The War Within 11.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[doledippers]

The idea that people disliked Danuser because they were Metzen groupies is not grounded in reality.

thats not what i said, not even remotely, actually. im saying that, in the case he stayed, anytime the story sucked, it would be his fault. and any time its good, it would be metzens doing. In fact this has literally already happened, got into it with someone on here who said the only reason metzen is in support of the 'titans bad' idea is because he was "strongarmed" by danuser lol. People were and wouldve continued to treat him like a scapegoat if he and metzen were working in tandem.

Nowhere did i say or even imply that the only people who hate danuser are metzen groupies. It's perfectly reasonable to not like him for his work, takes, and whatever else.

[Varodoc]

I won't exactly cheer for Danuser losing his job, but Shadowlands objectively had garbage lore. And No, it wasn't Afrasiabi's fault, that was unproven and baseless X speculation pushed around during the height of the lawsuit period of 2021, when Blizzard defenders were grasping at every straw imaginable to damage control the sinking ship of Shadowlands.

This was long overdue.

The Worldsoul saga will 100% have better lore than Shadowlands, you can bookmark this post for posterity.

[doledippers]

Unless he chose to leave in peace?

if i had to guess (pure conjecture here, just my initial thoughts), i would say he probably left on his own. I'd imagine that if he got fired they wouldve rolled it into the layoffs that happened only a couple months after. Who knows tho

[Varodoc]

one thing im happy about with danuser (potentially) leaving is that whenever there is bad story moments people can't just blame danuser for it. Curious how the metzen groupies will sort that out in their heads when the time comes

LOL You must be a new fan or something? People are absolutely willing to criticize Metzen across social media when he screwed up. Did you literally start buying Blizzard products in 2017 or something? SC2: LOTV was trashed by social media, as was D3 story, as was Cataclysm with Green Jesus meme and the Kamehameha that killed Deathwing, as was the villain-batting of Kael'Thas, Vashj, and Illidan, and the retconning of the Eredar, which prompted Metzen to publicly apologize.

You must be a new player (2017+ onward) to think that "Metzen groupies" are not willing to criticize Metzen when the story sucks.

It just so happens that Metzen's screw-ups are not as bad as pretty much everything involving the Jailer.

[doledippers]

LOL You must be a new fan or something? People are absolutely willing to criticize Metzen across social media when he screwed up. Did you literally start buying Blizzard products in 2017 or something? SC2: LOTV was trashed by social media, as was D3 story, as was Cataclysm with Green Jesus meme and the Kamehameha that killed Deathwing, as was the villain-batting of Kael'Thas, Vashj, and Illidan, and the retconning of the Eredar, which prompted Metzen to publicly apologize.

You must be a new player (2017+ onward) to think that "Metzen groupies" are not willing to criticize Metzen when the story sucks.

yeah man its not that deep, just commenting on some of the weirdo behavior ive seen on here and social media since he's come back.

[Varodoc]

yeah man its not that deep, just commenting on some of the weirdo behavior ive seen on here and social media since he's come back.

People are happy that Metzen is back because he left Blizzard on a high note. The last content Metzen worked on before leaving was the Legion epilogue and the BfA cinematic, both of which were widely-acclaimed and well-received by the community. The high note Metzen left Blizzard on in 2016 cancelled out the "bad" stories like LOTV or D3 for most people, hence why people think that WoW lore is saved with Metzen back (and the future of WoW lore is definitely more optimistic now than it was in 2021/2022).

Metzen is also remembered fondly because of his contribution to Overwatch, which was one of the most beloved and popular franchises of the 2010s, a beautiful world crafted by Metzen. That "redeemed" Metzen for the screw-ups of D3 and SC2: LOTV.

But people are absolutely willing to clown and meme on Metzen when he gets his lore wrong, even when it's about irrelevant nobodies like Falstad.

