Danuser+Ion Sriracha Take on retcons and lore

Necroxis-dalaran · June 28, 2021, 6:37pm

I have no idea what you’re even trying to say or what that has to do with my post.

My point was pretty simple: Bwonsamdi as a character concept was much better in his original format and not before he was flanderized into what he is now, which sadly has happened to basically every major character in the story in the last expansion or three. The baffling thing is that the same team that wrote him in BfA also wrote him in Shadowlands. It’s not like there was a 10 year gap between his last appearance and this one.

A lot of this problem seems to stem from the fact that, with Ion seemingly flat out admitting it now, the writing takes into account fan expectation and reaction to everything they do. They aren’t interested in just having a narrative vision and doing it for good or ill.

They want us to actively participate in the writing through our reactions online.

Which is just an absolutely stupid idea for a thousand obvious reasons.

Gantrithor-myzrael · June 28, 2021, 6:40pm

This is an apt description of what took place.

Have a .

Treefolk-elune · June 28, 2021, 6:52pm

“Why has she done the things she’s done? Well, it’s been in service of this larger plan, where she feels this balance between death and life is broken and she wants to remake that. The Jailer is her conduit for doing so, and thus she formed that partnership with him.” (c)

-So, Jailor (just some small half titan of the Underworld) was just Sylvanas puppy, in her plan to rebuild entire cosmos…
People were joking that Blizzard slowly tries to rise Sylvanas on the GOD level. Well, those jokes are over.

Yvenathilm-fenris · June 28, 2021, 7:05pm

Indeed! They lack Vision and rely on everyone else’s contradicting Visions which shows that they lack an Editor!

They need an Editor with Vision!

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WritingByTheSeatOfYourPants is no way to write a story!

Many Franchises lack Vision which causes them to fail!

Chronorabbit-azshara · June 28, 2021, 7:32pm

Probably not everyone. Something about the character feels very off for me. But I have a hard time describing in words what exactly feeled fake about the charcter when I did the Nazmir story line.

He was spared, just like Denathrius, because the devs liked the voice actor’s performance iirc.

Topic aside, the interview about the fairytales book made me think the devs are more concerned about telling stories to each other and for each other. Which is a yet another addition to “using established IP to push their own story instead under the disguise for easier marketing”.

What is more funny, that according to one of latest interviews

Steve Danuser: We definitely try to learn from the lessons of the past, and get better at storytelling. So that’s been a focus this time: telling a very clear story about the afterlife, the characters that are there, the menace that the Jailer poses, and what Sylvanas’ role in this is.

So, it’s a “clear story” and

Once the update goes live next week, players will be able to see it for themselves. There are really satisfying answers that come to the fore when you play through that quest line and we get to see Tyrande have something of a resolution with that power.

they consider the whole “resolution” to the stories of Tyrande, night warrior, and night elves overall, “satisfying”.

Which is in line with the BfA

You did things for that faction, you fought that enemy, you held the line for them, defended your capital. All those things. That wouldn’t be something we would take away lightly. That’s part of the Warcraft DNA. But shaping what those factions mean in the world and how they interact with one another? That’s something this expansion really allows us to focus on and resolve in a way that will be satisfying for players on both sides.

Which I guess we can see. Both how “not litely” the stuff is, with focus on follow up for the night elf / forsaken stories (/s); how satisfied the players are with how the story was handled and resolved in BfA.

(not quite offtop; till 5 min mark)

I fail to see how. The stories they tell are about what they want to tell. There is so much “who asked for this” going on, that I have a hard time they even considered writing for the audience of WoW.

I saw big changes in the story of some game “in progress”, like Hades and some serious ones in Baldur’s Gate 3.

But it requires a very special team and development methodology (and degree of cooperation in the team) to pull off telling a story “on the fly” like a dungeon master. I think on paper that sounds interesting to me, but IMO that would require exceptional execution to make it work.

When it comes to WoW, even if we assume that things that can be done for a medium sized team (150-200 people) could be “ported” to a bigger one, modern blizz is not the company that I would associate with “quality of execution” (except Shadowlands launch. It relied on sharding heavily, making even release feel empty-ish, but stable; and the art team is good usually).

gl hf

Necroxis-dalaran · June 28, 2021, 7:46pm

Because all they get is a cacophony of noise. Sometimes the noise is more positive than negative and sometimes the opposite.

