Can Blizzard surrvive without Chris Metzen?

[Dasani]

Just because all the "lore" (<- I use the term VERY loosely) is being spat out by one dude for the most part and fitting into his personal fantasy vision for how things should be doesn't mean it's the best lore or story that can be told. Far, far, far from it. Someone with an actual talent for storytelling could've taken WOW's story to so many better places in all the years they've had to play with it.

Honestly it's like asking if Star Wars can exist without George Lucas. I mean yeah, he created some initial shit that was pretty tight (even though it was essentially any fantasy setting ever made, but "in space") but he lost his touch pretty quick and has made nothing but shit since. And now that he finally sold the rights to someone else, they have the potential to make it better. Or worse. Remains to be seen. But it's hard to beat lucas's latest attempts.

Point is in the right hands, either franchise could improve dramatically over their current iterations when chained to their current dictators.

[Sky High]

World of Obamacraft

we got a clever mo fo right here. /approves

[edmorte]

Where this come from? Do you have any bomb info?

Like out of the blue.

I tell you, Blizz can sure live without Tom Chilton, but i doubt that's going to happen.

[SodiumChloride]

Social interaction is a deeper thing.

That's a separate thing. It's important too, but again as I said, without the story you are just juggling numbers. If you like "juggling numbers" games, good for you (although WoW doesn't really give you much freedom to juggle), but that's not what RPGs are about. RPGs are about the world.

But the story has largely been disconnected from the backdrop, even from the start of WoW, really.

Most unfortunate.

and those numbers are still very profitable. I can't speak for you, but I can speak of my own experience and the reason I still play this game even though I think the story sucks, don't raid any more and haven't bothered with serious pvp since wrath. For me, I come online, do some resource gathering for gold generation and hang out with friends in this virtual world that doesn't really matter. It's fun because I make it fun, in the absence of blizzard's presented version of fun.

No doubt it's profitable. But I don't see how a better story won't improve it.

And really ... have some integrity. Actually give a shit about your work. Don't let it be just about money.

[GoldNSilence]

It could get better if he left. More Alliance focus and less corruption crap.

[corebit]

All Metzen is doing nowadays is show up for Blizzcon to hype the audience for the big reveals, and provide the occasional voice acting. Likewise for the other games. Right now the game directors handle the direction of the game. In WoW's case it's Tom Chilton. Metzen's role is just to set the general story up, but otherwise his intervention is quite minimal.

Star Wars is doing pretty well without George Lucas. D&D is doing pretty well without Gary Gygax. The most successful setting is one that is able to survive on its own, without its original creators to babysit.

[Funky Kong]

I think it's undeniable that the story, and atmosphere that Metzen brings to the table is pretty good, but what about after him? Can the franchises Blizzard has created survive with out his contributions?

When Metzen finally quits then we will stop seeing Thrall show up to save the day at the end of the expansion, which will be a nice breath of fresh air.

[Zaqwert]

Metzen is a gigantic hack and Blizzard would be better off without him.

He's the M Night Shyamalan of video games.

[Lazuli]

Actually, I think a lot of people would deny it. Did you actually play through Cataclysm?

unfortunately.

[Layuth]

Without Metzen the Alliance may have a chance afterall.

[Tylaeus]

Blizzard could probably do fine with just Dave Kosak. He doesn't seem to care about Orcs as much, either.

[Zoldor]

Yes, although there will probably be a void a when he is gone. He seems like Blizzard's Miyamoto.

I think more Samwise as Waz and Metzen as Jobs. In the creating of the Warcraft world.

[Bullettime]

I love Metzen but I honestly think some new writers, whether to replace him or on a bigger team, would do the game a lot of good. He tends to fall back to the same themes across all Blizzard games and in WoW has a very hard time with the Alliance storytelling. He's a massive Orc fanboy and that's fine but the Alliance storytelling aspects have been pretty much nonexistent or "what?" for awhile now.

Massive personality shifts are common as are "what the fuck was that?" lore like the whole "chosen of Goldrinn" crap, and the Alliance's setup to the Siege was garbage.

