Horde Identity - what's the big deal.

[Enosh]

If the Horde is just the evil faction it only exists to get knocked down by the hero. That's inherently problematic don't you think? Besides most lore written for them and about them since Warcraft 3 has been in the "struggling to be better than yesterday despite constant mistakes" department and that doesn't work with evil factions.
The evil Horde is the least interesting Horde they could possibly write.

when the fuck has this ever happened
the Horde being evil or not has fuck all to do with them winning or not, the Empire in swtor wins plenty

[owbu]

I had no problem with MoPs version of turning us evil (I even would have been okay with staying evil and not doing the whole revolution thing). It was set up well over multiple xpacs and Ion wasn't telling anyone that we arent seeing what we are seeing.

What I dont like is the story not going anywhere. We were the good guys with some issues. We dealt with those issues (Sieges of UC/OG). And then, instead of writing a story about how we are dealing with getting our capitols razed and where we go from there we do time travel, learn about the power of classy friendship and then turn around and follow the next genocidal maniac who got elected by a deus ex machina plot twist.

It's just killing all sense of progression or flow. So now it feels like we are going nowhere and every new expansion is the devs rolling the dice to see wether the horde gets to wear the friendship hat or the deatheater hat.

Which tbf is sort of better than having no progression because the story just goes: well..you guys are the alliance. You stand over there and be all lighty and so on. HF. So there is that ...

[Asdfywea]

currently i think there is shit we don't know about that will make some sylvanas shit not as bad as it seems now (not the tree, i don't think they'll justify that) but, starting the war... i think vol¿jin became a loa, and i think he and sylvanas, are somehow in touch, it's just sylvanas knows some shit she hasn't said to anyone. could be wrong though, and i'm not that much of a syl fan anyway so don't care that much

[Deleted]

WoW's story was originally similar to 'Small Soldiers'. In that the horde were a group of deformed weirdos who just kinda wanted to find a place to live isolated from aggressive Alliance foreign politics. while the alliance love using the events of Warcraft 1 and 2 as if LITERAL DEMONIC ENSLAVEMENT, doesn't change the entire situation. Could you imagine how the view of the average Nazi solider would change with the addition of ACTUAL REAL LIFE DEMONS, controlling their people.

Then around mist's everything started changing from a narrative perspective, Garrosh was suddenly a Hitler analogue as opposed to the mini saurfang cata set him up to be, the kor'kron became the SS and vol'jin got the middle finger. This whole sylvanas thing is making the horde player base have a collective "where'd my horde go?" for the second time. I mean yeah fucking with garrosh's character during mist might have seemed like a small thing. But, it kind of created this weird timeline that really shouldn't have existed.

Honestly I think the real issue is a pointless point scoring exercise that the faction player bases have against each other. you know the tedious crap we see on a daily bases "Horde bias confirmed" over mount's they still get access to and quest's they subjectively think are cooler. I mean I could argue the same thing based on historical precedence, i'm pretty sure more of the rare drop mounts are horde racial mounts than alliance ones, including a rated PvP mount, new players can still get your death wheel equivalent. A really good recent example is that whole business with the EU honour bound emissary rewarding weapons, the system is entirely RNG and has always been between the continental server regions. But, for some reason they decided to claim it's unfair because they didn't win the lottery. objectively the only people this would be unfair for are the world first players but they're all decked out in full mythic dungeon gear on 2-3 characters by now.

The simple truth is people with people only accept the reality they want to perceive. except the average player that doesn't keep up with the supplementary lore.
They're basically a parent dealing with one of those kid sections in IKEA intentionally spaced around the store to induce tantrums so you'll make worse decisions and buy a plush snake and the more expensive sofa that's more prominently displayed.

