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

[Syegfryed]

There can still be DK’s without the lichking you just need a really powerful necromancer both Morgrains for example were raised by kel'thuzad while arthas was still slumbering on the throne.

The father even shows the difference between the LK and just a necromancer raising one because he wasn't instantly under the sway of the scourge he had to be broken post raising which wouldn’t be a problem for playable races.

yeah, but who is strong enough to top Kel'thuzand? and who will be prominent enough to mass produce death knights like the Lich king would? even the valkyr were powerful enough to make normal undeads, this isn't something everyone could do.

Who the hell will do this storyline just to make new dks?

is one thing they did that will seriously damage the story and the future because it was not imagined far ahead the implication it would bring

[Klingers]

My working theory is that Danuser is actually a hideous vat-grown clone of Brian Holinka, his shattered psyche reconstructed with all references to “PvP” replaced with the word “narrative”... a ghastly and unfocused need to destroy that which he is programmed to hate...

[Lorgar Aurelian]

wasnt Darion raised by the Ashbringer ? later by the deathlord

Ya he swapped places with his fathers soul so presumably he took in every thing kel'thuzad did to Alexander.

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yeah, but who is strong enough to top Kel'thuzand? and who will be prominent enough to mass produce death knights like the Lich king would? even the valkyr were powerful enough to make normal undeads, this isn't something everyone could do.

Who the hell will do this storyline just to make new dks?

is one thing they did that will seriously damage the story and the future because it was not imagined far ahead the implication it would bring

That’s a good question Kel'thuzand is the best necromancer by miles only surpassed by the lich king so getting some one else to take up the roll of DK maker would be hard.

If I had to guess though I’d think blizzard will have a oh shit moment and then make some hasty sort story or such of Dorian getting his fathers fake ashbringer and then some nonsense about how it boost his DK powers and he’s a new mini lich king able to make more.

[Nathreim]

Metzen is the only component writer we have ever had and even then it wasn't the best just acceptable.

Shadowlands just reeks of Last Jedi and Rise of Skywalker level writing where changing things just to make it yours takes priority over protecting the established story (which was superior).

Metzen also knew how to build characters over time and not have them just pop up and upend everything just to make an expansion.

[sam86]

I will agree that the stoyr about Sylvanas is not 10/10, but I honestly doubt he is the sole responsible person for that. I have no idea how companies like Blizzard are structured, so this is pure speculation, but is it out of the realm of posibilities that he has to tell a story within some limits? For all we know he could have had a grand plan, but the CEOs hammered him into place and said they wanted to wrap up the story about her.

Again, this is pure speculation. But I honestly doubt Danuser is the all mighty when it comes to lore. He has to answer to someone and he probably has some limimations as for how much lore he can fit in an expansion.

as I said, i don't think he control everything lorewise, but i strongly believe Sylvannas rise to be 'top of everything' is his work, if anything, dumping her down, making her 2 souls and make her looks 'weaker' less evil and more stupid by discovering what even a kobold saw a miles away that Jailer is a88 who will betray her is not his doing (and probably first thing not his doing)
but someone like him fits perfect making his waifu goal is to conquer Azeroth then like a spoiled child decides that by next exp conquer reality itself

[cuafpr]

storytelling went downhill with legion and suddenly the landmass was much larger and had people living there the whole time ... what. I don't even mind retcons in the sense that even human history changes with new information but WoW is just bad right now.

[Nathreim]

storytelling went downhill with legion and suddenly the landmass was much larger and had people living there the whole time ... what. I don't even mind retcons in the sense that even human history changes with new information but WoW is just bad right now.

WoD was. Legion was already partially written before WoD was thought up. Blizz admitted they just threw WoD together at the last moment. I believe they wanted to use the setting to create hype for the movie.

MoP was full of hints that the Legion was coming up next and many people were kinda shocked when WoD was announced in its place. WoD also had massive retcons to Orc clans that completely altered their established history.

[cuafpr]

WoD was. Legion was already partially written before WoD was thought up. Blizz admitted they just threw WoD together at the last moment. I believe they wanted to use the setting to create hype for the movie.

MoP was full of hints that the Legion was coming up next and many people were kinda shocked when WoD was announced in its place. WoD also had massive retcons to Orc clans that completely altered their established history.

