Spirit Healers confirmed for Kyrians- Retcon Time?

[Raisei]

It's completely alien because it's complete BS. Contradictions are not logical by default. They are a lack of internal logic and consistency in the story. And retcons are never justified. It's perfectly possible to achieve depth without shitting the bed with how you treat established story. And what @FelPlague said isn't even correct. When Chronicle described the Spirit Healers it referred to them as Val'kyr. In present tense. Not "former Val'kyr" or anything of the kind. Which has been already pointed out even before FelPlague made their reply, let alone before you made yours. If you want to talk about depth or context, at least know what the topic you want to portray as deep and contextual even is instead of instantly rushing to the defense of Blizzard kami-sama. Particularly in a situation where Blizzard kami-sama can't even keep their story straight on the topic in two back-to-back interviews.

I also did not know of this article written by Metzen and let me quote the line that perfectly summarizes why I am so allergic to this constant "OMG a Retcon!!! May Blizzard burn in heavenly fire!"

"I think it’s important to note that world building is far bigger than just “storytelling,” and it requires (in my humble opinion) a certain amount of flexibility. Sometimes you need to expand certain ideas or retcon whole sections of continuity to broaden the scope and accessibility of your setting. There are a good number of these types of situations already (like totally revising our timeline, suggesting trolls were the progenitors of all elven subspecies, etc. – there’s a hundred other examples). To make an omelet, ya need to break a few eggs, and WoW’s one big omelet. "

Metzen clearly lines out why some retcons and additions are necessary to improve a story setting and why that is not always a bad thing. People on this forum always treat the coherent construction of a world as suuuuch an easy thing and Blizzard is just stupid for not being able to avoid any and all retconning, when in fact it just isn't.
Unless you can show me the AAA-title you have written a succesful setting for or anything else that would show us that you mastered the art of avoiding retcons in a world that is over two decades in the making with millions of lines of canon and non-canon lore, I personally think that Metzen and Blizzard have earned a little more wiggling room then you deign to grant them. Probably in your eyes that makes me a sucker, I just find it reasonable.

Instead of exploding in tirade of hate and bile whenever things get changed how about judging things by the actual effect it has on the story?

What we knew about the Spirit Healers and Val'kyr was nearly none-existant, Legion has shown us a part of what is behind it with how Odyn made his Val'Kyr, but that did not explain the ones made by the Lich King, that apparently have no qualms about using their powers to make genocidal armies of rotting zombies. Then we have already seen that some Val'kyr (which looked somewhat different) apaprently are working with or for the Jailer and Sylvanas.
This will also need to be explained and there could be a good story in that, if you can suspend your need to have every little detail that was once mentioned in a side quest to be relevant.

[Josyel]

Chronicles is the Titans view of the World.

They stated that Shadowlands is older than Titans. Think of it like the heavy atom mass of the Big Bang.

So, when Odyn looked into the Shadowlands, he looked at Kyrians spirit healers, and named them Val'kyrs. Kyrians city was amazing in his eyes, so he took their architecture.

The same thing happened to scourge, or possibly the nerubians first. We got nerubians seers underground, and they were all in close proximity with old gods and their spawns. Maybe nerubians had a glimpse of Shadowlands architecture and copy paste them. Or maybe they are inspired by the old gods and the Black Empire structure. Scourge came and liked it.

Thing is: looks like some Spirit Healers can get rogue and/or imprisioned by a powerfull entity.

[Feanoro]

I also did not know of this article written by Metzen and let me quote the line that perfectly summarizes why I am so allergic to this constant "OMG a Retcon!!! May Blizzard burn in heavenly fire!"

Metzen clearly lines out why some retcons and additions are necessary to improve a story setting and why that is not always a bad thing. People on this forum always treat the coherent construction of a world as suuuuch an easy thing and Blizzard is just stupid for not being able to avoid any and all retconning, when in fact it just isn't.

Some minor retcons, sure. But completely changing the origins of the Lich King via his armor to "KJ wasn't a master necromancer, just a really good thief"? I hear Bruce Wayne's folks are fine and out playing golf while their son indulges his rubber suit and sadism fetishes.

Unless you can show me the AAA-title you have written a succesful setting for or anything else that would show us that you mastered the art of avoiding retcons in a world that is over two decades in the making with millions of lines of canon and non-canon lore, I personally think that Metzen and Blizzard have earned a little more wiggling room then you deign to grant them. Probably in your eyes that makes me a sucker, I just find it reasonable.

