Yeah, boo hoo, I felt bad for kicking your teeth in repeatedly, it hurt my feelings, now apologize!
Either revel in your victories or go join the Alliance in their perpetual failure.
Correct, the War of Thorns was to motivate the Alliance players for the faction conflict. Siege of Lordaeron was to motivate the Horde.
That would be ridiculous. Of course Blizzard isn’t going to design the game exclusively to fill you with a sense of empowerment. To think that “designed for the Alliance” is in any way equivalent to “empowers” the Alliance is indeed laughable. So, for you.
No, that was supposed to motivate you to fight against the Horde. Empowerment comes later when you burn the Zandalari fleets, kill the Zandalari king, win both warfronts, and do all that stuff that poor Kyalin Raintree never got to do because she quit playing when Blizzard didn’t succumb to her demands for immediate gratification.
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Enters thread.
Looks around.
Throws chair.
Because it is that kind of thread! I’d have linked the appropriate Boondocks video, but nobody seems to be able to upload it without a very naughty word in it.
Seriously though, I skimmed the thread before reading it and had to check to make sure I wasn’t in World’s End Tavern. On the whole, pretty great thread.
In the pursuit of actually contributing to the topic: On the issue of empowerment (which is one of those words that is almost cringey on its own)- the attack on Zandalar never made me feel a sense of the Alliance winning. The Alliance didn’t really do anything, other than lose a sacrificial force, and kill a king that, at least to me, radiated a “this dude is omae wa mou shindeiru fodder from day 1” (though I thought Zul would do him in initially).
I felt more Alliance victory in the after the fact, out of game announcement that the Blue took both warfronts. That was easily worth more faction brawl points. I remember when I heard about the attack on Zandalar, my assumption was that Jaina’s mom was next on the list. She probably only wasn’t because Daelin was already long dead, and it would be awkward to have an attack on a mess of dock houses to kill a grandma who had already passed on her (political) powers. Also, who would even get anything out of that?
Certainly not the Horde. Murder-hoboing a senior citizen isn’t exactly a feather in the cap of a faction already dealing with being (in terms of players) frog marched into genocide. And while one could construct an encounter involving elite guards or what-have-you, let us not pretend that the ultimate framing of it would be any different than the above.
Train of thought: BfA is one big monkey’s paw. Nobody got what they wanted. Bear with me while I paint with inappropriately broad strokes:
- Horde players didn’t want to be the overt baddies.
- Alliance players didn’t want to have another city blown up with its population inside.
- Horde players wanted a strong warchief, not one that would go all Lich-queen on them.
- Alliance players wanted to have a reckoning with Sylvanas, not spin in little 4d chess circles and then fail to even fight her.
- Alliance players wanted to see the Night Elves hit back, not build up to a draw with somebody’s Husbando and have their dead raised and immediately swear loyalty to their murderers.
- Horde players wanted an honest win, but every win they got basically getting played by their own faction leader and/or consisted of backstabs and cheap shots.
The legacy of BfA’s story, to me at least, will be one of long awaited story additions (Zandalar, Kul’tiras), long awaited plot development (Sylvanas’s decade-plus long side plot), which were executed in ways that ranged from confusing to frustrating and/or disappointing.
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Really? Motivated me to join it. If you can’t beat 'em, join 'em!
Have you ever heard of Pavlov and learned helplessness? That’s the Alliance.
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the alliance didn’t needed any more motivation before war of thorns.
and thats fine but i feel like there should have been limits, there are things that blizzard shouln’t have done, but when i see people justifying the horde agressions,betrayals,backstab, and all the horrible stuff that the horde does
because “hey, the alliance hate us!”
even turning one of the most peaceful characters into rage murderers machines.
(jaina,malfurion)
or even demonizing people like freacking ANDUIN or velen. “hey is your fault that the legion chased you!”
i just… don’t get it. how can people be this… blind.
Hey, i know that the alliance is not perfect, mistakes have been made,
civillians were killed at our hand.
but it is just extremely minor in comparassion, and what is worse is usually responding to a previous horde aggression.
and yet, some still thinks that we are nowhere near at their level of evilness.
don’t get me wrong, i would have loved to be, at least maybe i would also feel ashamed of my faction instead of demanding more blood i would understand that we are actually as bad as them and we should stop.
That is… now how is supposed to be. it was supposed to be a gray conflict.
Not facing consequences for literal genocide is not acceptable either.
why the horde has this benefit but not the alliance?.
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If you truly believe that a) the Alliance doesn’t deserve a good story, and that b) resolution (not payback) to an Alliance story has to come at the expense of the Horde, then I’m a bit concerned hah. Yes, some players want brutal payback, but it doesn’t do anything beneficial for the story.
