Ion saying they "mined out all the lore from WC3" as justification for SL lore

[Aresk]

N'zoth wasn't mentioned in WC3, and Azshara only appears as a statue and a leader referenced in dialogue. The main elements of WC3 are the Scourge (still at large), the Legion (dealt with for now), the freeing of the Orc Horde (which was played out again in WoD), the fall of the Eastern Kingdoms (mostly stagnant with a few changes in Cata and BfA), and the awakening of the druids (which was pretty much concluded in WC3). In TFT, it's mostly Illidan vs Arthas (two characters which we thankfully seemed to have moved on from after Shadowlands/Legion) with a few interesting characters thrown in (Sylvanas, Kael, Vashj, Varimathras, Garithos, all of which have had their stories resolved, in some cases twice). Beyond further restoration of the Eastern Kingdoms and finally bringing the Scourge threat to a close, I don't see many plotlines left from WC3.

[Tiev]

In the wake of Age of Empires IV, it's time for Warcraft 4.

[voidox]

Azshara wasn't wasted, she's still alive and kicking. N'zoth may be dead but the cosmic force he represents will always be around.

but they were wasted, cause Azshara's return should have been an expansion level event. Nazjatar was just a small zone, and now she's just out there after the defeat of the Naga forces and reduction of their threat.

N'zoth as a character was wasted, a place like Ny'alotha was completely wasted potential into a freaking single raid zone instead of what it could be. And other things tied to N'zoth that didn't need to be about the void lords or void itself.

Yes a lot of the stuff from WCIII is gone, so they have to rely on sometimes new stuff. They can still make a Warcraft esque expansion if need be but it'd still require new stuff.

except dragonflight literally proves that no they didn't need to make up new stuff for a new expansion, there is a lot of existing lore that they can and could have used for new expansions.

- - - Updated - - -

Whether or not you agree with how they handled it though, he's still right at the end of the day. Everything was used pretty much.

uh, how was "everything" used up when Dragonflight exists? A new expansion based on existing lore (let's ignore the retcons and stuff), it's not like there is nothing at all left for new expansions based on existing lore. There is more to WoW lore than WC3 o.o

and as I said in my OP, Azshara/N'zoth were full expansions on their own, wasted in single patches. BFA with a full focus on the fourth war is another expansion. It's just baffling that they'd waste these characters in single patches, then complain about "running out of stuff"

[Eosia]

How does he think this when Blizzard wasted Azshara and Nzoth in SINGLE patches when they are characters that are entire expansions onto their own?

Who is to say they are not coming back? Did Blizzard "waste" Kil'jaeden when he was the capital boss in the Sunwell Plateau? And we already know Azshara's still running around doing something for her own ends because we kind of free her to do it after defeating Dark Inquisitor Xanesh. So her story is not done either.

I will agree that the Naga as a race deserved better. Blizzard used them very effectively in the past like in Warcraft III, Zan'gar Marsh, Vashj'ir, and even the party they played in BfA. The problem was taking us to their seat of power. Because yes, it feels like Nazj'atar was wasted. Because even though Azshara ran off to pickup Sudoku where Sylvanas left off after she resumed having an actual story in game, I do not feel that they can really bring the Naga as a whole out again. It should have been a different section of Naga Civilization like Vashj'ir was. This section could have been built over N'zoth's prison versus the Eternal Palace. Especially since it is where Zin-Ashzari sank. Looking at the maps of Ancient Kalimdor, Z-A was situated next to the Well of Eternity. The WoE was at the dead center of the continent. So N'zoth would not have been underneath it since it was most likely rock all the way down. He would have been kept prisoner elsewhere. Like where there was an ocean.

But we have not really explored what happens to Old Gods when they "die". For all we know they returned to the Void to regenerate just like Demons do in the Twisting Nether. The latter process was artificially accelerated because of what Sargeras did to Argus. As much as people dog on the Shadowlands lore, it actually can serve as a springboard. For example, we now know it was Argus' soul coming into Oribos that took out the second Arbiter. Why did that happen? Because Titans are not really supposed to go to the Shadowlands. Otherwise the Arbiter would have been taken out when Sargeras cleaved that one unnamed world soul that he discovered completely corrupted by the Void. So we can extrapolate this that Old Gods, Na'ru, Titans, and all other immortal beings, go to a different version of the Shadowlands. The Shadowlands is exclusively for mortals unless something goes horribly wrong as it did in Argus' case.

