Why does Blizzard always backpeddle on Alliance vs Horde?

[owbu]

Because it's high fantasy, so morally grey is out and it's an mmo, so having one half of the players be the bad guys who lose is out.

And seeing how terrible they are at writing anything more complex than high fantasy soap, I think tropes and power fantasy fulfillment is all we can hope to get out of this story.

[Moozart]

We saw some battles in Cataclysm, but nothing serious happened. Shit started heating up in MoP, which was good, but then Garrosh went insane and we all became friends to defeat him.

Now it's BfA, the battle for Azeroth, and they started good. But once again we're at the same point, Horde leader is evil and we're all friends again to defeat her.

You know what the problem is, right? All the fucking Horde leaders at their core are written to be friendly to Alliance. The Alliance's "king" is a peace loving shithead.

Thrall has always been a pussy, diplomacy first. Lor'themar never gave a shit either way, as long as his own people were doing well. Baine has been cocksucking Anduin from the day of his conception. Gallywix is Gallywix. Saurfang fucking loves the Alliance, until someone shouts FOR THE HORDE, then he goes roaring into battle, but then the next day he regrets his dishonorable deeds and wants to say sorry to the Alliance.

I don't understand why we can't just fucking hate each other. Take a note from Greymane. The Alliance and the Horde have such a long history of strife. How do we always end up becoming friends again to defeat some big bad?

Its this thought process that makes it so our real world never works, everyone want to fight all the time. WoW mimics our world , most of the dangers Azeroth is going to face are FAR larger than our little world, without us working together we wont win. Same can be said with us as people. IF we cant ever fully get along how the hell are we going to because a respectable space fairing world. The theory in Star Trek was a good one in that the earth after its last world war had to come together as 1 people to survive, and is what helped them advance FAR faster in technology and ultimatly to space to become a full on Beacon of light to everyone else. It may be fiction but the theory is still sound.

There will be plenty of "Wars" to fight in Warcraft... they just do NOT have to be against each other. battlegrounds/PvP have been so far removed from the rest of Warcraft that they for the most part exist outside of canon lore. I think its high time the piddly Horde/Ally spats finally come to an end, both sides are stronger together, the back and forth is getting old. We are at the point where we need to squash the beefs and benefit from it.

[Aurrora]

Because it doesn't make sense for the Horde and Alliance to keep trying to fight each other when every 6 months to a year they have to join together to fight the latest existential threat.

And if they tried to make the faction war the "War" in World of Warcraft we would have a neverending string of Dazar'alor raids.

[Daevied]

Factions should have been ended when ICC went live, the Lich King was the big bad that threatened every race and we needed the champions from all over azeroth to deal with him. I remember expecting to raid alongside alliance when icc was announced, i was so naive lol

[Onikaroshi]

Because Faction wars are pointless in an MMO, neither side can win.

[Cosmic Janitor]

Yeah, it's a pretty damn shame. Jainas arc made sense to why she would be angry and hate the horde... but instantly flip flop to lets be buddies again -.-

Instantly? It took her 3.5 expansions and a massive story focus on her character for the last 0.5 years!

As for the answer to the thread: Because it makes no sense so long as there is a PvE content in WoW, especially not on the scale the story of warcraft operates. If you fight world and universe ending threats, being pissed towards someone else because they took some lumber from you or a different ruler 30 years ago did not respond fast enough to your plea for help. You also can't have either side actually win without driving off large chunks of the losing side as your customers. And unlike most wow players in basements, actual people and even shitty written characters in fiction usually put their own survival above pointless hate towards their perceived "enemies".

[Nfinitii]

We saw some battles in Cataclysm, but nothing serious happened. Shit started heating up in MoP, which was good, but then Garrosh went insane and we all became friends to defeat him.

Now it's BfA, the battle for Azeroth, and they started good. But once again we're at the same point, Horde leader is evil and we're all friends again to defeat her.

