Writing direction for the expansion is believed to have changed considerably from when the trailer was made. However given the expense involved in making it they weren’t going to chuck it. They simply went ahead with what they were going to do and left it for the fans to work out any contradictions that may have resulted.
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Do you think they didn’t feel confident in the story they were providing in a way?
When new people come into a creative work, they generally get the urge to make changes for the sake of putting their stamp on things.
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I wonder if they thought at some point during the production of the original BfA trailer if they had a real Gray vs Gray faction war in mind for the expansion. Those are the vibes I got from it. Honest Horde vs Alliance.
It’s a pity someone down the line made the decision to make it an old god expansion instead and decided to villain bat Sylvanas into being enemy for both factions.
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I’m pretty sure that was never the intention. Unlike the single player game RTS, an MMorg where such a Red Vs. Blue war that was allowed to go it’s true course would mean that one group of players would wind up being in a “losing” faction.
So it was inevitable that the faction war would be given the trolley treatment by making a single villain or set of villains scapegoats for both factions.
Oddly enough, this happened anyway.
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Nobody won in BfA. That’s pretty much agreed on by everyone. Both sides came out of this expansion much worse looking than before
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Right, and given that the Horde already had to endure a civil war and has been through, yet another, change in leadership, do you think the factions are on equal terms from a meta standpoint?
Depends on what you consider “Equal” terms
And the alliance had to turn the other cheek, again, to horde atrocities thanks to a scapegoat.
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Giving them the in-universe and meta moral high-ground.
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And the horde gets away with genocide.
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Which puts them in a better position than the Alliance?
Only 1 faction ended the expansion as being in the wrong. It wasnt the Alliance.
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I don’t know about inevitable. I mean, inevitably there will eventually be a common enemy that the factions will team up against, but that could have happened after the faction war had already died down. If the faction war had been mostly about securing and stockpiling Azerite, it could have come to a stalemate when both sides had “mutually assured destruction” capabilities and each realized that continuing to openly attack the other would never lead to a win. They could then have agreed to a cessation of hostilities and gone back to cold war, proxy wars, and occasional skirmishes that would now have high stakes because they’d risk turning the war hot again.
Honestly, I expected an outcome something like that based on the trailer and the early information about Azerite (etc.). If each side had gotten in some good wins along the way, it could even have been satisfying to play through.
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Six of one, half dozen of the other. The Horde might have unity issues but when the dust settled, they had the larger army left and that was just counting Orgrimmar.
The horde ultimately got villian batted again, another genocide/war crimes ignored and the alliance is made out to be a bunch of incompetent tools. Are they equal from a meta point of view? Mainly yes, because both sides got the short end of the stick…AGAIN
This is why the faction war needs to end, one side keeps getting away with war crimes and the alliance isn’t allowed to utterly wipe the horde out once for all because of the two faction system. Blizzard should really just focus on things like Shadowlands, start exploring the worlds that did remain unscathed/untouched by the Legions crusade.
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While Alliance might be declared the “official winners” of the 4th war it’s pretty clear that they didn’t win much from it. Sure they got Stromgarde back which is good for humans but with the loss of Teldrassil and nothing really to show for it, OP’s not really wrong to be upset.
Horde meanwhile lost Lordaeron, Tirisfal Glades, and currently have a very precarious position in the Eastern Kingdoms. Certain parties have a very hungry eye on Quel’thalas as well (though I doubt anything will ever come of it).
The only ones who really “benefited” from the 4th War is Zandalar who had all their initial problems starting with G’Huun taken care of by Horde and all of Kul’Tiras simarly had their issues with traitors, pirates, and Azshara minions defeated by Alliance.
I guess that’s worth the price paid of Rastakhan and both their fleets, right?
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The only problem is that I could see shadowlands being a vehicle to show us “how awesome Sylvanas is”, with her defeating the rest of the cast, and after the Jailer is defeated she is redeemed by revealing her secret plan going into 10.0 to end the war between light and dark or something. Meanwhile Anduin is pure or something.
So no faction war, instead it’s writer’s pets vs everyone else.
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Oh my god. The image of this is hilarious. XD
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I mean, I shouldn’t be surprised because this has been the Blizzard method of doing things since the game started. We’ve always been there to support Thrall, Jaina, Varian, Vol’jin, Anduin, etc.
If they were to do that with Sylvanas though it would just feel dirty.
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