You know, I’m writing a story, if I put in the avatar of a god, yeah, then damn it, that’s the obvious thing. That’s why it needs Sylvanas to counter it. Tell me, did you even read the whole thing?
Well, I didn’t write about the SL -plot, I didn’t want to change the SL -plot and I never asked about the SL -plot, but how would I change BFA that the SL -plot can still happen. Should I have considered the SL plot as well? Because I never wrote that.
Right, but this still equates to the Character who’s going to use and abandon the Horde being the only possible counter to the chosen one of the only real god in the entire Warcraft Universe (God damned trust-fund kids). So when she bails, the NEs firmly re-establish that they are more powerful than the entire Horde combined, and that we get back to the same ol status quo.
Sigh … there is no way out of this for the Horde. None. We’re always going to be portrayed as weak, ineffective tools for a genocidal maniac; and the Alliance is always going to be portrayed as the flawless paragons of every conceivable moral virtue. Which, truly, is one of the biggest detrimental factors to the entire story. Their inability to have flaws or “grey”.
EDIT: Truly, thank god no one looks too closely about which RL cultural inspirations went into the “Evil Flawed Horde” races, and which ones went into the “Flawless Good-by-Default” races of the Alliance.
As I said, if the SL plot is to work, the Night Warrior comes up, and if such a thing is brought, then it should be portrayed and presented properly, simply so that the storyline pans out.
I know what your referring too but I also remind myself that blizzard obviously doesn’t know European history…they were pretty cruel towards each other and outsiders and aren’t this perfect group of white people who never did anything wrong. That’s just revisionist history
And this is fine, so long as you recognize that while this might solve some of the Alliance issues with BfA (and gives them some avenues for some narrative satisfaction from that expac), it does nothing to solve any of the Horde. Which, is to a certain degree fair, because there were no avenues to a satisfying narrative for the Horde in BfA. Which means that there are no solutions to get us to one, since they never existed.
Blizz actually wrote an expansion where for certain there was no way to make the experience satisfying for the Horde. We were just a vehicle and plot-deivce to help Sylvie settup SLs, which means its very likely they will put more work into her story in SLs than the Horde’s.
I would say that the motivation for the rebellion, the step towards peace, ultimately the recapture and expulsion of the Alliance from the Forsaken territories to Arathi are definitely a “reason” to celebrate.
And the solution from the sins of Sylvanas is definitely easier if you can say like the night elves 10000 years ago. “We fought her immediately then”.
So you’re solution to fixing the Horde in BfA … is just to get them back to worse than when they started at the beginning of BfA. So, not much different than now? Nothing you suggested actually benefits the Horde, beyond Saurfang just not being mopey (which I did not mind).
Being on the right side of history, leading the rebellion without outside help, as I said, what Saurfang needs and wants from Anduin is for him to stop the attacks. A truce to successfully depose Sylvanas. It does not need an alliance there.
Being on the right side of history, after being on the wrong side of history. Also, note, it sickens me that by default he Alliance is built in such a way that they are the Right Side of History. Truly, one of the biggest problems in this game’s story is the total Moral Absolutism that is maintained for the Alliance. It is such an oppressive force on everything around it. That total lack of nuance in them is vile.
The Alliance ARE the right side of history. Which means by default the only way the Horde can be on that right side is to be pro-Alliance. Which leads us right back to the Horde in SLs. The only virtue a Horde race is allowed to have is how friendly and convenient they are to the Alliance and theirs.
However, this cannot be avoided if SL is to start as it is going. The alliance is anti-horde/anti-Sylvanas from the beginning. So how could they not be on the right side in such a case?
And you talk down the aggresion of the alliance from the beginning. With Turalyon and Calia.
Early WoW did have story. It just didn’t have as central or character driven overarcing narrative.
Which I think was fine, because it meant that all the energy went into the smaller zone arcs and world building, which is frankly where WoW’s storytelling has always been strongest.
The closest it had to an overarcing story was the conflict between the Horde and Alliance. How they competed against one another in various places for resources, how the impact of their past conflicts shaped the world now, and how a return to possible full scale war could threaten what progress had been made.
