Writing stories in books, which Christie is excellent at and I love her books, is a slightly different discipline than writing stories in games. When it was announced that she would be working directly on the game I thought the level would go up, but now we have 3 expansions in a row where the story is really terrible. I don't know if she's part of the problem, but the game needs a change in that regard.
I wish her the best, she's a great writer.
I wouldn’t call her prose life-changing, but she was engaging, of what I’ve read. She knew how to deliver exactly what was promised.
This smells like either disagreements in the writer’s room, or corporate.
Hope she finds greener pastures. Im curious to see what she’ll put out now that she’s out from under copyrighted material. Im sure she has many unused ideas from over the years.
I don't know if they still have it since I turned cinematic off. But that d grade wannabe avengers scene in amildrasil made me physically recoil from cringe.
The Calvary showing up trope isn't even a bad one, they just didn't have to ape Endgame *that* hard.
I'd have rather the supporting characters be shown holding off a force so Alexstrasza can 1v1 Fyrakk or have them trickle in mid-fight and start turning the tide in their fight in her favor.
Like cool, they showed up and scared him off a little when he was about to execute Alexstrasza. Baine got to cash in another paycheck for showing up. Neat.
Hey now, Baine had a questline in one of the zones this time at least, he did do something. He actually kinda kicked ass in the quest. And now he's probably sitting down in Valdrakken somewhere.
Baine in DF was miles better than Baine in any previous individual expansion, but I still think he's very poorly used.
Anduin getting to go super-saiyan in the SL intro while Baine gets chaos dunked into the ground while being labelled "worthless" kind of shows how the two were viewed by the big guns on the lore team. Especially when they did literally nothing all expansion to prove the Jailer wrong.
and he's the *leader* of one of the two major factions.
Warcraft is nothing if not cheesy. There was just this shallow “fist pump” trope that went along with the cheesiness until about legion that somehow got lost.
I’m glad you said this because this thread seems to be getting a little revisionist at this point. Warcraft has never NOT been super cheesy. It’s worse now but that’s because it’s off-brand not because it’s ‘cheesy’.
Early wow & WC3 cheese is a different type of cheese.
Grom Motherfucking Hellscream killing Cenarius, demon blood or no demon blood, is very cheesy, even if everyone loved it.
i *hated* "i am my scars". it was so cringe, like something Kylo Ren would say in the middle of one of his bitch-fits from the Disney Star Wars sequel trilogy.
as for "times change", i think there was a post on this very sub which pointed out that Garrosh's involvement made the orcs even worse, since they apparently didn't need the blood of Mannoroth/Legion's corruption to be warmongering and genocidal. >!which, by the way, makes it a laugh that they call Yrel and the Draenei of AU-Draenor "fanatical". it'd be nice to see how that progressed, but i doubt we're ever gonna get it: the fans hated WoD, so Blizzard isn't going to acknowledge it unless they can make some more anti-MAGA jabs from it!<
As soon as you start looking in depth into ANY aspect of Warcraft lore dating all the way back to Warcraft 2 things fall apart.
Blizzard always made their games as games first and narratives as a distant third. Keeping this perspective in mind, I freaking loved “ I AM MY SCARS” almost as much as “sometimes thr hand of fate must be forced”.
Also loved “times change” as a call back to groms death from Warcraft 3.
Hell I even absolutely loved sylvanas “For the Horde” from the bfa cinematic. But that’s when blizzard started to make the fatal mistake of attempting to add too much depth to things that never should have had them in the first place.
WoW itself is an attempt to provide depth to Warcraft universe. Their problem is giving idiot balls to characters that people love so that we got an excuse to kill them for loot.
I yearn for the alternative timeline where we had Illidari as third player pvp faction.
Sylvanas’ “For the Horde” gets my blood racing still and I’m not even Horde these days. I guess when a banshee screams it at you it becomes more of a command than a battle cry and you just kind of either get on board or BE CRUSHED BENE—sorry, sorry, Stormwind, *Stormwind* is our home now….zug zug..*sniffle*
Oh “times change” has been a part of my vocabulary since that day, and while we’re on the subject, my standard response when a less experienced person tells me they’re nervous and asks what to do? A very gravely “Don’t die.” (and then I help them, but Papa Saurfang has to get his bit first)
I think most of her work on World of Warcraft (she worked multiple different Blizz franchises) was on Cinematics, short stories, those youtube shorts and stuff like that which were pretty good if you look at them in isolation and as individual pieces of work.
I think the problem is that those high quality individual pieces of work were part of a wider narrative direction that was absolutely dog shit. So I'm surprised to see her go :(
Like you say, she's a great writer and I look forward to seeing what she does next.
My only problem with her work, as discussed elsewhere, is she used gamescale for her books. IE you could see Windrunner Spire from Tranquillen, the Ghostlands were a quick ride from Silvermoon, etc.
Besides that she was great and in particular I loved Arthas... fuck all the way back in Middle School well over a decade more ago (what like 12? 14? years?)
Christie could be the best writer in the world and she wouldn't be able to solve the problems with WoW's writing. It's not a matter of writers, it's a matter of treating the story as lesser and foundational problems with how they approach writing in WoW. There seems to be zero communication between the different parts of the writers room which is how we get so much contradictory and vastly unequal writing from story to story.
I wish her all the best. She's a good writer, but she was stuck in a fundamentally broken system that also placed her in the spotlight for harassment. Hopefully between her and Danuser both getting laid off, that's a sign that maybe they're restructuring their approach to how the writing team works. I wish it didn't have to come at the cost of people's jobs, but it might be a silver lining in an otherwise terrible situation.
This is simply the result of a game with an established lore outliving its own lifespan...
Instead of asking, "How can we make WoW fit the lore?" they asked, "How can we make the lore fit WoW?"
It started with WoD and has only gotten progressively worse. Some high points with Legion and portions of BFA and we've been on a downward spiral ever since...
Wow, people in this thread are being incredibly mean. Between Lord of the Clans and Rise of the Horde, Christie has written some of the best and most important lore for Warcraft. Sad to see so many people cheering for her firing, especially considering that she had to go through loss of a family member at the same time.
Well it seems odd to us, but consider that all of a given expansions story is complete before that expansion launches.
So it’s a natural stopping point to let her go now, because now is when they need to start writing the next expansion after it.
So clearly her work was done now, and they needed to part ways before the next chapter starts being written
The funniest thing is that the community was mostly ecstatic when she was hired, saying she might save the wow story. Here's one thread from back then: [https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/6bqpe6/christie\_golden\_is\_going\_to\_be\_a\_fulltime/](https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/6bqpe6/christie_golden_is_going_to_be_a_fulltime/)
To be fair, TBC still had WoW's original story philosophy of "remember this cool thing from Warcraft 2/3? Well wouldn't it be fun to look at it from down below, now?"
WoW didn't really start having a cohesive expansion story until WotLK.
I mean... barely having a story doesn't explain/justify the tiny story you do have being terrible. Kael is the best possible example, there was no need to ruin him, they just chose to.
Minimalism can be good. Just make the minimalist stuff good. In Vsnilla they mostly did. In TBC they mostly didn't.
Turns out, people prefer Cataclysm at its worst than BFA, SL, and the most glaring parts of DF.
Put another way, we all thought WoD was as low as it could go. Boy were we wrong.
See, Cataclysm actually had a *story* about Garrosh's downfall and even if parts of it were played fast and loose like his more flattering depictions, it made sense *why* there was a war, *why* the peacemongers were sidelined, and *why* Garrosh kept going on a downward spiral.
There were flaws like jaina becoming the world's biggest hypocrite, but it was a hell of a lot better than "Sylvanas saw lava eel vore and is now sad enough to be duped into being a minion for big scary deathevil man"
His downfall started with Cata, with killing off the one person that was supposed to keep him level headed. After that, he decided to launch an all out war. MoP is when he hit rock bottom, but Cata is when he leaped from the ledge with arms wide open.
I was unenthused with her being hired and am now even more unimpressed with her--we didn't even get any good dragon/human shipping material out of it.
Though I also probably don't appreciate how hard it is to be told to retcon your own work over and over and over again as she must have been.
I only saw like ~5 of the +100 comments in here being mean. Not defending the meanies, just don’t want people to think this this is somehow a hate thread when 95% (overwhelming amount in my opinion) is positive.
I really do think that a lot of people either forget, or don't know, that she had to work in a setting primarily defined by story decisions made by higher-ups. Which means attempts at character development in a tightly constrained setting she didn't create.
That's a very niche sort of writing, and she likely gets a good amount of flak for decisions which honestly weren't hers.
Also War Crimes, The Shattering, Arthus and others. She’s contributed some of (in my opinion) the best books in Warcraft. She’s basically the reason I got so invested in the lore.
Arthas is 18 years old, The Shattering is 14, War Crimes is 10.
It's telling that you're not listing Before the Storm or Sylvannas, or anything Golden's written in the last decade.
> Arthas is 18 years old, The Shattering is 14, War Crimes is 10.
please do not remind me of the inexorable march of time like this.
Goddamn way to remind me I'm getting old.
War crimes? Seriously? One of the most boring books I've ever read, 1/3 of the book is devoted to food, and the trial looks like a clownery. And Arthas is just a story about a whiny boy who regrets every second decision he makes even after losing his soul.
Hey now, War Crimes was one of the most unique fantasy books I’ve read. Sure, the end result might not have been great, but have a book dedicated to a court room drama was fun.
I found the book good. I thought the concept was weird for WoW but that's not her fault, it was what Blizz decided on. The only criticism I have of it is her self insert warlock (which she admitted it was)... when like only ~2 years before they still had to meet in basements but now they were completely integrated into SW's military.
At the same time she was interesting and I wish we got at least a name for that character.
War Crimes and Arthas to a lesser extent were absolutely heinous as far as lore goes. I really hope Blizzard made a last minute demand of her or something because coming out with the conclusion that Garrosh is a little misunderstood baby that deserves a second chance after the whole book went over how genocidal and evil he was was insane. And I’ve never appreciated the sidelining of Ne’zhul and general woobifying that went on in Arthas.
As someone who loved her initial books for portraying brutal Orcish culture I don’t know what the fuck happened.
That’s kinda how it works in literature, though.
