The Horde has to lose

Lore Story Forum
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I made this in another thread but thought it was derailing to much.

The horde should lose the Battle for Azeroth and here is how it could work with gameplay.

Because let’s all be clear story is meant only to feul the gameplay. If the story can’t provide entertaining moments and interesting characters then it should not be used.

Even if it feels like blizzard forgets that some times.

So with that in mind, how could the horde lose and still be a faction that you select on the menu screen.

  1. The loss isnot felt till after level 120. The horde is still the horde up to that point. Nothing major changes save some minor phasing.
  2. How it portrayed is key, and it could be done is guards be replaced by alliance variants.
    Nights and Worgan in Orgrimmar.
    Void and Dreinei in Silvermoon.
    And perhaps a human in thunder bluff, but less do sense Baine was acting working against the Horde.

This would creat a clear visible change in the cities while allowing horde pc to go about their business as they usually do.

  1. Baine is Warchief, but only by because the Alliance leaders made it so. He fills the spot of soon to left by Sylvanas but as a puppet. And that will play in the story later.
  2. Lastly this will slow the justification for cross factional grouping, horde and alliance be able to group for raids and mythic would be a massive boon for the community.

Ok, this looks like total horde loss with no pride, and really in some ways it is.

But so was the horde defeat in second war.

And what came afterwards was a resurgence of the horde in new way, better then it was before.

If done with respect, the horde occupation could be used build the B and C list horde in true A listers.

Possible story scenarios

  1. Perhaps Queen Talenji refuses to kneel like Baine, she secretly builts a Horde following, drawing the disenfranchised horde to her. She saw herself as equal to the Warchief would not be a more fitting way to reestablished the horde as part of world by race that probably has greatest claim to it.
  2. Lor’themar is inprisioned by the Alleria but stills finds way to contact his Sin’dorie. He uses the horde pc for subterfuge against Voids elves, who reckless magic is getting closer and closer to corrupting the
    sunwell.

3.Baine is unhappy with the occupation, more so then he thought he would be. The title of war chief is hallow to him. But strives use the horde for good and advocate for continue involvement of the horde pc against whatever world ending threat fall from the sky.

And that really is key, horde characters but be still horde characters and stilltied to faction.

The potential to write the horde in a sympathetic light again while giving new hero’s to grow is there. But not under this constant narrative of the horde internal struggle.

Tl’dr
The Horde is burnt out, and needs to die so it can be reborn a new,

A sid

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I feel like people contested you enough on the other thread for this topic. You need to realize that any punishment you send towards the Horde FACTION, will also fall on the Horde PLAYERBASE (which neither had any say in this story, nor even wanted it for the most part). The Horde is already being punished, repeatedly, by once again being forced to play the antagonists in a war we are constantly told we could NEVER win. That’s a rough situation to be in … the villain bat is a hard mistress. So, Blizz needs to be VERY careful about how they proceed (and what punishments they do dish out).

Bluntly, your plan would kill the Horde Faction. With how hero-centered the writing of WoW has really become, gutting a race (let alone an entire faction) of strong representation is the equivalent of destroying it on a narrative level. This is especially true for the Horde, because Blizz has a BAD habit of killing off our heroes and then being too lazy to build up a replacement (or in the case of Gallywix; soft-retconning the atrocities he committed on his own people so they didn’t have to build up someone to take power from him. He’s a blight, but we’re stuck with him).

You get rid of our representatives … we’re a dead faction. You render us powerless … we’re a dead faction. We’re a dead faction … you’d essentially be asking every single Horde player to pay real money for the Alliance’s story from that point on (with no hope of ever truly being allowed a stake in those tales; or someone to rally behind). In short, it would be a disaster. :neutral_face:

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Cause you apparently refuse to read our responses in the other thread, I´ll just quote myself:

Tl;dr: your scenario only works with A) a completely new writting team and B)F2P status for ALL Horde characters, non negotiable.

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Nah, the best outcome is the Horde wins, but it is a Pyrrhic victory where its stolen from us.

  1. Either by siding with Azshara and she then sees the sad state of Horde and Alliance army and declares herself Empress of Azeroth effectively disbanding the Horde and Alliance in all but name.

  2. The Horde wins, but it comes at the cost of the planet dying/corrupted and we have to bail on the timeline to stop Void Titan/Dead Azeroth from coming to pass.

