This is a…spin-off (as the hip kids would say) of the thread titled Pride in Defeat - Teldrassil and Theme. Things were getting a little off-topic there, based on the fact that, well, we weren’t really talking about Teldrassil. Which is…right, it’s right there in the title. That thread can be found here: Pride in Defeat - Teldrassil and Theme. I do ask, though, out of respect for the author that you stay on task in that thread.
There were, though, some points raised in that thread that merited additional discussion. And thus, you have the birth of this thread.
Because I don’t know the rules on forum posting well enough, I won’t quote/respond to the specific topics on that thread unless I get permission from people over there.
With one exception. Aviala, I apologize that I think I’m the one who opened my big mouth and caused that splintering to appear. While I stand by my point, I probably could have chosen different words.
So. I know this is going to lead to some things people feel strongly about. Which is fine. We can go, but…Queensberrry rules, darlings. Civility, decency, and let’s all remember that there’s a human we’re talking to on the other side of the screen.
Oh. I should have clarified that, and I apologize.
I suppose specifically this is related to the conversation that was being had in the other thread. The original poster for the initial thread had been talking about why they felt the night elf experience with Teldrassil (and the subsequent warfront) felt like something was missing. She had provided examples of why she felt the way she did about the War of Thorns, supported it with research, the whole nine. I made a comment agreeing with her, and ended up saying something that prompted a discussion about the Horde.
Which is fine in general, but it got to the point where people were talking about the Horde experiences in areas that weren’t Teldrassil. This was off-topic, so I told people if they wanted to discuss that kind of thing? They can do that here.
It’s a little empty at the moment because I wanted to get permission from another forum poster to quote her in this thread. That was going to essentially be the thing that “started” this off.
I suppose what can be discussed in this thread is how Horde players may have felt about Teldrassil, how they story was handled, how it made them feel, and so forth? Things like that. It just got to the point in the other thread where people weren’t talking about what the original poster was talking about. I felt responsible for that, so I invited people who wanted to keep talking about that kind of thing over here.
But again, my apologies for not considering people might read this without having any idea what I’m talking about.
Thank you. It just feels a bit presumptive for me to start up a new thread and quote someone with something that could potentially be taken out of context. I’ll quote that in a moment.
My personal viewpoint after thinking it over, now that the expansion is basically done, is that the reason the War of Thorns and the followup stuff felt like something was missing is because they were mismatched to an expansion they weren’t supposed to be in.
My tinfoil hat theory that I’ve mentioned a few times is that the War of Thorns was supposed to be a pre-patch event for an expansion after this one, showing an escalation of the war as a result of N’zoth expanding his influence.
Lordaeron and the War of Thorns in pre-patch were supposed to be the culminating point of a faction war that would have built up over the course of an expansion prior. The Alliance were supposed to attack Undercity first, which would then have driven Sylvanas and the Horde to Kaldimdor, resulting in the strike against the Night Elves.
I think it should been this way too. 8.1 and maybe 8.2 should have been focused on a skirmish between the Alliance and Horde. Show battles and aggression leading up to it. Blizzard has a habit of either resolving things either off screen or through books and short comics. Between that, writing Sylvanas as a mustache twirling villain and their wording felt like it was doomed to fail from the start.
Personally I think it should have lead to both Undercity and Teldrassil being held as bargaining clips. Then, as much as it has been played out, have an outside force actually cause Teldrassil to start burning, which in turn cause the Alliance to destroy Undercity. It would give the Alliance and Horde reason to keep fighting going into the whole Zandalari/Kul Tiras plot-line, but give them a reason to work together when the truth came out.
So…I won’t lie. This made me physically wince. If you’re having a discussion, stating your points should not be a waste of time, especially if you’re speaking with someone new. Feeling like it’s a waste of time gives the impression that you’re coming from a place of superiority, like you’re doing people a favor by explaining your positions. It’s not supposed to be a foregone conclusion, after all. This…is supposed to be a discussion, right?
Sylvanas is an interesting case. In this argument, I mean. Because she was the catalyst for all of this stuff that it seems a lot of people agree is bad. The War of Thorns, the various atrocities, and all of that. So, hearing that you lost her is…a bit odd. Did you want to keep the person who specifically did all of that stuff? That would be like tacit support for what she did. Do you want her gone? That would be like tacit support for the narrative that the Horde is evil. It’s a nuanced issue.
