Warcraft 3 undead campaign is just Jailor's assets fighting against eachother

[Saltysquidoon]

SL being complete nonsense doesn't preclude TBC from being bad, they're just bad in different ways.
The Metzan era relies too much on creating situations that fall over almost immediately if you think about them too hard, "We have to stop illidan! Why? He's trying to defeat the burning legion! My god..." but it's fine because everything just gets pasted over with 'but corruption'.
The Betauser era on the other hand relies too much on nostalgic callbacks the retroactively make whatever actually stood up in the metzen era worse. That and hamfisted moral lessons a 10-year-old would find patronising and simping for his waifu.

Ermh, they literally implanted the Lich King as a mean to avoid another total Legion invasion?
Also Illidan?

Wut?
So in WCIII the jailer's pawns
1. Corrupt Arthas and make him hate them (Arthas really hated dreadlords)
2. Get BTFO by Arthas
3. Help Arthas weaken the EK to prepare for the legion invasion
4. Summon archimonde
5. Give Illidan the skull of gul'dan so he can *checks notes* defeat Tichondrias the dreadlord
6. ???
7. Hope that Archimonde is an idiot and dies to malfurion's tree nuke instead of just sitting in EK and sending legion forces to turn places of power into nether portals resulting in complete strategic victory for the legion.

See the problem here is having the dreadlords and the Scourge both be secretly working for the jailer, the way WCIII is written simply precludes this from making sense. You could realistically have one or the other, but not both.

[justandulas]

Best not to think about the lore of WoW with these incompetent no talent hack writers. They not only retcon the work of superior writers of the past, but actively write those stories out of existence in favor of far worse stories

Of all of wows failings during recent years, the story and lore team fails the absolute hardest. Every other WoW team has at least one win in recent years. The story and lore team is winless since at least WoTlk, with the lone exception maybe being legion but even that wasn’t story driven as much as gameplay driven

The WoW story has been ruined, bastardized, retconned to the point where it’s genuinely ruined beyond repair

Wc2-3 story was great. Early WoW piggy backed off those great stories but once those ended, the writing team has shown themselves for the incompetent boobs they are

It isn’t hubris to say I could write better material. Half the forums could. I’ve seen free MUDs with better writing staffs too. It’s utterly amongst the worst in all of video gaming. Is there a single game or mmorpg that is worse at story telling?

[Nerovar]

but it's fine because everything just gets pasted over with 'but corruption'.

I think in the past this explanation kinda made sense. Just because we (the audience) with our outside perspective thought a character was an anti-hero doesn't mean that the in-universe characters don't draw the line at a different point. 'But corruption' was also the main reason why the Alliance deals with the Scarlet Crusade instead of tolerating them (their chief goal was reclaiming human homelands from an evil faction).

[Xilurm]

What retcon? That the Dreadlords made Sargeras turn? Did they not?

Except, Lei Shen is literally the reason why the southern part of Kalimdor is a wasteland.
Aman'thul plucking out Y'shaarj is literally the Well of Eternity which is like probably your favourite Warcraft story point based on your age and arguments.

You say that, but then act like your world is the CW DC series. I'd take you for a Batwoman fan for sure.

The circumstances were completely different. For one, he was made out to be some sort of self made messiah that wanted to wipe the world clean out of corruption.

Now he's just some scared dude that rushes from world to world trying to destroy them so the big bad Void Lords don't take over.

Well the southern part of Kalimdor and the Well of Eternity weren't talked about before were they? Don't get me wrong, I like most of the stuff in Chronicles. (except the void lords stuff obviously) but that doesn't mean I have to like what came after it.

And, CW DC series fan? Batwoman fan? I absolutely hate everything that has come out after season 2 of Arrow. I'm one of those people that think Supernatural seasons 1-5 were the best and everything after that just ruined the series and it's mythos.

