[SPOILERS] SL Pre-Launch Interview – Morgan Day and John Hight

[DeltrusDisc]

Anduin is the most consistent and well written character in WoW. He's had the most consistent arc.

He's an annoying boy king, under whose leadership we lost my treehouse.

Put Tyrande in charge, she has thousands of years of experience and can actually make a damned decision to do something, other than him. Who made the humans the leaders of the Alliance, anyways? You lot are young, naïve, inexperienced...

[Mehrunes]

That moment when you realise that they already planned who will be next horde warchief going insane and evil.

To paraphrase Kenshiro:
"You are already poorly written"
"NANI?!?!?!"

Let's face it, it's not like the current Horde leaders need to go insane and evil to become poorly evil. They already are.

I think you're right.

Yet... look at the lead writer who's an hopeless fanboy of her. Look at their propensity for muh twists all through BfA and before. Look at them still twisting the story in knots to keep us guessing as to her true purpose. Look at them making the Jailer apparently the one who made the Lich King a naughty boy, a plot device they can use twice. Look at them basically trying to paint Tyrande as wrong for being angry about Teldrassil. I see too many warning signs myself to be 100% sure that they're not trying that sort of nonsense and having her, if not redeemed, then slapped on the wrist and left free of any real consequence yet again.

Them painting Tyrande as wrong and misguided for seeking vengeance has nothing to do with Sylvanas being right, it has everything to do with her not espousing the "deep" philosophy of Anduin that Blizzard likes to shove down our throats, because they deluded themselves into thinking that their writers not only do not suck dog balls, but that they are on a mission to enlighten us with their nuanced take on politics and morals.

The Lich King connection, just like with at least half of of SL's shoddy world-building is cheap nostalgia-baiting, masquaraded as "we totally planned it all the way back in W1, it's absolutely not tacked on (pay no attention to anything retconned by our grand revelations of Scourge-SL connections).

And as for Blizzard twisting everything into knots to make us keep guessing, they did the same thing with the perpetrator of Teldrassil BBQ and the topic of loyalist vs Anduin's lapdogs for Horde players. I.e. it's marketing BS that exists only to hook players up and keep them engaged so that they keep paying Blizzard.

[Jastall]

The lead writer is Afrasiabi who spent untold millions making Sadfang cinematics all about how conflict is bad and the unifaction is good. Danuser himself penned the interview about how both Saurfang and Sylvanas were 'the past' and had to make way for something new. Golden goes without saying. Danuser no doubt likes having the character around - who wouldn't given the massive publicity she generates on even the most banal comments, as this very thread proves, but while he's definitely a fan, he's also a fan of the Game of Thrones ending, so that's hardly a guarantee that what he has in mind is redemptive. I do agree that she's still much likelier to end up in limbo than dead, simply because of the format, but not that the writers are signalling for it.

It is true that Tyrande is cast as bad, but not because of Teldrassil - she had a cutscene just now that I'm fairly sure Blizzard intended to cast as vengeance for it to the point where it's even called 'For Teldrassil', and unlike BFA, Shadowlands does still bring it up often. She's cast as bad because she's culturally separate and has a grievance not just against Sylvanas but is also verbally rude to other members of the unifaction. We're not told she's bad because she's angry about the tree, she's bad because she's motivated by something outside of a heroic desire to do good, which all other cardboard cutouts we're left over with don't have. That's the trait that'll be amended.

Now, you want to see whitewashing that'll go to an abysmal redemption, just take a look at what we've got going with Arthas and the helmet.

I thought Danuser was lead writer. I stand corrected then.

As to the rest, you speak the truth, but I still have a nagging feeling in my mind that they might want to pin everything on the Jailer and both Sylvanas and Arthas could get their redemption because they think it's all poetic and symbolic and shit. At this point I'd say the odds are 50% she's left in limbo somehow to recycle later, 25% that she's dead, 25% that she's redeemed. Arthas is, like, 70% chance to be redeemed and 30% chance to still be a dick that happens to help us.

[Seratox]

What's misunderstanding about burning people alive in their homes?

They're night elves, Azeroth doesn't REALLY care. The best part about all the Night Elves burning in their homes is that they went straight to the maw for torture.

[Mehrunes]

I thought Danuser was lead writer. I stand corrected then.

Afrasiabi is the Creative Director, so he sets the overall direction etc. Typically a Creative Director isn't limited to just the story, but also oversees departments related to art and some gameplay aspects. Hard to say if he personally writes much personally.

[Soon-TM]

They're night elves, Azeroth doesn't REALLY care. The best part about all the Night Elves burning in their homes is that they went straight to the maw for torture.

Just wait and see how Tyrande is going to eat the villain bat if she doesn't comply with the God King-sponsored white peace.

