Alliance lore needs more ...conspiracy plots.

[Zuben]

Moira's shift into a loyalist was too sudden for my taste, similar to how Varian mellowed down. So I'd like it to turn out she's just been pretending all this time. The Dark Iron themselves have proven to be a good lot, though, so a new actual Dark Iron character could emerge to systematically tear down Moira's facade.

Genn should revert back to his old personality, which alone would be enough to rattle some cages.

By now Jaina is all been there, done that as far as Horde-Alliance relationship is concerned, but Kirin Tor still has(or should have) a lot of inner stuff to process. How does the general citizenry feel about the Purge? Have the Sunreavers been released, and if not then will they? The Council of Six is down to Council of Five, and two of them are actively working together with the Horde(and took a whole bunch of lesser mages with them, of whom many perished in Everbloom), there's definitely grounds for conflict there as well.

[nonameelf]

Moira's shift into a loyalist was too sudden for my taste

I hope it's just an act. Kind of annoying how all the leaders and races are Alliance loyalists at this point. I'd like to see more of them putting their loyalty to their own race first.

[Deleted]

Internal strife is hard to do for blizzard. It means they have to think of a contrived way to get the other faction involved for game play and balance. We've seen that with Garrosh vs. Vol'Jin, somehow they managed to make the Alliance players feel left out while Horde players had to accept the Alliance raiding their capitol city.

It could work if high ranking members of both sides were working together. No idea who we could pair up properly though.

[Gamevizier]

Internal strife is hard to do for blizzard. It means they have to think of a contrived way to get the other faction involved for game play and balance. We've seen that with Garrosh vs. Vol'Jin, somehow they managed to make the Alliance players feel left out while Horde players had to accept the Alliance raiding their capitol city.

It could work if high ranking members of both sides were working together. No idea who we could pair up properly though.

uh...the vanilla internal strifes didn't HAVE to involve the other faction with the exception of Onyxia maybe. but I'd prefer two separate storylines which reveal parts of one ugly truth, or masterplan. for example Horde gets to see some of the parts and therefore obtains some of the clues that are unavailable to the alliance players because they are horde-only. on the other hand Alliance players get to investigate something different which is revealed to be connected to the plot partially uncovered by Horde players.

[Deleted]

Metzen is not that great as a writer.

[Graeham]

Metzen is not that great as a writer.

It's not that he's not a great writer it's that he doesn't complete the stuff he starts or he takes it down a completely different route based on what he thinks is 'cool' at the time. The blood elves are a major example: they were dark, gritty and very pragmatic with some pretty excellent reasons to be that way after being stabbed in the back repeatedly by their former allies.

Yet instead of allowing them to gain vengeance they've been denied that in favour of a 'redemption' plot...even though they don't have much to atone for. Meanwhile their enemies remain without any consequences for their actions.

[sam86]

Metzen is not that great as a writer.

Metzen was 'never' the writer of wow, as we saw in interview, he merely is a guide, and a crap one too since he 'forgot' Sargeras story and created spaceships and spacegoats

[Hardkorr]

uh...the vanilla internal strifes didn't HAVE to involve the other faction with the exception of Onyxia maybe. but I'd prefer two separate storylines which reveal parts of one ugly truth, or masterplan. for example Horde gets to see some of the parts and therefore obtains some of the clues that are unavailable to the alliance players because they are horde-only. on the other hand Alliance players get to investigate something different which is revealed to be connected to the plot partially uncovered by Horde players.

Hopefully the story would be about something neutral and not faction specific. After all, the Gilnean's Worgen story was partially shared by forsaken quests and that got some flak by players who wanted the whole story. Anyways, I don't think splitting a conspiracy story should be done since Alliance players want Alliance stories much like how class xyz wants class quests. Remember the Rogue pickpocketing quests, the Warrior Island quests, or the Shaman totem quests? Those helped defined your character and make you more involved with your class. Similarly, Alliance only quests with Alliance characters/themes would make Alliance players more in tune with their faction and see it as an entity that is not dependent on the Horde. Like the quest chain to find out Varian Wrynn's whereabouts that netted you a sweet ring at the end used Alliance characters, had a conspiracy plot, and gave some neat lore tidbits. More things like that, or even the elongated quest chain tied to patch 5.1, would benefit players looking to get excited for their faction. But make the stories not dependent on the other faction. Can't stress that enough. In SoO it wasn't Horde and Alliance but Horde and Horde's counterpart.

[Ogren]

It's not that he's not a great writer it's that he doesn't complete the stuff he starts or he takes it down a completely different route based on what he thinks is 'cool' at the time. The blood elves are a major example: they were dark, gritty and very pragmatic with some pretty excellent reasons to be that way after being stabbed in the back repeatedly by their former allies.

Yet instead of allowing them to gain vengeance they've been denied that in favour of a 'redemption' plot...even though they don't have much to atone for. Meanwhile their enemies remain without any consequences for their actions.

