“Wait and see” used to be a full blown MEME around these parts a handful of expansions ago.
A meme that both sides, Alliance and Horde used whenever Blizzard made promises.
Because every time Blizzard told us something, you needed to swallow it with a dumpster bin’s worth of salt, due to how many times we were burned or waiting for something to happen that they had silently just abandoned.
Gilneas being reclaimed used to be part of the meme. Vol’jin still is.
Gilneas is literally the exception to the rule, and it still took fifteen years to happen. And even then, it only amounted to the beginnings of a reclamation. Unless I missed an update, it’s just a bunch of NPCs in the worgen start area, and some wandering around elsewhere.
But hey, at least it’s a start. That’s a lot more than “Silvermoon City’s inaccessible ruined section? It’s totally going to be cleaned up in a later patch, just wait and see!!”
And I hate to bring it up, but the only people waiting longer than we have for simple story developments might be the G.R.R. Martin fans who have been waiting to read the conclusion of the Game of Thrones, Fire and Ice story. That man is dedicated to croaking before he finishes writing the final books, and I think the final season of the HBO show pretty much sealed the fate of those fans.
I mean, I’ve experienced several seasons of some of my favorite series in the same time frame as three expansions. Some of my favorite anime have started and concluded in the same time frame that Vol’jin has been dead.
This is not a fan friendly medium for stories. We’re all just torturing ourselves here.
ERB’s Martin vs. Tolkien remains one of my all time favorites. Entirely unrelated, but there it is.
And I know some who are not, but they get “No true Scotsman’d” into not counting.
No, Blizzard didn’t start pushing the “raised by humans” angle until Metzen was already out of the picture. I put that down to Christie Golden having a skewed view of the importance of her self-insert/pet character, Taretha.
Metzen saw Thrall as an intelligent, gifted leader in spite of the almost unrelentingly brutal treatment he received at the hands of humans, not because of it.
Since you brought up GoT and I like to give real-world comparisons of time…
Cataclysm launched in 2010. Gilneas was ruined and abandoned.
The GoT TV show started one year later, in 2011.
The show ended in 2019.
House of the Dragon, the spin-off prequel show, released its first season in 2022. Gilneas was still in ruins.
Five years later in January of 2024, patch 10.2.5 was released, with the reclamation of Gilneas. Seven months later, the second season og HoD finished airing.
Thank you Mocha Elf, you just made me feel terribly old. I practically resemble my character now.
Well, there it is. That’s pretty much proof that if you’re invested in the fate of a singular character or race in World of Warcraft, you’re better off cancelling your sub, taking a decade to pursue things that bring you happiness, and then checking back in on Warcraft after the decade has passed, and flip a coin.
Tails? Your character/race has been warped or broken apart in ways that will disappoint you.
Heads? Your character/race hasn’t changed since a decade ago. Check back in another decade.
Alliance/Horde partisans, you’re just here to suffer if you’re still here.
The TV show Supernatural started a year after I started playing this very same hunter and ended after fifteen seasons in 2020!! Four days later, Shadowlands released!!
In the entire time that Sam and Dean Winchester went from being challanged by a single ghost to fighting God, I have still not learned to play Hunter very well at all!!!
It doesn’t. I find the blatant victim signaling tiresome.
Does that mean in Cata when the story was completely centered around the Horde and they had tons more content for the Horde than Alliance they were intentionally hurting the Alliance? Or during MoP when it was a lot of the same things, including a whole extra patch that the Alliance was intentionally left ‘starving?’ How about in BfA, when they again built the story around the Horde. And again put in more Horde content. Were they intentionally starving the Alliance?
Seems unlikely. Much more likely is they screwed up. They were trying to tell a story and they made mistakes. The mistakes felt bad for those playing the Alliance. When they did get around to trying to wrap up hanging Alliance thread it was not throwing the Alliance a bone, it was them trying to wrap things up.
