The Faction Rivalry

[Etheldald-ragnaros (Etheldald)]

To be fair, you don’t. On the forums all the time you constantly advocate for the Horde players to suffer for the terrible writing of Blizzard - that’s not going to help anything. Most of the time when I see your posts, they seem to only antagonize and incite even more vitriolic behavior from both sides.

maybe i don’t know and true, i can’t speak for everyone.
but i can speak for myself.

Listen, vanforth.
After literal years one can get tired really easily of the horde and those who defend it. Specially those who mock you and insult you in every posible way.
making jokes about teldrassil, theramore, gilneas. ect.
jokes about the alliance, the characters, that jaina is a dreadlord, that tyrande is stupid, that anduin is LGTB, that malfurion is useless, ect,ect ect.
or personal insults.
One can easily get tired of that garbage, and of course if you are attacked, you must defend yourself.

That is why i am always at the defensive. and that is why i will say what i feel no matter how annoying that can be for some people.

Unfortunately however, this is what we have already to some degree. The Alliance is painted as the morally justified faction when the Horde keeps burning down whole cities. We have this modern concept of proportional responses

But you see. this is when my suggestion is truly an attempt to repair the horde story as well, even if you don’t believe it.

i often hear that the horde doesn’t have enough motivation and that they have no true reason to hate the alliance other than blizzard tolds them that they should.

That the alliance doesn’t have characters that are menacing or threatening.
they no longer sees us ar enemies but rather something to punch and nothing less, and of course how can be any different if blizzard is constantly writting the alliance as forgiving despite the fact that forgive in these circumstances doesn’t make much sense and they only do it so the horde can keep existing?.

That is not fair to us and i will always advocate for a better story.

This is in no way reflective of enough of the population Alliance side to make generalizations.

fair enough.
then can i ask what the hell we, ally players want?

Yeah, because Horde players need to be punished for picking the wrong team! Am I doing it right?

alliance players shouldn’t be punished either, because pro tip, we already have.
So what other solution do you propose?

and like i said, this is also an attempt to make the horde feels like heros again, right?
defending versus alliance agression isn’t what they want?.

The Alliance just isn’t winning hard enough for you.

The horde already got at least 3 big wins without the alliance being able to do anything about it, it wasn’t even close. and we never got any payback for any of it at all.
while if the horde loses, they do it on their terms or manage to do something about it.
like in undercity, denied us the victory of having lordaeron, because of couse that the alliancce can’t have a clear victory on the horde, same with dazaralor. the zandalari weren’t even in the horde, when the “vengeful” horde returned to the city they forced the alliance to flee and even managing to defeat 2 of our leaders.
not only that, the attack made the zandalari join the horde, so in the end it feels like we are just a plot device to their story.

Hell, after baine returned derek to jaina the ally story was over!
this wasn’t about the horde and the alliance. this was about the horde, AGAIN.

But that’s because you seem to have zero empathy for players who didn’t click on the blue screen when they picked a character. At least if this post is anything to go by.

And where is the empatowards ally players? very little to zero horde players cares about the alliance, their characters, cities or players.

don’t get me wrong, i do have empathy towards some red players. others make me wish that blizzard ruins their story more.

but that is why i suggest this route, so maybe the alliance can be morally gray, we have some payback, and the horde can feel like heros again. everybody wins.

i am not even talking about the miserable treatment that blizzard has towards us.
like those dudes in the blizcon, and mocking ally players when they can.
Horse jokes, adding IA to BGs and saying “you are welcome, alliance”
“what happened in x zone? -the horde happened!”
one can wonder why the hell i am even here, i am some sort of masochist?

so please, forgive me if what i say offend people in some way but people has to know that this isn’t world of hordecraft, or it should not be. in theory.

[Breakcog-proudmoore (Breakcog)]

The faction conflict was going to die early since Saurfang was spared. Though I never would’ve expected Tyrande to out edge Maiev.

[Pellex-hyjal (Pellex)]

the Horde at least gets a few fist pumping moments. They lose the long term battle, but it’s those moments of instant gratification that really pay off.

Where do you think those moments were? I never once fist-pumped in BfA. I never once felt gratification of any kind, instant or otherwise. The closest I got was feeling like the battle of Lordaeron was an honorable loss, but even that was tainted by the voice in the back of my mind saying, “Yeah, but your side deserves to lose.”

I just wish that if they were looking to put the faction rivalry to bed they would have done it at the end of Legion.

I was always skeptical of the claim that they were going to end the faction rivalry after BfA. As Arlifrex says above, they’ve always leaned on how the faction divide is iconic.

But I did think they were going to try to get to a place where things could die down a bit for a while. A cold war with mutually assured destruction through Azerite weapons seemed like the most likely outcome to me back when the premise for the expansion was announced.

And either way, this is going to fester: one side with growing resentment at being punished by the story this way, the other side at listening to their rival faction complaining or agitating for the other result.

QFT, sadly.

