I recall these parts from Blizzard’s interview, I think from Danuser, regarding the Alliance and the Horde’s future evolution in relation to this expansion.
Concerning the Horde’s future:
“While we’ve had conflicts like the Siege of Orgrimmar, none of those really resolved what the Horde is. Battle for Azeroth is absolutely an opportunity to look at both sides [honorable and evil] that have made up the Horde storylines throughout the years and pull them together. And maybe give a chance for the Horde to look inward and maybe become something new, something stronger than it ever was before.
“We look at this as an opportunity, and the thing is, to get there, we have to look at those scars that have come along the way. That’s the only way we can grow and move beyond, is taking an honest look at the things you’ve done, and nobody is exemplifying that path to the Horde more than what Sylvanas and Saurfang and those other heroes are doing. They are embodying the other aspects of what the Horde was. So to get to the future of the Horde, we have to face the Horde’s past, and face it in a very real and tangible way.”
Concerning the Alliance’s future:
“The Alliance has its share of disparity within it as well, and different facets that have bubbled up over the years…The Alliance is going to have to realign itself. Especially the Night Elves who lose their home. How are they going to react to this? There’s going to be a real self-examination of what the Alliance is about, and how they want to behave. Do they want to get revenge on the Horde, or do they want to build a better world? That’s a question they need to answer.”
The problem is when that catharsis comes at the expense of Horde Players for whom Teldrasil was the event the ruined their lore and turned them into villains in their own story.
You’re right. No matter how this ends, a large number of people will feel betrayed by blizzard, because they’ve set up a situation in which there must be players on a losing side this time. There is no satisfaction for anyone, narratively speaking, in this expansion so far and it’s likely to get worse.
From a certain Alliance-only in universe perspective these can be read as the same thing.
Think about it:
Orcs come through the dark portal, and kill everyone. Allies fight back, put a stop to it, take mercy. Orcs break out and run away and become a LITTLE less aggressive…except that one part where they went right back to drinking demon blood and killing everyone.
The scourge wasn’t their fault, but then they allied up with undead anyway. When it came time to end the scourge, their own allies tried to kill everyone(Wrath Gate). Instead of breaking their alliance, they keep it.
Then cataclysm comes along and they start dropping actual WMDs. Plague baths on Gilneas, a nuke on that druid sanctuary, a bigger nuke on Theramore. This is all set to a background of the Allies trying to keep the world from being literally ripped apart.
Then MOP comes and the horde…tries to kill everyone, including each other this time. We bail them out, straight up letting the survivors go and re-arm. Then time-shifted orcs warp in and try to kill everyone.
We deal with that, play nice long enough to actually end the burning legion. Great, except for the giant sword sticking out of the world, which is now bleeding. Alliance view: not again. Lets’s go fix this. Horde view: better burn the world tree!
At some point, you’d think people would just start assuming the horde is an existential threat to all of Azeroth, and any good they do will soon be followed by another nuke.
Forum Mod Edit: This post has been edited by a moderator due to masked language as it is in violation of the Code of Conduct.
Well, no one in their right mind would let the Horde rebuild after MoP 2. So of course Anduin will do. But I’m sure he’ll make another empty promise, just like Varian did.
I know that feeling all too well. I felt fairly pushed out of the game, not only with the story, but also with the evolved AP system, class design, and overall the whole expac. I’ve ran WoW and FFXIV subs since ARR, but I’ve always come back to WoW for group content and left the story enjoyment to FFXIV when it started to craft a much more enjoyable world and narrative. Now not even raiding or M+ has any draw for me, because the story is just so horrendous for me.
When you’re absolutely tired, you need to take a break from it. While I wouldn’t rule out resubscribing to WoW for myself, it’s going to be a long shot with the way the game is. I can’t even stand being in the game for more than a few minutes.
This one statement incorporates a lot of attitudes that makes up Alliance thinking.
First you have the idea that not committing total genocide on the race is “mercy”. The premise here is that Orcs didn’t deserve even the basic right to life demanded by humans. The problem from the Orc perspective, is the question of how much that has changed.
Second, is the idea that “they” went back to drinking blood. This was only done by some who never joined the new Horde. The ugly fact is that much of the Alliance’s action are justified on a premise that they can kill and member of a race for things they were never involved in.
He is hailed as a hero by the current Horde as are several other notorious war criminals.
No. Our thinking is that we have every right to destroy a political entity that has knowingly and willingly launched unprovoked and unwarranted attacks on the Alliance and her allies on no less than four occassions and often with the deliberate and clear intention of killing and/or enslaving unarmed civilians.
Please interpret my statement as they were explicitly stated, which is an in-universe point of view. As in, not knowing anything about the horde but what greets their eyes and ears.
Every race in the alliance, at different points in time, and space, all over multiple worlds, had a first contact with the orcs that involved absolute savagery. The draenai were being slaughtered even before the orcs drank the blood (Original WC 2 manual). It wasn’t until the orcs ran out of areas to conquer that they turned to the demons, who got Guldan talking with Medivh. those two opened the portal, mostly in secret: out comes the demon blooded horde.
Fast forward through the first 2 wars in which an entire kingdom was destroyed, and they go out to Ashevale, drink more demon blood, and while hepped up on that go after cenarius himself.
After those first contacts? Garrosh. Plague. Sylvanas.
As for mercy? I’m going to go with yes, keeping prisoners instead of putting the entire horde of what appears to be slavering monsters to the sword would be called mercy. Even more so after MoP, where we literally just…let them go.
He was hailed, in spite of the blood. The bottom line is this does nothing to refute that Thralls Horde never embraced drinking blood and, thus, this statement makes “they [the Horde] went right back to drinking the Horde” no less untrue.
And “destroy a political enemy” seems to mean the killing of people simply because of their race. And doing this to the point of extinction of the race is clearly acceptable.