Too many writers = story suffers?

[Lorgar Aurelian]

It wouldn't be as bad if they all sticked to their own confined areas and tried to do some world building instead of forcing their weird, cohesive narrative on a game that clearly doesn't support this type of structural approach to storytelling. That's why Classic has better lore than any expansion. The characters, places and events can stand on their own two legs instead of being subservient to a bigger, nonsensical, world-ending plot (every two years that is).

What would you call all the stuff in zones like say dustvar or mechagon if not self contained world building?

- - - Updated - - -

There's not even a story big enough to warrant more than one part-time writer. Seriously, what exactly happened in this patch? Magni took some random power from Azeroth, channeled it through our character and N'Zoth dies. I'd be surprised if anyone took longer than 5 minutes to come up with that.

If I had to make a guess they use the writers for different things like one guy doing the main expan story then others to flesh out the zone story’s and Mabye even some one who goes in and writes little bonus none quest stuff that you wouldn’t find unless you looked for it.

[Mehrunes]

You could axe all writers but one and the story would still blow because the much bigger issue with Blizzard's writing department is the laziness and complete lack of any standards (other than "rule of kewl reigns above anything else", if you can call that a standard). Take Golden for example. She's supposed to be a professional writer. And when she writes her books, the issue of "too many cooks in the kitchen" is significantly smaller because unlike the in-game material the book is mostly solo stuff with only some oversight and general direction from the higher-ups.

Yet in BtS she still couldn't get something as basic as "which undead are the Forsaken" right and wrote that Faol is a Forsaken despite explicitly stating in the very same book (the very next sentence even) that he didn't join Sylvanas. Even though it is material covered in the very first post-Cata Forsaken quest. That is the scope of Golden's ineptitude when it comes to research about a race she later on admitted she was unfamiliar writing about. Which also warrants mentioning that even if you put Golden not doing her research aside, she apparently is also incapable of figuring out how a membership in an organization works in general.

And the best thing is, in the earlier War Crimes she briefly covered Knight of the Ebon Blade. So (still putting aside the research bit) even if you look at just Golden's work alone and ignore all other Warcraft material, she still couldn't even manage to keep track of her own writing. Because in one book she's somehow capable of realizing that there are non-Forsaken groups of free-willed undead yet in another she treats the Forsaken as sort of an umbrella term for any and all free-willed undead whether they actually joined the Forsaken or not (which then spilled into BfA).

And before someone says that maybe Blizzard pushed it onto her, why on Earth would they ever do that? The bit about Faol being an undead did not contribute to the story in any way, shape or form and was just a few lines long remark in one chapter.

It's also somehow the least offensive of Golden's many inconsistencies about the Forsaken in that book in comparison to their older lore.

If I had to make a guess they use the writers for different things like one guy doing the main expan story then others to flesh out the zone story’s and Mabye even some one who goes in and writes little bonus none quest stuff that you wouldn’t find unless you looked for it.

Zone stories? Yeah, at least in some cases. Vide that time when Afrasiabi self-admittedly wrote the Stonetalon questline and wrote Garrosh in it in a manner that clashed with the overall direction for the character because Afrasiabi is too much of a hack to go to his boss and ask him what the plan is (even though logic dictates it was discussed at some meetings before work on individual zones began, which would also mean he slept through that meeting as well). The main story (at least the drafting process for it, who knows about the execution) is collaboration project though. They shared some of their process in that regard in early BfA.

[Shakana]

I just know you really see the impact of writing bad when you hit a new low that is a big theme, transformed into ashes and ended in seconds on a patch. I even defended saying they just failed here and there, but now i can't think this is failure only... I don't even know how many writers there is, but whatever it is, make it stop!!! true suffering

[Raven]

Biggest problem is, players expect a book or single player level of writing and story, something which sadly isnt possible in a Mmo, sure some of the story and writing can be better, but there are so many issues that stops them.

Something like the faction war, try and write a cool faction war story when no one can be the winner and both sides have to have victorys or the lossing side will go crazy, and if any side gets to much time in the spotlight the other side goes crazy.

