Timeline split. Is it feasible?

[RobertMugabe]

Like the taurens?
There's only so many so many elf and big / small / medium humans you can add until it becomes stale. It's a fantasy game. We have quilboars, murlocs, those bear things we farmed rep for in vanilla, gnolls. Now all of a sudden we can't live if some of them are playable. And no, you can't go "tauren is not furry but Dracthyr is, because I say so by my subjective metric". Get over it, people.

I think he meant with that statement that Blizzard had replaced some people working for them with furries (and that's true to some extent if you look at Twitter, but that's just a few employees who don't hold any leading position at Blizz regardless) and not about Blizzard adding furry races (which dracthyr aren't anyways lol).

[Lodreh]

All I'm hoping for is Classic to become Progression Servers. Eventually you will progress to Retail. Once there your characters are moved to Retail and your collections are merged. Then the Progression Servers are wiped and start a new with Vanilla. You have the opprotunity to collect rare trangmog, mounts, titles, achievements... whatever just by playing the game through the various expansions.

[AtomR]

And how do you think you're going to manage to get all the classic wow players to agree what is good lore? Do you think you all agree on the same future for the wow universe?

The reason people hate wow lore since cata it's because that's when the game started telling a main story in an intelligible way. Until then it was fragmented and hidden in the world, with written texts that nobody read. People just didn't even know there was a main story. I mean the majority of player, not all. Increasingly over the last 10 years, the game has added voiced interactions, cutscenes midplay and more recently main campaigns that are tracked on the quest log. So now people hate the lore because they see it.

I dread the day they decide to do such a ridiculous ideia as splintering wow into two timelines. It was bad enough with warlords of draenor playing through a timeline that had no impact on wow except the Guldan exodus to Azeroth prime. Having wow classic timeline would splinter the story, and the player base even more than it is now.

[AngerFork]

It's the general consensus (and I agree) that Cata was the start of the decline of WoW, gameplay and lore-wise.

With the success of Classic through WotLK, Blizzard is presented with an opportunity that no other company has ever had: fix the lore, retcons and design mistakes.

My idea is simple: Blizzard creates a compelling and convincing lore (I'm asking too much, I know) that explains a timeline split that happened in Cata. In one timeline we have Cata, MoP, WoD and etc. and in the other we have a fresh path to an unknown future, maybe plugging in the best features of each expansion or even entire xpacs (like Legion).

Is it feasible? I know that, technically, it is. I also know that whatever Blizzard do, the playerbase will gobble-up. So, the only question is if it's feasible from a political/player engagement perspective.

What y'all think?

Putting aside my disagreement on Cata being the start of a WoW decline (I put that at WoD/Legion personally), I think it's possible...but I don't think it's a good idea by any stretch.

Let's start with it from a lore standpoint. While you could easily explain it away using some of the same logic that brought us WoD (one of the stories would be an AU Azeroth), players would get confused fast. Which is real Azeroth & which is AU? Which one had the good Garrosh again? Wasn't the Legion wiped out, or is this a different Legion attacking us? Is Sylvanas still a wounded banshee or does she have blue eyes now? As much as SL completely stomped all over the lore of the Warcraft universe, having a second Azeroth in place would just make that worse.

Plus, we also have to remember that the original writers have left Blizz, and they were the ones who took us up through much of what we have today. Pandaria? AU Draenor? Metzen & crew were all on stage pushing for those to be part of the story. The current team gave us things like Shadowlands. So splitting off the lore is far less likely to give us an intriguing new story than it is to stomp all over the story currently in place.

That being said, I do see one potential area for lore enhancement that could be a good fit, the RTS-style games. I've said many times that the best thing Blizz could've done with AU Draenor after WoD was to put it in as Warcraft 4 & start establishing what the AU universe could be...that way, you can still build up lore for Warcraft without having to worry about whether it stepped on WoW's toes. Doing some story repair through the RTS games would likely be a decent way to pull off a win for Blizz.

[Azadina]

Furries make bad expansions and sexual harassers make good expansions?

Furries make terrible art direction. And it's been heading that way for a while now.

