Whose experience am I fixing? Any player who cares more about the story being good than scorekeeping. BFA made the story bad. Incredibly, horrifically bad. I want the story to not be bad anymore. Call down the Infinite Dragons and have them throw the last two expansions into a sun. A sun made out of TIME. I don’t really care what the solution ultimately is. If it ensures we’re out of this crippled status quo of one faction being Always Correct and Permanently Justifiably Irreparably Aggrieved and the other faction being Always Wrong and Permanently Positioned As Punching Bag For The Other Guys, I’ll take it.
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So your solution isn’t bad… because it’s not?
I’m sorry, no, you need to explain why your proposal works, and you need to do so within the context of what satisfies players of an MMO. To help you with that - an MMO is uniquely focused on personal identity and your choice in it - and this one has marketed on the basis of the faction rivalry for years. That’s the sort of situation that engenders scorekeeping.
If you don’t like that, fine, but you’re fighting human nature, and by so doing, creating an unsatisfying story. Sorry, but there are constraints to work within. Now while it doesn’t surprise me that a human character would seek to throw their allies under the bus because they find it convenient (really staying in character there, aren’t you?) - I do expect that you acknowledge that this game is made up of multiple communities whose interests have to be balanced.
In short, no, you don’t just get to tell Night Elf fans to abandon their investment in the lands that their characters are said to come from because you find that easy.
You don’t get to tell Forsaken players to pound sand similarly because you find that easy.
You don’t get to have the Horde backsliding into trying to dominate an entire continent because you find that easy.
You don’t get to ignore a longstanding rivalry and the systems built up around it because you find that easy.
Jeez bro, chill out.
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You’re wrong, it was abandoned, just not destroyed. Even the books written about the pre-event, the Horde camps were abandoned and left to be retaken by nature.
Then to your “Reward”, yes, I think that Tyrande should be rewared, because the “Revenge” was not just like that, and it should show that even a whole faction against the Night Warrior is nothing more…than a Sunday walk. According to lore, It should be this supernatural danger, then blizz should also show the danger and reward of this powerup.
The horde as punshing bag? That’s nonsense, the Horde lost in areas - Arathi and Darkshore - that were not theirs in the first place. A warfront of the Barrens never existed, Silvermoon never existed, I think those were the planned Horde victories, but the warfronts were never realized.
And now Ashenvale is supposed to go to the Horde? Honestly, that’s nonsense. And just for the record, the Horde army is - officially - depleted. An army that is depleted…is actually considered to no longer exist, it exists only on paper.
They don’t do anything anymore for the time being. Thrall could just about find 30 guys to help in Zandalar. 30 in absolute numbers…that’s really hard to swallow, how shattered the army is right now.And they are supposed to be able to conquer Ashenvale?
and you were used as punshing bag…from your own leader (Sylvanas), not the alliance did this, sylvanas did this.
Undercity
Nazjatar (She sacrifised an entire Army there, to weakened the “Rebells”)
Darkshore.
I have a problem with malignant narcissism veiled as a suggestion. If you’re throwing other playable communities under the bus for your personal benefit, we’re not going to get along.
Your “let’s sell the Night Elves down the river so that humans can get Lordaeron” thing isn’t well disguised.
OOOOOH, I get it, you think I care about humans getting their kingdoms back or whatever and the suggestion of single-faction continents is based on that. Yeah, sorry, no, I actually just care about ending the stupid forever war BS because it hasn’t led to a single good story either before or since Pandaria, where the moral of the story was “The faction war is stupid and we shouldn’t do it anymore.” We can never return to Vanilla-era Cold War because the current story has developed in such a way where no conflict can credibly do anything but explode into full scale war and any attempt to do conflict on a more controlled scale than that will be rejected out of hand by the audience. Since that is not possible the only practical solutions are 1) do the Alliance dirty enough that the moral scales are rebalance or 2) artificially move the story in a direction where further conflict is either impossible or impractical.
