Well, historically when we get Horde content, it starts with a brand new warchief looking at Kalimdor and saying “I think I’d rather like to have all of that, just without any living night elves around, thank you” so I dunno if I even really want it!!
I’m in for the whole World Soul saga, but after that Blizzard really needs to pull some miracle to keep me around.
An adoptable Dagran who follows me around, nerding out about every arcane thingamabobber he sees? 100% exactly the right miracle.
IMO I think Metzen’s self insert writing resulted in the people who made the game and people who played the game having different views on the Horde. Because Thrall is the Horde POV character in WC3 a lot of people saw that and thought “this is what Orcs are.” The whole point of the conception of Thrall was that he was a special smart and noble Orc who was, at least on Azeroth, the first of his kind. His “raised by humans” origins wasn’t just to trauma dump it was because in Metzen’s mind there needed to an explanation for why Thrall acted as intelligently as he did. They were given a more “noble savage” history than the one they had in the prior games, but the emphasis was still more on savage than noble. That racial philosophy carried over into WoW. Like the other playable races an Orc created player character could be anything, but the writers’ mental image of the average Orc was the one in the first WoW cinematic. Whenever Garrosh argued with Thrall, saying things like Orcs take what they need instead of trading for it, the players saw Garrosh as projecting his own selfish nature on his race whereas the writers viewed it as an argument of the old Orcish way against Thrall’s enlightened nature. The history of Orcs in WoW has basically been them catching up to players mental image of them.
Metzen’s influence is why orc leaders devolve into corrupted warlords when Thrall isn’t there to set them right. His perspective of the Horde is centered around Orcs, and his perspective around Orcs has the first two Warcraft games as it’s foundation. With Metzen at the helm most Horde specific victories aren’t going to be against the Alliance or the big bad, it’ll be against their own darker nature i.e. the last two wars. That spotlight will cook them.
It means people who were starving are at last being given morsels of food. It implies that someone capable of providing regular meals is holding out on feeding those who are starving.
I could write a paragraph (from personal to some of my close friends who work in the industry and have extremely critical opinions especially after playing PoE2, Diablo 4 and BG3) on what could be happening with the writers team from the problem being the Leads to just as simple as that the writers are not verse in writing fantasy races, monsters cultures with proper racial faction story theme, to they just don’t have enough time to produce and put that type of detail into Old WoW or they are force to leave stuff out to market the books… BUT I don’t know that, so I won’t speculate on that.
LOL I ended writing a paragraph… 
SORRY!
Point is anyway that I’m honestly giving Blizz until TWW. MMO expansions usually are prepare years in advance and even if somethings can maybe be twique with the Visual, Scenes and some of the story, most can not… So my bet is we will see in TWW what the direction Blizz intends… that is my: “Make it or Break it” moment for WoW and a signal for me to take a break until something that interest me happends.
2025 is going to be a great year for gaming were you can choose what to play if your tire or your old online games are not up to the demand.
I know Blizz is aware and is steadily updating the game visually and in gameplay, but after or during 2025 a lot of players will come from games who have all that and a good story… so I do think Blizz will have to keep improving immensely on WoW in all aspects in ready for their growing competition and THAT’S a GOOD thing! (Nightmare for devs but I guess that come with the territory)
Soo we will soon see whats up. I still have some hopium left so I’ll let Blizz cook for a bit more… Horde and Alliance are nothing without good flesh out racial cultures (and how Classes are affected by them too 
) IMO so I’m hoping this will lead to some good Horde or Alliance side stories be it short or the main theme… if not then well I’ll join my friends on other games… they been pulling me to so many different ones I can’t keep up! Need to narrow it down to just a few…lol 
Obviously, I’ll sub back up either way if we get at least a DH 3rd spec or something unexpected as a Necromancer/Lich Class, Evoker unlocks secrete Undead or Dark Hero Spec and/or maybe a new Undead race with a fully functional Necropolis Nation of Undead and its culture like in other fantasy games I play, Ogres or something interesting as a Race IMO!
