Alliance Internal Conflict

[Karserd-ragnaros (Karserd)]

@Channyn-moon-guard

I could very well be wrong, too. I know a lot of people have hyped up FFXIV, but I couldn’t get through the starter area. Still, they say the story is well written. That said, I don’t know how nuanced it is.

Its good, its very good and about nuance, i gotta say on 1 to 10 is a 7 or 8, they really make good use of the cutscenes, spectacle, mystery and scenarios depending on the plot and most of the plots and subplots are resolved in a satisfactory way and with a reasonable pacing.

of course they cant nail every expansion nor story but some stories are really worth it.

@Channyn-moon-guard

I do think a lot of story directions have been alluded to in past books and materials, and sometimes in the game; and I do think there are moments of gray, characters of gray, and obviously evil in our WoW universe. It’s just rare that we get to participate in it with our player characters. And for the most part, I’m pretty happy with that. I get that there are players like you and others, though, that want something more. I just don’t think WoW is going to be the game to deliver that experience for you, unfortunately. Not in its current iteration.

i wouldnt mind being back to be a nameless hobo fighing beside jaina or genn however such a thing cant be hanwaved anymore after legion…

I think everyone agrees the last expansion was atrocious, on legion you got at least a campaign for every freaking class, you mean to tell me you couldnt do two sides for each faction with unique quests? that would have made this mess more satisfactory at least i got to say no to whatever they were trying to railroad me, instead only the horde got to choose the loyalist option and it was also like… after the fact not something they planned ahead, all in all the faction war feels like an afterthought.

from my point of view most problems wow have is with pacing.

[Daiza-gilneas]

@Karserd-ragnaros

Its good, its very good and about nuance, i gotta say on 1 to 10 is a 7 or 8, they really make good use of the cutscenes, spectacle, mystery and scenarios depending on the plot and most of the plots and subplots are resolved in a satisfactory way and with a reasonable pacing.

of course they cant nail every expansion nor story but some stories are really worth it.

A dead horse I keep beating on when I compare XIVs story with WoWs is that SE seems to have a bloody plan. spoilers for the first expansion.

I mean in the course of a 10 level quest experience, you arrive in a new region, get involved in regional political, meet both sides of a 1000 year long war and help resolve it after uncovering a 1000 year old conspiracy. And this is full of fleshed out characters with interesting dialogue and all that good stuff.

Meanwhile WoW can barely keep a single thought for more than a patch before shelving it for at least 2 years.

Like i wouldn’t expect everyone to be a fan of the story told, XIVs stories are all very much anime as fudge. But their ability to create a narrative and tell it completely in 3 patch cycles puts everything Blizzard has done in the last few years to shame.

I mean bloody hell, the Holy See of Ishgard has only existed for like 10 years at most but I feel it’s more fleshed out than have the nations that make up the Horde or Alliance. And that was simply because SE was able to actually give them an engaging narrative that had a conclusion.

[Ozryel-dawnbringer (Ozryel)]

@Daiza-gilneas

Azeroth is a stupid place there are more than enough things to go to war with.

I could not agree more with this, now that you mention, yet didn’t hit me until I read this last bit…
Now that its clear that our little toy faction wars were just part of a greater scale cosmic game… It does make everything you did look stupid and meaningless… So in that scene Sylvannas tell us that she see us as “Toy Soldiers” is starting to make more and more sense… darn it!

I wonder if the writers are actually aware how this makes the PC look at the eyes of the player… and I hope they take the story into new direction too… like mention in your post too… cuz it kinda suck… it feels almost like the 4th wall breaks just enough to make you feel stupid in this whole story. Then again WoW story loves to troll its “Champions” from time to time…hmmm lol

At this point they could make single player games about WoW on random time on Azeroth that actually were important, another planet or Cosmic Dimension from the chart… and still our WoW story will seem small and even silly.

Oh well its a guilty pleasure of sorts I guess because of course I’m going to play it…
Like many here in the story forums say: “This is Blizard story and we are just paying to participate in it.”
So it will go how they want it to go… I guess.

[Channyn-moon-guard]

I’m going to just reply to this right quick about the Alliance High King thing.

Muradin, unfortunately, is part of a Council of Three Hammers compromise. Him assuming kingship of the Alliance would mean invalidating that compromise in some way.

The reason Stromwind and its de-facto leader lead the Alliance is because of the past human-led Alliance (i.e. Lordaeron.) The reason Genn is attached to Anduin is because of the loss of his son (most likely,) and their shared human-ness. The reason Genn and the night elves get along so well is because of their shared other-ness (and by this I mean the worgen half of their people that coincides with not being fully human.)

