Page 5 of 14 FirstFirst ...
3
4
5
6
7
... LastLast
  1. #81
    Quote Originally Posted by Doomchicken View Post
    *cough5.3androbocatcough* :P
    Damn, I totally forgot about that.

    Horde: side with Horde leaders and start a revolution. Take over a town after awesome march.
    Alliance: use a robot cat to spy on the enemy, ally with the Horde.

    And in PTR, Vol'jin basically bullied the Alliance into submission, despite the Alliance having the upper hand. Only after feedback Blizzard added a proper Alliance response.

    Damn you for making me remember that fiasco.

    Quote Originally Posted by Leiandri View Post
    Remember horde players complaining about heavily alliance-skewed story in Legion and lack of development of any major horde characters and plotlines? Remember the alliance players taunting back and arguing that it was "well deserved" after "two horde-centric expansions in a row" prior to it?
    And then Blizzard did its magic and retroactively turned two entire Legion zones into Horde content throught allied races, while giving the Alliance two races that were essentially asspulls no one asked for.

    I don't mind Horde getting nice things. I do take issue with Alliance getting the short end of the stick out of the deal.
    Last edited by DeicideUH; 2018-02-27 at 03:21 PM.
    Whatever...

  2. #82
    I mean, there are only so many stories that you can tell when the Alliance primarily composed of generic humans sends a generic human character into a land of mostly generic humans to do generic human things. But that's a general Alliance problem.

    Besides, not everything is released yet, and when you have two different questing experience you'll inevitably have a grass is greener effect anyway. It seems fairly likely that the story of Azshara will center around Kul'tiras, after the story of G'huun centers more on Zandalar.

  3. #83
    Quote Originally Posted by Halfdrop View Post
    Mate.

    It's an alpha, the Alliance zones are unfinished
    Experience shows that when things are designed in sequence by Blizzard, that which comes last is truncated or cut. Over the years it's tended to be Alliance zones and storylines that are done second, and it shows. It's been a long time since Vanilla and the Horde's lack on any real plotline for the Onyxia attunement, compared to the Alliance story. Time to stop compensating for that.

  4. #84
    Quote Originally Posted by Jastall View Post
    I mean, there are only so many stories that you can tell when the Alliance primarily composed of generic humans sends a generic human character into a land of mostly generic humans to do generic human things. But that's a general Alliance problem.
    No, the problem is that Alliance story seems to lack effort. Alliance has a lot of different elements that can work in new ways, and yet we are bound to this same-old "humans plus humans facing human problems" narrative.

    Just look at how we get into the continents: Horde gathers a team of varied known characters, infiltrate Stormwind, face off several known Alliance leaders, escape and set sail.

    Alliance gets one single named character on a diplomatic mission. We are captured, escape prison and ally with some new human characters.

    Even simple adjustments like adding characters to go with Jaina to Kul Tiras could make Alliance story better.

    I mean, void elves and lighforged draenei were just asspulled out of nowhere and Blizzard has shown no interest in fleshing them out. Why not put one of each as Jaina's bodyguards and they argue all the way, then show some badass skills during our prison break?
    Last edited by DeicideUH; 2018-02-27 at 03:29 PM.
    Whatever...

  5. #85
    High Overlord Leiandri's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    May 2012
    Location
    Argent Dawn EU
    Posts
    104
    Quote Originally Posted by DeicideUH View Post
    And then Blizzard did its magic and retroactively turned two entire Legion zones into Horde content throught allied races, while giving the Alliance two races that were essentially asspulls no one asked for.

    I don't mind Horde getting nice things. I do take issue with Alliance getting the short stick out of the deal.
    Because this totally makes up for everything else that has happened throughout the entire expansion, including ridiculous axing of Vol'jin at the start, Sylvanas nowhere to be found after that one Val'kyr plot that led nowhere and generally all the major lore NPC's in the spotlinght having very little relevance to the faction.

    Even though we did end up getting Nightborne into the Horde that still does not make the whole Suramar experience somehow "horde content" all of a sudden. It is still filled with a lot of night elf culture and lore reference, is it not? I would even argue that the same could be said about Blood Elves in general, but at least in their case they've had over a decade of horde-related development by now. Perhaps in a few years you will be able to argue about Nightborne-themed zone to be a legitimate part of the "horde story content" but as of right now it looks to me like a ridiculous claim to make.

    As for the Highmountai, they've always felt like a horde-oriented faction to me, so... that would be 1 zone out of 7 of horde-relevant story. Yay?

