Recent writing has been dubbed "the worst ever" by the community & mainstream media

[loras]

You're saying that a piece of fiction developed over dozens of books in twenty years and fully explored in a series of 50+ novels is more well realised than a story that is being told in snippets in an interactive environment to facilitate gameplay?

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I thought they went off the deep-end with WotLK when they revealed most of the Alliance races were robot helpers built by a race of space giants and given a disease that made them fleshy by cosmic tentacle monsters.

Given how it was always a story of interplanetary warfare fuelled by demons buttfucking races until they're green that part you mentioned really didn't stand out much.

Now when the internal consistency, however loose it may be, starts to unravel, that's when things go really wrong.

[Biomega]

I mean, as a writer you only write as good as your pay check.

That's not quite how it works, but I get what you probably mean - "if you get paid poorly, you'll write poorly" is more accurate. No amount of money can make a hack a brilliant writer, but not paying a good writer what they're worth generally doesn't get you their best work. Or, alternatively, if you higher cheap writers you get cheap writing.

That being said, compensation is probably only part of the story here. It's also about creative direction. My guess is they WANT a generic middle-of-the-road trope-laden story because that's the lowest common denominator they think they need to put their money on. They're so obsessed with not wanting to take any chances with anything or daring to go outside of Hollywood-like MCU-style one-liners that they just create the blandest most unimaginative story possible. "All will serve" and everything. That this could be taken by their audience as an insult to their intelligence is apparently something they were either fine with or didn't even consider.

[tripleh]

The writing is screwed up. They turned Elune into something worse then she should be. Then of course they have to show how Elune influenced Sylvannas to burn Teldrassil. With the end cinematic to the raid with Sylvannas. Now we have to see them convince the players and the npcs that she was doing things against her will. Which then raises even more questions about the rest of the forsaken race itself. Because it means the jailer has soul shards of them as well. Course Danuser never really thinks of these types of things. But wait be ready for more the elusive Retcon to happen possibly more then once. But watch as they advertise another book in the making before any explanation is given for whats happened.

[mickybrighteyes]

I hope you don’t think like most of people that Elune let the tree burn, because that’s absurd. I believe there is way bigger shit going on in the universe that we don’t see just yet.

not many ways to really interpret that exchange between Elune and the Winter Queen where Elune says she sent those souls of her chosen children.

Whatever larger story going on... that implies she allowed shit to happen.

[Venziir]

I loved Kyrian quest line how it is teaching compassion. Maybe this is what we all need in the current times in the place where our world is now. Now I know that joining Kyrians was the right choice for me since the very beginning no mater if it was good for a frost mage spec I played. All I wanted is to stay close to my fluffy clouds! Now I am casting supernovas while bathing in Arcane radiance of the endless Cosmos! What a perfect place to be! Say what you will about the story but I love it.

The Kyrian? The mindwashing, memory erasing dimwits, who were so lawful neutral, that they couldn't even stop yeeting souls into the Maw. Yeah no thanks! They are, by far, the worst covenant.

[Blayze]

The Kyrian? The mindwashing, memory erasing dimwits, who were so lawful neutral, that they couldn't even stop yeeting souls into the Maw. Yeah no thanks! They are, by far, the worst covenant.

Even worse than the Maldraxxi, who slaughter their own army constantly, endlessly depleting the very forces the Shadowlands needs to protect itself?

[Dug]

My opinion is the writing is meh and I'm indifferent but I also think everyone is on the hate blizzard band wagon right now and is hyper analyzing every single piece of new lore to explain why it's shit and the worst thing ever.

[anon5123]

WoW's lore has been fanfiction-tier ever since Cata. I stopped caring about the story after WOTLK.

[Dhrizzle]

not many ways to really interpret that exchange between Elune and the Winter Queen where Elune says she sent those souls of her chosen children.

Whatever larger story going on... that implies she allowed shit to happen.

Do you also think Elune "allowed" all the other shit that happened, dating back from the War of the Ancients and the Sundering right up to the contents of the WC RTS games and all of WoW?

[Wewlad]

BFA/Shadowlands is just so much worse because of how hamfisted and pretentious the writers have made it out to be like it's their magnum opus. All starting with the Burning of Teldrassil which was supposed to be "profound". All of the budget in BFA's cinematics just highlighted how shitty and full of itself the writing was.

