Wait, does this mean we get Ion Hazzikostas as a post-Denathrius raid boss?
2 Likes
And yet, its hard to ignore that on paper that âperfect people who are incapable of doing anything wrongâ is exactly what seems to be expected for both the Draenei and the NEs. Perfect eternal people, in a perfect eternal culture? Lets not pretend Humans are the only ones contributing to this issue. And rather to some degree its that that âexpectations of infallibilityâ are clashing between what are supposed to be infallible races, with Humanity always coming out on top. When you have multiple races expected to be perfect, odds are one of them is going to be âmore perfectâ.
No one is saying the Alliance doesnât have problems. They do. Blizz has written themselves into this shiny corner with them they donât seem (or intend) to write themselves out of it; and as a result its homogenized the Factionâs stories. Instead of âRacial Storiesâ you get âCharacter Storiesâ, and it leaves the individual parts of the Faction deeply neglected. But the Horde does have that too. The Darkspear and Tauren have had no real stories of their own since MoP? The Forsakenâs entire story became Sylvieâs story. And each time we get villain batted, the entire Faction is forcibly made convenient for that leaderâs story.
The Alliance has problems. Problems that can be fixed and do have solutions still. Blizz just needs to be willing to do that. Whether there are fixes to the Hordeâs problems though? That remains far, far more unclear. And despite the premise of this OP, it seems very unlikely.
4 Likes
I had finally made an alliance alt in the prepatch (first time since Cata) and did that sideâs BFA content and honestly I got a little salty over how much nicer the questing atmosphere felt for me. Admittedly, I had to make an effort to keep in mind that I didnât experience the other sideâs Teldrassil stuff (and at this point, Iâd be so numb to it that it wouldnât have the same effect for me) but just playing a character that didnât have a cloud of âyou helped a genociderâ hanging over him was a genuine breath of fresh air that I lack with my main even now into SL.
I could go into more detail but Iâm pretty sure I sound pathetic enough as-is soâŠmeh, leaving it as-is.
14 Likes
I think the only relatively balance time of the raid community or pve community was in WOTLK.
After that came bosses and tactics, where simply the Horde raids was a gamebraker, which ultimately led to the top guilds of the Alliance gradually went to the Horde to benefit from these advantages.
The alliance today is partly in this bad shape, because the alliance wasâŠliterally bled out. Blizz wanted 50/50 come hell or high water, and I think we are on average not so far away from it, only what remained on allianceâŠare just not raid community preserving players.
Um, no? Earlier expansions gave us ample material for flaws of both races:
-
Night elves are a savage warrior people who almost zealously follow Elune, immediately deal out war against, and refuse to deal with, anyone who comes to them asking for lumber (orcs), and who have an entire history of hating on Arcane magic and, yes, demon hunters (hint hint)
-
Draenei crash-landed on Azeroth, and the radiation from their Exodar almost immediately starts wreaking havoc on the local landscape (Azuremyst and Bloodmyst Isles). Not to mention that the first time the night elves encounter them, the draenei are mistaken for Eredar (which, technically, they are).
Itâs not that these two races are âperfect.â Itâs thatâmuch like the humans and the rest of the Allianceâtheir imperfections have been effectively muted over time ever since Mists of Pandaria in favor of exacerbating the flaws on the Horde side. Itâs a balancing issue.
5 Likes
they donât expect night elves, humans, or draenei to be perfect.
People like humans with flaws, they should look natural.
The night elves player wanted the Wc3 night elves back for YEARS, thatâs the ideal everyone in the community is striving for, the elf fans have been screaming about this for decades. (Since Vanilla, i mean, no race screams louder for their fangs back, since this game have started)
What the Draenei want, I do not know at that point.
Well, no, they were also partly toned down to keep the plot alive, because the races as they were originally meant would not have been given a second chance after MOP. The alliance have to forgive, the alliance have to be the flawless incarnation, otherwise the plot would not work or could endure.
1 Like
Itâs almost like Kul Tiras was built around many beloved tropes many are familiar with in the West and Nazmir was⊠More âkill those bad Trolls in the swampâ and âlocal bad monster race (snake) wants to destroy the worldâ.
Alliance got an amazing Salem-mythos zone, an amazing Lovecraft-mythos zone, and pirates.
And then they quickly killed off one of the most iconic Troll villains and made him evil because Old Gods (
) instead of making him the Gorak Tul parallel and have Zul be serving Muehâzala.
