Give the Horde a break

Lore Story Forum
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That’s the problem. The writers only seem to care to dwell on something being a bad thing if it was the horde who did it.

I mean, that’s why Taurajo comes up a lot, until that stupid book, it was an actual bad thing the alliance did that was treated as a bad thing. If they’re going to write a story with faction conflict between two player factions, each side needs to feel both that they have a reason to fight and that the other faction poses some threat to them, and the story has gotten way too far away from that state.

Both Alliance and Horde players should be able to feel that they have good reasons to be fighting for their faction, and have non-stupid reasons to feel that the other faction is a threat to them for the cases where there is conflict, and for too long they’ve only done that for one side.

I mean, they seem to get half of the point with this thing. Like unreliable storytellers and fog of war confusion, where only one side gets that advantage.

In the Battle of Dazar’alor, they play with the unreliable narrator, but in the big event at the end they throw that out the window, the Alliance story is right, the horde story is unreliable. They could have had the group show up after Genn’s talk to the king so neither side would have the accurate story, horde would keep the exaggerated threats and such, and you could have the alliance caught up to what happened in a way that is obviously exaggerated in the reverse.

Or Broken shore, they had the Alliance run with the fog of war, only showed half the cinematic to them ,and kept pushing and pushing the “horde betrayed you” line in the story, and if I remember right, on things like twitter even. That’s fine, but give the Horde their own things to resent the alliance for. We find out that SI:7 was being run by demons through the story, and horde connected npcs are involved in that I believe, why not let them be upset that they were led into a trap, as the Alliance felt that horde set things up and lost them Varian, horde could feel that the Alliance set them up to be wiped out in a trap. Instead there’s no mention, and everyone’s just concerned about whether the Alliance will keep their eyes on the real target, since apparently only the Horde has intelligence in the other faction’s cities to report on what’s going on there.

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I think it’s a bit late to be trying to establish moral parity between the factions.

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Hey, they turned the Alliance into the good guy faction after Vanilla.

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Vanilla had the Forsaken.

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Incidentally, are there any examples of territory the Alliance currently has that the Horde actually wants? I think that one of the things that’s often overlooked in these discussions is the fact that the Horde basically has everything it wants and massively benefits from the status quo, whereas the Alliance actively wishes to reclaim land that it once had but the Horde now controls and considers part of its core territories. (Not just in the EK but also in places like Azshara and eastern Ashenvale)

I think that imbalance puts a huge damper on any kind of satisfaction that Alliance players might get from being the morally superior faction and it might be difficult for Horde players to understand. Being morally righteous in the name of upholding a status quo that massively benefits the Horde on account of the current status quo being the byproduct of the Alliance being torn down in WC3 sucks.

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Well, I mean I’m sure the Orcs don’t want the night elves right on two of their doorsteps again, so they have a buffer in Ashenvale and Azshara that the night elves ceded to them.

Could use Alliance out of the Barrens again, and all the starter zones for the ones where there are still invaders. We did get rid of the invasion point that was basically right next door to two capitals so that helps.

And as a horde player, while I wish it was done in a way that didn’t villain bat us in the first place, there’s no way we should be sent back to the pre-cata status quo of being the inferior faction with less quests and zones and all around an inferior version of the game than the alliance players got. (I know there’s the whole play alts thing, but I’m lazy and never could deal with running alts through basically the same content I’ve already done)

And there’s the need for the forsaken to reclaim/protect their homeland from those who would steal it from them in the EK.

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But the nightelves should simply accept it that the horde take land from them? They are surronded by the horde…sometimes pov like this forget that the nightelves are not your punching ball

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That isn’t what I’m talking about. All of those Horde motivations are based on some kind of siege mentality, warranted or not.

The Horde can hunker down and do nothing and still have all the territory it wants is my point, because the status quo benefits the Horde on account of the world’s overall status quo still being the one that was formed immediately after Warcraft 3, when the Alliance was decimated in both the Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor, creating an opportunity for the Horde to expand and acquire new territories that they’ve held since Vanilla.

And that isn’t even taking into account the “buffer zones” in places like Hillsbrad and Azshara that the Horde has since created at the Alliance’s expense.

You can argue gameplay justifications all you want but the fact remains that from the Alliance’s perspective, having the moral high ground is used to justify preserving the status quo, where the Alliance is forced to de facto cede its historical territories to the Horde.

For the Horde, meanwhile, having the moral highground or not is irrelevant. It can be good or it can be evil, but as long as the status quo is somehow maintained it comes out on top in the end. Because it has everything it wants.

Consider for a moment that of the Alliance’s core races, the only ones who aren’t either refugees or partially composed of refugees are the Dwarves, and of those who are composed either entirely or partially of refugees (Humans, Gnomes, Draenei, Worgen, and now Night Elves) only the Gnomes and Draenei aren’t refugees because of the Horde either killing them or conquering the lands that now constitute “core Horde territory.” (And the Draenei still are in the “are refugees because of the Horde” camp)

This is incredibly, sometimes infuriatingly, frustrating, and having the moral high ground ceased to be a satisfying balm for this some time ago. The Alliance, it seems, has a moral duty to the Horde but lacks a moral duty to itself and its own people.

And once again, yes, gameplay and all that, but the gameplay justification does not make this problem with the Alliance go away. If anything it just makes it worse because it gives rise to a sense of hopelessness, because gameplay always trumps lore after all.

It shouldn’t have to be like this and there should be some solution where both factions can get what they want, but solutions for that are rarely discussed.

