No one's complaining... maturity? or good design?

[Marrilaife]

Khadgar was nothing more than a stool pigeon for most of WoW's life span. Much like Malfurion, he was as neutral to us as he was to Horde, so unless you knew the lore, he was just another dude who just happened to have a statue in SW you might see if you payed attention to it while you were raiding the town.

First time you meet Khadgar in WOW was in TBC, in the middle of neutral city of Shattrath, no one thought he was that much important, he used to have super outdated model and all he wanted from you is escort his stupid elemental for ~10 mins around Shatt so he can give you a lecture about factions existing in the city. Then you were moving on and kinda never caring about the guy again.

Illidan... well Elves themselves imprisoned and banished him, he's even less alliance than Kael'thas or Zul'jin were horde, because the latter 2 were actually disowned much much later. Amani trolls were horde in WC2 if I remember correctly and Kael'thas betrayed blood elves and sided with demons during the course of TBC. All of these weren't considered allies but enemies in the end, however Illidan was probably too cool out of them all and Blizz regretted killing him off for naught so they brought him back. This time without timetravel but with some other shenanigans.

It also matters how much spotlight and importance you put on an NPC in contrary to players. For example I didn't mind the whole story about helping Hamuul in firelands (you had to do bazillion dailies to cure him from the burns he suffered etc.), they just simply overdid it with Thrall. I think they're overdoing it with Illidan as well, instead of leaving him ambiguous they're painting him as a saviour & hero.

[Friendlyimmolation]

Yea Mop and WoD had horde focus, but its not the type of focus horde players want, if we go to kultiras and slaughter everyone there does that count as an Alliance expac?

As a former Horde Player, I always found Horde players to be the much more "Patriotic" fans when it came to picking a side. always makes me think of this picture.

Both sides have assholes nothing new there.



And Kaelthas never joined the horde @Marrilaife

[Hctaz]

Well I am sure if Legion was all about fel orcs, people would give a damn. Or they'd just quit.

That seems really stupid. But... knowing the alliance: yeah. Probably.

[Marrilaife]

As a former Horde Player, I always found Horde players to be the much more "Patriotic" fans when it came to picking a side. always makes me think of this picture.

Hahaha you do have a point.

I remember the debate about call of the scarab and it was like:

Horde: yea! we've fucked 'em alliance right there!
Alliance: what is this event? no rewards? why bother?

[Stormspellz]

Don't think people care enough, and those who do saw how crying like children about bad story telling "favoring" one side made you look like a crying child.

As for the neutral so it doesn't count, that didn't stop the past complaints when Thrall was neutral as a earthen ring rep, and such.

[Scottyjscizzle]

Honestly, at this point they could collapse them into one faction, and just move on from the war. The slyvanas/greymane scenario shows just how weird it is for those stories in expansions with such a large looming threat as the Legion. unless the take a step back from the big baddie scenarios for an expansion or two it makes less and less sense. We hardly are staged from our capitals anyways, just have the next expansion/end of legion raze stormwind and/or orgrimmar and we make a central city that incorporates the factions into it.

[Friendlyimmolation]

Honestly, at this point they could collapse them into one faction, and just move on from the war. The slyvanas/greymane scenario shows just how weird it is for those stories in expansions with such a large looming threat as the Legion. unless the take a step back from the big baddie scenarios for an expansion or two it makes less and less sense. We hardly are staged from our capitals anyways, just have the next expansion/end of legion raze stormwind and/or orgrimmar and we make a central city that incorporates the factions into it.

Except the the average orc still hates the average human and vice versa, blood elves think the average human is a ape and humans think Blood elves are backstabbing traitors Forsaken and worgen, dont have to go into too much detail why they hate eachother. While they are friendly, Tauren fit much better with the horde than they do with nelves, orcs and nelves hate each other for obvious reasons, Blood elves mock and ridicule night elves and the night elves hate them. Etc The races still hate each other.

[bmjclark]

Now that you mention it...fucking blizzard and their alliance favoritism!!

[ravenmoon]

Suramar are Nightborne who split apart from Night,.

Nightborne did not split apart from Night or night elves, they just continued on exactly how they had been, referring to themselves as nightborne because the dome put them in perpetual night. Night elves of the alliance changed from this, and blood/high elves changed completely not even being nocturnal or moon/star focused instead becoming something new and unique. Nightborne are not new and unique, they are the arcane night elves still going on in Suramar society

I'm glad that after 3 expansions of Thrall & Garrosh adventures we finally get some focus on different races.

