There's no reason a faction war expansion couldn't have been executed well

That’s simply ignoring the past.
WC2, WC3 and parts of WoW.
The Worgen - Forsaken conflict was well written.
The start of MoP was good etc.

If you mean Blizzard seldom changes the world, that’s sadly true. They should update regions.
But a good war story is possible. It can be done and I have no idea why people think it’s not.
If you say the current writers can’t, that’s another thing and you might be right.

Not necessarily. Wars can go on for ages or end because of many different reason. But even if one faction got a win, be it clear or pyrrhic it doesn’t have to be bad for the other faction. It all depends on how the story is told.

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They actually set up a return to faction wars up very well in legion. Shaw was replaced by a dreadlord and fed the Alliance lies about the horde abandoning them at broken shore. Then Greymane attacks the horde fleet and goes after Sylvanas in Stormheim. The problem is that in BfA all that gets thrown away and it all becomes “Sylvanas was evil and wanted to kill people”.

They had it all set up for a really good faction warfare story that wasn’t just “lulz horde is bad”, but I think they must have switched writers again.

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Losing by nature is normally a bad thing, even more so when some of the major players on one side are going for just killing an entire swath of the other factions races.

Writing it requires that the ending lets both parties at least feel some level of content with the outcome, otherwise is falls flat on its face. MoP is a great example; Alliance wanted a fist pump moment and got perhaps less than they would have wanted. Horde got threatened in their own home and had to just take it. I’d argue it is one of the reasons faction wars got such a bad rap, because capping it all off will either end in a big fat pile of nothing or a massive ball of outrage.

I disagree. I have never found any enjoyment in those storylines. The most interesting part of those games is always what’s going on outside the faction war. Using MoP as an example, what made it so great was the Pandaria stuff proper: the mogu, the sha, the Zandalari, etc. The war detracted from what was enjoyable.

(Also WC3 didn’t really have Alliance vs Horde; I guess Founding of Durotar but I don’t know if I’d count that since it was Daelin’s team against everyone else including other Alliance, not really AvH)

What I mean is it’s impossible for one side to win or one race to be wiped out. Hell, it’s even apparently impossible for one faction to face reparations. There can be no meaningful changes in the status quo, because they can’t just delete a playable race. Even the destruction of Teldrassil and Undercity did nothing to actually harm the night elves and Forsaken; they were still fielding soldiers all over the place in BfA.

There are no consequences or lasting aftereffects for anything that happens in faction war stories because Blizzard cannot risk losing its playerbase. And so the status quo goes unchanged.

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Imo i hope the night elves gets some like cave system or something beneath Nordrassil or under mount hyjal, and develops some tunnel system for that extra Guerilla feeling, they are meant to be savages, and like wild etc. so let them be that. have it involve roots or just harming the horde through underground trees or something that comes up or the ground stuff etc. have them use the plant people from draenor (not the Mind control stuff)

might have been the wrong thread but i just had the idea of it and thought it would be cool.

:rofl:

This made me smile… but sadly Ill have agree… Humans have been overly saturate in the story for…oh…quite some time now, I think. :thinking:

Even the Elves, Orc, Undead or Trolls etc (Mostly all the Non-human races) with all that’s happening, their history of War, loss, betrayal and cultural, political and even mana/food resources in-fighting have become more relatable to us the Players, than the fantasy Humans in WoW. :sweat_smile:

Kind of ironic or maybe its like Reallyhappy mention in a another post… Since “Tolkien Did It first” maybe its how it is in WoW too, for all its stories. :thinking: :man_shrugging:

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Wrong.

No faction needs to be wiped out. I really have no idea what you are thinking.

This logic is very flawed and doesn’t make sense. They can change many things without what you said.

Faction wars were some of their best stories, next to overcoming struggles and enmities.

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Warcraft 3 did have horde v alliance but by the end the point was that they can and should put their differences aside and kick butt. I’m sure by now everyone has seen that Black Temple trailer of everyone storming the Black Temple. In an ideal world that’s what all the major conflicts should look like, with the faction war being a side show.

Keeping the War in Warcraft doesn’t mean Red vs Blue.

More or less yes, but WoW killed it with it’s intro.

This is in fact the problem. The villain of the expansion, or even only a patch. How we killed the Legion leaders, G’huuun, N’zoth etc. all in a short time is one of the problems.
Faction war more in focus and making threads mean something again would only benefit the game.

It does for me. There are no stakes against some random dungeon or raid boss. It’s rather boring and nothing will change. Especially if this thread only exists for one patch, or at best one expansion (another mistake from the game design).

Do we need war all the time? No. Are those the only stories I enjoy? No. But they can be written well.

Or give us WC4 (I don’t think they are capable of it).

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There is a good reason why it couldn’t have been better. Blizzard writing isn’t very good and they have no real idea what the plots mean for their player-base.

I mean, I’m sure they though “cool, everyone will love this”. And until they can understand why they were so wrong, things won’t change.

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This is the key problem. Sylvanas siding with the Jailer should’ve happened much later in the story. I would’ve preferred if it happened after Darkshore 2.0, where Sylvanas is reduced to 3 remaining prime Val’kyr. And if those 3 die, she dies for good. It also took 3 Val’kyr to bring her back from the dead when Godfrey shot her in the head in Silverpine.

Having it be retconned into Edge of Night just screams poor planning and bad writing. And it clearly shows where “burning down the big tree” was her plan from the start. Even though the warbringers cinematic makes it seem her order to burn down Teldrassil was because Delaryn Summermoon hit the “you can never take away hope” button.

