Where was the faction war?

Community General Discussion
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Why does everyone always talk about “the good old days” when there was “war” in Warcraft.

When classic vanilla re-launched I took the opportunity to find out for myself, I then played classic tbc, and classic wotlk.

Where was this great faction war?

I didn’t see it in classic vanilla. Maybe it was SS vs TM but that was mostly player created world pvp.

Didn’t see it in TBC. Maybe it was Thrallmar vs Honor Hold but once again that was player created world PvP.

Wotlk had the argent tournament I guess. Not sure if that really qualifies as a faction war. The wrath gate was supposed to be us working together right and horde took a cheap shot at alliance. Wouldn’t really call that war though.

Edit: Varian did declare war after wrathgate

Moving further. Did Cata have faction war?

It really didn’t appear like any of those really focused on the faction conflict. So why do people claim we have moved away from the faction war when it never really was there in the first place.

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I always saw wow as being the fallout after effects of the rts wars. Nothing hot going on, just a cold war (I never wanted to world pvp maybe that’s why) but ruins and signs of something terrible having happened everywhere you went.

If you don’t pvp, it’s never really felt like a real war, and that’s just how it is.

And it was that way pre-cata. If anything cata kind of overdid the whole “ruined and messed up” thing and made the entire place just about deathwing and not the prior three wars.

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Are people simply referencing the RTS games then?

It seems vanilla takes place long after any actual wars. And subsequent expansions never focused on it until maybe BFA

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I think they meant faction pride.

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5

Southshore and Tarren mIll, that was some good faction war…

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There were usually questlines in earlier expansions that pushed a faction war narrative.

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On the forums my good man. On the forums.

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It doesnt make any sense. The faction are limited for technology reasons. Theyre really two factions in each faction. And it isnt realistic to have a political entity exist this long without some real change in position and without a constant enemy.

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I am fine with the faction war dying, but let’s not pretend that there weren’t quite a few stories devoted to it, especially in Cata.

the main bulk of Ashenvale was about the faction war, southshore getting turned into a pile of goo was faction war, Southern barrens was faction war, the bomb on the druid grove was tangentally related to the faction war (“those druids are NEs and NE-sympathizers. Screw em, blow it up!”) The entire worgen starting zone was faction war, the reason for goblins joining the horde was faction war. Before the quest broke and was never fixed, i believe the intro to Vashir was faction-war related. Horde’s intro to twilight highlands is faction war.

there’s a pretty hefty chunk of revamped levelling in Cata, especially on Kalimdor, related to it.

edit: it’s one of my major complaints about how the faction war always seems to play out in-game, (and why i’m 100% okay with it dying, since blizzard can’t seem to give alliance any triumphant moments) in fact. Horde get to play through their victories, alliance had to read material outside of game to learn about theirs.

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The premise of Vanilla WoW is that the Alliance and Horde are starting to fight again, not that they’re technically in an all-out war. That’s basically what the narrator of the Vanilla WoW cinematic says. For me the faction war was basically the world PvP though—it was everywhere in Vanilla (not really in WotLK, not even on Bleeding Hollow which had nearly equally divided factions)

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Tell me you have never created a Goblin or Worgen without telling me.

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Waves hand in front of you “There was a war.”

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The RTSs were the original Faction Wars, the MMO was the Cold War as both factions rebuilt but there were still some skirmishes to be found as sides fought for resources.

Then we got the second Faction War with Battle For Azeroth. And evidently while we were running around the Shadowlands, both sides decided that the Faction Wars weren’t necessary so instead of going back to a Cold War stance, we skipped right to “We’re Best Buds Now!”

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The battle of ashenvale
The naval battle at Vash’jr
The zeppelin battle at Twillight Highlands
Tol barad
The explorer’s league conflict in Uldum desert

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Some folk strongly prefer horde because it is Muti-factioned and there is little tension in the Alliance. Which is also the reason I think horde sucks donkey since the writing rarely reflects the inner turmoil of a faction that is always a stones throw away from civil war. It certainly wouldn’t hurt the Alliance to have some inner turmoil as well to a lesser degree.

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The faction war only existed in half of MOP, and the first half of BFA. The end of BFA was Horde + Alliance vs Sylvanas + Loyalists.

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Battle for Dazar’alor was an entire raid based on the faction war. Not sure if many people would agree that BfA was apart of the “good ol
days” though.

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Even back in the “good old days” on the fourms and IRC chat yea there was a board for wow back then…

Even some people back then thought the faction war was stupid so clearly it wasn’t
“EVERYONE”

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I’m seeing some examples of localized battles and others calling it a Cold War.

It still never appeared to be the main focus like the way people made it seem.

I don’t really count world pvp either as that’s just player made.

We could go world pvp now, that wouldn’t make it a faction conflict based expansion.

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Did you just skip over quest dialog LMAO what do you mean there’s no war??