As a Horde main, I don’t mind the idea of rescuing Night Elf souls, but I personally would prefer that my Horde characters do so as a tiny way of trying to set right some of the wrongs done under Sylvanas’ leadership, rather than because Shandris or Tyrande are right there with me and will gladly obliterate me if I don’t help. We keep being told that the Maw is so terrible, almost no one should go there under normal circumstances, and even Horde characters who might have been able to make excuses for not rebelling against Sylvanas immediately after Teldrassil didn’t know about the Maw and would be upset about that detail. That should be more than enough motivation for Horde player characters to rescue Kaldorei souls, and if we must have an NPC escort, we could have had a Horde character accompany us -specifically- as a gesture of trying to do something right. I know not all Horde mains would agree with me, but I wouldn’t have minded that. As it stands, three of my Alliance characters are Night Elves. I’m currently planning on having my Night Elf hunter be my first character to join the Night Fae, and I’d be lying if I said the prospect of not being shamed and chastised by Shandris and Tyrande wasn’t a factor in picking that character to do Ardenweald story content over my other alts. It does make me less likely to place a Horde alt in Ardenweald, in any case, because I’ve already had enough of getting glared at by Tyrande from playing multiple Blood Elves through Legion content, and that was before Teldrassil. That’s probably my own fault for doing multiple Legion order hall campaigns in quick succession, though.
Well, Vandraeda, if you don’t mind spoilers, there are three side quests involving saving Night Elf souls from the Maw that do not have you going with either Shandris or Tyrande that I posted about here.
Additionally, while during the Night Fae campaign itself Horde players do save a significant quantity of Night Elf souls from Torghast while escorting Shandris to look for Tyrande, initially Shandris does not even know the player is capable of saving souls from the Maw. It is not until Shandris and the player face an elite enemy in Torghast that is immune to damage while he is draining three Night Elf souls and Shandris watches while the player takes those three Night Elf souls into their Soulkeeper to take down the elite’s shield that Shandris responds in amazement that the player can save the Night Elves there.
Though, yes, Tyrande does demand the Horde player save the rest of the Night Elf souls there afterwards when Shandris explains to her that the player is capable of it.
As for escorting a Horde character, the Night Fae player does later on escort Vol’jin through the Maw to save Ashamane from it after Mueh’zala put her there, as Vol’jin desperately wants to save Ashamane to atone for having fallen for Mueh’zala’s whisper to make Sylvanas Warchief. Which is… a little weird, to be honest. Not sure what relevance Ashamane really has to that, but nonetheless that is Vol’jin’s motivation, because Vol’jin doesn’t want to have to leave anyone else to clean up another of Mueh’zala’s messes alone.
This is projection at best, but it almost has a feeling of Vol’jin going “I will help save the Night Elves from the- Wait. The player already did that five campaign chapters ago? Um… I will save this Panther Wild God. That’s what Night Elves ride, right? Panthers? Oh. There are Night Elves that worship Ashamane? Yes. Good. Lets save her then.”
The Horde really doesn’t need redemption. That’s something the Alliance wants, but all that will do is drag our story down further as it really can’t feasibly be done after the Tree went up. What the Horde needs is rebuilding for its own sake.
How to do this? Start with characters, specifically the leader characters, something Blizzard has happily ignored while culling our roster. How did Lillian Voss end up as the Forsaken representative? What are her interactions with other high rankers like Belmont and Hecular? What is her overall vision for the Forsaken? How will she defend against Alliance encroachment, such as the rebuilding of Southshore? Calia needs the exact same thing if she absolutely has to be a member of the Horde. Rokhan needs to be developed into the more hardline leader that Shadows Rising makes him out to be in order to balance the council out with warhawks and peaceniks while showing his relationship with his own tribe and deepening relations with the Zandalari and other tribes under the Horde banner. Baine needs to find his spine somewhere in the Shadowlands and realize that while peace is a noble cause, there comes a time where the only answer should be a giant totem to the face while growing an affinity for the spirits to help the Tauren get more of that spiritwalker angle going. Thrall and Geya’rah should represent both sides of the Orcs in a positive light, with Thrall heading the spiritual side and Geya’rah giving the good ol’ Lok’tar a proper face. Neither of these should eclipse the other and should be relevant as situations demand. Regardless, there should be a relationship between the two. What does the reformation the Bilgewater look like under Gazlowe? What of his previous cartel? What is the status of Ratchet? Why is Ji still neglected when he’s lowkey the best character in the entire setting?
There are simply too many questions after BFA regarding these figures and too many aspects of these characters that have yet to be shown. Heck, most of them aren’t even using unique models.
Next, the Horde needs to be shown as an institution necessary for the survival of Azeroth and a powerful one at that. We were branded as the Strength and Honor faction, but we often find ourselves winning battles on sneaky tricks and weapons of mass destruction. While fine and dandy for Forsaken and Goblins, this alienates the more traditional Horde races such as Trolls and Orcs. While things like the Blight should continue to have a place in the Horde arsenal going forward, the Horde can and should rely on their strength going forward and should be shown using it successfully.
