I really feel the horde focus is ruining warcraft for me :(

[ravenmoon]

It's too much, I feel they can't even develop any likeable and really nice stories for the alliance, because they have to keep building the horde profile and it's dominating the game and for me, it makes warcraft less interesting. Whiles I like the rich diversity in the game, the set up, the depth built over 20 years, (gosh Warcraft is nearly as old as I am ), I feel that they've really toned down some of the nicest aspects I liked about warcraft.

I play both factions - but, I really liked the human / elf interactions of an era like WC2 & WC3, but with the alliance suppressed and no real focus, the high elves feel almost non-existent, and the night elves feel like a second tier race, relegated to barely relevant sidekick status, a far cry from what a race of their stature was presented as. I really liked everything about the night elves in WC3, they came off as super elves, like high elves on steroids, bigger, faster, smarter and wiser - the original elves, were badass, and had achieved legendary things even without using arcane magic - i liked their story, and their characters, and their look, they're so exotic, the whole moonlight thing, gosh and their architecture.

But I see so little- don't hear much on the dwarves, and I don't know why. Expansion after expansion, the focus is horde dominating.. it's not even great stories and insights both sides, it really seems all the alliance cute bits and fun bits are really not brought into focus or talked much.

It has made me question if the game is enough of a platform to tell the story or satisfy, cos it's not that it's bad necessarily as it is not enough or not covering enough. I think people want to see all those new developments, their fave races etc, see them doing more stuff. I still find Elves and humans far more interesting than Orcs and Draenei, but all I see is more orc stuff, and subdued human stuff where human is just all of the alliance ... and i'm like why ??

This faction division is really affecting quality. Do you think it's because of numbers? When you had to play both sides, you had to look into both factions and you followed a story -- in the strategy game, but in the MMO, you can pick one side, and rather than telling one side of the story, one faction seems to be dominating everything.

I have long suspected and still feel, that faction balance is at the heart of this. The game is optimized for massive multiplaying when both factions are equal, and blizzard are still compensating for the huge horde deficit when the game kicked off. One of the ways I would tackle the problem apart from giving pretty races, would be to raise the profile considerably, and that means suppressing the other side. The problem is, this has been going on since TBC - have you noticed? The horde has had a full story, the alliance has had a subdued one, with only the human's part being told, and that part a bit sub-standard, but it's been going on for 8 years, and i'm just not that excited about warcraft's story any longer.

OPen a new expansion or Garrosh takes down the lich king, CAtaclysm- oh THrall saves Azeroth and beats Deathwing, MoP - Garrosh goes all crazy and you remove him from the horde. WoD - Garrosh escapes to a new timeline and raises a new Iron Horde .. even TBC had a far stronger Blood elf/Orc theme than it did an alliance theme. I don't begrudge that, it's just you know, when are they ever going to show the old alliance?

People love Elves, they love humans with elves, they love dwarves, they love dwarves with humans - not just humans and only humans and then a massive Orc focus.

[Nyres]

Honestly its gotten to the point its clear the devs just do not care about good story telling or what people want. They are Orc Horde diehards and the people writing the story up to the people calling the shots are so blinded by their favortisim they don't do anything to stop it. In their heads its World Of Hordecraft and even then its more of the Orcs adventure than anyone else. Story telling once was something good in this game but since Wrath its been taking sharp down turn in quality focusing on the Horde and more specificly the Orcs over anyone else. When Stormwind got damaged it took them at least a year to fix the front gates. Meanwhile Orgrimar gets seiged by rebel and the Alliance armies in 6.4 but shows no damage what so ever. The horde gets away scott free no matter what they do while if the Alliance do something badass they get talked down or for shamed like with the dalaran incident in MOP.

[NoiseTank13]

Orcs orcs orcs savage savage orcs orcs.

How can you not like them ?1

[Rahm]

Yeah I've about had it with Orcs too. I personally would like to see King Magni come back to Ironforge or see the Gnomes completely take back their home.

[lunchbox2042]

Metzen loves his Orcs.

[Tore]

The Alliance is so old-school fantasy. Kingdoms of magic and tree hugging elves and dwarves in a mountain. That could be any fantasy novel from before 1990. To make the Alliance interesting to modern audiences would take a complete rewrite.

I can understand why writers would have a Horde bias--there's more room for creative freedom there. The main race, the Orcs, have a very unique story. They were controlled by demons, used to attack a world, were defeated and enslaved, had the demon curse lifted, and then found themselves prisoners to angry humans who held them accountable for actions that were not their own. The Orcs feel guilt yet were guiltless. They were persecuted despite being victims. Internal power struggles yield a faction that wants revenge, and another that sues for peace in the face of looming larger threats.

One story is unique to Warcraft. The other is a staple of high fantasy. Which do you think the writers would favor?

[Wrathonia]

The Alliance is so old-school fantasy. Kingdoms of magic and tree hugging elves and dwarves in a mountain. That could be any fantasy novel from before 1990. To make the Alliance interesting to modern audiences would take a complete rewrite.

