Did the entire campaign. I think I saw thrall once in Dorn and then the entire time after it was Alliance with the exception of horde NPCS getting rescued from the city of threads. Notice how much of a common theme that is?
If you took a player from Mists of Pandaria/Cata and put them in a time machine and had them play this campaign they would think that this campaign was just the alliance version and that there must be a horde questline with how alliance centric it is (it’s completely alliance centric.).
Anduin is not an Alliance character. By his own admission, he is running away from Stormwind and the Alliance, no longer wanting to be associated with them.
Alleria is not an Alliance character. She has left the Alliance-aligned Ren’dorei group led by Magister Umbric and based in Telogrus Rift to pursue her personal hunt.
Magni is not an Alliance character. He renounced ties to Ironforge by submitting himself to serving as the listener of Azeroth’s Radiant Voice.
Khadgar is not an Alliance character. He is a member of the Kirin Tor, a Neutral organization.
So this leaves us with Jaina, who barely appears (like Thrall), and Dagran II/Moira, who play a prominent role in one zone (like Gazlowe).
This is the most Neutral expansion in the game’s history, and I applaud Blizzard writers as this is the right path.
I do acknowledge that some Horde characters have become Neutral.
For example, Sylvanas Windrunner is now a Neutral character, as she no longer sees herself as a “banshee queen”, but only as a Windrunner. Therefore, when she returns in Midnight, she’ll be fighting side by side with the Neutral Alleria and the Alliance-aligned Vereesa (as the recent Alleria short already foreshadowed).
My dear Horde player, let Me tell you this: The Sylvanas you knew is GONE, GONE, GONE, EVAPORATED AND REDUCED TO DUST, GONE!!! You will NEVER see the banshee queen again!
This new Sylvanas… oh… oh great things are coming in Midnight.
You know the game is extremely Alliance centric when the players from that faction have to try to count them as “neutral” so it’s not so obvious this is one-sided XD.
Our banshee queen will return as the savior of Quel’Thalas and show the horde and allaince whos the best remaning character from WC3. She’ll put down her void infested sister, save the city she was once forced to destroy, and then a stray arrow will kill Calia and become reinstated as head of the forsaken.
the true prominent horde experience. getting saved from being bug food after playing dead under a pile of corpses. what a compelling role for one of our glorious horde leaders.
You know, Alliance fans tend to justify the Alliance centrism of latest expansions with “there used to be too much Horde centric content before”, which might be true if we look over a decade ago.
But I don’t think it has ever been this bad, neither in favor of the Horde or the Alliance. We’ve never had an expansion in which all the characters come from one side this much, and one faction is so completely non-existent.
This isn’t even the kind of situation in which one faction is presented as superior, or as winning battles, or being more interesting than the other. This is a whole story in which only one faction matters.
I never thought it could get this bad.
Yes, you’re correct. I didn’t play that patch in particular, but I think you’re correct. At least that happened later in an expansion that had both factions represented.
The fact this is happening at the start of an expansion makes it feel different, though. We usually get expansion starts in which Blizzard makes an effort to include both factions, even if not always equally.
