Yeah, clearly headed to the usual “did nothing wrong” rationalizations for the Alliance along with the over-the-top condemnationss of the Horde. I don’t know what the author intended, but this is nothing but bait for the usual stuff that has been beaten to death.
Don’t feed the trolls.
We don’t like Baine because to this date he is the ONLY race leader who punished his own people for daring to not die in the Taurajo attack. Can’t get any lowe then that on the faction pride scale.
Lordaeron was drowning in undeath literally. Were the Horde supposed to stay and die for a nation that imprisoned them and cut them off from Draenor when the Dark Portal exploded? Get real.
We see Umbric and Alleria snap in the N’Zoth scenario where the OGs win. It doens’t take long for them to become eldritch monsters themselves.
The better story play would be to add more internal problems and conflict (and no just ‘hurr durr all the money gone??’ like they did in Westfall then never touched again). This existed pre-Cata to a larger extent, with each race having issues at home due to the bulk of the military being away in cold war stuff. This makes it so that the races aren’t a monolith, while also allowing for less than moral actions.
The Horde does the same. Alliance players have to fight their way through a bunch of demons and such to kill the Horde guy who’s in charge. So, moot point.
The Alliance of Lorderon had two choices after the 2nd War. Kill the Orcs or imprison them until a long term solution could be found. The Orcs, had murdered hundreds of thousands of humans, dwarves, gnomes, high elves, draenei (on Draenor before coming to Azeroth). To top it all off, they enslaved Alexstrasza and made her command her children to fight for the Horde. The Orcs tortured her. But, sure concentration camps are so much worse. Right?
The Horde and Sunreavers used Dalaran as a staging ground to violate Darnassus and steal the Divine Bell. Dalaran was until that point a nuetral city. The Sunreavers violated that trust. Also, it was the Sunreavers who developed the Arcane Bomb that destroyed Theramore and murdered Ronin, the head of the Kirin Tor.
The Goblins are the Exxon Valdez of WoW. Every environment they touch turns to crap and is polluted beyond measure. I find it hard to pity the goblins, as they prove themselves time and again to be a detriment to Azeroth.
Did the Alliance even enslave said Pandaren? Thought they agreed but didn’t get as many snack breaks as they wanted.
I guess the Horde as a quest similar to the Alliance quest to free the Pandaren. It seems the SHA was responsible.
Loborers who are not able to leave, makes them the definition of “forced labor”. If your head canon says they treated them nice makes no difference.
Only those who prove via their actions that they seek atonement.
I would love a return of the more grey Alliance of vanilla, the one where the humans of Stormwind were cracking down on a labor union, where the Dwarves were embroiled in rivalry with each other, where night elves under Fandral Staghelm were violating the natural order by hyper-accelerating the growth of world trees. Where factions like Kul Tiras and Gilnaes turned on the Alliance for real or percieved slights.
All the problems of the Alliance have been smoothed out, all the flaws and potential for storytelling gone. Everyone is friends and everyone believes in Anduin. I don’t like it, it’s so dull.
Still, I also don’t want Alliance characters being beaten over the head with the same kind of idiot and villian bats the Horde gets beaten with. Both factions have it bad, but for different reasons.
This wasn’t really as grey as a lot of people say it is. Dragons were controlling all parties involved and the Defias became less about being paid what they were owed and more about just ransacking and taking over Stormwind at the behest of Onyxia.
Dragons were not really ‘controlling’ anyone. Lady Prestor showed up and said “hey, maybe you guys shouldn’t pay people for the work they did” and all the Stormwind nobles were in full support of it. No mind control needed, just the greed of a bunch of rich nobles.
That fact is something that subsequent stories could have pried open, but they really did not.
Varian offered to pay the Defias out of the royal coffers. Van Cleef refused and said that they wanted interest. It wasn’t about the money anymore. It was about revenge. Because Onyxia was controlling them, and the nobles.
Onyxia did use a gem that compelled people to follow their worst instincts. Also known as controlling.
The fact that the story was later changed to being about evil dragon mind control. instead of the real human elements of greed and corruption is the exact kind of dull storytelling the Alliance is saddled with that I’m talking about.
I don’t know what the point would be after BfA. That was our moment for a greyer, more aggressive Alliance, but a cocktail of cowardice and incompetence and actual malice in the writing room saw the MoP plot recycled instead. Penning a few war crimes into the Alliance’s naughty book and raid bossing its authors isn’t going to make me feel any better about the mess they’ve made of the Horde.
Being able to leave makes them enslaved? Kind of the opposite, lol.
It wasn’t changed really, we already knew that something wasn’t right with the situation. The other examples you had were better in that regard.
probably meant to type ‘unable’ instead of able
I admit that I’m torn on this issue. On the one hand I think it might be fun to play through a story where the Alliance goes full Deus Vult on the Horde. On the other I’m not sure it would be good for the story as a whole and based on past expansion attempts at faction conflicts I’m not eager to be lectured at (again) that war is actually bad. I’m also not confident that an MMORPG is the best gaming format to have a war story between two player factions unless that is a selling point for players going into the game.
A better option, as others have said, would be to have sub-factions of the Horde and Alliance in open conflict while the Horde and Alliance in general retain a cold war status. Such a situation could absolutely have moments where the Alliance can be evil or at the very least more pragmatic in its tactics. It would also give both factions the chance to build up, or create, different characters. With at least some of those Alliance characters being morally dubious or outright evil against the Horde.
For example: A Stromgarde cavalry commander has been launching raids against Horde forces throughout the Arathi Highlands and the Hillsbrad Foothills. These raids leave no survivors and have the commanders stated goal be to wipe out the threat of the Horde in those territories.
These were virtually all former first and second war combatants. In the orc ending of warcraft 2 they literally wholesale exterminate every single human they can get their hands on, and in one of the books Orgrim doomhammer describes the torturing and slaughter of stormwind civilians as “Good”. Can you guys please stop bringing up the concentration camps as something evil the Alliance has done, you’ve just embarrassing yourselves.
It’s the other way around, the vanilla version was mind control and the nobles wouldn’t have done it without her mind controlling them, the stormwind human heritage armor quest retconned it that while the necklace thing onyxia had could influence you, you basically already had to want to do it.
It’s not about good writing, it’s about letting Horde players feel good about themselves, that’s all that matters.
Dear God please no.