I can understand why writers would have a Horde bias--there's more room for creative freedom there. The main race, the Orcs, have a very unique story. They were controlled by demons, used to attack a world, were defeated and enslaved, had the demon curse lifted, and then found themselves prisoners to angry humans who held them accountable for actions that were not their own. The Orcs feel guilt yet were guiltless. They were persecuted despite being victims. Internal power struggles yield a faction that wants revenge, and another that sues for peace in the face of looming larger threats.

One story is unique to Warcraft. The other is a staple of high fantasy. Which do you think the writers would favor?

Horrible and lazy excuse. There are tons of stories that can be told and be interesting in WoW. Going from SoO to orclords or orcnor is too much.

[mvaliz]

The Alliance is so old-school fantasy. Kingdoms of magic and tree hugging elves and dwarves in a mountain. That could be any fantasy novel from before 1990. To make the Alliance interesting to modern audiences would take a complete rewrite.

I can understand why writers would have a Horde bias--there's more room for creative freedom there. The main race, the Orcs, have a very unique story. They were controlled by demons, used to attack a world, were enslaved, had the demon curse lifted, and then found themselves prisoners to angry humans who held them accountable for actions that were not their own. The Orcs feel guilt yet were guiltless. They were persecuted despite being victims.

One story is unique to Warcraft. The other is a staple of high fantasy. Which do you think the writers would favor?

Very true - and absolutely does NOT make it right either.

So, here's a thought, maybe if they sat down and did some - I dunno - FURTHER writing to flesh out more of the Alliance it wouldn't be so "tropish". Hell, they had two major ones with the Emerald Dream/Malfurion and also the Dark Iron/Hill Dwarves... and they phoned both of those in.

Only reason Aduin has any depth and evolution at all was that Christie Golden BEGGED Metzen to let her do something with Anduin in the Shattering, whereas Metzen said they had no plans for him and let her do her thing.

The bias also goes further into design as well. I'm more than certain if you asked all the designers as a whole if they prefer one faction to another they'd all say collectively as a group "not at all" - but ask them individually, and bet each one of them would say the same thing "Well, i won't speak for everybody - but I personally prefer Horde because they have a different design, ect"

I finally cut it off with Blizz and faction balance when Ashran's recent change happened. A Battle... where the objective of the battle is to defeat the opposing side while using the resources gathered from the events. The two sides started ignoring eachother and they started farming Conquest, one events, one the main battle. So... what is their brilliant way to get the two factions to play the BATTLE properly? A sane designer would remove conquest from events, thus moving them back to their original purpose - Farming them for Relics to use to win the main battle. But NOPE - they removed the conquest FROM THE MAIN BOSSES. I can ONLY assume they did this because they personally played Horde and said to themselves "We need to get the Alliance to attack us" instead of "how do we fix this BG so it plays like it was intended.

[dope_danny]

But OP please you must orcderstand. The tapestry that Metzen is trying to Orcestrate here is deep, subtle and nuorced. He cant orc every single thing and orc it all together into orc big orc.

Orc orc orc?, orc orc orc-orc orc. orc. Orc orc orcs -orc orc orc- orc orc orc.

Orc orc orc "Orcs orc orcs orcs orcs" orc orc.

Orcs orc?

Orc.

[TheHodedOne]

World of Orccraft: WarOrcs of Orcenor

[ravenmoon]

Orcs orcs orcs savage savage orcs orcs.

How can you not like them ?1

I feel like i am being forced to like them, and they are all cool and everything, but hmm, a little bit okay, an equal amount told in a good way, i could really like, but this complete domination. I feel sorta forced, and i think it's hindering me liking the orcs more.

[Deleted]

While there is a focus on orcs, i think the best questing region is Shadowmoon valley. And that is alliance.

[Gamevizier]

they love their orcs so much that even a possible emerald dream can turn into a green dream of orc orgy... with NEs shoved into the background and getting schooled by... THRALL! who's now retired as shaman and has started to learn about the emerald dream... and in the final patch we'll see him taking the mantle of the green dragonflig-- oh for fk's sake why not just put a giant IF YOU'RE NOT AN ORC GO F*** YOURSELF sign at the start of login screen and be done with it.

[Alcsaar]

Uhh have you seen the horde garrisons?

They had to give us something.

[Charmanderp]

The Alliance is so old-school fantasy. Kingdoms of magic and tree hugging elves and dwarves in a mountain. That could be any fantasy novel from before 1990. To make the Alliance interesting to modern audiences would take a complete rewrite.

I can understand why writers would have a Horde bias--there's more room for creative freedom there. The main race, the Orcs, have a very unique story. They were controlled by demons, used to attack a world, were defeated and enslaved, had the demon curse lifted, and then found themselves prisoners to angry humans who held them accountable for actions that were not their own. The Orcs feel guilt yet were guiltless. They were persecuted despite being victims. Internal power struggles yield a faction that wants revenge, and another that sues for peace in the face of looming larger threats.

