I would be fine with that. At least it would be something directly from her and not just Hamuul telling us about it.
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I think it’s complicated because a big thrust of the advertised vanilla-era WoW horde hinged on racism-from-alliance being one of the core reasons why the horde faction exists at all, and it was a concept I thought was novel for a fantasy game. It’s what drew me in. I loved the idea that I could play a monster race, in the company of other fantasy monsters, but as a hero protag even if the “normal” races denied you.
Aaand unfortunately WoW decided to answer that in the worst way by basically going “you’re not bad because of your race, you’re bad because you’re a fascist genocider and your raison d’etre was not only false, but never existed”.
I think there needed to be a large divide among the races because developers would just fall back on the comfortable human/elf representation as the “default” otherwise. But, welp.
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I definitely agree that the original vision of what the Horde was supposed to be was lost long ago.
Originally meant as a faction that was largely meant to move past the horrors of their past and build a new destiny for themselves on the continent of Kalimdor.
Survivors and outcasts trying to piece together a civilization for themselves.
But after a while, that vision was lost and the Horde became the anti-Alliance.
Their entire narrative purpose was undermined.
And I felt like that was a direct result of the faction system, and a need for there to be a binary between the two.
Whereas before your questlines centered around trying to survive on the hostile landscape of the Barrens or trying to root out corruption in Orgrimmar by Burning Blade…
You’re now randomly committing genocide on the Night Elves and are a world power.
The main binding narrative theme of the Horde was that of the ‘underdog’…
Along with some pretty outdated notions of the ‘noble savage’ architype, which was rightfully dropped imo lol.
But the entire idea behind them was lost, you’re entirely right.
No more being outcasts, really.
No more being the subjects of nationwide racism and hate.
No more being the underdogs, trying to piece together a civilization on a hostile land.
No more fighting corruption, unless both sides get to take part undermining their own efforts.
And I feel like that loss of central identity is why Blizz hasn’t had a proper idea on what to do with them.
Meh, I don’t necessarily agree with this.
I feel like if we’re a neutral agent and we travel to a place like Orgrimmar, we’re naturally going to encounter races beyond humans and elves.
It’s also kinda just unavoidable that this happens, by default most people resonate with the more familiar human-like races.
I also feel like the fact that Blizz just has a handful of characters which they continually juggle is also to blame for the lack of diversity, which is up to Blizzard’s lack of creativity or fear of introducing anyone new…
If WoW’s stories focused more on the smaller local perils and dangers, and focused around more smallscale characters and not massive governmental leaders…
We’d also have a lot more diversity in the types of characters we see, I feel.
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My personal opinion is that going forward, Blizzard should probably treat the ambiguous player character as only taking part in the current content.
As shocking as it is to realize, new players are picking up WoW all the time. Expecting them to even know about the vast wealth of old content story is a big ask, made even worse by removing prepatch events and not giving context to the on-boarding expansion after the 1-10 island.
When you got shunted right to BfA as a Horde player, it went from playing around on Gilligan’s Island to Prison Break: Stormwind to rescue some Sourfang orc guy who refused to go with you because of honor. Rude, but fine!! Some trolls help you out, some witch lady talks about a Teldrassil and how you’re evil, and then you do troll stuff. You’re a genocidal monster who doesn’t even know a single thing about the genocide you allegedly did.
I originally typed up a whole lot right here, but it quickly stopped making sense so it is gone forever now.
Anyway. The only events a new player ever really has any degree of context for is whatever is the current content. It’s going to be pretty jarring when your greatest accomplishment thus far is “managed to solo two elite mobs!! By myself!!” and suddenly everyone around you is like “oh thank the titans (name) is here!! We need such an experienced world-saver as them right now!!! We’re willing to look past that time you aided and abetted in genocide, because you did after all personally hold Azeroth’s heart and merced the Jailer, so we’re calling things square. Now, about the nightmare god about to invade our reality…”
What?!? Genocide?!? It was only two elites!!! And when did I hold someone’s heart?!? Who even is a Jailer??? Was I the one in jail?!?