But yeah, as people pointed out, Vrykul are neither alliance nor horde and stormheim zone is Greymane vs Sylvanas so each faction has their own story. Highmountain are Tauren, but neutral. Val'sharah are Druids of all races. Suramar are Nightborne who split apart from Night, High and Blood Elves long ago. Azsuna are demons, blue dragons and Night Elven ghosts from the date around Sundering.

So while we have races that are related to current alliance and horde, they're in fact neither.

Funnily I play Alliance and my favourite Broken Isles zone is Highmountain even though it's about Tauren.

that's true, and it's nice to see people actually getting this, well you lot do, i don't think most care, but no more horde (or alliance moaning) which is good.

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The key to it all is that there are so many bits of story going on and how it relates to that group that you don't really have time to get bogged down in whether it's Alliance or Horde based. It also helps in that they finally did a decent job with how the various races relate to both sides. In the past they were guilty of what felt like responses and interactions being built for one faction and then basically just porting that over to the other. So it left you with this sense that they were only dealing with you because they had to, while they would much rather be dealing with the other faction. This expansion very much felt like they didn't give a dang who you were or where you came from, they just needed help in any way they could get it.

I think they did a better job of making the overall story feel more like " oh crap the whole planet is in trouble, you give me a hand " as opposed to hey Horde give me a hand, or hey Alliance give me a hand. Khadgar is pretty much in the same vein, this mess is to serious for me to even worry about factions, and everyone is trying to find Illidan.

I tend to agree with others, I wish they would just drop the entire Horde vs Alliance thing other than just some fun " war games" type reasoning for PvP. Basically lore and story wise we've been headed in that direction since WC3, and since then all of the battle lines have felt extremely forced. I think from a game play and story perspective it would allow them to open things up a bit more, and allow them to create internal rivalries that could be much more interesting.

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While I agree on most of it they last point makes me laugh. Guess I've been around too long and remember when both sides pretty much bitched equally about it.

totally agree with you there.. and the point this was making was that the bitching that was so bad in the past isn't here any more, probably because it's been shown much better this time, also a bit because people are resigned finally to the fact that blizzard determine the direction of the story and we just follow.

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nightborne are not alliance, they are actually closer to being horde, with how the blood elves and nightborne relate

yes humans descend from vyrkrul, but thats like saying a elf based expansion is horde themed because night elves evolved from trolls

khad and illidan are neutral

indeed, any more than the iron horde were horde, or Thrall was horde in cata. Blizzard did with the night elves in legion, kinda what they did with the orcs in WoD, they gave a retelling of past events that were never shown in the original game or any of the games for that matter.

the nightborne are certainly not the alliance, but they are clearly the telling of the night elven arcane empire in the wake of a legion invasion - and it really gives you a feel for the original tale after going through it, even though it's different, same with the WoD story and the iron horde. I wouldn't say they are any closer to the horde though, in the nightborne you are seeing arcane wielding night elven civilization it bears no relevance to alliance or horde, blood elves or night elves as they are now - but it's the arcane night elf civilization here, not the blood elf one, it ties to that, Queen Azshara, the highborne - and those that are still mixed up in that world. They are no more alliance or horde than the naga or mecha gnomes are

[judgementofantonidas]

[*]Is it that our audience is more mature?
.

no

you still find plenty of little kiddie horde flagged up where they shouldn't be.

[Friendlyimmolation]

no

you still find plenty of little kiddie horde flagged up where they shouldn't be.

Proving once and for all that you won't find anyone immature on the Alliance

[FelPlague]

Nightborne did not split apart from Night or night elves, they just continued on exactly how they had been, referring to themselves as nightborne because the dome put them in perpetual night. Night elves of the alliance changed from this, and blood/high elves changed completely not even being nocturnal or moon/star focused instead becoming something new and unique. Nightborne are not new and unique, they are the arcane night elves still going on in Suramar society



that's true, and it's nice to see people actually getting this, well you lot do, i don't think most care, but no more horde (or alliance moaning) which is good.

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totally agree with you there.. and the point this was making was that the bitching that was so bad in the past isn't here any more, probably because it's been shown much better this time, also a bit because people are resigned finally to the fact that blizzard determine the direction of the story and we just follow.

