You’re dancing around the subject, but you know I’m right. You’re saying a storyline shouldn’t continue because it would be bad for your side. That’s on you my dude.
The book is canon, and it’s never been refuted a year later. The Horde committed genocide. It’s canon.
I agree with this, as there is very much a meta thing going on that prevents Blizzard’s story from dealing with the Horde in the same way they dealt with the armies of the Lich King, Deathwing, and Sargeras, for example.
But there’s also a very very big difference in how Blizzard has characterized the Horde in comparison to the armies of the Lich King, Deathwing, and Sargeras as well.
The Horde has always been shown in story, and by virtue of being a playable faction, that it’s not just populated by a bunch of mindlessly Evil loot pinatas driven to madness or corrupted to the point of unrepentant evil- but made up of fallible mortals with a capacity for good and evil comparable to that of the Alliance. Even Sylvanas, as terrible as she and her actions have been, has been given more characterization and moral/emotional complexity over the years than the Lich King, Deathwing, and Sargeras.
Whenever the Horde/Alliance have to team up against the big bad, it’s assumed that one can forcibly interrogate, firebomb, magic nuke, and slaughter thousands of Lich King/Legion/Old God followers without any threat to one’s conscience.
However, whenever Horde and Alliance fight each other, it’s almost always framed as something of a tragedy born out of mortal fallibility, mistrust, old grudges, the cycle of violence, etc. Major NPCs whose arcs see them advocating for peace/cooperation are always vindicated in the story compared to the one who demands a more violent or divisive position. Horde players are made to feel bad whenever their Warchief leads them to be aggressive, just Alliance players are made to feel bad when theirs do the same- no matter what rationale their leaders on either side may give.
Because the war between the Horde and Alliance is more (dare I say) nuanced and complicated than the wars between Azeroth and other villainous groups, the resolutions are always more nuanced and complicated as well. There can never be a grand victory of either faction over the other in the same way we eventually had our triumphant defeat over the Scourge, or cults of the Old Gods or Legion.
I’d argue that Blizzard has stumbled often in adequately expressing this nuance and complexity, especially when it comes to the Alliance experience, as very rarely are Alliance players expected to engage in peaceful discussion with Orc/Troll/Forsaken/Tauren/Blood Elf characters the same way Horde players are with Humans/Night Elves/Dwarves/Gnomes/Draenei. This has lead to a situation where it can be harder for players to understand how the Alliance could ever be expected to make any kind of peace.
For example, Alliance players say they’d like to see Horde characters being held accountable in the game world. If you play Horde, you’ll see Sylvanas supporters being led through the streets in chains. You’ll talk to NPCs expressing shame and regret for their actions. Sylvanas’ manipulations and betrayal of the Horde continues to cast a shadow over Horde interactions. Forsaken are without a home and without a leader- who happened to be the person who took their home from them.
Unfortunately, these aren’t things Alliance players are likely to see because they generally aren’t ever allowed to talk to Horde races in any context other than when they’re waging war with them.
.......................................................
And here we are, at the final end of the conflict. And, as Blizzard has always done, we’re encouraged to view the Horde- not as just a bunch of mindless enemies we can stomp like other antagonists, but as kindred spirits with a shared humanity that we’re forced to make peace with. The characters who advocate for the peace like Anduin, Thrall, Jaina, and Baine, etc are vindicated, while the warmongers that remain on either side continue to be cast in the wrong.
.......................................................
And now we have to deal with how this actually impacts the players in those factions. Both Teldrassil and the Undercity and surrounding zones have been lost to both factions. Obviously both are going to get new homes.
Returning Darkshore to the Night Elves is easy enough. It has no Horde flight paths/settlements and returning it to its pre-BfA status is as easy as removing all the BfA world quests from the zone.
Returning Ashenvale however is thornier from a meta perspective, as it’s been a shared zone since vanilla just like the Arathi Highlands, and turning either into Alliance/Horde only questing zones has ramifications when it comes to overall faction balance and questing experience. If Blizzard is going to continue with the previously stated “Mostly Red Kalimdor and Mostly Blue Eastern Kingdoms” concept, then it’s likely that we’re going to see the Horde keep Ashenvale and the Alliance keep Arathi. If there is indeed a world revamp in the works of any kind, both Night Elves and Forsaken will be receiving new starting experiences/zones and capital cities.
Also, what Sylvanas did/intended to do by burning Teldrassil is genocide. A Good War goes to even more depth with the following passage…
“This battle was not about a piece of land. Even Saurfang knew that. Taking the World Tree was a way to inflict a wound that could never heal. Losing their homes and their leaders would have ended the kaldorei as a nation, if not a people.”