So we could very well see our three tentacled friends C'thun, Yogg-Saron, and N'Zoth back again. We might even get to meet their big brother Y'shaarj too. Keep in mind that N'Zoth in BfA was not the original plan. We were supposed to actually confront him in Cataclysm but got scrapped and shelved for later. It could also be that Blizzard wanted the original Old Gods of Azeroth swept away to make room for new ones rather than have to do anything that completely retcons them. We already see the start of that potential with Xal'atath. She has a body now and is running around out there somewhere. It's not a question of "if", but "when" she returns. And I will give Blizzard credit there, it's one of the very few times they abruptly stopped the progression of a major story arc with a cliffhanger that works with a very long pause until it picks back up again versus all the stuff Sylvanas did between the Stormheim quest chain's end and the start of the Fourth War.

[voidox]

Who is to say they are not coming back?

them coming back is not the point, the point is that they have been wasted in single patches:

Azshara's return/Naga threat/Nazjatar were all used up in a single patch, Naz is now just a single small zone. The threat of the Naga has diminished after we did their raid. Your next point basically is detailing what I mean here, and I agree with you on that: the whole threat of the Naga is basically gone now when it originally would and should have been an expansion level event.

Similarly for N'zoth, he was wasted in a single patch (yes other Old Gods had small content as well, but the potential with N'zoth was there and he had more setup and potential) and a place like Ny'alotha was completely wasted as small raid zone. Heck, even N'zoth's release was wasted as just two zones getting some corruption in parts of them, like wat? that's it? again, his release alone should have been an expansion level event.

so sure they might come back in the future, but the point is that they originally were prime for full expansions yet Blizzard rushed through them in single patches, and are now going "oh ya we ran out of content so had to make up all this new stuff for SL" for a new expansion, which is just ridiculous.

We already see the start of that potential with Xal'atath. She has a body now and is running around out there somewhere. It's not a question of "if", but "when" she returns. And I will give Blizzard credit there, it's one of the very few times they abruptly stopped the progression of a major story arc with a cliffhanger that works with a very long pause until it picks back up again versus all the stuff Sylvanas did between the Stormheim quest chain's end and the start of the Fourth War.

I agree Xal'atath is an example of them not wasting a character, one of the few under Danuser sadly.

[Jester Joe]

uh, how was "everything" used up when Dragonflight exists? A new expansion based on existing lore (let's ignore the retcons and stuff), it's not like there is nothing at all left for new expansions based on existing lore. There is more to WoW lore than WC3 o.o

and as I said in my OP, Azshara/N'zoth were full expansions on their own, wasted in single patches. BFA with a full focus on the fourth war is another expansion. It's just baffling that they'd waste these characters in single patches, then complain about "running out of stuff"

You're misinterpreting what he said then and what I'm saying.

He said WC3 is used up. That doesn't mean there isn't other fields to be used, it just means they have to be more creative rather than relying on WC3 to pull more content from.

Last I checked, WC3 is focused on the Lich King and demons.

Not dragons. Dragonflight existing had absolutely nothing to do with his statement outside of proving that they have to move away from WC3.

Also, no old god was worth an entire expansion. No offense, but what you think on it doesn't really matter. N'zoth wasn't really more special than the others and he was considered the weakest anyway, and an entire expansion focused on naga would be rather hard to do without some form of underwater content which we had our chance with Vashj'ir and people hated on it, so blame the feedback for that.

[Aucald]

Also, no old god was worth an entire expansion. No offense, but what you think on it doesn't really matter. N'zoth wasn't really more special than the others and he was considered the weakest anyway, and an entire expansion focused on naga would be rather hard to do without some form of underwater content which we had our chance with Vashj'ir and people hated on it, so blame the feedback for that.

I think N'Zoth could've carried an expansion alongside other Old God-adjacent groups like the Naga, the Twilight's Hammer, corrupted elementals, and of course the Twilight Dragonflight. Would be even better if you rang in the Void and the Void Lords toward such an expansion's end, including the Shadowguard Ethereals and similar groups - not necessarily fighting the Void Lords, per se; but showing their hand in the proverbial tiller as the power behind N'Zoth and his agenda on Azeroth.

[Atrea]

I think a lot of people have their own headcanon on how much weight a storyline should have been given, and to that end, there's literally no way they could objectively please everybody.

Ultimately they took it the direction they did, and some people didn't like it; but this statement would be true no matter what occurred.

It's a symptom of people having too much time to dwell on storylines and imagining their own conclusions to stories. It's common in television shows; they start out popular, but then the amount of energy people spend about trying to come up with their own stories increases past the point of no return, and they get jaded when things don't go their way.

