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

[ablock87]

He's been a senior narrative designer since 2017 and lead since 2019, so he has a HEAVY hand in how bad BFA was and is fully responsible for how trash the Shadowlands story is. I have never in my life (as a writer myself) seen such awful characterization in such a major IP like Warcraft.

[geco]

right? who care those fuckers are killing the undead and the demons who are corrupting our forest? they are cutting trees!!! they are worse than the legion!!!!!

fight a desperate war, make 2 more enemies because your ego, elf logic folks



yeah, like malfurion and tyrande were not part of the highborne

unlike the blood elves, the highborne night elves of old are still alive.

Thanks for agreeing with me.

I never said that the kaldorei were smart. If they were they wouldn't follow Tyrande or Malfurion.

[MyWholeLifeIsThunder]

The problem is that there isn't really a journey to begin with. Sylvanas has always been a villain, the only people that are surprised that she is willing to eradicate the universe for her personal agenda, are her large following of fanbois that somehow in their heads turned her into an anti-hero, while she never ever did anything heroic or even something that wasn't 100% self-centered.

Unfortunately one of these fanbois happened to aquire the position of lead writer so now we are getting this headcanon forced onto the actual canon, and the canon as shaky as it was before is simply collapsing from this. The universe literally has to end so that Sylvanas can have the Redemption that Danuser so desperately wants to give her.

The scale of what is happening at the moment is nearly unfathomable. Danuser is retconning stories that became Legends when he was still a pimply teen only to absolve his favourite character from all the villainous things she did over the years. This completely open favouritism would make players in a D&D group quit on their GM... but Blizzard seems to be fine with it and that is a crying shame.

Nah man, to say that "Sylvanas was always a villain" is kinda just removing all the nuance from the other direction. The whole problem with Sylvanas arc post CATA is the lack of consistency, and nebulous goals, to pretend "she was always a villain" would mean she has been on an easy to follow path.

If you're gonna talk about narrative, you gotta put your bias aside. Sylvanas WoW arc has always asked the question if she would ever be able to put someone else before herself, first with the forsaken, then with the horde as a whole, and she always danced on the head of that pin, until BfA discarded all that build up and say "lol no she faked anything that might be considered caring for something else than herself"

[Lothaeryn]

Nah man, to say that "Sylvanas was always a villain" is kinda just removing all the nuance from the other direction. The whole problem with Sylvanas arc post CATA is the lack of consistency, and nebulous goals, to pretend "she was always a villain" would mean she has been on an easy to follow path.

If you're gonna talk about narrative, you gotta put your bias aside. Sylvanas WoW arc has always asked the question if she would ever be able to put someone else before herself, first with the forsaken, then with the horde as a whole, and she always danced on the head of that pin, until BfA discarded all that build up and say "lol no she faked anything that might be considered caring for something else than herself"

Pre cata Sylvanas was an an Anti-Hero at best though tbh, while that isn't necessarily bad, she was more than willing to do horrendous shit even then to create a plague against the Scourge.

All of that was justifiable though, because the enemy she faced would not hold back anything they could muster to win, and she would not leave any cards on the table if that was what it took to kill Arthas and stop the scourge.

The issue then remains what she became after her only desired goal was fulfilled, despite saying undeath is a curse she literally went out of her way to raise other people INTO undeath, becoming the very thing she hated Arthas for.

She is literally worse than Arthas, because before this whole retcon bullshit she willingly chose to do the same thing the scourge did, whereas Arthas lost his soul before he did the bidding of the Scourge; his worst crime being that he betrayed the mercenaries he hired in Northrend to convince his men to stay and hunt Mal'Ganis, even Stratholme has more rational defense than half of the shit Sylvanas did of her own volition.

While blizzard did their damnedest to hide her crimes behind the rationale that she did it "For the Horde" or the forsaken anyone with a clear conscious on what warcrimes are knew she was already a full on villain by Cataclysm. If anything, Sylvanas has been bastardized from her original incarnation for far longer than people care to realize in this thread.

All this revisionist bullshit that Danuser has written has done, is try to negate the evil she's done over the years by using the evil twin trope in real time without even trying to hide it. Not only is it a dead horse, the horse was beaten for so long it doesn't even exist anymore, they're simply beating the ground where its corpse use to be. Danauser is trying to use necromancy on the horse that doesn't even have a corporeal body at this point.

[SinR]

Dude above me gets it.

She was an anti-hero until we beat Arthas, then she went full on villain for her own selfish needs.

[Wonderment2]

I really don't like it.

