Playing Alliance, all you ever see is the Horde represented as Homicidal monsters and Mad Scientists. Forsaken have it the worst in that regard as their military tend to be entirely composed of Warlocks and Rogues with some Warriors for the front-lines stuff. Horde NPC lines always depict them as people that delight in causing pain and suffering. Playing Horde you do get some of that when interacting with the Alliance, especially the Kultirans.
On that note, with the Kultirans, I have noticed that instead of diversifying more the identity of the already existing Alliance and Horde races, the writers chose to use Allied races to fit that role. The Horde got Highmountain and Vulpera as friendlier groups to join the Tauren. The Zandas and Nightborne have likewise yet to be depicted with the same thirst for blood as the core Horde races, although they are a bit stuck up. Mag’har unfortunately couldn’t escape the endless malignment that the Orcs continue to suffer.
Barring any more Anduinwashing, Alliance Allied races have potential to be very problematic to the core values of the Alliance. The Lightforged are a very warlike sect of Draenei that could easily adopt a Lawful evil directive. Void Elves are constantly a whisper away from bringing about the end of days. The Mechagnomes seem to have the same problem the Forsaken have when it comes to morality. They aren’t sadistic like the Forsaken, but they are still prone to frigid logic and indifference to emotions. Their addition to the Alliance also somehow managed to devolve the Gnomes from a semi-Democratic society into another Monarchy. Then of course you have the Dark Irons whose Shamans seem to delight in summoning powerful Fire Elementals that burn their victims alive.
While the Kultirans were depicted a bit more bloodthirsty than the average Alliance NPC, the BFA story has gone far and beyond in indirectly justifying all their bloodthirsty racism.
Because the moral high ground has comfy chairs and cookies? Because if you wanted to become them you could just play Horde? Because an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind?
And are blessed with minds and consciences with which we can overcome our basest savagery if we choose to.
Crazy idea, I know. I mean, what kind of world would it be if everyon did that?
That’s a rhetorical question btw.
Okay for realsies I’m walking away now. If you wanna go work on becoming the very thing you say you hate in “them,” well…I mean…have fun with that I guess.
they really aren’t giving me much reasons to care about the world when the horde caused more damage to the alliance that many world threats combined.
so yeah, lets go blind, at least we would take them to hell with us .
why should i care about azeroth if i literally have no home?.
pro tip:the horde destroyed it, twice.
I am sure Blizzard could have made some quests and events that allowed players like me to full Tamerlane on the Horde when given the option while players like Tyrnathera who value morals over justice can cuddle the Horde with blankets and juice boxes instead.
Perhaps meanwhile I am having my fun blasting Horde “”"“civilian”""" NPCs in the face on one side of the city the more “good” aligned players can help with the evacuation.
PS. These are fictional people guys. Its ok to kill them. Pixels aren’t real.
What exactly is the line between accepting that this is a game, therefore what we do and want doesn’t reflect who we are, and accepting that certain desires and acts crosses a line we shouldn’t consider?
I still of the mindset that blizzard’s morality is inconsistent and bizarre.
Well technically the Gilneans trashed their own home before the forsaken turned up. That and Deathwing.
But we will go to hell together. That is literally what next expansion opens with.
Look, I get where your coming from. The Alliance and Horde both got screwed. It is pretty much another version of what it was like for the Alliance and Horde at the end of MoP, except everything feels like it got doubled down.
Your in the same place as me. Either you can accept that the story got screwed and was seriously unsatisfying and move on to Shadowlands where the factions will be very much second to Covernants or you can leave WoW for greener pastures. I haven’t made a final decision on that myself though I already spend time in what I consider greener pastures or at least vastly better written pastures.
While I consider the framing incorrect, bad things happening don’t make me a nihilist.
Why should you care about anything ever? (Because it helps improve things even if you are in a bad situation, whereas apathy or mutual destruction doesn’t.)
I’d say the line is self examination/awareness. Games and other works in media have to constantly grapple with what message they’re communicating to their audiences and how, just as audiences grapple with their various interpretations.
There’s no mathematical formula, but being able to have a honestly examine and actually acknowledge one’s own desires, motivations, behaviors, etc really helps.
