I liked the Varian from WOTLK better, he was definitely more like one of the old Alliance
4 Likes
Oh, I agree 100%. While I did enjoy seeing Varianâs personal growth from Wrath to Wolfheart to Mists to Legion, the early (Vanilla - Wrath) era did present the faction conflict better, if only because the Alliance wasnât always seen as occupying the moral high ground all the time.
2 Likes
Honestly what boggles my mind is how Blizzard made the Horde even crazier in the Alliance playthrough. Even when it actively conflicts with the Horde playthrough.
Like in Alliance Darkshore it appears the Forsaken have enslaved the Kaldorei and put them to work in a quarry. But when you go there when the Horde controls it itâs just Worgen guerrillas attacking Goblin miners. This was also the case with Alliance scenarios in Astranaar and Brennadam that either donât sync up or outright contradict with the red playerâs experience.
Thereâs some of this on the Allianceâs end too but itâs never that morally questionable in the context of a war. About the only thing that feels pointlessly cruel beyond reason is when the Alliance just ravage the Vulpera for no self evident reason. When on the Alliance playthrough the Shamans scare them off with totems instead of setting them on fire.
I suspect what with NâZoth being the big bad and his whole shtick being manipulating perceptions and emotions this was meant to lead up to a twist at some point. Especially as the game actively encourages you to give the story a playthrough on the opposite faction which is how I noticed all these glaring problems.
Seriously the only in story explanation for that fragrant and impossible incongruity is either our perceptions were tampered with or these stories are taking place in alternate dimensions.
21 Likes
Following up on my previous post, I feel like the reason we saw a lot less emphasis on the faction conflict in the earlier expansions is because they pretty much all dealt with some major, âThird-Partyâ villain:
- Vanilla:
- Ragnaros the Firelord
- Onyxia, Nefarian, and the Black Dragonflight
- CâThun
- The Burning Crusade:
- Illidan Stormrage
- The Burning Legion
- Wrath of the Lich King:
- The Lich King
- Yogg-Saron
- Cataclysm:
- Deathwing
- Choâgall and the Twilightâs Hammer
- Ragnaros the Firelord (again)
- Alâakir the Windlord
- The Naga
Was there faction conflict? Of course; having misconceptions like the Battle for the Undercity following the attack on the Wrathgate and watching Varian and Garrosh go at at it during the Ulduar council or at the Argent Tournament kept the game interesting.
Ah, but see, thatâs the point: all of that took place in the background. The faction conflict was always secondary to the main content, which directly followed in the spirit of Reign of Chaos after the Battle of Mt. Hyjal: âWe might not always get along, but weâll team up to save our world when we need to.â
All of that went out the window with Mists of Pandaria, when the Hordeâs Warchief was the âThird-Party Villain.â And that formula apparently worked so well that they just had to try it a second time!
âŠwith predictable results.
11 Likes
I mean we could always go the Jaina route and just ignore it after a quarter-expansion of internal angst
3 Likes
I could at least see why someone would follow Garrosh. He industrialized Orgrimmar and managed to add more territory to the Horde. Pre Cata Org and all Horde territory really feels like a hastily scrapped together holdout instead of some center of prosperity. The Horde does feel more coherent and stronger by his rule.
But in BFA weâre told Slyvanas has the support of the Horde population but weâre never told why. They, bizarrely, try to credit her with the victory in Legion but the Horde and Alliance proved so inept in that expansion the classes unionized and solved the Legion problem themselves. So that never tracked.
Otherwise all she accomplishes after taking office is torpedoing her own strategy in Kalimdor by bombing Teldrassil for, at the time, no reason at all. Then she loses Lordaeron causing Orgrimmar to be flooded with Forsaken refugees. And as much as I love the Forsaken I canât imagine the locals were thrilled at the idea of countless desperate and destitute flesheaters hanging out in every alley and behind every building.
And she continues to fail spectacularly with such reckless disregard toward strategy that just wanting as many dead people as possible was the only goal that couldâve made sense.