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The level of incompetence in the Alliance leadership is so ridiculous it’s hard to to put in words. The faction is unrecognizable from how it was in WC2/WC3 & Early WoW. And not in a good way.

It’s hard to pretend the Alliance win when they do nothing with said victory. Like i have no idea how anyone can consider the CATA/MOP War an Alliance victory. The Alliance literally just helped the Horde get rid of a guy they didn’t even like as well as giving up Azshara to the Horde who they “defeated.” At the very least they could have just had some kind of “Demand” like the Horde getting out of Arathi back then.

They never followed up on the things Varian claimed they were going to do after that either. There was apparently never a new garrison built in Theramore & it’s unclear if they even cleaned up Gilneas until BFA. Even now after BFA the fate of Gilneas is very vague when it shouldn’t be.

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And the Orcs are refugees from Human internment camps. Trolls are originally a refugee tribe that was attacked by humans after being kicked out of their land by other trolls, the Tauren were on the brink of extinction in WC3 due to the offspring of Cenarius sleeping around. Blood Elves probably lost more of their population than the night elves thanks to Arthas. Goblins are refugees of a natural disaster, who were nearly wiped out by humans again.

Face it, almost all the races have come back from the edge of being wiped out.

Other than Azshara, which frankly, no one was using, the Night elves have not lost much territory. There’s a buffer between Org and Ashenvale up to the one river that’s been contested, and I think it should stay that way. But have they lost much of their Kalimdor holdings, even if they need to rebuild some towns?

What all are you considering lost in EK? I’m gonna say former Lordaeron is currently being contested by two contenders for rightful owners. The monarchy there has fallen, and we have two factions of the inhabitants laying claim to it, I’d label that differently than just horde occupying alliance land.

I think the big problem is a lack of need to do another old world revamp so far, which leaves zones stuck in Cata destruction and limbo. We have stuff where the story says one thing about what is happening, but the world is still stuck in the past, which is unsatisfying.
If they’d update some zones to show the victories the alliance gained offscreen that’d help.

I’m not exactly advocating no change, but just that it makes sense and doesn’t disadvantage one side in gameplay. I don’t see Azshara going back to the elves, or the dragon and demons that were there before since it’s now Org’s backdoor, same as with the edge of Ashenvale up to the one river. It’s always been a contested zone, let there be a sign of the push there, but leave the questing there for both. It’s always been pretty rough as horde leveling in there and that shouldn’t change. Just leave the zone balance somewhat even, find new places to replace horde questing if the story needs something taken away, that kinda thing.

I’ll admit, in my math, I give more weight to zones that were actually used than not, so while Azshara was technically a lose to the night elves, in the game, it didn’t really cost them much as it was an extremely sparse zone that didn’t have much there. It was given up by treaty as well, so its not as bad as leaving Darkshore a mess, or if they hadn’t updated Auberdine to not be on fire at the end of Ally questing (they did do that, right, and if not they should)

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Ashenvale in particular is a big problem, the horde has no business here. There is a natural barrier, in the form of mountains, and there is another barrier, in the form of the small river - not the one IN Ashenvale - but the one in front of it.

So there would be all the protection it needs as a natural barrier, and that the Horde keeps Azshara after you don’t keep the deal…is also kind of nonsense. The night elves gave Azshara, right, and didn’t really use it, also right, after Illidan destroyed the night elf villages there in WC3, but the condition was that the Horde leaves Ashenvale, forever.

Then because of the goblins? The goblins immediately got their city back after their demise. The gnomes still don’t have it in proportion to this day. The “refugee phases” of the Horde are either backstory or do not even last an expansion, with the exception of the Mag’har, and the Forsaken, all other races are fine.

The Alliance races that are refugees have been so for over 10 years.

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It definitely is. There were high quality cinematics, but only one was relatively close to the possible, horde exclusive, rebellion questline. It is the Mok’gora. None of those cinematics is for “horde players”. Imagine being a person who chose to play as a loyalist, then shortly thereafter Sylvanas screams at you “you are all nothing!” Then some Alliance player is like “Aww, no fair!”

Just… lol.

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Fixed that for you chief.

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Imagine thinking anyone is supposed to feel bad for people remaining loyal to a genocidal maniac. I love sylvanas and all, but come on dude. How is that supposed to make anyone feel bad? :wolf:

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Jesus stop whining the horde was always the more aggressive and mean faction. And they are hitting the alliance with the bat soon turalyon and whoever else are that guy in Helen you watch get axed. I love wow I have all the novels played since tbc. But damn allowing yourself to get this worked up over a video game is pure nonsense.

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It’s not. Im just pointing out that it is ridiculous to bemoan players on the other side for getting some kind of special treatment, when they literally got baited and abandoned. It would be like complaining that War of Thorns was too focused on Night Elves.

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Am I missing something? As far as I know, the Goblins got their refugee camp back, not their home. The Bilgewater cartel is the only cartel with no real holdings in Kezan, except those tied to Gazlowe, (not a Bilgewater) and maybe a claim to any tied to Gallywix (currently incommunicado).

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I rather meant that they immediately got a city, their own, whereas the Worgen have no home to this day.

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I’d say Orgrimmar fits that bill. Hell, Stormwind was not as detail either and we had a CRATER for most of 3 expansions while the Horde had a full city.

Again, that is BILGEWATER HARBOR. Or did you forget the Worgens don’t have a capital right now(they lost theirs twice!)

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They got a ghetto outside the city. In contrast, the fine people of Darnassus and then Stormwind welcomed the Worgen into their homes.