Revisiting Fargo and Faction Favoritism

Lore Story Forum
103

We’ll see. Placing Turalyon and Maiev in the Alliance drivers seats is a bad omen.

That being said there is a way to pull off an Alliance aggression story; have the Horde take their hits; give opportunities for Horde character building; and get us back in time for the “team-up” against the big bad. You’d just need to combined the SLs timeskip; the LIGHT cosmology enemy with Yrel and the Lightbound; and outright having the “Faction Conflict” occur before we get back. So we can skip right to the “hero” part. No PCs being forced into genocide paths.

The keys to this is having the peaceniks locked away in SLs; the Alliance Hawks only being prevented from wiping out the Horde due to fear of the cost to do so; and the fact that only the Horde knows the true nature of the Lightmother or Yrel. Where as the Alliance doesn’t. You could really do something neat there, with the Lightbound learning from the Iron Horde’s mistake and doing a subtle invasion. Using the Alliance Hawk’s aggression as a tool to do so.

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104

World of Warcraft has been around long enough that I’m sure most of us agree another Faction Pride expansion is a question of when, not if.

I’m waiting to find out what Blizzard does with the Night Elves and Tyrande this expansion. Haven’t seen much about the living Kaldorei either, just the (un)dead ones.

105

Elune, don’t remind me about how they assassinated Yrel in the Mag’har scenario. She’s one of my favorite characters, and they butchered her. And obviously, by “they”, I mean the writers…

I wouldn’t mind seeing what Maiev does with the Night Elves. Might actually give them their fangs back, but the last thing we need right now is yet another conflict that gets more of her people killed.

If 8.1’s any indication, they’re just going to sweep it under the rug before climbing more on Loa’jin’s “totem”.

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106

Well, you’d be glad to know that Night Warrior get as much stuff as Loa’jin, if not an half more (as The Horned Hunter is, in the end, to help for Night Warrior stuff, if we wanna be picky and count it). But overall, Night Fae campaign has 2 parts about Night Warrior and 2 parts with Vol’jin and friends

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When it comes to BFA i’m happy that the Alliance retook Stromgarde. It was an elephant in the room for a LONG time so it’s nice to finally have that “win” taken care of. I just hope that the win is reflected in game. Even if it’s post Shadowlands. If the rumored timeskip becomes a thing and the Old World is updated i’d like to see Stromgarde made into a proper hub. NPCs/Guards, Flight Path, Innkeeper, profession trainers etc. Maybe even a Bank. That would be great imo.

When it comes to the Cataclysm/MOP Era though, that’s a different ballpark. I don’t think “losing” territory was so much the issue, but the Alliance just felt really weak and it felt like they were never allowed to fight back. Andorhal was a disappointing loss and Stonard was just an eye roller. Being lectured to by the Alliance commander about how you werent going to destroy the Orc town was annoying especially with everything going on in CATA from the Alliance’s POV.

And if you made a human player 2 of your low level zones were pretty much goofy spoofs. Westfall wasn’t as bad but Redridge was a Rambo Parody. Yes you get to fight against Orcs but they weren’t even Horde Orcs. The Blackrocks weren’t even associated with the Horde at that time so it felt pretty hollow.

Point being, i dont think “losing” was the entire problem. But if the Alliance even in their low level questing had to deal with encroaching horde forces (like if the Blackrocks were part of the horde and you learn that as a low level in Redridge) it would have felt more meaningful fighting and defeating them. It would have gave the Alliance some feel good moments in the faction conflict without causing a zone balance issue.

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108

Or we could just seize the opportunity that the Horde is in such a weak state that Thrall coulnd’t muster 40 soldirs, while teh entire sentinel army is unscrateched in Silithus and thus attacking on a wounded beast.

Don’t like that talking about “ohh we can’t afford to get more deads so we justw ait till they recover to kill us anyway like … it has happend 4 times now”.

To be fair, Loa jins story is pretty much over with 9.0 for now. He gets that ressurection pod and that’s it.
While the Night Warrior story has just started now with Tyrande telling Shandris to take the Kaldorei souls with her and she herself gets to hunt down Sylvanas personally.

So there is yet stuff to happen. Question if wether or not blizzard screws it up completely.

