I personally dislike this aspect because it sends a weird message. It always reminds me of the one Blizzard response about the High King in general where they essentially said, ‘democracy isn’t a positive in Warcraft’, more or less. It is a weird story concept to lean into. They developers (probably dishonestly) have said they’re find supporting the in-story concept that nepotism and feudalism just works better.
I had a comment like that before on the thread trying to compare the loss of Undercity and Teldrassil. Qualitative evaluation clearly varies based upon what people value.
If Blizz writers were actually creative they could use this fact to stirr some internal conflict in Alliance. It’s even more jarring than entire Horde fiasco with Sylvanas, when entire Alliance didn’t even once question Anduin’s leadership. A coallition of older and much more experienced people. What about distress among his own people of Stormwind? Did they actually do something with people of Westfall or they still eat dirtpies while Varian gets another monument because resting next to his wife was too corny?
What about House of nobles who were humilated and turned into waiters for Anduin? Shouldn’t they plot to take over power in that city?
They have options to make Alliance interesting, dynamic and actually explore their problems. But they always go with the super flat, super bland and uncreative ways - “we are good guys, we always get along, got no problems here, everything is fine”.
I really wanted for Nelves to react that Saurfang was captured and then set out free. That should’ve reasticlly cause some bigger drama, and nelves should’ve seen it as some sort of treason.
But no, Anduin knows better. And Jaina continues to flip flop each patch “I love Horde!” “I hate Horde!” “I love Horde” “I hate Horde!” whenever it fits the narrative if she is meant to be a good girl or “justified aggressor”. If she was a Horde character she would be dead long time ago.
Because Horde characters don’t have a chance to change their mind and work through it, they pay with perma death for their mistakes.
But … but it’s all that way only because the writers choose to make it that way. It’s not an inherent flaw with the warchief system, which could work just as well in the real world as a hereditary monarchy. It’s just that the writers choose to make one turn out badly and the other work splendidly.
I don’t mind that–it’s a game and a fantasy world, after all, and the democratic process would be really dull to play out–but I wish they’d show the flaws equally on both sides.
Obviously. So is all lore. We still discuss it, extrapolate from it, and argue about it. What the writers write informs our knowledge of the world.
So if one faction is written to have competent leadership and the other is written to have a series of leaders who are all incompetent? We can say that leadership of group two is inherently incompetent. Spider-Man always catches the bad guy. We know he always catches the bad guy because he has been written to catch the bad guys. And although he all know it is because the writers choose to write him catching the bad guy, we can safely say in-universe that he is very good at catching bad guys. Horde leadership and the warchief selection system of “pick a bestie, hope for the best” is no different.
I think there’s a difference between ‘that’s not a story we want to tell’ which is fine, whatever. And ‘we’re explicitly confirming nepotism and feudalism work better in our story’. So yeah, I get ya.
It was a forum post by Ornyx or Zarhym, having trouble tracking down the specific post as the WoWpedia link for them isn’t working. The phrasing in part was, more or less, ‘you claim a democracy would be better, Warcraft lore indicates otherwise’.
All this talk about democracy vs nepotism vs other forms of government reminds me of the Human Workers in WC3. I liked when they would say: “I didn’t vote for you.”
I would enjoy more discussion in the game about politics- at least in context to the story. I enjoyed the Vulpera intro because it touched on workers issues and other topics that should bubble up sometimes. Even if they are handled comically - I like seeing them exist and addressed.
(I am not a fan of Monty Python at all, but I am aware the unit speech is a reference to a movie they made. I saw that movie long ago. It was mostly tedious, though it had it’s moments.)
Will respond to the things that happened when I was gone (you know, to sleep) earlier, and to the people, but I wanted to address while on the road.
I disagree. The problem is with the Warchief system. It doesn’t work with idea behind the Horde (as a group of different people trying to survive), and doesn’t work with the actual members and cultures of the Horde. One of the things I had always thought in - well, you hip kids call it ‘head-canon’, I think - times when I thought about what should happen is that after one of the times when the Alliance dealt with a Garrosh/Sylvanas/Whatever is a demand. “This Warchief business…it doesn’t work. It’s over. Find another way to run your people.”
