Because they decided this is the story they wanted to tell.
This isn’t an inevitability like you make it sound. Like they could write the Horde in a better more empathetic way afterwards if they choose to. Why does the Horde being written correctly in the future all hinge on Sylvanas remaining Warchief to you? I don’t get it. Quite frankly it just sounds like you are upset at the way she has been written and doubly upset by the fact it increases the likelihood of her being axed off, which is understandable.
I’m not even referencing my attachment to Sylvanas, I’m spelling out for you Blizzard’s incompetence with writing the Horde. My attachment to the character of Sylvanas is irrelevant, I argued the same manner in defending Garrosh way back then; quite simply, I fundamentally disagree with the narrative trend Blizzard puts out in killing off our characters, especially since their deaths/absence don’t lead anywhere.
Ever since WC3, where Metzen went full-ham and restructured the Horde, the Horde itself has always existed with a dark character archetype. In WC3 it was Grom Hellscream, arguably the only characters whose death was done justice. In WoW up to MoP it was Garrosh Hellscream. Now here we are at BfA, we have Sylvanas. By narrative pattern over the course of a decade+ of this MMORPG’s existence, Blizzard has never shown the competency or desire to write a honor-based Horde. Name one expansion where an Honor-based Horde carried the narrative in faction war setting.
Why can’t we simply, y’know, have a faction war where we actually buy into the #factionpride and just simply fight the other faction while feeling good about it?
That’s fine and I may even dare to say I agree but that doesn’t change how we are currently in the middle of this narrative or whatever again whether we like it or not, and I’d rather them just carry it out to completion because trying to rescue it or abandon it right smack in the middle would be jarring I think. Afterwards I hope they go in another direction. I’ll still play the game though probably cause I am a mindless consumer.
If you won’t bother with attempting to work towards a solution amongst the playerbase, then don’t reply to me. People voicing their complaints, as consumers, have a right to do so, doubly so if they’ve the argument to back it up. You going all over to counter their opinions and in the end put your hands up to go “lol I don’t care” does a disservice to the discourse of this community.
You disagreed with me, I responded, and all your argument has amounted to is “lol I don’t care”, resulting in a waste of not only my time, but I assume the people reading as well, both current and potential. I would say that your time is wasted, but if all you have is “lol I don’t care” then I’ll have to assume you intentionally want to waste my time, so congratulations I suppose.
If you want to dilute forum discourse with irrelevant hot takes admist people attempting to have genuine discussion, I’m afraid I’ll have to justify the report feature for you.
That wasn’t all I had to say in this conversation with you. I said it twice in reference to two different things. I said I didn’t really care about your quote but I should have explained the reason I didn’t care was because to me it came off as kind of condescending in a “You just don’t get how stories are suppose to work, you are obviously ignorant, here look at this” type of way and I didn’t get the relevancy of it to what I had said. Secondly I said ultimately at the end of the day I will still probably play the game regardless of what they do because I am a “mindless consumer”, I was cornily attempting to be self deprecating in this instance but you can chalk that up to “lol i don’t care” if you want.
If that is what you need to do, go ahead and do it. If I have broken the code of conduct the moderators are within their right to suspend or ban me from this forum and I will accept it, as I did for the entire month of march.
If you immediately attribute people using quotes/citations from others as a convoluted means to dismiss you out of ignorance, then don’t bother to reply as 9 times out 10 that’s not the intention. Citations are used to back up people’s arguments, that’s how arguments work.
I feel a lot of your posts come with an air of condescension, for instance insinuating that I am not familiar with citation or “how arguments work”, so in that instance it felt that way to me.
It is ruined by the story/narrative emanating from her. As Feasel said in a Taliesin interview - BFA’s throughline is about Sylvanas and what she does with her newfound power.
Technically, they could have kept the story as is, but with Vol’jin as Warchief, including making Nathanos romantically-attached and ever loyal to Vol’jin - but they would not.
The story right now “fits” Sylvanas and is written primarily around her. It doesn’t fit Vol’jin/Saurfang/Thrall etc.
