Why isn't there more conflict on the Alliance?

Lore Story Forum
83

I would have addressed this point earlier, but I must have skipped your post. I have a lot of things to say to that analogy and I’m very long-winded, so here we go.

You say playing the Alliance is like getting your favorite food. This is a great analogy, because if you only eat your favorite food, it stops becoming your favorite. Try eating it every day for a month and you will absolutely agree (or you won’t, just to be contrary). You need variety to make your favorite food actually enjoyable. You need things to compare it to so you can remember why its your favorite.

That’s what the Alliance without conflict and drama becomes; a bland substitute for your “favorite food”. When every major story arc is the same as the last major story arc with slightly different presentation, the story arc loses meaning.

As I said before, the biggest problem with the Alliance story arcs are that they are all either dependent upon or done in conjuncture with the Horde. You either have to fight the latest Lovecraft to stop ragnarok with the Horde, or you have to help the Horde fight the Horde who is essentially the latest Lovecraft starting ragnarok. So much of the Alliance narrative involves the Horde that the Alliance’s favorite food must be “how do we interact with the Horde for the next two years this time?”

Meanwhile, the Alliance takes a second seat in a Horde-Alliance war from the Horde perspective. Under Garrosh it was his crimes and how Vol’jin’s going to overthrow him. Under Sylvannas it’s her crimes and how Saurfang’s living in a swamp. But while the Alliance is certainly a prop to the Horde narrative in our war against y’all, they’re only that; a prop in the play.

It’s not fair to the Alliance that the Horde can dominate their story, while they only get to be a prop in our’s. The Alliance is the side salad in our story meal.

And that’s because, unlike on Alliance-side, we get to have narratives beyond the latest Lovecraft. We get to have the conflict and the drama. While sadly it usually results in half the Horde becoming a Lovecraft, it still gives our faction something to rally behind or against that isn’t a Lich King, a Sargeras, a Deathwing or a N’zoth… Even if Blizzard ends up writing that conflict and making someone a Lich King, a Sargeras, a Deathwing or a N’zoth.

Conflict builds tension, builds stories. While Blizzard seems to think the only kind of internal conflict a faction can have is whether to side with a genocidal psychopath or not, this needn’t be the case.

Tyrande asked for help from her allies in the Alliance and was denied. This would be fodder for great stories post-BfA as Anduin tries to make up for turning away the night elves. It doesn’t need to make either one a raid boss and could showcase that the Alliance aren’t just the Humans and their Amazing Friends. A simple story like this could highlight how humans and night elves place different values on different things and tell great stories about both races.

Instead, because people seem intent on the Alliance being as bland as can be, it’ll all be forgotten by 9.0 and only mentioned by Golden offhandedly in a novel some years down the line, forgiven by the last page. Because oh boy, a Lovecraft’s coming and we can’t have Alliance stories during a ragnarok!

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84

Unless you play a Worgen, Night elf, or any of the allied races. Then your flavor is slowly watered down and diluted until it is as bland and unappealing as the other flavors that you didn’t find matching your palate.

85

I am tired of hearing this, every race in Azeroth is a different flavor of human! Minus the magic part and/or advance tech, most of what makes the flavor of any race is a human emotion/culture brought to an extreme.

So we ignore the fact the three Dwarven brothers finally reuinited. Or how the gnomes finally learned of their mechagnome heritage. Or how thanks to potential human bigotry the Sanlyn managed to all but halt the draenei from helping in the war effort.

Because the quest for re immortality has driven the night elf story for as long as Tedrassil was created. Of course it would be the better story thread to follow.

Aside from Suramar, they didnt “rediscover” anything. Most of the lands of the Broken Isles were well know to the night elves. And all things considering Tyrande had more important things to deal with in Suramar, namely the demonic invasion.

Magni was our liaison to the titans! Brann was adventuring everywhere and helped the priest class get their mount. Also the titans are not some sort of religion for the dwarves, at least not the extreme you seem to portray. Aside from the Explorer’s league the general dwarven populace seem more interest in other things.

What??? If not for Varian dying we would not have the conflict, both internal and external, we currently have right now!

