As the Horde you’re not supposed to care about the story too much. You just accept the narrative as tongue in cheek, a necessary formality for the vehicle.
It is the Alliance for whom the story has always been written. And that’s perfectly fine. The princes and princesses, fairies and sprites, magic and knights are what common people imagine when they think about this genre. It is only natural that Blizzard would choose this as the heart of their franchise because the heart defines the marketing.
A feel good moment for the Horde should be the leaderboards in all their variations.
I reeeeeally hope they don’t kill Thrall anytime soon. We barely have legacy characters left and there’ll hardly be any relevant Horde characters remaining if he’s gone.
He’s a legend because he took part at the Battle for Hyjal and became the World Shaman. The Alliance still have massive figures like Jaina, Malfurion and Turalyon. Let us have one.
I get where you’re coming from but I personally don’t feel it. It’s one thing to be the underdog or downtrodden side, but this is more like “just punishment because your faction deserves it” and I don’t see myself getting excited about any storyline of the horde trying to rebuild itself or push back, when the reason for the crunch is because “well…yeah we’ve been psychos for the past decade of the game”.
I agree, honestly, but it does all depend on what direction they go in. Turalyon being ominous gives me some hope.
If, moving forward, the Alliance becomes actually imperious and goes way too far, taking land the Horde actually needs to thrive and prosper, and if they start to step in and try to strong-arm the faction’s future in concerning ways, then being an underdog will be fun. As long as the Horde remains on the defense and stops throwing themselves at the Alliance at the slightest opportunity.
There’s a really interesting story to tell with the Alliance about what justice means and what you do to have to uphold it. Having the Alliance in the advantageous position is more interesting to the core philosophies of both factions, IMO. …As long as the Horde doesn’t wipe out Alliance populations for no reason, again, or using viscerally horrible tactics like the plague.
I understand this, but the situation is so bad that it’s actively hampering my ability to enjoy this unrelated story. The dangling threads from BFA are looming over everything else.
It wasn’t even a good artifact for them either, as before the WoD retcon it wasn’t even inherently shamanistic. Orgrim wasn’t a shaman. And it’s also kind of awkward for a Draenei to run around wielding a weapon that slaughtered countless of their race.
I always felt the same about the Doomhammer being supposedly emblematic of the shaman class when it is probably more an artifact of Orgrim as a warrior, perhaps also a symbol of his erstwhile station as Warchief which bore some weight for Thrall as he assumed the mantle. I mean I’m thrilled to have the lightning axe and fire hammer appearances when I go enhancement but I digress.
the developers never understood most of the horde players. They wanted to recreate a wc2 experience with that “faction pride” and for years not being able to tell a faction war story from Cata to BFA the only way they could conclude their stories is by making the horde evil.
most of us master the horde from wc3 to lich king. the developers forgot what the concept of the monster faction that were really good was what a lot of people liked!
the developers betrayed the vast majority of their player base into the horde by telling stories that no one wanted by destroying the faction. now what once was the horde is destroyed and I doubt the faction will ever recover. we will never again have a warchief or the spirit of the horde as honorable warriors.
at least now that the horde is destroyed blizz promised that they will not retell a story like the one we were trapped since Cata where civil war, betrayal and the death of beloved characters was all that players of the horde received.
if i were an alliance player i would be scared, blizzard can’t write good stories and repeats itself in concepts that no longer make sense. I wouldn’t be surprised if alleria turned evil or turalyon
How is that possible when most of us hate the remaining horde characters? The only way they could give us a feel-good moment is by letting us continue to side with Sylvanas.
The wc3 horde has never been very popular and rightfully so imo. There is no saving this pathetic faction without deleting bfa and shadowlands from the story.
For entirely real life reasons, it deeply irritates me that they introduced Thrall’s real name and then immediately proceeded to bungle his characterization going forward with that name, while his better appearances after have been as Thrall. Nothing is as singularly emblematic of the fact that the devs cannot move on with plot points for the Horde.
I think Go’el needs to be Go’el, and screw anyone who doesn’t think the same. He’ll beat them down and help save the world on the way.
Unfortunately this is a bad answer from a marketing standpoint, so it won’t happen.
For the horde to be routinely and continually reset to underdog status just means they have to become bloodthirtsty conquerors yet again in another story which will undoubtedly pull whatever justification they had deceptively from under their feet and then told to feel bad.
No thank you. That’s far too far to the other end of his spectrum, and we’ve been there before. Green Jesus is not a good place, even if he would now better fit in with the roster of Demigods common to the setting now. The ideal would be thematically that new statue of his becoming a reality, without the “Warchief” element. A balance between the Warrior and the Shaman. And him actually taking pride in the Orc Chieftain he’s supposed to be. No more Mopey peace of crap who’s been guilted back into the Horde.
Then there is the issue of Baine. He’s always had problems as a character, but he’s become far too much the accessory of Anduin these days. He’s also just been repeatedly shown to be very weak, beyond even the “Warrior” element. With Huln hanging around in Ardenweald, lets hope Baine can at least get some form of character arc to toughen and strengthen him up. If Cairne cannot show up in person, then Huln is the next best option for any prospective Baine growth.
I’m going to have to strongly disagree with this. Not everyone wants to be evil, just like not everyone wants to be good. For some reason people forget that there can be an in between. The in between is highly more relatable than the evil or the good. Showing flaws and traits we can relate to has always been liked by a large amount of fans.
Not a world shaman, a Horde shaman, one both honored for his sacrifice and brought to task for the bad decisions. Baine needs to be the one to tell him his place affirmatively, not combatively, but it’s not his Horde alone anymore.
Thrall in communion with Vol’jin needs to be the one to help piece together the mystery of the Jailer. Not fix, but discover.
Voss needs a firm, unpleasant sitdown with Calia about the Forsaken.
Thrall needs to start wanting to be a part of the Horde, and taking pride in his position within it. No one wants him to become Warchief again, but he needs to at least become the MU Orc Chieftain he was born to be. Also, just make him an Enhancement Shammy. That’s a balance.
Vol’jin’s path actually needs to have tangible results in SLs. And those effects need to be felt beyond just the Nightfey Covenant. Its honestly amazing how gated so much of his story arc has been throughout BfA and SLs. Locked behind mythics, raids, and now a Covie system.
Baine needs distance from Anduin, and needs growth towards Cairne’s balance between Peace and Force. Baine being peace oriented is fine … but he’s always been too far that direction. The guy needs to be evened out internally. He also just needs a damned power up.
Calia … I have no words for how frustrated I am with her being in SLs. She made a choice to be here, and her “getting to know her people” is apparently happening entirely off screen. With her still, not once, being shown actually interacting with a single remaining Forsaken Rep. I can’t help but shake this cruel prospect she’s going to be “leadered” offscreen.
I left out my thoughts on Anduin for fear of contaminating the thread but I have some ideas for how to create distance without a faction war or interpersonal troubles. When I’ve gathered thoughts more i want to make an Alliance thread.
I would say Calia has already been leadered off-screen, unless a patch this expansion feels a need to return to the former UC and Darnassus
Scared of what? our faction is destroyed too, apathy is the order of the day, what am i supposed to fear? further humiliation? character death? that would be a mercy considering the gymnastics they had to do to push shadowlands, it would be better than being butchered.
We have already discussed this topics ad nauseam but to make the story short most lore fans of either faction didnt have a swell time last expansion.