So, while many people may very much dislike Anduin being the “leader” of the Alliance, it is only because no one has risen up to challenge that–until Tyrande, and that’s important. If anyone has the right to lead the Alliance, though, I’d think it might be Jaina at this point–for a host of reasons. She led Theramore, then Dalaran, and now Kul’Tiras. With the Kul’Tiran navy, she has secured the seas for the Alliance in a lot of ways. And, …she’s human. I could also see advocating for Mekkatorque, as he’s currently the High King of gnome-kind. And even Genn, as worgen as he is, could serve, but we haven’t seen them desirous of that role.

For the most part, Anduin has managed things pretty okay. Hell, he went to war in Undercity to destroy the Forsaken for what they did to Teldrassil. If that’s not being supportive of the night elves, I don’t know what is. But there were darker forces at work in the world, as we now know, and I really don’t see that Anduin was wrong in his choices with Tyrande. They’d just suffered a blow in Zandalar; in spite of accomplishing the defeat of the Golden Fleet there, they ended up killing Rastakhan which sent the Zandalari straight into the arms of the Horde. Both Jaina and Mekkatorque were gravely injured. The Alliance forces were committed in KT and Zandalar, and getting what was left of them to Darkshore would have been a difficult undertaking and leave Kul’Tiras undefended. He made a tough call. But maybe it was the right one, since the night elves prevailed in spite of it? Or was that something darker at work here, too?

Believe me when I say that I get the frustration about there being very little in the way of, “Why is an 18 yr. old leading us?” But the writers have …sort of just done that by having both Genn and Turalyon defer to him. Even Magni does this; Wrathion does this. Hell, even Velen, Jaina, Mathias Shaw, and Mekkatorque do. So, if others who are supposedly loyal to them start questioning things, they are, in effect, questioning their own leaders. Would I have liked to see some of that occurring? Do I think Anduin should be having doubts about his fitness as a leader? …maybe? Would it have added anything to the story they were trying to tell this expansion? I don’t know, but I’m inclined to think the doubt might have been interesting from an Old God meddling perspective. That we didn’t see that save for Anduin losing his cool before Wrathion shows up seems a little sad to me. But we don’t get much of that on either side, really, unless it’s from somewhere or something written or produced outside of the game.

Anyway…I mostly just wanted to address Muradin and the Council of Three Hammers and devolved into other things. So I will leave it at that.

[Faelia-ravenholdt]

@Syriyna-amanthul

By doing nothing, and not even publicly renouncing the attack, he all but told the Horde that an unprovoked attack on a horde fleet and the attempted assassination of a Warchief was endorsed by Stormwind.

Again, the damage was done and any admission of it would of made him look weak to the Horde and to the Alliance as well. This was actually pretty realistic in the Political sphere.

@Syriyna-amanthul

The Journal doesn’t mean much when the man himself says he doesn’t know what she is there for.

He didn’t know “WHAT” she was after but he did know she was after something. Of course, He didn’t CARE “what” it was but the Journal did say she was looking for something that she was looking to steal.

@Syriyna-amanthul

Was he even mentioned once on the Horde side of things?

I always figured it wasn’t addressed on the Horde side because it was a settled score as far as the horde were concerned. At least up until BfA, and I think any animosity they had for Daelin was lowkey directed at Kul Tiras anyway.

@Syriyna-amanthul

Yes we do. Before the Storm mentions Anduin gave both her and Genn a private dressing down afterward and nothing else. He was angry at both of them but didn’t punish them beyond telling them off.

And yet we don’t see what happened to Rogers after that and she was strangely missing from all of BfA.

@Syriyna-amanthul

He was at the Hunter Order hall.

I know that but wasn’t actually on the Broken Shore with the rest of the offensive, which is where you’d expect him to be. Or at least one of the MANY NPCs out in the Zones, killing Demons during the invasions.

@Syriyna-amanthul

Even then, the reality is Genn outright states he has no idea why she is there. That is a canon statement by the character. It is pretty damn definitive.

He says he doesn’t actually say that he doesn’t know why she’s there. He doesn’t actually say anything able her reasons for being there at all. Rogers only say that their (unofficial) orders are to track her movements there.

