The overwhelming responses from this thread is Danuser’s writing is too ‘touchy feely’ disneyfication. Metzen’s was the opposite, all explosions and heavy metal, very little depth. Maybe if they work together they can find an interesting middle ground.
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Largely ge says stuff off the cuff that isn’t always true.
Ie: if you die in the shadowlands you die for real.
Also the jailer.
I don’t think he’s bad over all but I do think he’s more of an ideas guy than a throughput guy.
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World of feelingscraft!
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He’s like the anti-Afrasiabi (especially since Danuser doesn’t have a rap sheet, and he’s not a souse and a pervert).
Danuser’s brand is World of Feelcraft while Afrasiabi was World of Edgecraft. And they were on opposite sides of the fence regarding Sylvanas.
I think the main criticisms of his writing style are the unexplained mystery boxes, the retcons and the fandom-level of writing being at “inmates running the asylum” (while his polar opposite Afrasiabi’s problem was sudden twists that’d give Shamalayn whiplash, retcons and writing aimed at running every female character into the ground - note I said “female” not “humanoid female” so Xe’ra and Ysera count too.).
Way to pick a particularly chaotic example, haha
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I will say that Dragonflight has been absent any mystery boxes… I am sort of pondering if that was to some extent an effort to cover all the mad rewriting that was going on during BFA and into SL as they scrapped as much of Afrasiabi’s plans as they could. Dragonflight is the first expac that is a clean break from the mess that Afarasabi left out of spite, so that is what I am judging Danuser’s work on mostly. I only feel that is fair.
Danuser I feel is a competent writer who can make (for WoW) intricate stuff, but he is not great at spectacle. Metzen’s thing was always cool factor, he has an innate stage presence and charisma that bleeds into creative projects he does. Metzen’s issue is he often is all flash and little substance. I am hoping together they can really do some great work.
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People keep bringing up Afrasiabi being a pervert as if it’s relevant to wow’s storytelling in recent years. If the best you can say about danuser is, “at least he’s not a pervert” that’s a major problem. That’s an insanely low bar that has nothing to do with writing or storytelling capabilities.
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A reflection of the moral complexity of our world, and the troubled history our ancestors lived through that we are still currently dealing with.
Some people claim they just want escapism, but the truth is that they’re unconsciously seeking answers to enlighten their troubled worlds, and to feel they’re not going at it alone.
The average person doesn’t necessarily need to understand that, but that doesn’t make it any less necessary.
Leave the story telling to the story tellers. It’s not a democracy.
BfA.
SL.
Case closed
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I think my general thoughts on his writing is that he’s a decent video game writer that was dealt a bad hand and didn’t have the writing chops to properly dig his way out of it. This was coupled with being shackled to Golden’s writing, who is (and I mean this in the most neutral way possible) very stuck in 80s and 90s fantasy in terms of her writing style and tropes. He then had to juggle demands from the gameplay team and the marketing team along with that, and try to direct writing on a scale he wasn’t used to.
I think in a time when Blizzard was essentially on fire behind the scenes, he was given the top job because he was the only guy with seniority who wasn’t either a nightmare to work with or actively implicated in the lawsuit, and was/is in general a nice person. And then he ended up in an echo chamber of writers who thought their new lore could fix the problems better than sticking to the old lore, and it compounded.
If I were to put a point on why his writing is bad, or ‘bad’, it’s that when he saw the tower was wobbly, instead of fixing the base he stacked more bricks onto it, but all the bricks were different shapes and colours.
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This is why you always should play both sides. A/H took massive nose dives when it comes to the player happiness and story, with irreparable damages done to both of them.
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I am still baffled on who ok’ed Vol’Jin’s death. That was mother of so many problems.
Another problem I have is that there so many contriviances to make something work, farfetched writing to justify ends meet.
And that ‘diversity’ done wrong (I really hate the word recently), as it’s pretty much sprinkling various NPCs left andright but they don’t really have any real presence, or say anything and when they say something it’s as much bland as the next guy. So it doesn’t really feel like they’re a real characters.
They’re tokens. Not real people that come from specific societies that have certain agency.
So in the end the experience is bland, soulless tasteless and just lacks any flavour.
I think if they’d return to a model where Alliance and Horde has separated questing experience it would address many of my issues.
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Under danusers “reign” of warcraft lore and narrative department were questionable decission made, here a few highlights:
- first one, titans of titans
- the nightwarrior fiasko
- elune be a robot and lifetitan instead of a real deity
- sylvanas story
- arthas story
- malfurion story
- anduin’ story (why was this 18 year old boy so important to the jailor??)
- the sl fiasko in general
- the jailor
- too many retcons to justify his new idea
- chronicle instead of lorebible a pov (its intention was a lore bible)
I mean, its certainly not only danusers idea, a whole team is behind him, but i guess its explained why i see his era as questionable/bad writing.
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Most of those decisions weren’t made by Danuser.
It’s worth noting that Blizzard developes the current expansion before the previous one launches, which means that before Dragonflight even launched they were already working on the 11.0 expansion that will likely drop sometime in 2024.
What that also means is that Shadowlands was being developed before Battle for Azeroth launched and likewise, BFA was being developed before Legion launched. Why is this important though? Well, it’s important because Steve Danuser wasn’t in a position to affect the narrative until after patch 8.1.5 dropped, which is when he was promoted from his role as a quest designer. By the time 8.1.5 dropped, the Shadowlands narrative was already set, the concept of the Jailer and the Eternal Ones was set. So Steve didn’t make those decisions, the previous Narrative Director did. Steve simply inherited the mess and had to clean it up.