The best thing for the writing and story would probably be if they totally gave up the factions and could write 1 story for both sides.

[Darillyn]

I really think the writers (particularly Golden) get way too much shit. They do NOT direct the story of the game. Blame Alex and Ion for that. They take that bad plot, and then try to make it work with decent writing. So despite the plot being dumb to nonsensical for a lot of BFA, I do think the writers tried to do their best with what they had.

[Lei]

Hm. Well, if you were a writer and it was apparent, basically said out loud, that the lore (ie YOUR WORK) only matters that much till it supports a raid or a sellable feature (campaign)... I think this is the biggest problem since WoD.
But then they also tried to manage way too many plotlines. Warcampaign was one of BfA's buzzword. So that ate up a lot of possible in game story. And then the starting experience with the zones was really overdone imo. Yes, zones need their own story and introduction, but it should have entwined the storiarc of the expansion way better.
Then they tried to also tackle Azshara and Nazjatar, only they failed. We also got Mechagon for some reason. Oh and of course Sylvanas.
This whole expansion was jumping around huge lore characters, trying to grab onto something, only to cause a huge letdown with every single one of them. Warcampaign ending? Shit. (by shit I generally mean surprisingly unsatisfying) Azshara's storyending? Shit. Sylvanas' story? Shit. Nzoth? Shit.
They tried to bite too big slice of the cake and couldn't swallow it. I'm sure they've learned from this, in a brand new game like WoW only with a handful of inexperienced devs who make the game in a garage this happens all the time.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Zone stories? Yeah, at least in some cases. Vide that time when Afrasiabi self-admittedly wrote the Stonetalon questline and wrote Garrosh in it in a manner that clashed with the overall direction for the character because Afrasiabi is too much of a hack to go to his boss and ask him what the plan is (even though logic dictates it was discussed at some meetings before work on individual zones began, which would also mean he slept through that meeting as well). The main story (at least the drafting process for it, who knows about the execution) is collaboration project though. They shared some of their process in that regard in early BfA.

This is just a wild guess on my part but It seems even if they collab while doing drafts some writers have to have much more pull then others when it comes to where the story has to go.

Or Mabye that’s just wishful thinking as I don’t want to believe any number of people could sit down and think the whole horde is nothing thing was a good idea.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

WoW has always had a ton of writers. Sure, Blizzard writers screwed up every now and then, but that was inevitable they weren't going to knock every single storyline out of the park, especially when they had so many. It wasn't until WoD that the writing nosedived.

• The entire WoD expansion was an inconsequential filler expansion whipped up to capitalize on the Warcraft movie. Mists of Pandaria ended with an obvious lead in to Legion (which Blizzard admitted was supposed to be the next expansion)... and then we deteour to another planet in an alternate timeline that never comes back up again in the story. Felt like it only existed to cash in on the Warcraft movie that was releasing that year and featured the same characters.

• In Shadowmoon Valley, we are introduced to a new faction called "The Void Lords", who turn out to be the bosses of the old gods and the faction Sargeras was so terrified of, he started the Burning Legion to preemptively kill unhatched titans so that they couldn't be corrupted by the Void Lords. Trivializes the threat of the old gods and the Burning Legion when they are no longer the end goal of the story, but just another lackey on the way to the true big bads.

• The final boss of WoD is Archimonde. No, not alternate timeline Archimonde. Blizzard decided that there is "one Legion that pervades across all timelines". Oh, and demons can only die if killed in the Twisting Nether, and Archimonde (who is an Eredar, not a demon) has now been retconned into being a demon. WTH? This completely negates the weight of Warcraft 3's ending, where the Night Elves sacrificed their immortality to defeat Archimonde and save the world. A complete spit on the face of Warcraft 3 players and Night Elf fans.

