Hey we also have Keal’thas maybe, potentially… I can see him being assign by the Venthyr to “Educate and Supervise” the few San’layn that would join the Elven Nation, the Forsaken and Ebon Blade… a lot of them were fiercely loyal to him in the past…hmmm well… maybe they would hate him now! lol 
Anyway we so short on Horde leaders I take that too as a win, having Kael in SL even if his just there to be humbled… 
like, the last half of the expansions have all been thematic re-treads of the first half, trying to ‘do it better’ and mostly failing badly-
WoD- semi retread of TBC (mainly the location and themes specific to Draenor/Outland itself)
Legion- semi retread of TBC (mainly focused on the themes specific to the primary enemy of TBC raher than the location) Arguably the best done retread.
BFA- semi retread of MoP (Faction War, going to new land for resources/recruits, starts with Horde destroying Alliance city, Warchief goes too far and alienates own troops, ends with siege on Orgrimmar)
SL- is a truly godlike display of lack of self-awareness, the devs seemed to think they were retreading WotLK, when in fact they were retreading WOD (we follow a renegade Warchief to an alternate reality where we interact with characters long dead)
DF- retread of Cata (dragons and elements, lacking the faction storyline) Second best well-done retread.
The funny thing about that is, they kind of did what a LOT of people were asking for. Deep in the midst of both Cata/MoP and BfA there was lots of calls for the Horde to be changed to a council leadership. Not saying it was good, but honestly, it was what most of the feedback was saying. Personal judgement call if it was good.
This is kind of the biggest issue with the Horde in general. Blizzard is trying to tell to many conflicting stories.
They want the Horde to still appeal to those players who had the WC3 noble people seeking a place in the world and trying to make up for this sins of their parents, aka Thrall’s Horde. But they also want to appeal to those who want to be the bad guys, rampaging through the world, aka WC2 Horde.
They also want to appeal to those who liked the idea of the underdog struggling to survive in a hostile world, like WC3 setup Thrall and Baine’s people. But they also wanted to appeal to those players who wanted the unstoppable juggernaut power fantasy.
So, we got the Horde being the bad guys while we are told, in text and dialog that they are noble and good. We got the Horde rampaging through the world rarely seeing any kind of actual loss (until the defeat themselves - rebels), while we are told they are struggling and on the edge of extinction.
They are trying to be both WC2 and WC3 Horde at the same time, and those are fundamentally conflicting narratives.
Thrall is still alive as well.
I’ve never heard of that myself, but I’m not going to pretend like I speak for anyone other then myself. Me personally, I would have preferred the Warchief position to be kept in some capacity, or if removed; be given a definitive answer if it would ever be returned or be kept removed. The idea of the Warchief position being -just- military like the High King is for the Alliance would be good enough for me.
Agreed. You can’t have one and the other. That’s not to say the Horde HAS to be one bad wind from dying, but the underdog faction attempting to find themselves can not simultaneously be the invincible army mowing down villages left and right. I’m reminded of the Forsaken in WC3; how they got their wins by being -creative.- Instead of using Blight as their I.W.I.N. button, they possessed local ogre and bandit forces to bolster their ranks due to being numerically inferior then their enemies – how Sylvanas wasn’t shy of letting former enemies join her if they proved useful (now granted Varimathras was a bad decision in hindsight) or working with former enemies to eliminate a greater threat (Garithos and Balnazzar). This element of the Forsaken is something I feel has been sorely forgotten about.
Oh, during those expacs there were a ton of calls to dissolve the Warchief position. Whether good or bad it was a really common feedback.
The issue I think boils down to power and legacy.
The Warchief structure Thrall used in reforming the Horde was a fascism. The Warchief had unlimited authority. Which was ultimately okay while Thrall was in charge. He was a flawed person, but overall a well meaning and good person. But Garrosh and Sylvanas were not, and the Horde paid for it. So, looking at it from a story point of view, the Horde keeping a fascist structure really had to go. I can’t see it making any sense for the likes of Baine, Lor’themar, or Rokhan ever accepting anything like a single governing ultimate authority again. Especially considering what their people suffered. The power had to go.
Sticking from that story point of view as well, they were actively removing the ultimate authority. Keeping the title feels problematic. Sure, you could say it is just a military position going forward. But, given the legacy of the title it means anyone carrying that title is going to keep some of that extra weight. And given the costs. IMO, it would feel a bit out of character for them to not want to distance themselves from even the name Warchief. The legacy of the title is so tied to the power it held that it would feel odd for it to stick around.
