Do you think the writers are "incompetent"?

[Perkunas]

Isn't one of them in love with Plot Armor McCorpsebride? That guy should get shit-canned.

[Accendor]

The writers for the zone storylines usually deliver pretty good stuff. They might not be perfect, but they are very good. Whoever is responsible for the overarching storyline (so in BfA the war campaign as well as the Magni questlines that öead the player from Kul Tiras to Nazjatar to the Nzoth assaults) as well as the persons who write the main storyline including Sylvanas atm are clearly working in a field that is way, way above their capabilities.

[Varodoc]

It was never just about the chin--it was a way of pointing out that both his design and his characterization were blatantly anime inspired, which many people hated. Regardless, the point about him being a hothead trope until the sudden ass-pull where he's the pinnacle of all that is good and noble holds firm. As for Satyr/Shifting sands...yes, those are the two major wars named; however, both Tyrande and other Night Elves have pointed out that there were constant border skirmishes, small scale conflicts, and internal faction strife that kept the Sisters of the Moon pretty damn occupied for the last several thousand years. To say nothing of the fact that Tyrande participated in both the War of the Ancients AND the Third War, which Wrynn....did not. In fact, he's a far cry from a combat veteran, having spent a fair chunk of his life as either a refugee prince, a gladiator (which is not the same as being a battlefield tactician) or a petulant, temperamental king. He was directly involved in the war against the Lich King, albiet from the sidelines for a fair bit of it, and iirc he was involved in some of the Cataclysm drama where he got into a row with Garrosh.

Not what I'd call a lifetime of battlefield expertise.

It's still reaching. Being a military veteran doesn't necessarily make you patient. Garrosh was a military veteran who led many armies, but he was certainly not patient. Same thing for Tyrande.

The complaint would be valid if it was established that Tyrande is a patient person. Then Yes, A Little Patience scenario would be inconsistent with Tyrande's previous characterization. But she was actually shown to be hot-headed in WC3.

[Shaetha]

The writing is pretty good if you don't take every single story beat as far out of context as possible, but the people on these forums don't seem to possess that ability at large, so the result we get is people who at their maximum potential couldn't match a self-published smut writer saying professional writers are incompetent.

[Varodoc]

You misunderstand. The complaint is not about Tyrande (except insofar as Varian explaining a female veteran's place to her is condescending as all fuck and reeks of "bro writer syndrome"). The complaint is about Varian "I'll punch whoever dafuck I want to, I'm King damnit!" Wrynn suddenly pulling a character 180 and being a wise patient combat tactician for no better reason than because the plot demanded it. That is the very definition of weak writing--it fails on the consistency and logic checks, establishes no motivation or arc for the personality changes, nada.

And before you say "oh well that's just because it's an MMO", I feel compelled to point out that there are several MMO's which succeed to at least *some* degree at establishing consistent in-game lore and compelling, relatable character motivations. In WoW, I daresay I can't think of a single main character who's been consistent and whose motivations make any degree of sense. Credit where it's due, they at least *tried* with Jaina in BFA. Emphasis on tried. I want to give her character shit for dropping her completely understandable indignation the second Green Jesus touched her shoulder but....shit, Thrall touching me just about anywhere would make me weak in the knees too, and I'd probably forget about whatever the hell I was mad about right then and there. So that one passes my "would someone react this way in real life" test :-P

(Obviously joking on the latter, but it's getting late and I need some sleep. Fun debate, cheers!)

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I think you might have that backwards. The writing is fine as long as you IGNORE context. Once you start looking at the in-world implications of stuff like "the Legion transcends all realities and also has warp capable spaceships" or "the Horde has comitted mass genocide twice and the Alliance still refuses to disarm them" and then consider how that breaks a lot (and I mean a LOT) of the narrative systems the game was predicated on....it starts to unravel awfully fast.