I’ll honestly take either options because, and I really can’t repeat this enough, I DON’T CARE ABOUT WHO WINS OR LOSES, I ONLY CARE IF THE STORY IS GOOD AND THE FACTION CONFLICT HAS ALMOST NEVER BEEN A GOOD STORY.
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It’s weird when I’m more pessimistic than you about this stuff. I see a monkey’s paw scenario here where Yrel and Turalyon are played up as grand tragic heroes on the level of Arthas, while Ner’zhul remains forgotten at best and a joke at worst.
Not saying the Alliance can’t have tragic heroes, but it would be really galling if they took over the exact same storyline as an existing orc character and were taken much more seriously just because they’re pretty. Like how Varian cheapened Thrall’s story by stealing it. I’d just like to see Ner’zhul given some respect.
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This premise is wrong, as is the idea that a faction conflict wouldn’t be possible if we, as you suggested, sold the Night Elf and Forsaken playerbases down the river to get this Red Kalimdor, Blue EK nonsense. As is the idea that such would constitute a satisfying narrative.
You keep holding up this value of a good story, but you haven’t built out the contours of what that looks like - what makes it good or not. You’ve just insisted that this is a good story and presented that as its own premise, further. I dispute that this would constitute a good story, because a good story in an MMO must take into account its stakeholders due to the nature of the MMO being highly focused on the choices in race and class that form up the individual player’s sense of identity in the game.
Your proposal burns several stakeholder groups for no clear reason.
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Even if you split the factions by continent, they would still fight over all the lands in between, and there would be endless nationalist movements among the Forsaken and Kaldorei to retake their ancestral homelands.
The USSR and USA were on entirely different continents. It didn’t stop them from fighting by proxy.
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Kalimdor I’d do:
- Alliance = Winterspring, Moonglade, Darkshore, majority of Ashenvale except the corridor ending at the Hyjal mountain wall and the coast front, Hyjal all of it, Felwood, and the corridor extending from Stonetalon peak to Nijel’s point, and with the Shendrelar now a part of the Allinace, I’d give all of western/central Feralas to the Alliance, and western Thousand Needles
- Horde = Azshara, eastern edge of Ashenvale, Durotar, the Barrens, Mulgore, Dustwallow Marsh, eastern Thousand Needles, Tanaris, and Un Goro
Kalimdor areas of Conflict:
- Central Ashenvale (Orc/Goblin v Draenei/Nelf)
- Southern area of Stonetalon between the Alliance corridor I mentioned and Horde areas (Dwarf v Orc)
- Southern Barrnes (Dwarf v Tauren)
- Thousand Needles (Nelf v Tauren/Goblin)
Kalimdor areas of collaboration:
- Old God corridor (Desolace, AQ, and Uldum)
Eastern Kingdoms:
- Horde = Quel’thalas, Ghostlands, takes over Stratholme and Plaguewood in Eastern Plaguelands, takes over Scholomance and Andorhal in Western plaguelands, Tirisfal is retaken by Horde (already confirmed in the Exploring book), eastern Arathi is kept by Horde, southern and central Hinterlands is Horde (Trolls retake it), Twilight Highlands, Badlands, Swamp of Sorrows, all of Stranglethorn
- Alliance = takes over Scarlet Enclave in Eastern Plaguelands, Hearthglen becomes Alliance formally, Alliance is confirmed to have taken all of Southern Silverpine and Fenris Isle, Gilneas is reclaimed by Gilneans, all of Hillsbrad retaken by Alliance, western Arathi taken by Alliance, western and northern Hinterlands is Alliance, Wetlands, Dun Morogh, Loch Modan, Searing Gorge, Burning Steppes, Redridge, Elwynn, Duskwood, Westfall
EK areas of conflict:
- Silverpine (Gilneans/Nelves vs Forsaken/Belves)
- Eastern Plaguelands (Humans vs Forsaken/Belves)
- Hinterlands (Humans/Dwarves vs Trolls)
- western Twilight Highlands (Dwarves vs Orcs)
EK areas of collaboration
- Blasted Lands (watching Dark Portal)
6 Likes
Couple of items…
- Nix the Horde presence in East Ashenvale. Warsong Gulch is a perfectly serviceable conflict point, one where the failure of either side to progress can be chalked up to actual geographical boundaries.
