Chris Metzen discusses the role of the writer at GDC Online
by Anne Stickney 
Oct 10th 2011 at 9:00PM
Though lore has taken more of a front seat in Cataclysm, it's ultimately the gameplay that comes first with Blizzard, even before the story. According to Metzen, if you don't make it fun in the first 3 minutes of gameplay, you've failed. If the gameplay is a turn-off, it doesn't matter how wonderful the story is -- people still aren't going to want to play it. The presentation is an interesting look at some of the less-highlighted aspects of game development, and Gamasutra has coverage of the whole presentation. For those interested in what the job of a writer looks like at Blizzard Entertainment or wondering what goes on when creating a story as massive as Warcraft, it's a really interesting read.
But that's not all from GDC Online -- Blizzard writers also got together to discuss great gaming moments and the challenges of game design. The coverage of the event discusses more about the writing process, fan feedback, and creating memorable stories. Check out the full story over on Gamasutra as well.
Filed under: News items, Cataclysm
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Xantenise Oct 10th 2011 9:28PM
This is why I like WoW so much, 'cause Blizz is telling us a story.
Mos Oct 10th 2011 9:39PM
I agree that the story can be good but if the gameplay isn't there then it still creates a disappointing product. I also believe that if the story and the big lore moments end up falling short that the gameplay won't stay interesting for long. I used to be among those that really loved the lore of Warcraft and was put off when I seen others bashing it. As the expansions have rolled out, I have found myself becoming more disenchanted with the lore. We have had so much new technology added to the game to tell the stories and that has been really positive. I don't think, however, some of the big lore moments have been told well and we haven't seen what we have wanted to. This includes dead characters constantly returning and our lore heroes being portraied as weak in the rare instances that we get involved with them. (ie) Thrall has been turned into an impotent hero every since WotLK. The sentinels are another example of characters who have had their soul ripped away. Put some pride and accuracy back into the lore. It's not always about mechanics.
MusedMoose Oct 10th 2011 9:44PM
In general, I agree with you. But as I said below, the issue with writing for WoW is that the players want to feel like the heroes, like the main characters of their stories. It would suck for the players, and be bad writing to boot, if the players were made to feel weak every time the lore characters showed up.
But I definitely see why it also sucks to have a lore character show up and be much weaker than the players thought them to be. There are many times when we fight alongside lore characters, though, and I think that makes for a good balance, making it more of a team-up instead of them failing and us saving them or vice-versa.
MusedMoose Oct 10th 2011 9:39PM
Interesting articles; thanks for the links.
As a writer myself (I've actually had a story published, so I'm not unknown, I'm obscure!), it's really interesting to me to see how stories are told through all different mediums. Video games must present a very interesting challenge, especially with something like WoW, where you don't have one main character but millions of people who want to feel like they are the main character of their own story. I understand that our characters are playing the roles of the brave heroes who fight alongside the legendary warriors of Azeroth, so I can see why Mr. Metzen sees the writers' role as he does.
Also, oddly enough, Mr. Metzen kinda looks like someone who should be making video games. Just sayin'. ^_^
green_jerm Oct 10th 2011 10:40PM
I dunno, I LOVE story, if its a good enough story I'll muddle through any gameplay for it. Kotor gameplay wasn't bad, but when it first came out for PC there were huge bugs (run a million miles away from your new target while your team gets smote), but I'd go through worse for THAT story.
MusedMoose Oct 10th 2011 11:02PM
Seconded, very seconded. ^_^ This is why I love the older Final Fantasy games (4 and 6 are my favorites), they're so much more about the story than anything else. And yes, KotOR is an excellent example of this sort of thing.
Kylenne Oct 10th 2011 11:15PM
Same. I've always been that way too, it's why I latched onto RPGs so early and so hard in my gaming career. I have never been satisfied with just being told, "okay you have to do this" in a game. I need motivation. I need a reason why I'm killing the dragon for loot, and it has to make sense and be compelling, or else I don't give a monkey's arse about killing the dragon, it doesn't matter how fun the technical act of beating on the dragon is.
Which is why I've been pretty distressed to realize that the only way I can remain engaged in WoW anymore is by completely ignoring about 80% of the current story and pretending like my headcanon is the way things are. It depresses the crap out of me, but I've been so disenchanted with the way the story in this 'verse has played out since BC and the directions it's been drifting in during Cataclysm that the only way I can keep myself engaged in the actual gameplay aspect is to ignore most of the story. Even liking my guild and my raid team as much as I do. (As it is, I really only log on for raids/prep anymore. Because Ragnaros is utterly boring as a villain to me, heh.)
It's starting to remind me of Star Wars. You know that old affectionate joke about having to hate Star Wars in order to love it? I'm nearly at that point with WoW.