For me it's how all the new stuff subsumes old stuff (The Jailer is behind everything) and how all the gods form earlier are now middle men to stronger gods without feeling really different (Titans to First Ones, Old Gods to Void Lords).

I don't think these are inherently bad but fuck it feels like all the new lore is a mixture of these.

[Raisei]

All of that was justifiable though, because the enemy she faced would not hold back anything they could muster to win, and she would not leave any cards on the table if that was what it took to kill Arthas and stop the scourge.

uuuh... experimenting on innocent farmers (and gleefully watching when they died from the new blight) or turning them into grotesk undead monsters is what you call "justifiable"?
And that was one of the very first things she did. Before that, she murdered Garithos entire company after making a deal with him.

Nothing about this is anti-heroic or justifiable. She was a villain, clear and simple.

[Asrialol]

Bfa was an awful expansion, and it turns out to be worse than we expected with n'zothwasted ina aptch killed by a dragon ball z move and teldrasil was put under the rug.


let me guess, you like the story

or even better, you are so beyond us, mere mortals, that discuss the game in the game forum.

I don't care enough for the story to be able to claim that I 'like' it, that would mean it had some sort of emotional hold over me. You can say I'm 'interested' to see where they're taking the story. It's not my story to tell so who am I to judge it. I'm no writer.

When it comes to N'zoth, some people don't think we killed him. The dagger and all, etc. Seen some theories out there.

People here seem to claim that the lore turned out horrible because of Danuser. Which is naturally ridiculous, people just want a scapegoat as per usual. The lore wasn't better or worse in WC1, WC2, WC3, Vanilla, TBC, Wrath, Cata, MoP, WoD, Legion or BFA. Just look at the lore, both in Warcraft, Starcraft and Diablo since the beginning.

It's funny to see the "big" lore names on say, Youtube, cry tears of joy when they saw the shadowlands intro cinematic at Blizzcon, and are jumping on the bandwagon of spreading hate and negativity just because it's trendy amongst the youngsters.

[Ehrenpanzer]

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.

Its complete and utter shit. Then again, who plays this game for the lore anymore? Anything that happened last patch can be retconned into whatever magical Mcguffin they need for the (and I use the term loosely) story... to continue.

There's no sense of logical progression, there's no lasting effects of ANYTHING, I mean, take BFA. Supposedly a MASSIVE war that the Horde was a hair away from winning, and.. uh... who in the Alliance actually died? a no name night elf npc? OoOoOoOo.. that builds up intrigue! And the Horde.. lost... uh.. a random troll king we JUST met a few months earlier... wow, that'll get them riled up... *yawn*.. Not to mention during EVERY moment it looked like a massive Horde loss, or a massive Alliance loss, each side would pull out some magical doo-dad or mystical power they had never seen before to somehow get away or win (I mean, the amount of Jaina Ex-Machinas in BFA alone is ridiculous)

Then in Shadowlands, the writing goes to a new level of stupid, either that or The Jailer has the soul of Harry Potter who taught him the confundus spell to use on Sylvanas.

[Syegfryed]

I don't care enough for the story to be able to claim that I 'like' it, that would mean it had some sort of emotional hold over me. You can say I'm 'interested' to see where they're taking the story. It's not my story to tell so who am I to judge it. I'm no writer.

nice cope-out

When it comes to N'zoth, some people don't think we killed him. The dagger and all, etc. Seen some theories out there.

continues being shit.

People here seem to claim that the lore turned out horrible because of Danuser. Which is naturally ridiculous, people just want a scapegoat as per usual.

Lore isn't horrible because of him, lore was going to the dumpster by the end of mop, he is just making worse, and he is the responsable for doing the horrible shit now that is worse than before.

The lore wasn't better or worse in WC1, WC2, WC3, Vanilla, TBC, Wrath, Cata, MoP, WoD, Legion or BFA. Just look at the lore, both in Warcraft, Starcraft and Diablo since the beginning.

it is objectively worse, and it should not use it lightly, but in this case, yeah, we can actually quantify the amounts of fucks up, bad decisions, retcons and crap storytelling and compare, and it is worse.

It's funny to see the "big" lore names on say, Youtube, cry tears of joy when they saw the shadowlands intro cinematic at Blizzcon, and are jumping on the bandwagon of spreading hate and negativity just because it's trendy amongst the youngsters.

i give two shits about youtubers and influencers who feed on pampering blizzard.

veryone with critical thinking saw shadowlands intro cinematic was garbage, how they turn Bolvar, the lich king, into a dumbass limp to sylvanus easily win, and break the iconic helm(that is now is a shit golden tiara)

I remember people "hyping" on BfA cinematic, when, even well made, it was truly super cringe after teldrasill and it showed how the expansion was going to the shits

[Soon-TM]

I remember people "hyping" on BfA cinematic, when, even well made, it was truly super cringe after teldrasill and it showed how the expansion was going to the shits

BfA intro cinematic was truly bait & switch business. It is supposed to be taking place at Lordaeron, but the sun is shining brightly, without a trace of the green hue in the sky. There are no Azerite tanks, no blight, no Sylv raising the dead - on the contrary, she's personally leading the defense, and ostensibly talking about a cycle of vengeance, which looks all but forgotten now.

