If you were Lead Narrative Designer would you retcon Shadowlands?

[Nathreim]

That and most of BFA.

[Lionwoman]

I think Legion was a fantastic expansion to end "this chapter of WoW."
While BfA has some things I like it could have gone better overall specially in terms of plot development.
So I would ignore Shadowlands and maybe BfA.

[kasuke06]

Retcon? No.

I would just completely ignore it, just like they did with ALL established lore and characters/motivations when they wrote it.

[Rustov]

Damage is done, you can't pull off a retcon that big. No forgets that you jumped the shark. You accept it as part of your canon or die in audience apathy. "I can't take this seriously anymore" is still better than "I don't care, it will be undone anyways".
Now, Arthas on the other hand- "Ah, that was the soul of the Lich King, not ya boy Arthas" handwave wizards did it, etc. Permanently killing off iconic characteras? Bad business.

[Soeroah]

No, what's done is done, and if the writers get blasted for 'retcons' they don't even make imagine the fallout if they actively tried to retcon an entire expansion out of existence. What, they're gonna refund all the money people spent related to the expansion and pretend they didn't waste four years of development and two years of players' time?

Better to just ignore it going forward and softly recontextualising/expanding the parts of it that are important when and if they become important.

[Kyphael]

Hell yes, as Anduin's nightmare, and re-do the whole thing as an Arthas redemption story.

[TheAngryGazebo]

I wouldn't retcon it per se, but I'd largely ignore it moving forward. There are very few elements that need to carry forward from it, and I might even add a throwaway line in the future that 'the barrier between our world and the Shadowlands is strengthening, and travel between has become as difficult as it was before Sylvanas shattered the Helm of Dominaiton' to indicate that people are not casually crossing back and forth like we've been this expansion.

[Dristereau]

Too big to retcon but would definitely put some distance from it which they are doing and I would close it off (until they want to bring Sylvanas back), the realms of Death are meant for those that are dead.

There are some things which are done which hopefully develop (Anduin, Tyrande, Baine/Thrall after their captivity). I kind of wish there was a meeting with Lor'themar and Kael'thas where there is a metaphorical passing of the crown as the ending the Kael'thas' and part of his atonement. Also Arthas was completely ruined, I really wanted to see him have some interactions in Shadowlands, not become an Anima droplet. I expected he would replace the Jailer as the overlord of the Maw and there would be some closure between him, Uther and Jaina.

I think an upcoming plot point will be Turalyon becoming a tyrant, possibly siding with AU Yrel if she ever makes it to MU Azeroth.

They've already tied up the Arbiter, all four Covenants and Zereth Mortis/Sepulcher. Main things to tie up are Sylvanas (can be brought back when needed) and the Jailer. I don't feel they did even a half decent job of making him seem to have plot/goal. I think they could have done a much better job showing his story and building him than the garbonzo they released.

[Felrane]

While it would be nice I dont think they can rewrite it at this point. They could add-on making the Shadowlands we saw not the real one. Its all artificial created by some race or godlike beings The First Ones. There should be other Lords of Death they could introduce that have their own realms outside of the Machine of Death. Similar to Bwonsamdi/Mueh'zala that have real power and their own realms. Marasmius for example was around before the Winterqueen even showed up we just saw the surface level of the Shadowlands.

As far as BFA goes I wouldn't have even had N'zoth show up in the Expansion and finished the Faction War. G'huun I would have break off a part of himself and escape his prison perhaps even having him escape to a young planet to be an bigger threat down the road. I liked the Lore about Titans expermenting on Old gods and Loa. G'huun becoming a larger threat on a universal scale rotting planets and turning them into undeath like a Void style Lich King causing problems for Realm of Death as well as other planets. Having him Attack even the Void could have been a fun twist.

[tromage2]

Would not retcon it.

Altho i would end it differently, so that Oribos has to be destroyed and that it was a titan construction to bring order to the shadowlands.
That chaos had its place in the afterlife and that order had to be destroyed to reverse back to the shadowland it once was.

This way after we leave the afterlife we dont know what the shadowlands becomes.

[Palapop]

In a heartbeat.

