Ion's PCGamer interview

[Nyel]

It’s too early to say if this story will be good or not, but so far it’s at least rocked the boat and gotten peoples’ attention.

In a negative way. Negative publicity is still publicity though, I'm not sure if it benefits the longevity of BfA in the end.

[RoKPaNda]

Yep, but IMO Ion is the wrong person to talk about lore and story development. Because you directly *feel* that this isn't his world. He's competent as a Gdev, as you said. As a systems, class design, encounter design dev who's all about the numbers and the crunch. Even if I often disagree with his stances as well.

But I'd rather not let him touch the lore with a 10 foot pole. And I guess he wouldn't want to either. So why don't they use someone who's from the lore team for story-based interviews?

Oh I agree, he definitely isn't a lore guy.

This, so much this.

If only WoW storytelling was nearly as good as Game of Thrones.

This is getting old, both Ion and Metzen come out with interviews in a short time labeling people who think what Blizzard is making is weaksauce as just angry nerds is pathetic and arrogant.

There were other big name people in Hollywood saying the same scripted nonsense too recently. When your product flops, the new corporate hivemind tactic is to blame the consumer.

I don't consider Blizzard writing to be very good, or even good, but I don't consider GOT to be good either. Popularity =/= Quality.

Neither is very good tbh. They're both very simple, easily digestible, and don't have much substance, which is why they're popular. The first book in A Song of Ice and Fire was pretty innovative for it's time, but now other fantasy authors have done the whole grim dark thing and done it in a better and less long winded fashion. Plus GoT has lost what made it so great, now there are quite a few characters with some pretty thick plot armor. It's also been how long since a new book was released in the series? The show is how far ahead?

[Broken Fox]

In a negative way. Negative publicity is still publicity though, I'm not sure if it benefits the longevity of BfA in the end.

There’s been plenty of positive feedback as well. Complaints will always be louder.

[Nyel]

There’s been plenty of positive feedback as well. Complaints will always be louder.

I think I must have missed the positive feedback (except the praise for the cinematics which has basically nothing to do with the actual game) towards the mess that the BfA pre patch is.

[Broken Fox]

I think I must have missed the positive feedback (except the praise for the cinematics which has basically nothing to do with the actual game) towards the mess that the BfA pre patch is.

I enjoyed it.

Boom, positive feedback!

[blehmeh]

This isn’t a flop though. The game has gotten a ton of publicity from this, and millions of people will still play BFA.

It’s also a mistake to assume the minority of people on the forums crying about the Horde being villains or whatever speak for everyone.

It’s too early to say if this story will be good or not, but so far it’s at least rocked the boat and gotten peoples’ attention.

Remember WoD sold 10 million units?

Remember how hard it flopped?

"Millions" of people still played WoD. It was considered a flop, Blizzard employees were desperately privately messaging players asking why they were leaving WoW.

It's also a mistake to assume that it's only a minority of people with complaints about the direction of BfA, or that it's simply just about the Horde "being villians".

Time will tell how successful BfA will be.

[Veldoranz]

I love Ion, the dude is insanely knowledgeable of the game and seems to handle the public facing aspect of his job really well and handles difficult situations like a true leader. He takes the blame for things that aren't necessarily his fault. I know some people will disagree, but he has never given me any reason to think he's undeserving of his position.

[Crillam]

This is the best quote:

"One of the fun things about WoW is that we really can tell episodic stories. It's not like we push out the game and people burn through it and the spoilers are available. We can absolutely trick you. If you think that we're doing something that's blatantly obvious and repeating itself, just stay tuned because we're probably setting you up for a surprise."

lol. Most folks on the forums are playing right into it too.....nice work Blizz

What if that is just a misdirection? Maybe it is like we all think :O
Nah I do believe in them with the "not the whole picture". They would be pretty stupid if this actually was it.

[Nnyco]

lolololol

War of Thorns the Red Wedding, they wish.

good job taking shit out of context

[jedimike]

Let's be honest, Blizzard stopped caring about the writing when Warcraft 3 ended. They never had amazing writing because all of their ideas were stolen from Warhammer (including Starcraft). They never had original ideas, they copied others. If you want a great story read the Warhammer lore. Disney does the same thing, they take a fairy tale and dumb it down for idiots and completely change the message of the story

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Look up the original fairly tale that Frozen was based on. The movie is nothing like the fairy tale and it completely deletes the message the story was trying to tell.

[Deleted]

so he doesn't regret not being able to tell the full story? He doesn't regret misleading players thinking one thing but instead we have to read a book and a short story outside the game to get the real truth because the in game story telling is dog shit and is missing key things.

