Not sure if you’re familiar with the Star Wars (at least pre-disney) method of tiers of canon, but it’s a good way to go with Warcraft
top tier star wars canon is the films, then any supplementary shows, then stuff like the books. things are canon unless or until they are contradicted by something up the chain
That’s how a lot of the old warcraft TTRPG book lore is treated, for example - canon unless something ingame says otherwise
Won’t shame them for it, it’s their sub and they’re free to do what they want with it.
I just think it’s a shame because I find it easier to roleplay with people when we’re all on the same page and because I enjoy a lot of the setting and I’d prefer to incorporate it into what I write, which is difficult if other people are doing their own things and ignoring the setting.
You could use such a system with Warcraft and prioritise what’s in-game over external materials, but that would put Shadowlands canon above all non-video-game canon.
And that would be terrible.
“Just because it’s canon doesn’t mean I have to like it” is also a staple of being a star wars fan
That’s why you curate who you roleplay with, so you enjoy your hobby time with people who share your approach to the setting. I get that it makes finding random roleplay more of a chore, but you can usually get a good idea of what someone’s about by reading their TRP profile.
I’ve long since given up on hoping/expecting that everyone will play by the same rules, it’s an exercise in peak futility. As long as people in my circles have generally the same idea on things, that’s enough for me.
I think what really jaded me to it was the attitude and behaviour of the players who wanted to “police and enforce” standards, which is absolutely deranged behaviour. I much prefer the second life RPers to them, even if I’d generally avoid both.
“Second Life RP” will always be a thing in every roleplaying community and has its place, no matter how much people want to denigrate it or police it. It’s the low hanging fruit RP that everyone can access, and I personally consider it less rewarding due to the lack of investment and coherency.
So for World of Warcraft at least, I’m in favour of a more coherent setting with better continuity, so that there are more people who are following the same lore with the same approach. It makes curation less necessary, though that will always be a part of RP.
Screw you guys i’m gonna RP a uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh au ra in WoW!1
au ra are cowards, this is the true dragon person
dracthyr don’t have cirina x sadu (because dracthyr were abandoned by the story almost immediately and the 10.7/10.1 fragments were nothing)
we do have cindrethresh and viridia though, and that’s something
serious question: did they ever share a single conversation on screen
about one, in the starting zone
post-zone only emberthal really gets any screen time after that
That’s Emberthal, Aspect of the Black Dragonflight to you.
forgive me, queen of the dragonflight
(related: the black dragonflight really need to change their official name. black dragons is fine as a casual term but i hope i don’t need to explain that The Reds is fine short-hand but if you even start to say The Bl-)
a much more important peeve:
when there’s fem night elf x masc human or other equivalent pairings depicted in art and the human is taller 
Yeah, take a walk around even the more “lore-abiding” locations for RPers and you will still find plenty of Headcanon and non-existent lore infecting it like a tumour to the point that your choices are begrudgingly accepting it so you can at least get an hour of RP out of your 8 bucks a month, or quietly sighing and just doing something else with your time because you’d rather not grin-and-bear-away your free time.
Naturally everyone is free to do with their time what they want, but, personally I feel that if you truly love wow’s setting , or atleast a part of it, then you do not believe “Blizzard doesn’t care about it’s own lore, so why should I” is a good excuse.
And if there are episodes you absolutely don’t love ( shadowlands) then, do what you can to just not interact with it, aslong as you don’t go “I don’t like it so it doesn’t exist”. Thankfully the afterlife is not exactly a place every char goes to as casually as the PC, so it’s easy enough to steer clear of.
If that twitter post WAS a previous Lore ‘Historian’ then, well, yeah you were doing a BAD job, buddy.
Hell, my Animation course back at Uni made it clear that, working in films or games or whatever down the road (Lol. Lmao, in fact) your STEP ZERO was to have a story/visual Bible.
Seeing actual paid professionals going “Yeah, we just do whatever, why you mad?” is just… Like, I unironically could do a better job then you my guy, but I don’t have the energy to fistfight the universe for the shunting my desired career into the Unobtainable catergory. Doesn’t mean I can’t call you a poorly skilled hack otherwise, though…
A lot of it will be a structural issue - that ‘historian’ team is miniscule and doesn’t have veto power over anything the developers choose to make - but not understanding the context and diving in with a ‘canon doesn’t matter do whatever’ comment doesn’t reflect well either
Strict adherence to the canon is not hugely important when storytelling, but it’s literally the entire point of the Chronicles series, the book where you establish the canon
[which he does seem to understand from later tweets, but hoo boy read the thread before you reply to it my dude https://x.com/unlimitedBLACK/status/1814991456550978022]
I mean, there are many other options than banging your head against the wall in Stormwind*. Guilds, communities, events, established contacts. I don’t buy the “so you can at least get an hour of RP out of your 8 bucks a month” argument because it’d only hold true if gambling on random roleplay was the only option and it isn’t.
*Stormwind or any other major hub does have plenty of ‘good’ roleplay too, which I don’t think anyone would disagree on.
If we’re talking player fanart and character references, I swear 90% of the tall’uns are “below average height” in their description. Somehow, the 7ft elves are rarely taller than 5’2".