Appeal to authority? Unless you've done X, you're not allowed to criticize X. Come on, you're better than that.

Instead of exploding in tirade of hate and bile whenever things get changed how about judging things by the actual effect it has on the story?

The effect is that the Lich King and Scourge have been reduced to cheap copies of this totally new, amazingly original idea! If anything, building a story idea up by trashing existing ones is high school fanfiction level. It's one of the main reasons I didn't like Varian or Garrosh. "Patience, Tyrande!" A literal infant is lecturing a commander with 10k years' experience? "Thrall was a terrible Warchief if I twist every decision he made!" And you were sitting on your ass in Nagrand bawling how daddy didn't love you. Those two didn't completely invalidate everything we knew about Tyrande and Thrall, just made us roll our eyes. SL is drastically altering a lot of what we know, as badly as "Multiple dimensions, one Legion!" or "Sylvanas was working for the Jailer since dying at ICC!" which changes and invalidates EVERYTHING she's done since then, including her thoughts in books.

What we knew about the Spirit Healers and Val'kyr was nearly none-existant, Legion has shown us a part of what is behind it with how Odyn made his Val'Kyr, but that did not explain the ones made by the Lich King, that apparently have no qualms about using their powers to make genocidal armies of rotting zombies. Then we have already seen that some Val'kyr (which looked somewhat different) apaprently are working with or for the Jailer and Sylvanas.
This will also need to be explained and there could be a good story in that, if you can suspend your need to have every little detail that was once mentioned in a side quest to be relevant.

See, the Spirit Healers is a perfectly fine example of how to expand on something. A reasonable explanation of something that had little explanation before, not "Throw out everything you know about them, THIS is the new version."

[Nagawithlegs]

Some minor retcons, sure. But completely changing the origins of the Lich King via his armor to "KJ wasn't a master necromancer, just a really good thief"? I hear Bruce Wayne's folks are fine and out playing golf while their son indulges his rubber suit and sadism fetishes.

When does KJ EVER indulge in necromancy in the events of World of Warcraft? The lore does not change if they say "Dreadlords did it" because Dreadlords have ALWAYS been presented as the chief necromancers of the Burning Legion.

[Saltysquidoon]

FFXIV Dev on retcons
"I hate retcons more then I hate corn-beef in my yoghurt* but sometimes it's unavoidable I'm sorry."

*actual quote

WoW Dev on retcons
"Val'kyr are old and busted, Kyrian's are the new hotness, it was always like that. Source? Just trust me bro. Pls no bully small indie company ."


Yeah, I can't possibly see why some people would be disappointed in that attitude.

[Garymorilix]

Spirit Healers have never ever mattered in the slightest in the lore.

Them being whatever might be a retcon, but it means so little it barely has any ties to any actual stories.
Worst thing they have to do is remove like 2 lines about them when talking about Odyn?

Oh no... how dare they...

[Itori]

I like to look at it like "we thought we knew wtf we were talking about but we were wrong"

[Nagawithlegs]

Spirit Healers have never ever mattered in the slightest in the lore.

Them being whatever might be a retcon, but it means so little it barely has any ties to any actual stories.
Worst thing they have to do is remove like 2 lines about them when talking about Odyn?

Oh no... how dare they...

It's a matter of principle for some people.

[Garymorilix]

It's a matter of principle for some people.

What principle?
Is there a secret spirit healer fan club going on around here?

For real, even the RTS games retconned each other all the time.
Also, retcons are not inherently bad. Whoever says that should not ever get involved in any long standing series.

Expanding on previously not explored lore is fun. Lore connections are fun. It makes a world a world.
Look at how Loken had to be retconned cuz they wrote the whole titan keeper story into a corner in WotLK. Nobody likes that.

[huth]

What principle?

The "i hate retcons" principle, mostly. It's bad because it is a retcon, not because of what it actually affects.

[shadowmatrix]

That Kil"Jaeden didn't create the armor but stole it from the Shadowlands.

Did the lore ever say Kil'jeaden created it?

[Mehrunes]

I also did not know of this article written by Metzen and let me quote the line that perfectly summarizes why I am so allergic to this constant "OMG a Retcon!!! May Blizzard burn in heavenly fire!"