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indeed, any more than the iron horde were horde, or Thrall was horde in cata. Blizzard did with the night elves in legion, kinda what they did with the orcs in WoD, they gave a retelling of past events that were never shown in the original game or any of the games for that matter.

the nightborne are certainly not the alliance, but they are clearly the telling of the night elven arcane empire in the wake of a legion invasion - and it really gives you a feel for the original tale after going through it, even though it's different, same with the WoD story and the iron horde. I wouldn't say they are any closer to the horde though, in the nightborne you are seeing arcane wielding night elven civilization it bears no relevance to alliance or horde, blood elves or night elves as they are now - but it's the arcane night elf civilization here, not the blood elf one, it ties to that, Queen Azshara, the highborne - and those that are still mixed up in that world. They are no more alliance or horde than the naga or mecha gnomes are

and guess what else was part of that empire... the blood elves... so its a history of the elves... not of the night elves....

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As a former Horde Player, I always found Horde players to be the much more "Patriotic" fans when it came to picking a side. always makes me think of this picture.

i can agree with this, i played horde from 8 years of age to 15, then switched to alliance
and i play a thing, and that thing i am alliance, and i would love that thing to have race/faction changes ,encase i want to change race, or faction incase i just wanna change of style, and there is a famous guy on that place that does youtube, and he made a whole video complaining about how "faction should matter, faction changes ruins the game, by ruining the faction feeling as people should be dedicated to their faction"

[Zyky]

In my opinion I think people are just happy it isn't more Orcs. We had like almost 4 years of nonstop Orcs Orcs Orcs.

[Marrilaife]

Nightborne did not split apart from Night or night elves, they just continued on exactly how they had been, referring to themselves as nightborne because the dome put them in perpetual night. Night elves of the alliance changed from this, and blood/high elves changed completely not even being nocturnal or moon/star focused instead becoming something new and unique. Nightborne are not new and unique, they are the arcane night elves still going on in Suramar society

Yeah, I maybe expressed myself unclearly / wrongly but the gist of it was Nightborne are not the same people as Night Elves (Kaldorei). Kaldorei renounce Arcane magic (at least they did until Cataclysm) and focus on druidism / worship of Elune instead, they built separate society with different organization and values going away from how stuff has been during reign of Ashara.

Nighborne are also not exactly the same as they were during the reign of Ashara because as Thalyssra said the Nightwell changed them, not only the isolation had the effect on their society, but they also physiologically changed becoming different.

They are not the same race and not the same nation anymore, it's irrelavant who split from whom, what's relevant is that they're apart.

In the same manner High Elves and Night Elves split and High Elves evolved to be physiologically different than Night Elves, even though both are atm aligned with the Alliance, they have old grudges against each other and aren't exactly in warm relations.

Similar situation applies to Trolls or Goblins, only small faction of them joined the Horde while a multitude of other factions exists and is often in rivalry (case of Goblins) or outright hostility (case of Trolls) towards others of the same race.

[MoanaLisa]

• Is it that our audience is more mature?

No, I don't think that all of a sudden the audience got more mature. Quite the opposite.

[ravenmoon]

and guess what else was part of that empire... the blood elves... so its a history of the elves... not of the night elves....

blood elves did not exist then, there is no defintiion for blood elves at that era, blood elves came to be 10,000 years later, and are descendants of the highborne, the highborne that are part of that empire as most night elves were, and the highborne continue on some of them are working with the night elves, the ones of house shen'dralar. But i wasn't disagreeing with you. Even though most kaldorei left that life behind, it is still very much related to them, whereas for the blood elves it's related only to their night elven highborne ancestors and not to them

Blood elves made a new nation, the nightborne continued the arcane night elven civilization. They are now a variant of the original and the only night based elven group that has a functioning arcane civilization. The nightborne are simply blizzard bringing that era of the night elves to the present. They are neither blood elf nor night elf, but they're tied to the night elves ofc, not alliance related or anything. You're just seeing the arcane side of the night elves.

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No, I don't think that all of a sudden the audience got more mature. Quite the opposite.

I think so too, it was major orc exhaustion, and while people do like the orcs, I think it was too much for too long that came at the expense of maybe far too much. It ended becoming the horde nation and the alliance nation, a huge world all of a sudden became very small, with just two conountries and the different races just serving as a mixture of people with different heights and skin colours. Now that was a bit boring to me.

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no

you still find plenty of little kiddie horde flagged up where they shouldn't be.

