I can’t get over how weird this is. Like, the Alliance is at a point where it is more interesting than it has ever been before where there’s strain between the kaldorei and humans that had never been explored before and there are sub-factions grappling with justice and retribution vs mercy and peace. Before this, the Alliance didn’t really have much of a plot at all until Wrath, at which point the faction was led by Mirror Thrall for years. And Varian’s reign was pretty uncomplicated and focused upon the character rather than the faction.
Yet through BFA, it seemed to me like they were pushing an Alliance unity message hard. The faction campaign for Alliance was focused upon its races getting along and having no tension or disagreements, which spawned the now-infamous “human potential” line. But there’s no plot there? There was no arc that the Alliance followed, really, in the way the Horde had a (repeated) arc.
The current tensions we have now would have been really cool to see play out in BFA somehow! But that seems to start and end with the Battle For Darkshore and doesn’t come up again after 8.1 until the epilogue. And now we’re not going to see it pay off because we’ll be in the Shadowlands!
Was the fracturing within the Alliance even planned or is Blizzard reacting to an unexpected backlash and division among Alliance players?
Wow. I have no idea which one of these is better. Is it better that Blizzard is aware of how Anduinized the Alliance is and see the need to course correct? Or is Anduinizing the Alliance (and the Horde) with the full plan and intention to tear it all down and watch the peace monger’s hopes fade?
What a conundrum
Either way, it’s nice to see finally after the long-drawn out torture of Anduin and Friends…I mean… BfA.
I don’t know, I don’t think Anduin did anything particularly egregious. Prioritising Lordaeron over northern Kalimdor is a bit of a kick in the teeth for the elves but an understandable decision (and, given Tyrande won anyway, fairly consequence-free).
I think a revanchist war under Turalyon makes for a more interesting internal conflict, particularly if it becomes an overtly religious crusade.
So that the narrative later winds and turns around Golden-Boy again and all the characters around him behave differently than they actually do, yes, that’s really exciting. lets anduin fail his “peace course”, let him just be the unexpierienced leader he is, Turalyon leads since over 1000 years, he have much more expierience in Leading then any other human.
Internal conflict is more interesting if driven by controversial action rather than by incompetant reaction. A conflict whose basis is Anduin stuffing up would be boring, and ultimately all about Anduin, rather than the faction itself.
He is interesting, yes, but if we ever want Anduin to be a character who cries for more than just peace, then the conflict should also be about his lack of experience, it should at least lead to his abdication as a highking that someone more suitable and competent comes to power who really knows what he is doing.
He should learn to be king of stormwind, highking is a few steps ahead.
Because you can’t have a future faction conflict with a peacemongering, borderline sue like Anduin calling the shots. For some reason, Blizzard MUST have Anduin as a faux-Emperor of the Alliance.
Blizzard is in love with Anduin’s characterization, but a character like Anduin doesn’t belong in a leadership position in a franchise obsessed with war.
I do think that a lot of development we see now is a direct response and reaction how the Alliance and especially NE players have reacted.
One hint is, that during 8.1 Blizzard thought that NE players would really see this as getting their revenge.
I am still extremely baffeled and confused how Blizzard could think that to begin with, but maybe they saw it from a broader picture they were unable to transport within the story: NEs in 8.1 reclaimed ALL of their lands pack and pushed Hordes out. But still… this one interview line really caused this whole stuff to explode and overcook. As it showed how deeply disconnected Blizzard was during that time with NE players.
That led to NEs ranting and basically tearing apart the forums twitters and whatever else, hating on everthing that was badly done in BFA.
One of these things were how the Alliance as a faction reacted and acted towards the NEs.
Players pointed out and were angry about it, xplaining how useless the Alliance is for NEs and that they of course should split away from them and so on.
In the epilog and SL Blizzard seem to be on a course correction especially with NEs. They picture Tyrande completely different from 8.1, she is showing off her power, her rage and thirst for vengence and she is shown of being capable to deliver it.
She is shown as being powerfull enough to kill off ever faction leader on the fly and they act accordingly to that.
She is shown to tear down Thorgast and kill off Nathanos (I know people say it doesn’t matte rbecause of the maw ticket, but this would have been the case in 8.1 aswell and there it was the biggest point of critique).
The tension between the Alliance and the NEs might so aswell be a direct reaction and response to the playerbase and Blizzard is now exploring that option.
I don’t think it was planned all along, because of the extremely irritating interview they gave in 8.1, but they are adapting to it and you can see these adaptations between the lines if you look for them, as I have said.