That is just my take on it from a story point of view. But, I do fully understand the thematic attraction. And the association going back through the Horde’s history does create a feeling it belongs. So, I fully understand the desire to have it back.
Agree. It got lost in the power fantasy of ‘playing as the scourge’ that kind of developed around them starting in Cata.
I’ve said it multiple time before, that the Warchief position should have never went away, and it being reworked into a position someone is elected to in times of war would have been the perfect compromise.
Honestly, yeah. I can yap and yap about how the Horde should have never gotten rid of the Warchief position because it’s so thematic to them, but from in-universe/story perspective only, something had to go in order for the Horde to remain a legitimate faction. The story should have never progressed to that point, but still – it had to go as the ultimate authority position it was.
Fair. I can imagine it would have been a rather common feedback with Garrosh and Sylvanas at the helms.
Yeah, the second Sylvanas got the Val’kyr involved in the Alliance-Horde War it was GG. I think a storyline about Sylvanas using necromancy to continue the existence of the Forsaken could have been good because she is/was correct in that necromancy is the way to go if the Forsaken want to live on in the long term but it shouldn’t have been done simultaneously with a faction conflict.
I boobed up and meant to write “the horde as an entity”. My bad.
If I were to talk about the horde as identity, though, that’s the sort of thing you advertise and market to players as a compelling reason to want to play as them in the game. I don’t think that’s something an in-universe character can decide for a player who has felt their previous immersion has been made a waste of time and discarded.
The problem was that, at this point, any new war chief will be regarded as “villain in waiting”. They had painted themselves into a corner on that. To the point that it became more important than what would otherwise be the best plot.
Though, that said. The is only lack of faith in Blizzard not villain-batting the Horde again. It doesn’t solve the problem that it has been so long since the Horde has seem much positive development.
Except they aren’t. They have told the villain story (over and over). But otherwise ignored the Horde. Them trying to tell a positive story would be a change.
“We never give up. We never forget”. (Yes, I’m aware that Zul’jin was Amani, but still.)
It should have had that ultimate authority removed when Thrall stepped down. It could have remained a significant authority, but not the ultimate one. After Garrosh war the fact the Horde remained a full fascist state was dumb. For it to remain after Sylvanas would have been unacceptably stupid.
Of course you are correct, if they had changed it the story wouldn’t have progressed to that point. If they had removed the ultimate authority they would not have been able to start two faction wars and blame them all on a single person to ‘absolve’ the faction. Personally, I would have preferred that there was no war. But then again, I think a faction war was always a bad idea that wasn’t going to make anyone happy.
Agree. But I think the worst part wasn’t that it was used during a war. I think the worst part is that it was used as a combat mechanic. The whole raising people you just killed and having them immediately turn on their friends gave rise to all kinds of issues with the whole ‘free will’ the Forsaken were supposed to have. The negative feedback leading to Blizzard inventing a convoluted reply of ‘newly raised were enraged and easily directed, it is not mind control, we promise’ response. Which didn’t fit a number of the instances or what the follow up should have been. It was clear they had added that just in for the players with the ‘we want to play the scourge’ kind of mindset.
Don’t disagree. But to be as fair to them as possible, that is kind of what a fascism is, villain in waiting. To save the Warchief position it needed to lose a lot of authority at the absolute latest when Thrall stepped down. After that it was just a mess.
That isn’t entirely true.
Most of the big aspects of the story during the faction wars was the Horde as the villains. That is true. But not all, the noble Horde narrative was sprinkled in, it was just overshadowed by the larger villain events.
And importantly not what many NPCs, quest text, various dialog, etc. were telling us. What we heard over and over was the Horde was good. Especially in MoP the theme was Horde and Alliance are both bad for fighting. There were lots of lectures. Even in the cinematic Taran Zhu called out Horde races as worthy (notably no Alliance). We heard it time and time again. Even in WoD Khadgar was more welcoming of the Horde players into an Alliance base than the Alliance players. A lot of the story telling was saying the Horde was really noble and good.
That is kind of the problem. If you go through the story elements you can see where they were trying to tell BOTH narratives at the same time. It made the whole thing a massive mess.
The funny thing about that is that the intern who came up with that said when he was asked the question, he went to Metzen himself to ask about it, and was told emphatically that Sylvanas would NEVER use mind control, so the intern had to thread a needle about why newly-raised forsaken in Silverpine would act that way without invalidating any questlines.