[Tamanii-wyrmrest-accord (Tamanii)]

First off, I think it’s worth noting that most players don’t see the Horde vs Alliance conflict in such stark contrasts as we often do here on the forums. The factions are more or less equal in terms of player numbers, with Alliance tending to favor more casual PvE and RP, while Horde seems to have always appealed more to people interested in PvP and “harcore” endgame content. Even if they favor one, most players play both factions.

.........................................................

Regarding the context of the faction rivalry and how it appeals to different parts of the player base…

WoW isn’t the first franchise to have a “red vs blue” dynamic. Gundam has Zeon vs Federation. Star Trek has Federation vs Klingon. Star Wars has Empire vs Republic. Once side composed of the “individualistic good guys” and the other composed of the “collectivist evil empire”. Wildstar had its Dominion vs Rebels.

And in all those franchises, the red side isn’t without its fans. If you go to a Gundam convention, Char cosplayers easily outnumber any Federation characters. Go to Star Wars park in Disney and the Empire has parades and there’s not a person alive who doesn’t recognize the Imperial March. The Klingon fandom, with its invented language, culture, and various rites, is almost shorthand for the hardcore lore obsessed fanbase. “Sieg Zeon!” and “Qapla’!” tend to get people more excited than “May the force be with you.” and whatever the Federations(s)’ mottos are.

And that’s despite the fact that in every one of those franchises, it’s pretty much exclusively the red side that are prone to unprovoked aggression, mass slaughter (in the form of planetary bombardment), and are otherwise operating as expies for certain totalitarian regimes from our own history.

The Warcraft franchise obviously played off some of that- but with fantasy. The first game in the series was subtitled: Orcs vs Humans, after all. The Orcish Horde were a combination of the historical Mongol Horde with some Tolkien-ish and Warhammer influences (themselves based off steppe nomads and other “barbarian” peoples), while the Alliance is your classic Human/Elf/Dwarf… alliance.

In the fantasy gaming space, the Alliance doesn’t stand out too much from the pact. It has its own unique stories, sure, but the general setting: with it’s humans/elves/dwarves, knights and mages, castles and magical forests… Very little of it really stands out in the fantasy gaming space. Which is great for mass appeal, but doesn’t do as much to serve as a hook when other games do the same (sometimes better).

Horde, meanwhile, is pretty unique as far as facilitating the kind of fantasy you get to play. If you want to play an Orc, the only big names in town are WoW and ESO, and ESO doesn’t deliver on the fantasy of playing an Orc anywhere near the level that WoW does. Or a troll. Or a minotaur. Or a goblin. You get the drift.

At the end of the day, the Horde is really what sets Warcraft apart. It’s the gimmick. The hook. And the Horde only really exists so far as it’s useful as a foil for the Alliance. You can write it well. You can write it poorly. But that’s still much of the unique gimmick, even all these years laters.

[Benezet-wyrmrest-accord (Benezet)]

This is really just symptomatic of Blizzard not having a cohesive artistic vision in the lore production. It’s explained tons of places that things make it into the game/lore just because someone decided it would make a good idea, creating this frankenstein abomination that is difficult to make coherent.

Chronicles was an attempt to fix just exactly that but there was not and is not anyone writing for the future.

Edit: Yes, i know blizzard has a department of lore nerds but their job isn’t story direction

[Vanforth-wyrmrest-accord (Vanforth)]

@Etheldald-ragnaros

After literal years one can get tired really easily of the horde and those who defend it. Specially those who mock you and insult you in every posible way.

Not going to argue with that, not at all. However, you being frustrated doesn’t give you the right to take aim at an entire group of people for the actions of a few. I get agitated at Alliance players spewing hatred at Horde players just as much as I hate it when Horde players berate and mock Alliance players; when folks do that, they’re showing the world just how immature and childish they are.

@Etheldald-ragnaros

One can easily get tired of that garbage, and of course if you are attacked, you must defend yourself.

Stand up again them and call them out, but don’t demonize the whole player base.

@Etheldald-ragnaros

That is not fair to us and i will always advocate for a better story.

Gotta keep in mind that a better story for you, is not necessarily a better story for everyone; we all have different preferences.

Do I want the Alliance story to be better? God yes.

Do I want it to come at the cost of Horde players suffering as a result? No.

There’s a difference between wanting things to improve, and wanting other people to suffer because you had to in the first place.

@Etheldald-ragnaros

then can i ask what the hell we, ally players want?

Everyone wants something different. I know what I want, for sure. I did a whole write up about it (A Proposed Revision 🖊). I know it’ll never happen, but I know what I like, and I know what I don’t like. I don’t like where the story is going, and I’m choosing to distance myself from BFA and Shadowlands as a result.

It’s important to recognize the moment when this game isn’t fun for you anymore; it’s okay to take a break if it’s just getting more and more frustrating. I’ve been a day 1 vet for WoW, and after fifteen years I’m pretty much calling it quicks; it sucks, but it’s not worth getting stressed or agitated over.