- Why are we taking Silverpine away from the Forsaken? That valley is something that’s critical for them to hold, and rather easy for them to do. I get giving Gilneas back to the Gilneans, but the geographical border that makes sense is the chokepoint offered by the Greymane wall.
- I don’t see how the Alliance holds territory in Hillsbrad. Their major foothold there has been gone since Cataclysm, and there’s a wall separating Arathi and Hillsbrad itself. This should go to the Forsaken as well.
And what about the consequences of the Horde’s actions? Why should the Horde gain something from their abhorrent actions? By your logic, shouldn’t the Horde be absolutely crushed because of their actions in bfa?
Disagree. I think the Horde should give up Ashenvale, or have it taken from them, on top of other things, to show that doing what the Horde did doesn’t pay off.
Ma’am our back gate is there lol like there’s no avoiding Horde presence in that area lol that’s what I mean by Eastern Ashenvale, the corridor connecting Orgrimmar’s back door along the Azshara border
Blizz gave Fenris and the hold to the Alliance in Exploring Azeroth; having a zombie werewolf war in a dense forest sounds cool (forests can be choke points too, esp with mutual guerilla tactics)
Exploring Azeroth said the Alliance reclaimed and cleansed Southshore, and since yall won Arathi, that entire corridor from Southshore through Stromgarde is yours
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There is a deep river gorge to Ashenvale’s East, and a mountain range to its south. Those barriers are impassable by land, and have to date not been used as invasion routes. This concern about the backdoor is a nothingburger.
Forests aren’t as good as mountain ranges by a long shot, and I don’t have to accept what Blizzard doles out when looking at this.
I mean, as far as I’m concerned, Arathi was wrongly decided.
I mean they are passable; roads exist in-game lol point is those exact areas are where Horde presence is reasonable because nobody just has the back gate to their capital city undefended
No but werewolf zombie forest war sounds cooler than werewolf zombie mountain war
Sure but we are still where we’re at
How would you feel about the Kaldorei taking control of a revamped Hyjal? With the Forsaken taking over a revamped Caer Darrow / Scholomanse?
Show me the road that crosses from Orgrimmar, across the river gorge, through the mountains, and ends up in Ashenvale.
Thus far, I’m aware of two routes in otherwise - a laughably narrow bridge connecting Azshara to Ashenvale, something that could be destroyed in under an hour, and the Mor’shan Rampart. Both of these represent strategic chokepoints, the former of which is too narrow to support an assault by either side. In the latter of these, we find Warsong Gulch.
Already included in the list! Yall get all of Hyjal (since Ragnaros was booted out and that land probably recovered ages ago), and we get a “corridor” that allows for continuous Horde territory going from the Ghostlands-EP gate, to Stratholme, to Scholomance, to Andorhal, to Tirisfal.
Alliance get Hearthglen + the Stromgarde-Southshore-Uther’s Tomb corridor + reclaim the abandoned Scarlet Enclave for the Alliance.
So Horde faces pressure from the southeast of EP and both north and south of WP.
That’s what I’m saying lol, Horde presence in Ashenvale = Mor’Shan Ramparts (ie Ashenvale-Barrens gate) and the path that is currently through Warsong Lumber Camp, and I’d add Horde making a base in Demon Fall Canyon (plus it’s an important Horde lore location, where Grom sacrificed himself). So the corridor created from those three points is the “Horde Ashenvale territory”
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I’d personally be ok with the horde having advanced the warsong lumber operation a bit more inward, or perhaps up into forest song, if they would in exchange finish finally cleaning up Felwood. That place has been getting cleaned for like a decade now.
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Yeah Felwood would be smack in the middle of Alliance territory in this scenario, but it could be another “Collaboration area” given it’s just full of demons like the Blasted Lands.
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