I think if the player’s actions are kept limited to current content, with exceptions for things like gossip text based on achievements, things won’t seem as crazy.
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LOL
I had a friend recently try out WoW, started with Exile’s Reach into BfA obviously.
Immediate question:
‘Why am I as some random shmuck adventurer personally meeting with the King and doing personal requests? I just got here.’
Just reminded me of that.
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I know I’m zeroing in on this part of your post but that’s exactly why I prefer the factions remaining divided, though they don’t necessarily have to be at war. If the horde lacks humans, then the devs naturally can’t so easily default to them and would be forced to use other races.
Unfortunately for me, blood elves seem to fill that “void” now, but I don’t see faction smoothing-out to result in anything but the overuse of normal races getting worse because then that would be for “everyone”.
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Fair enough I suppose, but as you said the Blood Elves came in to fill that niche…
Along with a particular assortment of well-preserved undead and Nightborne.
Just kind of something that must be accepted with the nature of ‘monstrous races’, I guess.
I still earnestly believe that a more small-scale zone-by-zone storyline featured around questing would open up more opportunities for ‘monster race’ characters to show up at the forefront. But I definitely get what you’re saying.
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I guess if there’s anything I’d point to as “proof”, it’d be Dragonflight itself, both with the aspects spending so much time in visage form that they’re being derided as “elves who sometimes turn into dragons”, Vyranoth being the obvious conscientious defector due to being the most humanized-looking one, and a statement on Twitter that a former dev gave where the two main reasons why visages have been abused so much was that 1: the dragons were just too big and playtesters weren’t looking up (fair) and 2: the animators wanted to be able to show more emotion in cutscenes and wanted to use humanoid faces to do that instead of trying to animate the expressions on dragon snouts instead.
To be fair, there’s Ebyssian as an exception, but they kinda swerved him in last minute and I feel like he wasn’t intended to be an aspect in the first place.
Edit: And I suppose I ought to include Baine’s questline too, as much as I dislike him, but he originally wasn’t intended to be part of Dragonflight at all and was a late addition after Ohn’ahran Plains were already finished, as per another dev tweet.
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Definitely.
As I said, just something that has to be accepted about this kind of stuff, I guess.
I mean, ultimately it was added. Which is something.
I also think there’s something to be said for how incredibly niche the entire Horde aesthetic is, tbh.
It speaks to a very particular set of people, which is why I think they opened it up more with things like the Belves who have an entirely different aesthetic to what you’d usually see out of the Horde.
It isn’t as approachable or familiar aesthetically as the Alliance is… Also the ‘Alliance aesthetic’ is more general and isn’t really something unique to the Alliance, whereas Horde architecture and aesthetic themes are almost entirely unique to the Horde.
Like, I’ve yet to meet anyone who actually likes Orgrimmar as an example.
Ever since its Cata revamp I’ve thought it looked unredeemably ugly, the whole ‘iron’ aesthetic I’ve never really cared for at all.
Also lost the entire feel of the city being built into a canyon to me.
The layout of it is terrible too.
I honestly think it’s the worst designed city Blizz has ever made.
Don’t know how the Horde RP community has somehow gaslit themselves into RPing in one single tavern tucked away at the back of the city is somehow okay lol.
And like, considering that’s your main city and you’re forced to be there most of the time… Yeah, I can see how that’s unattractive to most people compared to something like Stormwind which is easy to navigate and is aesthetically neutral and approachable.
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I thought old Orgrimmar was better, personally. The iron aesthetic felt too, I dunno, something but it also being associated with Garrosh doesn’t help matters.
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Exactly.
The ‘iron’ aesthetic, both for how it loses that original rustic charm of the Horde and its association with Garrosh doesn’t hold up well at all.
Like sure, it was neat to see a completely different Orgrimmar post-Cata… but as with a lot of Cara’s world changes, it got old quick.
