Blizz view of its writing abilities is BIZARRE

[Skytotem]

Blizz did an interview on Reddit, most of the focus was gameplay, but frontpage here summarized the story bits

https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comment...con_interview/

The major story arc for an expansion is planned out months to years in advance.
The Alliance will learn of Saurfang's escape from a Horde hero in their midst and try to understand how a prisoner escaped from under their nose.
There's more to creating a story than just listening to the community's perspective. Stories must have highs and lows then invoke different emotional responses from many different people in order to be meaningful and that means sometimes having frustrating moments which may be upsetting to some fans.
There has to be a balance between highs and lows in a story.
The PTR is when they’re more likely to take feedback from confused players and change things. Ultimately they feel that they need to trust creative impulses within the team and be story-focused, but they do listen to feedback.

I get that you can't ONLY listen to players because that's basically the same as feeding a kid nothing but candy and icecream, but when they talk about highs and lows, they have to realize that for a lot of Horde players it's been lows and... no highs, for a long time, given SoO was not satisfying since Vol'jin and Baine and Thrall didn't DO anything in it, and WoD and Legion left us in the background.


Burning Teldrassil was a low for a lot of horde players too since it was dumb and few people Hordeside ever really wanted boring nelf lands.

[Broken Fox]

Burning Teldrassil was definitely a high point

[Kraddark]

Honestly, they should always try to end on a "high." Ending on a low can work but it takes a level of writing skill many authors don't have. They should try to have each patch resolve its A plot neatly while its B plot continues into the next patch. Each patch should end in a place where the players feel like they've accomplished something.

[Deleted]

Don't see how they think their writing is supreme when they always go around and retcon things. Yeah it's hard to keep track of the storyline and in what direction it should go as a team, but I fairly think they just look at the players reactions each time they want to build up their story line, changing tad bits of lore that in turn will have a snowball effect in the long run.

We all know the Garrosh catastrophe. We all know he was written out because of the players reaction. They won't state it, saying it was a mistake with the stone talon quest line, but I wonder how one of the main writers "fucks up" such a thing, even more so when before cataclysm they were all writing so highly of Garrosh. "wait and see" they said.

"wait and see" has been their common idea for the last 4 expansions. It's so they can write out their story on the players reaction.

[Wyrt]

I don't think they understand the difference between players being angry at the writers and players being angry at the characters in the story, because there's a very big difference.

[Dalheim]

So they literally told that they only care about a certain group of people and the rest can go to hell.

They can't listen to everyone.

[Niroshi]

Their logic would work better I think if they wrote more. As it is we get small snippets of story every few months and everything of consequence that happens can pretty much be summed up in a 40-60 min video every 2 years. That's far too little to be talking about highs and lows.

[Skytotem]

Their logic would work better I think if they wrote more. As it is we get small snippets of story every few months and everything of consequence that happens can pretty much be summed up in a 40-60 min video every 2 years. That's far too little to be talking about highs and lows.

The problem with Saurfang isn't one of wordcount it's of making him inactive until Goldenboy explained morals to him, which sucks.

- - - Updated - - -

Their logic would work better I think if they wrote more. As it is we get small snippets of story every few months and everything of consequence that happens can pretty much be summed up in a 40-60 min video every 2 years. That's far too little to be talking about highs and lows.

The problem with Saurfang isn't one of wordcount it's of making him inactive until Goldenboy explained morals to him, which sucks.

[Niroshi]

The problem with Saurfang isn't one of wordcount it's of making him inactive until Goldenboy explained morals to him, which sucks.

The problem with him is he lacks further development. If he were written to have been turning events over the entire time, Anduin's visit then serves as simply a spark instead of the "Hey guy this is how you Orc" that it looks like right now.

[Tyrathius]

They can't listen to everyone.

The problem is they're pleasing no one.

Alliance players aren't happy about constantly getting dumped on and being made to look incompetent.

Horde fans aren't happy that they're being vilified again and are forced to follow an insane genocidal maniac while the rest of their leaders are too spineless to stand up to her.

Sylvanas fans aren't happy that her character has become a caricature and is likely gonna die soon.

The only people who seem to be enjoying BFA's story are the trolls who want it to be as terrible as it possibly can.

[krl]

Burning Teldrassil was a high point.

[Skytotem]

Burning Teldrassil was a high point.

Why? I honestly don't get how.

Despite what Sylv says it just feels stupid and unnecessary, not practical or pragmatic.

[Astalnar]

Burning Teldrassil was definitely a high point

It could be, if they actually put a single thought to it. But Blizzard's whole thought process was "lol, they'll like it if Sylvanas burns it down for shits and giggles."

As a consequence, we got Sylvanas that is all of a sudden impulsive maniac instead of ruthless commander willing to win with all means neccessary. And we got Saurfang that says one thing, does the other, and wishes forthe third making him look like some sort of senile schizophreniac.

[Corroc]

Burning Teldrassil was a low for a lot of horde players too since it was dumb and few people Hordeside ever really wanted boring nelf lands.

I cant take you seriously when you say that was a low point. That definitely was a high point for Horde.

[Super Dickmann]

Sylvanas was doing the night elves a favor by allowing them to revert to their proper characterization. The tree was holding them back. Such a shame the God-King will put them in their place soon.

[Skytotem]

I cant take you seriously when you say that was a low point. That definitely was a high point for Horde.

We committed a genocide. It was a shitty 'high point' to have because it did NOTHING of benefit for us to kill their civilians and burn our spoils.

[laplacedemon]

Goes on to reference Game of Thrones, regarding emotional response and people saying “I’m never watching this again” after certain episodes - that emotional response is something they look for, but they have to balance highs and lows.

I don't want to be rude but... That's just delusional.

[Trbn]

I cant take you seriously when you say that was a low point. That definitely was a high point for Horde.

and losing uc was a low point so what?

sylvanas got degraded during war of thorns and jaina became a jesus

you can try to continue if you want

[Corroc]

and losing uc was a low point so what?

sylvanas got degraded during war of thorns and jaina became a jesus

you can try to continue if you want

why would I try to continue to someone random ramblings?

[Trbn]

why would I try to continue to someone random ramblings?

why are you rambling at first place?