  6. #86
    Quote Originally Posted by DeicideUH View Post


    And then Blizzard did its magic and retroactively turned two entire Legion zones into Horde content throught allied races, while giving the Alliance two races that were essentially asspulls no one asked for.

    I don't mind Horde getting nice things. I do take issue with Alliance getting the short end of the stick out of the deal.
    With that breed of faulty logic, BRD and Molten Core are Alliance content seeing as they get Dark Irons, Argus becomes exclusively Alliance content thanks to the Lightforged, and literally anything related to the Void becomes Alliance content as well since you can bet your ass Blizzard will have Alleria and her fanclub all over that shiz now.

    As someone else said, I have very little sympathy left in me after Legion shoved one Alliance NPC in my face after the other (ugh, Tyrande) and I was told I had to shut up because Thrall existed back in Cata. Well if you're going to be fine with the pendulum when it's on your side, don't complain if it swings back.

  7. #87
    Quote Originally Posted by Leiandri View Post
    Even though we did end up getting Nightborne into the Horde that still does not make the whole Suramar experience somehow "horde content" all of a sudden.
    It is the origin story of a new Horde race. It replaces a starting zone nicely.

    As for the Highmountai, they've always felt like a horde-oriented faction to me, so... that would be 1 zone out of 7 of horde-relevant story. Yay?
    Stormheim is mixed. Suramar and Highmountain ended up being Horde-favored. Val'sharah is Alliance-favored and Aszuna could be argued to be Alliance-favored due to the night elf ghosts there.

    Horde only got a bad deal in hindsight. Knowing now that the most fleshed-out race in ages ended up joining the Horde after one of the best examples of storytelling from Blizzard makes up for it in my eyes.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Jastall View Post
    With that breed of faulty logic, BRD and Molten Core are Alliance content seeing as they get Dark Irons, Argus becomes exclusively Alliance content thanks to the Lightforged, and literally anything related to the Void becomes Alliance content as well since you can bet your ass Blizzard will have Alleria and her fanclub all over that shiz now.

    As someone else said, I have very little sympathy left in me after Legion shoved one Alliance NPC in my face after the other (ugh, Tyrande) and I was told I had to shut up because Thrall existed back in Cata. Well if you're going to be fine with the pendulum when it's on your side, don't complain if it swings back.
    I never said Suramar was exclusive Horde content. It is, however, devoted to fleshing out a race that ended up in the Horde, and that can't be denied.

    Also, comparing BRD to Suramar is dishonest. BRD is Vanilla content. Dark Irons will join the Alliance in BfA, one was not written with the other in mind. Suramar is Legion content, and the nightborne joined the Horde by the end of the expansion. There were hints that this was going to happen since at the very least the 7.1 Insurrection questline.

    Legion had no faction-exclusive content beyond a few quests. But most of the content leaned towards one of the factions. And yes, Argus is very Alliance-favored, and I do understand why Horde players were pissed at that. I even wrote a few times in the forums that Blizzard should have included in the Vindicaar some Saurfang-led badass group of orc veterans wanting to die fighting the Legion as payback for Draenor's corruption, just to give the Horde some token presence.
    Last edited by DeicideUH; 2018-02-27 at 03:42 PM.
    Whatever...

  8. #88
    In this case I don’t like the idea of comparing Horde vs Alliance quality of questing in previous xpacs. I wouldn’t consider it the same issue. In those, even when they got different quests, the stories themselves were the same. Just presented from 2 different angles. (Or in the case of Legion, from the same).

    Here though, it is in fact 2 different storylines which likely will take awhile to meet back up. And the Alliance zones we’ve seen so far, particularly Drustvar (since Tiragarde feels like they definitely have more work planned for it though at the moment it has the same issue but I’ll reserve slightly more judgment), just are not going to catch most people’s attention. Even those who barely care about the lore will probably be impressed with Zuldazar and Nazmir. They have standout personalities (Tortollan are hilarious), lots of character development and epic battle scenes.

    Start of Nazmir has the chase scene with a likely very impressive cinematic preceding it for instance. Zuldazar has a finale involving an attack by every major Loa in the zone which looks very visually impressive.

    Drustvar they did pull off being very creepy but the zone is basically doing that Gilnean village in Val’sharah over and over again for 5+ hours.