@Pellex-hyjal

Where do you think those moments were? I never once fist-pumped in BfA. I never once felt gratification of any kind, instant or otherwise.

I was speaking more generally about the narrative over the years, but with BFA in focus - I never felt it either, personally. After Teldrassil it took me months to come around to even leveling Horde side - but I’ve spoken with a lot of folks Horde side and for many, sticking it to the Alliance at Teldrassil was a major victory for them.

Others have said a lot of the Zandalar story had some great moments where they genuinely felt heroic again.

@Benezet-wyrmrest-accord

It’s explained tons of places that things make it into the game/lore just because someone decided it would make a good idea, creating this frankenstein abomination that is difficult to make coherent.

This is another really important thing that folks need to be reminded of constantly; for Blizzard, the Rule of Cool always triumphs.

[Exacitor-wyrmrest-accord]

(Commentary): Resolving the problem of toxic rivalry would require a lengthy systematic process and a long-term approach. For starters, the barrier of the factions would need to end in some manner as to allow players from opposite factions to interact with one another. There was a thread on the general forums not long ago regarding a, ‘Diplomacy Mode,’ which put players at unfriendly with the opposite faction’s NPCs, enabled cross-faction speech and grouping/raiding, and put them in a different phase from the standard gameplay. I think this would be the most unobtrusive way to make it possible for players to understand and accept the person on the other side is a human being.

(Continuation): I don’t think any kind of, ‘payback,’ or revenge will ever set the narrative right at this point. Genocide is not something one can be redeemed for in the eyes of the victims. Moving on may be the only recourse. With the idea of a Diplomacy Mode as a basis to build from, we would need an expansion to function similarly to Cataclysm, revamping the old world with quests and phasing to show us a rebuilding, with cross-faction cooperation.

(Conclusion): With the above having been accomplished the narrative would need to shift to a new tone when it comes to the rivalry between the factions, and become more of a, ‘one blade sharpens the other.’ Quests where one commander informs the player of the other side’s accomplishments, and pushes the player to one-up them. Battlegrounds dedicated to war games rather than territorial disputes. Overall this is not something to be accomplished within even a single expansion, and would need multiple expansions, as well as outside materials, to really push it home. Redemption and Forgiveness may not be options, but moving on always is.

[Ammea-moon-guard]

The Alliance has the OP, god tier characters, but can never fully use them because “it would not be fair”.

Tyrande, Malfurion, Jaina, arguably Velen, arguably Alleria. Of those, I’d only trust Jaina to have plot armor, and she only got it this expansion.

[Syriyna-amanthul (Syriyna)]

i don’t want to sound rude but you think that i don’t know what the alliance is supposed to be?
what most of their players like?
what story they would like?.

i do not care anymore about being the villan or the hero.

One thing is for sure is that we cannot let the horde get away with it.
if they do gain ashenvale from this war and anduin signed the treaty then how i would be able to respect the faction or any of their characters?
and is not something that i want to do.

What? destroying the other faction? mocking their losses?
get away unpunished?

Here is the issue. You want to act like the Horde has because of what the horde has because you feel it is justified. For it to be like what the Horde had it has to be unjustified and feel wrong. You need to feel that your faction is throwing away what it stands for. Only then would it be balanced with what the Horde has gotten.

That is the part of the reason it is unworkable. For it to count the Alliance would have to be hurting people who didn’t deserve it and what Alliance players want is to hurt the Horde they feel deserve it.

The Alliance got its people killed, its towns burned and was robbed of a satisfying justice. The Horde had its identity shat on, made to feel like hypocrites and had their sense of pride in their faction destroyed.

That is what the Horde got. You sure you want it? They can still make Tyrande and Genn raid bosses for you to hunt down and kill. They can still have a Baine teach you how to be good people since your own leaders can’t seem to figure it out on their own.

and like i said, this is also an attempt to make the horde feels like heros again, right?
defending versus alliance agression isn’t what they want?.

This only works if your aggression is completely unjustified which isn’t what I think you want. Your want justified revenge. You want payback for wrongs done. That is the difference between what you want and what the horde has gotten that you don’t seem to comprehend.

I was speaking more generally about the narrative over the years, but with BFA in focus - I never felt it either, personally. After Teldrassil it took me months to come around to even leveling Horde side - but I’ve spoken with a lot of folks Horde side and for many, sticking it to the Alliance at Teldrassil was a major victory for them.

We have had very few things even coming close to fist pumping moments for decades. We spent most of WoW’s life following evil warchiefs, first with Garrosh and then with Sylvanas and Teldrassil was clearly messaged to have been a monstrous act. Those who consider it a victory are those who would want to have sided with Garrosh or now Sylvanas rather than them becoming raid bosses. When we aren’t working for villains, we are running sidekick for either current or former Alliance heroes. Cata is the only real time that has been different and frankly only for two patches.

