Welcome to literally all Blizzard writing post legion. As for dragon visage forms, I am particularly fond of Steve Danuser’s short story about Chromie asking Onyxia for advice on what to wear to dragon prom. It so excellently encapsulates the man’s warped perception of the Warcraft setting.
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What in 10 chars
you what mate? Thou art frelling with me surely?
Wat? …
Nothing you’d lament not knowing about. I read the visage day stuff, and my reaction was more or less “Yeah, that’s about what I’ve come to expect from them these days.”
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I wish it was Knaak at this point.
I’m so sorry that you’ve reached this point, friend. 
compared to golden Knaak’s writing are works of art
even when you take into account his weird frequencyin writing with dragons and deities having sex, at least knaak never tried to take credit when it wasn’t theirs and didn’t shift blame when it suited him
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boush is rly out here on a solo mission to flame golden at any given moment possible lmao
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In what way?
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I’m here again 14 hours later to explain why I think Steve Danuser’s short story about Chromie choosing to be a gnome by asking her aspects paints a striking image of why Steve Danuser, in my opinion, holds an incredibly strange mental image of the Warcraft setting. I profusely apologize for the wall of text but it was just too entertaining to write.
1. Setting and timeline.
The story is written without a mention of when exactly it takes place, which is an entirely fine concept for adventures and similar fantastical tales. However, it does mention quite a few things that are incredibly important to the timeline of Azeroth. It’s before Chromie has settled on her form so it has to be taking place before Vanilla WoW and Black dragons are not hostile, which means it has to be taking place before the War of the Ancients. The black dragons are shown as cruel and wicked, so I guess it is now also canon that black dragons were always inherently evil because Chromie thinks to herself “You’re safe, Chronormu. You’re among your own people. There’s no reason to be afraid” as she wanders around the caverns of the Obsidian Dragonshrine. Onyxia says the humans are the greatest threat to dragons, which seems odd considering they at this time would be basic tribal folk on the outskirts of the massive Night Elf empire. Generously speaking I guess you could assume the tribal humans of the time caught the eye of the Black Dragonflight (for whatever reason) and we will also choose to ignore the fact that Onyxia taking on the form of Lady Prestor for 10.000 years and not as a scheme to usurp power in the same line as Deathwing’s human form of Daval Prestor later down the timeline is downright bizarre. Chromie ultimately settles on the form of a gnome, a species which also did not exist at the time.
In conclusion, although unsurprisingly if you paid any attention to the writing going from BfA onwards, Steve Danuser has absolutely no idea how the timeline works in Warcraft or simply sees it as a hindrance for telling stories and chooses to pick and match things he finds interesting all chronological order be damned.
2. The visages
Dragon visages used to simply be illusions donned by dragons to blend in. Sometimes they would be the same, sometimes not. Deathwing’s previously mentioned form of Daval Prestor was not that of a roided out himbo with arms bigger than his head but rather than of a supposed noble of tall, slim build and a beard. Indeed, we find other instances in WoW were dragons take on different mortal shapes like the red dragon Vaelastrasz who is seen to imitate both an orc and a human. Steve Danuser has now decided that the visages are the ultimate representation of the dragons themselves, which makes little sense because you’d imagine the ultimate representation of a dragon would perhaps be the dragon’s natural form: a dragon. It is indeed elevated to such an important act that there is now an entire day in the year where all dragonkin celebrate it akin to the sorting hat of Hogwarts, as if there is no going back once you’ve chosen what visage form to take which again feels lifted from something else and crudely applied to dragons.