[Droité-tanaris (Droité)]

@Faelia-ravenholdt

it would of made him look weak to the Horde

Actually … its Anduin’s lack of response to the attack in Stormheim which is what ultimately convinces Saurfang that Sylvanas was right, and that at worst the boy was too weak to resist Genn and Tyrande’s attempts to push him into war (which they were doing btw); at worst he was totally approving and complicit of it. In A Good War. So, no, Anduin actually responding to the attempted assassination of the Horde’s new Warchief might have actually led Saurfang into believing he wouldn’t have buckled to the pressure of the Hawks to pre-emptively attack the Horde.

[Faelia-ravenholdt]

@Droité-tanaris

Actually … its Anduin’s lack of response to the attack in Stormheim which is what ultimately convinces Saurfang that Sylvanas was right, and that at worst the boy was too weak to resist Genn and Tyrande’s attempts to push him into war (which they were doing btw); at worst he was totally approving and complicit of it. In A Good War. So, no, Anduin actually responding to the attempted assassination of the Horde’s new Warchief might have actually led Saurfang into believing he wouldn’t have buckled to the pressure of the Hawks to pre-emptively attack the Horde.

Damned if he did, damned if he didn’t. That was the Position Genn Forced him into.
And Anduin didn’t know Saurfang was going to be a vital ally in a couple years. He couldn’t of guessed how his actions would effect events later on, only what he was faced with at the moment.

You can argue he made the wrong choice certainly but he had to make a choice that would risk alienating a close ally.
Ironically, he had to make that same choice again later with Tyrande and this time, it was to risk alienating another Ally even though it turned out to be the right one ultimately.
But Hard choices are hard BECAUSE you risk losing what you have when you make them.

[Droité-tanaris (Droité)]

Its weird the extent you’re going to justify this. Like, do you truly not understand that the very type of argument you’re making feeds into the idea that Blizzard does insulate Alliance from their own aggression. There is always this leeway. And frankly, I’m not opposed to it in principle, I guess I’m just upset that the Horde isn’t allowed the same courtesy by any stretch. We’re spared not by our own actions, but by the mechanical reality that you can’t wipe out a Faction in this game.

If you look at the events leading up to both the Garrosh War and the WoT, in both cases the Alliance was effectively at war already with the Horde before either Orc started their invasion into Ashenvale. However, Blizz invalidated nearly all of them, some very weakly, so that the Horde would take both the aggressor and villain roles for both stories “when they suddenly attacked unprovoked. Those savage, violent primitives. How dare they bite the hand that struck them”.

Then Blizz follows this up by making the “Evil Horde” commit some atrocity that wipes out all of whatever remaining grey still managed to exist on the Blue team’s side of the story.

[Faelia-ravenholdt]

@Droité-tanaris

Its weird the extent you’re going to justify this. Like, do you truly not understand that the very type of argument you’re making feeds into the idea that Blizzard does insulate Alliance from their own aggression.

What’s weird is that you think I’m “Justifying” anything. Explaining the realities of events that occurred in the lore isn’t “justifying” them. Only explaining what happened and why they happened.

I mean, I could say the opposite of you, that you want a blantant, callous and solely aggressive action taken against the Horde by the Alliance and you don’t want a reason for it, you just want something to point to and yell about how bad the Alliance is.

But I’ll do the exact kind of explanation of events for both sides, Horde or Alliance, because I believe in dissecting the narrative so a proper understanding of the story could be shared, instead of reactionary “gut” feelings about how much one side got screwed over by the other.

@Droité-tanaris

If you look at the events leading up to both the Garrosh War and the WoT, in both cases the Alliance was effectively at war already with the Horde before either Orc started their invasion into Ashenvale. However, Blizz invalidated nearly all of them, some very weakly, so that the Horde would take both the aggressor and villain roles for boths stories “ when they suddenly attacked unprovoked. Those savage, violent primitives. How dare they bite the hand that struck them ”.

Arguably, the Horde and Alliance have been doing this against one another since Classic. And I’ve never been Blizzard invalidating any of their actions, usually because every action against one another is preceded by another action which came after another in perpetuity. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, neither side is innocent, but each side has their reasons (or “justifications”) for doing them.

Most of the Alliance aggressions against the Horde have never been “invalidated” though many of them have been forgotten. But that’s mostly because we only remember the Reprisals, not the original acts that spurred it.

The Story is far more complicated then “this faction did this to this faction.” There are incalculable variables and factors that led to any single event.

[Syriyna-amanthul (Syriyna)]

@Faelia-ravenholdt

Again, the damage was done and any admission of it would of made him look weak to the Horde and to the Alliance as well. This was actually pretty realistic in the Political sphere.

