It was a joke.
… so was that.
Was kind of hard to tell. It was rather dry 
I mean, now I almost feel like I’m compelled to make a regulatory agencies tier list.
… I joke that I need a corporate-speak “swear” jar - I think I might need to drop a $10 into it for that.
I think it is important that these concerns with the story are repeated and that opinions are heard. I don’t find in constructive to belittle other people’s opinions about a direction we all believe to have been incredibly destructive to the game’s narrative and player enjoyment.
While I am sure there are exceptions, generally people don’t play escapist heroic fantasy to be victims. Victims of mass murder or asinine deceptions from faction leadership. The Alliance should not be relegated to passive victimhood, and the Horde should not be relegated to aggressive villainy. That is two-dimensional and reductive and in ways deserving of its own thread, even toxic when you include the fact some races include themes from historically oppressed peoples and demographics.
I think what is important is finding a way to express to Blizzard that some half-apologies and half-measured will not cut it. That serious effort should be taken underway to rectify these grievances. I only returned to play Shadowlands because I found the afterlife angle to be enticing. If the next expansion includes some shock-value schlock like the “Fall of Ironforge” or Thunder Bluff, etc then I will take my time and money elsewhere.
It is always easier to destroy than it is to create. Blizzard is at there best when they are creating lore in quests and world design, not trying to ape GoT or Marvel’s Avengers in a pathetic, asinine, badly constructed and ultimately faction-narrative destroying way.
We need some content focused on rebuilding. On helping. On being heroic. I never want to be lied again about a faction war, faction “pride” or petty fantasy racial hatred again. Warhammer does it better, I’ll just go back to playing Total War for my fix of that. Warcraft deserves more nuance than “Horde smash, Alliance react.”
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Omfg, you´re the best gnome poster I´ve ever seen.
Never change, Valko.
I´ll put more gasoline on that fire… current Nelf storyline -focused in finishing the BfA tragedy for the race- is MILES better than what the Forsaken got back in WotLK when their literal Raison d´être (A.K.A. getting revenge on Arthas) was ignored in favor of putting a Male Human Paladin as protagonist of the story while them Forsaken got villain batted for the lols.
I take it you´re not familiar with Kyalin and her usual err… “tactics”?
Let me put it this way: when MoP ended and WoD launched, I got into a row with her cause she made a post blaming Vol´jin for Garrosh´s Cata BS. Derive your own conclussions.
Uhhh… Valko is probably being sarcastic
/reads further down on thread
Yup, seems like it. He/She doesn´t post as often as he/she used to, so maybe that´s why you weren´t able to see the irony on the written words.
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Not to point out the obvious, but generally people don’t play escapist heroic fantasy to play villains either … yet here we are. Those of us who joined the WC3 vision of the Horde (and I don’t mean the tribal aesthetics) have had quite the ride to where we are now.
Just because I picked the Red Faction with the “Ugly” Races doesn’t mean I immediately wanted to sacrifice my “Hero” card. It just meant I wanted a different type of Heroic experience than the one that the Alliance is willing to provide. I didn’t join the faction with flawed races because I thought those flaws were just an excuse to equal EVIL. I just found heroes with flaws, rather than moral absolutism and an absolutist power fantasy, were more compelling. But … we now find ourselves in a situation I don’t think I’ll ever get to be portrayed as a Hero again unless I’m the optional side-kick to the Justice League of a Blue Team.
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I don’t think anything I posted is in opposition to anything you have said here. I find it an intolerable and miserable state of affairs for the Horde to have been thoroughly blackened with the proverbial villain bat, only in service of a badly written and thoroughly tiring banshee. I played both factions way back in the day, Dwarf Warrior and an Orc Warrior. In classic I rolled that Warrior again because I longed for the days when the Horde was a band of heroic outcasts struggling to find their place in the world.
What BFA did to the Horde, and the Alliance, is inexcusable.
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And this is the truth. And both, despite what those cinematics would suggest, were largely passengers in the story of BfA. Blizzard knew enough about what the Horde was supposed to represent to sink absurd amounts of money into those Saurfang cinematics, but didn’t care enough about those ideals to allow them to become inconvenient for their need to let Sylvie settup SLs.
They destroyed the Horde Faction Identity solely to settup a new expansion … AGAIN!
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Maybe this is a hot take but this is why I went Night Elf. I wanted to be the aggressive hero race that does the things that make the Humans clutch their pearls but still saves the day.
