To save the Alliance Stormwind must go

Lore Story Forum
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Every week I see threads created in this forum saying that Anduin is unsuitable for the High King post, and there are recurring complaints about the fate of the Kaldoreis and Worgens.

What I find funny about these topics is the inability of people to see the trees but not see the forests. The problem has always been before our eyes, but people do not seem to have the courage to point it out or if they do seem to be afraid of the consequences this would have on the lore.

Well, the problem is called Stormwind and I will explain why I think this kingdom destroys the Alliance lore. First I would like to draw attention to some facts. Among the 7 kingdoms of humanity, one thing is evident, as only 5 of these kingdoms have remarkable cultural characteristics.

We can characterize the kingdom of Lordaeron as a kingdom of light, and a bastion of the virtues of humanity. The kingdom of Gilneas can be characterized as the most technologically advanced, with inspirations from Victorian England. The kingdom of Kul’tiras has a merchant culture and is clearly inspired by the mercantilism of the Italian state cities. The kingdom of Stromgarde is reminiscent of medieval European kingdoms deeply militarized with warrior elites. And finally the kingdom of Dalaran is the fantasy kingdom inspired by super powerful mages.

Finally we have the kingdoms of Stormwind and Alterac, to speak of the Kingdom of Stormwind its main feature is basically not having a striking cultural aspect. The kingdom is a junction of all human cultures without any particular striking features. This made the kingdom definitely the most suitable for the WOW MMO. Basically creating a warrior to play in the kingdom of Lordaeron would not be cool as it is a kingdom of paladins. Being a paladin in the kingdom of Dalaran would not be cool as it would be a kingdom of mages.

People like to feel prestigious in games, so it would be boring to play with a race where their class would be clearly less relevant in history than others. This to me is why Stormwind made the obvious choice for this MMO, and that is why the Alliance lore has been imprisoned ever since.

The problem with the Stormwind Lore is that it is basically a generic Kingdom, no person feels any kind of affective bond with the lore of this realm. Think kaldoreis and soon you will be able to list five or six characteristics of the race. Think about worgens and you will be able to do the same. The problem is that Stormwind isn’t known for anything other than being a kingdom with a royal family specialized in being murdered by orcs.

This brings us to the problems of the Alliance today, how do you turn a kingdom without charisma into the limelight when you have races with much more engaging lores? You simply cannibalize these races, making them pathetic in order to make this kingdom not seem so boring.

This was precisely the recipe of Warcraft in the last 15 years. People cannot recognize the obvious. But let’s face it, only 100 Worgen quests have turned this kingdom into an Alliance obsession. Simply because it is so much more interesting than the generic story of Stormwind of medieval European fantasy kingdom. The same goes for the Kaldoreis, a warcraft 3 campaign making them the faction’s most entertaining race in terms of historical achievements. And yet today they are represented as a bunch of imbeciles who are unable to protect their lands from orc peons without the help of super humans.

For me there is only one solution to the problems of this faction today, Stormwind must fall, and other kingdoms must take their place, this would be the only way for races to be free to see their gutted lore so that humans seem to be the center of attention. Taking the place of Stormwind should be the role of Dalaran, Stromgarde, and Gilneas. Maybe Lordaeron if Blizzard goes with the idea of ​​a continent for each faction. In any case, there will be no faction lore improvement until things change in the human realms, Stormwind is the cause of all faction problems.

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Nice try Treng.
Now get back to your other alt.

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Yes lets have the light firged built a planet sized ship move all the alliance onto it an bliw up azeroth.

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I think Blizzard made a huge mistake making Stormwind the capital city of the Alliance. As we will see in a couple of weeks, Ironforge has always been the natural capital hub city of the Alliance. Imagine if Blizzard had written the Dwarves and Magni as taking a leading role in the New Alliance rather than little boy Anduin and the ever absent Varian.

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I do agree that Stormwind has ended up a homogenized human kingdom lacking any of the Flavor of the old warcraft 2 factions. However once upon a time It did have its own interesting lore.

It was a City that stood apart from the others with its own casters which were the Conjurers of Warcraft 1 which were trained by Mediv away from the Kirin tor. They had the brotherhood of the Horse which were knights who were a powerful mounted fighting force. None of this exist in the game anymore and the fact that we don’t see different groups of refugees from different kingdoms represented is just because Blizzard is lazy in their writing.

In saying that Im not against Stormwind being destroyed if we rebuild a few of the other kingdoms back.

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We pretty much have all the kingdoms back except for Lordaeron (Forsaken Undercity) and Stromgarde.

Stromgarde is rebuilt into a garrison/warfront so I don’t really count it as a kingdom yet.
The problem isn’t stormwind.

The problem is Blizzard has decided to push the ALLIANCE rather the members of the Alliance.
They are basically writing the Alliance like they would the Horde.

A homogenized coalition of races under the tyrant rule of a warchief.
Alliance was never about that. It used to be about different member states that were unique on their own belonging to a larger alliance.

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then we can make gilneas the faction capital

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Stormwind looks even more bland now when you compare it to Kul Tiras.

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I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.

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the difference in cultures between kultiras and stormwind is abysmall.
and i like the concept of “4 big houses” (well, now 3)

What is stormwind good for? knights? soldiers? paladins? mages?
Super generic.

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Stormwind is a large problem for Alliance development that needs to either drastically change or step down from the forefront. The kingdom practically exists to only be the default aesthetic and representation for the Alliance. It completely lacks identity outside of that niche, and that absence of culture is detrimental since it plays the most pivotal and visible role in the faction.