The Narrative team has a lot more people, and I am certain the newer employees are doing their best with the scraps and burning shit that was left behind for them to work with.

Yea, I'm sure. It's not the peons however, who make the call on the narrative direction. They make it happen.

[Ashana Darkmoon]

The reason people hate wow lore since cata it's because that's when the game started telling a main story in an intelligible way. Until then it was fragmented and hidden in the world, with written texts that nobody read. People just didn't even know there was a main story. I mean the majority of player, not all. Increasingly over the last 10 years, the game has added voiced interactions, cutscenes midplay and more recently main campaigns that are tracked on the quest log. So now people hate the lore because they see it.

This is super true and a great post!

[Cosmic Janitor]

The reason people hate wow lore since cata it's because that's when the game started telling a main story in an intelligible way. Until then it was fragmented and hidden in the world, with written texts that nobody read. People just didn't even know there was a main story. I mean the majority of player, not all. Increasingly over the last 10 years, the game has added voiced interactions, cutscenes midplay and more recently main campaigns that are tracked on the quest log. So now people hate the lore because they see it.

You would maybe have a point if TBC was followed by Cata, but the reality is that Wrath was inbetween and had a central narrative that wasn't hard to follow at all.

Cata left a sour taste lore wise, because Blizzard completely mismanaged their resources with a revamp that resulted in alot of shallow shit meme stories to meet a quota with no regards to quality and many of those plotlines stuck with us for years and still continue on today. Another thing Cata did was burn through deathwing by making one of the most nefarious schemers in lore into a raging mindless beast because he lost his marbles, which then became a reoccuring trope for almost every WoW villain since. The last patch and the time nonsense wasn't particularily great either, which sticks with people since the last patch makes up a disproportional part of the expansion's life cylce.

[Varodoc]

Furries make terrible art direction.

And life choices too, they genuinely look/sound like freaks.

[rrayy]

It's the general consensus (and I agree) that Cata was the start of the decline of WoW, gameplay and lore-wise.

With the success of Classic through WotLK, Blizzard is presented with an opportunity that no other company has ever had: fix the lore, retcons and design mistakes.

My idea is simple: Blizzard creates a compelling and convincing lore (I'm asking too much, I know) that explains a timeline split that happened in Cata. In one timeline we have Cata, MoP, WoD and etc. and in the other we have a fresh path to an unknown future, maybe plugging in the best features of each expansion or even entire xpacs (like Legion).

Is it feasible? I know that, technically, it is. I also know that whatever Blizzard do, the playerbase will gobble-up. So, the only question is if it's feasible from a political/player engagement perspective.

What y'all think?

Just because you think they are mistakes does not mean they do. What you are really saying is "Will Blizzard get rid of what I hate and start over?".

[Drusin]

Sounds like a cool idea

[Shadowferal]

My preference for a split would be somewhere in the middle of MoP. It's the first time I felt that a neutral faction could be created.

[thesmall001]

Garrosh kneeled with humility, for perhaps the first and final time in his life, before the son of Bloodhoof. "I was played for a fool by one who would dishonour the Horde. For my pride, my axe and my kill has been tainted by cowardice. For my arrogance, the Horde has lost a brother, your people have lost a great leader, and you have lost your father. For my redemption, I offer you my-- *CRUNCH*

The salt-bed beneath Baine's hooves drank the quick, red ooze urgently flowing from the puddle that had been the skull of Garrosh Hellscream. Baine suppressed any sense of retributory glee as he cut short such grovelling that did not suit the petulant Hellscream whelp. The Horde could only be misled by one so easily massaged into manipulation. Word of Magatha's treachery had already spread throughout the cities and villages of Kalimdor and so too had the tales of how one Tauren had ignited the honour of those he rallied and avenged his father and liberated his people. This, Baine noted, was the spirit the Horde would need to endure the coming storm. He did not wish for power, nor leadership, and would sooner defer and deliberate until a common path was found, but he would always be decisive when his actions felt true.

The Orcish peoples were proud and traditioned. Garrosh was a hero to them, true, but Baine had won his right in law, to lead the Horde in Garrosh's derliction, with strength and honour.

And, scene.