If you were in charge of WoW’s lore and story, what would you go back and change?
Obligatory response: Shadowlands.
With that out of the way, I´d retcon void elf recruitment scenario. Not necessarily remove it (although it is an option), but rather change how void elves came to be. The issue with them has always been that they are a Void race in mostly Light faction, accepted in time of peace. The fix here is simple: Make them former high elves.
The idea I had in mind is that, after being rejected from Quel´Thalas, Alleria accepts that she is a high elf in the post-Third War sense, and decides to use her fame to better organize her people. High elves meet in Quel´Danil, almost all of their race, representing factions such as Highvale, Silver Covenant, Kirin Tor elves, and also a decent number of those scattered around Alliance territory.
And then things go horribly wrong. Void ethereals attack this gathering and use their relic to imprison and transform the high elves. It´s only with the help of THE CHAMPION and Alleria´s existing Void abilities that allow her to free herself, that the ethereals are defeated and other elves saved. But, in the process, this race that has already been part of the Alliance and has been pretty loyal to it, has been transformed into beings of the Void.
What this fixes are three things:
- I´d say it´s much easier to accept someone who has been involuntarily transformed by dark magic at a meeting meant to unify their race rather than someone whose transformation (albeit also involuntary) is a result of researching said dark magic.
- It´s also much easier to accept a Void race as part of the Alliance if said Void race already is part of the Alliance. Anduin accepting bunch of corrupted Void researchers because Alleria said it´s OK is weird, Anduin refusing to kick high elves out of Alliance because of a tragedy makes sense.
- It solves the issue of high elves not being playable as it pretty much removes the race from the setting. Those few high elves that haven´t been at the meeting now truly can´t ever constitute a race as there might as well be like 50 of them.
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In no particular order:
- Shadowlands in its current iteration has to go. It’s such a nihilistic, depressing mess that it would drive any religious character insane.
- The similarly gutted cosmology of the setting. The Light, Void, Life, Fel etc. being treated as a cosmic power source rather than anything mystical or arbitrary, the enigmatic and similarly mystical Titans being reduced to squabbling mortals and so on. Nothing of the grand workings of the Warcraft universe required elaboration.
- The absolute mess of timetravel and timelines within the setting, as well as making certain elements of the setting (Shadowlands, the Burning Legion) a singular constant in every timeline. While I can digest the way alternate timelines are created and how they might interact with the one we play in, certain cosmic forces becoming immune to these time streams has to go. It makes zero sense that Archimonde or Sargeras exists in every timeline but it’s the same and singular individual.
- The finale of BFA and the factions agreeing to an armistice. The Cold War-esque status quo of not committing to total war gave both factions more character and material than what we have had so far since the Fourth War ended. This jolly cooperation of a unified Azeroth and making anyone adverse to that a cartoonishly evil caricature makes every lore character look like they went through a lobotomy whose world views and enlightenment wiped out their decades of experience and knowledge of the misdeeds and warmongering of the opposing faction.
- Loosely tied to the previous point, the formation of the Horde Council and the creation of the High King of the Alliance. The Horde needs to have a Warchief, not a circle of Anduins who all agree and want a better Azeroth. The Alliance does not need a central authority figure, particularly as it was created solely to mirror the Horde’s Warchief position. The Alliance is not a collection of misfit and underdog groups who need to be wrangled by a leader, they are a collection of sovereign kingdoms who ally to support each other. The Horde by its very nature should be rife with inner conflict and disagreements, yet held together by the common goal of survival and a figure of absolute authority.
- Calia Menethil.
- Jaina Proudmoore since BFA. The character has basically failed upwards since MoP and has ended up as the de facto leader of the Kirin Tor as well as the Lord Admiral of Kul Tiras rather than being executed for being a war criminal.
- Tyrande’s Night Warrior arc. What started out as a great concept and development became fantasy cancer and a vehicle for the same Anduinism brainrot that affects all the faction leaders. Her rage and wish for unapologetic vengeance was justified. There was absolutely no need for her and the rest of the Night Elves to mellow out.
There are many other characters and bits of world building that should be pruned or returned to a previous state, but I’m confident others will list them.
6 Likes
Losing Vol’jin as a proper, active character.
End of BFA.
Losing Sylvanas to the stupid Villain Ray.
All of Shadowlands.
That’s a pretty good start. If I elaborate further I will be writing for pages.
6 Likes
TBC.
Metzen himself said the draenei were a retcon. I would de-retcon them. The Draenei were always residents of Draenor, and they all look Lost Ones. Maybe give them Broken, at most.