So when they announce BfA and people seem to like the Troll interacting with Saurfang, Blizzard takes that as, “Make this into an actual character.”

When people react positively to a voice actor, Blizzard takes that as, “Expand this character’s role.”

When there was…discourse around Garrosh’s actions in Wrath and the player conflict over whether he was just battle horny or being strategically smart, Blizzard takes that as, “Run with his battle horniness and amp it up to a thousand.”

They can’t decipher any sophistication but they very clearly are changing things based on fan reception. But they are not competent enough to understand what the actual majority opinion is on something and so they option they’ve been going with is to just flanderize everything and turn every character up to 11.

I would argue the “Who asked for this” is far more about the gameplay stuff than the story stuff. Almost all the awful story changes are rooted in some change the developers have made and are essentially smirking at us and going, “Ehhh? EHHH?” trying to hit some kind of demand they believe the fanbase is making.

Obviously this isn’t true for 100% of the story changes. But for a lot of significant ones, it absolutely is.

Necroxis-dalaran · June 28, 2021, 7:47pm

I think it COULD work in very specific situations as you say, but certainly not for one this big. And certainly not for a MMORPG. And certainly not with this company and these writers.

Yvenathilm-fenris · June 28, 2021, 7:51pm

Funny how the interview mentioning Bwomsamdi’s expanded role mentions nothing about him changing in Morality…

Necroxis-dalaran · June 28, 2021, 7:53pm

I believe their idea of expanding Bwonsamdi’s role is to just make him a genuine ally of ours instead of a villain who we were forced to ally with out of necessity due to the circumstances.

They seem to have totally missed why a lot of people liked Bwonsamdi in the first place. That he was a devious trickster who clearly was just playing the Zandalari to steal more power for himself.

And only saw it as, “People like Bwonsamdi, let’s make him good.” He still retains some of that trickster status but they’ve just turned the moral dial from evil to good.

Benedikt-emerald-dream · June 28, 2021, 8:06pm

Eh, I much prefer the version who’s clearly working an angle but is basically decent.

He’s a businessman, not a conman. Of course he had self interest in becoming the Zandalari’s chief deity. But now that he’s in that position he endeavors to do right by them to the best of his ability.

Reputation afterall is very important to merchants. If he never honored his end of the arrangement, no one in their right mind would bargain with him again.

Chronorabbit-azshara · June 28, 2021, 8:08pm

I am not going to pretend to be an expert. I am mostly introverted person. I do not have PR-related education in any form. My exposure is limited, but I occasionally spend my free time to sit on forums, twitter, reddit, discord, or youtube content sections for specific videos / themes touched.

After sinking 3-5 hours weekly on such things for about a year, I see that the themes of what people want are mostly abstract and rather consistent. To name a few:

people want continuity and older lore to be respected and not retconned needlessly;
I often see people wanting to see the aftermath of the events and more “depth” even if it means fewer story lines, rather than hopping from one to another and dropping them indefinitely.
I frequently see skepticism about the idea of following NPCs as the main characters. Sentiment varies. Some want the player to be the main, some want the “world” and it’s exploration to be the main theme / “character”. But it could be summarized IMO as a wish for more attention to the player experience and things “making sense”, as well as the feel of adventure, rather than “what Jaina / Thrall had on breakfast last Thursday” or similar things.

I see glimpses of those things everywhere, and not sure if they can be really considered to be something limiting.

I’ll have a hard time finding the exact quote, but I’ve heard that they try to push the story initially, and then maybe tone down if necessary. Which might be “good” for marketing short term, to start with a big event. But people are used to a traditional narrative structure so this approach seems to be “failure by design”.

gl hf

Sarm-malganis · June 28, 2021, 8:10pm

I thought Bwonsamdi came on a little hard in BFA but I assume that’s because they wanted you to eventually hate him. But he had that “used car salesman” vibe you can appreciate from a distance.

His Ardenweald appearances feel…I dunno, a slacker in a Bwonsamdi skin suit, or something. I didn’t really like how subservient he seemed to be when dealing with the Winter Queen.

I’m obviously not a writer but during the moment when the WQ dismisses him, I would have added an emote line of her trying to suppress a smile afterward. I think that would help him lean into more of a “I hate that I like him” mood instead of cold contempt, without having to add any extra voiced lines.