It makes the Horde come off as lunatics whoâs only want or need was apparently Nelf genocide. Which is baffling as theyâre the Alliance faction that earned warrior to warrior respect from the Orcs and who the Tauren get along with better than 3/6s of their own faction. Absolutely ludicrous writing.
16 Likes
Itâs almost like Blizzardâs current writing team had absolutely no plan going into Battle for Azeroth, even less than they did with Mists of Pandaria, and have absolutely no idea on how to write a believable villain whoâs also a genius tactician and strategist (which Sylvanas supposedly is).
And then when the curtain starts getting drawn backâŠ
âNonsense! This was our plan all along! Of course we had a plan all along! It was, erâŠyes! We did want to simply kill as many people as possible! Because thatâs what believable fantasy villains do! Tee-hee!â
Twirls mustache nervously.
10 Likes
Thats a problem of all this chars, blizzard writing fits mosten time not the charconzeption
Just watch the BFA cinematic trailer again, they indeed did go into this without knowing where the story was going. The horde in that cinematic didnât seem evil at all, even Syls monologue was not as grim or dark in that trailer.
6 Likes
Also continuing about my point about NâZoth magic- it just struck me that all these incongruities happen in areas where thereâs strong Old God influence. On either side in Darkshore thereâs Twilight Hammer cultists as additional quest enemies.
But in Arathi there is no big incongruity I noticed and thereâs also no old god stuff there. Instead of the League of Arathor at a farm itâs the Defilers, and both donât seem to be doing anything more nefarious than guarding a resource node in Arathi which is what they always do.
Stormsong is basically one giant Old God altar and VolâDun had a faceless one kaiju living under it.
And later in Uldum thereâs the Wastewander quest where youâre tricked into bombing your own men, proving that NâZothâs minions can make the player perceive entirely different armies doing entirely different things if they want.
Man I feel like this wouldâve been a really cool twist. Shame that wasnât the case. I guess the explanation is we just encountered armies from the Mirror Mirror Star Trek dimension where everyoneâs a prick.
10 Likes
I think the conclusion many of us have come up with is that we âcanâtâ. Blizz has written the faction into a corner using us as a plot device as they did. We can either prove weâre âgoodâ, by essentially being made accessories for the Alliance, their characters, and their stories from now on. Or, Blizz can put the work in for the first time in over a decade, and simply build us back up.
Weâre truly left at ground zero here, and Blizz has essentially sent us back to Pre WC3 Era Horde. Which means the fundamentals. Use Saurfangâs final sentiments as the new foundation of the Horde, and build up some pillar characters to support it. âWe CANâT make up for our mistakes. We can only accept them. Learn from them. Do betterâ. And that is going to have to come from deep investment by Blizz into the infrastructure and characterization of the Horde. Weâre gonna have to the ground running on Pillar Characters to support such a vision within SLs here. Sigh ⊠there is so much damned work to do toâŠ
13 Likes
I mean as was so perfectly stated above;
Personally I donât feel the Hordeâs particularly ruined by the events of BFA. It was bad writing but, whatever, donât worry about it too much. Itâs sâall good. Anduin said so. And as we all know he sits upon a throne of absolute moral correctitude and unassailable wisdom.
So - weâre good. Thems the dice, I donât make the rules.
11 Likes
Glad we can finally put it to rest after all this discussion.
2 Likes
I am a little more positive about that.
I think it can definitely be done, its just that Horde needs to be hit pretty hard, give the players agency to punish the worst actors but leave the Alliance largely intact.
The prize is Alliance can feel like they are not chumps anymore.
The Horde is back in the underdog position being judged on the sins of their past rather than their actual actions. And if their retaliation is measured and surgical then all the better.
And use these big events as a way to introduce new characters, they did it with Yrel, they can definitely do it again.
Give both sides of pro-peace and pro-war something to cheer on and have actual wins and I think both sides would be happy.