Ion is incompetent. He got the job because everyone else left, can't wait for him to leave.

No its becouse telling different part of stories in the game would be hard to do or simply are not worth dev time. If you really follow lore you should not have problem read books. But maybe current wow community is too dumb for this type of story telling. To people what actualy follow story, read books, comics and ingame texts this makes absolute sense. All this backlash are mainly from uniformed part of community what think they know best by watching 1 cinematic video. Suddenly everyone is lore expert and Blizz have no clue sure.

[darklogrus]

This isn’t a flop though. The game has gotten a ton of publicity from this, and millions of people will still play BFA.

It’s also a mistake to assume the minority of people on the forums crying about the Horde being villains or whatever speak for everyone.

It’s too early to say if this story will be good or not, but so far it’s at least rocked the boat and gotten peoples’ attention.

Warcraft always "BUYS" tons of publicity when a new expansion is going to drop, that same expansion will also get next to nothing for the rest of its cycle. As for the playerbase, a couple mil will continue to play regardless whatever happens within the game..

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No its becouse telling different part of stories in the game would be hard to do or simply are not worth dev time. If you really follow lore you should not have problem read books. But maybe current wow community is too dumb for this type of story telling. To people what actualy follow story, read books, comics and ingame texts this makes absolute sense. All this backlash are mainly from uniformed part of community what think they know best by watching 1 cinematic video. Suddenly everyone is lore expert and Blizz have no clue sure.

Someone paying $60+ for the game and $15+ a month for a sub really shouldn't have to go out and buy a $20 dollar book to fill in 99% of the missing story..

[outcomeofcum]

ROFL jesus christ the shit you nerds bitch about..

[LanToaster]

Yes, like everyone and their mother was saying that SYlvanas is going to burn the tree, and blizzard was like "no guys just wait its definitely not her lol", and it was her.

Well, they screwed up that themselves, when they unveiled it, another Interview actually showed Sylvanas in front of the burning tree.
So, it was not a matter of "who", but "why".

And Actually I didn´t see that comming that she would burn the tree in a fit of Rage, to mage a point.

[Jastall]

yeah, it's the worst analogy. People are not upset because someone burned the tree, but because a faction leader who players are kinda forced to follow has done it for apparently no reason, against her character progression.

The red wedding is an upsetting scene, but they were murdered by "villains". And that's exactly what people are complaining about, they portray Sylvanas as a villain instead of a faction leader.

That's what I see as well. The Red Wedding upset me (even if I had read it in the book) because I saw beloved characters die even when it was a reasonable chain of events that led to their deaths.

The War of the Thorns upset me because Blizzard decided to force a faction war, again, by making the Warchief a cunt, again, that destroys an Alliance city, again, and making the Horde the villains by default, again. I don't much care about the castrated Night Elves and their tree. I was a bit angry at how terrible, predictable and repetitive the writing was and is.

[Broken Fox]

The faction war seems pretty reasonable to me when you look at all the information we have, and Sylvanas’ motivations.

This hur dur it’s forced one faction carebear nonsense is so tired.

[Thimagryn]

Wrathgate was their Red Wedding.

This... is just too many writers taking characters in too many directions.

[Deleted]

This is the best quote:

"One of the fun things about WoW is that we really can tell episodic stories. It's not like we push out the game and people burn through it and the spoilers are available. We can absolutely trick you. If you think that we're doing something that's blatantly obvious and repeating itself, just stay tuned because we're probably setting you up for a surprise."

lol. Most folks on the forums are playing right into it too.....nice work Blizz

And you believe that?

[Verdugo]

This is the best quote:

"One of the fun things about WoW is that we really can tell episodic stories. It's not like we push out the game and people burn through it and the spoilers are available. We can absolutely trick you. If you think that we're doing something that's blatantly obvious and repeating itself, just stay tuned because we're probably setting you up for a surprise."

lol. Most folks on the forums are playing right into it too.....nice work Blizz

That shit is the corporate equivalent of this:

[Deleted]

No its becouse telling different part of stories in the game would be hard to do or simply are not worth dev time. If you really follow lore you should not have problem read books. But maybe current wow community is too dumb for this type of story telling. To people what actualy follow story, read books, comics and ingame texts this makes absolute sense. All this backlash are mainly from uniformed part of community what think they know best by watching 1 cinematic video. Suddenly everyone is lore expert and Blizz have no clue sure.

Sorry but that's BS, other games with smaller budgets manage just fine. The fact that the in-game cutscene completely contradicts the recent novellas is just incompetence