Next up is an interview that isn’t exactly a feels-like-a-lie, but is interesting nonetheless. This is from Blizzcon 2019, and I could only find this Reddit summary link for it (thanks again to Etheldald):
https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/9usbtb/rwow_blizzcon_interview/
- The big picture arc is definitely laid out well in advance (months/years)
- [Re: Tides of Vengeance cinematic] “…Horde players will have a questline where they are tracking down what became of Saurfang, and Alliance players will learn his mysterious escape from – one of the Horde heroes right in their midst. And try to understand how that happened, how does…the Horde escape from under the nose of the Alliance…”
- “As creators of the story, there’s more than paying attention to what the community thinks of the story you’re telling and what is effective and what isn’t, what resonates emotionally. I think–Alex Afrasiabi, our creative director, has spoken on this a number of times in the last couple months and a part of telling a story involves invoking emotional highs and lows and there are some things that are deliberately meant to be a little bit frustrating - a little bit upsetting to some.”
- Goes on to reference Game of Thrones, regarding emotional response and people saying “I’m never watching this again” after certain episodes - that emotional response is something they look for, but they have to balance highs and lows.
- When they release content on the PTR and players are confused about storylines, that’s when they’re more likely to take feedback in real time and change things. Ultimately they feel that they need to trust creative impulses within the team and be story-focused, but they do listen to feedback.
My takeaways:
- The “big picture” is laid out well in advance, but that might be something as simple as “Sylvanas goes big evil.”
- Whatever happened to that bit about Alliance players learning of Saurfang’s escape? Did that ever actually happen? It kind of sounds like they were supposed to learn about it as a result of the Horde PC trying to track him down (i.e., the Horde PC would be the “Horde hero in their midst”).
- DId they seriously think the events of BfA would only be a little bit frustrating or upsetting? The downplay is breathtaking.
- The desire to be Game of Thrones is veeeeeery strong. And this was after the widely-hated last season. Is that why they decided to make Sylvanas “big evil”? Were they thinking, “Hey, everyone loves to hate Cersei Lannister, so let’s make Sylvanas our Cersei”–without taking into account the fact that longtime players had already formed opinions about Sylvanas that didn’t necessarily line up with how they felt about Cersei?
- DId they actually believe the highs and lows of BfA were balanced?
- I notice they only talk about changing things on the PTR when players are confused, not when players hate a storyline.