  9. #89
    High Overlord Leiandri's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    May 2012
    Location
    Argent Dawn EU
    Posts
    104
    So, the alliance players are basically salty that they got the edge elves instead of the cool elves and this somehow makes up for having to hang out with Khadgar, Velen, Turalyon, Alleria, Tyrande, Maiev (and I'm probably forgetting a few here) for the entire expansion instead of getting story development for any horde characters, save for maybe Liadrin and Sylvanas?

    And if you want to keep arguing off the whole Nightborne thing to begin with, nothing about them to me says "horde" and even though their faction choice was somewhat justified based off the way Tyrande reacted to them, I still do not feel, nor consider them a "horde race". As I've mentioned a few posts above, perhaps after a couple of years of their story development influenced and streered towards the horde themes and values I might get a different view of them, but as of right now I see disgruntled alliance players constructing ridiculous arguments to "unearth" some kind of horde bias conspiracy here.

    And that stupid robot cat from 5.3 sure does come up a lot in these compaints, does it not? Is there not much else to latch those accusations to, or what?

  10. #90
    Mechagnome Piesor's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Nov 2013
    Location
    Moonglade
    Posts
    514
    From what I've seen so far I would also strongly prefer Horde. Also if the Alliance zones will receive additional polish, the overall style and athmosphere just does not thrill me.
    Perhaps I will start with a Horde character this time.

  11. #91
    Quote Originally Posted by DeicideUH View Post
    It is the origin story of a new Horde race. It replaces a starting zone nicely.


    Stormheim is mixed. Suramar and Highmountain ended up being Horde-favored. Val'sharah is Alliance-favored and Aszuna could be argued to be Alliance-favored due to the night elf ghosts there.

    Horde only got a bad deal in hindsight. Knowing now that the most fleshed-out race in ages ended up joining the Horde after one of the best examples of storytelling from Blizzard makes up for it in my eyes.

    - - - Updated - - -


    I never said Suramar was exclusive Horde content. It is, however, devoted to fleshing out a race that ended up in the Horde, and that can't be denied.

    Also, comparing BRD to Suramar is dishonest. BRD is Vanilla content. Dark Irons will join the Alliance in BfA, one was not written with the other in mind. Suramar is Legion content, and the nightborne joined the Horde by the end of the expansion. There were hints that this was going to happen since at the very least the 7.1 Insurrection questline.

    Legion had no faction-exclusive content beyond a few quests. But most of the content leaned towards one of the factions. And yes, Argus is very Alliance-favored, and I do understand why Horde players were pissed at that. I even wrote a few times in the forums that Blizzard should have included in the Vindicaar some Saurfang-led badass group of orc veterans wanting to die fighting the Legion as payback for Draenor's corruption, just to give the Horde some token presence.
    It ain't just Argus. Val'sharah is pretty much all Night Elves as well, and Aszuna is ghost Night Elves, admittedly they have more of a Highborne slant than the mainstream NEs of today but the Highborne are also back in the Alliance now. plus Maiev and Velen during 7.2. Meanwhile Horde had Liadrin makes one appearance and the Warchief vanishes after one zone. Several Class Hall questlines were Alliance slanted as well, such as the Paladin, Priest, Rogue, hell arguably Mage lines as well. Had there been an expansion with this close to 0 Alliance presence, we would never have heard the end of it considering we still hear about the last third of Cata and that one patch in Mists.

    Still, I agree the DI aren't the exact same as Suramar, but that does not make Suramar Horde content given that they joined the Horde after all was said and done and the story still makes sense as an Alliance player (unlike, say, Argus for a Horde player sometimes). More importantly, I don't want Blizzard to shoot for absolute parity. Both continents have stories to tell, and if needed Blizzard will probably course correct by focusing further patch content around Kul'tiras given that it seems likely the Azshara raid will take place close to them. But anyway, judging all this when the questing experience is still obviously a work in progress seems premature to me.

  12. #92
    Quote Originally Posted by Leiandri View Post

    And that stupid robot cat from 5.3 sure does come up a lot in these compaints, does it not? Is there not much else to latch those accusations to, or what?
    It was an entire patch where Alliance had to gather supplies for the Horde to help the Horde deal with their shitty civil war they were losing when there was zero reason for the Alliance to do so because they could have just let the Horde weaken itself and then just wiped out the remains. Of course Alliance are pissed that, on top of that, they were given a shitty couple quests while Horde got scripted fights alongside lore characters.
    Last edited by Hitei; 2018-02-27 at 04:09 PM.

