I signed up because trolls looked so dang cool and I wanted to be one.
But, uhm… Yeah. I stayed for the friendly monster family.
But trolls really do look so cool…
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Yep… still my favorite of the “classic” era races.
I’d play more of them now if they were better aligned with the Atomic Reconfigurator’s settings for a Blood Elf. I can almost make a blood elf shaman that looks like I want using the Orc as a base.
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Interestingly enough, for all its talk, the Republic has a veneer of goodness. But beneath that veneer the Republic has its own dark side (no pun intended). Follow orders as a Trooper and you’re dark side by the time you leave Coruscant. Not to mention the Republic Belsavis planetary story.
The reason why I loved the Horde is because it wasn’t the evil faction. Yeah, the Forsaken were darker, but the Horde reversed the trope of Orcs/Trolls/Minotaurs/Undead of being nothing but ‘adventurer fodder’ like in DnD and other franchises. Then they added the Blood Elves and just made it better. Orcs and Elves fighting together instead of each other? Sign me up.
If the Horde from day one had been the evil faction and kicking puppies and all that I would have been Alliance 100%. The Faction conflict wasn’t bad pre-Cata. I didn’t mind the mistrust, reluctant teaming up, etc. I gritted my teeth and dealt with Cata and MoP.
What Blizz did in BfA really upset me. I almost quit, but my friends convinced me to keep playing.
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I always saw the alliance as traditionally heroic, and the Horde as antiheroic.
If I could, I’d tape this above the desk of every Blizzard writer:
I am afraid murder for its own sake is, in fact, an evil trait Blizz.
When did you start playing?
I started in BC, and I saw the Horde as straight-up heroic. I thought the theme of the Horde was proving to a skeptical world that we were not defined by our past mistakes, that we deserved our place to flourish and make a home for ourselves. No “tendency to come to good at the last.” No “often doing good inadvertently or under duress.” We were actually out to make life better for our people and for Azeroth; our differences with the Alliance were those of philosophy and culture (made worse by negative history), but not of goals.
The Forsaken were kind of an exception, of course, but they were off in their own corner doing their own thing, sort of a subplot. And even they were the enemies of my enemies, by which I mean Arthas and the Burning Legion, not the Alliance.
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Oh, I started in Vanilla. But I fully admit I come at this from a Night Elf perspective. So even back then the Horde was unapologetically despoiling my PCs homeland. Of course they needed the resources, but still.
Which is funny, because form at least a Tauren PC perspective the same could be said about at least the dwarves. And that wasn’t even over resources, it was over Titan artifacts.
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The Blood Elves were also portrayed as pretty unabashedly evil or bordering on it at the beginning of BC, but they had their redemption arc towards the end with the Sunwell and fighting against Kael’thas.
Thought they were going to do something similar with Forsaken but… ehh… that seemed to only get worse over time lol.
But yeah, beyond that the original Horde was entirely heroic, they just appeared monstrous on the outside and had a dark past.
I have a response to this, but before I get into it, I just want to be sure we’re on the same page. You’re talking about playable (Silvermoon) Blood Elves, not Kael’s crew from Outland, right? And are you thinking mostly of things like the infamous mind-wipe scene and the “happiness is mandatory” bots, or are there other things?
Yes, I mean largely Kael’s Elves who were one and the same with the Elves of Silvermoon until he betrayed them. By the ‘Blood Elves were largely portrayed as borderline evil’ remark I meant largely their government and ruling class during early BC. But I don’t only mean the mind-wipe scene, the mandatory happiness, the slavery, the harassment of citizens, but also the questlines the Belves have on Outland where they’re tasked with killing innocent Draenei, torturing prisoners, and doing experiments on Draenei as well (something the Belves of Silvermoon were doing after they split from Kael’thas).
You mean the leper gnomes?
Can you remind me about this one? I don’t remember what you’re referring to here (it’s been a while since I did the Blood Elf starting zones).
Yes the leper gnomes.
And the enslavement of the Naaru which they used to fuel the power of the Blood Knights.
And also technically demons too, but they’re demons so I’m not really going to count that.
When entering the city the guard are harassing a random citizen:
h’ttps://www.wowhead.com/npc=18792/harassed-citizen
Its not like Lother’mar has done anything particularly egregious to the Alliance(no more then say Baine). To be honest he hasnt done much at all.
I mean, that’s what bummed me out. Other than exiling high/void elves and doubling down on remaining horde, Lor’themar hasn’t really done much. But Baine’s actively been the friendliest racial leader to work across the aisle due to his friendships with Anduin and Jaina, putting himself and his people at risk for the sake of her brother.
Yet people leaned toward Lor’themar anyway. Granted, it was just a small sample size of the story forum at the time, but still.
My favorite Horde leaders are Baine and Lor’themar. So any content with them is a win for me.
I like Thrall but deep down I still blame him for almost everything bad that happened in WoW.
Same, though I really blame the devs.
Nothing I, Horde main, will do from now on will be without taint.
Even my desire to protect the new world tree is tainted by actions I never had a say over. I don’t enjoy playing villains.
I can’t imagine the horror my old characters must have experienced as they watched the horde shift from a found family to the very monsters they were accused of being by the alliance.
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The worst thing about it is that Daelin was proven somewhat right in the end.
And that, is one of the biggest writing blunders they’ve ever done, nothing that Daelin said should have ever had any veracity to it. Entirely ruins the original narrative theme/point of the Horde.
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The sad part is its all the manifestation of writers having a turf war and being petty with one another. No one wanted to do this with the horde really, they were just trying to hurt their opponent IRL by forcing decisions that trash characters they care about.
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Yeah, I learned about this while messing around on a trial account, and strangely it’s part of why I came back. The knowledge that the people responsible were gone gave me hope for the future of the game.
I’m often harsh on the dev’s because I hate that the company let something like office politics and petty BS decide the course of a story. But, also, because I want them to do better, to be better.
I want my characters to look back at their adventures and actually be proud of what they did, not feel shamed because they never get a say.
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As miserable as it sounds, I’d suggest just killing off the idea of self-inserting into your horde characters and don’t try to immerse with them anymore. The setting itself is no longer compatible with its premise for them.
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