[BlizzConline Spoilers] How Blizzard Views Their Story

Lore Story Forum
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This won’t be a long post, I’m afraid. It’s not something I’ve put effort into analyzing. It’s not really something I’m proud of. This is just me getting something off my chest.

It was this moment:

https://youtu.be/cbkQEgf_TAs?t=150

That made me think, “Why does this feel like it’s from some 80’s or 90’s cartoon that exists solely to sell an associated toy line?”

Then I realized… That’s exactly how Blizzard views their story. That’s why it’s so awful to so many fans.

Blizzard doesn’t view WoW’s story as something worth supporting in-and-of itself. They see this more like an action-MMO than an RPG. That’s why the overarching narrative fails on so many basic, narrative principles. Primarily, that’s why it fails on one of the chief edicts of storytelling, “Write scenes for the story, don’t write story for the scenes.” Basically, a fantastic story should be designed first, then cool moments should fall out of that. Don’t design cool moments, then string together a story to loosely connect them, which is a complaint I’ve lobbed at Blizzard’s Warcraft recent storytelling.

I might be the last person to the party here, but the above scene made me realize that Blizzard isn’t doing that by ignorance. They aren’t breaking narrative structure because they don’t know they should do (although, it’s very likely their head writers don’t). They’re breaking it intentionally, because they think the story only exists for marketing and advertising purposes. The current team builds stories, not with the directive to love and improve the Warcraft universe, but instead to generate cinematics for use in advertising. To get every breed of commentator speculating and generating free ad-time for them.

Think about BfA. The last cutscene? It wasn’t rendered. It was one of those live-generated cutscenes with 10 seconds of render. Certainly N’zoth, the final Old God, would merit something big and important? Maybe it was resource limitations, but why? Because those creative resources were already pushed on to designing things to help sell the next expansion: Shadowlands.

So yeah…

That’s my tinfoil hat.

TL;DR: Blizzard doesn’t treat Warcraft’s story as something worth telling. They treat it as something whose only value is in marketing/advertising potential.

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Well, I know I unsubbed because of the Horde story-line while they keep talking about how great it was.

Now some of that might have been whistling in the dark. OTOH, I can’t believe that, if they knew before hand how unpopular it would be, they would have made it.

I leaves me with a view the Blizzard is just so far out of touch with a lot of the player base that they are incapable of doing better.

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I dont know who y’ll are realizing this just now

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While I don’t think this is a new revelation, i definitely don’t see this point as a cause for condemnation, unlike some already in this thread, cough cough.

There are far too many people, yes even here in SF where we tend to be more cerebral and critical of the story, who think Blizzard can do no wrong with the story and they aren’t doing anything wrong with the story.

Metzen’s era of Warcraft seemed to draw more from the “story first, cool scenes later” though he was certainly guilty of the inverse as well.

It’s part of the reason why i do enjoy Duncan Jones’ Warcraft because it tells an actual story. It’s funny to me to see fans sputter about how it is unfaithful and therefore bad - what they’re really lamenting is the shift in focus from rule of cool to telling a story that is contained within itself.

Addendum: it’s also interesting that you compare it to an 80s cartoon because in the recent years, the hyper focus on a handful (we are talking about 3-4 here) characters to tell the story about the world of Warcraft is highly reminiscent to me of a child banging their few action figures together.

We had major characters before yes, but the story seemed to be focused on events, and not just on the one moment where Varian and Garrosh got into a fist fight.

When I reflect back on the events of BFA for instance, i think about the character interactions involving Azshara, Wrathion etc instead of it being an all-out war against him. I think this type of storytelling is a massive detriment when trying to tell the story about a world.

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is this a thing? i mean i didnt mind the artistic liberties they took i was just happy it was a warcraft movie.

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I wish that movie got more support than it did, from both people here and in general. The movie wasn’t perfect but it could have been the stepping stone of something really great.

Instead people lamented the changes it made, the lack of Arthas or just completely wrote it off without ever giving it a chance. And that’s not even touching the reviewers who complained that the movie was “ripping off” Lord of the Rings, trying to cash-in on the Syrian refugee crisis or the film didn’t know if it was pro or anti - Trump…

As for OP

As much as we can lambast Blizzard’s story direction, one only needs to take a gander at the comment section of the video you linked to see that none of that matters. The masses are eating it all up and praising it up and down.

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I have read some comments on their other videos…

I’m a roleplayer, and all the communities I’m in relate to roleplay, so they might certainly be of a different opinion than the masses (in truth, I wish there was actual data on “what do you play the game for” against “how do you perceive the story”). It seems like there is a large discrepancy between the Youtube comments and the comments of most other forums. Again, tinfoil hat, but I’ve frequently gotten the sense that, somehow, the Youtube comments are cherry-picked to only show the most approving. I’m not sure how that’d work, but it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that there was some that there was some mechanism that allowed that.

EDIT: Also, I just now read through some of the comments on this specific video, and most seem to be memey at most and neutral at best. The highest voted comment is "Uther’s PTSD kicked in, he knew something was up. " The next highest is “-what is this? what are you doing mortal? -succeeding you Archon” They are acknowledging the call backs, but… I wouldn’t say “praising”. Just… accepting of them.

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I’ve had a similar hunch for awhile now, though with different reasons behind it.

Basically, they saw that raiding and PvP were some of “main draws” of content, so they began to focus on those avenues. It explains why some characters simply turn evil for no real reason; you need pinatas and making up new dudes on the spot can take time and will not have the same impact as named characters.

Really though, I am willing to bet that they are over trying to do anything with the story anymore. It’s been lead down a winding path that curbs every which way, and the game itself doesn’t really try to fix any of it. That job gets left to the 3rd party folk, who do the books and whatnot. If Blizzard could get away with killing any further story and just makes quests and the like a little basic task list, they would.