Compared to it, the SL intro may be #@%&, but it at least matches the expansion's actual story.

[Syegfryed]

BfA intro cinematic was truly bait & switch business. It is supposed to be taking place at Lordaeron, but the sun is shining brightly, without a trace of the green hue in the sky. There are no Azerite tanks, no blight, no Sylv raising the dead - on the contrary, she's personally leading the defense, and ostensibly talking about a cycle of vengeance, which looks all but forgotten now.

Compared to it, the SL intro may be #@%&, but it at least matches the expansion's actual story.

the fake and cringe 'from the horde" from sylvanas was all we need to know the expansion was going to shit

[shoc]

If Danuser is responsible for rushing past Sargeras and N'zoth so that we could get to 'his' story, then yeah fuck that shit.

[TheramoreIsTheBomb]

If Danuser is responsible for rushing past Sargeras and N'zoth so that we could get to 'his' story, then yeah fuck that shit.

The Legion end cinematic made zero sense.. why leave Sargeras alive for plot sake? Most dangerous being in the universe. If we shrunk him down to fit in the chair pretty sure we could've killed him like we did with Argus. We also had no reason to board the Vindicaar to get to the Seat of the Pantheon nor to get back to Azeroth... and how did it even get there if it's not even on Argus? We could've portaled back to Azeroth, pull Sargeras to the chair and Illidan kills him, gg. Comes home a hero. Why save him for the future? That is another character that CANNOT and SHOULD NOT ever be redeemed.

[Syegfryed]

The Legion end cinematic made zero sense.. why leave Sargeras alive for plot sake? Most dangerous being in the universe. If we shrunk him down to fit in the chair pretty sure we could've killed him like we did with Argus. We also had no reason to board the Vindicaar to get to the Seat of the Pantheon nor to get back to Azeroth... and how did it even get there if it's not even on Argus? We could've portaled back to Azeroth, pull Sargeras to the chair and Illidan kills him, gg. Comes home a hero. Why save him for the future? That is another character that CANNOT and SHOULD NOT ever be redeemed.

plottwist is that we free sargeras and he take his sword to kill the janitor

[MyWholeLifeIsThunder]

Pre cata Sylvanas was an an Anti-Hero at best though tbh, while that isn't necessarily bad, she was more than willing to do horrendous shit even then to create a plague against the Scourge.

All of that was justifiable though, because the enemy she faced would not hold back anything they could muster to win, and she would not leave any cards on the table if that was what it took to kill Arthas and stop the scourge.

The issue then remains what she became after her only desired goal was fulfilled, despite saying undeath is a curse she literally went out of her way to raise other people INTO undeath, becoming the very thing she hated Arthas for.

She is literally worse than Arthas, because before this whole retcon bullshit she willingly chose to do the same thing the scourge did, whereas Arthas lost his soul before he did the bidding of the Scourge; his worst crime being that he betrayed the mercenaries he hired in Northrend to convince his men to stay and hunt Mal'Ganis, even Stratholme has more rational defense than half of the shit Sylvanas did of her own volition.

While blizzard did their damnedest to hide her crimes behind the rationale that she did it "For the Horde" or the forsaken anyone with a clear conscious on what warcrimes are knew she was already a full on villain by Cataclysm. If anything, Sylvanas has been bastardized from her original incarnation for far longer than people care to realize in this thread.

I think that from Cata to Cataclysm they did start building up a new arc for her in terms of the lengths she was willing to go to ensure the Forsaken's survival for her own, and by Legion's time the question was made if she would be willing to put them, and the Horde, over her -that was literally asked on her Legion character page.

And it was a very interesting angle to go for, the idea of the forsaken going from a resource, a "bulwark", to them, and the Horde, being something she could sacrifice something for if she had to. Up to WoTLK Sylvanas wasn't any less evil than by Cata, because she was willing to sacrifice anything or anyone for her revenge, Cata juts gave her the new angle of her own self preservation after that was done, and by Legion I think the idea that being forced to lead the Horde was to ponder the question if she could, or would, do what was best for them, and not for her.