Tyrande was upset with Anduin’s decisions. She said “F this”, and did her thing. Anduin was upset, but understood.
Baine & Saurfang were upset with Sylvanas’s decisions. They said “F this”, and she immediately tried to have them killed.
Vol’jin was upset with Garrosh’s decisions. Etc.
The Alliance is actually an alliance. There’s room for disagreement and dissent. A Warchief is not. It’s far too autocratic, and…it doesn’t work. It’s also a little insensitive to keep that name. My memory is spotty this early and when I’m not looking things up, but…isn’t that the title that they had when they were the demonic orcs? I think someone mentioned that Gul’dan came up with that name? Or position?
It’s a type of leadership that does not work with the people it’s designed to lead and has a legacy of murder and destruction irrevocably tied to it.
You have to remember that Political Offices in the US face “revolutions” quite frequently with the House of Representatives having to face reelection every 2 years, the Senators every 6 years while the president faces reelection after 4 years and the end of his time in office after a max of 8 years.
This keeps both the Democrats and the Republicans from doing lasting damage to the US by keeping both out of power on short intervals. If you notice since 1992 when Bill Clinton first took office the US has quite reliably switched the party controlling the White House every 8 eight years while each of those Presidents enjoyed their party controlling congress when they entered office each of them suffered through their party losing control of congress during their terms in office.
Also next to none of the deals brokered by President Obama was ratified by Congress. That is where the binding power lies: with Congress not the President. A given President can enter into deals (as most do) but without Congress’ approval the next President to take office is free to back out of those deals if said President is willing to deal with the fallout of doing so.
Much like executive orders aren’t laws and will only outlast the President signing them if their successor is willing to enforce them. If you doubt that you should review President Trump’s nearly weekly ritual of taking a executive order of President Obama’s to the paper shredder (a Presidential ritual a democrat successor of President Trump is likely to repeat with President Trump’s executive orders as well as backing out of deals done by President Trump.)
The Founding Fathers of the US were quite wise in creating the Office of the President as one with only temporary powers while both Congress and the Supreme Court held the permanent powers. (And even the Supreme Court can be countered by Congress amending the Constitution.)
Yes, that is the point. The commands of leadership only last as long as they command leadership.
The original constitution allowed for a President to serve as many times as he was chosen. George Washington set the two term limit as a precedent that most followed, but FDR bucked that.
It was later amended to a two term limit - but the founders did not clamor for that. There is talk that some Founders would have allowed Georgey boy to reign as king, and he refused.
it feels like the alliance isn’t allowed to give the horde an actual hit that will hurt them for years like we have by them.
all what they give us is empty victories and put in our shoulders the “you must stop to save the world” because “the horde is a necessary evil”.
How about we have enough of these genocidal maniacs and we kill them all?.
we will deal with the consequences later.
We can have some alliance leaders still wanting blood and not being portrayed as villains for it. bringing that internal conflict that will actually force the alliance, and specially anduin. to change, characters needs to be challenged by the world and change and learn from their mistakes.
but as for right now… it doesn’t seem like anyone has learned anything.
so… what was even the point?
i hope we got something from the datamines or the novels.
Saying the warchief system is bad because there have been bad warchiefs is putting the cart before the horse, IMO. All systems of government can be broken by determined, bad people. Every single one, including democracy (although it takes more people to break that one).
Because Anduin is a good and reasonable person. A different king could easily have sent assassins after Tyrande. Anduin even has his own pet fanatically loyal rogue who’d do it for him in a heartbeat. He just chose not to give that order.
A warchief has no more power than an absolute monarch. To be honest, I don’t see a huge difference between a warchief and an absolute monarch, in terms of actual governing style and reach of authority. And at least there is a time-honored mechanism in place for replacing a bad warchief, that being mak’gora–single combat. The only mechanism in place for replacing a hereditary absolute monarch is assassination/revolution, neither of which has the built-in accepted procedure for transfer of power.
