If you were Lead Narrative Designer would you retcon Shadowlands?

[voidox]

I'd 100% retcon SL in terms of what we saw and how the SL works, I think we can keep parts of it like some characters and whatnot but for sure all the shit with the dumb robots, first ones, Jailer nonsense of "since WC3", Zereth, Elune and so on should be retconned.

Maybe an expansion can deal with parts/a zone/single minor covenant of the SL, but never directly with it and we should NEVER go into the SL itself.

Though I'd also go back into BFA and retcon Azshara/N'zoth so they can get the full expansions they should have gotten. BFA should have just been fully about the fourth war and Azshara coming in the final patch to lead things into her full expansion that would then lead into a full old god expansion with N'zoth.

Honestly, I'd also make some changes to legion's final patch so that the final patch became an entire expansion of it's own as it should have been.

There was so much potential there that was wasted in one patch, e.g. a full army of the light (with more than just draenei), argus, turalyon/alleria story, us using the crystal to invade legion worlds (i.e. us being on the offensive after we kill Kil'jaden and weaken the legion), more presence and story with Sargeras, much more titan revival story/characters, legion final raid and so on.

but nah, all that was wasted in single patches so Danser could push his stupid waifu sylvanus story and push his garbage lore of SL on us.

[Jinpachi]

I would apologize to the fanbase for disappointing them and for failing to respect all those beloved characters and events that shaped Warcraft into what it is (was) and tell them Shadowlands will be treated as a "what if" side content that will remain accessible to be enjoyed but going forward the story will continue as if it didn't happen. Might also throw an apology for hyping up an Old God for 10 years only to lazor him in a single content patch.

This is the only way to fix things at this point.

[Trumpcat]

This is the only way to fix things at this point.

Unfortunately we know the only thing that's leading in the Narrative Lead Steve Danuser is his ego.

[Romanthony]

I would totally retcon it, because I feel like nothing would really be lost, we didnt gain anything or even lose anything going into shadowlands we just dealt with Slyvannas really, and cured Tyrande of her night warrior (which itself was a terrible storyline) and gave the night elf a new tree seed, but apart from that yea it wouldnt effect the game

[Al Gorefiend]

Yes. It is actually impressive they managed to make absolutely none of their fans be impressed with the lore of the expansion. Even the lore apologists who always had ways of talking up WoD and BfA were let down.

[Zuben]

No. Honestly, in the end I didn't find it that bad. Outside the main plot I would say Shadowlands was even fairly enjoyable. Def one of the worse expansions, but each have their silver linings.

Regardless, the situation right now is that Sylv is busy performing a task and Anduin is where ever doing whatever, leaving Alliance in an interesting state. It's a good base to move on to new adventures. Would be better if Baine got an axe introduced to his face in the interim years, but we can't have everything.

[bloodmoth13]

No I would not.

The problem with Shadowlands is presentation and too obscure and drawn out story that led to it. It would have been much better if we'd be aware of Thanos already sometime during Legion (and there was plenty opportunites with it) and more so in BFA.

Also dumping content patches once in half a year plus where the big story moments are relegated to 2 min cutscenes that leave 70% of information out - it's just not really working out.

Yeah sylvanas should have name dropped 'jailer' or zorval in helheim. blizz being overly secretive fucked the story over a lot. If there was a ton of fan speculation over the jailer then he would have been naturally hyped up. The artificial way he was added in where he was dropped on our plate and we were told to eat it created a lot of apprehension. Ragging on baine is hardly the most effective way to set up a character.

On top of that they needed to trim the supporting cast, none of the big 4 leaders should have been present in the story, they added nothing. Instead we should have had characters that fit the narrative better. Controversial opinion but calia menethil should have been in the story, she has had no build up to be part of the forsaken and it could have been a good opportunity to build her up into something before adding her to the forsaken. Its kind of the perfect way to build her up too. Tyrande at least made sense. Calia and bolvar could have made some interesting dynamics. Also bolvar needed to play a bigger role and he should have been calling more shots.

Im surprised how few dead lore characters made appearances too, draka was such a weird choice for maldraxxus, blizz should have put almost anyone else in than thralls mum. out of all the characters id want to see again she wasnt even on the list. I was expecting a 'blizzards greatest hits' kind of expansion with small story arcs for a lot of the dead lore characters but nobody interesting was really around to be seen.

I kinda want to retcon a lot of it, i think the primus fan theory would have been an awesome twist, and i hate the robot people stuff its stupid, but i think its better to expand and flesh out whats there and try ground a lot of it instead of replacing it.

[bloodkin]

I'd not only retcon shadowlands, I'd retcon everything out of existance post MoP and have MoP end with garrosh being executed for the use of old god corruption and void magic against the peoples of azeroth. I'd have a legion invasion by the hand of some fel-corrupted elves that managed to survive in outlands, get onto azeroth through the dark portal and use the war in Pandaria as cover to summon the legion onto the broken shore or alternatively have a notable nightborne summon the legion at the broken shore, go with the majority of an altered Legion expansion (this xpac was good enough to salvage) and have the game continue from there, maybe into dragonflight after destroying the legion. Nothing good came from WoD, BfA or shadowlands for the game or the lore so I'd rather wipe them from existence.

as far as lore implications, I'd have vol'jin survive and feeling that as long as the Legion is around, a truce is an uneasy necessity with the alliance, but all bets are off the moment Sargeras dies. I'd have the Titans come with a deus ex machina of some kind, maybe have parts of azeroth obliterated, triggering wars for resources, but no BfA level of stupid.

