The Trial of Steve Danuser... His WoW Lore Legacy | The Weekly Reset

Lead Narrative Director of World of Warcraft Steve Danuser is gone. Actually, he went quite a while ago. This will be a cause of celebration to many players, with many having criticisms of his work over the years, from the burning of teldrassil, to Sylvanas's story and BFA, Shadowlands and the Jailer nonsense and even a lot of Dragonflight's story too. What will be his legacy? Taliesin and Evitel try to work it out.
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[@LonewolfXIII]

Hey remember when Tyrande had Sylvanas dead to rights until Elune, inexplicably, withdrew the powers of the Night Warrior because she cares about her. Only to then immediately reimbue her with those powers so she could become a bomb capable of not only killing her and everyone else in the area? I'll never forget....

[@freddymeisner]

My god I had actually forgotten, damnit

[@jpvelab]

down vote the shit out of this video

[@GorehowlBeardhead]

That beginning skit really was how it be 'Oooh sweet, all this unexplored stuff in Classic! I get to play it blind with unknowns for the first time in 15 years!' ..... ..... *guide*

[@BuckyDK]

Season of "Google it" according to general chat..

[@ninjor9800]

Sylvanas scolding Arthas' soul remains, when she herself was a massive terror, is premium BS.

[@Kermits_vengeance]

The expression on his face while he's under the hole in his roof with that cup is hilarious

[@dtulip1]

and very real

[@Ishtarded]

Okay, that "Sylvanas ripping the helm of domination in your living room" joke was actually top tier.

[@mossysnail6857]

Hoaaaah that's a hole!

[@Xalocin]

“He didn’t do the writing so he wasn’t responsible” But he agreed to what he read. He is DIRECTLY responsible for the bad writing we had in the game at that time He could’ve told em to write a good story instead. The fact that he saw the writing and approved it makes him just as bad as the writers themselves

[@GrimMelvin]

To save people 27 minutes: "Mr. Danuser is my friend, so I won't say anything controversial or overly critical"

[@Smokie1523]

Yeah that sounds spot on. But blizzard won't invite them back to host shit at blizzcon, or for behind the scenes interviews if hes critical of the company now, will they? I use to like this channel a lot more.. tali is legitimately funny and entertaining at times. But they constantly overlook, downplay, and shill for blizzard instead of just talking about what's going on in game.

[@Darkstorm524]

So, yes, actually this is a Steve Danuser defense video

[@dillanberkani9740]

yeah

[@MrCarlWax]

You're just not used to nuance

[@00Recoil]

Also, apparently Taliesin knows Steve personally so the bias is clear. This is not an objective analysis but a personal love note. Love is in the air.

[@henrychurch6062]

The Pro arguments given here are basically "He was only a quest designer back then so it's not his fault because he wasn't in charge" and then "He was in charge so it's not his fault because he wasn't the quest designer" followed by "Well it's really too soon to say if the DF story was bad or not so the writing wasn't his fault."

[@francescoporcari8597]

Yeah, you are supposed to blame the head of the office for the team members short comings.

[@blueberryiswar]

And that the weirdos thought he made a self insert and are batshit insane. But I guess as a batshit insane person you did ignore that detail.

[@waltwhite8126]

@@blueberryiswar The self insert argument is dumb, sure. But he is right to say that anything bad with the story that happened after he became lead ultimately is his responsability. The lead take the blame for the shortcomings of his team, since his job IS to identify those shortcomings and solve them.

[@henrychurch6062]

@@blueberryiswar Curious as to how you got that from what I wrote.

[@willienaess8215]

Jumping off of #4's issue: I feel like there has to be a way to include outside media as in-game books your character can read (ie: reading The War of the Spiders in the library of Stormwind). There's no excuse that there shouldn't be an account of what happened in the novel War Crimes above Mogushan Palace where Lorewalker Cho resides. The Bronze or Blue Dragonflights can have detailed anthologies about the recently released War of the Scaleborne. These don't have to be word-for-word and can be written to be more of an objective history novel but I feel like paying a subscription should give us access to all lore that affects the game.

[@Junebug89]

TBH you can wiki it, having it in game might be slightly nicer but a condensed overview of what happened in some obscure tome in the game is not a solution for this problem. If it's a key part of the story, it needs to be something you play through in the actual games main story.

[@SvenSierra104]

But then why would people buy the book itself? Because they enjoy reading, and/or supporting the game (Or the company of said game) that they love? Wanting a more accurate or detailed version of events? Absolutely silly.

[@ThomasdWell]

For me even if it was a short quest line in that gives abridge version that would be a good start. However I really would rather we get those trailers WoD had to fill us in on the stuff.

[@Rylos277]

I realize how ridiculous this is, but I haven't been able to seriously play horde since the tree burned. And considering I was a forsaken since 2005, it was a pretty obnoxious thing for me. I was always sure that Sylvanas was going to go in such a different way and it sorta ruined the character and all the by-standing horde in the process. But yea the tree was clearly Afrasiabi

[@TaliesinEvitel]

Honestly I don't think that's ridiculous at all :(

[@nothisismyhandle]

Well, as an Argentinian I can tell you sometimes what the world hears about your country and your leaders is far off what the actual people that live in the country and form the culture of it actually stand for... and you can't do anything about it. As a Horde player that's how I saw Sylvanas's turn and Garrosh's tyranny, people (the players) got stuck with bad leaders that promised to do something when they rose to power and betrayed the people and their interests once they were established. Ultimately, those leaders fade and the culture and the people keep standing... That has always been the grace of the Horde and SPECIALLY for the Forsaken. PS: I also think Sylvanas being true to her character up to WoTLK would NEVER engage and do anything with someone like the Jailer even taking into account what little she knew about his methods when she met him. She would probably just go back and report to the ones closest to her of what she saw, she was the fucking Ranger General, she was smart enough not to trust what a single guy is telling her and be like "this is our little secret, no one should ever know about this meeting, and you'll know what I'm saying is true because of vague predictions that I'm giving but I'm also not going to be clear about when should you expect they will happen". I played Horde seriously since all that but what I could never do ever again was taking anything that left Sylvanas's mouth seriously.

