The Horde's Lasting Problem of Lacking Motivation

Lore Story Forum
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I know this is a topic that we have previously discussed quite a bit, but I think it may be prudent to make another thread on it, following the official launch of 8.1. Keep in mind that nothing in this post is meant to imply that only the horde is having problems atm, or anything along those lines.

Also, this thread is mostly intended for horde fans and players, but feel free to comment regardless, just keep that in mind for the discussion.

Within this plot, it has been pretty widely noted that the Horde has not been given any reasoning or motivations to have any investment. There is nothing within the story to give Horde fans or players any reason to want to fight the alliance, or any desire to engage into this current plot at all.

Starting at the beginning, this war was started due to us being told that the alliance will probably eventually start a war maybe, so we should attack them now. If that wasn’t weak enough on it’s own, our initial assault also led to our leader committing a major atrocity, which has completely fractured the horde playerbase and destroyed any of the slight motivations we may have had from the past.

Going forward from that, nothing has been done that would give the horde any reasoning or motivation. We continue to commit atrocities and do evil, while the alliance continues to be pure and nice.

Even when they attack our cities and kill our people it is done in such a way that there is nothing in it really worth being outraged about. During lordaeron, we don’t know what happened to Brill, our city was evacuated beforehand, and we are the ones who destroy it in the first place. In Zuldazar, while the alliance attack and kill Rastakahn, they go out of their way to explicitly only fight combatants and decide to not even press an advantage because it would be too cruel.

This isn’t to say that the alliance must be evil, but it serves to only excacerbate problems within the horde’s story. 8.1 has given nothing to solve any of these issues, and has only served to double down on them.

For me, this plot has been the first time the story being poor has led to me losing any amount of my desire to play. While it has been a problem in the past, it hasn’t felt nearly as invasive to my ability to have any enjoyment in WoW before this.

My question for discussion to you all is: Do you think blizzard is aware of these issues and plans to address them? What would you do to address them, if you were in control? Is there even a way to fix this war story, at this point?

If you disagree that the horde is lacking motivation and reason, feel free to state your opinion as well.

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I definitely agree with you. It’s easy to fight the NPC Horde, but fighting the Horde players just feels like shooting hostages of this crappy half-baked reason for war.

I honestly think that the writers had no idea that genocide was going to be a point of contention.

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We’d have argued for the next ten years about whether or not Teldrassil was a valid target or a monstrous action by the Horde if Blizzard hadn’t outright called it a genocide the same day it happened and then drove home how terrible it was to the Horde player.

Like, this was either a really really stupid move on Blizzard’s part or they didn’t want the Horde to support it at all.

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Blizzard would have to be either morally bankrupt or utterly clueless to not understand that burning Teldrassil would be controversial. Like, I dump on Blizzard a lot, but they couldn’t not have anticipated the reaction. From my PoV, the Old Soldier cinematic was a clear attempt to assuage the concerns of Horde players, and must have been prepared with the knowledge that Horde players would be upset. They might not have foreseen the degree of division, but I think they knew that Teldrassil would have an impact.

I don’t really feel qualified to address the OP, but I do think that the Horde just needs a chance to be heroes again. Avoid SoO 2.0, and let the Horde clean up their own mess, without Alliance intervention. Replace Sylvanas with a respected figure, like Thrall, or Vol’jin, and let the Horde save the day from Azshara, or N’Zoth, or something. As long as the Alliance isn’t victimized or infantilized in the process, I think that would allow Horde players to feel heroic, while going a long way towards mending fences with the Alliance. Let Sylvanas slink off into the shadows, and revisit her later, when some of the recent wounds have begun to heal.

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No, blizzard has no idea to what they have done with teldrassil.

“we expected it to be controversial but it was a little more than we thought”
yeah sure…

in the end i just think that blizzard wants to have this fanfiction about sylvanas “the MiLiTaRy GeNiuS” a “beloved character within in both the playerbase and the developer base”

This is just the prelude of the undead themed xpac and the next big bad.
For the scourge!
and i truly sorry for all the people who didn’t want the villian bat.
but in my perspective, that is literally all what the horde ALWAYS has been. minus wc3 and wotlk.

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On this forum I’ve seen players decide that Stormheim is enough for Teldrassil. I’ve a friend who considers it viable because the Alliance isn’t innocent. While there are those who support Sylvanas out of spite, there are many who believe in her.

Blizzard can’t fix your problem if they don’t feel there is one.

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I disagree. I am not arrogant enough to think every poster knows my feelings - but I have posted them at length in various threads.

Suffice it to say, I feel a great deal of motivation and I don’t know what will motivate others besides a completely different story that is exactly to their liking. BfA is not a cute or fun story.

Maybe people don’t like that. There are very few warm hearted smiles going on in BfA. MoP had a lot of cheesy wholesomeness. Legion had team work. WoD had Azeroth basically peaceful and united.

BfA is just grim disappointment for the Horde- storywise - and perhaps some people don’t like that. Zandalar is in worse shape now than when we arrive - and its gonna get worse. Zandalar will never be better than it was when we landed - thats why they join the Horde.

