“Neutral expansions” is the name I give to expansions that leave no (or very little) room for faction differentiation in terms of narrative and questing experience. Hence why I don’t consider TBC, Wrath and WoD to be neutral expansions, even if they ultimately end with the factions cooperating in order to beat the big bad ; because depending on your faction, you’ll engage with a different cast, go through different questlines in different questing hubs, seek different allies, and overall experience the expansion through a different lens.
They’re clearly not neutral “same thing for everyone” expansions à la DF, SL and Legion (sure, Stormheim had a differentiated introduction questline up until the main Trials storyline, but that’s largely irrelevant to the expansion at large).
I mean edge affectionately in this context. What I mean is that they’re unapologetically over the top evil and love making it everyone else’s problem.
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Right. I guess you and I have very different definitions for edge, since I’ve been exposed to some edgelord garbage from certain comic creators in recent years and can’t take use the term in a context like this seriously anymore.
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I mean, that can’t be the case. You’re including TBC on the list but not Legion, even though Legion’s total quantity of faction conflict easily surpasses TBC’s.
TBC had what? Hellfire Peninsula where both factions do quests to kill fel orcs near the other guys’ base? The no-story world pvp objectives?
Legion had Stormheim. That’s more content by far.
TBC counts, but Shadowlands doesn’t, even though two of the three main characters of SL are only there because of the faction conflict. The entire Tyrande arc is fallout from the faction conflict.
I’m sorry but I have to stand by my assumption that this is all very arbitrary, and done specifically to only classify three expansions you dislike as “faction neutral”, just to support a hypothesis that all “faction neutral” content is somehow bad from a narrative perspective.
It’s disingenuous. I’m done engaging with it.
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Oh I know what you’re referring to. Sorry for my incorrect nomenclature (ooh fancy word).
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If it helps, I actually did understand how you were using edgy to describe those characters.
It got a smile, and I agree with the assessment.
One of the coolest villains blizz came up with and I agree with the affectionate use of the edgelord word, because its soo true 
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Wrath had a very strong faction moment that made it very memorable even though it was a low percentage of the content; nothing like that had happened before. I can see why some people would want to call it a non-neutral story, but I don’t think that was written any better than Arthas overall. I don’t have any particular fondness for Arthas myself, but he was the main highlight for people I knew at the time, ESPECIALLY for Alliance, Blood Elf, Forsaken players. Core Horde that I knew was more meh but they also had more of the RTS fans so there was still WC3 investment.
Ultimately, the Battle of the Undercity was one part of a vanishingly small amount of good faction content in Wrath. The only other really good points being the orc leadership arc of Borean and Grizzly and a few things in the starting Alliance port for Borean. And even the Battle of the Undercity is heavily curdled by its aftermath, with the Argent Tournament and ICC faction elements being resoundingly stupid.
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Very curdled.
So curdled who gotta chew it.
Wrathgate heralded the departure of the Forsaken from Wrath’s story, save Sylvanas’ lil jaunt into ICC. Otherwise they were replaced wholesale by the Ebon Blade.
It also didn’t feel good to lose Varimathras. Even Putress, who didn’t exist till Wrath came around, sucked to lose cause he looked and sounded awesome.
In hindsight, a lot of Wrath’s faction stuff were precursors to the myriad of issues the Faction Conflict would bring once it got the center spotlight.
Like how Broken Front was the Horde in the wrong, doing something incredibly antagonistic and senseless, and being immediately shamed for it.
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I’m starting to come around on throwing Wrath into the mix of “faction war stuff”.
For me it all felt throw-away after the Wrathgate and Undercity stuff. Like cool, Varian’s a massive raging jerk, and now that’s done. I don’t think I paid much attention to the Broken Front, so aside from that Dragonblight quest chain and a couple raid things (which because I wasn’t raiding anymore by then didn’t really impact me), it felt more like a very distant storyline mostly divorced from Wrath.
But I’m seeing that it was more impactful for others, so maybe I’m just not giving it the right amount of weight.
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I think your point that Wrath is pretty arguably the apex of neutral was a good one to bring up. Overall I share your position, but Kohnila is thoughtful and I think their perspective has a lot of validity to it, even though we agree about almost nothing as far as big picture direction. Volume of faction content matters, but impact isn’t just volume.
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It sounds like to me Kohnila is looking at things from a gameplay experience perspective. Legion, Shadowlands and Dragonflight have people starting and going through the same zones in basically the same way regardless of what faction you are. Stormheim has a different perspective but it’s basically still the same experience with the same endpoint before you move on to another zone that doesn’t have a difference in perspective or experience. TBC has Draenei and Blood Elf starter zones at the very least. Her definition for “neutral expansion” seems to be something that doesn’t have faction specific towns and faction specific zones.
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You… might want to reread my post and my criteria for establishing that list and then surely you will understand why I put TBC in it before pedantically jumping to conclusions lol. I told you very clearly I defined non-neutral expansions as the “two experiences in one” expansions (in terms of cast, quests, towns, storytelling perspective), and you went “Anduin and Sylvanas are major focuses in SL” which 1) is strictly irrelevant to the point I’m trying to make and 2) falls flat anyway since Sylvanas wasn’t even Horde anymore at that point of the story lmao.
