Where does the Horde go from here?

Lore Story Forum
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It’s a weird feeling for me, falling out of love with something that’s been a ‘background’ element in my life for 20+ years, at this point.

And I think it’s dawning on me that this is the best I’m gonna get. It’s not even going to be a situation where the Horde goes out with a bang, which is pretty thematically on-point. We’re just going to be written as obscurely as possible until factions are dissolved.

I was the most psyched-up for this chapter of the trilogy. Even back when Undermine rolled over and showed the Alliance its belly like a good, subservient pup… I dunno, I figured they were doing that specifically because Midnight was going to be such a Horde-fest.

And don’t misunderstand - I don’t want Alliance players or the faction to be left out, absolutely not. I mean, all my mains are Alliance anymore. I like to feel like my existence matters in a fictional universe I’m investing hours of my life into. Especially considering we raid for four hours a week.

But Undermine didn’t end up being a Horde-fest. In fact, if anything, SOMEHOW, Blizzard found a way to put the spotlight on the only Alliance goblin, and that was between Bilgewater NPCs telling me they have no idea who I am, and that they’re as disconnected from surface Goblinitics as possible.

Which just means I’m left at a spot where I realize them ignoring Horde characters, lore, or story; it’s intentional. We’re probably not getting any further development other than being uncanny sidekicks until the factions are abolished.

Blood Elves ended up so dramatically popular, they just had to give Alliance their knock-off version. And although mostly obscure throughout their entire existence - now they’re the main players in an expansion focused around Blood Elves.

No development whatsoever until the K’aresh patch. Then Arator has to be the one to inform Umbric that Silvermoon is under attack, so HE can muster the Void Elves and warn Silvermoon to defend the Sunwell.

And if Alpha is any unit to go by, yay, thank God Arator and the Void Elves stepped in to protect us, our lands, and the Sunwell, er, sorry, I meant the Dawnwell, because the Horde were too busy, uh, I guess standing around a council twiddling their thumbs, or sitting and spinning on them.

But, seriously, thanks Arator. Seriously, seriously, thanks for gentrifying us uncouth Horde scum. We clearly needed another expansion to learn our lesson.

**** you for doing this to us, Blizzard. So how do we move forward?

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Nowhere right now I am afraid. It seems Blizzard ignores us even in our own starter Zones in favor for Umbric and Arator. Might as well delete the faction at this point.

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With how the Horde is right now/with how the story is right now, it can’t go forward. The Horde as a faction of heroes is destroyed beyond repair by BfA (it was depicted as nearly monolithically evil, Saurfang’s revolution was incredibly unpopular), with the remainder of characters that people care about killed, ruined beyond repair or otherwise driven off from the faction: Saurfang, Nathanos, Sylvanas, etcetera.

Beyond that, it has no cosmic relevance in this expansion: There is a reason the Void Elves and the Grand Army of the Light are the main players in Midnight and overall being treated as generically neutral superheroes instead of the anti-Horde and pro-Alliance factions both were before; it is because the drags the Horde has left are completely and utterly useless against the Void. What use is a good warrior or hunter (majority of Horde characters), against Xal’atath? We are constantly shown how the Alliance leaders and heroes are borderline demigods capable of turning the tides of war completely on their own; this is never shown for the Horde.

It’s current role with how things are going is to be either defined by the Burning of Teldrassil, Sylvanas’s very fitting words of “The Horde is nothing!” or both all the while being Player II to the Alliance.

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Withn current writers/people i charge? nowhere

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Horde ahs forsake, resistanc if nto oturight immuento mind control and such adn void fears death
and the former weilder of xallataht in natalie seline

and the blood elfs are in ow rigth pwoerufll light users aswell

like its not an issue of horde not having stuff excist
IUts blizz nto CARING to use it at all, btu that goes beyond horde

they pick a few thign sand will ignore EVRYTHING ELSE from their vast setting

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ANd that wouldnt be betterment at all
it be worse
even for alliance
then youd never see a gnome or a worgen thats not human with le funny accent and what not ever again
now they kinda have to show them excisting other races however minro since theyre part of the faction they do write (alliance)

no factions? count ot never EVER seeing 99% of races and character ever again or be brought up again

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The problem isn’t that there aren’t ways to write for the Horde. You just take a character and write about them. It’s not like Arator is a heavily developed character. The problem is that, after what they did in Undermine, it has become clear that Blizzard has chosen to make the central plot revolve around the alliance.

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That’s been self evident for over a decade tbh lets be honest

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I mean, I agree that they haven’t written anything for the Horde that that wasn’t using them as foes for the alliance in a long time. but I had wondered how much of that was either cluelessness or incompetence.

In undermine, you could see them making a conscious choice. They took all the elements that could be used as part of Horde story and went out of their way to Nerf them.

Making the game into a story about the alliance is not an accident, it’s a choice

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It was always a conscious choice.

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I’m a believer in Hanlon’s razor:
"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”
So it was significant to me. It was were the last little vestiges of hope began to wither and die.

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This is a game that is written and designed over months or years. Everything they do is an active, conscious choice. You don’t accidentally stumble upon one’s keyboard and end up consistently writing the Horde out of the narrative for over ten years.