- - - Updated - - -

That moment when you realise that they already planned who will be next horde warchief going insane and evil.

To paraphrase Kenshiro:
"You are already poorly written"
"NANI?!?!?!"

Tbh I wouldn't mind a MoP 3.0 at this point. The Horde Council is as bland as bland can get, and it looks like all (except maybe the Troll duo) of its members are Anduin clones. They are easily disposable, and won't be missed in my book.

[Moonrage]

Just wait and see how Tyrande is going to eat the villain bat if she doesn't comply with the God King-sponsored white peace.

Turning Tyrande into a villain will make the burning of Teldrassil seem like a small campfire. If there's one character that does not deserve to die, it's her.

[Jastall]

Afrasiabi is the Creative Director, so he sets the overall direction etc. Typically a Creative Director isn't limited to just the story, but also oversees departments related to art and some gameplay aspects. Hard to say if he personally writes much personally.

It's especially hard to determine for a game like WoW where gameplay takes precedence over story. I wouldn't be surprised if there's sometimes a situation akin to Ion and other directors going "yo, we want a raid about X and a zone about Y, make it happen fellas" and the writers have to twist their panties in a knot to make sense of the entire affair. At least I wouldn't be surprised if that's how BFA happened where almost literally every raid dealt with an entirely different threat and theme.

The minutiae of story and characters are also obviously not planned in advance at all (exhibit A: Sylvanas), but I do believe the gist of every expansion IS indeed laid down well, well before we even see a glimpse of it at Blizzcon. Some people at Blizzard are already working hard on 10.0 in some shape or another and they need at least some story outline to direct their efforts. That's probably what Blizz means when they claim to plan their shit in advance.

[Seratox]

Turning Tyrande into a villain will make the burning of Teldrassil seem like a small campfire. If there's one character that does not deserve to die, it's her.

She literally left her man after he embraced demonic energy to try to save their home and especially her. She then proceeded to spend 10,000 years fucking his brother.

She 100% deserves to die.

[Whitedragon]

I don't care about Anduin either, I want 10.0 to focus on the Light and Void and I can't wait for Alleria (the best Windrunner) and possibly Turalyon to play a large role in the storyline. Let us deal with this Shadowlands farce already, then move on to the REAL cosmic showdown -- the one between Light and Void.

I'm still of the opinion that we may find out that light and void might not be as dire enemies as we currently believe. Would be interesting to stumble into a moment of "We don't really care which of the 2 of us wins, as long as one of us does" just as the other seats of power become weakened and an all out slaughter happens as the two proceed to devastate everyone.

- - - Updated - - -

She literally left her man after he embraced demonic energy to try to save their home and especially her. She then proceeded to spend 10,000 years fucking his brother.

She 100% deserves to die.

??? she was never with Illiden...

[Wildberry]

Alliance players spend years envious of the Horde's story development, and yet now that Tyrande is getting the same affection and care from the writers that we've dealt with, they're no longer on board?

Curious.

[BaumanKing]

The lead writer is Afrasiabi

Was. It looks like he left Blizzard in June based on his linkedin page. I believe that Danuser is now in full charge. Make sense, since we haven't heard anything from Afrasiabi for a long time.

[Kumorii]

Redemption / Martyr as I've thought for a long time seems more and more plausible.

Still think she will usurp or betray the Jailor in some way.

[bagina]

Redemption / Martyr as I've thought for a long time seems more and more plausible.

Still think she will usurp or betray the Jailor in some way.

Same. I'll be surprised if something like doesn't happen tbh.

[Malira]

It's especially hard to determine for a game like WoW where gameplay takes precedence over story. I wouldn't be surprised if there's sometimes a situation akin to Ion and other directors going "yo, we want a raid about X and a zone about Y, make it happen fellas" and the writers have to twist their panties in a knot to make sense of the entire affair. At least I wouldn't be surprised if that's how BFA happened where almost literally every raid dealt with an entirely different threat and theme.

The minutiae of story and characters are also obviously not planned in advance at all (exhibit A: Sylvanas), but I do believe the gist of every expansion IS indeed laid down well, well before we even see a glimpse of it at Blizzcon. Some people at Blizzard are already working hard on 10.0 in some shape or another and they need at least some story outline to direct their efforts. That's probably what Blizz means when they claim to plan their shit in advance.

Yeah I'd say they have the concepts sketched out. Honestly their focus is probably more on the art design and general feel of the expansion to begin with - since players care the most about whether the place they will be questing in for 2 years feels engaging and fun to be in. Hence why they have side plots on variety among raid themes so people don't get bored of green all the time (which was half the reason people kept saying there couldn't be a "legion" expansion).

[Super Dickmann]

Was. It looks like he left Blizzard in June based on his linkedin page. I believe that Danuser is now in full charge. Make sense, since we haven't heard anything from Afrasiabi for a long time.