[doledippers]

But people are absolutely willing to clown and meme on Metzen when he gets his lore wrong, even when it's about irrelevant nobodies like Falstad.

yeah i mean i hope so, ive just seen a not insignificant amount of people essentially deify the man and act as if he's infallible. I hope, and it seems like, they are in the minority. I think the lore should be fairly criticized or praised regardless of who its from, and i think you and i can agree on that

[Varodoc]

yeah i mean i hope so, ive just seen a not insignificant amount of people essentially deify the man and act as if he's infallible. I hope, and it seems like, they are in the minority. I think the lore should be fairly criticized or praised regardless of who its from, and i think you and i can agree on that

You act like people weren't willing to give Danuser credit where credit is due.

People gave credit for Denathrius, one of the best villains in modern WoW we've had (although his popularity was unexpected and an accident for Blizzard, who probably planned to just kill him off at Castle Nathria).

It just so happens that there wasn't a lot to praise in Shadowlands lore.

Danuser played with fire. He meddled with the pre-established lore and rules far too much, trying to push his cringe OC as the ultimate mastermind behind the Lich King and the Legion. He played with fire, diminishing the importance of iconic, popular and beloved villains to prop up and push a nipple nobody that no one really cared about.

As a writer, there are some lines you should never cross, and unfortunately Danuser crossed too many, in his grand quest to recontextualize everything the Legion and Lich King did as part of the Jailer's plan.

[Murlocos]

I'm keen to see how the writing is in the first TWW alpha builds precisely because it's not just a matter of Bad Danuser and Good Metzen. Recall that infamous interview from a few months back where they said they'd greenlight almost any idea brought up and would try to make it work. Stuff like Ysera's story in Dragonflight absolutely feels like an idea one person had and really wanted to push and weren't told no, and the subsequent messy handling resulted from the far too late realization of how dumb it was. If the writing team is largely pitching bad or otherwise inappropriate ideas, that's expecting a lot of Metzen to swiftly whip into shape assuming he even identifies it as a problem.

[doledippers]

You act like people weren't willing to give Danuser credit where credit is due.

i think you're being overly critical of danuser with the rest of what you wrote. He was thrust into that position halfway thru shadowlands. in the wake of the lawsuit, and i know you arent a big believer in alex afrasiabi taking the fault in anything related to shadowlands, but i disagree. He had already written sylvanas into a corner with BFA. Again i wanna reiterate that i don't thing he's free of fault in shadowlands, but you acting like it was solely his fault while disregarding any of the context surrounding his assumption of the role is exactly what im talking about.

[Varodoc]

i think you're being overly critical of danuser with the rest of what you wrote. He was thrust into that position halfway thru shadowlands. in the wake of the lawsuit, and i know you arent a big believer in alex afrasiabi taking the fault in anything related to shadowlands, but i disagree. He had already written sylvanas into a corner with BFA. Again i wanna reiterate that i don't thing he's free of fault in shadowlands, but you acting like it was solely his fault while disregarding any of the context surrounding his assumption of the role is exactly what im talking about.

BfA Sylvanas (Afrasiabi) was a moustache twirling supervillain who was a genius mastermind ahead of everyone else and didn't give a shit about Anduin's feelings.

Shadowlands Sylvanas (Danuser) was a misguided good girl who was also stupid and manipulated for her entire existence and her entire story arc revolves around getting Anduin's approval and understanding his feelings.

Whatever Afrasiabi might have written for Shadowlands was discarded and ignored once he left Blizzard. Shadowlands is Danuser's baby. This is obvious just by looking at the sudden shift in Sylvanas' portrayal. The X rumour from 2021 remains that: a baseless rumour.

when there's clearly more to it than that.

Elaborate. With something real, preferably, not unconfirmed rumours from Reddit and Youtube dating back to 2021.

[Woggmer]

thats not what i said, not even remotely, actually. im saying that, in the case he stayed, anytime the story sucked, it would be his fault. and any time its good, it would be metzens doing. In fact this has literally already happened, got into it with someone on here who said the only reason metzen is in support of the 'titans bad' idea is because he was "strongarmed" by danuser lol. People were and wouldve continued to treat him like a scapegoat if he and metzen were working in tandem.

Nowhere did i say or even imply that the only people who hate danuser are metzen groupies. It's perfectly reasonable to not like him for his work, takes, and whatever else.

