Yeah. By killing civilians who actually hadn’t done anything wrong and then trying to present it as a GOOD thing.
I’m not ignoring it when the Horde kills civilians. I don’t think Horde killing civilians should be presented as a good thing either.
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God, don’t even bring this up. Like the differences in Alliance and Horde Goblin interactions with the Gorillas in Zuldazar? Or Brennadan, which we Horde player never knew about? Or the attack on the Vulpera? Or hell, how we got our “unreliable narrator” to compel us to chase the Alliance out of Dazal’alor. Seriously, Blizz isn’t even subtle about this. The Blue Team is so lacking in nuance or grey that even their Master of Spies/Assassins has less moral ambiguity than the Teletubbies’; while the Red Team has to just be lied to as Blizz does evil crap with our faction behind our backs.
There can never be an ounce of nuance in this two faction game so long as Blizz’s writing philosophy with the Alliance is to keep them these artificially flawless, perfect idyllic concepts that can do no wrong. Beyond being occasionally stupid as the plot necessitates.
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This is what honestly bothered me entirely in BFA, the constant hemming/hawing in making the Alliance the unequivocal good guys while wacking the Horde as the Villain in Alliance questing.
Take for example the Attack in Brennadam, there’s literally nothing tying the Horde PC/quest/storyline to that entire thing, almost as if it’s solely for the Alliance to see how evil the Horde are being/acting when you had LITERAL QUILLBOAR SOUTH OF THE AREA THAT COULD HAVE BEEN A BETTER ANTAGONIST.
Instead we got a very out of place attack that only cemented the villain role from the Alliance story-questing side of things while the Horde questing was basically a rolling downhill mess that culminated in Genn and Jaina committing what was done to her to someone else.
But don’t mind that, because we got VOID AND NAGA SHENANIGANS, WAR DON’T MATTER BECAUSE N’ZOTH.
You can tell that BFA soured me on the villain bat for the Horde and I’ll flat out consider BFA to be the worst expansion story wise because of how it dropped the ball massively for the Horde.
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Well it’s a little of column A and B.
One the one hand the Orc internment camps could be compared to the Soviets using Wehrmacht soldiers as slave labor after the war. That’s a whole can of worms I’m not keen to open but you can see why a reasonable person would feel they deserved it.
But on the other hand you had Orcs being born into slavery, like Thrall. And once you get to that point any argument about punitive justice has left the chat. Because in no sane world can an infant be guilty of a crime.
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Its all about how Blizz deliberately frames the scenario. You have several of these “Tragedies” AND “Valid Military Targets” scenarios throughout WoW. But whenever it comes to be Alliance, they’ll play up their hits as massive tragedies (even if they were also valid military targets), while they’ll play up the “Valid Military Target” (over the tragedy) for the Horde. They will NEVER show Horde civilian deaths as something bad, even to the Horde players.
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Like criminy, the Alliance isn’t involved for the most part in the main story beats of Zandalar questing unless you specifically go looking for it in the one or two side questlines that Zandalar had. BFA did the Horde dirtier than MoP because at least end of Cata/MoP had FAR more nuance and context instead of just “HORDE BAD, U GAIS.”
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In both cases she was doing scketchy things and technically Anduin did chastise Genn for it.
Or I am coming from it that the two people who are leading said races are evil/despicable and that there will is simply flowing down the chain of command.
Presumably they might have been able to do worse things with it, if the Alliance didnt keep interfering. Sort of how I doubt letting Sylvanas simply dominate one of Odyn Val’kyr would have been good for us.
The problem here is WoW hardly defines what a civilian is and both sides have been killing workers(peasants and peons) since Warcraft 1. Neither side has any particular rules about it either. It isn’t present as something moral or good, just war
Oh good, then we can forget about Teldrassil then? Because for the vast majority of the Horde on the shore (who had no idea what the hell was awaiting them in that tree, and even Saurfang thought the Alliance reinforcements might have arrived) … that event would be more akin to the U.S. public reasons for dropping the atomic bombs on Japan. And like it or not, because the people of Warcraft don’t differentiate between Population Centers and Military Instillations (and because Teld was slated to be used to stockpile Azerite to keep it away from the Horde) … Teldrassil was a “VALID MILITARY TARGET” too.