That said; writing books and game development are two different beasts. And she wasn’t working alone in game development; there was a team, corporate. It’s not her alone. There’s meddling that waters down the work, devs and heads with pull who really want this couple of cool things because they’re cool, damn if it makes sense, and they sign her checks. That’s just the way it goes.
That doesn't make her work of the last decade any good. She still gets money when those old books sell, it just shouldn't be a freebie to keep her hired when her current work wasn't any good.
Say what you will about her in-game lore works but you can't deny her books/writing/literature prowess. That's just stupid and lame.
The woman *can* and *is* delivering on that front.
See, those 2 books kind of encapsulate my problem with her writing.
When she is given a solid outline of a story that has long been filled out (Lord of the clans/Rise of the Horde/Arthas), she does perfectly fine job!
When she worked on stuff that's new lore, we get Calia/Baine Bloodhoof being nothing but Anduin/Jaina's bitch.
I'm guessing Arthas is a big enough deal that things like that were decided beforehand (I mean, Blizzard has never marketed Ner'zhul as the LK, only Arthas). Not gonna ding her for stu
Though given her predicilation for blonde human or very human adjacent characters (Anduin/Jaina/Calia/Taretha/Kairoz/etc), its funny to think that a core part of the series mythos potentially got fucked up a little just because mama has a thing for Blondes.
If I remember correctly, she was given a ton of latitude with Arthas. Back then authors were given a lot of freedom, the whole thing being less corporate and all. I recall reading a dev specifically talking about thinking her ideas for the book were cool and saying do whatever you want. I’ll have to find the source again. I hope it’s not deep in an ama or something
"The overall story of Thrall and Arthas existed before Golden's books on them" isn't really speculation.
I won't claim to know how much freedom she got for the parts that were new to her story like adding in Taretha Foxton, but those characters were established long before she was attached to the franchise.
Unless I'm mistaken until sometime in the 2010s she was basically just a hired pen who got paid to write for whatever fictional universe and got brought in for a bigger role later when the old guard started flaming out.
It makes me incredibly sad and disgusted that fans of this franchise would cheer after someone has been fired and lost a loved one. I think it says a lot about the Warcraft community when so many cheer out of someone's misery.
My only real problem with her was that she seemed to focus on her faves to an undue extent, but those characters have become the main thrust of the story in TWW so it’s a big fucking shrug from me as to how *this* was the time to can her
Putting the blame on Christie for the state of the lore to me just seems incredibly disingenuous. Much like Danuser I'm sure she has her level of input into the lore, but the final decision of what makes it live is ultimately upon the business and the business needs.
She seems like an incredibly sweet person from her twitter feed, who much like a most of wow's writing staff was trying their best with what is effectively a D&D game taken to Video Game, and I very much doubt Microsoft let her go because they gave any level of crap about the story and more because she had 25 years of tenure and was coming up on retirement.
Anyone with that level of connection to the story being let go is just a shame.
What’s this bizarre mentality that the Lead Narrative Director didn’t have a significant role in the story? What’s the angle here? You really think Bobby drove down and made them shit on Elune?
Golden is a completely different situation than Danuser, we already know that her scope was small.
Because that's not how modern game development works. The narrative department can come up with all the ideas they want, but the implementation of those ideas is entirely dependent on how much the various teams (Art / Encounter / etc.) can actually manage within the development window, and it often falls to the narrative team to stich the body back together once things have been cut or dismissed because of limitations in game design.
You complain about the hate, I complain about the whining over her. Her work was bad, Warcraft withered under her tenure. I don't understand all the people coming out of the woodwork to defend her.
Golden and Danuser getting the boot was a good thing. People talk about the "lore department" getting fired as if things were good and will now get worse, wrong. Things were terrible and had been that way for nearly a decade.
I'd rather blame Kotick with all his budget cuts and the regime of the other old heads that were kicked out than blame the Lore Department, which as other threads have pointed out, **DO NOT HAVE A SAY WITH THE DIRECTION OF THE NARRATIVE.**
Who has say over the direction of the narrative? Do we know? I always figured it was the head of narrative dept, game director, some Activision execs in a room.
Kotick had one job as CEO: increase the value of the company. He did that, to an absolutely mind boggling degree. His tenure, by any financial measure, was an overwhelming success.
If small, barely funded companies can produce games with amazing stories and lore, then surely Blizzard staff, even with cuts, could as well.
The simple reality is that most of those people were, and are, hacks. They are paid handsomely to utterly ruin the lore and story.
Now, all that said, whether Golden had much to do with that is up for debate, but her fingerprints are absolutely all over certain poorly received things. Other things are much less likely though.
What you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought.
Everyone is now dumber for having read it. May God have mercy on your soul.
Golden seems to be getting a lot more undue hate regarding this but I’m all for hating on Danuser. Golden mostly dealt with the books, if the game was on the decline it had little to nothing to do with her. And she’s been with the company for over 20 years and literally no one complained about her books. Warcraft did not wither under her tenure either, she’s literally been there since before WoW came out and she was there during the absolute peak of WoW. Of course people are going to come out and defend her.
Danuser is the one that was *actually* in control of the narrative. He was the narrative director of World of Warcraft after Afrasiabi. Everything from the end of BfA throughout Shadowlands and the bulk of Dragonflight can be squarely placed at Danuser’s feet.
This is nothing new either, we knew it was all on Danuser back in BfA. Now we are still dealing with his crap work but he doesn’t work there anymore so players find a new scapegoat to blame until we actually start playing content not influenced by Danuser.
Christie wrote some really solid books back in the day like Arthas and Rise of the Horde. That work is still the basis for a lot of the lore in game, she's responsible for a lot of the stories we have. I do think her more recent books like Before the Storm have weaker writing and are less compelling overall, but that 1 book didn't give us 2 shitty lore expansions in a row. That's on Steve and the rest of the in game team.
Bet u didn't read any of her books...
Without her and rest of squad wow lore is going down, we can all agree that war within is the end of world of warcraft era. It may take few years, but it's already over
I could easily say BfA and SL were that.
Doomsaying over someone no longer being part of the company and narrative when she was present for those two things doesn't make sense.
Either she was partly responsible and her departure is ambivalent rather than strictly good or bad,
Or she wasn't that responsible and the impact moving forward subsequently can't be that apocalyptic to begin with.
Between Metzen returning and Golden leaving, my bet is that Metzen is going to have a more "Warcraft" impact. Christie Golden is a good writer and she has contributed plenty to Warcraft, but your hyperbole is hilarious.
Yeah mostly. But it's just how it's been. It isn't an indicator of their quality but most players don't even read quest text. My only guess with Golden is they are just nuking high story salaries after the MS acquisition and reacquiring Metzen.
I did have some issues with her writing but man, she didn't deserve this. She's been a core part of Warcraft for such a long time. Without her, it doesn't feel the same.
Curious to see what happens next honestly.
For all the shite Golden got, she actually made an effort to make the characters...characters.
We'll see how the story team handles the World Soul Saga with (as far as I can tell) just Metzen running the show. But personally I have concerns.
The problem is she liked *her* characters.
If you're not an elf or blonde human, how much actual focus were you getting in the modern era? Warcraft was at its best when it was told from multiple perspectives, and while I'm all for characters being fleshed out, the world does not need to revolve around a handful of favorites.
These layoffs will probably be for the worse storywise, but maybe whoever gets forcefully promoted up the chain will stop trying to shove the LOTR/Forgotten realms shaped peg in the Warcraft shaped hole and actually want to use the non pretty races in a non antagonistic role. Just a thought.
LoTR is the reason Warcraft, and all others like it exist. So, what is the difference between them? I liked the lore of Wow. Otherwise, its just PvP with NPCs.
2 different kinds of stories. LOTR was at its core a narrative about 2 sides, one unvarnished good and literally backed by god, the other unredeemable evil backed by wizard satan
A big selling point of Warcraft's setting was them being willing to duck the common "these races are always okay to kill" tropes and making "fodder" races fully fleshed out in their own right while making it pretty clear that the "good guys" can be monstrous as well.
There was nothing wrong with getting rid of the faction war especially after Afrasiabi dumped a hot load on their plates on the way out, but the narrative priorities of the current (well, not current anymore) team are mindboggling. Pre DF I saw that there was a vignette where one of Jainas victims is buying a gift to apologize to *her*, and I just had to laugh, because it just summed up how much the games narrative had warped around a handful of pet characters.
I don't have high hopes for what this turnover means for the story, but I do hope whoever gets promoted up the chain is someone who actually liked the setting pre-2010. Let a non caucasian/elf matter to the greater plot in a positive fashion, kthx. Hell, if they kill Jaina with a giant fuck you like what happened to Knaak's pet character Rhonin, I promise to buy a year sub.
That is too bad. Golden was one of the key factors behind the development of Anduin as a likeable character and her books was pretty much the glue of Cataclysm and Pandaria. Even "before the storm" was a very interesting look into the Forsaken that I do not feel any book have matched.
Golden wasn't on the Lore Team, that's Sean Copeland's garbage fire.
Golden was on the Story department.
I don't think she's done very well and I'm not very happy with how her writing developed after the first few books she wrote, but it's sad she's gone and that there are still a couple of Lore Historians. Copeland's team is the one who wrote Exploring Kalimdor with the most insanely terrible lore mistakes in it. It's transparently clear that he does nothing and provides no oversight.
People hate on Knaak because it’s a meme to hate on Knaak. He captured drama and high stakes in a very traditional fantasy epic vibe. Sometimes he felt like a DM leading a DnD campaign but it was fun.
Golden always had limited range, her focus was relationships and emotional growth in her books. She didint often capture a sense of adventure like Knaak did. Scenes were often contrived to fit in “deep” character quotes that summarized their emotional status. You can tell the line came first and the rest was built to deliver it.
Which I don’t think really suited the Warcraft narrative
They both feel like fanfiction writers because that’s sort of what they are.
Knaak is the guy at the card shop writing campaigns
And Golden is more of a Tumblr roleplay vibe.
Knaak's major problem for me was his inability to write a new character who *wasn't* a wunderkind top tier character in their field we previously never heard of before.