EverythingRuned Oct 10th 2011 11:23PM
The thing I've noticed about wow stories is that they can be pretty damn good on their own, but when you start putting them together to get the overall picture, stuff falls apart.
It's a situation of too many cooks in too many ktichens, or the comic book syndrome- characters are wildly different depending on who their author is or what sort of story you're trying to tell. I'm starting to think it's unavoidable in a behemoth like warcraft. This is especially evident in the way the Lich King was handled in Wrath, as well as some of the faction leaders in the current Cataclysm storylines.
Things that have been serious blows to my enthusiasm for wow stories:
Lich King death cinematic and generally everything about the scourge's behavior
Alexstrasza fights Deathwing cutscene.
As a side note, they've done an excellent job with many of the 1-60 questing zones in cataclysm. I "accidentally an undead to 60" just because I wanted to see what would happen next in the EK horde storyline. The new versions of Silverpine, Hillsbrad and both Plaguelands were some of my favorite experiences in wow.
In those situations, it really felt like the story was designed first, and then, afterwards, experience point values were assigned to quests. I like that.
Whig Oct 10th 2011 11:32PM
Interesting that the idea of killing an important story character's comes up, and that Martens is so adamant that you should never waste an important death. And yet in Cata, we had two faction leaders die (tauren and dwarf) totally offscreen and to no dramatic gain.
For me, wow is a videogame. If the story isn't happening in the game, it isn't happening. I think relegating so much of the story to the books is a bad idea.
amkosh Oct 11th 2011 12:07AM
I don't think Blizzard's writers are that good. I can think of a bunch of stuff that's better. Of course, the games that are better are usually RPGs, but I personally thought the C&C storyline was much more interesting and fun that WC1-3. And to me Diablo1/2 were interesting more so for their mechanics than the story and the primary thing for me was that someone did Rogue/Nethack right.
Now I'm not saying Metzen (and Blizzard) is bad, I'm just saying much out there is better, at least on a story perspective.
perderedeus Oct 11th 2011 12:18AM
I'm glad he was honest, stating that Blizzard isn't known for having the best story team in the industry. It's true. While I think they've improved greatly over the past two expansions (they stopped pulling some of their punches in Wrath, and have really turned the story on its head in Cataclysm), they nevertheless continue to, at times, suffer from Saturday Morning Syndrome.
Warcraft isn't Bioshock. It isn't A Game of Thrones. The story *can* get deep... only to veer off course into the territories of "a wizard did it" or "magic will fix it." Metzen's right, there's heart and soul -- the people behind WoW, SC and Diablo are putting their backs into it -- but unless a real paradigm shift occurs, and they decide to appeal to a more mature audience overall, I won't be looking to Blizzard for my "great fiction" fix. Or as Metzen refers to them, "hot sentences." There's just too much cartoony garbage going on.
Sarog Oct 11th 2011 5:31AM
"To us [writing] is not about the best [story] hooks in the world, or the most clever hooks," he said. "…It’s not about being the most unique in the world, or the best-written dialog in the world. To us it's about heart, it's about the engagement."
This part of the article straight away seems representative of what I think the strengths and weaknesses of Blizzard's writing are.
Engaging stories full of heart are what define Warcraft's better years. Warcraft 3, the story of Grom Hellscream, the fall of Arthas, the Third War in general... not the most original or cleverly crafted stories ever, but they had a lot of punch and they got to you emotionally.
But somehow, overlooking the craftwork of writing in favour of hearty stories just isn't working anymore. Not to me, at least, as someone who has been making every analytical effort to defend Blizzard's characterization until patch 4.2. The heart and punch of characters like Grom and Arthas is absent... and efforts at trying to recapture that emotional engagement have been shallow and cheesy. What we're getting is these increasingly silly superhero stories with characters who are each more over the top than the next, to the point that finding a thread that mentions Med'an, Varian, or Thrall on the official story forums that isn't overwhelmed by mocking them for their DBZishness is becoming really rare. The villains we see have become such cheesy caricatures that they are impossible to take seriously... Deathwing has been a gigantic derp this whole expansion and was personified as the most unoriginal bond villain ever in Twilight of the Aspects, and the Twilight Cult doesn't have a lick more substance than Team Rocket.
The heart is gone, and solid literary craftwork is the only way to save it. If Super Thrall would follow consistent personal themes rather than shifting gears to be Totally Super Awesome all the time, he'd be less plastic and more hearty (seriously, what is going on with Thrall this expansion? it is like Metzen's projecting a midlife crisis onto his author avatar). If Blizzard would write their stories based on on a consistent vision of where the franchise is headed rather than using the Rule of Cool gameshow wheel, we might get more stories about the Lothars and Orgrims of the world and less Captain Planet edutainment. And boy would it be great if they started writing as though their fans were adults.
"You're always going to get clobbered on ideas, but what you won’t get clobbered on is expressing your personal ideas and experiences -- your personal truth."