For both factions, a good story should not come at the expense of the other faction, and like it or not, since WoTLK, many Horde triumph moments have done just that. There is a litany of moments in the story where the Horde backstabs the Alliance a brutal and humiliating way, and there has been not a single scrap of resolution or justice.
It’s old. It’s really, really, really old. For both factions, too - not just for Alliance players. They’ve outright beaten this horse dead, and still keep trying to kick it.
Right? And this is a big thing: Blizzard tries to write meaningful conflict narratives, but they just cannot get the recipe correct.
It will happen again.
Fist pumping moments aren’t mean to be the one thing you ride till the very end; they’re moments in which you get a brief respite - where you’re hyped up - it doesn’t necessarily involve a long term victory.
Sylvanas’ victory speech is that fist pumping moment after a dark time. Did it get overshadowed later on by the continuing plot? Yes, but that’s intended.
Think about any other piece of fiction or entertainment media and you’ll find these things.
In LoTR - we have the delivery of Aragorn’s sword to him at the base camp just before the battle for Gondor; it’s an epic moment where you’re reinvigorated after some grim news. Is that the end of the story? No - he then has to go into the halls of the dead and face another challenge, and yada yada. But we get a really cool moment ahead of it.
Again, if you put a larger context to any fist pumping moment - it loses its weight: e.g. destruction of the Death Stars in A New Hope and Return of the Jedi- both epic moments… made less positive by the reality that the Sith keep coming back regardless and that peace wasn’t secured.
So don’t think of them in the larger context. Just be happy you get a moment where you can be excited for once.
Again hah - you’re nitpicking. Perhaps it wasn’t fist pumping for you, but many people were head over heels for that moment.
And? I’m not seeing the relevance of this point? Did you see the Alliance conquer the entirety of the Barrens in Cata? No; there was an attempt to measure out equal quest additions and power.
The Horde’s victory at Southshore itself may not have been on screen, but you see the results of it across an entire zone. I’ll repeat that: the Horde get an entire zone. They claim it. They conquer and capture it. It is theirs. Forever. Permanent. Done. No contest or visible counter to it. It is a Horde victory.
How is that not a victory that you will count? Horde get to quest in it, after. Horde get a shiny new hub in it, after. Horde get tons of new quests in it, after. Horde further demoralize and humiliate the enemy faction by continuing to brutalize them in the zone, after.
Literally everything about the revamped Hillsbrad Foothills is about the Horde sticking it to the Alliance and then rubbing it in their face, and you’re still going to nitpick that the singular moment of Southshore’s destruction isn’t on screen - and how that invalidates a victory.
The thing you’re not understanding is that it does counts for both sides; no one likes being humiliating and losing - especially when it happens frequently, and your only victories are off screen. To be fair though, a large majority of the time, the Horde does get the on screen victories compared to the Alliance. That isn’t to say every victory is on screen, but there is a large disparity between the instances of the victories being shown in game, when it comes to the Horde vs. the Alliance.
You just argued that Hillsbrad doesn’t count as a Horde victory because you don’t see the destruction of Soutshore itself on screen (despite literally gaining an entire zone to quest, rp, and play in)… and now you’re going to claim that Ashenvale should count for the Alliance even though none of it is on screen? I’m not the one splitting hairs on this point or showing bias at this point hah.
We need to see it in game, in some way, shape, or form. In both the case of Hillsbrad and Ashenvale, both points you’re bringing up, the Horde are the only ones who see any update to the zones in their favor in which victory is apparent.
For some it is going to come across as horrible, crap writing, for sure.
But again, you’re missing the point. It’s not just about you. You are not the only player in the game. Some people like the concept of the Horde being aggressive and brutal. So yes, when it comes to pleasing both halves of the Horde player base, there is going to be back and forth. There is going to be hypocrisy. And yeah, the developers are going to screw it up really badly.
We’ve had a full decade now since Cata - if you’re really playing Horde and still haven’t come to the realization that this is the only story Blizzard is going to write for the faction, I don’t know what to tell you.
Same for the Alliance: if you play Alliance and still haven’t come to the realization that you will always be the punching bag for the Horde, then that’s a you problem.
It’s pretty hard not to realize and acknowledge the trends; you have to deliberately bury your head in the sand.
And Horde players whined like crazy about Tyrande and Malfurion - it happens all the time with both factions. There’s no point diving deep into this particular topic because no one likes it and we’re stuck with it regardless.
I think the spin on this is amusing, at best.
Yes, I agree that the game does portray the Alliance as being heroic and justified, and the Horde (in many cases) being more villainous. Ultimately however, the Alliance is the one being used as a foil to allow the progression of the Horde’s identity and narrative arc. Through destroying the Alliance and dipping into atrocities like genocide, the Horde has a moment to reflect on its character.
