also the macro story fails always vs the micro story
Bobsalami Ghuun or Drust vs Kultirans >>>>>>>>>> Sylvanas burning the tree
also, drusts? forgotten.
tiragarde horde vs alliance story? fucking mess
Drust epitomize wasted potential. Coolest new adversaries in a decade and they just abandon them. I had hopes they would tie in more with Ardenweald but they ended up halfassing even that. Thros sounded like a place that could fill an entire major content patch..
WoW has this "weakeness" that Metzen universe is so good that all the lore/stuff from Warcraft 1 to Vanilla is perfect for an RPG
You vs the World
No "hero of the cosmos vs cosmic force" so you have enough "previous" lore to expand or play around it if you cant make new one, and danuser show us what happens when they make NEW LORE
they kill the previous one and give us squidward
True, but on the other hand if you know how to write a good story, you know how to write a good story.
Here is two stories for you.
1. FFXIV
- Natsuko Ishikawa writes the Dark Knight job story questline
- People love it
- Yoshi-P promotes Ishikawa to lead writer
- Ishikawa writes the Main Story for Shadowbringers
- ishikawa receives standing ovation at the next fanfest from players
2. WoW
- Danuser writes some shit
- The players complain about the story
- Danuser gets promoted
- Danuser writes more shit
- The players complain and mock his abilities
- Danuser gets promoted again.
Another problem - if we indeed go to Avaloren (I hope not) - will be Tyr as a protagonist / antagonist. All of his storyline is heavily time- or renown-gated and doesn’t make any sense when you get drip-fed with it over several months or even more than that. That guy has basically no coherent persona and will leave major question marks for 99,9% of the players next expansion what his back story, motivations and agenda are / will be.
MAGA - Make Alliance Great Again
Mueh'Zala vs Bwonsamdi could have been its own x.1.x patch lol
I don't like danuser stuff either, but we are sadly stuck with him.
At the same time i don't know exactly who wrote what in that team of writers, but since he's the narrative director then i guess he's the guy that makes decisions.
Besides him and christie golden i don't even know who is a part of narrative team.
But nothing that Danuser actively wrote is shit.
Dragonflights issue is that it's just boring. The groundwork of Shadowlands was Afriasabi. There's only so much you can do to salvage that.
Plus, acting like he is the only writer is just hilarious. He's not even a writer anyway.
Mostly shit posting.
Some guy posted the snapchat screenshot of another location, saying 'Avaloren is waiting blah blah', but he had a pretty troll reddit account, so its probably fake.
Also some guy claimed he works at Blizzcon construction and he briefly saw the poster that looks somewhat like that.
He refused to do the photo of the nearby street as a proof though, so probably its a larper.
https://i.imgur.com/0A14raG.jpg
That's because those games were very clear about what the villains and antagonists want.
In RoC, the Legion want to destroy the world because they are evil demonic assholes, that's what they do. The Scourge want to kill everyone because they are evil undead necromancers, that's what they do.
The biggest revelation of the story, that the Legion engineered the Scourge to succeed where the orcs failed, was dropped midway through the story in one casual dialogue between Arthas and Kel'Thuzad.
In TFT, Kil'jaeden wants to destroy the Lich King because he betrayed him, the Lich King betrayed him because he himself is an evil asshole who doesn't want to serve, and Illidan does Kil'jaeden's bidding out of fear/ambition (Kil'jaeden promises him great power if he succeeds, threatens him if he fails). Daelin Proudmoore wants to kill the orcs because he doesn't want to forgive them for laying waste to his continent.
Simple antagonists, clear objectives, simple story. No BS "I was just secretly trying to save you all!!!!" twist, No BS "The Horde is nothing I actually serve Cosmic jailer and have 6000IQ secret masterplan!!!!" BS.
Do you know why Raszageth is easily the most liked and successful villain from SL and DF? Because she's a simple villain, with no twists and no BS. She's a crazy beast who wants to free her crazy brethren so that they can remake the world and get revenge on Titans. Instead of spending her screentime monologuing about some 1000IQ chess masterplan, she humiliates Wrathion and defeats Alexstrasza in a 1v1.
Blizzard needs to go back to villains that are badass on-screen, not villains who are "DECEPTIVELY CUNNING!!!". The first thing Archimonde does when he returns is destroy Dalaran in 1 minute. If he were written by Danuser, Archimonde would have instead spent the entire cinematic monologuing about how smart he is and how flawless his plan is and how he is just trying to save everyone from bigger fish.
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?
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.