Come on lets be fair the only thing we saw in BFA was Darkshore and the conclusion of that was an interview with a Dev saying “Yeah Alliance totally won that”.
Until we see it in the game its not really established and it certainly has the opportunity to be established in the game if Blizzard wants to.
I don’t understand why you are enthusiastic to NEs becoming terrors in Lordaeron but cringe at the idea in Ashenvale.
The attacks come from the Horde and the NEs need that “standing up to the bully moment” they have been the victim too often and its getting stale and repetative.
Building the sand castle with the Horde waiting to knock it down again isn’t exactly something fun for anybody.
The problem with this is that “Horde is ok now” has happened 3 or 4 times now. This doesn’t inspire any confidence at all considering Horde’s history.
You are right, I apologize.
This is just one of those badly dealt with storylines that needs to be addressed and somehow worms itself in every sort of resolution that involves the factions moving on.
I don’t see how anyone attacking Sylvanas loyalists would be perceived any differently than people attacking Blackhand or Gul’dan or Arthas loyalists at this point tbh
Both factions are actively hunting remaining Sylvanas loyalists right now.
There is a lot here that it is difficult to unpack.
Basically it boils down to what Metzen had in mind for the Horde which was a people with a code of honour for battle trying to find their place in a new world. I won’t pretend to know what all of it was supposed to be because I’m not in his head and I certainly never read the books or comics. Then again he didn’t write most of the novels, comics etc. What we have is a lore written by committee as opposed to a single guiding voice. It has never been more evident than with retail.
I know Metzen was restricted in what he could write in order to keep the faction war thing going which in all honesty has been a detriment. Add into it the psyche of many of the Alliance players who are of the opinion that they MUST be the good guys… and you end up with seriously restrictive stories. For instance, Stormwind has more than one or two nobles. Most of which who probably were able to gain and maintain power by being varying degrees of ruthless and bloodthirsty.
There is a whole pile of stories one could write with that. Everything from the gladiatorial arenas to redirecting war materials to certain bandit or pirate groups to weaken rival business interests. We saw some of that with BfA Kul’tiran experience, except it was so on the nose as to lose any and all subtlety.
Once again, so long as the current people are writing I see no hope for a good story. Just wait for Garrosh 3.0.
Pretty much. Like, anyone still loyal to her is loyal to her despite being thrown away like dirt, and still knowing next to nothing about her actual plans. But they should know enough that their lives were every bit as expendable as their non-Sylvie loyalist counterparts. Which would mean that really, they are a Cult of Personality and not much else. Devoted to her for who they think she is, not so much what she stands for.
Which means they are fundamentally the enemy of everyone else on Azeroth at this point.
Frankly I think that the fact that the Alliance isn’t a product of the unmarred cynicism of our time to be one of its more compelling features. Not everything needs to be gritty realism. You can get that literally anywhere else nowadays.
People use “shades of grey” as though it’s something that’s inherently ideal but I would point out that with black and white you have two colors. With grey you have one.
Except… we aren’t titan robots cursed by old gods, or part of the United Federation of Planets. Sci-fi fantasy humans are like us, but so is every “humanoid” race. Or any sentient race. Even the Q… Humans (including me) not being omni-potent is a good thing, because I think we would act just like them.
Except when there is another faction that’s forced to pick up the slack with the Alliance’s increasingly inhuman portrayal. The Alliance can’t have tangible flaws, so the Horde is forced to drown in them to compensate. The Alliance can’t act on their tons of grievances, and are even restricted in how they are allowed to react? The Horde is forced to act despite a lack of motives in turn. The Alliance are the embodiments of all virtues? The Horde races are allowed very few avenues towards them as a consequence.
The same absurd Purity Test so much of the Alliance playerbase seems to revel in has turned their faction into an absurdly passive, almost exclusively reactive entity; that is confined heavily in how its even allowed to react on their laundry list of motives. While the Horde has been rendered a plot-device. A forced proactive entity never allowed luxuries like “means” and “motives” to do ANYTHING they’re being forced to do. This Faction writing philosophy is not sustainable in a two faction game. It is absurdly destructive.
Black and white may be 2 but very few of the players signed on to be the villain. What makes their position less valid than mine or yours?
The Horde back in the WC1 and 2 days were straight up villains sure. That ended with WC3.
