The Faction War: Should it be Continued?

[Eucep]

Horde vs Alliance is as artificial as it can get, with some situations already in Legion giving me the vibe of 'uhm, we are the champions of our factions and we know this is a bad idea, we ain't going along with it' but we have to. From a player perspective, it would not make much sense till we hit something like warcraft 4. But our faction leaders command it? Poppycock. Most of said faction leaders by now have done not even a fraction of the heroic deeds we have done as adventurers yet we get saddled up with responcibilities equivalent of a lot of those leaders. Heck with the goblins, was it not for Thrall being his usual nitwit self the story was pretty clear the player character would be racial leader of the goblins over Gallywix.

[huth]

Horde vs Alliance is as artificial as it can get, with some situations already in Legion giving me the vibe of 'uhm, we are the champions of our factions and we know this is a bad idea, we ain't going along with it' but we have to. From a player perspective, it would not make much sense till we hit something like warcraft 4. But our faction leaders command it? Poppycock. Most of said faction leaders by now have done not even a fraction of the heroic deeds we have done as adventurers yet we get saddled up with responcibilities equivalent of a lot of those leaders. Heck with the goblins, was it not for Thrall being his usual nitwit self the story was pretty clear the player character would be racial leader of the goblins over Gallywix.

I think if they really want to get anywhere with a major faction war, they need to have the players as an independent party that can freely choose which side, if any, to support.

[Deleted]

No Jaina was right to destroy the horde - without them the Legion would long be history. Same with void lords.

[huth]

No Jaina was right to destroy the horde - without them the Legion would long be history. Same with void lords.

You mean "we wouldn't have any way to defend against them".

[Constraint]

To be fair, the faction war has been the core of warcraft / where it started for years now.

I don't think it's unreasonable for people to want to see it still in some fashion, whether that be an overt focus or maybe just adding a bit more nuance to it.

I get that, but we're not where we started anymore. We've helped each other fight off much more important threats for some time now. It seems almost stupid that we'd just magically revert to the more innocent past for no real reason, as sad as that might be for some.

[yetgdhfgh]

Yeah it really will be Cold war from here on out

You will never see a Garrosh all out Horde V Alliance war again all you will see is A. New Faction hates B. New Faction who is barely allied with both horde and alliance and that will justify a battlefield and thats it!

[Camthur]

It wouldn't even make sense at this point. In an all-out war, the Alliance would stomp what remains of Horde into gooey chunks.

[Darth Vowrawn]

The only reason I would want a Faction War, is for the Horde to finally be the moral victims and also win in the end, with major losses for Alliance characters and a heavy beating of the villain bat for characters like Jaina and Rogers.

But, since the precious and perfect Alliance can NEVER be portrayed as "morally wrong" because they are the "Captain America faction", it will 100% be "Sylvanas goes crazy and starts another genocidal war of conquest, the Alliance gets to beat us up and raid our cities, and we get to be talked down to and trashed by the narrative, while we lose what little characters we have and the Alliance increases its character surplus".

So, I'll have to pass on a future Faction War, as that outcome is an utter certainty.

[Highwhale]

You mean "we wouldn't have any way to defend against them".

TBH in Legion Alliance and Horde do minimal to fight Legion. Most of effort to fight BL made class order halls and neutral side.

[zlygork]

I'm just fucking sick of world pvp, it's a free zone for idiots to annoy people trying to do something else.

Legion fixed it most of it, since having mythic gear makes you obliterate most of those players, but still is the worst thing in the game by far.


I don't care about the faction wars but world pvp is so obsolete I don't even know why pvp realms still exists. Plus, I hate seeing Alliance characters interacting with the horde like they were neutral, It's always de Alliance ones, never a Horde one, becasue they lack big fishes in their ranks but the few racial leaders.

Yeah, that's nice for mythic geared people, now try to level questing in Helheim.

[Evangeliste]

Well, they are gearing for Horde versus Alliance conflict to come back. Even if it's very minor or used as a pivot in order to drive a story forward. It's coming.