Kul Tiras gets saved and strengthened. It feels so cheery when I log on to my Alliance guys… The Horde feels like we are perpetually camped out by a swamp outside a city licking our wounds.

Some of my favorite literary works are Candide, Wuthering Heights, and For Whom the Bell Tolls - so hopelessness and failures strike a chord with me. It encourages me to strike back harder!

I can see that people are upset and I understand why - however, I am enjoying the game. The things everyone gripes about the story are things I enjoy.

Among us players, it is a struggle and debate not only for the soul of the Horde, but for what we want in our gaming experience. Even if it is an irrelevant debate - since Blizz does as it will.

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If Blizzard is aware they already know the story in advance and have already plotted the expansion out accordingly even if the project is being ran at minimal staff.

Should I be control of the stories direction at this point I would raise the stakes for players on both sides by allowing them to kill off faction leaders left and right then building off those deaths by taking the game in an unknowable mysterious direction as a newer more world threatening enemy sweeps across the face of Azeroth in tide of death and destruction that has devastating effects for both factions as the void in leadership literally rips the sub factions apart.

But for all that to work the game play has be half decent, well thought-out and not have a completely half assed baked gear-tied talent system that drags down the weight and feel of all classes across the board.

Its nice to dream unfortunately the reality is that Activisions influence has put this game on life support and they’ve bet all their chips on mobile products so if that fails…bye bye Blizzard.

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I refrained from Human Paladining the whole “Horde is Scourge” thing for as long as I could, but…

That Darkshore Warfront tho.

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I thought people only said that as a way to make this war somehow make sense, or have any plausible reason.

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To the OP personally I think it’s too late to fix the story, we’re too far gone down this hole where the Alliance is justified in almost everything they do.

Also I think the worst part is the devs don’t realize that things story wise are bad for everyone all over the board.

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I am loving most of BfA - but yes. That really ties the whole game down.

I’m cynical enough to forgive Blizzard if they just removed Azerite Traits and said “oops.” People would still grind AP for Neck Ilvl. Maybe new mounts or pets? But that leads to a separate discussion.

I agree with your overall point - even if the Story is akin to our most favorite and prettiest dress… if the gameplay has problems, the game sinks.

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Which is a major problem with the Alliance story: we’re constantly forced to be stupid and incompetent. I’d far prefer that we be more unforgiving. So that would be an easy way for Blizzard to make the story better for both sides: make the Alliance actually be morally grey, not just morally off white.

Too late for that.

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Which is incredibly disheartening, because it means that Blizzard has gone full-on ivory tower on us. Even putting aside rants from malcontents like me, they’ve had the problems with the story both in general and on particular subjects explained to them in clear, constructive ways by voices the players respect and, in theory, Blizz should as well, such as Red Shirt Guy.

I would say that even conciliatory gestures have come off as kind of distant and grudging. For example, I would argue that it’s clear Blizzard didn’t want players to be able to chose between supporting Saurfang or Sylvie; it wasn’t in the initial build and Blizz has the resources that something that major shouldn’t have been left out of a public build. Yet as far as I’m aware they’ve chosen to not address it at all, even in the face of legitimate follow up questions: why don’t the Alliance get a choice like this? Why this quest in particular? Why couldn’t Horde players make a choice about Teldrassil? Etc.

To me that paints a picture of Blizzard throwing it in on sufferance, due to either internal or external pressure, but not really understanding why they were doing it. And after the mostly quality Legion content, it pains me to see Blizzard seemingly become so up their own butt so quickly.

I’ve marked my disapproval with Blizzard through the only method they’ve left me, in light of this seeming intellectual isolation they have voluntarily put themselves in.

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Warcraft’s story has been changing over the past few years. I wouldn’t be surprised if Daelin Proudmoore is going to be turned into a good guy who knew that the races of the Horde were bad and tried to save everyone from them in the next chronicles.

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I’m no expert on this, just my 2 cents.
Bfa is a tool. It’s only here to reset the status quo.
If you ask me, every single xpac war between the factions makes less and less sense.
Because blizzard doesn’t want to develop 2 different games, and want both alliance and horse to fight in the same raids, ultimately we have to fight the same foe. And because of that every single time the story moves forward it moves closer towards peace.
Bfa only exists to fix this issue. And will probably ultimately fail even in that.
Just my 2 cents tho, I’ve only started playing in legion.

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I read that the only reason the questline with helping Saurfang was added in the first place was because Blizzard was surprised at the amount of support the Old Soldier cinematic garnered, with people transmogging their shoulders invisible in solidarity with him. Which tells me that the original plan was for the player to still stand behind Sylvanas, and helping Saurfang was the first deviation.

It somehow makes it worse to me.

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Daelin doesn’t need to be “turned into a good guy”, he always was the good guy.

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Well, you know, besides starting a war of aggression and seeking to ethnically cleanse his enemies.

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They deserved it.

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