Yes, but that will never happen. The Alliance is all about the moral high ground, the day the Alliance gets villain bat is the day you will see an uproar. Just remember when Blizzard first hint about how the Light isn’t 100% good. People were very upset.
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Funny how years of destroying alliance property and people will make a player feel that way.
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Here’s the thing though. After everything the Horde has done to the Alliance from Cata onward, there is literally nothing that the Alliance could do to the Horde that wouldn’t feel 100% justified at this point.
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Yes. belatedly hides tabard
EDIT: Wups, looks like someone beat me to it. By two days.
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Maybe if Sylvanas is going to get a redemption story-arch, perhaps in her last moment, she will possibly do something, with her vast power over death, to repay the night elves somehow (I mean, in a positive way), thereby settling the hostilities.
Not so likely, but still. The limits of resurrection, the nature of the Shadowlands, they are both still very unclear in the lore.
I guess that depends. do we get revenge for garithos, the famine cause in cata because of the alliance the internment camps, the purge of dalaran the cowardly attack by greymane in stormheim? no? then I guess not.
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Garithos - old Alliance, same name, completely different political group or did you want to discuss the genocide of the draenai and the sacking of stormwind? old Horde new Horde same thing right?
The famine caused by living in a desert?
If you’d like revenge for the internment camps, you can get it easily, just go have a chat with a member of the forsaken considering it was them that run them.
The purge and Genn’s attack, yeah fair enough
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It wasn’t a desert initially, some admiral came by and laid waste to every tree in the area.
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Undercity was handled on Sylvanas’s terms. She flies away (new powers!) literally having the last laugh. The Forsaken took up residence in Darkshore, processing the last few Night Elves still there.
Zuldazar is not a beloved, long time residential Horde city. Neither is gone forever as a pile of smoking ruins like Theramore and Teldrassil.
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I’ll be honest, I had forgotten about that
Zero chance there is ever sufficient payback, and I’ll put this out there too: People who think the night elves are getting a new capital are going to be waiting for nothing.
Hope I’m wrong, but I have a feeling I’m not. I shelved my night elf after playing them since Vanilla. I’m done with how Blizzard handles them. Teldrassil was just a bridge too far.
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it doesn’t work like that man the ending has to be satisfying for both factions and the alliance taking over the world is an absolutely terrible ending
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banshee form has never been a new power just because it’s the first time you’ve seen it doesn’t make it new in the slightest
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I have always been a fan of keeping the war in warcraft. When WoD made me leave the franchise, the thought of alliance potentially starting a war, that cities would burn and that maybe we’d see some real back and forth warfare lit a spark in me I hadn’t felt since war 2.
However, I also love a good story and want to see things move forward organically, something I also haven’t seen in what feels like ages. (Boy was I disappointed to find out it was horde that started it again.)
For all our in game archeologists,historians, and supposed diplomats, wow is unbelievably choosy of what does or doesn’t mater to everyone within it. The internment camps get brought up all the time as well as how nasty the guards were but no one ever cares to say why that is. The fact that a demon army of green muscle men that came from beyond the stars to ravage and obliterate every living thing without mercy or remorse was allowed to live is mind-boggling. It’s only because of future games that this was a thing and that the Horde was retroactively made to be sympathetic so as to keep the franchise going. I dunno about the rest of you but we sure didn’t give the eredar or any other -demon- the chance to recover. (I’m not sure I count light forged)
The point is the Horde get to be mad about the internment camps but the alliance isn’t allowed to be mad about nearly bring wiped out in the first 2 wars. It’s a weird thing that has hung over the game since war 3 and will never go away. Thrall had a tough time and I’d never want to punish a child for their parent’s crime but saurofang is proof that the Horde wasn’t just kids. Some of them were those monsters and while we’ve had saurofang’s thoughts on it, I don’t think he regrets any of it. In truth, I think the only thing he regrets is being tricked and used.
I had a lot more to say but I feel like I’m rambling so I’ll pause a bit. My issue is it feels like the Horde will always be the angry punch first faction because they’re so focused on being victims that it lets them justify the world owes them and anyone that doesn’t like them is a hater and a bully that needs to be put In their place. The Horde will never acknowledge the legacy they carry or know how to move on because they were wronged and how dare people not get over their issues already.