WoD escaped a lot by using the "alt timeline" excuse though which for better or worse, works.

[ArenaDk]

Unpopular opinion, but the side storys arent to bad. Like Uthers redemption, specially if you have read the fairytail with him and the dragon.

Overall this little storys are S tier lore wise

[Khaza-R]

WoD was. Legion was already partially written before WoD was thought up. Blizz admitted they just threw WoD together at the last moment. I believe they wanted to use the setting to create hype for the movie.

MoP was full of hints that the Legion was coming up next and many people were kinda shocked when WoD was announced in its place. WoD also had massive retcons to Orc clans that completely altered their established history.

WoD was atrocious. But its only saving grace is how easily you could dismiss it for essentially just being an alternate reality with no real long standing impact on the MU other than Gul'dan being brought back (sort of). With Shadowlands the lore implications for the series as whole can't be ignored and stretch back all the way to now re-telling the events of WC3. So even though I think the actual writing of WoD was far worse, I think SLs has an overall more terrible impact on the game and its future.

And I totally agree. Although they never came out and admitted it, the expansion felt like an ill-guided attempt to draw type for the movie. Just as I think certain elements of BfA (faction war and warfronts) were meant as a tie in for the disaster that became Reforged.

Unpopular opinion, but the side storys arent to bad. Like Uthers redemption, specially if you have read the fairytail with him and the dragon.

Overall this little storys are S tier lore wise

A lot of the individual story elements in SLs are actually pretty good. Its when they try to weave it all together that it turns actively bad.

Like for example, I think Argus breaking the Arbiter was cool and interesting. But instead of just making it an unintended consequence of our hero's actions when fighting the Legion, they had to turn around say it was part of Sylvanas's plan along. Which in turn makes the whole thing less interesting, gives our character less stake in the narrative, and raises more questions than answers.

[Kralljin]

I totally believe Sylvanas taking the villain bomb was a last fuck you by Afrasiabi as he was under investigation.

I doubt it, the whole Wrathgate thing has already been hinted at in Chronicle V3 and that was still under Metzens authority to some degree.

It's also not utterly out of reach that Sylvanas was supposed to become a Villain, the character was effectively without motivation post Wotlk and Cata already established that Sylvanas has "changed" slightly since the events of Edge of Night.

Her "I don't want to die under any circumstance" certainly gave potential to her going nuts and conquering the world to stop anyone from killing her.
Heck, her character description in Legion read

Sylvanas must decide how far she'll go to protect her people... and whether they're more precious to her than her soul.

which can be certainly seen as a hint for her joining up with some force that will save her from her ultimate fate.

[Merin]

Had a large hand in helping reduce the franchise to rubble.

[Nathreim]

WoD was atrocious. But its only saving grace is how easily you could dismiss it for essentially just being an alternate reality with no real long standing impact on the MU other than Gul'dan being brought back (sort of). With Shadowlands the lore implications for the series as whole can't be ignored and stretch back all the way to now re-telling the events of WC3. So even though I think the actual writing of WoD was far worse, I think SLs has an overall more terrible impact on the game and its future.

And I totally agree. Although they never came out and admitted it, the expansion felt like an ill-guided attempt to draw type for the movie. Just as I think certain elements of BfA (faction war and warfronts) were meant as a tie in for the disaster that became Reforged.

Oh I agree that SL is worse for the lore than WoD I just think it was the start of the decline. Even Legion had glaring faults like how could Orcs not be a major player in the expansion? This should have been the ultimate act of revenge for the Orcs specially against Kil'jaeden and they are completely absent. Saurfang and the Orcs should have shown up in force to help Illidan and Velen.

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I doubt it, the whole Wrathgate thing has already been hinted at in Chronicle V3 and that was still under Metzens authority to some degree.

They walked that back apparently it was a mistake. It doesn't make sense anyway Sylvanas had nothing to gain from launching the blight and had no way of knowing the Lich King would make an appearance so she cant even order it.