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Oh, it definitely is. You just have to poke around a bit.

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I remember seeing a youtube comment complaining about how one of the elves was portrayed by an Asian actor.

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You’re right, they’re not doing it by ignorance. We’ve known for years now that the way WoW’s story is written, is that the game devs come up with an idea they think would be a good expansion (for example, they thought it’d be really cool to see all the old Orc clans again, which became WoD), they start coming up with environments and gameplay ideas, etc. Once the basics have been set down they hand it off to the story team and basically tell them to come up with a story that makes sense. Rule of Cool isn’t a meme. That’s how Blizz themselves described their process. The story only exists as a framework to hold together the different ideas that go into a new expansion.

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I don’t think it’s intentional. It’s been pointed out a few times that Danuser genuinely thinks Westworld season 3 and the Daenarys twist in season 8 Game of Thrones are good storytelling.

It’s focused on dramatic shifts and cool moments with the rest of the story built outwards from these moments. Just like those shows.

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This’ll trigger everyone, but that was an extraordinarily bad casting choice - much like most of the movie, really (that is, bad).

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Why was an Asian actor portraying a single elf, in a single scene that lasts only like 2 seconds a bad casting choice?

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Not gonna lie, rewatching this. God that Anduin transformation is dumb. They could at least have him stick to it after he makes the change (at least until such a time he is truly freed), but having Good Anduin and Enslaved Anduin essentially be a mood-ring … goodness sake. I gave Anduin the benefit of the doubt back in BfA because at least it felt like his inexperience was being used as a semi tangible flaw. Especially with how rocky the Alliance cohesiveness seemed to be at the end due to his peacemongering. But SLs … its very hard not ignore he’s picked up quite a few traditional sue traits in spades here. Chief among them every cast member being obsessed with him (both hero and villain).

At this point I am expecting another common Sue trait to pop up here with the “mentoring and chosen by a popular fan favorite”. In this case, Arthas. And god help us all if Anduin is so much of a writers pet for Golden that she pulls the “Anduin is actually Arthas’ son” crack theory…

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I think BFAs cinematic was the ultimate proof for me.

It bares no resemblance to the actual story of BFA. At all. The Horde and Alliance fight, sure. But the cinematic suggests a Horde on the defense, or at least a Sylvanas trying to lead them to victory.

It seriously burns me that the best “FOR THE HORDE” was said in the first cinematic by a character who’d say “THE HORDE IS NOTHING” in the last cinematic.

Especially because Saurfang’s last words were For Azeroth. Like he could’ve given the best For The Horde, while sacrificing himself to save the soul of the Horde. But no. For Azeroth. Which only makes sense if he knew about the plot of SL because Sylvanas on her own is not an apocalypse tier threat.

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The original BfA cinematic was such a marketing ploy it was crazy. Frankly, ever since WoD I’ve put almost no stock into how well the expac cins actually will represent the story or expac itself. Like, the Iron Horde were a joke; with most of AU Grom’s nuance being locked in a damned book. The Legion assault on the Broken Shore lasted in relevance for about 45 mins of gameplay. Then we have BfA’s, the worst offender. In game cinematics are far more relevant.

That being said, I genuinely do think Blizz’s stance on the Horde is that it is both that they “love writing it” and it “is nothing”. Because they enjoyed using it as a plot-device to settup future conflict, villains, and content. But actually rebuilding or building up the Faction … they seem to run away from any stories that even fringe on that. Outside of … again … external reading material.

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Because the whole point of high elves (or really fantasy elves in general) are homogenous. That is why.

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Yeah, but then you gotta look at the guy who is supervising Danuser. Right? I don’t know anything about Westworld, and I’ve never seen Game of Thrones, but man it was hard to avoid just how horrible that ending was.

I’m just saying, if I was commissioning a new nuclear power plant, and I overheard the chief engineer say, “You know, I think those Chernobyl guys had some solid ideas.” At minimum, I’m gonna do few double takes and at least consider reassigning him to something else. Unless, I had ulterior motives. I’m just saying… Even if it’s not Danuser, someone fully intends to run the story like this.

I’m so waiting for this. By this point, everything has become so grating, I just want it to be horrible, save Tyrande’s story. Like… If they’re so insistent on telling a bad story, they might as well shoot for “so bad it’s entertaining how bad it is” rather than “It’s just bad”. Like, if they’re gonna make a bad movie, aim for The Room not Rise of Skywalker.

Personally, as much as I’d like this to miraculously turn palletable, I almost want them to try to redeem Arthas just for the sheer volume of threads with the topic, “So what you’re saying is… Blonde-haired, blue-eyed nobility can do no wrong unless they’re being overtly controlled by an outside force?” Like, watching the world burn like that would be hilarious.

As an Alliance stan, Sylvanas’s “For the Horde” actually sent shivers down my spine, and did so for several rewatches. It’s just incredible how we started there and ended on “N’zoth wiggles around, then some random tower falls in the background, the world is saved, except for that pesky Sylvanas Windrunner.”

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I mean, they’ve already essentially done that? Like truly, they have effectively written themselves into a place where the default evil races of the Horde can only prove themselves not evil by how submissive and convenient they are for the Alliance. Where the races of the Alliance are birthed good and pure. My goodness does that messaging get a little squirrely when you realize what RW cultures (Hollywood editions) most of the Horde races are loosely based off of … and which ones the Alliance are lol! “Blond Haired, Blue Eyed, Light Worshipping Saviors” are just the edge of that rabbit hole.

Or did you think that Anduin mentioning Arthas as one of two “Alliance regrets” in the same expac that completely validated Daelin Proudmoore was something Blizz would just let lie? It would be way too tempting for them to scrub that even “distant grey” from the Alliance’s ledger. :upside_down_face:

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