You have it absolutely wrong… Nightborne weren’t made for people wanting to play Night Elves on Horde, but people wanting to play a second flavored Belf with a different model. Nightborne portrayal is absolutely antagonistic to the core depiction of the Night Elves since WC3 (no nature loving ways, no matriarchal society, no druidism, no Elune…). They are just proto Belves with purple skintones and tatoos, period.
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I would argue that the Faction Conflict can NEVER be made well written; because the foundation in which it was built upon is so utterly weak and shallow. The Faction Conflict existed to justify PvP on a Storytelling level. That’s it. That’s all there was too it. Which is why why it was the B or C plot, it was fine … but ALWAYS comes with ENORMOUS backlash whenever it takes center stage. Its also why a Cold War narrative worked better for it … but the issue with Cold War narratives is that its incredibly hard to continue justifying them over prolonged periods.
There were only two (and a half) real routes to take the Faction Conflict after Legion. Let it die and devolve into little more than territorial disputes between individual races at most (which it should have been allowed to); let it escalate (which is LITERALLY why Sylvanas was made Warchief); or do #1 or #2, but have the conflict hinge far, FAR too heavily on the selfish whims of “maybe” one or two of the more hostile Racial Representatives (Genn and Sylvanas). But doing the last option makes it feel like THEIR war (not the Faction’s); which is what the Horde is dealing with atm.
TBH … this isn’t justifying BfA’s sloppy writing and execution (symptomatic of a story pushed out the door WAY TOO SOON to meet some irrational quarterly earnings deadline), but I think anyone thinking that the Faction Conflict could EVER take center stage and be written well (after Legion) is just lying to themselves. I also don’t know how anyone (Hordie’s especially) ever believe that them killing off Vol’jin just to replace him Sylvanas would have amounted to anything but her dragging the Horde into HER agenda (and the Horde story taking a back seat to HERS).
You evidently didn’t got the point. The point is that no actual Bias born out of gameplay desing exists on this game. The only bias is a mythical perception pushed by players that not only refuse to understand this game literally mirrors itself in EVERYTHING (ergo, making the claims that the game is biased to any side mechanically wise false), but that do so while they engage and contribute to make the population problem worse. YOU Mrs. “I wanna win moar cause Horde wins moar cause everybody says so, so I rather PvP on my Horde toon” are part of the problem, and as long as you deny your own contribution to it hiding under the “Hurde bias” myth you will continue making things worse for your fellow Alliance players.
I have never denied the narrative issues Alliance players have with the story, however I’m not a conceited buffoon pretending to make one half of the playerbase pay for the bad story choices made by the writers. On that you and I are different. I never claimed Alliance Bias for the sake of the players, I claim Alliance bias in some leading writers (though ultimately this isn’t as worrisome as the ubber laziness and lack of work ethics all of them manifest).
And if you believe people will stop cattering to the brainless sheep mentality just because of the aesthetics of a mount/race, you are gonna be sorely disappointed. Idiots will be idiots regardless.
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The conflict can be written well. Blizzard just sucks at it. Stormheim was fine. Wrath was good enough in hindsight. Other MMOs handle it fine from what I’m told.
7 year old gryphons.
Horse models with recycled models.
Multiple Alliance regions given to the horde with complete make over.
Yeah I know it was to equalize regions but that doesn’t excuse how entire vanilla regions remained EXACTLY the same when the Horde got complete overhauls.
Half the Worgen storyline given to the Horde.
better racials for the red team for the past decade. The Alliance only had one race with one good racial before that too got nerfed.
I mean I can go on.
The trend has continued for pretty much every single expansion.
You can keep pretending and perform your mental gymnastics.
The Alliance numbers are down.
If you want to look at Alliance with how many 120s there are and their PvP or Dungeon progression then only 30% of wow players are playing Alliance. And there is no indication that it is getting better.
We are not even talking about something as pathetic as “Oh no Blizzard says I am the bad guy waaaaah” Oh gives a fuack?
We are way past that. Blizzard has been submitting sub par content for the Blue team for far too long and the game is crumbling under its own weight because of it.
But HEY! keep waiting in that 20 minute queue time and pat yourself on the back when the writers finally deliver you “True Horde” narrative or whatever it is you want.
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Faction conflict can be built on old grudges. That’s it. It’s relatable because our actual human history is drowned in it. They had already done the work in Legion to springboard off of Genn and Sylvanas to bring that foundation to the fore again. That is how you set up both factions feeling justified in their own pursuit of vengeance, because you can always point at some past atrocity that deserves answering, which spirals into an endless back-and-forth. It’s a harder sell now because of how blandly upstanding and wholesome the Alliance are written, whereas before they were instigating a lot of the violence because of those old grudges.
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Until you realize that with how Hero Centric the writing of WoW really is that “Old Grudges” really means “The Personal Issues of Our Racial Representatives … who don’t seem to give two craps about nearly every PC race having suffered near-extinction level events over the last 34 years; and damned near CONSTANT world ending conflict since then”. Like where the hell are we getting all of these expendable people to fight in this worthless war? Or ANY war for that matter? Game mechanics?
I don’t want to get dragged into the personal vendettas of Genn, Sylvanas, Lorash, etc … and I don’t think for a second that the other races and leaders should be gung-ho to get dragged into THEIR problems either. ESPECIALLY when THEIR PROBLEMS would pretty much prove that no matter how much they claim that their taking revenge for THEIR people; they just expect THEIR extremely damaged people to die by the bucketloads to satisfy some private grudge.