• AU Grommash Hellscream was an unrepetent mass murderer, and committed one of the most despiscable atrocities in the Warcraft setting: the Path of Glory (aka, slaughtering hundreds of thousands of Draenei and using their dead bodies as pavement to the Dark Portal). At the end of the expansion, the protagonists just let him go like he didn't commit mass genocide against them.

• The Argent Crusade - the fan favorite hero faction of WotLK - is brought back and unceremoniously killed offscreen in the first five minutes of the expansion, and Tirion too. A complete spit on the face on WotLK players.

• Vol'jin, the Warchief of the Horde after MoP, is unceremoniously killed off having never had the chance to do anything in the story. I think the only thing he did was show up in your garrison to give you a promotion. A complete spit on the face of Horde players who were looking forward to seeing one of the OG Horde leaders preside over the old school, honorable Horde we fought for in MoP. Worse, a diabolos ex machina has him appoint Sylvanas Windrunner as Warchief, because Blizzard wanted to pander to her fan following.

• After having resolved the faction war storyline to everyone's satisfaction in MoP, Blizzard goes back to the well of Warcraft nostalgia and revives the faction war through utterly contrived reasons (the Horde and Alliance had JUST WORKED TOGETHER FOR AN ENTIRE EXPANSION TO SAVE THE WORLD; no one bothers communicating with each other anymore; Sylvanas, Genn, and Rogers act stupid, etc).

• In Legion, Illidan is brought back and treated as the hero of the story who everyone worships... despite the fact that he is a backstabbing traitor and a brutal dictator who took over Outland and began using people's souls as fuel. Yet, the narrative and the characters of Legion treat him as this paragon who will lead everybody.

• In the Death Knight campaign, the Knights of the Ebon Blade invade the Paladin Order Hall underneath Light's Hope Chapel, slaughtering paladins left and right (Yup! The very same paladins the Ebon Blade had fight along with side by side against the Lich King, who they should be fighting with side by side against the Legion!) to steal the body of Tirion Fordring and raise him as an undead. This is stupid! The Ebon Blade wants people who can "do what we needs to be done", but Tirion was a stalwart paladin. He had qualms sacrificing his own troops. He isn't anti-hero material. Worse, it's revealed that the massacre wasn't, actually, to raise Tirion as a Death Knight, but a "test of loyalty", to see whether or not the Ebon Blade could "do what what needed to be done". EXCUSE ME? As a Death Knight player, I feel insulted. We have proved hundreds of times over that we are capable, and you sent us out to murder or allies over something this stupid? The Ebon Blade is needs all the allies it can get, and they straight up demolished their relationship with their closest ally, not to mention no one will ever want to associate with them again. What a farce.

• The "Light" is retconned as not being a truly holy, righteous anchor in this chaotic world, but just "another side of the same coin" in a poor attempt at being "morally grey". Completely undermines why the Light was so special in the first place, and a spit upon paladin and priest players.

• Sylvanas invades Night Elf territory and begin slaughtering elves left and right, and the Horde actually goes along with this. Slaughtering... you know, THE GUY YOU HAD JUST WORKED TOGETHER WITH FOR TWO ENTIRE EXPANSIONS TO SAVE THE WORLD!. For some reason, Horde druids - who are apart of the Cenarion Circle - are also slaughtering their fellow Cenarion Circle Druids - because they're Alliance. Sylvanas throws a tantrum because a dying elf didn't buy her moustache twirling villain facade, and burns down Teldrassil, massacring the majority of the Night Elf population. The Horde actually goes along with this, even though the Horde should be protesting this because they had spent most of their recent history being genocided and they know more than anyone else what it's like. Completely undermines the sacrifices made in MoP to fight for the old, honorable Horde. A complete spit in the face of Horde and Night Elf players.

• In 2016, the first Warcraft Chronicle book was released, advertised by Blizzard as the official, word of god chronology of the setting's history. Nice! Then, at Blizzcon 2019, the Chronicles book were declared to be "written from the point of view of the Titans", retconning them as no longer being the official record. Why did they even go through all of the effort of tidying up their lore and advertising the books as the official, word of god history of the setting if it was just going to be retconned a couple years later anyway?