Kazthan-argent-dawn · June 28, 2021, 8:16pm

Defating Bownsamdi would have been stupid.

Just like using Mueh’zala as a villain was a waste and Hakkar using as loot pinata once more was also sad. Loa deserve proper stories too and vilain bating the main loa of the Darkspear would have been very strange. It shows the view of the devs though.

Benedikt-emerald-dream · June 28, 2021, 8:40pm

That would’ve been better. Alex Desert has a voice as rich as Christmas pudding so even though Bwomsamdi would taunt you every single time you died on Zuldazar, you just couldn’t help but like the guy.

Granted he was a little nicer to Priests, offering them jobs and what not. Gotta appreciate someone so dedicated to the hustle they use violent death as a networking opportunity.

Evelysaa-moon-guard · June 28, 2021, 8:40pm

It’s this. The devs are lying when they state they change characters according to fan reactions. They make characters to how they want them. Characters such as Anduin and Baine wouldn’t be as they are if they took fan reaction into account. Parts of the story wouldn’t be as they are.

I think this is what disappoints me most about BFA because the faction war wasn’t resolved satisfactorily at all. Sylvanas left on her own terms and everyone kinda shrugged while being like, “Yeah, we’re kinda cool now… I guess.” It should’ve ended with everyone realizing that they can’t keep having this faction war repeat itself due to how costly it is and that it must absolutely stop, and have everyone see that there’s no important reason for the factions to hate each other. It should’ve been a definitive end to that conflict. Instead it’s been left open more than it’s ever been.

The problem with Blizzard now is that it’s become too bureaucratic of a company. They have to jump through a bunch of hoops to get changes done. The changes in story have become affected by that, because they can’t release content on a whim. What happens suddenly is so jarring because of how slow the pipeline is. The speed at which players recieve content and information goes along with how slow Blizz is to get anything done which has created a lag that confuses what the devs should do and the playerbases reaction to it.

Zekhan being created by Blizzard because of zappy boy memes is another lie they’ve made. They happened to get lucky with the fans positive reaction. There’s no way they created the cinematic where Saurfang and Zekhan meet in that short amount of time. The CGI scenes take way too long to be made for that. There’s another meme character that exists which they’ve done nothing with since she’s appeared in her cinematic.

This is because it’s what some of the writers wanted, not because of fan reaction. The different attitudes Garrosh has shown since Cataclysm proves that the writers have catered to themselves. There would be better consistency in his character if they cared about the players wanting him a specific way. Instead it’s the writers disregarding others opinions and making him how they wanted him to be. Individual writers clashed with the writers that disagreed with how his character should be.

Chronorabbit-azshara · June 28, 2021, 8:54pm

Depends on the goal. Depends on the execution. Depends if the factions are relevant part of the game or not. IMO.

True. We would not have any “high king” nonsense or misplacing faction themes if the player reaction would’ve been relevant.

Unless there is very specific subset of reactions they look for and are vague about what exactly are they looking for. Which does not mean their take is sustainable either way.

When he said “man” instead of “mon”, my reaction was “fake!” But I’m a fake troll too, so, I guess it’s ok.

gl hf

Garriah-scarlet-crusade · June 28, 2021, 9:07pm

Ugh, this is so tiring. So, remaking death…

What. does. that. mean?

Nobody’s motivation will make even a lick of sense until they actually explain the implementation details of this “remade” Death. Will it be more fair? Is it nice? If Sylvanas just explained the deets to everyone on why the new system would be better, wouldn’t everyone just have… gone along with it? It works against her to be so vague and not forthcoming on this new system.

Channyn-moon-guard · June 28, 2021, 9:25pm

I just want to say this:

Anyone who has ever had to tell a story via committee knows that with compromises there are going to be parts of the story that never get told or revealed. Even regular authors tend to have pages and pages of background materials that never find more than a passing mention in the story.

So…when we get information like this–that things are fluid and may change, it really shouldn’t come as a big surprise to anyone.

I understand those of us who like to have a page to point to that says, “This is definitive proof of X thing. Here is where it says this thing in the lore is the truth.” The funny thing is, over the years, if you look at human history, it is -always- being rewritten because of new discoveries and new maths and archeological finds. Hell, even what flavor of politics you have is going to color your view of how the world (and other people) work.

