WoD is such a weird case for me. It was such an unnecessary, bizarre move that it proved to me, once and for all, that the Devs don’t take the narrative seriously. It was like a sidequest expanded into an expansion.
With all of that said, I actually enjoyed it a lot. I liked seeing Draenor pre-kablooey, I LOVED seeing draenei society at its post-Argus height, and God help me I even enjoyed the garrisons. Then they decided they wanted to end it early, so they butchered it all to hell. Pretty much everything I was most looking forward to got cut: Farahlon, Shattrath raid, Karabor and Bladespire as capitals, Ogre continent, etc. Not to mention how the story got cut and pasted during the back half of the beta. Gorgrond and Talador never recovered from that.
Now we have BfA. An expansion where I hope and pray that they’ll cut it early, but they won’t. They’re going to drag this thing all the way to the end. I would much, MUCH rather have gotten the fully advertised WoD experience and just have BfA end with Azshara.
This so much. They couldn’t make BfA any more MoP 2.0 if they tried. And the War of the Thorns? Just Arthas’ march on Quel’thalas 2.0, making the Night Elves just be the Blood Elves 3.0, because we already had the Nightborne re-enacting Quel’thalas post Sunwell destruction to be Blood Elves 2.0.
yes, this is particulary annoying and i have a good example of it.
The kirin tor, in mop theramore was destroyed,alright but we gained the kirin tor full time for the alliance right?
Well nope, that went directly into thrash because blizzard needed a neutral hub, make some legendary alliance hero be the most neutral guy ever (who to be honest should be leading kirin tor since mop if thats the route they wanted with him)
they even create a statue of rhonin who died at the hands of the horde saving an alliance character and we got horde walking that city like it was always theirs,Lol.
they could just, you know giving them their own magical city instead of turning it neutral and his characters.
Hell they should be helping us right now in the current war!
same with the neutral druids, i guess.
That is sort of an annoyance to me, the Horde as of BfA has two magical cities in Suramar and Quel’thalas. The Alliance has a whopping zero, because I refuse to consider a crashed and unrepairable Naaru fortress as a city, and the vindicaar is AWOL off above the clouds somewhere.
…we sort of had one in Darnassus but, well… yeaaaaah.
Its interesting to look at the temperaments towards Legion, and the “neutrality” of much of Dalaran/Alliance Characters during that period.
Alliance Players will often see it as an affront, and will feel displeasure with the fact that so much of their content is being leeched away from them to cater to the Horde’s participation (which is true). On the other hand, considering the shocking lack of relevance or presence of the Horde within that expansion, that same “neutrality” could be seen as Blizz not wanting to bother justifying the Horde’s presence in what really was a VERY Alliance-centric storyline on paper (also true).
EDIT: As a side note, it would have been so damned easy to justify why the lack of the Vindecaar in BfA (and if you really stretched, the majority of the Kirin Tor and Kadghar). With the Legion down and out, and a working Naaru ship at their disposal, for the first time in Thousands of Years the Draenei don’t need to be looking over their shoulders and can finally rebuild. Just have all the above absent parties in Netherstorm (and out of contact) repairing Tempest Keep in preparation to evacuate the remainder of their people from that dying world.
That will never not annoy me. We went from the Alliance being masters of the arcane and the Horde being masters of shamanism, to the Horde being masters of shamanism AND the arcane, and the Alliance twiddling it’s thumbs.
What Shamanism do you see specifically? The Horde really doesn’t have much in the way of Shamans atm. Also, I do agree that Dalaran should officially become an Alliance capital after BfA. I also believe that Tempest Keep (in its entirety) should now be repaired and turned into a new Arcane Capital (now that the Draenei have the means AND opportunity to repair that fortress).
Plus, the Alliance currently canonically has the most powerful Arcane: Nature; Void; and Light Wielders. Your presumption seems to be that the Horde should ONLY have Shamanism going for them … and the Alliance should have everything else. Is that what you wont forgive? That the Horde has MORE than just shamans (which we don’t even really have atm).
I believe the reason nobody does that is because Kael’thas, in his infinite wisdom, dismantled the engines to build the mana forges in Netherstorm. Don’t have too many Naaru about who could tell them how to rebuild it I guess.
It … would still be a good excuse to get the Kirin Tor, the majority of the Draenei, and the Vindecaar out of the story for a while. They are in Netherstorm finally getting around to trying to put that fortress back together and get it ready to bring the remaining Dreanei and Broken to their new home. They left shortly after the Legion invasion ended, before the WoT even began.
“i will not take sides on heroes of either side” feels almost like a betrayal, is this the guy who we have a statue of?
not sure about the arcane, the horde has thalisra now.
but i think that is weird that we have the “void wielder”.
i think that i just want: alliance characters and stories (and cities) for alliance players and viceversa
i don’t want to deal with horde npcs ever again, and i am SURE that horde players will love the same for them as well. (horde stories and characters for horde players).
is that too much to ask? if they needed a floating city why not have just silvermoon fly or something like that?