One story is unique to Warcraft. The other is a staple of high fantasy. Which do you think the writers would favor?

Believe it or not some people do like the old style fantasy even if it's a little overdone. Besides, saying that it would take a complete rewrite is a gross overstatement of the problem. They have done nothing to very little to try and make the story unique to Warcraft (outside of the Draenei) and saying that "Oh, It's generic fantasy tropes and that is all it will ever be" is a lazy as fuck excuse for it. The fact that the horde story is unique to Warcraft shouldn't give them an excuse to focus on it as heavily as they have been.

[Airlick]

The Alliance is so old-school fantasy. Kingdoms of magic and tree hugging elves and dwarves in a mountain. That could be any fantasy novel from before 1990. To make the Alliance interesting to modern audiences would take a complete rewrite.

I can understand why writers would have a Horde bias--there's more room for creative freedom there. The main race, the Orcs, have a very unique story. They were controlled by demons, used to attack a world, were defeated and enslaved, had the demon curse lifted, and then found themselves prisoners to angry humans who held them accountable for actions that were not their own. The Orcs feel guilt yet were guiltless. They were persecuted despite being victims. Internal power struggles yield a faction that wants revenge, and another that sues for peace in the face of looming larger threats.

One story is unique to Warcraft. The other is a staple of high fantasy. Which do you think the writers would favor?

OK, so you wrote down the orcs' history. What makes them interesting NOW? That's right, nothing. Every other race (except of tauren, I guess, if there's one CLICHE race in Warcraft, it's tauren for sure) could make up for twice as interesting story. Also, if you think orcs and their history are unique to Warcraft, you clearly haven't read/watched/played much. There's tons of interesting and non-cliche Alliance-focused stories they could come up with. There's tons of untapped Alliance content (like Kul Tiras). Yet Blizzard keeps beating the same dead old orc for the past few years. Give us a fucking break already.

[Iflash]

I totally agred, particularly about the NE. I play horde but the Night Elves feel like just an afterthought, they havent been relevant since WC3. Its all just orcs orcs orcs.

[ravenmoon]

The Alliance is so old-school fantasy. Kingdoms of magic and tree hugging elves and dwarves in a mountain. That could be any fantasy novel from before 1990. To make the Alliance interesting to modern audiences would take a complete rewrite.

I can understand why writers would have a Horde bias--there's more room for creative freedom there. The main race, the Orcs, have a very unique story. They were controlled by demons, used to attack a world, were defeated and enslaved, had the demon curse lifted, and then found themselves prisoners to angry humans who held them accountable for actions that were not their own. The Orcs feel guilt yet were guiltless. They were persecuted despite being victims. Internal power struggles yield a faction that wants revenge, and another that sues for peace in the face of looming larger threats.

One story is unique to Warcraft. The other is a staple of high fantasy. Which do you think the writers would favor?

you could be write, I don't disagree, but i was a toddler in 1990, and what you call old-school fantasy to me was pretty nice. Still, it's not even the horde story i have an issue with it's the domineering focus on it. It's a good story, but we get nothing but that, there are others aspects of the world i really like that i'm not seeing portrayed well or given any attention, all in the name of more orcs, more orcs, and even more orcs, to what end? keep the profile up so players keep picking horde? at what expense? the soul of warcraft?

Remember what made warcraft popular - Night elves in WC3 was a HUGE FACTOR, orc redemption story, zombie plague, the new badass elves, and the demon masterminds. You had so much more balance, in fact WC3 was the zenith point of story telling. More cos of it's balance and it was cool - there is no way they find it okay today for night elves to be cool, but had no problem with it been the case in WC3 - and i'm not sure why. I suspect it's numbers, but...it could be who's on creative development writing what they like to see more of.

It's fine, it's just getting less and less appealing the more it they do.

[Gamevizier]

The Alliance is so old-school fantasy. Kingdoms of magic and tree hugging elves and dwarves in a mountain. That could be any fantasy novel from before 1990. To make the Alliance interesting to modern audiences would take a complete rewrite.

...wait what since when are ORCS are considered NEW fantasy? imo horde story is much more simple compared to possible alliance setting. i liked alliance better when there was no high king, the alliance was in turmoil and there were conspiracy plots everywhere. (Fandral, Onyxia, Defias, Syndicate) granted, we were weak, divided and fucked up but we stood for SOMETHING and tried our best to hold on to our ideals. that's what made alliance interesting.

but now it's like they tied all the loose ends, everyone's living happy and there's nothing going on in our faction. it's like blizzard put a giant THE END in Alliance story and decided not to develop our story further... the major plot in alliance story is Varian trying to become a better father. (boo fkin hoo)

[Daswolfen]

One story is unique to W̶a̶r̶c̶r̶a̶f̶t̶ Warhammer. The other is a staple of high fantasy. Which do you think the writers would favor?

Fixed it for you...