I would have genuinely enjoyed BFA story more if it weren’t for a single character in particular.
I used to play an Undead, but after that I just got fed up with the whole thing. I hated logging in and feeling like I’m a piece of garbage that kills orphans and then steals their candy because “haha horde evil”
I tried feeling out evoker as a new main because of this. I would’ve even gone far enough to swap names around to make him Sarm if I thought the race and class clicked with me enough, thinking I could reboot the immersion I had with the faction. Sadly, that didn’t pan out; among other reasons, mage still feels like my comfort class even after all these years.
I don’t think the problem is so much that the Alliance gets excused to its own players, but rather that it’s only the Alliance getting excused to its own players.
Like, in this specific case, the ren’dorei admit that what they’re doing is Bad with a capital B and don’t try to pretend otherwise, but explain that they think this is the least bad option. And I think that’s the right way to handle moral greyness when the player has to be involved in perpetrating it.
That said, I think that each faction should have some unmitigatedly bad actors for the other faction to hate without getting scolded for it. The issue, to me, is in keeping the balance of:
And I think the problem is that many Alliance players complain about issue #3, and Blizzard responds by removing issue #2. (And ignores issue #1 for the Horde player.)
A lot of Alliance complaints about the Purge Squad, for example, was more about ‘why the vulpera?’ rather than ‘why are they vicious?’ (there were complaints about the latter, too, but even most of those were made in the context of the former). But instead of going ‘Okay, the Purge Squad will be burning core Horde members alive’, Blizz addressed the latter point and said ‘Okay, you’ll only be scaring the poor widdle vulpera’. And I don’t think that solved anything for either faction.
(I still can’t believe that Blizz didn’t bring in Admiral Rogers to do all the Alliance warcrimes - she has a history of at best being a few steps down the slippery slope of morality when it comes to the Horde, so there wouldn’t be any tonal whiplash like having the generic and thus representative footsoldier be happy about burning fox people alive for… reasons? Like, how is Admiral Rogers ever going to appear again and explain away why she was missing for the expansion that’s practically made for her?)
Playing through Zandalar was legit one of the best moments I ever had in WoW
Playing through the rest of BfA was… well. Saying they dropped the ball is an understatement (though I rather liked Nazjatar if I’m being honest)
I’ve mentioned this before, but the thing that really stuck with me is that the 7th Legion quartermaster (a Lightforged Draenei) greets you with “Our cause is just, our hearts noble” when you go to turn in your quest for fighting the Horde. Meanwhile, in Dazar’Alor, you go to turn in a profession quest, not even something war-related, and the leatherworking trainer tells you, “There may be blood on the Horde’s hands, but there is no purpose in washing them until the Alliance is shattered.”
It is on brand though for the 2 factions and their philosophy on war matters.
The horde knows they have done horrible things but try to live their lives. They will deal with the consequences when the conflict is finished. They don’t try to sugarcoat their crimes.
The alliance tends to claim its on the right side of ordeals or does things “for the greater good.” The Rendori and SI:7 embody this darker side to this mindset. They corrupt/drive insane and murder respectively, but in their eyes for just causes.
Up to now, those horrible things always happened outside the playable game, though. They were things from the RTS days—backstory, not current story.
I know what you mean. I played death knight for so long it’s hard to wrap my mind around anything else. As far as Horde fantasy goes, the next best thing is thief / pirate / assassin. I might be forcing myself to play Rogue more. I don’t know if it’s the talents or what, but something about Outlaw feels off.
Not saying it’s roll the bones, but its roll the bones.
Joking aside that specs has felt off to me ever since it got revamped to outlaw from combat. Same way disc priest has never felt right to me since it went to damage/heal hybrid spec over Shields shields and more shields.
Yeah, it’s that one xD
I enjoyed it a lot more in Legion, but having juggled a roll the bones talent build I hate it.
I love the class fantasy but I dislike how it plays at the moment. I’ve considered Druid as an alternative but I really just wanna see more Troll lore. They make great witch doctors but the alliance half of my brain keeps telling me that night elves make better druids.
Agreed. Like the only other dungeon(s) that come close to this are the Frozen Halls dungeons (Forge of Souls, Pit of Saron and Halls of Reflection). With the latter having a “run away, it is all you can do” encounter as the finale.
My main problem with BoD is the timeline with the raid.
Like if you compare in raid cinematics, the Horde kill their version of the Champion of Light at the same time the Alliance defeat their Jadefire Masters. As the blood moon cinematic happens at this point for both factions. Meaning that by the time the Alliance make it up a bunch of stairs protected by undead trolls, the Horde had already fought their way through and defeated Grong. Just in time for Bwonsamdi to reanimate it and sent it against the Alliance. I feel like Grong should’ve happened first for the horde to make the timeline more believable. Given that the Horde are canonically in Nazmir when the Alliance begin their assault (aka their Champions of Light encounter). Since the destruction of the Golden Armada happens when the bulk of the Zandalari defenders are in Nazmir thinking that it is the Alliances staging ground for the invasion.
It will also make the next part more believable as well. Since the Alliance defeat four bosses by the time the Horde kill one. Those being Grong, Opulence, Conclave and Rastakhan for Alliance and Jadefire Masters for Horde. Imagine being delayed by Jaina and then a random monk and fire mage while the Alliance defeat 4 bosses and escape the city including the trash in between.
