What does Wyrmrest Accord think of BFA?

Wyrmrest Accord
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To be fair, they’ve also listened to Alliance player’s feedback.

There was uproar about the fact that the Alliance was, once again, the reactive faction. Blizzard has made it very clear that 8.1 is designed to remedy that, and we’re certainly seeing the Night Elves show a more savage and violent side to the Alliance, which is a good thing.

I’m also hesitant to see Blizzard’s adding choice to the game as a BAD thing. I mean, yes it’s to the Horde (whose favouritism is arguable from a story perspective, in that, while they do get a lot of narrative focus, it’s not very pleasant narrative focus most of the time… getting hit with the villain stick AGAIN isn’t fun) But… we’re allowing character choice, in some way, to have an impact without disrupting the overall narrative. If this is a precedent going forward then I’m VERY pleased about that.

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222

Partially, yes. But there’s still “what?” stuff even in that, like the “we must not actually win this battle because that would make us as bad as Sylvanas.”

Or why Rastakhan matters to anyone.

They had the spark of something and kind of let it fizzle out–as far as we know anyhow, since stuff could technically still change between now and January (for the raid specifically).

(the Darkshore stuff is still a really low bar just because it will not amount to anything given that it is a BG)

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223

We don’t yet know everything that’s going to happen in 8.1, it’s true, but based on what’s been mined/revealed so far it feels less like the Alliance striking back and more like the Alliance thoughtfully setting up the Horde to carry on their campaign of conquest but this time feeling like they have an actual prerogative to claim self-defense.

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That’s not responding to feedback. That’s just rote.

This happened in MoP, too, remember? The Horde attacks Theramore/Teldrassil, the two factions go to a new land where they fight, the Alliance counterattacks and purges Dalaran/does superficial damage to Darza’alor, the Horde responds by going even darker and Garrosh gets the Heart of Y’saarj/Sylvanas gets Xal’atath, Siege of Orgrimmar/Wherever Sylvanas is Hiding.

Bad Guys Act, Good Guys React. The Horde are the active members, so they get to be the bad guys.

But with the “choice,” a dangerous precedent is set that the Horde are automatically entitled to new mechanics that the Alliance isn’t. Why should the Horde be the ones to receive a choice and not the Alliance? Why shouldn’t this patch have a dominant Alliance theme?

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I’m not suggesting that they should exclusively have this choice. And honestly, I’m so tired of the faction nationalism in this game, in terms of who deserves what. Nobody deserves anything. It’s a story. It’ll go the direction its authors intend, and we’re paying for the privilege of experiencing it.

In truth, while the Horde has gotten this choice FIRST, I think it could be a good precedent for both factions to have. I’d love to see the Alliance have the choice to go down an evil road, and exact vengeance in a brutal way. Or, to choose to follow Anduinism, and be all :heart: Peace & Love :heart: It hasn’t happened yet, but it’s my hope that it will.

I guess my point is that I’d rather see evidence of SOME change in direction. I’m glad to see that the CONCEPT of character choice has entered the game, and it’s my hope that it’ll become more prevalent on both factions (and even in individual storylines) as time goes on.

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226

It is a story, yes. And it deserves to be criticized for when it fails and its shortcomings must be pointed out for it to improve. Favoring one side over the other is a shortcoming that has to be relentlessly criticized for the other side to get any fairness.

We have no evidence that it will. All evidence points to the Horde’s hurt feelings being a priority over the Alliance’s treatment. It’s not faction nationalism to point out that the Horde is receiving preferential treatment. If that upsets Horde players, they need to insist on better treatment for the Alliance immediately.

We aren’t seeing evidence of anything except the Horde receiving privileged access to content that the Alliance is being denied. Why shouldn’t we criticize that?

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Honestly, a criticism of the game in the past had been a lack of player choice. Now… well, we see evidence of player choice. I have no evidence that the Alliance will ever be offered this, no, but I also think that the infamous “wait and see” can sometimes be valid. :slight_smile: If it’s popular enough, I strongly suspect we’ll see this player choice thing on both factions.

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228

“Wait and see” is, in general, valid when it comes to any art form which is released in serialized installments.

In the context of Warcraft, it’s been poisoned by Blizzard’s abuse of it. When Blizzard says “wait and see” I hear “your concerns are correct, we don’t care, and we’re ignoring you.”

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Sometimes it is. Sometimes it isn’t.

We have seen, time and again, though, that relentlessly criticizing “wait and see” makes Blizzard work harder.

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I’ve only really felt that in WoD, when my optimism truly shot me in the foot.

“There’s no way we’ll only have two major content patches, one of which literally gave us selfies and prettier Blood Elves” I said.