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So, what incentive is there for Horde players to remain subbed to play the “back in the internment camps” edition? Or for the Horde players who’ve unsubbed to come back?

Because so far Horde pride has been utterly destroyed in BFA with no sign of it coming back, and your proposal would be burning the remains and salting the earth underneath.

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The playerbase has already been punished, at least those that really notice this stuff.

People are all ready negative, and they will remain so. While blizzard can’t really salvage any good will out of this story now, they can at least provide a compelling gameplay features.

The Horde the occupation would provide that, allowing the divvied to finally drop while providing a new path for potential horde characters and story to follow.

I understand the hesitance given blizzard tract record, but give the bad publicity they have had since Sylvanas “burn it” cinematic,I think they got the message.

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/rofl

The entire Horde War Campaign would love to have a word with you… yeah, no. Blizz has totes NOT get it, dear. They are too self centered and conceited to realize that.

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I am going to be blunt because you don’t seem to want to take No for an answer.

Your suggestion isn’t the first time such an idea has been floated and it has never gone down well with any horde player that I have seen comment on it, save those which think it would be fine only if it followed up with the next expansion by villain batting the Alliance to a pulp and Horde players rising up, freeing the Horde from Alliance oppression and bring the Alliance low. Something tells me having the Alliance put in the same place the Horde is right now probably wouldn’t go down well with many Alliance fans so I don’t think that is a good idea.

Your idea isn’t going to work. Let it go. We aren’t going to agree with you and Horde players aren’t going to accept such an idea no matter how you word it. You can go on about it as much as you like but your not going to change horde player’s minds.

Oh and if you think this is the worst and most unhappy horde players can be, your wrong. Trust me, there is a threshold that Blizzard hasn’t past just yet and your idea crosses it.

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But you’re not providing a vision for this “New Horde”; just that it be rendered leaderless; subservient to the Alliance; and hoping that somehow Blizz is willing to invest assets into rebuilding what they’ve never been willing to throw assets at before. Darkspear still have no leader; Gallywix still in charge; Talanji, Geya’rah, and Mayla are all at their core the same damned character…

Hell, SoO was just a footnote once it was done; no recovery period shown … we just moved on to the next big conflict like the Horde being ripped to pieces didn’t happen in MoP. Vol’jin was supposed to be our way to heal from our wounds, and he was waisted. Why should I believe them rendering HALF the playerbase completely irrelevant to anything going on would somehow change that?

Just look at how they’re handling the execution of Saurfang and Baine’s stories atm … both of which needed a WHOLE lot more assets and time given to them to pull off properly (and portray that turmoil that both characters are apparently going through); and instead they’re little more than frustrating footnotes. Look at the way they’re handling the implied reason the rest of the Horde leadership hasn’t already moved against Sylvie (they genuinely believe the Alliance will destroy them if they weaken the Horde to strike against her); its barely even hinted at (and the execution is just terrible on that front).

None of this garners a lot of faith…

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I think the negative derailing was reason enough not to repoonsee point by point.

To respond to legion commit.

Legion was blizzard pushing gameplay over story. Dropping the purge of Dalaran by shoe horning the horde back in Dalaran was forced.

But it not done for story but gameplay, and blizzard will do that again if the need arises.

So I see as better to give a logical reason as why the the horde pc are tagging along with Allaince heroes.

Expeciially after Teldressal.

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Very few horde players would have any interest in ‘tagging along’ with an Alliance hero under those conditions. Many aren’t happy with how much we have to do it now.

The only thing your suggestion would do would make me quit the game for good.

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In Legion, the only real representation the Horde had was Sylvanas in Stormheim (and the girl wasn’t even fighting the Legion lol, she was going to get groceries); and Liadrin in Suramar. Baine was completely cut from Highmountain …

So for the rest of the expansion we follow around Khadgar (leader of the Kirin Tor, officially an Alliance organization now); Illidan (Hero of the WotA); Magni (previous King of IF); Velen (leader of Draenei); Alleria (Alliance Hero of the Second War); and Turalyon (Alliance Hero of the Second War). Oh, and we followed around Malf and Tyrande for an entire zone, a dungeon, and parts of a raid…

Love those characters, I really do (I’m a Loremaster nut); but yeah … it was all sorts of thrilling to be just kind of awkwardly following them around (ignoring the fact that I’M the elephant in the room).

