Welcome to modern day politics.
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Not to point out the obvious, but I would say that if thatâs the argument youâre going to take ⊠then technically it was the WoTA content that really screwed up that WC3 Ideal. As it was that addition to the lore that rendered the NEs âsavageryâ to really just being âSavage, but by Highborne standardsâ. Since, they were left without environmental, cultural, or historical reasons to be âsavageâ.
That being said, Iâm not sure there was anything in WC3 at least that suggested the NEs were a âgreat nation that rivaled both factionsâ. Outside of the fact that the âHordeâ was like, 3 huts and a kodo in WC3, and the âAllianceâ was really just some scattered members from Kul Tiras? Nothing suggests the opposite I suppose. Its just WC3 didnât really have an opinion on that sort of comparison either way.
Right but cataclysm was also a large issue for HORDE players as wellâŠmany who liked the WC3 horde and watched it get thrown out the window so Blizz could relive wc2 horde bad fantasies.
No expansion has ever split the Alliance community. Cata, MoP and BfA are all cancer to lots of horde players who saw the reasons they chose horde fly out the window.
Need I remind you, Horde in WC3 is arguably the lease evil painted faction. Their entire campaigns are about rebuilding, fixing their mistakes, and then helping the people who recently were trying to slaughter them. The alliance campaign follows the hubris of a prince falling to darkness and a king not listening to medivhs warning and paying the price. The night elf campaign is about learning that they are the reason the legion wants to invade in the first place, slaughtering your own people to release a war criminal, and then being forced to help people youâd rather let die because you are xenophobic.
Given that I have zero faith that theyâll âstick the landingâ any better than a morbidly obese man hurling towards an asphalt parking lot at terminal velocity from several miles up I still agree that it was a story they never should have attempted in the first place.
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Eh, I go with the position that the four factions had their analogues consolidated into two factions, with additions here and there. I think thatâs a good model of course - you get tension on both continents and so long as itâs understood that you donât let any of the factions âwinâ or get shown to be better than one another, all is well.
Cataclysm violated this by being imbalanced, and I donât mean in the distribution of zones, which could have been done without the baggage, and BFA doubled down on it by trying to strike the cores out from two of the four subfactions.
We arenât talking about the Horde here, and I am perfectly able to discuss Night Elf issues while acknowledging Horde ones. You donât have to choose, and the implication that you do is a distraction play.
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The way I see it:
- Baineâs sympathies are taken advantage of by Garrosh in Tides of War specifically to get Theramore to garrison up, leading to more deaths than if Baine had said nothing.
- The more obvious âchain him up and torture him underneath Orgrimmarâ tactic Sylvanas employed in BFA.
What I was getting at is that Baineâs not so much a character as he is a morality barometer. One of the ways the game uses Garrosh, Sylvanas and the jailer to show theyâre bad is by kicking the cow. Anduin and Jainaâs goodness are put on display by working with him. It puts him in a bizarre situation where the story makes him look like heâd be better off jumping factions.
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This is an incorrect assumption cause the entire undead storyline was for the scourge. Only the forsaken joined, a splintered off faction from the larger undead. Meanwhile, the entire night elf faction joins the alliance.
I dispute this on the basis of the Sylvanas portions of the Frozen Throne campaign. The forsaken fit an analog for the scourge, adopting many of their thematic elements, as well as their âkitâ. The scourge itself went on to become something even bigger, as shown in Wrath of the Lich King.
Baine doesnât jump factions, because he has a powerful point to prove, and at no point comes across as apt to join the Alliance. He pretty much fights back against the people who were never going to protect him in the first place.
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You are still trying to compare the forsaken, a smaller splinter faction of undeadâŠto the entire night elf kingdom.
Thematically and in terms of the kit and what subfactions I believe should be supported? Yes.
As Iâve indicated countless times, I believe that Teldrassil AND the Undercity were bad moves. Both of these respective powers should be fully capable of holding their own - not dominating past their territories, but holding their own.
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Well, we might consider whatever productive parts of discussion we have around here, to be a âwhat ifâ baggage of ideas and / or feedback, in case there will actually appear some changes in the narrative department.
Itâs not just forum threads. You can see quite a few questions to how they handle things on other social media and from some lore-oriented youtube content creators.
I do not think that if you can write amazing stories, that the current management will not drown it in the mess we have, in case it goes against their intentions (and currently the devs for one reason or the other seem rather patronizing with their treatment of the player base interactions).
Blizz seem to do it themselves. IMO the only thing needed to do here, is to drag the attention, if the fall of Shadowlands happen, to the narrative team being another contributor to the problem, so that they would not be able to wiggle out of it as if theire is no fault in what they did.
Iâve heard blizz have not the best working conditions so to say 
I think just being able to ask a question on a quarterly report would be enough to attract attention.
Speaking of which, isnât it messed up, that on paper we as players kind of should support the devs over greedy publishers, but the situation is so irritating and without any indication of improvement, that the joke from Asmongold does not seem like a joke (Bobby, youâre our last hope)
/sadface
Which kind of begs some questions:
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does the story exist for the audience, or in someoneâs opinion - the other way around
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do those plans do more good or harm? What if the gameplay systems do not work out and itâs better to wrap up the expansion faster? What if they are so good it would make sense to keep it around longer? If there are rigid plans that does not allow such changes, are those plans actually something other than liability?
