Do you think the writers are "incompetent"?

[|Dexter|]

Did not read the books, but think the writers are ok, the story in-game is great overall and only got better over the years. Legion is a huge highlight to tie up a lot of characters' storylines the overall Legion story flow and build-up where amazing. However, Warlords of Draenor was a low point in writing for me, the story didn't make sense, and now we having 2 versions of Draenor/Outland in the lore, and most of the story was so boring and didn't go anywhere. And BFA storyline was good for me, I loved all the Jaina Proudmoore storyline and her family, finally finishing the story of Warcraft 3, and it was amazing to see her become the leader of her people! Well, the N’Zoth stuff felt really rushed the story of it was not bad at all, our characters finally mattered in the lore, and it was our actions that set N’Zoth free, or obsession to level our hearth and at the end, it was us, that used that power of the titan's construction to take down N’Zoth

[Lemondish]

I believe the writers are inconsistent.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

No I don’t think there incompetent wow has a lot of good writing rather it be in some quest lines dungeon story’s books ect. I think there incredibly limited on what they can do because of the kind of game wow is and the fact that chained to the devs want to do with the game.

[Pawpurr]

I dunno, I think it's kind of reductive to say "the writers" which makes this seem like troll bait, but i'll give a serious answer anyway.

I am so very disinterested in what, for example, Christie Golden brings to the table. Whereas Madeline Roux, much more minor in influence, I feel she writes true to the core of the vision. The crowd favorite Steve "Self Insert" Danuser, he can be hit or miss, He does better at big picture/grand scale narratives, but his characters are often exaggerated cliches extrapolated from other exaggerated cliches. While I and many of us miss the Metzen era, I'm not sure he would be the best lead or even imagination for the high fantasy cosmic adventures we're about to embark on.

If you can't contextualize which writers you prefer and why, you probably shouldn't have an opinion on the story at all.

[Aucald]

Im mostly talking about things like "Lets reharsh MOP but make it worse in every aspect" kind of decisions.

"Make it worse in every aspect" is a pretty subjective claim on you part - and, amazingly even to me, BfA has a number of fans who feel it a high-water mark in terms of story if not gameplay. Wouldn't call them a majority, but even still your charge here is far from universal. Legion received a number of accolades from the playerbase as well for great moments in storytelling.

[Aucald]

Speaking of marketing, if you look at Amazon and other places, it still is being marketed as definitive. I really don’t know what’s going on but it smells like bullshit. They want the sales but not the implications of what “definitive” would bring.

Amazon probably doesn't really care how Blizzard uses or treats Chronicle in terms of their game's lore, they just use whatever marketing blurb was sent to them and they've not had cause or care to update or otherwise change it.

And, insofar as that goes, it is still definitive - the most definitive resource material WoW has ever had, even if it isn't necessarily protected from or otherwise guaranteed against future retcons.

[Varodoc]

Hey, remember that time that a self-important king with anime hair taught a 10,000 year old battle priestess with more combat experience than his entire army combined about the concept of *gasp* patience in battle?

SUCH DEEP WRITING. SUCH LORE. SUCH CONSISTENT CHARACTERIZATION.

Look, you can simp for WoW all you want, but that doesn't change the fact that its writing is abysmally bad on its face.

Combat experience means nothing when you've spent 10k years doing nothing in peace time. Meanwhile Varian has been in war all his life. He even said in Legion cinematic that he lived by the sword for the entirety of his life. He is grizzled, while 10k years of peace and immortality made the night elves weak and complacent.

Besides Tyrande has never been known for her patience. I've never read the War of the Ancients trilogy, so maybe something is different there, but in WC3 she was absolutely hot-headed and did not have patience. She refused to believe there could be cooperation with the Alliance and Horde until the very end, when she had no other choice because Archimonde and his army were making their way to World Tree.

[Aucald]

Accolades? What accolades? A few people enjoying something does not constitute accolades. Christ, there are people out there who love every single movie in the Transformers franchise. That doesn't magically validate the shit-tier level of writing in those movies; rather, it simply reflects a static reality that some people will always have terrible taste and/or an inability to critically think about whatever keys might be jingled in front of them in a given moment.

