A rumor is circulating on the Internet. Alex Afrasiabi allegedly ruined the story of Sylvanas in World of Warcraft single-handedly. But is that true?
In recent days, a rather explosive thesis has been circulating on the Internet. The current state of the story of World of Warcraft is said to be solely due to an unloved developer: Alex Afrasiabi. But is there really something to it?
What is going on in WoW right now? The community around World of Warcraft is – at least largely – dissatisfied with the storyline. Especially the development of Sylvanas and the resulting strong focus on her are souring many players. The criticism that keeps coming up is: The story team of World of Warcraft is bad, they ruin the lore of the game and destroy great characters.
Recently, the rumor arose: The former story chief of World of Warcraft, Alex Afrasiabi, allegedly “sabotaged” the story of Sylvanas on purpose to get back at the WoW team before he was fired during the investigations surrounding the sexism scandal.
Where did the rumor come from? The rumor was spread by the YouTuber Bellular, who wrote in a tweet:
“It’s kind of wild that Afrasiabi decided to have one last laugh with Sylvanas, pretty much destroying her storyline and putting the remaining story writers in a weird position.
It shows that our “WTF is this crap” reaction to Battle for Azeroth was well-founded.”
Bellular referred to a tweet by Ian Bates, the “Red Shirt Guy”, who in turn referenced Michelle Morrow. She is the voice actress for Alleria (in Hearthstone) and supposedly claimed that Afrasiabi created the story of Sylvanas and Teldrassil specifically to carry out his ‘vendetta’.
Morrow then explained in her tweet:
I am sad about the leaked cinematic. [Sylvanas’] entire character was sacrificed for the worst story in the entire history of Warcraft. I’ve heard from a reliable source that the burning of Teldrassil was Afrasiabi’s idea. No idea. Whatever, my girl has now fallen victim to the retcon.
Morrow explained that after the issue exploded on the internet, her tweet had been “overdramatized”. She did not use words like “vendetta” and merely wanted to point out that the burning of Teldrassil is solely attributable to Afrasiabi.
But is there really something to it? Is the answer that simple? No, some content creators around WoW, like Taliesin, think differently. He has some connections to internal sources at Blizzard and concludes: It’s not as straightforward as it looks.
Taliesin has some contacts at Blizzard due to regular visits to BlizzCon and also because of his YouTube channel. He says he often hears things that developers confide in him – often just small, funny anecdotes, but sometimes also important details from development. He does not want to disclose exact names to protect the individuals involved, but emphasizes: He has heard the same thing from multiple sources at different times.
Afrasiabi started the story and then left the team
Accordingly, the burning of Teldrassil and the resulting change in Sylvanas’ storyline was a decision made solely by Alex Afrasiabi. The rest of the story team was not in agreement with this move, but ultimately could not prevail.
This also means that Shadowlands and the entire story derived from it are basically just the sweeping up of a story wreckage left behind by Alex Afrasiabi.
However, Taliesin would not go so far as to accuse Afrasiabi of malevolent intentions. His job as story chief was also to create a story that generates hype and creates exciting twists – and probably no event in the history of World of Warcraft has been discussed as wildly as the burning of Teldrassil. It was an important and indeed impressive moment in history.
The problem was rather that Afrasiabi apparently did not know at that time where exactly he wanted to take the story, and the whole WoW team had to basically rely on him to implement his vision and bring the story to a sensible conclusion.
When Afrasiabi was then fired due to severe allegations surrounding the sexism scandal, the rest of the WoW team faced the incomplete story that they never actually wanted.
New story begins only with patch 10 – is that “baby” of the new story chief
Accordingly, the team is currently still in a position where they somehow have to deal with Sylvanas’ character and her current state, which explains the strong focus of Shadowlands on Sylvanas’ story.
The whole chaos, however, also brings a bit of hope, as other sources say: “10.0 is Danuser’s baby” – the new WoW story chief. So all lore fans can hope that the upcoming expansion will be much more coherent and well-thought-out than what was the case from Battle for Azeroth to Shadowlands.
What do you think of this whole situation? An exciting perspective? Or do you ultimately not care because you just want a good story that is currently not being delivered?
By the way, Blizzard has gone even further with Afrasiabi – all references to him have been removed from the game.