You're allergic to your own straw-man? The logical solution would be not constructing it in the first place, but I guess that wouldn't allow you to pretend you have some kind of a moral high ground here.

Metzen clearly lines out why some retcons and additions are necessary to improve a story setting and why that is not always a bad thing. People on this forum always treat the coherent construction of a world as suuuuch an easy thing and Blizzard is just stupid for not being able to avoid any and all retconning, when in fact it just isn't.

Another paragraph, another fallacy. Additions aren't even the topic here. And no one said that it's "suuuuch an easy thing". But it's not particularly haaaard either. Because it's almost as if Blizzard had resources available at their disposal to help them out with that. Yet they constantly commit even the simplest mistakes. But not because they are stupid (which no one said they are either). It's because they are lazy. When they can't do something as simple as browsing wowpedia or, I dunno, theirown encyclopedia with a comprehensive index at the end, it's just willful ineptitude on their part. Especially since Blizzard isn't just "unable to avoid any and all retconning". They deliver a constant shitbarrage of retcons, to the point where they retcon even their previous retcons (case in point, the corruption of Sargeras that Metzen was covering there, which has been changed again since then).

And is Metzen some kind of god emperor of storytelling now? Most of his work is ripping off Warhammer and other franchises. His reasoning in defense of retcons is simply weak. It's perfectly possible to broaden the scope of a story without the sloppy clusterfucks that are retcons. Let's just use the Eredar example he was covering there. In short, the purpose of the Draenei sloppiness in the story was to have a race affected by Sargeras in a manner where his arrival with "gifts" caused a split in the race, with the side that teamed up with him beginning to hunt those that refused. How was any of that impossible to achieve with using a new type of demon (that TBC introduced aplenty of), with the refugees fleeing the Legion's wrath being some Outland race (many also introduced just in TBC) other than the Draenei?

Unless you can show me the AAA-title you have written a succesful setting for or anything else that would show us that you mastered the art of avoiding retcons in a world that is over two decades in the making with millions of lines of canon and non-canon lore, I personally think that Metzen and Blizzard have earned a little more wiggling room then you deign to grant them. Probably in your eyes that makes me a sucker, I just find it reasonable.

Make sure to never criticize a meal you order at a restaurant. Otherwise, miss me with this absolutely trite fallacy. And sure, a company so inept at basic fact checking of their own lore they can't do something as basic as 30 second "Is this character still alive?" search before including them in the story or perform research as rudimentary as going through the very first quest of a race while writing a story about it is simply the pinnacle of reasonable. If one uses some extremely alternative standards, at least.

Instead of exploding in tirade of hate and bile whenever things get changed how about judging things by the actual effect it has on the story?

Seriously, stop with the straw-men. It's just unbecoming. The topic of this thread isn't even remotely just them changing things. There's a pretty significant difference between a change and a retcon.

What we knew about the Spirit Healers and Val'kyr was nearly none-existant, Legion has shown us a part of what is behind it with how Odyn made his Val'Kyr, but that did not explain the ones made by the Lich King, that apparently have no qualms about using their powers to make genocidal armies of rotting zombies. Then we have already seen that some Val'kyr (which looked somewhat different) apaprently are working with or for the Jailer and Sylvanas.
This will also need to be explained and there could be a good story in that, if you can suspend your need to have every little detail that was once mentioned in a side quest to be relevant.

Just because it was nearly non-existent (which isn't even that accurate in regards to Val'kyr in general, only the Spirit Healers) is no excuse to take a shit on the "nearly" part. And please, do tell me more about the good story that can be had in Spirit Healers being Kyrians instead of Val'kyr. Does it factor in any way whatsoever to anything else you talked about here? Because for some mysterious reason I can't recall that from the Alpha of Bastion's storyline.

The "i hate retcons" principle, mostly. It's bad because it is a retcon, not because of what it actually affects.

Yeah, no. Retcons being bad is precisely because retcons affect the story in a negative way by making them a convoluted, inconsistent mess.

[Darknessvamp]

I'm pretty sure this is a double or maybe a triple retcon isn't it? Didn't they first go with that Odyn saw the Spirit Healers in the Shadowlands which influenced the Valkyr which changed to the Spirit Healers are actually Neutral/Rogue Valkyr to now Spirit Healers are actually Kyrians even though Kyrians and other Shadowlands denizens can't just come on over.

It's just gets messier every time.