- - - Updated - - -

Didn't Metzen leave in Legion, and remain an influential figure until then? If memory serves the opening BFA cinematic was the last thing he worked on. Even if we discount WoD, that means the current crop is responsible for BfA and the bad parts of Shadowlands, so that still leaves old Metzen the guy who did TBC and Cata.

Yeah but he wasn't anywhere close to being a lead narrative designer anymore. That position was changed twice by then. Someone else was calling the shots. Metzen's primary job was Overwatch lore.

[justandulas]

Didn't Metzen leave in Legion, and remain an influential figure until then? If memory serves the opening BFA cinematic was the last thing he worked on. Even if we discount WoD, that means the current crop is responsible for BfA and the bad parts of Shadowlands, so that still leaves old Metzen the guy who did TBC and Cata.

Metzen left the company then but he was basically a figurehead and voice actor at that point. He had really stepped aside during cata

[Lord Pebbleton]

People in this thread are trying to explain incompatible lore with so many hoops, turns and pirouettes that they may as well be called Geralt of Rivia.

Lore sucks. BfA is doing what WoD did. Retconning stuff and invalidating previous statements just to build up the new bad guy, something you should NEVER do in narration and that Blizzard does all the time anyway. If you need to belittle your previous villains and plot arcs to establish new ones, you are failing as a writer.

"It's just expanding the lore"

Right, so what was step two of the jailer's galaxybrain 5head plan if archimonde wasn't a massive fuckup? Just give up because he had handed the legion complete strategic victory?

Case in point. Also the Legion went from a massive threat to freaking wimps that everyone wants to betray and leave. Dreadlords are the latest offence.

[justandulas]

Mate, if you EVER DARE to "dig into" Shadowlands lore, you will find HUUUUUGE disappointment.

something like this: (from my earlier post on mmo forum)

"5. Shadowlands story is worse of the worst!
Best example for that would be "Limbo" WQ in Bastion.
TLDR: If you die > you go to shadowlands > where you live another life > if you die there, you're DED.
But then again... if LK calls you back, you have to answer the call.
If you're elemental, you go to another Shadowlands.
If you're demon, you go to yet ANOTHER ANOTHER Shadowlands.
If you're mantd, you go back to life, because.... reasons....
If you're "wild god or whatever "higher" being" - you go to Ardenweald, where you wait for God knows what to be reborn. lol...

And that's the ruckus just from 1 world quest.

Not to mention retarded reasons why Sylvanas works for the Jailer and Kel'Thuzad. The main "big baddies" who destroyed her life, her city, her people, her everything.. BUT SHE STILL HATES ARTHAS FOR DOING SO! :O"

Sylvanas also working for Jailer now, lol...

Let me throw another hilariously bad writing nugget in there…. Kel thuzad will be destroyed through his phylactory this time. The one he would have only been able to make and place on Azeroth when he was living. So no chance of getting said thing to the SL to be retconned in such a blatant way.

He would have needed to place the phylactory in SL, bind it there, etc before he ever died to become a lich

Let’s say through the miracle of some kinda retcon they can explain that.. how do you explain him returning in naxx then if he was already bound to the SL via his multiple deaths and the phylactory? The phylactory being in Azeroth means he can return there infinitely, who gonna stash their death protection in death realm that you can’t even access until dead? And then he can just bounce between realms?

[Super Dickmann]

I think in the past this explanation kinda made sense. Just because we (the audience) with our outside perspective thought a character was an anti-hero doesn't mean that the in-universe characters don't draw the line at a different point. 'But corruption' was also the main reason why the Alliance deals with the Scarlet Crusade instead of tolerating them (their chief goal was reclaiming human homelands from an evil faction).

It's less cases like the Scarlet Crusade where the Alliance is fine with acknowledging it as a viable proxy vs in Lordaeron but then changes its mind when they learn more about them and more cases like virtually all antagonists in TBC. Our reason to go there and kick their shit in is already tenuous, but even the explanation that our reading of those characters and that of the in-story participants differs doesn't hold up. There's no difference between the way Illidan for example is considered by the cast to be a generic tyrant and how he's actually portrayed, which is also as a generic tyrant.

