Horde players got an entire series of quests that Alliance players could not even touch in BFA surrounding Saurfang and his rebellion, and there has been a lot of storyline progression that does not feature humans and focuses on the Horde.
I’m sorry, but the idea that the Horde is only used as ‘foes for the Alliance’ and is otherwise ignored just doesn’t hold water.
Hell in the next patch there’s an entire quest chain devoted to the Tauren and the Centaur that isn’t a ‘Horde villain for the Alliance’ narrative.
If you’re talking about that questline where you track down Saurfang with Zekhan into the Swamp of Sorrows, that’s part of the war campaign and not its own thing. It was supposed to happen much later (and alliance were going to do it too, I think?) but enough horde players flipped out so hard about Teldrassil that they temporarily moved up the questline to mollify players and make them feel like they weren’t villains. So unless you were really champing at the bit to quest alongside Saurfang in BFA for some reason, it sounds like you dodged a bullet.
Honestly I feel the same as Allawyn about how the horde feels like it’s only been used as a villain for alliance and is otherwise worthless, but holy moly is adding humans to the horde the wrong way to do it.
Alliance should’ve been able to help Saurfang. It’s a sideplot they have no part in and participating in that would’ve gave Alliance more involvement in the story. It’s the equivalent of having the Alliance not help Thrall in Cata, it’s missing out on a major part of the story. In regards to Humans being in the Horde, I support players having more options in what to play. I’m sure there are people who’d play Humans on Horde but not Alliance in the same way you do Worgen.
It was never an Alliance thing. It was always a Horde only part of the entire chain (the Alliance would literally have no reason to help Saurfang as he is a Horde general and not friendly to the Alliance as a whole)
And depending on whether you sided with Sylvanas or sided with Saurfang you got completely different endings to the entire campaign. If you sided with Sylvanas for example you never went to Saurfang’s funeral and instead the quest chain sent you over to Windrunner Spire in the Ghostlands where you’d talk to Sylvanas one last time before she left to go to Icecrown. You’d also get dialogue from NPCs in Orgrimmar if you were a Sylvanas loyalist which showed some NPCs publicly denouncing Sylvanas, but would have additional dialogue if you were a loyalist where they stated they were still loyal to the Banshee Queen.
And frankly, if that’s what you think about the Horde (that it’s worthless except for being a villain bat) then you haven’t really shown any interest in the Horde as a whole because there is a LOT to the Horde beyond the fact that Garrosh and Sylvanas were evil villains.
TBH I don’t think adding worgen to the horde would work ever since they became an alliance race. Just because I wax on about the model and themes doesn’t mean I think it fits in the current story.
If I remember reading correctly, the alliance equivalent of looking for Saurfang was cut completely because of Blizzard shuffling the quest order around. The alliance player was supposed to meet up with Anduin in Arathi and “a horde hero in their midst” and it would cause a schism in the rest of the alliance over his being allowed to escape.
It’s not that I want to feel that way about the horde. But generally it feels like the faction has barely contributed anything positive to the narrative in a very long time. You can only hear so many people walk away from BFA saying “Daelin / Genn was right” and opining about if the rest of the game world would be better off if the horde didn’t exist before it wears you down.
Ehhhhh I dunno if I’d like that, for a couple of reasons.
I feel the last thing the horde needs is an anti-nelf race after everything that’s gone on between them and the horde. Any story about them possibly being rejected or hated for their condition is inherently ruined right out of the gate by them being on alliance. But I also think it’d be immensely unfair to current worgen fans for the horde to get a werewolf race that actually acts the part (it opens up the possibility of horde-worgen biting and maliciously spreading the curse to night elves and humans) while they’d get pigeonholed further into the role of Good Bois.
If it’s about model swapping, I’d rather go with gnolls. I think they’d provide a better humorous monster race angle than what ogres or orc peons do, and it woesn’t rob alliance worgen of themes that should be theirs ever since their race was added. I dunno what would be a fair trade for alliance though; I’d imagine skinny humans would be ill-received since from what I hear, fans were largely put off by Kul’tirans for just being another flavor of human instead of something more exotic.
I don’t recall hearing anything about that. Again, as far as I am aware and I paid a lot of attention to the lore in BFA, the Saurfang thing was Horde only. Initially you were only allowed to report back to Sylvanas about his location (meaning you could only be a loyalist) but after feedback was received that many Horde players did not want to take the loyalist path, Blizzard added an additional narrative that saw players join the rebellion and work as a spy for Saurfang.
…
I just… what?