It was also when they were more willing to paint both sides with shades of gray. And without immediate world ending threats, there wasn’t as much in the way of virtuous heroes vs evil villains and moral absolutism.
Even in BfA- where so many people dump on the overaching faction war- the story and character moments in Zandalar, Kul Tiras, and even Azshara and Mechagon were pretty well received.
A return to pre-Wrath style content where the overall stores and stakes were lower would absolutely play a big part in getting WoW back on the right narrative track.
Don’t have BfA at all? Or have an entrapment narrative for the Horde, while also validating the actual acts of Alliance aggression proceeding the WoT to allow for some justification for the WoT … but Teld being used against them? This would allow the Horde to also be portrayed as victims of Sylvie’s madness, as she used genuine grievances against the Alliance against the Horde to control them? But, no, see you can’t have valid Horde motives or justifications because that might tarnish the Alliance’s flawless rep.
And as for Calia and Turaylon’s attack on UC. That’s just Stormheim all over again. Like Genn and Rogers, it does not matter if they didn’t know what she had planned, the fact is that they attacked her and she had something evil planned. Which validates their attack completely, and whitewashes their actions.
It should also be noted that the Horde was clearly an afterthought in Vanilla, and their story relevance completely disappeared after level 40. The Horde also had like no actual territories of their own back then, with the Alliance dominating like 70 percent of the game world canonically. Which meant the primary “Faction Conflict” stories required the Horde to be the aggressors against the Alliance (since the Horde had nothing to lose). Outside of AV, which was just bizarre. Thus, the Horde was always in the negative light. The Horde also barely had any real presence in BC beyond the BEs. Since Illi was the baddie.
… and before you say it, no. The Dark Horde had nothing to do with the New Horde. There were no real tie-ins narratively between the two factions, and the Dark Horde (and Dark Irons) exclusively threatened the Alliance. As did the Black Dragons. It wasn’t until AQ that anything of even half relevance post level 40 was presented to the Horde Faction; beyond the classic “well, if you’re killing people who look like you like Trolls and Orcs, you’re related right? Clearly this relates to your faction right?”
The Horde indeed didn’t get as much content as the Alliance, but what they did have didn’t necessarily pit them as the game’s primary aggressors. They were as close as they’d ever been to being on the defensive against Alliance attempts to drive them out of the few places where they were secure.
There were a lot more moments back in Vanilla where Alliance characters and races got to be portrayed as jerks, and the character that seemed to be pushing us all towards self destruction was Admiral Proudmoore.
It’s only after WoW started moving towards every storyline needing to have a central big bad threatening the whole world that the Warcheif/Horde got moved back into that role.
I totally agree that the Horde needs more relevant content. But I think a way to get back to that is to remove the need for stories focusing on the defeat of an ultimate world ending evil. Because in the absence of third parties to fill the role, Blizzard uses the Horde. Sometimes simultaneously.
I feel like I missed something but I fail to see how exploring an entrapment narrative actually does anything to promote a horde hero or power fantasy. It sounds like all it does is accentuate their respective races’ cowardice and weakness in not revolting sooner, makes them both damsels in distress and complicit in nominally supporting a genocider anyway, and both of those proposed examples still involve junking Sylvanas.
It doesn’t. I’ve repeatedly said that it could do nothing but make for a more cohesive narrative, and distance the Horde further from Sylvanas allowing for a “cleaner” prospective out at the end of BfA. It is very unlikely however to make for a more positive story experience for the Horde playerbase. It also would just make sense of certain character’s actions & tactics. Anduin and Sylvanas chief among them.
There is no way to twist BfA into a positive Horde experience or power fantasy.
This is the part that confused me when I was catching up with the thread. Did you mean it wouldn’t have, then?
No, just a weird transition of thought. They criticized my “solution” to a more coherent narrative as not solving any of the Alliance problems with the expac; despite me freely admitting that the Horde playerbase was unlikely to get a more positive experience from such changes. Just, at best, a cleaner out at the end. However, Zahir’s actually is very much about giving the Alliance a more positive experience. With them just bashing on the Horde on several fronts, and the Horde still being made witless pawns for a maniac.
