Hell with it all. Time to burn some bridges.
Let me start off with I love you both. Regardless, I’m about to go full unleashed for a minute. Probably done with the forums for a while after this.
Because what you all, what pretty much everyone on Team Blue just cannot see, will not see, outright denies seeing, is what state the Horde has descended to since Wrath. So maybe giving you some data will help, though inevitably this will all be forgotten again in the future.
Let’s start with faction leaders. Because when you want to feel a little bit of pride, it has traditionally come in the form of leaders.
These are the racial leaders starting with their introduction and their ultimate fates. I’ll be ignoring Allied races because they’re both too new and admittedly I don’t know their leadership as well:
Thrall: Retired, stayed retired or neutral for ten years, back now. Replaced by Garrosh, then Saurfang, then…?
Sylvanas: Enemy of everyone, now effectively retired. No longer with the Horde.
Vol’jin: Dead. Eventually replaced by Rokhan.
Cairne: Dead. Replaced by Baine.
Kael’thas: Introduced as a villain, dead. Replaced with Lor’themar (though for later calculations, we’ll actually include him as the original leader).
Gallywix: Introduced as an antagonist. Currently fled.
Ji: Present, a first for the Horde, a leader who still manages to lead.
Alliance?
Bolvar: Neutral. Replaced by Varian as soon as he showed up to claim his throne once more.
Tyrande: Present.
Mechatorque: Present.
Magni: Neutral.
Velen: Present.
Genn: Present.
Pandalady: Present.
For every remaining original Alliance racial leader, we have a Horde leader who is dead or left as an enemy. Their replacements largely haven’t faired any better, when they eventually were replaced.
But fine, those are just NPCs. What’s the actual experience like playing Horde since Cataclysm?
Cataclysm: Bullies to the Alliance, but largely our best showing. A former Horde member actually did something, and it was relevant.
MoP: We’re the bad guys. It literally starts off with us developing and immediately using WMDs. The whole image the Horde was sold on, being honorable warriors, is initially ruined in this expansion. We end it with the first ever raid set in a faction capital, where we’re told we would not have succeeded without the Alliance. We also get the single least active warchief because as soon as Vol’jin does anything beyond grats’ing us on our level 3 Garrison, he dies.
WoD: What little remained of the Honorable Horde dies here. Orcs didn’t need demon blood at all! They are just innately evil, guys!! Trying to genocide the drainie was just Saturday afternoon fun times.
Legion: Warchief Shuffle #2 happens, and then we disappear. While Alliance-aligned characters take us along to fight the Legion, the most we get is Liandrin talking to the Nightborne and convincing us to prank the night elves.
BfA: Time to kill even the memory of the Honor Horde. WMDs were bad? Let’s attempt a genocide, and let’s start things off with that. Also our latest warchief told us we’re nothing and flew away. Also also, our leaders keep telling us what shipheels we are because we’re Horde. Also also also, we only managed to succeed in our second rebellion because the replacement for the replacement for the orc leader died for our sins, making the entire point of getting a whole rebellion together pointless. But also also also also we only managed to do it because the Alliance walked us to the Orgrimmar gates. And also also also also also, Baine. Just Baine.
SL: Baine sat on some steps for a while, Thrall met his mom.
When we’re not the outright villains, we either do not even fluxing exist in the narrative, or we learn in new and fun ways another god damn reason why we’re just the freaking worst.
And the novels? No freaking different. Like, okay, the past four years of being the worst people on Azeroth had to be for something, right? Some small measure of sense?
No. Screw your reason, screw your logic. We had to double down on being the baddies because SHIFT JUST AIN’T FAIR!!!
But okay. Okay, Alynsa. That’s all well and good. But why does that matter for the Alliance narrative if you don’t have to play it, right?
Because I didn’t freaking play the Sylvanas novel, but it’s still the canon I have to live with. I didn’t quest through Brandondamn or whatever it’s called, but it’s still informing my god damn faction. I didn’t play through the Worgen intro quests, but that’s still my faction and we’ve never been burdened with the fallout from that.
But you’re right. Why should I care if the Alliance players get to have their own resolutions, even if it makes my faction into the villains, not again but still? Where’s the harm in it, right? If my character doesn’t play through it, it’s completely irrelevant, right?
I mean, nobody ever mentioned the Sludge Fields or South Shore or any Horde-exclusive content as things relevant to Alliance players, right??? Nobody keeps hammering home how important Horde quests are to the Alliance narrative ever, right??? It’s not like any development for the Horde that isn’t “warmongering killing machines” is put on the back burner or anything. It’s not like Alliance characters or Alliance-adjacent characters have been highly prominent for over a decade now, with Horde characters being stuck in the back seat until the murdering needs to start or they need to die.
But you’re right.
All y’all are right.
What’s the harm in more content designed to portray the Horde as nothing more than mindless antagonists?
At least the Alliance players will get to feel good for a minute. At least two of your races will get some resolution, while all of ours are stuck with the piss-poor development we’ve been getting since the train started rolling in Cataclysm twelve years ago.
Who is really harmed by keeping my entire faction locked in this perpetual cycle, right?
See you all when I see you, I’m just done.