@justandulas

This would be elementary to solve, much like most of these problems if the writers took anything but the most hamhanded, inept way to build up their characters. Just say that his phylactery was stolen into the Shadowlands and that's how Kel'thuzad is being made to comply with the Jailer. You don't have to go back and claim that he was always in line with this new character which is both supremely cheap, makes zero sense and diminishes all characters involved.

It's the same with the Dreadlords. It would take less work, not more, to just say that they were made in the Shadowlands by Denathrius, but kept in contact but were advancing their own goal and just sprang on an opportunity when they saw the Legion go up in flames, but they instead took the most direct and poorest way around a conceptually okay plot beat.

[deenman]

In WC3 you also have Varimathras being afraid to die and begged Sylvanas to join her, yet in Legion we find out that demons return to the Twisting Nether after dying like his brothers did. So why would Varimathras have been that afraid then? Better not to think about such things and pretend that each game and expansion is just in an universe of its own. I also have to forget that the latest seasons of Game of Thrones happened for me to enjoy the older seasons. As far as I'm aware the show died with Tywin Lannister.

I dont really see the problem with this,ofc he didnt want to die and not be able to come back and influence stuff

[Nerovar]

It's less cases like the Scarlet Crusade where the Alliance is fine with acknowledging it as a viable proxy vs in Lordaeron but then changes its mind when they learn more about them and more cases like virtually all antagonists in TBC. Our reason to go there and kick their shit in is already tenuous, but even the explanation that our reading of those characters and that of the in-story participants differs doesn't hold up. There's no difference between the way Illidan for example is considered by the cast to be a generic tyrant and how he's actually portrayed, which is also as a generic tyrant.
@justandulas

This would be elementary to solve, much like most of these problems if the writers took anything but the most hamhanded, inept way to build up their characters. Just say that his phylactery was stolen into the Shadowlands and that's how Kel'thuzad is being made to comply with the Jailer. You don't have to go back and claim that he was always in line with this new character which is both supremely cheap, makes zero sense and diminishes all characters involved.

Yeah, I'm just saying that his portrayal might not seem that negative to us because we followed his story, know about his intentions etc. and therefor can relate to him more and are generally more lenient when it comes to the use of "evil magic" than the average in-universe character. It gives us a different perspective than e.g. Danath sitting in Honor Hold who probably just sees Illidan as another demon in outland.

That being said, I obviously still don't like how these characters were "developed".

[Daronokk]

Yeah.... retcons ruin previous games if taken seriously. Best ignore them.

[Surfacin9]

This force of Death, which is the Jailer, has ZERO lore behind him. They did away with beings that had background lore written all the way back in the 00s and now we got some dude that we've heard nothing about, in an MMO that can't possibly write characters to save itself, and you're telling me thats interesting?

The Lich King was interesting because he had decent lore to back him up, and so were so many of the other villains, especially someone like Azshara for example which they got "rid off" in a patch!

I went into Shadowlands open minded, I really did. I was excited to play it. My first thoughts when I saw the Jailer for the first time was, "why does he just sound like another meathead saying "mOrTalS". It's so cheap and he has nothing to back him up."

If they had made a game about him where they built him up I'd be all for it. But they just don't care. They really don't. They don't care because they know they can get away with any lore they write. So they aren't even trying.

Why be stuck up on old stories and old storytelling? You liked the old lore because you were younger and there's a nostalgia factor definitely. If they introduced Arthas, Illidan and other TFT characters now, how would they be perceived? There's lots of ways of presenting and developing a character.

So now we fight a new cosmic power and force that we didn't really interact with until recently. So we don't know anything about it. We have a new realm with its own ways, denizens, mindset and etc. We meet a new villain that those, who live on Azeroth new nothing about. I don't think its anything out of the ordinary - when you're the observer (like in a movie) you might be given information outside of what the main protagonist knows to give you a wider picture; but when you are one of the protagonists, you know what you know and you discover more information as you go. The latter is the kind of storytelling they're going with. You might like it or not, but its a completely valid way.