Nathanos…I have no idea what’s going on with Nathanos. I’ll admit I’m not even really sure if he’s still around, or what he’s going to do. I don’t know enough about this to make a well-informed decision.
Saurfang had a whole character arc. Saying that he was “lost” seems like it misses the point of him concluding his story. I don’t mind a narrative arc concluding like that. Besides, Thrall came back, right? Kind of? In that weird ‘he’s here, but not’ fashion.
I’ll say that Rastakhan does not count, and I’ll tell you why. He was introduced in this expansion. So was his daughter. The Horde hadn’t gained him to lose him. His story was to die, and his daughter’s story was to join. If you feel that she’s less interesting, that’s fine. But it’s disingenuous to act like she’s immaterial.
As a counterpoint, though? On the Alliance side, while the roster has more numbers, a lot of them don’t really do anything. Sure, they’re there, but…how many draenei have you seen in the cinematics? All of the cinematics were about Horde heroes, Horde struggles, Horde triumphs.
I’ll present this as a counterpoint, then. You lost characters because they were actually included in the story to do things. That giant spaceship? The massive Void portals? Hell, night elves? Eh. They’re off doing their own thing, I guess.
Okay. I just want to be clear about something, because that actually will impact the flow here. When you say “single victory”, are you talking about the Burning of Teldrassil?
You know, I actually looked at that “Horde Shame Tally” list. A fair number of things were based on comments some NPCs made, sometimes just during a quest. Which, I don’t know…I’m not entirely convinced. And even if I were, that’s…that’s one of those issues that raises an eyebrow. A lot of the comments I saw on that thread were things like “this made us feel bad”, and not a lot of “I wish I hadn’t done this”. You know? “They made me feel bad about stabbing this person” and not “I wish I hadn’t had to stab this person”.
But to the point of the war. I…I remember Chris Metzen mentioning at one point he likes the Horde because they’re underdogs. I hear similar sentiments from a lot of people. A group of people banded together for survival. Underdogs.
I don’t know how to say this delicately, but underdogs are called that for a reason. It’s generally expected that they wouldn’t win in a fight. This isn’t limited to WoW. If you ask someone on the street who is most likely to win in a competition between A and B, if B is the underdog? I’m fairly certain most people would say A.
…I mean, do you not think that’s a valid point? Sylvanas destroyed Teldrassil. Sylvanas also destroyed Undercity. But that was just the city. Teldrassil was a whole zone. And Darkshore is under war. And again, this is something that was done by Sylvanas.
This is a valid point, and I have little to add to it. I wouldn’t necessarily refer to it as ‘faction identity’, but there were serious missteps taken here. Anyone who played a Forsaken wanting to have a shred of humanity (a la Alonsus Faol, Leonid Bartholomew, and others) is relegated to following someone acting exactly like the Lich King. Although I will say I think that Saurfang’s point about “the lie upon which the Horde was founded” is a relevant one and needed to be exposed. It would be nice if something came from this, but given the direction the story is going…
I think this was one of the points that Saurfang was trying to make. The Horde did have some very dark moments in their history. Too many people were ignoring that. Bringing it to the surface to deal with it is a way to heal and move forward. Baine is an excellent person to do that, both for his temperament and for his political clout.
“Seem set to spend time follwing Alliance characters around in Shadowlands (Tyrande)”. Yeah, that’s sure something. I mean, you would think that she would have had her story wrapped up in this expansion, right? You know, because it was supposed to be a big deal? I’m sure it wasn’t a case where we pretty much ignored the fallout of a massive tragedy that literally caused a war until it was concluded with the night elves winning back land they already owned.
I’m…not your enemy. I don’t hate you. I don’t dislike you. I don’t even know you. But if we’re having a discussion, I do need to know your actual stance on things if you want me to respond to them.
I’ll preface this by saying those particular lines are directed more at Pheandra. You seem to be a relatively new poster here, but Pheandra has a long history of anti-Horde vitriol, so I definitely do feel that trying to make them see the point of view they despise so much is a waste of time. But maybe I’ve been wrong.
To the points.
I don’t know where you get any of this “tacit support for evil Horde” stuff from, to be frank. Sylvanas was a character who used to be a member of the Horde, who professed allegiance to the Horde, who thought good things about the Horde in internal dialogue. Yes, Blizzard has retconned all that, but how is that not the Horde losing a character that was once theirs to be a villain? Sylvanas was not always evil, and having her turned into a villain is an enormous loss of what was once an interesting character. I’ll let Nathanos lie as well because I don’t think there’s much more to be said about him.
