Where is the faction-unique content? Where is the faction rivalry?
The centrality of the factions in the narrative is what built this franchise. Players used to experience opposing story lines, cultures, and environments through unique Horde/Alliance experiences. There’s a reason the Horde x Alliance rivalry became a huge cultural icon. No idea why Blizzard ever birthed the Evil Warchief Archs and then just dropped the factions from the story.
In the Golden Era of WoW (Classic-Wrath), the factions had different questlines and quest hubs, which made you appreciate their differences. Every expansion the player would watch their faction grow stronger, by establishing new outposts, fortresses, alliances, and global offensives. Players used to stay up late into the night arguing about which faction was in the ethical right/wrong, or more powerful, or cooler, or what new addition each faction should get in the upcoming expansion. Even when not directly fighting each other, the factions were competing for land, resources, diplomatic relations, and global influence (similar to the RTS games that made WoW possible.) The loot pinatas came and went, but the faction rivalry was eternal.
But after the Golden Era, the faction conflict devolved into Horde civil wars or was absent from expansions all together. No surprise enthusiasm for the story has died too. It’s just hard to care about the current expansion villain when we know we’re gonna beat purples out of them, be told we have the moral authority to do so, and then leave them in the dust.
The factions are the best antagonists for each other because they can’t ever be defeated and Blizzard has to at least TRY to give them both redeeming qualities.
You talking about faction conflicts while on a dracthyr is peak irony. Granted, I do to an extent get where you’re coming from, my own view is that WoW story was at a peak during the Wrath era of frenemies, with mutual respect and tensions bundled up with joint efforts.
The problem is that we’ve done the faction conflict followed by unity since… uh, WC3. It’s happened 3 times now, and while it’s a very familiar story theme, familiarity doesn’t mean good. While wars in the real world can ignite between former allies constantly, the real world doesn’t have cosmic brain slugs trying to chug the Earth’s molten centre like a smoothie on a consistent basis.
-The pursuit of headlines over long term plot. That was the only reason for the burning to Teldrasil and it poisoned everything from the start.
-Villian batting. Treating factions leaders as villains and doing so in the same way you treat non-faction villains. One side gets their agency destroyed from the start while the other side expects to “win” (like they do with every other villain) but can’t.
Blizzard would need, as you say, to develop equal stories and legitimate motivations for both sides. Even they had that kind of nuance, they seem incapable of developing anything for the Horde. They ignore their lore except as foes for the Alliance. Then they have lost any nuance in faction conflict and are left with what we got.
We have lost. Time and time again. The faction conflict is dead because at this point the fact there are any Orcs of fighting age is straining credulity, outside of any that hit maturity recently.
I am enjoying working with the Alliance. Afterall we can be friends and slowly build up our strength to the point we can backstab them and work together forevermore.
My theory is that this was the problem. Giving the factions different stories used up time and resources, and they often couldn’t pull it off—the Horde side wasn’t ready at launch, and they admitted that they ran out of time to finish the Alliance story when Cata rolled around.
If they were to villain bat the alliance, they should have used Anduin’s absence to build up a human character from the house of nobles. Have him or her garner the support of other alliance warhawks and initially take minor but notable actions against cooperation with the horde. Perhaps have them secretly or openly supporting a resurgent scarlet crusade or pushing for renewed conflicts in alterac or something
doing the same stuff over and over is boring as hell if they kept having the faction conflict like the golden era every xpac people would be complaining why they havent got to war yet its dumb
Nobody likes the Horde civil wars from Cata/MoP/BFA or the use of WMD’s to wipe cities off the map.
The faction rivalry between the Alliance and Horde from Classic-Wrath was more like the rivalry between the USSR and the USA. Could get hot at any minute and plenty of proxy conflicts.
Which works if there are two even remotely comparable factions.
But we aren’t that anymore.
We lost two wars against the Alliance which were accompanied by civil wars. Even with five years of rebuilding we have lost most of our leadership and an entire generation of young men and women.
The Horde simply shouldn’t have the money or manpower to fight. Even in Cata Horde was basically out of money (Shattering novel). They were desperate for revenue and gold and could barely afford to rebuild Org.
