Do you think the writers are "incompetent"?

[Syegfryed]

Well they're getting paid to write, doesn't seem that incompetent

They do a better job than any of us could

i saw half a dozen people here who wrote a better bfa plot with 2 paragraphs, by just making the alliance attack first.

[Aucald]

heck, then eve did that in WoD where our dumb asses set gul'dan and cho'gall free instead of killing then

that was nonsensical

Not really. The Shadow Council members were the ones keeping the Dark Portal up, and needed to be unplugged from their effective prisons in order to de-power the Dark Portal and stem the tide of the Iron March soldiers crossing over into Azeroth. As soon as you free them they essentially portal out, and the PC themselves would never have the effective firepower to kill them in any case, not alone. Khadgar even ruminates on the necessity of having to free them, and that folly it might prove to be - hence why he exhorts to PC in both Shadowmoon Valley and Frostfire Ridge to follow-up on Gul'dan pretty much directly after their faction Garrison is established.

[Hellobolis]

IDK what TV shows you are watching but I find most to be pulling-my-hairs level of inconsistent

yeah exactly, those writers get shit like "x actor is sick, make it work", "x actor has a fight with y actor, they can't be i n the same room, make it work", "contract ended, write them in/out the story" all the time. which seems to happen with wow too when the story has to adapt on short notice to more pressing concerns.

novel writers are great for when you know the story a few years a head of time, tv writers are great for when you gotto make shit work on a 6 months patch cycle.

[Beloren]

Considering they hardly care for consistency, they will never be able to write a good overarching story, not to mention they write extremely shallow and have shoddy world building.

@Overlodd - short answer: No: Let me explain;

Personally I think senior development ties there hands. They tied Metzen's hands when he wanted to preserve things like gender sensitive classes, Warlocks on the horde alone, etc. Over ruled him on every point, that was a big battle, he lost, and i think it diminished him, both his pride and his ability to bring things through into the game especially after it blew up, i think he became a lot more open to others ideas and suggestions,after that which can sometimes be good, but not if there is politcking behind it and you just have to say yes if some people suggest something because of their rank or position even if you think it's a crap idea. Corporate climate dynamics.

More lately it is directives like "pre-existing lore doesn't exist to tie the hands of creators" - to paraphrase, and too easily being ready to change lore to fit catchy or "cool" gameplay ideas, without much encouraging to the creative team to make it work.. i can imagine the senior team actually telling them to just say it's this now, and the poor guys all being junior having no authority to question it, just make it so rather than skilfully tweak the lore to make it work in a way that doesn't break the lore or create inconsistencies or retcons.

Without Metzen who possibly had the clout to ensure it was done in a right way,the others don't have that authority and don't try to push it.

imagine yourself in a corporate environment, you're a junior team, that's not that highly regarded, the guys that pay you and determine everything tell you to do something in simple terms, you're most likely going to just do it exactly as they say to appease them or suck up or be amicable rather than think of a clever way to do it in way that doesn't break the lore.

i think this is exactly what has happened, and why we get some nonsense. I think many of them are quite capable of doing it right, their employers don't value good lore or story for their product, they are short sighted in this regard because they are game makers, - so art and systems gets a lot of talent and priority, creative does not, and creative ideas and suggestions are often put on the back burner, or over ruled, sometimes at the whim of senior devs and those in charge and creative don't have enough authority to make some of their better or more controversial ideas, especially when it's important stick - at least not without a big sell.

the failure of the burning of Teldrassil and Sylvanas plots would have weakened the authority and strength of Afrisiabi/Danuser, it would lead to more oversight too, and over rules. The success of Suramar and Azsuna, and the overall Legion story line previously greatly increased it, whatever they gained would be lost by BFA, and htye're newer guys.

Face it, who's in charge of systems for example is in a more senior position than who's in charge of creative. There is enough quality they produce to make me believe they could do a much better job with everything if they were allowed too.

[ro9ue]

All I can say is that there are things that are hit or miss for me. Just speaking in terms of storytelling:

Warbringers shorts - good
Saurfang cinematics - good
Shadowlands cinematic - bad
BFA expansion story content - hit and miss, Nazmir, Voldun and Drustvar were super interesting, the other 3 were meh. All 8.2 and 8.3 patch story content was boring to me. The War Campaign was meh.
Afterlives - Bastion was excellent, Draka's was kinda shit.

Legion overall I really enjoyed. I dunno... Warcraft is a big franchise, hits and misses for me.