The issue people seem to have is that Danuser must have some ultimate control to make the narrative as he wants and as he sees fit. I used to believe that, but after DF, I started to doubt that since the story seems to be going at random that I don't think he has as much control over it was we assumed. All the stuff about the cosmology, Legion, BFA, and possibly a majority of Shadowlands were stuff that Afrasiabi had planned in advanced up until his termination, with Danuser picking up the pieces of where it was left off and filling the blanks. When DF rolled around, the other writers had a bit more hearsay on what ideas to put into DF.... so we end up with different tone shifts and ideas that seem inconsistent with one another and storylines that felt like they were from multiple writers as opposed to just two or three writers.

I've said this before, but even if Danuser is the "Lead Narrative Designer" we don't fully know what's actually considered his handiwork or the work the other writers... I think he's more of the type that goes with the flow of the other writers and tries to fit their ideas into the narrative, even if it doesn't make sense.

As for him leaving, I don't think it'll change much if he did leave or not, but the issue with him and the writing team is a lack of structure and focus on what they want vs what works... This is why Metzen was brought onboard because he has a clear-cut idea on how the story should go. If he didn't, we would've seen Iridikron and the other Incarnates killed off by the end of DF and end it on a vague note about the Titans being untrustworthy without anything to bridge into the next expansion. This is just my take on it.

[Varodoc]

The issue people seem to have is that Danuser must have some ultimate power to make the narrative as he wants and as he sees fit. I used to believe that, but after DF, I started to doubt that since the story seems to be going at random that I don't think he has as much control over it was we assumed. All the stuff about the cosmology, Legion, BFA, and possibly a majority of Shadowlands were stuff that Afrasiabi had planned in advanced up until his termination, with Danuser picking up the pieces of where it was left off and filling the blanks. When DF rolled around, the other writers had a bit more hearsay on what ideas to put into DF.... so we end up with different tone shifts and ideas that seem inconsistent with one another and storylines that felt like they were from multiple writers as opposed to just two or three writers.

I've said this before, but even Danuser is the "Lead Narrative Designer" we don't fully know what's actually considered his handiwork or the work the other writers... I think he's more of the type that goes with the flow of the other writers and tries to fit their ideas into the narrative, even if it doesn't make sense.

As for him leaving, I don't think it'll change much if he did leave or not, but the issue with him and the writing team is a lack of structure and focus on what they want vs what works... This is why Metzen was brought onboard because he has a clear-cut idea on how the story should go. If he didn't, we would've seen Iridikron and the other Incarnates killed off by the end of DF and end it on a vague note about the Titans being untrustworthy without anything to bridge into the next expansion. This is just my take on it.

NO Afrasiabi didn't plan Shadowlands. Afrasiabi didn't create the Jailer.

The Jailer was created for one reason and one reason only: to redeem Sylvanas. Someone in the writing team wanted to change course and redeem Sylvanas, but they realized that BfA Sylvanas was irredeemable and pure evil, so they needed an easy scapegoat to blame for all of Sylvanas' crimes. A boogeyman that could take the fall for Sylvanas. Thus the Jailer came into existence.

The Jailer as he appeared in WoW was 100% Danuser's creation, because Afrasiabi hated Sylvanas and wanted to kill her as revenge for Kosak villain-batting and killing Garrosh (Afrasiabi was the only one who portrayed Garrosh in a positive manner).

Had Shadowlands actually been written by Afrasiabi, the Jailer would not have existed, and Sylvanas would have been the main and final villain, and she would remain evil until the end (with possibly a touching final line like Lei-Shen, but still evil).

The Jailer is 100% Danuser creation, read between the lines. The Jailer's sole purpose is to absolve Sylvanas of her crimes by taking up responsibility for her crimes in the eyes of the community (fans can no longer say that Sylvanas is pure evil, because she was soul-split by the Jailer). That is Danuser writing, because Afrasiabi did not care about redeeming Sylvanas and wanted her dead to avenge Garrosh.

Maybe you can credit Afrasiabi for coming up with the general concept of the four covenants and the original Jailer model shown at Blizzcon 2019. But the meat of Shadowlands is Danuser's writing.

