So … you’ve just sort of given up on making your absurd arguments, and have just resorted to personal jabs now? At least they’re liable to be more coherent now I suppose.
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https://media1.tenor.com/images/075d9efa29acb3c99e39e37bbdd8337c/tenor.gif
Havent you guys figured out yet that erevien and cowmonmilk or whatever are about as related as the NEFPB
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I’m not sure that I agree with this.
Picture something like this: The Fourth War actually kicks off because the Alliance and Horde decide to settle border disputes. The Battle for Lordaeron is more straightforward with the Horde stopping the Alliance war machine before it can steam on to Quel’Thalas but losing the Undercity in the process. They then retaliate in patch 8.1 with the War of Thorns, but they’re stopped at Darkshore while gaining Ashenvale. Teldrassil would still probably be burned here for parity’s sake, but an accidental spark from a battle - an unexpected azerite reaction was theorized early on - would probably be more compelling and less one-sided of a story.
Dazar’Alor happens as normal but Jaina is severely wounded, perhaps losing an arm so that the Horde actually leaves a mark on her, and she is then out of comission for the entire war. Pissed-off night elves hit the Southern Barrens, finally pushing the tauren where it hurts, and knock at the gates of Mulgore. Night Elves take and reinforce the Southern Barrens, expanding the Overgrowth. The Kul Tirans retake Theramore.
The Horde actually launches its final, desperate attack on Stormwind, during which both sides beat each other bloody. Saurfang and Turalyon, older generational heroes, are taken out, and characters like Zekhan and Taelia, the newer generation, gain prominence.
The Alliance ultimately defends Stormwind but the Horde successfully cripples their navy. Neither side can continue fighting. Both have lost and gained both people and land. Warfronts that have been raging since before classic WoW are settled or moved. Characters have to deal with a new status quo. Neither faction has been hit by a villain bat.
Those are just off-the-cuff possibilities, but I feel that would be a faction war storyline wherein neither side totally wins that would have been compelling to let play out. It would push Anduin and the Alliance into a more aggressive role without villainbatting them and let the Horde have a faction storyline that isn’t about shaming them. It could work, IMO.
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Let me rephrase myself… Instead of villain, how about antagonist instead?
/raises hand
My stance, tyvm. The way I see it their development in WoW has been so atrociously damaging for the character´s viability that to continue to waste resources in trying to “correct” this is but a fail cause and a dream (we both know the current dev team will NEVER devote resoruces to fix both Thrall´s and Baine´s narrative problems related to their impact on the Horde story cause it´s moar important to make them act like the glorified cheerleaders of Blanduin and Karen Proodmore… heck, let´s just look at intro questing for SL: LITERALLY THIS I MENTIONED IS WHAT HAPPENED!!! The only purpose Thrall and Baine accomplished in that intro quest chain was to prove to the players of both factions how much better / more powerful / more influential are both Jaina and Anduin. /vomits
But continue pretending the current dev and lore team will give actual constructive and decent development geared to erase the gross mistakes done with the characterization of both individuals, Droité… meanwhile I have this bridge I´d love to sell you on Mars. 
If you’re taking this stance I have no idea how you could possibly be playing Horde anymore. What you are referring to isn’t a Thrall or Baine issue, its a Horde issue in general.
They’re both just the most obvious symptoms of how Blizz has chosen to write the Faction as a whole. It may not pay to be an optimist, but at least it allows me to still find some enjoyment in this mess. I’ve never found being a pessimist to be particularly productive, no matter how right it turns out to be in the end. Like … how I ended up essentially waiting since Legion ironically for Sylvie to do something akin to what she did. I had no idea what form it would take, but the moment I saw Stormheim I was convinced when combined with the way Jin died she was going to pull her trademark “Use others as tools for personal objectives, then bail” move. Its that cynicism that forced me to quite for 3 months during that expac…
So … instead I’ll focus on smaller issues that may or may not happen. I got what I wanted for Bilgewater leadership. With Travis Willingham and the most legacied Horde Gob in the drivers seat now, but Wix still alive and kicking to do what he does best. If that poor intern they shackled with BfA Gob writing can stumble across writing the PC race respectfully … maybe that can expand?
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Implying I only play for the lore… newflash, I don´t. Gameplay and sharing social time with friends stationed far away from my city of dwelling is actually much more relevant for me (and commodity stuff like War Mode, alt leveling, etc. make playing the game acceptable).
Also, Alliance lore bores me to tears and I´m disgusted by the combo of Human Potential + narrative favorotism to Chistie Golden´s pet characters that literally POLLUTES the Alliance narrative, so nope, won´t touch that container of worms not even with a 10000 ft pole tyvm.