Saurfang, however, was handled in such a way that has divided Horde opinion on him. Some supported him as the “anti-Sylvanas” choice, but he didn’t really come off well during the rebellion. Are you familiar with the story of Lenin? If so, Saurfang’s story arc absolutely reeks of that - a successful ploy by the Alliance to divide their enemies by fomenting a rebellion. The Horde was taken for suckers by Alliance plots twice - the diversion away from Dazar’alor, and the plan to return Saurfang to the Horde so he could raise a rebellion. For all the complaints of “Sylvanas 9001D chess master!!!” it’s the Horde that keeps getting snookered.
Note that when I said the Horde lost characters, I used lost in the most basic sense - these characters have been removed from the Horde narrative and will not be seen again. Why can Horde characters not do things and survive to develop? Death is final (well, maybe not so final anymore lel) and Blizzard has an extremely bad habit of killing Horde characters with no new ones waiting in the wings.
Yes, that is to what I am referring. I despised the War of Thorns and the Burning, but it would be a lie to say that those things were not military victories. My objection stems from the fact that Blizzard used the Horde’s only victory to start driving deep wedges into the faction.
Re: your third points (I don’t want to blockquote all the paragraphs or pick only a few lines) but let me ask you: did the narrative ever present to you, the Alliance player, any indication that you were doing something dark, amoral, or otherwise questionable? You might consider the things mentioned in the “Shame Tally” to be small and insignificant, but the fact that the narrative continues to remind the Horde of its bad guy status at all is extremely galling. Most Horde players did not pick the faction to be unrepentant bad guys. Blizzard does not describe them that way officially, but continues to write them as such. It feels very much like a bait and switch.
Void Elves desecrate the children of nature in one of their incursion quests. They animate the dead using Void energies. And yet these things are simply breezed past in the narrative, no presentation like the Horde having to confront the monstrosity of what they are doing. The Forsaken thank the Alliance player for killing them. Couple this constant procession of “you were in the wrong” reminders with the fact that the Horde gets steamrolled, and think back to my original question: do you think this is any fun at all for Horde players to experience?
Re: cities, this is kind of what I mean. The city is still lost. It doesn’t magically come back or “not count” because the circumstances of its destruction. It doesn’t “not count” because it was a city and not a zone. When you attempt to marginalize the fact that it was lost it seriously irritates me.
Personal pet peeve aside: The design of Dazar’alor is utter gameplay garbage because it was designed as a raid first and a player hub second, and we’ve had to put up with that annoyance all expansion long.
Do you think anything Blizzard has done has been in the direction of healing? Either within the Horde or between the factions? It doesn’t feel like it to me. Nothing that’s happened to this point feels like an attempt to reconcile anything. Just an opinion of course, but I don’t think anyone was ignoring the “dark moments” in the Horde’s history. Can we not go through them again and again and again? There’s still a plaque that says “Never Forget” from the Siege of Orgrimmar, but we forgot because… it was convenient for Blizzard.
Shockingly, a character who is not dead can have their story continue! This is why the loss of Horde characters is significant. Story arcs can and should continue over more than one expansion. This is not an endorsement of how Teldrassil was handled, but Tyrande is alive to continue handling it. Moreover, this is folding back into point number 3: The Horde will continue to have Teldrassil thrown in its face by NPCs. Again, do you think that is any fun to play through at all? It was grating in Legion before any of this had happened. It’ll be worse this time.
Ha! You fool! You think I have any idea what I’m doing?!
No, in all seriousness, this thread was created in case people wanted to continue discussing…well, mostly what myself and Jellex were discussing. Things seemed to be getting a little heated, and things also were getting off-topic. Because I really liked what Aviala had said in the other thread, I didn’t want to just hijack her thread. I also didn’t want to have people feel like they didn’t have anything to say.
I like discussion. But I also like order.
At one point, I told Jellex that I would be happy to continue the discussion, but in a different thread. So, this is me just putting my money where my mouth is.