We good? Because ONLY Sylvie had any intention to genocide the NEs, the Horde was just a tool for that. And if we’re going with the “Neither side has an particular rules about either” to invalidate SI:7’s BS in Silithus … then the same should apply to Teld right? Or does this technicality only apply to Horde civilians?
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And yet the Horde is bad and Blizzard comes up with all kinds of reasons (rightfully so) why it shouldn’t do it. But when it comes to the Alliance, Blizzard as of late usually gets cold feet and tries as hard as possible to try and justify any wrongdoings they may engage in, by using the “X race is just generally bad and deserves to be wiped out”.
The problem is Blizzard treats civilian deaths uneqaully depending on who’s dying and who’s doing the killing.
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Shadowlands is a miserable failure through and through. You won’t hear me defending it. I was talking about his little arc in BFA. It was something at least.
So how will Blizzard garner sympathy on the down trodden Horde who find themselves on the wrong end of an Alliance aggression and how would this aggression manifest itself? Destroyed cities? Dead characters?
That could work but it will require a lot of nuance that I don’t think the current team is capable of delivering.
Of course then that means if Jaina had drowned Ogrimmar in Tides of War/Jaina initiating the purge is just as forgivable, that the Horde doesnt have any valid qualms against the Alliance. Not to mention Taurajo people kept harping on was some Alliance war crime was not a crime either.
This literally just bring us back to square one. As far as I’m concerned the people we should be blaming are anyone who starts these wars/forcing someone to cause a pre-emptive war. And right now those two people are Saurfang(dead and possibly suffering in the Maw) and Sylvanas. Bonus that the Horde is currently rounding up people who supported Sylvanas.
Considering the entire Horde isn’t current being trialed by the Alliance/continuing its war to a certain degree it is not blaming the entire thing on the Horde. Not to mention knowing there is an afterlife means the people who caused the most suffering will probably end up suffering in the Maw/Revendreth once they die certainly helps.
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In a vacuum the faction writing is probably mostly fine. The problem is the division it creates in the playerbase itself.
Neat, then there we go. The Horde also doing away with the Warchief position entirely, and electing more moderate or ONLY defense oriented leaders (Thrall, Gazlowe, Rokhan, Voss/Calia) for a council also would add to this. None of them, even Rokhan (who has never in his entire lore picked a fight, he just gets REALLY invested in ending one on his terms once its started) … are liable to start anything going forward. And Geya’rah … well, she’s shown she is capable of learning and until she can do that … her people are so broken and destitute her position on the council is pretty ceremonial at best atm.
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One thing that struck me about Lordaeron was seeing SI:7, well ninjas essentially, killing fleeing Forsaken civilians trying to make it to the portal in the Undercity.
And I remember that scene pretty well. Because it was the exact moment I lost any hesitancy in fighting the Alliance after Teldrassil. And no big deal is ever made about that.
Or about the Forsaken’s plight in general.
The survivors of the Battle of Lordaeron had to adapt overnight to living in a vastly different environment. Like they got the Forsaken camped out on the gates. No natural shade, no cold wind, just the thumping desert heat and a metal floor that has to be scalding to the touch at high noon.
And these are creatures that are again and again explicitly stated to love the dark, cold and drafty crypts of this world. Blizz didn’t even bother having them slum it in the Cleft of Shadow’s, which is the only place in Org they might be somewhat comfortable.
Nelves got Eulogy. A great deal of effort went into showing how stoic and noble they were in the face of this callous injustice.
Meanwhile so little thought was put to the Forsaken that they stuck their farvela in the least hospitable part of Orgrimmar. And most players don’t even notice. I know this because I regularly inform people on Trade that the Forsaken quartermaster and heirloom vendor are up there. Being cooked alive.
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and reminder Orcs reach adulthood at like 12 or 15 or something like that, meaning 1 generation for them = 15 years, so two orc generations born into slavery
Which also makes little narrative sense given the Ghostlands, which is dark and humid forest filled with lovley death energies, is RIGHT THERE, a point I’ve brought up before.