Remember that WC3 was an RTS, where you take PoV of different characters based in the mission. In WoW there's only your character's PoV, and your character can't know everything, especially when its new.

Why should they dwell on the past and recycle old characters? If they did, there'd be criticism for doing so.
They're craeting something new, which is great. For me, when a new force is introduced into the universe, it was always curious, where they were before, when other events unfolded. So Blizzard added Jailer's presence to the old known lore. How is it a retcon? They're adding information that was previously unknown to past events.

If that changes the way you saw things, its supposed to by design. We thought his interntions were this, or he was driven by this, but it turns out we were wrong, and something different was happening in fact. Just the fact that you didn't know about something (i.e. we were not told), and now you do, doesn't make it a bad retcon. If it breaks your bubble, so be it, you are just stuck up on a made-up material that you cherish like its the most important thing in the world.

We see the story from our characters' PoV. They can't know everything about every single event and character, much like we as people don't know everything, but only what we've experienced, or were told (by witnesses, gathered information and etc.). And even the information we know can't all be 100% true, at least not about historical events or people, new information gets discovered at times.

[Shedaar]

snip

I'm not sure how op describes "an asset"?
+ It's jailEr, not jailOr - it derives from the jail (prison), not janitor (the guy who mops the floors)

[Akta]

Why are people finding this so hard to grasp?

The Dreadlords are infiltrators.
They didn't "fight" Arthas and whatnot because they wanted to win.
They had the whole Burning Legion and Kil'jaeden to play with.

Look at the book of inflitration or what it's called.
It perfectly explains that the Dreadlords are willing to go as far as possible to "prove" their loyalty.
While temporarily this MIGHT mean that they have to help their enemies they have long-term goals.

This is the whole point of this.
It's not even a retcon. Things happened exactly the same in the past.
Just now we have an additional layer as to why or how.

you know people pretend to not understand something clear just for hating. They don't even keep up with all the new lore info and just pretend that eveyrthing is bad writing.

[Syegfryed]

Nah clearly not. Bfa and shadowland are anedoctical.
Bfa was just "war is bad, alliance and horde should not be at war". So pretty much the same thing since the start of wow. The shared capitals started with TBC.
Shadowland is the answer to the retarded wotlk "the flying dutchman must always have a capt... wait no. The scourge must always have a lich king." - what do we do with that level of stupid ? And it's an other realm we don't care about.

Tbc wasted great characters and fucked up the universe so much that pretty much all stupid lore expansions came from it. Like wod or like why don't the draeney use their interstellar spaceship with laser beam to win bfa in two minutes?
.

Bfa and shadowlands ruined wow lore beyond repair, as a whole, not just wasting some characters as cannon folder., that is not just one expansion being shit, is the fundamental core of the francishe being damaged by it. Like what they are pretending how the Janitor was pulling the strings in a 45dchess all along.

[Trbn]

Why be stuck up on old stories and old storytelling? You liked the old lore because you were younger and there's a nostalgia factor definitely. If they introduced Arthas, Illidan and other TFT characters now, how would they be perceived? There's lots of ways of presenting and developing a character.

So now we fight a new cosmic power and force that we didn't really interact with until recently. So we don't know anything about it. We have a new realm with its own ways, denizens, mindset and etc. We meet a new villain that those, who live on Azeroth new nothing about. I don't think its anything out of the ordinary - when you're the observer (like in a movie) you might be given information outside of what the main protagonist knows to give you a wider picture; but when you are one of the protagonists, you know what you know and you discover more information as you go. The latter is the kind of storytelling they're going with. You might like it or not, but its a completely valid way.

Remember that WC3 was an RTS, where you take PoV of different characters based in the mission. In WoW there's only your character's PoV, and your character can't know everything, especially when its new.

