Alliance Man's Burden

[Furadds]

I couldn't disagree more as an avid Horde player.

I play Horde BECAUSE its the evil monster faction, BECAUSE its savage, brutal, cruel, and "morally grey." The narrative serves to make us "relatable" to the Alliance and force them to work with us and "accept" us long enough while fighting a mutual enemy for a "greater good" (which is the ENTIRE Alliance faction principle, they're the goody-two-shoes faction). This narrative of fake co-op for greater good serves as the best excuse to stab the Alli idoits in the back and twist that dagger deep for trusting us. It's pure natural selection at its core; see Teldrassil, we WRECKED them, slaughtered them to the last, and now they're being raised and WILLINGLY joining us! It's LAUGHABLE how much blizzard simply lets us have our cake and eat it too! It's great to be Horde!

There you go. Typical Old Horde Player vs New Horde Player. Did you play War3 ?

[Lane]

This. From an Alliance point of view, there simply is no possible redemption for the Horde after Teldrassil. The continual insistence of Alliance leaders to not push the strategic advantage is insulting to both the story and the player. I'm tired of the Alliance playing second fiddle to whatever Blizzard decides the Horde is doing next, with the Alliance pausing whenever Horde storytelling requires it. A war story only works when both sides have fangs.

Agreed. The only hope of that is going to come from the NEs and possibly the worgen, although, Genn seems leashed at the moment. Unfortunately, Alliance can't have a victory without Blizzard giving Horde one too so even if the NEs were to go nuclear on the Horde it just means Alliance would still suffer a massive loss elsewhere.

Only thing I can think of is if the NEs get the 'honor' of disposing of Sylvanas. Otherwise, Alliance are at a perpetual -1 throughout BfA because Lordaeron was never a satisfactory victory for Teldrassil.

[Torrasque]

There you go. Typical Old Horde Player vs New Horde Player. Did you play War3 ?

Started with WC2, played WoW since WoW's launch.

[Super Dickmann]

There you go. Typical Old Horde Player vs New Horde Player. Did you play War3 ?

Warcraft 2, actually. 3 works fine in isolation, but the second you split it into two factions you have to bin most of it. Starcraft II had this problem. Everyone holding hands and singing kumbaya doesn't lend itself to a long form narrative where faction conflict will always reappear. That's why both WC2 and the original Starcraft had set up the conflicts between their respective races and explained every match-up and Warcraft 3 had a playable villain faction to fulfill this purpose. Starcraft II did WC3's "oh, everyone was good all along" shtick and subsequently collapsed in terms of having any continuation because it had gutted all sources of conflict.

[Torrasque]

Warcraft 2, actually. 3 works fine in isolation, but the second you split it into two factions you have to bin most of it. Starcraft II had this problem. Everyone holding hands and singing kumbaya doesn't lend itself to a long form narrative where faction conflict will always reappear. That's why both WC2 and the original Starcraft had set up the conflicts between their respective races and explained every match-up and Warcraft 3 had a playable villain faction to fulfill this purpose. Starcraft II did WC3's "oh, everyone was good all along" shtick and subsequently collapsed in terms of having any continuation because it had gutted all sources of conflict.

^ This. Gul'dan and Doomhammer's Horde were the hardcore Horde. Things like capturing Alexstraza and killing her younglings in front of her to force her to breed dragons for our Dragon Roosts, helping the Amani slaughter the Alliance (which unfortunately made Arathor ally with the High Elves, but whatever, we were winning before that.

Mutual "world-ending threat" enemies are garbage and it is the antithesis of a real war.

[Magnagarde]

Making the choice to play Horde, that has a history of bloodthirst (and is even without it a society that highly respects strenght and what it percieves as honor), only to wonder why the faction comes across as bloodthirsty, is just... unreasonable. You then also have the undead in the Horde which are largely cruel and/or gullible with their zealous loyalty and obedience to Sylvanas, but the guy then goes on to wonder why characters come across as gullible?

Then you have the only race within the Horde that is largely infallible and more benevolent than the majority of the Alliance races, the tauren, which get bashed for being who they were and are because they look for peace, negotiations and diplomacy, rather than bloodthirst.