It's a lot more than "a few," and accolades in general just being saying that they enjoyed it, liked the story, etc. etc. Beyond casting judgment on people liking what I might consider dreck, that doesn't change the fact that Legion was received very positively and more people enjoyed it than had issues with it. *You* may not have liked it, but you would be in the minority in that particular case, terrible taste or no. I mean I don't like the Twlight series or Fifty Shades of Gray, but I can't deny both series are very popular and a lot of people don't give a shit if I find them trite or amateurish. It's just not about me.

[MrWolly]

Given the opportunity I would challenge Danuser to a Writer’s Mok’Gora and perform a 1-shot combo.

[Liarparadox]

I think the writing has gotten consistently worse over the years. They retconned WAY too much. I don't mind the odd thing here and there to make a great epic idea/story work; but they just do it too often. And when they retcon what is supposed to be definitive? Nope, sorry, they've lost their integrity as writers. Their writing is also pretty darn lazy a lot of time.

I say this, and yet, sometimes people over bitch about some of the little retcon stuff or stuff that isn't actually retconned, it's just not how they imagined the details really went. But in general ya, the writing is pretty amateur these days; it's maybe highschool level quality at best. But hey who knows, maybe that's really what they were aiming for given their audience/financial goals? Not sure.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Hey, remember that time that a self-important king with anime hair taught a 10,000 year old battle priestess with more combat experience than his entire army combined about the concept of *gasp* patience in battle?

SUCH DEEP WRITING. SUCH LORE. SUCH CONSISTENT CHARACTERIZATION.

Look, you can simp for WoW all you want, but that doesn't change the fact that its writing is abysmally bad on its face.

I mean while stupid that is actually a good example of them sticking to there lore and tyranda’S character. She’s the same hot head who murdered abunch of wardens to free illidan and the same tactical dunce who destroyed a bridge while standing on it.

It’s always been clear that her age didn’t bring her any wisdom.

[Verdugo]

It's a lot more than "a few," and accolades in general just being saying that they enjoyed it, liked the story, etc. etc. Beyond casting judgment on people liking what I might consider dreck, that doesn't change the fact that Legion was received very positively and more people enjoyed it than had issues with it. *You* may not have liked it, but you would be in the minority in that particular case, terrible taste or no. I mean I don't like the Twlight series or Fifty Shades of Gray, but I can't deny both series are very popular and a lot of people don't give a shit if I find them trite or amateurish. It's just not about me.

Going from "accolades" to "they enjoyed it" is some serious goalpost moving.

[Aucald]

Going from "accolades" to "they enjoyed it" is some serious goalpost moving.

Is it? I'd call people praising it an "accolade," but if you want to downgrade that to "it was generally positively received by the majority of players" we can do that instead. I think the meaning was pretty obvious and stated clearly enough.

[Florena]

WoW's story has been very hit or miss for me.

I haven't tended to enjoy the 'big picture' story since the end of MOP, and even then there were some things like how Deathwing was portrayed or 'there must always be a lich king' that I didn't care for. I didn't really care about Illidan in Legion, I felt they overcompensated for BC. I didn't care about the war story in BFA. But some of the smaller stories along the way I really like. I loved Runas the Shamed and Velen's story in Legion. I liked a lot of the internal Kul'tiras story in BFA. I hated the time travel plot in WOD but some of the individual zone stories were good, it made me actualy like the Arrakoa which is no small feat because I couldn't stand them in BC for example.

I don't expect I'll much care for the overall Shadowlands story, but there will probably be some smaller stories along the way that are more engaging than the macro plot.

[Varodoc]

Killing the wardens was justified, they were given an opportunity to stand down and Illidan was a legitimate necessity. You don't keep your biggest gun in the holster in the middle of a war. Tyrande was also a tactical leader of the Nelfs for millenia and managed to keep them safe for a damned long time. The bridge thing....yeah that was dumb and inconsisten, but that proves my point.

Another perfect example: how about us being all buddy buddy with Grom because after he spent an entire war campaign trying to murder us and committing mass genocide, he decides he hates demons a bunch and that makes us his friends?

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Not sure where you're getting 10k years of peace from. There are references to numerous wars fought during that time period which involved the Nelfs.

And it's not so much that "Tyrande is impatient" as the ridiculously inconsistent characterization of Varian in that case, who as you may recall was derisively referred to as "King Chin" for being little more than an anime hothead trope who tried on multiple occasions to start shit with Horde leaders out of nothing more than petty spite.

The night elves were involved only in the War of the Satyr and the War of the Shifting Sands during the Long Vigil, and Tyrande personally fought only in the first conflict.