BFA zones were pretty good, though I do feel there wasn’t as good of flow between them on the Alliance side. The horde one felt like it culimated to the big battle between zul and Rastakan. Whereas the alliance once felt all spread apart and there was nothing really connecting them together. I felt like the Alliance one was missing Jaina being involved in the story and her helping her people to earn her right to rule them and uncover the plots to overthrow her mother. Instead she was shipped off to doom islands for all the questing to undergo her therapy sessions to stop hating the horde and came back to being made super admiral of everything for no reason.
Instead I feel like they just created way too many new characters for us to interact with instead.
BFA in general was probably changed part way through development as its clear to see it was supposed to be an expansion about war but quickly changed to be all about naga and old gods. They clearly changed their minds mid development about doing a completely war expac.
Zandalar will always have a good place in my memories. I enjoyed all three areas, from helping Telanji save some Loa from Blood Trolls, to dealing with Vulpera, and even rescuing Rastakhan from his own dumbness. I had fun with it.
I’m also grateful that these areas treated Horde characters like they were heroes as they were fighting G’Huun and his minions rather than being subjected to further villain batting in the assinine bulls*** that was “The 4th War”.
Even during the Horde’s War Campaign we spent less time fighting Alliance and more time fighting either Ashvane flunkies or corrupt tide sages. The fact that we were helping Sylvanas with her Derek Proudmoore sleaper scheme made it yucky, so special thanks to Baine on bailing us out of that.
All in all, I thought it was good.
8.2: Eh. I felt Azshara could have been more menacing considering she’s the greatest mage on Azeroth.
8.3 was a disappointment. With all the buildup in Cata, bits of Legion, and BfA, I felt N’Zoth got screwed into a lower quality time in the spotlight so Blizzard could develop the Jailer as “The Big Bad”.
All so Sylvanas could be the edgy star in Edgy McEdgeworld, I mean Shadowlands.
This isn’t really that shocking. Blizz was using a number of ways trying to obfuscate the fact that the Horde weren’t really allowed motives in BfA, let alone reasons to start it. One of such methods was to just make random Horde members frothing warmongers. They also used “unreliable narrators” a LOT on the Horde side.
But, on the simplest functional level, its the same crap they’ve been spewing since Cata. The Alliance CAN NEVER, so the Horde HAS TO. Doesn’t matter if it makes sense, it doesn’t matter if the Horde actually can, one can’t so the other must. Same goes for why Jin had to die, because yeah it sure as hell wasn’t so Sylvie could just be less natural him. It was so they could get her to do something with the Horde they felt Jin wouldn’t.
Just like with Cairne and Garrosh. It truly was Cata/MoP all over again in so many ways.
Sure—but my main point is the difference in the ways the NPCs greet the PCs and the messages that sends to the players. The Alliance PC is assured that everything is noblebright and righteous even in the middle of a war, while the Horde PC is reminded “You know, we kind of suck” even while going about mundane business.
Well, I guess its just Blizz telling it like it is. Or at least how they wrote it.
Alliance are the “Good Guys”. And by that I mean, always right, always flawless, always pure, whitewashed into sterility, and honestly have a power fantasy that absolutely towers over the Horde on paper. When its not being hamstrung to ensure that the Horde continues to exist as a mechanical player faction that is. But oof, Legion? The Alliance were the ones who stopped the Legion. The Horde could have been written out of that expac almost entirely without changing a thing. Blizz needs to remind us of that.
The Horde tho? Are generally lesser on all fronts, and my god Blizz is going to remind you of that too. Deeply flawed, weak, easily manipulated through their primitive and wrong faiths, and just evul for the sake of being evul. So whats wrong with Horde NPCs reminding you of how much the Horde sucks, or how much the story constantly reminds you how much you should feel ashamed for playing Horde? Its just like all our AR Racial Leaders throughout BfA openly regretting joining the Faction to us. It is what it is.
To be fair, the alliance as a whole and I know many alliance players complain about this, but a lot of the alliance members and their cultures are super boring and really bland.
It’s all mostly Humans and the occasional alien we let tag along with us
Why? Unless you’re an NE that’s what they signed up for isn’t it? More traditionally Euro Fantasy races with Human-esk designs? In fact, the Alliance playerbase seemed to just get mad any time they got an AR wasn’t just some variant of “Pretty Humans or Humans with Point Ears”. Where’s their High-Elves Blizz?! Outside of Dark Iron Dwarves, which nobody uses anyway. The Draenei even find their loose cultural inspiration in the Byzantines. They’re space Constantinople. From their political titles like Exarch; to the fact Naaru are literally based off of “classic” Angel designs (look at their silhouettes & BC dev discussions); to their architectural designs (crystal’d and spaced up); to the fact that the two Horde PC races that have taken chunks out of them have loose cultural inspirations in 3 groups that took shots at the Byzantines. Mongol/Huns in the Orcs, and Ottomans in the BEs (BEs, liked NEs, are a weird mesh of things).
Unity (outside of the NEs) through shared cultural norms is kinda the Alliance’s thing. Draenei included. Sure, Blizz may have taken that way too far out of laziness, but its not like it came out of nowhere.
A common complaint is that the humans and such are pretty bland and boring.
I’m not really sure what that has to do with races being based of a certain culture if you squint hard enough.