writing from BfA on seems to be just consistent low-mediocre though, objectively, it's been delivered substantially better than it ever was before.

[Ameonna]

Going to the afterlife was fun. But Bfa ruined it all and took all foundation the Horde had before.

I dont get what you want to say with bfa here...can you elaborate?

[Powerogue]

I can, but also those are the worst possible ideas I can think of implementing that. I've seen time manipulation used to explain things done well before.

The best changes are "technically nothing has changed about this prior bit of lore, but what we thought was a lorefail was actually more complicated" like with the implication recently that there's a 5th old god. That's been in the game for years, and rather than explicitly say "we made an oopsie" it's "here's this guy who's from the black empire commenting on this titan-written lore book pointing out what he thinks is wrong, notably the 5 old god thing is NOT one of them. Strange..."

Saying "Oh, that huge gamechanging thing who's repercussions will be felt throughout the game for years to come actually didn't happen that way" is an absolutely insane way to approach that. Your approaches are like saying WOD should have been canon to our universe instead of an alternate universe, undoing everything that happened with Grom's sacrifice and the formation of the Azerothian Horde. It's everything wrong with the Jailer's "ah, you were wrong, it was I who was behind everything since WC3 the whole time!"

The old devs didn't shy away from things like genocide and did so without having it be considered a truly bad thing because it's fucking world of WARcraft. A fantasy universe that doesn't care about your geneva convention.

I'm curious what you're citing here. Did...did you think the demon-corrupted orc invaders paving roads with the bones of innocents were the good guys?

It would be kind of cool, if there was some time event that sent us back into 2004 Azeroth and effectively rebooted the game in a world that has been remade with a new engine. So all the villains and everything would be back alive somewhere and then they go about the story in a different way with dramatically more lore to start from.

It would be nostalgic and also refreshing.

Classic would exist to visit the old world.

I don't think it'll happen and probably a lot of game issues to figure out, but it'd be bold and interesting.

So you want us to go back in time to an alternate version of the world, where enemies we had already defeated are alive again but rebooted in a way that's distinct from what happened in our main universe?

[ArenaDk]

What defines bad lore ? I think for example woltk had the worst lore ? So it would get removed ? Tbc is also a tight contender

[Powerogue]

What defines bad lore ? I think for example woltk had the worst lore ? So it would get removed ? Tbc is also a tight contender

TBC is a good example on other approaches. We had no idea what Illidan was actually doing or why when we fought him besides subjugating Outland to his whims. They wanted to bring Illidan back despite him being dead. So they wrote a book going into detail about what Illidan and his hunters were doing before we got there (problem #1 solved) then we had a questline where we brought Illidan back from the dead. It wouldn't be the first time they had done that with a character and it won't be the last, so we were fine with it. Then we got to have sassy anti-hero Illidan back for Legion.

I honestly didn't mind Kael's or Vashj's cameos in Shadowlands either, I just mainly think we missed out heavily on Kael'thas meeting with the blood elves again. For an expansion about meeting dead characters again we did almost nothing with that except a few "stay a while and listen" dialogues that were sweet. Biggest disappointment IMO but the realms exist for better or worse so they can always revisit them, like how we revisited Ardenweald and the Emerald Dream in Dragonflight so far.

The only lore I know of that was so bad Blizzard themselves washed their hands of it and refused to touch it was Med'an. I've said it before and will say it again that one of their greatest writing strengths is taking lore that was questionable and writing more on the end that makes it seem like this was the plan all along. Not saying they always pull that off, but almost all of my favorite lore moments trace back to that. (Illidan Vs. Naaru cinematic and the mag'har recruit scenario are probably my top 2)

[Aucald]

What defines bad lore ? I think for example woltk had the worst lore ? So it would get removed ? Tbc is also a tight contender

Entirely subjective, ultimately. Everyone has their own standard for "bad lore" or "bad writing," and everyone dislikes and likes different things about Warcraft's narrative. As is often the case with threads like this, the real question you need to ask is "Who gets to choose what gets reset and why?" It won't be any of us, that's for certain.

[Mojo03]

So you want us to go back in time to an alternate version of the world, where enemies we had already defeated are alive again but rebooted in a way that's distinct from what happened in our main universe?

It's a 2.0 reboot idea that could be interesting if done right

You clearly aren't excited, but the idea would be with a new/vastly updated engine and rebuilt areas with significantly more scale. To see more what I mean by how significant a new engine would be, Ashes of Creation is an upcoming MMO using Unreal 5.1 and there's tons of videos on YouTube.

So it'd feel quite different, yet be familiar and nostalgic and give them a chance to redo things for the better from a starting place that is 10,000x more fleshed out than the one they started from 25ish years ago.

[Powerogue]

It's a 2.0 reboot idea that could be interesting if done right

You clearly aren't excited, but the idea would be with a new/vastly updated engine and rebuilt areas with significantly more scale. To see more what I mean by how significant a new engine would be, Ashes of Creation is an upcoming MMO using Unreal 5.1 and there's tons of videos on YouTube.

So it'd feel quite different, yet be familiar and nostalgic and give them a chance to redo things for the better from a starting place that is 10,000x more fleshed out than the one they started from 25ish years ago.

Hmm, yes, you're definitely right. The player base will be foaming out every orifice with excitement at the prospect of content that involves going back in time to an alternate universe.



Or especially of revamping the content they loved from the ground up with overhauled graphics.

[Ameonna]

Wipe out bad lore? Like all the shit made by the same team of writers that is currently working on the game?

They had one opportunity to wipe away 'bad lore' and that was Classic+. They didn't do it then and they won't do it in the future and even if they did, there's absolutely no chance the current team of buffoons would do a better job at tying up all the loose narrative threads. The last thing I want to see is a modernized World of Melodrama version of all their greatest hits.

Warcraft as a setting has no future and thanks to Danuser and co. it doesn't have a past either. Best not to invest any creative energy into fruitless what-ifs.

I guess i will close up that "bad lore" controversy thing : Writters dont think there is any bad lore. Yes, writters, the old and new ones, never will admit or see the lore made as "bad" one, they see it as "this happenned" any lore, good or bad for them just "happenned" and they dont judge it as good or bad.

So claiming "its bad lore its bad lore writter do bad lore" its like not understanding how writters feels about it.