“Never give the fans what they want” is definitely a prevalent thought in writer circles. I agree with you and wish it was different.
Baine was simply chosen to be the effective Warchief since the “Horde Council” can only be properly played out in books. He’s our Anduin, and he’s going to Doubt and Pout all over Horde content from here on out. Yeah, I’m tired too.
It’s certainly a unique experience for Horde players. I don’t think Thrall ever tried to kill an Alliance player in the entire History of World of Warcraft, so their animosity with him is entirely in relation to him being the Godfather of the Horde.
I mean, yeah. Alliance fans were spared ever having to take orders from Garrosh or Sylvanas. Instead they were forced to talk to Vol’jin and Thrall and it seems the majority hated every moment of it.
It would appear that Blizzard is intent on pushing a singular narrative on us, but they killed off so much of the Horde cast that we don’t have anyone to contribute who might ruffle feathers. I mean, Dread isn’t wrong. Calia is basically an Alliance Character and I’ve written pages of spiteful hate for her. Most of the Horde cast that could be considered tame enough to be serviceable for the Alliance fans are basically diet Alliance, and that’s who we’ll see going forward.
Hence the primary Horde cast that will be encountered in the next expansion is Lor’Themar and Thalyssra, both of which the Alliance fanbase are lukewarm with save for those players who still feel stung about losing the Nightborne to the Horde.
This doesn’t work. The number of people who value both about equally is too limited. Even many of those who dabble in PVE will just be alienated from the game as a whole. For a large number of people who care about story, this is just a negative for the game.
It was for me when I unsubbed for a year during BfA. My participation in TWW is up in the air. It will depend on what friends are doing since Blizzard has offered my so little. [Has anyone played EVE online? Thoughts?]
One can only hope Blizzard isn’t dumb enough to think that deliberately bad story for the Horde will rebalance faction numbers, rather than just drive players away. That they though they could sell Pandamonium as “something for everyone” is a cause for worry.
Too many times I’ve thought “maybe it isn’t that bad” and it turned out that is was. The well has run dry.
I know it’s nitpicky but I feel like it’s downplaying the Amirdrassil’s content relation a bit by saying “helping dragons protect a world tree that would become a night elf city”.
The damn seed was made of night elves from the beginning. It basically crowded out green dragon focus by having to share the spotlight. Amirdrasil suuuuucks and basically brought down Fyrakk with it because the story wanted to chase a “this tree won’t burn” hollow apology.
[quote=“Madhronir-wyrmrest-accord, post:8, topic:1894425, full:true”]I’m not denying TWW has more alliance related characters at the front, but thats just the start of the expansion, and then we also have a expansion after that set in a horde capital, and if helping dragons protect a world tree that would become a night elf city is alliance content, then doing anything in silvermoon to help their people is horde content.
[/quote]
You alluded to, but dodged, that fact that Amadrasil wasn’t just set in an Alliance zone. It was run by Alliance characters to develop Alliance lore. Having a character that has made rants against the Horde (Alleria) show up in Horde territory, take the story over, and follow her own development is no comparison.
The problem that the Horde gets almost nothing but being the villains. And of course that is necessary for the Alliance story in faction conflict. The story arc of the game is basically “The Alliance and its Frenemies”
It’ll be a shame if after taking away faction fantasy for the bigger portion of the playerbase that they take away race fantasy for one of the most played races. Absolutely bonkers.
We followed night elves around for 4 expansions straight. Now we followe Alleria around for the whole saga. And then she becomes queen because Blizzard agrees having any Horde elves was a mistake.
Oh that’s more ruining Horde fantasy overall. But the brunt of that started with Cata/MoP and became worse with BFA. BFA I think ruined it forever.
I would not doubt Midnight being all about Alleria, Turalyon and their son. But I’m gonna wait to see what it actually is. It just hasn’t happened yet for me to include it in things Blizz already ruined.
It’s a shame because they have something unique with flavor and RP quality that sets the game apart from other MMOs and they seem very determined to chip away at the foundation of that.
Also there’s something Cemeron touched on that I think is worth bringing up again, even if he doesn’t believe the point is valid.
Logically, yes, it’s true that blood elves are horde and thus, centering an expansion on Silvermoon is undeniably going to look like a possible “horde turn” if TWW does indeed stay as alliance-centric as it looks.
But I don’t think it’s necessarily wrong for horde fans to question just how meaningful it might be? Blood elves are unique in that among the playable races, there’s been nearly 20 years of Blizzard peppering in a (then unplayable) high elf equivalent that’s also had an equally-long campaign by very vocal players that they should be playable on the alliance as well, or to make belves neutral, antagonized by a story tease of belves defecting to the alliance in MoP (even if it fell through in the story), and then later adding void elves in a “cooler variant” that was later walked back to appease people. The leader of whom hints at wanting Silvermoon to rejoin the alliance through her gossip clickies.
All this for a race that’s intentionally visually clashing with most of the horde in the first place, yet was popular enough on its own to have a significant player population. There’s no true alliance equivalent to this.
So I think it’s reasonable to wonder how “hordey” Midnight will feel when we’re talking about a faction subdivision that only seems tenuously connected to begin with.
SWTOR story comes with its own issues, like one choice infamously letting the player character decide who the (STILL CURRENT) Emperor is and causing (STILL CURRENT) turmoil in the RP community. At this point Broadsword should bite the bullet and have both the current Emperor’s die and put someone else in charge.
Imagine if we could have picked who’d take over during Anduin’s absence or the next Warchief after Sylvanas left.
It makes even more weird given that the Highmountain Tauren, mainly the skyhorn clan and the Ohn’ahran Centaur revere the same Wild God. That being Ohn’ahra. Like that should’ve been a factor in Tauren Centaur relations but all we get is a cameo by Lasan Skyhorn in relation to that.
I’m one of those people that love the faction war stuff but that’s sorta felt like the only thing the Horde ever had going for it, especially revisiting Pandaria with the remix. I’m sure there’s examples of us doing stuff that isn’t meant to just be a foil for the Alliance but like it seems whenever there’s an important neutral character, it’s an Alliance character that gives Horde players orders (specifically the Bronzebeards), or the Draenei during Legion, or the night elves and worgen during Dragonflight (shoe-horning in the Scarlet Crusade and therefor the Forsaken during that was dumb and lazy). I love dwarfs and draenei but it felt really awkward on my Horde characters doing their bidding.
WoD was at best a mixed bag but at least it felt like there was a reason Horde characters were there besides just following the Alliance around. The answer it seems for Blizzard is to homogenize both factions to the point of any division being superfluous at best (we’re getting dwarfs for some reason and whatever’s going on in Silvermoon in 3-4 years during Midnight apparently). I could go either way on having factions vs not having them if there’s a good enough reason but it seems like we’re tip-toeing closer and closer to the faction being the Alliance with barely any synthesis.
