Before the Storm Preview, Adam Savage's New Warcraft Armor

[Dr Assbandit]

Lol at the random Christie Golden hate. She's a decent writer. Her romance writing is, well, bad, but the rest of her writing is generally pretty good. Not much of a reason to say UGH GOLDEN WRITING KILL ME NOW MORE BAD WRITING. I'd like to see what sort of stuff people with that opinion read if Golden's hyper-standard voice is "so bad".

Anyways, the Warcraft armor looks pretty good, which is no surprise considering it's Weta we're talking about. I figured it was just some kind of plastic/foam when I saw it in behind the scenes photos and stuff, so that was no surprise. Still looks good for being basically a bunch of plastic and model foam, almost appears metallic (the armor, at least).

I grew up reading books or attempting to read them since I was a baby apparently. I've read so many works of fiction, non-fiction, and science-fiction along with fantasy that by now I have a generally good grasp of what kind of writing I find compelling or good. Golden is an atrocious writer when compared to even some somewhat obscure fantasy writers and the only reason I try to stomach through her books is purely to see the direction Blizzard wants the lore to take.

Taste is subjective and other people might find her good or even average and that's fine. I however think she's a god-awful writer.

[silverdragon234]

WHY!? Why won't Genn and Velen leave Anduin alone!?

[therealstegblob]

No, it is not good. It is supremely sub-par writing. Anyone over the age of 14 should be able to recognize this fact.

And yes, reading her books makes my eyes bleed.

Then what would you classify as good writing/writing better than Golden's? Give me some names.

- - - Updated - - -

To be fair, Blizzard aren't exactly starved for cash. If they wanted better writers they could easily afford better writers. Though I do think Christie Golden gets too much hate thrown her way. It's not like Blizzard's own writing is amazing - even a lot of the good stuff is changed on a whim because the developers feel like shoehorning something new into the story even when it's at the cost of stuff that was established in the past.

It's not that they need 'good' writers so much as it is they need ones who are dedicated to the lore and world. Even a writer who isn't as honed at voice and storytelling is more valuable to Blizzard if they're good at writing stories set in the universe of WoW versus a really great writer with perfect prose who is disconnected from the world and only writes on a money-driven commission style.

- - - Updated - - -

I grew up reading books or attempting to read them since I was a baby apparently. I've read so many works of fiction, non-fiction, and science-fiction along with fantasy that by now I have a generally good grasp of what kind of writing I find compelling or good. Golden is an atrocious writer when compared to even some somewhat obscure fantasy writers and the only reason I try to stomach through her books is purely to see the direction Blizzard wants the lore to take.

Taste is subjective and other people might find her good or even average and that's fine. I however think she's a god-awful writer.

I've read hundreds of books, a lot of them fantasy novels. Of all the writers who've worked for Blizzard, Christie easily the most polished and marketable voice. If you like other authors of any general caliber like, say, George R. R. Martin or J. K. Rowling or Eoin Colfer or Tom Clancy or pretty much any other really big fiction name then I'm at a loss for why Golden is suddenly so bad you can't stand her.

She's written some pretty bad stuff, I'm not denying that, but generally she's pretty decent. The Jaina arc from War Crimes was terrible (like REALLY terrible) as was the disjointed and bizarre ending. The Arthas novel in general, hinging so heavily on romance, was a tough and poorly written read and her whole Turalyon/Alleria business throughout the two or three books they were in was heavily sappy and fanfictiony levels of camp, but again most of that is all her romance writing. Which is truly not good.

[Sorshen]

Lol at the random Christie Golden hate. She's a decent writer. Her romance writing is, well, bad, but the rest of her writing is generally pretty good. Not much of a reason to say UGH GOLDEN WRITING KILL ME NOW MORE BAD WRITING. I'd like to see what sort of stuff people with that opinion read if Golden's hyper-standard voice is "so bad".

My opinion is that you should read more. Broaden your horizons. You'll see why Golden is considered subpar.
Blizzard can afford a better writer. It's just that she's a regular by now. And they had much worse writers, so that makes her ok.

[Deleted]

Cue all those amazing, acknowledged, published writers lurking on MMO-C and their hatred for... well, everything.

You don't need to be a chef to recognise that the food's gone bad.

[therealstegblob]

My opinion is that you should read more. Broaden your horizons.

Baseless assumption, kiddo. I've probably read more books than you, I'd imagine. Of fiction I've easily read in the few hundreds, consuming most of the notable fiction authors of the last 20 years or so. I no longer read much in the way of novels, having switched to primarily only non-fiction as of the last few years, but I've got a pretty damn good grasp on fiction. Golden has a very standard voice. She uses a lot of modifiers and adjectives, something I realize is considered taboo by lots of stuffy writers/writing critics but I don't really mind. She tells a good story and can work well with character motives/arcs.

Blizzard can afford a better writer. It's just that she's a regular by now. And they had much worse writers, so that makes her ok

As I explained before it's much more an issue of needing a dedicated writer than a "good" or "better" one. Blizzard needs a writer who can immerse themselves into the world and create stories as a fan with passion, not a soulless commissionaire who generates product for money.

[oldgeezer]

Julian Barnes was unavailable, presumably. Anyway, can someone post the gist of it?

[Cheersz]

Loves a spoiler

[therealstegblob]

There's literally hundreds. Golden takes a world and characters created by someone else and sticks them in her own little drama. That's not even in the same class someone like Asimov and Tolkien or a hundred others who created worlds and cultures.