I myself hope we will for once be allowed to follow that narrative. To have the Alliance in a split up state with NEs and Worgen breaking off and draggin the Alliance with them into offensives against a Horde that is so deeply troubled with their los unification and leadership, that it doesn’t know how to response.
For once let the Alliance abuse the situation and the weakness of the Horde to retribute in a questionable way.
There was a time where this scenario would have had me excited, but I’m just so tired of the faction conflict story that I really don’t want this anymore. The nightelves and worgen fracturing the alliance because they feel neglected and betrayed? Sure, but just… in a way that doesn’t ignite another BFA.
I can understand that somehow … but on the other hand after Teldrassil, I can’t and don’t want to go back to the “we have to work togather” stuff anymore either.
And there is deffinately the need for the Alliance exploring some darker themes which is in my opinion necessary for a development that leads away from the light infosed holy human empire we currently have.
There are a lot of races in the Alliance that are actually capable of being extremely dark and grim: Dark Irons, Gilneans, Night Elves, Lightforged.
It would actually be a shame to not see that happening.
BFA wasn’t bad because it was a faction conflict, it was bad because teh faction conflict was rediculously done and narrated.
It should have focused more on the actual races and how they are involved in the conflict instead of 2 huge factiosn fighting in some far away islands.
I would have loved to see 8.1 and 8.2 focused on Kalimdor, when the Alliance under the momentum of the NEs fight back in Darkshore, then in 8.2 in Ahenvale and the ind 8.3 climaxing in Orgrimmar.
While the Horde could march down Arathi and standing before Ironforge, having the Dwarves involved and so on.
But wen never get that. We allways have these world ending apocolypses.
I found the whole Nyalotha story arc boring as hell.
In a weird way it might have been but not in the way everyone would think.
They’ve been knocking at the door of some “darkness” Alliance side since Cataclysm but was frankly just more interested in writing that narrative Horde side and reigned everything Alliance side back in to settle on the “We’re all friends” thing.
Now personally I think the idea of internal fracturing is boring and played out, especially since they used it with the Horde twice. But by this point people are convinced that it’ll be fun and interesting because hey, the Horde loved it, riiiiiiight. People, especially night elf separatists, seem to think the story will justify races going off on their own when from a narrative perspective the game has gone out of their way to point out that’s not the case, and from a gameplay perspective where my human paladin and my night elf druid will very likely be playing those quests anyway so for some reason, the Alliance will still be together.
Personally I’m very much looking forward to everyone getting the Alliance fracturing story they want, and then have it quickly show that “breaking up the Alliance will only lead to bad things” by which they will be saved by Anduin getting the band back together. The rage will be so sweet.
For some reason I hope that we have Anduin falling into the darkness.
Blizzard explcitly asked Madeleine Roux (hope I wrote her right) to have Anduin showing some dark powers.
I just want to get rid of Anduin as this holy allways right saviour of mankind… either by him dying somehow or, by him following a different path.
But this holyer than you Anduin is so infuriating and stupid …
It was something that made sense during Legion but no more during BFA.
I’m sure they’ll do something to pull away some of Anduin’s squeaky cleanness by giving him some connection to the void.
I personally would rather they not repeat what they did with Jaina and suddenly make him hyper aggro, becaues we already did that and quite frankly I like that Anduin has remained a good little egg that just wants everyone to get along in a world that is constantly on the brink of destruction. If Shadowlands ends with a timeskip and he finds himself no longer the King of Stormwind then perhaps he can actually make progress with that.
Also, I don’t feel like the game is telling me “See? Alliance have their problems too!”
Instead, I feel like it’s saying “Your warchief? She was so awful that she not only destroyed the Horde but is also destroying the Alliance. Your side really is the WORST.”
(Note: I admit that I’m very susceptible to guilt IRL.)
Well one could argue that is the prupose of a WARchief.
But if you write it like: “see your warcheif not only destroyed your factions story but also the otehr factions one with that bad writing” it might be more precise.
Not hyper aggro. In fact that would only lead to him being AGAIN the focus of everything.
The alliance has enough characters to be aggro. Just have Anduin disapear for some time should be enough.
I don’t feel like that’s substantially different from what I meant, so I’m happy to say both.
Point is, I feel like the game is asking me (when I’m wearing my Horde player hat) to feel bad that the Alliance is showing signs of imploding. Like the way I always have to feel bad when Jaina Proudmoore hates on me, because it’s my own fault.
