Thanks for reacting to my request! I love Metzen's dedication to the original intention and plan as much as he feasibly can. ❤

Someone should to share this old info session with Chris Metzen as a reminder to why, his perspectives of world building and immersive storytelling are vital, now more than ever.

@charlayned

14 күн бұрын

I don't think he's forgotten it, and it's why they got him back. The things I see from the stuff we've had previewed, he's gone back and picked up a lot of the threads and started weaving. And, world building is hard, no matter what world you're building, it takes a LOT of research and writing to keep everything together. Have you ever sat down and tried to outline the WoW stories and how the world is built? I'm surprised it has been as good as it is, especially when he wasn't here to steer the ship. This is a very complicated world with so many moving parts that it's crazy. You move one cog some direction and it pulls the story in so many other parts. The more characters, more lands, more backstory, the harder it is to move things because it can (and sometimes does) break other things. Most writers/authors keep a story bible on their world, with notes on everyone, everything, and outlines of every story so they can refer to it as they go. The story bible for WoW, as Pyro has indicated on so many videos, is vast and complicated. I'm amazed that it's as solid as it is at times.

@AccidentlyHero

13 күн бұрын

@@charlayned I don’t think he had forgotten either, but as a creative writer myself, think it’s important that we remind each other of our creative roots and that we not alone in our creative endeavors- especially when it’s a shared passion over similar narratives. As a creative writer, I’ve done a lot of worldbuilding. Worldbuilding can be difficult for some but that doesn’t necessarily mean its hard to do- the problem that often causes the difficulty of worldbuilding is that the writer becomes obsessed with every minute detail that they never get to the narrative or the setting in which events are occurring in their world. I've always thought that what you don't tell your audience can be as important as what you do tell them. You need to leave little spaces in your narrative. Strategically placed so that they don't become plot holes, but large enough that the audience can peer down them and wonder what's at the bottom and what they might find along the way down there. Give your audience the room necessary to actively participate in the story. 'Course I'm coming at this FROM the perspective of the audience.

Chris = RPG, Ion= MMO. I hope Chris introduces more RPGs to retail. I love playing solo, role-playing through challenging and rewarding journeys across the world. I'm also tired of guilds, raids, and that one game aspect that squanders the incredible world-building of Warcraft by focusing all the dev resources on it.

I have been reading a lot more Cthulhu mythos, I never noticed the main god is named Azathoth who is sleeping. It sent me down a rabbit hole of connections to Warcraft. I knew the old gods were Lovecraft inspired, but I think the connections go much deeper than I ever realized.

@Pihtorich

13 күн бұрын

The name Azeroth appeared in warcraft 1 and referred to a human kingdom. Highly doubt at that point there was any lovecraftian inspiration behind it

@trollbane66

13 күн бұрын

@@PihtorichWhen I say Warcraft, I mean Warcraft lore to modern day, not simply the Orcs vs Humans game.

@Pihtorich

13 күн бұрын

@@trollbane66well it's still a name from Warcraft 1 so there's no connection

@dfsdhjk4780

13 күн бұрын

@@Pihtorich I don't see your logic. You admit that the name was originally for a human kingdom and that it was later changed to be the name of the planet, but then act like there couldn't have been any reason for choosing that name specifically.

@Pihtorich

12 күн бұрын

@@dfsdhjk4780 specifically to resemble Azathoth? Obviously this couldn't be the case, because these modern lore ideas came much later and from different authors. Inspiration for the name Azeroth is likely a random fantasy novel called Fires of Azeroth and there's no particular reason for it other than it sounds cool

14:12 Don't be too sad, Pyro! There are also amazing addons like Immersion that make it easier and more enjoyable to read the quest text. Lore enjoyers are still out there!

@Pyromancer

14 күн бұрын

I use them! :D

I've been recently watching a bunch of the old interviews with the Vanilla WoW devs, one thing they talk about a lot is that Metzen was very flexible with the lore in WoW, the only things he had hard lines on was stuff that contradicted Warcraft 2 & 3, like he wanted a wild west dungeon in the Barrens before that later became Wailing Caverns & all sorts of stuff like that. Pyro mentioned the quests & how people just skip through them today, back when WoW launched the meta for MMOs was that you'd level through grinding mobs, WoW totally changed that with having a fully questable journey to max level (though some of the quests had to be added post launch), in fact when they'd get EverQuest guys in to test the game they'd ignore the quests & just run straight to grinding mobs & they didn't find it fun, so the devs would have to ask them to try the quests and when thry did that it became enjoyable. Also you see in this video how the quest text scrolls out, that was added to actually get the players to read the quests because it felt too flat to the devs when all the text popped up and you could hit accept immediately. Also I think the RPG books were decannonized much later on because the Me'dan plotline sorta spiraled outta control, I figure if you basically just discount that whole section & the stuff that ties to it, that the rest of it could be pretty fairly still canon

I own this dvd, came with the Vanilla collectors edition. I re watch it every few years, it’s great to go back and see how the roots of Warcraft still influence is future!

