What do you think of Steve Danuser's lore work as Lead Narrative Designer?

[Baroclinic]

I don't see the correct option of "complete trash" listed.

[Jester Joe]

Then come you:

??? Would the game overall be hurt, if 59 people quit? Probably not. Does it have anything to do with this discussion? Not at all. We're discussing that the majority here dislike Danuser's writing, then you pop in and for some reason start comparing them to the entire WoW population.

So naturally you're just going to ignore that Mendzia claimed 93% of the forum members, and not 93% of the poll results? Or 93% of the people who posted in the thread? Or anything close to that, no, the claim was 93% OF THE FORUM MEMBERS. Caps for emphasis, because maybe you'll get my issue here with the statement and why I corrected it then.

No, that's only part of it. The big problem is that in Shadowlands we have lore on the level of "there are countless realities, but only one Legion".

There's nothing really on that level. That phrase sounded like a quick excuse they had to make after realizing that there was an issue, and WoD in general was a perfect example of "This sounds cool lets do it" which basically ruled their storymaking in the first place.

[UndedoKoleda]

So naturally you're just going to ignore that Mendzia claimed 93% of the forum members, and not 93% of the poll results? Or 93% of the people who posted in the thread? Or anything close to that, no, the claim was 93% OF THE FORUM MEMBERS. Caps for emphasis, because maybe you'll get my issue here with the statement and why I corrected it then.




There's nothing really on that level. That phrase sounded like a quick excuse they had to make after realizing that there was an issue, and WoD in general was a perfect example of "This sounds cool lets do it" which basically ruled their storymaking in the first place.

Ok, ill give you the first one. It's not 90-something % of the entire forum, only of people who frequent the lore section and care about the story.

About the second part- yes, there are thing on that level. For instance, the entire "threads of a rope" thing.

[Khaza-R]

The whole Sylvanas arc was already loaded in Cata with various Worgen zone assault BS, which went from one facepalm to another. The whole forced death as a solution to whatever Sylv planned was already presented there.

That's a stretch. Cata Sylvanas is really no more villainous than her previous installments. The only difference is that before she was a victim which people conflate with being good/right. She just moved from being willing to step on anyone to get revenge to being willing to step on anyone for her own survival.

Even if you stretch it hard and play dumb - can't deny that SL and whole Sylv arc was already obviously seeded in Legion from the very beginning and given you don't really write expansion story in 5 days, that's good 6-7 years ago already.

I wouldn't say a single thing about it was obvious other than them trying to make her go the whole villain route. Which ignoring all the inconsistencies in between with BfA they ultimately decided just to go "nope nvm, that was just half of her". So idk, making seem like this was premeditated almost makes it sound worse.

So let me ask you, how is Sylv a fault of current lore team? That's the hand they were dealt by your apparent lore master figures and they don't have much option but to finish this off and hopefully do some reset/cooldown next expansion.

I don't think I ever said the current lore team is at fault for the whole of Sylvanas's character. In a way she's tragedy of having too many chefs in the kitchen. But assuming they were responsible for her writing in Shadowlands, even outside of the meta story, its not really good or satisfying.

[Rexosaurus]

I've never known how much control the story team/lead actually has over the overarching plot and the setting, so I'm not comfortable pinning my many, many, many problems with the story on them entirely.

That said, even if they only have the freedom to tell a story within the confines of what the development team gives them, it still jumps around a lot and has some really stupid climaxes. So I'd still say that I'm dubious of Danuser's work quality.

[Mendzia]

So naturally you're just going to ignore that Mendzia claimed 93% of the forum members, and not 93% of the poll results? Or 93% of the people who posted in the thread? Or anything close to that, no, the claim was 93% OF THE FORUM MEMBERS. Caps for emphasis, because maybe you'll get my issue here with the statement and why I corrected it then.

Now we've got ~120people voting they do not like it but it is totally irrelevant what the exact number is.
The point is that we see certain trend that +90% players that are here do not like it.
Poeple will keep coming to this thread and some of them will click 'yes' and some 'no' on the poll but the same % will be here.
I also do not remember a poll with that one sided result on this forum, lol.

[Usernameforforums]

WoW has always been a shit show story

[Jester Joe]

Now we've got ~120people voting they do not like it but it is totally irrelevant what the exact number is.
The point is that we see certain trend that +90% players that are here do not like it.
Poeple will keep coming to this thread and some of them will click 'yes' and some 'no' on the poll but the same % will be here.
I also do not remember a poll with that one sided result on this forum, lol.

It's pretty relevant if you're going to use it to try to support your opinion.

And one sided results tend to happen when the poll is missing options like "Indifferent".

[GreenJesus]

More like he was left an absolute mess of a story that had no foundation at all.

The story was not built to go for this long, and everything was made to just be cool for the expansion that it was in. Has the story been great recently, no, but the hate he gets is pretty ridiculous for someone who was probably told "Hey, wrap everything up so we can have a fresh start".

This is pretty fair. Just look at how TBC literally just killed off nearly every morally grey cool character from WC3 just because they thought it'd be cool to have them as a raid boss. Then in Legion, "uh yeh Illidan didn't actually die".