The Bastion Afterlives short was pretty much the best thing their story team put out for the IP since probably Legion stuff. If I had to break down why: it honored the past lore, the piece of content itself was a 6min, well-structured story of a teacher who was betrayed by his student. Amazing art and voice acting (Blizzard almost never falls short in the art/sound/music department). And it also added a lot of interest to future content... what's broken in Shadowlands for the maw power to escape in the form of Frostmourne?

[Beloren]

There is also my belief that the lore isn't as bad as lot of people think, and the reason they think it bad is they don't know most of it nor are they properly aware of the full scope of what they're criticising. However saying that, there clearly have been some awful mis-steps and introductions/ situations that could have been handled with love and care.

I mean when a development team does not prioritise adjusting your story accordingly to make up for the cataclysm time jump so that levelling players have to do the future then the past when they get to Outland and Northrend, tells you all you need to know about development's priority on lore. That is not on the creative and writers heads.. I still suspect some of the terrible gaffs have happened because senior figures who are not writers nor care that much about lore have simply said do this, and the juniors have had no choice - well they could have fought and come back with a better option, but sometimes that takes guts and passion for the work, which I'm not sure how much they have - enough to challenge a senior and insist or make enough noise to be heard and risk being fired? I wonder. there maybe other reasons to, respect them so much and thinking "well it's their product, they know best, even though i wouldn't have done it this way".

- - - Updated - - -

All I can say is that there are things that are hit or miss for me. Just speaking in terms of storytelling:

Warbringers shorts - good
Saurfang cinematics - good
Shadowlands cinematic - bad
BFA expansion story content - hit and miss, Nazmir, Voldun and Drustvar were super interesting, the other 3 were meh. All 8.2 and 8.3 patch story content was boring to me. The War Campaign was meh.
Afterlives - Bastion was excellent, Draka's was kinda shit.

Legion overall I really enjoyed. I dunno... Warcraft is a big franchise, hits and misses for me.

The Bastion Afterlives short was pretty much the best thing their story team put out for the IP since probably Legion stuff.

But then writing like art can also be subjective..still it could be a case that some just aren't good enough, sometimes produce great stuff, sometimes horrible stuff that sucks.. it's very lucky to get a genius writer or genius lead that can mastermind the direction with great success.

however, i'ts not just a matter of some are goo d and some are bad - the thing is some actually have stupid errors in them, makes it look very unprofessional, something are just lumped in, that required better explanations aor ore depth to hold water or at least have some integrity and clearly weren't given. This shows bad writing or bad priorities if the reason is "not enough resources" You can't allow something like that to go live, but if you do, either you aren't that good at writing or your quality checks don't know quality and are okay with cheese and mediocrity for story - which means they don't think it's that important - or both of those , which means you're generally fucked - and the fans, or at least the more literary inclined or appreciative types would notice.

Sadly in this product you could be a moron,and just know the story sucks.. trying to be too clever or too twisty, or too dark, not being balanced enough between disaster , doom and gloom and positive counter balancing in a way that offsets the terrible affair - not being aware of the need for that because you're just a cheesy writer that thinks he is very talented but actually isn't, so while you bring out some cool and good stuff, you mess up just as much or even more, or at least enough for people to go WTF - this sucks. And people notice.

if other video games in your own format can do much better- i.e.g Secret world, Swtor, FFXIV, then what's your excuse?

[Gref]

they are not perfect or good actually. Just average. especially this bfa writing sucked ass.
for the love of me I could not figure out why were those night elves -so valiant in their defense- suddenly wake up as dead and become "we are the harbingers of death" like wtf mate, it was just a minute ago?

then a month ago I think, one random dude on lore forums here I think, put forward a theory then HOLY FUCKING SHIT whole mmo-champ forums enlightened and like "yeah that makes sense now, I see".

this is excuse me but shit writing. writing/story/lore whatever should be clear and logical. you cannot retcon shit everywhere. it looks unrealistic and childish.
back in the day you would find lore books scattered in game, quests explaining you characters, big plots, historical events etc.

Now god forbid anyone tries to understand wtf happened over the course of bfa. better not think about them and just enjoy game mechanics.

[TheFirstOnes]

oh 100% yes.The original lore was very well done.Over the years it has been turned to this hot garbage lore we know today.

"The original lore" Oh, you mean Warcraft 1? Yeah man, I also loved how regular and medieval Stormwind and the armies of Azeroth looked. Much better than this Death Knight, God filled, alternative timeline, outerversal power crap we have now.

