I agree. It is a very tiring song and dance, and we did it twice and the second time was even worse. No one got any satisfaction or had any fun, and I wish there wasn’t such a divide between players. We both got screwed by a marketing department who wanted a big moment to sell the expansion and writers who want to appear like respectable serious fantasy creators like Game of Thrones but think that simply entails doing dark things.
I just want warcraft to feel like warcraft again… Not whatever this is.
8 Likes
Similar to how garrosh surrounded himself with yes men, instead of keeping people like Vol’jin within his council of advisors.
It’s this kind of rhetoric that entrenches people, and it really doesn’t help, tbh.
My take is that we need exactly the opposite.
One of the things that doesn’t work in game is setting up consequences for the other side.
First off, this isn’t a single player game. This is an MMO where there is no wrong faction choice. So, it’s unreasonable for one side to commit heinous war crimes because it’s bound to be taken as a direct slight by the other.
If the Scourge or the Legion (third parties) wiped out Theramore, or Teldrassil for that matter, it would be an entirely different scenario; everyone’s anger would be directed towards the Scourge, which is a fiction group of non player characters.
But when a player faction burns down a city? There is, all of a sudden, the need for justice or vengeance or retribution. In an MMO, there has to be balance, right? And the tough thing about balance is the fact that not all players are going to be on board with committing the war crime in the first place, and yet they’ll be subjected to the hatred and frustration of the victims regardless of their enthusiasm for the act.
Blizzard did players dirty with BFA, not the factions, and it is unforgivable… just as unforgivable as them being entirely okay airing a video at Blizzcon saying that Alliance players should “fing die.” Blizzard knew exactly what sort of hornet’s nest they’d be kicking because they’ve DONE IT BEFORE; Theramore was a litmus test, and players still haven’t forgotten, years later.
Teldrassil was just kicking a dead corpse. It wouldn’t have been better if it was a Horde city either; making one faction responsible for such extreme events against the other faction only furthers out of game hostility and toxicity.
How I'd Fix It
I’d put both factions in their separate sand boxes for a while.
Let’s go back to the era of race and faction exclusive stories. In Vanilla, and even BC, quests were unique to a zone, or a race, or a story; it wasn’t HORDE and ALLIANCE, it was a Human story, or an Orc story, or a Kaldorei story, etc. There was the exploration of specific elements, and a closer look at racial/cultural issues, rather than broad, all encompassing conflicts.
Humans dealing with the Syndicate in Arathi & Hillsbrad.
Forsaken & their plague in Tirisfal.
Kaldorei and nature in Darkshore.
Orcs and the settlement of their new nation in Durotar.
Tauren keeping close to the earth mother, and driving out invaders who unsettle the land.
Dwarves and their heritage in Loch Modan.
Humans and their broken monarchy in Elwynn/Westfall/Redridge.
The Scourge in the Plaguelands.
Mysteries of ancient times, and ogres, in Feralas.
Wastelands and ruins of the desert, along with goblins, in Tanaris. Plus trolls.
Blood Elves dealing with the legacy of their fall, and the birth of a new nation.
Etc. etc.
The legacy of the Dark Irons in the Steppes and the Gorge.
The Horde and Alliance, for the most part, didn’t get opposite sides of the same story till Wrath, MoP, parts of Legion, and then all of BFA. Before all that, we had our own independent sand boxes in which we could build our crappy sand castles, and everyone was happy.
In some cases, we even shared quests, but we’re never taking things away from the other faction.
These weren’t Alliance or Horde stories, they were culturally specific beats that explored the depths of various, unique elements of the Warcraft universe.
Come Wrath, the story became homogonized; it was about the grand picture, and all uniqueness went out the window. You’re no longer following a Kaldorei or a Darkspear story, it’s either a HORDE or ALLIANCE story, or facing the big common evil, and all racial identity is expunged.
It’s why things escalated in Legion, and then BFA; no one race has been able to explore their own culture, or problems with other enemies. Instead of exploring the human/forsaken conflict, or the orc/kaldorei conflict, we’re throwing all aspects of the Horde and Alliance at each other, and the individual culture and history of those specific races becomes secondary to the big bullet points for the story.
