That’s the problem. Blizz made the Horde a tool for Genocide. Then forced us to sit on our hands and not allowed to comment on it, because it would have been inconvenient for Sylvanas’ story for us to. Which made us even more complicit. It is very unlikely we can ever balance the conflict.
Because there is no opportunities for the Horde to be the aggressors at any point in the near future that wont mar us like Ashran did in WoD. Where we immediately go back on our word, and start picking fights. Small stories, skirmishes, and conflicts will not save us from that criticism. Which means that the Alliance has to be on the brutal offensive in nearly every single case to even half pull off what you are suggesting.
I truly do not think you appreciate what the Faction Conflict and “PvP” being supported on a story level has truly done to the Horde for the last decade. Or why I’m so opposed to it. And we can’t just go back to Vanilla cold war anymore. Unless the Horde is on the defensive in EVERY SINGLE SCENARIO, there is no motive that you can give us that will validate us in being the aggressor.
Okay, I’ve given you your chance. I’ve tried to guide you to the information that would mend these errors - it’s clear that you will not take that road.
That’s fine, because I’ve said my peace. The Horde Faction Identity is not in a position to support your desire for PvP to continue to be supported on a story level. It wont be able to for years, assuming Blizz even attempts to rebuild that identity. Because its going to take years of hard work to do that.
And beyond that. Again. The number one thing from nearly every Horde poster on this topic comes back to again and again is “Lack of Motive” for the Horde. A massive issue if your trying to make the Horde players invested and interested in such a hypothetical PvP story. Which you do not have, outside of maybe the Zandalari. And until that major issue is solved, I will respectfully disagree with your premise. If we have no motive, let alone ones that are validated, to continue these sorts of conflicts … then they are empty conflicts for us so the NEs and Alliance can act on their motives. And get their stories and frustrations out.
We have been discussing this topic in my Discord server, and I wanted to share a proposal that came out of discussion of this topic. The following proposal is a copy paste from a Blood Elf fan - Matomi - who those who were on the unofficial Story Forum discord might remember as Eir. The following proposal is pasted without edits or further commentary from me, and was pasted with permission.
As I see it … desperate times requires desperate solutions. As such what I would do in warsong Gulch would be to attack something that the Orcs and the Horde still view as pure and good… something that they can be proud of. Something that up until this point has only been used in neutral content and almost been entirely co-opted by the alliance due to the dwarves and the broken draenei, namely
the Earthen ring.
In the wake of the 4th war… in an attempt to reconcile past sins, Thrall moves to send a massive delegation of his best and oldest shamans (possible led by Drek’thar) into Ashenvale with Darkshore as their final destination to offer the night elves their aid in removing and purging the area from its old corruption, use of the blight and angered spirits due systematic deforestation.
The night elves however view this as a clear cut invasion of Sovereign territory and replies in kind… the ambush is swift, decisive and more than anything… Brutal. The Horde encampment in the Barrens are thus met by a horrific sight on the break of dawn the following morning when massive chimeras drops off the mangled bodies (And drek’thars broken staff) of the departed shamans in front of the confused and horrified orc grunts. When news of the events reaches Thrall’s ears alongside the information about a night elven offensive that threatens to push into the borders of the Barrens he knows in his heart that the time for peace is unfortunately over and he will have no choice but to engage in a war and conflicted that he inherited to preserve his people and to ease the cries of the tormented spirits of countless of wars that may otherwise threaten to turn the entire area into a haunted dark forest, empowered by the rivers of blood generated by decades of conflict
Moving in to add the earthen ring as a counter balance to the cenarion druids that aid the night elves. Helping the orcs to reclaim their ancient shamanism and their connection to the Ner’zhul style of shamanism where they serve the spirits of the ancestors to allow them a peaceful rest. Thus allowing for a dynamic story telling where the shamans are moving in to calm the enraged spirits of the innocent slain in this conflict … it creates a story and platform for the horde itself to come to terms with its own malign spirits of past misdeeds (BfA and before).
The orcs and tauren deserve their Earthen ring as much as the Night elves deserve their cenarion circle so it seems like a win win to me.
I mean… I guess I get where they’re coming from with this, but it comes with a LOT of holes that paint the Horde as incompetent while simultaneously aiming to strip both factions of a small piece of what they bring to the table in neutral content. I’ll try to elaborate.
This makes Thrall and the Orcs seem like idiots who don’t understand basic diplomacy, which we know Thrall does. Thrall knows the Kal’dorei are grumpy and would make efforts to inform them of his intentions before sending people into the forest for a humanitarian mission like that. Besides, we know the Earthen Ring does have connections with the Kal’dorei open from Shadows Rising where they are the ones who facilitate Thrall’s visit to Hyjal.