But again, we had datamined a Ghostlands Warfront, which never came to pass.
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Now don’t get me wrong. Just because I am saying the Alliance shouldn’t particularly be going on a crusade/another war doesn’t mean I think what the Horde has done is enough. We have seen them blame demon blood/Garrosh and now Sylvanas for their actions.
Sooner or later the Horde actually needs to own up and actually pay reparations/do something to actually make up for all the devastation they have caused. You can’t simply say " we are free" and expect the rest of the world will suddenly believe you/forget what happened.
The fact that Thrall was at least willing to give Sira(as oppose to what he did in the Shattering and outright refusing to give any Horde to Alliance justice) makes me thing he will actually change. We will see.
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Unfortunately, the Alliance playerbase (with exception for those who do run/dabble in undead stuff) in general do not care one single bit about the Forsaken.
So it shouldn’t really be any big surprise that what happened in Lordaeron is overshadowed, completely ignored or deny the crimes done against simple Forsaken civilians.
I really wish Blizz catered or moved the overall refugees to the Cleft as that would be the main place they could be reasonably comfortable given the environment instead of the top of the Gates.
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The Forsaken are literally the only ones who are treated as having any “plight” in Lordaeron. 100% of all good aligned characters are now sympathetic to the Forsaken in both factions.
Nobody cares about what the Forsaken did to the humans of Lordaeron, Dalaran, Gilneas, and Stromgarde anymore. I don’t think it even came up once in BtS, the book that was supposed to be entirely about Human-Forsaken relations.
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The single quest and being rescued was actually the most he’s gotten since MoP, I believe. And when you compare it to the fact that the other lead characters lke Sylvanas, Nathanos, Gallywix and all ended up either dead or exiled as a result of their actions, the actual existing/remaining Horde leadership needs more actual spotlight development than ever.
There’s lots of effective means of making sympathetic characters-even ones that might not normally be portrayed as sympathetic-sympathetic. For aggression targeted at civilians, it’s pretty easy. Just point out that they aren’t actually threats and are actually civilians.
Characterization helps a lot, because the humanized and familiar more attached someone is to a character, the more they can empathize. Seeing as WoW is also a visual medium, framing of the scene, musical cues, and other cinematic tricks can be used as well. Also, just not writing up excuses as to why the people who are having violence done upon them deserve it and not trying to frame the perpetrators of said violence as being in the right.
On a broader story level? Well have the Alliance resuming their campaign to reclaim Lordaeron would be the obvious sticking point. Having Alliance troops in parts of the Eastern Kingdoms where Forsaken live would work. Attacking buildings and NPCs.
I don’t think anyone wants any other destroyed cities or major characters getting offed… do they? I don’t think Blizzard should do that.
That’s why there’s a repeated call for more nuance. Or people capable of it.
Because if it’s going to be assumed that no story is ever going to have nuance, then every expansion of WoW from now on is going to be the Horde (Or other villain) as the the big bad evil guy beating up on the poor Alliance because HORDE (or bad guy) SMASH, while the Alliance only wants to mind it’s own business and is just too pure and good to ever do anything that isn’t pure and good.
And we might as well be asking for more BfA’s.
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As long as those Horde characters don’t show up working with Alliance characters like there is no bad blood between them then yeah absolutely. The instant forget pills that get distributed after each expansion are rage inducing.
I would use the two sided narrative to make more platable on the attacking side and more gut-wrenching on the defending side maybe Blizzard doesn’t need to convince the Alliance player. Maybe some optional stuff like “kill prisoner or let them go” bits but otherwise make it straightforward.
While the Horde can have their own failed rescue civilian scenes like Alliance got last time.
It could work. But besides Lordaeron I would add Northern Kalimdor as well. The NEs really and desperately need their strong moment on their hated enemy.
Agreed. I hope Shadowlands does so poorly that the big heads on the story and dev staff start rolling. They shouldn’t be leading projects they can’t obviously manage.
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