It demotivates me to enter that battleground, or play the game at all, in the first place because of the things that it tells me about the team I want to represent.
And if you want to take issue with that - then you’re going to have to explain first why Horde players being demotivated by the story IS valid, but when it happens to other people it is not.
Both the Night Elves and the Horde at large—though most specifically the Forsaken—had their faction/racial identities invalidated by Battle for Azeroth, and their respective playerbases (likely) demotivated. That being said, there are a few key differences that I’d like you to consider:
If you honestly consider all these points, with all the narrative consequences that are implied, the Kaldorei got off easy. Teldrassil may have been made to look like a disastrous act of genocide, but in terms of repercussions, it was largely smoke and mirrors for dramatic effect.
The problem is that it seems to be a zero-sum game. I honestly don’t see any solution here that doesn’t lead to one side or the other being demotivated.
If you get your “big, juicy W” it’s going to demotivate us.
If you don’t get it, it’s going to demotivate you.
That’s the irreconcilable difference.
The issue I take with this analysis is once again its attempt to weigh in on who has it worse - which remains a pointless discussion that can almost never take into account the differences in investment and objectives that the different sides have as it tries to state, without basis, that one of the three psychological needs that people play video games for (relatedness) subsumes or overwhelms the other (competence).
For - what objective exactly? Are you saying that Night Elf fans should shut up and go home? That our issues aren’t worth being addressed? If you’re not, then I’m going to have to ask what the point is to this laser focus on the “who has it worse” discussion when we should be talking about solutions to meet everyone’s objectives.
@ Pellex
I have shared means of thinking about the problem in a way that would allow us to address Horde concerns, but you seem to be saying that the Horde can suffer no loss whatsoever, which in this case involves the Night Elves retaking Ashenvale from them onscreen.
If something that minor to the Horde is a bridge too far, but it’s fine for you to show up and take all of the Night Elves’ holdings in a prepatch, mitigated by the Night Elves and their allies taking one of three zones back in a warfront whose conclusion we’re only aware of from a dev interview and a lackluster cinematic, then it’s hard for me not to read a declaration like that as an expression of incredible selfishness.
Like - it’s fine if you beat down and brutalize what I care about, but I can’t have this explicitly limited win under any circumstance? Really?
That cant be denied, but the Kaldorei should have come forward and simply spoken with the Sindorei regarding their concerns and not have simply occupied the Ghostlands which optically was a bad decision. We see as of Legion from the Void Elf recruitment quest line that these Night Elf forces are still in Quel’thelas all these years later and their base of operations is where the player and Alleria Windrunner begin their search for the lost Blood Elves who eventually become Void Elves.
Where do you get the idea that I think the War of Thorns was in any way fine? I hated it. I hated it so much that I didn’t log into the game for two weeks and very seriously thought about quitting. The only reason I didn’t was because I have a raiding group.
Your appeal basically boils down to “Just give me this! You owe it to me after how you hurt me!” Which is yet more guilt and shame, which is the thing that demotivates me.
I’m not saying you can’t have it. I’m saying that you getting it would make me (and many other Horde players, to judge by other responses in this thread) feel worse about the story than we already do, and disincentivize us to log in.
I mean, if we want to mischaracterize appeals, to me, your position looks like you standing there, folding your arms, and telling me. “I mean, sure, I didn’t WANT to completely brutalize you and demolish your investment, but I also want to lock in the gains forever” - and I don’t think that’s fair.
Now again, I linked a proposal that I think can resolve the matter with the due being given to both sides - at least in this area of the world. I’m not sure if you’ve had a chance to look at it, but it contains some of the general ideas that I have to make something like this fair.
Forgive us! You owe us! You oppressed us!
First: What “gains” do you think I want to “lock in”? I received no gains from BfA. I consider that expansion to be nothing but loss for me, and I’m sure you feel the same.
Second: How is me saying that one or the other side is going to be unhappy the same as me saying your side is the one that has to be unhappy? I’m not offering a solution to this problem. Quite the opposite: I’m saying it doesn’t have a happy solution. Not even the Night Elves taking Ashenvale (on or offscreen) is a happy solution that satisfies everyone, as this thread has shown.
I think if we lay the groundwork for a more balanced conflict where I don’t feel like a pushover and you don’t feel like a monster, that’s as happy of a solution as we can try for - and yes, I think Ashenvale is sizeable part of that.
People have been saying that since August 2018, and nobody has yet come up with a storyline that actually accomplishes it. I’ve given up on thinking it can be done.
I again offer the proposal I linked to Zarrin, as well as the framework it works off of.