Despite it being terrible story, the Horde is being prompted, time and time again, to grow as a character; at least that is the hope/intent. It’s annoying to see the same story repeated twice (MoP and BFA), but in both cases the Horde is attempting to rebuild its identity, challenge notions of an old culture/tradition/mentality, and has a broad stage upon which to do so.
The Alliance, however, hasn’t grown or even faced a moral internal dilemma; every time it’s: be attacked, fight back and secure peace. There has been no lesson learned, no greater story to it - it’s just reacting. It’s grim and bleak, and I don’t like the fact that the Horde’s growth is dependent upon having to do awful things, but it is a chance for narrative growth regardless.
So no, the game isn’t designed only for the Alliance - it’s designed for both sets of players to exist in a theme park world where none of us have control or any influence on a story that we don’t like the set up to. We choose the factions we do, and then we needlessly try to justify the actions of the characters without looking through the lens of “developer intentions”.
That’s the game.
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2 Zones are under the control of Genocidal Monsters and a 3rd is up in flames. I don’t care about Kul’tiras issues or Troll Boats. I want to take back the Kaldorei’s few homes they have left before its all either cut down or blighted.
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Killing their king didn’t do the Alliance any good cause suddenly they were to morally righteous to push the advantage. All it did was replaced a hesistant King with his all to eager to join Daughter that thrusted the Zandalari into the Horde seconds after his death.
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Oh boy a Blizzcon question. My cup runneth over with joy and pride.
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Blizzard has done an outstanding job at making players feel great about fighting for their factions. Alliance players have a Pyrrhic victory with no sense of justice leaving them feeling hollow. And Horde players feel like goofs fighting and losing again and again for a Warchief and a war they never wanted.
I’m all for faction conflict, i think it’s integral to the games identity and health. This is WARcraft after all but my god is the reason for war and the motivations for players to fight in this war is so very weak. Who writes this stuff?
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The exact same people who wrote Legion + an author that’s been writing WoW novels for nearly 20 years.
Actually it’s the same people who been writing since vanilla + golden -mezten and Kosak
Short post because work, but. Tyrande and Malfurion continue to feature in the story and if anything grow more relevant, not less. The reaction to Thrall caused him to be nerfed, neutered, and all but vanished from the story until the writers made a desperate move for approval. You’ll notice that Thrall hardly evoked any excitement in his return.
The point I’m trying to make here is that there is a feeling that Alliance complaints successfully gutted and killed an iconic Horde character, whereas Horde players will likely have to be scolded by Tyrande again in Ardenweald.
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I know you don’t remember but it wasn’t “alliance complaints” that killed thrall the complaints didn’t have anything to do with questing with a horde hero people made the complaints sure but the bigger complaints was about how he took over the story and stole our kill which was a thing everyone was complaining about
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Is this even a complete thought?
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I don’t mind working with them, particularly on my druid. What I minded was Tyrande treating me like crap the whole time. Thrall did not, as far as I know, treat the Alliance PC like crap.
Who in this thread has said that?
It’s Alliance players who want their good story to come at the Horde’s expense.
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I see you don’t remember Thrall’s Balls 2011.
To be fair, ours comes at theirs. On the other hand, there’s nothing they can do about it so go ahead and laugh at their impotent rage.
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That’s assuming you consider the Horde story to be good, which is very much up for debate.
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Better than theirs, I’d say! Embrace the villainy, knowing you’ll always get away with it, and be back to the good guy side in the end no matter how much the alliance doth protest! Laugh at their misery!
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That’s basically the gist of things. Both sides have been treated poorly by the story since Cataclysm. Horde become aggressive villains that we didn’t want. Alliance become passive heroes that they didn’t want. Horde loses their heroes, and in most villainous or embarrassing ways, Cairne having easily the worst death followed by Vol’jin. Alliance loses cities and civilians, and can’t do a thing about it, Theramore and Teldrassil with being unable to save not even that many was a huge knife twist in the back.
We can’t do anything about it because Activision Blizzard says so. What’s basically happening now is Alliance players demand justice and retribution against the Horde. Horde players stand firm and refuse. Grass is greener on both sides, and we both have suffered at this terrible writing since Cataclysm.
Activision Blizzard is just taking advantage of the whole victimization complex society is going through right now.
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Because he died almost beating Garrosh, or because he died in a book?
Only after you cover my sub. If this is to become World of Alliancecraft then I guess the fair thing to do is to charge you guys with the expenses while we go F2P (I mean the game wouldn’t even have a sustainable Horde playable faction with themes dedicated to it, it woul become merely a glorified source of dungeon/raid cannon fodder so…)
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