• The Emerald Nightmare storyline being hyped up for years, being an expansion's worth of material with several subplots and dozens of involved characters. Is dealt with in a single raid.

• Azshara and the Naga storyline being hyped up for years, being an expansion's worth of material with several subplots and dozens of involved characters. Is dealt with in a single raid. Worse, despite Azshara having comitted mass genocide and being one of the most evil characters in the setting, the protagonists just let her go so she can come back as a quest NPC in another expansion.

• The N'zoth storyline being hyped up for years, being an expansion's worth of material with several subplots and dozens of involved characters. Is dealt with in a single raid. Worse, Blizzard kept insisting that N'zoth had a master plan... only for him to turn out to be a nothing throw away baddie who is killed in a forty second long cutscene.

• Sylvanas strolling into Icecrown Citadel and soloing the Lich King and his army with her resting bitch face.

[Kyphael]

WoW has always had a ton of writers. Sure, Blizzard writers screwed up every now and then, but that was inevitable they weren't going to knock every single storyline out of the park, especially when they had so many. It wasn't until WoD that the writing nosedived.

• The entire WoD expansion was an inconsequential filler expansion whipped up to capitalize on the Warcraft movie. Mists of Pandaria ended with an obvious lead in to Legion (which Blizzard admitted was supposed to be the next expansion)... and then we deteour to another planet in an alternate timeline that never comes back up again in the story. Felt like it only existed to cash in on the Warcraft movie that was releasing that year and featured the same characters.

• In Shadowmoon Valley, we are introduced to a new faction called "The Void Lords", who turn out to be the bosses of the old gods and the faction Sargeras was so terrified of, he started the Burning Legion to preemptively kill unhatched titans so that they couldn't be corrupted by the Void Lords. Trivializes the threat of the old gods and the Burning Legion when they are no longer the end goal of the story, but just another lackey on the way to the true big bads.

• The final boss of WoD is Archimonde. No, not alternate timeline Archimonde. Blizzard decided that there is "one Legion that pervades across all timelines". Oh, and demons can only die if killed in the Twisting Nether, and Archimonde (who is an Eredar, not a demon) has now been retconned into being a demon. WTH? This completely negates the weight of Warcraft 3's ending, where the Night Elves sacrificed their immortality to defeat Archimonde and save the world. A complete spit on the face of Warcraft 3 players and Night Elf fans.

• AU Grommash Hellscream was an unrepetent mass murderer, and committed one of the most despiscable atrocities in the Warcraft setting: the Path of Glory (aka, slaughtering hundreds of thousands of Draenei and using their dead bodies as pavement to the Dark Portal). At the end of the expansion, the protagonists just let him go like he didn't commit mass genocide against them.

• The Argent Crusade - the fan favorite hero faction of WotLK - is brought back and unceremoniously killed offscreen in the first five minutes of the expansion, and Tirion too. A complete spit on the face on WotLK players.

• Vol'jin, the Warchief of the Horde after MoP, is unceremoniously killed off having never had the chance to do anything in the story. I think the only thing he did was show up in your garrison to give you a promotion. A complete spit on the face of Horde players who were looking forward to seeing one of the OG Horde leaders preside over the old school, honorable Horde we fought for in MoP. Worse, a diabolos ex machina has him appoint Sylvanas Windrunner as Warchief, because Blizzard wanted to pander to her fan following.

• After having resolved the faction war storyline to everyone's satisfaction in MoP, Blizzard goes back to the well of Warcraft nostalgia and revives the faction war through utterly contrived reasons (the Horde and Alliance had JUST WORKED TOGETHER FOR AN ENTIRE EXPANSION TO SAVE THE WORLD; no one bothers communicating with each other anymore; Sylvanas, Genn, and Rogers act stupid, etc).

• In Legion, Illidan is brought back and treated as the hero of the story who everyone worships... despite the fact that he is a backstabbing traitor and a brutal dictator who took over Outland and began using people's souls as fuel. Yet, the narrative and the characters of Legion treat him as this paragon who will lead everybody.

