Generally when a people go on multiple genocides they tend to make apologies, reparations and memorial monuments to recognize what they did.
Thats generally what is expected.
Thanks for saving me the time of digging up those quotes when you weren’t trying to have an honest conversation.
You won’t even admit they are contradictory. So why should I dig them up when you won’t acknowledge them.
Which would fall in line with what I think the general conclusion to this OP was. That there really isn’t a way to “Forgiveness” or “Redemption” for the Horde. No grand gesture and no level of groveling or submissiveness that would pay that debt.
Which means just letting the Horde actually accept that, grow from it, and actually “Do Better” would be the solution. But to do that, Blizz would actually have to: A) Develop the Horde, its Reps, and its new Council; and B) Allow that developed Horde moments in the sun that they get to shine and prove that “doing better”. Neither of which seems like Blizz is interested in doing with the last decade of how they’ve written the Faction. They tend to do the bare minimum to rebuild the Horde after they break it.
Frankly, with how much of a Convenient Plot-Device they seem to see the Horde as … a little part of me does assume that Blizz will capitalize on the fallout of BfA to make the Faction and is Characters as convenient and submissive for the Alliance and theirs as possible. Since that way they can stay within their comfort zone of Legion style stories, where they don’t need to waste money writing an inclusive story for the Red Faction. We’re just kind of optional and along for the ride.
I mean, what we think they “will” do is irrelevant to the suggestions and critiques that we make. We are not doomed to accept these writers for all time, and in fact I think we should make the case to management that they need to go.
I will say this - you feel that your faction is being abused for the benefit of mine. I feel like my faction is being abused for the benefit of yours. The real answer I think is that both factions are being abused for the sake of a plot that doesn’t fit in a rivalry-focused MMO in the first place.
How can I admit they’re contradictory when you won’t present them? I refuse to say in advance that you’re always right about what’s contradictory and what isn’t. Especially when this problem is supposedly so very widespread that it involves posts written by many, many Horde players, so I can’t necessary speak for what all of these people were thinking when they wrote the posts you won’t provide.
Aren’t we? What can we do besides accept them or leave?
I mean, leave is an option - I’m here on a temporary basis after all. Another thing you can do is purposely not purchase microtransactions. Past that, leave feedback, like you’re doing now.
Edit: Also, sadly, it appears that the bulk of the links in my repository have since broken, and redirect to the forum landing page. So my record of 50 unique people who were REALLY pumped about destroying Teldrassil is seriously diminished.
I don’t see any of those things leading to a change in the story, realistically.
Edit: The old forums were deleted, unfortunately. But of course there were people who were pumped about it. The internet is a big place and a playerbase is not a monolith. (I mean, even in this thread we have Cailias, who I don’t think will mind being named as someone who likes nothing better than fighting the Alliance.)
Sure - and that was a group that I regarded as the worst of the worst - people who actively wanted to wreck people’s fun.
Most Horde players aren’t like that - and to the extent that they want to participate in the rivalry without doing that, that’s perfectly fine and normal. The game encourages them to do that, and the marketing does to this day.
I don’t want to participate in the rivalry at all anymore. Clearly Blizz wants me to feel bad about “rivaling” the Alliance, and they wouldn’t have built the Blues into such a monolith and monopoly of Virtue and Morality if that weren’t the case. They’re all good, so rivaling them equates to rivaling all that is good. On a story level there is nothing positive about the Faction Rivalry for the Horde anymore; its been tainted.
Regardless, for me, the one thing that can tip me off that Blizz finally intends to let the Horde to “do better” … is letting Baine have an actual character arc in SLs and let him for ever discard that prison of a Token Good Horde Plot Device he’s been shackled to for ages. Because, in a World of Warcraft where the Horde is allowed to finally improve without being needed to be used as a plot-device for villain batting … Baine shouldn’t need that plot-device role anymore. Let him evolve beyond it, I’ll be more convinced.
I mean, you’re also a PVE player, I’ve looked at your stats. There’s nothing wrong with that, that’s an option, but the option should be there as well for people on your side who do want to participate in the rivalry, and they shouldn’t be called bad people for it.
I’m not arguing that I’m a big PvP player in any way. But we’ve had this discussion before. Until you can provide a motive for the Horde that justifies their participation in that rivalry, that wont be immediately invalidated by our past forced aggression (or invalidate any chance or attempt at “doing better”) then there is little of value for the Horde in such a rivalry on a story level.
Otherwise, that rivalry will serve as little more than an excuse to villain bat us again, and again, and again down the road. That’s all it will ever be, just like it is now.
