Thrall is one of the few long standing Horde character Blizzard hasn’t destroyed. So what we get is a story being driven heavily driven by characters from Alliance lore. So we don’t see Horde characters much, and even when we do, they are always Thrall and Baine.
In the last expansion Thrall was pretty much Jaina’s side-kick and Baine spend most of his time taking about how great Anduin was.
I decided to switch to Alliance until Blizzard showed they had some direction for Horde lore that wasn’t being foes for the Alliance in faction content and to be mostly ignored otherwise. I don’t see any near term reason that might make we switch back.
I don’t play a Night Elf because I’m a big admirer of Tyrande. In fact I’m one of her bigger critics.
I play a Night Elf because that’s the character I wanted to play.
That’s also true for my Human Mage, My Blood Elf Warlock, My Night Elf Mage, My other Huma Mage, my Night Elf Priest, My Night Elf and High Mountain Tauren Druids, and my Human and Tauren Paladins. and about 40 other alts.
In fact the last is part of a Guild known as the Taurens Three which is composed of one Sunwalker of each spec. The latter was frequently amusing when we’d queue for dungeons.
Not to say that your reasons for switching aren’t valid… It just means we have different priorities.
I can understand this as the friends I played actually felt this way and had a lot of other reasons beyond this… even as we play our own head canon it was hard to follow our racial leaders and stay in RPG mode lol.
I told my fiends I’m waiting for Void Elf DH to race change him to Alliance Side… They want me to tank with him in Alliance side, but we already have to many Night elves in our RPG group.
RPG reasons why I play a Void/Blood Elf if your interested for giggles
I’m usually the Dark and Brooding Void Elf or Tragic Bitter Blood Elf veteran in our RPG group, as they seem to like how I play into my character of that race being a former Horde… so I made a Warlock, a DK, Priest and a Rogue depending of what synergy we want to play as a team or the RPG role they want me to take.
However I did told my friends if the dev team add Darkfallen Skin to Nightborn with all that purple glow and cool arcane tattoos turn a glow RED?! They lose me in Alliance side for sure! lol
I tried forcing myself to switch to alliance during the Shadowlands prepatch, but ultimately it felt too unenjoyable for me to want to stick with it. It just felt too bad leaving all of my alts behind, and I didn’t enjoy being around any of the characters except for Flynn.
Hard to resist a guy who’s willing to taste-test what he thinks is pee on the off chance it’s beer during a life or death situation.
I did play through the alliance war campaign though, and I remember being annoyed at how saccharine it felt at times. You do some nasty stuff during it but it’s just backpats and thumbs up all around while you do it.
That’s not entirely fair, he played a nontrivial role in WOD.
Not much that Alliance would have seen outside of the Garrosh killsteal, but he does quite a bit in Frostfire. Then immediately goes into lame Mopey Thrall mode.
This primalists business is small fish. The global powers of the Alliance/Horde are only tangentially involved. This is The Hero (You! You’re my hero), The Dracthyr and a handful of loosely affiliated adventurers and academics.
The intent here is to reel back the scale (hoho) of the storytelling.
The issue I have with characters like Thrall being is that he is literally the creator the the current horde that is a massive threat to the Alliance. He can’t really distance himself from that especially when he is keeps being drawn back into it.
I mean I don’t care for Anduin being all buddy buddy with baine or the Horde either.
My point being is Thrall should be a horde charcter for Horde players, They should have used a tauren or created a neutral charcter from the horde with out that baggage if they want the alliance player base to get along with them. A Character like Thura would be perfect.
I can appreciate as well that Horde players are also sick of helping the night elves or having to listen to Anduin talk about “horde honor”.
With the exception of the last few expansions where he’s in his sad Not-Shaman form Thrall is a Peacemonger done right.
Dude actively worked to cultivate peace, moreso than anyone else in game, but when the chips were down and the Allaince forced the orcs into either choosing war or starvation, he didn’t wring his hands about it, just accepted that the situation sucked and kept on world-shamaning.
He was actually proactive about trying to make things work rather than only reacting when tensions were through the Roof. He didn’t turn in his spine like Baine or go full war criminal like Jaina when his efforts failed.
I don’t think there’s a single instance where Thrall goes sicko mode on Alliance PCs, I don’t see why he’s objectionable when horde PCs have to deal with Tyrande/Jaina/Genn somewhat frequently.
While ignoring that the Warsong were attacking the night elves. Ignoring Sylvanas’ until it was all too late and we all had plague landing on our heads. Then instead of making the sensible “if the Horde did skin Alliance we will turn them in to Alliance justice” he said "no we will investigate(I am not sure he did) and deal with them ourselves. Only to later go “yeah we will turn Sylvanas/Sira into Alliance”.
And capped off with making Garrosh Warchief because he wanted “orcish pride”. Well we all got to see that in action and attacked by the Sha of Pride.
Like while the dude might not have been malicious about it, he is the root cause of Garrosh and Sylvanas. Heck, without him making Garrosh leader, Theramore would have stood thus making it impossible for Sylvanas to strike at the night elves.
She exterminated a decent number of Blood Elves in Dalaran and nearly flooded the lower city of Orgrimmar. And Garoosh is dead and most permannently gone.
The root cause of Sylvannas remains very much Arthas.
Im going to lose it if I have to suffer through yet another Tyrande story-arc. I am exhausted of Night Elf storylines, they need to be left in limbo for at least 2-3 expacs.
I’d be okay with a standalone Malfurion storyline. Preferably one that has nothing to do with the faction war.
I am definitely sick of Tyrande though. Doesn’t help that her Hordeside Legion introduction was her screaming about murdering you 3/4ths through a zone in which you had done nothing but help her people and had just gotten done saving her fellow priestesses and her goddess’ temple.
Like, a little gratitude would have been nice. That kind of attitude is why your tree burned down, lady.
Nah, personally im done with them. They’ve either featured or made an appearance in nearly (if not all iirc) every expansion to date. Continuing to cater to Night Elves is suffocating the potentiality of any other race receiving any sort of attention.
What’s up with the gnomes? Mekkatorque? Gnomeregan?
Worgen, Gilneas?
What is Velen doing?
How are the Goblin’s keeping on with Gazlowe in charge?
What’s Talanji been up to?
How are things in Suramar? Oculeth? Valtrois?
etc. etc.
More to the story than just Humans, Night Elves, and Orcs.
Without Velen refusing to arm the native races of Draenor for the extinction he knowingly had led them to, Theramore never needed to be made, the Lich King never happens, and Darnassus stands true.