Feels like you’re the one being disingenuous here so I’ll gladly be done with that conversation too tbh
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This is why discussing BfA and SL can be extremely difficult at times. Those two expansions so thoroughly divided the fan base that I don’t think that rift can truly be healed
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It’s almost like they got stabbed by a mourn blade…
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That’s true, I always try my best not to be too faction-brained and unfair, but the enjoyment I’m getting out of this setting happens to be very one-sided and the recent expansions have been extremely short on the type of content that I actually like. Adding to this is the fact that I don’t find what (little) we know of the World Soul saga to be frankly reassuring in that area. So I’m worried and also growing a bit frustrated over all that stuff
The BFA-SL arc has been damageful to an extent we may not fully measure yet lol
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If anything Wrath was the start of the factions wars actually heating up. Heck, we had Wintergrasp, an entire zone dedicated to pvp. We also has 2 pvp battle grounds added and probably the first “pvp style” raid encounter in the faction Champions.
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As I see it, there are several draws when it comes to faction conflict. They haven’t been handled well in past faction wars (so I’m perfectly happy if the story doesn’t touch that plot again), but I also get that hopeful feeling each time its discussed, imagining what could be.
These are the inherent beats I think most faction conflict supporters look forward to:
- Seeing more of your own faction: no/fewer shared bases, fewer shared quest NPCs - the seperate paths makes Blizz develop more Alliance and Horde buildings/characters/societies than would likely otherwise be included.
- Similarly, seeing your own faction’s troops out in the overworld: most PvE stories have a generic group like the Argent Crusade or Armies of Legionfall - so if you want to see Blood Knights storming the field, if you want to see orcish worg cavalry crashing into their enemies, if you want to see Sentinels on the prowl or steam tanks on the move… it’s only in faction vs. faction content.
- Recalling old and establishing new motivations against the other faction: the factions have many grudges, and plenty of players want to act on those grudges. Aside from just ‘grr PvP’, this is also a chance for a faction to progress an established faction story, and to show off its own unique motivations - whereas these plots often get ignored or forgotten in PvE-focused plots.
- Faction conflicts (ideally) leave room for two correct views on the conflict, as compared to PvE conflicts - there are more complex choices/discussions: There’s more for the players to pick apart and debate over the justification or lack thereof for the Taurajo attack than, say, the invasion of Argus or assault on the Lich King. It can be more fun to consider the in-universe limited knowledge of a character and why that made them make a specific decision - and that’s rarely discussed, and to much less depth, when it comes to PvE enemy factions. Unfortunately, so far player choice is limited to ‘play the story, don’t play at all, or go play the other faction instead’, so there’s no in-game choices to be made, but it does give the player some more questions to think about.
These aren’t traits that have to be unique to faction conflict stories, but unfortunately, they often are. BC and WotLK are good examples of unique faction paths for a PvE story, but the more recent trend with Legion, SL, and DF are to have a single neutral experience with only the occasional dash of faction. And despite the Jailer’s or Primalists’ ominous and frustratingly vague comments, PvE enemies like the Primalists in DF have no broadcast motivations for the player to consider or debate.
Personally, I like the idea of simmering faction conflict to keep their motivations and experiences separate, but without open war so there’s no impediment to the players all teaming up with each other if they want. I’d want the above elements to be more present in PvE stories - have fewer “Argent Crusades” and more “Blood Knights and Knights of the Silver Hand working side-by-side, some happily and some with friction” or “Priestesses of the Moon and Sunwalkers tag-team an enemy” for extra thematic contrast; less “Dalaran teleports to the new front” and more “Draenei arcanists and blood elf Magisters collaborate on a research project”; less “Armies of Legionfall wearing a single tabard” and more “Gorgonna leading wolf riders in a charge while Kelsey Steelspark and Gnomergan Covert Ops provides covering fire”. Show us these faction units we remember in new content, without them being there solely to murder each other.
Sylvanas shouting “For the Horde” as Forsaken archers rain arrows was iconic - and there’s no reason she couldn’t have done that against a PvE threat as well. We need more of those moments - those times to celebrate your own faction, not “Azeroth” in general. If we don’t have that, then of course people will want faction war stories because that’s the only apparent choice if we want to see these characters and units again.
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Thank you for phrasing this so much better than I ever could. My number one reason (if not my only reason) for remaining a faction conflict/faction rivalry advocate even after the BFA disaster is that it is historically the only context in which the writers are likely to expand on the parts of the setting that I actually care about and wrap up plotlines that I actually feel invested into.
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It’s well-put, and these are what I enjoy as well.
However, I remain staunchly dismal at the idea that WoW’s writers work better with these constraints than without them, because we have now expended every story thread that gave them material to work with when they had to use the Horde. Past experience shows us that when they get backed into a corner, they flail for the thinnest of excuses to present something that looks like faction parity, often derailing characterization and sense in the process. And again, the reality is that doubling up on content is hard and there are too many incentives to not want to do it for the writing team.
It is significantly easier if we can just go “this is the expansion-themed A-story, and here is an unrelated B-plot that focuses on one player group that everyone can deal with because tensions aren’t high and everyone can participate.” We’re seeing them do that now.
The danger of my preferred approach, of course, is that neither the writing team’s inclinations nor the setting they’ve been left with has any inclination to feature the Horde, but that’s a problem that needs to be addressed, shouted from the rooftops, independently rather than foisted onto a semi-related variable in the hopes that this time they won’t mess up. We still have most of the same story leadership that committed most of the same problems – their worst actors are gone, but with a lot more narrative debt.
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