Indeed I would side with Velen any day of the week over the others.
I am worried if another faction war does happen it will be the horde who start it. Kind of sad, I for one want horde lore and characters to be developed outside of faction conflicts.
We are probably a good 3, maybe 4 expansions away from another faction war. So about 6-8 years from now? Probably a good enough chunk of time for new characters on both sides to develop/be developed enough that we would care they would die.
But it came with the side-effect of removing the last fun and interesting Horde character. The Horde is so bland without Gallywix.
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Fun does not equate to a good PC Racial Leader tho. His personality was honestly so oppressive he kind of ruined the Bilgewater Racial Fantasy. If you wanted Gob stories where you weren’t dying by the hundreds for your antagonist of the starter zones racial leader … better look to the Steamwheedle. You were just not going to get them from the Bilge.
Love Wix. Glad he’s alive. Extra glad he’s not our racial leader anymore.
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Part of the problem with orcs is being manipulated has become their MO.
They are manipulated by KJ
Then Guldan,
Then Mannaroth
Then Garrosh
Then Sylvanas.
They can keep making excuses and blaming others but honestly at some point you have to wonder if they are actually that gullible or are they that inclined to start wars they will believe anyone or anything that gives them a reason regardless of how plausible it is.
I mean take the Draenei situation, Horde players forget that Draenei saved Ogrim and Durotan. Velen then tried to explain to them Oshugun and the spirits and they got angry about that to almost attacked him. They refused to believe Velen about this simple truth and this is well before Ner’zul created the Horde. Now imagine if he had tried to explain to them they had crashed landed and now a terrifying unbeatable enemy was coming for them all. Likely that would has spurred the horde on to reach out to the legion and turn the Draenei over.
Again this is due to the terrible handling of Hordes story that they keep having the horde fall for the same thing over and over. Blizzard have gone on about how the have broken the cycle this expac yet really they are just repeating the same story for the 5th time.
We have to hope that if they’re is a conflict in future that it is the Alliance starting it. If its the Horde being tricked starting another war due to vague reasons again, then it really speak volumes about the creativity current writing team. Blizzard also has to stop treating a warrior culture as inherently a bad thing.
The positive thing is if it is the Alliance starting the war they don’t need to be tricked. There should be that much animosity amongst the Alliance races towards the horde they should be more than willing to fight to defeat the Horde once and for all.
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I think the question in the title of the thread poses an unfair premise.
Of course the Horde will do evil again. So will the Alliance. The two factions have never been morally pure, even when the narrative attempts to portray it that way. But I don’t think the Horde ever fully, ‘reverted,’ to evil considering each time someone tried to push it that way, the Horde inevitably pushed back.
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There sadly is a difference in framing and function that lets this question come with sting. Ever since Cata, we’ve seen this shift. This strange necessity for the Horde to be antagonistic towards the Alliance; while the Alliance need not be the reverse. When combined with Blizz’s natural inclination to handwave away or bury under justifications what few moments of “grey” the Alliance is allow … it creates a rather tragic tale.
In truth, the Horde has been deeply neglected for years. Its characters. It identity. Its strength. Its … validity. Blizz does not seem to know what they want to do with the Faction, but they certainly know they feel more freedom using it. The Horde and its races are evil, in that their actions (even what should be reactions to Alliance aggression) are never validated. Horde tragedies, are always justified. Horde character deaths, always necessary for some recompense.
Part of this stems from Blizz’s lack of vision for a Faction as diverse as the Horde. Part of this stems from this strange artificial purity test the Alliance seems shackled to. But it creates an imbalance that has definitely led to this conclusion. The Horde is evil, and will revert to evil. The Alliance is good, and can never do so. Quite frankly, not matter what they do.
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Truth, it is so bad that some of the horde identity has been given to other races. For example blade masters were only orcs now we seen multiple other races with blade master. While we do not have a single memorable or active horde blade master character even though it is in other blizzard games like wc3 and hots “Sumo”.
Same thing with other orc classes, most outstanding/active warrior was Varian, and Shamans are dime of dozen now. Almost every other race can be shaman it use to be orc and horde centric. This has been done with other class too and I do not like that either like Paladins.
Fixing horde characters isn’t hard, develop a note worthy characters like orc blademaster, a tauren spirit walker, forsaken necromancer etc… This would bring more race identity and more variety to the game.
