It’s going to be hard to find a source because it’s based on his LinkedIn profile and that profile has since been privated. Wowpedia has a note about it, though.
https://wow.gamepedia.com/Alex_Afrasiabi
MMO Champion thread discussing it:
https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/2580457-Afrasiabi-left-Blizzard
Edit: Take this with a grain of salt because it’s difficult to confirm.
The Linkedin profile is gone. I find this hard to believe. Creative Director is a pretty important position, I feel like it would be almost impossible for something like that to have happened under the radar. I haven’t seen any hints from C-Dev I follow on twitter that anything is up. Although it would explain why Steve Danuser has been the point person on interviews for Shadowlands instead of Afrasiabi…
/shrug 
This was brought up about a week or so ago in the Kosak thread.
https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/dave-kosak-is-leaving-blizzard/698930/97
Huh. I see.
Worth its own thread, then. Afrasiabi was the last remaining OG on the original World of Warcraft story. It’s all new people now. Supposedly headed up by Danuser, I guess.
It could be any number of reasons for his departure. But it seems that he left from what I gathered (articles, videos, links,…etc).
yeah danuser is the new overlord of the lore. He is like afrasiabi and metzen fused into one.
I believe it. I just wonder why.
I hated him. So happy he’s gone. He left in June 2020 so you can’t attribute all the bad things to Danuser as development for future content is done way in advance. I’m not a fan of the Sylvanas worship, but hoping things improve. Someone said in that other thread he likes GoT plot devices, and I’m assuming they meant Dumb and Dumber’s disastrous writing without the books to lean on. In that case, I’m very concerned…
Danuser is the one that loves GoT plot devices. He praised the episode Daenarys burned King’s Landing as well as Westworld season 3 in general. Both are more style and shock factor than substance, which is concerning given WoW’s recent writing.
Never watched Westworld but that Daenarys thing is concerning.
Tbh that is not surprising given most blizzard devs praises such stuff.
His response was “Well I thought it was brilliant.”
The guy wrote Stonetalon and Silverpine. Do you think those are bad then?
Mezten praised it too and dave, so if thats upsets you, it doesnt matter which writer was leading wow right now
Matt Burns for what it’s worth was horrified by Danuser liking the Daenerys burns King’s Landing Episode so he seems to be a better writer at least!
As for Metzen: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Trivia/Warcraft claims that Blizzard originally had Jaina as the Banshee Queen but changed it because it was too similar to Kerrigan’s story…
Metzen’s Bosses reigned him in that time and that was probably because it was an RTS not an MMO!
Metzen praised it? Wow.
I’ve never heard of Matt Burns before. Who’s that?
Also I’m pretty sure Anne Stickney is on the narrative team now and she also hated that twist, I think?
Wait what? Not surprised about the danuser liking it. I am not interested in GOT stuff, but do you have the tweet or something?
My mistake it was Don Adams…
https://twitter.com/_DonAdams/status/1127783755362385922
The Tweet is a GIF of a guy showing disgust.
So the creative director ended story of legion, Argus, old gods, nazjatar in two expansions and leaves when it really need to be creative?
It depends, the whole narrative disaster of BfA IS mostly on his hands if we take into account Blizz was probably working on the expac by the time Legion launched.
Maybe he got the actual boot, reason why statements are not done.