• In the Death Knight campaign, the Knights of the Ebon Blade invade the Paladin Order Hall underneath Light's Hope Chapel, slaughtering paladins left and right (Yup! The very same paladins the Ebon Blade had fight along with side by side against the Lich King, who they should be fighting with side by side against the Legion!) to steal the body of Tirion Fordring and raise him as an undead. This is stupid! The Ebon Blade wants people who can "do what we needs to be done", but Tirion was a stalwart paladin. He had qualms sacrificing his own troops. He isn't anti-hero material. Worse, it's revealed that the massacre wasn't, actually, to raise Tirion as a Death Knight, but a "test of loyalty", to see whether or not the Ebon Blade could "do what what needed to be done". EXCUSE ME? As a Death Knight player, I feel insulted. We have proved hundreds of times over that we are capable, and you sent us out to murder or allies over something this stupid? The Ebon Blade is needs all the allies it can get, and they straight up demolished their relationship with their closest ally, not to mention no one will ever want to associate with them again. What a farce.

• The "Light" is retconned as not being a truly holy, righteous anchor in this chaotic world, but just "another side of the same coin" in a poor attempt at being "morally grey". Completely undermines why the Light was so special in the first place, and a spit upon paladin and priest players.

• Sylvanas invades Night Elf territory and begin slaughtering elves left and right, and the Horde actually goes along with this. Slaughtering... you know, THE GUY YOU HAD JUST WORKED TOGETHER WITH FOR TWO ENTIRE EXPANSIONS TO SAVE THE WORLD!. For some reason, Horde druids - who are apart of the Cenarion Circle - are also slaughtering their fellow Cenarion Circle Druids - because they're Alliance. Sylvanas throws a tantrum because a dying elf didn't buy her moustache twirling villain facade, and burns down Teldrassil, massacring the majority of the Night Elf population. The Horde actually goes along with this, even though the Horde should be protesting this because they had spent most of their recent history being genocided and they know more than anyone else what it's like. Completely undermines the sacrifices made in MoP to fight for the old, honorable Horde. A complete spit in the face of Horde and Night Elf players.

• In 2016, the first Warcraft Chronicle book was released, advertised by Blizzard as the official, word of god chronology of the setting's history. Nice! Then, at Blizzcon 2019, the Chronicles book were declared to be "written from the point of view of the Titans", retconning them as no longer being the official record. Why did they even go through all of the effort of tidying up their lore and advertising the books as the official, word of god history of the setting if it was just going to be retconned a couple years later anyway?

• The Emerald Nightmare storyline being hyped up for years, being an expansion's worth of material with several subplots and dozens of involved characters. Is dealt with in a single raid.

• Azshara and the Naga storyline being hyped up for years, being an expansion's worth of material with several subplots and dozens of involved characters. Is dealt with in a single raid. Worse, despite Azshara having comitted mass genocide and being one of the most evil characters in the setting, the protagonists just let her go so she can come back as a quest NPC in another expansion.

• The N'zoth storyline being hyped up for years, being an expansion's worth of material with several subplots and dozens of involved characters. Is dealt with in a single raid. Worse, Blizzard kept insisting that N'zoth had a master plan... only for him to turn out to be a nothing throw away baddie who is killed in a forty second long cutscene.

• Sylvanas strolling into Icecrown Citadel and soloing the Lich King and his army with her resting bitch face.

I don't agree with everything, though I do agree with a great many criticisms here, but damn this is like the longest, most concise burn on Blizzard's creative decisions since WoD I've read. Well-written and entertaining read, too. Kudos to you.

[Schattenlied]

The old adage of 'too many cooks in the kitchen'. Does it matter here?

Yes...