[JakeCC]

Writing is very easy! It's why every single person in this thread is a writer! /s

That's not to say that there's not obvious criticisms with how the story plays out, however. It feels like unwinding a universe that wasn't wound up to begin with has lead to some problems with how things play out. It's fun to note that there's a lot of misunderstandings as well, however, like that the Chronicle books are lore accurate, when in fact they are written from the Titan's perspectives which gives a certain bias to some of the cosmos' events.

I'd probably say I like the overarching narrative going on, but don't particularly care for many of the characters, save maybe Anduin, Jaina and Wrathion. Sylvanas isn't awful writing, just left a little too vague, and not in the 'I wonder what she's thinking' sort of way, but more of the 'I really wish I knew what she was thinking, because nothing is being let on' sort of way.

I don't know - sorry for rambling. I just think it's a little rude to call writers dishonest when it's a certified nightmare job trying to manage a franchise's story and lore.

[Schattenlied]

Some are, some aren't.

I firmly believe WoW suffers from "too many cooks in the kitchen" syndrome when it comes to writing... And probly a lack of communication between people writing different parts of the game, like what happened with Garrosh in Cataclysm.

[Necromind]

Writers are fine.
They are certainly not nobel prize nomenees but fairly competent writing MMO story filed with fantasy tropes.
It's the lack of direction and supervision that drags it all down, nobody is able to say "NO" to the writers. Some lore descisions after Metzen just blow my mind. Like, was the "Dark Mirror" in any way nessesary for the story?
Afrasiabi is the true hack across the whole creative team.

weakened the authority and strength of Afrisiabi/Danuser, it would lead to more oversight too, and over rules.

Afrasiabi's job is to oversee the Danuser with his team and enforce the rules. He was unable to do it for 3 expantions. Why would it change now?
Considering that major f-ups happened in big expantion plotpoints and not in the isolated questlines, it's not a stretch to conclude that he was directly involved in the worst writing during his time as creative director.

[Redroniksre]

They are video game writers, in the end their stuff is going to be very average. They already said they go for the rule of cool and go for stuff that is "metal" more so than anything, which becomes inconsistent with the books that are written by actual writers. I think it is a mixed bag, i think people here are looking for a story with real world comparisons, but that isn't going to happen, WoW is a comic book story at its core.

[tommyhil622]

Yes while i think there's been some questionable decisions made in wow lore i think something i keep seeing in this thread and in mmo-champ in general. Not liking or liking a story does not equate to bad or good writing. I see a lot of responses that have their evidence intertwined with how they personally view the story. A good a example i seen here in the very thread has been "if x faction did this, the story would be better". Would the story be better? or would you like it better? that's not the same thing. Think about it. Good and/or bad writing should be judged objectively not based on your personal preference or what faction you like more or favor.

Another note is that it's easier to write a cohesive story in a book than it is for a mmo where the story has to allow room the decisions made by the player. If it were a single player game with some sort of a linear path, it would be much easier to control things and make the story flow better, but alas it isn't the case. Now I am aware that accounts for many but not all of the short comings in the story telling.

As for retcons, i rather the storyteller have the room to grow, than be trapped in a box not being able to tell something new. Furthermore, not everything that changes the view or the perception of older lore constitutes as a retcon. I think that term is used a bit too loosely, although there are instances where it is applicable.

Side note: I seen in so many threads people were so captivated by a character, or faction that they were unwilling to separate their personal feelings from the very argument they were trying to make in order to defend the notion that the story was bad. While at the core of the argument it was simply "i didn't like it" and let me conjure evidence that will back up my reason for liking it. But instead of saying that they use the "evidence" as to pose an "objective viewpoint". It would be so much easier to discuss lore without wearing our hearts (lore/character/faction) on selves.

[LemonDemonGirl]

Maybe? I think the story got a lot worse after MoP, but that's around when I first started playing so I can't 100% say for sure

[Syegfryed]

Not really. The Shadow Council members were the ones keeping the Dark Portal up, and needed to be unplugged from their effective prisons in order to de-power the Dark Portal and stem the tide of the Iron March soldiers crossing over into Azeroth. As soon as you free them they essentially portal out, and the PC themselves would never have the effective firepower to kill them in any case, not alone. Khadgar even ruminates on the necessity of having to free them, and that folly it might prove to be - hence why he exhorts to PC in both Shadowmoon Valley and Frostfire Ridge to follow-up on Gul'dan pretty much directly after their faction Garrison is established.