[sillag]

one of the many problems with horde identity atm is the story being told isn't being allowed to flow organically.

based on the factions and characters and history we've played through, we know some simple things. like, if the horde's untrustworthy warchief committed a surprise genocide for poorly explained reasons, the horde should react much like they did last time the same thing happened, with a rebellion or at least some unrest. but blizzard doesn't want the story to be like that, so they just don't have it happen, even though everyone knows it should. and this dissonance is what kills the story for old school horde fans.

it's impossible to see where your player character should fit in the horde unless you're just a murderhobo. based on your past interactions with saurfang in borean tundra you'd imagine yourself siding with saurfang, but you aren't allowed to. based on your experience as part of vol'jin's rebellion you'd expect to hear rumblings of something similar with baine who was part of the rebellion. but nothing happens. the entire horde is shown to be behind sylvanas except saurfang who left the horde.

so if your player character doesn't fit in the game what are you supposed to do. you'll just have an unpleasant feeling of dissonance as you go through the story.

sure it's blizzard's choice to write whatever story they want. but the story in bfa attempts to ignore all preceeding developmet to remake warcraft 2 with the current cast and it just doesn't work to anyone paying attention. this is what is known as "bad writing" i'm afraid.

[bufferunderrun]

The horde is not a monolithic entity like the alliance it cover all the shade with tauren being the most good and the forsaken being the evil.

That was true under thrall rule that also was the best because it didn’t butt much inside other races affair.

The role of warchief under him was more that of the head of a council than an iron ruler it had become with garrosh.

[Super Dickmann]

based on the factions and characters and history we've played through, we know some simple things. like, if the horde's untrustworthy warchief committed a surprise genocide for poorly explained reasons, the horde should react much like they did last time the same thing happened, with a rebellion or at least some unrest. but blizzard doesn't want the story to be like that, so they just don't have it happen, even though everyone knows it should. and this dissonance is what kills the story for old school horde fans.

>WC3
>Old School
That aside, the Horde also followed along after Theramore, which mind you was basically conventional warfare not requiring justification. No one turned on Garrosh on that basis except a bunch of never referenced side characters and Vol'jin, who was already against him. Baine followed along reluctantly up until 5.3 and the blood elves and goblins were all on board until he fucked them over specifically, not out of moral considerations. The Forsaken also didn't give a fuck.

Everyone knowing it should is just in the minds of people who buy that the 'lolhonorable' Horde was anything other than Thrall's wet dream. The New Horde he built was made on the shakiest foundation imaginable, planted in a wasteland to justify his green guilt yet lionizing Kargath, Orgrim and Grommash who were all pro-war with or without the blood as we can see again in WoD. He allowed warlocks to do their thing under Orgrimmar, exercised zero oversight over the Forsaken and later the blood elves and his last act was to accept the goblins who are lead by a slaver.

it's impossible to see where your player character should fit in the horde unless you're just a murderhobo. based on your past interactions with saurfang in borean tundra you'd imagine yourself siding with saurfang, but you aren't allowed to. based on your experience as part of vol'jin's rebellion you'd expect to hear rumblings of something similar with baine who was part of the rebellion. but nothing happens. the entire horde is shown to be behind sylvanas except saurfang who left the horde.

Your interactions with Saurfang in the Borean Tundra amount to one quest and later him sending you a friendly message that gets you blackmailed by one of the Kor'kron. The majority of the Horde we see as part of the Warsong Offensive are in the style of Cata and later Mists and after that Legion because Saurfang represents a minority. The new generation of orcs do not have Saurfang or Thrall's guilt, the trolls and tauren are too miniscule to do much on their own and the goblins, Forsaken and blood elves do not care about honor and never have, they joined out of convenience and profit.

If you were to have rolled a Forsaken or goblin at any time, an orc circa Cataclysm, a blood elf circa TBC, you would experience none of the dissonance involved. It exists only if you accept that Thrall represented the majority of the Horde's morality and opinion which was bunk as far back as Vanilla.

What won't work is when we're once again beaten over the head with how the Horde is the good guys once they ditch Sylvanas and install some pansy as Warchief, despite it being even more unconvincing than it was with Garrosh.

[tikcol]

I don't give two shits about this morality thing between the factions. That's probably why it's so painful to see so many people care. It's just stupid.

[Deleted]

In the end, the problem is that because of the way the world has been built up since Warcraft 3 with all these world/universe-ending big bads the mortal races need to band together against, the faction conflict just doesn't make sense anymore, and they constantly need to switch out Horde leadership with warmongering villains to make it work.