But that rather straight progression was completely destroyed by BfA where she was simply used as the mustache twirling villain, and SL's greatest problem is trying to add any nuance to what was basically a saturday morning cartoon villain. And sure, they just could have gone with the "nah she is evil and all has been for her own self preservation" and that would have been fine, but the problem is that SL's storyline just doesn't fit with how BfA portrayed her, and with her role in SL being so pivotal, it doesn't add up with SL.

So Shadowlands would have to havbe been completelly different as a story, or, more easily, BfA Sylvanas just shouldn't have been written as a total monster if SL needed the audience to have sympathy. She was always a controversial character, but instead of building up the mystery of "does she actually care for someone beyond herself" BfA just wrote her as evil... and then SL still needed us to be invested in her as a morally complex character, which BfA destroyed.

That's why the problem for me is on BfA, not SL.

All this revisionist bullshit that Danuser has written has done, is try to negate the evil she's done over the years by using the evil twin trope in real time without even trying to hide it. Not only is it a dead horse, the horse was beaten for so long it doesn't even exist anymore, they're simply beating the ground where its corpse use to be. Danauser is trying to use necromancy on the horse that doesn't even have a corporeal body at this point.

I disagree with the "evil twin" criticism here because I don't think that's what going on at all. Ranger Sylvanas isn't "good" Sylvanas, is just who she used to be, a past version that has yet to make those choices. I won't deny the usage of Ranger Sylvanas isn't meant to be manipulative, the whole point is to force some sympathy saying "she wasn't ALWAYS evil, see?" as well as forcing Sylvanas herself to look herself in the mirror. It's just a very on the nose way of giving Sylvanas some forced perspective of what she has become, and not even to alter her arc, since she had already betrayed Zovaal, more so to smooth out the idea of flip flopping by reminding US that she wasn't always evil

- - - Updated - - -

BfA intro cinematic was truly bait & switch business. It is supposed to be taking place at Lordaeron, but the sun is shining brightly, without a trace of the green hue in the sky. There are no Azerite tanks, no blight, no Sylv raising the dead - on the contrary, she's personally leading the defense, and ostensibly talking about a cycle of vengeance, which looks all but forgotten now.

Compared to it, the SL intro may be #@%&, but it at least matches the expansion's actual story.

I think BfA's cinematic gives us a glimpse of what that expansion was originally intended to be, which was about the cycle of war, and how both factions might be trapped on it, but you have to keep fighting. Kind of a rethread of MoP, but I think it was very poignant that both sides were made sympathetic with neither of them shown as the "bad guy"

But then the inciting incident was literally Sylvanas committing a war crime and derailing the whole idea of a "good war", with the main narrative shifting to be about Saurfang and how Sylvanas is evil and has to be stopped.

The BfA trailer is indeed the greatest bait and switch, but as a starting point, and coming off from Legion, it still makes more sense linked to SL than the whole rest of how BfA portrayed Sylvanas. Because it just does not work at all making her a cartoon villain when SL relied so heavily on people being compelled by her and her arc.

[Super Dickmann]

There are very few places where I think Shadowlands goes past being just kind of mediocre (most of it) or actively bad (the KT retcon, everything night elf, Sylvanas' agency) into good. In-story, it's the chiefly 9.1 Uther bits which are a much better way to get to the same poor end point as Wrath and expand the character organically while using his WC3 characterization instead of turning him into Obi-wan the way the game had before. Out of story, it's the way that it's had the people who jumped up and down defending BFA's ineptitude and wholescale slaughter of the factions because they liked the neutering of the Forsaken and the turning of the faction into neutered perpetual C-listers no matter how inept the means cry foul when the bad writing machine switches gears and decides to create a terrible redemption arc instead.

As for the sub-argument about Metzen, I genuinely don't follow. Mainly because whether Metzen made mistakes or not doesn't make Afrasiabi or Danuser's followups good especially in a franchise where retcons are the bread and potatoes of storytelling. It's mostly about demonstrating the relative harm of a given story beat vs. another. But also because we don't need to debate whether Metzen would also take a franchise characterized by implied worldbuilding and factional politicking wherein one of the character is a woman defiled into a post-human aberration who regains control of herself and takes over a society of other monsters, and shrink it down to a soap opera where all actions are done by a hitherto unseen otherworldly evil speaking 100% in cliches mad about the flaws of the progenitors. From an agency-denying redemption story to the melting down of all cultures into roughly the same lawful good stew to a climax in some abstract side world, we don't need to speculate. We know he would, because he did. You can play it for 20 bucks.

[ravenmoon]

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.