Actually, I'd rewrite everything since MOP.

AU Draenor?

Cross-travelling Gul'dan summoning Legion to our timeline?

Argus? (lore wise, 7.3 is same disaster as whole shitshow called Shitlands... erm... Shadowlands)

Sargeras popping out of ffing nowhere, dry-humping Azeroth while we wreck havoc in his base?

Sword in Silithus?

Azerite?!?!?!

Then LBFA came: 90% of "allied races" should just become extra customizations instead. Instead, the only new race from BFA should be Nightborne. And they should come with Legion.

Zandalari being our allies now after we killed THOUSANDS of them couple of years ago when they tried to conquer the world (ToT) ?

Sylvanas going full emo-teen because some random dying night elf provoked her?

Shitlands? Where every single soul goes after you die? But waaaaait, wait there... not if youre killing necromances (while they do Necromancy 24/7 in Shitlands).... not if youre elemental, not if youre titan... but Argus may go. Not if you're dk. No-no. Necromancy is not allowed. But we do it. But if some random dude on Azeroth does it too- then you may not come to Shitlands....WHERES LOGIC IN THIS WRITING?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?



If we could go back to end of MOP- there could be A-MAZING introduction of new evil dudes who would work on summoning Legion into Azeroth. Instead of AU Gul' Dan.

Then we could have whole expansion about N' zoth, where Shadowlands would be X.3 patch. And it would be as we've seen it in game already- On Azeroth, but in spiritual form. And then we get pulled out of it by Green Dragonflight.... Which would spark Dragonflight expansion...

THere could be better versions, but we ended up with this.....

[schwarzkopf]

It is so easy for people to just say "I'd do it better" ... but I guarantee that none of you could have ACTUALLY done it better.

I could solo Mythic SL raids on my mage, but nope - I'm not going to post a video of it because I'm too busy to do it right now.

LOL.

[Palapop]

That and most of BFA.

Dont forget the Legion too.

[Ticj]

Yes, there is just such a huge disconnect between SL and the rest of the game that SL doesn't even feel like warcraft to me. Also the fact that it cheapens death is just such a massive hit to the lore of the franchise that I'm not sure it can recover from unless they pretend SL never happened.

[SinR]

In a fucking heartbeat, Yes.

All just N'zoth's fever dream.

[unfunnymeme]

It is so easy for people to just say "I'd do it better" ... but I guarantee that none of you could have ACTUALLY done it better.

I could solo Mythic SL raids on my mage, but nope - I'm not going to post a video of it because I'm too busy to do it right now.

LOL.

If you took the original Chronicle books, walked up to a random person on the street, and told them to write a story involving this lore and offered them $1mil USD, they would do a better job than the people that wrote SL.
Do you know why it would automatically be better? Because then it would actually be based in the lore of the universe, instead of being a fucking reboot of it.

[schwarzkopf]

If you took the original Chronicle books, walked up to a random person on the street, and told them to write a story involving this lore and offered them $1mil USD, they would do a better job than the people that wrote SL.

As I said - it is easy to SAY that, but the reality is that they couldn't.

[Skildar]

As I said - it is easy to SAY that, but the reality is that they couldn't.

but didn't you read his post? It is not easy because the solution is to pay a single individual a million dollar. So blizzard has to fire a whole team of people and raise one of their employee to stop everyone on the project from expanding their universe and keep everything within the constraints of their god given reference book.

You are dealing with people that are in deep denial and are just looking for outrage, my advice would be to not bother with any response in this thread.

[Irian]

It's already been done, no going back now. It'd be easier to simply drop it and forget it happened and not bring any of the characters who played a prominent role in it back, which is probably the route they plan on taking it. Shadowlands being so self-contained made it really easy to just completely ignore and move on with the story.

It kinda sucks that the expansion has kind of permanently removed any ambiguity or mystery to the idea of an afterlife, but oh well. WoW has been on a kick of over-explaining the mystery away for a while now, it's just yet another thing ruined in their desire to milk the hell out of all established lore possible.

[LazarusLong]

I highly doubt that lead designer can retcon anything when there are Narrative and Creative directors above him.