Technically-speaking, the Alliance has been pressuring the Horde to “prove you’ve changed” since Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos.
Which makes this most recent influx of “Blonde-Haired/Blue-Eyed Angel Boy” and “Alliance Can Do No Wrong” that much more disturbing.
Good ole weepy Angel face crying boy
I’m not really sure we can at this point, at leas quickly as a lot of people want. It’s gonna take a lot of Horde doing good story beats to rebuild the Horde narratively.
Taking the Alliance down a few pegs isn’t going to alleve the Horde of what it’s done three times now, we’ve seen it doesn’t take demon blood and the Horde being far to willing to follow the leader even after dealing with the same situation only a few years prior with Garrosh.
It’s just going to take a lot of time and people don’t have the patience for that nor do I think this writing staff is up to the task so they’ll probably have the Alliance do something shocking to try to pull peoples eyes off what the Horde did
“Do you really think you can just sweep all that away and cast aside your guilt so easily?”
Yeah, that was one of many reasons that I was rather concerned about the possibility of Blizzard retroactively justifying Daelin Proudmoore’s actions when they brought him back into the story in the same patch that they had the Horde commit genocide. In the end I think they handled Daelin’s legacy well, but I was nervous there for a bit.
I do like the Daelin voice acting that was done, and Jainas to.
You should have been, because they didn’t handle it well.
If they had, Alliance players wouldn’t have been going around screaming, “DAELIN WAS RIGHT!”
Which is literally like saying, “racism is right.” Daelin wasn’t right then, and he wouldn’t be right now, either.
Oh for sure, Mark Addy was perfect casting. WoW in general has really good voice acting, and BfA was no exception. I found Jaina’s personal story rather well done, and it was nice to see that story thread finally get some attention after being left basically untouched since Warcraft III.
Have to agree with this, I don’t think the point of Daelin was to circle back on him some 20 years later and go “yeah you know what? the guy was right, you really should of expunged the Horde back than, look how much F’in damage Azeroth has taken because of them”
The idea (at least to my understanding) was that he was wrong and the Horde deserved to succeed because they could do good things… but uuh… haven’t really seen that play out in WoW since Cata hit.
Yeah, at some point around Cata - Mists, the writing team (or new writing team) utterly lost sight of the recurring theme of the original faction story—if they even knew it to begin with—and it’s pretty much gone downhill from there, starting with Theramore.
Pretty much, just maybe a bit more comprehensive. If they are going to do it, both mechanically and just narratively, they gotta breath some life into those sort of Capital Zones. Player hubs alone are not sufficient.
Eh, I disagree, the game puts the blame for Daelin’s death squarely on his own head after Katherine finally learns what exactly happened at Theramore and says, “You couldn’t save him…from himself.” Jaina’s decision is reaffirmed as the correct one, and even in her deepest moment of doubt and torment Jaina’s internal monologue isn’t “I should have stood by him, he was right,” it’s “I should have tried harder to make him listen, I could have stopped him.” Daelin’s decision to escalate hostilities resulted in his own death and set off a chain of events that nearly destroyed his family and his nation in BfA. Anyone who runs around screaming “Daelin was right!” missed the point of the Kul Tiras questing storyline.
As well as the whole point of both Warcraft III games.
Which is the point I was making.
But it still doesn’t change the fact, however, that outside of that one segment with Jaina, pretty much everything else in the faction war did grant Horde-haters ample ammunition to do exactly that.
This is true. I was mostly referring to a fear that Daelin’s actions would be presented as justified at the time, or that his aggression and racism would be completely ignored or retconned, and they weren’t.
Sylvanas and Garrosh being horrible and the crimes committed under their leadership in WoW doesn’t justify Daelin Proudmoore’s aggression towards Thrall in Warcraft III. If anything, Daelin’s actions set the stage for the faction tension in Vanilla and made future war between the Alliance and Horde more likely. If Daelin had listened to Jaina, Azeroth would likely look very different than it does now.