[@nothisismyhandle]

I didn't realize I was writing this much. Sorry.

[@clydemasterson1129]

Tali's reaction to Evi's "Holly-days" is pure joy! 😄

[@corgiw7281]

We never got to the bottom of Maldraxxus's strange organic nature, did we.

[@darthkroz]

"Is this going to be a defense of Steve Danuser? No, definitely not. I promise." Proceeds to defend Steve Danuser.

[@TaliesinEvitel]

What did I say that you disagree with?

[@matthewfrost1729]

@@TaliesinEvitel large portions of the video effectively took the approach of, "Yes, Danuser was involved, but other things were involved that he didn't have 100% control over, so the blame for how things turned out can't be placed squarely on his shoulders." I think more people watching were hoping for more attention to how badly Danuser botched ALL THE REST OF WOW'S LORE with what was done in Shadowlands. I mean, the lore surrounding Arthas had been widely upheld as some of the most beloved lore in the Warcraft franchise, yet he managed to ruin and invalidate it in the worst way possible. The damage he's done to the lore extends way behind the "new" content he was in charge of while at Blizzard. It'll be interesting to see how Chris Metzen picks up the pieces throughout the World Soul Saga. I think it's worth noting that Metzen felt he needed 3 EXPANSIONS' worth of time in order to course correct. Danuser introduced "Titans Bad", and we won't see a likely resolution to that until The Last Titan.

[@HardCR0W]

@@TaliesinEvitel You make excuses like "Oh, poor Steve was in a hard situation with Sylvanas, but he did pretty ok with what he was given." ... except that the story of Shadowlands and Sylvanas in it was his job to handle and it ended up as a hot garbage. People hated it for a reason. Should you be reminded about moments like that one where Sylvanas switches with "I will never serve!" out of a sudden, after everything she has done and when it was convinient for The Jailer not needing Sylvanas anymore? Or entire joke of a character that The Jailer even was? That mastermind... at least that what told us. Just saying it because you fail to actually show it is the cheapest thing you can do as a writer. If that was him doing his best as a writer and a lead narrative director, I am not impressed... I am actually quite embarrassed that this was work of an adult who was actually paid for it.

[@Brummos]

@@TaliesinEvitel such a default reply 🙃

[@MrCarlWax]

Nuance can be hard to accept when you're frustrated.

[@raarsi-dar]

I do kinda agree that Danuser was basically declared the captain of a ship being held up with duct tape and a prayer. I think if anything, he did seem a lot better at the short stories and the little moments throughout the game rather than big picture stuff since despite Shadowlands feeling absolutely underwhelming as an expansion, my favorite parts of it were actually the worldbuilding and the smaller stories detailing the little things going on in each region and even sections beyond like ZM, while what I hated the most about Shadowlands (other than "everything else") was that the larger narrative did come off as vastly disconnecting. In short, all Danuser's term proved was that someone with greater expertise for the little things (like a quest writer) probably shouldn't be in charge of the big picture. Also, I think that ceiling picture needs to be used for any holiday cards you send to friends and family, and that whenever someone pulls up the "is Evitel pregnant again" line that she should use a response my mom always had whenever someone asked her about having more children than just me: "sorry, but we decided to opt for quality over quantity".

[@merenwen_kiltæsir]

My favourite story in the entire Warcraft history was the one with Jaina and her mother and the acceptance of responsibilities and forgiveness…. And if Denuser wrote that story… kudos to him. The rest of BFA and SL is crap 😅

[@mlwgurl]

I give them a big plus for the revamped love is in the air event. It is so well done. Also a shout out to the npc in a wheelchair! One of my guildies felt really seen with that one.

[@Ethaknyl]

The main let down about the recontextualising of the Chroinicles was that it was Advertised as the "this is the lore. Periode." If it wasn't that point wouldn't be such a... downer.

[@pkWreck]

The story is unfortunately just completely uncompelling, regardless of how it has been told - which I actually think has been overall a step up for WoW (cinematics, in-game animatics, actually happening in game, etc). I'm enjoying Dragonflight as a game more than I have enjoyed WoW in long time, but I have never been more bored by the story than I am Dragonflight, and I'm not alone there (though 'the internet' expresses it poorly). He was the Narrative Director, and the A-plot was boring, it's that simple. It was his job to make people care about the story, and he failed. I think Danuser is just an example of the Peter Principle in action. He does touching stories well, he does quest text well, but he does not do compelling and/or epic well. He got promoted to big stories for doing small stories well, and his competency ran out.

[@Jade-nn3bn]

The game being better doesn't have much to do with Danuser though

[@pkWreck]

@@Jade-nn3bn that's kind of my point. I'm not just a hater that wants to complain about wow. I'm enjoying it and recognise that it's improved a lot... except for where Danuser is (was) concerned

[@That_kind_of_orc]

As an orc and tauren player I'm so happy that in this expansion we got all kinds of totems for taurens and for orcs new wolf hat, gorehowl and clan banners + I got tusks now I can rest in peace

[@dennis8832]

Taliesin talking about treating people well - except people he disagrees with on stream. He calls those people every foul epitet in the book.

[@jereXIX]

His behavior on stream is what drove me away from T&E. Only jumped on this cause for some reason a Pyro reaction (someone else I avoid) popped up on my home page and was curious to see how he spun this. I don’t hate Steve Danuser but hate where the lore went under his lead.