I was so very wrong, it was painful XD

But other than that, I’ve not actually had an issue with the “wait and see” argument. I’ve found that Blizzard usually produces a pretty good story, in the end. I was unsure about the Illidan resurrection arc in Legion, but that turned out pretty okay. :man_shrugging:

I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree on that one, though I do understand why you (and Enekie for that matter) feel that way.

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231

This is where we diverge.

Blizzard’s writing is usually okay if taken as what it is: a Rule of Cool-driven Big Fun splashy cartoon that doesn’t take itself too seriously and needs a bit of meta to properly enjoy. Even taken on those terms, however, Warcraft’s storytelling has been very uneven in quality. It’s had pieces that were truly stellar and passages that were unbearably bad.

The overall pattern I’ve picked up on is that in storytelling, as in game design in general, Blizzard puts forth their best effort only when they’ve been put on full blast after half-assing something previously. That’s why we have a consistent cycle of good expansions following bad expansions and so on.

For that reason, despite my constant kvetching ever since the War of Thorns dropped, I am optimistic about the future. The pattern suggests the next expansion is going to have their full attention and best effort–and when they actually bother to try, Blizzard can always put out a good story and a good game.

The downside of that is the lurking fear I have that if the next expansion isn’t a significant improvement, it’ll finally be the deathknell for this game. I have an irrational worry about the death of WoW, unlikely as it is. The demise of WildStar hit me right in the feelings.

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232

I’m worried about it too. The way that this expansion is dividing the community OOCly is… I’ve never seen it quite so strong. It’s always been a thing. But it’s stronger now than ever.

And it’s becoming increasingly clear that, as is always the case with old stories, Blizzard is running out of ideas. There’s not really anything left of the documented world of Azeroth to explore. Anything new will, by necessity, be an asspull. Because the Broken Isles, Argus, Kul Tiras and Zandalar were literally the places we’ve been all hankering to visit for years… and now it’s done. It was amazingly awesome, but… it’s done.

I’m worried for what’s next. In a small way, I’m worried that there’ll BE a next. I’ve loved WoW and its lore for a long time, but… I guess a story either dies a good story or lives long enough to see itself to become a bad one. And, as an avid Warcraft fan… I’m not sure I’m ready for either just yet :frowning:

I don’t think Blizzard’s going to suddenly drop WoW. But… we’re well past our peak. And it can’t continue forever.

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233

This thread just got depressing.

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234

Yeah…

I’m supposed to the optimist here, dammit.

THE HAPPYS MUST BE RECLAIMED. HERE, HAVE SUNSHINE AND RAINBOWS. :rainbow: :sun_with_face: :rainbow: :sun_with_face: :rainbow: :sun_with_face: :rainbow: :sun_with_face:

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That, too, is the fault of Blizzard.

When doing a faction-conflict story, you have make sure that both sides feel active, aggressive and participating in the story. We saw how they failed to do that in Cataclysm and failed to do that in Mists of Pandaria. There is no excuse for that to happen again, yet it has.

Society always divides along lines of Haves and Have-Nots.

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236

This time, they not only repeated that old pattern but ramped up a marketing campaign to promote faction pride and aggression. In a real-world context where just about everybody is already on edge and side-eyeing a lot of their fellow citizens as threats.

This entire thing has been a symphony of tone-deafness.

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I’m tired of it on an OOC level.

I’m a big picture kinda person. I like the overall story, and because of that I play both factions fairly equally. In every expansion except Legion, during which I was exclusively Alliance, I have always had an Alliance main and a Horde main. I like experiencing both sides of the story.

Blizzard’s intentionally trying to stir up rivalry and division in their ad campaign, though. And I’m not a fan. Especially in today’s world. If they want to inspire that sort of thing, it should be through the story actually giving you faction pride, not through some notion that you need to choose a side and be done with it. xD

^ Editing to say that this is what I’m on about. It’s… meh. I don’t like how they’ve done it.

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238

Thank you for touching the surface of what has been eating me.

From the frame of view of a transgender person that the vanilla Horde narrative of playing a heroic other resounded with on a personal level (as someone who is an other), living in real life under a regime that is extremely hostile to my existence, BfA’s narrative has been hard.

Blizzard’s tonedeafness has been taxing to the point I rarely log in.

Other players diminishing my discomfort, stating that I shouldn’t take it personally, and declaring that roleplaying in a situation, a nightmare that I’m already dealing with in real life, is a gold mine for roleplay that I should embrace as opportunity is equally troubling.

To have my discomfort, caused by being a transgender person under the current hostile real life regime, and lack of happiness with the game dismissed as being Horde’s “hurt feelings” is not a great feeling either.

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239

I’d rather keep collecting Draenei skulls and Night Elf ears.

240

While wearing armor from hot topic and too much eyeliner? :woozy_face:

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