Nothing will stop Blizz from doing it again if they so feel the need to.
The absurd outrage by the Horde playerbase didn’t stop them from villain batting us again so they could use us as a plot device to settup another expansion and villain. They just lied to our faces about it for 2 years. It wont stop them a third time, if they want to. After all, the Alliance are the literal embodiment of every virtue ever conceived by man … so someone is going to be forced to do it. And Blizz doesn’t even care about giving reasons for that. Our races are just evil by birth after all. Its what they do.
And you chastise me for doomerism. When I genuinely cannot see a way forward for my faction beyond simply being made accessories and sidekicks for the Alliance.
Yeah, I do chastise you for doomerism, and in a way I’m chastising myself when I do it. You should have been here around WoD. I was a truly obnoxious presence, reacting to any and all proposals to do anything at all for the Night Elves, concerning the Night Elves, or involving the Night Elves with the same refrain:
“No, stop the lore. No more Night Elf lore.”
Now, you might look at BFA and say that such was vindicated. Maybe that’s true, but I also think in hindsight that such is a limiting and unhelpful perspective to have especially when it means that we leave serious issues out to fester, which we would be doing here. These problems do need to be addressed, and this is the venue where we can give feedback.
This is a bit of a complicated request for a few reasons, but the biggest issue that I see (and I readily admit I may be blind to others) is simply how to do it while not completely ruining the experience for players on both factions.
For the sake of simplicity I’m just considering things in terms of a “tab” with respect to debts. While I reference Alliance and Horde aspects I am not suggesting the balance is equal in some way - I’m using then as an example, for clarity, and not the only consideration.
Here are a few questions I’d ask:
When do we start counting atrocities? Thrall’s Horde is the faction we joined, not the Horde that invaded Azeroth. Internment camps, while distasteful, were applied initially to a group we would consider “pre-Thrall’s Horde” while Daelin acted against “Thrall’s Horde.”
How do we define “bad actors” from within a faction vs a faction itself (or does this distinction even matter)? Daelin was an Alliance member but didn’t have the full backing of the Alliance. Garrosh’s bombing of Theramore were as leader of the Horde, but he gradually creates the “True Horde.”
Are damages based on outcomes or intent? Sylvanas burned Teldrassil attempting to massacre civilians, but we have seen some wiggle room on how successful she was. Jaina attempted to drown Orgrimmar, but her attack was stopped by Thrall (who she attempted to kill). Greymane attempted to assassinate Sylvanas, Garrosh destroyed Theramore but many escaped, etc.
Are downstream/long-term effects considered pertinent? The refugees from Gilneas and Teldrassil both put a strain on Stormwind. Daelin’s clear cutting off Durotar put a strain on Orgrimmar.
Those are just a few types of questions I’d consider before any type of resolution. I intentionally did not ask whether “responses” are justified, because it simply creates a chain of events where each event is in response to one prior. Just to emphasize this point - the Horde would still end up owing the Alliance. The question is more attempting to answer “how much?”
After handling some measure of accounting for damages - how do we impose this inside a narrative while still extracting costs from responsible and relevant parties?
Both from a fairness and game-play perspective players have no agency in these actions (beyond not playing or faction changes). So is it just a background story implemented that fixes this by giving X, Y, and Z concessions to the Alliance?
Just for the record, one of the reasons I am so against the post-Cata narrative arc is that I’m not sure there is a way for the Horde to repay debts that have been created in the story.
Edit: Also, even if the Horde could repay their debts, with current writing preventing the Alliance from having any negative portrayal - the Horde will continue to gather new debt just for not being the Alliance.
Legion’s announcement filled me with dread. I was not very happy with the prospect of Dave Kosak being the Lead Narrative Designer for an entire expansion worth of Night Elf lore. I left the game in part due to that. Later, when BFA caught my attention, I caught myself up as documented in the linked posts below.
IIRC (because Tinypic blew up my image), I gave it a 48/100 - not good. There were some redeeming elements, but they were countered hard by Val’sharah and other factors.
Yes, that the idea. Background lore not connected to quests and the like. I think honestly a book would be required to go through all of it even half decently. But it still needs doing.
Bwonsamdi be too important to be standin’ around all eternity guardin’ a portal, mon.
But yeah, at the very least it could’ve been an acolyte of Bwonsamdi, draw a little more attention to the fact that he does have living Zandalari followers, as seen in Shadows Rising.
I think to settle the debt the Alliance needs to get back the Worgen homeland.
And then punish the Horde for what seems to be a lengthy list of Horde atrocities. For the sake of gameplay and Horde players I would bundle up all the debt into one attack where the message is “don’t attack us again or we will end you”. (Or at at least try to )
This attack event can be structured in multiple ways. And honestly if Sylvanas didn’t nuke Lordaeron at the end that might have been it. But she did and Darkshore Nightelf happened dead raising happened so here we are.
And yet you come in here and claim I am not allowed to take even the slightest bit of joy in the one damned positive thing the Horde got in BfA. You repeatedly stated that there is no way in hell for the Horde to ever truly redeem itself. And you’ve constantly placed your desire to continue the Faction Conflict on a story level, over any tiny chance the Horde might have in doing that. Despite the fact that you know very well that the thing preventing our “redemption”, is the same thing ensuring we never again have a leg to stand on in any conflict against the Alliance. We will always be the bad guys in those matchups, and any instigation with the Alliance for any reason from our end will show we “can never do better”.
And the only way to even slightly, maybe, even the odds is by methodically ensuring the Alliance doesn’t remain a monopoly and monolith on virtue and morality. To have them actually act on their thousands of grievances they have against the Horde, and act in selfish ways. Emotional ways. Flawed ways. Ways that result in mistakes, and that can have tangible consequences for themselves (as well as the Horde). “Grey” ways. But Blizz has written their characters into such pristine incarnations of themselves they wouldn’t think of doing that … and frankly, it seems like the Alliance playerbase would freak out if they did.