With undead I want to say I want a Vampire race but in WoW apparently that San’layn and from the looks of the DK Hero Spec that seems to be a type of class gameplay… so now I’m not sure what Undead Vampires in WoW are at this point! Maybe like the old lore states that the “Dreadlords” are ultimately the True Vampire… but again is Dreadlord the Class? Because the race is called The Nathrezim!? Ah I wish in WoW we had the gameplay to be Vampire in combo with the race and Class like in ESO!! 
However if they add it in whatever form, I’m sooo subbing back for sure!!!
History disagrees. There were elements of the Horde’s warlike nature baked into the pie, but the boiling over moments came with Kosak and Afrasiabi, only after Metzen stepped away to work on Titan/Overwatch. He is on record as hating Garrosh even before he went on his full tyrant arc (probably recognizing that he would be a Grom copy/paste at best)
Furthermore, attempts to mitigate the bloodthirsty slant of orckind via mag’har and more naturalistic roots were immediately subverted by those who followed, who I would argue fundamentally misunderstood Orcs and The Horde in general.
Edit: Metzen did a decently deep dive on a lot of his involvement in a podcast some years back, though the name of said podcast eludes me. I feel like Frog was in the title?
Maybe I am being optimistic, but I think they have learned their lesson. Contrary to what some people like to pretend, Blizzard did believe they were giving Horde an interesting and good story. It has been soundly rejected enough that I believe they know better now.
And this is the premise I disagree with. It implies an intent that is not there.
Blizzard has given the Horde a lot of content. And historically when there has been a large disparity between the factions it was the Alliance that was given less content. And Blizzard actively said they would not balance it out. Now that TWW had an Alliance patch Blizzard said they would balance it out. And we are getting a Horde patch. So, Blizzard is not intentionally holding out.
And look, I get it. A lot of Horde did not like the past stories. But two things:
I don’t fault you for disliking Horde stories. I don’t fault you for complaining about it. But implying it is only Horde that have gotten the raw end is wrong. Implying Blizzard is intentionally holding out is wrong.
Metzen was the creative director for the game for literally the entirety of Garrosh’s existence. Of course he “recognized” what he would be, he made him that. Literally everything that happened he okayed, the vast majority of it was probably written or contributed to by him personally. Garrosh went from someone who was mentored by Thrall, to someone who argued the morally incorrect thing in contrast to Thrall, to the one who almost destroyed what Thrall had built out of sheer evilness and ineptitude. Of course Metzen hated him, he was made to the hateable contrast to the true warchief everyone was supposed to love. Literally the only positive thing Garrosh ever did was done by a writer who was the dark about where his plotline was going.
Cata was the apex of Mary Sue thrall and it’s obvious that all the green jesus/chosen one memes were a wake up call for Blizzard about the characters prominence. There’s a reason that despite being deliberately dialed back post-Cata the cinematics show Thrall as the one standing over a defeated Garrosh in his Throne room and being the one finally defeat him in outland when it clearly should have been Vol’jin. Garrosh was terrible because he was the anti-Thrall, which is exactly what Metzen always meant for him to be.
You are operating on incorrect assumptions about his role and level of involvement. He is responsible directly for the Green Jesus travesty, but little else beyond that.
He was Senior Vice President of Story & Franchise, which means all of Blizzard’s IPs were under his purview. Put another way, he signed off on low resolution concepts but was increasingly less involved in high resolution beats after the Ulduar patch.
Okay Great Value Smallioz, I get you want to derail every discussion into another argument about who has less/more diarrhea in their food bowl, but I’m not interested. Every person expressing discontentedness with Horde direction is not an open invitation to conversation police the subject with the same tired Red vs. Blue things we have hashed out a dozen times a week.
Go make a thread about where the Alliance needs improvement or something. This is old.