The Horde has been cursed with hypocrisy because Blizzard keeps selling the idea of a honorable horde and writing narratives which suggest the exact opposite.

[Vanforth-wyrmrest-accord (Vanforth)]

Teldrassil was clearly messaged to have been a monstrous act. Those who consider it a victory are those who would want to have sided with Garrosh or now Sylvanas rather than them becoming raid bosses.

And yet Horde players were given the option to side with Sylvanas; whether it’s considered a ‘monstrous act’ or not, Blizzard knew (correctly) that many Horde players would side with her. That’s exactly what happened. Just because it’s not your vision, persay, of what the Horde should be, it’s what many people do wish the Horde was.

And that’s been this whole expansion; the Horde deciding for itself which identity it truly wishes to follow. Yes, in the end we got choice a, not choice b, but you cannot deny that players who sided with Sylvanas and Garrosh are still Horde players.

Just like some Alliance players want a savage and revenge focused faction, instead of the peaceful and just kind, there are Horde players who embrace the savage war mongering identify of the OG Horde over the new, peace and unity focused Horde of Thrall.

When we aren’t working for villains, we are running sidekick for either current or former Alliance heroes.

And this is an argument I’m on board with as well: it affects both factions. Yeah, it sucks for Horde to have to follow former Alliance characters (much as it was probably sucky for a lot of Alliance players to have to chug around with Thrall all during Cata and MoP), but the flipside of that is the Alliance curse of having favorite Alliance heroes go neutral and abandon the faction entirely.

We have had very few things even coming close to fist pumping moments for decades.

In no particular order:

Sylvanas’ funeral speech during Legion, Nagrand finale, steamrolling Gilneas, Hillsbrad (nuking Southshore’s entire civilian population into goop), Theramore, Thrall being the center piece for Cata and him being the OG Horde hero, all of Frostfire Ridge (which was pretty damn amazing), taking out an old god in Nazmir.

These are ones that I’d pick, and those are based on my preferences, but I’d say it’s a pretty good start to a list.

The argument that Garrosh was evil however, I think, is a challenging one to grapple with. Yes, he turned out terrible, but from the beginning he was all in, for for the Horde. There wasn’t any if ands or buts about that; he was all in for it. It was only when people began to buck his idea of Horde First as a policy that he started to be painted in a negative light.

What would have happened if the Horde had stuck with him? What if they hadn’t rebelled? Yes, the Alliance would have suffered terribly, but if there hadn’t been traitors, then the Horde would have come out strong from that. Garrosh wasn’t inherently a bad person, or an evil character - he was truly misguided and got further and further lost along the way, and it sucks that Blizzard screwed his story so hard in the end.

I would have preferred the Garrosh story over Sylvanas’ any day, because in the end I think Garrosh’s Cata/MoP story initially spoke to the true heart of the Horde’s inherent moral dilemma: which path do we follow from here?

Sylvanas, on the other hand, is a straight up piece of absolute trash who is evil. I genuinely cannot say enough terrible things about her as a Horde character. She is so awfully, terribly, impossibly poorly written in the role they fit her into - and it had such an adverse impact on me - to the degree that I outright stopped playing Horde after the start of the expansion because I couldn’t look at anything my characters did anymore as heroic - it was tainted from then on. It took me half a year just to get the stomach to finish questing through Zandalar.

She has never been for the Horde. She has been genuinely, truly evil since her turn at the end of WoTLK - and probably even before that, and her story outright ruined the Horde. Simply put. To the point. Honest and blunt: Sylvanas’ story ruined the Horde.

Are there some people who like her character and direction as of late? Absolutely. Would she be a solid character if unattached to the Horde? Most definitely. But is she a good fit for the Horde? Absolutely not.

Whether you want to discuss with me about whether the Horde can be redeemed at this point - that’s another story, but from the moment she was let to run free after WoTLK - it was the downhill slope and I’d been worried about this since that moment.

[Syriyna-amanthul (Syriyna)]

And yet Horde players were given the option to side with Sylvanas; whether it’s considered a ‘monstrous act’ or not, Blizzard knew (correctly) that many Horde players would side with her. That’s exactly what happened. Just because it’s not your vision, persay, of what the Horde should be, it’s what many people do wish the Horde was.

And that’s been this whole expansion; the Horde deciding for itself which identity it truly wishes to follow. Yes, in the end we got choice a, not choice b, but you cannot deny that players who sided with Sylvanas and Garrosh are still Horde players.

Just like some Alliance players want a savage and revenge focused faction, instead of the peaceful and just kind, there are Horde players who embrace the savage war mongering identify of the OG Horde over the new, peace and unity focused Horde of Thrall.

Here is the problem with that. We get totally mixed messages and that is why the Horde’s identity is not only a shambles but also the whole horde looks like hypocrites. Plus you might notice that effectively in the end the Sylvanas/Garrosh players get screwed since their chosen leaders end up as raid bosses they have to kill.