So imagine this; four years ago, you were finally done with being the Big Bad. Your morally corrupt leader had been defeated. You were assured that hence forth, your narrative would be more than just how terrible you are for being part of a group committing war crimes. And sure, WoD happened and it was more like a faction vacation because there was so little about the actual Horde or actual Alliance, instead focused on mirror universe versions of one race each. But we move into Legion, and it starts with? It freaking starts with? It starts with your guys, your people, working as heroes! Your soon-to-be new leader is jumping on to Alliance ships to actually save Alliance people! And you’re both assaulting the big bad together! So maybe that promise is fulfilled!
Oh wait, your queen’s making dealings with a raid boss for sketchiness.
But okay, maybe things will work out! This is fine. It’s fine! Really, it is all fi-
Ok, we’re burning tree-cities down now.
Teldrassil highlighted how Blizzard “develops” the Horde by going back to tired tropes from WCI&II. We are the villains. As soon as we start acting like not-villains? It’s to set up how “shocking” the inevitable villain twist will be. And the narrative for us will focus not on our noble savage side, but on what new horrors we can inflict on the world.
Old god dagger? Sure, gimme, I’ll bring it to the Banshee and doom the world.
Civilians? Gotta murder them to fill my world quest bar.
Bio-weapons? More like best-weapons!
And in the end, we’re left with the same question we had the last time. Why?
Why did the entire Horde get behind the invasion of all of the elf lands? Why did we fall for this a second time? Why did we need a second revolution just to re-establish the old status quo? Why does this keep happening?
And there are answers to those questions. And they’re no better than the circumstances that led us here. Why does this keep happening? Because the entire warchief system is corrupt from the outset, where the best leader isn’t the leader we choose; nepotism is the only requirement for leadership.
So how do I feel about Teldrassil? It feels like we’re still on the never-ending cycle, that allegedly gets “broken” every now and again, but never truly ends. Can’t wait for 11.0 and my inevitable burning of Ironforge or blasting of the Exodar.
You are thinking too small.
Imagine Malfurion and Tyrande finally build a new home.
Sit down and grab a few bottles of moonberry juice before they see you and the rest of the Horde sprinting across the ground to burn it down again.
Something like this:
I understand. I don’t take things personally. One of my teachers in…high school, I think, said “people quarrel because they cannot argue”. It’s fine to have differing opinions.
First of all, though, let me address this so called ‘pet peeve’ of yours. The design of Dazar’alor…can go to hell, really, that is the most inconvenient method of traveling–
For the Sylvanas thing, that was a case of me not being clear. I should have phrased it like this.
Sylvanas is an interesting choice, in this argument. How do you react to her loss? If you’re upset, you’re in a situation where it seems likes you were okay with keeping someone responsible for cartoonish supervillainy. If you’re okay with her loss, you’re in a situation where it seems like you agree that the Warchief (and by extension, the Horde) was doing horribly evil acts. It’s a tricky situation.
You’re absolutely right about this whole killing Horde things. I have no idea who’s in charge of the orcs, who’s in charge of the trolls, who’s in charge of the Forsaken. I have a Horde character made shortly after launch. I like to have him log on, confused when people are talking about who’s in charge.
…he’s had a very rough few years.
And the counterpoint is that at least your characters do something. The Draenei, for example? Not the Lightforged, but the old school Draenei? Orcs committed genocide against them. They outright hate the orcs, which is a quote from back when they were introduced. But they were conspicuously absent for a lot of things.
I’m not entirely sure I would even classify the Burning of Teldrassil as a victory. The blow done was to the civilian population of the night elves. They still had their military might, and it actually united the rest of the Alliance in war against the Horde.
As for the narrative, one of the best parts of the Alliance war campaign happened when…I think it was Vol’dun. Halford Wyrmbane and Falstad realized that they could not let any Zandalari escape the ship, because it would undermine the near suicide mission being taken to deal with that powerful Zandalari armada. I will never forget what happened before you really started that quest. Falstad openly stated to his commanding officer that he didn’t feel right doing this. Halford agreed that this was not pleasant, but argued that if it didn’t happen, there would be incalculable losses. Falstad was clearly unhappy, but he agreed and said essentially ‘let’s just be quick about it’.
That was what I wanted to see. That’s ‘morally grey’. That gave me, the human, some pause. I hadn’t really thought about what I was doing aside from killing some trolls, but that comment made me think for a second. (Amusingly, the character i was on was an old soldier, so ‘orders are orders, sir’.)
