What's the most annoying retcon?

Lore Story
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The greatest and most annoying retcon I see is the Alliance. It used to be a group of self-serving racist, xenophobic and quite maniacal groups of people. The old guard changed (even though the Night Elves and Worgen are somehow supposed to have changed too, no one knows how), and now we have the flawless group of morally superior people who cannot do any wrong. It is also enforced by many Alliance players, who now see it as cannon and would be outraged if anything changed for the worse.

The end result?

Whenever we have conflict, it must be the Horde starting it, the Horde being cruel, genocidal, out of their minds, and the Horde paying the price. Looking at the US forums, there are people who’d want Horde paying even more price for recent events. We’re almost out of old guard characters, Forsaken and Orcs are almost without identity, Tauren became some side-dish peppered with Anduin and Jaina taste. What did Alliance lose in terms of leaders? Varian, who came back after a few expansions missing and we cannot even guarantee he won’t return after Shadowlands?

The Horde is being systematically destroyed just for the sake of continuing the story “in an interesting way”, provided that the Alliance community would not have their angelic robes tainted. This retcon is destroying an entire community and years of fun and experiences…

If you see many horde simply not caring about Teldrassil or defending Sylvanas, hating Calia or any other means of “redemption”, think about it. From a lore perspective you are right, but outside of it, we are just gamers constantly f-ed up by the devs and being bled dry.

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Hoping that the next xpac will see the Alliance picking up the “evil” role. Liking the idea of Turalyon gone over zealous and extreme in his faith in the light. Anduin comes back drastically changed / scarred from whatever the Jailer will do to him only further pushing Turalyon into some light fanatic lunatic. I think Bellular called it “Tyranny Of The Light” something like that.

No idea where the night warrior / Tyrande story will go. Might we get a splinter in Night Elves into the more old school “hating everyone equally” like you said type stage?

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I’d very much prefer this, but I doubt they’ll go even remotely as far as they’ve done with the Horde. We also have the two Windrunner sisters and Calia, all technically Horde but in reality very much Alliance alligned.

I will be fair. I was quite happy to see Teldrassil and Undercity get wrecked. NE and Undead were my first races, and I hold them dear to heart, so it seemed this event will move forward their stories and get them some very nice capital cities. As a long-time NE player myself, I was always annoyed with how Teldrassil looked.

On the other hand, for Horde, it is a nightmare. Undercity was lost, Forsaken are homeless surrounded by Alliance leaders hungry for new Lordearon, infiltrated by Calia the redemption seeker. Their position is as shaky as never before. NE got themselves back in the middle of Kalimdor, and be sure they’ll get a new city and with the anger towards the Horde, will try to push orcs back from Ashenvale again.

This needs to be solved. We can’t have the Forsaken in a precarious position, the Horde losing grasp of Eastern Kingdoms, all the while also losing hold over Kalimdor. Be betting we’ll see the entire north Kalimdor under the Alliance, while North Eastern Kingdoms get pushed by Crusaders, Worgen and Stormwind forces…

This whole story became a real mess for anyone who enjoyed to play Horde, and it annoys me more that the lack of balance is due to pandering to some communities… I know racials and BG are Horde favoured, but I’d sincerely reverse the situation just to not get the kick between the legs story-wise for just two expansions…

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You sure? The latest novel pretty much already foreshadowed how far Turalyon and Alleria are pushing to get the job done. Blizzard explicitly asked the writer to include a scene that involves Anduin… Well will steer clear from details to avoid spoilers. But either way, if the novel is to be taken seriously, I think the “bad” faction will be the Alliance on the next xpac.

Hmmm This is an interesting one defo. There’s a lot of interesting opinions on this thread: So what exactly is going on with Lordaeron? - #86 by Zarao-colinas-pardas Personally I’m a fan of the post Sylvanas Forsaken to establish themselves in Stratholm with the help of the Blood Elves, who themselves are aided by the Nightborn / Suramar. This way consolidating the north of the Eastern Kingdoms for the Horde, and creating interesting politics between the factions. Loads of potential for conflict as well.

Sorry we’ve kind of hijacked this thread with this topic now haha!

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Sorry we’ve kind of hijacked this thread with this topic now haha!