Your also missing a key detail. Justification. The horde is never given any decent justification for when it goes off the rails. Why should the Alliance be the only fully justified side in the conflict and how is that in any way balanced and fair? Our faction doesn’t just exist to be the villians for the Alliance.

Sylvanas’ funeral speech during Legion

And then she did nothing to fight the Legion and instead tried stealing power from one of our allies.

Nagrand finale

Yeah cause Thrall kill stealing and killing Garrosh who should have died way earlier.

steamrolling Gilneas

The horde players weren’t even involved in the attack on Gilneas and we only won Silverpine by taking a hostage.

Hillsbrad

Yeah we weren’t there for that and it resulted in the entire place being completely unusable for horde players. The Alliance has had plenty of victories off screen. The reconquered Ashenvale in MoP but I don’t hear any Alliance players claiming that was a fist pumping moment.

Theramore

Which was rubbed into our faces on how much of a monstrous act it was to the point that we had a book telling us how monstrous it was.

Thrall being the center piece for Cata and him being the OG Horde hero

He is involved in 2 patches and one of those patches was him being saved. I could say the same about Malfurion several times over but the response is ‘but he is neutral’ because apparently a character being neutral only counts if it is an alliance character.

all of Frostfire Ridge

Wasn’t the Horde. It was the Frostwolves. The Horde did jack all.

taking out an old god in Nazmir.

Which we only know is canon because of a tweet and that happened because we literally lost every other attempt to stop it from happening. That final fight was a last resort because we failed at every other turn. Really fist pumping.

Your logic works on the fact that the Horde is evil and therefore evil things count as fistpumping which basically means that those who don’t want the Horde to be evil are screwed. I don’t like your logic.

Regardless neither Garrosh or Sylvanas really addressed the issues with the horde and both effectively only were beaten when they turned on their own people. Both were rubbish righting which did jack all to address the horde’s identity and came at the cost of blurring what it was supposed to be in the first place and making the entire horde look both incapable of self governing and blatantly hypocritical.

Simply put the story Blizzard wanted to write they are incapable of doing because their writing team or narrative design method isn’t up to doing a story of that nuance. Instead we have just got trash that has made the whole horde look bad and incompetent at the same time. We cant even be proud of our military strength because we win almost no fair fights and usually have to resort to underhanded methods to even break even. I mean after the War of Thorns, name one major conflict point the Horde actually won.

[Shandriseth-moon-guard]

I actually like the Cold War faction style war. Less dramatic, and less cries about favoritism. Less cities and zones destroyed. Less faction leaders killed loosely by other factions. I just want us to be back in a friendly rivalry, with light bickering back and forth as we take on the real enemy. Idk, I always found that more enjoyable.

[Vanforth-wyrmrest-accord (Vanforth)]

in the end the Sylvanas/Garrosh players get screwed since their chosen leaders end up as raid bosses they have to kill.

For sure; not arguing for a moment that either of this ended on a good note.

Your also missing a key detail. Justification. The horde is never given any decent justification for when it goes off the rails. Why should the Alliance be the only fully justified side in the conflict and how is that in any way balanced and fair? Our faction doesn’t just exist to be the villians for the Alliance.

Again, I agree, but it goes the other way here too. “The Alliance doesn’t just exist to be the foil for the Horde’s story.”

Unfortunately, and I can’t remember which thread but I posted it somewhere the other day - these are the fates that both factions are seemingly bound to as a result of Blizzard’s inability to innovate: the Alliance will always suffer brutal losses and have a justified reason to attack the Horde, and the Horde will always lose its characters and have to face (again) that moral crisis about its identity.

These are the only two stories we’ve ever had from Blizzard when it comes to the factions, and it sucks - truly.

And then she did nothing to fight the Legion and instead tried stealing power from one of our allies.

Right - but I’m not talking about that; I’m listing specific moments that were empowering and “awesome” for the Horde. When you put any of those instances in a larger context, they lose impact - and that is the same for any examples I’d be able to list for the Alliance, too.

Blizzard does singular moments pretty well, but when it comes to the long term arcs - they fall apart (in most cases).

Yeah cause Thrall kill stealing and killing Garrosh who should have died way earlier.

Agreed - we should have ended it in Orgrimmar - but it’s still the Horde who got the kill.

The horde players weren’t even involved in the attack on Gilneas and we only won Silverpine by taking a hostage.

You get a whole quest experience sticking it to the Worgen in Silverpine, and pushing them back into Gilneas; who cares how the Forsaken did it, they literally wiped a kingdom off the board.

Yeah we weren’t there for that and it resulted in the entire place being completely unusable for horde players.

It definitely is in game, even if the moment that Soutshore falls isn’t. Southshore/Tarren Mill was a staple for classic wow, and to be able to say one faction or the other had a victory there is a mightily impressive thing. The whole zone went to the Horde.

The reconquered Ashenvale in MoP but I don’t hear any Alliance players claiming that was a fist pumping moment.

