Now i look at bit different at Steve Danuser

[Relapses]

His name is literally on the Box. Chilton absolutely worked on Legion.

You people act like expansions are developed just a week before they're released. Rather than a full year before they're even announced.

Tom Chilton is not Ghostcrawler. Ghostcrawler is Gregory Street.

[Cosmic Janitor]

His name is literally on the Box. Chilton absolutely worked on Legion.

You people act like expansions are developed just a week before they're released. Rather than a full year before they're even announced.

Chilton is not Ghostcralwer, that dude is named Greg Street.
Edit: And Chilton was still the Game Director, not the narrative lead designer.

[Kralljin]

I don't know why you're assuming Afrasiabi was a competent narrative lead.

Where, at any point, i implied that Afrasiabi is a competent narrative lead?

Unless you think that a competent narrative lead writes a story just because his favorite characters got screwed over and thus drags down other characters down the same path out of spite.
Because i assume that this is what Afrasiabi has done.

And despite the bad writing, its not the primary reason people dislike Shadowlands: it's gameplay & that's not Danuser's job, it's Ion's.

We can argue all day about why people dislike Shadowlands, some might say gameplay, some say the progression systems or whatever, but "bad lore" is one thing, the issue with shadowlands is the fact how it recontextualizes previous lore.

After all, we discuss lore / story here, not why Shadowlands [as a whole] sucks.

The fact of the matter is:
(1) Shadowlands effectively has shattered most belief systems as far as the Afterlife is concerned.

If you are a Human Paladin, you don't "go into the light", you'll likely end up in a place where you get your memory deleted or, if you have certain emotional attachments, you go to a Undead bloodsport Arena.
This would absolutely cause a lot of people lose their faith into a given power because that power has fed them BS about the afterlife.

(2)Shadowlands retroactively made the Jailer responsible for almost everything in Warcraft universe
Burning Legion?
Dreadlords orchestrated that by infiltrated powers of the void and feeding Sargeras some Information, thus kicking off the Burning Crusade and all of its implications.
Scourge?
Nope, not a Kil'jaeden idea, he was just fed all of these ideas by Dreadlords who also supplied the means (Plague of Undeath, Frostmourne, Helm of Domination) to have it work.
Oh and people like Kel'thuzad were on board the entire time, to really drive home the point of how oblivious we were the entire time of the grand scheme the Jailer was executing.

The current team and their insistence of tying the Jailer behind almost every evil force within Warcraft makes previous villains not appear as their own character, but rather as gullible fools that simply were used by the Jailer to execute his cosmic scheme.

This massive recontualization of not just singular characters, but rather of what can be considered the genesis of Warcraft lore (which is certainly the founding of the Burning Legion) is in my opinion probably the biggest narrative blunder the team has comitted, because it frankly ruins the investment that people have had into the franchise of over 20 years.

[Gaidax]

If Afrasiabi really did burn Teldrassil and then nope out with no plan for the future, they should have just ended the revenge arc at Lordaeron, killed Sylvanas there and have the Alliance take the city.

Yes, and totally drop the whole Death setup done in Legion and Chronicles.

You people still can't wrap your heads around the fact that Shadowlands was meant to happen already before Legion was about to launch. We were meant to get here. Frikkin' Ilgynoth literally spoils events of BFA and Shadowlands patch by patch.

Like legit "Five keys to open our way. Five torches to light our path" - is the starting 5 minutes of patch 9.2 and then capping it off by the path:



This is a long-term story. It's not Danuser and not Afrasiabi - this has been planned for almost a decade if not more.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

His name is literally on the Box. Chilton absolutely worked on Legion.

You people act like expansions are developed just a week before they're released. Rather than a full year before they're even announced.

Chilton isn’t ghost crawler……

[Gadzooks]

Him using so many F bombs in his other channel... my innocent ears!

I'd love to see how many people have watched his Twitch streams and reacted with "What a fucking dickhole this guy is!" - because that was my reaction. Before that, they were harmless and sometimes entertaining, but he's beyond toxic. His favorite style of arguing is "I'm right and if you don't agree fuck you, giggle."

[Syegfryed]

(a) You don't know shit.
(b) Repeating your feels another 50 times does not change (a).

