SIf only I could give this comment infinite likes ![:heart:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/heart.png?v=6" ":heart:")
I am So tired of monarchies that place a 15 y/o kid at the head while having 8 other leaders with 10 times the experience. Or having all this dictator/anarchist leaders on the other.
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Seriously?
So because the story made you feel bad, you think you are justified in inflicting more misery on Horde players who, as you point out, already hate what has happened to their faction?
This thread epitomizes everything that is wrong with the story forum. Advocating for one group of players at the expense of another, because of your allegiance to a video game faction, is sad.
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Maybe it’s the result of the main plot putting players against each other, instead of a common threat as the main plot and having the conflict as side story. ![:woman_shrugging:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/woman_shrugging.png?v=6" ":woman_shrugging:")
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William the Conqueror & friends beating up on the anglo saxons isn’t what I’d draw as a worthy comparison to the Alliance and the Horde conflict.
I was referring moreso to the english and french at the height of their power during the 100 year war, when arms and armor were far more honed, the martial arts had come a long way and the assets both sides could field were far superior. It had an intensity that hadn’t been seen since the early crusades.
I also use it as a demonstration, because while the battles fought in the 100 years war were staggeringly high in the corpse count, they couldn’t really afford to keep going on forever, which resulted in both of them stopping the campaign for lengths at a time. Something that can sell this ‘peace’ narrative the writing team wants to push. The Horde & Alliance can have it out and pile each other’s corpses in the thousands, but war is expensive, resources aren’t infinite and if they can’t push this conflict and aren’t certain if they can win it, there’s plenty of room to strike peace. Not because they want to be friends and stop all wars, but because they simply just can’t keep going.
It also defines that such defined superpowers aren’t going to be able to blast each other away as quickly as William the Conqueror & friends had their way.
Well them, and I’d assume Red Dragons, who have pretty much performed this exact miracle at the Wrathgate. Burning away the blight and undead, and making room for life to begin anew. Without her aspect powers, idk how effective Alexstrasza would be at it, but I’m sure she can still pull it off.
Because they are two completely different problems.
The Horde does it to itself.
The Horde does it to Alliance.
So the only way for the story to correct itself is for the Horde to endure a devastating tragedy by the hands of the Alliance and for the Horde characters correct the situation themselves doing something heroic to fix your evil faction narrative.
Alliance gets their vengeance and the Horde is redeemed.
There problem fixed.
The solution is certainly not the Horde characters that have done nothing so far suddenly do something self serving and be absolved of everything.
That is horrific.
The only way you are unhappy about these events it would if you are part of the pro-sylvanas group who enjoys evil narrative.
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Very well said!
On that note, I kind of get the feeling that the situation was reversed somewhat in Vanilla. The Horde came across as a young nation struggling to survive and put their tragic pasts behind them while being harassed by the hawkish Admiral Proudmoore. The Horde as a whole really did come across as underdogs and put upon noble savages.
I think going back to that dynamic would be very interesting. Let the exit of Sylvanas and the rise of Baine result in a less organized Horde. Let there be a treaty with unfair terms that dismantles the Horde warmachine. Let Tyrandae and Genn (or some new Alliance character) be the voices calling for more concessions- even going so far as to launch their own revenge attacks on Horde that are abiding by the treaty.
I don’t think it’s going to make the playerbase particularly happy, but I think it’d be interesting.
okay i feel like you raise some very good points.
This is actually true, even if we managed to kill all the horde leaders and probably lose a few ourselves in the attempt and even if we won in the end we would end up so weakened and totally exposed to the legion who would have destroyed us.
Good point, attacking a fortified position with what the alliance had would have been suicide,home field and all that.
i actually didn’t think about this. if dazarlazor became our teldrassil not only we would became the villains but also we would have caused a permanent sense of revenge because we killed indiscriminately so many civilians.
at least maybe, just maybe talanji or the zandalari will let go their vengeance for rasthakan and open the way for a peace that this game needs if we want to have better storylines that aren’t faction wars.
Good point.
actually, if she tried a third time she would have done it, but also killing varian in the process and like the timeline in war crimes suggested, everyone would be dead. including her and the alliance.
Solid point.
This is actually true.
i don’t know if i can call that “superior experience” but i have to agree that at least we aren’t forced to do some “unmoral” tactics to win
like in dazarlazor we went directly into the military target, nothing more and nothing less.
okay, let me try again.
i understand that they have their own problems, and is not that i feel “justified” to inflict damage on the players.
i feel “justified” to inflict damage on the HORDE as a story faction.
but please tell me, that this seems to be the main issue:
How can we separate the horde, as a fictional faction from the players who play the faction?
i would truly love an answer, because, can we really separate it?
maybe with this divide between sylvana’s horde and “rebells”? (again)
Me, as an alliance player wants to have a satisfactory conclusion with the alliance story and that involves the horde, as a story faction. who happens to have players as well.
and i always say it, i hate faction wars because of this and it bring the worst out of people because it has fans against each other. and i am not innocent on that front either. i am not proud of it, is just what it is.
To be honest i would rather never,have a faction war story again because we end up in these dilemmas.
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I’ll accept this only so long as it involves Elune striking down one member of the Horde (indiscriminately) for every life lost in the Burning of Teldrassil. Anyone in the Horde is at risk, from leaders to children, since not even children in Teldrassil were spared.
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I cried a bit this weekend while playing FF14:Shadowbringers. Because the story is really good and I care about the characters.
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I tried FF14.
The environmental art is just terrible and everybody is a weeb elf or cat girl running around.
Trying ESO now and I love how every quest has so much dialogue. Actual voiced dialogue… and its good voice acting too!