  13. #93
    Brewmaster CasualFilth's Avatar
    5+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Jan 2018
    Location
    Google knows, why would you?
    Posts
    1,365
    Because it is clear Blizzard prefers the Horde. Remember the Warcraft movie? Remember the awesome Orc CGI, the emotional dilemma of Durotan, whilst the Alliance got a guy high on coke and the underwhelming 'story' and bad tongue-in-cheek humour?

    LOL @ people saying Legion was Alliance-centric. Apart from Velen/Genn/maaaaaaaaaybe Anduin, all other heavy Alliance leaning characters were either badly written or had no character development.
    Be loyal to what matters - Arthur Morgan

    NX Friend Code: SW-0102-0077-4738

  14. #94
    Quote Originally Posted by Jastall View Post
    More importantly, I don't want Blizzard to shoot for absolute parity.
    Neither do I, but I do want some minimum level of quality for both sides.

    The problem is not that the Horde storylines are better, with balanced humor, lore, aesthetics and so on.
    The problem is that the Alliance story is far bellow that quality.

    Like I said above: we escort Jaina to Kul Tiras. Why only Jaina? Put a lightforged and a void elf as her bodyguards. Let those characters shine throught the starting experience, as they argue and show their skills as we escape the prison. Instead, we are given two generic humans to escape with us. It's bland and uninspired, and it does not showcase what the faction has. Small changes like that make a whole lot of difference.

    Just like adding a Saurfang-led suicide orc-squad doing stuff in Argus would have made.

    That's my complain.
    Whatever...

  15. #95
    Brewmaster CasualFilth's Avatar
    5+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Jan 2018
    Location
    Google knows, why would you?
    Posts
    1,365
    Remember, we are not talking about Horde v Alliance content wise, but which faction gets the most QUALITY STORY/DEVELOPMENT. It is clear the Horde does.

    Just cause you had to hang out with Alliance themed characters does not mean that particular narrative was any good (Turalyon and Alleria come to mind).

    As an Alliance fan, sure, I do not mind a whole expansion fighting alongside Horde characters if it deals with a good narrative purpose. But having an expansion based on BOTH factions, I expect the same treatment for both.
    Last edited by CasualFilth; 2018-02-27 at 04:12 PM.
    Be loyal to what matters - Arthur Morgan

    NX Friend Code: SW-0102-0077-4738

  16. #96
    Quote Originally Posted by Ningjinq View Post
    Of the 4/6 zones we’ve seen so far, the Alliance has gotten the very short end of the stick in regards to the importance of the questing.

    In Drustvar, the entirety of the zone is dealing with the Witch Coven and the Drust. There is not a single thing in the zone that would suggest that this story will matter in BFA outside of the zone. It’s nice to see them introducing new lore but they really should’ve connected them with the rest of the story somehow.

    Tiragarde Sound may have a relevant plot line in Lady Ashvane and House Ashvane, but the zone concentrates just too little on them. Only about 30 minutes of questing is actually significant probably.

    On the Horde though, in Nazmir you deal with loas, including Bwomsamdi who may play a big role. This is also where most of the character development of Talanji occurs who likely will be around the Horde for a long time. Then there also is the overarching theme of G’huun who is some form of Old God and parts of the raid are related to N’zoth. So that’s obviously huge.

    Zuldazar fleshes out Zul a lot. And he’s been around for a very long time. It also connects Zul to Azshara for the first time which can possibly be a huge plotline later on. And probably will be.

    So I’m just not seeing how the Alliance zones as currently constructed can compare.
    I think it is fairly simple. The reason why is because Alliance are overall boring.
    Typical races with typical priorities. Even night elves with their unique lore and attitude from a while back were turned into purple human hybrids.
    It is significantly harder to think of a better story for this kind of faction where there is no conflicts, every culture bounces off of another in a perfect harmony and everyone are holding hands while fighting villains with rainbow powers.
    I mean that even potentially controversial characters like Graymane were “castrated” or just allowed to do whatever with no consequences from their fellow Alliance. Because they are all friends and who cares if someone starts a war with another faction, everyone apart from them are villains so... why not, right?
    So in BFA you have yet another human nation that actually slaughtered Drust. A race that would have been ultimately way more interesting then anything Alliance got as an allied race. But instead of druid-wooden horror people, Alliance gets humans. Buff humans that would give Blizzard just another reason to shove more humans to the frontlines of any conflict, cutting out more of a physically stronger races of the Alliance.
    Then Jaina would make up with her mother and you think these new humans are going to be interesting? Pffft... In two expentions you won’t be able to tell them apart from Stormwind humans.
    And so we go on from expansion to expansion. When there is a universal threat on the horizon(Lich King, Burning Legion), the Alliance sail towards it on their space ship of friendship! The typical good vs. evil story plays out and in the end Alliance gets a pat on the back and we all remember who are “real heroes” of Azeroth.
    And when there is a faction conflict the Horde looses itself in some internal conflict with cool character developments and it ultimately ends with the Horde ending up evil in one way or another. Evil but interesting.