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86

That is true. It’s a good thing that I dont just play Alliance or only play WoW for that matter. Fortunately I do so when I’m ready for my “favorite” again it’s there waiting for me. Exactly how it needs to be.

And if I’m perfectly blunt? Topics like these have a heck of a lot less to do with “improving” the Alliance story and a lot more to do with some “misery loves company” nonsense. Especially in the climate this story has created.

Yes unfortunately those flavors were discontinued over a decade ago. Blizz keeps acting like it’s in stock though. No surprise people keep racking them over the coals for it.

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87

[This is mostly about the usual excuses for civilians the Alliance has killed. It is getting into boring rehash. Absent any new idea’s, I’ll respond once and leave it at that. ]

They tried to kill them all even though they were innocent bystanders. That fact that they did so out of a cynical indifference to life, rather than to kill a Goblin cartel, doesn’t do much to change things. A heinous act that should hardly be dismissed as a “scattered incident”.

No, I was talking about the Goblins in the Barrens where a man has the Alliance PC murder Goblin miners because a Goblin was involve in an attack where his son died.

But if you want to make Silithus military targets (which really doesn’t hold water), then you have to say that the Alliance did start the war. You can’t kill civilians, try and justify them as military targets, and then claim the war didn’t start till later.

I included that because I hear plenty of posters blaming the Horde for allegedly making friend with people who have committed crimes. They also blame the Horde for things done by member of the same race. Food for the Goose if food for the Gander. But I was being conservative. When the Drust were eliminated Kul Tiras as “a colony” of Gilneas (which hadn’t pulled out of the Alliance).

I mean, you vague list contains list of battle fronts, as if that was a war crime. Making friends with a country founded on genocide doesn’t come out much batter than taking land that has lumber you need.

I mean this is pretty typical. You just assumed mis-communication to provide and excuse.

In the end however, the quest giver explicitly tells you to kill them, “exiles or not”.

Oh, I agree that Blizzard made the Horde villains in BfA. I mean Teldrasil was over-the-top enough to do that. But, if you think that there was a shortage of Alliance crimes before BfA, you are fooling yourself. Nor has their record been clean after.

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88

Well, I’m sure there is a bit of that as well. But as someone who’se played both factions extensively, I’m coming from the side of “I wish I could feel as invested in the Alliance story as I do in the Horde’s”. I’ve said time and again that conflict does not need to equate to genocidal rampages, nor should it. An Alliance conflict does not need to be the same as Blizzard thinks the Horde’s should be.

I’m assuming you mean the very abbreviated questlines in Wrath, in Storm Peaks and Borean Tundra respectively. Quest lines that in the case of the former has the reuniting as a sudden thing at the end of the quests with little lead-up at all, and for the latter amounts to a literal handful of lines of dialog without any follow-up.

Yeah. I’m saying we can safely qualify that in the “almost to the exclusion of” category.

I’m hoping you actually did that quest line but forgot how bland it really was. Also, the Vale of Eternal Blossoms was described as fed on by the Well of Eternity’s energies. The same well that Nordrassil was grown atop. How that didn’t factor in to a quest for immortality (which was mostly a Fandrel thing in-game anyway) just smacks of what I’m talking about; barely thought out, barely existing.

I’d play the “by that time he was neutral. Also, one titan” card, but I’d rather just give you this. A single storyline for the dwarves.

If you can’t see why this is a problem, why a single human’s death dictates the entire Alliance narrative, then I don’t think we’ll be capable of having this conversation.

Also, yadda yadda yadda, Vol’jin’s death is why Sylvannas is warchief, not Varian, and that has more to do with starting this conflict than Varian’s death.

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89

[Again, more arguments covering old ground. Again I’ll only respond once. Most everyone knows what they thing.]

She most certain did try. She tried twice and was stopped trying by Trall. She didn’t stop until her lover convinced her not to make a third try. We all know that if Sylvans has failed twice and then Nathanos talked her out of it, she would still be evil.

My example part of a list of things that the Alliance has done.

I made a direct reference to the murder of Goblins in the Southern Barrens, something the Alliance likes to forget.