Yeah, SE did a good job with their expansion. I didn’t care much for Stormblood. Felt like the WoD/BFA of FFXIV to me, but Shadowbringers is more like the Legion for it.
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I disagree. A devastating Horde defeat just perpetuates the cycle of bad faction war and writing and pushes on to the Horde the problems of the Alliance story, while not necessarily fixing the existing problems of the Horde story.
Here is the thing though Blizzard needs to stop writing emotional story cheques that they have to know they can’t cover in the end. I remember vividly at the end of Cataclysm when it became known that Theramore was going to be destroyed. The forums blew up with Alliance players demanding to know when and how they were going to get their vengeance. Actually kind of amusing to go back and read now if you can still find the threads on the old forums. One of the CSRs came on and chided folks for getting hot under the collar at the first move on the chess board. Flash forward to the end of MoP and the Siege of Orgrimmar, when following robo-cat and a generally unsatisfying lead in to SOO for the Alliance, and what a lot of Alliance players found as an unsatisfying resolution - Dave Kosak (then Story guy) gives an interview where he goes on about how they couldn’t go further because they would risk alienating the Horde player base. And he was absolutely right. The problem was that it didn’t seem like the same concern about not alienating the Alliance player base was put into the front end of the decision making process. And I think a lot of Alliance folks see the same dynamic at work in BfA. Big showy emotional gut punch at the beginning followed by a meh conclusion that provides no emotional pay-off for the Alliance player base. One more time, Alliance players get to feel like a bit player in another episode of “As the Horde Turns”.
So, speaking only for myself, I think where Blizzard has repeatedly fallen down is in providing an emotionally satisfying conclusion for Alliance players. Note, an emotionally satisfying conclusion does not require a city to be blown up or characters to die. For me, one of the most satisfying Alliance victories was Genn in Stormheim. I loved the cut scene - the Alliance out played the Horde and looked awesome doing it. Lordareon would have been emotionally satisfying if the Alliance had looked competent and I didn’t have to end the battle with a cut scene of Sylvanas’ smug grin.
So what, for me looks like a good Alliance win? Simple, no dead cities, no dead characters - just a scenario where the Alliance for once is playing 70D chess and gets a step ahead of Sylvanas and I get a nice fancy CGI cut scene where the smirk vanishes from her face and is replaced by a dawning look of horror as she realizes that the Alliance has outplayed her.
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Or as I like to call it.
Horde favouritism.
At the end of the day Blizzard’s sole concern is to make the Horde happy though they may fail in its execution they make it up in intent.
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Its like a thread in General Discussion where someone posting on a belf said they loved velves in the Alliance, giving them the light elf vs. dark elf fantasy and feeling good slaughtering the corrupted abominations that threaten Azeroth.
It all suddenly made sense. Coming from belves? Of course, it’s more satisfying to kill traitors. Playing with the void? Light vs. dark. Velves weren’t added for the Alliance, they were added for the Horde. That’s why velves never do anything about void stuff and only show up when it’s time to fight the Horde, so Horde players can feel good about killing them.
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I’m going to have to respectfully disagree.
For one thing… I mean WoW has and always has had kind of bad writing. Whether it’s faction war, or factions uniting to fight a bigger bad war, or whatever the conflict is. It’s hammy and melodramatic and (outside of cutscenes- which are the hammiest and most melodramatic) often full of jokey references.
I do agree that Genn’s victory in Legion was a good way to do things, but that comes with its own set of issues. For the longest, people have been complaining that the conflict had no stakes. That Horde vs Alliance was just a bunch of meaningless skirmishes and encounters between characters that ended at worst with one side retreating while shaking their fist and yelling, “I’ll get you next time!”
I’m for emotional gut punches. I just wish they’d stop trying to threaten Orgrimmar. Orgrimmar is an active player hub akin to Stormwind so yeah, going too far there would anger players. I think going with Thunderbluff instead is a good call as it really isn’t that heavily trafficked.
I don’t mind gut punches and big changes to the world. It’s really when any normally static and mediocre game is of any interest. Better to go big and fail the landing.
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As far as general Alliance victories go, on top of Genn’s victory over Sylvanas, we also saw Velen, Khadgar, Turalyon, Illidan and the Draenei enjoy victory over the greatest enemy Azeroth’s ever known. In fact, there’s only two Horde characters in any of the Legion cinematics: Vol’jin when he dies and Sylvanas when she gets outdone by Genn.
Yeah, when it comes to the FACTION conflict, the Horde gets some wins by having the Warchief play the role of patch antagonist- essentially taking the role of Arthas, Deathwing, or Sargeras.
Every time I see an Alliance poster talking about Horde Bias, I feel pity for them. They look at a relationship where the party with power actively abuses and gaslights their partner and call it love, a love they’re jealous of. “Look, Blizzard made you do something you had begged them not to make you do again! They must love you so much!” “Oh man, Blizzard favors the Horde so much! They kill off or corrupt their favorite characters for them!” “Oh my god, how sweet it is when Blizzard reminds the Horde time after time that they’re the villain, but then tell the Horde how they’re also heroes! I wish someone would give me such extreme mixed messages!”
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The only thing that the horde needs are good writers with new and fresh ideas, not this mop 2.0.
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Its not just about the victories.
Its about Blizzard not caring about the punishment impacting the Alliance meanwhile deeply concerned about the Horde playerbase’s response for going through the same thing.
I don’t know how much more blatant example of favouritism we could have.
Every time the Horde “loses” in this story they always have a silver lining, always a small win to make them feel good while the Alliance playerbase gets absolutely nothing.
Even in their “win” it is still an unmitigated disaster in some way. (See darkshore).
So even in Alliance’s great moment the Horde still needs their feel good moment.
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