By dark elf, he means the Drow of Forgotten Realms. We all know it

I know it is an old interview, and the images of the art and concept are really cool and fascinating. But one of the things that caught my eye and I couldn't help it, was that Draenor was labeled as The Red World.

@Pyromancer

14 күн бұрын

Was also called the SUNstone by the Apexis. According to the ancient ogre legends, colossal beings came and squeezed the fire from Draenor. I wonder what that’s all hinting at? ;)

As someone who has been a fan of the Warcraft games since Orcs and Humans, this video was a treat

10:50 The first Command and Conquer game came out 2 months before Warcraft 2 in 1995, C&C had FMV cutscenes and CGI renders. C&C: Red Alert and C&C Tiberian Sun both came out before Warcraft 3 and both were driven by their own lore.

10:22 Warcraft wasn't the only RTS to have a narrative driven campaign. At around the same time Age of Mythology was released. It was created by the same people who created Age of Empires, Age of Empires II Age of Empires III etc. which I played a lot of. Age of Mythology's campaign was narrative based. The main character was Arkantos. Through playing him, one played through Greek, Norse, and Egyptian maps fighting an evil cyclops character in the same way Arthas goes after Mal'Ganis.

@PazOfficial

13 күн бұрын

This.

@Pihtorich

13 күн бұрын

Besides, war3 for RTS genre is the same kind of thing as HoMM for turn based strategies

@TaliesinMyrddin

13 күн бұрын

The golden age of RTS

I love this underground shit! This is content I'd never normally get any other way. Thank you Pyro, sincerely!

Take a shot every time Metzen says 'Kind of'.

lol he mentions the D&D line BEFORE the novels...pure comedy honestly

Why would I consider the RPG books not canon when they go (almost) perfectly in line with the old WoW? Blizzard only declared them non canon in 2015. Maybe it's their Activision era lore that's not canon but irrelevant fan fiction which has nothing to do with the original vision. That makes more sense

He’s got a D&D style role play game he created while he was “retired”

@Pyromancer

14 күн бұрын

Coils of Orobouros or something like that. ;)

@xXGeko1Xx

14 күн бұрын

@@Pyromancer that’s the one

Warcraft IP, the last bastion to be yet conquered by Magic the gathering.

Yea the RPG books were canon until they acknowledged Me'dan as canon and that is why they had to go. But it's very clear things keep coming from the old sourcebooks. I suspect that when we're done with it all, Most of the RPG book stuff finds its way into canon content, even if the book itself is not.

There’s a ton of Burning Legion buildings in game assets

Hmm yeah in the lore forums where we were discussing during vanilla times, we treated the RPG as canon for all the discussions. At some point later, i'm not sure if in BC or Wrath they started to say that no, the RPG wasn't canon; but that really felt it was because they realized that it was going to constraint plans for the future in an MMORPG that was going to last a lot longer than they thought initially. Since then, yeah you can't trust anything that's said on the RPG, but that doesn't mean the RPG isn't the foundation they are still taking inspiration for a lot of things.

great to see how he talks about going 3d for warcraft 3 , If my memory is right they started to work on world of warcraft before working on the frozen throne xpack

10:30 Dune II was the first story-driven RTS game, not Starcraft or Warcraft. Dune II came out before both.

Azeroth was born 20 years ago by our timeline, here soon it changes forever with The War Within and The Worldsoul Saga that will shape the playing field for the future. it is both an exciting and terrifying time, because this could either save WoW and put it back on top, or condemn it to a niche playerbase for the rest of eternity.

@adamslosslessmusiccollection

14 күн бұрын

WoW will probably do a hard reset after this 3 part expansion. The devs know the game is dated so it’ll take them 3 expansions to tell players that the world will change. Meanwhile us in FFXIV already had that reset from 1.0 to 2.0 just from the servers shutting down to a cinematic. I do miss the 1.0 vastness with areas, but not all of the unfinished content. I’ll just find it funny if Blizzard pulls ARR. lol They can’t think of anything original.

