The usual complaint about it is that Alliance players feel that it was unfair to them for the Horde to gain any territory after the events of MoP. Which would go double for BfA, I fear.
That sounds good in theory, but if you go beyond that … a lot of people feel like the Alliance is under no obligations whatsoever to give anything to the Horde after the events of BfA. (And I can’t really say they’re wrong.) And furthermore, see the bit about Azshara above; if the Horde gains any formerly Alliance territory, it will make Alliance players feel like they didn’t win the war, and that will make them unhappy.
But then, if the Horde moves into previously neutral territory, it will be seen as Horde expansionism. Not to mention that if the Horde cedes territory to the Alliance but doesn’t gain anything from the Alliance in return, it will make Horde players feel like they’ve lost the war, and that will make them unhappy.
Ahhhh yes, now we come to that difficult word, “amends.” I understand that in theory, the newly-joint zones would be an example of inter-faction friendship and cooperation. But the example you’re proposing would all go one way: goodness taught by the Alliance to the receptive Horde. There would be nothing going from the Horde to the Alliance. That’s why it wouldn’t feel equal from a Horde point of view. Why would Horde players enjoy a story that basically forces them or their faction’s NPCs to bow before the Alliance, admitting they’ve been bad and want to do better in future with the shining example of the Alliance to guide them? How would that be a positive experience?
It is an example of how we identify with our factions that I feel attacked by this comment. I can take a deep breath and get past it, but my knee-jerk reaction is to feel insulted and want to defend my faction from you. Silly, perhaps, but that is what Blizzard has fostered in its playerbase. And I didn’t even do the BfA story.
Not really, after MoP the Night Elves had a treaty with the horde to give them Azshara under the condition that they would leave Ashenvale, and so they did until they felt like going on a genocide trip.
You can do that with other zones but not with Ashenvale as Ashenvale is Night Elf territory and after what happened to them (what the horde did to them), Ashenvale is not even the bare minimum they could get back.
-In V1, Quillboar raze Brennedan, Horde defend UC against invaders.
-Blizz wants Horde to be eviler, so it’s changed to Horde (except in quest text) killing farmers for no strategic reason, and atrocities are stepped up at UC to make the Horde the badguys for defending their home.
-Blizz later remembers Tauren aren’t supposed to be evil, so the army of them torturing children to death and spraying Blight are replaced with Goblins and Forsaken.
I like how Horde likes to say “But Ashenvale shouldn’t be Alliance only” when it’s been ancestral Night Elven lands.
If we go by their logic, the reasonable owners of Ashenvale are Nelves therefore the Alliance. Not to mention the Horde was pushed back from there expacs ago.
I agree that this scenario would be tricky, but I’m a bit more optimistic about it.
The way I see it, the complaints with giving up Azshara were:
“You’ve won the war!” Great, that means the Horde is going to leave all- “So you’re ceding land to your enemies!” wat.
Okay, we gave up something (contesting a zone) -again- so that the Horde won’t attack us again- Horde attacks us again
At this point in the story, Argument 1 is done with an in the past, but Blizzard’s love for repeating Argument 2 is the real hurdle. On the other hand, Argument 2 is kinda the whole unresolved issue for the entire AvH war, so it needs solving either way. If that happens, I don’t think that there’d be too much arguments over losing a zone that we never really did much in. (Other than posturing to make it sound more important to them than it is so they can get a better deal for it, which is something I think the Alliance should do more IC. It’s the least villain-ish Horde-antagonizing thing they could do.)
You could say it was a sign of good faith? Tyrande gave it so they would shut up about the wood issue these dumb greenskins had from setting up a city in the middle of a wasteland.
Apparently since they decided to invade again, I think it’d be fair to consider Azshara contested territory again.
They need to get over that. But again, part of this comes down to not shoving it in their face. No one Alliance side really cared about the scepter of the tides or w/e it was called being stolen from Kul Tiras - largely because we never knew about it. When it became a huge plot point, yeah - it was a problem, but if it had remained a Horde exclusive story element, it would have been fine.
Again, it comes down how it’s spun, and what they’re doing. If it’s the Forsaken burning down a village and dipping children in acid, yeah it’s gunna be seen in a negative light. If they’re simply putting up some farms, and not trying to destroy the world, I think there’s some leeway to be given.
Once again - it goes back to negotiations. It’s an armistice - there’s room for actual negotiations and compromise and trade.
I gave one example. It’s not indicative of every scenario. I can’t propose all five billion examples, but you get the idea. There can be give and take on both sides. Everyone can learn from everyone.
I understand what you’re saying. Please look at the whole statement though and don’t take this out of context.
This whole expansion has been the Alliance questing through how great and powerful and destructive the Horde has been, and how we keep having to suffer at their hands. I’m ready to never ever see that again in the story.
And in terms of Ashenvale/zone redistribution, I think it could be interesting to sort of swap the Horde and CC around in Ashenvale and Desolace.
Make Desolace a Horde zone - the tauren could probably get a lot of plots with their ancient centaur enemies, regrowing the place to be plains rather than yet another forest, more with the Shadowprey trolls, and so forth.
In Ashenvale, let the Cenarion Circle move in to the center of the zone and change the Horde base to the Warsong Lumber Camp. The CC can do the rebuilding/regrowing stuff, and can offer neutral quests so the Horde still has levelling quests there and can participate in the regrowing -if they want-, but the Alliance can still feel like they pushed the partisan Horde presence/fortresses out of the center of ‘their’ zone.
Please. Knock a path through the mountains from Mulgore and go nuts. Would be so cool.
And you’re spot on with this. Their whole push has been alienated and demonizing the opposing faction from a meta perspective; and it’s really disappointing.
same here, i had enough of their dumb civil war that no one really cares in the alliance, we didn’t cared back in mop and we have no reason to start caring now after they DESTROYED ANTOHER F** CITY.
just… go away horde,i don’t care if they take all south kalimdor minus Dustwallow, or if they root in hell, it makes no difference to me.
Not exactly true. The first time it was worth following and being engaged in, even if it was thoroughly disheartening that we were only along for the ride. The resolution to MoP was hot garbage, however. BFA, however, has been a dumpster fire of astronomic proportions through and through.
then we disagree, alliance story should be about alliance characters not being insulted and spit on with a stupid robot cat so you can have the “privilege” of seeing their story Screw that, screw blizzard and screw the horde.
What’s worse is that, if you re-read the entire Alliance vs Horde conflict, you find so many things discarded/plot holes. Talk about milking the cow to the last drop.
And then we have varian’s empty threat putting us between a rock and a hard place.
“if your horde lost honor like garrosh did, we will end you”
Yeah, the horde lost honor again and nothing was done because we all know that is a playable faction with massive plot armor.
while varian throw away the chance to strike them where it hurts. or it may enrage horde players too much while nothing was done about our rage.
oh it can’t be helped, people has to know why the horde sucks and is not a good force for this world. i believe that they are worst than the scourge and the legion combined. at least those two had a goal that wasn’t wiping out life for no reason.
the legion wanted to save the universe
the scourge wanted to save azeroth from the legion
What the horde wants? bleed azeroth to death? end hope? torture for fun?
and to fuel the horde player’s feeling of power. Meanwhile when it comes to the Alliance (Night Elves) doing something to the horde, killing 1 Val’kyr is too much already. They had to make them recreatable.