This, on the other hand - we do not see at all. There was no update to the zone, the Horde aren’t pushed back, the Kaldorei don’t move back in. You’re right that it was off screen: entirely. Many people don’t even know it really happened, simply because it’s not there.

Which was rubbed into our faces on how much of a monstrous act it was to the point that we had a book telling us how monstrous it was.

And again, going back to the previous point, perhaps it wasn’t a glorious moment for you, but for many Horde players it was.

could say the same about Malfurion several times over but the response is ‘but he is neutral’ because apparently a character being neutral only counts if it is an alliance character.

And I acknowledged that: below.

Yeah, it sucks for Horde to have to follow former Alliance characters (much as it was probably sucky for a lot of Alliance players to have to chug around with Thrall all during Cata and MoP),

Thrall is really the only main character from the Horde that’s gone neutral. You could argue Runetotem, but he’s not a main character (kind of just, hey, occasionally I’ll show up for a hotdog at the bbq.) Should there be equal representation among neutral characters? Yes please, but we’ll never get lucky there.

Wasn’t the Horde. It was the Frostwolves. The Horde did jack all.

It is a Horde only story. That is a Horde zone. That is a Horde cast of characters. That is a Horde story. The Alliance see not a single moment of it.

But look - you don’t need to try and disprove every single example because “fist pumping” is different for everyone: I’m not trying to pit a fight on this topic, but rather offer you examples.

I know I’m not the only one who would back these, but clearly you don’t share that same pov, and that’s fine. If we want to nitpick every single dang thing in the game, yes, at the end of the day we’ll all be f-ing miserable. If you really can’t see a single moment over the past decade that you would call a Fist Pumping Moment, why still give consideration to that story at all?

Which we only know is canon because of a tweet and that happened because we literally lost every other attempt to stop it from happening. That final fight was a last resort because we failed at every other turn. Really fist pumping.

When you have a story there need to be multiple road blocks to get to the victory at the end. The Horde got a whole three zones leading up to a raid; a connected story that builds further and further to a climax. The Alliance (afaik) got no quests leading into Nazmir except Bronzebeard going “hey, come do a raid”.

When it comes to story, just like Frostfire, that’s a Horde story.

Your logic works on the fact that the Horde is evil and therefore evil things count as fistpumping which basically means that those who don’t want the Horde to be evil are screwed. I don’t like your logic.

That’s not my logic, that’s simply a matter of realistic preferences and expectations. If you cheered at those “evil” things, then that’s your preference.

If you didn’t cheer, then it’s not your preference.

It has nothing to do with me and my logic. As I’ve said a few times now, everyone shares different ideals and expectations and wants for their factions.

Regardless neither Garrosh or Sylvanas really addressed the issues with the horde and both effectively only were beaten when they turned on their own people

Not arguing with you there - I’ve agreed with it already. Both stories ended terribly.

Simply put the story Blizzard wanted to write they are incapable of doing because their writing team or narrative design method isn’t up to doing a story of that nuance.

Again, agreed.

We cant even be proud of our military strength because we win almost no fair fights and usually have to resort to underhanded methods to even break even. I mean after the War of Thorns, name one major conflict point the Horde actually won.

To this, earlier - I stated:

I outright stopped playing Horde after the start of the expansion because I couldn’t look at anything my characters did anymore as heroic - it was tainted from then on. It took me half a year just to get the stomach to finish questing through Zandalar.

There have been fist pumping moments, but you and I may not see them the same way, just as other people who are ultra pro-sylvanas will see a different set of fist pumping moments.

The issue with WoW right now is the same issue the USA is going through. When it was a small story, small population, everyone had a few options and all faced (more or less) the same direction. Over time, new ideas come in, new stories, new directions and new people; it begins to pull things in different directions.

Now, we have two factions that have multiple very different groups of people who want extremely different things - and there is really no middle ground. That’s just the nature of how things are, and there’s no fix that Blizzard can roll out.

[Etheldald-ragnaros (Etheldald)]

Not going to argue with that, not at all. However, you being frustrated doesn’t give you the right to take aim at an entire group of people for the actions of a few. I get agitated at Alliance players spewing hatred at Horde players just as much as I hate it when Horde players berate and mock Alliance players; when folks do that, they’re showing the world just how immature and childish they are.

yeah, i am not really hating all of them, only those who deserve it. it just happens that they play the same faction
is not the same if i target the horde as a story faction as well.

Stand up again them and call them out, but don’t demonize the whole player base.

i don’t, i merely defend myself and my interests.

You need to feel that your faction is throwing away what it stands for.

i can deal with that. because the alternative is not having any respect at all. or at least. a considerable less amount. to the point of not even caring.

The Alliance got its people killed, its towns burned and was robbed of a satisfying justice. The Horde had its identity shat on, made to feel like hypocrites and had their sense of pride in their faction destroyed.

at least the horde managed to humilliate the other faction. and not just once.
because the sense of pride as well took a direct hit when we allowed another theramore to happen simply because we didn’t killed them all after SoO.