3. The language.
I can best describe the language as simple. This game is for children, but it has that layer of uninspired simplicity, like an emote you write during a particularly hectic RP event where you’re short on time. “The woman laughed, her voice booming like the dragon she was.” Thanks Steve, the dragon laughed, sounding like a dragon is indeed a very apt description I guess. The writing is permeated with small kinks like that, or very sparsely worded things that seems written more to get a point across without fitting. For instance, it is written that Chromie hugs another dragon. Not in visage form, two dragons hug. How two massive, quadruped dragons hug isn’t immediately clear, nor is it explained. They just do. The story is moving on now. Descriptions of locales are equally strange, almost as if written by someone who might be learning english and are very good at it, but some phrases poke out as odd like the description “the periphery of the open-air chamber” which is an oxymoron because a chamber is indoors and open-air refers to outdoors. We understand that Steve is trying to say that area is large but we still don’t know if it’s indoors or outdoors (it’s on top of Wyrmrest temple which has no chambers by the way).
4. The conclusion
Steve Danuser wanted to write a magic coming of age story. Steve Danuser knows his creative outlet is limited to WoW if he wants recognition because no sane person would read his private works willingly. Steve Danuser decides to crowbar his idea into Warcraft, and he doesn’t really care if it works or not because he doesn’t see Warcraft as a coherent setting with rules, history and stakes. To him, World of Warcraft is akin to Hearthstone; a whimsical candy store of funny and cool designs that exists as a framework for his stories to take place in that loosely fits together but on the whole has no proper canon to bar his way.
Steve Danuser does not write Warcraft’s stories, he writes his stories, and this short tale of Chromie asking aunt Onyxia for advice on what to wear to the magic dragon prom is a perfectly condensed example of this desire.
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This makes me wonder how did he and Golden get hired/contracted in the first place and get into such a position to demolish the setting.
Where are those lore guardians or wardens or whatever buzzword they used to describe the employees who are meant to ensure the game’s lore remains intact? Was that a lie?
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Golden makes sense because she’s a NYT best seller (which she likes to point out very often) so that helps the brand drive up hype and sales no matter what is actually penned in her works.
Steve Danuser seems like he crawled out from a stationary cupboard in the Irvine offices and people just assumed he worked there.
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No concept of the linearity of history. No understanding of the difference between a costume and the natural appearance of the actor wearing the costume.
It may be the sysadmin in me but that sounds awfully like the kind of common mistakes and incoherencies a bad AI makes when retrieving requested information. Danuser isn’t a person, he’s an AI with a VRchat avatar overlaid on the blizzard streams and media. Quickly someone compare his works to that AI story generator.
Reminds me of this.
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Ive not been exposed to much of the Dragonflight stuff and i dont know if i want to be. Might just let this expansion be a surprise tbf.
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Thank you for your service.
She just specifically chose to look hot.
All timeline issues are resolved when you consider chromie is a timetraveller.
Actually okay as a self expression thing and preferred form, though they might shapeshift into any number of things for sheer convenience.
Expressing her reverting to her deeper dragon voice but what do I know about writing and brevity…
Knowing his amazon suggestions. Slaanesh knows I cannot kinkshame in good consciense but damn if it isn’t funny.
Hold up.
I chose a form that would quicken their heartbeats and allow me to seize all that I desire from them.
Onyxia dommy mommy. Damnit.
Hardly a badge of honour considering books are frequently bought in bulk to put people on that list.
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The thing is, I’m sure there’s space for Steve Danuser’s vision in this game. With hundreds of quests in every expansion, there has to be plenty of room for coming-of-age stories or whatever other idea Steve has.
That’s why no one was whining about him when he was a quest designer and no one whined about the quests he produced. As an example, Trueshot Lodge and the Hunter class identity in Legion wasn’t great but it wasn’t awful either. It certainly was the subject of less complaining that other class identities from what I recall, with Warriors, Priests and Paladins all feeling poorly represented.
That’s why he’s best suited to being a quest designer rather than controlling the direction of the entire narrative. At a lower level, writing his stories into WoW could come across as a breath of fresh air. At a higher level, writing his stories into WoW results in the previous identity of WoW being supplanted by his own ideas, which isn’t what anyone wants but him.
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