BFA was his baby for most of it, and while it's off his LinkedIn we haven't heard any big news on it, which given he's been there for 16 years would get a lot more publicity.

@Jastall

I'd say Blizzard's planning expansions out doesn't go farther than concept art and general gist. So for example they'd know they want to do an afterlife expansion, hence the vagueness of the Shadowlands in Chronicles and the foreshadowing with Odyn and so forth. They know they want to do a faction war expansion or one with Kul Tiras and Zandalar, hence their teasing in Legion. But the actual application of those is far afield. Sylvanas is the perfect example of this since even very late into BFA development her motive for going after Teldrassil was rewritten several times and we all know how much BTS had in common with the ultimate direction of the character (namely nothing).

[MikeBogina]

However John insists the team isn’t making this up as they go, and that these stories are planned out much further in advance than fans would think.

Gonna have to call bullshit out on this, it's clear to almost anyone who doesn't have a bias that Sylvanas' plot was changed right after the beginning of Legion. You have her going to the Broken Shore, risking her life, saving Varian's life, saving Thrall's life, saving Baine's life, saving Voljin's life(for a little while), then after Voljin tells her that he basically doesn't like her and has this clarity and a vision that she must step out of the shadow and be warchief and many will not understand(basically you all dont get why, but i do) and she's caught by surprise by this. Like no this isn't clever writing, this is clearly a change in the story.

You have a moment in BFA where it's 100% obvious that whatever the original plot was is gone now when Baine seeks Vol'jin and asks who was the spirit that basically tricked him. Extremely heavy handed with forcing that, instead of saying ask why did you name her, what was the vision you saw... nope straight to who and voljin ofcourse is written to go along with it being all confusing.


Was it Danuser who said it recently, that her plot will no longer be parallel to Garrosh anymore going into Shadowlands, basically admitting what they denied all of BFA?
Lets do some comparing.
Cataclysm/Legion: New Warchief is named, the Alliance then attack the Horde because they dont like the new warchief while a world ending event is happening. The fighting is put aside to stop the big enemy but when it's done, the warchief now seeks revenge against the Alliance.
Bombing Theremore/Burning Teldrassil.
MoP/BFA begins with the Warchief sending us to new area for resources, alliance kinda goes too. Our war ravages the new area while we're told there's fighting back home(BFA actually gives us warfronts).
Uhh ohh, some of the Horde members aren't happy with the Warchief's methods(baine first to betray horde both times) time for a rebellion!!! So far at this point, the majority of the Horde players are actually in agreement with the warchief, time to have the Warchief be evil and twirl mustache, maybe even put the hero's life in danger without us having a choice.
Lorthemar and Jaina go off somewhere in the ocean after Jaina killed a bunch of horde people in a city(Purge of Dalaran/Dazalalaralarlaar) and while there, they agree to put their differences aside and unite against the warchief.
Siege of Orgrimmar happens, rebels and alliance work together and Warchief is thwarted, but doesn't die. And we find out that the Warchief has actually gained a shit ton of power from some evil force.
Some plot revealed afterwards, a portal to another realm is open and the former warchief goes through and soon after an army of what they were into(Orcs/Undead) come through and attack us.
Now we have to go there before it's too late, but it turns out that the enemy attacked us too soon, as they dont even fully control their realm yet. We work with locals to stop them!

I'm sure there's some I've missed, but it's like the guys who were writing at the time of Cata/MoP/WoD all left and Blizzard cheapily hired some new guys who just copied 6 years of horrible plot that already happened. The Garrosh plot sucked, the Sylvanas plot sucks... do something new, stop raping Horde characters for content.

[Wildberry]

@Jastall

I'd say Blizzard's planning expansions out doesn't go farther than concept art and general gist. So for example they'd know they want to do an afterlife expansion, hence the vagueness of the Shadowlands in Chronicles and the foreshadowing with Odyn and so forth. They know they want to do a faction war expansion or one with Kul Tiras and Zandalar, hence their teasing in Legion. But the actual application of those is far afield. Sylvanas is the perfect example of this since even very late into BFA development her motive for going after Teldrassil was rewritten several times and we all know how much BTS had in common with the ultimate direction of the character (namely nothing).

On this point, how many iterations did WoD go through? Everything we know suggests at least:
-Garrosh rallies a bunch of outcast races with Blackfuse's technology into the "Mongrel Horde" (How they'd have ever tied this into Legion, I have no clue)
-Garrosh goes back to Outland with a Super-Overpowered-Magical-Plot-Device-Necromantic Horn™ and resurrects a literal army & every notable Old Horde figure (Probably would've been the easiest way to segue into Legion, honestly)
-Garrosh goes back to AU Draenor with Blackfuse Technology and makes the Iron Horde and we track him down with Chromie, starting at the Chronal Spire somewhere between Talador and Tanaan.

