I just ran across this interview with Kevin Martens from September 12, 2018.
https://www.polygon.com/2018/9/12/17847356/battle-for-azeroth-story-factions-kul-tiras-zandalar
People have indeed gotten very mad at certain parts of the story, but Blizzard said that it sees this as a victory, as it sets out to tell its most ambitious set of stories yet.
“Having people feel strong emotions about something is the point of that faction alliance.” Kevin Martens, a designer on World of Warcraft , told Polygon. “With Legion , we had to work together against the more existential threat against the Legion and it’s great to do that once in a while. But the core of the game, that red versus blue content, it’s good to come back to that. For people to feel something about that, that’s special. That’s hard to do!”
Martens confirmed that more straight-up story conflict is on the way.
“The goal is to watch people have a visceral reaction, and care about what happen[s], and even argue with each other.”
Martens is clearly invested in the story himself; he seemed hardly able to restrain his excitement when he spoke to us about it.
“Here’s an example: Some players are mad about what Sylvanas did, and they’re represented in the game by people like Saurfang, who are saying, ‘This is BS. This is dishonorable.’ There’s a whole cinematic for that.
“Then there are people who are like, ‘No, this is war, they brought it on themselves! Anduin is a hypocrite who cares about peace when it’s convenient for him, and he can win.’”
As for characters who haven’t shown up yet, Martens admits that “we have to pick our battles.”
“Players will ask, ‘Shouldn’t so-and-so be involved in this?’ Yes,” he said. “But we can’t tell 85,000 stories — sometimes we have to tell 75,000.”
Battle for Azeroth wraps up some of the final stories left hanging from Warcraft 3 , and that means those characters get the stage. Martens was coy about future Horde versus Alliance plans, especially in how they relate to raids. “There will be more raids, more head to head […] and maybe some other stuff. I don’t want to say too much.”
“Our general approach of everything is to go too far, cross the line, and then pull it back before the game ships,” explained Martens. “I find it’s far too difficult to come up to the line of ‘too awesome’ slowly and then push forward. We find it works better to push too hard and then pull back from there.”
As for the impassioned arguments on social media? That might be just one of Blizzard’s best marketing tools right now. As Martens puts it, “If people are talking about it right now, and it’s passionate about it, you know it’s a good time to jump in and players are passionate about the game.”
Adding my own thoughts: Every time I see Blizzard devs describing the attitude of Horde players, I get a weird disconnect. “The Night Elves brought it on themselves”? That makes no sense at all. And where do the devs get the idea that Horde players think Anduin is a hypocrite who only wants peace when he’s winning? I feel like they tried to plant that idea themselves in the throne room scene with Sylvanas, and it seemed nonsensical then too.
ETA: Also, if you enjoy this thread, can I request that someone please post a response? The forum won’t allow me to make two posts in a row, even if they’re separated in time, so if I find a new article, I won’t be able to post it here unless someone else has responded in the meantime.