I do too. I just also don’t conflate “viciousness and savagery’” with actual Power Fantasy, since that’s never worked out for the Horde in the past. Its a type of strength, one of many. Not a power boost. And shouldn’t be expected as such. The Alliance deserves great stories. Especially racial stories. Uplifting stories, that build them up and reconnect their players with them. The Horde deserves them too … I just don’t see many windows left to obtain them for us.
Truth of the matter is, as much as I love talking about the story, I truly see no future for the Horde or its races. Blizzard has broken us too much. We’re too damaged. We’re done. And Blizz has repeatedly shown no interest in “rebuilding” the Horde in the past. Blizz has equated Horde with Evil far too much, and there is no way out of that reality. No way back to even pretending we’re heroes in this story. They have been very clear. “The Horde is Nothing” … and I think that’s their genuine feelings about it.
The impression I got from Battle for Azeroth was they wanted to tell a Game of Thrones but they didn’t have the talent or the creativity to do it.
Again, because I actually understand what it’s actually like when Blizzard hates something, Blizz picked all their favorites to use as set pieces. They love night elves? So burn their tree. They love the Horde, lets make them the active party of this war. They love Saurfang? Make him the Face of the “Real Horde™”. They love Sylvanas? Let’s make her the instigator and prepare her for the next Expansion! They love Anduin? Let’s turn him into Saurfang’s Krillin so he’s an important factor of the war! I can see Blizzard thinking all of this was going to be epic and would totally translate into everyone loving them and their epic writing skilzz.
The things they don’t care about? Eh, they’ll be there…what named NPCs do we have? Oh just Genn then? Ok cool just stick him there and that should be good. LET’S GET TO WORK ON ANOTHER SAURFANG CINEMATIC AAAAAAAAAA. Oh uh we need some reason to push the story in a single direction? So uh…lets have them rescue Baine again we’re not doing anything with him. Ok cool. ONE MORE SAURFANG CUTSCENE THO YEEAAAAAH!
I mean, you’re correct in the sense that there is literally no reason for the alliance to ever believe a thing the horde has to say, since the horde has gone back on their word so many times now. I’m not going to pretend, and never have, that I have an answer that will satisfy horde players because I don’t know how they can possibly fix it without the alliance going You know you only exist because we’re letting you right?”, which is a sad state to have to deal with.
Have the Horde acknowledge whatever mistakes were done, vow to atone and then follow through.
They don’t need the Alliance’s approval or anything like that, they just have to commit to not being evil. That is literally what they did under Thrall and that worked out really well until Blizzard decided “METAL HORD!!!” was now the thing to do.
I’m baffled at this pity party Horde players have with this, when the fix is really just that simple and only requires Blizzard to get off that M E T A L kick they are on.
No one will ever believe its possible now. And they shouldn’t.
The Horde is comprised of a bunch of abomination races and cultures that shouldn’t exist, and Blizz has been very clear that the world would be better off without them. There is no way back to the Thrall Era Horde. MoP, WoD, and BfA has destroyed any chance of that. And even if there were a path, Blizzard has never shown themselves to be interesting in “Building Up” stories for the faction in the last 10 years; and the moment they want to focus on the Faction Conflict again … its going to be the Horde that are the aggressors. Because Blizz will NEVER allow the Alliance to be.
“Why don’t you just hope the story develops as you want instead of recognizing the material reality of the past decade and analyzing with nuance the various possible reasons that have led Blizzard to this narrative decision since none of us have any control over their narrative decisions, god so pathetic! pity party!”
Give me tangible methods then? Truly Lum, I’m waiting? Because as far as I can tell the only way for the Horde to prove its “not evil” is by being as submissive and convenient for the Alliance as possible going forward. Since there are no true reparation’s that can be made for something as horrific as Teld. And even if there were a path, again … despite Blizz giving us all that focus in MoP and BfA … the one thing they’ve always refused to give us is “positive focus”. They hate rebuilding us after they take us for a joyride. Which is why we run away into another dimension after every Faction Conflict expac.