Look at the last few seasons of Game of Thrones, versus the first few. The writing was always the same, it was always C+ level fantasy fluff, but once people started having their theories and getting attached to ideas, the complaints started piling in. Game of Thrones was objectively a 6/10 in terms of story from episode 1, all the way to the end of season 8.

WoW has a similar issue. It was never great writing to begin with, but given enough time, people got attached to certain characters and certain ideas, and when those ideas were challenged, people push back.

The trick is to keep your story short and sweet, and leave people wanting more; like Breaking Bad.

[voidox]

He said WC3 is used up. That doesn't mean there isn't other fields to be used, it just means they have to be more creative rather than relying on WC3 to pull more content from.

uh, did you watch the clip? he said: "WC3 and onwards", he wasn't only talking about WC3.

Also, no old god was worth an entire expansion.

well, Aucald basically said what I would've said:

I think N'Zoth could've carried an expansion alongside other Old God-adjacent groups like the Naga, the Twilight's Hammer, corrupted elementals, and of course the Twilight Dragonflight. Would be even better if you rang in the Void and the Void Lords toward such an expansion's end, including the Shadowguard Ethereals and similar groups - not necessarily fighting the Void Lords, per se; but showing their hand in the proverbial tiller as the power behind N'Zoth and his agenda on Azeroth.

tl;dr - an old god is definitely able and worth an expansion, like come on, after the shit that was BFA and now an expansion about dragons, you think an old god cannot be an expansion?

and onto Aucald's description, we could add how a N'zoth expansion could be the final Old God on Azeroth expansion, make it a definitive end so Blizzard can get all their hype and big moments out of it. There is a lot you can do there.

Just Ny'alotha alone had so much potential, Blizzard could have done a lot of interesting things with it as a place based on the descriptions we've had of it:

In the sleeping city of Ny'alotha walk only mad things.
Do not be impressed by tall icons of the titans which stand here. The towers of sacrifice in Ny'alotha dwarf these pathetic temples.

imagine the grand scale and stuff like mind controlling/infecting/corruption they could have done with it. Puzzles and such even, there was a lot of gameplay potential with a place like that.

[Sentynel]

In the wake of Age of Empires IV, it's time for Warcraft 4.

With both IPs (soon) belonging to the same parent company, WC4 is more likely than ever before.

[Triceron]

I think there's only one logical conclusion for this.

More Warcraft 3 expansions.

[uuuhname]

"we mined out a lot of the lore and original settings from Warcraft 3 and onwards"

How does he think this when Blizzard wasted Azshara and Nzoth in SINGLE patches when they are characters that are entire expansions onto their own?

I mean, it sounds exactly like they "mined", AKA "wasted" a lot of WCIII lore.

[Amnaught]

N'zoth as a character was wasted, a place like Ny'alotha was completely wasted potential into a freaking single raid zone instead of what it could be.

This part is what really gets me. We're finally seeing Nyalotha, after years of buildup, and it's just a raid. Meanwhile the patch immediately before it had two patch zones, one of which was dedicated to..... diaper gnomes. And they put a *lot* of effort, mechanics, art, and music into that zone. It was incredible.

Every single minute of dev time spent on Mechagon should have gone to Ny'alotha. What a waste.

[exochaft]

Yeah... I think that might be part of the nature of MMO's though in general? Correct me if I'm wrong for assuming this, but it sounds like a lot of the main story elements are thought up well in advance of the actual expansions being released. They likely have an outline for 2 or 3 expansions at a time, but I'm sure elements of those expansions change, and sometimes they will probably need to find a way to bridge the gap in the middle of an expansion.

It's more of a WoW/Blizz issue than an MMO issue, as each MMO puts a priority on different things. When it comes to the WoW of today, there seems to be less and less effort put into developing a solid and satisfying narrative versus systems or other aspects of the game.

They've always said that they plan the expansions well in advance, but I think how they approach the story/lore now is the bigger issue as to why it's not clicking with many people. In BfA and Shadowlands, there's a ton of evidence to suggest that the story was being really rushed from what they planned... which is fine to a degree, nothing will ever go exactly as planned. However, the issue is that either there's no contingency plan (aka, if things go wrong they just wing it) or their 'perfect' narrative was already bad or rushed before being forced to abridge things even more.