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should it matter what are the dev plans if they do not deliver what the players need (or were promised in the marketing materials)?
There are few people who actually could be considered a source of lore info. As much as I like Nobbelâs content, his abridged versions sometimes leave out details of the story. So, there is some interest in forums and the community, from within the community.
Literally when? WoD out of the box failed to meet established goals.
- No proper faction cities, that were mentioned originally
- substancial downgrade on garrisons (no picking the zone, no mentioned interactions in the garrison, no âyour followers could get some cosmetic items for you from older content and sometimes you might have to save them if theyâre capturedâ, and so on)
- cut creatures types (1 or 2 botani-related) right before the release
- delay after delay with the character model update
- messed up flying that was promised originally to be added at some point, yet the devs tried to claim itâs not possible to do at all
And this all are things even before it launched. Pointing the problems of WoD on trying to please the players is⊠not really honest IMO.
I have a better idea. As the tension mounts up, just let it crash and burn. Then maybe financial side of the company will do something. And maybe it wonât make things worse.
Possibility of things becoming worse is not an excuse to keep poison there is now currently.
Shadowlands seemingly shapes up as a âworthy successorâ of BfA. Itâs too early to tell it all, but so far⊠And I would not be surprised if the devs might claim that they expect that this time players will for sure be happy with them replacing what was known and liked by whatever they prefer.
I mean, if it did not work with changing the horde ideas people liked into something new, it should work now with changing even more stuff people likes across the board, right?
gl hf
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Seems like Ionâs and Danuserâs modus operandi yes
Literally almost every zone got completely reworked because of the complaints regarding Orc fatigue.
The actual questing zones prior to this rework were actually playable in the alpha state and got utterly scrapped, leaving WOD with very barebone zones and barren locations in itâs wake.
The Grimrail was supposed to actually exist in the zone itself but the complaint about Orc fatigue had it removed and the plot shifted to focus more on Botani/Breakers. Shadowmoon was meant to be overrun but the plot shifted and the invasion became a last minute plot.
The amount of work that was scrapped because the community whined about 5.4âs Orc Fatigue was astronomical. Thereâs probably been large cuts/changes but nothing from what we actually saw as playable within the game and suddenly removed.
This is the ideal way of doing it, but people tend to be way too addicted to the game to be able to just quit. The harsh reality of forum normies.
And a lot of changes happened to MoP original look. Iterations are kind of the part of the development to my knowledge.
Um⊠WoD leveling zones barren and barebone? I mean it had its problems, but there are some decent stuff, like arakkoa, Shadowmoon, and glimpse into orc culture in Frostfire. Like, I am reading your comment, I am trying to remember what I saw there, and fail to recognize it. I know I can have problems with memory, etc., but what?
I guess Iâll just leave it to other to confirm if the locations for leveling were barebones, or something.
I mean, sure, ok. I do not remember those things, although I do remember something the devs mentioned and never implemented.
So, maybe youâre right, idk. Perhaps other players can help to expand upon the content that was cut on a request of the players, from WoD.
Yup, sounds like true. Who knowns how it all will unfold.
gl hf
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Because the original vision of the story team was crap.
Orc fatigue was real with the expansion we got.
The team had a crap vision that produced a crap expansion lol
Iâm sticking around until it dies so I can publish a book doing a meta-ethnography of the final and complete lore with regards to race and ethnicity represented in-game and themes otherwise (e.g. how genocides and war crimes were handled).
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âIâm going to publish a book, where I whinge about the Horde.â
Even though itâs completely offtop, I found this point to be⊠peculiar.
âgenocideâ
[I am getting sleepy and post is messy. I mean how it came to be in the game, how people of Azeroth know / came to the term]
This word did not appear of thin air in irl society. How did it even came to be? I mean, it has some law-related meaning.
But⊠we have no info about laws? How the nations trade? How they trade cross-faction? How they solve the incidents happening?
No info to my knowledge that could allow to even evaluate what would be the in-universe punishment considered adequate, especially if the use of the term implies, itâs not the first time, and somehow was recognized and / or accounted for?
Also, how it came to be? What happened before? What were law consequences? Religious? Diplomatic? PoV of naaru? Somebody interviewed CâThun cultists? Anything?
Maybe my take is wrong, but it seems like the term was used for the marketing purposes without considering the context and extra stuff that kind of should surround it.
I think Iâve seen this pattern before somewhereâŠ
gl hf
Tl;dr BlizzardÂŽs Chief Quality Officer died at some point in the last decade and the rotten skeleton is buried in an abandoned office inside Blizz HQÂŽs basement.
Cause the very symptom of this you mention happens precisely thanks to either poorly implemented and/or poorly executed Quality control policies.
Are you paying them!?!
I feel robbed, IŽm usually in the middle of poster spats, smh⊠you own me, Dwarf.
This is not a story choice, itÂŽs a marketing one. And by pure marketing then yes, the game IS about factions cause the factions ARE what itÂŽs iconic to the brand. Problem is, the devs (or more probably the executives) are apparently ignoring quite basic quality control measures AND product identity in their haste to deploy cheaper expacs in lesser times (A.K.A. maximizing their utility).
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