Edit: and if this seems harsh, understand I deliberately excluded any mention of Alliance in that post to avoid this exact thing from this exact poster.
On the one hand the idea that he’s responsible for the game being oriented around making his character look amazing but somehow had no involvement in his characters replacement being terrible is absurd to me.
On the other hand a Horde player arguing that every terrible thing an organization does can’t be pinned on the one in charge is a rare enough win that I’ll take it.
I have a genuine question. Both for you and anyone that cares to read this reply. What is a Horde story to you? What would you want to happen/who would you want to see be in the front?
I ask because how people define “Horde” and “Alliance” vary from person to person. Prime Example is Arthas, some people will say that because He is/was Human, it is an Alliance story - even though he attacks both factions/sees anyone living as an enemy.
Or even if it is Horde Centric, but Blood Elves are the focus, some won’t say it is true Horde story because the ‘core’ races are being ignored, Orc, Troll, Tauren, etc.
I, personally, don’t see a character’s race being tied to a faction they represent. Honestly, that idea died in Mists of Pandaria, when Pandaren (Regardless of what faction they chose) were treated exactly the same as all other playable races - an outside despite looking exactly the same as Mainland pandaren.
The Playable Factions are sort of just… a relic, a gameplay mechanic that exists while the Story and the writers have moved beyond it. Its more “These important NPCs” who show up and can cross the imaginary lines with us being the silent enforcer.
Green Jesus was basically him phoning in a favor from Afrasiabi. It is less that he wasn’t aware of, I think, and more that he trusted the people under him to keep the story rolling. In Kosak’s case I think he did a great job overall. I just think the Horde storylines in particular dropped some in quality.
Beyond that, it does take a village, even if I fall victim to hanging blame on the only visible faces steering the rudder at times.
GODLIKE silent enforcer, thank you very much! (jk)
After so many barrow power, defeating literally gods, legendary/world ending encounters and even channel all types of Cosmic/types of powers I think players are sorely miss represented in the story, specially if your character is original since vanilla, does vet character by fantasy RPG standar should be incredibly strong and have incredible god tier stats IMO! It’s even laughable how some NPC leaders who fighted with a FULL RAID and is still walking like nothing, not even a scar on their bodies! (with the exception of the Gnome leader, respect to that dude! Love how they treated him after he fought the Azerite empowered Horde raid)
I know this is a tired old joke from the RPG community but this is something the writers when writing its villains often forget to maybe elaborate on the PC role in the story. I know its gameplay stuff… like in every expansion we can literally be killed by a high level goat that can block out moves or spells with a ram, looking at you DF dragon Goats almost died with my casters blocking my spells!!!
But you do make a valid point on the standpoint of Horde and Alliance content… I’m bias to Horde always and forever (This character is Forsaken full, as a Darkfallen Warlock sadly the game mechanic don’t let NPC recognize this lol) However if the story is good I literally do NOT mind whatever the characters NPC I’m questing or helping is… if it keeps me grounded and captivated in the story and does not break me away from it.
Stuff like the Kosh’harg and Undermined. Less of “pick cosmic force flavor of villain and match with a few characters we want to fundamentally recharacterize in jarring ways.”
When I’m talking about “Horde stories” or “Alliance stories” I’m mostly talking about normal stories that spotlight a Horde/Alliance character dealing with the events, and how that affects their faction’s/race’s history.
Take Legion for instance. Obviously the Burning Legion invading is an “everyone story.” But it is largely told to us through the lens of a human (Khadgar), a night elf (Illidan) and a draino (Velen). The character who relates that story to how it affects his people is Velen, and the drainos overall.
A good counter-point could have been, hypothetically speaking, Saurfang before he became Sadfang in BfA. He could have been there, dealing with how these demons once corrupted his people, leading to the loss of his homeworld and everything he knew, even starting the chain of events that caused the loss of his son. You could even tie the two stories together by having Velen realize they both have very similar stories (lost homeworld, lost son) and maybe bond over that. And thereby making Saurfang’s whole Sadfang arc in BfA seem less out of left field (he was literally just bonding with an Alliance leader last year before he has to marshal for war).