Yeah, but it’s a given. US forum is way more active and interesting, but we cannot comment there, so we latch to whatever post is open… I actually came here after seeing 7 posts about NE players demanding Horde reparations in the next expansion, all on US forums.

The latest novel pretty much already foreshadowed how far Turalyon and Alleria are pushing to get the job done.

Didn’t get a chance to read it yet, but I am aware of the spoilers. I don’t mind knowing beforehand. The issue I see with this is that I don’t think they’ll follow through as they should. Horde is accustomed and up to a point, accepting the fact that they’ve been turned into bad guys again, Alliance is not. It’s really hard for me to see Blizzard going 180 against their core players, but then gain, they burned Teldrassil knowing it would cause outrage, so there is hope.

here’s a lot of interesting opinions on this thread: So what exactly is going on with Lordaeron? Personally I’m a fan of the post Sylvanas Forsaken to establish themselves in Stratholm

Yeah, I read some of the comments there. I will be fair again and say, if the Alliance wants Lordaeron back so bad, fine, they could have it and give us Plaguelands and Ghostlands as permanent regions. I don’t even care that it’s imbalanced there. But what do we do with the Night Elves?

We can’t have them settling right in the middle of Northern Kalimdor, with almost unchalanged. As I said previously, they’d push back Ashenvale and Sargeras forbid further. Northern Eastern Kingdoms has Gilneas and maybe a new Lordaeron to balance the Horde (plus the zealots), Northern Kalimdor has nothing Horde to balance the Alliance there. And I doubt we could burn another world tree anytime soon, or more the Elves back into the waters. So we let Alliance consolidate Northern EK but we don’t consolidate Northern Kalimdor?

As of current events, looking at the map, the situation is not only unbalanced, it’s unhinged. A lot would simply be solved just by 3x-ing the entire Azeroth, but that won’t happen.

Edit: Whether its conflicts or politics, I really hope Alliance gets to have the center for 3 expansions, so we can rebuild something. Characters, culture, cities, honor… I don’t know, anything. xD

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Definitly the deaths of all the old orc chieftains. They should have joned the Horde instead of being killed off.

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In case you where sleeping during the War of Thorns, but the Horde steamrolled through the entire night elven territory, slaughtered the vast majority of the night elven population, hunted down and killed any survivors in Ashenvale they could find.

Just because the Army of the Black Moon reconquered Darkshore doesn’t mean northern Kalimdor isn’t under Horde control, the Forsaken still hold territory in Tirisfal Glades too.

The Horde has proven that they could steamroll the night elves at their strongest, why would they have difficulty with the near-extinct night elven survivors?

And yes, we know the night elves are hiding out in Hyjal, but that doesn’t mean it’s suddenly their lands again either, we do not know the details surrounding their presence in Hyjal.

/act is we do not know enough to state that the Horde has no control/is unable to control northern Kalimdor.

Also, the Alliance will never have permanent control over Lordaeron, since the Battle for Azeroth wartable had missions for the Horde where the Forsaken are moving and (re)building Alterac City into a new undercity. Giving the Forsaken (and Horde) a central, well-defensible, position in Lordaeron with direct paths to Andorhal, another Forsaken city.

Agreed, it is anoying the Horde should’ve never been split up in a Dark, Fel and New Horde. (or well, Fel Horde could but why ruin Kargath Bladefist?)

Why couldn’t Rend Blackhand, Jorin Deadeye and Kargath Bladefist be advisors to Thrall? Why did they have to kill of Garrosh Hellscream without the Hellscream line continueing?

It makes me sick.

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Eeew really? In the book Thrall is already mopping in front of Tyrande either way and they did return them one particular character. What else does the “community” want?

I think as long as they provide a strong Alliance led solution to whatever the Alliance led problem might, the people will be happy. Or at least so I’d like to think so.

yeah but are they unchallenged really? I feel like if anything, BfA proved that the Horde can pretty much assault the Night Elves in the heart of their nation. I’m more concerned about all the neutral factions that reside in those areas, as I could totally see the Night Elves leading a purge in the Cenarion circles and others of the like.