A simple way to describe it is that it's not that there's a lack of an intial plan, it's just their plan is terrible from the get go. People have already been mentioning how they've taken story elements that could've been their own expansion or series of expansions and condense them into a single patch or raid... that's just piss-poor planning. Is this just a case of the people in charge of these things are inept? Or is it that there's other motivations involved, like they personally want to move on to their own stuff so they blow through existing lore and loose ends? Regardless of the reason, it's very unsatisfying, and a classic case where the ends justifying the means doesn't go well.

If we look at the Shadowlands expansion, there are parts of the structure that could work and potentially come off as a great story. However, the execution was rushed and terrible. It has the classic Blizz tendency to introduce something new and immediately get rid of it when it comes to Zovaal, who could've been interesting if they spent 2-3 expansion building him up instead of throwing anything interesting about him into a novel that's not in the game. In their effort to blow through a story that should've lasted a long longer, not only are players not satisfied but also they've created more problems to deal with that will take even more time to address (assuming they just don't ignore said problems). Blizz has a HUGE problem with not letting their narratives breath, along with their pacing showing the quality of the narratives themselves to get worse and worse. The optimistic side of me would like to think that the company isn't full of idiots but are just the subject of severe mismanagement, but the end result of a terrible story doesn't change.

[themortalgod]

I actually don't disagree with him that they had milked War3 for more than enough story and it is def time to move forward in new directions. That much I 100% agree with. The problem is their new directions have been pretty awful. They have pieces of greatness and often are filled with unrealized potential but the execution has been consistently abysmal.

It's called creative bankruptcy.

Pretty much, though I would argue that a huge part of it is tied to the cultural disaster that was Blizzard over the last few years. Just because the toxic culture finally came to light last year doesn't mean its impact hasn't been running deep for a long time. A lot of the top talent left over the last half-decade and those who remained were obviously extremely miserable. Miserable creatives don't do good creative work. In retrospect, I'm actually surprised they put out as much quality as they did during that time now that the reality of the situation was made public.

Not an excuse by any means, but def a strong explaining factor. I think the first step in turning the poor creative direction around is in ensuring that the creative work environment is positive, delightful, and collaborative otherwise they will never be able to keep talent around or focused on doing the best work possible. Even look at some of the interviews with Metzen after he left and how he talked about how he was stressed to an extreme boiling point. His passion, creativity, and excitement were just broken.

Personally, I've been a guest to the Blizzard campus, many years ago before this ever was a problem. (Nothing exciting, I walked around, got a friend/family tour, and that was about it, nothing to brag about). When I was there the entire department was just buzzing with excitement. Every member of the team was happy, they had dogs running around, and the passion for the art and creative process was overwhelming. A couple of years later, all my friends and contacts at blizzard all left the company one by one and none of them really talked about it. There was definitely a tipping point where the culture shifted from amazing to awful. (That shift correlates roughly with a certain Activision takeover) Pretty much all the work since then has been rough. Because dev cycles are so long at Blizzard we will be feeling the impact of that for years to come. Even if the cultural problem was 100% solved tomorrow the impact of that won't make it into a product until probably the expansion after Dragonflight, if not the one after that.

There is still hope though, there is a foundation in the Blizzard IPs that is amazing which is why we have all stuck around so long. The ship can be righted under the right leadership. I won't hold my breath though.

[Jester Joe]

I think N'Zoth could've carried an expansion alongside other Old God-adjacent groups like the Naga, the Twilight's Hammer, corrupted elementals, and of course the Twilight Dragonflight. Would be even better if you rang in the Void and the Void Lords toward such an expansion's end, including the Shadowguard Ethereals and similar groups - not necessarily fighting the Void Lords, per se; but showing their hand in the proverbial tiller as the power behind N'Zoth and his agenda on Azeroth.

To me, the issue is that's basically re-treading Cataclysm. And to explore Naga in more depth, it's gonna end up being underwater unless you really neuter them. It's just minus Deathwing at that point.

uh, did you watch the clip? he said: "WC3 and onwards", he wasn't only talking about WC3.

I mean, past WC3 is WoW. And why would they want to go back over story WoW already explored, that's what Classic is for.

[Nerovar]

Pretty much, though I would argue that a huge part of it is tied to the cultural disaster that was Blizzard over the last few years. Just because the toxic culture finally came to light last year doesn't mean its impact hasn't been running deep for a long time. A lot of the top talent left over the last half-decade and those who remained were obviously extremely miserable. Miserable creatives don't do good creative work. In retrospect, I'm actually surprised they put out as much quality as they did during that time now that the reality of the situation was made public.