I have attempted to provide that motive in previous suggestion threads. I made this thread because I needed help in finding it though.
As for the rivalry - I’m going to share something with you. This morning as I opened up Facebook to trawl through infuriating Washington Post headlines, I was served a sponsored ad from some desk chair company that had partnered with Blizzard to create Horde and Alliance themed chairs, and encouraging me to “choose my side”. (Which is kind of odd for me… I mean, I use a standing desk…)
“It Matters” still matters. As I said, the marketing persists on this - the faction conflict is still a huge draw, and I think it should continue to be. There’s certainly little brand equity in “thuh jailor” - it’s all in the Alliance and the Horde. So we are going to have to think of something better than a) “The Horde is doomed to villainy” or b) “let’s just try to wish away a 30 year old rivalry”.
I assume the faction war stuff is just going to continue on because removing that is going to look like the franchise putting a foot in the grave, similar to how shutting down servers to condense the population would look really bad. Connected and cross-realm stuff was their way of trying to tiptoe around it.
Choose your side. The one who gets to do nothing but wailed on during these Faction Conflict stories, and who needs to forgive for game mechanic reasons. Or the one who’s used as a plot-device to settup future villains’ and expansions, and is actively shamed for that by the writers.
The Faction Conflict has amounted to nothing positive for the Horde on a Story Level. And I don’t see this changing. Not only because I genuinely do believe that Blizz has gone so far with the Horde that we can never be justified again in antagonism towards the Alliance; but also because so long as the Alliance remains all that as good, virtuous, and moral … the Horde “rivaling them” does equate to rivaling all that is good, virtuous, and moral. Which means “Villain Bat”. Repeated Villain Bat.
Droite, I’m sorry to be blunt about this - but this is just doomerism. We can admit that there is a broader universe of possibilities than “no faction war” or “the Horde must be evil”. Let’s not validate Blizzard’s limited and damaging thinking.
I don’t need to validate their thinking so long as they keep validating it themselves. And on this point my stance is firm. I do not think you can do both things. I do not believe that you can even attempt to “rebuild” or “redeem” the Horde (and that’s a monumental task in of itself) AND continue to support the Faction Conflict on a story level. You do one, or you do the either, you cannot do both.
EDIT: Unless, as a start, you do something to inject some serious “grey” into the Alliance. Then maybe we can back to that healthy rivalry equilibrium down the road.
I find that to be a false dichotomy, and will treat it as such.
Maybe it is a false dichotomy, but as Droite said Blizzard themselves have validated it. Are there other options? Most certainly, but the chance that the current staff of writers are able to reach those in a way that is both believable and enjoyable is so low it may as well not even be included as an option.
Doomerism or no, there is no denying that we feel it this not because of a single issue, but many. There is a point where trying to keep a stiff upper lip to bad situations stops being a boon and starts being a detriment, and it most certainly feels as though the latter is winning out.
And of course there is the core fundamental problem with returning to a “Healthy Faction Rivalry” … In order to have and maintain one you need both Factions to be allowed to rival one another by standing on generally even ground. And that is absolutely not the environment we find ourselves on. Where the Horde has no legs left to stand on, while the Alliance towers over them in virtue, morality, justifications, and “Good”. Thus, I cannot fathom a means for the Horde to dig its way out from that Pit Blizz threw it in WHILE fostering the rivalry from its end. Let alone in a healthy way. It already seems the herculean task to rebuild or “redeem” the Horde in its current state. Doing that whilst they are also antagonistic against the “All that is Good” Alliance … seems downright impossible.
I think this is a fine description of the problem, but not an argument that there is no solution. Again, I’m going to ask that we be more creative than this. It’s unlikely that a 30 year old rivalry that they’re still marketing with is going anywhere - nor should it be shelved.
Well yeah, I care much more about the game itself.
I can read a book or watch a movie for a good story, however I can’t play those things like I can a game. The two are completely separate mediums for me that I approach in completely different ways.
A good story is possible with an “”“evil”"" Horde. Which I put into quotations because if I had my way the Horde would only really be evil to the Alliance, whose opinions on what we do shouldn’t matter at all to us whatsoever. Theyre our enemies, they exist to be killed. And the Alliance should have that same mentality towards the Horde.
The problem with Wix and Sylvanas was never how they acted towards the Alliance, it was always how they were treated in regards to the Horde itself. That’s what should change. We should embrace these sorts of characters alongside more goody two shoes boring ones if we really have to have those sorts, because they make things fun. We just need to stop fighting ourselves over trivial stuff like a burnt Alliance tree, because that isn’t fun.
And that’s what a game is all about, fun.