And hell, Blizz apparently ALMOST pulled another WoD here in SLs, by villain batting Bwon. They were apparently tempted to do it until they saw how popular he was (and fell in love with his Voicework). We barely can escape the “tearing down” of our Faction in the “escape from the consequences” expansions. I mean, we are in a death themed expansion and the only Undead character who might get development is the very same woman who conceptually invalidates the Forsaken’s entire history after they became Undead. Should she become their leader, which chances are pretty good.
Assuming Shadowlands did not happen instantly out of BfA and we remained on Azeroth.
Horde council vows to not be evil, not hard thing to do.
Both factions keep to themselves with questlines to rebuild after the war. (Personal dream scenario, Forsaken still rebuild Theramore because damnit I want my Dread Admiral Proudmoore, Lord of Theramore)
Expansion kicks off with new threat to Azeroth. Horde does their part to save the world. Maybe even elevate one of their internal factions (or hell just make one up) to be THE neutral faction of that expansion.
Literally do nothing evil.
Boom. Seriously, that’s all Blizzard has to do. WoW isn’t some grand piece of high art fit for a museum. It’s a game where a bunch of murder hobos murder gods for pennies.
It really isn’t hard to get the Horde back on the right track and keep it there. But people would rather whinge endlessly in a circle jerk of tears than try suggest something like that.
Money, the only thing blizzard understands is money. Companies like blizzard only change the way they operate when you hit them where it hurts the most, their wallet. As long as we continue to give them money, we can complain all we want, it’s not going to change anything. Most of us are at least semi aware of that
Nah you can also damage optics that will hurt investors. Doesn’t have to be “bottom up” optics, it can also be “top down”.
It’s why a lot of threads calling out abuse last summer were taken down (the Method thing that became a lot of WoW Streamers being called out for or admitting to abuse). Optics.
Of course you do, he’s an Alliance character. What better way to fix the Horde than by simply injecting Alliance characters into their leadership roster. What I want is for “Dread Admiral TATTERSAIL” to get more development, being that she actually is a Forsaken Character. And not a hunky boy-toy for Mommy Menethil, who wasn’t even alive when the Plague of Undeath became a thing.
Frankly, the only way I can think of to start getting the Horde on a positive track is starting by giving Thrall, Baine, and Vol’jin meaningful developmental character arcs and conclusions within SLs. To ensure they are able to overcome some of their massive character deficits and become the leaders they have to become for their people and the Horde. Then we return with those three, and either we move directly into the Light Cosmology expac (with the Alliance attacking the Horde in the peaceniks absence) … or we get an Anti-Cata expansion. And we can stay the hell away from one another for a while.
Or, the anti-cata expac AFTER the Light one. Whichever.
Alliance: Liars!!! Why should we believe you? You’ve made this claim before, and look what happened!
This just sounds like a bad fanfic.
Literally the only way this could work is, again, by invalidating the Alliance in some way that makes the Horde look good—like by having Yrel and her Light Army show up, and having the Alliance ignore the Horde’s warnings about them.
Ah, new player I’m guessing. You’ve clearly never played Warcraft III or read any of the early novels.
Yes, it is.
Because if you actually knew anything about Warcraft’s lore, you’d know it’s literally been done twice now.
God I want this so bad… There are so many narrative possibilities for it. Have it happen while the Peaceniks and PCs are away (along with the select group of living reps we have), and by the time we return we don’t have to worry about the Faction Conflict part of that story. Just the cleanup and consequences. Really sell it by the Jailor doing something to sever the living world’s connection to Azeroth for a time, trappin those (like Calia) within the lands of the dead. So we are out of communication for a while.
So long as the Peaceniks are locked away the Alliance literally has no reason not to trust Yrel and the Lightbound. And the Lightbound know enough about Azeroth that a straight up invasion is just not in the cards. So come as “friends”, and build your army from those converted.