I personally would enjoy it. If, very big if, it's done properly and actually there being a massive witch hunt that turns out that the implications (such as accusing of Horde for legging it 'to betray the Alliance') were wrongly concluded and there was consequences. It would be nice if Genn Greymane gets a 'come-upage' but Sylvanas actually in dignity spares the "Old Wolf" which will add more insult to the proud man. Living with the fact that he was firstly unwilling to understand reason, not willing to seek out why Horde left, busy trying to take revenge when the dude could move on, and so on.
As it stands now, really there was a conflict that was not really resolved but got sidelined for the greater good then got exploded out of proportions which eventually the Horde sided with Alliance to out the idiot leader Garrosh. It was never really done properly so to speak, in the MMO. It was just picked up from the RTS and added in, run along with in Vanilla which really never added or took away from it... Then TBC came and... we were starting to like do this whole banding together motion that keeps gaining momentum.

There needs to be more 3 dimensional character interaction, which is why I liked King Anduin having a dilemma when his father died. Most of the time, the mantle of high authority is just accepted without really having major struggle or problem within the character that receives such a task with it like Vol'jin, Baine, Jaina and Khadgar.

There needs to be some fallible moments because as it stands, Azeroth has always overcome their fragile moments and come back fighting. It gets somewhat tedious that whether hero or anti-hero, there is little dire problems. Legion has started with characters dying I will admit but it doesn't seem so bad since Anduin manned up, Turalyon will likely take Tirion's place and PC also got that with Class Hall with leading for now. Khadgar took over Kirin Tor and the Council of Six are cool as a cucumber. Things got smoothed over in that regard quite well and/or quickly.

[Darth Vowrawn]

- - - Updated - - -

rofl muh victim complex

Rofl "muh moral superiority". The only reason Alliance fans don't want another faction war is because they already feel like the moral victors, and they enjoy the Horde being constantly hit with the villain bat and being crapped on. The Horde deserves a clear moral victory, instead of "losing to Alliance for the 4th expansion in a row".

yes cause that would make total sense. A move of utter nonsense for a character who doesn't care about conquest but rather staving off death, whose long lost sister has suddenly appearance again. Surely she'd 'go crazy' cause reasons.

They've been moving Sylvanas into "villain" territory lately. Especially with the whole "Varimathras" and "Stormheim" things. Also, if she was that afraid of death, she wouldn't have gone to the Broken Shore to begin with, nor would she have done more mustache-twirling in Stormheim. If she was so afraid of the Void, she would try moving away from her emo grimderp and try being a good person, rather than a selfish tyrant.

[Kallisto]

we found the high elf boys

Nope, just someone sick of the faction seperation and not wanting to use two hunters to run with both sides. If you check my post history in High Elf related threads you'll find I am against playable high elves. I just didn't mention horde races in my post because I can play along side those freely. But I guess unlike you I am capable of seperating the player from the in game character and not have irrational hatred for those playing the other side and have friends who play on horde and alliance and want to play freely with both without having to hold double the characters.

[derpkitteh]

this poll warms my heart.

faction war can die in a fucking fire.

[Khirok]

The only reason I would want a Faction War, is for the Horde to finally be the moral victims and also win in the end, with major losses for Alliance characters and a heavy beating of the villain bat for characters like Jaina and Rogers.

But, since the precious and perfect Alliance can NEVER be portrayed as "morally wrong" because they are the "Captain America faction", it will 100% be "Sylvanas goes crazy and starts another genocidal war of conquest, the Alliance gets to beat us up and raid our cities, and we get to be talked down to and trashed by the narrative, while we lose what little characters we have and the Alliance increases its character surplus".

So, I'll have to pass on a future Faction War, as that outcome is an utter certainty.

I never got this.

Yeah, you lost the war, But you had a Hell of a lot more fun during it than any Alliance players. All the alliance got was to make an empty threat, the Horde got massive sprawling territorial gains and the permanent destruction of the greatest Alliance city on Kalimdor

If anything, the Horde made out as winners.

Am on phone.

[FuxieDK]

As long as Alliance surrenders unconditionally, I don't mind the conflict ends..

[Keydiam]

No. It is absolutely pointless from a story perspective and because no faction can truly win, no one will be satisfied with the outcome of a potential conflict. It would just be a waste of everyones time.