Maybe it’s because Alliance is compensating themselves such a thing by venting such frustration on people/ nations that aren’t that much related to Horde and screw them instead.
ALL? All 7 races that are currently in Horde? Without counting AR?
Or literally half of playable faction just because?
To stirr drama. That was it, they wanted to start expansion with big shock vlaue but they failed to write everything in reasonable way. Everything in this expansion was halfassed.
First, I may have not been entirely clear with the Varian & Vol’jin thing. The point I was making is that when Varian was speaking to Vol’jin post Orgrimmar, they were both speaking in political terms. I believe Varian’s exact words were “I will speak to your Warchief”. And Vol’jin responded “I speak for da Horde”.
The deal that they had reached was a political deal between the Alliance and the Horde. It’s one thing if either side decided they wanted to dispute that, or something like that after the deaths of either men. But the deal didn’t just legally disappear.
I…this was after Garrosh’s actions? From the perspective of the Alliance leadership, I have an easier time believing that a lot of the Alliance leadership would have little qualms with following through on that. I mean, now that I think about it, that wasn’t so much a threat as it was the conditions they were setting forth for ending this war.
I appreciate the sentiment, but no apologies are necessary. By and large, I just ignore unnecessary vitriol. And I’m more interested in figuring out what someone’s trying to say than how annoyed they might be while saying it. And I like to see other sides of an issue.
As far as the list, no, I get where you’re coming from. If you’re not into the “BLOOD AND THUNDER AT ALL TIMES, EVEN FOR BREAKFAST” mentality, it can be very unsettling to have to keep doing that. Like I said, it was annoying in Pandaria. It was annoying when any other faction tries to belittle what you’ve been doing.
But in the spirit of a more comprehensive picture, do you recall a list titled something like “Alliance Losses” list? Because that’s probably also a sore point. And it can also be a bit perverse to treat half your player base like they’re unable to fight, or do anything at all. Especially the night elves.
Trust me, I hear you. I hear every Horde player that is annoyed that they’re being treated as the people who make baby stew. But what I’ve seen and heard from a lot of the Horde player base focuses on the fact that they’re being forced to make baby stew, and not really acknowledging that those babies were coming from somewhere. I’ve seen phrases like “I mean, I get why we did Theramore/Teldrassil/whatever, but it made us feel like monsters.” What I’m not seeing a lot of is things like “I wish I couldn’t have done that”, or a lot of sympathy for the mothers with empty cribs.
Having said that, the Horde and Alliance storylines are different. As Amadis pointed out, things can happen on one side that the other side is wholly unaware of. And that’s fine. That’s even - and I hesitate to even say this - necessary for creating the kind of tribalism that WoW needs in order to succeed.
What that can lead to, though, is people dismissing the perspective of the other side. Which is a lot of what I keep seeing, and what I’m trying to show.
I think “believe” and “agree” are being used interchangeably. Rather, “believe we have a point” and “agree with our viewpoint”.
As far as Tyrande, for example? There’s a difference between her saying one or two statements in quest text and her openly, like, attacking you or something. One of those is necessary, the other is not.
And yes, I said necessary. This is for the sake of the story. If you are a Horde PC, then your character was aligned on the side that fought with the people who burned down her home. It would be strange if she didn’t say anything at all about that. Like suspension of disbelief strange. Ideally, there should be some other person you could interact with.
Both of these are excellent, and I would have loved to have seen these. The only thing I can offer in defense of the second one would be that it seems to only be rumors that Anduin helped him out. But I would’ve loved that.
This is also an excellent point. This goes back to what’s going on with the kal’dorei and Teldrassil. Teldrassil is gone. And in response to this? In response to that literal genocide? We’re promised the savage night elves. The ones that made Grommash was afraid of. In their element, with righteous fury on their side, led by someone who has fought Archimonde in single combat and the woman who created the Sentinels, infused with the power of a god. And their ultimate act? Pushing some of the Horde out of the forests that they already owned, the end.