Drek’thar is in a wheelchair… Also having him here and killed for shock value just tells the Horde you are going to continue to kill their characters just because that’s the fate of Horde characters. I cannot stress how much that point means after all these years. In addition, this puts issues on your idea to revamp all battlegrounds as Drek’thar is tied to AV already. Did I mention he’s in a wheelchair?
This is only partially true. The Earthen Ring is a shamanistic group, which does include and should continue to include the Dwarves, Draenei, and hopefully the Kul’tirans. On the flipside, Hamuul (A Tauren) is effectively the right hand guy of Malfurion and both Tauren and Troll druids have a connection with the order as well and deserve to be included with it going forward.
There’s a reason the majority of both groups were not involved in BFA at all and were down in Silithis helping Magni and I think it’s best to leave them there else factions will start getting cut from Druid and Shaman content respectively.
Overall, I understand what the goal is, but this idea somehow paints the Horde as idiots who can’t do ANYTHING right even when they have good intentions while allowing the Night Elves to have a big power fantasy moment.
I felt no motivation to fight the Night Elves after this, whereas I was at least capable of resonating with the Farmer in your previous idea (Even if it was in a negative meta way).
I’m going to have to disagree for the reasons I highlighted in post 27. I also worry that we here on the Story Forum anchor our ideas far too much to the existing experience rather to what could or should be.
I can’t speak for Matomi, but probably - and the neutral organizations are in a bit of a bind generally. I can’t envision a scenario going forward where Malfurion, for example, is going to assume that we can go back to the way things were.
If I am to put my own spin on it - perhaps you would see Tauren and Troll druids join the Earthen ring, and create their own expressions of druidism. I figure they’d need it rather than simply being spoonfed Night Elf aesthetics and themes as opposed to something unique to them.
And you are aware of my position on things that are barely noted, especially things that are barely noted and are in forms of media that only a fraction of the playerbase was even exposed to - in text, no less.
Edit: I do realize that what you said does rebut my point. I would however mention that it’s a rather easy element to bulldoze if we’re talking about future content.
My position is more on what Blizzard might carry along in whatever they implement into the story. Most recently side characters that only existed in the Elegy and A Good War novels were added to the game in the Night Fae Covenant. If Blizzard still has the Cenarion Circle Tauren living with the Night Elves under Malfurion’s leadership, despite relatively no one in the player base being aware of it, it is more likely that this small note would indicate what content we would see on Hyjal should Blizzard ever add more in-game.
Even during the Cataclysm the Night Elves were not on negative terms with the Tauren, with the Night Elves going so far as aiding the Tauren in recovering Freewind Post from the Grimtotem even in the middle of Garrosh’s war, and of course the unity that the Cenarion Circle maintained at Hyjal itself (which we also talked about plenty back in the day).
Which is one incident. Here’s another - Tauren were active and prolific participants in Garrosh’s offensive in Ashenvale, including in Silverwing Refuge where they killed civilian shopkeepers. There’s a Tauren among the Night Elf corpses - that they left on the ground to rot, claiming in that context that “wonderous changes” were happening to the forest.
Incidentally one of the NPCs added in the Night Fae Covenant was Anaris Windwood, who in Elegy we were told had been the commander that had taken Silverwind Refuge back from the Horde during the Cataclsym after the Alliance player’s efforts in Ashenvale to make way for the Night Elves to do so.
But back on point: The Night Elves appear able to distinguish between Horde members who supported Garrosh and those that didn’t.
Except many Tauren were among those who supported Garrosh - and the Tauren as a people, through their government did until the very last days. This was true during Garrosh’s war and during the most recent one. Anaris may no longer have the reasons to care about this - the Horde succeeded in killing her, after all - her interests no longer are with Azeroth - but I wouldn’t take that as an indication that you could carry such to those who still live.
Oh, no, my point with Anaris is more that she shows how small textual statements tend to carry lore forward, as way back in Cataclysm the Alliance questing ended with standard “we’ll take it from here” fare, and, many years later, we found out that Anaris did in fact take it from there. And to further solidify the canon, her soul was put into the game, where previously she had not ever been in the game at all, alive or otherwise.
Back to my point about the capability of distinguishing between Horde members, you are correct about the Tauren government, and likewise Baine does not receive a warm welcome by the Night Elves during Shadows Rising despite Thrall trying to tout him as opposition to Sylvanas that came late. That doesn’t seem to have any baring to Taruen who were more loyal to the Cenarion Circle than to the Horde during BfA, though, who are not having the burdens of the Tauren’s government placed upon them by the Night Elves.