Well I think the Goblins might the answer here. With a change in management to a much more horde centric leader, Gazlowe, surely they’ll repurpose a lot of their resources into serving the horde as oppose to Galiwix’s private interests? That includes the Bilgewater Harbour in Azhara. Maybe even, with inclusion of the Zandalari, now we could have a stronger Troll nation in the Echo Isles?

Let’s not forget we basically have all of Suramar now, which is now way more than an allied race since there’s a romance going on between Lor’Themar and Thalyssra. I’d imagine they’ll play a role somewhere in the territory consolidation game!

Yeah I agree, the Horde defo needs some time away from drama, let the alliance have civil wars for a bit! :slight_smile:

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In case you where sleeping during the War of Thorns

No, mate. I wasn’t sleeping. I am not talking here purely about the lore. I know what the lore is currently. I can guess where it is heading. The issue is not the lore exclusively, and if you paid attention to my other posts here, you’d see I don’t talk mainly from a lore perspective. I talk from a writers/devs led story perspective. Lore-wise, Sylvanas shouldn’t have done half the stuff she did. Lore-wise, Thrall wouldn’t have appointed Garrosh. Lore-wise, Sylvanas could have bombed Stormwind out of existence (as in being capable to, not as in wanting to do it), and if not for Anduin, the Alliance could have had the same capability.

Lore is not everything, when we cannot understand where the writers are directing the story towards.

And Darkshore is now reconquered, same for other regions. Hyjal is now occupied by Nelf regardless of what will happen, Moonglade still neutral. We did lose everything north of Ashenvale. Could the Horde theoretically get it back? Certainly. Would the writers do it, considering the hit they delivered to Nelf community a mere expansion away? I am not sure. Fact is, I am more scared of the reactions on US forums than anything lore-related, and I fear that there could be an appeasement.

This is what I am discussing here… the story is subject to change, at every second, in any direction, and at this point, I am not sure I am secure about what they have in-line for Horde.

And as a point thrown around here, I am actually in favour of things moving forward. Hell, I’d manabomb Orgrimmar if that would get us a better city and some development. I do wish to see what’s in line for Undead and Night Elves, I am just terrified of writers treating every next expansion as they did every other one before Shadowlands: with Horde getting the story-wise kick in the… between the legs.

Because as I see it, I don’t like it. And besides the usual stuff mentioned before, there is also the fact that now we have even more split inside Horde factions. Plus these new “Horde” leading characters such as Calia and Windrunner sisters, which say as you may, they still remain nothing but least-developed Alliance friends.

it’s sad more than anything…

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What else does the “community” want?

Even they don’t know what they want… most agree that they want to see some punishment of the Horde in the next expansion, or the Horde helping Alliance rebuild as payment. Some argue that the entire Northern EK should be given back to Alliance for free as payment for BfA, others Horde should cede all contested regions. it’s a mess, but they mostly agree that the Horde has to be punished in a meaningful, visible way. Lore-wise, makes sense, but again, we have to think just a bit outside lore here. Then there’s the recent wanting a Forsaken reunion with Humans or a Blood Elves Alliance under pro-Alliance leaders, but I doubt this would ever happen.

Well I think the Goblins might the answer here.

Yeah, I’d love that. I’ve recently toyed with the idea of Orgrimmar and Alliance make-overs, and thought of how we could have Goblins in Azhara and even Trolls in Ashenvale. Echo Islands, unless they get full remake, are way too small to harbour any city, so Ashenvale could be their “jungle”, however that would even make sense. xD

I guess we’ll wait and see what will happen, but more than anything, I hope nothing else happens crazily within the Horde.

Unless we return to normalcy after Shadowlands and one leader turns evil (Thalyssra), while the Horde leader (Lor’Themar) gets murdered. Romeo and Juliet, no exposition needed for Horde xD

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The Wrathgate and Sylvanas’ involvement in it.

They “conveniently” threw the whole story on her because it fits the current narrative.

Nobody can convince me that they had BFA and Shadowlands in mind when they wrote this.

It’s not like they were missing any faults in her and they had to go so low to put that on her to enforce the idea that she’s bad.