The story of Warcraft is a story that’s been written by dozens/hundreds of people over the course of decades and also has to account for the limitations of game development. Inconsistencies in tone, message, lore, etc are going to be a thing.
well that is a problem because i really don’t seeing much of interest in shadowlands apart from tyrande and kael story.
like… sylvanas? whatever she is probably going to die with a kamehameha and the jailer doesn’t seem that is going to be an antagonist of respect.
not legion level at least.
i am fine with bad thing happening and using that as fuel for story.
i am not fine if these stories must be stopped midway because the reasonable conclusion may hurt half the playerbase too much.
if i don’t have a place that i can call home, then i got nothing more than a desire for revenge. like, is what blizzard wanted to give me. i feel like the only story that got resolution was theramore/kultiras but what about gilneas and teldrassil? that happen to be the places that my character used to live.
And now, both are gone by either blight or fire.
What is next?, stormwind even as refuges? like is funny because that also happened at the start of the expansion.
how about we stop being victims and we pay with the same coin?.
Mutual destruction is the answer.
Blizzard says that we protect azeroth because is “our home”
And here i am, me, as worgen player “press X to doubt”.
Problem is the story already hurt the horde too much. We lost more in this expansion than we had in all other expansions combined. We lost more than the alliance has lost in all expansion combined.
The horde barely has ANYTHING left. “For the Alliance” now only has TWO faction leaders, Baine and Lorthemar. Ironically, the two LEAST impressive leaders.
The Alliance already has a roster that vastly greater than the horde.
The Alliance has more territory than the horde.
The only thing the horde is equal to in regardless to the alliance is capital cities. You could destroy Bilgewater Harbor, but even if that happened alliance posters would claim that it doesnt count because the horde playerbase doesnt really care about it (which is true, partly because its just never used. It is a useless set piece). nor will it be treated with the same gravitas as the NE death because blizzard treats goblin deaths as a source of comedy, so it will lack the same punch.
Hell, trolls have been Teldrassilled almost every single expansion (by the horde and alliance no less) and nobody gave a crap about that! The horde has LESS than we did in VANILLA.
which is why instead of the alliance blowing up the horde, the horde should just help the alliance and nelves, doing this does two things, shows the world they did in fact change, and the pc can feel heroic again, by saving alliance.
Look, I know getting aggravated over the genocide of pixels is silly so “Hordies” telling you that your opinion is wrong may sound funny to you (on the other hand if getting aggravated over the genocide of pixels is moronic, then why the harcore resentment regarding Orcs and Forsaken? -I mean this kinda make you look like one of the aforementioned histerical posters; and worse one with double standards and/or deliberate poor ethics-)… but then again you have to remember playable races fulfill a VERY important job regarding this game: they´re the source of IRL people´s avatars to wack stuff on a virtual setting.
To put it simple, regardless of the race and even the faction, ALL of them are but glorified vehicles that let people relax and waste time on a virtual setting surrounded by other people. The gameplay experience is literally the same (kill irrelevant things to get resources to go kill less irrelevant resources to go kill the big bad to get more exclusive resources and cosmetical perks so you waste time showing them to yout friends and so on…)
So when you or a rando Horde poster goes all “muahahaha, let´s genocide the Hurde/the Alli!!!” some posters may get annoyed cause they perceive that as an attack on their vehicle to experience the game and by default an attack on their legitimate rights regarding the participation in-game. People may think “oh, if they DO genocide the Forsaken/Night Elves for real, then can it be possible I may have to race change? But I don´t want to race change!! Piss off, do I have to do that and not other players, it´s absolutely unfair and I pay the same as the rest of the players!!!” etc, etc, etc.
And frankly, the paranoid mentality is not so ilogical when we take into account the writting team in charge of the lore of this game (their one shared braincell is one very stupid one if you ask me)…
Let me dumb it down for you and others reading this.
The Horde players got to have fun blowing my factions city up.
They had their fun.
Now I want to blow up one of their cities for MY fun.
They had fun. So now its my turn, thats the nature of how Blizzard patches and adds content to their game.
Its as easy as that.
Nobody’s playable character is getting forced race change.