Man I hope one day I hope they do. I love evil horde! The Old Horde especially.
If the Horde won’t go back to their old ways I hope one day there will be a third faction for us edgy villainous types hehe.
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Gotta get through Shadowlands and the next Expansion. Then you’ll get to have your free power fantasy all over again.
I want the horde advertised in classic back, a bunch of misfits bashing together to try and survive in a world that doesn’t want them.
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Sad part is, I doubt anyone on the current writing team even remembers Classic or what the horde looked like back than 
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Tyrande actually WILL kill Sylvanas, and she’ll have a verbal confrontation with Jaina over the actions of the Horde.
I mean that’s really what Goblins were meant to be.
And this is why you and I will never agree on anything it seems.
WIx was always portrayed as the exception. Goblin Greed taken to its extreme, with none of the races positive traits to offset it. Every other Goblin faction had some level of competent, intelligent leadership that threw some care towards their crew. The very fact that Wix gets a pass from you despite being literally coated in the blood of his own people is sort of shocking considering how much you need to headcannon Baine being coated in his. He’s done more damage to the Bilgewater than the Alliance could ever hope to.
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Actually we agree often and ona lot of things.
So the ones in the Second War were exceptions too? The Vashjir shaman? The War of Peace? The Cartels? Every destruction they created?
Sorry I’m not at home right now, so only a short thing. Goblins were always extreme.
Not to forget: “Time is money.”
The level in which he is portrayed to slaughter his own people was extreme.
His bumbling lack of intelligence, especially when it came to tech was extreme. His personality was so damned oppressive that he actually prevented (by design to some degree) any other characters from being developed within the Bilgewater. Because any Gob who was smart enough to not put up with his BS was either pushed away or killed by Wix. He rendered the entire PC race little more than greed filled lemmings meant to die by the hundreds for his schemes, so if you wanted ANY stories that extended beyond that you’d have to look to the Steamwheedle. Which grew beyond frustrating after 10 years.
Yeah, Wix was an exception. An abnormality. Just about the only Goblin lead in the entire franchise who couldn’t curtail their own greed enough to at least look out for their own crew. To the point that canonically, most other Goblins of note either hated him, or were just trying to make a buck off of his stupidity. And the very idea that he’s getting a pass from you despite how many of his own people he’s butchered tells me a lot when compared to how you feel about Baine.
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Other goblin characters not being developed comes solely down to Blizzard just not wanting to write about them. I don’t think that’s going to change just because Gazlowe’s in charge; if the writers don’t have any interest or passion for the race, they’re just not going to use them outside of comedy deaths or short-sighted ventures.
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Goblin characterization has changed a lot over the years, and I don’t think it’ll stop changing.
Warcraft 2 Goblins were basically Warhammer Greenskins. Mini-orks with an obsession for making things go boom and disregard for their own lives.
Warcraft 3 introduced the whole mercantile aspect, gave them more pragmatism, and expanded their technology beyond it’s alchemical focus. It’s also worth noting that they became neutral.
WoW expanded this by having Steamwheedle be the closest thing to a “third faction” the game had. They had many settlements throughout Azeroth, many of which were the only major questing hubs in an area. They were definitely ambitious, but not generally criminal about it. At the same time, Venture Co got introduced as the “bad goblins”. The ones who engaged in unscrupulous business practices, violence and environmental destruction.
Then Gallywix and Bilgewater were introduced. Blizzrd also introduced a lot more tropes associated with Jersey (the accents, the mafia, pollution, etc). But outside of Gallywix, I’d say the other recurring Bilgewater goblins weren’t that bad. The Gob Squad, Boss Mida, or Hobart Grapplehammer and their associated quests were all been pretty cool and didn’t really jibe with Gallywix’s cutthroat style.
I’m thinking that with Gazlowe in charge instead of Gallywx, Bilgewater goblins can start moving more towards Steamwheedle style. Sure, they may still die here and there. But it’ll mostly be in the “I’m a genius! I’m going to be ric-BOOM!” way and less of the “Profit, no matter who I have to kill!” way.
And hopefully Gallywix goes to become leader of Venture Co, where he can still be his hilariously terrible self, and we’ll still have have an antagonistic goblin led organization full of mooks that can die by the droves.
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