Droite, I’m going to have to remind you - given that we’ve kind of backslid into your usual speech - I didn’t write BFA. I’m not precluding you from enjoying anything - Blizzard did that. They put this stuff in the franchise - and we are left to deal with it. I certainly have no desire to mollycoddle those decisions by trying to look for ways to overlook or ignore them.
My main problem is that narratively speaking, barring some sort of “mitigation” (I.e. time travel, N’Zoth hallucinations, justifications, etc) the scope of the disaster that was BfA preceded by the dumpster fire that has been the last decade, really makes it hard to justify the Horde as anything but villains and makes evening the ledger seem insurmountable.
With that said, this displays the underlying issue. Unless the narrative tone and style this path just becomes a cycle that ultimately ends with the Horde living in a cardboard box.
Edit for clarity: That last chunk is not me backing away from clearing our debts (or at least trying). But if things don’t change in the storyline going forward, the Horde will perpetually be stuck in debt and slowly end up with nothing left to give.
All I can picture is the last three Orcs on Azeroth, homeless, unarmed, trying to attack an Alliance stronghold, two of them dying and the third emptying his pockets to show some lint. Then being forced to give up his box, before showing a dramatic cinematic of him using a stick to draw up a new attack plan. And then some alliance debt collector running in and taking his stick.
No, you’d rather create a OP about “redeeming/rebuilding” the Horde to vaguely obfuscate your opinion that there is no way to actually do that. Or at least not in a way that would also get you what you want of continuing to support the Faction Conflict on a story level. Because you know very well that unless the Alliance ever ceases holding Moral Absolutism, the faction conflict will have nothing but negatives for the Horde. Just as it always has. It will remain the toxic cesspool that it currently is.
The Horde CAN be rebuilt into something servicable with the right ingredients, but that requires Blizz to put very specific effort into certain areas. Starting with our three reps here in SLs. However, that tightrope that they are very unlikely to walk wont even exist if we are forced to continue to battle against the Alliance. Morality itself in this setting. Especially since we will never have a valid motive for any aggressive act; only defensive ones (and we’ll always be portrayed as deserving of anything the Alliance does to us. Even without Blizz’s fixated need to constantly bury their few even slightly grey acts under mountains of justifications and excuses to augment that problem tenfold).
You want the Faction Conflict supported? Fine. Then the Alliance gets their hands dirty and acts on their laundry list of motives to stay involved in it. You go on the offense. Because we simply can not ever do that again without undermining what tiny chance we have at rebuilding ourselves.
Maybe not. There are ways to fix that issue without the Alliance going bonkers or the Horde ending up in indentured servitude. All that’s required, at it’s base, is for the people the Horde killed to come back to life. Simple enough, thoe it will require quite the drastic measures.
No, you’d rather create a OP about “redeeming/rebuilding” the Horde to vaguely obfuscate your opinion that there is no way to actually do that.
As we have discussed many times, that’s your opinion, not mine. Past that - you’re drifting from my point on the Nightborne, and I won’t allow that. You can once again tack to the strict lore construction - but when you are addressing the impression that it gives off, the timing of its announcement in relation to the timing of the marketing blitz matters to that.
The rest of your post is similarly a regurgitation without regard to the target. Your standard deck of points that I’ve read repeatedly. I’ve stated many times that I’ve got no issue with getting the Alliance’s hands dirty somewhat - so long as I can comprehend the reasons for it. Go look at my discussion of the Deus Ex purity first video again if you want an example of that. Or engage with my point that unlike the humans, I feel like the Night Elves flaws ARE highlighted, ARE unfairly treated by the narrative, and DO result in weird episodes of kharmic retribution that the playerbase directly suffers from.
You want the Alliance to be grey? I certainly feel that the narrative already spends a ton of time telling NIght Elf fans that they’re playing bad people between episodes like Leyara, the laser focus on Orcish resource issues without the presentation of the Night Elves’ position or the aforementioned arcane skepticism = bigotry canard, and I’d have no issue with it if there was a point to it - or at least a point other than “and this is why Teldrassil is justified”. But your commentary completely ignores that kind of thing in view of this fantasy that all or even most Alliance players want to be represented and held back by these alabaster-white author inserts.
…are you bring serious? Just rez everyone the Horde killed? From how far back, even? Warcraft one? Every bone in the Path of Glory?
That depends on whether or not the ‘raise the dead’ spells players can use in-game actually exist in-universe, and aren’t just a game mechanic. And aside from supermage Aegywnn rezzing her supermage son Medivh, I can’t think of a single non-villainous example of it, done purely to provide a raid boss. And even if they DO exist, they probably can’t be common or easy enough to ‘just bring back’ however many thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands?.. In-universe, how many NPCs have that level of power?
Dead serious. And i’d say it only has to be the ones who died after legion.
Told you it was drastic. But not necessarily impossible. We are after all in the domain of death itself.
I understand how outragous the idea is. But it’s honestly the best way to fix this mess, however far fetched of a solution it may be.
Hold up, I think I still have a val’kyr packed away in the garage somewhere.
Fridge thought: I know it wouldn’t happen because it’d likely be boring content, but you’d think the forsaken or the horde’s shaman races could provide a “communicate with the other side” seance service to help provide closure to families and such.
We permanently destroy a big chunk of nelf souls merged into a soul-abomination by the Jailer while striking into Torghast alongside Tyrande and Shandris, so it’s impossible to bring everyone back in the first place. There’s nothing, no spirit to return to the body even if you managed to revivify the corpse. And that’s just a single known instance of soul destruction.
)