[deenman]

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.

the writing in the past expansions has been master class,i literaly cried all day from the sylvanas cinematic,its mostly bigots who dislike this direction and quit the game from it,good riddance,just like the players that quit because ''to many black humans in sww'',the game has become a much better enviroment with them gone

in fact the colective IQ of the playerbase has proly skyrocketed since they left

[Nathreim]

the writing in the past expansions has been master class,i literaly cried all day from the sylvanas cinematic,its mostly bigots who dislike this direction and quit the game from it,good riddance,just like the players that quit because ''to many black humans in sww'',the game has become a much better enviroment with them gone

in fact the colective IQ of the playerbase has proly skyrocketed since they left

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[DatToffer]

A lot of the individual story elements in SLs are actually pretty good. Its when they try to weave it all together that it turns actively bad.

Yep, exactly that. On a smaller scale, you can also see it in most of the recent cinematics. You get nice and cool shots that do convey efficiently their ideas. But put together it makes a mess of a scene.

[bagina]

the writing in the past expansions has been master class,i literaly cried all day from the sylvanas cinematic,its mostly bigots who dislike this direction and quit the game from it,good riddance,just like the players that quit because ''to many black humans in sww'',the game has become a much better enviroment with them gone

in fact the colective IQ of the playerbase has proly skyrocketed since they left

I've been crying after watching that cinematic too. Although for slightly different reasons. The main one being the death of my favorite character.

[Jshadowhunter]

It's not. I never watched the GoT series myself, so I've never really experienced what people go on and on about. But at least according to this Quora page, there's a lot of people who were liked or were fine with it.

Then these people should never enter creative circles... in fact, they should be BANNED from ever entering them.

[MyWholeLifeIsThunder]

that is what im saying.

Zandalari and kul'tiras = new things, it work pretty much fine, But they did fucked up some zandalari/troll lore to fit, New characters? almost all of then were fine, the old ones? completely fucked up like Saurfang.

Basically, once they touch old content in their new one is when the problem start.

I don't think it's necessarily a problem of new characters versus old ones, because as much as personal opinion affects perception, if the story was told competently at least there would be far less criticism.

Bfa was her "full descent" the problem is how it made no sense, because everyone was backing her maddening for no reason, and was a straight up copy of MOP

things would be handled better if she, in the shadows(not as warchief), was dealing with "unknown powers" to reach immortality.

Hell, they could have used this as a link to the Janitor so we care about him:

- In Legion, Sylvanas, in the shados(meaning, no one else knows) is searching for a way to get eternal life trought necromancy, she seek Helya, who teach how to see the Shadowlands like Odyn did (that explains the deal.)
- Sylvanus gouge her eye out and scout the shadowlands, she find a primordial entity of death trapped, they make contact and a pact is made, his freedom for eternal life and absurd power.
- At the end of Legion Sylvinas abandon the forsaken(now leaded by the council,) to free the Janitor, we don't see her in the entire BFA expansion
- She succeed in breaking his chains, they both fuck up the arbiter and they start messing up with the shadowlands, now the covenants have a problem, some of then sided with the Janitor.
- The Lich King sense something is fucked up in the shadowlands, he ask the aid of alliance and horde
- The war didn't stop in bfa, but they have to make a truce, cause people dying are fuelling the Janitor power(so, now it makes sense of why only one war of a small planet could be so relevant compared to the multiple planets we have).
- Then we seek the lich king to go there, then, we have an expansion there more compelling with more "palpable" reasons to fight for it..

Don't want to sound hubris but this feels much more organic and logical to me.

As I said, to me the issue is less about the specific plot points and subjective appreciation of them -because would all specific things to happen- and a lot more about how badly the story was told and how BfA breaks what could have been a far more nuanced progression for Sylvanas between Legion and Shadowlands.

Because that's the thing, taking BfA out, all you need narratively from it is to explain "Sylvanas betrayal", from Warchief to working with the enemy, and there could have been a number of ways that could have been achieved. That's why I think the overall story is not the issue, but the inconsistent way, the out of focus manner, in which Sylvanas was taken from point A to B.

If BfA had managed to make a good case as to why Sylvanas chose to side with Death instead of literally starting with a "lol she committed mass murder!" There would have been a lot more engagement with the story.

Thematically speaking, if BfA had been about how a continuously escalating war leads both sides to desperation with a tipping point that made her realize it was all meaningless, an endless Cycle of Hatred that has to be broken, Shadowlands would work so much better thematically as a continuation of that.

[deenman]

I've been crying after watching that cinematic too. Although for slightly different reasons. The main one being the death of my favorite character.

Well yeah,thats somewhat the same reason for me,that sylvanas is pretty much dead now