I finally decided to level an alliance toon in BFA and my god it’s SO much better than Horde. The main city actually feels like a city instead of a museum piece, more interesting dialogue, more characters I’ve heard of before, MUCH more beautiful zones. On top of that, they don’t have a genocidal corpse as their leader. Wish I’d gone alliance from the get go.
4 Likes
Welp. Considering Zul’dazar is the city dedicated to the first king of Zandalar, the oldest civilization of living creatures on Azeroth that wasn’t preordained by the Titans, I imagine it SHOULD look like a museum piece.
I think both sides have their ups and downs.
I liked Nazmir and its distinct Vietnam war style, swampy hell-hole aesthetic.
I loved the story of Overthrowing the Sethrak in Voldun, and helping the Cursed Pirates of Zemlan.
But I didn’t really like Zuldazar, the depiction of the Zandalari left me disappointed over all.
Alternitavely on the Alliance side of things, I was pretty upset with the insignificance of everything.
Tirigarde Sound is just Blizzard making a one off zone because they enjoyed Pirates of the Carribean too much.
Drustvar is great, but none of it mattered. It took direct inspiration from the Witcher, and while it was a cool zone, the Drust were entirely forgotten about until shadowlands (hopefully)
Stormsong Valley made me the most upset, the corrupted tidesages had a chance to be incredibly interesting, but again, they were forgotten about as soon as we went to Naz’jatar. In no small part that they had no significance to the Horde. Who were the main characters in this expansion.
TL;DR.
Horde zones are significant to the plot of BFA, Alliance zones are cute and well designed, but mostly meaningless.
I enjoyed leveling on both sides for the most part, but the Horde story feels like a f*** up at every corner whereas Alliance feels like they actually accomplish something.
Rastakhan was also a massive tool, so him dying didn’t phase me at. all
3 Likes
I definitely enjoyed Alliance leveling more than the Horde. Mostly because the war campaign has severely soured my opinion of the Horde over all, and I’m even less interested in still being part of it going forward yet have to be because Tauren.
For a break down:
-Nazmir was really cool, though Uldir was only just an “okay” raid. The aesthetics are very interesting, as was the questing. I did like how it tied into the raid a lot. Underrot is a good dungeon, too, for all of its shortcomings.
-Voldun was okay, I think I lost a little interest when the Vulpera were revealed simply because I didn’t think we needed the whole fox vs. snake thing. Also the snakes would’ve been the cooler allied race option, but I digress; the dungeon there was fun, the story was…mostly inconsequential over all, but I appreciate desert landscapes.
-Zuldazar, my gosh, what wasted potential for Zul. He’s depicted as this highly intelligent prophet who could see every move his student made down to moving the jar a little over so that he’d trip on it, and yet he was done away with for the very first raid in one of the worst fights of this expansion. What a travesty. And Yazma, too, along with virtually every other character introduced died or became a villain, even though I’d argue Rastikhan and his passive mature regarding the Blood Trolls and other threats to the empire was practically the villain. Not to mention it just felt like the story was hardcore halted for the sake of Old Gods and the faction conflict, which I hated. I wanted more with that and not as a follow up in Shadowlands a few years later…
-Stormsong felt weirdly disjointed starting with the Quilboar in the west and the corrupted Stormsages in the north. I actually did like the story of those, though, and the fact it led into the naga/Old God part of the expansion. Shrine of Storms is a dreadful dungeon but I did appreciate the entire story around Lord Stormsong’s fall, and I was relatively sad when some of the characters were killed in the story leading up to it. The zone is also nice to look at and easy to navigate.
-Drustvar is my new favorite zone, hands down. The Drust stuff was fascinating, and Waycrest Manor is an equal parts creepy and interesting dungeon. The story involving the Waycrests is every bit as sad as it is haunting, and the aesthetics of the whole zone are so cool. While it didn’t have any tie ins with the over all story, it was definitely a prelude to the Shadowlands and seems to have a connection with Ardenweald. And since this is an expansion I can’t wait to forget, I’m happy that my favorite zone in BfA will remind me of my favorite area (at least right now) in Shadowlands.
