Touché.
But at the same time, doesn’t it feel like the entire purpose of WoD was to get alternate Gul’dan to Azeroth? Two boring years to lead up to one event which started a great XPAC.
I’m not saying it forgives two boring years.
legit killed off gul’dan too soon should’ve stuck around as “this scheme didn’t work for this expansion, but just wait until the next one when i have another scheme”
I think that was one of the purposes of WoD, and turned out to be the only one that Blizzard salvaged. But there probably were other purposes, at which they simply failed.
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The developers made her warchief. I strongly suspect the writers, upon seeing that, made the same face I did.
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“We want you to bring war back.” “Well, the Alliance and Horde have been working together for-…” “BRING WAR BACK. Who’s the most hateful person in the Horde?” “Sylvanas, but-…” “She’s Warchief now.” “But Vol’jin–” “SYLVANAS KNAIFU WAIFU WARCHIEF.”
That’s how I imagine the conversation went.
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I mean, yeah, but… why? Blizzard could have created a new villain. Sure, Gul’dan has name recognition, being an established figure in the canon and all. But his story was over and done with. It had a start, a middle, and a satisfying and poetic conclusion. He didn’t need to come back. Draenor didn’t need to happen.
Likewise, I don’t think BfA needs to happen. Whatever they’re setting up (and I’m not convinced they’re planning stuff out ahead of time, no matter what they say), I’m sure they could have gone about it without casually tossing genocide into the game, dragging long-time fan favorite characters through the mud, or putting everyone’s faction pride through the wringer.
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There is absolutely planning, if only because Lost Honor-level cinematics take something like a year to make. Even if we don’t see them as often going forward, there’s bound to be one involving whatever the final raid is.
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The bitterest irony, I think, is that for as zany as BfA’s plot is, it actually works perfectly if you flip the script so that the Alliance are the aggressors.
You could even assign them the same motivation.
Sylvanas believing the Alliance will destroy them is absolutely nuts. Whereas Genn merely has to point to the last dozen or so times the Horde tried to destroy them for people to say “okay yeah you got a point there.”
After the Undercity is lost, the Horde are driven back to Teldrassil and, with the Night Elves breathing down their necks, are forced to destroy it to keep themselves alive. They then flee to Zandalar as Jaina embarks to find a war-hungry Kul Tiras, ready to finish what Daelin started.
Suddenly this script is new, interesting and everyone’s motivations make sense.
But it would require the Horde to unambiguously and utterly be defeated.
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This is what I was kind of hoping the expansion would be, but that obviously didn’t happen. A shame.
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Sylvanas seizes the Crown of Domination, becoming the Lich Queen. The Alliance and whatever’s left of the Horde confront her, but alas! She is too powerful. Our only hope is to travel back in time to an alternate reality to drop a mana bomb on a baby Sylvanas so as to eradicate her from every timeline, forever.
Thus begins World of Warcraft: Elves Made People Like Our Last Expac So We’re Trying That Again.
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I’m reminded of the devs calling the Alliance “lame” and again, I really think their core problem is the senior devs now are all Horde fanboys who utterly missed the point of what made the Horde cool. And thus threw it right out when they decided to give the Horde all their attention.
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They made Anduin look sort of spooky and intimidating in the trailer so I was like “Oh man he lost it and he’s trying to wipe out the undead this is gonna be awesome.”
And then Blizzard said “Oh we forgot to mention, before this happened, Sylvanas burned 70% of the night elf population alive.”
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The purpose was to make Thrall Warchief again.
The game team chose her to be Warchief specifically to embark on this villainy arc so that when Thrall showed up again people would cheer.
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i saw him and i clapped
Honestly?
It’s kinda working.
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i do think its wild that despite every other member of the horde chomping at the bit to get vengeance on the alliance for slapping rastakhan around baine is uniquely raged at for being the one (1) person who doesnt think that more war is good
Having perused the story forums on and off for several months, I’ve come to the unfortunate conclusion that a sizable contingent of Horde players actively want to burn Alliance children to death, but they want to be celebrated rather than shamed for doing so.
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Having read a few of the responses here, I entirely believe it.
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From a battle standpoint, I don’t like how the Horde-Alliance conflict is habitually written; there is no joy in beating up a special needs child with both hands taped behind their back, but there is in outmaneuvering a peer opponent. There is a notable disconnect between both factions in that regard.
Things the Horde needs:
Pyrrhic victories.
Unconditional losses.
There are needed to show that the Alliance isn’t made up of pushovers, and more importantly, can play to their strengths (none of that “human potential” bull ![:poop:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/poop.png?v=6" ":poop:")
, I mean economically, strategically, and organizationally). There are ways to show this in story that are meaningful, even if it also treads dangerously close to that line of numbers-and-sciences-which-nerds-will-war-over.
Things the Alliance needs:
Unconditional victories.
Arguably the Alliance has had plenty of losses, where the loss isn’t ultimately strategically or tactically significant, but what it needs are clear victories. I’d say the Battle for Dazar’alor started out as one (strategic planning and foresight, absolutely annihilating the Zandalari fleet at anchor), but Jaina’s fighting retreat sure didn’t feel like one at the end. Again, what the Alliance needs is not a fist-pump moment, but an outright “We Won!” moment. I don’t care if it’s through duplicitous means, but I’d prefer to see the Alliance win a major battle on AND off the field.
I want to see both parties portrayed as motivated to war for different, arguably alien reasons to one another. Conflict doesn’t need to be as simple as “ME RED YOU BLUE ME SMASH YOU!” (which sounds like an orc Valentine), so a little insight into why people are willing to go to war would be fan-tastic.
I want to see characters make smart decisions and plan around their weaknesses. You can have a character act and react emotionally, yes, but that doesn’t mean they need to be outright STUPID in the process. Give me characters that have conflicting personalities, shake the jar a little, and we’ll have drama. Make them smart, make them strong, give them good reasons to fight.
Maybe it’s the schoolyard brawler in me, but I can respect someone capable of breaking my nose, and feel no obligation to hold back socking them in the jaw in kind, and I think the Horde ideally encapsulates that. Right now, though? The Alliance is just kinda… there, doing things in reaction to a Horde that doesn’t know it’s not a Saturday morning cartoon character.
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I would have loved this with all my wretched heart. Might even have kept me playing my own worgen. Genn gets a lot of criticism I somewhat agree with but he (and Jaina, honestly) would have been a perfect starting point for a more aggressive, proactive Alliance.
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