[@jaceks88]

Cant give him a pass on recking Arthas and our Beloved Ranger General. Thats on him 100%

[@EdBurke37]

Wrecking

[@us89na]

sylvanas was always a genocidal, evil torturer who supported her minions performing experiments on living people. Not sorry she's hidden away, - worried that 'somehow, Sylvanas returned' will happen. Would be great if she were fully written out.

[@Kylora2112]

How did he wreck Arthas? We already knew that Lich King Ner'zul was a puppet, and everything Arthas did was of his own free will up until he put on the Helm of Domination. Deciding to kill off Arthas's spirit rather than some stupid redemption arc he didn't deserve was for the best.

[@SunniestAutumn]

Sylvanas mess up was kinda inevitable, but I agree it could've been done better. As for Arthas... disagree with you hard.

[@robertoavalos9755]

@@Kylora2112hard disagree playing through shadowlands it is not clearly conveyed to the player that Arthas was a weapon gone rouged from the Jailer, and then only to show him in the shadowlands with no dialogue or perspective serving the very thing he was rebelling is a disaster in story telling

[@eonarose]

I think Danuser’s worst mistake was explaining the mysteries of the Warcraft universe. The universe was so much more interesting when our mind could run rampant with ideas of who the titans were and what they wanted, or what the world was like in its ancient past - before the sundering and the war of the ancients, before the troll empires were even created. I loved legion specifically because, at least before Antorus came out, there were so many mysteries to theorize about. Like who Elune is, what il’gynoth was taking about, where the old gods came from and what they wanted. The universe seemed so much more expansive when it’s history wasn’t constrained by the box of explanations. A soft magic system and story telling would have done wow a lot of good. Right now, the only mystery left imo is who and what the world soul of Azeroth actually is, and what will happen when they’re born.

[@JPLOWMAN2]

I was actually leveling an alt in Northrend at the time the… not-Valentine’s day event was going on, and it actually proved to be a nice little loophole for getting back to Stormwind without having to resort to using my dalaran hearthstone ❤

[@wraithpaints6734]

I can always count on you guys to have a nuanced and balanced take on hot button issues. It's one of the main reasons I tune in, thank you! Excited for the weekly Weekly reset :)

[@doctorcis3510]

To be truly fair, they needed a third option Alford Plea/No Contest. There were a few where he wasn't truly guilty but enough issues existed that it didn't really matter.

[@petrescucezar3307]

I would love to see people defend the SL writing (the Burger King crown lore, the Zereth Mortis, the Arthas rushed badly scenes, Sylvanas " I shall never serve " lol, the Anduin cinematic that looks cool but doesn't make any sense why Varian and Saurfang reside in the blade, Baine having nothing to do whole xpack, the Tyrande vs Sylvanas DBZ story- and so on ) and the un exciting DF one. On a separate note, u know , Christie Golden books might try to patch up the inexistable , way too rushed content that is in game - like she only tried to bridge the gaps.

[@MurasakiTsukimaru]

Hey, remember how Danuser took a definitive guide to wow lore, wiped his ass with it then said "Oh, that was told from the Titans' perspective", even when it referred to things the Titans were DEAD for?

[@snowballandpals]

If the gameplay of Shadowlands was on point, people probably wouldn't have cared that the story was bad. I actually think the Dragonflight story is pretty meh but the gameplay loop is great so it make sense everyone likes Dragonflight

[@kingmarx810]

The problem with Dragonflight was the lack of story cohesion with so many threads, and the ability to start at the middle of a thread was a mess. If you took time off from the game and came back you had no clue what was going on. I think that would fall to Denuesser but, not sure who is responsible for that.

[@Mackedooo]

More weekly resets would be grearly appropriated! Always interesting hearing you two's view on anything/everything going on. Makes me happy hearing your casual banter, good people ❤

[@playlistb3795]

Zovall comes across as just another sack of HP we are going to break. He should have come off as Emperor Palpatine, with Sylvanas as his Vader and Anduin as our Luke Skywalker.

[@mattwo7]

So, he should have come of as Ner'Zhul with Sylvanas as his Arthas and Anduin as our Tirion?

[@nakenmil]

They should have at least gone aesthetically with the visual of HIM being chained up, desiccated and only able to act through others (and therefore a master manipulator) that they hinted at in the teaser. Instead they just made a more edgy version of the Lich King's armor.

[@Nicolas-fo8qd]

You can absolutely fault a WRITER for liking a piece of garbage like GOT s8.

[@Kiwicrack]

I just fucking hated Nathanos. I don't care what he meant to Danuser personally, my enjoyment of the game would drop dramatically as soon as that character was the quest npc.

[@jare3959]

9.1 was planned to be so important. The fact it was developed and released during the utter chaos was so unfortunate. I personally wish they had put a pin in it. That's partially the fault of the marketing team too. They went full steam ahead on still playing it off as what it was supposed to be.

[@MaladarGaming]

Danuser has some nice pieces of storyline, but the Jailer fiasco and the reasoning for Sylvana's colaboration with him were so abysmal, and the Jailer writing itself was so poor, that this shadow will forever linger above Steve (sadly). Wish him the best of luck tho!

[@jbutler8585]

The Jailer's writing is so bad it deserves 10x the negative points compared to everything else on this list. I'm also deeply disappointed with how *boring* the cosmology of SL was, death is just life #2 with no difference whatsoever, not a peep of what's up with DK powers and where they come from, and no terrifying existential crisis that this plane depends on sucking life out of another one. Danuser's crime is squandered potential. And that's huge. He was handed an improv prompt with the wildest possibilities to "yes, and" it into something amazing, and did nothing.