[As a brief aside, if you haven’t done the war campaign on the Alliance side? It’s worth it just to hear Shandris Feathermoon’s plan on dealing with an enemy leader, after hearing Halford’s plan.]
I will say though, one thing?
Are you sure? I didn’t, when I started playing. I picked a Forsaken rogue because the idea of a zombie pickpocket made me giggle. But i remember that one of the reasons they made Garrosh so…aggressive back in Wrath of the Lich King is because they wanted him to reflect the current Horde players.
I’m not saying this is you, at all. But I am also not going to say that the Horde tends to skew slightly towards the bad guy thing.
I’m not entirely sure which incursion quest you mean. I remember the one where you were…wait, I might know. This was with Shandris and Umbric, right? First of all, him sending the Horde ambassadors “…somewhere else” was memorable. I think that’s the same chain where he Void animated the corpses of some dinosaurs. That was a bit…extreme, but do we really want to compare this kind of thing? He didn’t animate Derek Proudmoore, or anything.
And, yes. Shandris openly called him out on some of this. If you stay after you get the quest, she asks him if he knows what he’s doing, as he’s messing with a lot of dangerous power. There’s a lot of weight in these words, considering Shandris was around back when Highborne. And he actually tells her he’s in control of it. It’s actually addressed, y’know?
In terms of the city, I don’t…I don’t see how I was marginalizing the loss of the city. But there is some context there. For one, there’s a difference between “The city was destroyed by enemies”, “the city was destroyed by our leader”, and “the city was destroyed by elements”. In an expansion that’s supposed to be about war, and if you’re comparing losses? That context matters. I can’t speak for other people, but I am not saying that Undercity was not lost. Undercity was lost. That’s a loss.
Darnassus was also lost. So was Dolanaar, and the entirety of Teldrassil.
This is just a question of math. In this case, the Alliance lost more. And they were promised that they could get some kind of recompense, which fell flat. The people of the Horde…they could get recompense, but…on who? They were the ones who destroyed it.
In terms of healing, for one? If they actually are moving towards a war council, that’s a good start. That’s saying “Hey, what we’ve been doing in the past is not working”. They’re making an attempt to change. And the reason that the onus is on the Horde to make an attempt to change is because this is now the…third or fourth war that has been started by the Horde under the words of a Warchief.
I respectfully disagree that people are ignoring those dark moments. I still hear players (and I know I’ve heard this from at least one NPC) that references their imprisonment in Durnholde as some kind of slavery or something. Never mind the fact that that’s where the aliens who kept trying to kill everything were placed after they lost their omnicidal campaign. Saurfang was correct in that the legacy of the Horde on Azeroth did start on the bones of innocents.
Mind you, I don’t think they should be glorified. People shouldn’t dwell on them, but if you go long enough forgetting something, it can translate into not believing it happened in the first place.
And I may not have been clear with my Tyrande bit. The character arc with her wondering what’s going on with Elune? That’s fine to continue. But it feels like they didn’t really finish or even address her business here, first. The massive victory of the kal’dorei was driving the Horde out of land that they already owned.
I had given this some thought the other night. What I came up with? Has…has the Horde actually apologized for what happened there? I mean, like, the leadership. Have their diplomats said anything? Or is it just one of those things written off to “war is hell”?
Because if there’s no formal apology, or anything? Then, yes, that should be brought up. If an apology is made, then that’s on Alliance members for bringing that up.
And seriously, can you not consider Tyrande’s point of view? Feeling shame about a shameful act is natural. It’s not right for you to tell them “Hey, get over the fact that I took part in killing your family” because you feel bad about that.
No, let me take that last paragraph back. Because one of the things I also thought of is that perhaps you and other players with your outlook might feel better if there was some kind of acknowledgement that what’s been going on is not okay. If Baine or Lor’themar or someone said ‘this wont’ happen again’. Because right now, a lot of Horde players are in the unenviable position of having to do horrific things in order to keep playing the game, and that’s not fun at all. It was annoying enough dealing with that in Pandaria.
Horde players like Jellex want to forget Teldrassil ever happened and any repercussion for it to be denied. Also, if they interact with any Alliance based NPC to never bring up what happened or berate their faction/race.
Pretty much total absolution and zero story continuity or resolution.
If it sucks for the Alliance players then too bad for them.
Blood elves. This has got to be hard on you, from an RP standpoint.
