Midnight 12.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[Wangming]

Danuser is just a scapegoat for haters imo. They act like these days it's still one person making up the big storylines like it was in the old days with metzen. I wonder if shadowlands would have succeeded narratively if covid hadn't happened. Feel like a lot of corners got cut leading to "unearned" lore development.

He is the Narrative Director.

[Dioporco]

Yeah, celtic Vrykul vs settlers from Gilneas, wicker beasts, hags and shit. Cool concept for an expansion. How about we wrap it up in a zone.
But seriously the ones who write the gothic zones are always cooking.

As for the greater evil....there seems to be a very small list of motivations and grand plans

There is a greater evil

or

Void corruption

And the end result is either kill everyone or do something bad to the world soul.

Now imagine an evil who legitimately had friends in pre ordering Azeroth and wants those times back?
Or some bad guy who craves challenge and after fighting the hero they decide they want a rematch and just do nasty shit to create a sufficiently dramatic backdrop to their final duel?
Wouldn't that be refreshing for a change?

Drust could have been a really cool but dark as fuck and spooky sub-lore, mixing celtic/viking/eastern europe folklore

Imagine putting something like this in WOW for just a zone

[blaatschaap]

I think the amount of copies those books sell is negligible compared to monthly subscriptions

[FlemmMinis]

Drust could have been a really cool but dark as fuck and spooky sub-lore, mixing celtic/viking/eastern europe folklore

Imagine putting something like this in WOW for just a zone

Realistically people would cry that the buildup was inconsequential tbh

[Dioporco]

Danuser is just a scapegoat for haters imo. They act like these days it's still one person making up the big storylines like it was in the old days with metzen. I wonder if shadowlands would have succeeded narratively if covid hadn't happened. Feel like a lot of corners got cut leading to "unearned" lore development.

Narrative Director, World of Warcraft.


Dude he is the one who can make other people be the scapegoat and yet he couldnt, time to change job.

[Wangming]

Drust could have been a really cool but dark as fuck and spooky sub-lore, mixing celtic/viking/eastern europe folklore

Imagine putting something like this in WOW for just a zone

Oh yes, please.

[Harbour]

Yeah, i dont buy Afrasiabi thing as well.
To me it looks more like the combination of Afrasiabi departure and Danuser wanting to lay out the new, different coursefor the narrative and Sylvanas' arc, and this all happened somewhere in the middle of BFA.
Sylvanas in the beginning of BFA was interesting characters, but starting with SL both she, Jay Lore and cosmic hubris started to be weird.
Its not a coincidence that Afrasiabi was fired at the same time. I really doubt what we got was his initial design. Danuser's famous simping for Sylvanas though imo found the reflection in how she was portrayed in SL.

[Gwynvael]

Drust could have been a really cool but dark as fuck and spooky sub-lore, mixing celtic/viking/eastern europe folklore

Imagine putting something like this in WOW for just a zone

I liked the part in Drust with the pigmen, that was the closest we got to a nice horror in recent WoW. Shame everything is so tame these days.

[Beerplz]

on a side note the reddit mods deleted the picture the guy posted of the "new 11.0" zone https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comment...reenshot_leak/

[Dioporco]

Realistically people would cry that the buildup was inconsequential tbh

That only if you open and close the sub-lore in the same zone/expac


But Drust as we saw could be clearly connected to Shadowlands via Ardenwaeld + Muezala/Bobsamdi


Imagine a sub-plot in Ardenweald where we help Winter Queen repeal Drust attacks leaded by Muezala that is Gorak Thul "boss" and we ally with Bobsamdi even if Winter Queen hates him (because he ghosted her after hooking up - this should have been canon imho - )


So basically a x.1.x patch where we storm Thros to kill Muezala and Gorak Thul for good like the BFA mini raid.



Closing the BFA/Drustvar but we learn about this "Death/Decay" magic that will come back in Dragonflights with the Gnoll and we know there is a dungeon boss that doesnt die but run away telling us that "ALL WILL ROT"

To maybe find out that Ghuun was made from the flesh of another "old god" or similar that is tied to the DECAY/ROT/DEATH stuff that is tied with Muezala/Drustvar etc


Still a sub plot lingering beneath the main story



Just like it was the "vibe" of Vanilla WoW, everywhere there is a "problem" and not everything is tied up to be "JAILER PLAN"

[Shadowferal]

Drust could have been a really cool but dark as fuck and spooky sub-lore, mixing celtic/viking/eastern europe folklore

Imagine putting something like this in WOW for just a zone

Damn...that's...yea. spooky as hell. I think my witchdoctor is calling me.