As for showing the Horde is necessary, this is as simple as actually including them in-game. Having NPC’s actually present and fighting whatever threat is a must, unlike Argus which simply pretended we didn’t exist. Cutscenes need to build pride and need to cut back on the loss angle, we’ve done enough of that. Having a couple of ‘Terror of Darkshore’ cinematics of our own would be a large boon, show the Horde can win and be threatening.
Finally, Horde culture needs to stop being neglected. The Trolls have managed to somewhat rise above this as of late with Zandalar, but the deaths of many longtime Loa still are worth an eye-roll and their rescue in the Maw feels halfhearted in comparison to the rescue of Ashamane. Going forward, having more Loa around for both the Zandalari and Darkspear would be a good nod to their overall culture. An’she needs some relevance to give validity to Tauren beliefs, which currently are almost entirely overshadowed by the Kal’dorei and Elune. Orcs should be shown communing with the spirits and elements far more than they do outside of Shaman content. The Blood Elves (and Nightborne to a lesser extent) need focus on their magical prowess, which to this point has often taken a backseat to Dalaran. Things like this would help the Horde carve out its own identity going forward and further detach itself from the Alliance, such as Sunwalkers to Paladins.
The story is beyond the horde rebuilding at this point, it does need to separate itself from alliance influences and get back to building its races cultures but Teld lest blizzard retcons that (which I sincerely hope they do, wanna get back to playing my hordies without the constant guilt trips) has put the horde back where it started narratively in the Warcraft 1-2 RTS instead of the noble horde Thrall intended that had rose above their dark history to carve a place in this world. I don’t want the horde players to pay a price for a story regretfully we didn’t choose, but unless blizzard retcons or does a magic wave at the end of this expac the karmic scales are highly unbalanced.
They are in AU Draenor.
The only answer is time and distance from the BFA storyline which has painted itself into too many corners at this point.
BFA shot itself and fell off a Cliff all at the same time, there weren’t any corners there lol.
Than proceeded to drag everything else down with it 
If that is true, the Alliance is now justified to reduce every Horde race to piles of ash. You can have it both ways, or neither.
I mean, if Alliance characters and even players believe that, fine, but tacking back to the purpose of this thread, I don’t think that Horde characters and players should.
… and from what I can gather, many of them do. Hence why this appears to be an issue - hence why the thread exists.
A good way to fixing the horde is stop having the horde relying on the alliance for storytelling. Thinking on it now? You’re right, it would be healthier for the game in the long if both sides had their own content to do, but could eventually team up at the end of a expac to take on the Big Bad
I feel faction conflicts are pointless at this point, we’ve gone through so many world ending threats together. and in terms of pvp just go back to small scale Cold War skirmishes where both sides where guilty of harassing the other but nothing extreme like world wars and genocide.
As long as we, and I mean Alliance players, get adequate revenge/recompense, i’m perfectly fine with that.
Kind of the point I was attempting to get at. Where in Classic through Wrath, ally and horde had their own unique questing experiences that occasionally intersected but the Cold War tensions were always there. Both sides would poke each other, but neither side couldn’t really prove who Struck first
If that makes sense
Eh, speak for yourself. The alliance playerbase isn’t a hive mind
Oh I know I only speak for myself. But I know that many share my sentiment.
As someone who played both factions, I’d rather have the Horde take part in healing the wounds caused by the War of Thorns. I don’t think that is humiliating or demeaning any way. Yes, ideally Blizzard should have never placed players in a position to commit mass murder to begin with, and being forced to go along with it was a terrible decision. But it can’t be brushed under the rug, either. If Blizzard wants to commit to the narrative that the Horde were deceived up until the moment, and for that blame to lie squarely on Sylvanas above all others, then some recompense is in order imho.
Adding racism back to the Alliance especially in this day and age? I’d say that is a very very VERY bad move. People would take it way too personally and probably even call most or every Alliance player a racist. For sure calling Blizzard to be racist. Racism in social media these days is a super sensitive topic. Gone are the 90s where it could be used as story telling with creativity.
I’d wager Blizzard saw this era comming and removed all forms of racism from the Alliance. Garithos being the biggest one of them all isn’t ever mentioned that much at all in game these days. He isn’t even the reason Blood Elves joined the Horde, which I swear is a retcon.
It’s not; he was the reason the Blood Elves left the Alliance, but prior to Burning Crusade, they were at most a neutral faction waiting for news from Kael’thas back on Outland.
Cant we all agree bfa irreparably damaged the lore and its a massive waste of time, emotional investment, money and its better if we just use time shenanegans to prevent it from happening? a timelord expansion or whatever…cue a timeskip where we end on azeroth around 20 years into the future and nobody recognizes us for some reason, we could then clash with the new leaders of that era etc…
The reason i believe this is that, narratively speaking, i think is unfeasible that blizzard can dig themselves outta of that hole because of lack of skill and because this medium has pacing problems. Any resolution will be stale teldrassil shouldve been adressed on the same expansion, you mean to tell me i ve been waiting for years for a sack of manure? i wouldve died if i held my breath, wait and see doesnt work and i just roll my eyes every time they make a comment that even suggests i should wait because things will get better.