That’s pretty much the definition of a genocide. Not just technically, but also in spirit. Whether or not she succeeded, it was certainly Sylvanas’ intent.
So yeah.
At the same time, if we’re going to bring real world reactions to genocides into the mix, I think we should also be going “Big Yikes” at the idea that people believe that lives can be exchanged as currency. To denounce entire peoples whose members have engaged in terrible things as if they’re undeserving of mercy or compassion. That because they committed genocide against my people, that it’s perfectly okay -even moral- for that to happen to them. To wage battle of retaliation, not just in self defense or over a piece of land, but out of a desire to inflict a wound that can never heal. To take others’ homes and their leaders with the intent to end them as a nation, if not a people.
In this sense, I think Blizzard has taken a much more idealistic approach to the whole ting. As much as people denounce Anduin for being “weak”, his actions are very much in keeping with what most of us would consider ideal in the real world- lest we ourselves become the targets of all the people who’ve been harmed/exploited by our own institutions, with the tacit approval of our own society and our individual inaction… or because we didn’t do enough to stop it/make it up.
You are aware that according to the Horde version of events, the Horde found a weapon and the Alliance attacked them for it, I assume?
That’s not indicated anywhere. A couple of soldiers Hordeside mention that the Reliquary found something big, and even they say that it’s “Part of the weapon the Alliance is looking for”
All of the text indicates Horde attacked.
Talk to their Commander.
It would feel good if we were doing it out of altruism, to help those in need. But your description of these quests explicitly frames it as “making amends” and “cleaning up the mess [we] made.” Which means the Horde PC would basically be admitting “Yes, I was bad, but now I want to be better.” I’m sure that feels good in a certain way if you truly believe that you are guilty of wrongdoing, but that’s the big problem for Horde players: we, the humans behind our keyboards, have done nothing wrong except to choose the red team at character creation. And the only wrong our characters (whom we identify with to a certain extent) have done was forced upon us without our consent. So then being asked to “admit” that we/our characters did wrong and then perform a task to make up for that wrong would not feel good.
This is not true. Horde PCs have quite frequently been told that the Horde is bad and we should feel bad. I made a whole thread keeping track of it (which probably needs to be updated):
And a leveling zone close to our capital city (eastern Ashenvale). What are you willing to give us to make up for that? Will you withdraw from the Barrens?
I actually do totally get that, which I perhaps don’t say often enough. Blizzard went out of their way to make you feel that way, and that really, really sucks.
The players or the NPCs?
The players or the NPCs?
Yet you are insinuating that we (as people) should be happy to have our characters perform acts of penance toward your characters because our characters have been bad and we (as people) need to acknowledge that??
You know what. I’m going to say that Revissa is right, but it’s already too late. We tried “pin it on the scapegoat then forgive and forget” after Mists of Pandaria, and sure it was cool watching Alliance and Horde storm the portal to Draenor together. After that half hour, it really wasn’t satisfying to anyone, and most damnably, it reinstated a status quo that once more required that Horde characters turn into bloodthirsty idiots to justify the next faction conflict. I’m open to try something different.
I say let the Alliance stay angry. Have the Alliance demand justice beyond Sylvanas and Nathanos, have those demands foiled in some way, and let THAT fuel the next faction conflict. The Alliance is still seeking justice for Teldrassil, meanwhile the Horde can be fighting for its very life. That’s a story we haven’t seen in WoW yet and if we hadn’t just watched the Alliance and Horde storming the portal to Orgrimmar, with Saurfang’s corpse hung between their arms, I’d even have hope of seeing it.
Ill leave off this,
Op, I think it was largely the way in which you framed your post, It seems as if you want the players who did nothing wrong besides playing the horde to try and make amends for actions they had no choice in. Thats where a lot of people are drawing issue with it.
Seriously, nearly the entire war campaign is about how were bad and we should feel bad, and it seems you are asking for more of that.
The only thing I feel bad about is that you’re not enjoying the story (neither am I nor many others). So whats the point in prolonging it?
This game is also a heroic fantasy, and you use the word penance, like we need to be self reflecting and sorry over actions we had no say in.
But if you would’ve framed it like to make amends the horde helps the night elves slay some big bad dragon, Sure maybe I could get something behind that.
Okay but the bad things were still done, and you seem to strongly believe that Horde characters were made to feel bad- so I think we can agree the point we’re at now would be a bizarre place to stop. Let’s finish the story so it can be put behind us… And yes, that includes making amends.
Oh my God.