We know he is the lead writer of shadowlands, Unless he is literally, not doing the job he is assigned to, we DO know he is writing for shadowlands

You can simple ignore instead of pretending to be devils advocate here

[Arai]

It's very simple. Afrisabi set up Sylvanas aka Danusers waifu up with the Teldrassil thing. Therefore Danuser had to rescue his waifu with plot which obviously resulted in Shadowlands. Afrisabi wanted to punch Danuser into the balls with that Sylvanas move on Teldrassil because he knew that the most likely and realistic scenario would've been the death of Sylvanas which is his revenge for Garrosh.

The fact we got the disaster called Shadowlands is the direct result of Danusers love for Sylvanas. All of it, since he had to rescue her. Which also means that his love for his waifu Sylvanas almost destroyed WoW singlehandedly alongside the terrible gameplay decisions.

[Khaza-R]

This is a long-term story. It's not Danuser and not Afrasiabi - this has been planned for almost a decade if not more.

That's definitely a stretch.

Just because they cast out a wide variety of breadcrumbs to one day pick up on, does not mean its pre-planned. Even if they did know they wanted to go to the Shadowlands, it was most definitely in an extremely vague sense.

[Gadzooks]

Hey folks,

it’s crazy shit, that’s going on, imo. Watched this Taliesin video a few mins ago:

Afrasiabi's Sylvanas Sabotage : The Truth
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tN0CzpbZAbM

Thats CRAZY shit. And honestly i do not think Taliesin had done that for clicks or something like that. He sounds rather credible/honest to me, in the video part about not hurting someone of the 4 mentioned sources.

Tbh i can totally imagine this. And it sheds a completely different light on Danusers work, even when considering the bad SL narrative. Since i also already experienced such things in such companies, i know how hard it can be, to repair the damage other ppl did to a product.

And just as a final note: I wether have something to do with Taliesin, nor i am that huge Youtube influencer watcher or something. I watch some Bellular or Asmongold vids here and there, and that’s it.

Just thought i share this (imo) rather interesting and crazy stuff with MMOC.

(if you don’t know what this post should be about, just watch the above mentioned video)

Eh. Part of me wonders if these "leaks" are all intentional, to take the heat off Danuser, because it's becoming pretty universal that he can't write to save his life. If true, that means they have no intentions of changing his role, like they did with Kosak after WOD's dumpster fire.

But it's important to understand - if Afrasiabi did in fact ruin Sylvanas as a petty payback - which is believable - it's also entirely plausible that Danuser is still a talentless hack, who got promoted because they fired a drunken groper, not because of merit. Peter principle in action, so to speak.

It kind of smells badly of a "Danuser Redemption" effort, because less people will be willing to buy the next expansion if he's still in charge of story beats.

And, that T&E, who most of the time wrestle logic into impossible pretzels to protect their friends on the WoW team, are being this open about this, and practically ran to the internet to 'tattle" on Afrasiabi. I don't trust Taliesin as far as I can throw his smug ass. That's why I suspect this is intentional. It might even be true. But why the rush to throw Alex under the bus, when he's pretty much welded to the axle by this point?

[Vakna]

Yes, and totally drop the whole Death setup done in Legion and Chronicles.

You people still can't wrap your heads around the fact that Shadowlands was meant to happen already before Legion was about to launch. We were meant to get here. Frikkin' Ilgynoth literally spoils events of BFA and Shadowlands patch by patch.

Like legit "Five keys to open our way. Five torches to light our path" - is the starting 5 minutes of patch 9.2 and then capping it off by the path:



This is a long-term story. It's not Danuser and not Afrasiabi - this has been planned for almost a decade if not more.

So you're telling me they had over 10 years of setup and they still released Shadowlands and completely butchered everything?

I'm waiting for you to tell me how this makes it any better. There is no redeeming the writing team here.

[Kralljin]

Like legit "Five keys to open our way. Five torches to light our path" - is the starting 5 minutes of patch 9.2 and then capping it off by the path:

Those "5 Torches" (or rather light sources) seemingly have gone dark between 7.0 and 8.3

Five lanterns now darkened. The flames they seek will light the Masters' way.

Please, do not read too much into these whispers, some of them are very vague or frankly don't become reality, take for example

Before the last shadow falls, the father of sleep shall savor his feast.

Mueh'zala was the Father of sleep, has this gone anywhere meaningful?

This is a long-term story. It's not Danuser and not Afrasiabi - this has been planned for almost a decade if not more.