Why should they dwell on the past and recycle old characters? If they did, there'd be criticism for doing so.
They're craeting something new, which is great. For me, when a new force is introduced into the universe, it was always curious, where they were before, when other events unfolded. So Blizzard added Jailer's presence to the old known lore. How is it a retcon? They're adding information that was previously unknown to past events.

If that changes the way you saw things, its supposed to by design. We thought his interntions were this, or he was driven by this, but it turns out we were wrong, and something different was happening in fact. Just the fact that you didn't know about something (i.e. we were not told), and now you do, doesn't make it a bad retcon. If it breaks your bubble, so be it, you are just stuck up on a made-up material that you cherish like its the most important thing in the world.

We see the story from our characters' PoV. They can't know everything about every single event and character, much like we as people don't know everything, but only what we've experienced, or were told (by witnesses, gathered information and etc.). And even the information we know can't all be 100% true, at least not about historical events or people, new information gets discovered at times.

you are wrong

[Lady Atia]

So according to you, retcons don't exist? Nice.

Fleshed out lmao. So the Dreadlords going from "intelligent agents of the Burning Legion" to "intelligent agents of the Jailer" is fleshing them out?

Even if you wanna call it a retcon ..... not every retcon is bad. It's so weird seeing people clinging to 20 year old lore that got replaced with better stuff - that's how most of writing works. Horus Heresy, Sword Art Online, Star Wars are full of retcons and no one cares for that as much as the "but but but retcons in WoW are evil"-crowd. It's almost as bad as the "MCU is only what Kevin Feige does"-people over on reddit who have an open war about "canon" there.

And yes, I actually like the new Dreadlord lore in Shadowlands, them beeing 100% Burning Legion never made sense anyways if you read stuff like the old Ashbringer comics.

[justandulas]

Even if you wanna call it a retcon ..... not every retcon is bad. It's so weird seeing people clinging to 20 year old lore that got replaced with better stuff - that's how most of writing works. Horus Heresy, Sword Art Online, Star Wars are full of retcons and no one cares for that as much as the "but but but retcons in WoW are evil"-crowd. It's almost as bad as the "MCU is only what Kevin Feige does"-people over on reddit who have an open war about "canon" there.

And yes, I actually like the new Dreadlord lore in Shadowlands, them beeing 100% Burning Legion never made sense anyways if you read stuff like the old Ashbringer comics.

I’m sorry did you just say Star Wars fans don’t care about retcons?! Both the prequels and sequels are openly hated cuz they dismiss the lore so openly.

Same for WoW. retcon is always an excuse for bad writing

There isn’t any example you can give me of a retcon improving a story that’s been around 20 years or so

[Super Dickmann]

Yeah, I'm just saying that his portrayal might not seem that negative to us because we followed his story, know about his intentions etc. and therefor can relate to him more and are generally more lenient when it comes to the use of "evil magic" than the average in-universe character. It gives us a different perspective than e.g. Danath sitting in Honor Hold who probably just sees Illidan as another demon in outland.

That being said, I obviously still don't like how these characters were "developed".

I agree with you in general. I don't have any issue with the locals wanting to fight Illidan, in general I enjoy it any time the writers remember that the characters don't have perfect awareness of everything going on in the plot. Forgetting how things would actually appear to the character in favor of what the consumer would see is why Jaina's story in BFA is such a mess and why Memeboi's appearance doesn't make much sense either. I just don't see that as being applicable to TBC or really much of the expansions, since lolcorruption is almost always demonstrable fact and there's no deeper layer to be privy to even for the audience.

[Lady Atia]

I’m sorry did you just say Star Wars fans don’t care about retcons?! Both the prequels and sequels are openly hated cuz they dismiss the lore so openly.

Same for WoW. retcon is always an excuse for bad writing

There isn’t any example you can give me of a retcon improving a story that’s been around 20 years or so

Only because you don't like the retcons doesn't mean that everyone hates them? How else are you supposed to add to a story if every new piece of lore, even if it's not even a retcon is called a "retcon". Even Tolkien "retconned" his works. The alternative is to only have small stories that will never expand because any addition or change is evil in your eyes ....