Ability to create your original canon =/= ability to write. What the fuck kind of misguided argument is this supposed to be lol.

[Beet]

Oh boy do we get to start with hearing how bad Christie Golden is now? I haven’t even read the thread yet but I’m sure it’s filled with it already. It’s hilarious to me. Once upon a time everyone shat on Knaak and praised Golden. But now she’s considered bad since Knaak is gone. There’s never going to be a WoW writer that people think is good. At least not an active one.

In reality there is only one really really bad WoW writer and that’s Keith R. A. DeCandido. The man who hadn’t a clue about the characters he wrote about. The man who made everyone a southern hillbilly. The man who made all the men hate women. If you think Golden is bad go read his book.

PS: Why the hell did they give away the end of the book in this preview?! I knew there’d be spoilers but I didn’t expect to have the ending spoiled for me flat out.

[oathy]

If the MOP/WOD story line hadn't have unfolded (horde leader turns psycho)
it wouldn't have been so bad but how the Devs can keep a straight face and say both sides are "grey"
in BFA is just laughable.

Just because someone wrote a direction did they really have to follow it? prime example you look
at the original James bond Novels compared to the movies and they either ignored massive chunks
or added much more than in the books.

Games Like World of Warcraft are so reliant on the storyline and it just screams that part will let BFA down

[Malrune]

'Authors' for video game books are generally bad, if you were a good writer you'd just make your own setting/characters instead of needing a premade slate to scrawl fanfiction upon.

[Queen of Hamsters]

You don't need to be a chef to recognise that the food's gone bad.

Food going bad is an objective thing, not subjective.

And plenty of pretentious pricks believe themselves to be objectively superior in their tastes when it comes to food as well.

[Kathranis]

PS: Why the hell did they give away the end of the book in this preview?! I knew there’d be spoilers but I didn’t expect to have the ending spoiled for me flat out.

Amazon previews are generated from a full digital copy of the book and often allow you to preview random pages. If you do that enough you can get a fairly big chunk of the book.

[Hyral]

People crying about the writer instead of talking about the story. Typical.

Anyone got a quick rundown?

[Queen of Hamsters]

I
Games Like World of Warcraft are so reliant on the storyline and it just screams that part will let BFA down

They really aren't though.

There's people having played WoW for its entire lifetime without giving a single shit about story. Some people care, others don't. I refuse to believe that ANYONE falling for Warcraft's story at any point in time, is somehow this beacon of superior objective taste in storytelling and writing. Just look at how people idolize the Arthas storyline.

[Kasai511]

I feel like they're going to have some kind of corny sylvanis redemption arc layer on in the expansion

[FelPlague]

My opinion is that you should read more. Broaden your horizons. You'll see why Golden is considered subpar.
Blizzard can afford a better writer. It's just that she's a regular by now. And they had much worse writers, so that makes her ok.

so would you rather an "ok" writer? or a new writer that may or may not be better that will constantly get the lore wrong for years on end until they do a complete look over all the lore in the universe

- - - Updated - - -

You don't need to be a chef to recognise that the food's gone bad.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwPmLwW1-PA
like is very subjective, for example gordon ramsay loses cook offs to literally random people all the time, he has a show where he faces off against people like comedians and celebitries and loses.
Taste is subjective, VERY.
above for example, james may is not a profesional chef btw... but guess what he beat gordon, and it happens a fair bit.
other examples
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zb0hagZ0N54
alan carr comedian
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CajDGS8sYrQ
GORDON IS SCOTTISH and he lost in a haggis cook off against edith bowman a radio DJ not a profesional chef.


allmost loses to a dude using frozen stuff and bagged stuff even boils celery... god...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVkt5kAhX10
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LyVBP4Dh1E

[therealstegblob]

To me it is more impressive and shows greater imagination. No matter your argument, I don't feel that she's a great writer and I'm entitled to my own opinion.

That's fine, but again I'd like to know what you consider a good author and why if you think Golden is bad. I'm not the type to necessarily fanboy over her or anything, I just consider her fairly standard and often times (like, 100% of the time) people bitch relentlessly about her and how she's bad yet can never seem to adequately explain that opinion or justify it, especially when asked to name other authors.

Your reasoning for her being a bad writer is, seemingly, just because she doesn't have her own fantasy canon (how do you know she's incapable of making her own stuff up by the way, lol? Just because she primarily writes other people's canons? Yeah, okay buddy.), which isn't a very good (read: totally invalid) reason to degrade her as a writer.

- - - Updated - - -

In reality there is only one really really bad WoW writer and that’s Keith R. A. DeCandido. The man who hadn’t a clue about the characters he wrote about. The man who made everyone a southern hillbilly. The man who made all the men hate women. If you think Golden is bad go read his book.

I'd argue that honestly, Knaak isn't that great of an author either. He's not what I'd consider unreadably bad in general, but he has put out some unreadably bad books. Stormrage was, wow. Honestly almost as bad as Cycles of Hatred.

But yes, Keith wrote the defacto worst Warcraft book. Cycles of Hatred was bad in just about every single way. The guy didn't even properly understand how to write dialogue.

[Halefire94]

It's not that Christie Golden is particularly terrible, she's actually on par with most video game novel authors.

It's just Video Game novels are often not very good.