An Example: Sylvanas and the Forsaken’s reproduction. It would have been great to have more Forsaken than just Sylvanas be pursuing solutions for their plight. Instead of getting that culture rich story development though, we got Sylvanas being transformed into a villain, hunted by the Alliance, and the entire Horde suffering later on because of her individual actions.
This is a story that should have been (coming back to it now) in its own sandbox. Let the Forsaken explore their plight. Give it time to gestate. Maybe the Worgen come in to grapple with them, sure, but give that story time.
With a global war going on there isn’t time to explore that sort of a story, especially when its main character (Sylvanas) is stealing the spotlight to become a villain.
When the story remains focused on these huge, universe spanning conflicts, all of the individual characters and cultures that define Warcraft get lost in the soup. It’s the trees through the forest sort of an issue, and unfortunately, Blizzard prefers painting a very big forest to avoid tending to its trees.
After Legion we should have had self care time.
The Draenei needed closure and to rebuild, reexamine their identity post Legion fall.
The Forsaken needed to address their reproduction.
The Humans needed to examine the reign of their late King, and the crowning of Anduin, and what that means for a Kingdom that has been at War for a generation.
The Orcs needed to sort out their legacy post Garrosh, and come to an understanding of where they want to go, and how they want to live.
The Darkspears needed screen time, at a bare minimum. They had the most to gain.
Goblins.
Kaldorei.
Ren’dorei.
Sin’dorei.
Worgen.
On and on and on.
There are so many races, and so many culture, and so many parts of the story that are in DIRE need of being explored, and all Blizzard wants to do is avoid telling those stories, and avoid resolving previous arcs, because they want to move onto the next big flashy thing.
Their focus is not on story, it’s on delivering gameplay content and expansion exclusive systems that are unbalanced and boring. Story has been in the backseat for nearly a decade now, if not the trunk… but at the very least tied to the rear bumper by a fraying rope.
I have this exact phrase tattooed right above my rump.
We were all fooled. BFA’s cinematic and the marketing campaign was nothing short of deceptive marketing. What we were shown, and what we received, couldn’t have been further away from each other.
Faction pride… my eye.
7 Likes
Tell me about it… I´m in the same boat, just opposite direction: I don´t want to interact ever again with any Alliance character, any time I see one I remember how those can “eat babies” but will never get called over doing it while I see the characters of my faction either getting developed like fattening cattle: with the express purpose to get sacrificed in the “cool” altar or ignored so the n-esim iteration of Alliance / formerly Alliance / Alliance flavored character can suplant them and made me into his/her messenger gal.
Thanks, but no thanks. BfA was delivered in enough BAD faith to continue with this BS. Let the Ally players exorcise their demons with Sylvie & Co, but depending on the extremes of the actions, please separate the factions´s stories for at least 3 expacs, tyvm.
6 Likes
I liked Golden in Before the Storm, I think she’s good at describing inner development of characters. There was a… controversial phrase in that book but I prefer to think of it as a mistake.
That being said, since it seems that she has little power over how actual (Sylvanas) story goes, I’m worried that her good skills will be used to justify Suevanas’ actions.
So I’ll pass. I mean I don’t give a damn Sylvanas novel in the first place lol, just kinda meh that Golden has to do this.
I kinda heard that Blizz is preparing new “definitive” chronicles. But not sure.
You usually make decent posts but this one really hit it out of the park. 
1 Like
Christie likes Sylvanas as a character. She wants to write this novel. She is capable of separating her fondness for a fictional character from her real-world morality and humanism.
It’s a skill that is apparently lost on vast swathes of the Warcraft fanbase. I think I know why this is the case, but it’s still pretty sad.
2 Likes
Ah… okay. Maybe a professional writer should do that.
But, we, readers, don’t need to do that. Actually it’s also professional writer’s job to write a story that people with real-world morality and humanism can embrace.
And there is a line about it. It’s writers job to figure out where the line is.
Right, maybe I can seperate myself from my real world perceptions and try to listen what Blizz want to say,
but that’s when I have faith in them. The faith that they will give me a story that will make me feel good at the end. Emotionally, intellectually, whatever you pick.
That’s what Blizz are doing wrong right now. They already failed to give us intellectually satisfactory well-made consistent story. Especially about Sylvanas. Now the only shot they have is an emotional one.