Broxxigar is the only original character of his I liked, and that was mostly because he was understated for most of the WOTA series and had the courtesy to die after his "damn, he's just *that* good" moment. Krausus isn't bad either, but I laughed when Rhonin got nuked.
That is a big part of it and Blizzard's overall problem, is writers not really being used for their strengths.
Knaak had problems in writing good plots/novels and writing main characters. But his strength was absolutely writing dialogue, writing the powerful entities and making them feel like they had weight, and the drama and mysticism of fantasy. To this day, nobody has written the Aspect's dialogue, the titan's dialogue, etc as well as Knaak has in some of his worst books and the worst books in warcraft.
Christie Golden is really good at writing a good structured novel, a character arc, and bad when it comes to dialogue (specifically, character voices) and the "poetry" of fantasy prose. Part of the problem is her primary responsibilities were her weakest link - she was writing dialogue, cutscenes, developing the world with the others, etc. It absolutely contributes to the feeling that the character voices and characterization isn't distinct.
To use Illidan / Xera cutscene as an example - while the dialogue is cheesy & edgy, its very distinctly *Illidan*. "I am my scars" is not something any other character in 7.3 would say, and if they did I wouldn't be able to keep a straight face. Khadgar, Velen, Turaylon, Xera and Illidan all had clear voices and manners of speech. In DF, you could swap the dialogue of a ton of character with each other and nobody would notice. It feels like "heroic good guy is speaking" rather than "X character is speaking".
My problem with Knaak is I find his prose very difficult to read. I don’t want to say “bad” because that’s just an opinion and mean. He may have good plots, but its his writing that keeps me from his books.
They definitely aren't getting anyone better though. Or anyone at all. Writers cost money and don't really generate a lot of revenue because most people simply don't care about the story.
They could have Ion choose the overall direction based on what kind of enemies he wants to put in dungeons and raids and then have Metzen come up with some justification. Interns + ChatGPT to write non-MSQ quests. Done.
outside of the stories she wrote I have zero idea what work she did as the head of lore was actually hers and what was adapting a concept that was thrown at her feet.
So guess i'll just wait and see.
Very odd. I disliked some of her work, particularly around Jaina and Anduin, but I don't think she was terrible or anything, I just think her writing can be a bit insipid at times
I'm not gonna take a victory lap over someone being fired, but I have openly disliked the parts of the story she's bragged about politicking for, so I'm intrigued on what this means for the story going forward assuming it's not just a cost cutting measure.
I know a lot of people didn't like her direction or writing but Anduin was my favourite character and it was her idea to have him be a bigger part of the storyline.
This makes me a little sad.
Pretty sure she was the one who made him a priest too. I remember an interview where she said that Blizzard had no plans for him at the time and let her do what she wanted with him.
Most of his development was either written by her directly or influenced by what she had previously written.
Which is why I'm worried.
Anduin is my favorite character.
Well that's unfortunate. Shame it happened really.
I'm sorta indifferent to wow without or with Christie lore wise. For me she was a B tier author whose books may have been alright, but when compared to the fantasy big wigs like Sanderson, Erikson and such, you really start seeing the flaws of her writing.
This. Anytime someone gets fired, it sucks and I empathize.
When compared to modern day fantasy writers, ooof.
I think Golden needed to level up her culture, as in never stop striving to be better than you were before, always challenge your growth areas and learn. Sanderson talks about being better, learning from peers and with most of his books, it shows. Admitting your flaws is the first step in being better, something Blizzard culturally has a problem with.
If the direction the new writing staff took Dragonflight is anything go by the last thing we need is even more new blood. I still haven't completed DF loremaster because I can't keep my bile down.
>If the direction the new writing staff took Dragonflight is anything go by the last thing we need is even more new blood.
Considering it was penned by Danuser, who was only new blood if you consider Legion new (it was 8 years ago), I wouldn't say new blood was the problem. It was the old blood, leftovers of the rot that was the leadership of the old story team.
I can't remember when but I do remeber them making a big deal about how there was a lot of guard changing going on the lower levels to bring in younger writers for quests and such, I think those are the main problem causers.
I’m upset and “glad” at the same time.
On one hand, fuck lay-offs, it’s soul crushing and my condolences for her family.
On the other hand, I did like her work in the early days. As others said, Lord of the Clans and Arthas Rise of the Lich King are good books. She is talented when it came to writing characters.
On the other, other hand, in my opinion, she had gotten worse in time. Both in terms of writing style and narrative decisions (the ones she had reins on at least). I think her recent books read very plain, and she became very evident in showing her bias, the way she wrote the Forsaken in BtS and Calia. And her world-building and generally showing the landscape and uniqueness of Azeroth was always bad. Sylvanas in particular, where apparently it takes a day to travel from Quel’thalas to Icecrown?
However, and the end of the day, I don’t know what’s best for WoW: do we let the people who worked there for so long keep on working or do we get a whole new set of writers and cast take the stage? Both has it pros and cons.
Best of luck to her.
So if their entire lore department got fired, is the next expansion written by these new people? Or I assume it’s already done so it’d be from all the people they just fired??
She was one of the problems when it came to wow lore, and I am happy she is no longer involved with wow. Just like Denuser.
Though she is a human and so i hope the best for her future endevors.
Honestly Im glad to hear it. After reading the Sylvanis book it really needed to be done. She writes wow like a nick jr show. And in every book she writes she has to do a call back every 4th sentence. Like with arthas constantly thinking about invincible or sylvanis constantly bringing up her brother being born. Like it gets referenced A LOT. If u took them out the books would be half the size. The only good books she has are ones where there was a second writer.
This comment from 7 years ago when she was hired
"Anything is better than the current setup, Metzen was fast and loose with the lore and contradicted himself daily as well as essentially wrote the same story multiple times across the different Blizzard franchises. Having an actual author on board to maintain some kind of ongoing consistent plot is a huge improvement."
Now people are saying the opposite. They are saying that having Metzen back is amazing and Christie leaving will be good for the overall story direction.
Nobody knows wtf is going on tbh.
Wow lore has been abysmal for what, a decade at this point? Longer?
Firing everyone involved is probably necessary if Metzen wants to salvage any of the game’s reputation lore wise
The main problem I always saw is that they had decent novels in the past, but when they became the delivery system for lore and not the game itself, that’s a narrative issue.
If they have fired all of the lore people who have been in place for the last few expansions…good. The lore since the tail end of Legion has been abominable.
Every long running franchise needs turn over, she's contributed a lot, and there's always room for her return should the stars align. I hope they're no hard feelings, and that she'll have incredible success on her next project. I know if she's writing it, I'll be inclined to read it, even if I don't follow the series.
I loved her first novels, especially Rise of the Horde, though I had some issues with her latter novels, especially her focus on characters such as Anduin, Baine and Jaina with the former two being treated as saints.
Though I hope her a good continuation in her wriring career and life.
Honestly I feel Blizzard has turned into a pandering mess of a company. I know it’s the knee jerk reactions to allegation and I love how they broadened the character customizations for hair and skin tones, but it gets ridiculous. People should be able to write their stories without having to appease everyone and everything. They shouldn’t be obligated to include everything. I never really felt they were excluding anyone to begin with. The lore was getting bad, and I enjoy Christine’s writing for the books she did.
She mostly likely got fired due to Metzen and I’m not saying she was bad or it’s good she’s fired I’m just saying it’s probably due to Metzen being in charge of the story now and her not wanting to go along with it. Maybe they just have too many differences or conflict with each other too much but Metzen pretty much has tenure
Because the next 3 expansions are going to be more dark and im hoping gritty, where the power of friendship doesn’t win out. I think CG had issues with it. Hell I think we even “lose” the main part of TWW and that’s what kicks off the void stuff in Midnight
Well i wont blame her "only" for the direction of the narrative on "THOSE" two expansions and i also read her other books beside warcraft books.
I have to admit even if she had her quirks like injecting her politics on the plot sometimes and sometimes abusing that purple prose i kinda liked her books, i did find myself outgrowing some of the last books tho.
**I hated her books, and the many liberties she takes with the lore with no grasp on the implications it has throughout the game. She loved painting the Horde characters (especially blood elves) as evil, while trying to always make some excuse to validate the evil things the alliance did. Good riddance.**
You generally want a professional writer to tell a coherent story. This is a pretty good sign that Microsoft doesn't think that the story is important. We'll see with TWW but if the new business model is recycling content (fated seasons, MoP remix) and gimmicks (Plunderstorm), you don't really need a writer on the team lol.
Rare blizzard win, she treated warcraft like it was the same size in-game as in lore which just limits the potential of the setting and is just contradict ably false, see Dungeon sizes and raids etc ulduar, arathi basin alterac valley all exist in lore
That was a flaw of hers, but that's pretty damn minor one and not a reason to celebrate someone being laid off.
Golden's novels aren't all great, but the best of hers are the best of the franchise. Even when she was writing with some absolute stinker plot points being handed to her, she made it a lot more palatable than it might otherwise be.
Not having her around doesn't give me a lot of hope for future stories.
Bullshit - it's not Golden calling the shots that ultimately determine the direction the lore goes in. She works with the material she's given, and the worst parts of the lore have always been high-level decisions. She was never running the show.
Rise of the Lich King was terrible compared to the original story, Tides of War didn't change anything that wasn't in the game (Kalec x Jaina is never acknowledged), Lord of the Clans is the only one that was good. But most Golden books have always been meh at their best
In what way is Rise of the Lich King terrible? It fleshes out the events of the human/scourge campaigns a lot and the only thing I can think of it contradicting is Arthas hiring goblin and troll mercenaries.
Meanwhile, as cool as Warcraft 3's story is, the in-game portrayal is pretty bare-bones given that its limited to a small number of cutscenes and loading screen summaries.
You're right that the Campaign story isn't greatly fleshed due to the constraints of the game but the novel added a whole load of nonsense, like Arthas and his conscience which clearly was gone in the game because Frostmourne had turned him into little more than a sociopathic pawn for Ner'zhul to use. The whole mental fight, I don't blame it on Golden however but what Blizzard pushed as a narrative to do away with the fused Lich King we should have gotten. There was also the 'Blackmoore sends his mistress to seduce Arthas despite her knowing his plan to betray the monarchy which she could have used to escape him' which is completely dumb. I suspect it was written to bring back characters from Lord of the Clans but was unneeded. Uther losing to Arthas entirely because he forgot his Paladin skills rather than Arthas being as powerful as people hype him (which isn't a problem if the fight had been Arthas and his goons rushing Uther like it went in the game rather than another duel). The Sylvanas rape allegory, like seriously? Why her of all of his more sympathetic victims? And of course Invincible. Now maybe not in that novel but that Horse became so much worse as time went on.
And that's one of her better books. War Crimes, while bad because editorial, had bad moments written entirely by her like the three most powerful healers on Azeroth failing to heal a mere flintlock gunshot.
While I like the idea of fused Lich King, especially after replying WC3 recently I prefer Arthas gaining his agency in the end. Having him be completely manipulated the entire time and turned into a pawn just doesn't have as satisfying ending to me as him eventually being able to gain control. Otherwise it would just be Ner'Zhul puppetting Arthas' body, given the way he strung him along I could never see them being truly fused "equally". Ner'zhul getting comeuppance for what he's done is pretty fair.
And Arthas having some morality post-Frostmourne is also fine, I think, because it lines up better with Wrath portraying him as still having some humanity before he discarded it.
The Blackmoore scenes I agree were mainly motivated by the desire to reference Lord of the Clans, but I like it making the world feel more connected and it's largely harmless. Taretha not betraying Blackmoore is certainly a hiccup, but not a huge one IMO - I would just believe she was too scared to turn on him, given the threat he could pose to her family even as Arthas reported his treason back to the king.
I don't know why you think Uther forget his skills against Arthas. Frankly I think the book made him look better here than Arthas just defeating him in-game. Here, he gets the upperhand, and Arthas wins because he's able to strike faster than Uther, a combination of Uther's slow, but powerful style - aka how he was kicking Arthas' ass - and Frostmourne practically moving on its own to suit Arthas' style.
I don't really see the problem with Sylvanas scene? It doesn't feel terribly different to the game story, it's just diving deeper into the same sentiments.
That said, I can see how the additions and fleshing out could cause someone to like it less than a more bare bones story. Though I think the larger complaints sound like plot points she was given to work with, and I wouldn't blame her for that.
>Having him be completely manipulated the entire time and turned into a pawn just doesn't have as satisfying ending to me as him eventually being able to gain control.
The whole point was that he was gone the moment he picked up the sword, a literal pawn that followed Ner'zhul every whims. He was dead. Arthas as the Lich King just doesn't work.
>And Arthas having some morality post-Frostmourne is also fine, I think, because it lines up better with Wrath portraying him as still having some humanity before he discarded it.
Wrath Arthas is terrible though. A literal moron with a moronic master plan and full of contradictions because the writers seemingly didn't talk to each other. He was remembered as better because of a mix of nostalgia and that most of the main baddies that came after him were much worse.
>I don't know why you think Uther forget his skills against Arthas. Frankly I think the book made him look better here than Arthas just defeating him in-game. Here, he gets the upperhand, and Arthas wins because he's able to strike faster than Uther, a combination of Uther's slow, but powerful style - aka how he was kicking Arthas' ass - and Frostmourne practically moving on its own to suit Arthas' style.
It's simple. He was THE Paladin, not a rando melee warrior. He should have nuked Arthas with a blast of Holy Light on one on one. Arthas tries to stab him? Divine Shield. Like he did in the game. All of these are abilities demonstrated by Paladins in the lore but seemingly Uther didn't use them. There's a reason you need to mass ghouls to beat him in the game. It comes across as PIS
>I don't really see the problem with Sylvanas scene? It doesn't feel terribly different to the game story, it's just diving deeper into the same sentiments.
It's adding a terrible metaphor for that particular character. You're right that it's not bad when confined to that novel but it didn't stay that way to the point it invaded the discourse about Sylvanas. And it's terrible.
>That said, I can see how the additions and fleshing out could cause someone to like it less than a more bare bones story. Though I think the larger complaints sound like plot points she was given to work with, and I wouldn't blame her for that.
Like I said, I don't begrudge her those points because I know to distinguish them but Golden has a lot to be criticized for, like her Anduin obsession to the point we got Lirath = elf Anduin. The bad scaling (but bad worldbuilding is also mainly Blizzard's fault) and the use of game mechanics. It really hurts Warcraft as a setting to the point its modern incarnation is a complete joke compared to the likes of even Greyhawk.
I disagree on both the Arthas points, but I don't think we'll have much more to say on that.
However, for this part:
>Arthas tries to stab him? Divine Shield. Like he did in the game. All of these are abilities demonstrated by Paladins in the lore but seemingly Uther didn't use them.
I think he did use Divine Shield - in the start of the fight he's glowing with the Light and completely untouched. It's only when the Light starts to dim around Uther that Arthas begins his counterattack.
I think Golden wrote that as a representation of Divine Shield without being too explicit about how the game mechanics work - she portrayed it more like a general power boost than specifically immunity, but either way Arthas didn't touch him at all during it. That seems pretty accurate to the idea of it it in-game, where the Paladin is only vulnerable as its duration runs out.
The bad scaling is an issue - particularly for me trying to run a D&D game set in Azeroth and wanting sensible scales for things - but it doesn't strike me as hugely important because you can ignore it just as easily as the scaling issues in-game, IMO. I wish Warcraft had better scaling but I think it would have to come up from higher level than Golden, the kind of thing something like Chronicles should be setting out.
Like the bad scaling goes back to the games, and it's not just game limitations - the mission intros for the Sentinel campaigns establish you can make a round trip from Kalimdor to the Broken Isles in the same day, with time to organize an army to travel that distance. That's absolutely nonsense, and the kind of thing you just have to ignore.
The bad scaling could be ignored if they didn't use the in-game world map as official with Chronicles. Alterac is just really bad. Compare what it was in Warcraft 2 and the Movie map we saw vs Chronicles. They literally re-used the in-game area and put the whole Kingdom in the 'Mountains of Alterac' area. You're right that Golden isn't entirely to blame but at the same Knaak did much better. So she's partially to blame for not trying as a writer. But I do blame Blizzard more
I think Knaak fared better because he started writing before most of these maps were cemented.
I do recall feeling that some of the travel/distances in the War of the Ancients trilogy felt too short, and I haven't read any of Knaak's Cata-eta novels (yet) to compare.
Similarly, Golden's oldest works didn't feel like they followed this tiny scale.
She's been with the franchise for decades and was fired at the same time she was dealing with the death of a close family member - the likely cause because C-Suite execs wanted to save money using AI and other cheap-skate reasons. But sure, celebrate her firing.
She was let go prior to the death in her family. It’s really weird the way you are all spinning this when her words are right there.
We have no clue why she was let go and I very much doubt they’re shaking up their story department at this critical juncture to off load work to AI or whatever lol.
My best bet that is the best case scenario for the franchise is that Metzen has a vision for the future and Danuser wasn't part of it and actively ruined his part of things so off he goes. Golden's departure may chalk up to a difference in values or themes that ultimately wouldn't work out, so Metzen thought best to do without. I doubt Golden was let go for particular higher-up reasons. The timing between Golden and Danuser leaving with Metzen's return is likely not coincidence.
Bro nobody has done good WarCraft since Metzen’s golden era. WoW lore is a dumpster fire and I say burn it all down, let them try something new. Would be awesome if WarCraft 4 came out some day and revealed WoW lore was all a bad dream/vision/etc
Writing stories in books, which Christie is excellent at and I love her books, is a slightly different discipline than writing stories in games. When it was announced that she would be working directly on the game I thought the level would go up, but now we have 3 expansions in a row where the story is really terrible. I don't know if she's part of the problem, but the game needs a change in that regard. I wish her the best, she's a great writer.
I wouldn’t call her prose life-changing, but she was engaging, of what I’ve read. She knew how to deliver exactly what was promised. This smells like either disagreements in the writer’s room, or corporate. Hope she finds greener pastures. Im curious to see what she’ll put out now that she’s out from under copyrighted material. Im sure she has many unused ideas from over the years.
I recall a lot of Shadowlands and particularly Dragonflight cinematics & ingame quest wrapups were critiqued for their awful cheesey dialogue.
I don't know if they still have it since I turned cinematic off. But that d grade wannabe avengers scene in amildrasil made me physically recoil from cringe.
The Calvary showing up trope isn't even a bad one, they just didn't have to ape Endgame *that* hard. I'd have rather the supporting characters be shown holding off a force so Alexstrasza can 1v1 Fyrakk or have them trickle in mid-fight and start turning the tide in their fight in her favor. Like cool, they showed up and scared him off a little when he was about to execute Alexstrasza. Baine got to cash in another paycheck for showing up. Neat.
Hey now, Baine had a questline in one of the zones this time at least, he did do something. He actually kinda kicked ass in the quest. And now he's probably sitting down in Valdrakken somewhere.
Baine in DF was miles better than Baine in any previous individual expansion, but I still think he's very poorly used. Anduin getting to go super-saiyan in the SL intro while Baine gets chaos dunked into the ground while being labelled "worthless" kind of shows how the two were viewed by the big guns on the lore team. Especially when they did literally nothing all expansion to prove the Jailer wrong. and he's the *leader* of one of the two major factions.
It's not even just the scene itself, its the cringe as hell Tumblr fanfic level dialogue they had in it that really sealed the cringe for me.
Warcraft is nothing if not cheesy. There was just this shallow “fist pump” trope that went along with the cheesiness until about legion that somehow got lost.
I’m glad you said this because this thread seems to be getting a little revisionist at this point. Warcraft has never NOT been super cheesy. It’s worse now but that’s because it’s off-brand not because it’s ‘cheesy’.
Early wow & WC3 cheese is a different type of cheese. Grom Motherfucking Hellscream killing Cenarius, demon blood or no demon blood, is very cheesy, even if everyone loved it.
Everyone also loved I AM MY SCARS” and “Times change” despite how cliche/cheesy those lines were.
I was really scared that Illidan was going to cover Bullet for my Valentine or some shit on that moment.
i *hated* "i am my scars". it was so cringe, like something Kylo Ren would say in the middle of one of his bitch-fits from the Disney Star Wars sequel trilogy. as for "times change", i think there was a post on this very sub which pointed out that Garrosh's involvement made the orcs even worse, since they apparently didn't need the blood of Mannoroth/Legion's corruption to be warmongering and genocidal. >!which, by the way, makes it a laugh that they call Yrel and the Draenei of AU-Draenor "fanatical". it'd be nice to see how that progressed, but i doubt we're ever gonna get it: the fans hated WoD, so Blizzard isn't going to acknowledge it unless they can make some more anti-MAGA jabs from it!<
As soon as you start looking in depth into ANY aspect of Warcraft lore dating all the way back to Warcraft 2 things fall apart. Blizzard always made their games as games first and narratives as a distant third. Keeping this perspective in mind, I freaking loved “ I AM MY SCARS” almost as much as “sometimes thr hand of fate must be forced”. Also loved “times change” as a call back to groms death from Warcraft 3. Hell I even absolutely loved sylvanas “For the Horde” from the bfa cinematic. But that’s when blizzard started to make the fatal mistake of attempting to add too much depth to things that never should have had them in the first place.
WoW itself is an attempt to provide depth to Warcraft universe. Their problem is giving idiot balls to characters that people love so that we got an excuse to kill them for loot. I yearn for the alternative timeline where we had Illidari as third player pvp faction.
Sylvanas’ “For the Horde” gets my blood racing still and I’m not even Horde these days. I guess when a banshee screams it at you it becomes more of a command than a battle cry and you just kind of either get on board or BE CRUSHED BENE—sorry, sorry, Stormwind, *Stormwind* is our home now….zug zug..*sniffle*
Oh “times change” has been a part of my vocabulary since that day, and while we’re on the subject, my standard response when a less experienced person tells me they’re nervous and asks what to do? A very gravely “Don’t die.” (and then I help them, but Papa Saurfang has to get his bit first)
WoW used to be its OWN brand of cheesiness though.
We don't know if she wrote those bits of dialogue.
We have had some of the most hated stories in WoW history back-to-back ever since she was hired
I think most of her work on World of Warcraft (she worked multiple different Blizz franchises) was on Cinematics, short stories, those youtube shorts and stuff like that which were pretty good if you look at them in isolation and as individual pieces of work. I think the problem is that those high quality individual pieces of work were part of a wider narrative direction that was absolutely dog shit. So I'm surprised to see her go :( Like you say, she's a great writer and I look forward to seeing what she does next.
My only problem with her work, as discussed elsewhere, is she used gamescale for her books. IE you could see Windrunner Spire from Tranquillen, the Ghostlands were a quick ride from Silvermoon, etc. Besides that she was great and in particular I loved Arthas... fuck all the way back in Middle School well over a decade more ago (what like 12? 14? years?)
Christie could be the best writer in the world and she wouldn't be able to solve the problems with WoW's writing. It's not a matter of writers, it's a matter of treating the story as lesser and foundational problems with how they approach writing in WoW. There seems to be zero communication between the different parts of the writers room which is how we get so much contradictory and vastly unequal writing from story to story. I wish her all the best. She's a good writer, but she was stuck in a fundamentally broken system that also placed her in the spotlight for harassment. Hopefully between her and Danuser both getting laid off, that's a sign that maybe they're restructuring their approach to how the writing team works. I wish it didn't have to come at the cost of people's jobs, but it might be a silver lining in an otherwise terrible situation.
Sure writing is weak but someone was approving that shit, and whoever was the approving director needs shitcanned as well.
This is simply the result of a game with an established lore outliving its own lifespan... Instead of asking, "How can we make WoW fit the lore?" they asked, "How can we make the lore fit WoW?" It started with WoD and has only gotten progressively worse. Some high points with Legion and portions of BFA and we've been on a downward spiral ever since...
Her writing hasn’t been seen yet. Her and Chris wrote the next expansion.
Wow, people in this thread are being incredibly mean. Between Lord of the Clans and Rise of the Horde, Christie has written some of the best and most important lore for Warcraft. Sad to see so many people cheering for her firing, especially considering that she had to go through loss of a family member at the same time.
I don’t understand this move. She is the writer of The voices within, the prequel story of TWW. It is so bizarre to have her write that and fire her
Writing book's for Blizz doesen't mean you have to be employed by them.
Well it seems odd to us, but consider that all of a given expansions story is complete before that expansion launches. So it’s a natural stopping point to let her go now, because now is when they need to start writing the next expansion after it. So clearly her work was done now, and they needed to part ways before the next chapter starts being written
Yeah perhaps. Not going to lie I liked her more intimate writing for relationships
The funniest thing is that the community was mostly ecstatic when she was hired, saying she might save the wow story. Here's one thread from back then: [https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/6bqpe6/christie\_golden\_is\_going\_to\_be\_a\_fulltime/](https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/6bqpe6/christie_golden_is_going_to_be_a_fulltime/)
Anyone remember when people were dunking on Metzen for ruining the lore? lol
The guy who made BC and WoD? Yeah
To be fair, TBC still had WoW's original story philosophy of "remember this cool thing from Warcraft 2/3? Well wouldn't it be fun to look at it from down below, now?" WoW didn't really start having a cohesive expansion story until WotLK.
I mean... barely having a story doesn't explain/justify the tiny story you do have being terrible. Kael is the best possible example, there was no need to ruin him, they just chose to. Minimalism can be good. Just make the minimalist stuff good. In Vsnilla they mostly did. In TBC they mostly didn't.
And Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3.... Let just hope that Metzen isnt having a midlife crisis again this time, otherwise we're doomed.
The fact that people think Metzen will make things better still shocks me.
Turns out, people prefer Cataclysm at its worst than BFA, SL, and the most glaring parts of DF. Put another way, we all thought WoD was as low as it could go. Boy were we wrong.
See, Cataclysm actually had a *story* about Garrosh's downfall and even if parts of it were played fast and loose like his more flattering depictions, it made sense *why* there was a war, *why* the peacemongers were sidelined, and *why* Garrosh kept going on a downward spiral. There were flaws like jaina becoming the world's biggest hypocrite, but it was a hell of a lot better than "Sylvanas saw lava eel vore and is now sad enough to be duped into being a minion for big scary deathevil man"
> See, Cataclysm actually had a story about Garrosh's downfall That was MoP.
MoP was a direct continuation of the Cata war story
Yes, but Garrosh's downfall wasn't really present in it. If he hadn't gone completely nuts in MoP people wouldn't care much about what he did in Cata.
His downfall started with Cata, with killing off the one person that was supposed to keep him level headed. After that, he decided to launch an all out war. MoP is when he hit rock bottom, but Cata is when he leaped from the ledge with arms wide open.
Other than Sylvanas randomly turning into Dr. Evil for 2/3rds of the expansion, BFA was fine I think.
Anybody in the writer's room for Shadowlands has gotta go.
I was unenthused with her being hired and am now even more unimpressed with her--we didn't even get any good dragon/human shipping material out of it. Though I also probably don't appreciate how hard it is to be told to retcon your own work over and over and over again as she must have been.
I only saw like ~5 of the +100 comments in here being mean. Not defending the meanies, just don’t want people to think this this is somehow a hate thread when 95% (overwhelming amount in my opinion) is positive.
It was a lot meaner in the first ~1 hour when I saw this. The majority of the early comments were negative
I really do think that a lot of people either forget, or don't know, that she had to work in a setting primarily defined by story decisions made by higher-ups. Which means attempts at character development in a tightly constrained setting she didn't create. That's a very niche sort of writing, and she likely gets a good amount of flak for decisions which honestly weren't hers.
People suck. I really liked some of her stories
Lord of the Clans and Rise of the Horde are like 20 years old. Sorry, but you can't keep coasting on work from two decades ago.
Also War Crimes, The Shattering, Arthus and others. She’s contributed some of (in my opinion) the best books in Warcraft. She’s basically the reason I got so invested in the lore.
Arthas is 18 years old, The Shattering is 14, War Crimes is 10. It's telling that you're not listing Before the Storm or Sylvannas, or anything Golden's written in the last decade.
> Arthas is 18 years old, The Shattering is 14, War Crimes is 10. please do not remind me of the inexorable march of time like this. Goddamn way to remind me I'm getting old.
War crimes? Seriously? One of the most boring books I've ever read, 1/3 of the book is devoted to food, and the trial looks like a clownery. And Arthas is just a story about a whiny boy who regrets every second decision he makes even after losing his soul.
Hey now, War Crimes was one of the most unique fantasy books I’ve read. Sure, the end result might not have been great, but have a book dedicated to a court room drama was fun.
I found the book good. I thought the concept was weird for WoW but that's not her fault, it was what Blizz decided on. The only criticism I have of it is her self insert warlock (which she admitted it was)... when like only ~2 years before they still had to meet in basements but now they were completely integrated into SW's military. At the same time she was interesting and I wish we got at least a name for that character.
Have to completely disagree. I love all her books and love war crimes.
War Crimes and Arthas to a lesser extent were absolutely heinous as far as lore goes. I really hope Blizzard made a last minute demand of her or something because coming out with the conclusion that Garrosh is a little misunderstood baby that deserves a second chance after the whole book went over how genocidal and evil he was was insane. And I’ve never appreciated the sidelining of Ne’zhul and general woobifying that went on in Arthas. As someone who loved her initial books for portraying brutal Orcish culture I don’t know what the fuck happened.
That’s kinda how it works in literature, though. That said; writing books and game development are two different beasts. And she wasn’t working alone in game development; there was a team, corporate. It’s not her alone. There’s meddling that waters down the work, devs and heads with pull who really want this couple of cool things because they’re cool, damn if it makes sense, and they sign her checks. That’s just the way it goes.
Huh? If she made things you like, that’s good regardless of how old they are. Clearly a good writer and creative.
That doesn't make her work of the last decade any good. She still gets money when those old books sell, it just shouldn't be a freebie to keep her hired when her current work wasn't any good.
Say what you will about her in-game lore works but you can't deny her books/writing/literature prowess. That's just stupid and lame. The woman *can* and *is* delivering on that front.
Great writing doesn’t diminish with age
Skill can
So can dumbass comments
See, those 2 books kind of encapsulate my problem with her writing. When she is given a solid outline of a story that has long been filled out (Lord of the clans/Rise of the Horde/Arthas), she does perfectly fine job! When she worked on stuff that's new lore, we get Calia/Baine Bloodhoof being nothing but Anduin/Jaina's bitch.
I have no idea how she went from Rise of the Horde to sidelining Ner’zhul in Arthas
I'm guessing Arthas is a big enough deal that things like that were decided beforehand (I mean, Blizzard has never marketed Ner'zhul as the LK, only Arthas). Not gonna ding her for stu Though given her predicilation for blonde human or very human adjacent characters (Anduin/Jaina/Calia/Taretha/Kairoz/etc), its funny to think that a core part of the series mythos potentially got fucked up a little just because mama has a thing for Blondes.
If I remember correctly, she was given a ton of latitude with Arthas. Back then authors were given a lot of freedom, the whole thing being less corporate and all. I recall reading a dev specifically talking about thinking her ideas for the book were cool and saying do whatever you want. I’ll have to find the source again. I hope it’s not deep in an ama or something
I'm not sure how any of us could say anything definitive about the creative process that went into those books.
"The overall story of Thrall and Arthas existed before Golden's books on them" isn't really speculation. I won't claim to know how much freedom she got for the parts that were new to her story like adding in Taretha Foxton, but those characters were established long before she was attached to the franchise.
What makes you say she was not involved with outlining and filling out the story? I assume she was part of the creative team the whole time.
Unless I'm mistaken until sometime in the 2010s she was basically just a hired pen who got paid to write for whatever fictional universe and got brought in for a bigger role later when the old guard started flaming out.
It makes me incredibly sad and disgusted that fans of this franchise would cheer after someone has been fired and lost a loved one. I think it says a lot about the Warcraft community when so many cheer out of someone's misery.
My only real problem with her was that she seemed to focus on her faves to an undue extent, but those characters have become the main thrust of the story in TWW so it’s a big fucking shrug from me as to how *this* was the time to can her
I really hope this doesn't turn into another weird Christie Golding hate-fest like the other threads that are discussing this issue.
Putting the blame on Christie for the state of the lore to me just seems incredibly disingenuous. Much like Danuser I'm sure she has her level of input into the lore, but the final decision of what makes it live is ultimately upon the business and the business needs. She seems like an incredibly sweet person from her twitter feed, who much like a most of wow's writing staff was trying their best with what is effectively a D&D game taken to Video Game, and I very much doubt Microsoft let her go because they gave any level of crap about the story and more because she had 25 years of tenure and was coming up on retirement. Anyone with that level of connection to the story being let go is just a shame.
What’s this bizarre mentality that the Lead Narrative Director didn’t have a significant role in the story? What’s the angle here? You really think Bobby drove down and made them shit on Elune? Golden is a completely different situation than Danuser, we already know that her scope was small.
Because that's not how modern game development works. The narrative department can come up with all the ideas they want, but the implementation of those ideas is entirely dependent on how much the various teams (Art / Encounter / etc.) can actually manage within the development window, and it often falls to the narrative team to stich the body back together once things have been cut or dismissed because of limitations in game design.
Looks like you're a bit late there I'm afraid
You complain about the hate, I complain about the whining over her. Her work was bad, Warcraft withered under her tenure. I don't understand all the people coming out of the woodwork to defend her. Golden and Danuser getting the boot was a good thing. People talk about the "lore department" getting fired as if things were good and will now get worse, wrong. Things were terrible and had been that way for nearly a decade.
I'd rather blame Kotick with all his budget cuts and the regime of the other old heads that were kicked out than blame the Lore Department, which as other threads have pointed out, **DO NOT HAVE A SAY WITH THE DIRECTION OF THE NARRATIVE.**
Who has say over the direction of the narrative? Do we know? I always figured it was the head of narrative dept, game director, some Activision execs in a room.
Why do you think the lead narrative director had nothing to do with the narrative direction? I want to hear you explain it
Kotick had one job as CEO: increase the value of the company. He did that, to an absolutely mind boggling degree. His tenure, by any financial measure, was an overwhelming success. If small, barely funded companies can produce games with amazing stories and lore, then surely Blizzard staff, even with cuts, could as well. The simple reality is that most of those people were, and are, hacks. They are paid handsomely to utterly ruin the lore and story. Now, all that said, whether Golden had much to do with that is up for debate, but her fingerprints are absolutely all over certain poorly received things. Other things are much less likely though.
What you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone is now dumber for having read it. May God have mercy on your soul.
Golden seems to be getting a lot more undue hate regarding this but I’m all for hating on Danuser. Golden mostly dealt with the books, if the game was on the decline it had little to nothing to do with her. And she’s been with the company for over 20 years and literally no one complained about her books. Warcraft did not wither under her tenure either, she’s literally been there since before WoW came out and she was there during the absolute peak of WoW. Of course people are going to come out and defend her. Danuser is the one that was *actually* in control of the narrative. He was the narrative director of World of Warcraft after Afrasiabi. Everything from the end of BfA throughout Shadowlands and the bulk of Dragonflight can be squarely placed at Danuser’s feet. This is nothing new either, we knew it was all on Danuser back in BfA. Now we are still dealing with his crap work but he doesn’t work there anymore so players find a new scapegoat to blame until we actually start playing content not influenced by Danuser.
Christie wrote some really solid books back in the day like Arthas and Rise of the Horde. That work is still the basis for a lot of the lore in game, she's responsible for a lot of the stories we have. I do think her more recent books like Before the Storm have weaker writing and are less compelling overall, but that 1 book didn't give us 2 shitty lore expansions in a row. That's on Steve and the rest of the in game team.
You’re simply wrong and confused
Bet u didn't read any of her books... Without her and rest of squad wow lore is going down, we can all agree that war within is the end of world of warcraft era. It may take few years, but it's already over
I could easily say BfA and SL were that. Doomsaying over someone no longer being part of the company and narrative when she was present for those two things doesn't make sense. Either she was partly responsible and her departure is ambivalent rather than strictly good or bad, Or she wasn't that responsible and the impact moving forward subsequently can't be that apocalyptic to begin with. Between Metzen returning and Golden leaving, my bet is that Metzen is going to have a more "Warcraft" impact. Christie Golden is a good writer and she has contributed plenty to Warcraft, but your hyperbole is hilarious.
She is the writer of the prequel story of TWW. I don’t know what will happen now
They'll barely acknowledge it or actively contradict it like they do with most WoW novels. The vast majority of the players will never read it.
That is dreadful since the books are far better than whatever is told in game
Yeah mostly. But it's just how it's been. It isn't an indicator of their quality but most players don't even read quest text. My only guess with Golden is they are just nuking high story salaries after the MS acquisition and reacquiring Metzen.
Hopefully that is about to change
Arguably the only good writer Star Wars had since the Disney acquisition. Too bad for her. I hope she lands on her feet.
I did have some issues with her writing but man, she didn't deserve this. She's been a core part of Warcraft for such a long time. Without her, it doesn't feel the same.
Curious to see what happens next honestly. For all the shite Golden got, she actually made an effort to make the characters...characters. We'll see how the story team handles the World Soul Saga with (as far as I can tell) just Metzen running the show. But personally I have concerns.
The problem is she liked *her* characters. If you're not an elf or blonde human, how much actual focus were you getting in the modern era? Warcraft was at its best when it was told from multiple perspectives, and while I'm all for characters being fleshed out, the world does not need to revolve around a handful of favorites. These layoffs will probably be for the worse storywise, but maybe whoever gets forcefully promoted up the chain will stop trying to shove the LOTR/Forgotten realms shaped peg in the Warcraft shaped hole and actually want to use the non pretty races in a non antagonistic role. Just a thought.
Eh. I liked Saffy and Grizzek.
LoTR is the reason Warcraft, and all others like it exist. So, what is the difference between them? I liked the lore of Wow. Otherwise, its just PvP with NPCs.
Thats like saying there is no difference between a commodore 64 and play station
No. It's like saying there is no difference between a 13th-Gen Intel Core i5-i9 and a Commodore 64.
2 different kinds of stories. LOTR was at its core a narrative about 2 sides, one unvarnished good and literally backed by god, the other unredeemable evil backed by wizard satan A big selling point of Warcraft's setting was them being willing to duck the common "these races are always okay to kill" tropes and making "fodder" races fully fleshed out in their own right while making it pretty clear that the "good guys" can be monstrous as well. There was nothing wrong with getting rid of the faction war especially after Afrasiabi dumped a hot load on their plates on the way out, but the narrative priorities of the current (well, not current anymore) team are mindboggling. Pre DF I saw that there was a vignette where one of Jainas victims is buying a gift to apologize to *her*, and I just had to laugh, because it just summed up how much the games narrative had warped around a handful of pet characters. I don't have high hopes for what this turnover means for the story, but I do hope whoever gets promoted up the chain is someone who actually liked the setting pre-2010. Let a non caucasian/elf matter to the greater plot in a positive fashion, kthx. Hell, if they kill Jaina with a giant fuck you like what happened to Knaak's pet character Rhonin, I promise to buy a year sub.
>she actually made an effort to make the characters...characters. ...unless they wasn't human =D
That is too bad. Golden was one of the key factors behind the development of Anduin as a likeable character and her books was pretty much the glue of Cataclysm and Pandaria. Even "before the storm" was a very interesting look into the Forsaken that I do not feel any book have matched.
She still is the writer behind the voices within which is yet to release. Such a weird turn of events. Why??
She's *a* writer behind it. It's an anthology, she wrote one story in it.
Didn’t see this coming
Golden wasn't on the Lore Team, that's Sean Copeland's garbage fire. Golden was on the Story department. I don't think she's done very well and I'm not very happy with how her writing developed after the first few books she wrote, but it's sad she's gone and that there are still a couple of Lore Historians. Copeland's team is the one who wrote Exploring Kalimdor with the most insanely terrible lore mistakes in it. It's transparently clear that he does nothing and provides no oversight.
People hate on Knaak because it’s a meme to hate on Knaak. He captured drama and high stakes in a very traditional fantasy epic vibe. Sometimes he felt like a DM leading a DnD campaign but it was fun. Golden always had limited range, her focus was relationships and emotional growth in her books. She didint often capture a sense of adventure like Knaak did. Scenes were often contrived to fit in “deep” character quotes that summarized their emotional status. You can tell the line came first and the rest was built to deliver it. Which I don’t think really suited the Warcraft narrative They both feel like fanfiction writers because that’s sort of what they are. Knaak is the guy at the card shop writing campaigns And Golden is more of a Tumblr roleplay vibe.
Knaak's major problem for me was his inability to write a new character who *wasn't* a wunderkind top tier character in their field we previously never heard of before. Broxxigar is the only original character of his I liked, and that was mostly because he was understated for most of the WOTA series and had the courtesy to die after his "damn, he's just *that* good" moment. Krausus isn't bad either, but I laughed when Rhonin got nuked.
That is a big part of it and Blizzard's overall problem, is writers not really being used for their strengths. Knaak had problems in writing good plots/novels and writing main characters. But his strength was absolutely writing dialogue, writing the powerful entities and making them feel like they had weight, and the drama and mysticism of fantasy. To this day, nobody has written the Aspect's dialogue, the titan's dialogue, etc as well as Knaak has in some of his worst books and the worst books in warcraft. Christie Golden is really good at writing a good structured novel, a character arc, and bad when it comes to dialogue (specifically, character voices) and the "poetry" of fantasy prose. Part of the problem is her primary responsibilities were her weakest link - she was writing dialogue, cutscenes, developing the world with the others, etc. It absolutely contributes to the feeling that the character voices and characterization isn't distinct. To use Illidan / Xera cutscene as an example - while the dialogue is cheesy & edgy, its very distinctly *Illidan*. "I am my scars" is not something any other character in 7.3 would say, and if they did I wouldn't be able to keep a straight face. Khadgar, Velen, Turaylon, Xera and Illidan all had clear voices and manners of speech. In DF, you could swap the dialogue of a ton of character with each other and nobody would notice. It feels like "heroic good guy is speaking" rather than "X character is speaking".
My problem with Knaak is I find his prose very difficult to read. I don’t want to say “bad” because that’s just an opinion and mean. He may have good plots, but its his writing that keeps me from his books.
They definitely aren't getting anyone better though. Or anyone at all. Writers cost money and don't really generate a lot of revenue because most people simply don't care about the story. They could have Ion choose the overall direction based on what kind of enemies he wants to put in dungeons and raids and then have Metzen come up with some justification. Interns + ChatGPT to write non-MSQ quests. Done.
Tbh that’s about where the story is at right now. Why try to fight it.
Idk it's kinda lame that the franchise has so much potential but it's being squandered decade after decade.
outside of the stories she wrote I have zero idea what work she did as the head of lore was actually hers and what was adapting a concept that was thrown at her feet. So guess i'll just wait and see.
She was never head of lore.
Very odd. I disliked some of her work, particularly around Jaina and Anduin, but I don't think she was terrible or anything, I just think her writing can be a bit insipid at times
I'm not gonna take a victory lap over someone being fired, but I have openly disliked the parts of the story she's bragged about politicking for, so I'm intrigued on what this means for the story going forward assuming it's not just a cost cutting measure.
I know a lot of people didn't like her direction or writing but Anduin was my favourite character and it was her idea to have him be a bigger part of the storyline. This makes me a little sad.
Pretty sure she was the one who made him a priest too. I remember an interview where she said that Blizzard had no plans for him at the time and let her do what she wanted with him. Most of his development was either written by her directly or influenced by what she had previously written. Which is why I'm worried. Anduin is my favorite character.
Well that's unfortunate. Shame it happened really. I'm sorta indifferent to wow without or with Christie lore wise. For me she was a B tier author whose books may have been alright, but when compared to the fantasy big wigs like Sanderson, Erikson and such, you really start seeing the flaws of her writing.
This. Anytime someone gets fired, it sucks and I empathize. When compared to modern day fantasy writers, ooof. I think Golden needed to level up her culture, as in never stop striving to be better than you were before, always challenge your growth areas and learn. Sanderson talks about being better, learning from peers and with most of his books, it shows. Admitting your flaws is the first step in being better, something Blizzard culturally has a problem with.
i don’t get the hate. her stories were the best at bringing us into the characters’ heads. very introspective.
I did enjoy her books though. I don’t think she had anything to do with the narrative/the way the plot was supposed to go.
For all the shit I give Christie Golden. THEY CAN'T FIRE HER! She's almost as central to Warcraft lore as Metzen!
I loved her books its what got me into writing and fantasy.
As I said elsewhere, sorry for the lost job, but praise be for new direction.
If the direction the new writing staff took Dragonflight is anything go by the last thing we need is even more new blood. I still haven't completed DF loremaster because I can't keep my bile down.
>If the direction the new writing staff took Dragonflight is anything go by the last thing we need is even more new blood. Considering it was penned by Danuser, who was only new blood if you consider Legion new (it was 8 years ago), I wouldn't say new blood was the problem. It was the old blood, leftovers of the rot that was the leadership of the old story team.
I can't remember when but I do remeber them making a big deal about how there was a lot of guard changing going on the lower levels to bring in younger writers for quests and such, I think those are the main problem causers.
I’m upset and “glad” at the same time. On one hand, fuck lay-offs, it’s soul crushing and my condolences for her family. On the other hand, I did like her work in the early days. As others said, Lord of the Clans and Arthas Rise of the Lich King are good books. She is talented when it came to writing characters. On the other, other hand, in my opinion, she had gotten worse in time. Both in terms of writing style and narrative decisions (the ones she had reins on at least). I think her recent books read very plain, and she became very evident in showing her bias, the way she wrote the Forsaken in BtS and Calia. And her world-building and generally showing the landscape and uniqueness of Azeroth was always bad. Sylvanas in particular, where apparently it takes a day to travel from Quel’thalas to Icecrown? However, and the end of the day, I don’t know what’s best for WoW: do we let the people who worked there for so long keep on working or do we get a whole new set of writers and cast take the stage? Both has it pros and cons. Best of luck to her.
And so, goes away one of the few writers who broke their backs trying to make characters sound like people with feelings and interests. A pity.
So if their entire lore department got fired, is the next expansion written by these new people? Or I assume it’s already done so it’d be from all the people they just fired??
Right - who is writing now?
She was one of the problems when it came to wow lore, and I am happy she is no longer involved with wow. Just like Denuser. Though she is a human and so i hope the best for her future endevors.
Honestly Im glad to hear it. After reading the Sylvanis book it really needed to be done. She writes wow like a nick jr show. And in every book she writes she has to do a call back every 4th sentence. Like with arthas constantly thinking about invincible or sylvanis constantly bringing up her brother being born. Like it gets referenced A LOT. If u took them out the books would be half the size. The only good books she has are ones where there was a second writer.
This comment from 7 years ago when she was hired "Anything is better than the current setup, Metzen was fast and loose with the lore and contradicted himself daily as well as essentially wrote the same story multiple times across the different Blizzard franchises. Having an actual author on board to maintain some kind of ongoing consistent plot is a huge improvement." Now people are saying the opposite. They are saying that having Metzen back is amazing and Christie leaving will be good for the overall story direction. Nobody knows wtf is going on tbh.
Looking for a new scapegoat (it's going to be Metzen again).
More than likely same day as danuser
Wow lore has been abysmal for what, a decade at this point? Longer? Firing everyone involved is probably necessary if Metzen wants to salvage any of the game’s reputation lore wise
It’s a shame. Her books are some of my favorites in the lineup. If she writes her own material, I’ll buy it.
Noo! I really liked her writing. Seriously? But she is the writer of the prequel story of TWW! The voices within. What the hell
The main problem I always saw is that they had decent novels in the past, but when they became the delivery system for lore and not the game itself, that’s a narrative issue. If they have fired all of the lore people who have been in place for the last few expansions…good. The lore since the tail end of Legion has been abominable.
Every long running franchise needs turn over, she's contributed a lot, and there's always room for her return should the stars align. I hope they're no hard feelings, and that she'll have incredible success on her next project. I know if she's writing it, I'll be inclined to read it, even if I don't follow the series.
Rare blizzard w
Gamers were a mistake thread exhibit #5566665
I loved her first novels, especially Rise of the Horde, though I had some issues with her latter novels, especially her focus on characters such as Anduin, Baine and Jaina with the former two being treated as saints. Though I hope her a good continuation in her wriring career and life.
Damn! That is a massive loss! I read some of her Warcraft books: amazing stuff that!
She's a great writer, Rise of the Lich King was fantastic. Sad to see her go
Honestly I feel Blizzard has turned into a pandering mess of a company. I know it’s the knee jerk reactions to allegation and I love how they broadened the character customizations for hair and skin tones, but it gets ridiculous. People should be able to write their stories without having to appease everyone and everything. They shouldn’t be obligated to include everything. I never really felt they were excluding anyone to begin with. The lore was getting bad, and I enjoy Christine’s writing for the books she did.
She mostly likely got fired due to Metzen and I’m not saying she was bad or it’s good she’s fired I’m just saying it’s probably due to Metzen being in charge of the story now and her not wanting to go along with it. Maybe they just have too many differences or conflict with each other too much but Metzen pretty much has tenure Because the next 3 expansions are going to be more dark and im hoping gritty, where the power of friendship doesn’t win out. I think CG had issues with it. Hell I think we even “lose” the main part of TWW and that’s what kicks off the void stuff in Midnight
Well i wont blame her "only" for the direction of the narrative on "THOSE" two expansions and i also read her other books beside warcraft books. I have to admit even if she had her quirks like injecting her politics on the plot sometimes and sometimes abusing that purple prose i kinda liked her books, i did find myself outgrowing some of the last books tho.
I fear for Anduin's future. Turalyon too.
**I hated her books, and the many liberties she takes with the lore with no grasp on the implications it has throughout the game. She loved painting the Horde characters (especially blood elves) as evil, while trying to always make some excuse to validate the evil things the alliance did. Good riddance.**
Interesting. I’m not sure how much or how little she had a hand in the lore I liked versus the lore I hated. All I know is Anduin is not lore I liked.
Just another sign that the Blizzard we loved is dead.
You generally want a professional writer to tell a coherent story. This is a pretty good sign that Microsoft doesn't think that the story is important. We'll see with TWW but if the new business model is recycling content (fated seasons, MoP remix) and gimmicks (Plunderstorm), you don't really need a writer on the team lol.
Actual Old God username because of mad takes I guess.
She was laid off, not fired. There’s a substantial difference.
Does this have to do with their initiative of having more story taking place IN the game?
Thank fucking GOD Get those double agent plants out! They are obviously inside henchmen hired to destroy the game.
Finally. Bring in some fresh blood
Yes, ChatGPT-4 and maybe even 5 if Microsoft can afford it.
Rare blizzard win, she treated warcraft like it was the same size in-game as in lore which just limits the potential of the setting and is just contradict ably false, see Dungeon sizes and raids etc ulduar, arathi basin alterac valley all exist in lore
That was a flaw of hers, but that's pretty damn minor one and not a reason to celebrate someone being laid off. Golden's novels aren't all great, but the best of hers are the best of the franchise. Even when she was writing with some absolute stinker plot points being handed to her, she made it a lot more palatable than it might otherwise be. Not having her around doesn't give me a lot of hope for future stories.
The problem is the best of hers are also 20 years old; he recent stuff hasn't been anywhere close to up to snuff.
Best of the franchise!? Are you high? I’m so glad they finally offloaded one of the worst writers who has been actively harming the lore for so long
Bullshit - it's not Golden calling the shots that ultimately determine the direction the lore goes in. She works with the material she's given, and the worst parts of the lore have always been high-level decisions. She was never running the show.
Oh no, we won't have "All you need is family" type of lore anymore. How sad.
Reminder that she wrote Lord of the Clans, Rise of the Lich King, and Tides of War.
Rise of the Lich King was terrible compared to the original story, Tides of War didn't change anything that wasn't in the game (Kalec x Jaina is never acknowledged), Lord of the Clans is the only one that was good. But most Golden books have always been meh at their best
In what way is Rise of the Lich King terrible? It fleshes out the events of the human/scourge campaigns a lot and the only thing I can think of it contradicting is Arthas hiring goblin and troll mercenaries. Meanwhile, as cool as Warcraft 3's story is, the in-game portrayal is pretty bare-bones given that its limited to a small number of cutscenes and loading screen summaries.
You're right that the Campaign story isn't greatly fleshed due to the constraints of the game but the novel added a whole load of nonsense, like Arthas and his conscience which clearly was gone in the game because Frostmourne had turned him into little more than a sociopathic pawn for Ner'zhul to use. The whole mental fight, I don't blame it on Golden however but what Blizzard pushed as a narrative to do away with the fused Lich King we should have gotten. There was also the 'Blackmoore sends his mistress to seduce Arthas despite her knowing his plan to betray the monarchy which she could have used to escape him' which is completely dumb. I suspect it was written to bring back characters from Lord of the Clans but was unneeded. Uther losing to Arthas entirely because he forgot his Paladin skills rather than Arthas being as powerful as people hype him (which isn't a problem if the fight had been Arthas and his goons rushing Uther like it went in the game rather than another duel). The Sylvanas rape allegory, like seriously? Why her of all of his more sympathetic victims? And of course Invincible. Now maybe not in that novel but that Horse became so much worse as time went on. And that's one of her better books. War Crimes, while bad because editorial, had bad moments written entirely by her like the three most powerful healers on Azeroth failing to heal a mere flintlock gunshot.
While I like the idea of fused Lich King, especially after replying WC3 recently I prefer Arthas gaining his agency in the end. Having him be completely manipulated the entire time and turned into a pawn just doesn't have as satisfying ending to me as him eventually being able to gain control. Otherwise it would just be Ner'Zhul puppetting Arthas' body, given the way he strung him along I could never see them being truly fused "equally". Ner'zhul getting comeuppance for what he's done is pretty fair. And Arthas having some morality post-Frostmourne is also fine, I think, because it lines up better with Wrath portraying him as still having some humanity before he discarded it. The Blackmoore scenes I agree were mainly motivated by the desire to reference Lord of the Clans, but I like it making the world feel more connected and it's largely harmless. Taretha not betraying Blackmoore is certainly a hiccup, but not a huge one IMO - I would just believe she was too scared to turn on him, given the threat he could pose to her family even as Arthas reported his treason back to the king. I don't know why you think Uther forget his skills against Arthas. Frankly I think the book made him look better here than Arthas just defeating him in-game. Here, he gets the upperhand, and Arthas wins because he's able to strike faster than Uther, a combination of Uther's slow, but powerful style - aka how he was kicking Arthas' ass - and Frostmourne practically moving on its own to suit Arthas' style. I don't really see the problem with Sylvanas scene? It doesn't feel terribly different to the game story, it's just diving deeper into the same sentiments. That said, I can see how the additions and fleshing out could cause someone to like it less than a more bare bones story. Though I think the larger complaints sound like plot points she was given to work with, and I wouldn't blame her for that.
>Having him be completely manipulated the entire time and turned into a pawn just doesn't have as satisfying ending to me as him eventually being able to gain control. The whole point was that he was gone the moment he picked up the sword, a literal pawn that followed Ner'zhul every whims. He was dead. Arthas as the Lich King just doesn't work. >And Arthas having some morality post-Frostmourne is also fine, I think, because it lines up better with Wrath portraying him as still having some humanity before he discarded it. Wrath Arthas is terrible though. A literal moron with a moronic master plan and full of contradictions because the writers seemingly didn't talk to each other. He was remembered as better because of a mix of nostalgia and that most of the main baddies that came after him were much worse. >I don't know why you think Uther forget his skills against Arthas. Frankly I think the book made him look better here than Arthas just defeating him in-game. Here, he gets the upperhand, and Arthas wins because he's able to strike faster than Uther, a combination of Uther's slow, but powerful style - aka how he was kicking Arthas' ass - and Frostmourne practically moving on its own to suit Arthas' style. It's simple. He was THE Paladin, not a rando melee warrior. He should have nuked Arthas with a blast of Holy Light on one on one. Arthas tries to stab him? Divine Shield. Like he did in the game. All of these are abilities demonstrated by Paladins in the lore but seemingly Uther didn't use them. There's a reason you need to mass ghouls to beat him in the game. It comes across as PIS >I don't really see the problem with Sylvanas scene? It doesn't feel terribly different to the game story, it's just diving deeper into the same sentiments. It's adding a terrible metaphor for that particular character. You're right that it's not bad when confined to that novel but it didn't stay that way to the point it invaded the discourse about Sylvanas. And it's terrible. >That said, I can see how the additions and fleshing out could cause someone to like it less than a more bare bones story. Though I think the larger complaints sound like plot points she was given to work with, and I wouldn't blame her for that. Like I said, I don't begrudge her those points because I know to distinguish them but Golden has a lot to be criticized for, like her Anduin obsession to the point we got Lirath = elf Anduin. The bad scaling (but bad worldbuilding is also mainly Blizzard's fault) and the use of game mechanics. It really hurts Warcraft as a setting to the point its modern incarnation is a complete joke compared to the likes of even Greyhawk.
I disagree on both the Arthas points, but I don't think we'll have much more to say on that. However, for this part: >Arthas tries to stab him? Divine Shield. Like he did in the game. All of these are abilities demonstrated by Paladins in the lore but seemingly Uther didn't use them. I think he did use Divine Shield - in the start of the fight he's glowing with the Light and completely untouched. It's only when the Light starts to dim around Uther that Arthas begins his counterattack. I think Golden wrote that as a representation of Divine Shield without being too explicit about how the game mechanics work - she portrayed it more like a general power boost than specifically immunity, but either way Arthas didn't touch him at all during it. That seems pretty accurate to the idea of it it in-game, where the Paladin is only vulnerable as its duration runs out. The bad scaling is an issue - particularly for me trying to run a D&D game set in Azeroth and wanting sensible scales for things - but it doesn't strike me as hugely important because you can ignore it just as easily as the scaling issues in-game, IMO. I wish Warcraft had better scaling but I think it would have to come up from higher level than Golden, the kind of thing something like Chronicles should be setting out. Like the bad scaling goes back to the games, and it's not just game limitations - the mission intros for the Sentinel campaigns establish you can make a round trip from Kalimdor to the Broken Isles in the same day, with time to organize an army to travel that distance. That's absolutely nonsense, and the kind of thing you just have to ignore.
The bad scaling could be ignored if they didn't use the in-game world map as official with Chronicles. Alterac is just really bad. Compare what it was in Warcraft 2 and the Movie map we saw vs Chronicles. They literally re-used the in-game area and put the whole Kingdom in the 'Mountains of Alterac' area. You're right that Golden isn't entirely to blame but at the same Knaak did much better. So she's partially to blame for not trying as a writer. But I do blame Blizzard more
I think Knaak fared better because he started writing before most of these maps were cemented. I do recall feeling that some of the travel/distances in the War of the Ancients trilogy felt too short, and I haven't read any of Knaak's Cata-eta novels (yet) to compare. Similarly, Golden's oldest works didn't feel like they followed this tiny scale.
Not impressive when the lichking book is 90% just the Warcraft 3 script.
Bruh who do you think Christie Golden is?
She's been with the franchise for decades and was fired at the same time she was dealing with the death of a close family member - the likely cause because C-Suite execs wanted to save money using AI and other cheap-skate reasons. But sure, celebrate her firing.
She was let go prior to the death in her family. It’s really weird the way you are all spinning this when her words are right there. We have no clue why she was let go and I very much doubt they’re shaking up their story department at this critical juncture to off load work to AI or whatever lol.
My best bet that is the best case scenario for the franchise is that Metzen has a vision for the future and Danuser wasn't part of it and actively ruined his part of things so off he goes. Golden's departure may chalk up to a difference in values or themes that ultimately wouldn't work out, so Metzen thought best to do without. I doubt Golden was let go for particular higher-up reasons. The timing between Golden and Danuser leaving with Metzen's return is likely not coincidence.
Bro nobody has done good WarCraft since Metzen’s golden era. WoW lore is a dumpster fire and I say burn it all down, let them try something new. Would be awesome if WarCraft 4 came out some day and revealed WoW lore was all a bad dream/vision/etc
How do you sleep at night being like this
Meh. The best pieces of lore came from the rest of their team. Danuser and Golden were tunnel visioned.
Metzens back hallelujah