not that blizzard cant tell a good story. they are definitely capable of doing it in game, legion was fine in that aspect. but with how things are going now the actual story we get in-game is very fragmented. You have to be buying books or reading random notes scattered throughout the world to understand what is going on, and that is really bad story telling for a game.
As of right now we really have no idea what shadowlands is about and probably never will. but there are ways we can understand things a bit better. unfortunately we have to find those things out by reading books out side of the game and/or finding things in the world.
We shouldnt have to buy the new sylvanas book just to understand what shes going through and learn why she did everything that she did. Very few people actually read books these days. or look around the zereth mortis to find firm’s exile notes to learn more. because those notes are not required at all to play the game. sure it unlocks flying, but i bet 1% of players will actually read them/make sense of them.
Shouldn’t the main questline of the new zone actually tell a story of whats going on? nah we get a main questline that just unlocks the creation catalyst and provides absolutely no story to whats going on. or some of these side quest that sure will help unlock flying, but do i really need to know about throwing water on someone’s pet or that some al aren’t lost? lol
NO! we need those crucial story details that are apparently in books or notes in that actual main questline that will help us understand things.
Oh yeah. apparently in the raid against the dreadlords they talk to themselves about how they infiltrated past raids/dungeons in wows history to see what we were up to. That seems pretty important. Like that should have been told by malganis when in chapter 2 when we see him. but you know not many people raid now days or even care to listen to them have their little talk in the raid. So most people will never know about that.
Blizzard.
Please stop telling your story so fragmented and not even in game. take note from ff14 and actually make a MSQ like story. Stop doing these weird side quests that do nothing for the story if your story is as bad as it is. one of the side quests could have been about the dreadlords being past bosses. or how the pantheons of death were actually just created by machines and they are all robots. those would have been some good side quests. not about throwing water on pets…
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Wow Narrative Lead Designer bad, updoot me.
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well the only rebuttal to that is danuser took over either right before bfa launched or right when it did. so the bfa story was already done, and the overall shadowlands story was mainly finished. he just came in added some stuff to shadowlands, but really had no control over the over arching story. thats why we keep hearing 10.0 will be his baby. because that will actually be first expansion where he has 100% full control over it.
so really 10.0 will be his one shot.
but over wow’s history this has been a problem. we’ve always gotten books and other things to help fill in gaps and what not. so blizzard has always been guilty of poor overall story development.
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Think the notes and having to put some work into discovering the back story is fine.
Game play first.
The two major problems I think they have are.
- It’s hard to tell a compelling epic story with kill 20 quests. For local quests it works. “A pig ate my wedding ring, could you please dig through some poop” works. But, “You are the hero and our only hope, but first, please go kill 20 pigs” doesn’t.
- The systems and trying to justify them have become major characters in the story.
In the end this has to be a game first, It’s not a movie, it’s not a book. The game play needs to come first.
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Part of his job is to put out fires not to create more, he lefts more questions than answers. From his linkin “Oversee writing and editing of dialogue and quest text, maintaining consistency for franchise characters.” ~2017 portfolio. He does have a say where the story direction goes once Afrasiab left.
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So why does both the gameplay and story suck? The external systems have caused them nothing but heartache as they have to spend the entire expansion fixing what was broken at launch.
If they actually took the time to build out the world rather than have to panic-fix and piecemeal a system that just does not work at launch, the story wouldn’t be as difficult to design the game around. I know it’s different groups, but there’s still the issue of they’ve really screwed themselves over.
And while gameplay is important, a bad story can also neuter the game. As we’ve already seen.
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He needs to take this down from his LinkedIn until he has proof to back up this claim……
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tbh it’s always been like that. Even the original lore you really had to have warcraft 3 to know what’s going on. Outside of some well told zones in specific like generally westfall was a good lore filled zone but for the most part nah.
Remember that Vol’jin died for this. 
edit: The poor warchief was a target for the Jailer and the explanation for his demise during BfA hyped this villain.
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Not really. And a great story can’t save a bad game.
Starcraft was a great game. But people didn’t play it for decades because of the story. It was for the game play. That it had a good story that wasn’t excessively intrusive into the game play just took it from being a great game to one of the greatest.
I don’t read the books; don’t really have an interest. At one time I enjoyed such of the story as I got in game, not at all anymore and the books won’t make it better imo. I contrast this situation with the first person shooter, Halo, where I read and enjoyed all the associated books.
No, gameplay always comes first and foremost. But a game won’t survive strictly on gameplay unless it’s beyond stellar, which WoW is not.
When we look at genres, an MMORPG is called such because it’s both an MMO and an RPGs. RPGs are most known for stories, not always for gameplay. If the story is bad, the game will flounder; Dragon Age Origins is regarded far better than Dragon Age II despite having a wonkier and more annoying gameplay because it had a far better story. Elden Ring is as much an RPG as it is a “souls game” and it has both gameplay (if you’re into that) and story. Breath of the Wild has both as well. Story won’t make a bad game better, but especially in regards to an RPG it will help them actually last.
Of course, once again this is a moot point as Blizzard has been struggling in both gameplay and story, hence why it’s fallen so far out of favor for the general population. But given its genre of game, the story can’t just be shrugged off like StarCraft or Fortnite.
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In my experience in a casual old farts guild, they story and it’s problems are of very little concern. It’s much more an influencer and forums issue. It’s of course a major straw on the camels back of problematic game play, but the primary issues people are having are generally game play related.
In short I think guild turnover and people leaving the game are due to the game play, not because of what ever happens in the story. For the most part they are indifferent and don’t really have much of a problem with the story. And in general, even if we we’re talking about greatest story ever told, that’s just a one time experience. If the game play isn’t there it wont have legs.
Story can make a good game great, but it can’t make a bad game playable.
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They still come out with really good books. Maybe those people should be writing our story in game as well.
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And as an example of where I think story is really hurting game play is all the effects art.
Is something red good or bad? Is something blue, good or bad? Well, you can’t tell because something red is Venthyr and something blue is night fae. They aren’t designed as a cue for how to play the game, but how they fit in the story.
Color should not be used a cue to play the game. The biggest cues are the icons on the screen. Then you have your health bar which is the next, does it hurt to you stand in this. Using color also would hurt the player base. Did you know that males suffer more from color issues than females? So you will have players that will be handicapped by that. From a game play stand point having colors more tied to story than as cues is the best option.
For me the biggest point where story hurts game play is good vs evil. The good Alliance vs the evil Horde is what has left the Alliance players have to take a passive roll in the game. On the other hand because of game play the Horde can be as evil as well like but never really face any in game consequences. So the Alliance is always forced to take abuse and raise above it for the greater good while the Horde never learns. Even when the Alliance does do something they are judged in a harsher light because they are supposed to be “good”.
I know lore wise the Alliance is doing it but game play stands above lore.
Congratulations new feature for 10.1.
You must pass a 50-question quiz in order to progress each campaign block. And if you get one wrong you have to start next week.
answers are subject to change depending on retcons
Have fun 
Either can someone suggest a decent addon to fix these horrid forum colors, or can y’all stop writing such massive wall of text? My poor eyes can’t handle it.
I really would like to just blame Danuser for this, but like everything else going on with this expansion it feels like there was little-to-no communication on anything, from reward acquisition to the story itself.
Might have been a problem with the WFH transition, likely a leadership problem. I’ve seen Danuser’s writing, it’s not horrible, so IDK what happened here, but it’s just been a lousy expansion all around compared to what we’re used to.
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Gw2 has an alright story campaign. Won’t win any awards for the writing but at least the story was told in solo scenarios so you could get what was going on.
Much like any linear story though it gets old after a few play throughs.