Thrall? Can't write a war with that, let's switch him with Garrosh. Vol'jin? Can't write a war with that, let's kill him off let him make Sylvanas Warchief with his dying breath.

[Feanoro]

The horde is not a monolithic entity like the alliance

Alliance is supposed to be just that, a collection of allies working for common cause. The Horde is supposed to be a monolithic entity under a military dictator (warchief). Since they don't give a shit about Alliance leaders, it became easier to write Blue Warchief and Red Council so they could develop the characters they actually care about.

[Beloren]

I am all for the Horde being evil rather than continually trying and failing to bring back to the noblesavage nonsense that's both run its course and is impossible now that we're up to four races that just don't gel with it at all (Goblins, Forsaken, Blood Elves, Nightborne). But Blizzard have done themselves no favours by pretending there's moral equivalency between Alliance and Horde.

This. So this. They should do away with factions as the main identity and switch it to races. Makes more sense, faction being a very loose affiliation - largely used when one race needs to press in an ally and calls on old allegiances.

At the moment it is a 2 side story only, they should try making it a race story instead. I imagine some races in the umbrella faction would hang out more together than others. But that is how it goes. Example. Goblins and forsaken would largely be on their own do their own thing, blood elves and nightborne thick as thieves together. Orcs chilling with trolls and Tauren, but the addition of Zandalari, Highmountain and mag’har really allow each of these to be quite independent too and allow each group to have their own worlds.

Tauren world, orc world, Night world , Thalassian world, undead world etc. And yes there are cross overs as per each group needs or their story leads.

I would love expansion 9 to kick off with every race in their capital, those who have none or share will off course start off with getting theirs - Goblins reclaiming Kezan for example, how the dark spears get to be amongst the zandalari too etc. First five levels is like the first 10 levels, entirely focused on your race and the races it relates too both on your faction and the other - your capital serves as your races campaign hub, and your races recent troubles at home, around the world and interest in the new continents as per their story dictates, then last 5 levels and max levels get you involved in someone else’s stuff.

It is an expansion targeted at boosting races, giving everyone something to be proud of. Some will obviously have more than others, especially those we have heard less of and those who’ve suffered a lot like the Forsaken, but hey,

[steelballfc]

when the fuck has this ever happened
the Horde being evil or not has fuck all to do with them winning or not, the Empire in swtor wins plenty

they can win battles but not the war.

[Soeroah]

It's a big deal because people joined a faction, built up a concept of what its values were for years only for Blizzard to come in and go lol nah you're the bad guys now.

The pandaren factions honestly should be what the factions as a whole represent, not the "aggressor vs reactor" we have, but an "action vs forethought" approach to solving the same problems.

[mysticx]

The horde is not a monolithic entity like the alliance it cover all the shade with tauren being the most good and the forsaken being the evil.

That was true under thrall rule that also was the best because it didn’t butt much inside other races affair.

Too bad the story doesn’t really bear that out, currently it’s just Sylvanas screaming “Genocide”, and all Horde races, Tauren, blood elves and all asking “Which race?”, so to all intents and purposes, the Horde is a monolithic entity...

The Alliance is the same BTW, with us all shackled to the nauseating peacenik tendencies of Anduin, which is probably as galling to Alliance players as the “You’re arrows in Sylvanas’ quiver of evil now, get used to it”-thing is for the Horde players.

[Kwento]

I started playing the Horde because I liked the aesthetics of honorable, shamanistic society. I liked the feeling of being an underdog, trying to survive the hostile lands of Kalimdor. I liked those wise, awesome characters who led my faction.
I didn’t really care much about the Forsaken, since I haven’t been as deep into lore (I felt so much better then...) then I am now. While these days I can outright say that these walking corpses do not fit the Horde themes, back then I just saw them as a different faction and that view point was supported by quests.

Now I have to scramble in the ruins of four different warchiefs to find a semblance of the honorable shamanistic society. I do feel like an underdog mainly because Legion was so Alliance centric that it was hard not to. And I have to look at the roster of those weirdoes that are now leading my faction and wonder how did it come to this...

