A Topic that addressed both Factions and these twisted comparisons to IRL ideologies would seem a more fair discussion.
The thread might have Azeroth and Warcraft as context if all the governments were analyzed and scrutinized in relation to these out of context IRL qualifications.
Instead, this thread seems purely a broadside against the Horde and its players. Typical forum garbage.
But all you have to do to get likes in the Story Forum echo chamber is screech:
Last I recall, Blizzard made pains to dismiss the word “evil” in relation to Sylvanas and her leadership of the Horde. Something about … a world of greys.
Fan emotion added with the PoV of characters like Anduin, Jaina, Lorthemar, and Saurfang does not make the entire narrative.
There is a Warchief with the support of her people and she has characters who see merit in her position.
It is a bit early to claim Blizzard’s position while they still have multiple sides arrayed against each other.
There’s a difference between what Blizzard claimed and what they’re showing, though. Between Teldrassil, trying to kill off opposition within the horde, those Darkshore concentration camps that ended up getting pulled from the PTR, and her having certain books burned in BTS, the horde’s not “just” being fascist, but are being written to have obvious Axis Powers analogues.
And I’m familiar with the person who wrote this. This wasn’t meant as a shot at horde players at all, and is in fact appalled that Blizzard roped the playable faction into this. It’s all a critique of what Blizzard is putting into the game.
So… now content that Blizzard chose to not include in live is some sort of suggestion of intent?
I would think it’s removal would show that it was not a direction they chose to go.
By this sort of opinion… if it’s initial inclusion is some form of intent… then the fact that it never made it to live should prove something to the contrary.
There may be a difference in what they are claiming compared to how it is received by some fans.
They are claiming something. And showing something. But the reception is where the difference comes. Blizzard can claim and show - the reception depends on the receiver of the information.
I will admit Blizzard probably over shot and underwhelmed with the story. But that is a far cry from attaching IRL nomenclature to one Faction, out of context and in a vacuum. That seems like tailoring a dress to fit.
They didn’t remove it because they didn’t intend to show something like this. There was a massive fan backlash, and they switched it to something different. They removed the death camp because people didn’t like it, so they replaced it with something to placate them.
Much like they included the Sylvanas loyalist side in the Saurfang quests - they didn’t include it out of an intent to have a choice from the beginning - this is abundantly obvious, as the Sylvanas side has nothing prepared other than abrupt quest endings and “play along” with the Saurfang side. They included it because the fans didn’t like that it wasn’t there, it shows nothing about intent.
One of the most disappointing things for me about BFA is with blizzard yes, but also with the players. Here, in this expansion we’ve had blizzard call Sylvanas morally grey. Then she committed genocide; with little provocation I might add.
Like, do people not see the implications here? Sylvanas committed genocide and blizzard won’t even call her evil.
And where are the players during that? They aren’t outraged. They aren’t quitting in droves due to that. No, instead, half of them seem to agree with her somehow or defend her in some way or instead choose to blame the writers instead of stating that genocide is outright evil. The fact that there seem to be so many different ways both players and blizzard are using to justify Sylvanas’ act of genocide is… I mean, there are kids that play this game too. What sort of message does this send to them? What sort of message does this say about blizzard? about us?
I mean just look at the belf dude you’re quoting in this post, he regularly equates things like Stormheim or the purge of Dalaran (Which itself only came about as a result of the horde trying to acquire a weapon of mass destruction to in turn commit genocide) in which a political group was damaged to the actual genocide of the night elves. Which itself didn’t receive anywhere near the attention it should have.
I mean heck, not only that, look at the quest they did tributing to black panther called ‘Zandalar forever’ they had the race with jamaican or african accents pay homage to a popular and proud moment for african americans via black panther… and then had them join the genociding faction. Gee, I wonder what kind of message this sends.
Like a ton of it is just so irresponsible, at times it feels like a lot of these are the sorts of messages the alt-right would try to put in a game and i’m left wondering about blizzard and whether or not these messages they’re sending really are unintentional, or if they’re meant to slowly make them more acceptable.
We have been over this Dalaran thing over and over again in this forum. I’m not commenting on this.
Again, blame the writers, not the Horde.
You are…saying that it was racist to make a race with african/jamaican/aztek base to join the Horde? Because if it is my friend you need some help.
THERE WE GO I WAS WAITING FOR IT.
Dude, stop it. Get some help. You said genocide 6 times, you are way to emotional right now. You are playing the Human Paladin™ but being full Emotive Liberal™ at the same time. Calm your butt down man.
Everything you said thus far was “Horde is evil!! Sylvanas genocide!!” which is a meme at this point. Come back when you have any arguments.
If this helps your perspective, even if we pair it down to the most simplistic definition it fits.
From Marriam Webster:
Pretty much checks all the boxes.