I’d also make it so the Sunwell wasn’t fixed so fast. Maybe, maybe it’d happen eventually, but being fixed in one expac was a mistake that undermined the initial BElf vibe significantly.
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- That Old Gods can ‘die’ instead of being this constant parasitical being upon Azeroth’s crust.
- The end of BfA. Really had the ‘weakest’ Old God go and attack Azeroth as he did.
- Ebyssian becoming Aspect of Earth.
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The thread, basically.
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To iterate on this, I believe TBC is where cracks begin to show.
In regards to the Draenei would go a step further and have it so Velen is still a prophet but going from world to world trying to rally people to his cause against the Burning Legion. He’s not a Draenei but the original Eredar from WC3.
The plotline on Draenor would be Velen cultivating the Arakkoa. This race is essentially the same as the Draenei are in our canon thematically. They even have the same sort of downfall caused by the Orcs (use the Light, nearly wiped out, their forms become corrupted). This would then lead to the corrupted Arakkoa joining the Alliance in TBC.
Velen still get’s to be a space faring magical Light preacher, but we keep the races native. No spaceships.
As for the original Broken / Lost Ones, they would be still around but exclusively part of the Illidari.
In regards to the Sunwell I would actually have it never fixed. I think the vampiric curse on the Blood Elves need for magic was thematically important and was the twist they needed to fit into the Horde for that darker edge. I would have liked to see their need for magic remain as uncurbable, which would lead them to more depraved actions to better separate them from their High Elf kin and bond closer with the Forsaken. If anything I’d like to see them become dependent on blood magic.
I’d also never have Kael’thas go rogue. His downfall in TBC was handled badly. Playing both sides was a good narrative, holding his cards to his chest but just going full Burning Legion (the faction that ultimately doomed his race) was a poor justification for a raid boss.
Ultimately I would retcon and tweak every expansion we had given the chance. TBC would be the start.
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What’s wrong with Ebyssian becoming the Earth Aspect? He seems pretty qualified to me.
Without turning this into a “black dragon aspect choice” discussion, Ebyssian doesn’t really stand for the ideals of the Dragonflight, and is more aligned culturally with Highmountain Tauren (which makes sense, granted!). The representative of the Black Dragonflight should really fall to someone who knows the culture of the Dragonflight.
I would much prefer someone like Sabellian or Adamanthia to take the lead, but the former would lead to discussions over “why Sabellian over Wrathion???” and the latter got forgotten about after one questline, so.
Don’t worry, you put it into better words than I did LOL
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I can’t speak for Iszy, but to offer my 2c on it…
He’s got no connection to the black dragonflight at all, and is the least interesting choice out of four possible alternatives (Wrathion, Sabellian, Adamanthia, and Emberthal).
Furthermore his name is Ebonhorn, not Ebyssian, because he’s tied to the Highmountain tribe far deeper than he ever was his draconic side. Shoving him into the Aspect role out of nowhere takes away from that, something visually represented by his new visage form completely doing away with any of his tauren clothing or accessories in favour of “dragon armour”.
If this had been earned in some way then it might be a different factor, but his portrayal in DF seemed to essentially forget about his Highmountain ‘heritage’, to the extent he and Mayla didn’t even have a conversation in the entire expansion, from what I can tell.
Finally, he’s yet another one of those “I don’t want to lead…but I will” reluctant ruler characters in a slew of other such characters on Azeroth. Sometimes leaders want to lead because actually they want to actively improve things, not passively sit around.
The question of “can an Aspect have a dual life” was basically answered by Kalec (Aspect vs. Kirin Tor) and the answer was…no, so Ebonhorn being thrust into the Aspect role took him out of his position among the Highmountain, with seemingly zero fanfare or attention to it, even though he’d been with them for thousands of years.
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The problem with asking what I’d retcon is that I’d essentially be telling players that what they saw happen in-game didn’t really happen, and if I’m allowed to do that, then I’d roll back everything from Cataclysm onwards and create an entirely new continuity. But at this point you might as well reboot WoW and create WoW2.
If instead you asked me what I’d retcon while keeping the in-game events intact… I’d try to limit the impact of Shadowlands on wider continuity as much as possible.
To quote myself:
Also, I would remove the claim that there is only one Burning Legion and only one Shadowlands between all alternate timelines. That’s just stupid. And ideally I’d clarify that only our timeline really exists, while the others are just possibilities that flicker in and out of existence. It’s actually supposed to work this way, but the game basically ignores it.