Well since that was part of the justification Sylvanas used to convince Saurfang that it was necessary to move against the Alliance as another war with them was inevitable, that came back to bite him, and the Night Elves of Teldrassil, in the butt very badly. As far as the Horde was concerned, Anduin had a man who actively wanted to attack the Horde as his right hand and whispering in his ears.

@Faelia-ravenholdt

He didn’t know “WHAT” she was after but he did know she was after something. Of course, He didn’t CARE “what” it was but the Journal did say she was looking for something that she was looking to steal.

He says, pretty clearly ‘I don’t know why she is here’. That seems pretty definitive to me.

@Faelia-ravenholdt

I always figured it wasn’t addressed on the Horde side because it was a settled score as far as the horde were concerned. At least up until BfA, and I think any animosity they had for Daelin was lowkey directed at Kul Tiras anyway.

I don’t get why it was relevant to BfA then frankly. Honestly, the Horde’s motivation for having such a rabid desire to go around murdering every alliance civilian it can get its hands on is frankly very poorly explained. That is one of the reasons that the Horde comes across as so rampantly irredeemable in BfA. The Horde’s entire motivations for the war were poorly explained from the start and the Horde seemed eager to leap to atrocities first, actual strategic shutting down of the Alliance’s power second. Our war campaign was such a joke.

@Faelia-ravenholdt

And yet we don’t see what happened to Rogers after that and she was strangely missing from all of BfA.

It said quite clearly she got off with a minor reprimand. That is what happened to her. Plenty of characters had little to no role in BfA. Outside Sylvanas and Nathanos almost the entire established Forsaken line up was ignored. Belmont got a bit part and the rest was taken up by Lillian Voss who suddenly decided she had a strong connection with the other Forsaken at the start of BfA. That is not even touching on the rest of the Horde. The both the Ranger General and Grand Magister of the Blood Elves didn’t even make an appearance and outside Rokhan, I don’t think another established Darkspear troll even made an appearance.

@Faelia-ravenholdt

I know that but wasn’t actually on the Broken Shore with the rest of the offensive, which is where you’d expect him to be. Or at least one of the MANY NPCs out in the Zones, killing Demons during the invasions.

The Horde was apparently fighting on Argus but you don’t see any there beyond Liandrin and Aethas and I use Aethas with a huge grain of salt since the guy literally gave up a national relic of the Blood Elves to the Kirin Tor to buy his way back into the city. Neither of them actually did much while they were there. Blizzard loves to tell, not show, particularly after the fact. Apparently there was a lot of orcs in the rebellion against Garrosh but I didn’t see them at any point in the rebel armies.

@Faelia-ravenholdt

He says he doesn’t actually say that he doesn’t know why she’s there. He doesn’t actually say anything able her reasons for being there at all. Rogers only say that their (unofficial) orders are to track her movements there.

From the Quest Whispers in the Dark:

Excellent. The puzzle is finally coming together.

We may not know why Sylvanas’ forces are here, but I think we know where they are.

Those are Genn’s exact words. He only discovers from scouting reports that she is there to steal something that you find for him from Forsaken mobs around the same time.

@Faelia-ravenholdt

Arguably, the Horde and Alliance have been doing this against one another since Classic.

Honestly I would love to hear some examples of the Alliance doing this any time after BC because I can’t think of any which aren’t absolutely flooded with justification after justification. Most of the time, like Taurajo, the Horde ends up looking like fools because the reason they are upset ends up being because they don’t understand the full situation. Hell even BAINE BLOODHOOF, defended the Alliance’s attack on Camp Taurajo. He called it a justified attack.

[Varicella-barthilas]

@Dardillien-wyrmrest-accord

I can’t tell you how nonsensical it is for an entire faction’s military to listen to the commands of an 18 year old that is just heinous.

I mean, Charles XII of Sweden would take offense at this statement. Not that Anduin is peer to Carolus Rex, but his age isn’t the critical issue here - there have been warleader prodigies in the past.

[Dyzon-sentinels]

@Daiza-gilneas

I mean bloody hell this thread started about internal Alliance conflict, but has devolved into “Internal Alliance conflict MUST involve the Horde”, with all the whinging that brings.

The internal conflict addressed in the OP is an idealogical feud between hard line opponents of the Horde and more forgiving/optimistic loyalists to Anduin. Further the OP presents the story entirely from the point of view of the hard line opponents of the Horde, and starts the interfaction conflict with the hard line opponent of the Horde presented as superior to Anduin in every way and leading the Alliance.

This post didn’t devolve into a discussion of Horde versus Alliance, that came baked in.