I think the flaw is actually not steering into the no choice a bit. I think it needed to be a situation similar to what would make a real person feel like they had no choice but to fight. Something like if UC had been a blood bath to the Horde. The Alliance giving no quarter. Soldiers running and being gunned down. If the it was presented as the Alliance roused to seek ‘righteous vengence’ upon the Horde it would make sense for the Horde characters (and players) to feel like it was fight or die, period. Make it feel like if you throw down your weapons you die anyway. A situation where it doesn’t matter that Sylvanas put you in that situation, you are stuck in it until something can dig you out. That feeling that fight or die are the Horde’s only options makes them continuing to fight this war at least understandable.
Instead they opted for trying to portray the Horde as overly powerful. They seem dead set on every event making sure the Horde get just as much punches in. They even stated that was an intent in the way they did UC. With the Horde pushing into multiple cities on Kul’tiras throughout the expac it makes it still feel like the Alliance is the only group really threatened. Even with SoD, the Alliance doesn’t do that much damage to the city and leaves it. And the Horde strikes hard and gets to have their hits in. And it was costly for the Alliance. This creates as situation where the Horde doesn’t really have a good reason to fight. So, them not throwing down their weapons and leaving feels really evil.
Not sure how to do multi-quotes like that, but i’ll start with your third point as it encompasses the first and adds a bit more too it, and you yourself have no desire to debate the second.
See, the thing about this blame the writers thing is… EVERYTHING in the game, books, comics, etc. whatever, is always on the writers. Why, why is it that only now, when the subject turns to genocide of all things do people want to all of a sudden blame the writers? Why is it that only now players are choosing to focus their anger at the writers rather than at the very least, condemning the horde in-game and blaming the writers? Instead you have people blaming the writers and then using that as a way to support Sylvanas in spite of what she’s done. Redirecting rather than attempting to defend the indefensible is a pretty common alt-right tactic, I believe its usually referred to as Whataboutism?
As for the 4th point, I’m not saying it was racist to make the trolls join the horde; the troll are what they are at this point, it’s been nearly 15 years if not longer, can’t do much to change them. The problem is first referencing black panther and then having them join the horde. Remove the reference and its not so problematic.
As for your last point. You can’t act like people’s political leanings or personal views don’t affect the fictional works they create. All fantasy is based on human experience after all.
PC: Hover your mouse over the part you wanna quote with your left button pressed, it will show a box with the word “Quote”. Click on it and it will show up in the writing tab.
Phone: Select the part you wanna quote, the rest is the same.
Because it has been debated many times over and it has become pointless to punch a knife.
Because the writing is downright stupid. Same thing with Garrosh and other characters being throw out of the window. When a character does something that is likely of him to do, players understand and discuss about it. When a character goes from OK to BAT S** CRAZY out of nowhere players will blame the writers because their dumb decision ruined the character and narrative.
I side with her in spite of the writers. They want me to feel bad for doing bad things that I had no option to refuse whatsoever. I ain’t no eating that. They can drown in their own sea of villain bats, I’m not buying it.
This is seen in every political wing party. And you can see some posters in the forum outright defending Sylvanas no matter what. AdVoCaTiNg GeNoCiDe per say.
Dude this doesn’t make sense at all. Zandalar is an amazing place. I’m from latin America and seeing an architecture based on the azteks is awesome. I imagine that players from Colombia must have loved the place with the heavy El Dorado influence.
But ok let us go with your logic. The Zandalari won’t join the Horde because that is socially evil and hate speech. What now? They remain isolated and the Horde gets -1 allied race? All the effort the Horde put to help the Zandalari goes down to the sewer? You are mixing your social justice with lore, don’t do that it will only bring you headaches.
If you are professional and competent enough as a writer, this shouldn’t affect your work at all. You have a contract, an agreement to do something in some specific way. If you want to put an easter egg here and there and pick the right words, that can be done 4sure, but your political view should remain with yourself when you are working with other parties that require impartiality, otherwise you are gonna be the next Golden that writes lore but CLEARLY favours the Alliance and write hordies as warmongering madmen.
In my opinion, the reason why there’s so much anger directed at the writers is because it feels like the writing’s gotten a lot worse, to the point that it’s shattering people’s suspension of disbelief. It’s no longer a question of “why is the horde doing this”, but “why are the writers making the horde do this” because the Teldrassil genocide was such a frustrating narrative decision that a lot of posters don’t want to look at it from an in-universe point of view anymore.
For most of WoW, neither the alliance or the horde, and their players, were supposed to be “bad guys”. It got pretty hard to rationalize why the horde player would support the horde in MoP but once the expansion was over, there’d be hope that things would improve. Instead, the writers made the horde double back and double down, and there’s no way to opt out of supporting it unless you quit the game altogether. I feel that if the story gets to the point where a player feels that’s their only option, then writing this plot was a big mistake to begin with.