TBC admittedly didn't give a shit about its story beyond usual world building. Yeah it was barebones and big characters were wasted as raid bosses, but there was none of the pretentious attitude that nu-Blizzard writers have shown especially with Sylvanas which is a huge part of why she pisses off so many people. They think their handling of her is "deep" when it's just a shittier version of Abram's mystery box.

[Soon-TM]

Even worse than the Maldraxxi, who slaughter their own army constantly, endlessly depleting the very forces the Shadowlands needs to protect itself?

At least dem boney folks are quite straightforward about it, and the people sent there are supposed to like that kind of !@#$ anyway. But in all honesty, the leadership of the SL is so stunningly incompetent as a whole, that it's a real miracle that the thing has held itself together during millennia without any hiccups (that we know of).

[Felrane]

Even worse than the Maldraxxi, who slaughter their own army constantly, endlessly depleting the very forces the Shadowlands needs to protect itself?

They are all like Liches. They just kill the constructs. If they perform well and work the way up in the ranks they get specialized bodies. If they perform awful to many times they get demoted to manual labor. If they break the law they can get removed from their constucts and imprisoned in soul jars. Nobody actually dies in Maldraxxus normally, with the houses civil war people did start to kill each other for real.

[Soon-TM]

BFA/Shadowlands is just so much worse because of how hamfisted and pretentious the writers have made it out to be like it's their magnum opus. All starting with the Burning of Teldrassil which was supposed to be "profound". All of the budget in BFA's cinematics just highlighted how shitty and full of itself the writing was.

Gotta agree with this. Not only we had the MoRaLLy gREy meme at the very beginning of BfA, but also Danuser had the gall to say that BfA was indeed a MoP 2.0, but "more nuanced". I couldn't help laughing as I read that... remarkable comment

[Terrorthatflapsinthenight]

Gotta agree with this. Not only we had the MoRaLLy gREy meme at the very beginning of BfA, but also Danuser had the gall to say that BfA was indeed a MoP 2.0, but "more nuanced". I couldn't help laughing as I read that... remarkable comment

Seriously he really said that ?! What a clown !

[Hitei]

Gotta agree with this. Not only we had the MoRaLLy gREy meme at the very beginning of BfA, but also Danuser had the gall to say that BfA was indeed a MoP 2.0, but "more nuanced". I couldn't help laughing as I read that... remarkable comment

I mean it genuinely was, but I don't expect someone who is still misquoting "morally grey" years later to really accept that.

[erifwodahs]

It's just too vague.
Something something someone blah blah. Everything is so thin but it tries to present itself like something big and massive... no it's not.
Legion was certainly not a peak writing, but it was enjoyable af. You had clear - evil guys, you had clear and known motivations. Varian sacrificing himself or Sylvanas cinematic about avenging Volj'in gave me shivers, Khadgar/Guldan shorts were amazing af. You could look at Nobbel87 reacting to those videos and see joy and excitement.
Since BfA the whole Sylvanas BS story is so meh that I just don't care. This vagueness just makes me feel like there is nothing behind it rather than a master plan. "I will never serve" thing is so cringe af I wish that Sylvanas was under the domination control (Like Arthas had on her) since Legion and she just snapped out of it. If she didn't say that and just got left by the Jailer - it would have been 100 times better. But this is so bad that I want her to have an excuse why she was this stupid.

[Archmage Alodi]

Can't believe Danuser is actually being payed for his job.

[Venziir]

Even worse than the Maldraxxi, who slaughter their own army constantly, endlessly depleting the very forces the Shadowlands needs to protect itself?

Much, much MUCH worse yes. The Maldraxxi constantly re-use the parts to make themselves stronger, bigger and better. The biggest issue with the Maldraxxi is, that it's borderline impossible to think of them as "good guys".

[Le Conceptuel]

Yes, I can't even imagine the wordsmiths that used to work at Blizzard making a narrative where a guy destroys several kingdoms and fucks over the lives of most of the cast, only for when the moment of justice comes, the two victimized races to have zero role in his defeat, nor did the woman he had a relationship with. Instead, the final confrontation would center on some tertiary dickhead who'd never had any role in his story to begin with who defeats him by way of divine intervention. Could you imagine if his mentor ended up remembering him by what a good guy he used to be and the woman he tortured ends up killing herself after failing to achieve any catharsis?