Gonna go out on a limb and say you and I are the minority for thinking this.
Careful; you’re preaching to the logic choir! They’ll lock you up for treason!
I also agree with this.
Ingame? Probably nods to the Horde pulling out of Darkshore and Ashenvale. As for future bad acts, maybe showing that there’s consequences for bad actors on either side stepping over the line. Think Garrosh in Stonetalon straight-up executing the guy who bombed the druid school. Some public act that says, “We don’t tolerate this kind of thing any more.” and sends a message. Say, if Garithos were still around and pulling the kinds of things Garrosh did. Have the Alliance either very publicly execute him, hang him out to dry on his own (preferably behind enemy lines), or hand him over to the Belves so they can mete out their own justice.
And I’m not saying the Alliance is innocent, either. We still have to deal with a certain Scarlet issue that as of Legion is still out there.
I blame Jaina’s Warbringers vid for that one. Even if it was the best of the three, IMO. (Still hum Daughter of the Sea from time to time) Thankfully, Blizz went the whole “Katherine needed to see how far Daelin was willing to go against an innocent population” route.
I mean, orcs killed his son. I can understand why he held that view, even if I don’t agree with it. Sort of like how Greymane’s had that hateboner for Sylvanas since Cata.
The same thing? You’re assuming that the writers are humble enough to admit fault.
This all sounds good to me.
I really hope that something comes of that Scarlet propaganda, just because I love them as villains and I love all the potential for intrigue and political messiness that they come with, especially combined with the potential for Stormwind’s nobles to get up to mischief while Anduin is away. Give it to me, Blizzard.
The Warbringers vid was what first gave me concern, even though I also really enjoyed it. With the added context of the game story, I think that was an intentional misdirect on Blizzard’s part. The version of “Daughter of the Sea” that we first hear, the one in Warbringers, is from the point of view of the Kul Tirans, and it leaves out Daelin’s flaws in order to paint him as a hero while portraying Jaina as a heartless villain. Its portrayal of what happened at Theramore is purposely inaccurate, and some of the Kul Tiras questing indicates that the people singing it may not realize how much it gets wrong, because the exact details of what happened at Theramore aren’t widely known. The song represents what the Kul Tirans think happened, thus explaining their hostility towards Jaina, and helps us as the players sympathize with that even as we work to change their minds.
I agree that Daelin’s attitude is understandable in light of Derek’s fate, and that makes him interesting. He was aggressive, racist, and blinded by hatred, yes, and his example is not one to be followed. He was also a good leader for the Kul Tirans by all accounts, personally chose Cyrus to be Taelia’s guardian, and was deeply devoted to his family. His struggle to cope with his oldest child’s death poisoned him with hatred and led to his own downfall, and nearly that of his surviving family. He’s a tragic figure, and it is possible to both sympathize with his grief while also condemning his actions.
This honestly should’ve been the rule for the Horde in Cataclysm - Mists, not the exception.
But then we wouldn’t have ended up with a Garrosh raid boss.
A little late there.
Sylvanas had Varimathras Rain of Fire Garithos to death back in The Frozen Throne.
And then fed the remains to her pet ghouls.
Sure, you could understand it, but you don’t necessarily agree with it.
And that’s an important distinction; you could understand, for example, why the Alliance of Lordaeron decided to lock up all the orcs in internment camps after the Second War, even if you don’t agree with that decision or think it was morally correct.
The original Warcraft II - Warcraft III era was all about this kind of moral complexity (thanks in large part to a certain Mr. Metzen).
Sadly, the game as it is now has become a lot more black-and-white post-Cataclysm.
WC3 was a mid-level story, yes, morality was important, but blizz ruined it for themselves by destroying and blurring the characters in such a way that they served some role models they were never meant for, that somehow I can hardly muster sympathy for blizz shooting themselves in the foot in such a way.
Sorry, i mean…i could say "blizzards own fault, who still cares "?..