Okay, so, I can’t count content that hasn’t released yet (although it is worth noting that there is a quest chain involving the Tauren and the Centaur next patch) but let’s just go over a few notable bits of lore/story that happened during the last two expansions (with one event from Dragonflight).
Lor’themar Theron and Thalyssra were married (Dragonflight)
The Blood Elves got some fleshing out about what was happening in the Ghostlands after the Helm of Domination was destroyed (Shadowlands).
The Forsaken got a huge progress update with them starting to reclaim the Undercity and establishing the new Desolate Council. Alliance players only got to tag along and pretend to be Horde because Blizzard didn’t think it was fair to force Alliance only players to level a Horde character just to unlock the Dark Ranger customization options and Dark Ranger transmog set. (Shadowlands)
The Zandalari and Vulpera both joined the Horde and there was a lot of lore surrounding both of those races becoming friendly with and eventually joining the rest of the faction (BFA).
The Horde got rid of the position of Warchief and established a Horde Council to prevent another Sylvanas or Garrosh from doing what they did (BFA).
The Mag’har from AU Draenor joined the Horde and showed that races aligned with the Alliance can be evil and destructive (BFA).
I could go on listing other significant plot points the Horde has going for them which do not revolve around one of their races or one of their leaders becoming a villain.
My advice? Honestly? Focus more on what is there, rather than what people on the forums scream about, because there is a LOT there, and there’s always been a lot there, since the days of vanilla, all the way to Dragonflight.
Not anti-NE, just anti Malfurion. If Malfurion is going to be in Ardenweald for awhile it’s a goal they can’t achieve, and if he comes back there are work arounds that can be made then. I don’t see how it’s unfair to take away something that isn’t there. That reasoning just prevents people from having the opportunity to get something they want. You can’t steal something that isn’t there.
It just means blizz would be further diluting the worgens even further. If they did go horde, blizz might as well delete the worgen from the alliance side all together, kill off Greymane and just have Gilneas go horde.
Some decisions I’m honestly glad blizzard doesn’t listen to
Eh, somewhat fair, I guess. I know I let other opinions get to me often, but I can’t help it.
I think I need to walk back my statement a bit (and I know I’m moving the goalposts here) but as I’ve never been a fan of the horde’s elves, I’m not really invested in any positive aspects of their writing. Nor did I like the forsaken’s story of trying to clean up Lordaeron because I felt it was only there to ease in Calia, who I loathe as a character, so that entire questline was a negative experience for me. Same with removing the warchief position; I liked that aspect of the horde as a symbol, and as much as the game wanted its removal to be seen as a good step forward, it did nothing but frustrate me.
Baine is… well, Baine. I won’t lie and say that the quest he’s been given doesn’t look pretty well-written, and it finally has him doing something that doesn’t feel like alliance cheerleading, but his character feels too far gone for me to really care about any investment in him at this point.
There’s plenty of content that I don’t like in WoW. Story beats that I think could have been changed or should have been (I wrote, years ago, how I would have completely redone the Warlords of Draenor storyline and I’m in the middle of doing the same thing for Shadowlands). So I can’t fault you for not liking content or characters.
I just object to the idea that there’s ‘nothing there that isn’t just turning the Horde into a villain bat’ because that’s clearly not the case.
You are literally referring to the Horde’s roll in the faction war. So, unless you have some way for all the players getting the same quests (presumably following Anduin) Blizzard literally had no choice. That is why a faction war is the time they can’t ignore the Horde, and instead use them as the foes of the Alliance.
In the next patch. Thinks will always be better in the “future”. Sure.
Blizzard does throw in a few side things now and then, but the main plot consistently ignores the Horde.
The horde would still get villian batted in a future Faction Conflict. Except you’d have the horde following evil human leaders instead of evil orc leaders.
I’ve been thinking about Alterac a bit lately. There’s a lot of potential for it as a Kingdom. Part of me would like to see it return as a human kingdom allied to the Alliance given that i’m an old school WarCraft fan and the 7 Kingdoms hold a special place in my heart.
Part of me would like to see it as an Alliance holding led by Isiden Perenolde who might be a Worgen now or even Lord Ravenholdt.
Another interesting angle could be a split Alterac. Strahnbrad and the Eastern Portion of the mountains under Alliance control and Isiden with the west and the city controlled by the Forsaken and an Undead Aliden. Either way i’d like to see something done with it.
Given that we’ve found a way to cleanse the Undercity, i see no reason Theramore couldn’t be rebuilt. I know this is a thread about Alterac but Theramore is also a place i’d like to see rebuilt. I’m still salty all these years later about it’s destruction.
I’d love to see it rebuilt into a Kul Tiran colony with Kul Tiran assets.