On the flip side, the alliance has always tried to stand for justice and unity against evil and are so lawful good overdrive that they never ever do anything bad ever. They’re so squeaky clean that moral dilemmas are a no brainer and worst of all, are always justified because it always works out! Don’t use that Sha weapon, it’s nasty and we can win clean by throwing wave after wave of our own men at the problem! Don’t worry, npcs are infinite so it’s not actually a problem. The alliance never punches first even though the whole point of the Horde is how they hold a grudge from the time humans were mean to them. The alliance never fights dirty because at this point I think even Anduin has a direct link to the meta and knows he can win by just being even more nice. The world will bend to justify how good he is!
So what does this leave the players? It leaves the Horde feeling like a bunch of bratty teenagers screaming “you don’t understand me” while kicking everyone’s favorite 3 legged dog. Meanwhile the alliance just got their 3 legged dog bloodied by some narcissistic edge lord and instead of payback, is told by their mom to invite them over to play because they probably just need a friend. Also dog gets kicked again.
I do want a war, but I’d like the two factions to move on and evolve. Let the Horde finally know some peace and come to terms with the fact calling themselves the Horde and idolizing some pretty nasty -heroes- was a bad call. Let the alliance finally crumble for a bit as that apparent racism and hatred boils over until both factions are worn and bruised.
Sometimes the way to heal is to beat the crap out of each other until common ground and respect can be had.
After that then throw a wrench into it as some third party messes it up and we need to adventure again.
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Horde players losing a capital city wasn’t good enough. Horde players still exist.
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Taking a look at the original post, we probably need to ask ourselves three questions about the Alliance story before we even start talking about how badly people would like to screw the Horde.
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Is it even a problem if this goes in the big book of grudges? World of Warcraft is a faction conflict driven game, so adding another event to drive that conflict isn’t inherently a bad thing.
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What would payback even look like for the Night Elves? Take the hypothetical example of a massacre in Quel’thalas. I know alot of Alliance players have been barking up that tree for awhile, but is it honestly payback for the Night Elves, to have a completely different group of elves killed on a far away continent that they don’t care about?
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Is the Night Elf story improved by them receiving payback, or are they in a position to have a better story if they continue to seek payback? Before you get your panties in a bunch on this one, prior to the burning of Teldrassil, the Night Elves didn’t get much in the way of a story. A few night elf NPC’s received some spotlight, but as a people the Night Elves have been largely unchanged by the story.
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Alliance already got their payback. Undercity n Rastakhan.
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I’m probably the biggest slowpoke of all time, but just the other night it hit me that the War of the Thorns and Burning of Teldrassil were exactly the fridge trope. A race that has a matriarchal bent is obliterated, and the aftermath focuses on how two male characters (Saurfang and Anduin) feel about it.
It’s amazing how a cheap story can find new and interesting ways to irritate me.
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Ah, but they must exist for the game to exist. Horde players just need to come to terms that their role is to play their part in making things just like the Alliance players want them to be.
Srsly, before BfA I was asking some of the “Evil Horde” posters what they actually expected. And it was basically the Horde being the continual villains. I pointed out that this would pose a problem in keeping Horde players around for the game. The response was that they were sure they would like playing the evil side.
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I play another 2 faction MMO where one side is absolutely portrayed as the villains, in fact I’ve been playing it alot lately given that I’ve been playing this 2 faction MMO alot less. They are portrayed as the villain so much, that they even represent the final threat in 2.5 out of 4 storylines from the evil faction. For the good faction, they pull a solid 4 out of 4 for being the final threat.
That is to say that out of the 8 possible class specific storylines available to you, 6 of them will undoubtedly put you up against a significant leader of the villain faction, 1 will give you the choice of going up against a leader of the villain faction or stopping at the leader of the hero faction, and the final storyline involves a neutral third party since the character, a member of the villain faction, is given the option of defecting halfway through and carrying on as a ‘double agent’ for the hero faction.
It works in that game because they never try to make the player character feel bad for having picked the evil faction, they let the evil faction have fun, and when you play in the evil faction, the story is about you, not about the evil faction.
Blizzards got a ways to go before they can honestly expect players to embrace playing the bad guy.
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