All while doing some Lite Retcons vis-Ă -vis âclarificationsâ that actually Raden and Odyn didnât know everything! The Titans lied to them! MOTHER is the only one they trusted with both experimentation of Uldir and knowledge of the Heart chamber.
4 Likes
They havenât been âsavage warrior peopleâ since the WotA content was attached to them. If anything, theyâve become more âSavage by Highborne standardsâ. And yes, they once hated Arcane Magic in Elves. Which was bled out of them, and their allowances of the Shenâdrelar (since it was flattering) was largely positively received from the NE playerbase from what I can tell. So much so that that tangible rage by Alliance and NE players for not getting the Nightborne was quite impressive. And weilders of Fel (like Void) are always someone you should be a little wary of.
As for the Draenei. The BEs were the ones that forced the Exodar to crash if you remember. They hold culpability for the Arcane radiation wreaking havoc on the natural environment. The Draenei, despite their horrific losses, almost immediately start trying to clean up the mess.
11 Likes
Were you even there at that time in Cata? I donât know, back then a lot of people here on the forum were screaming that it was nonsense that the night elves should get mages.
if i remember correctlyâŠodyn knows both places. Raden and Thorgrim donÂŽt know both places.
That was kind of my pointâassuming youâre referring to the War of the Ancients trilogy, those books essentially came out in preparation for The Burning Crusade. Night elves in their original incarnation* were very much savage, moon-and-nature-worshipping Celtic warriors that gave even Grommash Hellscream pause.
- Warcraft III - Wrath of the Lich King, with some honorable mention screentime in Darkshore, Ashenvale, and Mt. Hyjal during Cataclysm.
1 Like
And has that rage lasted? Did it prevent many of them from being upset that the Nightborne joined their Arcane cousins instead of the NEs? Because of some âmean commentsâ from Tyrande? Without going into what said comments meant on a cultural level for the NEs and NBs? Or how many of even the most diehard NE fans on here use the Shenâdralar as a positive change and adaptation whenever the NEâs resistance to change is bought up? Or why it would have been fine for the NBs to be a NE AR?
Regardless though, the Alliance does have problems. But, as far as I can tell, almost all of them can still be fixed if Blizz chose to just do so. They are issues of NOT being allowed to do something, rather than being forced to do something they canât come back from. However, can anyone, genuinely tell me that many of the Hordeâs problems could be fixed? Even if Blizz attempted to do so? Maybe our character roster? Maybe our Racial Fantasies? But our Faction Identity? Us ever being portrayed as Heroes again? Its very unclear.
2 Likes
Admittedly I probably would have found Zuldazar and Volâdun more appealing if they came in a non-faction war expansion. I liked the jungle setting and, horrific functional layout aside, I thought the Zandalari capital was impressive at a first glance. And Volâdun felt like it perfectly captured that âalone in the wildernessâ feeling that really stuck with me the first time I wandered through some of the more distant areas of the pre-Cata Barrens, at least until the annoying vulpera showed up.
Swamps arenât really my thing though, and honestly Iâm surprised Blizzard greenlighted a quest where you raft down a river by the Dark Heart of Nazmir while a bunch of evil trolls, uh, âlend you their spears from a distance.â
But really I was just thinking on a personal character level. BFAâs premise felt so soiling that it ruined everything else by association for me.
7 Likes
BfA was a narrative mess for both sides, simple as that. I donât know anyone who can look at BfAs writing and actually think the alliance had it good. They didnât, they got made to look like incompetent idiots yet again
2 Likes
I honestly have no idea what that expansion was supposed to do beyond getting a bunch of old plot threads out of the way haphazardly to let use move into this cosmological forces arc. Giving a decent âresolutionâ to the Faction Conflict alone could have consumed an entire expansion, but to add both Nazâjatar/Azshara, and Nyalotha/NâZoth into that same expansion?!
I mean, for goodness sake. If you want the perfect single questline that epitomes how disjointed and deranged the expansion was ⊠look at the Xalâatath quest. We find it, free it, then the Horde PC is âcompelledâ to give it to Sylvanas. Who gives it to Nate. Who gives it to Azhsara. Who gives it to Wrathion. Who uses it to seal NâZoth (who âmayâ not be dead?) What ⊠was ⊠this ⊠mess?
