Horde and Alliance presentation and perception. From NPCs to Playerbase.

[VladlTutushkin]

Warning: long post.

So lately i was having a VERY long discussion with some other “wow lore fans” on Discord about the presentation of our factions in the game and how it might connect to the perception of them by fans. And even how it might affect (or be affected) by fans. So far i came to such conclusions (be free to disagree).
Horde seems to come out as the “bully” no denying that, but weirdly lacks any kind of substantial “stimulus” to keep moving forward with their “bullying”. At least so it seems. After all its hard to find a reason to fight someone when your opponent not only weak but also unwilling to fight and seems to be ready to either give you what you want with little to no effort or put up a very lacking opposition before quickly wrapping up the conflict with half-assed “dont do that anymore mkay?” throwaway line. While some might point out characters like Baine or Saurfang that obviously want the same, to wrap things up quickly i will counter with the fact that they always come out of the woodworks at the third quarter and do not mess up with general “rargh me kill” mood for the most of the storyline and act as “diffusers” or “lightning rods” to help quickly finish the plot that no longer needs going.
So, Horde has strength, seemingly unstoppable, resembles a Juggernaut but then just suffers from the fact that there is no real fun or future in fighting a punching bag. Some people enjoy suffering or tormenting the weak but thats also gets dull i guess?Lacks motivation and “positive” development.
...
Now Alliance: faction that is usually referred to as moral paragons of the franchise, high horse riders (if not owners by now) and Moral High Ground permanent rulers. Which seems to be quite a lot - moral high ground, lawfulness, powerful heroes, what not to enjoy? Well, anything? Moral high ground seems to be permanently marred by Blizz themself, making it somehow equal to “never fight back” and “turn another cheek” mentality. Powerful heroes like Jaina or Tyrande and Malf or Velen being useless and either becoming simpering peaceniks and flip-flopping fools or fading into neutrality and obscurity, or in case of Tyrande becoming weaker then a flying goth girl and a rotten boy with a bow. So while on paper Alliance looks like a very solid faction in “reality” they have virtually no power at all, since their power is embedded in Heroes who are either reluctant to act or nerfed to the ground when needed. Horde rarely feels any kind of threat from the Alliance and most Alliance races come out either as too forgiving, stupid or impotent. Most notable the Night Elfs who supposed to be on a road to vengeance now and yet hardly anybody can notice that since they dont even “scratch the paint” on the Horde. At the same time Blizzard keeps almost maliciously ramping up anger in the Alliance playerbase, with all those stories of people being genocided, unjustly killed, turned undead, experimented at and so far and so forth. It confuses me as to why they keep “stoking the flame” if they have zero intention of allowing Alliance to “rip and tear” and somehow “release the steam”. And worse - they heavily lean towards Anduin’s worldview angle where any kind of revenge is unjust and inheritently evil and should be prosecuted or stopped. If anything Alliance union formed of EQUAL nations for DEFENSE should have some kind of militaristic and proactive (or reactive but with interest) stance - they joined for DEFENSE after all. You dont form a defensive pact to not protect each other, dont you? So have they failed as a faction?
Then Alliance: seems strong but only on paper, seems like they failed as a faction since they cant protect their own, heroes are wildly inconsistent, races look impotent , Blizz keep pumping them up full of rage but then refuse to provide any way to use that rage.
...
And that sums it up. Feel free to criticize, argue and discuss.

[Koryn123]

Blizzard doesn't feel like giving any nuance to character motivations. Not a word in the Tides of War novel had Garrosh or anyone mentioning how Theramore had been encroaching on the Horde and helping the Alliance for years, then as an active participant for an entire year before he attacked Theramore. It was just "rawr me smash, for the horde."

It's really obnoxious to have to play the villains all the time. If we're gonna fight, Blizzard needs to give us legitimate reasons to that aren't "I don't like them so I'm gonna fight them." There's nothing lazier than saying we're fighting a war because of "old hatreds."

The way things turned out is that Blizzard's presentation of the story was that Garrosh was doing it all because "rawr blood and thunder me like killing" and so that's the perception taken by the player base, where you don't get any nuance unless you're a deep lore fan who reads books and gives the reasons for the characters who Blizzard refuse to allow to defend their own actions, opting instead to just have them say it's because they wanna defeat so-and-so and make so-and-so strong, like how I have to mention Theramore NPCs setting up camps with invasion plans for Horde bases in Durotar that Garrosh doesn't mention himself.

For instance, with Garrosh, the orcs (not the Horde) needed resources. Did he say "We need trees and stuff, and the Night Elves are hogging them all and won't share, so while it's not what I'd like to do, we unfortunately have to take what we need." No, he said "rawr, i wanna kill night elves, lok'tar ogar, for hellscream." Not saying he was right or wrong, that's not what this is about, but the way it was presented didn't give players any investment in the story. Just "here we go again..." and that's the way it's been over and over and over.

Blizzard needs to give good reasons behind conflicts that aren't "old hatreds" bubbling back up to the surface again. Westfall and the Defias are interesting because they're fighting for the people (or at least they claim to) who've been neglected by Stormwind who aren't helping any region outside of Elwynn Forest while they fight wars all over the world. There's a good reason behind the conflict and I can see the merits of both sides. It's very boring to be fighting just because you don't like the other side. When the leader doesn't share any legitimate reason for a conflict and keeps it to themselves, only inspiring others to fight because they don't like their enemy, it's not fun. If Blizzard spent more time presenting the orcs' desperate situation in-game and Garrosh's reaction to it, and he frequently cited it as his reasons for what he did, it would be far more interesting.

[ravenmoon]

Warning: long post.