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The ongoing creeping retcon of the Alliance being tolerant of almost everything. That includes foreign races, religions, dangerous curses, dangerous magics, and all kinds of lifestyles you can think of. When it started out the humans, who were always the centre of the Alliance, pretty much had a fantasy-medivealish standard kingdom, with cruel politicing and backstabbing, a strong religious leaning, and quite a lot of bigotry towards other races and kingdoms, within the Alliance and without.

There was never a clear retcon regarding that, but It might as well have been. The development to the point we have now, where the undead that burned Teldrassil are just as much people as the citizens of Stormwind, where Warlocks, DKs and Void Elves seem to be quite accepted pretty much everywhere, and where different religions of any kind are just fine, was much too rapid as well as too extreme to be taken seriously.

Note that I don’t necessarily oppose developing it to that point, but if you skip the conflict that that would entail, you are not developing the story, you are just rewriting the world. That’s why I’m comfortable with adressing it as a retcon.

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Ew no! xD I mean on the second last novel there was that huge part where they tried to reunite Forsaken with living relatives, and it was a great read. But I still wouldn’t see this happening. Calia isn’t the leader of the Forsaken either way, even if she holds a position of influence.

I remember reading in one of the old novels (Day Of The Dragon I think) just how light centric the humans were. They didn’t even trust mages, anything that deviated even slightly from the light was devious / heretic etc.

Hey maybe with Turalyon at the head they’ll bring back that old racist Alliance back.

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Anduin is supposed to be the savior of all Azeroth, humans and non humans alike, wasn’t it prophesied by Velen? :stuck_out_tongue:

Don’t fight it guys, embrace it, love and friendship is upon us all.

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But there’s no reason other than “the writers wrote it this way” for Turalyon to be at the head…

And that’s why he’ll turn to the Dark Side, because, at this point I’m 99% sure they’re just trying to make him into an Anduin Skywalker. And then he will commit untold crimes, genocides, and inflict untold suffering, but in the end all will be forgiven because he will sacrifice himself to kill the “real” bad guy.

Now excuse me, I need to wash out my mouth with soap.

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AHAHAHAH :rofl:

If they do that you better prepare a boat because tears will be flowing on these forums.

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Actually those ones in the Horde are already a retcon. Going by WC3 you only have the survivors that went to Outland. So Kaels followers and possibly Scryers. Not Silvermoon.

It’s even a later retcon than surviving Alliance High Elves who have been there since WoWs start.

First we heard that Kael’thas’ troops were the last that remained of the kingdom of Quel’thalas, which is why it wasn’t sold as abandonment of his people when Kael chose to lead his followers to Outland. Then in vanilla they told us that while that was true, there were some High Elf survivors within other lands of the Alliance. Then TBC came and told us that Quel’thalas was only ever “mostly” destroyed and still had a working organization and military strength that isn’t tied to the troops in Outland. Those were the guys that joined the Horde.

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In Vanilla there were two groups of High Elves that I remember. The High Vale rangers in the Hinterlands (I was frustrated not to be able to interact with them, snotty kids wouldn’t repair my gear :slight_smile: ) and Aurora Skycaller in EPL (originally Northpass Tower, then moved to Quel’Lithien, friendly to both factions but part of an Alliance only quest chain about High Elf lore) so not just hearing about them.

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There were also a number of Alliance only High Elf NPCs within Alliance cities, especially in Theramore. TBC only added on to that by introducing the survivors of the Alliance expedition, which included Alleria’s High Elves.

Alliance High Elves never were much of a retcon, and always a visible feature of Alliance questing. That’s why Alliance players have wanted them playable since vanilla, and Blood Elves really could never change that at all. WotLK didn’t really change anything in that regard.

I understand the frustration of people asking for what is “yours”… but sorry, High Elves are a very bad case to make that stand, they were “ours” long before they were ever yours.

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They are still there, though, and Blizzard had no means of getting rid of them, ever. That’s he only relevant point here. You claimed that there was a retcon that made people want something the Horde had. There wasn’t. The relevant Alliance players wanted them before TBC and they wanted them after TBC. There never was a retcon that created the demand, there just was a demand, based on the franchise’s history.

It kind of is, though. That’s why we got our High Elf skins for Velves. They gave us playable High Elves without admitting they did.

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