But is that what they really are? Thats what they were conceptually presented as in WC3 perhaps … but ever since then (and especially due to the expansion of the WotA content), Blizz continued to integrate more and more classic Lothlorien themes. They are nature driven, but its been a long time since I looked at the NEs and thought of a race that had tangible flaws that result in consequences. Quite frankly, if Blizz would simply stop picking on the poor guys, they seem unnaturally perfect.
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Tyrande got no screen time from Vanilla to Wrath that I can think off the top of my head. Malfurion was asleep in the dream as well. I’m just now reaching Feralas so I’ll see what Shandris has to offer in Classic soon enough.
But Cata was when we started getting more spotlight on them and it’s also when they started getting kicked and around and defanged for 0 reason other than Human exceptionalism and the, here comes the gamer phrase, Horde Power Fantasy.
Yeah, but none of this translates into tangible Racial Flaws?
Like, “aggression” isn’t really a flaw either, and you’d be hard pressed to explain to me how any environmental, cultural, or historical pressure could compel an NE to act more “pearl clutching aggressive” than half the Horde Race roster. And as for the Horde Power Fantasy … honestly so long as the expectation seems to be that the NEs alone should be more powerful than the entire Horde combined (or even just the current Kali Horde) … we aren’t really allowed the luxury of a power fantasy. Unless Blizz is planning to villain bat us again, and use us again as a vehicle to settup some new villain and new expansion.
And … frankly, our little “endeavors” into having a power fantasy (which, outside of Green Jesus, have always required that Villain bat caveat) are never worth it as a result. We just get broken down further.
Again with this fake narrative that doesn’t exist.
I don’t remember setting Astranaar ablaze or destroying Mystral Lake ever marked down on the Horde’s laundry list of evil deeds. And even though the Kaldorei quests are supposedly an undoing of this event the Zone firmly remains in reflecting the Horde’s actions instead of the Kaldorei’s.
Furthermore development time and resources was taken away from 8.1 in order to implement a cutscene for Horde players as a “bug fix” to one of their quests in Ashenvale.
Edit: For clarity that quest is a big onscreen showing of an Orc on a Kodo being a better archer than an entire squadron of Kaldorei Sentinels.
Laughs in Worgen Funny you mention you that…that’s exactly what blizzard promised worgen players…until you know, blizz apparently forgot they’re a playable race.
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Sigh … OK. With very few exceptions, not a single Cata or MoP zone was revamped after that expansion.
It didn’t happen for the Dwarves. It didn’t happen for the Humans. It didn’t happen for the anyone. Loch Modan isn’t rebuilt. Menethil Harbor isn’t restored. Kezan is a festering strip mine. The expectation that the NEs get zones that reflect the current status of them was always the expectation for preferential treatment … not equal treatment. NE players being mad that they didn’t get what no one else got.
Like I said, the only time the Horde is “allowed” a “Power Fantasy” these days is when Blizz wants to use the Faction as a plot-device to settup some future content. Beyond that though, conceptually, we aren’t really allowed it. Which is why when power was needed in Legion, the Horde was nowhere to be seen. Which is why in SLs, Baine was discarded as worthless by his own kidnappers…
This is your assumption. I didn’t comment on the zones you listed cause they aren’t relevant to my interests. If those things are important to their relevant fanbases than I was support them advocating for updated phases of those zones without hesitation.
Trying to paint Night Elf Fans as this selfish boogeyman is not only tiring but it’s part of why these forums are an absolute mess.
And when we’re talking about BfA I will agree with you. I was talking about Cata.
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Right, I understand that, but outside of the context of an Anti-Cata expansion, you rarely see any other racial fanbase getting mad that these zones have not been revamped to reflect “current events”. For no other reason than to reflect those events. The sole exceptions to this are occasionally BEs, who are sick of not being able to fly in their still crater of a city 13 years later. And the Worgen, who’s entire racial narrative was built around the reclamation of their city … and have been placed on the backburner as a result.
I am all for an Anti-Cata expansion that revamps the world, or at least the majority of EK and Kali. NE lands especially included. We need that pallet cleanser, and that chance to reconnect to our Faction and Races. However, truly, it is very rare to see a non NE fan use the lack of something no-one else got repeatedly as evidence that the Devs hate their race. Which I have seen many times over the last few years for NEs.
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If we want to argue why this is then I would take the stance that it’s because unlike the Night Elves, these zones were demolished by the rival faction. They were demolished by Deathwing. It doesn’t heavily impact their ability to feel pride in their faction.
As for Kezan well… The Goblins kind of did that to themselves it seems. Unless I’m missing a detail.
I’m glad we can agree here.
I think you’re hyper-focused on the wrong reasons for why Night Elf Fans are more vocal than Dwarf or Human fans.