[Nagawithlegs]

Spirit Healers are actually Kyrians even though Kyrains and other Shadowlands denizens can't just come on over.

This has literally never been confirmed by Blizzard, lol. They JUST said that Kyrians can come over and they have been able to, ingame, since Vanilla.

The idea that "Shadowlands creatures can't come to Azeroth" is fanon.

[Darknessvamp]

This has literally never been confirmed by Blizzard, lol. They JUST said that Kyrians can come over and they have been able to, ingame, since Vanilla.

The idea that "Shadowlands creatures can't come to Azeroth" is fanon.

Oh right the Chronicles are no longer a legit source, my bad carry on.

[Nagawithlegs]

Oh right the Chronicles are no longer a legit source, my bad carry on.

Quote the part of Chronicles that says anything about creatures of the Shadowlands being bound to their dimension, please.

Demons leave the nether, Old Gods leave the void, Naaru leave the light, life beings leave the Dream... BUT NOT THE GHOSTIES!!!

[huth]

Yeah, no. Retcons being bad is precisely because retcons affect the story in a negative way by making them a convoluted, inconsistent mess.

Yet making it less so would also require a retcon. Retcons aren't inherently good or bad. Sometimes the original story is just crap to begin with.

[Darknessvamp]

Quote the part of Chronicles that says anything about creatures of the Shadowlands being bound to their dimension, please.

Demons leave the nether, Old Gods leave the void, Naaru leave the light, life beings leave the Dream... BUT NOT THE GHOSTIES!!!

As per the first Chronicle:

...mortal souls are drawn into this dark place at the point of death, where they remain forever after. Others hope that their souls will go on to a brighter place, rather than languish for eternity within the cold confines of the Shadowlands.

Most of the "Ghosties" we were seeing were the ones that hadn't passed on to the Shadowlands... sorry used to be the case. It was only the rare occasion that powerful spirits were able to come back as in your garden variety Kyrians couldn't just come on over. Yes everything has portals or just pops out of their other realms with no issues except that wasn't the case with the Shadowlands until now.

And before you say "Oh that proves that special Kyrians could just do it" I'm sure those who were aware of Spirit Healers would have brought up that they were a completely separate species from the Valkyr before this expansion and the retcon that was created specifically for it.

[Nagawithlegs]

Most of the "Ghosties" we were seeing were the ones that hadn't passed on to the Shadowlands... sorry used to be the case. It was only the rare occasion that powerful spirits were able to come back as in your garden variety Kyrians couldn't just come on over. Yes everything has portals or just pops out of their other realms with no issues except that wasn't the case with the Shadowlands until now.

And before you say "Oh that proves that special Kyrians could just do it" I'm sure those who were aware of Spirit Healers would have brought up that they were a completely separate species from the Valkyr before this expansion and the retcon that was created specifically for it.

...mortal souls are drawn into this dark place at the point of death, where they remain forever after.

Except Kyrians aren't mortal souls. They are created out of them.

This is the same thing as Vulpera not being around Azeroth despite being pirates. Because they weren't created yet, not any kind of hard lore that says Vulpera can't leave Vol'dun (and Spirit Healers/Kyrians can't leave the Shadowlands). We see Spirit Healers out of the Shadowlands dimension worlds, therefore Spirit Healers can leave their realm of origin. Simple as that.

[Darknessvamp]

Except Kyrians aren't mortal souls. They are created out of them.

This is the same thing as Vulpera not being around Azeroth despite being pirates. Because they weren't created yet, not any kind of hard lore that says Vulpera can't leave Vol'dun (and Spirit Healers/Kyrians can't leave the Shadowlands). We see Spirit Healers out of the Shadowlands dimension worlds, therefore Spirit Healers can leave their realm of origin. Simple as that.

Sorry you're going to have to point out where that is established. I can only find them described as eternal, as in long lasting, but nothing to suggest they aren't mortal. Especially when they can apparently die as per the Bastion zone quests.

Also the case with Vulpera is different, they may be pirates but they also only were part of the Kul'tiran piracy trade as such it's believable that they only preyed on ships in Kul'tiran waters which means it makes sense we wouldn't have heard much about them since communication and trade with Kul'tiras had been pretty much nonexistence since Daelin died. Not to mention it's not like there's that much discussion on all pirate crews and their make up in WoW. Also it's not that simple when they clearly have to introduce retcons.