  17. #97
    Well I as a primary horde player think the witch hunt sounds very fun. I think it sounds more fun than trolls and swamps and dinosaurs and old gods. So, to each their own I guess.

  18. #98
    Quote Originally Posted by KrakHed View Post
    I wouldn't call it bias unless I thought the same team was working on both. I actually get the impression that Zandalar was created by rounding up all the Troll and Dinosaur fans they had and locking them in a room together. Despite how heavily Troll it is, I don't get the impression anyone working on Zandalar has even the slightest Troll Fatigue. They always seem to manage to create a diverse set of characters and situations. The people working on Zandalar are clearly rather passionate about what they're doing, and are even able to develop other races like Tortollan to enhance the flavor.

    I don't think this team could be easily transferred to just work on Kul Tiras content if they weren't as passionate about the themes. The problem I get with Kul Tiras is that I presently don't feel the themes are handled as well as they could be, and that makes sense to me. Trolls have an established cultural aesthetic. You can round up all their fans, and they'd have the same general idea of what "cool troll shit" means.

    Round up all the Kul Tiras fans, and they're still going to have to invent what makes Kul Tiras special. And they're not necessarily going to have fully fleshed out ideas or agree on everything. Witches used to only be a small part of Drustvar until they made it everything in the zone, so ideas are clearly more in flux.

    However, I just don't see the same passion behind the Witches as I do for some random Compy god on Zandalar. Hek hek hek hek, and all.
    Yeah, I am still holding out hope that things will get awesome for the Alliance, storywise. I mean, it might not, but I hope it will. At least to be on par.

    But you are right. It is hard to make a heavily established race like the Trolls (even if they are a different tribe with different focus [though we saw some of it with the Zandalari tribe with vanilla ZG]), Trolls still have a cultural theme, as you said. Kul'Tirans, while human, are in a much different and far more secluded state from their Stormwind kin such that culture develops differently. This is pretty standard though in the real world, where fishing villages of, say, the northeast US or southern UK, develop a much different lifestyle and aesthetic than the more "urban" (as much as you can call Stormwind "urban") life. Looking at Boston versus, say, the towns along Cape Cod, and it is plain as day. So I am hoping they can capture that "similar but still unique" aspect in fleshing out the Kul'Tiran culture/society. It would be nice to see a nice human city-sized analogue to something like Booty Bay, but more established/less ram-shackle.

    Really holding high hopes.

    Plus, I look forward to the Kul'tirans as an allied race so I can play a fat guy toon!

  19. #99
    Deleted
    Considering all the Horde focus lead to our leaders dying left and right and regularly alienating their followers, I'd be happy to get some Alliance focus. Who wants to be a raid boss?

  20. #100
    Quote Originally Posted by DeicideUH View Post
    Neither do I, but I do want some minimum level of quality for both sides.

    The problem is not that the Horde storylines are better, with balanced humor, lore, aesthetics and so on.
    The problem is that the Alliance story is far bellow that quality.

    Like I said above: we escort Jaina to Kul Tiras. Why only Jaina? Put a lightforged and a void elf as her bodyguards. Let those characters shine throught the starting experience, as they argue and show their skills as we escape the prison. Instead, we are given two generic humans to escape with us. It's bland and uninspired, and it does not showcase what the faction has. Small changes like that make a whole lot of difference.

    Just like adding a Saurfang-led suicide orc-squad doing stuff in Argus would have made.

    That's my complain.
    I hear you, but Blizzard has decided that the Alliance is the Empire of Man, plus whoever the humans like that day. It sucks because I would like to see more Dwarves, Gnomes, and Night Elves that aren't busy getting their ass kicked, but since Mists it's very clear to me that the Alliance's story is shockingly human (and ex-human)-dominated and Blizzard likes it that way. I consider the Alliance lucky that the Draenei got two expansions to shine, but now it's back to them being forgotten along with the rest of their faction.

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •