In
Part Three, Afrasiabi talks a bit about the future of the storytelling in WoW.
On Warcraft's Coming Years and new Story Arcs
Stories come from many places, and stating
one of Blizzard's core values, Every Voice Matters, this is doubly and triply true.
The stories in WoW start from certain places. We discuss, at the start of an expansion's development, what it will be about, what are the primary characters, what's the direction we're heading and the themes.
Once we figure out what big hooks we're following, and what storylines we're finishing, it gets distilled to the team at large, including the story and franchise development teams, which they work very closely with. From there, books, novellas, comics, short stories, etc., it all originates from the game team.
All of the groups working on the story in different aspects are working on the same page and helping advance Warcraft's story in their own way.
Like what you're reading? Click here for the full Part 3 Interview!On Players blazing through Quests and how to encourage them to Embrace the Story
Alex doesn't believe that's necessarily wrong, because that is what the game to a degree. Designers always get told to try to not depend on quest text to tell the story you're trying to tell, and instead, focus on when the player is able to listen, versus hit accept and move on.
They're aware that telling stories in WoW is very different than telling stories in anything else, and constantly looking for ways to bring the players closer to this world. To improve the storyline so you aren't bound to Wowpedia or quest texts, and play the game and get the stories while just playing.
The best quest text could be written and a massive portion of the players just might never read it. Not the quest team's fault, necessarily, that's just how the way questing works. So there is a constant effort to keep improving our storytelling capabilities.
On the Battle for Azeroth's Storyline
What Alex says is... Be patient.
This is a breathing and living story that is currently in progress. A game like WoW is not like a book where you can just devour in one weekend and get the satisfaction of understanding the whole of it.
We have chapters broken across patches, so as much as the team would love to tell you what will happen, they'd rather have you find out by yourself. Make sure you take note of that. The story is there to make you feel something, and anger is, too, an emotion. Sometimes it's happiness, sometimes it's sadness, sometimes it's excitement.
The story continues to evolve and the answers you seek will be there, and, hopefully, will satisfy everyone.