Honestly I think what ruined BFA most of all is Blizzard doing half measures after Teldrassil rather than going all in.
Hit hard in what way? Punish what âworst actorsâ? The Horde also isnât lacking in characters. Weâre lacking in developed characters. So new ones wont fix that issue, when the issue is Blizzâs dogmatic refusal to build up the Faction and its Reps that is the core problem. Also, the Horde âunderdogâ status could not be more forced anymore. We are never going to re-attain that, even if the Allianceâs power fantasy towers of the Hordeâs. And, frankly, thatâs largely in part due to their reps surviving long enough to become demigods. Weâre an international, multinational world power on the scale of the Alliance now.
Plus, there is little value in being the Underdogs if the âBig Dogâ is never allowed to do anything even fringing on Grey without Blizz rushing in to invalidate it. Its always us being forced to punch outside out weightclass without being allowed reasons to do so; while the Alliance gets nerfed for plot convenience.
3 Likes
I personally donât care how hard the alliance hits; itâs just going to seem like the character and faction I play deserves it on a story level at this point.
The whole âyeah I was plot-mandated to nominally support a genocidal regime but I can still be a heroâ thing isnât a concept I can buy into.
8 Likes
I kind of explained up above.
And whether you are introducing new characters or fleshing out old ones it still a great time to add more screentime and development where the horde is feeling down and pull them up.
as for worst actors.
Its pretty simple, make a whole storyline about in one zone about the HvA war and some of the central characters are designed to be hated a killed so the Horde player can feel good for having done something about the evil guy on the Alliance.
This could be a b rate character or a completely new one.
To avoid making alliance players mad make this guy unlikable on their side too. Think Garithos type of character. Maybe have a Garithos-lite underling that survives the Horde attack so at least not all warmongering character die.
Horde players will not feel good about being forced to kill more of their own people. We were forced to do that for half the expansion in BfA. Forced to do it for half of MoP. And we donât HAVE developed reps anymore. I truly do not think a lot of Alliance players understand how staggeringly destitute two rounds of the villain bat and over a decade of unfathomable neglect has left our character roster. So having new reps developed just for us to kill them off for Alliance brownie points would be miserable.
If not for Thrall and (I hope) Rexxar coming back, the MU Orc Roster would be left with Eitrigg and Cromush as our most developed reps. The Darkspear ONLY have Rokhan now to fall back on, a B-Ranker. The Bilgewater are in the same boat, with only the newly appointed B-Ranker Gazlowe left. The Forsaken are even worse off. So bad to the point that Voss and Calia have been shoe-horned into the drivers seat, because there is no one else left. That doesnât even get into the miserable state of the ARs.
Honestly, the Horde elves are just about the only Horde races doing semi-decent atm. With the Tauren only really having Baine and Hamuul, who can not represent their race properly since the race they are supposed to be representing never getting stories of their own. So both Tauren Reps have been rendered little more than accessories to Alliance characters. Which ⊠btw ⊠is exactly what Calia appears to being made into. A way to make the Forsaken convenient for the Alliance and their story.
4 Likes
I think you misread the part you quoted. Heâs saying to come up with an evil alliance figure meant for the horde player to kill, not another horde one.
1 Like
when did I say they would kill their own people?
Let me elaborate.
You got a scene of this Alliance guy in a burning Horde village.
As the Horde player if you hear this guy say things like âFor all the burned kids in Teldrassil!â You are going to feel pretty crappy about killing him maybe.
But if he pops up several times throughout your questing experience always waiting at the finish line just to say something mean, or do something evil like burn a troll orphanage and say things like âYou demon spawnâ.
Then I donât care what the context is any typical player would really hate this guy and feel good about killing him. I donât think at any point you would feel like you deserve his punishments.
And have a Horde hero that is being developped along side you with a cool cinematic of taking this guy down then you got yourself something special.
And it doesnât take much. Frigging zappyboi and tinktink are proof of that.