You fucking absolute cuckold, implying that our Wholesome Based Arthas may have originated from potentially slightly incompetent storytellers, or that this was always a vidya story that made little sense overall? Dare you imply that Chris Metzen was fallible, much less, at times, a bad writer? Listen here, you presumptuous, progressive, effete little shit--Chris Metzen was the best fucking thing since flavored condoms. The very implication it was within his capacity to make a mistake constitutes, for all intents and purposes, an unrecoverable, unforgivable and unsurpassable blasphemy. And to even suggest that Arthas M.F. (these, his presumed but thus far unconfirmed middle initials, which stand for "Maldy" (a clever foreshadowing of a character who was cut early in development of Cataclysm(tm)) and "fricking" respectively), Menethil, best known for his role in Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne, the best-selling and extraordinarily well-received video game created by Blizzard Entertainment and lovingly written by Chris Metzen and co., may have been underutilized in World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King, the peak of the game before it began its slow but gradual decline (which is certain to absolutely be sealed on this very expansion, as has been foretold by Asmon-(comedy)-gold, the bald-headed inspiration for the villain "The Jailer"), is perhaps the most gratuitous display of unfettered stupidity I have ever seen demonstrated on this forum. To even post such things on MMO-Champion, which is otherwise a haven of civility and rationality, where discussion free of the Copium Wars may persist uninterrupted, unlike on every other forum which happens to be entirely wrong and sure to survive the imminent collapse of the WoW Empire, is comedy gold.

Indeed, it would be with the prophesied return of Metzen that talent trees are returned to their forgotten glory, and that this extension of choice will then lead to the re-release of the reboot, in which we will be able to see the story as originally meant to be told, following up from Wrath of the Lich King, in front of our eyes. Perhaps our wonderous days of yore can yet be reclaimed ... sadly, though, this seems impossible, as WoW is, as was aforementioned, completely collapsing. As we reach the cul-de-sac of this wonderful game, I can only reclaim the vigors of my youth by scolding incompetent fucks like you for your hideous, grotesque, unforgivable failure to understand the glory of the Old Guard, whose genius will never again be replicated and exceeds the piteous, filth-dwelling cuckolds like "J.R.R. Tolkien" and "Michael Moorcock" and so on and so forth.

But as this game dwindles (as opposed to Classic, which previously had sixty-seven million players, as per my sources (look them up yourself, it's not my job to find sources for you)), and we surely approach that fabled descent into the sextuple digits (as per my sources at WoWIsDying.com.edu.gov), I can only hope that sheeple like you wake up and realize that, like the great writers of old, Metzen and co. will be added to the annals for their great masterpieces--such as, for example, i.e., World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, where we received the excellent conclusions to the stories of Illidan, Kael'Thas Sunstrider, and Vashj. We shall never forget the harrowing tale of Kael's descent to madness, so-excellently portrayed and true to character, which so excellently highlighted the depth of the old writing relative to the nonsense of present-day WoW, which, by the way, is not played anymore.

Perhaps, one day, you will learn the gravity of your mistake.

Perhaps, one day, you will be enlightened, too.

But today is not that day.

[Soon-TM]

Seriously he really said that ?! What a clown !

Just take a look at this little "gem":

One of the major themes in this expansion was expressed by Sylvanas in the opening words of the Battle for Azeroth trailer: "Ours is a cycle of hatred." To demonstrate that there is a cycle, we created a story structure for Sylvanas that, on the surface, echoed many broad strokes of the road Garrosh took. A warchief promoted under questionable circumstances. A brutal act of aggression that instigated conflict. Distrust among the inner circle that led to an uprising. These parallels were intentional. But it's within the nuance that we sought to show the story grow and change.

Yes, nuance indeed LMFAO. One of the main characters is a comically evil Mary Sue, the other one is a goody goody two shoes, can-do-no-wrong (none that matters, anyway) Gary Stu. So much for a morally grey world and characters @Hitei