As an example, this is literally what caused Garrosh's downfall... Afrasabi (the Creative Director for WoW) had intended for Garrosh to be more of the "noble savage" that people often depict the Horde as, Afrasabi was the one who designed the Stonetalon quests in Cataclysm, that was his intended vision for Garrosh... But due to a miscommunication no one else really got that memo, so every other zone ended up having Garrosh being a nutjob, and rather than having every other zone's quests have to be redesigned to fix the issue they (the people above Afrasabi in the chain of command) instead decided to declare the events in Stonetalon non-canon, in spite of Afrasabi's intended story direction as the creative director.

[Maljinwo]

WoW writers throw ideas all over the place with "cool" on their mind with no regards to past lore.

What WoW needs is someone who meets with the writers and see if those ideas can either work, or rework them if they don't fit the lore.

Plot twists are only effective if they take the story seriously. Not if they modify past events

[Garretdejiko]

Yes...


As an example, this is literally what caused Garrosh's downfall... Afrasabi had intended for Garrosh to be more of the "noble savage" that people often depict the Horde as, Afrasabi was the one who designed the Stonetalon quests in Cataclysm, that was his intended vision for Garrosh... But due to a miscommunication no one else really got that memo, so every other zone ended up having Garrosh being a nutjob, and rather than having every other zone's quests have to be redesigned to fix the issue they (the people above Afrasabi in the chain of command) instead decided to declare the events in Stonetalon non-canon, in spite of Afrasabi's intended story direction as the creative director.

Jimmies are rustled rn. If that's really why Garrosh was so mistreated as a character during MoP and WoD... what a fucking waste.

Didn't really care much about Sylvannas, but Garrosh was my boy

[Evaddon]

^100% This

It really doesn't feel like writing is the issue to me, it feels like a problem at the top from a direction standpoint. The individual pieces are good, they're just not being assembled properly. At least that's my take.

100% correct, the story itself is good. But its was like a puzzle with to many missing pieces, and left you to speculate what the puzzle was supposed to be

[Byleth]

Its not even the writers its the topic. Making a faction war plotline is pointless considering blizzard will never let any one side win. So we knew it would be us kicking each other in the shins then hugging it out at the end and pretending like the plot never happened.

Totally correct. I was kinda hoping one side would win, just for the shock value.

I mean, you could probably argue that the alliance came out of this 'war' in a much stronger position relative to the Horde.

[Shakana]

WoW has always had a ton of writers. Sure, Blizzard writers screwed up every now and then, but that was inevitable they weren't going to knock every single storyline out of the park, especially when they had so many. It wasn't until WoD that the writing nosedived.

• The entire WoD expansion was an inconsequential filler expansion whipped up to capitalize on the Warcraft movie. Mists of Pandaria ended with an obvious lead in to Legion (which Blizzard admitted was supposed to be the next expansion)... and then we deteour to another planet in an alternate timeline that never comes back up again in the story. Felt like it only existed to cash in on the Warcraft movie that was releasing that year and featured the same characters.

• In Shadowmoon Valley, we are introduced to a new faction called "The Void Lords", who turn out to be the bosses of the old gods and the faction Sargeras was so terrified of, he started the Burning Legion to preemptively kill unhatched titans so that they couldn't be corrupted by the Void Lords. Trivializes the threat of the old gods and the Burning Legion when they are no longer the end goal of the story, but just another lackey on the way to the true big bads.

• The final boss of WoD is Archimonde. No, not alternate timeline Archimonde. Blizzard decided that there is "one Legion that pervades across all timelines". Oh, and demons can only die if killed in the Twisting Nether, and Archimonde (who is an Eredar, not a demon) has now been retconned into being a demon. WTH? This completely negates the weight of Warcraft 3's ending, where the Night Elves sacrificed their immortality to defeat Archimonde and save the world. A complete spit on the face of Warcraft 3 players and Night Elf fans.

• AU Grommash Hellscream was an unrepetent mass murderer, and committed one of the most despiscable atrocities in the Warcraft setting: the Path of Glory (aka, slaughtering hundreds of thousands of Draenei and using their dead bodies as pavement to the Dark Portal). At the end of the expansion, the protagonists just let him go like he didn't commit mass genocide against them.