You know what the problem is, right? All the fucking Horde leaders at their core are written to be friendly to Alliance. The Alliance's "king" is a peace loving shithead.

Thrall has always been a pussy, diplomacy first. Lor'themar never gave a shit either way, as long as his own people were doing well. Baine has been cocksucking Anduin from the day of his conception. Gallywix is Gallywix. Saurfang fucking loves the Alliance, until someone shouts FOR THE HORDE, then he goes roaring into battle, but then the next day he regrets his dishonorable deeds and wants to say sorry to the Alliance.

I don't understand why we can't just fucking hate each other. Take a note from Greymane. The Alliance and the Horde have such a long history of strife. How do we always end up becoming friends again to defeat some big bad?

Have u played any of the games? It’s the entire premise of the universe. It’s always been about horde vs alliance and uniting against the greater evil. But the underlying issues and hatred r nvr rectified.

[JustRob]

Have u played any of the games? It’s the entire premise of the universe. It’s always been about horde vs alliance and uniting against the greater evil. But the underlying issues and hatred r nvr rectified.

My problem is that for two expansions now that greater evil has been the Horde leader.

Man, they wasted SO much potential with Garrosh. If only they had not made him go fucking crazy, he would have been the most badass warchief ever. Fucking hated the Alliance and would take every opportunity to fuck them over, but not like a coward. Until Theramore, it all went downhill from there. Such a fucking waste.

[iamthedevil]

Blizzard should hire D&D from Game of Thrones and just get this over with.

[Cosmic Janitor]

Because it's high fantasy, so morally grey is out and it's an mmo, so having one half of the players be the bad guys who lose is out.

And seeing how terrible they are at writing anything more complex than high fantasy soap, I think tropes and power fantasy fulfillment is all we can hope to get out of this story.

I disagree with the MMO part. You can actually foster RP that has one faction actually play just as flat out evil, be it lawful, neutral or even chaotic. The issue only arises when you write your evil faction in a way that it constantly flip-flops between chaotic good and chaotic evil. It's just bound to fail when you try to make your faction the noble savages in one moment and the raving murder hobos the next.

Edit: That still doesn't solve the winning part, but that is usually rectified by simply not having the core territory be a reasonable target. The issue here is that we constantly fuck with the capital city of the opposing faction in WoW, especially stormwind is guilty of being the number one raid-location in lore.

[Garymorilix]

I'm guessing that the latest scene is what is getting scrutiny:

The fundamental flaw with this cinematic is that it talks about Alliance & Horde while having no Horde characters in it.

Thrall abandoned many moons ago.
Saurfang abandoned recently.
Baine abandoned very recently.
Jaina and Shaw are Alliance.

And you could bring up the Vol'jin revolution argument in MoP but you miss out one very important detail between Sylvanas and Garrosh:
Sylvanas actually cares about the Horde (or it just lines up with her plans but we don't know that yet), while Garrosh actively tried to ruin it:
He put goblins in slums and worked them like slaves.
He only accepted the Pandaren after they survived his arena.
He banished the trolls.
He only kept tauren around for physical strength, but then abandoned them anyway.
He ordered the forsaken to conquer the EK hoping they would fail and die out.

Sylvanas on the other hand shows no sign of hatred towards fellow Horde unless they are traitors. Which they are by definition. And they don't have a real reason to rebel as they are not being oppressed in any form like Vol'Jin and the rest of the horde was during Garrosh. They rebel because "we'd win the war once and for all but muh honor". They literally care more bout the other faction than their own people.

These characters has no right story-wise to decide the future of the Horde they are not even part of.

[Nfinitii]

My problem is that for two expansions now that greater evil has been the Horde leader.

Man, they wasted SO much potential with Garrosh. If only they had not made him go fucking crazy, he would have been the most badass warchief ever. Fucking hated the Alliance and would take every opportunity to fuck them over, but not like a coward. Until Theramore, it all went downhill from there. Such a fucking waste.

