Is Faction Lore Bias Simply Just a Perception of Players

[Arrashi]

Should be shot, quite frankly. -le sarcasm-

Reported for death threats !!!

[Deleted]

Alliance is weak lorewise because there is almost no infighting among them.

Humans, Dwarfs and Gnomes (the Alliance) get along quite nicely.
Night Elves and Draenei are secluded, but support the Alliance.
Worgens are trying to find their place in the world.

Orcs, Tauren and Trolls (the Horde) share the same goal, but are not truly a unified coalition like the Alliance is.
Blood Elves and The Forsaken are only using the Horde as a refuge, since the rest of the world fear/hate them.
Goblins are hated by the Gnomes and have sought refuge with the Horde, but do not share the same goal as the Horde.

Pandaren are wild cards. They have made no public statement as to what faction they support.


The last time I ever read/experienced some Alliance lore that was any good, was while doing the Onyxia Attunement questline.
Other than that, I'd say there haven't really been anything good.

SInce when being hated by the gnomes is a reason to seek refuge?

[Aquamonkey]

Why would zone count be so important to you? You go around saying that not everything can be 100% balanced between horde and alliance when it comes to lore, and then you say that zones must be 100% equal between horde and alliance. Gosh, What a hypocrite. This is not Settlers of Catan. "this zone is yours, this zone is mine, tralala"

I guess you don't know the difference between gameplay and lore. Gameplay has to be balanced because there is a 2-faction system and the players are split between them. Lore ebbs and flows and is not always a balanced stalemate or the game would be boring.

[Faroth]

(not Velen, though. Velen IS boring).

He doesn't have to be, though. Instead of this peace loving hippy prophet, they should have made Velen the Alliance's very own Gandalf. Grumpy, possibly manipulative, not above reprimanding and even insulting someone for a foolish mistake, but ultimately wanting to push people into action for a greater good.

[Deleted]

Come the end of MoP and it ending somewhat within what we already predict I'd say the Alliance comes out the strongest. My problem with MoP/Cata is not what the Alliance got or lost. I don't mind that, we know it's an MMO and they have to be kinda even-handed but it's part of a story to win and to lose. Even lose a lot. What I hate is that the Alliance just gets crap story. Alliance most of the time just tags along or acts as a background element to Horde story. Hell, in most of the Cataclysm story you could replace Alliance with "anonymous band of heroes" and it would all be fine.

MoP started out well but went downhill fast storywise (I'm not hating on the xpac, I really like it, just talking lore here) with the Alliance just tagging along with the rebellion. You know how it could've been written better, imo? Have the Alliance sabotage the Kor'kron as we do in 5.3 but don't engage in talks with the rebels. Let them be, and once the rebellion is hammering Garrosh the Alliance would swoop in and hit them both at their weakest. Want to still help the rebels, sure? The King would offer them a deal: Help us dethrone Garrosh and put an end to his BS and we won't put you all to the sword. Demand withdrawal from Ashenvale and Southshore, even if only in the lore and not reflected in gameplay. Can't they just write an Alliance with a modicum of personality?

As it is right now, if it the Alliance was a single person it'd be someone with no personality or "soul" that just tags along with whatever the Horde does, never taking spontaneous action, always reacting to the real main character, never more than a boring sidekick.

[Elegiac]

He doesn't have to be, though. Instead of this peace loving hippy prophet, they should have made Velen the Alliance's very own Gandalf. Grumpy, possibly manipulative, not above reprimanding and even insulting someone for a foolish mistake, but ultimately wanting to push people into action for a greater good.

I support the campaign for draenei Gandalf.

I also support bringing WCIII Tyrande back. Actually, I'd support more attention being paid to the non-human races in the Alliance period.

[Aquamonkey]

He doesn't have to be, though. Instead of this peace loving hippy prophet, they should have made Velen the Alliance's very own Gandalf. Grumpy, possibly manipulative, not above reprimanding and even insulting someone for a foolish mistake, but ultimately wanting to push people into action for a greater good.

Wrathion stole Velen's thunder. Although they could have tied Velen closer into Anduin's story since they are master/pupil.

[Faroth]

I guess you don't know the difference between gameplay and lore. Gameplay has to be balanced because there is a 2-faction system and the players are split between them. Lore ebbs and flows and is not always a balanced stalemate or the game would be boring.

I kind of think the zone balance thing is utter bull at this point. Phasing makes it an invalid argument. Every zone can be a quest zone for both sides with proper use of phasing now.

Ashenvale is my standard example. The Horde's quest chain could have been invading, laying siege, and even dealing with defeat as the night elves drive them back from areas. Alliance quest chain would start with the attack and conclude with reclaiming areas but being halted at a certain point. Instead, they only kind of overlapped in one area.

There's no reason with phasing you can't have every zone be a potential dual quest zone. Gilneas and Hillsbrad particularly come to mind, even if there are fewer quests for one side or the other, SHOWING the story to both sides would be great. Gilneas in particular is just so confusing why the story was Horde only.

- - - Updated - - -

Wrathion stole Velen's thunder. Although they could have tied Velen closer into Anduin's story since they are master/pupil.

True enough, but Wrathion seems even more shades of grey than Gandalf (yeah yeah, wut i did thar)

Of course, it could develop that Wrathion and Velen could pursue the same end result through different paths, even opposed in some ways.

[Elegiac]

True enough, but Wrathion seems even more shades of grey than Gandalf (yeah yeah, wut i did thar)

Fifty Shades of Gandalf?

[Aquamonkey]

I kind of think the zone balance thing is utter bull at this point. Phasing makes it an invalid argument. Every zone can be a quest zone for both sides with proper use of phasing now.