Alliance was hit hard too but… they have the fertile land. They won the wars. They didn’t Have a sword pointed at their leadership and only survive due to mercy.
That’d work, though you don’t even have to choose a human. A Dwarf villain is something you rarely see in fantasy, and a Dwarf noble deciding to undermine the Alliance or exploit it could work too.
I remember people touted Turalyon for that idea until it became clear what a bad idea that was. Eg; Turalyon knows the Scarlet Brotherhood sucks, and they’d hate him for having a half-elf son, elf lover/baby mama and Draenei and undead mentors (and hating them would turn him against the Brotherhood even more).
That’s not really “villain batting”. Villain batting is taking an existing character and “hitting with the villain bat” making them a villain. For example using Tyrande’s Night Warrior thing to make her a villain. Or Turalyon going “eliminate the Horde”.
But Blizzard avoids that sort of stuff like the plague with the Alliance. I really think they feel Alliance players won’t put up with what Horde players went through.
They just disengaged from the story, unsubbed, or play for other reasons
You think all the people playing Alliance eye candy races while they get their daily serotonin doses from pHaT lewts are gonna stop because Tyrande becomes evil? I’m under the impression most WoW players either don’t care or only mildly like the story now
You attribute wow’s early success in part to the narrative, but I think it was more the gameplay. EQ had already started to wane and FFXI was very unfriendly to solo or casual alike.
Wow really grabbed questing and solo play by the horns, and pulled the genre closer to what we expect today. They had a wealth of lore to draw from and flesh out a world that was familiar though, and that certainly helped.
The faction conflict always seemed to be back burner to me in game, much more so than any swag or real life merch would suggest anyway. Even in vanilla we were storming the gates to elemental lords, dragons, and undead with minimal if any faction dialogue in sight of the final stretches of the storylines.
Vanilla through wrath also burned through lore assets at an alarming pace. BC in particular just threw names around like they were candy without thoughts for lore implications.
The franchise is buckling under its age, and having to redefine parts of itself to set up some longevity now. I understand why, even if I am very critical of parts if the story (shadowlands…. ::rubs temples::).
Most of the antagonists aren’t associated with either faction and there’ve been neutral factions since Classic.
But the overarching narrative of the story felt like you were acting on the behalf of your faction, even when you were saving the planet itself. Orgrimmar and Ironforge were the homebases you’d leave from and return to. Questing was primarily driven by faction-unique experiences. Classic, Outland and Northrend were full of faction unique questlines, quest hubs, and assets per faction.
Whereas expansions like Legion, Shadowlands, and Dragonflight have effectively no faction unique experiences at all. They don’t show the kind of factional development and growth the earlier expansions did. Warsong Hold and the Saurfang/Garrosh dialogue left a far bigger impression on me than anything in Dragonflight/Shadowlands/Legion.
(Well, except the emotional scarring that came from watching Sylvanas become Warchief.)
I think this issue is in development time and cutting costs.
It is far too cost-effective and quick to develop a single story, rather than two different stories for two different factions. This was evident as far back as Vanilla, when the Alliance was stripped of it’s identity so the Horde could feel, ‘included,’ in groups such as the Cenarion Circle or Paladin Orders. Rather than developing their own groups, the Horde was forced to play along with organizations that while neutral were so Alliance in history and aesthetic that it never felt right.
There’s also the limitations of design. Take Blood Elves. While there is no universe in which they should join the Alliance, the Horde didn’t make sense either. Ideally they would’ve been part of a third faction, the Illidari, which would’ve been the outlet for players to enjoy darker stories and themes. Instead, it’s a two faction system, so they were pushed into the Horde that had nothing to offer them, and required old grudges to be conveniently forgotten.
Story-telling was likewise limited by the limitations of the medium, and again, development time and costs. We had the Purge of Dalaran, which in and of itself was an utter mess of cut content, revisions, and bugs, but then Legion came around and Blizzard re-used it as a neutral hub, because rather than just letting the Horde and Alliance have their own separate bases, it’s easier to do one for both. Another example is WoD, where the Horde and Alliance were supposed to have two sizable capitals, but they got cut to two bases on an island.
After BFA, I think players just had it. There is something to be said for faction rivalry and identity, but Blizzard was incapable or unwilling to devote the resources to maintaining it.