Quel’thalas fell because some undead monster thought his whim was more important than the lives of your people. And now, after having barely survived that intact, trying to rebuild your shattered people and find your place in the world? You have to take part in making another massive city fall because some undead monster thought her whim was more important than the lives of other elves.
I have no idea why that didn’t immediately spark rebellion.
Selama ashal’anore, sister.
But to a narrative standpoint, it’s annoying. It’s insulting. It’s lazy. I’m going to ignore the rumors I had heard, but…this is just stupid.
It’s exhausting that the Horde is consistently the villain. This is also from an Alliance perspective. It paints the Alliance as at best, incompetent, and at worst, stupid.
Remember what Varian openly told Vol’jin? If you don’t uphold honor, we will end you. Did that even mean anything? The reason that’s important is, from an Alliance perspective? The whole last half or so of Mists of Pandaria was about orcs. Given what’s happened, and what keeps happening, it starts raising questions. Why? Why is the Alliance just letting the Horde keep rebuilding, if they keep trying to kill everything? Why are our leaders not taking steps to make sure this stops happening?
From a Horde standpoint, that’s also annoying. Why are my leaders so stupid that they keep challenging what is frequently depicted as a superior force? Why are we not resorting more energy to prospering? Why do we keep making deals with clearly evil, powerful things? Why do I have to keep kicking puppies if I want to play the new content?
I have said this before, and I’ll say it again. You know what I want to see? I want to see the Alliance as the bad guys at least once. And I’m not talking about some piddling thing. I mean a whole damn thing.
And what I think is important? This needs to be something that an actual government is behind. Not just one fringe human or dwarf. It needs some legitimacy. In the other thread, I had pointed out that there was a quest where some dwarves butchered a bunch of Tauren just to dig somewhere. Something like that. The arcaheologist’s guild, or whatever? Have them move on some Tauren establishment. Cause some strife in Ironforge, with the Council of Three Hammers. Have the Horde call them out for despoiling the land. Have the Wildhammers point out the goblins ripped Azshara apart.
Something that seems…real.
Right now, this whole scenario is just the Alliance sitting down, sighing, tilting its jaw out and waiting for the Horde to punch them in the face. The Horde is just sighing, going through the motions, waiting for the bell to ring so it can punch the jaw, then punch itself a few times before falling back down.
It’s silly.
…c’mon, man. Don’t do that to the Draenei. Let them keep their ship.
It’s both amazing and aggravating to me watching people fall into Blizzard’s trap.
We want players to be proud of their faction, even at the expense of personal dignity. One time I was driving my wife home from dinner. She leaned out of the car window, threw the horns, and screamed “FOR THE HORDE!” at some dude who was standing outside the restaurant in his Horde hockey jersey. Poor guy probably forgot he was wearing it. We peeled off in a thick cloud of blue tire smoke, and I think we made him pee.
That’s what I’m talking about.
So when it comes to the game’s ongoing story developments, it’s no surprise that Alliance and Horde fans are “keeping score.” Maps and charts of territory gained and lost started showing up around the time the Cataclysm shook the world to its foundations. Southshore plagued? Taurajo burned? Oh no they didn’t!
–
A quick survey of Azeroth’s history reveals that we’ve been punishing the Alliance for generations. Stormwind was razed by orcs back in Warcraft I. Then Lordaeron fell to the plague in Warcraft III, its inhabitants turned into a mindless mob of undead. High-elven allies were besieged by the scourge and had their city sacked and their source of power corrupted. (The survivors of both these atrocities found solace in the Horde.) The gnomish capital was irradiated. The dwarven kingdoms were shattered by a terrible civil war. I’m surprised there’s an Alliance left at all.
On the other hand, those humans got off easy – at least they still have a planet. The orc homeworld was overrun with demons and obliterated. Almost the entire race was poisoned by demonic blood. By the end of Warcraft II, what little remained of the orc race was stranded on an alien world, defeated, sullen, weak, and locked away in human-controlled internment camps.
I’m sure glad we didn’t have orc forums back then! Imagine the outrage.
In truth, a historical account of the Warcraft universe reads like a war crimes trial. Empires topple, leaders are corrupted, populations are massacred, entire civilizations fall to ruin (often at their peak of power)… Warcraft is a dark place. Just ask the Draenei: We trashed their homeworld and tortured its last uncorrupted children for tens of thousands of years. We’re downright cruel. I’ve never met a more sadistic team of story folk.