And the story/narrative is “emanating from her” because Blizzard decided to put her there in the first place when there was no damn reason to. It wasn’t natural character growth, it wasn’t a natural conflict, it’s a damn contrivance.
Replace Sylvanas with Garrosh and you literally highlight the issue with the Horde, its Blizzard themselves. They can’t write or a disinterested in writing a Honor-based Horde so they shove their preexisting dark characters to the guillotine with added bonus of throwing some staple “honorable” characters in as well.
I think they can write honorable Horde. I mean, they trotted out Vol’jin in MoP and his whole rebellion fit that bill. And this expansion, even though they are making them look like drooling morons they have banded together Thrall/Saurfang/Baine to parade honor up and down the field.
What they won’t do is portray the Horde being honorable as opposed to Alliance malevolence or villainy. The Horde can only stand up in the face of darkness when that darkness is wearing the same symbol as them. Alliance atrocity is excused, forgotten, forgiven or developed into growth - and rarely if ever (I can’t think of an example but let me know if I’ve missed one) is that forced by a Horde hand.
I don’t mean this pettily, I just think it’s a pattern that undermines the notion of what the Horde can reasonably accomplish as a narrative when their biggest antagonists refuse to antagonize and they are a fundamentally warlike people. Great news if you’re a blue team player, at least until Blizzard throws their hands up and has the Horde trash your things to force the issue.
Yeah people may lose their minds over something like Theramore or Teldrassil.
But.
The issue has always been Ok. Horde hurt us. What are we going to do about it?
Nothing? Ok then!
yeah the fact that this is an mmorpg where there players invested on both sides make this a lot more difficult to write imo as opposed to it just being a novel or film.
when your character, your in game avatar, has to go along with what the side they are on is being written for then its just inevitable to be more touchy because the losses and everything else
when your character, your in game avatar, has to go along with what the side they are on is being written for then its just inevitable to be more touchy because the losses and everything else
I still think they should just go the EverQuest route and give players an in-game mechanic for hopping between faction allegiances.
I realize this would mess with a lot of the game systems Blizzard has in place for PvP, questing, and faction aesthetics, but I’m skeptical those are especially worth the constraints they impose. It forces everyone on a story freight train, it divides the playing population in half, and it creates innumerable problems with balance and the economy.
You don’t like the writing? Guess what, neither do we. Don’t make us linked to genocides and atrocities and then both sides can be happy.
Being blunt, I have seen it done better. Hell Rift handled the two sides of its faction conflict better before they somewhat shelved it in later expansions. Blizzard took this challenge on when they decided to have a two faction narrative.
I don’t put much stock in the “MMOs are a difficult medium for storytelling” because I have seen some amazing storytelling in an MMO. The irony of past breaks I have had with WoW due to either long content droughts or substandard content is that I have had a chance to see what else is out there. WoW is big on flash but on actual narrative construction and depth, they aren’t even close being the leaders of the pack.
I think this is compounded by the fact that when it isn’t acting as either an antagonist for the Alliance or fighting against it’s own villainy, the horde tends to get shelved and mostly ignored except for a handful of cameos. We haven’t had a horde character or even horde related/themed involved in a central plot against a big bad since Thrall. Legion as a great example of this where Horde players will see far more of the Alliance leadership and former Alliance heroes than they will of the Horde. Hell the best they could shoehorn into the rogue order hall was Garona, who had no affiliation with the current horde, and Lillian Voss, who was supposed to be extremely anti necromancy and again, had not affiliation with the horde.
This means that literally the only time the Horde seems to do anything is when it is either imploding or doing something dubious.
i understand that there are greater threats but, if this was the case like we all knew
WHY THE HELL WE ARE HAVING A FACTION WAR IN THE FIRST PLACE?
neither side can’t win, we can’t even have our respective revenges due to the natural plot armor for both factions and characters.
i don’t think that i ever seen the story in such terrible state.
anyway, i hope that i never hear from faction war ever again.
kill the tumor.
![:thinking:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/thinking.png?v=6" ":thinking:")