The first one were a concept that he brought in our canon, he made the same concept of beings in his former workingplace and he altered a lot of sl plot before releasing
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Again… no.
The concept of the First Ones would have been established early in Shadowlands development, along with the major story beats of the Shadowlands narrative. When that was happening Steve Danuser was not the Narrative Director, he was a Quest Designer.
Dragonflight is actually the first expansion that has been in Danuser’s charge from start to finish. Every previous expansion he’s either had no say in at all, or his influence was hamstrung by the people who wore the shoes that he stepped into.
That’s because Afrasiabi’s attitude may be relevant to the story-telling. Some people have accused some devs of having issues with women in the past. While not entirely true, in hindsight it looks like the claim had some merit, particularly with the Cosby Suite devs - of which Afrasiabi was the worst. Plus, he was in the director’s chair for WoD, Legion and BfA, and what happened on his watch?
- Yrel was shafted in WoD and villain-batted in BfA.
- Sylvanas went over the edge - pun intended - into villainy.
- Ysera is killed off - even gets ridden by the villain at one point.
- Helya is enslaved by Odyn and turns evil in revenge, but she gets all the blame and he gets none.
- Xe’ra is literally sacrificed to make Illidan look “good” in one of WoW’s most edgelord cinematic.
Looks like his treatment of women in WoW mirrors his treatment of them irl (if this comment gets deleted and the banhammer comes down, he might have a few sympathizers still left, so watch this space). Good story is sacrificed to run those characters into the ground regardless of missed opportunities or plot holes it creates.
Danuser = Simplicity
Afrasiabi = Edgelord
Metzen = Spectacle
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I think what that’s what alot of people miss - perhaps intentionally, just to whine.
I was disgusted by Odyn, throughout Legion. Never saw any good in him. Seemed like an angry brat frat boy - and boy, did the inclusion of that get explained with the Cosby Crew.
Afrasiabi’s taint didn’t leave the second he did. A lot of the story was laid out and even implemented in game and designed for the future. Which definitely would extend to the Jailer and the First Ones and the whole aesthetic of Shadowlands.
I would posit that the entirety of BfA and the majority of Shadowlands was from Afrasiabi’s “vision”, and Danuser is probably responsible for the end of Shadowlands and then Dragonflight. I think if Afrasiabi had his way, Anduin was probably being built up to kill Sylvanas with the Arthas sword as some sort of sick call back. But since Danuser came into power in time to change the ending of Shadowlands, he probably decided to turn the tables, and have Sylvanas walk away while Arthas goes poof.
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What I get from the story is that there are some emo dragons that are ticked that their parents didn’t show them enough attention and they’ve decided to wreck the playroom.
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Part of why things have sort of felt off in recent expacs is there has been no executive creative director since Afrasiabi was chucked to the curb. There wasn’t one credited on BFA-DF, though on DF it seems like metzen started basically doing it unofficially as a creative advisor. With no one steering the ship on core creative vision, what they put out was always going to end up feeling stilted.
It’s ridiculous to claim that anything bad that happens to a woman in a story is a reflection of the writers misogyny. Is George R.R. Martin a misogynist because he wrote the red wedding? Was Lysa Arryn being thrown to her death a reflection of his misogyny? If nothing bad can happen to a woman in a story, then that story will be very bland and one dimensional. You’ve effectively given plot armor to every woman in the story, which, incidentally was a major complaint about Sylvanas.
I assume by Yrel being shafted and villain batted you’re referring to Guldans escape and the lights failed attempt to (forcefully) convert the Mag’har to the light. I fail to see how either of these are a reflection of the writers misogyny. Also, Yrel technically won as her main goal was to save Draenor, which she accomplished.
Sylvanas isn’t the first horde leader to fall into villainy. Garrosh went full villain in MoP and WoD. Was Garrosh given a chance to atone for his crimes? No. He was executed by Thrall in Mak’gora. What would happen if these roles were swapped? If Sylvanas was executed by Thrall in Mak’gora would this again be a reflection of the writers misogyny?
Ysera isn’t the only one killed off in that raid tier. Ursoc is killed too. Not only that, his spirit is then destroyed in Shadowlands. You act as if anything bad happening to a feminine character is off limits.
Helya is based of Hel or Halja, the norse half goddess thrown into Niflheim by Odin to rule over unworthy souls. Although the writers take liberties with this idea, I would have to ask if you’re mad at the writers or Norse mythology in general.
Xe’ra isn’t sacrificed to make Illidan look good. (Although it is one of my favorite cutscenes in the game) Xe’ra offered Illidan the gift of the lights power. When this offer is refused Xe’ra attempts to impose this “gift” on him by force. In their quest for order the light is robbing individuals of their self will and self determination. Also, one only need to swap the gender roles of Illidan and Xe’ra to come to a stunning implication.
Based on your examples of narratives that implicate the writers of misogyny, feminine characters can not be killed off, (Ysera, Xe’ra) they can not become villains, (Sylvanas) they can not appear to have lost to the big bad, (Yrel) they are not responsible for their bad actions. (Helya) This is an incredible amount of plot armor, not just physically, but also moral plot armor. What this will lead to is a mundane and boring story, which is exactly what dragonflight is.
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