As to your more vague statements, I can only point out that more civilians died in Dalaran than in Theramore.

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90

And that’s fair enough.

For me thought it always has to come back to Blizzard. To their style of writing or lack thereof. Where they go to tell the biggest, baddest, “coolest” story that they can. Regardless of if the stakes they raise are actually needed to tell that story effectively. Teldrassil is a great example of this. Or Saurfang taking his issues with Sylvanas as far as risking a new civil war. Or…really Garroshs entire arc if we want to go back far enough.

Basically I have zero confidence that Blizzard could write new internal conflicts for the Alliance that arent on the same level as all of those terrible decisions. And until evidence of them being able to do better comes forward… well I’ll take an Alliance that just serves as a golden “City on the Hill” that’s always worth defending then a fatally compromised but “complex” faction.

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91

Alliance is the safe faction of noble hero paladins who can do no wrong. Its the fantasy of the faction, its what you picked.

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92

Already acknowledged, already agreed it counts as a war crime. Carrying on.

Alright, that’s fair. But now we’re back to “the actions of one is the crime of the whole” argument, where this one man demanding slaughter becomes a war crime of the whole Alliance. That argument is moot. The entire game’s questing experience is based around that type of mechanic.

Whether the Alliance started the war or not is irrelevant. We’re discussing whether the Alliance war crimes amount to even a significant amount compared to what Sylvannas has done in BfA. The argument you made. I’m sticking with that argument and not following your misdirect.

I assume by “vague” you mean things like “destroying a city full of civilians, using chemical weaponry rampantly” and other very obvious things you can see just leveling up your character.

I mean, that right out implies they dpon’t know if they’re exiles or not. I don’t know what you thought that would prove, except that they didn’t know whether or not they were exiles.

See, right here. This bit. You made a list of mostly Cata-era events, some of which only qualify by the most absurdist reasoning, and still came up with… What? Twelve if I’m being generous?

If you were being honest with yourself, you could easily go back through the Horde BfA quests and find more than that. I know it, you know it, but you’re going to deny it because you honestly want to believe there’s parity here.

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93

The Bronzebeard questline is longer than Anduin’s quest chain in Legion.

As for the mechagnomes, that particular questline has been influencing the gnomes story, if anything we sort of going back to it in BfA.

Because said power never gave anyone who used it immortality. The well itself was never the source of the night elves immortality and it was more thanks to Nozdormu.

As for the questline in Krasarang, I quite liked how Lorekeeper Vaeldrin changed from someone obsessed with immortality to someone who realized(if abit too late) that living your life is more important.

I’d say it was more of what that single death represented as oppose to the death itself. That at its hour of need the Horde at best abandoned the Alliance and at worse, intentionally planned on sacrificing it.

94

I mean…

Yeah. That’s really the root of the problem. I want more internal conflict and better storytelling for the Alliance. But I’m also terrified on what Blizzard thinks those words mean. I mean, they said both sides of BfA’s conflict would be morally grey and my character has killed neutral healers, plagued Horde and Alliance soldiers, assisted Sylvy in burning down a city, etc. If that’s how Blizzard writes morally grey, I fear what they’d write for Alliance “internal conflict”.

I want it. I just don’t want the current devs writing it.

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95

I’m gonna go that jerk route and literally ask “what gnome story?” Because I played all of Legion on Alliance side, WoD and MoP too, and never saw this addressed again.

I’ll rack this one up to different tastes. Me personally, when I read on the Vale, my mind went right to wondering how the night elf story of checking it out and comparing it to the Well would play out, since the connection was readily apparent. Instead getting a WoW take on Ponce de Leon felt unfulfilling.

I would have agreed with you, had I not turned in the Broken Shore quest and watched Anduin correctly identify that Sylvannas wouldn’t do that. And of the two who strongly said she would, one bamfed away for an expansion and Genn’s Stormheim portrayal strongly depicted him as going rogue. At best, it provided a lip service justification for Sylvannas to go all total war, but nothing suggests or implies she would have acted differently had it not happened. In fact, I don’t think it’s even mentioned in-game as her motivation.

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Typo, I meant BfA.