It’s harder with these Cosmo Forces stories, because the only real Cosmic Force the Horde has a history of really dealing with is Disorder/the Legion. We don’t have a void orc who chose to start using void stuff. We don’t have any lightforged Tauren (but we should!!!). While we have druids, the Emerald Dream stuff has traditionally been clogged full of night elves, and only ever includes a token tauren here and there to assist Malfurion, so Life is out. I guess we could have closer ties to Death via the Forsaken, but that was utterly ignored when it should have been addressed and would need to be developed from scratch. And titans and order stuff have never been a big deal with Horde races.
At this point it’s hard to really say what exactly a brand new story that is Horde-focused or Horde-flavored would even be. For the last fifteen years, the Horde’s story has largely been about them trying to kill the Alliance (or for AU Horde analogs, the drainos and other orcs), so I’d have to go deep into the well to around Vanilla/TBC to find a thread worth pulling or create something brand new from scratch.
EDIT: And I want it said; I wouldn’t want this “Horde-themed story” to also take away from the Alliance. I don’t need some long-term historic scale balancing. Just some degree of similar to equal footing in the future.
Wrong
Actually no. That is what you were doing. You are the one claiming Horde was the one intentionally being only given morsels.
I am suggesting that you should probably recognize that Horde are not targeted victims. As long as your are holding to the idea the Blizzard is withholding ‘food’ from the ‘starving’ Horde you will never be satisfied because you will always just think it is a ‘bone,’ no matter how much there actually is.
Blizzard has said that is what will be happening going forward. The promised that right after the release of TWW. I think this is notable because it is the first time they have ever said that, even with considerable imbalances in the past. Since they always said no, to me that is an indicator of a shift in priorates. And that means it is much more likely to happen.
I do hope you get the stories you want.
Great Value Smallioz, as in the bargain brand version of what came before. For what it is worth, I liked Smallioz in spite of his blue partisanship. You have only one gnome sized drum you really love playing, same as him, however.
I’m sorry it somehow offends you that Horde players have felt unacknowledged and mishandled for a good long while, but that sentiment is not wed to Alliance one way or another. Cdev (Blizzard) control the stories, which means they are the ones controlling the food in my example. I don’t know why you continue attaching some strange value to “bones” other than what I bothered spelling out for you. Throw me a bone, here!
My own personal definition of “faction content” is content that shows off or gives insight into a faction’s playable race/society.
Prime examples:
Now, a lot of the time WoW uses only major characters as stand-ins for their whole society, which often works - Tyrande’s Night Warrior arc in SL showed us a little of how Elune responds to night elf rituals, Jaina’s arc in BfA shows how Kul Tiran society reacted to her actions regarding Daelin, etc - but just as often doesn’t. Baine sitting on the floor in Oribos in SL doesn’t tell us how tauren react to walking through the land of spirits, Alleria’s chase after Xal’atath in TWW doesn’t tell us how the void elves are dealing with the victory of a herald of the dark powers that have a backdoor into their brains.
That’s what disappoints me with TWW - the individual character stories are okay, Dagran is adorable, but I want to see their involvement tied to their society’s involvement in the expac plot.
I’m going to be perfectly honest with you.
I have spent years waiting on Blizzard promises to be kept. I’m still waiting for how “BfA will be more shades of grey than Cata/MoP” when literally the opposite was true. I’m still waiting for “the end of SoO will have a real fist-pumping moment for the Alliance.” I mean, I could literally go on and on for hours listing promises never kept, and I wouldn’t even have to bring up the Dance Studio to type up broken promises for hours.
I’ll wait and see, but my expectations will remain greatly lowered until I’ve seen evidence showing they shouldn’t be.
“We named him Dranosh. It means ‘pickled waffle badger’ in Orcish.”