Why Afrasiabi would plan a redemption arc for Sylvanas by creating a boogeyman called the Jailer? He hates Sylvanas, he has no reason to want a redemption arc for her through the Jailer scapegoat.

[Woggmer]

snip

I'm not defending him for what he did with Shadowlands, as again, he was filling the blanks that Afrasiabi left and tried to weave it into a narrative where Sylvanas isn't the bad guy... but I'm calling to question if he has any actual control over the narrative or not after seeing what happened with DF. It is a little suspicious why suddenly he doesn't make any appearances after 10.1 and suddenly we get new people to take over for his usual appearances.

Plus a lot evidence that is amounting to Danuser is purely fan-speculation including my own thoughts, which is why I said it was my take and not the general fact. We don't know and all we can do for it make up fan theories for why. So to say, "He did it all because he wanted to protect his waifu Sylvanas" is not entirely true.. if he was going to warp the story so that Sylvanas isn't evil, then everyone including Tyrande would've forgiven her or he could've gone the Starcraft 2 route and turned her into a godlike being like Kerrigan... instead she got sent to the Maw, not killing her off, but shelving her away.

All we have connecting Danuser to liking Sylvanas is a few twitter posts and one short-story he wrote himself about Nathanos... but we don't actually know the rest after that. I get that people don't like him for how badly he messed up Shadowlands, but even if the story was "okay" the gameplay was what killed the interest of the expansion. There was no saving it from the covenant system.

[Merryck]

I'm keen to see how the writing is in the first TWW alpha builds precisely because it's not just a matter of Bad Danuser and Good Metzen. Recall that infamous interview from a few months back where they said they'd greenlight almost any idea brought up and would try to make it work. Stuff like Ysera's story in Dragonflight absolutely feels like an idea one person had and really wanted to push and weren't told no, and the subsequent messy handling resulted from the far too late realization of how dumb it was. If the writing team is largely pitching bad or otherwise inappropriate ideas, that's expecting a lot of Metzen to swiftly whip into shape assuming he even identifies it as a problem.

Danuser was just the tip of the iceberg.

[Woggmer]

I'm keen to see how the writing is in the first TWW alpha builds precisely because it's not just a matter of Bad Danuser and Good Metzen. Recall that infamous interview from a few months back where they said they'd greenlight almost any idea brought up and would try to make it work. Stuff like Ysera's story in Dragonflight absolutely feels like an idea one person had and really wanted to push and weren't told no, and the subsequent messy handling resulted from the far too late realization of how dumb it was. If the writing team is largely pitching bad or otherwise inappropriate ideas, that's expecting a lot of Metzen to swiftly whip into shape assuming he even identifies it as a problem.

Again, stuff like this and that infamous interview back in October really calls into question of who is actually control of the narrative or there's even any control of what they do.

It is also worth mentioning that they are also extremely responsive to player feedback about lore.. like originally the Djaradin were supposed to be much more barbaric and even intended to kill baby dragons in the alpha/beta, but due to player reactions being negative about it, they had to make drastic changes and dial back the Djaradin to how they're presented now. (I don't know why since WE [the players] have done the exact same thing in other expansions where we killed baby dragons but it isn't okay for an evil npc faction does it?)

[Nibelheimy]

I could come to terms with the idea thatDanuser having to try and salvage the shit sandwich that was Shadowlands, the damage it did will stay for a long long time, possibly forever. Its easy to empathise with that situation however. It is crystal clear to me it was heavily re-written in parts. Dragonflight was supposed to be Danuser's "baby". I can't remember where that statement originated, but I don't remember seeing Danuser at all after 10.0.5 or possibly 10.1. Then we get these interviews where its claimed they just let everybody do whatever they wanted for quests and stuff. Blue dragonflight was good, others not so much.

Where has the leadership been? Shadowlands was the expansion that was hated by an incredible amount of people. Shadowlands got people riled. Personally, I was angry that the races respective beliefs of the afterlives are never discussed, what about the nomadic races? How did this effect them? Shadowlands is another expansion of lost potential, somehow meeting WoD in that department. I sincerely hoped it is partly retconned into being an ordered Death, not true death. Like how the emerald dream is an ordered life realm, but there's something further beyond it.