[bmjclark]

I think i'd sooner retcon bfa

[Zodiark]

Retcon sl?
I'd rewrite everything from vanilla.
Barring that, I'd start somewhere in the midst of MoP for 3-4 other factions.
No WoD. No Shadowlands. And no bfa.

I agree with your point. I have always said that since Vanilla WoW's Lore has been a hot mess. Retconning outlands and the whole relationship with Sargeras and the Eredar/Draenei, the blood elves, magtheridon, (who supposedly during WC3 had been killed), also WoTLK, while cool by some rights, wasn't the exact expansion and storyline continuation I had hoped for with Arthas. He became the Lich king, and stormed into Lorderon and murdered his own father and turned the whole region into a blighted undead haven. His ultimate plan by that point was to bathe the world in blood and end all life. Though apart from the pre-patch scourge invasions, you never knew anything was even going on! He made a few token appearances throughout the expac and then was the last boss of ICC who basically became a loot pinata for people trying to get his mount. The whole Northrend experience should have been different. You as a player should have more or less felt like you were in the Maw! Undead constantly appearing to attack and slow down your progress, evil spirits and ghouls popping up everywhere. The Lich King should have personally led attacks against the would-be heroes of the Alliance and Horde, forcing events to defend against your bases of operation, whereas if you failed then players would be forced into little outskirt camps away from the safety of others, until they banded together and retook their strongholds. Instead of defeating Arthas I would have made it so his power and spirit was sealed into a frozen tomb atop ICC by using rituals and magic incantations. After a brutal battle the best that we could do was force a stalemate of sorts as Arthas power waned and he was sealed away, not dead, not alive, but forever waiting! The undead could have been kept in check by the Helm of domination being frozen as well keeping the scourge more or less stagnant without the active will of the Lich King to guide them they just wandered the shores of Northrend patiently awaiting the call of their master.

These are just a few of my ideas, but Blizzard always takes the easy way out with black and white storylines, good vs evil, big bad vs the players. The most ambiguous ending to date was the whole thing with Sargeras and the sword being stabbed into silithius. But even this was more or less watered down by the players sacrificing their artifact weapons to basically make the weapon inert. Give me a break. Such hollow writing and plots.

[Kithelle]

Well I mean technically it's not very important to the story...could completely ignore it, or pass it off as some big kind of fever dream. Can say Anduin is off on his own because of how the 4th war affected him and how many died under his command.

[Dellis0991]

In a fucking heartbeat!

[aceperson]

i would completely cancel out the new shadowlands lore. the kyrians completely goes against everything afterlife based that came before (like why are there spirits wandering around the world when the kyrian are suppose to get them?), the seed people (genuinely forgetting the faction name at the moment) competes with the old lore of the wild gods going to the emerald dream to come back to life and apparently inter-cosmic gods don't have the equivalent of phones *stares at elune and winter queen*, and the jailer is literally robot thanos with absolutely crap writing.

i would be more than happy to defend the good aspects of BFA and even WOD, but screw shadowlands. bad lore, bad gameplay, bad design, bad game.

[Zyky]

In a heartbeat I would have changed the ending. Would have made the Mythic only phase the end of the N'zoth encounter, given N'zoth a real cinematic to fix the wrong of him not getting one, and made Shadowlands a fevered dream that was induced by N'zoth driving us mad.

[Chromeshellking]

SO much to prune and I in the end would say no because I would have to do too much to correct it, IF I do it in a way like Chuck did for every universe in supernatural he made then that would work.

But otherwise its too rotten from the core to fix.

[TheramoreIsTheBomb]

I would apologize to the fanbase for disappointing them and for failing to respect all those beloved characters and events that shaped Warcraft into what it is (was) and tell them Shadowlands will be treated as a "what if" side content that will remain accessible to be enjoyed but going forward the story will continue as if it didn't happen. Might also throw an apology for hyping up an Old God for 10 years only to lazor him in a single content patch.

Steve's Ego is in the way of this happening. I could see others [who I will not name], easily doing this in a heartbeat.

[VinceVega]

Oh please stop it with all the retcon bullshit...

You all know it is not possible and the media backlash would be worse than anything else they did to the game.

It would not be: "Thank god they did that"
It would be: "Look at those fucking idiots retconning their own creation. I know it all along they are stupid lets play FF14"

And honestly in the aftermath not much happen. SL is mostly selfcontained. Nothing happend to Arthas. He is in the exact sam position as before. Un-resurectable. Before because it would undermine the whole story. Now lorewise. Sylvannas was a crazy bitch since her conception as a character but they managed to make it.. salvagable. Everything else is cosmic bullshit that never made sense and never will make sense SL did not change that.