Also: not “pesimism” dear, just realism. I only have to see at the evidence made of years of biased and bad storytelling to make up my own conclussions -I´m a woman of science, it would look bad to ignore the brutosaur in the room just to give yet another worthless chance to this team of hack writers-.
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Rescuing Derek in a vacuum isn’t a bad thing.
Sylvanas was doing a loathsome thing, and was taking a crap on the values of free will the Forsaken hold dear.
It’s that he only sticks his neck out for Anduin or the Proudmoores. He’ll sell out his own people to not hurt Jaina’s feelings, but will risk everything to save her brother.
And it’s not like it ever gets reciprocated. Anduin has never bucked the alliance to help his friend. Jaina has talked a good game about transcending the faction war, but as a leader has been just as vicious and militant as any. I guess he got a mace and some help when Magatha pulled her stunt?
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These two are Extremely related.
There’s nothing inherently bad about Alliance lore. But it has to be sterilized and whitewashed so that none of her precious little stand-ins get tainted by association.
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You and me both. I’d rather play a broken plot-device faction with a chance at occasionally fun stories, then whatever safespace the Alliance has become. There are also those among them that are very much not my cup of tea in terms of enjoyed fantasy. Far more than others.
/subtly glances at what the NEs are on paper if they didn’t keep getting picked on by the writers.
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Well, Alliance is ubber generic fantasy setting since Vanilla with the nuanced elements ignored even then /looks at the Stonespire issue
I just can´t deal with an hypocritical narrative full of either a) forcibly whitewashed moralistic -and sometimes hypocritical- parrots or b) one dimensional white knights with plot armor made of literary Tungsten.
Well, Horde is awesome as long as no Alliance interaction whatsoever happens -no seriously, that´s how we get our usual funny stories-; reason why in my headcanon utopia both factions “divorce on bad terms” narratively speaking and I get 100% absent Alliance content/character interaction.
Heck, let´s compare the two “funny” races from both factions, and Goblins are miles better -for me- than gnomes can hope to be with their kiddie humor.
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It is the dream for both factions to have nothing to do with one another for a while. Maybe a few isolated border disputes peppered here and there, but nothing serious. I just want to ignore that the Alliance even exists for a good period of time.
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If only… 
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My number one story (as the rabid Gob fan I am), is for Trade Prince Gazlowe to bring the remaining Kalimdor Steamwheedle into the Cartel with some fun corporate takeover stories. Then we can finally make that long awaited Grimrail Depot from Bilgewater Harbor to Gadgetzan. With a full fledged Trussell bridge over Thousand Needles.
… also maybe a little subtle mountain scale demolition to fix a certain “mistake” in Stonetalon, severing connection to the North our wayward cousins created.
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Oh, I fully get your point of view. I find the Alliance you get when you actually look critically on what they actually do to be far more interesting than the one Golden and co want to present.
Some people want the alliance to be some disneyfied vaguely European “good guy” faction, and I guess that works for them. But it sounds boring af to me.
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Omg, where do I sign to play such storyline?
Also put the Gob squad in charge of the err… “mistakenly broken” North path connection (we need moar pool ponys here!!).
It´s freaking self defeating and gets very old instantly fast… if you´re already “perfect” then indeed you have NO narrative to tell, ergo No narrative path, ergo… you´re a reactionary tool standing there waiting for something to happen.
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Wow, that sounds like the complaint a ton of blueside posters seem to have a lot of the time about their storylines for some reason???
I’d kill for a grimrail style train network in Kalimidor. It’s a shame that the old world will probably go forever untouched.
Hell, I’d even be generous and even let alliance players ride it if they’re able to catch a ride like a hobo.
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Yup, but then again, some of them seem waay more scared of the consequences of losing the Tungsten plot armor / whitewashed moral “high ground” than of getting actual narrative development geared to explore their potential lore.
Worse of all, sometimes I think the devs believe the Alliance playerbase “can´t take” / “aren´t mentaly prepared” to take a villain batting -that mind you, WOULD develop their narrative just like WC3 actually did. Cause if we go back and check WC1/WC2, the Alliance wasn´t terribly developed, they were generic good guys that win the day as expected and end exactly where they started.
WC3 omg, the drama, the plots, the everything!! Why did Arthas became such an “icon”? Because he represented figuratively and metaphorically all those " traditional fantasy goddie two shoes" and was subverted into an unapologetic mega a-hole.
This is worthy the usual cost of a raid tier, me thinks.
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I mean, a lot of the more… biased… blueside posters seem to think they can have their cake and eat it too.
They want to be cracking children’s skulls and feasting on their blood while still parading around their moral superiority that they weren’t the ones who did Teldrassil.
They’re wrong of course, but when are they not.
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Please God no just leave us alone. Blizz has “helped” us enough focus on the alliance they deserve cough I mean need some attention.
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