That sort of situation is exactly what the Horde Faction is dealing with right now. This is Sylvie’s war and Sylvie’s story, we’re just along for the ride (and we’ll likely suffer some consequences for it). You think we’d get anything different on the Alliance if Genn’s grudges had been the impetus for this war? Why the HELL should the Gnomes, Draenei, Dwarves, etc … die for HIS problems? They logically wouldn’t, unless he tricked them … and if he did he’d be getting the same treatment Sylvie’s liable to get (at the very least, NOT being part of the faction anymore).
So basically your saying that my viewpoint is subjective but your viewpoint is objective.
Look, I haven’t played through the zones first hand. The only points I made is that there are people who have who disagree with you, probably because they prefer zones with small side stories and not everything being about some grand plot, and that it wasn’t the same as Cata because Kul Tiras wasn’t cut short on attention. Blizzard spent a lot of time working on that.
You can disagree and argue about it being fact. Maybe it is. However not everyone who has experienced both seems to agree with you.
I perfectly understand that the Alliance has very valid complaints with the story overall. I think a good deal of them are generated and effectively the flipside of the issues with the overall narrative that are causing a lot of the Hordes problems.
I just feel that Horde issues and Alliance issues are as valid as each other.
Go ahead. Infact I will do it for you. Horde characters who showed up in WoD. Thrall. Liadrin. There you go. That is it. They are the only Horde characters actually involved in WoD. Vol’jin makes a very short cameo for Horde players only. That however is the only Horde characters in WoD.
Oh and you say I am comparing apples to oranges? Your the one who brought up WoD as the ‘Horde Expansion’ and the only logical reason to feel that is because we were killing AU versions of Old Horde character ie orcs. Legion is subjectively Alliance focused. We are almost exclusively following Alliance leaders in questing and outside Sylvanas, not one Horde faction leader even appears in the narrative after the Broken Shore.
She literally voiced one world quest and nothing else. There were more High Elves on that ship than there were actual Horde NPCs.
You don’t buy it? What? It is the literal canon. None of the Orcs there were part of the Horde, not even the Frostwolves. Hell most of those cultures are practically extinct in the modern horde. The AU orcs are no more part of the Horde than AU Draenei were part of the Alliance.
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I have played both zones. I know what I am talking about.
You can’t just loosely quote some random guy and his preference with zero context.
Play those zones or watch a play through of them on youtube and then come back here to debate me on those zones.
You are.
WoD was about the Orc home world, multiple orc characters and a redemption story for the Orcs (Stop the Dreanor conquest and demon blood drinking).
Legion was about exploring NE history and 1 patch for Argus to beat the legion.
The characters used were the ones that were the most relevant.
Both expansions develop story for a certain portion of the lore that was relevant and needed.
Killing or helping whatever NPC doesn’t matter.
That is your problem here. You think just because you were killing orcs that somehow removes all the development the orcs and their home world received.
Because the Gnomes, Draenei, Dwarves, etc. all have similar grudges against the Horde in one way or another, so when the Horde attempts any military action against someone else in their Alliance (even if it were retaliation against Genn for his actions in Stormheim), they are usually obligated or willing to provide assistance. Not doing so means they are accepting the annihilation of a member of their alliance (worgen, in this hypothetical).
Teldrassil wasn’t a repayment for a past wrong in service of faction grudges, and the very act of burning the world tree was at cross-purpose with the stated reason for invading Darkshore to begin with.
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The AU orcs weren’t really “ours” though. They were just shoddy photocopies from another time period. Their supposed redemption did nothing for anyone but themselves, and that got panned as a pretty bad story moment anyway.
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Draenor sounds very similar to a playable race. Can’t quite put my finger on it.
WoD was not about Orcish redemption in any fantasy land ever conceived of. I think you have it confused with Reign of Chaos. The orcs on AU-Draenor organize into a massive army with goblin-tech and march across the world killing, enslaving, and eradicating everything in their path before deciding they want to invade other worlds and do the same there. When that doesn’t go well for them THEY STILL RESORT TO FEL CORRUPTION. Yeah, what a redemption story.
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And as the Horde you stop them.
Congratulations.
I don’t think you understand what a redemption story means.
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How about you enlighten me?
Vader turning on the Emperor to save his son at the last moment was a redemption story.
Grom killing Mannoroth to free his people from the fel curse, and ultimately dying, is a redemption story. If the Iron Horde had at any point managed to become self aware of their misdeeds and corrected them it would have been a redemption story. For the Iron Horde—not our Horde.
Not a redemption story: your genocidal war campaign getting so soundly thumped by invaders from an alternate future that you turn to fel bargains with demons and still get soundly thumped by invaders. Cherry on top: everyone just conveniently ignores Grommash’s crimes, because Draenor is free.
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WC3: Kill mannoroth to stop the blood haze.
WoD: Stop Iron Horde from repeating the same mistake as the First Horde.
Sounds pretty redemption-ish to me bro.
Or did you want to join Iron Horde and pave a new highway of bones?
We didn’t stop them from repeating the same mistakes. They still invaded Azeroth, and they still drank demon juice. By your own criteria, this is not a redemption arc.
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Who’s redemption?
The Horde on Azeroth or the Iron Horde?
Because the Horde on Azeroth totally got redeemed in stopping the Iron Horde and convincing them there is a better way.
In Lord of Clans this was pretty much Thrall’s wet dream. Reversing or at least stopping such a tragedy from befalling the Orcs and Draenei. Well traveling back in time is not possible but given a chance at an alternate timeline?
It’s not a redemption story for either of us. We didn’t stop them from repeating the same mistakes. Christ, I feel like a broken record.
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