The first patch of TWW was notably more Alliance than Horde. Yes, that felt bad for Horde players. But that doesn’t mean they were being starved. In fact, from what Blizzard has said it is because they have had Horde content planned and are trying to keep things balanced this time around. We already know the next patch is Horde. And the next new race is likely to have a lot of Horde characters involved. And that is before we even talk about the expac that is going to be set in the Blood Elf area. A lot of Horde content is coming. Based on what Blizzard has told us, it is likely TWW first patch had to be Alliance to keep things balanced.
So, should I say the TWW first patch was just Blizzard throwing the Alliance a bone? Or should I recognize that they are trying to balance things out and give attention to both factions?
If you want to complain about the story, fine. Not everyone is going to like it. If you want to suggest things you would have liked to be different, sure. But don’t pretend they are just withholding content from the Horde. You are not a victim.
I get that. And I don’t fault you for it.
But I do want to note something. Prior to TWW every single time they were asked about balancing content they said no. Not maybe, not we will seed, they said no. They have zero issue with saying no. This time they said yes. At the very least, this shows a change in priorities.
That is fine. Just don’t assume they are not going to follow through.
Never said it was all.
The point was there is a decent population that are very pumped about Undermine. Some not being doesn’t change that.
It is wild, bordering unhinged, that in an attempt to refute an accusation you unironically double and triple down on it. You continue making this about Horde vs. Alliance when I deliberately avoided mentioning the Alliance specifically because I knew you would be salivating at the opportunity to play your one drum again to sidestep the avalanche of irrelevant gaslighting.
If Alliance is being underserved by the game’s storylines, they are being starved of content—yes! If they are being starved of this content for a long period of time and finally or sporadically given something appetizing, they are being thrown a bone—yes! It doesn’t matter if it is deliberate, incidental, or accidental; People hungry out here.
Man, sucks to be them!
So my question is what counts as “a Horde story”?
To clarify, what do people want to see play out? So far we have bilgewater stuff coming up as well as something happening with Silvermoon next expac. Thrall’s weird placement I can understand not counting…
Well, for a start, I want to see it as an integral part of the main expansion story. Not just a side jaunt.
Well, I personally feel that Undermine(d) absolutely qualifies as a “Horde Story” or at least “Horde-Themed Story”. I’m pretty stoked for it, all things considered.
I am too cynical to already say Midnight qualifies. We know it’s some “Elf Unity” thing, with all the elf races joining together. That means Night Elves and Void Elves as well as Blood Elves and Nightborne. And High Elves. My hesitation comes from how… Let’s say, how certain characters tend to shine brighter in the spotlight than others. Windrunners in general, Tyrande and Malfurion. I’m sure there’s still space for Lor’themar and Thalyssra, but I cannot say that I’m sure they won’t be treated as junior partners to the more established night/high elf leaders. Legion’s lack of any orcs in a position to say “hey, remember when we were made Legion slaves?” kinda makes me very cynical. And, well, there’s always the worry that Jaina will come into this very elf-y situation to tell us all about elf stuff again (Nazjatar also makes me bitter).
Most impoartantly, while having a patch of Horde-style stuff is great, I’d love to see the Horde be part of the whole expansion. I’m not asking to dominate the story; I would like to see Horde characters actually imporetant to the story. And not as the secondary antagonist (or worse; primary).
But… I just cannot see that happening when we deal with the Cosmic Forces. I’ve posted before about how disconnected the Horde is from those, contrasted with how very connected the Alliance is to most. What Horde character has some strong ties to Order or the Light or Life, that comes close to Magni (and dwarves overall), Anduin and Turalyon (and drainos overall), or Malfurion (or night elves and druids, which are massively dominated by night elves overall)?
So for the forseeable future… I dunno.
So for the purposes of this thread, are we only counting the main big in your face story blaring sirens “STORY HERE DO THIS YOU ILLITERATE GEEKS!!!” and ignoring the side content that made up the vast majority of the quests for the last few xpacs? Do neutrals now all count as Alliance?