thats why you kill then while they are trapped, so you can do it without any problem

its a nonsensical plot point that was forced to drive the storyline, it made no sense to free then instead of killing then;

- - - Updated - - -

They are video game writers, in the end their stuff is going to be very average. They already said they go for the rule of cool and go for stuff that is "metal" more so than anything, which becomes inconsistent with the books that are written by actual writers. I think it is a mixed bag, i think people here are looking for a story with real world comparisons, but that isn't going to happen, WoW is a comic book story at its core.

its being a long while since they do anything metal, is more edgy or cringe by now

blizzard is trying some bst seller george rr martin lv of writing, instead of their casual story;

and i think combic bok story only becme rly a thing in cata with thrall and varian being more or less marvel heroes

[Spiffums]

Or do you think that the writers are doing okay, but think that book writing just doesn't work for an MMO?

I have my opinions about the writers, but I honestly think that book writing has to go, and that Blizzard should hire world designers and quest designers again, that make up a story through the lense of world building.

Chris Metzen never wrote much books, but it was thanks to his vision and other developpers at that time that Azeroth was shaped.

I think Blizzard just needs to drop the whole novel thing. I don't think making Warcraft books that post set the game works at all.

Sure you could hire writers to write the Warcraft universe after the story is set ingame maybe? But I just don't think that books work for MMO's

Agreed. Especially when you run into things like "well in the novel Elf chick just wipes the floor with Sourtooth!" vs in the game she doesn't do anything but scoop up her Boy Toy and runs letting her people burn to death while random murder hobo #233252 tries to save 2 or 3.

[Aucald]

thats why you kill then while they are trapped, so you can do it without any problem

its a nonsensical plot point that was forced to drive the storyline, it made no sense to free then instead of killing then;

"The whole game is a sham, because a Rogue could just kill Gul'dan while he's sleeping." You're aware that's not really how stories work, I take it? I mean there is a degree of suspension of disbelief involved here. Since what was holding them there was also apparently drawing on their essence to keep the Dark Portal up, physical death may not have stopped the process all that well, either.

[Very rare pepe]

Agree with some posters here, the writing and the lore died with TBC.

[NecroVane]

The writing for this game is definitely bad, you can tell that by the sheer number of retcons they have to do in order to keep the story going.

The larger problem however is that since cata they rely on the novels to do a huge percentage of the more detailed plot developments, so all we get in the game is the overarching narratives without any of the details. It makes the story feel really, really hollow and makes character motivations completely baffling, since we literally dont see any of the development. Sylvanas is a perfect example of this, her character development has happened almost entirely in the novels, while in game she seems to jump around like a schitzophrenic on cocaine.

Probably the most egregious example of this disconnect between the "official" cannon and what we see in game is Theramore. According to the lore, Theramore was a civilian city with a nominal defense force, and had no direct connection to the alliance. When Garrosh bombed it, he was killing mostly civilians and committing a war crime.

What players who had been playing the game since classic saw in-game however, was that theramore(and northwatch keep) was a heavily fortified alliance military outpost that was dangerously close to the horde capital, was hostile to horde players, and had an active shipping lane between it and the wetlands.

After the cataclysm, theramore was completely intact, and was the main staging ground for alliance incursions into the barrens, where they destroyed camp taurajo, which is considered in the lore to be a "military target" despite having all of 3-4 guards and an almost entirely civilian population, compared to theramore, a "civilian target", with a large defense force, ballistas on the walls and an active shipping lane to the alliance lands.

This is a HUGE disconnect in the lore, and is the main reason the storytelling in-game seems so bad, because half the time it's not even actually cannon, or is missing huge details only revealed in external material.

[october breeze]

WoW never had a story to be honest. After WC3 which was fairly successful and had an actual decent story, they decided to make an open world sandbox MMO, based on the WC world and what is left of it. They continued to kill remaining major lore chars in few expansions however. After WotLK, no main character was left to continue the sandbox game with.
So, they started to make up new stories in Cata and thereafter. Maybe MoP was the only time they came up with a decent NEW era story, with new chars and plot line. But after that, WoD, Legion and BFA, story wise, are all crap.

I also think Metzen had not expected to expand the story this much. He didn't have a grand vision or direction for the story. He just patch worked arcs after WotLK and this method continued till now. Now we have a spaghetti lore in which nothing is consistent, everything can be retconed, bring back from death, or doesn't need to make sense whatsoever.