You know what? I think that’s what faction conflict should be. Because making it real war is not working.
5 Likes
Just a random opinion.
IMO the problem is that even the devs seem not to know what is the goal of it. There is barely any justification for factions beyonds “there were factions from the very beginning” but they are not shown to be different enough to explain what is the logic behind this specific division of races, or why they can’t cooperate or work together.
And same with the faction conflict. There is no point in it because there is nothing to fight for. The story is about finding common in each other (as stated in the preface to Chronicles) and needing each other to fight yet another big bad enemy. Which makes it all… odd.
Another similar idea is to have “morally grey” stories… in a narrative where you have clearly one correct approach, which is “forgive and be together” which makes every other option depicted as wrong to different degrees.
I am not sure how it all even supposed to work to be honest.
And actually, it didn’t, because they couldn’t keep the last faction conflict for the duration of a single expansion, and filled it with hopping back and forth, make IMO make turning the idea of “war” or whatever it should be, into a mandatory grind. Start war on a signal from the devs. Forgive everyone when there is a signal from the devs.
gl hf
5 Likes
Faction conflict with loss and gain can be fun if it’s done right; but for a mmo, that loss/gain mechanic SHOULD be temporary, not irreversible changes.
Imagine that Horde still gets to burn Teldrassil, and Undercity still gets nuked. But both faction players can complete a questline where they help rebuild their faction city. And it can be updated as you do so!
With a temporary loss/gain mechanic like that you can still have: an engaging replayable story, justifications for faction war/pvp, avoid deeply upsetting players by making them permanently lose something precious - because NO ONE plays a game to experience the latter.
The Suramar questline is already an example that WoW can write this. We worked hard to free and liberate that city. But all that work feels kinda empty, because Suramar had no personal meaning for either faction. But what if that was Orgrimmar or Stormwind - that really changes things.
And yes, temporary loss/gain means the story is perpetually circular. That’s the whole point though, because it’s still a faction war mmo. WoW will always create a reason why the two factions should exist and why they wage war…
2 Likes
I agree with the first part, but I disagree with the “temporary” part. Changes in the world can make it more believable and even engaging. Locations could even getting rebuild, or changed in different ways. But it has to be done right. I am curious to see how Ashes of Creation will handle their world design in this regard (perhaps it won’t be what I mean, but it sounds interesting).
But is it a “faction war mmo” if the story tells that forgiving everything is right, and grudges are wrong? For example “Do they want to get revenge on the Horde, or do they want to build a better world?” seems like unambiguos story elements stating that anything other than pacifism is awful.
gl hf
But not at the cost of being one sided, The alliance won a lot of territories lore-wise(Arathi Kingdome) and other were passed to be exclusive to them(Hyjal) without mention the losing side was painted as the evil side.
You can do wars with branches from the main factions like a KT expedition force trying to take Troll land and you kick them out while Jaina white-wash her hands in her involvement and so can do an extremist group of Forsaken that just want to kill Worgen but aren’t related to their main goverment, that kind of conflict can be done without making everyone salty
Post-MOP seemed like the perfect time for a faction war slowdown.
Taran Zhu and others were practically screaming that Garrosh was the end result of both sides consistently escalating tensions and nobody being willing to give up old grudges.
As much as I hated what they did with Garrosh, it made sense.
…then Blizzard decided 1 expansion was too long for Vol’jin to be leader and started the sack of crap that was the Legion->BFA faction war story.
I agree. If you are going to tackle a War Story that includes stakes, loss, and gain. Even winners and losers. Within this 2 Faction game, then you need to have some give and take between the two factions. This is harder of course because just how much less the Horde started with, and you need to make sure those that “lose” the most are properly given something to root for. But it is not impossible if you are able to tuneout audience expectations to some degree.
There are zones that should probably go to the Horde on Kali. There are zones where our presence can be lost. The same goes for EK. The goal being to balance it enough to where people feel like they’ve gained enough to offset what they’ve lost. Even if its not in terms of “territory”, it can just be good stories. But again, “possession” and feeling like something is being taken from you often overshadows everything else within the WoW community. Even if the writing staff were nuanced and talanted enough to pull things off.
1 Like
Well, maybe it could be considered a back and forth in some territories? Originally even Hillsbrad Foothills was not a horde exclusive territory. So, the horde got some territories for some time, then the alliance might get some territories way deeper among the horde ones. And move here and there, “trade blows”, sometimes in conflict, sometime diplomatically, sometimes as a trade-off.
IMO some people always salty regardless of what you do. And if you do nothing - somebody is still salty.
I wonder if part of the problem could be in a lack of commitment to a specific theme and actually execution in the game. Like is this a game about factions, or is it not about factions.
Honest question, are there examples of this in the faction conflict stories of WoW?
gl hf
Not really. Since the Faction Conflict has honestly been at its best as a C Rank story thread behind the main ones, if Blizz would want to pull something worthwhile and consequential off … they’d have to actually commit to a Faction Conflict Expansion. The whole expansion. Because the nuance needed to pull off something so explosively contentious would need that time. You also have to be willing to have both sides be “grey”.
It would also require an almost AntiCata style expansion with a LOT of Old World renovations. Which they’d never do.
2 Likes
Then let “peace” happen and let the Horde and Alliance take a page from the Maldraxxie and “settle it in the pits”.
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Well screw them if they feel like that.
Demanding the horde lose more of their roster when the only big names they’ve lost for like a decade was what, Varian and Taylor?
Meanwhile the horde list of dead or villain batted lore characters reads like a list of Cleveland Browns QBs since 2000.
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Clone Wars wasn’t canceled. It’s story had simply run to it’s neccessary conclusion once the linkup with Revenge of the Sith had happened. Quite a few of it’s better characters have already made an appearance in the Mandalorian and at least one of them is going to be a major plot element next season.
Nope, an entire season was in production still (later available as unfinished renders), but Disney pulled the plug probably because they didn’t want to share with Cartoon Network, who still held broadcasting rights.
If the story genuinely was “finished”, then they’d have no reason to bring the series back for a “final season”.
3 Likes
Quite frankly, it’s better this way. Seven seasons was a long time to run with this given that the story HAD to end with Revenge of the Sith, and the Final Season was a good wrap up and coda to the Clone Wars.
Yes it was. They had two more seasons sketched out at the time Disney bought Lucasfilm. Some of those stories went into the 7th season that Disney finally produced, but there are still multiple arcs that were in development that have never seen the light of day. Plus, season 6 was cut short, and season 7 was short too; both of them put together are about the length of one of the earlier seasons.
The feel good moments are always there in WoW but they are always small little ‘yaaays…’ compared to all the bleakness they toss in right before and right after.
BFA had Uldir for instance where the Horde stops an old god a litle ‘yaaay…’ moment right after you torched the bulk of the NE’s than get your troll buddies invaded in Dazar’Alor.
Common trend in WoW, people keep looking for these “WOOHOO!!!” moments… they don’t exist in this game. Draenor be free yo.
3 Likes
https://i.imgur.com/tJekrhM.jpg
Jesus wept. I was certain they would fix this after beta. Yet here the Horde sit on the floor, quietly excused from this Alliance-Only expansion.
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Don’t you know that horde are simply not allowed to have feel good moments? None of the Bestial Races are allowed to have a awesome moment to themselves
If your not part of the Purple Elf/Human kingdom, you don’t matter.
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