Only for them to settle on the plot that they did. And once they settled on that idea, how many things changed/were cut? Ogre continent, Farahlon, etc.

They probably have very simple bullet points, but given just how drastically we've seen plots change from planning and even fairly late into development, the idea that they're two steps ahead of everyone with a genius story is just... far fetched.

[Super Dickmann]

On this point, how many iterations did WoD go through? Everything we know suggests at least:
-Garrosh rallies a bunch of outcast races with Blackfuse's technology into the "Mongrel Horde" (How they'd have ever tied this into Legion, I have no clue)
-Garrosh goes back to Outland with a Super-Overpowered-Magical-Plot-Device-Necromantic Horn™ and resurrects a literal army & every notable Old Horde figure (Probably would've been the easiest way to segue into Legion, honestly)
-Garrosh goes back to AU Draenor with Blackfuse Technology and makes the Iron Horde and we track him down with Chromie, starting at the Chronal Spire somewhere between Talador and Tanaan.

Only for them to settle on the plot that they did. And once they settled on that idea, how many things changed/were cut? Ogre continent, Farahlon, etc.

They probably have very simple bullet points, but given just how drastically we've seen plots change from planning and even fairly late into development, the idea that they're two steps ahead of everyone with a genius story is just... far fetched.

WoD production was such a garbagefire it's hard to tell what's different concepts and what's cut content. WoD and BFA have in common that their tie-in novels are barely related to what we actually get. Save for getting Garrosh out of prison and back in the past, everything to do with the infinite dragons is nixed and Kairoz is killed in an admittedly pretty good side-story. Shokia and company don't show up or are mentioned ever again, ditto accomplices like Fanlyr.

What we know for sure is that they settled on what they were actually doing very late, the Blizzcon after the announcement had them admit that the WoD announcement trailer was cut together at the last moment with what they had on hand, with that one canyon in Gorgrond being the one piece of it they had ready and none of the Warlords having unique models. I'm not even sure they'd decided on what they'd be doing with Gul'dan or Durotan at that point or whether they'd be going the Chronal Spire route or what we ended up with. We know the prepatch was cut down to basically nothing with the idea of the Kor'kron with Okri'la joining the Iron Horde being cut along with the warpath from the Swamp of Sorrows to Blackrock to set up UBRS getting spaced. There already being goblins on Draenor helping the Iron Horde is another one of those things that are artifacts from a previous draft where Garrosh wasn't the only guy to go through since there's no explanation for them.

The other thing I'd bet on is that at the very least they'd decided on the Iron Horde's rough aesthetic early since the Iron Star was done very early and so were the files called 'ironhorde' in 5.4. The Mongrel Horde probably never got out of concept art and the whole business with Alleria in the Garrison is likely an artifact of this also being Legion-related since the whole 'ally of Alleria finds evidence of her in foreign world' business is recycled wholesale in Legion. It does make me wonder if the thing with Ephial in Arak and Garrosh's magic necromancy horn were meant to be the seeds of Shadowlands.

[Jastall]

On this point, how many iterations did WoD go through? Everything we know suggests at least:
-Garrosh rallies a bunch of outcast races with Blackfuse's technology into the "Mongrel Horde" (How they'd have ever tied this into Legion, I have no clue)
-Garrosh goes back to Outland with a Super-Overpowered-Magical-Plot-Device-Necromantic Horn™ and resurrects a literal army & every notable Old Horde figure (Probably would've been the easiest way to segue into Legion, honestly)
-Garrosh goes back to AU Draenor with Blackfuse Technology and makes the Iron Horde and we track him down with Chromie, starting at the Chronal Spire somewhere between Talador and Tanaan.

Only for them to settle on the plot that they did. And once they settled on that idea, how many things changed/were cut? Ogre continent, Farahlon, etc.

They probably have very simple bullet points, but given just how drastically we've seen plots change from planning and even fairly late into development, the idea that they're two steps ahead of everyone with a genius story is just... far fetched.

True, but I do think WoD was a special case. I believe every other expansion unfolded more or less according to the general groundwork, with some smaller changes/additions such as TBC getting Sunwell Plateau to tide people over until Wrath, Mists getting the Mogu late in development, or Legion abandoning Thal'dranath (sp?) to go to Argus instead. Even the mess that was BfA happened according to plan, shenanigans like the Sylvanas loyalist questline (lol) aside.

WoD was a total disaster when it came to actually planning their stuff, partially spurned onward by a desire to tie in to the upcoming movie, and I wouldn't be surprised if the dev team was at war with itself all the way through the development over conflicting themes, contents and priorities. It's no wonder Chilton stepped down and was replaced by Ion who, like him or not, has been much better about keeping the team on track.