(yes i am aware that blizzard forces horde players to work with alliance characters as well, that must suck and you guys have my deepest sympaties) TyRaNdE iNEeD YoU
And yet … the consequences of attaining the “getting us out of eachother’s” hair route (as tempting as it is) are liable to be very severe; or at least the easiest route to that objective. The “Mostly” Red Kalimdor and “Mostly” Blue EK (with the Exodar and Silvermoon territories remaining the sole embassy on the other continent) would be a pretty straightforward way of removing us from the other side (keeping the Forsaken and Kaldorei away from the source of their antagonism).
Also, yes, yes it would. Did you not understand what I said about the Horde side of the “Neutrality” issue in Legion. It was not just a dilution of the Alliance’s content to justify the Horde’s presence in that expansion; it was Blizzard NOT being willing to actually invest the assets to accomplish that. And … the level in which a Horde player is required to follow the Orders of Alliance Heroes in Legion is rather absurd; and outside of the odd Argus WQ the Alliance never had to do the same.
The Horde does not enjoy the same level of power-fantasy the Alliance does, so turning Silvermoon into the Horde’s equivalent of a floating city is outside of the Faction’s ability to muster (as well as beyond the asset-investment Blizz was clearly willing to place within that expansion; to ensure we didn’t just feel like tag-a-longs in what was supposed to be our own story too). You see it as the Horde stealing the Alliance heroes and content; I see it is as Blizzard being too lazy to actually write an inclusive story for the Horde (so painted over a TON of Alliance things to “include” us).
I’m not talking about the superhero faction leaders. I’m talking about the cultures of the various faction races. The races of the Horde have a massive edge in terms of shamanism and its importance. Specifically, Orcs and Taurens, and to a lesser extent Trolls, Pandaren, Highmountain Tauren and Mag’har Orcs. Alliance-side, there are no culture that value shamanism as importantly as several Horde cultures do. At best, you have minority groups of Draenei, Dwarves and Pandaren. Which I don’t have a problem with. I’m fine with the Horde remaining the #1 group when it comes to one of their traditional areas of expertise, which is shamanism.
What annoys me is that one of the Alliance’s traditional areas of expertise, the arcane, is now also most exemplified by the Horde. There are no Alliance cultures that value the arcane as much as the Blood Elves and Nightborne do. Plenty of Alliance cultures have at least something to do with it, but none of them come close to those two Horde cultures. The only one that could is Dalaran, but they’re not Alliance. They’re neutral, so that the Horde could be friends with them too.
So … we have Shamanism … and that’s it. I’m unsure exactly where the Horde could go in terms of narrative with JUST that. They would be denied access to SO MANY story opportunities without the induction of the Forsaken and BEs that it would be nuts. Also, the Forsaken (being ex-humans) and Trolls (yes, even the Darkspear) have long histories of using the Arcane.
And … no, you’re right there are no Alliance cultures that value the Arcane as much as the Shal’dorei and Sin’dorei (because THEY are based off of the Ancient High Elf civilization). That’s because outside of Dalaran (and the Kirin Tor) … no there has never really been that much of an Arcane Focus of ANY of the Alliance civilizations. The Alliance had a heavy LIGHT based focus and a LIFE based focus; but it was only potent CHARACTERS like Jaina that gave them that Arcane edge.
At least since Cataclysm that is not strictly true; the Shen’dralar in theory are every bit as adept with the arcane as the Shal’dorei they just sort of never get any focus put on them. Also Druidism does use arcane energies, they just shun sorcery, mage-magic if you will.
Let’s not forget the Draenei too, who are the most adept arcanists on Azeroth, as they have often been alive longer than any recorded civilization on Azeroth save the black empire has even existed.
Whenever Blizzard tends to shift focus onto a race or character, elements of it tend to backfire to the community since it doesn’t jive for them.
Night Elves just happen to be the central focus of so many events that every expansion usually dedicates plenty of Night Elf characters and stories to screentime, which means they’ve got more room for error than other races which don’t have any screentime.
This led to a victim complex where genuine victories or minor events are viewed as slights against the Night Elves.
For example, the whole outrage about Night Elves becoming diurnal was promoted by the Night Elves hosting a banquet in the early morning hours to appease the other race’s diplomats and had nothing to do with sleeping patterns or cultural shift.
I think you’re misinterpreting what I’m saying. I don’t want the Horde to lose access to the arcane. That’s ridiculous. I’m mourning the fact that the Alliance lost all of their arcane-focused cultures. Once upon a time that included Dalaran and Quel’thalas. Now it includes nothing. That’s what annoys me.
I very much doubt with the temperament that the NEs have towards Highborne that the Shen’dralar are allowed full range of their talents and abilities. Hell, its decidedly creepy that the one who tried to murder them all is currently leading them within the Darkshore front. On the other hand, you are right … I forgot. Few civilizations in this world are more Arcane Focused than the Draenei (they just ALSO happen to be SUPER Light Focused as well). I think I just tend forget that because for some reason there really isn’t a lot of focus on Draenei mages.
Blizzard can keep stealing Alliance content to give it to the Horde so they can feel included but that inclusion is all they have. I doubt we would ever see Suramar or Quelthelas in current content ever again but Dalaran has shown up 3 times now.
Then Blizz should cut all of us Horde players a discount on our subscription fees don’t you think? If all we get is browbeaten on how weak and horrible we are every time the story focuses on us; and get to be the shadows of the real heroes in the Alliance when we’re not killing ourselves … then I don’t feel we should be paying the same amount of real money for YOUR stories.