Dragonflight has yet to alter much lore that has stirred upset, but it hasn't really riled any sort of emotion from the player base. Regardless, Danuser seems to have left/been let go quietly. Which in my eyes likely means it wasn't on the most positive of terms. He's not been public with the game for a long time, they are pushing a new saga (A new thing for wow) and Metzen is back. They are intending to move on rather quickly from the story side of things here. That's clear.

The Wow story has never been perfect, but, it had pro's and cons. The main storyline for the past two expansions have been a joke. They know that. They wouldn't have risked completely re-organising the entire way the make and release this game with a focus on a true 3 part decade long story, with the actual worded promise that the story will be really good too, if they were happy with how its been. No amount of very vocal twitter people can change the facts.

No more burger king helm of domination, no more dragons saying FaMiLy. Lets at least try and make the main storyline, well, not a giant meme.
- - - Updated - - -

Again, stuff like this and that infamous interview back in October really calls into question of who is actually control of the narrative or there's even any control of what they do.

It is also worth mentioning that they are also extremely responsive to player feedback about lore.. like originally the Djaradin were supposed to be much more barbaric and even intended to kill baby dragons in the alpha/beta, but due to player reactions being negative about it, they had to make drastic changes and dial back the Djaradin to how they're presented now. (I don't know why since WE [the players] have done the exact same thing in other expansions where we killed baby dragons but it isn't okay for an evil npc faction does it?)

This really should not be the case. It's so strange how things like this must be changed on such a small and irrelevant basis.

[Super Dickmann]

When Metzen left whatever your issues with his redemption plots, Green Jesus or world peace, you could never deny him the showmanship or that he was the face and heart of the setting. When Kosak left you could praise the solid narrative direction of Mists and the de-emphasis of Green Jesus while having misgivings over the Cataclysm meme quests and how fucked up things like Uldum ended up. When Afrasiabi left you could give him props for still getting that the basic gist of the story is violence and the role of the orcs of the Horde, despite being responsible for the worst story the game has shat out in BFA.

With Steve, I've got nothing. I guess Denathrius is cool, I liked the Dreadlord retcon and a few of the ideas (the Maw relative to other villain factions, ZM's premise) had some meat to them. His worst, Shadowlands, was a trainwreck taking a bad premise and fumbling what interesting ideas he did have. His best, Dragonflight, was toweringly bland 99% of the time, with 1% (Gilneas, natch), just as abysmal as anything before the excuses started pouring about how he was now in charge. Though even that is charitable, sometimes we know which writer did what - we know for instance that Kosak was shadow-organizing Mists, hence why there was never a plot as organized before or since, whatever can be said of its virtues. We know he and Afrasiabi sparred over whether to axe Garrosh or Sylvanas and Afrasiabi was a Sadfang appreciator, which ultimately translated into BFA's Sadfang chronicles. Metzen's narrative contributions need no description. But with Steve, from what few interviews he has, is completely unpinnable. How much any the few good ideas of Shadowlands or the bland but functional parts of DF are on him is unclear. We know he's not the only world peace enjoyer, far from it, else the same twee message mongering wouldn't be going on in increasingly wretched forms three expansions in a row, so there's no reason to assume he can get credit for the good parts either.

In brief, man was a bad writer and made bad stories. Good riddance.

[Dracullus]

Hopefully things can go back up to mediocre now.

No, stuff were mediocre with Danuser. Now we can go back to "epic, but stupid", as your screenshot kinda proves.

[Super Dickmann]

No, stuff were mediocre with Danuser. Now we can go back to "epic, but stupid", as your screenshot kinda proves.

That's the main dividing line. We'll be hearing about the friends we made along the way and world peace between blandos either way. The question is whether this'll be in the form of heroic fantasy that puts spectacle (and violence) forward or if it'll be more sad orcs, sad elves and broadly happy but uninterested dragons.

Metzen, notwithstanding the whole collecting the four pieces of Thrall's mid-life crisis business has always understood at least this heroic fantasy, which is a good sign. But given TWW opens with a sad orc meeting a sad human to discuss the sad planet the feng-shui is foreboding.