There is a vague class system with nobility that haven’t done so much as anything notable since Onyxia’s schemes. The central religion and church is simply
 there, with little interaction or presence within the kingdom at large (even with the King being a priest of all things). There are no customs or attitudes present that would even imply they were once refugees whose kingdom was utterly conquered and rebuilt.

Even Stormwind’s equivalent in the Horde, the Orcish clans, at least have unique cultural traits and some diversity to draw from. Stormwind has
 nothing noteworthy to claim as its own besides being the supposed centerpiece of the Alliance.

That’s bad.

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Not true, the books in particular have always mentioned Stormwind as the most militant human nation. Lothar consider the guard in Lordearon as abit too easy going. It is mentioned that kids in Stormwind learn how to use a weapon at a very young age.

When I initially played WoW I initially resented the fact I started out in Stormwind. Overtime I grew to love it. I think you are underestimating how much people like Stormwind. Certain enough people were upset when the Park District was destroyed. Even more got angry when people saw the Garrosh boss fight and assumed it would be destroyed.

If there was anything I want to happen it is for Sylvanas to attack Stormwind but be repelled by the combined might of the Alliance! If anything, not get people more invested then in actually defending something they love and WINNING.

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Lordaeron: The Devout
Gilneas: The Industrialists
Stromgarde: The Warriors
Kul Tiras: The Sailors
Dalaran: The Mages
Alterac: The Traitors
Stormwind: The Jack-of-all-Trades

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Stormwind is the OG human kingdom and the first to stop the Horde all on its own.
That is pretty badass.

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This is the same line of thinking people have with class design and it’s led us to how classes are now.

“X spec is too powerful, nerf it!” No, improve the other specs to be on par with the stronger, funner spec. That results in a greater net gain than a nerf.

Stormwind doesn’t need to go anywhere, hell, Alliance colours are blue and gold, Stormwind colours. What needs to go is this obsession with subverting expectations and dark, metal, ‘this isn’t your typical nerd fantasy’ mentality. That mentality creates the need to have a race take it on the nose and be weaker, and since the writers love their ‘morally grey’ races like orcs, goblins, and undead, and Golden loves Anduin, it’s always going to be the usual suspects.

I want the Alliance to be an actual alliance too, as my post history will probably reveal, along with my unhealthy obsession with picking apart the writing direction for the last eight years or so
 but getting rid of Stormwind isn’t the way to do it, we just need to ‘buff’ the other races.

Final note
 Kaldorei and Worgen are plurals of themselves, you don’t need to add an S at the end.

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Lordaeron is a dead kingdom, with a dead line (Alterac is also pretty dead tbh).

I’m sorry 
 the likelyhood of it ever coming back is very far fetched (despite what Human Paladins might want). The Light Wielders in that area have long since proven fairly ineffectual of cleansing those blighted lands (beyond merely killing the shambling undead), and Cata made it VERY apparent that wielders of the domain of LIFE (not LIGHT) are far more required of healing those immensely damaged terrains for future habitation, in any meaningful way. Also, bluntly, the last thing we need is the Alliance being MORE Human Centric.

Want to make a new center for the Alliance? Make it Ironforge. The Dwarves should have taken a more prominent place of relevance within the Alliance AGES ago; with the forming of the council all THREE Dwarven Kingdoms of starting hit a relative period of stability and growth; and there is NO current Alliance character that I would trust more to lead joint nation military operations than Muradin Bronzebeard (if such a position needs to be filled).

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You’re not going to be seeing what you think you’re seeing. Unlike Vanilla, Classic is not going to have Ironforge be the sole location of auction houses. Even Darnassus will have one.

That was what made ironforge “Lagforge” in Vanilla.

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We dont know if Calia kid is alivd or dead. Really it will probably take us about another 10 years or so to find out
but really dead things in WoW have a tendency of returning. Kingdoms included. At the very least with the Silver Hand holding Stratholme I could easily see the nation being rebuilt after a few years.

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TBH 
 I see no functional value to Lordaeron being rebuilt. Most of its surviving population are already relocated to the south, and NOTHING ever comes off as more ham-handed than a magical protoge surviving heir popping up after all this time (as if leadership skills are genetic). Not to mention, it would deeply unbalance the Alliance roster 
 placing even MORE of a fixation and focus on “The Light” and Humans (and the issue is already pretty unbalanced with JUST SW and Gilneas).

Not only this 
 I am unsure people REALLY understand the consequences of giving those territories back to the Alliance permanently will have. On a Meta level Blizzard is just not going to unbalance the territories between the two factions to the extent of giving the Blue Team ALL of EK AND Half of Kalimdor; which means the price for Northern EK being returned to the Blue Team 
 will be paid somewhere else (which is EXACTLY why so many NE fans are afraid. Its not JUST the fact that they’d be losing their PC Race’s ancestral homes, its that they would be losing them to give the HUMANS back what they still somehow perceive as theirs). That is not bound to go over well


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Ironforge was the “natural” hub due to its proximity to end game content. First it was closer to end game dungeons. Scholo, stratholme, ubrs, lbrs. Then closer to end game raid. Molten core, blackwing lair, ship to menethil to get to aq 20 and 40 and closer to naxx.

And if i recalled correctly. For a long time the only ahs were in ironforge.

That ia no longer the case.

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