The players who complain about the subjects above clearly picked the wrong faction. They have a problem with their characters coming across as gullible (undead), cruel (undead), bloodthirsty (certain orcish clans), peaceful (tauren) and so on. You will obviously hate everything if you hate a system of diverse races and ideologies.

[Techno-Druid]

^ This. Gul'dan and Doomhammer's Horde were the hardcore Horde. Things like capturing Alexstraza and killing her younglings in front of her to force her to breed dragons for our Dragon Roosts, helping the Amani slaughter the Alliance (which unfortunately made Arathor ally with the High Elves, but whatever, we were winning before that.

Mutual "world-ending threat" enemies are garbage and it is the antithesis of a real war.

Doomhammer basically had to pick up where Gul'dan and Blackhand left off, but it's pretty obvious that Thrall's Horde was closest to what Durotan and subsequently Orgrim wanted, an orcish society based off of shamanism and honor.

[Deleted]

Warcraft 2, actually. 3 works fine in isolation, but the second you split it into two factions you have to bin most of it. Starcraft II had this problem. Everyone holding hands and singing kumbaya doesn't lend itself to a long form narrative where faction conflict will always reappear. That's why both WC2 and the original Starcraft had set up the conflicts between their respective races and explained every match-up and Warcraft 3 had a playable villain faction to fulfill this purpose. Starcraft II did WC3's "oh, everyone was good all along" shtick and subsequently collapsed in terms of having any continuation because it had gutted all sources of conflict.

I started with Warcraft 2, also loved the Day of the Dragon by Knaak and how the Horde was portrayed there.

To this day, there remains a open question of what the Horde truly is, what is its essence, its raison d'etre. It has become a popular sentiment, to portray the Horde as a faction of "Noble savages", yet in my humble opinion, that is a profoundly mistaken view. The Night Elves are the embodiment of "Noble savage" trope, at least they ought to be. If we really stop and examine the cultures and the values of races that make up the Horde, they place value on things such as victory, survival, discipline, endurance, resilience, cunning, self-reliance and conquest. Thrall is just one orc, he did not change the cultures of races that form the Horde.

[Leodok]

My best possible scenario would be Saurfang taking over and then immediately challenging / fighting against the Alliance.
Maybe killing or deposing Sylvannas right before a big battle against Anduin's troops, only to fight it anyway because it's in the best interest of the Horde.

[Zaganite]

Agreed. The only hope of that is going to come from the NEs and possibly the worgen, although, Genn seems leashed at the moment. Unfortunately, Alliance can't have a victory without Blizzard giving Horde one too so even if the NEs were to go nuclear on the Horde it just means Alliance would still suffer a massive loss elsewhere.

Only thing I can think of is if the NEs get the 'honor' of disposing of Sylvanas. Otherwise, Alliance are at a perpetual -1 throughout BfA because Lordaeron was never a satisfactory victory for Teldrassil.

Blizzard wont do that, they will do EXACTLY what they did to Garrosh and give the death to a Horde character. But in honesty, she wont die! theres no way they will kill her off.

It really annoys me that they are making a big song and dance over the whole players get a choice between Saur or Sylv but in honesty its all Horde. The Horde are the first to get this new type of choice in game. What do us Alliance get? Oh right, we get retribution for the NE in the form of a warfront that doesnt have an actual conclusion. The Alliance are getting really shafted so in BfA to the point where I dont even pay attention to the plot anymore because none of it is for us.

[Queen of Hamsters]

The Horde needs the Alliance's help as much as a dog needs a PHD. The Alliance can't give it with Sylvana's, as they said she'd consider Garrosh an amateur. It's up to Saurfang and the Horde itself to help itself.

If we get another cringe-worthy "We will end you" from an Alliance good-boy-leader at the end of BfA as a means to infuse some faction pride into the Alliance, then they can officially retire the faction war.