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That is the flaw in Blizzard’s writing ability, in my opinion. They could make threats and the like that require the Horde and the Alliance to fight and have it last more than 1 patch. Hell they had any ability to tell a coherent long term story at all, N’zoth for example could have been the primary antagonist since Cataclysm, but they can’t. Their writing style is too focused on short term “Wow moments”.

Using the faction war as the only method to give our characters a reasonable threat is the end result of just throwing world ending threats after world ending threats at us and having us just…resolve them instantly.

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Here’s how I would’ve done a Battle-for-Azeroth faction war expansion.

  • First of all, Lordaeron becomes an act of aggression spurred on by anti-Horde sentiment within the Alliance. This could be due to Turalyon’s return and his zealotry to reclaim the fallen kingdom, or from Teldrassil being a false flag operation conducted by rogue Alliance agents looking to strike against the Horde while it is weak.
    .
  • Next, no Nazjatar or Ny’alotha. 8.2 and 8.3 get replaced with more faction war content, 8.0 and 8.1 raids focus the narrative on the respective factions gathering their strength/forces for the war effort while conducting sorties and assaults against the opposition.
    .
  • Existing and “datamined” warfronts become small raids in the spirit of Eye of Eternity, Gruul’s Lair, Magtheridon’s Lair, Obsidian Sanctum, Maw of Souls, and Crucible of Storms. The warfronts, as a type of content, that we are familiar with (basically, WoW-ified WC3 scenarios) get merged with island expeditions. Queuing for island expeditions gives players the option of “exploration” (existing IEs) or “fortification” (existing WF-type scenarios).
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  • Each faction has a specific narrative for raids and other content, representing their part of the Fourth War.
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  • Raid setup then becomes as follows:

– 8.0: Uldir (Horde narrative: we gotta do this to help the Zandalari or they’ll never help our cause!) (Alliance narrative: the Horde is trying to appropriate Titan technology and combine with Azerite to create new weapons against us!)

– 8.1: Stromgarde, Darkshore, Mulgore, and Silvermoon “warfront” raids. Each faction gets two scenarios where they’re canonically on the offense, and two where they’re on the defense. Narratively, defense always wins but the very act of aggression sparks more turmoil. Dissent within the Horde begins after innocents (on both sides) are treated as enemy combatants. It should be noted at this point, the Alliance sees no innocents within the Horde.

– 8.2: Battle of Dazar’Alor. General narrative is the same and the raid remains unchanged for the most part aside from player power and enemy numbers. However here it is where the tide turns against the Horde and the Alliance gains the upper hand with the assassination of Rastakhan. Sylvanas starts revealing her more sinister side by directly reanimating the fallen like she did in Lordaeron. Dissent within the Horde grows.

– 8.3: Crucible of Storms. The existing 3-boss raid gets retooled into a 12-boss raid that utilizes the entire squid-faced island in Stormsong. Narrative begins as the inverse of Dazar’Alor - the Alliance thinks the Horde’s forces have been irreversibly crippled/scuttled and lets their guard down while the Horde becomes desperate for anything that would allow them to strike back at the Alliance. Raid reveals Sylvanas dealing with the naga and Azshara (echoing to Sunstrider’s dealings with Vashj) for aid. Dissent within the Horde reaches its peak (blood elves remember traveling down this path before), dissent within the Alliance begins to form (did we drive the Horde to this?).

– 8.3.5 (epilogue). No raid, but a series of quests/cutscenes setting up 9.0 - the journey to Nazjatar (Tides of Vengeance expac title perhaps?)

Just my thoughts, anyway. I’ve been thinking about this for far longer than I probably should, however I can’t shake the feeling that we’re on the lamest of timelines with all the possibilities that exist for World of Warcraft.

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I get that you’ve put some thought into this (and I definitely agree with the premise that we blow through the big threats too quickly and for little reason). However, I’m curious why you think continuing the “Horde dissent/Horde evil” storyline - and in your case, dragging it out even longer and harder - would be a “better” execution of the faction war.

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A slower burn allows for more actual morally grey decisions and events to occur, which makes the overall conflict and end transformation of both factions more believable.

If the end goal is for the Alliance and Horde to switch power structures, the transformation must be documented. While the Alliance consolidating power into a single figurehead that’s torn between warhawk and peace-loving subfactions is a major change, the Horde decentralizing power and ending the custom of Warchief in favor of more equal representation across its member races is more of one that requires thorough explanation.

The Alliance’s transformation would likely be explored more in-depth in a later expansion, when a true tyrant emerges as a central leader for the faction and must be dealt with.

That’s my take, anyway, and I’ll admit that being a Horde player since TBC might have an influence.

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The point is, I feel fairly sure the “dissent”/“fight your own faction” part of BfA was hugely unpopular for Horde, so tripling down on it doesn’t seem like it would be particularly well received, and then to inflict it on the Alliance besides.

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I think the issue was more with the execution rather than the concept because to me it seemed like the powers-that-be already had narrative plotted out and were reactively retrofitting it to fit player expectations. Allotting more time to it rather than trying to shoehorn it into an expansion along with Nazjatar, Azshara, the Black Empire, and N’zoth would allow for a better implementation.

I think they could very easily write a faction war that was enjoyable, if they:

  1. Embrace the fact that most players prefer a power fantasy;
  2. Ensure that any race that suffers has some amount of satisfying, meaningful vengeance in short order, and do not have the narrative talk down to them for wanting it; and
  3. Never let one side become so villainous or the war become so ‘hot’ that the warmongers become the most sensible men in the room.

i.e. do not make the player feel powerless, or stupid, or immoral for wanting to defend themselves, and always ensure peace is a sensible option.

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