Then in cataclysm, why did deathwing bother make Ultraxion if he could just bring about the cataclysm himself?

[Darkeon]

It's pretty relevant if you're going to use it to try to support your opinion.

And one sided results tend to happen when the poll is missing options like "Indifferent".

Has to be tough to cope as this hard for having a bad opinion. Just take the L, my man.

[Jester Joe]

Has to be tough to cope as this hard for having a bad opinion. Just take the L, my man.

Are you that incapable of handling people disagreeing with your opinion that you have to resort to lowbait meme responses without any substance to them?

[Darkeon]

Are you that incapable of handling people disagreeing with your opinion that you have to resort to lowbait meme responses without any substance to them?

Says the dude coping and having to fight about his RARE positive opinion of a factually bad writter.

[Jester Joe]

Says the dude coping and having to fight about his RARE positive opinion of a factually bad writter.

Okay, so thanks for making it clear you jumped into the thread with no understanding of what's being said just to say "haha cope".

A bit of a tip, never said anything positive about Danuser, I just said the lore has always been a trainwreck and he just happened to be handed the crashing point. But again, a great example of why trying to claim cope just highlights how little people pay attention.

[Osmeric]

I would rather have had a "meh" option. I don't like the story, but I don't hate it either. I can say it didn't retain me as a player, so perhaps from Blizzard's point of view I'm on the negative side.

My biggest gripes about the game aren't lore related anyway.

[Darkeon]

Okay, so thanks for making it clear you jumped into the thread with no understanding of what's being said just to say "haha cope".

A bit of a tip, never said anything positive about Danuser, I just said the lore has always been a trainwreck and he just happened to be handed the crashing point. But again, a great example of why trying to claim cope just highlights how little people pay attention.

Creating excuses is trying to mitigate his failed writer career. Wanting an "Indiferent" poll option on a binary opinion is mitigating his failed writer career.

For someone who isn't saying anything positive about this dude, you sure are trying your best to present him in a positive light.

Now sit and enjoy the failed writing in full display on this poll - that is surprising on a fan-website like this.

[Raven]

From late Legion [I believe], he's been in control of the WoW lore. I am intrigued to hear after 3 years how people critique his writing and handling of the WoW lore. Do you like it? What do you not like about it and why? Keep it civil.

He got promoted to Lead Narrative Designer 2019, Bfa came out 2018 so no he was not in charge in BfA, and even the burning of Teldrassil was revealed before he got promoted so wasnt in charge when Shadowlands was planed either.

[Jester Joe]

Creating excuses is trying to mitigate his failed writer career. Wanting an "Indiferent" poll option on a binary opinion is mitigating his failed writer career.

For someone who isn't saying anything positive about this dude, you sure are trying your best to present him in a positive light.

Now sit and enjoy the failed writing in full display on this poll - that is surprising on a fan-website like this.

I like how you say this literally while ignoring a poster JUST above you saying they're rather indifferent.

Your black and white view on the world is just shortsighted, and the fact that you're honestly trying to claim opinions are either "enjoy or dislike" is just horribly wrong.

You can enjoy your weird strawmanning to try to prove a point that doesn't exist though.

[Darkeon]

I like how you say this literally while ignoring a poster JUST above you saying they're rather indifferent.

Your black and white view on the world is just shortsighted, and the fact that you're honestly trying to claim opinions are either "enjoy or dislike" is just horribly wrong.

You can enjoy your weird strawmanning to try to prove a point that doesn't exist though.

They can say whatever they want - in fact, you overlooked the fact that they state they are not that bothered with Lore anyways. So why participate in Lore related polls?

In the end, if you are interested in WoW Lore and Story, you will either like the direction it's going or you don't. But you knew that already. You are just still trying to justify a better outlook for the failure that is Danuser.

[Jester Joe]

They can say whatever they want - in fact, you overlooked the fact that they state they are not that bothered with Lore anyways. So why participate in Lore related polls?

In the end, if you are interested in WoW Lore and Story, you will either like the direction it's going or you don't. But you knew that already. You are just still trying to justify a better outlook for the failure that is Danuser.

There's literally no debating with you is there lol.

If you're interested in WoW in general, you're still going to be presented with the story, to which you can be indifferent on. The fact that this is in the lore forum isn't some "gotcha" moment like you think it is, it's just where it happened to be created and it does fit. Anyone who browses the forums in general can see this thread due to its activity on the front page.

Your weird hate for Danuser is beyond me, but just because people are indifferent about him doesn't mean you should throw your hate for him at them, as you are. You don't accomplish anything by doing...whatever is it you're attempting to do. I'm allowed to be indifferent about him while realizing the story was always a trainwreck waiting to happen. It's reasonable to also point that out.

What's weird is to try to take that statement and claim that there's some ulterior motive to it. If I thought the guy was a good writer, I'd say it. Indifference draws the same ire as enjoying him so why would I bother to try to mask that as you're claiming?

In short, jesus man you're taking this far too personal. Pointing out opinion based polls should always have an indifferent/neutral choice isn't some hot take that you think it is.

[Biomega]

WoD was terrible, but this whole Jailer thing was a letdown of COSMIC proportions.