[Droité-tanaris (Droité)]

@Dyzon-sentinels

This post didn’t devolve into a discussion of Horde versus Alliance, that came baked in.

Hey, someone gets it. While the idea is novel to have that internal conflict, since the Hawks are portrayed as superior and have more focus than the Doves … then the impetus of “internal Alliance conflict” comes off as more of a façade. The pretense is that either the Peace Oriented characters bring nothing of value to the table. Or at the very least are right on moral grounds, but only that; since their values are worthless with the Hawk’s so overwhelmingly in charge.

Unless of course … the Doves are put in a position to side with the Horde? Which will ultimately result in them killing their own people with how things turn out? And the Alliance players likely being forced to follow them, rather than the Hawks? Man, I wonder how Alliance players would feel having to wear that shoe for a while?

[Dyzon-sentinels]

@Droité-tanaris

Man, I wonder how Alliance players would feel having to wear that shoe for a while?

That would be both entirely novel and for those of us who play both sides, old hat.

I was actually kicking around an idea where the Alliance Doves are the impetus for faction conflict by way of targeted assassinations on both sides of the Horde and Alliance.

A Horde warmonger ends up dead, but shortly after so does an Alliance warmonger. Both people notably obstructing the peace process, and also accomplished heroes or military figures. The two factions point fingers at each other and start sharpening their swords, it looks like the peace process is done. Then an Alliance Dove character enlists the player to find out what’s going on, only to have that lead to a third party clearly trying to manipulate the two factions to violence.

The Dove trumpets this revelation to the world, popular opinion shifts towards the peace process, and with the two hard liners dead it looks like there may finally be a true and lasting peace. Except it’s all staged. The Dove killed both war mongers and framed the third party. The player finds out and he either has to out the true criminal or compromise his own morality for the sake of the peace process.

[Daiza-gilneas]

That is way to interesting to ever come out of Blizzard Entertainment in 202X.

I approve.

[Chronorabbit-azshara]

While it’s not striclty about the internal conflict, I had a random idea some time ago about how it could be used by the horde. If after our Shadowlands journey it will be discovered how to use / fix scourge related things, and it would be possible to fix Plaguelands and, say, Stratholme, or whatever. That made me think, Turalyon is from old Lordaeron. And given how vulnerable Undercity turned out to be, what if…

Saurfang wanted to make Teldrassil hostage to enforce peace, right? If the forsaken would be able to “donate” Undercity, wouldn’t it be a Trojan horse? Just think about it. For the alliance it’s in the middle of nowhere. It would realistically take years to rebuild. It would be at the mercy of the horde if they would need to pressure it. It would “buy” the approval from Turalyon of the forsaken presence in Plaguelands, and temper his view of the horde overall.

But none of it all that relevant. Because that would also be a tool of political pressure. Any agressive actions of the alliance could be presented as abuse of good will. Thus, the horde can get a leverage to pressure night elves in their quest for revenge, use one part of the alliance, to push on another. Maybe even try to “buy” a snippet of land with valuable resources, whatever the horde would consider it to be.

I mean, it’s not completely related to the topic of internal alliance conflict, but since there is some distansing between humans and night elves, why wouldn’t horde hammer the weak link?

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gl hf

[Renat-moon-guard (Renat)]

I’d like to see Velen and Fareeya butt heads a bit on the Light and how feverishly its tenants should be followed.

[Droité-tanaris (Droité)]

@Dyzon-sentinels

A Horde warmonger ends up dead

The issue with this is … we don’t have any warmongers left. Hell, we barely have any developed characters at all for that matter. We have no real accomplished heroes, or military figures, beyond the skeletal crew barely able to fill the new Council system we have. So, none that we can afford to lose. And Blizz has an absolutely horrific track record of building up replacements.

We Horde can’t afford this script. We’ve suffered way too much damage already on the character front. Especially not with how unbelievably hero centric Blzz writes their stories, and with no developed and powerful reps your race and perhaps even faction might as well not even exist.

[Sarm-malganis (Sarm)]

Supposedly Geya’rah and Rok’han are pro-fighting in the latest book. Why Rok’han of all people wants it, I have no idea, since he was the most “just following orders” of them all during the expansion itself. It’d be funny to imagine the Darkspear losing yet another leader before they can do anything, though.

Artist: “Are you kidding me? We almost finished making his new model!”

[Renat-moon-guard (Renat)]

He spent a lot of time with Talanji, and is probably just as upset as she is about the utterly pointless Dazar’alor attack.