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The Horde is just going away unfortunately. The dev team don’t want them around and don’t want us being Horde. They won’t outright tell us it, but they either want us to be Alliance and go with their current direction, or go away.

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Have you seen the way AAA games are going recently? Sure, there’s some conscious malice or atypical behavior about, “Well, I’d rather not write stories for them”. But as a whole, within a company, I don’t think that tends to be the standard. I don’t think there’s been a board meeting within Blizzard where they said, “Alright, smucks. We’re done writing stories for the Horde. If you’re interested in that storytelling, there’s the door.”

It’s like mold, seeping up through the floors. They hired writers with views adjacent to what you typically see on Twixxer all the time. That crowd doesn’t want to write stories for a faction that sorta embodies masculinity or conquest, or somehow I’m sure, “colonization”. Hell, from an outside standpoint, there’s a “redemption” story in there that would knock it out of the park with the crowd in TikTok that they’re apparently trying to cater towards, if that cutesy Blood Elf ‘Welcome Home’ cinematic is anything to go by. Yet, even still, they’re too inept to see that; their writers are bad and lack imagination, full stop.

So yeah, while I do agree they write patches far in advance (I think every gaming company does, I know Dead by Daylight’s working on several patches at once.) But I agree with Allawyn. I don’t think it’s conscious and meticulous planning. I think it’s dumb@$$%^& and ineptitude that’s seeped up from underneath. The same kind of ineptitude that’s cratering Ubisoft, Bioware, Bethesda, Activision, Naughty Dog, and just about every other AAA NA studio you can think of.

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It can’t not be intentional or we’d have had some good horde focus at least once in ten years in the horde story.

The law of large numbers.

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The only other development it seems the Horde will get at this point, is to only ever be used as a pillar to merely elevate Alliance characters and give them greater clout & spotlight … Even in the Horde’s own kingdoms, like Quel’Thalas and Quel’Danas.

I’ve tried my best to avoid spoilers, but honestly THIS was my biggest concern & dread …

  • I was hoping that Halduron – Y’know … the RANGER-GENERAL … OF QUEL’THALAS!! — Like Sylvanas was, who died defending it - would proudly match to the level of awe & famous significance in the storyline that she did towards this new threat, throughout their kingdom.

The tragically held hope that him alongside Rommath, the grand magister of Silvermoon and other BLOOD ELF characters to FINALLY get the epic in-game cutscenes & cinema that the Alliance tend to often get in the limelight.

The poor quality treatment of Horde characters is exhaustingly outrageous at this point.

Ugh :weary_face: don’t even remind me of the garbage ‘Dawnwell’ coward plotline :puke:

Honestly, after BFA’s decisions — It felt less like Sylvanas’ words and more like Blizzard’s own words that merely possessed the character and used her as a mic to express their own firm view.

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At this point, she can pop back into the story tomorrow and I’ll welcome her, despite all the baggage, and all of the butchering of her character. I still loathe the burning of Teldrassil in my core and I always will; nothing’s gonna change that. But even knowing that she’s forever shackled with it, I’d take her back in an instant tomorrow.

Because if nothing else, at least then we’d have a Horde character they’d actually write for. Because right now, we have zero.

Edit: Do note, I am a Sylvanas simp, rofl. Huh, I kinda wonder what she’d be up to right now if Mr. Cosby Suite hadn’t ruined her character. Maybe we’d be in all kinds of a better place as Horde. But, maybe that’s just wishful thinking.

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I agree wholeheartedly & completely.
Screw the haters :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye: lol

In terms of the ruination of her character — What’s worse, is that someone @ Blizzcon called Blizzard out before BFA launched, protesting against the potential plot of Sylvanas being vilified like Garrosh – And Blizzard LIED to the playerbase and said that’s not going to happen.

Later on, they readdressed such for being called out @ lying, and they argued: “Well no, Sylvanas would consider Garrosh an amateur” — But that doesn’t change the fact that they still lied … It’s irrelevant. lol

Overall, it’s simply outrageous that full-throttle villain BS narrative of Sylvanas in BFA was greenlit and pushed out like a turd after a solid burrito and a gallon of prune-juice :face_exhaling: It’s disgusting, but now depressingly unsurprising to the typical treatment of Horde characters and the Horde at large over the many years :pensive_face:

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I mean what actual stories have been seeding, Vol’jin’s coming back in like another 10 irl years maybe, he died when i was a teen, truly i will get to enjoy that in my 40’s, thrall maybe getting his powers back but he is also like 60 now in canon, everyone else are either nothing burger characters or are actively hated by their fanbase ala calia.

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Screw it. Just bring back Sylvanas. I know the Night Elves in game, and the Night Elves on the forums will forever want to broil me alive for saying that - but at this point… She’s the only character that could exist in the Horde that they’re clearly not going to kill off, (lol plot armor.)

Also I don’t see her taking six expansions off because she’s developed Elemental Dysfunction.

I’ve gone way too long without Patty’s voice berating my character’s choices anyway. :rofl:

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