Tell Blizz stop defending Suevanas and forcing us to listen to her story. They are continuously making us not want to do so.
SuRpRiSe timing is long gone.
1 Like
This really shows how out of touch the writers, or devs are.
Yes Saurfang was a cool character.
He did plan the war against the Night Elves though. Teldrassil wasn’t used as a point to rebel. I could have understood this, mostly because of WC2 children screaming like pigs flashbacks for him. Nope. Derek Jaina’s brother was the reason.
They ruined so much for me to the point where the Old Soldjer cinematic’s are unbelievable bad and off putting to me. It soured my view on Saurfang completely.
I don’t know why. The cinematic itself was great in my view. It did hype me up and I had hopes of a better narrative, bit more down to earth and going back to Azeroth, the people of this world and have a over the top great red vs. blue time.
Like Godzilla v.s Kong it’s super fun.
But can’t have nice things I guess.
3 Likes
The really tough thing is that a lot of people can’t accept that there can be a great writer, but a terrible story regardless.
I’m sure there are quality writers on the WoW team, but the story they’ve been handed, and the plot points they’re working with, were headed towards disaster a long time ago and there’s just no saving it.
A solid point, and it’s an unfortunate result of the way they develop the game: this isn’t a single player game focused on story, and often times the story is made to take a back seat. I’ve talked about this before, but they have a nasty habit of twisting characters and their motives in order to further bizarre plots.
Instead of taking the time to cultivate the story and give it the nuance it deserves, they wing it fast and loose just so they can get the thing rolling.
So much of me wishes this game was just a novel series so it could be slowed down.
hysterical wheezing and laughing
This is something most people refuse to acknowledge, though. Saurfang didn’t care about the loss of life at Teldrassil, he cared about honor. People trying to make the case that Saurfang was some beacon of hope entirely missed the boat (the boat to Teldrassil, of course, because that is a common plight of players in Darkshore).
I’m in the same boat as you, though; this whole story ruined the Horde (and Alliance) for me because it never explored the humanity of the Horde’s characters. It reduced them to either a) willing participant (genocidal monster), or b) forced participant who gets no opportunity to protest.
That rebel storyline, any vocal objections to Teldrassil… they came way too late. So much so that they were effectively DoA in my book.
I’m not saying they needed to be weeping for the butchered innocent civilians, but acknowledging their deaths? Questioning the motives of Sylvanas?
Any sane and well fleshed out character would have had expressed even a single line of dialogue about what they witnessed in Darkshore, but Blizzard’s ineptitude, or laziness (you pick) resulted in none of the Horde characters commenting on it or making a stand.
The Horde was literally just cardboard cut outs.
All we got was Saurfang whinging about honor, and that was it. The writers missed the mark entirely; they completely ignored the opportunity to explore the deep emotional chords, and the question or morality.
They were so eager to get on with the expansion that they wasted the single most divisive and impactful moment in Warcraft’s history. If ever there was a moment for the story to take front row, it was then.
12 Likes
In another thread, I actually suggested that my preference as a player when it came to faction interaction would be to simply have the Horde migrate to another world and leave Azeroth. The problem is that even in our own sandboxes (or planets) it doesn’t really solve the issue in that the Horde has actually become the villain of WoW. Regardless of whether we spent the next decade avoiding each other, if/when we do eventually interact it will always be with an underlying moral disparity.
And the consequences of the way Blizzard has portrayed the Horde is that any actions the Alliance would/could take against the Horde comes with the moral backdrop of the Horde’s atrocities.
I don’t want an expansion where the entire exposition is of the Horde being beaten, abused, tortured, and killed. That’s not exactly enjoyable for the Horde or Alliance players. I definitely don’t want another faction conflict expansion. But even if we focused on building our heroes and races, unless we spend the next few expansions completely ignoring each other, the Horde is still left as the villain in any interactions. Resolving that is a problem, and at this point, I’m not sure it’s even doable without extreme measures.
That’s a much larger issue and I would contend this is predominantly where the game has struggled in my opinion. I would even go so far as to say the “gameplay content” has also shrunk in terms of quests, dungeons, raids, battlegrounds, etc, in favor of more overly complex (in terms of the number of moving parts) expansion gameplay mechanics systems.
