Blizzard's Work-From-Home Policies, Windows Central Interview, WoWCraft Ep 48

[Lumy]

Diablo Season 20 Now Live

Blizzard's Work-From-Home Policies
In order to protect the health and safety of employees, Blizzard is implementing work-from-home policies for their Irvine and Austin offices, as well as other offices around the world.

Windows Central - World of Warcraft Interview
Windows Central have caught up with Steve Danuser, Lead Narrative Designer for World of Warcraft to learn about the past, present, and future of the world's most successful MMO.

• The challenge with Warcraft's story comes with pacing out content in a way that makes sense for the game.
• If they pull too many characters in at any one time, it runs the risk of making the narrative disjointed and hard for players to keep track of.
• World of Warcraft is a game, and so sometimes the needs of gameplay requires the story to hold off on resolving plot points until later in the expansion, such as with Warfronts.
• The aftermath of the mak'gora in Orgrimmar felt like a time when they really needed to show how majors characters were reacting, as well as the commoners in the street.
• Azshara and the Old Gods were always intended to be in Battle for Azeroth.
• Looking back, Steve believes that they could have done a better job making sure both factions got a deeper context for where the story was going so that the threads that connected all the elements were clearer.
• He feels good about how the players got to experience the major beats of the story and that each one was intended from the start.
• The parallels between this story and Garrosh were intentional to emphasize the theme that "Ours is a cycle of Hatred." The story shows that the underlying structures of the Horde is what enables the tyranny in the first place, and it's within this nuance that they sought to show growth and ultimately the fundamental change in the Horde Leadership.
• On the Alliance, they wanted to show Anduin's struggle to live up to his father's legacy and the cost it incurred.
• The aftermath of war is always messy. Expect repercussions from the Fourth War to carry forward for a long time.
• There is a lot more story to tell in regards to the burning of Teldrassil and the repercussions from it. The characters involved have a long way to go and many lessons to learn.
• The team will do more cinematics in the style done for Saurfang where it makes sense and at the right moments.
• In Shadowlands the player character will be referred to as "The Maw Walker," but is not heralded as an all-powerful champion, but rather as someone with great potential who has an exciting adventure ahead of them.
• The team plans to tell a focused story arc that will continue through updates and culminate in a compelling conclusion. There will be twists along the way with implications beyond Shadowlands. Certain long-running threads will conclude with new mysteries as well.
• The new leveling experience is meant to be a standalone moment that easily flows into BfA and expansions in the future to avoid what the current leveling experience has become.
• To believe that there can only be a single outcome to the struggle against N'Zoth would be to ignore the lessons he was trying to teach us.

CarbotAnimations - WoWCraft Ep 48 "World Boss"
WoWCraft Ep 48 "World Boss" has been released!

[Biggles Worth]

Am I first?

[Stormwolf64]

It certainly makes the story worse when a badass main story NPC just ups and vanishes for no reason during next expansion because blizzard wants another one to shine this time. That's pretty fucking cheap storytelling.

They shouldn't worry about idiots not managing to keep up because idiots don't care about the story. They see cool zones, cool dungeons, cool cinematics and they're happy.

[Chapel]

Our characters will be just random highschool teens, with no motivation, from the late 80s early 90s... Mall Walkers...

[TickTickTick]

To believe that there can only be a single outcome to the struggle against N'Zoth would be to ignore the lessons he was trying to teach us.

AKA "We don't know if Archimonde is dead" AKA "we might or we might not bring the X villain back from the grave at our leisure if we don't know what story to ruin now"

I also like how they bring the structure of the Horde as a reason of tyranny. Let's ignore the fact that the Alliance has very similar structure and yet noone's tyrannical there.

We had two tyrants - Garrosh and Sylvanas - and neither of them made sense. Because if they weren't just plot machines to the next expansion, if this push didn't replace the realism of the situation (and I'm talking realism set in the game's universe, not ours), both Garrosh and Sylvanas would have been killed by other faction leaders long before they would have been able to do what they have done. The explaination for both plots is either "other characters are just fucking stupid and can't smell an obvious tyrant until their knees are broken" or "Garrosh/Sylvanas are just plot machines because we really want to push WoD/SL and this is literally the only way to achieve that. Therefore the whole story will make no sense, the characters will make no sense, the player character's decisions will make no sense. Because we want WoD/SL really, really bad."

