The Alliance has plenty of heroic things to do. Like defeating the Old Gods and healing the planet. If they can squeeze in the time between being background props in the Horde’s internal drama.
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You seem to t hink we’re all carrying a ton of whine on our shoulders.
I’m not. My characters may have feelings about these events, but for the most part, I’ve been good with this expac. I think the leveling experience for Alliance on Kul Tiras is considerably better than the Horde’s on Zuldazar. It’s got a lot more variety and depth. I think Boralus was given a lot more design effort than the Troll capital and it shows. And Lord Novington throws a mean party.
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Yes, so much. The giant sword, possibility of it impacting C’thun, Azshara, and assisting Kul Tiras was good enough for this expansion. We didn’t need a genocide from the Horde or a faction war.
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if the complain is about # of wins for each side. Then you do realize that he alliance had more wins by the time war ended.
I wouldn’t point to sub numbers as a cause of faction story. Take WOD for example massive sub drop even larger then cata or mop, it clearly didn’t have anything to do with the story.
But ya they could of done it other way. I also hate how the horde has no story in game right now vs fighting the alliance at low levels. It took away from horde lore, because right now in game leveling. The horde is just built for faction war not much lore outside of it.
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Are we talking about wins reflected in the gameplay or wins outsourced to a novel or comicbook? You never see the novel/comicbook when replaying the game on your alts. (Assuming a person ever read those to begin with)
I would point to sub numbers for the faction war in Cata. What else explains the drop there? WoD had the flying issue for an excuse. Cata has no such boneheaded move to explain it away.
I do agree with you on the Horde story. If a player has no investment in Sylvanas or the Zandalari, there there is nothing there.
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That could of been the issue, but I think it was class balance and LFG.
Zandalari were great, as a horde player i been really glad to get some development to a horde race.
That being said they should do something similiar for nighe elfs and mt hyjal. replace the loas with wild gods, to show Night elf culuture and lore.
The whole world map needs to be redone at this point. My hopes are they take Zandlar as an example and explore the unique cultures of other races. Horde should really have the upper hand here, shamanistic Orcs, blademasters, spirit walkers(you know the pale ones from wc3, not what they have) Blood elfs spell breakers, etc…
It had everything to do with faulty servers, lost character customizations and exponentially cut content. Had we been permitted racial buildings and an actual juke box that didn’t play the exact same track other than the list of tracks relevant to that city or Zone, in addition, to Farallon, WoD would have smashed; it tanked.
Even if it was in good faith, cut content seldom leaves a worm feeling in players hearts; at least add the content in a later patch; like the Grim rail track that’s supposed to be running through Gorgrond to Hellfire Peninsula.
Its a world, treat it like a world and not like a painting: update, correct.
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I think alot of people were just burned out when it came to cata, and had some orange overload.
cata was coming off t he heels of 2 massively popular expansions, in a lot of ways I think many just kinda needed a break.
Dunno currently, the horde on a story level has pretty much lost it for me at this point, lost two really big name characters with not much to replace em. Why im so against them just killing characters willy nilly, it takes years (in an mmo) to build up compelling characters again. I feel as if the horde does not have many compelling characters at this point in time, just more so bland and straight forward ones.
ps, its kinda a joke now that the trolls have gone nearly 2 full expansions without a defacto leader.
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More humilated than ever before now
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Yup … the sad truth of the matter is that the foundation of the Horde has just been absolutely gutted over the last 4 expansions. Cairne dead in Cata, with Baine’s own personal development always set aside for the plots needs of him as a plot-device. Garrosh crazy and dead in MoP, with Nazgrim dead right along with him. We then spend an entire expansion retconning Orc history to portray them as insufferable monsters by birth, killing HORDE legends right and left (AU Doomhammer was done so dirty). Vol’jin dead by trashmob in Legion, with his fate still undetermined even now. Now Sylvanas, Saurfang, and Nathanos all denied to our faction in BfA.
We are in serious trouble as a faction in a game franchise that is so heavily HERO driven with stories. We have NO-ONE left. If Thrall and Rexxar don’t join the Orcs full time, the MU Orcs ONLY have Eitrigg and Cromush left to their name (let that sink in folks). The Darkspear STILL have no official leader, with Blizzard still not wanting to pull the trigger on Rokhan after all this time. The Forsaken just lost their two MOST developed characters in one shot, with Voss not nearly developed enough to fill their shoes (but she’s the only REAL option left). Hell, who knows what happened to Gallywix (he was on the loyalist side burning documents … and was NOT at the funeral) … so the Bilgewater might not have a leader (unless Gazlowe finally steps up).
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Yeah, things are lookin’ pretty sparse around around here these days.
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Yea, thats my biggest thing, I think they handleled the ending of bfa war campaign about as gracefully as they could, was a great cinematic, but man is the horde roster looking sparse, and rather non-dynamic characters.
So next expansion is rather gonna be heavily alliance focused (ick legion), or a good chunk of it will need to be devoted to horde development.