As far as personal preference goes I want a more realistic representation instead of this idealized humanity that never existed. But that is just me and not the crux of the issue.
Semi unrelated but Next Generation came on and I’m just going to gush about Worf for a sec here.
He is such a brilliant character. Because obviously they wanted to do Spock again. An alien perspective is always fun, especially when they relate to the world in a fundamentally inhuman way.
But as other Star Trek series can show you, just another Vulcan can feel like a knock off Spock. So doing a 180 and instead having an alien who’s centered entirely on emotion rather than logic is just such a simple but S tier creative writing move.
We signed up to be less traditional heroes, and more or less got that from WC3-WotLK. Not knowing at the time that having the capacity for flaws would one day equate to evil. But, that sort of nuance takes more effort, and Blizz became increasingly disinterested in that sort of vision. So they created a really creepy scenario where they actually probably would have been better off not subverting Good Race/Evil Race tropes to begin with. Given how they chose to subvert them in the first place. All I gotta say is … I get the feeling Blizz didn’t understand Black Panther. “Zandalar Forever!” and Romani/Bedouin Fox People both added to the deeply flawed, and by default evil faction in the same expac Blizz completely validated Daelin Proudmoore.
Wouldn’t Data be the better Spock analogue? His whole thing was about trying to understand human emotions from an outsider’s perspective. If I remember right, I thought Worf’s was more about him trying to emulate an idealized version of the warrior culture he oh my god I just described Thrall
Well the Horde didn’t exactly go sacking Stormwind or anything. Instead they sailed away to Kalimdor to fight their own demons. Until the RPG experiment that was “Rebuilding Orgrimmar” when the Kul’Tirans showed up and started slaughtering Horde civies.
Played the whole campaign more than once. The Horde did not engage in anything similar to WC1 and 2. Heck the war with the Night Elves could have been avoided had the Night Elves not resorted to indiscriminate killings first. The second round of demon blood drinking was a result of needing to deal with Cenarius.
In short, not villains. You had a bunch of war vets with their associated psychological issues being chased by their persecutors.
Sort of. But he is essentially a child so his perspective feels very different from the Star Elf.
Spock like had his own bias about stuff and in that much parodied episode with space Lincoln he’s very subdued but obviously geeking out about getting to meet a great hero from his own culture.
And Data is fun in his own right but he’s like trying to understand basic concepts and reading poetry to cats. Both fun and similar characters but there’s some big differences that keep them feeling extremely distinct.
No, I meant all the stuff I liked about the Alliance in Warcraft 3 that was dumped into the trashbin and never brought up again or worse, given to the Horde.
Horde appeals to the Horde experience in Warcraft 3 and the consequences of it to be better portrayed in WoW are considered legitimate but my appeals for the same for the Alliance aren’t.
lol! That is why I am quite vocal about the “Bad writing” angle. I’m not exactly good at fiction. I haven’t finished a story in my life but I can spot good from bad.
And honestly I wouldn’t have a problem if they wanted to go Horde == Evil faction.
But I would expect them to be straight up and honest about it… actually considering their credibility is worth less than a used piece of toilet paper maybe not.
Not quite sure what you are referring to here. I guess I might need a refresher as from what I remember the majority of the Alliance arc was the setup for Arthas fall.
All of those things are products of human imagination which is always going to be based on our own experiences in our own existence and our perspective on the cosmos. That’s what I meant and it’s why every “humanoid” race is in some way a reflection of something about ourselves.
Yeah and all of that should have had major consequences for the Alliance narrative and aesthetic and the way that they view things but that was pretty much all relegated to Forsaken (and later Blood Elf) questing while the Alliance dealt with some Stonemason crap that nobody should have cared about in light of the zombie apocalypse that just happened.
It’s not uncommon nowadays for people to not even be aware of the fact that Lordaeron was once the center of the Alliance and of human civilization because of how little it comes up despite the events of Warcraft 3 being the kind of calamity that everyone would still be talking about literally thousands of years later. Do Alliance questing in WoW though and you’d be forgiven for thinking that the post-Third War status quo had been cemented forever.
Stormwind was the logical choice for developing more of humanity than the more neutral Theramore.
And the logical conclusion is that there wasnt really a kingdom of Lordaeron anymore outside of pockets comparable to Alliance High Elves.