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

[Syegfryed]

While this poll's numbers certainly represent a drop in the ocean for WoW's playerbase, it is also highly indicative of a general consensus that exists when it comes to Danuser's writing. Two facts are important here: this is a dedicated lore subforum and this is a rare case where difference of opinion is almost inexistant. While it is easy to handwave a measly ~160 votes away, I would say that this poll mirrors how players and fans that are even remotely interested in WoW's lore feel about his work. Some have lost interest in the Warcraft universe, some do not care about the story any longer and some find it outright bad, while the ones that like his work are few and far between.

And i still think that some people said they liked it just to be on the contrary of majority.

Danuser is capable of creating good questlines, writing novels that revolve around certain characters to expand their identity and designing stories for individual zones, but he shouldn't be the lead narrative designer.

i think is general consensus that he can do something acceptable when no old lore is involved.

[Niwes]

The majority of the playerbase doesn't care about lore, and a loud minority of those who do spend their days crying out Danuser's name here every day.

I see you have some sort of personal thing where you want the game to die, which is fine, but makes it quite ridiculous that you spend your time on this fansite.

ehrm, no. lol.

[nyarlo]

The guy needs to be fired/relocated/idgaf asap, he single-handedly made me stop caring about lore, which was never perfect, but the stuff he's ''leading'' are a complete offense to everyone's intellect, characters included. He also has never written a single thing that could be considered of even below average quality.

[Asrialol]

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.

Bruh. Why is that surprising, it's not new that kids on this site cry at Danuser every chance they get. We all knew what the poll would look like.

[Verdugo]

Bruh. Why is that surprising, it's not new that kids on this site cry at Danuser every chance they get. We all knew what the poll would look like.

Why are you even visiting this site if you hate everyone so much.

[BaumanKing]

The majority of Reddit/Twitter crowd seem to like his work, so I doubt he'll get fired or anything like that as Blizzard writers only read opinions on these aforementioned sites. I can only imagine their pure shock when they stumble upon MMO-champ threads. I agree that lately I have also lost all interest in new lore, but perhaps this is on me. I just got old and maybe can't care about this things anymore. I don’t know tbh.

[Tanaria]

Everything that is outside Sylvanas, Nathanos, Anduin, Jaina and Baine is just shoddy! The latter 3 are protected by Christie Golden.

Honestly, if we weren't allowed to voice our views, I honestly think Danuser and Golden would just have the next expansion focusing on those 5 above.

[Darkeon]

Bruh. Why is that surprising, it's not new that kids on this site cry at Danuser every chance they get. We all knew what the poll would look like.

Over 90% user unsatisfaction is not normal. Especially so on a fanmade website.

[Osmeric]

Over 90% user unsatisfaction is not normal. Especially so on a fanmade website.

But you don't understand. Anyone who doesn't like things is obviously a biased malcontent and should be ignored. So there's 100% satisfaction among the satisfied players!

[Raven]

Over 90% user unsatisfaction is not normal. Especially so on a fanmade website.

To be fair a big part on this fanmade website also dont know the diffrence betwen a bad story and a story that they dont like.

Just see how many that totally missunderstood latest Sylvanas cinematic and when Sylvanas said, the crimes are unforgivable and i must face the consequences, people on this site went look proof she will be redeemed.

[Niwes]

tbh in my company this guy would not be fired, but declared to do something else. there are just positions where you have to say „are you sure you wanna continue doing this? because it seems not to be your profession“. or in short: some ppl just are not good in a specific job. so they better should do other things and maybe found their profession there.

[Syegfryed]

To be fair a big part on this fanmade website also dont know the diffrence betwen a bad story and a story that they dont like.

that is some damage control lmao, and you know the difference? come on now.

Just see how many that totally missunderstood latest Sylvanas cinematic and when Sylvanas said, the crimes are unforgivable and i must face the consequences, people on this site went look proof she will be redeemed.

because she totally will face consequences and not get redeemed somehow

[DarkAmbient]

He's the only guy on this planet that honestly though GoT Ending was briliant...

let that sink in

To be sort of fair to him he made that "it was brilliant" tweet the day after the penultimate episode "The Bells" was broadcast, so it wasn't his verdict on the actual ending. However, the episode was widely panned for its terrible writing, so there is that...

[Kuntantee]

WoW lore is hardly enjoyable. The story itself makes no sense, and story-telling is also poorly done. It screams incompetence and lack of talent. If he is the guy responsible for all of this, I'd fire him immediately.

[Niwes]

To be fair a big part on this fanmade website also dont know the diffrence betwen a bad story and a story that they dont like.