Late Legion you say...

hmm, is he the reason why Tyrande and the order of Elune were cut from the Broken shore, and night elves/nightborne just basically disappeared from featuring mainly in the story of the Broken shore onwards?

I always thought that was sloppy, i mean the order of Elune should have been the one going to the order halls, and leading the fight to reclaim their temple, but they were really ignored

Night elves cut out of the Argus trip almost entirely.. and I wonder if he was the one championing the Nightborne going horde, totally rubbishing their 7.0 storyline and confusing Thalyssra's character, who one minute talks about being a world defender, then joins the faction that goes conquering in the next?

Was he also responsible for the slap dash void elf lore?

[Lothaeryn]

I disagree with the "evil twin" criticism here because I don't think that's what going on at all. Ranger Sylvanas isn't "good" Sylvanas, is just who she used to be, a past version that has yet to make those choices. I won't deny the usage of Ranger Sylvanas isn't meant to be manipulative, the whole point is to force some sympathy saying "she wasn't ALWAYS evil, see?" as well as forcing Sylvanas herself to look herself in the mirror. It's just a very on the nose way of giving Sylvanas some forced perspective of what she has become, and not even to alter her arc, since she had already betrayed Zovaal, more so to smooth out the idea of flip flopping by reminding US that she wasn't always evil

I imply the "evil twin" trope as its generally used in fiction. Either the evil twin is a doppelganger who does the anathema of a given character, or the evil twin has replaced the original character for a period where said character does heinous crimes that are the antithesis of their standard operating procedure, only to then be replaced by the original character later, who is then pardoned for the crimes of the other.

In this case, Danauser has used the trope for the latter. trying to justify Sylvanas' crimes as the actions of an 'evil twin', or in this case, and unbalanced and split soul.

It doesn't work without fundamentally breaking everything known about the afterlife and souls so far; it just adds more questions than solutions.

Did this happen to EVERY soul that Arthas claimed personally? If this is the cause of the forsaken's apathetic view of life, then why do newer undead have the same perspective despite being resurrected by Val'Kyr. So on, so forth...

[MyWholeLifeIsThunder]

I imply the "evil twin" trope as its generally used in fiction. Either the evil twin is a doppelganger who does the anathema of a given character, or the evil twin has replaced the original character for a period where said character does heinous crimes that are the antithesis of their standard operating procedure, only to then be replaced by the original character later, who is then pardoned for the crimes of the other.

In this case, Danauser has used the trope for the latter. trying to justify Sylvanas' crimes as the actions of an 'evil twin', or in this case, and unbalanced and split soul.

It doesn't work without fundamentally breaking everything known about the afterlife and souls so far; it just adds more questions than solutions.

Did this happen to EVERY soul that Arthas claimed personally? If this is the cause of the forsaken's apathetic view of life, then why do newer undead have the same perspective despite being resurrected by Val'Kyr. So on, so forth...

But that's the thing; there's an assumption that the "evil twin" narrative is being used here that I don't buy so far, because, one, "the evil twin" is the main version of Sylvanas we have seen since Warcraft 3 TFT, and two, the idea that Sylvanas soul is "unbalanced" because of the soul split goes against what Uther explains:

When Arthas struck me down, Frostmourne shattered my soul. But it was not divided into one part that was noble and another that was cruel.
Rather, it was as if a portion of my consciousness remained frozen in time while the rest of my soul carried on.
To feel that missing fragment restored... well, it has caused me to reflect upon many of the choices I have made.

The "merging" of the soul fragments only gives them a "hard look on the mirror" sort of deal; undead are so apathetic and callous because the trauma of death and resurrection including dulled senses; overall it seems written like the sort of depression that follows a traumatic event. But that isn't related to the soul split.

The soul split itself, IMO, seems to be narratively used to make us, the audience, understand how much Sylvanas has changed, and then give her some perspective -which given that she already betrayed Zovaal, feels like a less necessary step-

That's why the "evil twin" trope doesn't seem like an apt description for the arc they are going for, because in Shattered Legacy it really only exists as a metaphorical conflict between who Sylvanas is, and who she used to be, a conflict that is resolved by the end, when she manages to align her self image and her responsability.

Because again, the trope is not being uses to justify Sylvanas crimes at all, it's being used to force some sympathy by saying "she wasn't always like this, you see". Whether that is good narrative wise is moot, I just don't think they are using the "evil twin" trope on the manner you think it's gonna be used.

"Think" being the operating word here, because who knows tbh. It's that given how the soul split is explained, basically as a snapshot of who the person used to be- to me it reads more as a character being forced to look at their actions through the lens of a younger version of themselves, and how they would judge who they have become, in order to force a watershed moment where said character snaps from their current path