Go to hell with your "the structure is the reason" or "oUrS iS tHe CyClE oF hAtReD" when it has literally nothing to do with that. If the structure was the reasoning, there wouldn't have been rebelion. But there were, both of them. And so if there were, they might as well have happened way earlier if the story made any sense and wouldn't have served solely as a push to another expansion.

And btw, Thrall and Vol'jin weren't tyrants.

[Justpassing]

inb4 blizz can't even afford to pay in-house employees anymore

[Crimpson]

inb4 blizz can't even afford to pay in-house employees anymore

Did you misread what was said in that twitter post or am I just blind? I believe I read that they will continue to pay their on-site vendors and contractors while this work from home policy is in place. This also includes their employees in case you weren't aware of that.

[Orisai]

I foresee Shadowlands delayed till 2021 due to the coronavirus outbreak

[Justpassing]

Did you misread what was said in that twitter post or am I just blind? I believe I read that they will continue to pay their on-site vendors and contractors while this work from home policy is in place. This also includes their employees in case you weren't aware of that.

"inb4" means "here before someone comes up with this:" mostly alluding to something incredibly stupid.

[Rootsbum]

inb4 blizz can't even afford to pay in-house employees anymore

Like so many other big companies?
Yeah, so evil.

Who took a dump in your cornflakes?

[cparle87]

Like so many other big companies?
Yeah, so evil.

Who took a dump in your cornflakes?

Don't take guys like him too seriously. For them it's like...
Blizz: exists
Him: rants about everything they do

[Weeps]

Our characters will be just random highschool teens, with no motivation, from the late 80s early 90s... Mall Walkers...

Sounds like red state residents who are forced into military servitude or work at a government subsidized family farm

[Archmage Alodi]

So Alpha will be delayed?

[cparle87]

Go to hell with your "the structure is the reason" or "oUrS iS tHe CyClE oF hAtReD" when it has literally nothing to do with that. If the structure was the reasoning, there wouldn't have been rebelion. But there were, both of them. And so if there were, they might as well have happened way earlier if the story made any sense and wouldn't have served solely as a push to another expansion.

And btw, Thrall and Vol'jin weren't tyrants.

The structure meant that once a Warchief was enthroned it was nearly impossible to rein them in or remove them WITHOUT the need for armed rebellion. Even other racial leaders were helpless to stop Garrosh or Sylvanas when they went too far because the structure of the Horde with a Warchief as supreme leader makes it so. On the other hand in the Alliance although the High King has the authority to mobilize and order the various forces under his command, the leaders under him have the right to withhold support. Like Genn could go, no you can't use my worgen for this and Anduin would be stumped.

[Darknessvamp]

Our characters will be just random highschool teens, with no motivation, from the late 80s early 90s... Mall Walkers...

Damn claimed the joke already. Though it's good to see I'm not the only one who kept hearing that.

[DarkAmbient]

I foresee Shadowlands delayed till 2021 due to the coronavirus outbreak

Wouldn't surprise me if it gets delayed now tbh. Although they'd probably shovel it out the door anyway to please the investors and then fix it after.

[Chapel]

Sounds like red state residents who are forced into military servitude or work at a government subsidized family farm

So kinda like what NY wants with forced labor for factories?

[LemonDemonGirl]

In Shadowlands the player character will be referred to as "The Maw Walker," but is not heralded as an all-powerful champion, but rather as someone with great potential who has an exciting adventure ahead of them.

You know, after listening to Magni yell 'CHAMPION!!!!' at me for the entire expansion, I'm ok with this

My Zandalari character isn't even a member of the Horde's military, let alone a 'champion'. She's just a Priestess who comes from a long line of Bwonsamdi worshippers. She probably likes the recognition, but being talked about like she saved the entire planet multiple times doesn't work for her...

[Forogil]

I foresee Shadowlands delayed till 2021 due to the coronavirus outbreak

I foresee Shadowlands ready by summer, since they can work more productively at home!

[Sondrelk]

It is nice to see them acknowledge that N'zoth being the final boss made absolutely no sense whatsoever based on the opening. As much as i agreed when the expansion began that we would end on Old Gods i didnt think Blizzard would take it literally and discard the faction war midway for Old gods with no explanation as to how one is connected to the other.