"King Chin" was just a funny nickname made because he had a larger chin compared to other Human NPCs due to his unique model. There wasn't anything deeper.

[prwraith]

Incompetent.

All they'd have to do to remain consistent is read...and then write after they're caught up and assuming they're mildly talented it'd all jive.

But it seems like lately they're just like hey let's like do XYZ and we'll just retcon some shit over.

[Easyclassictopkeklel]

Content is always more important than the "writing" in a mmorpg. That being said WOW and everything about is has never been more than trivial fantasy lore, like in hundreds of other stories before. Nothing wrong about that, but there are some lore nazis out there who are acting like wow books are the pinnacle of modern literature.
BUT even considering this, especially BFA is VERY underwhelming when it comes to the writing. Idc that much about the lore, but how can you ignore the whole sylvanas situation. Her "fight" against the LK is probably one of the most disappointing thing I have ever encountered in a game story-wise.

[Goldielocks]

Amazon probably doesn't really care how Blizzard uses or treats Chronicle in terms of their game's lore, they just use whatever marketing blurb was sent to them and they've not had cause or care to update or otherwise change it. At this point, people are being scammed and Blizzard doesn’t dare.

And, insofar as that goes, it is still definitive - the most definitive resource material WoW has ever had, even if it isn't necessarily protected from or otherwise guaranteed against future retcons.

It’s not about Amazon caring. They probably don’t even know about Blizzard’s decision. The point is that they weren’t sent a new blurb so that people know what they’re buying.

And nah I disagree about it being definitive. Shadowlands is about to retcon a whole shit ton of it, I recon. Blizzard knows this. It’s why they told us about Chronicle’s new direction.

[KainneAbsolute]

I dont think the novels are problem. In fact, the live game lore is problem because it is obvious they cannot develop all the story they have in mind and they adjust it according to how popular is the expansion. In game, the story is rushed and there are few patches that take their time to write it consistenly.

On the other hand, it seems Blizzard struggles a lot to write around characters. Some "new" characters do no cause a good impact and they are not popular enough to be keep being written. Other ones are the classic characters that are difficult to keep a consistent voice through the games. With BFA, it seems Blizzard wanted to get rid of the classic villains, some pending faction war issues and have additional freedom to create whatever they want in the future. Thats why they are creating new cosmology, a new pantheon and everything.

However, if they are not able to tell the story they want, the same problems will appear again.

[Aucald]

Accolade: noun
plural noun: accolades
"An award or privilege granted as a special honor or as an acknowledgment of merit."

I hate to get into semantics, but if you're going to lean heavy on a word, you should know what it actually means.

Yes, I do know what it means - and it's a pretty common term that sums up a variety of praise or merits. So yeah, I think you're just being overly pedantic here.

And BFA was not recieved positively by the majority of players. It saw the second largest sub loss in the game's history, and, if memory serves, had the highest number of revisions made to any new system (specifically the Azerite system which underwent several revisions to its overwhelmingly poor reception by players in-game and on the forums). There are far, far more posts pointing out the incredibly poor plot points (many of which went unresolved, like the giant sword sticking out of Silithus, or were just unimpactful, like the idea that Azerite would change the war turning out to be a whole lotta nothing) and the grade-school level character writing (every word out of Nathanos' mouth, Anduin refusing to avenge yet another mass genocide, Sylvanas got a scratch and immediately revealed how evil she is in front of a crowd) than there are posts praising BFA's writing. Within Blizz itself, several of the Devs have tacitly acknowledged that a lot of the plot could be handled better but shareholders wanted an emphasis on directing assets towards increasing time-played metrics.

I never said BfA was received positively by the majority of players. I did say that even it has its adherents, though; so even condemnation is far from universal or objective (as was being implied).

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It’s not about Amazon caring. They probably don’t even know about Blizzard’s decision. The point is that they weren’t sent a new blurb so that people know what they’re buying.

And nah I disagree about it being definitive. Shadowlands is about to retcon a whole shit ton of it, I recon. Blizzard knows this. It’s why they told us about Chronicle’s new direction.

Pretty sure that never happens, though. Chronicle also pointedly did not explore the Shadowlands as a region, bringing it up only briefly in an aside and even mentioning that it was mysterious and infinite. So no, Shadowlands isn't a retcon at all to the Shadowlands proper, because Chronicle was at pains not to define it. Basically did the same thing with the Emerald Dream, the Void, and any other planes beyond the physical universe.