[rda]

Warcraft lore would / will be BETTER OFF without Metzen. Orcs, orcs, orcs, Thrall, orcs, goddammit someone stop this guy already!

Alas, it's probably too late for lore to recover.

[Haven]

I'd argue that it would be an improvement. I quite like Metzen but his writing style is very much Orcs, Orcs and more Orcs with less focus on what would actually make for good story telling and more on what would be "awesome" in an instantly gratifying manner.

Exactly. This far it's become like a drug - epic victory, epic victory, NEED MORE EPIC VICTORY, MORE MASCULINE BADASS ORCS MORE MORE MORE. He's utterly incapable of any level of intrigue - unless you count PLOT TWIST THIS GUY IS NOW INSANE as one.

[rda]

Exactly. This far it's become like a drug - epic victory, epic victory, NEED MORE EPIC VICTORY, MORE MASCULINE BADASS ORCS MORE MORE MORE. He's utterly incapable of any level of intrigue - unless you count PLOT TWIST THIS GUY IS NOW INSANE as one.

I agree as well. It feels so primitive, too. I mean, take a look at the whole premise for Warlords of Draenor: "hey, we thought, what if you could fight all those badasses from the past, wouldn't that be cool?" - just how much more primitive can this get? There are some "cool badasses" (according to Metzen, anyway), so let's fight them, we'll bend the lore and go to a parallel timeline or whatever to do it??? No reason it was increasingly hard to take anything related to WoW seriously in the past few years. Metzen is a big part of the problem.

[Mormolyce]

Stupid question.

Stupid, loaded question.

Also, if anything, Red Shirt Guy is living proof metzen is not that into lore etc

Nitpicking minutieae of the lore doesn't prove anything of the sort. Warcraft's story is simply too big for one man to cram into his head at all times now.

I mean, unless he has no life and a red shirt :P

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I agree as well. It feels so primitive, too. I mean, take a look at the whole premise for Warlords of Draenor: "hey, we thought, what if you could fight all those badasses from the past, wouldn't that be cool?" - just how much more primitive can this get? There are some "cool badasses" (according to Metzen, anyway), so let's fight them, we'll bend the lore and go to a parallel timeline or whatever to do it??? No reason it was increasingly hard to take anything related to WoW seriously in the past few years. Metzen is a big part of the problem.

You realise he's massively simplifying the story direction and narrative process in order to make an exciting presentation at Blizzcon right?

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Metzen has more passion and charisma for this world and ALL OF IT'S CHARACTERS in his chin hairs than the lot of you combined. Put em up, put em up!

He was writing Warcraft when most of you punks were suckin' on yer momma's teats!

[rda]

You realise he's massively simplifying the story direction and narrative process in order to make an exciting presentation at Blizzcon right?

LOL, no, it's not that. It's not that the story is wonderfully complicated and nuanced, and he's just simplifying it in order to be understood. It's that the pretense at the story is dumb from the beginning to the end, and it shows.

[Mormolyce]

If anything, they'd probably do much better. They might even get someone who isn't biased, and is capable of more than "hurr durr orcs vs. humans hurr."

I hope Warcraft never forgets that at its core, it's Orcs vs Humans.

If some of the fans had their way it'd be 100 Flavours of Elf vs. Uber Kewl Anime Death Knights in a dark adventure through a dark story of darkness!

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LOL, no, it's not that. It's not that the story is wonderfully complicated and nuanced, and he's just simplifying it in order to be understood. It's that the pretense at the story is dumb from the beginning to the end.

I get that some people don't like his RAWR!! style that he does every Blizzcon. Whatever, Warcraft has a big diverse fanbase nowadays so that's inevitable. But to say that that means he writes dumb lore then well, you'd have to apply that to the entire RTS era of Warcraft as well. So no.

[Celista]

If some of the fans had their way it'd be 100 Flavours of Elf vs. Uber Kewl Anime Death Knights in a dark adventure through a dark story of darkness!

And, dragons.

Zombie dragons!