-Tirisgarde was pretty bland, though Flynn Fairwind is a new favorite of mine. I actually enjoyed joining him with his hijinks, and I looked forward to my interactions with him. I didn’t like how it felt like a lot of what I did was very much being a house boy for everyone to dump their chores onto, but I can say I much prefer Jaina’s story line to anything the Horde got. For a while I disliked her as a character (pretty much since MoP as it looked like Blizzard essentially butchered her character just to give it to Anduin with the whole “peace” angle) and I didn’t think they could redeem her in my mind, yet seeing her come to terms with her family was actually something I was invested in. Not to mention Gorak Tul (I hope he isn’t REALLY dead…) was a very interesting villain to me.
Over all, I’m Horde, I’ve been Horde for a while, and I enjoyed the questing well enough on this side. But there were far more memorable (to me) moments Alliance side that will stick with me long after we leave BfA. I definitely felt like they came out better, at least with the story they were presented. And again, the faction conflict has completely soured my opinion of the Horde, and I don’t know if I’ll ever fully recover because I’m so tired of how much of a botched amalgamation of idiocy the writing has to be to get us to this point.
2 Likes
looking at the architecture of the Zandalari and comparing it to the Titan constructs in and around Uldir, I’d say there is a lot more Titan influence over the Zandalari than they have revealed.
There was plenty of Titan influence in Zandalar but they weren’t literally made by the Titans like Vry’kul, Dwarves, and Gnomes were.
Just as the aspects were shaped from proto-drakes so too could the Zandalari have been ‘shaped’ from the hunchbacks that are ‘regular’ trolls.
There absolutely is Titan influence.
Remember, The Zandalari started worshiping constructs on the Kalimdor supercontinent before the Sundering.
They believed these to be gods, and called them Loa.
Of course now we know that Loa are actually titan constructs within the emerald dream, and are PRETTY similar in power level to dragons
So yes, their entire civilization is based on worship of titan constructs. But the trolls themselves were not pre-ordained BY the titans. They were just natural evolution of life on Azeroth.
The only exception to this, rule is Bwonsamdi… He seems a cut above the rest of the Loa. My thought is that he is a Titan construct similar to Odyn or Helya.
Essentially a rogue computer program that was left behind on Azeroth when the Titans up and ran.
The Zandalari were the first Trolls. All of the other Troll races (and therefor the elves too) were descended from the Zandalari.
you sure about that? I thought the Zandalari came to be specifically from being near the mountains in Zandalar.
Well, I have bad news…
Yes. They did. You’ve got that right.
But that whole thing happened before the sundering, before the war of the Ancients.
Originally the Zandalari were just scholars. The trolls most in touch with the Loa, and they believed themselves to be the most pure.
When the Amani and Gurubashi continued to be Bloodthirsty conquerors, they both got the boot from the Zandalari trolls, and were exiled away.
Later, the Darkspear tribe, and the “Dark Trolls” who would later become the elves are kicked out of the Gurubashi tribe, and eventually the Dark trolls find the Well of eternity. So on and so forth.
But the Zandalari were first. If you have any more confusion, please let me know.
I love explaining this stuff.
2 Likes
I preferred the Horde vastly so too, mostly because it plays on my love of all things Empire, and upper echelon, decadent you might say… its why I love Elves so much and why Zandalari is one of my favorites now too.
I love everything about the Horde in BFA the zones can the aesthetic, the story fit together nicer too as far as zone to zone, Alliance felt disjointed.
Horde I felt was better save for Nazmir was great, good pace and story from Voldun and Zuldazar. Nazmir felt too dark, and slow for my tastes. Alliance leveling in the sound and Drustvar felt just like Nazmir too dark for my tastes and stormsong didn’t interest me that much. Alliance leveling zones also felt more difficult particularly mobs in Stormsong and Drustvar.