Are you content with the faction war overall?

[Itisamuh]

I like the idea of the faction war, but the delivery is usually so bad that it seems pointless. Every time the Horde has a leader dark enough to make them different enough from the Alliance to justify the war, the rest of the Horde rebels against the leader and gets help from the Alliance to overthrow them. If both sides are good then there is no reason for them to be fighting, and any sense of faction identity is long gone thanks to some of the races added over the years.

[Isilrien]

I've never cared for the faction war because the way Blizzard implemented it has been childish. The ability to make choices now is promising to me.

[Skytotem]

I like the idea of the faction war, but the delivery is usually so bad that it seems pointless. Every time the Horde has a leader dark enough to make them different enough from the Alliance to justify the war, the rest of the Horde rebels against the leader and gets help from the Alliance to overthrow them. If both sides are good then there is no reason for them to be fighting, and any sense of faction identity is long gone thanks to some of the races added over the years.

Oh there's plenty of ways to have them fight even while both sides are good, blizz just refuses to allow any nuance

[Niroshi]

I'm over it mostly because Blizzard doesn't really do war well, oddly enough. Nothing really happens unless it involves a few chosen soap opera characters, so there's nothing really to this war and the outcome is going to be status quo. It's a shame because a shake up opens the story for more growth, as the defeat of the Horde in WC2 did and as WC3's entire campaign did. So long as we're always back to square 1 and no consequences are had then who cares what happens?

Editing to add something. If they want the Horde and the Alliance to basically be Vegeta and Goku that's fine, but maybe quit acting like they're mortal enemies when they're really just volatile friends.

[Benedictu]

War? What war? We're all too busy grinding rep to bother about any silly little war.

[matrix123mko]

No, I'm not content with the faction war.

I don't buy into the "Horde leadership is complicit with the Alliance" conspiracy that seems so popular, my dissatisfaction with the faction war storyline hinges on it being almost completely feckless and irredeemably stupid in the face of Azeroth bleeding out due to Sargeras' actions at the end of Legion. Sylvanas' advocacy of war should've immediately had the bulk of the Horde automatically questioning her - and the lead-up arms race around Azerite itself feels almost entirely farcical and contrary to what I would consider even basic sense. The fact that everyone involved in this war seems stupidly arbitrary is, to me, a factor of the foundation for the war itself being built upon sand - the resulting structure (BfA's narrative itself in this case) is always just a few degrees removed from complete collapse.

The worst is the fact that Horde leaders have nothing against nonsensical war but using mass destruction weapons and sleeper agents makes them plot against Sylvanas. As much as defending the world in peace is the most logical solution, if there is war going on, they should accept Sylvanas' methods and try to win the war using any available means.

[nyc81991]

Not at all.

The story is bad with so many plot holes...

[seleri]

A faction war between playable factions has never and will mever have a proper place in an MMO. So nope.

This.

Anyone that was or is hoping for a "proper faction war" expansion is delusional. It's never going to happen in a MMO like WoW. There are many things that have showed this over the years but for BfA in particular it should have been obvious when they said Alliance was going to lose Teldrassil and Horde was going to lose Undercity.

[Nathasil]

No, I'm not content with the faction war.

I don't buy into the "Horde leadership is complicit with the Alliance" conspiracy that seems so popular, my dissatisfaction with the faction war storyline hinges on it being almost completely feckless and irredeemably stupid in the face of Azeroth bleeding out due to Sargeras' actions at the end of Legion. Sylvanas' advocacy of war should've immediately had the bulk of the Horde automatically questioning her - and the lead-up arms race around Azerite itself feels almost entirely farcical and contrary to what I would consider even basic sense. The fact that everyone involved in this war seems stupidly arbitrary is, to me, a factor of the foundation for the war itself being built upon sand - the resulting structure (BfA's narrative itself in this case) is always just a few degrees removed from complete collapse.

What he siad.

Also: They really only used the Teldrassil-Genocide to sell more boxes. They used burning children to sell boxes without ANY intention of taking this conflict seriously or ever actually continuing it in the game. They also created a totally misleading narrative in the Lordaeron cinematic (official BFA intro) that i felt was not really picked up by the expansion at all.

The part of the war most players would have cared for is told in tiny mission-table texts - with half of them being randomly placed in past expansions or even alternate timelines. For no reason.

[Shoggoth]

No, everything they could have made wrong, they did so. And I'm one of those who wanted a (well written) pure faction war expansion.

[Doffen]

No, it's silly in BfA. Way over the top, and makes little sense.

[MatthiasVonTzeskagrad]

What he siad.

Also: They really only used the Teldrassil-Genocide to sell more boxes. They used burning children to sell boxes without ANY intention of taking this conflict seriously or ever actually continuing it in the game. They also created a totally misleading narrative in the Lordaeron cinematic (official BFA intro) that i felt was not really picked up by the expansion at all.

The part of the war most players would have cared for is told in tiny mission-table texts - with half of them being randomly placed in past expansions or even alternate timelines. For no reason.