...just like N'zoth and Ny'alotha, right?
Because these two were name dropped almost one decade before we axed both in a single patch.

[Cosmic Janitor]

That's definitely a stretch.

Just because they cast out a wide variety of breadcrumbs to one day pick up on, does not mean its pre-planned. Even if they did know they wanted to go to the Shadowlands, it was most definitely in an extremely vague sense.

This. It doesn't require much forethought to resolve an extremely vague prophecy of a fantasy story you actually write yourself. You just throw some random McGuffins at the plot to meet whatever the quoata demanded, so suddenly 5 keys are 5 random pieces of something. This is even easier than writing horoscopes that somehow always fit the reader. This requires no planing at all.

[Gaidax]

Just because they cast out a wide variety of breadcrumbs to one day pick up on, does not mean its pre-planned. Even if they did know they wanted to go to the Shadowlands, it was most definitely in an extremely vague sense.

"extreme vague" and Ilgynoth literally giving you all the events of next 2 expansions flat out with Sylv and Helya having a tea in Helheim, after being whispered in as warchief.

I mean c'mon bruh...

That's not just some breadcrumbs, bub. Blizzard legit told you when Chronicles launched we're going to explore the chart - it was the plan.

And btw, that plan will continue not before long - you got the lead in 9.2 PTR already.

[Akta]

The only one saying prime evil and "conspiracy" here is you. Shadowlands is Danuser job, and is an awful written expansion, its his fault, not afrasiabi,

Shadowlands is not "Danouser trying to fix Afrasiabi sabotage" like the rumors youtubers and other people are spreading.

You keep on claiming sl is danauser job pretending to ignore every logicai conclusion.

[Gaidax]

Those "5 Torches" (or rather light sources) seemingly have gone dark between 7.0 and 8.3

These quote every sentence are really obnoxious as fuck, but I'd like to remind you that "drown in the Circle of Stars" happened in 8.2 and some of it we have yet to see fully play out.

This all is long term and we haven't had the end of it yet either - that's 6 years and counting, slap another year there the minimum for super rushed setup.

[Khaza-R]

"extreme vague" and Ilgynoth literally giving you all the events of next 2 expansions flat out with Sylv and Helya having a tea in Helheim, after being whispered in as warchief.

I mean c'mon bruh...

That's not just some breadcrumbs, bub. Blizzard legit told you when Chronicles launched we're going to explore the chart - it was the plan.

And btw, that plan will continue not before long - you got the lead in 9.2 PTR already.

The "whispers" are incredibly vague. They intended to be that way to not write themselves in a box.

Like I said, they might of had a general idea where they wanted to go next but there's no way it was anything more in depth than calling it something like a "WotLK 2.0" expansion. Obviously nothing in Shadowlands was fleshed out in Legion. Just look at a character like Bolvar who is drastically different in tone and his whole arc literally is a story that goes absolutely no where.

[Gaidax]

Obviously nothing in Shadowlands was fleshed out in Legion.

You literally had whole Halls of Valor being a remake of what Odyn seen in Shadowlands using the eye he traded for what would be the Eye of the Jailer written black on white in Chronicles and you tell me that?

Get out...

- - - Updated - - -

You had frikkin' chunks plastered all over Legion leading to Shadowlands, it's like... come on bruh, at this point you're just trolling.

[Ragedaug]

Afrasiabi wasn't trying to sabotage, his decisions were made because he is a moron - sorry, yeah, that's hyperbolic, maybe I'll just say he's horrible at story narrative.

The story and WoW lore went to crap as soon as Metzen handed the reigns over to him. I could have guessed this is exactly what happened. He appears to have been driving WoW without a map, just taking each turn as it comes up with no idea where the road goes.

That doesn't excuse Danuser completely, but I would still say the WoW team was left in a horrible position to clean up that mess, to the satisfaction of players of both factions, in the limited amount of time they that had before a final story decision had to be made for the upcoming XPAC.

[PenguinChan]

So this just tells us that they had no idea what to do and struggled immensely with the aftermaths of bad impulsive writing. So: What we already pretty much knew, just in a more definitive light. That said it's nice to know that Shadowlands is going to yeet all of this down a mountain (Hopefully) and forget it existed by the next expansion.

Which to me, will tell us if the writing team actually has the chops to do something interesting with a new narrative that they will create. If the answer to that is still no​ then it's pretty evident it will not improve anytime soon.