After watching a lot of promo stuff for TWW, playing Dark Heart, I reflected on the factions.
For some reason the horde is not getting any faction stories, and when I look around I barely see any cool horde characters these days.
-In DragonFlight we saw a deserved alliance story line with the Night Elves
-Dark Heart was Alleria, Khadgar, Jaina, and Magni was mentioned.
-TWW seems like it is Earthen Dwarves (Magni, Moria) Arathi Humans (Anduian, Jania)
looks like Thrall is coming along for the lulz.
The interesting characters of the old horde are all gone. Why are we not building up new ones? Where is the hordes Alleria?
personally I donât really want earthen on the horde but whatever. thinking about switching to ally anyway for TWW
As a Horde you feel completely out of place for a long while. But apparently Horde stories are the stories that developers donât feel like writing, and this is why they push this âneutralityâ which is to focus exclusively on Alliance / neutral content and neglect Horde alltogether.
And it should be very easy to write the Horde.
Thanks for so many likes. This is how imo it would be easy to set narrative for Horde in TWW:
11.1 looks like its going to be all about goblins.
Thrall is involved in the story of TWW down the line.
And midnight is set in quelthalas so blood elf stories are set to be told.
That having been said, yes, there is a lack of Horde character relevance in TWW. Midnight will course correct that, of course, since its taking place in QuelâThalas, but there will be Horde players who feel like thatâs Alliance content because, elves.
The problem with, âHorde,â content is that itâs definition changes about as much as the definition of, âHonor,â does.
Some people say they want more Horde content, and think of the Hordeâs core identifying races: Orcs, Trolls, and Tauren.
Some people say they want more Horde content, and mean that they want more faction conflict and to burn Alliance cities.
Some people say they want more Horde content, and mean they want a new Warchief, because the Horde without its Warchief just isnât the Horde. The Horde is itâs Warchief, and to those players, not having a Warchief is about the same as the Horde not existing.
Horde got dumpstered extremely hard through all of BfA and into SL.
Sylvanas is to blame.
Their main characters all suck, and the good ones like Saurfang are dead and gone.
Legit, I always played both factions, I started WoW as a Darkspear Troll.
But hot damn, Blizzard destroyed any and all faction pride I once had by forcing everyone on the Sylvanas bus, which then sped off a cliff with jagged rocks at the bottom.
Worst part, Sylvanas is still around, and is a good character, might as well make her join the Alliance. Sheâs sorry!
Used my TWW boost on an Alliance hunter and suddenly the story feels more immersive. I adore the Horde, have been a Horde main since vanilla. But Horde just doesnât DO anything anymore.
I swear weâre swung into the spotlight only to wield the villain bat and do war but when there is no war this game is mostly Alliance stuff.
Nice man, yeah that is what im gonna do too. Except I need to get every healer to max out on alliance xD
Iâm hoping for more immersive stories too. It feels so weird to see my Tauren or Orc in a cinematic with the Night Elves world tree or with Jania and Khadgar and Alleria.
Considering the Void is the enemy for Midnight, I give it even odds that the Void Elves will be antagonists, completely and utterly lost and corrupted by the Void, with only Alleria and the PC having mastered the power and thus remaining an ally.
Even if theyâre not antagonists, I donât expect theyâll have much presence. The key ally in fighting the Void will be the Light. Void Elves would end up the B or C plot in zones, doing their thing in their own way to fight the Void, while Liadrin and Arator and Lorâthemar are the ones carrying the bulk of the conflict against the Void.
The Horde certainly could have more going on. I donât think the writers know how to involve them is all.
That said, I donât think the writers know how to involve any of the factions that well. All the Alliance has going for it is some characters wearing blue being involved. As far as Iâve seen, Alleria doesnât have legions of Void Elves following her orders in TWW: in fact, sheâs been set up to go solo for everything.
Anduin isnât present as the King of Stormwind, just as some itinerant adventurer.
Magni is there, yes, butâŚ
Summary
Its not like heâll be the Speaker of Azeroth after the Earthen zoneâs quests are completed, and itâs unlikely heâll retake the throne of Ironforge now that his grandson is in the picture.
I still think itâs wild that weâre finding an entire empire of Half-Elves, and Arator isnât present. Talk about the most underutilized character in the game.
All the characters you mentioned are Alliance or âneutralâ but actually Alliance letâs face it. So Alliance certainly feels more relevant over all.
But as a player experience I understand what youâre saying: YOU arenât doing things, youâre watching NPCs do things. The general Alliance isnât doing stuff, some very specific lore characters are.
And that is a shortcoming of WoW when it tries to tell a story. It doesnât actually involve the player. Guild Wars 2 and Final Fantasy XIV involve the player a lot and show them in cutscenes as active parts of the story but weâre not involved at all in WoWâs despite being ~champions~.
I donât even want to be the hero necessarily, I miss Classic where it was more of an open experience but if we must have a story canât we at least feel like weâre doing something?