Ashenvale is my standard example. The Horde's quest chain could have been invading, laying siege, and even dealing with defeat as the night elves drive them back from areas. Alliance quest chain would start with the attack and conclude with reclaiming areas but being halted at a certain point. Instead, they only kind of overlapped in one area.

There's no reason with phasing you can't have every zone be a potential dual quest zone. Gilneas and Hillsbrad particularly come to mind, even if there are fewer quests for one side or the other, SHOWING the story to both sides would be great. Gilneas in particular is just so confusing why the story was Horde only.

Personally, I would have liked the phasing thing you mentioned and having Worgen retake Gilneas. But Blizzard has finite resources and they have to choose what their priorities are. They felt Gilneas being lost matched the theme of Cata and they wanted zone balance.

[Elegiac]

Personally, I would have liked the phasing thing you mentioned and having Worgen retake Gilneas. But Blizzard has finite resources and they have to choose what their priorities are. They felt Gilneas being lost matched the theme of Cata and they wanted zone balance.

And their priorities are clearly in favor of the Horde. QED.

[Zaelsino]

I don't think it's malicious bias, but it's pretty clear that they have an easier or more fluent time writing Horde content.

[Talen]

They had to balance out the leveling zones.

Which is ridiculous.

What gameplay element does zone count influence.
None.

Who controls or is present in a zone determines the nature of the story, the story behind the quests. Nothing more.
To put it another way...if the Alliance players had a quest hub at Tiragaarde...what would have changed? The Horde would still get quests to attack the base. The Alliance players would get quests to attack Horde targets. The only "concern" would be PvP and Blizzard has ways to get a round that issue.

EJL

[Herecius]

Yes it is. A 'balanced story' where everybody gets screentime does not necessarily make for a good story. Folks seem to believe it does, though.

And being pissed about the Alliance 'leaving' Org? Come on, what were they going to do? At the end of SoO, they're deep, deep inside enemy territory, completely surrounded by the Horde rebel forces that they worked alongside to take down Garrosh's 'Iron Horde.' Now, thinking logically, would the correct course of action then be to turn on your temporary allies, deep inside their territory, and start fighting them?

The answer is no. The Alliance win a great victory by seeing to the defeat of an extreme enemy, possibly one of the most dangerous leaders of the Horde since Blackhand. They would be completely retarded to immediately squander that victory with a very stupid strategic mistake like that. Varian, whatever you may think of him, is not so stupid as to lead his army into total defeat by turning on allies (however temporary they may be) deep in the heart of hostile territory. Remember that that the rebels are comprised of all of the Darkspear Trolls, all of the Tauren, and no small number of Goblins, all on their own turf.

[Talen]

I'm pretty sure if the alliance were the ones getting their leader capped, it wouldn't be "horde playing foil to alliance's struggle" it would be wtf, another horde victory.

Wouldn't that depend on the actual story used to develop it? And aren't you assuming that everything else remains the same - with all the current Horde vicoties and development still in place?

they cant have you obliterate the horde like you did deathwing because of the ramifications for the game, so by making it the end game experience they took the wind out of the sails of any victory, in fact making the alliance v horde conflict the central theme of the expansion pretty much guranteed people were going to be dissastisfied with its conclusion because it cannot be concluded decisively lest the game itself be finished or radically changed

Which is nonsense. You could give each side a sense of victory by giving each different victory conditions.

Here? Vol'jin and the rebels win because they succeed in their aim of removing Garrosh. A story that has been development over the XPacs.
The Alliance win because they get a warm glow at having helped their mortal enemies remove a factor ultimately unimportant to their war goals of peace, security and lands.

What would be wrong with "Alliance win because they invade the city and get VJ to agree to a restoration of the pre-war borders with some exceptions."

EJL

[Herecius]

Here? Vol'jin and the rebels win because they succeed in their aim of removing Garrosh. A story that has been development over the XPacs.
The Alliance win because they get a warm glow at having helped their mortal enemies remove a factor ultimately unimportant to their war goals of peace, security and lands.

The Alliance win because they defeat the most dangerous leader of the Horde since got dang Blackhand, dammit. How in the world is that not an Alliance win? Seriously.

And even worse are folks going
'Oh boo hoo we didn't get to eradicate the Horde/didn't get something in an Alliance-centric setting'

Sounds like
'Oh boo hoo the ending of Warcraft 1 took place in Stormwind, Alliance favoritism boo hoo'

Oh come onnnnnnn

[Deleted]

The Alliance win because they defeat the most dangerous leader of the Horde since got dang Blackhand, dammit. How in the world is that not an Alliance win? Seriously.

And even worse are folks going
'Oh boo hoo we didn't get to eradicate the Horde/didn't get something in an Alliance-centric setting'

Sounds like
'Oh boo hoo the ending of Warcraft 1 took place in Stormwind, Alliance favoritism boo hoo'

Oh come onnnnnnn

The crying is because the alliance got used as a condom in this story. Get in, do the job, get thrown out afterwards.

ANd one might ask, to WHO is Garrosh dangerous? He was clearly breaking the horde as we know it, the alliance only needed to wait, biding its time in strenghtening their forces untill the horde is in ruins from the infighting and then invade.

[Valerean]

The only bias in WoW is profit. The writers and designers will always choose the lore they see as the most likely to keep current subscribers interested and attract new ones.

[Lemons]

Perception of players? No. If you actually pay attention to the lore and aren't in complete denial you'll notice the Horde bias.

[Elyiandris]

The lore has had blatant Horde bias since Warcraft 3. Players may exaggerate it and nitpick, but the bias is there.