There’s an imbalance sure, but speaking from experience I don’t think a lot of you guys would like any of the Horde story they put forth even when you get it.
Like, Loa of Kings Vol’jin could pop back up alongside the manifested spirit of Cairne, high-five Thrall, followed by a long cutscene where they shred through an army of nerubians while a speed metal version of the Orgrimmar theme plays, and some so-called Horde fans won’t like it because Thrall didn’t also shove Anduin into a locker.
There is a very real difference between side content and story content.
The story of, say, Dragonflight was pretty much just about those dragons, right until the last patch when it was them, but also heavily about night elves, and saving their new treehouse. So saying we got an Alliance story content in Dragonlands? Feels pretty legitimate.
Calling, say, the dragonmaw orc who felt bad about what his people did, all in a side questchain? That… No, it doesn’t feel like Horde story content. If I have to go out and find it and it’s entirely optional, it does not feel remotely the same.
Baine with the centaurs, also in dragonlands? Very different. Absolutely it’s Horde content. Sure, it isn’t anywhere near what night elves got, but Baine kinda needed something like this, it was readily accessible (I think? It started in Valdrunken, right?) and involved more than just “Horde character present”. And for what it’s worth, I enjoyed it.
Shadowlands is probably the most faction-neutral expansion we have, so I got no good examples for either side here. I’d bring up trash bagging Baine, and go off on a full paragraph rant about it, but even with that? Pretty neutral. Yet we did get Thrall and Draka, and a couple bits here and there. Those didn’t feel like “X story,” those felt like… Moments. Too few moments that were actually fun (cuz you cannot have fun in Shadowlands!!!), but very much worth remembering.
But… I just do not know what you mean by “vast majority of the quests” in the last few expacs. Because I did those quests too, and the vast majority are dealing with whatever neutral party we’re dealing with this time, or they are Amirdrassil. Is it that we’re not also addressing that there is a lot of neutral content as well?
Because that isn’t very relevant when when complaining about the lack of Horde stories. It would be a weird and unnecessary caveat to add. “I am awfully tired of not getting Horde development. But there’s a lot of neutral stuff as well.”
That’d be like Horde players complaining about being used as the villains in faction wars adding the side note “but there are quite a lot of other races and groups also used as villains as well.” Or Alliance players bringing up how sick they are of having to forgive the warcrimes of the Horde in some neutral expansion content with a Horde quest giver being required to say “but we do not have to forgive the Scourge and the Scarlet Crusade and the Burning Legion, so I guess that evens it out.”
I think we all just don’t bring up the neutral stuff when talking about faction stuff to make conversations less awkward and clunky.
I do agree with your post to a point, but at the same time we’ve seen the story increasingly becoming stratified and ‘optional’ over the last few expansions, to the point where the fancy exclamation point main chains make up a smaller portion of the actual story than they have since… maybe MoP? There’s a massive amount of side chain content that all contribute to the story itself, just not front and centre
I do agree that more front and centre Horde stuff is needed, but at the same time threads like this feel disingenuous to an extent. It also focuses on faction over race, which is a perennial issue as well because that often means just ‘Orcs and Stormwind’. And often those race-specific chains seem to be ignored or brushed aside even if they’re Horde-based. The Baine chain you mentioned, for example, was met with crickets despite solving nearly all the issues people have with Baine. Blood Elves (paladins) and Forsaken also got stories specific to their advancement in SL, albeit with Alliance allowed to participate in the latter while disguised as Horde.
Bilgewater has also been at the forefront in a lot of stuff, and are the only factional representation on Siren’s Isle.
There does need to be more, I agree, I’m just saying that there is stuff there, and there’s likely going to be a lot more. But even what is considered ‘Horde content’ by some Horde fans seems to shift constantly to suit their mindset.
Normally I dislike breaking a single sentence (or really, most of a single sentence) into different parts, but there’s two things I wish to address that you brought up.
I cannot speak for other people, but for me? Whether it’s forsaken stuff, troll stuff, tauren stuff, blood elf stuff, gobbo stuff (and so on) is largely irrelevant. Sorta.