I wasn't even planning on saying "oh well it's just because it's an MMO". I'm just going to say that Varian spent a lot of time with Anduin in-between WotLK and MoP, and very clearly that affected him deeply. If in WotLK Varian was violent and ruthless, by MoP he was more patient, careful, and wise. He refused to weaponize the Sha powers, he tried to earn the trust of his allies, he even allowed Garrosh to receive a proper trial for his crimes. It's made evident that spending time with his pacifist son truly helped Varian become a more rational person. It would be inconsistent characterization if the scenario was just an isolated moment of Varian inexplicably acting wise, but then later events confirm that he is truly changing.

[SirBeef]

I think he means the way Danuser "twisted" chronicles to be just a "Titan PoV" while it was praised as definitive canon for all of warcraft universe...

This way he can twist and turn anything he pleases and create even more retcons...

I kind of though that's what they were going for when reading it way before he made those comments.

[Ashiraya]

I imagine the writers are reasonably competent, but they have to obey the whims of the corporate suits who want plot point X and Y because they think it will draw attention - with no concern for continuity or common sense.

[pewpmeiser]

No, i think this community is.

[Sangris]

The current writers are definitely the worst ones so far. Them doing retcons left and right every other day without a care and as such making it impossible to actually know wtf happened in the story because it could be changed the very next day is objectively bad writing. They don't think any further than 5 minutes into the future AT MOST, since they tend to clearly write themselves into corners all the time, "solving" those by using even more retcons.

Then you see that they are completely out of touch with their audience, because they are always completely surprised if players do not like the characters they want to shove into your face at every opportunity or actually do not want to betray their own faction AGAIN. They cannot fathom the possibility of the players having completely different reactions to their stories than whatever it is they imagine. Then they want to push their own stupid agendas, like making Sylvanas a feminist though never once in her life has she in any way been oppressed for being a woman (nor anyone she knows or cares about) or making the entirety of BFA a preschool morality lesson that you should not wage war in a game that completely revolves around war. Also sometimes it feels like they want to admonish you for playing Horde.

It's also not helped by the writers having attitudes like wanting to hear criticism, but only if said criticism is positive (which not only is NOT criticism, it's actually detrimental to the writer because it only reinforces the bad aspects of their writing). Because for some reason whenever you say something bad about their writing, they consider it an attack on their person and the people criticizing, even with good intentions, are considered hateful.

Re: the retconning it's doubly sad since APPARENTLY Blizzard actually have a job position called "Loremaster" or some similar BS whom the writers supposedly consult when writing a piece of lore to check if it would contradict any piece of established lore. Given their track record, these loremasters either 1.) don't exist, 2.) are constantly drunk or high, 3.) never show up for work or 4.) are just completely ignored. There's also their unwillingness to do the simplest of researches about the characters or races they're supposed to write about.

While all of the above is bad (and there are tons of other reasons I didn't mention aswell), the biggest issue with their writing is their clinging to the "rule of cool" and ignoring any bit of lore, no matter how well established or the implications it would bring with it, just to have some sort of "epic moment" (which oftentimes isn't even epic, but quite cringeworthy).

[Relapses]

In the eyes of the hypercritical, zero foresight WoW community that hates everything Blizzard does or doesn't do: Fuck yes.

In the eyes of anybody able to look at the game's story from a detached, pragmatic viewpoint: Not even close.

Sadly, about 95% of the people on this forum fall into the former group so this thread will serve as little more than an echo chamber for super unique opinion that WoW's story has sucked ass since the culmination of WotLK.

[Rendark]

I would bet it's not the writers but the people running the show.

[Vargrik]

Too many cooks in the kitchen and they try too hard to have too many soap opera-like plots instead of focusing on gameplay.

I don't think the story should be focused on gameplay, but I agree with the "too many cooks" part.

[Aucald]

I'm generally a devotee of the idea that WoW story-arcs (and expansions in general) have had a pattern pretty close to a basic sine wave since the beginning. They rode an initial high crest with Vanilla/Classic, and then sort of stumbled with TBC. WotLK was a return to form and general praise, and Cata sort of went down again. MoP was rising arc, WoD took a steep descent back down. Legion brought us back up through the surface, crested, but then went back down with BfA. If the general pattern holds then Shadowlands ought to be pretty good, heralded as a return to form, and generally positively received. There is a slow and inevitable march toward entropy as the game ages and its playerbase dwindles due to burnout, lack of interest, and just sort of aging out of gaming entirely. Nothing to do be done there, though, as that is the fate of all IP's in the general sense.