I have seen a few posts complaining, but nowhere near the amount that use to happen. Even though non of the natives of the broken isles are horde and alliance, there huaman and night elven connections vs the one tauren has been mis-viewed as somehow been alliance and horde. Which ofc is the problem,l they shouldn't be viewed that way, and the question of the topic, is are players finally realizing this? Even though there is a connection of the elven natives to the alliance night elves and the vrykul to the humans, it's nothing to do with the alliance as the story shows

[Extremity]

I wouldn't really consider Illidan "Alliance". I don't think the fact that he's technically a night elf really matters. If anything, his actions have led to him being even less associated with the night elves/alliance. I feel like he'd have an easier time finding a place to stay in Org than SW, I dunno.

[Varitok]

No one is complaining about the heavy alliance focus of this expansion (night elves (nightborne/highborne), human based vrykul, and now in 7.2, Khadgar/Velen/Illidan your main heroes.

I'm wondering if people have finally stopped viewing everything in terms of horde and alliance and actually viewing the characters and groups based on how they are presented, not the faction their race is related to. (e.g. neither the nelves of Val'sharah or the nightborne/moonguard of Suramar are presented as alliance, therefore despite being night elf/night elf related no one is complaining so far. - likewise the Highmountain aren't being regarded as horde, just a group that is part of the Legion story and the zone rather than a faction because they are tauren based)

• Is it that our audience is more mature?
• or has blizzard done a much better job in articulating their story that such concerns do not matter?
• Is it that everyone is just relieved it's not orcs at centrestage and at this point anything will do?
• Is it thanks to the well balance presence and threat of the legion being the dominating factor
• or even the presentation of the night elves of Suramar as new sub-race Nightborne - just different enough to appeal to both sides and not feel alliancey.
• or has the population finally realized the warcraft presentation has always had more to it than just the horde/alliance.

Faction conflict is ofc present in the Forsaken vs the Worgen, Sylvannas vs Genn - have blizzard got the balance and weight of this just perfectly enough for faction importance to still be relevant but not dominating your view, thus allowing the story woven in the open world to be taken for what it is rather than any cry of favoritism?

Saying that I think it's a job well done on that front, you're not supposed to view the night elves, nightborne, highborne, Tyrande/Malfurion/Illidan as alliance related, nor Khadgar because they do not appear in that capacity at all, despite their racial connection, any more than you would or ought to view the Vrykul as alliance related being the human progenitors, or Highmountain as horde - because despite those ties, that's not the roles any of these groups or individuals appear in. For once, I think regardless of your faction you can actually enjoy the content and story of the Legion expansion, despite most of the activity centering around an Elven island steeped in night elf lore.

There's been no such favoritism backlash at all which is good. 7.2 has us following Velen and Illidan - now this makes a lot of sense, and I for one am glad that Thrall or a Broxigar/Rhonin/Krasus isn't forced into the picture there because "we have to have a horde race/human (/author's avatar) representative there" - they should go where the story takes them with who is appropriate to the focus and the region involved. Yes I still feel WotLk should have had Forsaken/Blood elves and not orcs as the dominant horde group and feel orcish starring felt forced where the far more impacted group played a secondary role.

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Well done blizz creative development team, it's about time. Khadgar aside, the characters used feel a whole lot less forced this expansion, - I think it's better story telling or at least better presentation of the story - all the voice files, all the time taken to give a background and SHOW it. Oh so importantly show it - gives players the context for the night elven, vrykul and highmountain presences in the 5 zones for what it is rather than "zomg, blizzard just doing alliance favoritism"

when you don't present your story well, people aren't going to read text, (as in previous expansions) they are just going to see x-horde race or y-alliance race and conclude favoritism or lack thereof and ignore context, because the story has been so muted and easily turned aside or not observed. It's hard not to observe the story when Thalyssra or Tyrande, or Celiene or any of the characters that give world quests are constantly staying stuff as you're going along to your objective - saying what is going on and when you have the videos like you have in Suramar and Val'sharah painting the story of a Legion assault that threatens everyone, rather than just a night elf affair because it's in a night elf city or a night elf forest.

Horde got their favourtism for a ton of WoW's lifespan. Good to see some Alliance focus, Horde characters just seem really edgy. If you denied horde favourtism for the majority of WoW, you are living in another reality.

[Sastank]

People complain about everything and anything. Look hard enough you'll find it.

[meroko]

Horde doesn't care. They like the story, period. Alliance players are just a bunch of kids. GG