[Arrashi]

My best possible scenario would be Saurfang taking over and then immediately challenging / fighting against the Alliance.
Maybe killing or deposing Sylvannas right before a big battle against Anduin's troops, only to fight it anyway because it's in the best interest of the Horde.

"Now we can do the same thing as before....but with 1000% more HONOR"

[Alixie]

We'll see how long that lasts.

Due to the nature of warfronts, Darkshore, and by extension, Ashenvale, will never have a conclusive ending. It will always be contested territory being fought over indefinably.

Teldrassil is never coming back. The dragons no longer have the power to bless another tree, making it even more susceptible to corruption. Then there's the fact that everyone now knows that even a magical giant tree burns as easy as anything else. Nobody is going to live on a giant flammable bullseye that can be ignited with a flick of a bic. What's left of the Night Elven empire is over.

[EternalBany]

I have had it with politically and race obcessed idiots
What does the white man`s burden to supposedly civilize and control the "Lesser races" have anything to do with a proud strong fictional horde with fantastic knowledge and honor

[Minikin]

^ This. Gul'dan and Doomhammer's Horde were the hardcore Horde. Things like capturing Alexstraza and killing her younglings in front of her to force her to breed dragons for our Dragon Roosts, helping the Amani slaughter the Alliance (which unfortunately made Arathor ally with the High Elves, but whatever, we were winning before that.

Mutual "world-ending threat" enemies are garbage and it is the antithesis of a real war.

thats fine and all, but this doesnt work completely. blizzard's aim for the horde has been "misunderstood hero, brutal but honorable savage, bound together to survive". yet they have morphed it into this sunday morning cartoon villain.

the problem is not that some horde players want a brutal war of atrition or some want peace. the problem is blizzard saying one thing, then not conducting it. examples?
- Garrosh in stonetalon vs Garrosh in MoP
- Horde in MU vs Horde in AU
- Sylvanas in.....lol theres nothing here. she has always been evil, which is totally fine, but some....errrr....intelligent...posters argue tooth and nail that she isnt.

point it. horde players have to chose one and stick with it. And blizzard has to deliver it.

You cant one second wage a planet wide war, then immediately start hugging and loving moment nzoth appears. But that is an impossibility in a game where paid subscriptions are for both sides.

Thus making a real war a useless endeavor in here, because all that will happen is a few patches of back and forth at the cost of actually fun characters. Sylvanas was setup for failure the moment she started on this "end the alliance" foolishness. Because it simply wont ever happen in the game. Blizzard is not going to go, "sorry night elf hunter xXLegolazXx you cant log in anymore because Sylvanas blew up your faction". Its a waste of time.

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I have had it with politically and race obcessed idiots
What does the white man`s burden to supposedly civilize and control the "Lesser races" have anything to do with a proud strong fictional horde with fantastic knowledge and honor

????? wha?

[EternalBany]

????? wha?

The White Man's Burden' was a poem by Rudyard Kipling, published in 1899. The poem addressed the United States' shift from isolationism, a foreign policy where countries keep to themselves, to imperialism, a foreign policy where countries expand their influence through peace or force.

[Minikin]

The White Man's Burden' was a poem by Rudyard Kipling, published in 1899. The poem addressed the United States' shift from isolationism, a foreign policy where countries keep to themselves, to imperialism, a foreign policy where countries expand their influence through peace or force.

yea i know that but how does that apply here is my confusion

[EternalBany]

yea i know that but how does that apply here is my confusion

that is my question
the original poster had that intent somehow

[Minikin]

that is my question
the original poster had that intent somehow

i dont think he did, but thats my opinion. i believe the OP was fairly bang on in regards to how the alliance feels like an unwilling parent (with golden boy anduin at the head) and the horde this hell raising child that just wants to have sex, do drugs and party. not exclusively in that order.

[Pachycrocuta]

The idea of Thrall coming back is so fucking annoying. I guess the Horde can't competently exist without Metzen's self-insert leading the way.

Honestly, Metzen's self-insert Green Jesus was so much better than the Lead Story Designer guy's (I think that's who it is?) self-insert (Nathanos) and his raging boner for undead waifu (Sylvanas).