How to actually "Redeem" the Horde

Unfortunately this is one of those things that is simple to say but hard to do. I am no professional writer but even as a fanfiction writer who writes for fun I can acknowledge how massive an undertaking this would be. One of the reasons why I think Realm Reborn was such an impressive effort.

For a full World of Warcraft reboot they would need to go back over every single side story, quest, and main narrative from a MMORPG that has lasted more than a decade. Possible, but exceedingly difficult. That doesn’t even take into account non-story elements that may come up; funding, gameplay restraints, and tech issues to name a few.

All of that said I do think it would be worthwhile and not just from a Horde player perspective. The Alliance hasn’t been portrayed very well either in my opinion though for different reasons. To keep the thread focused on the Horde I’ll leave those aside. A reboot could allow the story to start fresh and allow writers to avoid mistakes like Teldrasil in the future. It helps the Horde to keep its core identity from when it was most popular and it doesn’t force Horde players into situations most wouldn’t care for.

Gonna be honest. If a team of 10-15 regular wowpedia editors can transcribe (and thus review) almost every single quest in Shadowlands in less than a year, taking into account we all do it in our free time as doing such labor is not our job, than a multi-million dollar company with a quest team of hundreds of people can do it in a month, or less, as it is their job. Teams of maybe 50ish people per expansion.

It’s actually the same reason.

None of the races are being written with respect, dignity, or nuance that acknowledges the IRL basis of those races, both good and bad.

Humans suck because it lacks the Fun™ of Arthurian Fantasy and the Tension™ of Renaissance Imperialism/Colonialism

Trolls suck because it lacks the Fun™ of African/Southern Amerindigenious Fantasy and the Tension™ of Intra-Racial Ethnic Conflict and Hyper Traditionalism therein.

Dwarves suck because they lack the Fun™ of Tolkien Dwarf Adventurism and Scottish/Irish Clan Myths and the Tension™ of Tolkien Dwarf Self Destruction Via Greed and Scottish/Irish Clan Conflict.

Tauren suck because they lack the Fun™ of Amerindigenous Fantasy and the Tension™ of Loss Of Land and Tribal Betrayal.

etc

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The Horde isn’t going to be redeemed because the overwhelming majority of Horde players aren’t interested in being redeemed. They are far more interested in blaming the writers for the Horde’s actions and trying to come up with ways to retroactively nullify them than they are in coming to terms with them.

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There is a difference between absorbing information and writing it. That said a company with Blizzard’s resources should be able to assemble a team of writers who could do it.

I do agree that is a problem but its not the only one. Maybe I start a thread talking about how to fix the Alliance? Not sure how long it would last on the forum before being derailed though; I’ve tried this before.

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The writers are literally the ones to blame for both the Horde’s actions and the Alliance’s impotence.

It is literally, actually, their fault.

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Yes, you can say that for every single thing that happens in a fictional world, but at a certain point you need to take the lore that you get. The “woe is us, the writers hate us” self-pity party is getting increasingly tiresome.

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Wait they are not? Who is it then? The horde player that never had any say in the story? The npc fictional character that does not exist?

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Fanstasy situation IMO would be to keep the current narrative team members doing whatever, but to utilize the hinted at “Classic+” as an "alternative version of the events. It might take a bit of time to consider how to think how to fit it in canon. (something something, Nozdormu messed up, having to restore the original timeline out of the fragments)

That way there could be a version where the retail team could “run wild” (maybe) and do whatever with their “things are flexible” approach, and another one - to move on the story in a way true to canon and the original concepts that made the game originally popular. Those who like the modern WoW would keep their, and those old farts like me who things the game did not really evolve much if not degraded since pre-Cata days could also have their corner.

I know it’s a wishful thinking. However, some time ago I though that it’s more likely that blizz culture will consume VV. Yet here we are with the VV lead becoming the blizz co-leader.


gl hf

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The question of “redemption” is always going to be reliant on the context of the story as written. My observation is that nobody is actually interested in applying redemption for the Horde in the context of the story as written. They are more interested in either being told that the Horde never did anything bad, or wasn’t responsible for the bad things they did in the first place.

That’s not redemption in the context of the narrative. That’s nullification of the narrative.

It’s like everyone proposing that Darth Vader be redeemed not by heroically sacrificing himself for the sake of others, but by making the rebels do some bad things so he looks less bad by comparison.

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Yeah, you can. My answer would be the same though - accept that the new team does not care about the origins, and hope that it’s possible to accemble another team that would actually put the player experience and why people enjoyed the game originally, as the top priority.


gl hf

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Because it’s narratively impossible.

They’ve written the player character as participating in genocide, actively and willingly.

Alliance will never be written as being allowed to retaliate. Horde will never be redeemed.

We have been written into a corner.

So simply remove the root of the problem.

This is a mistake of the writers, this entire situation is error.

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It’s absolutely narratively possible. It’s just not possible in a way that strokes your ego. In fact, I haven’t seen a single concrete proposal where the Horde even tries to redeem itself. It being impossible just seems to be universally accepted as fact.

Nope. And I have a five thousand post thread with thousands of Alliance posts saying the Horde is unable to be redeemed no matter what the narrative does.

Not reparations, not helping rebuild, not anything, all things that were suggested over the course of that thread.

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Oh well, better not try at all then because some people are still mad about the bad things the Horde did, because there’s no way to instantaneously fix everything, trying for redemption is pointless.

NO! The problem is that you only see a horde redemption as ‘‘how should the horde redeem themself to my alliance eye’’ which was never what it was about. The ‘‘horde redemption’’ was always from the player perspective, not just the alliance one, TO the devs who destroyed it and make them so evil that even horde player feel bad about playing it and was about how could the devs make the horde player not feeling bad about playing it anymore…

Its was always 100% addressed to the devs, because they are the one responsible for this situation.

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Great, so the Horde isn’t interested in redemption, it’s interested in soothing its own ego. I must have missed when everyone decided that “redemption” now means “the guilty party doesn’t feel bad about it anymore”

The Horde will never be redeemed in the eyes of it’s critics. It’s more important to redeem the Horde in the eyes of it’s fans.

Wow tells way too many individual stories to pick a side in it’s narrative.

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We are not interesting to get redeem to the alliance player eyes because i currently feel bad about playing my own faction and having the alliance player accepting the horde faction won’t make me feel better about playing it.

WoW is a game about faction rivalry. While we don’t need to get at war with each other every few expansion, we also don’t need to love each other. Alliance player shouldn’t need my appreciation of the alliance to feel proud about playing the alliance and horde player also shouldn’t need your appreciation of the horde to feel proud to play horde.

So it is just 100% natural that horde player seek a way for the devs to redeem the horde to the horde player eyes. No need the alliance acceptance for it.

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Well then in that case it’s easy, you’re already redeemed.