109

The backlash against mop’s war got us BfA.

110

The problem lies in where the narrative focus is.

We have to follow around the half dozen super powered characters who just shotgun their way around Azeroth, with no regard for tactical strategy or what the actual nature of a certain zone might be in relation to our factions.

Nobody likes being taken for a ride that you know is going to end badly.

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111

I didn’t know we were questing with 6 other murderhobos. Seriously, after the last few expansions, you just described players.

112

Which is honestly logic I can’t even begin to fathom.

The major issues people had with the Horde-Alliance War during Cata-MoP was;

Villain-Batting the Horde, then kicking it into overdrive with Theramore.

Turning the Leader of the Horde into the central antagonist.

Making the Alliance hilariously impotent for the vast majority of the war

Making the Alliance win most of their engagements, but only in books and barely referenced at all in game, so everyone just thought they just kept losing until they suddenly won.

Ending the War in a way where no one was really happy. Horde had to attack their own capital city. Alliance just decides to drop the war with a very lame threat. Garrosh taken away to kick start WoD.

And then their response in BfA was do it better…by

Villain-Batting the Horde, then kicking into overdrive with Teldrassil.

Turning the Leader of the Horde into the central antagonist.

Making the Alliance hilariously impotent throughout the war.

Oh but this time they actually succeed at something; sabotaging the Zandalari fleet. But then Dazar’alor was mess anyway so 2 steps forward, 2 steps back.

Ending the War in a way that made nobody happy. Not only did the Horde march on their capital for the second time, but now their warchief left after calling them all worthless, an entire expansion following the once badass Saurfang, now Sadfang as he gets globaled, and feeling like they needed the Alliance to save them from themselves again. While the Alliance felt no justice for Teldrassil, had to help the Horde save themselves again, watched their target global Saurfang and run off so they can’t even fight her and basically feel their entire point in the expansion was to be the Horde’s Krillin. And THEN as the final salt in the wounds, here have a N’zoth. This is the real Battle for Azeorth anyway.

Like…how do you decide you want to do the entire story arc of Cata-MoP better…and then not only do it worse, but then Space Flea from Out of Nowhere it?!

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113

Agreed, because at least the faction conflict is relevant to the main world. These side quest expansions where we go into someone’s backyard just to beat them up and leave are always boring.

Anyway, Dave Kosak is worse than Golden as a creative influence and if modern WoW has one saving grace it’s that his influence has almost been scrubbed from the game. I have no other commentary.

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114

Alliance side Andorhal questing was an abomination (Pun intended). It honestly had no reason to be there. Blizzard should have made Andorhal a two sided struggle between the Forsaken and the Scourge. It was absolutely pointless for Alliance players and just a stick in the eye.

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115

You do you, but for me, honestly her character was already butchered when they literally gut the whole center part of her story. As a direct consequence she came off as a bit of a chosen one “Sue”, who was just given everything that made her special. She was also about as safe and whitebread as you could get with an Alliance character; especially a Draenei. Her going full on Light Fanatic is the first time I’ve actually been interested in her character.

It also came off as a pretty understandable character direction. Being given all that power, with no mentor to properly guide her … add in a little Palpatine AU Xe’ra and thur yah go. Light is all about the “One Truth” and the “Linear Path” after all, which depending on what authority figure is speaking that word or creating that path … dogmatism or fanaticism can be a consequence.

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116

Jokes aside you could draw more meaning out of Warcrafts story by drawing actual battle lines instead of just picking a location out of a hat to squash with a giant hammer.

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117

Why does all night elf posters sound like Elesana.

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118

Kiro is a shaman? He didn’t do anything shamanistic so far.

119

If I remember right, he gives you a dumb “make animals bigger” totem to solve a food crisis among the orc peon part of the recruitment questline. I think that’s about it.

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He throws some totems around in the recruitment questline. He’s also a medicine man of sorts, so he kinda just fits the role.

But no, we haven’t seen him communing with the Elements or anything. It’s just and EXTREMELY likely assumption.

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it reminds me of that goblin that summoned a fire elemental just so you could kill it for loot…

122

Its sort of implied by the use of his totems he’s some form of resto shammy archetype. I really doubt we’ll see him throw elements around in any substantial way.

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