[@asmosmeden]

​​​@@jbutler8585well would have been good if he just did nothing...i mean as in him just writing a story within the SL expansion and make it a generic boring story, with no reference to anything else. But no he had to break the foundation of the warcraft lore too! Almost like he knew his story was bad and thought "well if I'm going down i will take the whole story down with me!"

[@Marsonis2ya]

If this dude with a straight face said the ending of Game of Thrones was brilliant then maybe it's best he is gone.

[@Gebirges]

The Weekly Reset coming back as a Weekly Show? GREAT! The coming months will be crazy filled with news anyway, so yeah! :D

[@Retro64_]

Fyrakk just comes off as a Saturday morning cartoon villian, which should not be the case for the last boss of an expansion. Personally if Dr. Claw turned up as the last boss I'd find that more menacing.

[@patrikzotaj4528]

arthas should have been redeemed if shadowlands needs to be rewritten and fixed.

[@michaeldubois7231]

LONG-Dale, you can do this Tally! 😂

[@TaliesinEvitel]

I KNOW IM SORRY

[@TS90111]

@@TaliesinEvitel just do a clip of you saying it correctly then cut & paste it in every video from now on it will never not be hilarious source: me, a hilarious person

[@juan1julian]

This guy destroyed the whole lore of warcraft till Shadowlands, it was a crime what he did in shadowlands.

[@wombatpandaa9774]

People seen to like making some conspiratorial reason for not liking something. But it's okay to just not like it! Sylvanas was just written poorly in BfA, no conspiracy needed.

[@ibz8147]

Sorry to hear about your roof hole, hope it gets fixed soon. Yes please continue with the weekly reset, you both do a great job on intro's for them!

[@joshuasmith4643]

Glad Steve is done writing the story. That shit was rough.

[@099Nitro]

it wasn't. YOu just hate Sylvanas

[@niwaar]

Danuser was generally put in a horrible place by Afrisiabi's storylines 100%. The problem with Danuser's story leadership is that he failed completely to wright the ship with his Shadowland's story lead. While the story was 100% curtailed by the "shrinking" of Shadowlands, but he still failed completely in the nature of shadowlands, the community's general hope and desire for shadowlands was to see and interact with their favorite characters again. What we got was Thrall's mom, Kael, Garrosh, Ysera, and the expacs only good post death storyline with Voljin. Sure we had brief looks at other characters, we wanted to see more of those characters, the leak of the proposed and rejected Baine and the Cairne storyline. We wanted to see Varian, Saurfang, Arthas, and Tyrion but were only given glimpses of 3 of the 4 in a cutscene in such a way that rejected the idea that these souls were "alive" in some afterlife area but were merely ghosts we never could meet. Some of these definitely are game design choices and not story and plot decisions... But character design and motivations of all major characters are his domains and he failed completely with Shadowlands... DF started solidly and then fell off as the expacs went on. He left his post sometime in the later half of the year. Was the failing in execution for the entirety of the expac actually his when he left before the end of the expac? BFA's issues were more that over the course of the expac the story didnt match what had happened before it. The expac is set up with a war that began with a genocide... Anduin's mercy at the beginning of the expac is expected and justified with his character that was forged since MoP. But then it went off the rails. The initial level up storylines were sort of ok with the intermittent war campaigns breaking up the experience, but we did not really see a whole heck of a lot of the opposite faction attacking the other in both faction's zone storylines. The initial raid was a both factions vs evil characters trying to summon ancient evil. Zul was a character who broke off of the horde to try and do evil but it wasnt truly apparent was the case to the Alliance, only the horde knew this character had gone off the deep end, why and how. The next "season"s inclusion of faction invasions added to the story just as much as legion invasions did during legion. The Zuldazar raid was the highest level a raid has been included in the storyline of the world... BfA generally went off the rails after this, as BfA felt like an expansion in two halves. After season 2 we got a Naga/water half raid, and then a full Naga as old guard minions raid, into the next season where we had a period that gave me my favorite content of any expansion since Wrath... Instead of a new "daily zone" we got timewalked versions of old zones with invasions. Nzoth and his invasions, the timewalked "dark future" versions of org and stormwind were all excedingly good pieces of content that while they had their reward and accessibility issues, were still triumphs over the reward and loot systems that proceded them during the course of BFA. BFA was tainted by Afrisiabi's pre expansion genocide storylines, Danuser's BFA storylines were decently thoughtout, but seemingly bastardized by gameplay considerations with required raid design. I contend that 90% of people's true complaints about the expac boil down to gameplay decisions with loot, gear, and the systems that rewarded power during the expac and not the actual story, even if that story was a lot of forgotten plot and a story in 2 halves.

[@Red1Green2Blue3]

The problem with the Chronicles retcon isnt that it's from the "Titan's point of view" its that it isn't WRITTEN that way

[@nuktastic]

Hey Tali & Evi! I originally had mixed feelings about about Sir Danuser, but once he got so much hate, I started to like him more! I have a huge amount of respect for the way you have sort of drawn a very clear line in the sand of how you view Danuser’s legacy. I honestly was really curious where he was leading up to Blizzcon.

[@dovahbrewer]

It cannot be understated just how strange it is for someone to have enjoyed season 8 of game of thrones. It’s honestly very concerning just as a human being in general.

[@nakenmil]

Blizzard confidently trying to make it seem like the Horde and Alliance are equally bad, and then turning around and making the Horde do something horrific is a tradition as old as WoW itself.

[@dustybookshelves2948]

And having the Horde be a murderous interplanetary invasion force (which survivors of the resulting wars are now aggressively shamed for remembering) is as old as Warcraft itself.

[@nakenmil]

@@dustybookshelves2948 It's kinda hilarious how the (new) Horde named itself after a genocidal, mass-murdering army and then just expected everyone to think they were chill, lol. (Don't get me wrong, I love Thrall, I loved Warcraft 3, it's just super fucked up in hindsight.)

[@Dularr]

​@@nakenmilThey were a defeated people finding a new way.

[@mattphoenix4702]

My opinion on BfA has changed slowly over like the past year. Don’t get me wrong, it had some serious flaws and misfires… but The Pride of Kul’Tiras is my favorite quest chain/narrative experience. Saurfang’s arc to reclaim his honor and save the Horde, and the way he outwitted Sylvanas and made her expose her true intentions, not to mention the quality of the cinematics, was wonderful. Drustvar was super fun and creepy to play through. The Mechagon patch is probably the best “play around here for a while until we launch the next expansion” zone. And Xal’atath. I’m like 95% convinced that the plot of Midnight is going to involve her attempting to either corrupt the Sunwell with the essence of N’Zoth that Wrathion so kindly had a hand in providing… or she just tries to straight up use the Sunwell to restore N’Zoth completely, no longer the weakest of the old golds, now infused with the power of the light as well and very, very dangerous. BfA aged way better than I expected it to. Ignore Sylvanas and most of the story is really engaging

[@Zach-si1gf]

the problem with BFA is that everything EXCEPT the faction war was super fucking interesting. but the faction war was made to boil over into all this other bullshit

[@antoninomontiproject]

Danuser is the guy who retconned 30 years of lore of warcraft by creating Zovaal and ruin everything about the hystory of warcraft?

[@landonchristensen4420]

Im glad they didn't kill Sylvanas off. I think her character deserved better then what she got and now given some time we could see that. For now they need to focus on other stuff and characters while the community cools off on the whole Shadowlands thing.

[@landonchristensen4420]

That would be really cool. I just want to see her back again honestly, just in the correct light. @threedoubleyoudotcom751

[@hobosnake1]

Thank you for defending Danuser. Even if you don't like his writing, the hate got to a dehumanizing personal level. That ain't cool. I don't like where the story went entirely but not everything that guy touched was bad. A lot was half decent.

[@celiovicenteribeirofilho9740]

"The hatred he received was inhumane." I wish I could vomit on him like he did on the game. If he had done to the Lord of the Rings what he did to the lore of Warcraft, you can be sure that inhumane would still be very little. He vomited on the lore. He emasculated the worgen, ridiculed the night elves to the utmost, and alienated the Alliance just to promote his vile fanfiction about Syl. And he even got paid for it.

[@kryptisgg]

I have no skin in the game of the re contextualization of chronicles but I really love the direction it has put the story in potentially. Unreliable narrators are always fun especially when it's from the "good guys".

[@cuchulainnenjoyer]

Danuser's legacy as narrative director, in my opinion, will be a departure from answering true instances of adversity & suffering from heroism in order to explore this mentality of "the real world sucks enough, let's do a story about unifying in friendship as an escape from our suffering". Don't get me wrong, there's value in fellowship, in making peace, but the way it's been done, it's tone, has just not landed the same as it did in older Warcraft. I've heard rumors that a fair few narrative team members left with Metzen's return because he's not allowing this mentality to continue. I'm overall happy, I strongly value stories like Lord of the Rings, old school Warcraft, etc. because of the ideals of meeting a great evil and impossible odds with courage. That grim but heroic tone has been missing from Warcraft ever since Metzen left. Also *big surprise* that Tali has once again shown us he cares more about running defense for his buddies on the Dev Team than having an honest, critical conversation about legitimate complaints the fanbase has had about the narrative under Danuser's leadership.

[@Juel13]

I still wish they had explored the Nathanos body change and the brief flashes of humanity that had come with it. It would have been interesting to see him have turned sometime in BFA instead of the end he met.

[@remyoconnor3141]

I loved the story and gameplay of the burning of teldrassil. The fact that everyone lost their minds over it means the story had a strong effect.

[@monsteratemehcookie]

We should immortalize him with a quest that rewards 25 anima🎉🎉

[@gothnate]

It should be a used-up anima pod that you can't sell nor destroy. That'd really put a stick up the ass of all the SD haters. Attach a free mount to the quest so people feel obligated to do it. lol

[@patrikzotaj4528]

will danuser's creepy obsession with sylvanas as her fan come to an end.

[@doodlesndreams]

I was really glad to hear you put the blame where it is due on the burning of Teldrassil. Everyone blames Danuser and it really sucks because he literally had nothing to do with it. He was handed a flaming pile of shit. And while there were missteps under his direction, we will never know how much control he actually held and how short a leash he was on. Dragonflight in my opinion has been wonderful.

[@psychoiam6789]

I think doing the weekly reset ,even during a “no news week” is awesome opportunity for community suggested challenges. Here’s a challenge I propose. For the next “no news week”, force yourself into a PVP content, and then talk about what you experienced. This would bring new knowledge about things that are in the process of needing to be upgraded or improved to the masses. I love the show and I stay a constant watcher and supporter.

[@MoonlitMothCreations]

Wow.... I mean I don't blame Danuser for all of wow's problems but jesus is this an absolutely biased take. "This isn't just a Danuser defense video" *instantly spins into nothing but a defense of Danuser lmao*

[@YbotPoweredGaming]

He put out a lot of fires, made some mistakes along the way but ended up leaving things much better than he found them. Then he was kicked to the curb for the mistakes he made along the way, ignoring his current work. I can personally relate to this right now.

[@rutawatkins]

I agree from that last bit of this video. I miss the weekly reset. Ty Patrons for brjnging this up.

[@PrettyRagdoll1]

Looking forward to weekly weekly reset 😃🎉

[@paperghost7258]

I have one thing to say about the chronicle defense. Those were marketed as a unified definitive history of the cosmos, something for the writers to check their story telling against and add to. They were made so that anyone wanting to know the history didn't have to go to 4 different sources and wowwiki to understand. The description itself is: "This definitive tome of Warcraft history reveals untold stories about the birth of the cosmos, the rise of ancient empires, and the forces that shaped the world of Azeroth and its people." In spite of the broker cosmology and perspective book, which is cool, that we got out of it, I believe that would have been far better as a standalone book and not a "Chronicle". The unreliable narrator argument they make insults the player, I think. Its one thing to give someone a puzzle and letting them solve it, its another to give someone a ton of pieces and saying 'Most of those are not actually part of the puzzle; and also even if you use every piece in the box it still wont be solved. You have to buy our next 3 boxes to finish it.'

[@paperghost7258]

I copy pasted that description off amazon by the way. Those are the words of blizzard entertainment whole sale.

[@knifetoucher]

I'll be lying if I said I'm gonna miss Steve Dasnoozer

[@Dante1920]

If people overblown their expectations for a patch because Blizz just wants to keep it a secret, that's their own fault, not blizzards.

[@gHGhej]

Just wow, it is like you personally axed all the community relation jobs with that attitude.

[@myzorbos]

i think the biggest problem is people ignoring Danuser saying he left because of the RTO mandate. That made me the most worried for Worldsoul Saga, as I'm sure Danuser is not the only studio veteran who is leaving because of it...

[@remyoconnor3141]

If you lived in Azeroth it would have been totally possible to not know what happened with garrosh but still have been called to defend against the iron horde.

[@mybelovedchaos]

Wow I didn't realize how little I cared about Steve Danuser leaving WoW until there was a whole video about it. Well wishes Steve, I'm sure you'll find more adventures to be a part of in your future!

[@araquen6360]

I am not so petty as to wish anyone to be out of a job, and honestly, I really had hoped that Danseur may have benefitted from the collaborative efforts under Metzen. WoW Danuser’s reliance on “mystery box” storytelling clashed with the tone of WoW storytelling - especially when the community expressed a lot of pain with the story since the start of BfA. I’ve gone on record being gobsmacked that ANYONE at Blizzard would have been allowed to destabilize the IP as badly as Blizzard did with BfA, which is on Afriasiabi, not Danuser. But Danuser is responsible for portraying Sylvanas as a “4D chess” mastermind and I think a lot of her tone which simply didn’t line up with player’s expectations - and I take that from those who were invested in the Forsaken story, though I do recall even back in Vanilla, there was always a sinister undertone to the Forsaken. That said, the BLAME for all the churn rests not with Danuser or Afriasiabi, but the executives who green-lit the narrative and let Afriasiabi unilaterally decide to jeopardize the IP. When I first saw the rumor of Danuser’s quiet departure, I thought long and hard about his tenure - partial BfA, Shadowlands and Dragonflight. An arc that nearly destroyed my investment in WoW. Prior to BfA, if you asked, I would have said you will take WoW away from my cold, dead hands. Now, everything that tethered me to the game has been ruined for me, and there are times I struggle with even logging on. I cannot forgive the narrative leads for that loss of joy I once had in the game. My only hope is that within the post-Amirdrassil cut scenes, there was dialog that actually did give me hope - just simple acknowledgements of where the Night Elves stand, narratively, in the game. I mean, it was ALL I was looking for at this point, and the current narrative team delivered. And I think this is what Danuser didn’t bring to the table - everything was a “mystery box” (one of the worst storytelling devices if not done right) and the story from BfA through Dragonflight felt like Blizzard was constantly kicking the narrative resolution can. There was no narrative satisfaction, or landing, which is bad when you are working with serialized storytelling. You can have threads of a story that persist, but the main narrative has got to resolve. If you’re going to start the Night Elves in peril as a main focus in the first act, you don’t drag the narrative through three expansions. If you’re going to heel-turn an entire faction into outright “baddies” for a THIRD time, you can’t resolve the issue by copy and pasting the same narrative you had four expansions previously. I really disliked BfA from its set up, and the Burning of Teldrassil (which nearly made me quit WoW) to writing the Alliance as stupid, because that was the only way to get the expansion story to last as long as it did and it’s copy/paste of the Garrosh story arc at the end - with the Alliance for some unfathomable reason HELPING the Horde -- again, and this time with no concessions FROM the Horde - a perfect comparison between the old narrative team and the BfA one. The Horde as Baddies under the old team saw Varian firmly tell the Horde that the Alliance is done with this nonsense “you do this again, and we will end you.” A threat that was never picked up on (and by all signs never will be) in BfA - and it SHOULD HAVE BEEN. But the BfA narrative could only happen by having the Alliance blindly and passively allow Sylvanas her meat grinder war. Again, my inner narrative was that if the Horde burned Teldrassil, then the Alliance wold have choked the Southfury river, denying Orggrimar fresh water and forcing the mass evacuation of Orggrimar to Thunder Bluff - NOT attack Dazar’alor, which literally had nothing to do with the war, and the whole idea of “let us show you how weak the Horde is by us attacking you” is an asinine idea. I could wax poetic for ages on all the narrative gaffes, far worse than the over the top, almost cartoonish stories of past expansions (which were actually fun to play through, and Vanilla, which remains my “S tier” experience with WoW was written by folks who were literally winging it). And then it occurred to me. BfA, Shadowlands and Dragonflight feel very much like the filler arcs you get in long running anime. The characters are there, the setting is there, but the stories don’t fit right. And I think that is my assessment of Danuser’s tenure, whether or not he was solely responsible (and he wasn’t). The three expansions feel like WoW being narratively outsourced. I do wish Danuser the best - I believe that Danuser has his own voice, and he deserves a chance to tell his own tales. WoW is a collaborative narration that needs to fit a pre-defined tome that the players expect. The medium is not set up to have “stand out” voices, like, say, comics. You’re not supposed to see the “Metzen run” or the “Danuser run” like you have the “Claremont run” or the “Grant Morrison run.” Danuser did his “apprenticeship” at Blizzard, and now I think he can stretch his wings and tell the stories he wants to tell without corporate oversight clipping said wings to conform to the needs of the IP. And that is about as generous as I am willing to go for the one who was in charge of the game which did its best to “fire” me; destroyed a zone that was deeply meaningful to me, and a source of solace when I was in a very dark place and did nothing, until literally the end of the Dragonflight expansion, to make that horrible story arc come to a satisfying conclusion. Afriasiabi may have lit the Tree up, but Danuser did nothing to make the narrative beat worthwhile, and in some cases, dropped the ball on what would have been some incredible world building.

[@rainisneat]

While I don't think Danuser deserves all the hate he's gotten, and while a lot of the things he's been criticised for have likely been team efforts, I also think this video glosses over the narrative failures of mid-BfA through Dragonflight way too easily. The way the story never concludes and just leaves you with vague cliffhanger after vague cliffhanger. The way so many romantic relationships are clearly self-inserts from aspiring young writers and feel very little like Warcraft. The way the established mythos of the Titans was just carelessly thrown out the window in favour of a worse version with First Ones and robots. The way beloved characters like Arthas, Uther, Thrall, and Sylvanas were treated and mishandled. The way new villains were incredibly one-dimensional and boring. Yes, the Primal Incarnates were a step up, but the bar was set pretty damn low. Where was literally any of the build-up towards Fyrakk being the main end boss? Why did Vyranoth swap sides so easily? Why is Iridikron barely present despite being the more interesting of the three? The way BfA just ended with Sauron's death, Shadowlands ended with a robot powering down with vague threats, and Dragonflight ended with the power of friendship. The way the game barely feels like Warcraft anymore and hasn't had great pre-expansion narrative content (short stories, cinematic shorts, etc) since pre-BfA? The way literally every Night Elf player has been clamouring for a return to Hyjal for years and instead got Amirdrassil as the resolution to their struggles? The way the Tyr storyline kept going for months and months and ended in... what, exactly? Another setup for future lore that WILL be interesting this time? The way Chromie is way overused in the main storyline and ruins the gravitas of just about any scene she is in? The way Nozdormu's age-old troubles about becoming Murozond was just casually resolved in a small path? The way the Dragon Aspects feel really weak and hardly ever use their proper Dragon forms in Dragonflight? The way Ysera and Mulfurion just randomly swapped places, only for her to not be used properly (and barely get any acknowledgement from her sister), while he just sort of pops up again in the end? I could go on forever about this. The one redeeming thing about the recent lore has been that red dragon dwarf dude just reminiscing about the past in the Dragon Isles. Love that guy.

[@TaliesinEvitel]

Imo it's a bit unfair to say I gloss over the bfa cliffhanger ending when I specifically refer to it as BFA's biggest story failure, likewise the one-domensional baddies when I specifically find Danuser guilty if creating the jailer whi I call the worst wow antagonist ever

[@CyclopsToppingWolverine]

Shadowlands was a great litmus test for content creators who exist just to circle jerk the hate train. Not that criticism in general was bad, but some creators were (and STILL are) going down the route of hate training Danuser on a personal level. Not naming names, but it was never enough for them to just.. not like a story.

[@croy2814]

"Every week, something will come out of us" - Evitel. Confirmation that she's pregnant! But realistically, I appreciate your levelheaded and rational look at the game and that's what keeps me coming back to both channels. So even a short look at the weeks goings on will be liked and watched, all that being said, good luck with your hole.

[@Elysian777]

I organically discovered my first mage rune. I had decided to go in blind and didn't read anything. Had a habit in old vanilla of sheeping everything- because it was fun. I sheeped cows, defias, bunnies, even sheep- all of it. So when I saw a Gazelle wandering, totally out of place in Elwynn, what did I do? Well first I checked type to see if it would be tameable by my hunter (nope, critter) so I sheeped it. Boom - lucked out. So when I saw the other 'out of place' animals in the zone it was a no-brainer.

[@aspencarter4229]

If DF was fully his vision, then I think that's a serious redemption. Considering this expansion has brought back mass numbers of people and has been labeled the best expansion since MoP. And yea, maybe that's not the highest bar...but it got some mass praise regardless.

[@hs2874]

I actually enjoyed both his "Dark Mirror" and "Three Sisters" a lot (why did Blizzard stopped releasing comics?). I also thought Nathanos Blightcaller was funny and entertaining, his grumpy remarks were an antithesis to the usual flattery tone used by NPCs when they talk to the player. I still hope that Sylvanas finds her grumpy ex-bf somewhere, somehow. The short story about Chromie wasn't my cup of tea though.

[@nathaliemlromer]

Those simpler days when you just had to bring a lost necklace to Sylvanas and she would sing of sorrow and loss...

[@ZergS4uc3]

golden and danuser leaving was my happiest day ever

[@jennapeterson2745]

I also agree, I would love even a tiny mini weekly reset every week, even if there's no news to report. I can barely get my kids to actually play the game, but they LOVE the weekly reset, and look forward to it. Me, too, but I'll pretend it's all for the kids ;)

[@StarShopping69]

The LEAD NARRATIVE DIRECTOR watched the Amirdrassil raid cinematic probably tens of times before it came out and said "yeah, that's good" and gave it the go ahead. I do not care how you phrase it or use it as a reason to give him a pat on the back for Iridkron. The cinematic sucked story beat or not.

[@TaliesinEvitel]

How about if I phrased it, "The buck stops with him"?

[@chbrnds4759]

I really like your conclusion about Steve. Thank you for this. And also thank, Steve. I have great respect for his work at THAT moment. I also liked shadowlands. Just its the point were I also changed von aotc raider to open world casual time wasting. And that start feeling boring, since there is no big bad story involved and everthing looks so "oh, down under the survace we are all friends" vibe. But I also think we needed this, somehow. So overall mixed feelings. BUUUUUUT: personnell threads are an absolut no go!

[@patrikzotaj4528]

what happens if what if arthas redeem himself to help us against the jailer.

[@tangentkatz]

Whenever people hate on Danuser I have flashbacks to when everyone was hating on Metzen. I think they both deserve criticism as writers, but the story of "this person ruined everything" is overblown.

[@epic-o2215]

Im happier with metzen and gregory in charge but i do think people dumped on danuser for stuff that wasnt hisnfsult and will fail to properly credit him with the good stuff he did. Almost for sure everyone will pin zovaal on him and give iridikron credit to the new directors.

[@TaliesinMyrddin]

Chronicle is a tough one. I definitely agree it was scummy to sell it as a definitive guide and then say wait no it's potentially biased because that mislead customers, and I don't really like that more modern books are being so explicit in saying that because it feels artificial, but in terms of storytelling I definitely prefer it this way to being actually solid lore they must not change. Parts of it, anyway. I think anything about the nature of the cosmos - how the universe started, etc - should be open to 'perspective' and anything that directly flows on from that should be fair game, but stuff like "Varian killed Onyxia" or "the Horde founded Orgrimmar in Durotar" are actual history we've witnessed and shouldn't be changed. Basically, if it's lore outside our characters' lifespans that we only know about because of sources outside the game, I think it should be mysterious and something to puzzle out. If it's something we've experienced in any Warcraft game, including through time travel, I think the fact certain things happened shouldn't be changed, though I'm fine with the context around those things being updated.

[@dtulip1]

Your description of WoD is exactly how I felt

[@ninnoofthelastunicorn2693]

No matter where the fault lands on the story issues, it's done, at least to me, irreparable damage to how some can feel towards it. I simply cannot get excited for anything in the WoW story anymore because I've been shown getting invested in said story will only lead to disappointment. I do hope they can turn that aspect of the game around

[@Kiauze]

Really curious as to the music that starts at 19:51 anyone know?

[@Qurillion]

Me too, not heard it before!

[@dalekmoon]

HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY Evi ♥

[@nigelhirth2181]

"Every week, something will come out of us." Not a resounding review of the NHS, honestly.

[@Tristana.Keauna]

I was really excited at the thought of Steve and Chris working together and what they'd create... I thought Steve did pretty well with what he was handed over.

[@georgeindestructible]

I hate how people don't understand the amount of pain and suffering Sylvanas constantly feels for existing in a way she absolutely despises (i mean before she got her other part of her soul back). No one seems to give an f about it, and i don't even remember a single character in the game sympathizing for her tragedy or give a single f about it as well...like...

[@happyclam1266]

Steven managed the Sylvanas BFA arc as well as anyone could.

[@fuzzysham88]

I've been playing WoW and familiar with Warcraft in general that i remember when Metzen was heavily criticised for 'green Jesus' Thrall and the choices he made as creative lead. I find it very interesting how the community is treating Danuser similar to how they treated Metzen back then only for Metzen's return to be hailed as saving WoW. As we know, however, the internet loves their drama and discourse so this comes as no surprise to me but its fascinating to see a new cycle of love and hate begin anew. We'll see how it all turns out as the Worldsoul Saga progresses

[@playlist233]

You know its bad when out of touch executives had to tell the writers: "Don't kill our fan-favorite goth chick for some dumbass plot". They made the right call. Its not like they told the writers to write trash

[@Hyndira]

You mentioned and then missed a good point. Sylvanas told her motivations to Anduin in a cinematic. For this cinematic to make sense, you have to play the raids. But if as new or returning player, you start chromie time, you never do the old expansion raids and thus half of the expansion's story is missing for you. For me that's the biggest failure of wow: telling the continuing story of every expansion through raids or time gated daily grind areas.

[@nauscakes1868]

I'm not emotionally invested in this game to give Danuser hate. But I think sweeping the problems under the rug, and saying "yeah, he wasn't that bad" kinda downplays the actual shit-show people complain about. It's not like all those people were mad for misguided reasons. SOMEONE screwed up somewhere, and I feel like acknowledging what the problem is, and who may be responsible for it could help people sort out their feelings. And while I'm not huge on inciting aggression. If you could reasonable pass a lot of the blame onto the creepy perv guy, you missed a great opportunity to use him as a scapegoat to spare Danuser some backlash. Because even if you could explain his innocence, those people who feel wronged by the bad story telling are still going to be mad. A wrong can be explained, but people will still want an enemy, lol ------------------- Regardless, I don't have much hate for him. It's not personal for me. But I also have to call out Tali too. There's a big difference between saying "you enjoy a reality TV show," and saying Game of Thrones Season 8 was "brilliant." I 'enjoyed' season of 8 Game of Thrones. I enjoyed a lot of terrible shit in Warcraft too. But no way would I ever call that shit "brilliant." But also, in Danuser's defense. I agree that his opinion on Game of Thrones doesn't have anything to do with his job. I just think it's a dumb opinion. And again, I enjoyed the season, and I'm glad he enjoyed it. But brilliant is a overstatement.