Not an excuse by any means, but def a strong explaining factor. I think the first step in turning the poor creative direction around is in ensuring that the creative work environment is positive, delightful, and collaborative otherwise they will never be able to keep talent around or focused on doing the best work possible. Even look at some of the interviews with Metzen after he left and how he talked about how he was stressed to an extreme boiling point. His passion, creativity, and excitement were just broken.

Personally, I've been a guest to the Blizzard campus, many years ago before this ever was a problem. (Nothing exciting, I walked around, got a friend/family tour, and that was about it, nothing to brag about). When I was there the entire department was just buzzing with excitement. Every member of the team was happy, they had dogs running around, and the passion for the art and creative process was overwhelming. A couple of years later, all my friends and contacts at blizzard all left the company one by one and none of them really talked about it. There was definitely a tipping point where the culture shifted from amazing to awful. (That shift correlates roughly with a certain Activision takeover) Pretty much all the work since then has been rough. Because dev cycles are so long at Blizzard we will be feeling the impact of that for years to come. Even if the cultural problem was 100% solved tomorrow the impact of that won't make it into a product until probably the expansion after Dragonflight, if not the one after that.

There is still hope though, there is a foundation in the Blizzard IPs that is amazing which is why we have all stuck around so long. The ship can be righted under the right leadership. I won't hold my breath though.

Well, Bobby loved to brag with achieving his goal of "taking the fun out of game development" so that assessment seems to be accurate.

With both IPs (soon) belonging to the same parent company, WC4 is more likely than ever before.

We can only hope that they retcon all of WoW if they ever decide to make Warcraft 4.

[Tiev]

It's more of a WoW/Blizz issue than an MMO issue, as each MMO puts a priority on different things. When it comes to the WoW of today, there seems to be less and less effort put into developing a solid and satisfying narrative versus systems or other aspects of the game.

They've always said that they plan the expansions well in advance, but I think how they approach the story/lore now is the bigger issue as to why it's not clicking with many people. In BfA and Shadowlands, there's a ton of evidence to suggest that the story was being really rushed from what they planned... which is fine to a degree, nothing will ever go exactly as planned. However, the issue is that either there's no contingency plan (aka, if things go wrong they just wing it) or their 'perfect' narrative was already bad or rushed before being forced to abridge things even more.

A simple way to describe it is that it's not that there's a lack of an intial plan, it's just their plan is terrible from the get go. People have already been mentioning how they've taken story elements that could've been their own expansion or series of expansions and condense them into a single patch or raid... that's just piss-poor planning. Is this just a case of the people in charge of these things are inept? Or is it that there's other motivations involved, like they personally want to move on to their own stuff so they blow through existing lore and loose ends? Regardless of the reason, it's very unsatisfying, and a classic case where the ends justifying the means doesn't go well.

If we look at the Shadowlands expansion, there are parts of the structure that could work and potentially come off as a great story. However, the execution was rushed and terrible. It has the classic Blizz tendency to introduce something new and immediately get rid of it when it comes to Zovaal, who could've been interesting if they spent 2-3 expansion building him up instead of throwing anything interesting about him into a novel that's not in the game. In their effort to blow through a story that should've lasted a long longer, not only are players not satisfied but also they've created more problems to deal with that will take even more time to address (assuming they just don't ignore said problems). Blizz has a HUGE problem with not letting their narratives breath, along with their pacing showing the quality of the narratives themselves to get worse and worse. The optimistic side of me would like to think that the company isn't full of idiots but are just the subject of severe mismanagement, but the end result of a terrible story doesn't change.

I wonder if this has to do with them wanting to move away from Lore established by Afrasiabi due to his sexual harrassment issues which would be an extremely childish response to his crimes as self-appointed curators of a world.

Disclaimer: I say this but I don't actually know what was written by him and what wasn't, so this is pure speculation.

[Goldielocks]

I think it was just an awkward and hamfisted way of saying "we're trying to move on from WC3" when it comes to Shadowlands and future WoW expansions. A way of saying that WC3 lore is, at this point, a bit played out and that they need to envision new stories and new material in order for WoW to move forward into new story arcs.

If only they wanted to do this 5 years ago when the Shadowlands planning started.

[themortalgod]

I wonder if this has to do with them wanting to move away from Lore established by Afrasiabi due to his sexual harrassment issues which would be an extremely childish response to his crimes as self-appointed curators of a world.

Its too soon for us to be seeing the result of that. Most of the lore for Dragonflight would have already been in flight years ago. I expect we won't be seeing the impact of a decision like that until 2024 or later.