Because I main Horde. All those races? They’re a part of “my people.” I know them, I love them, yadda yadda. Their individual stories are a part of the larger story I want developed; the Horde story.
So when Undermine(d) is gonna be a whole patch about gobbos, it doesn’t matter to me that 80% of those gobbos are neutral, and 20% are one race among the many that makes up the Horde. Because I’m familiar with goblins, I run dungeons with goblins, I learn engineering from goblins, etc. They feel Horde, so the story developing one of the many Horde races feels familiar to that everyday gameplay I have as a Horde player.
Yeah, I’d like more diverse content for each race. But I know not to expect that because Blizzard historically only focuses on two to four races total in a given expansion, if even that many. And I’d like more general Horde content, but I know we practically never get “general faction content” either. So going based on the race of the month is what I have.
Big, strong agree. That’s why I felt I had to break the sentence up. This is a whole entire issue, where Human or Orc architecture and armors become the default Alliance or Horde architecture and armors to the point it suffocates both factions. And I did not want my disagreement or clarification of the first part to detract from this very real issue.
Again, I enjoyed the quest. I really did. But part of the problem is that it’s still Baine. It might have solved the problems from a story perspective, but from a Horde player’s perspective?
Nothing about that quest chain fixed Baine mumbling around three quarters of BfA’s war campaign, complaining about how "this is not honorable*** while doing nothing about it until suddenly JAINA’S AT RISK??? Nothing about that quest chain fixed him sitting like a bag of trash for half of Shadowlands.
People didn’t talk about that quest chain too much (but they did talk about it, cuz that’s how I learned about it first) becaus Baine had already been so sullied as a character.
Different situation than Baine, because I do remember quite a lot of discussions about the Forsaken one. A mixed bag, sure, but it wasn’t quite crickets with the reclamation of Lordaeron.
But again, some context here matters. Because the reclamation of Lordaeron also felt very half-finished (and this complaint is equally valid IMO for Gilneas). We got the topside ruins back, and… Well, that’s sorta it. It felt like, and still feels like, we’re waiting for the other half of this. Again, this applies to Gilneas. It all just felt so short and quick that it’s just not enough to talk about.
I cannot speak much for the blood elf paladin one. I do not have a blood elf paladin and I legitimately strugged to recall if I ever did this quest on Alynsa or not, until I remembered the mount. All I remember is that it was done very quickly.
All that being said, regarding Baine, Lordaeron and the Green Chocobo questlines, I don’t think it’s that Horde players aren’t counting them. I think that we all acknowledge they exist as small pieces of faction-aligned content. And even with the issues they have (cuz let’s be honest, the Alliance content has issues as well), they are certainly better than nothing.
But they all together still feel like crumbs compared to just Amirdrassil. To just chilling with Magni, Moira, Dagran, Anduin and Jaina (especially the latter two) for TWW thus far. Starting with Shadowlands, going through Dragonflight, and now the first third of TWW, we got crumbs. And before that, we got villained for an expansion, and crumbs during Legion.
So if we’re not bringing up the crumbs when we’re saying “we need more story content that isn’t killing the Alliance again please,” it isn’t because we forgot the crumbs exist.
It’s just that crumbs aren’t very filling.
Again, I do think Undermine(d) is a great step forward though.
Even if the MAXIMUM VROOM car is absolutely going to give me anxiety attacks and vertigo!!! I look forward to dizzily rushing to the bathroom to throw up because car go too quickly cannot turn ran into big mobs died now again!!!
What i find ultimatly hilarious about this thread, is that people here seem to know more what is “Horde focus” than the writers themselves.
I elaborate : For the wirters, Midnight will be Horde focused, for the writers, 11.1 is also Horde focused and i mean, they write the story, so their way of viewving thing is what really matter isnt it? BUT it seems like, some players will come here and say that 11.1 is not Horde related, and Midnight is Alliance…
And i just find this hilarious to see