All I wanted was a reason for why the Horde Reps refused to act against Sylvie after Teld; when they should have. I also wanted to free the narrative up to actually allow them to talk about it. Rather than it being hidden away and ignored as much as possible. Thus, the idea that Sylvie used the escalation tactic of Teldrassil to entrap the Horde, and using “fear of legitmate reprisal” from the Alliance came to mind as an option. Harnessing fear of the alternative to suppress dissent and rebellion. The Horde hates what Sylvie made them complicit in, but cannot weaken themselves to what would be perceived as a justified desire for revenge from the Alliance enough to get rid of her. Rock and a hard place style, explaining the delay.
I feel like that’s an unfair response to that. Tammy’s argument demonstrates the viability of the framework. You can work in more Horde content under the same framework - there’s nothing written in stone saying you can’t. They just didn’t.
Regarding your other posts - you said that the best way to deal with BFA is just not to do it. I can’t say you’re entirely wrong, but let me propose an alternative scenario.
Legion has passed and Suramar plays host to a celebration commemorating the end of the war. Players get some quests in the epilogue to Legion that seem pretty fluff-ridden. You do various things to get ready for a ball. You collect hors d’oeuvres, you help people set things up. You find and kill a Naga disguised as a Night Elf…
What? What’s that? Probably nothing. Watch out though - some elves in the corner are getting a bit violent with each other. Oh wait, that one just pulled a knife. That one’s casting a spell - people are taking sides based on what kind of elves they are - the ball has become a brawl!
The “Blood Ball” as it later comes to be known goes down in history as an ugly and bloody affair that largely took place among factional lines. No one knows who started it, but as the Nightborne ask you to investigate, it quickly becomes clear that this incident was instigated by Naga using illusions. So what were they hiding? They were hiding a by-now transparent attempt to instigate conflict between the factions. This isn’t a secret, the leaders of the world quickly figure out what’s happening - and they don’t care. Sylvanas points to it and Stormheim as examples for why the Horde should be gearing up for war when she mentions it to Saurfang. I mean, it took a couple of Naga to cause people to want to kill each other just like that - what if that happens on a grander scale? She’s also got one other argument in her corner - Stormwind is, as a “precautionary measure” - massing forces in Gilneas.
To distract and pre-empt this attack, Sylvanas proposes the plan from A Good War, and this largely progresses the same way, but for three changes.
Change #1: The worgen are immediately told to evacuate, but calmly explain to the concerned sentinels that they’re freaking wolf men and that they’re sick of running from the Horde. They instead join the city’s defenders in making their way to the front.
Change #2: The Draenei send reinforcements as well, lending as well their engineering and technical know-how to disable or counter much of the Horde’s heavy equipment.
Change #3: When Anduin tries to forbid Tyrande from returning to Kalimdor, she informs him that only the goddess may forbid her anything - and returns. In A Good War, this was the nightmare scenario that Sylvanas didn’t want, and it’s realized.
So, by the time the Horde offensive gets to the wisp wall, enough reinforcements have arrived that it’s not just that wall that’s holding things back - especially given that the Night Elven ships are returning from Silithus, and have been given the window they need to land troops. Sylvanas continues to try to press the attack to a degree that her commanders are regarding as suicidal - casualties are heavy for the Alliance as well, but eventually they reverse the Horde’s momentum, and because the Horde were largely moving in a line, they have to retreat back to the barrens. Saurfang meanwhile is in the middle of leading his pincer arm, and is finding that the other side of the pincer isn’t there. When asked what they should do - he advises a tactical retreat, and starts to try to determine what went wrong, and later - when he hears about it - why a tactically gifted person like Sylvanas wouldn’t have pulled back sooner to preserve more of her troops.