Just see how many that totally missunderstood latest Sylvanas cinematic and when Sylvanas said, the crimes are unforgivable and i must face the consequences, people on this site went look proof she will be redeemed.

while above is true imo, to be fair, everyone that knows how to write good storys, will tell you that Danusers stories are simply not good. not just because they are somewhat made for 8 year olds in a video game with a huge age range (Danuser completeley misses the target audience here). but foremost for plain simple story builds like consistency, greater sense, or story evolving.

i know 3-4 good story writers personally. all of them play(ed) WoW. all of them exactly showed me, why his stories are not bad by subjective taste, but why this guy and his ppl (and he has the leading role and is responsible for) are just not good in their jobs.

its just unprofessional and plain bad. thats the simple truth.

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WoW lore is hardly enjoyable. The story itself makes no sense, and story-telling is also poorly done. It screams incompetence and lack of talent. If he is the guy responsible for all of this, I'd fire him immediately.

sadly this is the simple truth. as a loyal employee there is no need to fire him. this is not nice and its not professional to fire him just because he tried his way and failed. and a good, honest company wont do that. but i would try to find a position better suited to him. in his actual position he is just plain bad and costs the company A LOT of money, as you can see.

when the work, of some higher leveled guy, he is repsonsible for, affects the companies customer base in such a huge way and leads to such bad product numbers, its DEFINETELY time to change that position asap. everything else is plain negligent by management.

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Bruh. Why is that surprising, it's not new that kids on this site cry at Danuser every chance they get. We all knew what the poll would look like.

tbh, if we (in our company) do a customer related poll and ask the most longterm customers aka our hardcore customers for their opinion and 90% tell us that they dont like a specific part, not in the slightest… well, then we have a serious problem and would start changing things immediately.

you can say as much bad about the mmoc community you want. and i assume to the most i agree. but here you find the hardcore customers. the fanbase. ppl that sticking to the product since 10+ years (just look at some ppls batches). these ppls are your most longterm loyal customers. and if so many of them are so upset, seriously, you have to do something.

ofc here is always A LOT of complaining. mostly BECAUSE of the fact that these ppl are such loyal longterm customers and really loved the product and wanna continue to love it. they are complaining because they care. not everyone of course. but this doesnt change the fact that these ppl are one of your most loyal customers and you should listen when 90% of them say they completely dislike something.

everything else is just plain stupid and leads to a lot lower profit. sooner or later.

[Terrorthatflapsinthenight]

He's the only guy on this planet that honestly though GoT Ending was briliant...

let that sink in

It tells everything about the quality of the writing in the last two expansions of WOW.

[shoc]

It tells everything about the quality of the writing in the last two expansions of WOW.

Classic Dunning-Kruger effect. People who are unskilled in a given domain suffer a dual burden: Not only do they reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it.

[geco]

I assume we mean the last two expansions if the work was too bad. As much as they say that madia BFA was cast and I grab it in the middle of BFA.
Whoever directs leads. If they are willing to publish these disasters they are all guilty.

They think about this.
* It is confirmed, Bone said in interviews, that Tyrande was not going to be the Night War, but Maiev and that his revenge ends in BFA. But then they changed it on the fly.
* Then the last two novels about ZappyBoy. They were written after ZappyBoy was a meme and famous before nor was he a pj.
* The entire Pj of Sylvanas was rewritten several times in these two expansions. To the point that after revealing himself against the jailer he still agrees with Teldrazzil when this was part of the jailer's plan.

Let's say his job was to close everything (which was already closed in Legion) because they did shit in BFA and he had to leave everything at 10.0 so they start a new plot.

One of the most important things they had to close was the Horde-Alliance War or rather Kaldorei-Horde. I could not make Tyrande kill Nathanos and Sylvanas so that Tyrende looks powerful and not useless and then they revive and continue to have the same plot. Exact.

What's more, we can go to save Sylvansa from the Maw because we need X data and there we see that it is divided into two or something like that ... incidentally now the discussion would make sense because it would be between the one that says that the careclero is bad and the one that says it's good. Instead of the one that says that the jailer is bad and the one that you say is bad but everything he did for him is fine because ........ is she stupid?

[KevyB]

I'm more interested in who the yes men were that helped elevate this amateur at best to a position of any relevance.

He should be writing degenerate hentai fanfic on some obscure blog, not handling lore for a massive fantasy world.

[florclorbromiod]

Largely negative but to say it's been all bad would be folly.

I enjoyed the Kul Tiran storyline, as well as Zandalar. I enjoyed a lot of character interactions, Jaina/Baine, Saurfang/Anduin, Thrall/Draka and so on.

It's not all bad.