Like many of you, I was just as excited to have those chronicles books come out. I thought, “Ah! Now, at last, I will have the perfect calendar that will allow me to create the perfect character in the world!” But the funny thing is, I’ve been having to revise my character concepts since the game began because as my knowledge of the world and its lore grew, so too did my understanding of my character’s place within it.

To say that the details of Chronicles are no longer relevant just because you’re told that they’re a Titanic view of the universe doesn’t make them any less of an important view of the world.

Now…I will say that in the past there were retcons to the story, but I can’t begin to tell you how many retcons I’ve gone through in RP stories with my own characters over the years–and that’s just me and probably a few other people playing in the world and making up stories. Imagine that you’re the developers and you suddenly have this amazing story, but there’s just one problem: you need to change a few details of the story to make it possible. Some people might say you abandon the idea and start over. Others might take the approach that changing a few details isn’t going to ruin the whole world–and I am inclined to agree with this latter point, even if I get frustrated at times with the changing lore.

I think it’s not a bad thing that stories can be changed, and I know there are some of you who don’t view the game in this light. You see these non-nuanced changes and don’t want to accept them because they’re not the way that you believe the universe has been written up until this point–and on this count, I believe criticism is warranted. If a story suddenly does a 180 without having somehow alluded to it beforehand, this can be jarring and frustrating, and I think for many of us, Sylvanas’ story arc feels that way. We haven’t been given a whole lot in terms of story beats with her in the game–or outside of it, that would make the current story in Shadowlands make a lot of sense. For many of us, it feels disjointed and completely out of left field. So we have every right to criticize the delivery of the story arc they were trying to tell.

But to say that the story should never change, or grow, or be “retconned”, to me, seems naïve. This game is going on 17 years, has gone through many team changes, and has endured numerous story and character arcs–our own and the game’s. You’re welcome to believe that the people writing the story now have no love or respect for what came before (and the ideas therein,) but I’d offer, instead, that you consider that their love and excitement of the story is what has prompted many of the (arguably hamfisted) stories we are seeing now in the game. And the fact that they respond to the love and excitement of the fanbase, to me, is a positive thing.

But I could wish that they’d tell better stories–and I, too, would like to see more of those old stories interwoven into the new ones–something that lets those of us who really appreciate the lore and the stories around them, know and feel like it wasn’t a moment’s inspiration that forced changes to the story, but was rather a deliberative process where care was taken with the changes that were made to try and incorporate the feelings and ideas of those storytellers past who led us on this journey in the first place.

TL;DR – just getting angry and vitriolic about changes doesn’t speak to the deeper criticisms we should be offering to help create the things in the game that we want to see.

Benedikt-emerald-dream · June 28, 2021, 9:41pm

I’m sympathetic to the point that they probably have a mountain of notes and style guides to crawl over with even the most basic story idea.

What grinds my gears is the dishonesty. Pretending Sylvanas always had these goals is an outright, bold faced lie.

And I’m just exhausted. What hell world is this where video game interviews come off like political press briefings?

Chronorabbit-azshara · June 28, 2021, 9:47pm

IMO depends on the audience. If the audience is fine with “if a story is good, it’s ok to bend the canon”, then one answer. If the audience is more about continuity / consistency - another answer.

Besides, is a rigid story that can’t be reused elsewhere even a good thing? Hard to say. For some it might be.

There is a certain difference between having a notable retcon every other expansion, followed by a well crafted story that makes it clear why the story [retcon] was added; and loads of mismatches patch after patch, when some of them are not even needed at all.

My usual example of a retcon that had no need to ever be added is the change to interpretation of the TBC Illidan arc. We know that Helya got a part of his soul. We know that Illidan was wounded by Frostmourne. We know that it can “split” souls. Helya is known to be an ally of the Jailer. So, it “just works”.

Needs details here and there to make the story flow, but changing his motivations outright to show him in a different light is utterly redundant: say, demonic part of his soul influenced his decisions, and the mortal one was wounded - that’s it. Instead we got what we got which just made parts of the story conflict.

Their intentions might be as pure as noble as it’s even possible. But a “good person” is not a profession. And continuous project like WoW is not a dance for 1 person.

If the story they push into the game does not resonate with the players, it does not matter how much passion or care was placed in it - the result will be commercial problems.

Being passionate about the stories they want to tell is not the same as understanding what the clients of a said service are interested in or what made it popular to begin with.

Feel free to provide your story-related examples.

gl hf