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serial orc enthusiast @eternalseething.bsky.social · 16h

I really don't see how things will change because they need to mandate change against CDev's will here and Ion couldn't care less about the story to do so. It seems more like Metzen came in, blew his capital with the saga idea, then peaced out for other projects.

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serial orc enthusiast @eternalseething.bsky.social · 16h

This has always been true to an extent, quest designers were defying him during vanilla development even, but they suggest that they've given up notions of leadership altogether now, and it shows. DF onwards is like an endless series of Cata Garrosh inconsistencies across the main plot.

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serial orc enthusiast @eternalseething.bsky.social · 16h

Without "Metzen will fix everything cope": I think there's been enough statements from him, other devs, and from people with some degree of insider knowledge that puts together an image where he just has limited sway over retail in particular. The structure of the team is inherently chaotic now.

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serial orc enthusiast @eternalseething.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

*2 real life years later* [ORCHESTRAL SWELLING]

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serial orc enthusiast @eternalseething.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Before we can get to the hand mystery - we have something really epic in mind for that - we have to address, you know, the Cousin Billy plot. The Billy plot is, you know, before we can address the hands, there's this whole story with Billy. It may feel like a detour, but it all connects to the hands

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serial orc enthusiast @eternalseething.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Ion: More Mom content? So, great question. Um, it's a matter of resources, and, um, resources are finite. We'd love to do more Mom content, absolutely, but - you know, the floating hand story, we have to do something about the hands. We're not really hearing a demand for more Mom, look - the hands..

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serial orc enthusiast @eternalseething.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

WoW writers be like "Mom? We don't, we're not currently talking about Mom at the moment. There's this pair of floating hands - we need to focus on that, we're not sure where Mom is at the moment. Mom isn't really relevant to the plot right now, we need to address the floating hands first."

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serial orc enthusiast @eternalseething.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

I don't think the writers have a sense of object permanence because there has been a growing practice from DF onwards of "if it's not onscreen, it doesn't exist or is frozen in time". The state of the world has never been more vague and unknown, everything sacrificed for the Arator budget.

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serial orc enthusiast @eternalseething.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

I don't know if we ever learned who did this questline but it has all the hallmarks of you know who's writing.

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serial orc enthusiast @eternalseething.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

reassuring a WoW writer that bad things can permanently affect characters and you can let uncertainty linger for narrative tension, there is a genre called tragedy. I wave copies of Harry Potter and Pokemon to maintain their attention and calm because they are starting to get uncomfortable

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serial orc enthusiast @eternalseething.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Modern WoW is so aggressively poisoned by viewing revenge and violence as inherent evils that need to be kept to an absolute minimum for the game to run that it's resulted in this non-story where nothing of note happens but characters pantomime emotions to pretend like somehing did.

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serial orc enthusiast @eternalseething.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

The total lack of consequence or reaction was really what made me realize nothing was going to matter. Loss inspiring righteous vengeance is such a core tenet of Warcraft's fantasy for decades now, and the response to a beloved city getting wiped out is "uh, it was problematic? move on". Insanity.

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serial orc enthusiast @eternalseething.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

The QA is so bad it almost gives the vibe that they've given up on TLT already. Or rather, I don't think they're blind to the growing pain points in the community, but they act as if they're helpless to act on them, so every other question is like "uhhh *super evasive answer*, maybe after TLT"

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serial orc enthusiast @eternalseething.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

If you read that post-Blizzcon QA, the way their teams talk about their games, Forever feels like the new main game with passion *and* resources behind it while they talk about retail like they have a skeleton crew with barely any resources. Retail feels aimless and insecure, so it's depressing.

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serial orc enthusiast @eternalseething.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Obviously they're focusing on Forever the next month but I think people are just over the writers stepping on the most obvious rakes ever, they're over all the numerous lies told about the story, about bugs, about addons, etc. they're over not being heard about character customizations and factions.

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serial orc enthusiast @eternalseething.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

I think the combo of 12.1 being the exact lose-lose situation I expected combined with how Blizzcon went and that dreadful QA sending the message that nothing will change and they continue to not understand basic requests people have been begging for years has drained the energy of even optimists.