I already like the players, I’m talking about the NPCs and the faction as it exists in-game
No, I’m saying that the Horde should make amends towards the Alliance. And that means player might participate, just like they did with the horrible stuff, because the other option is it all just being mentioned in a book outside of the game, and I don’t want to do that again. You seem to have a very difficult time divorcing the ideas, and I’m sorry about that.
Please, PLEASE stop putting words in my mouth, it’s very uncomfortable. At times it feels like you’re intentionally misconstruing what I’m saying.
Gonna be real, you are pretty strongly insinuating that (intentional or not), if you’re not then clear that up for us please!
TBH its prolly best to just handle it in an outside book, so no one has to deal with it in game, then the people who wanted something to happen can have it happen and say it happened, and others can just move on.
I think the problem you’re running into is one that many others have had on this debate.
Punish the Horde, you punish the players. It extremely hard to do one without the other. When the Horde undergoes penance in game it is likely the players will be forced to do so to progress.
It doesn’t feel good. We didn’t want this, we didn’t choose this. We were pulled down into the mud while tied to a rope and dragged the entire way. Aiding the Alliance to atone for things we didn’t want to do just feels like we’re being dragged another mile through the filth.
Then there’s the matter of reparations and all of that meaning we, as players, lose zones and territory that we may enjoy while gaining nothing in return. It feels bad and we feel we’ve suffered enough in BFA.
You get the Barrens and Dustwallow Marsh. There. Happy?
So then it doesn’t matter, just like all the other times something goes right for the Alliance in a book.
I really, truly do not believe that seeing Alliance recovery reflected in-game is a lot to ask. I really, really don’t.
Counter-point; for the Alliance it’s been like a root canal. We sat through the drilling, and the suffering, and the uncomfortable sensation of blood and particles of bone in our mouth, while the Dental Assistant looks unhappy about the whole thing. We were assured by the dentist though, that we were right for doing this.
And then, before the crown gets put in, the Dentist rips off his gloves and pushes you out of the chair. And then, when you ask if they’re going to finish up, the dental assistant starts complaining about how unfair it is. “No, that’s enough, I don’t want to do this anymore.”
Alliance recovery alone reflected in game is fine.
But, having the horde/its players aid in that recovery via quests via and any major story wise or gameplay wise, is not.
Im not saying that the alliance has had it easy in bfa, but neither has the horde, and your idea really only looks like it will make one side feel good, while continuing to make the other feel like trash.
So, sure if you wanna have some NPC orcs help the night elves get some lumbers and some NPC humans help cleanup UC, thats fine, but in no way shape or form should the player be obligated to help out nor have any major impacts on the story.
i don’t feel that’s apt. Your analogy only works if we were assigned to be the dentist by someone else and had no desire to be there in the first place.
We’ve been dreading this since the tree burned. We KNEW how screwed we were. We had no chance of being in the right or of winning the war. We lost our morality and agency at the starting line and have been squirming ever since. Heck, the war is over and we’re still dreading whats coming next! The Horde is in absolute shambles at the moment.
We’re just trying to explain to you that we’re tired. We’ve lost characters, our agency, our morals, our pride. We really don’t have much left to give here.
I would absolutely take that. I have nothing against Horde players, which I’ve said over and over again.
So you can certainly understand that the Alliance is frustrated. They lost (another) city, then, in their bid for vengeance, another important landmark of cultural significance for them was ripped away from them after being inches away from victory. Then, in their big “Tides of Vengeance” patch, we were locked into an eternal back-and-forth warfront and a raid where we killed one guy who wasn’t even sold on the Horde, and ran away.
And now, we’re being told “Yeah that’s all over, peace time!” with no resolution to all the terrible things that were done.
Which is dumb. No one’s arguing that. This entire story has been cheap shock play after play. The Alliance wants more, the Horde feels we’ve suffered enough.
So what is there to do? Really nothing. Split us up after this and don’t let the Alliance interact with the Horde for a while and vice versa. We’re sick of each other.
You all can plot revenge and do your thing over there, we can be over here picking up the pieces of what we had and trying to hotglue it back together.
Ya’ll only lost a city?
Wow, we’ve also lost a city, had a city raided and lost 4 characters, 2 killed and two left the horde, and our whole narrative wrecked.
I think ya’ll have gotten a your vengeance along the way, but its just not enough for ya’ll.
All the stuff we talked about in this thread?
Oh.
Or they could stop dodging blame and allow the Horde, for once, to self-reflect and do something about it.
We did. That’s why we had another rebellion with the whole “We don’t get to hide” message. Where we lost three characters in one fell swoop and apparently learned nothing from Garrosh.
We’re not dodging the blame because in our eyes we’ve paid in full. We need to rebuild ourselves before we help anybody.