Sure, if we ignore Ebyssian, Saballian and all the other Black Dragons that came from Outland with Seb…
3 Likes
Yeah, series really went downhill at Hyjal. Hell, the very first warcraft book, which predates WC3 itself explored a human and orc getting over their histories and prejudices.
umm, correct? This is most assuredly not a plot contained within the lore and official story of the game.
Well considering some people already dislike kumbaya DF then yeah, to some people it does not have much soul during our more peaceful periods/loses something important.
I would however say the faction conflict is a pillar of the franchise as oppose to the soul of it.
to repeat myself from General’s ‘Why do people hate the Faction War’ thread:
I’ve never minded the ‘Cold War’ style of conflict we had back in Vanilla-to-Wrathgate, where each side were trying to acquire resources and claim unclaimed lands, openly fighting mainly through mini-factions proxy groups in the Battlegrounds for example.
But the open ‘Hot’ Wars have always only ever been written as 'The Stupid Evil Horde does Stupid Evil Things while the Pure Noble Alliance does Pure noble things to protect itself until the Evil Warchief finally goes too far and both sides turn against them. Afterwards, the Horde promises not to do it again (again), and the Alliance just …agrees."
And from a game point of view, neither side can ever actually ‘win’ anyway, not without one faction being destroyed/made unplayable/weakened so much in-game that no one would want to play it. So it has to be a ‘tie’, every single time, with a peace treaty that changes absolutely nothing, just with a couple more cities or entire zones destroyed by the Horde.
Plus, I strongly prefer the Factions remain separate and distinct from each other, willing to work together against things like the Legion, Scourge and Old gods, but other wise untrusting and at least semi-hostile.
I think the Alliance should be the Good Guys Who Aren’t As Good As They Think They Are/Try To Be. For the most part, they genuinely do try to be the idealistic Knights In Shining Armor, but are also more rigid, self-righteous, bureaucratic and maybe mildly racist towards ‘uncivilized non-members’. King Arthur/LotR with a slice of GoT in there. Okay, I do guess that this is more just Stormwind itself than the whole Alliance, but still…
I think the Horde should be more Pragmatic Self-Interested Neutral than the ‘Classically Heroic Fantasy’ of the Alliance. They contain groups who are overall both good (the Tauren) and evil (the Forsaken), but ultimately they’re all in this together. Good and Evil are both less important that ‘what needs to be done to stay alive and strong in a dangerous world’. More like Conan/Fafhrd and Grey Mouser antiheroes who still fight greater evils but don’t care much if at all about what happens to non-Horde people.
3 Likes
I’d say this is an issue more with the writers and fans only ever approaching war as an ‘all-or-nothing’ affair, fought till complete surrender.
An easy example of near continual warfare is the Coalition Wars against France, where there were 7 individual wars in 22 years (not including the French invasion of Russia and the Peninsular Wars).
The other thing would be that Blizzard just doesn’t want to do a story requiring constant upkeep on the state of the old world, they’d much rather create entirely new places to really throw creativity at.
1 Like
This is why I wouldn’t want even a well done Faction war story where the sides are flipped at this point, I’m just so burned out on it.
Cata in a vacuum wasn’t even that bad. Garrosh had a tangible reason for going to war, the Allaince wasn’t blameless as they were punishing the Horde for an act they didn’t commit where the outcome would have been massive and entirely disproportional to the amount of dead night elves she was mad about.
Cairne tried to stop it early on, Thrall was busy as hell, Vol’jin told Garrosh he’d go after him if he crossed the line but was preoccupied with invaders on his doorstep. Baine couldn’t do anything because he was a new leader who immediately had to deal with bloodthirsty invaders and refugees.
Horde did awful things, Alliance did awful things. Ending on a tentative peace with peak power Thrall being back in play would have made sense, especially if both sides realized they were both suckered into this war.
But then MOP hit and Garrosh went full fascist. The attack on Theramore was treated with more gravitas than any of the attacks on the Horde, and we’re still getting blizzard revisiting it as of DF. Nobody but Vol’jin are shown to be doing anything until the appointed time for the siege. It sucks, but surely at least it means we won’t get a faction war expansion again, right?
Then we get BFA. Any legitimate Horde grievance, the ones they explicitly talked about in the leadup, immediately get thrown into a shredder. Both sides commit stupid and even worse warcrimes on eachother and each side’s potential allies. The Horde PC is given a chance to work against Sylvanas but only when Saurfang shows up again. Nobody bothers talking to the other side before tensions boil over or negotiating after Teldrassil. This is explicitly after an expansion that threw “the faction war is dumb, lets work together!” in your face as a core plot point.
I do not wish to see the Allaince villainbatted as an equalizer. I do not wish to kill off half their roster in parity, I just want them to stop trying to write this crap because they can’t pull it off and ruined the one half-decent one of the three by retcons to make Garrosh a more EVUL villain from the start. I would take Genn dying though.
1 Like
Most of the Horde players who commented on the subject weren’t ready to accept Callia as leader of the Forsaken.
I sure as heck would not bow to her as a monarch of the whole ball of wax.
Only issue i Have with MOP is 5.3 and parts of 5.4. The involvement of the Alliance of the story fell off hard and the story became so focused on the Horde rebelling. They robot kitty quest chain was insulting when compared to what the Horde was given and having to help voljin was a slap in the face.
That would have been the best time to give the Night elves there feel good moment with Fighting off the Horde at Astrannar then taking the fight to the Horde at splintertree and pushing them out. Then the alliance bringing resources to the Night elves instead of Voljin.
Also, would have had the Horde city sacked and partially destroyed by the Alliance during the invasion but have the Horde drive them out in the end.
No one seriously considered talking to Japan after Pearl Harbor, or Germany after the Lusitania. Once you go above a certain trigger threshold, peace negotiations kind of walk the plank.
3 Likes
support Jaina x Anduin strong political marriage
Honestly, I wouldn’t put it past golden to try marrying her avatar off to a young toy boy she sees as a role model for her son.
1 Like
You know what, why not? Its about time the Alliance plays musical warchief.
1 Like
You stop that.
4 Likes
This is just bad history? The US and Japan’s negotiators worked together furiously to come to a resolution pre Pearl-Harbor and after it there were still diplomatic communications, just with the US knowing that the IJN/IJA were explicitly working against any peaceful resolutions.
One thing that makes Callia a nonstarter is that since she IS an undead monster, she can’t provide an heir.
She’s a special snowflake holy zombie
If the devs want her to have a kid, she can have a kid
Or if Blizzard really wanted Anduin to end up marrying someone of the Menthil line it would be Calia’s lost daughter. I mean, I can see it now, Anduin unknowingly meeting up with her not realizing her legacy and boom, they fall in love during the 5 year time skip and now have a new kid. New kid would effectively be the rightful heir of both Lordearon and Stormwind, queue either the Fifth War or the reunification of the undead and living Lordearanians.
Oh I forgot to add that this thread was written by an AI, I do not uphold this opinion. Just trying to see how accurate it was at simulating WoW discourse.
3 Likes
Hahahahaha okay that’s actually great. I’ll admit you got me with this one.