I wouldn’t have cared if the Horde was portrayed as bad guys since day one. I wouldn’t have cared even if the Horde suddenly changed from Warcraft III Thrall Horde to some new demonic corrupted Horde in Vanilla. But Blizzard didn’t do it this way... We are continuously jumping from being evil to being good to being evil to being good again and again and again! It’s frustrating and nonsensical!

[Faerillis]

I don't give two shits about this morality thing between the factions. That's probably why it's so painful to see so many people care. It's just stupid.

I don't like this content so NO ONE SHOULD LIKE THIS CONTENT! Piss off.

To the rest of this thread? The reason you don't see a problem with it is largely because what you want is the blandest, most tried-and-true story; which makes a lot of sense since the example that made you question why people take issue with it is Star Wars. Star Wars has the most laughably generic world-building imaginable, everything is diametrically opposed with one side definitely right and one side definitely wrong and nothing approaching cultures or moral dilemmas (except where Bioware was brought in because that's Bioware's thing) — which is great if you want to make short enjoyable movies like what the franchise is built around, since you don't have to build any ground work.

I don't want that. In fact I know very few interesting people who would want that. The very foundation of WoW's Horde was to get to play as the races almost always pigeon-holed as evil, while actually being culturally diverse and actually interesting as a group. The fact that on one side you had the people who were always the "Good Guys", the Generic White European fantasy races, who were kinda overbearing but still good-in-general and the other side as an actually cultural distinct and diverse group that was definitely on the side of good but would sometimes use tactics that more "civilized" people turned their noses up at, was/is a huge part of WoW's appeal.

[drbatman]

what is so bad about the horde's current identity that everyone is moaning about?

the whole burning down teladrissil for NO reason and in turn putting THEMSELVES in danger, how about that?


Nobody has a problem with the horde being 'the bad guys' but... we we ALL want them to be the bad guys for the right reasons. Not bcuz slyvannas forgets to change her tampon for 4 weeks and has a hissy fit.

[Deleted]

Or they should have showed Thrall's case as failure and keep with "Old Horde" narrative.

Well, they sort of did. The moment Thrall turned his back, the Horde fell back to its old ways. And under Sylvanas things got even worse. As if Garrosh the Nazi wasn't bad enough, Sylvanas is at odds with life itself and doesn't hesitate to use her chemical WMD's even against her own troops.

And Orcs? They keep beating their chests and boasting about their "honor", while you can count the genuinely honorable Orcs with one hand's fingers.

[Deleted]

Because the Horde being evil is 180 turn on the entire Horde storyline up until this point. We literally had the storyline about the Horde being the villains and the rest of the Horde rebel.

The Empire always was Evil from day one

[Deleted]

I started playing the Horde because I liked the aesthetics of honorable, shamanistic society. I liked the feeling of being an underdog, trying to survive the hostile lands of Kalimdor. I liked those wise, awesome characters who led my faction.
I didn’t really care much about the Forsaken, since I haven’t been as deep into lore (I felt so much better then...) then I am now. While these days I can outright say that these walking corpses do not fit the Horde themes, back then I just saw them as a different faction and that view point was supported by quests.

Now I have to scramble in the ruins of four different warchiefs to find a semblance of the honorable shamanistic society. I do feel like an underdog mainly because Legion was so Alliance centric that it was hard not to. And I have to look at the roster of those weirdoes that are now leading my faction and wonder how did it come to this...

I wouldn’t have cared if the Horde was portrayed as bad guys since day one. I wouldn’t have cared even if the Horde suddenly changed from Warcraft III Thrall Horde to some new demonic corrupted Horde in Vanilla. But Blizzard didn’t do it this way... We are continuously jumping from being evil to being good to being evil to being good again and again and again! It’s frustrating and nonsensical!

^^ this pretty much.
Its still a role-playing game, and its hard to define your character, when you are helping to cleanse the earth and cooperate with alliance, and few minutes later you are spraying some toxic shit to their faces.
Or following Sylvanas after teldrassil as druid or shammy feels really weird.

At least Magni still loves my undead warlock