Little things. Here there. Never of any real consequence to a story driven by Alliance lore. Not enough to “tell a story”.
They had a few NPC talk about both sides while the systematically turned the Horde leader into “Hitler”. (Their characterization, not mine.)
And even that was so long ago, it is kinda a symptom of the problem in itself.
The little plot unrelated snippets don’t even add up, IMO, to even trying to tell story. And, unless they break the monopoly of Alliance lore and characters in the plot, it won’t ever matter.
Poof that too many cooks in the kitchen was Blizzard’s S.O.P. until recently.
They made Illidan a villain, then walked it back.
They made Garrosh a villain, walked it back, then doubled down.
They tried to make Jaina a villain, then walked it back, then doubled down, then walked it back.
They made Sylvanas a villain, walked it back, then doubled down, then walked it back, then tripled down, then walked it back.
I’m sure there are fandoms more abused than us by their writers, but I still think we’re up there on the list.
Kind of makes one laugh when you realize that some of the best quests we ever had in game were from lone devs or a small group on their own creating some really awesome quests that stuck with us to this day because they love the lore that much.
I don’t blame the quest/lore devs. I honestly believe those guys genuinely do love WoW, seeing as they created some pretty memorable questlines, it’s upper management who keeps hamstringing their teams and forcing them to add unnecessary stuff instead of just letting these guys have fun and letting them do their jobs
Personally, I think it was a miss. Though, considering it was likely an impossible task, I wouldn’t really apply blame there.
The faction war conflicts were not driven by Alliance lore. Quite the opposite. They were driven by the Horde story they were trying to tell. It was most apparent in Cata, but also present in MoP and BfA. That is why there was just straight more Horde content. All three expacs had the Horde story developed and implemented first. The Alliance story was fit around what they were doing with the Horde.
You might not like the Horde story. And that is fair, there were a LOT of problems with it. But it WAS a Horde driven story.
Well, sure. But that is because they were trying to fit two narratives into the space (time and content) of one.
That is a factually untrue statement. Objectively Horde has driven the plot more than the Alliance. There has been more time spent developing Horde stories. And more content released for them. Even in BfA there was objectively more Horde content, including a serious of high quality cinematics. Shadowlands and Dragonflight were almost entirely separate from either faction. What little was spent on faction stories was spread among both.
The Alliance does NOT have an monopoly on lore.
I posted a comment on how there has been so little development outside of the villain story. But on a different character so I’ll give you a pass on that.
But regarding…
" That is a factually untrue statement. Objectively Horde has driven the plot more than the Alliance."
Dude, this is interpretation. You opinions are not objective fact.
Fact: There was more content for the Horde.
Fact: The Horde story was developed and implemented first.
Cata was obvious. If you missed that you weren’t paying attention. So much more Alliance content cut because of time. So many stories the Alliance had no impact on.
MoP was less obvious but it was still there. Horde quests were implemented first. Horde content was finished on the beta before Alliance. There were more Horde scenarios that Alliance. The entire last patch was Horde story that the Alliance ran a robot cat around before they started running errands for Vol’jin.
BfA was again, Horde content done first. On Beta, when the Horde campaign was completed and they were just finishing up a few tweaks the Alliance questing was wasn’t even in, you couldn’t progress beyond landing in Boralus. The Horde zones were release ready while Boralas still had floating buildings and basically no NPCs. Then there was the objective difference in amount of content. Not just in quests, but in fully rendered high quality cinematics. But again, also in the quest chains.
Objectively those stories were Horde driven. We know because:
It is not interpretation. We can objectively say Horde has driven the plot more than the Alliance.
Again, you are free to not like the Horde story they were telling. I fully understand that. But that doesn’t change that it was a Horde story. Stop blaming the Alliance for you getting a story you did not like. The Alliance is not the reason.
It is like how you have some writers and / or directors that are great at self contained stories but once they try to do an expanding universe, the cracks begin to show and boy they show fast.
I actually feel Danuser was an example of this. He started off as a quest writer and the Dark Mirror short story is one of my favourites but once he got put in charge of WoW’s entire narrative… things went south fast.
My personal theory here is not that they’re consciously trying to appeal to both groups of fans, but that there are two different sets of writers who are each trying to pull the Horde toward their preferred view. Metzen mentioned long ago in an interview that he came into some conflict with other devs who wanted their orcs to be “evil gankers, not wishy-washy poetry readers.” I think that faction is still there, even if there’s been turnover in the exact people making it up.