I think that the shift has been noticeable in the story as a whole, but also in the development of individual characters, which is terrible because it was one of the features I enjoyed personally.
I’ve seen this written a couple times - could someone tell me what it means? I tried Google and did not get anywhere.
2 Likes
I agree, but we can’t undo what has been done. The issue with Blizzard’s story is that they haven’t acknowledged a fundamental truth in story: you can move forwards, but you cannot move back. People can forgive, but they will never forget, and even redeemed villains have a smear on their name.
We’re not dealing with just characters though, we’re dealing with player characters, and those are infinitely more valuable, and deserving of consideration.
I don’t think the Horde leaving is the answer. But my proposal for sandboxes does offer a solution: time away, and a focus on individual cultures, can resolve tension.
Right now, people are exhausted with the Horde and Alliance. If we focus on the individual races and cultures, that can help remind players that, while both factions are flawed, and have erred, their races remain free of that taint.
The problem with any other approach is that by addressing the issue as a whole of Alliance vs. Horde, everything is on the table. It’s tit for tat, and we end up litigating some 35+ years of WoW lore (in universe) of conflict between them.
We need to deescalate so we can unpack the trauma and the plot.
Instead of looking at it as The Horde, or The Alliance, we need to examine the individual elements. You can’t eat a whole hamburger in one bite (or you shouldn’t, at least), you have to take it in bites.
There is a way to repair the damage here with the Horde and Alliance, but it takes time, and a heavy focus on nuanced stories that speak to the heart of the races, and their motivations and desires.
No disagreements from me. Every expansion gets smaller, weaker, and less engaging.
Part of it, I think is that Blizzard is trying to tackle these huge, abstract concepts (death, morality, the threat of existence), and they don’t do those well telling those stories. They should stick to what they were good at, simple, character driven narratives.
3 Likes
From context, I think she means “nth,” as in “for the nth time,” possibly with a construction borrowed from Spanish? (IIRC, Ariël’s first language is Spanish.)
1 Like
Finally someone gets it and is not biting the cheap bait Blizzard is fishing with.
8 Likes
I mean that’s you’re take and fine. But how does Golden do well with inner monologue at all and not let everyone look like a lunatic? Perhaps that’s more on Blizzard though. Before the Storm was so horrible.
To be fair, it also dismantled quite a bit of Forsaken Lore which bugged me.
9 Likes
This. You nailed it.
Twist for the sake of twist, not for the better story. Inevitably they lose consistency in the process. That’s why “Nothing” was sooo bad approach.
“I will set us all free” too.
They lack context and consistency.
Um… I don’t get what you mean. You think someone(s) in the book look like a lunatic due to the Anduins’ or Sylvanas’ inner monologue?
Edit) ah, I think… that’s maybe because you can’t agree with the characters. I can say it’s bad side of Golden’s writing style. If you can’t find interest in or sympathize with them, you would feel boring. And hard to understand what and why they say like that.
Maybe that’s why either people like it or hate it. 
This I can agree with you. This is the part that I thought perhaps Golden is not the one who’s in charge of the story directions. Sooo sudden plot jump, at the very last chapter. I don’t like the idea of lightforged undead anyway.
1 Like
Eventually, you just give up on trying to bail out water and just sit back to marvel at the catastrophe of your own sinking boat. My crack headcanon that I love hating:
Zovaal is actually Sylvanas and Anduin’s son trying to bring his parents together a la Back to the Future.
1 Like
And then people go “I knew x was true all along” like no you didn’t, there’s no internal logic of consistency. BfA had people forget that the forsaken has plague for gods sake so Jaina could save the day and they could have a ‘cool’ moment where Anduin and Sylvanas 
at each other like the box art instead of seiging the building and not trying to talk to the person who never plays fair.
But people don’t care and want an ego boost for being right instead of looking at this and going “actually Blizzard, I do not buy what you’re selling me”.
2 Likes
I have a hard time arguing that you’re wrong, but I desperately want you to be wrong. I want there to be an alternative to “It’s broken forever.”
5 Likes
Sir stop contributing to the cringe lol, you might give blizzard ideas.
2 Likes