In past expansions they managed to develop nice secondary characters out of war stories. Cromush, Belmont, Lydon, Crowley, Nazgrim, Taylor, Rogers, people like them were born during war campaigns in both Cataclysm and MoP. And those characters had their specific places and uses, wich meant there were places to other chars to get spotlight as well. Now despite having longer campaigns with heavy faction investment, we have a very small cast of main chars hoarding everything.

[Dellis0991]

No, I'm not content with the faction war.

I don't buy into the "Horde leadership is complicit with the Alliance" conspiracy that seems so popular, my dissatisfaction with the faction war storyline hinges on it being almost completely feckless and irredeemably stupid in the face of Azeroth bleeding out due to Sargeras' actions at the end of Legion. Sylvanas' advocacy of war should've immediately had the bulk of the Horde automatically questioning her - and the lead-up arms race around Azerite itself feels almost entirely farcical and contrary to what I would consider even basic sense. The fact that everyone involved in this war seems stupidly arbitrary is, to me, a factor of the foundation for the war itself being built upon sand - the resulting structure (BfA's narrative itself in this case) is always just a few degrees removed from complete collapse.

Well said, the early on set of Sylvanas declaring war should've end with the rest of the leadership refusing, I damn sure that there had to be a bunch druids and shamans facepalming as she did so. This should've been Baine's moment to not just say no but put his hoof down, I'm damn sure that most of the leadership would've stood with Baine and if her reason was that the Alliance was coming for them then that was a poor excuse considering that Anduin isn't gungho about putting boots to asses unless it threatens everyone.

[Zantos]

Nope. Its completely taken over. Its not even about Azerite at this point. It has so many plot holes and stuff as well.

[Khaza-R]

I like the faction war. I think it helps ground the story after fighting evil Titans and nefarious demon-lords. I even like the Burning of Teldrassil and the Battle of Lordaeron.

My issue with the faction war is that it isn't written to be compelling of its own. Its being used as a plot device to remove Sylvanas. And that's lame. Its lame because instead of having actual grey morality we get everything pinned on a single villain. That's not actually a faction conflict at all since it removes player agency. Its just Sylvanas versus everyone else.

[ohwell]

A lot of it is just nonsensical in the outrage on both sides. "Amg how DARE you bomb our own troops to both kill theirs and stop their advance.....even though said troops were about to get slaughtered anyway".....

[TigTone]

I was looking forward to it a lot but it just seems way to forced.

Also I don’t like how blizzard makes our character basically idiots.

I would say TIGTONE!! is based on wow players.

[Eucep]

If from the start, to us players, it was very very clear that people like Sylvanas were manipulated, the whole poor excuse of the BfA faction war could have been made more workable.

But as someone already mentioned, due to the nature of an mmo, there is no option to let a side win, so any faction war will always feel... stupid. Because it will always end in a stalemate. Weird thing is, this could work if there were three factions so that if one gets pushed down, that the other two will end up focussing on eachother while the one pushed down can rebuild rather then get wiped out.

[Dagoth Ur]

I love the idea of faction war in theory.

It brings faction oriented characters to the forefront which is especially importat Horde side since Blizzard has a strange habit of benching our characters when the major focus is saving the world. It's telling enough that not even one important orc appeared in an expansion where we literally fought their former slavemasters, who were indirectly responsible for destroying their former world. Other important thing I value is how Horde tends to be the proactive one in those, which to me is when the Horde is at its best.

In practice though, mainly due to writers not putting enough effort in fleshing out faction's motivations, not caring about consistency but instead focusing on how to tell a filmsy story with obligatory moral message in the end, they always manage to turn it into a major headache for all parties involved.

Although it pains me to say it, Tides of Darkness still remains the best inacarnation of faction war they pulled off to this day and as for WoW it's probably for the best if they stick to the Legion formula where faction war is a side note to the main plot. Even though not really comparable due to scale and longetivity, Stormheim was a freking masterpiece compared to what we're going through now.

So to answer the OP's question, no I am not content. It's sad though since BfA had all the proper set up it could possibly need to give us a decent, actually morally grey faction war where both sides could actually enjoy that dreaded faction pride.

[MatthiasVonTzeskagrad]

A lot of it is just nonsensical in the outrage on both sides. "Amg how DARE you bomb our own troops to both kill theirs and stop their advance.....even though said troops were about to get slaughtered anyway".....

Fun thing, no one even brings the gassing at Lordaeron, even when it possibly is the only actually morally grey moment when Horde should have really have an argument. Orcs, trolls and Tauren are tribal societies with strong respect to their dead, and thus would be expected to be outraged when their fallen warriors get risen as mindless skeletons, even if Sylvanas would be right to claim was a desperate measure and a preferable a alternative to having the whole army wiped out.

But of course, the Horde, for whatever reason, is not supposed to be any coherent with itself, as everything else, otherwise they won't be able to get to the point where they can say with a straight face "humans good, Anduin better, anything is good only as long as it submits to good Anduin and his good humans".