EDIT: And did anything at all amount from both Sargarasâ sword or Azerite?
13 Likes
I mean, if you really want to go into what her âmean commentsâ meant on a cultural level, and why it pretty much destroyed any relationship the Kaldorei and Shaldorei might have had:
-
War of the Ancients: Tyrande helped lead the Kaldorei Resistance against Azshara and the Burning Legion
-
The Legion Invasion of Suramar: Thalyssra helped lead the Nightfallen Rebellion against Elisande and the Burning Legion
Instead of recognizing this common ground, however, Tyrande proceeded to effectively spit on Thalyssraâs efforts and tell her, âI hope you wonât be the same as Azshara or Elisande.â
RightâŠbecause if Thalyssra were after power, she wouldnât be leading a rebellion in the first place? What, by that logic, guaranteed Tyrande wouldnât become the next Azshara, then? The fact that she was a priestess instead of a mage?
What Tyrande did at Suramar goes beyond merely a few âmean comments.â
10 Likes
I agree, just when it was announced that the NBs would be going Horde (which made perfect sense to me as someone who payed close attention to both sides of the Surumar campaign with both and Alliance and Horde PC) ⊠that argument was everywhere. That the NBs didnât join the NEs because âTyrande was meanâ. With Alliance posters everywhere deliberately ignoring the deep cultural implications of Tyrande (the sole Political and Reiligious authority amongst the NEs) would mean in that context.
It made sense for the BEs and NBs to want to open up relationships with one another. It made sense for the NEs not to want to. And if it were Volâjin that the NBs were allowed to join the Horde under, and not Sylvanas, there quite frankly is not a single argument you could make that would explain why them joining the reds wouldnât make sense. Blizz laid enough groundwork to make that choice make sense for them. Unless you did not pay attention to the BEs actions and intents in Surumar.
5 Likes
I do not really know who exeactly you were telling it to, or who you wanted to answer to you (or if you did), but just a random opinion from the side.
If I would have an option to truly embrace it and go through the entire expansion with such character, I could consider such path. Not quite the BfA horde route where no matter what you have to go against Sylvanas. But truly stick together for the whole expansion, all the blasted patches, to see such story in depth, with details, reasoning, etc.
What could be an example⊠I think we need a character who could be seen as an unambiguous villain. So, I would not mind in a hypothetical expansion to start plotting with, say, Azshara, to set up a situation, when the alliance have no choice but tolerate her. And get this story going in a direction where they might hate her, but canât afford to get rid of even if they want to. And to see what diabolical events would she unleash upon the world.
I mean, after pristine story that I saw in most of WoW, doing the starting DK quest line was like a breath of fresh air. The main gripe I have is that instead of exploring the Scarlets in depth, we were never allowed to do so. And that the starting quests are not against the alliance / horde, but against a seemingly neutral group that both factions do not like. If no one likes them - torture is fine I suppose, or whatever logic the designers used there, I donât know.
So, yeah. If I can not just be labled a villain for a fixed time, and then to be told to abandon all of it, but to fully embrace the thing - that could be quite the experience. In the end, IMO it all about the quality of execution.
gl hf
Iâm not sure if this was in reference to my comments, but itâs not so much pessimism. I donât âwantâ the Horde to be the faction of genocidal maniacs. But if thatâs the only way the writers are willing to write it, at least make it a consistent narrative that doesnât feel like Iâm constantly being told Iâm wrong for picking this faction.
Well, the quality of execution should be as garbage as the Hordeâs too. You want the Horde Expansion experience, you gotta be treated like a plot-device to settup future content and expansions.
Regardless, I donât really mean any of that. I just have grown so sick of people pretending these so called âHorde Expansionsâ did anything but send the faction through a wood-chipper and heavily damage (probably permanently damage) the Hordeâs Faction Identity; Racial Fantasies; and Character Roster. Alliance, you guys have your problems, no one is saying you donât. Just please stop using MoP and BfA as some bludgeon like âThe Horde got attention, see Blizz likes writing you more!â While deliberately ignoring HOW the Horde was used in both Expacs. Solely as a Plot-Device and Vehicle to settup a future villain and future expansion, with little regards to the Factionâs itself needs during or after.
1 Like
Nah, I was posting that in reference to Baalsamaelâs âblack pillâ idea about the writers making the horde story bad on purpose to draw people away from playing the faction.
2 Likes