Maybe this is why the recent story seems so much like a edutaining episode of Captain Planet to me. The problem is that this personal truth that Blizzard puts into their stories is old, dull, familiar to the point that it isn't fun to fool around with anymore, and just plain not as deep as they might think it is. For the sake of the story, we need more grit and controversy and less of a morality cartoon about Neutral Faction Heroes who Rise Above It All! (tm) to give the kids at home positive role models.
"[For] writers at Blizzard, more often than not, writing isn’t their primary role on the team."
Maybe this is why 4.2 seems like an awkward teenage romance fanfic. Maybe its why the questing experience is so riddled with wacky joke characters at the expense of actual lore. Maybe its why the body of lore is so riddled with contradictions, with night elves growing up in Dolanaar and all. Maybe that's why every installment of the franchise is increasingly bloated with references and steps closer to blatant, audacious plagiarism.
Dazzin Oct 11th 2011 8:44AM
If I cared one whit about the mathematics of the game I'd never play any of them - table top or computer.
I want a good story. I want to feel a part of a good story and to feel like the other people in the story are something besides set dressing. I want to go into instances to See the content (unfortunately the current game culture is to rush through as fast as possible, ignore the content and just zerg for the final boss).
Now if we could just have some content please. When I first started this game in late Vanilla, just before BC I got hooked on the stories and the involvement of the players in them. I've run in certain zones because I want to see if Garrosh really is Learning Something.
I did the rescue of Thrall not because it was required for opening the next steps but because I wanted to help Agra. By the way, kudos on some of her lines - especially in the Stone sequence - growling about being patient - yeah, that was good stuff.
This isn't a comic book and even the youngest of the target group for this game are not unappreciative of good story (those that don't care live in the battlegrounds ;) ). We aren't little children who can't follow story for more than 5 minutes and we don't need the characters we've become involved with, attached to flattened into shadows of themselves.
Drew Oct 11th 2011 10:04AM
I attended Chris Metzen's GDC talk, and here are some interesting details to add. He indicated they would be announcing a new WOW expansion at Blizzcon that would change how people view Garrosh. Garrosh has a big story arc. Right now he is an asshole, but he is supposed to be. Metzen talked about how right now Blizzard is getting clobbered over players' dislike of Garrosh, but that later people will look back at Garrosh with nostalgia and say, "Man, remember how we used to hate that guy?"
There was plenty of other interesting stuff, like how they were surprised by the players' idea about a Thrall-Jaina relationship; or how the writer of the gnome faction leader story was really inspired by the passion of gnome players on forums and changed his approach to the story. Probably the most interesting was that Metzen started world design in Warcraft II from unit colors (he found pinkish/violet orcs unacceptable, but purple orcs lead to the Twilight cult, while yellow lead to the Alterac faction (they're cowards), blue was heroic Stormwind, etc.) Lore in Warcraft initially grew out of gameplay, although now they take it more seriously.
Overall, a very good talk.
Sarog Oct 11th 2011 10:22AM
That's interesting. Would love to find a transcript of that. But at the same time it worries me. They did the same thing with Varian. Varian was very unpopular with part of the playerbase after the Battle for UC for a time and that prompted Blizzard to whitewash him. Varian didn't need to be fixed. He was fine as he was as flawed, prejudiced, deeply troubled King trying to protect the interests of his people. They "fixed" him by attributing everything controversial about him to that zany split personality of his and introducing the subsequent Lo'gosh possession plot that seems to have prompted the entire fanbase into a gigantic facepalm. Now what made Varian controversial and polarizing has been resolved and with the cause of all his recorded flaws resolved he's poised to be a less dynamic character. And I'm not left saying "that guy's a stud, I'm with that guy" as Metzen said they were going for.
I like Garrosh. I like that he has flaws. I like that he screws up. I like that other characters think he's crazy and doubt him at every turn. I like that he follows realistic, human motivations and thinking patterns rather than being on cruise control to the Greater Good (tm). But I don't like that Blizzard's writers can't seem to agree on him and that Blizzard's less competent writers (read: STEVIE NIX) thoughtlessly undo the progress that Blizzard's more competent writers make with the character.
So if Garrosh is getting a huge story arch, great. He deserves it. If they are aiming at making him more liked... I appreciate the sentiment, but God help me if it doesn't worry me at the same time. Blizzard's efforts with Thrall and Varian with this expansion suggest that "running deep" with a character involves a Super Sayun transformation and a step away from controversy. Unlike most other folks I think Blizzard did a good job with his characterization (until Stevie Nix) and I'm inclined to be cautiously optimistic... but the last thing I want is for him to be whitewashed.
Bryan Dare Oct 11th 2011 12:40PM
Wow, great timing! I'm writing papers on story in WoW this semester for an independent study on storytelling in videogames and things like this keep popping up. Thanks for the info!