My point is that the writers aren’t in control of their own writing. You can’t pin problems with the story on people who don’t get to decide where the story goes.
If you’ve been told to write Tyrande as vengeance obsessed in small segments for over a year, then told to arbitrarily change gears one day… that isn’t on the writer. That is on the person/people who decided to make the writer do The Night Warrior arc then reverse it with no resolution because they were written into a corner.
Christie Golden has written novels outside of Warcraft, and clearly has the chops to tell a good story. I just don’t think handcuffed her to a train wreck and expecting her to have any control over the train is fair to her or others in her situation.
Also didn’t mean to say Blizzard should hire Chris Avellone specifically, just that his writing approach has kinda been the gold standard for story driven RPGs for decades. I would actually prefer they step away from character driven metaplots and get back to world building and local narratives.
Does she though? Maybe back in the old days her new books are so bad I just stopped reading wow books all together. There is better writing in a costco catalog.
Again, she is being given a story to write, not being given free reign to write her own story. That she’s able to churn out novels that are well received at all is pretty impressive.
Nobody is holding a gun to her head and make the world building in her books be exactly as seen in the game. It shouldn’t take you a week to cross to the other side of world with a windblown ship. A village is not 2 houses and 1 inn. All her dialogue work, her character work and her annoying character development that are then discarded by the end. I can go on. She is absolutely an atrocious writer.
Besides WoW books has she written anything of note herself?
She’s written a ton of novels and stories across several franchises and some original works as well.
The need to earn a living is the gun to her head. I think she is passionate about the characters, beside that, and wants to do the best she can within the shifting walls she is given permission to write in. Whether you like her work or not is still beside the point, because she is still not the person who is driving the metaplot or story decisions.
I’m not sure how much pull the Senior Game Producer has, but the previous one said straight up that Sylvanas isn’t evil, but then again he said she’s trying to defend her people. So go figure.
Roux also had a similar job to Golden and she did much better than Golden did from the few excerpts I read. Golden is a bad writer, I have seen YA book authors with better skills.
Now regarding the narrative. You are right Golden is not at fault. Its Danuser. Until he leaves this nightmare will continue.
When I listen to their interviews, I am not sure the story would be any different. And the problems I mentioned are the problem I see in how the narrative related people talk about it, not just the in-game story.
Maybe? I randomly stumbled on the “Star Wars Dark Disciple” book by C. Golden. And guess what, writing borderline out of character, retconing things (although EU is not canon anymore, so…), having “dark side users are victims” and “if you kill them you are as bad” - all the stuff is in there too.
So, I do understand your point, but it’s awfully fitting other works of the exact same people too. Might be a coincidence though.
She can tell a good character driven story. Which is good for a book. And rather “don’t do it” in a video game, unless it’s a j-rpg style narrative, like Chrono Trigger, or the Witcher.
Given his work on things like Mask of the Betrayer, New Vegas, and KOTOR, if he actually could participate, that might’ve been a good turn. It’s been a while since I’ve played KOTOR 2, but I’ve heard a few times that Kreia is one of the best female video game characters ever, so…
Totally agree with that. But going back to Golden, she would likely stick to characters, and how special Anduin is, and how wrong Tyrande is for not sharing the forgiveness approach (aka War Crimes) [picture included]
I’ll try putting this another way: yelling at Christie Golden about the direction of the story is like yelling at a fast food employee because they stopped carrying the menu item you liked.
Ok, I think this argument on my side might be ended with:
she is not the one defining the direction
given the touted “no 1 person writes the story / character / etc.”, either it’s fake, it does have some effect on “how”, but not “what” (assuming I accept the previous statement)
I would prefer not to see her works in WoW either way.
First of all it’s a fruitless story and deceiving the customrs.
Supporting or not supporting such behavior of the dev studio - people will decide for themselves.
Not necessary. Post WW2 except the top leadership (being Zovaal in our case), other were prosecuted on territories where they did the most damage to. So, by irl standards, it would be valid and just if the Sylvanas’s case would be handled by night elf laws.
That’s fair. No one is obligated to like her writing specifically, but she seems to be targeted specifically and frequently as if she is solely responsible for current storylines.
Of course. But if it doesn’t, well, that isn’t the Horde players’ fault, and making them feel worse won’t make me feel better. It might make some feel better, but I want to believe that’s a minority of players.
Putting all the blame on her would not be fair. At the same time, given the frequent “collaborative” statements about the story, she has some impact. The details remain unclear for now.
Although dragging the horde into the genocide plot looks like a betrayal of their trust and the original vision sold to the players, fixing the mess will have plenty of pain points regardless. It all has to start somewhere.
Unless we’re talking about a hypothetical reset / another timeline story take that would render unnecessary repeating that story turn in favour of sticking to the original ideas. But that’s a somewhat wishful thinking for now.
Yeah, I don’t have the full picture any more than anyone, but based on a few snippets and comments that manage to make their way out, you start to get an impression of how the hierarchy is, be it Metzen/AA “story jams”, “how cool would it be to go back and meet the Warlords?”, and more recently a tweet from Golden admitting (paraphrasing) that it was more difficult to write for the game than her own novels because details would change frequently and sometimes without the writers even knowing about it. Then there’s “no negativity in the dojo” which was a nicer way of saying “disregard criticism from the players.”
It all cements, to me, a roundtable pitch for expansion metaplots being handed off to the narrative team who are shielded from player reception.
Why is this a bad thing? She is in great shape and likes to display what is hers and activities she enjoys. Its a free country and her being a “bimbo” has nothing to do with her job performance.
That said if she is inline with what Danuser is doing then I have a few words to say and I have already said them. TDLR: I don’t like it and I want Danuser gone. I am sure he is a great dude but thats irrelevant where the writing is concerned.
Yes, it’s a personal choice (to each their own). I’m talking about in relations to being a narrative writer, not a ‘pole dancer’. She is not qualified (based on what I read of her credentials) neither is Danuser. If Danuser was a ‘hair cutter’ and saw that on his IG, I would’ve just said ‘Go find a barbershop and hair to cut. You’re not qualified ’. But because the critique was done to a woman, the world is ending for some snowflakes.
It’s not like Blizzard can’t afford to hire decent writers. And we’re all just tired of the mediocrity that is been happening with the narrative lately.
Yes, he is a nice person. But not the best writer. The problem is B players will invite other B players, who will invite C players, who will invite….and so on. And that’s what’s happening to the WoW narrative team.