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  1. #21
    The cold war status from classic, tbc and wotlk was working well. It allowed for proxy wars (battlegrounds and new expansion zones) while avoiding an all out war that neither side can win for game play reasons and therefore will only result in dissatisfied players on both sides.

  2. #22
    The factions and the conflict between them is fine as long as it isn't the only thing driving the plot. That's the point of having two factions in a MMO. To have two points of view, two methods of approaching a problem, and another competitor in a hypothetical race to a defined goal. But when you make the faction war the ONLY plot point you're not moving the overall story forward. Blizzard basically stopped the race towards a goal to have its two sides have a fist fight in the middle of the road.

    And this fist fight is already predetermined to NOT have a clear winner due to the faction balance that Blizzard must maintain to not alienate one side or the other.

    So the whole exercise becomes a pointless run on a hamster wheel for a major portion of an expansion.

  3. #23
    Does anyone else feel like the faction war doesn't work because the desires of the fanbases are just incompatible?

    Like, if the Alliance fantasy is standard knight-in-shining-armor that acts a paragon or virtue, honor, flawlessness and tolerance, wel then how do you write anything but a good vs evil conflict?

    It's one thing for Anduin to be like this, but it seems his lawful good mary sue perfection has infected the entire Alliance right now.

    I just don't know how you can do a satisfying faction war like this.

  4. #24
    Quote Originally Posted by DemonHunter18 View Post
    so much this.
    Second this.

    Nobody gave a shit about Orcs vs. Humans.

    Bring in The Burning Legion and The Frozen Throne (Scourge), and it blew up into a beast, only for them to go back to their least popular story concept because "that's what the player base wants."

  5. #25
    The lore progression being based off warcraft 1 2 and 3 made wow a bad spot for an mmo.

    The fact that nothing will "meaningfully" change until warcraft 4 comes out is the real problem.

  6. #26
    Quote Originally Posted by Kyphael View Post
    Second this.

    Nobody gave a shit about Orcs vs. Humans.

    Bring in The Burning Legion and The Frozen Throne (Scourge), and it blew up into a beast, only for them to go back to their least popular story concept because "that's what the player base wants."
    I mean, I do think a non-trivial portion of the fanbase absolutely loves red vs blue sutff. This is why we get more threads and discussions on faction content than old god content, for example.

    Pixel tribalism can be a bit of a drug.

  7. #27
    The Unstoppable Force Granyala's Avatar
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    Faction war is idiotic because storytellers have their hands bound, so nothing of dire consequence will ever happen (like one race no longer being playable or changing allegiance) and it will never be resolved.

    The nuking of Darnassus is pretty much as far as they can possibly go.

  8. #28
    Quote Originally Posted by prwraith View Post
    The lore progression being based off warcraft 1 2 and 3 made wow a bad spot for an mmo.

    The fact that nothing will "meaningfully" change until warcraft 4 comes out is the real problem.
    What do you mean be meaningful change? Faction alignments?

    Because we've seen some meaningful change in the sense that towns, cities and even entire zones have been conquered/destroyed.

  9. #29
    Epic! Whitedragon's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Koraggar View Post
    Does anyone else feel like the faction war doesn't work because the desires of the fanbases are just incompatible?

    Like, if the Alliance fantasy is standard knight-in-shining-armor that acts a paragon or virtue, honor, flawlessness and tolerance, wel then how do you write anything but a good vs evil conflict?

    It's one thing for Anduin to be like this, but it seems his lawful good mary sue perfection has infected the entire Alliance right now.

    I just don't know how you can do a satisfying faction war like this.
    It's not that Anduin changed anything, I (and many other Alliance players) always liked playing a nice guy, I never got into being a THEY ALL MUST BURN! mentality.

    Small little clashes are fine, but yo'll have a hard time convincing me that the Tuaren need to die, or that a Troll cant be loved. I don't mind punishing evil but the other faction isn't evil...

    Hell at this point I would guess over 75% if the player base has at least 1 toon on both sides, and I myself have over 14 level 90+ horde toons.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Koraggar View Post
    I mean, I do think a non-trivial portion of the fanbase absolutely loves red vs blue sutff. This is why we get more threads and discussions on faction content than old god content, for example.

    Pixel tribalism can be a bit of a drug.
    Depends on the expansion, before BfA it was Genn did a bad! No Sylvanas did a worse! or who would win in a fight if (Rule).

  10. #30
    Quote Originally Posted by Whitedragon View Post
    It's not that Anduin changed anything
    Disagree. It may not have changed anything for the playerbase, but it sure as hell changed Blizzard's writing. Even in Cata the Alliance wasn't this crammed into the top left of the alignment chart.

  11. #31
    Faction war in WoW is not really a good thing anymore. It is outdated and feels forced.

    The stalemate won't produce anything meaningful and more importantly, there is no way everyone can be happy within a group of friends. The reason for that is the fact that it is impossible for everyone's favourite race to be in the same faction, not to mention people having different faction preferences to begin with.

    Personally, I hope Sylvanas will pass the Warchief mantle and her schemes eventually lead to a more serious arc that totally diminishes the faction conflict.

    Oh and I do hope that her getting Xalatath means that a potential Dark Ranger class will feature Void powers.

  12. #32
    People talk about how the faction war is unsatisfying because it can't ever get a true conclusion, but isn't that kinda true for all of Blizzard's villains? Hell even the Legion isn't actually defeated. Sargeras is still out there. They always leave their antagonists a window to come back if they need it.

  13. #33
    Without the faction war what is there? A bunch of races that hate each other teaming up every expansion to fight another big bad (that can never beat us anyway)? For me it’s always been the most entertaining aspect of WoW’s story. Would’ve been better if they added a third Scourge faction from the get go, though. DAoC style.