I apologize, because I keep misread your name as “Etheldad”, and I keep giggling because I imagine someone called Ethel’s Dad, and he’s in here talking to us about a bunch of things.
Someone told me that the title of Warchief was created by Gul’dan. Is this true? Then, you had Blackhand, right? This was when the orcs were crazed on demon blood and tried to kill all life on Azeroth? Cool. Then, I don’t really remember too much after that, but I think another Warchief led another “kill everything” campaign. Then, we had Thrall, who was chill for a bit. Then, we had Garrosh, who did the “kill everything” bit. Vol’jin, who probably would have been a good Warchief (at least enough to skew the average), but he fell down an elevator. Then, you have Sylvanas, who led another “kill everything” campaign.
Is that accurate? I’m not trying to be snippy, I literally don’t have enough knowledge on the history of these things. If I’m wrong, I will immediately amend this, but…if that’s at least a moderately accurate depiction of things?
The Warchief system does not work with the Horde.
Didn’t Sylvanas win that mak’gora, by the way? That solution for replacing a bad Warchief? What if she hadn’t left? What if she had killed Saurfang, gave them all her spiel, and ordered them back to work? Would the Horde fall in lockstep behind her? Or would they do the “assassination/revolution” thing you mentioned? With the same lack of transfer of power?
It doesn’t work. It won’t ever work. It doesn’t fit the cultures.
we can’t have the horde actually suffering humilliation from the alliance or people are going to scream alliance bias and that all we should care about is how about horde players feels. i have seen zero to no sympathy from them to us.
like "OMG such alliance BIAS that 2 of their leaders escaped! while rasthakan was dead! (Despite the fact that they already got a huge victory in teldrassil and comparing dazarlazor with teldrassil as if those events were the same).
just… pure insanity.
haha! well to my defense when i created this name i didn’t know what dad means in english.
but i guess that i like how it sounds, makes more sense if you english isn’t your main language :p.
and besides, my old dog was called ethel! #randomfacts.
Well, this is just me being childish. It’s one of those…I think the word is false cognates. Like, in English? A bigot is someone who irrationally hates someone based on things people have no control over, and lumping everyone into the category.
Whereas in Spanish? “Bigote” means “moustache”. Which can lead to some hilariously confusing misunderstandings if someone is referred to as “El bigote”.
But on a more serious note, I partially agree. I get that a lot of the Horde seem to not express sympathy for the Alliance. Because of that, it can be difficult to express sympathy to the Horde. Which makes communication difficult.
It’s human nature. But it’s also human nature, I think, to strive to get over the basest parts of ourselves.
Well, let’s just say that I disagree and leave it there. IMO, the only reason it doesn’t work in the game is because the writers enjoy writing a dysfunctional Horde. There is no reason it couldn’t work IRL, and in fact, there have been multiple cultures that have used something similar without disaster.
The other points will have to wait until I have more leisure to respond, sorry!
I really wish they would spend more effort into, you know, not doing that. The point of the Horde is supposed to be one of a bunch of disparate races and cultures uniting for, mostly, survival. And I get that there’s going to be some issues with harmony. I remember speaking with someone and realizing that an orc could literally be sitting at a bar with a Forsaken who ran the prison camps at Durnholde, and a blood elf that had brought him there. But it doesn’t make sense if that’s all they focus on.
How about showing some common ground between the pandaren and the tauren? The Forsaken mages and the Nightborne arcanists? Orcs and trolls remembering the bond they actually have?
Because the way they’re written, there’s no real reason for them to be together, anymore.
Conversely, it would be nice to have some dissonance in Alliance storylines. I want to see a serious conflict between the dwarven drive for archaeology vs the night elf need to preserve nature. I want gnomes to not be a joke race. I want the stoic Draenei to have some misgivings about the impulsive worgen.
It’s more interesting, I think, if the Alliance has to work at staying together. That could be accomplished with a threat of an actual unified Horde. Just like the Horde could be forced to work on unity because of an actual threat of the Alliance.