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I’d retcon Ysera’s return from the Shadowlands during Dragonflight. Instead everything she does is done by either Malfurion and/or Merithria.
There was zero need for Ysera to be around during Dragonflight.
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You 
Me
This. We need to go back.
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Ysera’s end was a legitimately sad and impactful moment in Legion. Then they tried to repeat it (which was already a bad idea) and up it by having Malfurion take her place.
Only for none of them to stay/die, rendering the whole arc completely hollow and pointless.
Edit: Had a brain moment and wrote BfA instead of Legion.
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Oh.
I would also retcon Amirdrassil to not have any connection with Dragons, Dragonflights and the Dragon Isles’.
It hijacked the Night Elves’ story and all the souls of their death sacrificed themselves so that Azeroth, by way of the World Tree, could gift the Dragon Aspects their powers again?
And if she did not use the tree to regift the Aspects, then what is the difference between Amirdrassil and the other World Tree’s? Aside from appearances, that is?
Culturally it would also have made more sense to have planted it in either Darkshore, ontop Mt. Hyjal or use it to replace Teldrassil.
Bel’ameth is beautiful, though!
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I think that some things from the RPG are so genuinely interesting and have been done such a disservice in the actual canon (or left in a vague state post-RPG ‘retcon’) that it would have been cooler if they had been represented as they are there.
For example, the blood elf / high elf split happens because Quel’thalas gets overrun by the Scourge much harder than it does in actual canon, which is where the infamous ‘90% of elves died’ misinterpretation bit comes from. In this version of the events, the Forsaken didn’t even have the chance to come around with a steel chair to help Quel’thalas, and Kael’thas and his followers, not wanting the Scourge to keep the spoils, scorch-earth the entirety of the Eversong Woods, and the kingdom as a whole, with many elves still in it, abandoning Silvermoon and joining Illidan as a whole, with some venturing elsewhere around Azeroth.
I feel that this version would’ve been a much more interesting prelude to World of Warcraft’s representation of Quel’thalas, and it would’ve made for a far more radical divide amongst the elves. TBC could have had Quel’thalas as a whole for an entire patch rather than just the isle of Quel’danas, with the Horde siding with either blood elven rebels led by Lor’themar, or the Amani; and the Alliance with high elves.
In this case, if the blood elven rebels were the way to go, they could join the Horde as one of the playable races, living alongside the Forsaken much like trolls did / do with orcs, with Silvermoon and the rest of Quel’thalas being beyond repair after the TBC patch civil war.
If the Amani were chosen, however, it would be cool if Zul’Aman would have been a Horde city, with parts of that AU’s version of the Ghostlands as a starter zone, and a foreshadowing corrupted wards of Silvermoon that tease the expansion’s final raid.
In much smaller words, there are other examples like how the Cult of the Forgotten Shadows doesn’t -really- have a doctrine of any kind outside of the RPG, and just became a caricature of itself in Legion because of it.
It’s just a bit of a shame. There’s a lot of lore in the RPG that’s very much salvageable, and it’s not like they were written by folks who aren’t experienced with writing RPG lore. They were published by White Wolf, the creators of the entire World of Darkness series, Ars Magica, and Exalted, and even had the same artists as these sagas in some cases.
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RPG Quel’Thalas and Silvermoon live rent-free in my head every waking moment of consciousness. They’re such a visceral and awesome D&D Adventure plot. This enchanted forest that still looks untouched, filled with vibrant colour and radiance, animals still chirping melodiously and-- suddenly for 5 seconds your vision flickers, all the colour drains from the landscape as the abhorrent horror of what occurred here suddenly becomes aware to you as you are met with bones piled upon bones and the withered husks of trees. Then it passes and the illusory vibrancy returns. Was what you saw the truth, or simply a spectre of history?
You enter the streets of Silvermoon, spotless and glistening, with levitating towers bejewled in reds and golds hovering above the city as a testament to the grand glory of the Elves. There’s no-one here but it doesn’t look unihabited, you’re sure the Elves are all simply busy elsewhere. You pause for a moment to gaze upon a mirror, though that which reflects in your vision is a ruined street filled with cracked stones and the rotting corpses of a dead kingdom whilst a ghastly spectre lingers behind you. Turning away from the mirror your vision returns to the glistening High Home of the Elves, uncertain if what you saw was a figament of your imagination or something more.
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Don’t forget the part where you decide to loot a single thing from any elven home or vault. Just one single thing, and the entire city’s defenses and restless ghosts turn your funny ruins exploration story into Vermintide gameplay.
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Horde tryna make San’layn a Thing.
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