Honestly, the last several faction wars have done pretty severe damage to the Forsaken identity. They’ve spent too much time marching to far off locations and exterminating the native populations to engender a whole lot of sympathy as a rightful nation defending their homeland. The inability of Blizzard to decide whether they wanted them to be the Scourge 2.0 or something different led to the narrative dissonance of their actions being Scourge while the audience is blatantly lied to about them being something different.
I don’t think another faction war, even a defensive faction war, and especially not one written by Blizzard, is ever going to fix the problems they’ve baked into the Forsaken story, so they should just avoid it as much as they can, and prove that they’re different without making it dependent on some Alliance story.
This is unrealistic in terms of scope and I know that many people probably have other preferences for a Forsaken heritage quest, but my preference would be that the Forsaken Heritage quest revolves around the refounding of Alterac as an allied republic or kingdom. If the Forsaken are to be the heirs of Lordaeron, then they should take an interest in the fate of its old allies, especially the allies that the Alliance has forgotten about.
Notably, it should not involve blight it down and raise em all, but demonstrate that the Forsaken are capable of existing in a positive manner with their living neighbors, and that there are living neighbors who might prefer the dead Forsaken to the living Alliance.
This would involve probably turning Alterac back into a zone and expanding it, similar to the warfront remakes from BfA. There would be a questline around gaining the trust and building up the forces of a cadre of Alterac patriots and supplying/building/backing up their efforts to re-establish their nation from the cabal of Scourge Remnants/Ogre Cultists/Syndicate Bandits that currently rule it. Possibly Sylvanas loyalists could be narratively dunked on here too. Alternatively, the Syndicate could be re-contextualized to be capable of reforming itself to not be that bad, and show that story instead.
If an Alliance antagonist has to be included, it should be some Stromgarde meddlers - it was Strom that destroyed Alterac in the first place, and a newly rising Strom that has the most to be worried about of a Forsaken-aligned Alterac to their north.
Maybe this is sounding too much like an Alterac Allied Race questline, which I would not be opposed to if Blizzard removes or severely weakens the faction barrier, but I very much like the idea of defining the Forsaken as the heirs of Lordaeron by making them at least able to act in the best ideals of the old Alliance of Lordaeron and correct its failings. The old Alliance allowed Strom to punitively destroy Alterac, but the Forsaken are willing to make it right when the new Alliance aren’t interested.
We need more Ghostlands, and less Gilneas and Darkshore. Just because a state can fight tooth, nail, and blight doesn’t mean it deserves third, fourth and fifth chances - Blizzard needs to show that reason in some other way, and I think Alterac provides a pretty golden opportunity.
TL;DR help i cant stop typing