Also Blizzard can't write two separate stories for both factions. Look at MoP where the Alliance got robocat, and now look at Legion where the Alliance gets the sweet Anduin cinematic and the Horde doesn't show anywhere else.

[Zulkhan]

There's no real way of knowing what Horde players thought about Garrosh.

Most players don't think and don't even care. Those who did were somewhat split. Garrosh was a controversial character for sure. Some liked his bravado and surely started to appreciate him more after the Stonetalon questline. Others (like me) never liked him from the day he was introduced and just started to dislike him even more throughout WotLK and Cataclysm.

I never got the impression there was ever a strong, defined and prevailing movement towards one or the other direction. Main reason for why I never believed in the big conspiracy theory "lol Garrosh was made a raid boss because people didn't like him" even though, ironic as you can get, there's a shit ton of people assuming that and that definitely liked the character, effectively undermining their own assumption.

OT: what the game needs is not faction war but faction tension. Making full scale war and massive invasions the focus of the game would be idiotic since 1) it just goes too much against the tone set by WC3 a long time ago and 2) the format doesn't let anything satisfying or even logical to happen in case of actual war.

Horde and Alliance should be these great, massive superpowers always trying to achieve ultimate peace but constantly failing along the way. Garrosh didn't work because he was fucking hellbent to erase the other faction out of the planet with every mean necessary. Ironically, he didn't work exactly because he desired war. Grudges, reprisals, misunderstandings, a general and genuine will to "do good" while also facing the harshness of reality should be the core of the faction rivalry. Leaders that are not interested in war whatsoever but are left with little choices but to face it. Let the tension go up and down with occasional small conflicts to let it off (so that it never reaches the breaking point) with the day saved for the time being but not forever. That's what the "faction war" actually needs to be.

Of course people have issues with it and mostly because Blizzard and subtlety are like oil and water. I'm fine with Warcraft not being really centered about complex schemes and political intrigue but sometimes Blizzard forces the faction tension in such a clumsy way that it becomes really hard to take the situation seriously. You simply wonder why everyone is so dumb.

[Chemical Ellis]

I'd like to see one last, really monumental Horde-Alliance blowout with far-reaching repercussions, really taking the story's center stage, before finally, canonically, ending the conflict for good as we head off against bigger, weirder things. I don't wanna be chasing the Void across the Great Dark as two rival factions.

[Darth Vowrawn]

I never got this.

Yeah, you lost the war, But you had a Hell of a lot more fun during it than any Alliance players. All the alliance got was to make an empty threat, the Horde got massive sprawling territorial gains and the permanent destruction of the greatest Alliance city on Kalimdor

Wrong. The Horde actually gained very little. The only reason it appears to be so massive, is because the Alliance was the faction treated with favoritism, or at least being actually finished in development, from the get go. The Alliance had more zones to lose, stupid quest hubs in Horde dominated zones for no reason (such as Southshore), and more quests in general. You also neglected to mention that the Horde didn't even take any actual Alliance territory in game, as the only zone turned "Horde" was Azshara, just a few small quest hubs and Theramore. The Horde also lost half of the Barrens in order to give Alliance players another questing zone, while the Horde still can't quest in Wetlands.

I will also never understand the spoiled mentality of "Varian only said some mean words!". We get it, the Alliance playerbase wanted to eradicate the Horde, even though it was completely unfeasible in terms of development and how the game is structured. Most Horde players look at that "But Varian just said mean words!" whining, and laugh. That was a pretty badass moment, and allowed Varian to treat our new, and recently deceased, Warchief like dirt and basically walk away with a complete and utter victory after making a petty threat and forcing Vol'jin to be submissive to Varian.

If anything, the Horde made out as winners.

Oh, yeah! The Horde had all of our characters killed and had our already horrible character deficit in comparison to the Alliance become even greater, got made into mustache twirling villains who will always have that "But Garrosh and Theramore!" lodestone around their necks, had one of our cities converted into a raid zone for Alliance players where Horde characters were constantly shown to be either "evil" or "incompetent"... But, we got to destroy Theramore and a few worthless Alliance quest hubs! We sure did "win"!