[Dioporco]

Oh yes, please.

we had






completely wasted

[Nyel]

on a side note the reddit mods deleted the picture the guy posted of the "new 11.0" zone https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comment...reenshot_leak/

Or he just deleted it himself to look more mysterious.

[Jaggler]

Fom the r/wow rules:

Any posts intended to spread misinformation will be removed.

or

We are not currently allowing AI content of any kind on our subreddit.

There are a few rules that could apply here

[Beerplz]

Or he just deleted it himself to look more mysterious.

it does say the image has been removed by the moderators of wow but i'm not that familiar with reddit

[Makorus]

No please stop spread the BS about "IT WAS ALEX FAULT!!"£" because it isnt.

Danuser took from late Legion til now.

we clearly saw what happened

Afriasabi definitely worked on BFA, and probably had a bit of a hand in SL. Dunno why you are denying that.

He was a game designer before Legion who dabbled in narrative, he only became Narrative Designer once Afrasiabi got fired. He isn't even a Narrative Designer anymore, and is Narrative Director now, probably meaning he doesn't even write anymore.

We also got sources close to Blizzard saying that Afrasiabi clearly intended to fuck with the character of Sylvanas.

[blaatschaap]

Ultimately shadowlands failed hard in its main storyline. None can deny that. I wasn't saying he has no responsibility for that as narrative lead. I take issue with the childish idea that he made up the shit main storyline by himself, if you think that you just have no idea how anything works in the real world. It is a pity about shadowlands tho, since it definitely had plenty of interesting stuff going on otherwise. The jailer arc is definitely a botched narrative. Still I don't share the sentiment the main story beats in it couldn't have worked in principle. I could see the potential of expanding on arthas story with the first afterlives animation thing with uther. They just fucked it up imo

[Jaggler]

Afriasabi definitely worked on BFA, and probably had a bit of a hand in SL. Dunno why you are denying that.

He was a game designer before Legion who dabbled in narrative, he only became Narrative Designer once Afrasiabi got fired. He isn't even a Narrative Designer anymore, and is Narrative Director now, probably meaning he doesn't even write anymore.

Afrasiabi was still credited as creative director for BfA indeed.

[Nymrohd]

Danuser's famous simping for Sylvanas though imo found the reflection in how she was portrayed in SL.

I think it is pretty much this. It is always easy to just pick someone in a leadership position and project your disappointment (people's dislike for Danuser pales to the ire Ghostcrawler received). The thing is, Danuser made some very poor choices with his public posts (really, his Sylvanas post is peak cringe) that just made it easier for part of the community to target him.
As for Afrasiabi, a different part of the community has decided to scapegoat everything on him because he was fired for being a horrible creep.
I don't think we've ever had a clear view of how story is designed in WoW though and how centralized it is so it is hard to blame one specific purpose. That said I will assume that Danuser as the narrative director atm does have finally say on the main storyline. Which I just don't find impressive. As for SL my personal view is, if you are handed a story and you have to finish it, just go for what is already there, don't try to twist it around. It is very hard to do a good job at changing the narrative. If it is really bad, finish it conclusively and just move on.

Given the timeline I assume Alex was still in charge as SL was being designed and that Danuser did not really have the time to make any significant changes to the story in 8.3 when Alex left though he should have had a chance to change the story for any part of 9.0 (given they have made changes for patches DURING PTR when there is significant enough outcry, they clearly have time to shift something that was not even in Alpha).

[Dioporco]

Afriasabi definitely worked on BFA, and probably had a bit of a hand in SL. Dunno why you are denying that.

He was a game designer before Legion who dabbled in narrative, he only became Narrative Designer once Afrasiabi got fired. He isn't even a Narrative Designer anymore, and is Narrative Director now, probably meaning he doesn't even write anymore.

We also got sources close to Blizzard saying that Afrasiabi clearly intended to fuck with the character of Sylvanas.

Even if Alex decided to shit on Sylvanas because she reminded him her ex.

Danuser still managed to write OR APPROVE :

1. BFA
2. Nzoth Storyline LMAO
3. Shadowlands
4. Jailer MEGAMIND 5CHESS PLAN to kill the current 20y old Lore
5. Spit on Arthas legacy like that


So...