This in itself should tell you a lot about where Blizzard’s current priorities lie when it comes to the faction conflict—they have, in fact, made it into a “zero sum game,” which was kind of evident with the initial T.V. commercials for Battle for Azeroth (“It Matters”).
So, I’m going to admit you sort of lost me here.
What “psychological needs” are you talking about, exactly? If you’re saying that people do play video games for “relatedness” (i.e. feeling like they can belong to that world), I absolutely agree with that regarding World of Warcraft.
That being said, I don’t think I ever made the claim that people’s ability to relate to the game (in the form of one faction or the other) does or should “overwhelm competence,” regardless of what form that competence takes (assuming you’re referring to the competence of either faction here).
Again, I’m not stating anything that hasn’t been said or shown by Blizzard themselves in the game. The whole “We is gonna break the cycle, kids!” narrative that we got felt very much like the “Participation Trophy Contest” that was the Star Wars sequels, for example, rather than anything remotely resembling a story players should feel invested in.
TL;DR: Blizzard already sent the message that relatedness and competence must come at the expense of one another. I’m simply interpreting that message based on what we see in-game.
I mean, Reign of Chaos already established that they had a home long before Teldrassil was introduced. I’m honestly not sure why they decided to create Teldrassil to begin with, given that they could have just as easily put Darnassus up on Nordrassil, or even in the Moonglade.
I wouldn’t put it in those words exactly—I do think Teldrassil warranted a much better “victory cinematic” than the slap-in-the-face that we got with Darkshore.
That being said, I do stand by my claim that the night elves’ losses in Battle for Azeroth are still negligible compared to what’s been just the latest in a series of character assassinations against most, if not all, of the Horde’s races.
Because as I and so many others have pointed out several times, we will never have “solutions that help everybody” so long as Blizzard continues to insist on glorifying one faction while simultaneously villainizing the other.
It won’t happen, because it can’t happen. You can’t have “a solution that benefits everybody” while at the same time claiming, “Oh, all humans are pure, good, moral heroes of the Light, and orcs will always be violent savages even when not hopped up on demon blood.”
It’s a double standard.
The Horde never gave any aplogies for what they did during the first and second wars. The Alliance instead imprisoned them, and a few years later they fled. Never did anyone from the Horde, old or new, apologize for any of those actions.
Utterly pointless, when the whole lot can be manipulated to do so many terrible things so easily. That’s a fundamental flaw by itself, that mars the entire faction, and the real problem with the Horde lorewise.
Shut up and go to your second home that you share with me.
Our problems must be solved first because they are bigger.
Then why can’t you build a solution that will ignore this Blizzard approach?
Ok, Velskar, once again, I have no idea what I did to catch your attention here then. Because when you raise this statement here:
You can’t have “a solution that benefits everybody” while at the same time claiming, “Oh, all humans are pure, good, moral heroes of the Light, and orcs will always be violent savages even when not hopped up on demon blood.”
We already agree - and part of the conversation I agree needs to be about fixing that.
What I take issue with is you running around with this as though you’re dragging a crucifix and declaring that everyone’s pain is meaningless in comparison. It is not - and such a canard does nothing to improve discussion around this issue. Also, Blizzard did not make this a zero sum issue - you are making it a zero sum issue. It is not.
Regarding the psychological needs, I draw on the work of Scott Rigby for that one. You may consult the following article:
http^s://www.teachthought.com/learning/why-people-play-video-games/
I’m sure they would have, if they had been physically able to.
You know, while they were squatting in their own waste in Blackmoore’s internment camps and “recovering” from Fel addiction.
Funny, there’s also a problem with the Alliance leaders being susceptible to manipulation, lore-wise.
See: Onyxia starting the Stonemason Riots, which directly created the Defias Brotherhood, and Deathwing himself mind-controlling Terenas Menethil, Daelin Proudmoore, and Genn Greymane in Day of the Dragon long before that.
Did Thrall apologize for the actions of the First and Second War?
Her manipulations only hit the Alliance, didn’t they?
I have a giant, glowing green spaceship filled with six-armed lady-demons, so you can do what you want.
I have actually proposed many solutions, but unfortunately the biggest one would require a lot of time-traveling, Bronze Dragonflight-style, because it would have taken place between The Frozen Throne and Vanilla.
Was Thrall responsible, or even present, during the First and Second Wars?
As far as the Defias go?
Yes, the Alliance was most heavily-impacted.
They have been able to do so for years, ever since they founded Orgrimmar.
And do you know how much regret Orgrim displayed for everything he has done? Absolutely nothing. Getting killed by a lance was far too good of a death for him.
No doubt. Difference is, the whole population didn’t go along like a bunch of lobotomised ogres when they did those things, while the Horde did exactly that.