• The Argent Crusade - the fan favorite hero faction of WotLK - is brought back and unceremoniously killed offscreen in the first five minutes of the expansion, and Tirion too. A complete spit on the face on WotLK players.

• Vol'jin, the Warchief of the Horde after MoP, is unceremoniously killed off having never had the chance to do anything in the story. I think the only thing he did was show up in your garrison to give you a promotion. A complete spit on the face of Horde players who were looking forward to seeing one of the OG Horde leaders preside over the old school, honorable Horde we fought for in MoP. Worse, a diabolos ex machina has him appoint Sylvanas Windrunner as Warchief, because Blizzard wanted to pander to her fan following.

• After having resolved the faction war storyline to everyone's satisfaction in MoP, Blizzard goes back to the well of Warcraft nostalgia and revives the faction war through utterly contrived reasons (the Horde and Alliance had JUST WORKED TOGETHER FOR AN ENTIRE EXPANSION TO SAVE THE WORLD; no one bothers communicating with each other anymore; Sylvanas, Genn, and Rogers act stupid, etc).

• In Legion, Illidan is brought back and treated as the hero of the story who everyone worships... despite the fact that he is a backstabbing traitor and a brutal dictator who took over Outland and began using people's souls as fuel. Yet, the narrative and the characters of Legion treat him as this paragon who will lead everybody.

• In the Death Knight campaign, the Knights of the Ebon Blade invade the Paladin Order Hall underneath Light's Hope Chapel, slaughtering paladins left and right (Yup! The very same paladins the Ebon Blade had fight along with side by side against the Lich King, who they should be fighting with side by side against the Legion!) to steal the body of Tirion Fordring and raise him as an undead. This is stupid! The Ebon Blade wants people who can "do what we needs to be done", but Tirion was a stalwart paladin. He had qualms sacrificing his own troops. He isn't anti-hero material. Worse, it's revealed that the massacre wasn't, actually, to raise Tirion as a Death Knight, but a "test of loyalty", to see whether or not the Ebon Blade could "do what what needed to be done". EXCUSE ME? As a Death Knight player, I feel insulted. We have proved hundreds of times over that we are capable, and you sent us out to murder or allies over something this stupid? The Ebon Blade is needs all the allies it can get, and they straight up demolished their relationship with their closest ally, not to mention no one will ever want to associate with them again. What a farce.

• The "Light" is retconned as not being a truly holy, righteous anchor in this chaotic world, but just "another side of the same coin" in a poor attempt at being "morally grey". Completely undermines why the Light was so special in the first place, and a spit upon paladin and priest players.

• Sylvanas invades Night Elf territory and begin slaughtering elves left and right, and the Horde actually goes along with this. Slaughtering... you know, THE GUY YOU HAD JUST WORKED TOGETHER WITH FOR TWO ENTIRE EXPANSIONS TO SAVE THE WORLD!. For some reason, Horde druids - who are apart of the Cenarion Circle - are also slaughtering their fellow Cenarion Circle Druids - because they're Alliance. Sylvanas throws a tantrum because a dying elf didn't buy her moustache twirling villain facade, and burns down Teldrassil, massacring the majority of the Night Elf population. The Horde actually goes along with this, even though the Horde should be protesting this because they had spent most of their recent history being genocided and they know more than anyone else what it's like. Completely undermines the sacrifices made in MoP to fight for the old, honorable Horde. A complete spit in the face of Horde and Night Elf players.

• In 2016, the first Warcraft Chronicle book was released, advertised by Blizzard as the official, word of god chronology of the setting's history. Nice! Then, at Blizzcon 2019, the Chronicles book were declared to be "written from the point of view of the Titans", retconning them as no longer being the official record. Why did they even go through all of the effort of tidying up their lore and advertising the books as the official, word of god history of the setting if it was just going to be retconned a couple years later anyway?

• The Emerald Nightmare storyline being hyped up for years, being an expansion's worth of material with several subplots and dozens of involved characters. Is dealt with in a single raid.