It's interesting how Blood Elves have so much in common with Worgen.

As to the thread topic, I think political conflict would fit the Alliance nicely. Think of the Second War, there was a lot of good stuff there that showed the Alliance wasn't as perfect as it was made out to be. But let's be honest, Blizzard iis utterly incapable of writing good political strife in an MMO format and the Alliance will always remain a fundamentally good guy-themed faction. That's simply how it is, but I definitely agree that Alliance should showcase more flaws and stop basically being Captain America every now and then.

[Mormolyce]

So what you're saying is, the Alliance is back to what it was in original Warcraft?

with an anime-looking badass king who had teenage-anger issues.

Not any more as of MoP.

Well the loading screen art looks like anime...

- - - Updated - - -

Metzen was 'never' the writer of wow, as we saw in interview, he merely is a guide, and a crap one too since he 'forgot' Sargeras story and created spaceships and spacegoats

You mean like how he "forgot" that Warcraft is about Orcs and Humans and created Sargeras?

Something like 90% of WoW's lore is a retcon buddy.

- - - Updated - - -

Moira's shift into a loyalist was too sudden for my taste, similar to how Varian mellowed down.

Pretty sure Moira deliberately volunteered Dark Iron assistance ahead of the Ironforge and Wildhammer as a way of politically outmaneuvering them.

[Netherspark]

I'd like to see a renegade alliance army, say 5th Legion or something suddenly start attacking the horde without orders, just doing surprise hit and run operations against horde towns and outposts etc. It would put the Alliance in turmoil, and threaten to restart the war with the Horde, and the alliance will have to make the tough decision to hunt them down themselves to stop the war.

Lots of internal conflict, brings up old hatreds and threatens to divide the alliance.

[sam86]

You mean like how he "forgot" that Warcraft is about Orcs and Humans and created Sargeras?
Something like 90% of WoW's lore is a retcon buddy.

In other words, u hate wc3 story and prefer the wc2 story where each side is unrelated to other one?
Yeah I'm sure lot of ppl 'miss' wc2 story and prefer it over wc3... not

[Dellis0991]

Conspiracy plots and turmoil...let's see we CAN'T use Jaina now that she calmed down and became rational again thanks to her dragon boyfriend. I can see something big happening to Ironforge when Magni comes out of that diamond coma and lays down the law on his daughter or maybe while in that diamond coma he was being influenced by something evil. I can even see something going on Greymane...

[Verdugo]

Well the loading screen art looks like anime...

It actualy looks like Rob Liefield was drawing it.

[Arrashi]

Conspiracy plots and turmoil...let's see we CAN'T use Jaina now that she calmed down and became rational again thanks to her dragon boyfriend. I can see something big happening to Ironforge when Magni comes out of that diamond coma and lays down the law on his daughter or maybe while in that diamond coma he was being influenced by something evil. I can even see something going on Greymane...

To be honest, given jainas mental stability, it wouldn't be hard to make her insane again. Like her catching kalec doing "this" with some arcane golem (he likes automatons in canon). Or hell, she could be just driven insane by the fact that noone in kirin tor seems to really give a fuck about her opinion, and work with horde because giant cucumber told the to.

[Deleted]

Genn Greymane is the right man for this.

[Ogren]

It actualy looks like Rob Liefield was drawing it.

The artwork is by Ludo Lullabi, who also did the artwork for the Curse of the Worgen comic series.

Genn Greymane is the right man for this.

Who?

[Deleted]

I always saw it as a problem when The Alliance Mirrored the Horde's Warchief with their High King. The Alliance... are an Alliance, they don't need to have an overall leader, they should operate more like a council. That way there can be tensions between decisions of the Council, it can be more political between nations instead of having them all bow down to Varian the holy avatar of the wolf god Wyrnn. I really like the Council fo Exarchs for the simple fact they argued about things ¬.¬

[Verdugo]

The artwork is by Ludo Lullabi, who also did the artwork for the Curse of the Worgen comic series.

Yeah, I noticed the lack of pouches, thanks for that. It still looks awfully like his style.

[Florena]

I always saw it as a problem when The Alliance Mirrored the Horde's Warchief with their High King. The Alliance... are an Alliance, they don't need to have an overall leader, they should operate more like a council. That way there can be tensions between decisions of the Council, it can be more political between nations instead of having them all bow down to Varian the holy avatar of the wolf god Wyrnn. I really like the Council fo Exarchs for the simple fact they argued about things ¬.¬

It would work better if they played it more in a supreme commander role, like Lothar had, a singular leader for their combined millitary. That would work fine. Problem is that when you put the leader of the biggest and main faction of the alliance into that role it becomes hard to keep those two roles distinct. They should have chosen someone else like Shandris. Or if Bolvar hadn't become LK he'd be great.