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serial orc enthusiast @eternalseething.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

yeah I truly have no idea what they're doing anymore with retail's cutscene and cinematic direction. If Midnight's cinematic was their idea of a cool cinematic then they're totally lost the plot, the ending of it is maybe the most amateurish failure I've seen from Blizzard.

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serial orc enthusiast @eternalseething.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

There's a particular kind of person that is very vocal about how WoW needs to move on from the factions, and when pressed, immediately starts frothing at the mouth about 5.3 and WoD, expansions almost old enough to drive. I'm convinced that they have no idea SMV and Talador even exist at this point.

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serial orc enthusiast @eternalseething.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Of course the story isn't entertaining or proceeding in a way that enhances immersion in the fiction created, you're supposed to just click the "When I see inappropriate behavior, I should tell a manager immediately" button and then go to the next slide.

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serial orc enthusiast @eternalseething.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

The disconnect between audience and writers is that people are still expecting a comic book and attempt to dissect what they are being shown by comic book rules, while the writers are approaching it as an HR workplace harassment training video.

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Reposted by serial orc enthusiast

Dr. Kingston Junjle, PhD @evilelf.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

They don't want what makes comic books great -- which is a throughline, start to finish, and archetypes that wear their hearts on their sleeve. Ignoring graphic novels and more nuanced takes on characters the ideal for a comic book character is a trope. Warcraft used to be this. It no longer is.

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Reposted by serial orc enthusiast

Jeroen @emptyjerrycan.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Instead Zul'jarra is branded "the true strength of the Amani", and I'm left scratching my head what exactly it's supposed to mean. "The true strength of the Amani" is what, exactly? Putting your faith in the Loa? Bouncing back from being poisoned? Being older than your brother? Running faster?

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serial orc enthusiast @eternalseething.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

it's the silhouette for me, I think they really should have accentuated the muscle and size on the arms to match what's going on with the men. as is it's like they did exaggerated proportions with the belly and nothing else and for some reason it's the vocal point of the silhouette

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serial orc enthusiast @eternalseething.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

cynically I think they'd cite the unpopularity of KT for that, even though I'd argue their female model is a mess in a lot of ways beyond just "isn't a supermodel" and fails to invoke the same fantasy as the male model

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serial orc enthusiast @eternalseething.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

my favorite is the "you cannot make anything but Elves now, any other race would have 0.1% players" like brother, haranir have been out for nearly 7 months and have less active players than pandaren

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serial orc enthusiast @eternalseething.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

It's another story where the morality and positions of the heroes are paper-thin and would crumple under a loose breeze, and only work because the world is now written as a utopia where everyone 'good' is altruistic and has infinite resources. If it wasn't, the characters' feelings would be hurt.

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serial orc enthusiast @eternalseething.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

The wrench in it is how they wrote the Loa being unable to help with Ula'tek, something completely arbitrary that further lends to ZJ's irrelevance in the plot and increasing disconnect between the desires of the Amani and the desires of the Loa. They exist at the mercy of the Loa and Liadrin.

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serial orc enthusiast @eternalseething.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

The only takeaway I can get from the insane handling of the Loa across Midnight is that their stance is "we will only help you defend the exact borders of ZA as is and nothing more". Blizz decries the dream of their empire but the Amani might as well not have a nation anymore, they have no autonomy.

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serial orc enthusiast @eternalseething.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

(I invite Zul'jarra to refute this but she has to wait until Liadrin tells her what to think and believe)

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serial orc enthusiast @eternalseething.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

I love when my protagonists have to make no sacrifices or hard choices in their journey, I love when every possible dire situation actually ends up in a win-win for every (good) party involved, I personally relate to heroes that have no real struggle or hardship Yes I am a narrative designer on WoW

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serial orc enthusiast @eternalseething.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

They've twisted themselves into this knot where they go out of their way to play to all of their weaknesses instead of their strengths and seem to justify continued failure as proof to dump more money into the futile effort. Sorry, you can't have faction content because of the Arator budget.

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serial orc enthusiast @eternalseething.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

How many modern cutscenes are just two characters slowly talking while the animators kick their feet about how they can animate nasolabial folds in a 22 year old game or whatever. Was it worth animating Arator and Umbric talking to each other in 12.1? What value is it adding compared to in-game chat

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serial orc enthusiast @eternalseething.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Is this even a real sacrifice when even Blizzard acknowledges the vast majority of the well-liked quests are the side ones with no voice acting or cinematics? The budget is clearly not resulting in higher quality. VA is one thing but modern cinematics largely feel like redundant wastes of time.

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serial orc enthusiast @eternalseething.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

At a certain point constantly pointing out the team is bigger than ever but you also have no resources to do literally anything suggests your team has severe executive dysfunction or that bigger team count is padded out by an army of producers and directors that mostly spam Teams meetings.

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serial orc enthusiast @eternalseething.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Hilariously I think the strongest evidence for this is that they blatantly got some kind of "bring up Xal'atath's feet" talking point for Blizzcon

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serial orc enthusiast @eternalseething.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

i saw a random comment on twitter reacting to the transmog changes like "this is the shit you see when a game's about to stop getting updates" and i thought it was stupidly cynical at first but man if that isn't the vibes they've been giving off this year

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serial orc enthusiast @eternalseething.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

All the messaging they've been doing for retail this year is stuff I'd expect from a game in maintenance mode. Every other question is "uh idk maybe after the saga" like cool giant saga you were advertising, apparently they have no budget to actually do anything in it aside from more M+ rewards.

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serial orc enthusiast @eternalseething.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

I don't know anymore, it's just getting bizarre. Forever and Forsaken Kingdom just highlight how deeply uncomfortable retail is with Warcraft as a setting and every time they talk about its future now it feels like ominous threats of using retail to Trojan horse in a totally different fantasy IP.

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serial orc enthusiast @eternalseething.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

I think what's tragic is that we *know* as recently as this expansion they can do compelling race-focused content for their modern races, but everything is throw into the pyre of a main story being completely cosmic threats and character-obsessed. I just don't see them wanting to give it up.

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serial orc enthusiast @eternalseething.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

It's a simple show of what they think the game should present to new players. It went from trying to introduce you to the race you play, to generic D&D adventurer slop, and now to the generic D&D adventurer slop but a bunch of random heroes you have no reason to care about awkwardly shoved into it.

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serial orc enthusiast @eternalseething.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

man it's disappointing seeing the ugly DF keeper make it in, such an absurd downgrade they and dryads got by modeling them on the insanely stiff new centaur rig

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serial orc enthusiast @eternalseething.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

this would never work because they're not sexy enough! World of Warcraft notably unpopular and niche game in the 2000s

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serial orc enthusiast @eternalseething.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Strange that there's no Intelligence hero to round out the trio, and the boss fights don't feel well designed for WC3. Fun tip: the 3rd hero's ultimate makes summoned units permanent if their timer expires during its uptime, so you can pretty easily spawn a giant army.

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serial orc enthusiast @eternalseething.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

My gripes: the maps are incredible artistry for WC3, but in Act 1 especially it can be tiresome doing all the side content with their size. I hit some bugs, including a nasty CTD near the very end. If you keep crashing at a late Act 3 boss, unequip all your on-hit effect gear.

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serial orc enthusiast @eternalseething.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Yes, you can make comparisons to where retail is floundering. Garek is a far better character than the current batch because he is not the center of the world, far from it, and he doesn't try to be. Sylvanas is a side character because this is not her story. Lessons to learn.

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serial orc enthusiast @eternalseething.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Finished Forsaken Kingdom, no spoilers ahead. The strongest Warcraft experience in ages and feels authentic to WC3, right down to some very goofy Easter eggs and humor. Simple arcs done well and concisely, characters that make sense, elevating to a larger than life finale.

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serial orc enthusiast @eternalseething.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

tracking progress in Forsaken Kingdom by amount of time between characters voiced by Keith Silverstein

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serial orc enthusiast @eternalseething.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

The only reason that I think it's fake is because they did a whole video about revamping Northrend and Maria stressed "it's not just one or two zones, it's the whole continent", but knowing how their work process goes now maybe she hasn't seen a map of TLT Northrend since like early 2024.

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