• Azshara and the Naga storyline being hyped up for years, being an expansion's worth of material with several subplots and dozens of involved characters. Is dealt with in a single raid. Worse, despite Azshara having comitted mass genocide and being one of the most evil characters in the setting, the protagonists just let her go so she can come back as a quest NPC in another expansion.

• The N'zoth storyline being hyped up for years, being an expansion's worth of material with several subplots and dozens of involved characters. Is dealt with in a single raid. Worse, Blizzard kept insisting that N'zoth had a master plan... only for him to turn out to be a nothing throw away baddie who is killed in a forty second long cutscene.

• Sylvanas strolling into Icecrown Citadel and soloing the Lich King and his army with her resting bitch face.

Summary: They wasted many storylines that have been hyped and recycled some, retcon some, and in the end, we don't know what is wow anymore or what is the lore.

[Byleth]

*snip*

I feel like my face is dripping in spit after reading this...

(which is no criticism of many of the valid points you make)

[matrix123mko]

WoW writers throw ideas all over the place with "cool" on their mind with no regards to past lore.

What WoW needs is someone who meets with the writers and see if those ideas can either work, or rework them if they don't fit the lore.

Plot twists are only effective if they take the story seriously. Not if they modify past events

This is my only issue. All other things are subjective but retcons are big no no.

[TickTickTick]

Thanks for the laugh lol. All the good stories in wow focus on us teaming up against things like arthas and illidan and all the big flops are us fighting like toddlers versus each other ala garrosh and sylvanas. I am not saying faction war needs to not be a thing it just sucks as the main focus for anything.

Yeah the last time there was a good Alliance vs Horde storyline was in MoP - because there was no immidiate threat present. Ofc the Sha were a threat, but I think noone took them seriously until later besides Pandaren.

WoD? We are on a different planet full of never seen before threats. Warlords are after us! And then Ashran happened, lmao.
Legion? BURNING LEGION IS INVADING. Demons swarming, skies are green of fel. Hey, let's fight some against each other too!
BfA? The planet is dying. An Old God is released. Azshara is close. HURRRR BLUE VS RED LETS GO!!!

No matter how good they write such story (hint, they didnt anyway), no matter how many "ooooh my" "gotcha!" dramatic moments they create, the basic idea of this is still idiotic.

There's so much potential for this game (not only storywise, but also gameplay wise), but it's always blocked by faction war. To hell with your "bUt ItS wArCrAfT", the war between the factions was never a main theme of WoW (the mmo), it meant we are constantly at war with millions of shits trying to wreck our world.

[Zandalariprelate]

But then writers are creative types who don't tend to enjoy such constraints.

That's the thing, in one interview with Afrasiabi he said if someone has x plot with x character nobody will oppose it which is a very bad move since if you've very biased writers, then things goes to a very weird and bizarre point that others has to suck it up. For example I know 100% Danuser has pushed every plot to make Sylvanas smart despite his very flawed writing and Golden loves too much Jaina and Anduin "they do no wrong"

[MoanaLisa]

The old adage of 'too many cooks in the kitchen'. Does it matter here?

Maybe. We don't actually know their process. It may be that someone outlines the expansion and the other writers fill things in. Christie Golden, for example by her own account, wrote a lot of dialogue for cinematics and cut scenes. Maybe most of the writers have their thing that they do. Quest text, NPC sayings, etc. It really wouldn't surprise me.

Personally, from everything I've seen and listened to, I think that Afrasiabi is a hack writer of the first order.

On the flip side of that: Telling stories in expansions is hard. You get just a few times to expand the story (patches) and if you try to do something ambitious in that simplistic of a publication frame it's bound to come off looking bad. I'm not a fan of the story in BfA--in fact I disliked it intensely--but all told it's pretty ambitious with a lot of moving parts.

To me a better way to write an expansion is to keep the main arc simple and straightforward and then litter the content with a lot of small stories, some of which relate to the main theme and others not-so-much.