Suffering is the gasoline that drives our story engine.
I want to address some points in part, but more than that I want to address the thread I see running through your arguments. That is, I see you being okay with subjecting the Horde player to shame and punishment because of choices they did not make. Or at least that’s how some sections of your post come off to me. So let’s get back to the basic point.
World of Warcraft is a game, and games are supposed to be enjoyable to play.
I feel like you are sacrificing this basic point. It’s why I asked you my original question about whether or not you consider the people on the other side of the story you seem to want to tell. In a book, or a movie, or television show - yes, a lot of the points you are making make sense. And I do see you acknowledge the point I am making at the very end, but honestly, having Baine or Lor’themar tell me that what happened “wasn’t okay” feels… very cheap. I’m more than well aware it was not okay. I don’t need to be moralized at by the video game. Rather, I would like to see the leaders of the Horde discuss how to move forward and how to rebuild. I’d like to see Blizzard make use of a lot of the characters gathering dust.
One thing I was consciously NOT trying to do was get into the “But who has it worse???” argument, because that argument has played out a thousand thousand times on this forum, and it never ends well. What I was aiming instead to do was show to Alliance players that the Horde HAS lost things, because - and you are doing it too - when presented with evidence of these losses, there’s a tendency to downplay, minimize, and otherwise not engage with this fact. To say that “Because in our opinion the Alliance lost more, your losses don’t count - and because the Alliance lost more, you need to continue losing.” It’s set up in the guise of fairness - both sides need to lose things in some measure - but then the attempt to tilt the equation by knocking Horde losses out of the pile occurs. That is why you see this resistance, because, as I have been trying to explain, Horde players already feel very punished, and this demand for additional punishment doesn’t sit well. (And that’s why these arguments seem to inevitably devolve into a question of who lost more.) That’s why I was explicitly not making it “a question of math”, because then we all start arguing about the variables.
This is why the base question of making the game fun to play always gets hung up here.
Alliance players aren’t having fun because they feel they have lacked closure from the story. (N’zoth is satisfying nobody.) Horde players aren’t having fun because they feel that they’re going to be punished in perpetuity. Blizzard, of course… is ducking these issues, which means that what we have is what we’ve got. I will be honest - I am not sure how we fix this.
To the more specific points.
Not only do I think this is untrue, I think Blizzard has historically had a poor reading on what Horde players want, which is why their story has given us narrative whiplash. Garrosh was not that popular. Exchanging him for Thrall was even less so. I think they made Garrosh aggressive because they wanted to tell a faction war story - not because they were catering to what they thought Horde players wanted.
Moreover, again, Blizzard isn’t even coming close to selling the Horde as “the bad guys”. I quote Blizzard’s official description:
The indomitable Horde is driven by unity. They are fervent keepers of freedom and hope, relentlessly opposed to any who threaten these ideals, including the stringent Alliance.
Where does it say anywhere that we’re signing up to play villains? I strongly oppose any characterizations that claim Horde players “knew what they were signing up for” because it is explicitly not true.
Lastly: I’m actually kind of surprised. When the wrangling over the imbalance in “moral grayness” was in full swing last year, pretty much everything on both sides was closely parsed out by everyone. I hadn’t heard of either the events you reference until just now. Where has that been this whole time, I wonder?
My fun is to slaughter the Horde.
I want to march with a whole Alliance army, slaughter (or at least be given a choice to slaughter) from coast to coast until I burn a Horde city deliberately causing untold havoc and destruction for that sweet sweet justice.
The Horde players got to enjoy that at my expense. The Horde gets to have fun. Why not the Alliance?
Why do I not get offered the same?
He was directing it to Vol’Jin and Vol’Jin died soon after Varian, so if we want to get technical then the “vow” ended with Vol’Jin’s death.
With that being said - I agree that it’s super tiering to only write Horde as a bad guys and Alliance as the good guys because they cut themselves from any narrative novelty.
As for belves - I wouldn’t say that it would be too horrible to them. They did exact same thing to Amani - even incinnerating them alive for defending their homelands.
But overall I think that spamming threads over and over again about the same subject would sooner wear off forum posters.
It’s not like players have any influence over writers, and what was done was done. It was against my likings too but so were other things in this expansion and previous ones.