Dunno, just kinda feel pretty dejected from the story rn. There are some good, more minor characters on the horde, but meh a lotta them dont really see much screen time (and I doubt they will), and its like what are we gonna do for the last half of bfa even.
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Or a lot of people did what I did, decide to hold off on the X-pac and level some new characters through the revamped old world. Seeing the revamped old world on the Ally side lead me to taking a break and not buying the actual Cata X-pac until it went cheap and MoP was announced.
I don’t think it was a random occurrence that having an advertisement for the current x-pac start to appear on the log in screen (if you hadn’t already gotten it) started then as well.
I mean … yeah. Off the top of my head, of the perspective replacement leaders, Rokham (Darkspear), Eitrigg (MU Orcs), Voss (Forsaken), and Gazlowe (Bilgewater) are all in DIRE need of MASSIVE development should they be put in a position to lead (and they should, they’re sort of the only real options left). There also needs to be a new wave of secondary characters (B and C listers) built up to support them if these historically B list characters are pushed to the forefront.
In the meantime, Thrall should probably become the Warchief again. Rexxar needs to fully commit to the faction in some meaningful way. Baine needs to grow a spine finally. And … Vol’jin needs to become a full-fledged loa and return. On top of the new racial leads getting built up … we need these characters to hold down the fort until they get that needed development. Not to mention our unbelievably underdeveloped AR Racial Reps that need attention…
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and now once again we left empty handed, once again we failed to avenge something.
this is not a great feeling at all… and at least tyrande absence still gives me some hope.
on the other hand is clear that the alliance did basically nothing, the cgi cinematics were horde focused while the alliance were just secondary characters. That doesn’t feel good.
but in the other hand thats the idea of “focus by blizz” then…
i guess that for now is just a “meh” for me. 
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Feels bad having the expansion start with the Horde commiting some atrocity against the Alliance and the following war be centered entirely around the Horde dealing with it itself. With multiple movie-grade cinematics about the internal turmoil of the orchestrator of the atrocity, who dies a hero praised by the Alliance Warchief while the victims get… A patch trailer? And now their leader might be marked for villain batting because Light forbid you hold a grudge.
But I’m sure it also feels bad to have another expansion about half your faction turning out to be genocidal monsters and having to rely on your rivals to get it together. I don’t think Sylvanas should’ve lived past Wrath, tbh, but I also don’t think this garbage storyline degenerating her into this villain is something she deserved. The Horde has lost enough major characters as it stands.
And the way this expansion started - thosr “faction matters” ads, the trailer with Sylvanas yelling “FOR THE HORDE” and Anduin “FOR THE ALLIANCE”, only to arrive at “The Horde is NOTHING” and “YOU ARE THE TRUE HORDE”, has to be the worst prank Blizzard ever pulled.
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And what exactly did the Horde leave with Ethel? I keep seeing Alliance players demanding that they deserve something from this narrative … strange how they ignore that you never see such demands from the Horde players.
We gain nothing from the story we were given, only loss. A leaderless faction. Three rudderless core races. Three more A and B listers removed from our ever dwindling roster. The Alliance needing to come in and help us clean up our messes. We’re portrayed as weak, ineffectual, broken; with our Faction identity and several racial fantasies damaged to extreme degrees. It will take years of hard work, attention, and effort by Blizz to rebuild what we’ve lost … while the Alliance walks away with losing a horde of nameless npcs and a capital no-one visited.
I understand you expect a payoff … but please, stop implying that somehow because the Horde got lip-service in the form of fancy cinematics that we somehow got one. We Red Team don’t ask for Payoff … because we know not to expect one. Its as simple as that…
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I’d rather the Alliance be broken, rendered powerless or dissolved, losing Major NPCs here and there, than to continue existing solely as a plot device for the History of the Horde, tbh.
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You are right, i understand that the horde not really got “something” out of this.
but still the horde destroyed alliance cities and we did not.
Yes i noticed that.
if blizzard idea of “spotlight” is to make your warchiefs betray you then… i think that i am fine with being as a secondary character.
it truly sucks.
i am fine with that as long as we lost those things to external threats and not the other faction.
at least we would expect proper retribution for those losses.
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TBH … I would be fine with all of this I could be assured that Blizzard will put some groundwork in to actually build up replacements for those we lose in future expansions. But their track record with the Horde is just so awful. We only see character development in expansions devoted to the faction conflict, which all but sentences those reps that get development to death. In contrast, Allliance characters get development in NON-Faction Conflict expansions … so the chances of them surviving to continue developing is MUCH Higher.
Its nuts. The Darkspear have been without an official leader for three years. The Forsaken have now lost their two most developed characters in a single patch. Unless Thrall finally decides to come back full time (and that depends on Metzen) the Orcs are left with ONLY Eitrigg and Cromush as their most developed reps. We desperately need time to regrow, but Blizzard time and time again refuses to do so… And in the immensely HERO centric storytelling style of WoW … not having strong representation means you pretty much don’t exist.
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