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I head of both ideas.

I think the first one has merit, and stil has benefit of being the factions together, and provide a necessary back for cross faction grouping.

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If the factions were finally ending I always envision the Horde would end up defeat/declaring the Horde revival was a failed idea and joining the Alliance. The Alliance being slightly more magnanimous would accept those who finally reject the Horde tenets and reform itself into the new world government/league of nations for Azeroth.

Assuming the factions continue I expect at least another purge of many if not all of the undesirable traits of the Horde, if the Horde truly does want to be heroic, it can’t do half heartedly anymore, the whole “creating new plagues”, trying to take ashenvale etc will have a definite end once and for all.

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Burning the remains yes, but not salting the earth.

The point is Sylvanas actions should be point of no return for the modern Horde.

The Horde was complacent in genocide for a stupid reason, and no amount amount of Anduin finger waggaling is going to fix that.

The Frist horde died under doomhammer but was reborn by Thrall. Perhaps that is simple what needs to be done.

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You still haven’t provided any incentive for Horde players to keep playing, or for people like me to come back.

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Alliance players need to come to terms with one simple fact: Anduin is the problem here. Unstoppable Force meets an Immovable Object. Anduin, as he is currently written, will never punish the Horde enough to satiate Alliance (particularly Night Elven and Human Paladin) players.

Get rid of Anduin and then we’ll talk. I’m willing to accept the Horde being defeated and the Alliance becoming a darker faction as a result, but it has to be handled that way. Anduin is making the Alliance uninteresting and quite frankly, something must be done.

The Horde has to see something out of that storyline. We have to be the unquestionable good guys for an entire expansion with the Alliance as the unquestionable evil villain-batted faction.

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With what characters? What will it be rebuilt with? All of you’ve stated is your plan to have it destroyed so it can be “rebuilt”, but don’t have a vision of what it could be rebuilt as (or with who). What you’re effectively doing is saying, destroy the Horde in every way that matters but mechanically (so those people who chose the wrong faction can still play in the Alliance’s story if they want to).

EDIT: Also, you’re making a LOT of assumption that the Alliance will be left in any position to exert influence over the Horde by the end of this mess. I think its pretty darned clear by all the Old God activity (not just N’zoth either, but Y’shaarj, Xal, and even Yogg) that the entire world is in for a rough ride by the end of BfA. Heck, Varimathras straight up tells us that both factions are likely to get absolutely decimated soon … Still waiting for that MASSIVE betrayal on the Alliance side that will “Leave its thrones running red with Blood”.

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Sorry to be a downer, but this all sounds awful. And “the alliance needing to babysit the horde at all times” might be one of the worst ideas I’ve read about introducing cross-faction grouping.

You don’t address the problems that caused the horde to be such a garbage fire in the first place. From what I can imagine, the best case scenario is that the horde just ends up right back where it started in this expansion. There’s no demon blood excuse or Legion manipulation to try to distance yourself from. Instead, the horde jumped right into being the bad guys with both eyes wide open for the second time. First with Garrosh, now this.

There’s no pride to be had because there’s no noble underdog title to reclaim anymore. It doesn’t matter how many times the horde burns down and tries to rebuild. It doesn’t deserve respect anymore. The horde proved it doesn’t want to be better, and it threw away any sympathy it used to have.

Your story idea of Talanji refusing to kneel is implausible because that means she refuses to surrender. It’d be idiotic to let her remain queen; she’d need to be exiled at best, or the more sensible option of being straight up executed.

And after all that, there’s still no guarantee that Blizzard would write new, heroic horde characters that actually stick around.

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People who favour playing the Alliance shouldn’t get to dictate to Horde players what is an acceptable narrative outcome for their faction. Not unless you want to start paying for our subs.

As for the Horde, the only issue it has is half assed and cartoonish villain batting it gets on a regular basis. The plague was fine for its original purpose. Maybe, just maybe, since they claim they have morally grey in this game, they can get way from this black and white crap we always are getting. That is why the Horde is where it is now. You cant have any type of tension or conflict when one of the sides is blatantly whitewashed and paragons of nobility and righteousness and not end up villain batting the other side. The fact the Alliance are always written in this conflict as unquestionably protagonists forces the Horde into the role of antagonists.

This. I wouldn’t play a world of Warcraft made the way you suggest.

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