I’m tired of being a champion, hero, whatever random NPC #9,001 is calling me next xpac and on. It’s boring. I’m sick of it… sick of helping Azeroth. Playing a villain is more fun, especially if you have alts.
The closest examples of this were in BfA, when you could aid Sylvannas, and during WotLK pre-launch scourge invasion. Prior to WoW, in WC3 you also got to play Arthas as he purged Stratholme. Other than that, it’s mostly been an altruistic alignment and positive narrative forced onto the player. The story would be more engaging if we were given more choice and/or variety in the role(s) we the play… even if it’s illusory, having negligible impact on the main narrative.
Read with a Cockney accent: “Some people just want to watch Azeroth burn.”
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There’s always the BFA Horde War Campaign. I haven’t gotten around to doing it yet, personally, but from what I understand, Nathanos had all kinds of choice words for the player character and “Champion” wasn’t one of them. LOL.
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Skyrim. Save game, kill every possible NPC in town, reload save, repeat. The game does get weird when its devoid of killable NPCs though.
Being the bad guy would be a fun twist. Honestly, I’d just be content with not being the hero/champion/commander/general/Azeroth’s chosen/unicorn. It’s a bad narrative for a MMO with THOUSANDS of other players that are also god-tier level big bad slayers with Hearts of Azeroth and Ashbringers.
I don’t like that a multiplayer game has a narrative that basically suggests you are the only actual person in the world. It’s just… not good, imo.
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Then go RP lol, other wise you are playing the wrong game.
This game isn’t set up like fable on the og xbox back in the day or w.e where you could have a good or bad route.
It’s linear. It wasn’t designed with unique separate routes for good vs evil paths.
You are an adventurer, a champion, you unite , fight, collect loot, and get drunk… I mean move on.
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As someone that likes to rolelplay, yeah this is pretty much the only way to achieve this. The game’s narrative is railroaded down your throat whether you like it or not, so the best you can actually do is go through the motions to clear the content and then quietly ignore it. It shouldn’t have to be that way IMO which is the frustrating part!
But yeah, I do the content as Skullreaver the DK but once I’ve checked off those boxes, my headcanon is that I’m just a murderhobo. Like nature intended.
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Get some people and go raid enemy cities.
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It would be pretty silly if that was the narrative. Of course, it’s not.
The narrative is that you are the “champion/hero/etc.” But you’re not the only person in the world - far from it. Periodically here and there you will see references to members of the Horde and Alliance answering the call or whatnot. The most consistent references to this, as I recall, were in Wrath, but I’ve seen them subsequently.
Interestingly, the narrative of your character being the “warrior/hero” of the story is repeated in WoW’s major competitor, FFXIV. In that game, you are the Warrior of Light (or Darkness, depending on which expansion you’re playing through). They even have an in-universe explanation for how and why you kill raid bosses with 9 other players. And it seems to work just fine in that game.
If you’re really that put out about doing good things, perhaps you should play a round of BG3? I’m pretty sure there’s an entire storyline specifically for evil characters in that game.
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Realistically, no, it’s not. However, that is the vibe of the narrative and the impression it casts. Wotlk’s story was nowhere near the level of “Dragonborning” the player as more recent expansions like Legion or BFA was. In WoD, the PC is literally the commander of the forward offensive on AU Draenor to combat the Iron Horde. At no point is another commander mentioned, but that’s just one example. BFA, you’re Azeroth’s CHOSEN bearer of the Heart. It’s never mentioned that there are multiple Hearts of Azeroth. Then we lazer beamz’d an Old God.
It’s presumable that in Legion there were canonical champions for each Order Hall sure, but there’s only one Ashbringer. There’s only one Doomhammer. As a result of that shoehorned narrative, there now isn’t an Ashbringer or Doomhammer at all because they got the gogo juice sucked out of them when Sargeras stabbed Azeroth. When you are running around in Shadowlands and Thrall or Jaina or someone is your NPC companion for whatever reason, other players’ NPC companions are generic orcs warriors/human mages. They are not named Thrall or Jaina for a specific reason, and that reason is because the narrative suggests that that player is playing a single-player narrative.
I don’t have an issue with alignment, I have an issue with being The Chosen One. XIV handled this much better as Warriors of Light are shown to be in numbers right from the start the first time you meet Hydaelyn. They’re all flying around here and doing Final Fantasy stuff and things.
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Bad to the bone la dee da dee da
Except not including the bones, just everything else up to the bones. The bones are good.
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Consider yourself from the point of view of the troggs, the murlocs and the kobolds. You are a villain of the highest order! A relentless death machine!
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A few years back i had made a suggestion talking about the collapse of factions and the introduction of a reputation system where the you get to make your own choices (or at least follow different questing paths) and the world around you would react appropriately.
So you could be a human thats highly ranked/regarded with the Forsaken while being hated by everyone and everything else
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NGL I wanna side with the void in the upcoming conflict
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My fist thought upon reading your title:
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In BfA the Horde was downright evil. Disgustingly so. Of course, it’s just a game, but I really struggled to have my characters go through all that repulsive stuff.
I mean, the Horde had done some dubious things before, like Southshore, Gilneas, Theramore, Stormheim, the Gathering, Valley of Eternal Blossom, Ashenvale and so on, but BfA took it to a whole new level. If everything in this game wasn’t defined by race, that would have been the moment I transferred all my characters because it just stopped being enjoyable to play Horde for me. So, yeah, at that time, I would have told you to play Horde. 
Now, though, since the Horde has more or less been turned into the red Alliance and every race feels kind of the same… I dunno, either find a role-playing group in WoW or play something else. I don’t think they’ll do something like that again unless they create a third faction.
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This isn’t an uncommon feeling with many, and more to the point which I agree with, being the hero, champion, commander, general etc did the opposite than what was intended for immersion imo.
The ability to roleplay with meaningful choices doesn’t really exist other than choosing between horde and alliance.
Totally get your point and really can’t disagree.
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They could even do it the BGS way. They tend to pick the good endings as canon as elder scrolls or fallout goes +1.
which is fine. you still get to be bad for one hell of a fun reroll. History just records that the good guys won, the bad guys lost.
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Isn’t this what warmode is for?
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We all need to feed our evil side at times. I know I am not the only one who played the old GTA games and wanted to see if I could handle 6 stars worth of cops. (not at first, had to unlock more stuff)
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