I never liked garrosh, they should have never done his story arc or any of wod.

But it’s a video game, I don’t expect the most engaging story telling from a video game.

[Goldielocks]

These characters has no right story-wise to decide the future of the Horde they are not even part of.

Not sure what you mean. These characters are going to take back the Horde from Sylvanas and make the decisions. It happened during MoP and it's going to happen again.

But it’s a video game, I don’t expect the most engaging story telling from a video game.

????????????

A lot of single player games have great narratives

[Aeula]

Bad writing combined with Blizzard not knowing what they want to do with the setting besides milk it with easily marketable characters.

They’ve done all they can to kill faction pride in BfA and soon Alliance and Red Alliance will stand side by side against what’s left of the real Horde.

Unless they decide to have Tyrande split off from Anduin’s group to become Thunder Bluff’s first burger flipper. But that’s unlikely.

Hopefully Sylvanas loyalists will be able to grab a steak or too before it’s all over. I’m sick and tired of ‘playing along’.

[Prokne]

Alliance vs Horde always falls through because most people find it boring and overdone, and it makes no sense when both sides are constantly trying to fight the same enemy. Also no one wants to lose and if you had full total faction vs faction one would have to lose and one would get to win. Or neither would win or lose and it would be all for nothing. It's not really pleasant for half or all of the playerbase to be dissatisfied with what happens to their faction.

[Alvito]

Yeah, it's a pretty damn shame. Jainas arc made sense to why she would be angry and hate the horde... but instantly flip flop to lets be buddies again -.-

Jaina is easily in the top 3 for worst written characters.

[Nfinitii]

Not sure what you mean. These characters are going to take back the Horde from Sylvanas and make the decisions. It happened during MoP and it's going to happen again.

????????????

A lot of single player games have great narratives

Single player and mmos r way different in terms of story telling. Wc3 set up a lot of the best story for wow.

[Biomega]

Why do they keep backpedaling?

Because people don't like it.

The whole Horde vs. Alliance divide was always more popular in terms of identity than of actual in-game implementation. People like going "For the Horde!" and identifying with their faction/race. They also like it as a PvP fantasy.

But they do NOT seem to like it when it encroaches on PvE. They don't want to play vs. other players, and they don't want to raid vs. the other faction. They want to kill dragons and undead and big evil Old Gods.

Unfortunately Blizzard has always had one big weakness as a company: they cling too hard to their mantra. "WoW is about Orcs vs. Humans!" is one of them. That's one of those silly management maxims, where you pick a strategy and preach it - it just doesn't work in creative spaces, at least not the same way. Having a recognizable style is one thing, but having your writing and design suffer from atrophied story guidelines is a big problem. If Blizzard has proven anything in the past it's that they're great at delivering polish, but not so great at being flexible and reactive (that's why they missed the whole MOBA train, for example, and had to cancel their SC looter-shooter).

We've come a long way in WoW. The Orcs vs. Humans fantasy of the old WarCraft games is not a good guiding paradigm anymore.

[Tiwack]

To make for a compelling plot and narrative, there's always a bigger fish etc. and good guys don't hold grudges etc.
They want to please everyone while also wanting them torn, they're employing shock doctrine to keep you interested and buying their books.
You're supposed to think and not just enjoy the ride, "fire and ice" works well to maintain an audience and also attract new customers, it's calculated business and marketing. It's crime, family, fantasy, scifi, horror, you name it, it's not always pretty mixing all the genres but it's important it's all there and represented.

What you ask for is great for a standalone game but not for an ever evolving story which is what wow is.
They have to do it this way to be able to surprise you and switch things around at a minutes notice when needed. Sometimes it's great and other times they just cross their fingers hoping people won't read that much into it and continue skipping along.

[Goldielocks]

Single player and mmos r way different in terms of story telling. Wc3 set up a lot of the best story for wow.

That’s what I thought you meant, but you didn’t specify lol