Meanwhile the Alliance surges out of Gilneas. Under the plan, Teldrassil was supposed to be a hostage, but the plan didn’t work, and suddenly the Horde is trying to pivot to defending Lordaeron - after having overcommitted in Kalimdor. Sylvanas is able to rally a defense at Lordaeron - the cinematic plays as normal. The major difference here is that Jaina isn’t able to show up on Captain Hook’s pirate vessel and hit an “IWIN” button after Sylvanas deploys the blight - which gives the Horde the momentum they need to beat the Alliance all the way back into Gilneas - because they too didn’t do a good enough job setting up their supply trains. Saurfang regards the deployment of the Blight as cowardly and dishonorable. Sylvanas points out that it won them the battle. The fracturing lines that form in the Horde are between honor and practicality. For the Alliance - Tyrande believes that the war is and should be in Kalimdor. Anduin points out that he doesn’t have a strong enough fleet to back her up. This dovetails us into the existing BFA questing, and we would trade the Darkshore warfront for a naval one.
Something needs to replace Dazar’alor. I don’t know that I can trim things and just tweak it, but I don’t think that should have taken place. Explode the fleet, sure, but this raid faction pride is not.
Anyway - we get to the scene where the Alliance is chasing Sylvanas into what becomes a vortex towards the end of the expansion. Saurfang is still in the Horde, and we’re getting some serious Vol’jin/Garrosh energy between the two - but he’s also not here. He’s busy trying to hold down the fort in Kalimdor, and think of a way to retake the initiative. That Vortex of course was Queen Azshara’s doing, and (hopefully on the back of a few more quests that indicate this) - we learn that Queen Azshara was trying to egg on the war so that she could invade without the Alliance and the Horde being there to stop her. She figures that capturing the treasure trove of factional leaders and taking them out would be a great way to sow future chaos. Instead, after her demise, those same leaders realize that they were taken for a ride, and agree that by now, everyone has suffered enough - and that they shouldn’t continue to fight for what turned out to be a lie.
Why does Sylvanas not object to this? Because she’s presumed dead as a result of Azshara’s actions. A few months later, the scourge fly off the handle for some reason. Winged valkyr-like things snatch Anduin, Thrall, Jaina, and Baine. One of them becomes some nice fertilizer for Malfurion’s vegetable garden. Another gets shot down by Gnomeregan’s shiny new air-defense gun. (Seriously - none of them wanted Gelbin? Poor guy must have felt snubbed!)
Then we go into Shadowlands, and learn that Sylvanas is not dead, and that she even has a new tall bald friend! Why is she here? Because we learn that she was playing along with what Azshara was doing for the reasons that she is giving to Anduin.
I went with this because it makes the catalyst for the war more ambiguous - it doesn’t humiliate anyone’s racial fantasy. It avoids making Sylvanas cross the moral event horizon. It neatly avoids Sadfang and saves his life and character, and it ends the war on mutual terms under what I feel is a reasonable reason given the circumstances.
So, let me know what you think.
No, it really does not. I will stand firm on this. There is no way to make the Faction Conflict work so long as the Alliance boasts moral absolutism. Or as long as Blizz is unwilling to let them do any untword without burying it under a mountain of justifications. And even if they were, writing a good faction conflict narrative is very hard to pull off in a satisfying way with just how many competing (and often contradictory) expectations there are for such a story from so many segments of the fanbase.
As for your solution. The story is the same, but the Feint is worthless and the Horde completely facerolled. With the Alliance reasserting their superiority in every way imaginable, and Sylvie just working against the Horde as normal. I am also unsure as to why on earth a routed Horde on Kalimdor would attempt to divert to Lordaeron, as Org is now a target? Which would mean that the Kali Horde would not have the luxury to reinforce UC, and the EK Horde would have to fend largely for themselves against the EK Allies.
The Horde is still forced to be the aggressor (because of course we are), just in this version we essentially get our teeth kicked on every front from the start of the war. Rather than every front but the first battle we barely won from the start of the war. Unless for some reason a Kali Horde who’s back was broken on Kali can somehow afford to leave Org and TB defenseless to reinforce UC. The catalyst for the war is diluted to the point where it requires Saurfang to be even dumber to get on board. As well as makes him really just a passenger to events, and completely uninvolved at the end. I also don’t care about Sylvanas. She’s great as a character, but she’s been an annoying edgy thorn in the side of the Horde for ages. What they did to Vol’jin to shove her into the drivers seat of the Faction was repulsive.