Side note: I still find it really funny how a bunch of the buildings in The Drag are still actively under construction… since Cata…
And they use the old models which clash horribly with the new buildings and color pallet of Orgrimmar.
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Quest completion is already monitored in game. Any player can even check their own completion status for any quest, even those no longer accessible or removed, at any time.
For example, entering this in the in game chat box, as provided by Wowhead, will show a player if they have completed the final War of the Thorns quest Horde side:
- /run print(C_QuestLog.IsQuestFlaggedCompleted(52981))
Indeed. Once again, tracking is even available for quests that have been removed, as the Human Heritage Armor questline and the Night Elf Heritage Armor questline rely on completion data from quests that were removed with the Cataclysm old world revamp, but the methods to monitor if the character had completed those quests are still in place to this day.
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Now you have a hint of understanding of how some of us feel about these new series of content Night Elves got and how frustrating it can be when others come in and tell you how wrong you are and how you should feel about it.
I hope Worgen and their retaking of Gilneas turns out better that what Night Elves got.
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I do want to apologize if in our earlier interactions I came off that way. It totally wasn’t my intention and you guys have every right to complain and be upset. You guys do have a ton of valid complaints when it comes to how blizzard has handled the Night elves in the past. With everything having a price tag attached to it and all.
I do support your guys community a lot. And we all can be unreasonable when we’re upset, so sorry if things were said that came off the wrong way
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the sanctuary buff is to protect the new tree from my pvp raids!!!
I think the best way to make it more palatable to Night Elf fans (and Alliance fans in general) would be to make it immediately open for Alliance players, but for Horde players to get anything out of it aside from a new place to go AFK (such as access to vendors/innkeepers/the outdoor transmog items) they would have to grind reputation from Unfriendly.
As a Horde player, I think that is more than a fair price to pay, given the existence of BfA, especially since after the Ardenweald Covenant and us saving the Dream, it makes sense that Tyrande would at least give us a chance to prove ourselves.
It doesn’t lock us Horde players out since we didn’t choose for Blizz to write BfA, while also allowing for a more natural in-universe healing of that rift than Tyrande just saying we’re cool now.
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I dunno.
Like, what kind of rep grind should I be forced to do to be allowed visitation rights that stands up to literally defending the tree from day one when no one else would or could? From standing side-by-side with Tyrande in battle?
A rep grind makes sense before we became battle-besties, when all I did was save her from going full night warrior explosion. But if I haven’t proven myself worthy of a travel visa by now, I cannot imagine how turning in 50 harpy feathers for 500 rep makes more sense.
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I think it’s important not to confuse forgiveness with living together, as they are different things.
The night elves may well forgive the Horde for what happened, but living with them is a pretty drastic second step, given what happened.
The burning of Teldrassil was a huge mistake that was the fault of the Horde, but from now on, if this coexistence really exists, any future mistakes will be the sole fault of the night elves, given their naivety and stubbornness.
Being cautious does not mean distrusting everyone and being intolerant. Being forewarned means trying as much as possible to avoid problems, thinking about the possibilities and trying to do everything to make the future better. And I think night elves should be, at the very least, warned.
The night elves may well forgive the Horde for everything, but living with them so quickly gives me the idea of a naive and foolish race, as if they didn’t care that much about their well-being.
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Now hold up, hold up, wait a dang second.
Two tauren and the Horde pc visiting is not nearly the same as cohabitation.
Where you guys coming up with these extremes?!?
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Sure, for Tyrande specifically, but aside from her telling the Night Elves to not attack you on sight because you two have made-up, that doesn’t immediately make the rest of the Night Elven population forgive you. Just that they tolerate you.
Earning reputation with Bel’ameth would be earning the trust of a population that likely still sees you as one of the primary figureheads in both the War of Thorns and the Fourth War, which would be widespread knowledge given the player’s fame across Azeroth at this point.
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