Chris Metzen Rejoins Blizzard
Chris Metzen was an original game developer on Warcraft and a SVP of Story and Franchise Development at Blizzard before retiring during the Legion expansion.
Originally Posted by Blizzard
(Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Citizens of Azeroth,
It is with great joy that I announce Chris Metzen has joined the Warcraft Leadership Team as Creative Advisor. Chris’s focus initially will be on World of Warcraft, then his work will expand to other projects across this growing franchise.
Chris was one of the original team members working on the Warcraft universe back when it began in 1994, and we are so happy to be reuniting him with the world he helped create.
He's an advisor, so his influence can only be secondary in nature.
Metzen himself also was not exactly the most skilled writer, he's been excellent at world building, less so telling stories within them.
It's a bit of a trope but he's a lot like George Lucas in that regard, created the universe, laid out some really cool stuff but once it came to continuing the story from a given point, it started to fall apart.
Contuining any story for too long pretty much always gives these results. That's not Metzen's fault, also WoW as a game doesn't favor good storytelling since you always need loot pinatas.
The strategy games were fine. Warcraft 1 to 3 had decent story. Original WoW was fine as it was down to earth. With TBC it went downhill with retcons and offing notable characters for loot. I'd say Metzen was good for the story, but he's not faultless.
Contuining any story for too long pretty much always gives these results. That's not Metzen's fault, also WoW as a game doesn't favor good storytelling since you always need loot pinatas.
The strategy games were fine. Warcraft 1 to 3 had decent story. Original WoW was fine as it was down to earth. With TBC it went downhill with retcons and offing notable characters for loot. I'd say Metzen was good for the story, but he's not faultless.
You can argue however when "too long" is happening.
I don't think the story was going on "too long" in TBC already, the problem simply was (among other things) that in TBC they were just throwing characters under the bus with little care.
Yeah, you need loot pinatas, but between Kael'thas & Zul'jin, they just very carelessly used established characters for the sake of raid bosses.
They could've replaced Kael'thas with any Illidan / Burning Legion loyalist, who *somehow* usurped Kael'thas in Outland and you still could have had roughly the same story for TBC.
I think what you're referring to is the point post Cata, when any previously established character was largely dealt with (putting the Burning Legion aside), but neither, TBC, Wotlk or Cata were exactly highpoints of storytelling.
Not that I'm expecting him to fix everything bad, but his advise could at least take away the most extreme bad stuff. Overall it would improve WoW for sure.
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Except you're missing the point where Activision merged with Vivendi (Blizzard's parent company) and thus Blizzard isn't equal to Activision, it's owned by them. They just conveniently named the new company Activision-Blizzard as if they're equal but they're not. They just use the publicity of the name, it doesn't have the same leverage.
You are missing the part where BLizzard and Activision bought themselves back FROM VIvendi and put both companies under one roof called Actiision-Blizzard.
As I said Activision and BLizzard are two separate compaines with their own leaders under one roof called Activision-Blizzard, lead by Bobby Kotick. The Activision CEO has no power over Blizzard. Bobby Kotick of A-B does.
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