I mean, investigating the waters of the Vale feels like its own version of Ponce De Leon. Ultimately the Vale was designed to be more of a Pandaren zone/story focus, not to mention it was an important daily zone.

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It could be, sure. Or it could be a nice reminder of what once was, for good and for ill. A reminder of the time before the sundering, but also a reminder of what caused it as well. A couple of night elves could be thinking of using the Vale’s energies to regain their immortality, but some could also be using it to examine their own origins. Instead of revealing night elves really did come from dark trolls in some untouched online magazine, Blizzard could have had Shandris (I’m literally just throwing a night elf name there, there’s certainly better fits) discover their previously-hidden origins with the lorewalkers. Or you could have a night elf mage think about using the waters to gain power, only to turn back when he realizes the cost.

So many stories could have been. Instead we got the Fountain of Youth reforged.

EDIT TO ADD:

Also, I’m going to hold off on thinking that the new dungeon will have any lore about the mechagnomes and how regular gnomes interact with the revelation of their origins until I’ve actually gone through the dungeon. There have been a multitude of times over the years where a dungeon was perfectly suited to deliver a packet of lore info, only to become a mob filled loot distributor. Motherload not answering if the Undermine still exists or not is a recent example.

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98

For any confused reader, it hasn’t clearly conveyed that the indent in her first quote is quoting me.
Ok-ok-ok. You mentioned three discrete goblin groups:

And more recently

To which Alynsa said

Without dissecting how she’s confused, because you yourself corrected her on it

So I explained, before you ever did:

Yet, despite understanding that she was confused. You explain the thing to me, that I had just explained, citing my explanation: see quote 1.

This might seem like a weird thing to get hung up on, but I can’t argue with people who have this level of bad faith—who don’t read and understand my words. There’s no point reexplaining my arguments, because it’s like we’re speaking two different languages.

Have a lovely day, really, I mean it. I’m going to take a break from these forums. I may occasionally read, but I think I’m about done posting. I can’t with them anymore.

99

I don’t think that’s really accurate. The Lightforged don’t exist to fight the Void. They exist to fight the Burning Legion. That’s what they’ve been doing for 25,000+ years. When that war finally ended, they went to Azeroth and joined the Alliance since the other draenei were already members. Also, it’s hinted that they’re much more bloodthirsty than Velen’s faction of draenei, so they didn’t need much convincing to help the Alliance fight the Horde.

In fact, I don’t think a single Lightforged even once showed a problem with Alleria’s embrace of the Void. The only thing that did was Xe’ra…and she’s no longer an issue. Plus, when I handed in my Zuldazar invasion quest after using the Void to raise a dinosaur to inflict psychological terror on the Zandalari, the Lightforged I turned it in to was practically giddy about how the Void Elves unleashed their powers on the Horde.

I think a lot of this Lightforged vs. Void Elves thing is fan assumption rather than based on lore.

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100

Sylvanas respected Varian and his strength.

She doesn’t hold the same respect for Anduin. She thinks he’s weak and vulnerable. Prey. That’s one of the reasons she’s willing to start a war.

Even if all the other factors remained the same, there’s a decent chance she would have tried to avoid a war if Varian was still leading the Alliance.

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I mean, it’s hypothetical and I can’t say it’s wrong of course. But truth be told, I’m skeptical Varian surviving would have stopped Sylvannas. At best, I’ll give you that the shape the war would have taken would change, but avoided? I don’t see it. Sylvannas had no problem mouthing off to her warchief, Garrosh, when he tried to put her in her place. Sylvannas has never been portrayed as the type of character to let consequences from preventing her from going after what she wants, from doing what she sees necessary. She risked Garrosh kicking her people out of the Horde over blight, and kept using it after he warned her. I look at that behavior, and I don’t see a character who, given the power of the entire Horde war machine behind her, would let respect for Varian hold her back.

But even if I grant you Varian would change how she went about the war, my initial point stands; Vol’jin’s death is more relevant to Sylvy starting the war. Simple fact is, she couldn’t do it if Vol’jin lived. Without a war machine, she has no war.

102

Not denying that.

I just wouldn’t underestimate the effect Varian’s death had on the narrative.