[bagina]

Or do you think that the writers are doing okay, but think that book writing just doesn't work for an MMO?

I have my opinions about the writers, but I honestly think that book writing has to go, and that Blizzard should hire world designers and quest designers again, that make up a story through the lense of world building.

Chris Metzen never wrote much books, but it was thanks to his vision and other developpers at that time that Azeroth was shaped.

I think Blizzard just needs to drop the whole novel thing. I don't think making Warcraft books that post set the game works at all.

Sure you could hire writers to write the Warcraft universe after the story is set ingame maybe? But I just don't think that books work for MMO's

They are in the sense they can't write good stories for shit. But they're competent in the sense they do everything in time and consistently. And that's pretty much the most important part. All that WoW's story needs to be is servicable. They won't hire "good" writers because there's no need for that. For better or for worse.

[snackfeat]

Yes, the story is a complete mess

[Shaetha]

Re: the retconning it's doubly sad since APPARENTLY Blizzard actually have a job position called "Loremaster" or some similar BS whom the writers supposedly consult when writing a piece of lore to check if it would contradict any piece of established lore. Given their track record, these loremasters either 1.) don't exist, 2.) are constantly drunk or high, 3.) never show up for work or 4.) are just completely ignored. There's also their unwillingness to do the simplest of researches about the characters or races they're supposed to write about.

The fact that you think retcon is inherently bad is an indication you have no clue how to write for a progressive story. You can't close the loose ends if you don't intend to end the story.

[Sangris]

The fact that you think retcon is inherently bad is an indication you have no clue how to write for a progressive story.

A retcon isn't inherently bad. Writing retcons on a daily basis, even if it completely invalids lore that's been well established for decades, just to make a point or think it makes a scene "cooler", definitely is.

Are you honestly trying to tell me releasing 3 books that are being sold as definite canon, only to be retconned not even a year later and to be labeled as "it's just an ingame view of the titans on the history unfolding" is actually great writing?

[TigTone]

Imo what makes Blizz writers incompetent is they have such a terrible habit of adding new lore or characters with retcons.

I think that’s one of the main issues most people have with their writing.

[Guidance]

not!
you can notice many things if you invest a little time and read about the wow universe outside the game
the number of existing characters, plus the addition to each patch, is not something they can do well without freedom, time and good communication between all the teams that work with the game
the impression I have is that they don't have enough freedom and time
it seems to me that activision at some point wanted to end the warcraft franchise and then they went back

You make it seem that the only reason for a job to be done poorly, is by its own will

[Lahkesis]

I think book writing for an MMO to further the story is a problem when there are events that take place in the books that should happen in the game. I think my preferred delivery of WoW's story will always be via the game world, and I'm someone who reads 50-75 books a year. I'm an avid reader, but WoW books almost always feel very dated. They feel like 90s Dragonlance books. They do not feel like they've evolved past that either. When I was 10-11, Dragonlance books were awesome. But we have guys like Joe Abercrombie telling stories now and, more to WoW's speed and preferred audience, guys like Brandon Sanderson.

In terms of the writers being 'incompetent', I don't know that for a fact because I've never seen any of these writers approach a project without the severe and immense "series bible" constraints that exist within the Warcraft universe. They take no chances, they do not innovate, and more importantly and more egregiously, they do not seem to have an overarching narrative in mind because they've had many, many cooks in the kitchen. Since the writing process at WoW is "collaborative", it's not hard to imagine that taking any risks has a lot of red tape associated with it. I suspect that many of the writers currently working on WoW are competent, but not particularly inspired in a way that's going to revolutionize the game world or the story. And even if they did, the *way* the game is written is designed in such a way that quest chains are written by multiple people, to varying degrees of success.

You can use tropes and still tell a good story. You can subvert tropes and tell a good story. I don't think BFA has been particularly effective at either and I feel that the WoW "universe" is starting to show its age badly. I think that they need to get someone who is a planner and a plotter who can work out this "unified cosmic" structure they are attempting instead of pastiching the way they've been doing.