That is what the Horde got. You sure you want it? They can still make Tyrande and Genn raid bosses for you to hunt down and kill.

okay, i am going to be completely honest here jaina is already a raid boss i don’t care anymore who else is. why? because that tells me that ally characters don’t even have to be villains to be raid bosses why only horde has that benefit?

so it doesn’t matter if they are villains or not, they can still be raid bosses so the “metal” horde can beat and humilliate alliance characters.

They can still have a Baine teach you how to be good people since your own leaders can’t seem to figure it out on their own.

i don’t really mind baine.

This only works if your aggression is completely unjustified which isn’t what I think you want.

are we sure about that? because i have seen horde players justifying all the things they have done. they justified gilneas,theramore and teldrassil “all valid military targets” if that is true, fair enough, that means that we should be allowed to strike back… right?.

Hey, they destroyed alliance cities and still managed to justify it with “well, they were threats!” when the alliance justs wants to be leaved the hell alone, or their leaders at least.

and you know, that is one of the things that infuriate me the most.
Why the hell the horde does this? what the hell is their problem?
how they can be … like this. and why in the name of elune we aren’t dismantling them?, why anduin trust them so much? he should know that baine doesn’t represent them.

So the end result is of course a burning hatred for the other faction that i cannot even deal with.
they say that hate comes from love. maybe is because i actually care about the alliance,races,characters and players.

and again, i understand if horde players don’t like the idea, fair enough.
but they have to know that they aren’t the only ones playing this game and as a player of the other faction i will want things that they don’t.

[Vanforth-wyrmrest-accord (Vanforth)]

yeah, i am not really hating all of them, only those who deserve it. it just happens that they play the same faction
is not the same if i target the horde as a story faction as well.

If you have beef with specific individuals, you need to be very specific when you start laying out attacks - because (having seen a lot of your posts) you generalize quite often and don’t specify.

[Etheldald-ragnaros (Etheldald)]

If you have beef with specific individuals, you need to be very specific when you start laying out attacks - because (having seen a lot of your posts) you generalize quite often and don’t specify.

again, they just happen to play the same faction, and i know that not everybody thinks the same.

but at the same time, people defending some of the actions that the horde does makes it really hard for me, maybe because at some point i feel invested in the ally story or i take it… more seriously than i should.

i often wonder if i became exactly what blizzard wanted, just an ally loyalist who just cannot even look at his horde characters. and wants nothing more than revenge? did they win?.

[Gorge-the-venture-co]

Call me paranoid but I feel that’s what Activision Blizzard wants. The more we hate each other, the less we blame Activision Blizzard and get more mad at each other. Maybe it’s because we love this game and story to bits and pieces, and are too passionate that we don’t want Blizzard to stop. We want Activision Blizzard to keep making expansions and keep the game going, regardless of the retcons. So when something like BfA comes along, instead of being mad at Activision Blizzard like we should, we turn on each other. I don’t think that’s an accident, I think that’s entirely what Activision Blizzard wants.

That and it’s the whole “I’ll be angry at the closer target than the one far away.” Activision Blizzard is basically untouchable and out of reach in their ivory tower. So it’s easier to be angry at the opposing faction since well we’re more touchable in some regards at least.

[Syriyna-amanthul (Syriyna)]

These are the only two stories we’ve ever had from Blizzard when it comes to the factions, and it sucks - truly.

Which is the problem with just having the Alliance get it’s payback the way a lot of Alliance posters want. It basically sacrifices the Horde’s story completely to make the Alliance’s good. I would also point out that the whole moral crisis about it’s identity is a joke since in neither situation did it really have any meaningful conclusion and in this case what we did get came because of the urging of Anduin Wrynn.

The reality is that as far as the Faction conflict goes, that is the hole that has been dug and both sides have to live with it and hope they don’t decide that the whole disaster bares repeating in the future.

Right - but I’m not talking about that; I’m listing specific moments that were empowering and “awesome” for the Horde. When you put any of those instances in a larger context, they lose impact - and that is the same for any examples I’d be able to list for the Alliance, too.

They lose a lot of value when they continuously fail to pay off. Do remember this comes right after the Broken Shore where we got slaughtered by chums, our Warchief got mortally wounded in a frankly pathetic way and we fled with out tails between our legs. Not really a great set of context to feel like fist pumping. Frankly the Horde NEVER follows through.

Agreed - we should have ended it in Orgrimmar - but it’s still the Horde who got the kill.

But it wasn’t really in any way ‘fist pumping’.

You get a whole quest experience sticking it to the Worgen in Silverpine, and pushing them back into Gilneas; who cares how the Forsaken did it, they literally wiped a kingdom off the board.

The worgen had already turned their kingdom into a ruin and the questing experience is showing how well the worgen are fighting back that the fight has moved to Silverpine. How is key to ‘fist pumping moments’ because kicking someone when they are on the ground doesn’t really feel particularly empowering, particularly when more than half the time they kick your butt in a fair fight.