  14. #34
    The Lightbringer Minikin's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by sam86 View Post
    for short term no
    but after 14 years of 'faction war' that we know will never have winner, it is getting boring
    this.

    it is a good story, but as time passes by and boundaries blur it loses its meaning. besides nothing is more annoying than pre teen faction die hards in a game that cant have winners.
    Blood Elves were based on a STRONG request from a poll of Asian players where many remarked on the Horde side that they and their girlfriends wanted a non-creepy femme race to play (Source)

  15. #35
    Epic! Whitedragon's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Koraggar View Post
    Disagree. It may not have changed anything for the playerbase, but it sure as hell changed Blizzard's writing. Even in Cata the Alliance wasn't this crammed into the top left of the alignment chart.
    Ok lets take a look

    Vanilla: A few places here and their where some butting of ends happen, some of it misunderstanding, some of it greed, almost none for outright hate. conversely the factions do help one another as well and form a unified front during AQ, and Nax.

    BC: The factions actually start this once again as a combined front, later on the 2 populaceses with the most grievances towards each other end up forgiving each other by the end and make a unified front to retaking the Sunwell.

    WotLK: This is the first one that shows some actual strife (Completely steaming from Varian Alliance side), with a few big moments of clashing, but still some grate moments of coming together.

    Cata: The first real open war we had. We do see some figures added that push the strife but in the end we still end on the note of coming together. Alliance side Varian is starting to calm down, but we get Gen who is revenge driven after Horde invade his lands and kill his son, and Jaina is forced to take part in the war, but dose help Baine retake his city.

    MoP: Starts off with a bang.... and brings the war to a boil. Jaina Goes full on hate for the horde erly on but calms down later.... to eventually go back to hate when Horde agents betray Dalarans neutrality, Varian continues his growth, and his son is an acting peacemaker. Gen doesn't do much here but we can assume hes in mostly the same place. By the end Alliance member help a rebellion retake control the Horde for it's honorable members.

    WoD: Alliance And Horde rebuild a fragile peace after SoO, some butting of heads takes place in Trash... I mean Ashran, but nothing major. They both are seen working together to stop the Iron Horde throughout.

    Legion: starts on a peaceful note, but due to a misunderstand, Gen gets his rage back, and attacks forsaken forces in SH, Jaina leaves Alliance for a small time because he wont launch an attack horde side. not much else happens HvA

    BfA: Starts off with H and A going for a new substance that is both powerful and dangerous. Jaina starts to make inner peace and expels some of her inner rage, still doesn't like horde, but at least doesn't hate them. Gen after seeing that forsaken aren't all evil starts to sympathies with them somewhat, but after Sylvanas butchers her own people concludes that she at lest needs to go, Anduin after the destruction of the tree comes to the same conclusion. The Nightelves having lost their land are quite mad, although the extent of their rage towards individual horde races is as of yet unknown.

    Final thoughts: since WotLK Alliance has always had a few pro war advocates but they are usually overtaken by the peace makers. the one exception is BfA where even Anduin is split (admittedly BfA isn't done so we can't say for certain)

  16. #36
    Quote Originally Posted by Whitedragon View Post
    snip

    I'm confused as to what this post is trying to say? In the past we've had some morally gray or evil acts from the Alliance -- particularly from WC3 - Cata. In BfA we've seen none of it. I've never seen anything to tediously noblebright in WoW before. And it's because of Anduin.

  17. #37
    Deleted
    It's getting boring especially after facing multiple threats together. I wish they would go Warhammer route for the future expansions and introduce Death, Void and Light factions.

  18. #38
    Deleted
    I don't think that made it a poor universe. What makes it a poor universe is spinning the same story for years and years. For example how the story is now in the exact same spot as it was in Pandaland. Evil warchief takes over, brings war, someone plans to throw him off .. I mean come the fuck on, seriously, imagination is really dead.

  19. #39
    Deleted
    No. SWTOR is all about faction war and its story has been mostly great.To me, the big bads have always been the weakest part of WoW lore. Mostly because they are super unoriginal. Old Gods are just Lovercraft rip-offs, Light vs. Void is something straight out of crappy Star Wars EU novel.
    Last edited by mmocde15d96b6b; 2018-11-05 at 10:43 AM.

  20. #40
    SWTOR doesn't divide its factions by race, though. Nor does FF14. It not so much that WoW has a faction war backdrop, it's that the backdrop is a blatant race war and the writing staff can't, and has never been able to, do realistic racism in the story. Varian's spat with Thrall in Undercity was about the closest they ever got, and that made them feel so dirty that they had to banish him to the novels, rewrite him into an out of touch baby boomer, and then kill him off. When they attempt to address it, it makes the characters come off as laughable. Lor'themar railing about "racist humans" due to the actions of Vereesa's elves while he paints Stormwind with the brush he should be using on the Forsaken is comical in its absurdity.

    In fact the writers have given ample reason for every race to write off the Forsaken and Orcs, and basically none for why the Horde races should continue to hate on the Alliance-branded punching bag that never hits back in any meaningful capacity. This is exemplified by the upcoming raid where Alliance "aggression" is merely used to sweep aside obstacles to Talanji's reign, then when Sylvanas is actually on the back foot for once, Anduin suddenly gets cold feet, because once again, one whole side of the race war doesn't want it, and in the mean time the other side will continue to pursue it in defiance of all prior characterization and logic. It's pants on head stupid.
    OMG 13:37 - Then Jesus said to His disciples, "Cleave unto me, and I shall grant to thee the blessing of eternal salvation."

    And His disciples said unto Him, "Can we get Kings instead?"

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