@UltimateGamerCC

14 күн бұрын

@@adamslosslessmusiccollection Blizz has already been clear on this that they have zero interest in doing an ARR type reset, they are not gonna throw away 20 years worth of content. you and Asmongold need to forget that doing such a thing would fix the game, or that such is THE ONLY WAY to fix it. they havent been spending all of Dragonflight and TWW's dev time adding QoL to do a reset a couple years later, WoW 2 is a meme and that is all it will ever be.

@adamslosslessmusiccollection

13 күн бұрын

@@UltimateGamerCC Well there is too much bloat in WoW with all of the items and systems. FFXI still suffers from this despite being a PS2 game that’s still playable on PC only right now. Last time I played FFXI, I was overwhelmed by all of the different types of currencies to obtain and all these different modes. With item bloat in FFXI, there’s one item that still doesn’t have a purpose in the game as an item for questing or crafting. That’s how bad the bloat it is in FFXI and it’s probably the same in WoW.

@UltimateGamerCC

13 күн бұрын

@@adamslosslessmusiccollection ok? but a bloat doesnt require a complete reset, sorry not sorry that you seem to suffer from OCD, but that's a you problem. many currencies are old and therefore shouldnt be an issue. unless you're a whale and you're mad that you cant wave your wallet at every problem. EDIT: also 20 year old game bro, deal with it.

@adamslosslessmusiccollection

13 күн бұрын

@@UltimateGamerCC Yeah, but a new player would really be turned off from WoW, especially with all of its convoluted systems. FFXI is a different beast because it’s so old school that there’s no quest markers or guidance in the game; you literally have to use Wiki guides to navigate the game. WoW isn’t accessible at all and it literally shoves you into the current story with no build up. The new player experience is shit and does not lay the groundwork for the gameplay and lore in endgame content.

Nice

TBH would not mind a Warcraft with 3 factions, Legion being the 3rd.

I have to admit, there was a time in my life where I was not reading any quest text. And yes, at some point I even had an addon that automatically accepted all quests so that I didn't even have to click on the accept quest button. But during the last maybe five years I changed dramatical in this point. Today I will read every quest text, every book, every flavour text, even on quests I completed multiple times.

Hearing my name mentioned other than on the livestream feels so weird lol.

1000% Chris appreciates the D&D aspects of WoW. It’s core to how you map a world as big as WoW.

@DarkScreamGames

14 күн бұрын

Appreciate may not be the right word to use... Selune, Silverymoon, A lot of Azeroth is just a big homage to Faerun.

14:20 A lot of players use the AI voiceover addon for quests nowadays on the Classic side.

There are Add ons to skip story? I guess this is like the people who scream through dungeon/raid content without looking at it. And there are Role Playing books? (I have just started collecting the books as we can). How can you play a game like this and not pay attention to the story? Forgive me for the somewhat obliviousness but WoW and D&D are the two games I've played. I do a lot more with literature due to my minor (English) and history (major), and my own reading and writing. I just don't "get" the idea you go into the world and not pay attention to what is around you.

AI Voiced quest text is the best addon I've ever installed. It's not perfect but its forced me back to enjoying the world and questing.

WoW has *long* needed a single0player mode to replace Epic charcter quests, or to replace the need for Out-Of-Game Novels. I would *gleefully* play as any of the Heroes of WoW to experience their story personally.

7:50 Instead of playable demons, we got red skin… 20 years later…

@UltimateGamerCC

14 күн бұрын

when you have limited time and even more limited staff, you have to sacrifice lesser things to focus on the important matters.

Why did you stop doing raid lore tours?

@Penumbra20

12 күн бұрын

More are planned! We just have to pace ourselves so he doesn't burn out.

@ChinnuWoW

11 күн бұрын

@@Penumbra20 But it's been 3 and a half months since his last one...

Why did he put VODs on Twitch behind paywall? I love how passionate he is about WoW, loved watching back every stream (eu pleb here) and all I see is "pay up" to watch VODs. Its just cringe ngl.

command and conquer had lore ...

This puts into perspective what WoW actually was and that a whole bunch of the nostalgia bait that you see now about modern retail is a load of hogwash. Turns out that if anything, modern WoW is returning to its narrative roots than people think.

It is a shame the lore of the game in the past expansions have turned so boring or overall ruined older lore. At times it was better not knowing of Elune's sister, for it made Elune more mysterious. Now with the knowledge of her sister, it is instead boring. I sadly do not think Chris returning can properly fix the lore that got screwed with Shadowlands and the like. Ruined my immersion of the IP - yet I play it, for the old lore before it was altered, was sacred to me. In the end of the day, hopefully it gets more interesting and less lame with Chris at the helm.

Hey Pyro, are you married? (sry for offtopic)

@Pyromancer

14 күн бұрын

I am.

first 💫