It definitely is in game, even if the moment that Soutshore falls isn’t. Southshore/Tarren Mill was a staple for classic wow, and to be able to say one faction or the other had a victory there is a mightily impressive thing. The whole zone went to the Horde.

The whole zone was due to an imbalance to start with. There were over 100 more quests on the Alliance side than there were on the Horde in Vanilla. I know cause I did the loremaster acheivement before Cata. I would also point out that a major complaint Alliance players have is that their victories are off screen and they don’t get to see them. Why does it count when it happens with the Horde but not count when it happens with the Alliance?

This, on the other hand - we do not see at all .

That seems pretty splitting hairs to me. You know it happened so it should count right? They state as much during the lead up to the SoO.

And again, going back to the previous point, perhaps it wasn’t a glorious moment for you, but for many Horde players it was.

So are the Horde supposed to be bad guys or good because this is just crap writing. It makes the entire horde look like hypocrites which makes the monstrous act even worse. Instead we have this ridiculous split personality to the horde which makes the entire horde look bad.

Thrall is really the only main character from the Horde that’s gone neutral. You could argue Runetotem, but he’s not a main character (kind of just, hey, occasionally I’ll show up for a hotdog at the bbq.) Should there be equal representation among neutral characters? Yes please, but we’ll never get lucky there.

Alliance players whined like crazy over having to work with both Thrall and Vol’jin and I have seen players argue black and blue that Thrall doesn’t count as a neutral because he still felt some loyalty to the Horde but Malfurion does even though he is literally one of the co leaders of the NEs. I would LOVE to see some Horde characters in neutral roles because I would finally see the Horde contribute to something beyond cleaning up its own messes and setting up villians. My character has done a lot to protect Azeroth but the Horde itself has done jack all on the scale of things and frankly isn’t close to pulling it’s weight. Frankly you could have removed the Horde from Legion and you would have barely noticed the difference in the main story. It made it look like the Alliance could take the Legion on it’s own. Blizzard said the Horde fought on Argus but I didn’t see them there beyond two token BEs.

i don’t really mind baine.

Yeah but do you want him to teach the Alliance how to be good people because they apparently can’t figure it out on their own?

are we sure about that? because i have seen horde players justifying all the things they have done. they justified gilneas,theramore and teldrassil “all valid military targets” if that is true, fair enough, that means that we should be allowed to strike back… right?.

The stuff the Horde has done to the Alliance is generally unjustified. You could kind of argue Theramore was since Jaina was letting the Alliance use it as a base of operations to invade horde territory and attack horde settlements but even that loses its value when you find out it was in response to Horde aggression in the first place.

Horde players often argue sketchy arguement to justify the Horde because they are trying to cling to the idea that the Horde aren’t scum. They don’t want to hate their own faction so they stretch and twist facts to try and make an argument that allows them to feel comfortable with their faction choice. I even use to do it till it became so far fetched I had to give up. It doesn’t help that how the Horde carries out wars is in horrible ways to just make the act so much worse.

I complained at the begining of BfA that the writing had failed to give Horde players a reason to be invested in the war and failed to make the Alliance an effective antagonist for the Horde story. Instead they painted Anduin as a protagonist. This naturally forced Horde players into the role of the antagonist ie. the bad guy.

I will tell you why the Horde is like this. It is simple. The Horde is like this so the Alliance doesn’t have to do anything even slightly dubious or unethical. The horde is always the aggressor so the Alliance can always be justified in its self righteousness. It is left totally unbalanced and as a result we end up with this entirely one sided thing where the Horde is the bad guy and the Alliance can’t get a satisfying outcome because the Horde is a playable faction and Horde players had no say over being railroaded into this position.

What is being espoused effectively makes this a game about the heroic alliance bring justice to the villainous horde and you might as well tell horde players that they should be paying for a game designed only for the Alliance. There is no way you can argue that is fair.

[Ammea-moon-guard]

heroic alliance bring justice to the villainous horde

Hah! They can try. They’ve never stood a chance against the Horde, every victory they ever have against it outside of the 2nd war is either neutralized shortly after, returns us to the status quo, or is done in cooperation WITH the Horde!

What’s the most damage they’ve actually done, Taurajo? Ooh, they sieged a camp! And didn’t even intentionally finish the job. They tried to let the townsfolk escape but they were so incompetent they couldn’t even get that right!

The Alliance can’t touch us.

[Syaeles-moon-guard (Syaeles)]

you might as well tell horde players that they should be paying for a game designed only for the Alliance.

Times like this I wish I could use gifs. Cause all there to respond to this statement is:

Oh wait your serious? Let me laugh harder.

Yeah the War of Thorns was for Alliance players. Sure thing. The Horde power fantasy is for Alliance players. Right.

My quest to save over a thousand civilians from the inferno of an entire zone being razed in fire in under two minutes was actually a really empowering quest and I’d never felt more pride for my faction.

What an absolute joke.