So lately i was having a VERY long discussion with some other “wow lore fans” on Discord about the presentation of our factions in the game and how it might connect to the perception of them by fans. And even how it might affect (or be affected) by fans. So far i came to such conclusions (be free to disagree).
Horde seems to come out as the “bully” no denying that, but weirdly lacks any kind of substantial “stimulus” to keep moving forward with their “bullying”. At least so it seems. After all its hard to find a reason to fight someone when your opponent not only weak but also unwilling to fight and seems to be ready to either give you what you want with little to no effort or put up a very lacking opposition before quickly wrapping up the conflict with half-assed “dont do that anymore mkay?” throwaway line. While some might point out characters like Baine or Saurfang that obviously want the same, to wrap things up quickly i will counter with the fact that they always come out of the woodworks at the third quarter and do not mess up with general “rargh me kill” mood for the most of the storyline and act as “diffusers” or “lightning rods” to help quickly finish the plot that no longer needs going.
So, Horde has strength, seemingly unstoppable, resembles a Juggernaut but then just suffers from the fact that there is no real fun or future in fighting a punching bag. Some people enjoy suffering or tormenting the weak but thats also gets dull i guess?Lacks motivation and “positive” development.
...
Now Alliance: faction that is usually referred to as moral paragons of the franchise, high horse riders (if not owners by now) and Moral High Ground permanent rulers. Which seems to be quite a lot - moral high ground, lawfulness, powerful heroes, what not to enjoy? Well, anything? Moral high ground seems to be permanently marred by Blizz themself, making it somehow equal to “never fight back” and “turn another cheek” mentality. Powerful heroes like Jaina or Tyrande and Malf or Velen being useless and either becoming simpering peaceniks and flip-flopping fools or fading into neutrality and obscurity, or in case of Tyrande becoming weaker then a flying goth girl and a rotten boy with a bow. So while on paper Alliance looks like a very solid faction in “reality” they have virtually no power at all, since their power is embedded in Heroes who are either reluctant to act or nerfed to the ground when needed. Horde rarely feels any kind of threat from the Alliance and most Alliance races come out either as too forgiving, stupid or impotent. Most notable the Night Elfs who supposed to be on a road to vengeance now and yet hardly anybody can notice that since they dont even “scratch the paint” on the Horde. At the same time Blizzard keeps almost maliciously ramping up anger in the Alliance playerbase, with all those stories of people being genocided, unjustly killed, turned undead, experimented at and so far and so forth. It confuses me as to why they keep “stoking the flame” if they have zero intention of allowing Alliance to “rip and tear” and somehow “release the steam”. And worse - they heavily lean towards Anduin’s worldview angle where any kind of revenge is unjust and inheritently evil and should be prosecuted or stopped. If anything Alliance union formed of EQUAL nations for DEFENSE should have some kind of militaristic and proactive (or reactive but with interest) stance - they joined for DEFENSE after all. You dont form a defensive pact to not protect each other, dont you? So have they failed as a faction?
Then Alliance: seems strong but only on paper, seems like they failed as a faction since they cant protect their own, heroes are wildly inconsistent, races look impotent , Blizz keep pumping them up full of rage but then refuse to provide any way to use that rage.
...
And that sums it up. Feel free to criticize, argue and discuss.

Because blizzard are biased. Curerently its towards the horde (it hasn't always b een) and all of asudden you can get away with murder, and your opponent can't touch you. As a hordetoon, you feel near invincible and are charging through everyone, and no alliance race, not even the mighty night elvs can stop you.

You see horde fans think they are hated because their warchief becomes a villain-ish or their city invaded.. but conveniently forget it never gets destroyed, and it is the horde that heroically pulls down or drives away its tyrant, coming out the hero, and once more the centre of the story. Always. Always about the horde, for the horde and by the horde. Alliance are second bit characters that must exist to continue to make thehorde and the horde hero player character look amazing.



It's so blatant --- but the problem si because of this two faction side taking. and they don't have the guts to actually write a full story, too scared that the horde playerbase would either abandon the horde and everyon play alliance (/rolleyes_ or the horde playerbase would get angry (/rolleyes_ which they did anyway, and they changed their tory so fast, … )


That's my opinion anyway. They may think they're neutral, but they're not, and it shows. FI you wanna see what true neutral writing is on storyboard level on an MMO go play SWTOR - wehtehr the republic or empire are winning/losing you never actually feel that any one faction hs faourtism. Now one wonders if that's so hard.

My conclusion? Only if you have favourites and writ ethe story to push them.

Solution: Love both factions, love all the major races. But its' an American company, its all about the winner, and i'm sure even the writers getting to have their favourites win the day in the story is a triumph they enjoy.

so it's not going to change, not with the current people in charge anyway.

But some people like this.. so no biggie right?

[Koryn123]

Because blizzard are biased. Curerently its towards the horde (it hasn't always b een) and all of asudden you can get away with murder, and your opponent can't touch you. As a hordetoon, you feel near invincible and are charging through everyone, and no alliance race, not even the mighty night elvs can stop you.

You see horde fans think they are hated because their warchief becomes a villain-ish or their city invaded.. but conveniently forget it never gets destroyed, and it is the horde that heroically pulls down or drives away its tyrant, coming out the hero, and once more the centre of the story. Always. Always about the horde, for the horde and by the horde. Alliance are second bit characters that must exist to continue to make thehorde and the horde hero player character look amazing.



It's so blatant --- but the problem si because of this two faction side taking. and they don't have the guts to actually write a full story, too scared that the horde playerbase would either abandon the horde and everyon play alliance (/rolleyes_ or the horde playerbase would get angry (/rolleyes_ which they did anyway, and they changed their tory so fast, … )


That's my opinion anyway. They may think they're neutral, but they're not, and it shows. FI you wanna see what true neutral writing is on storyboard level on an MMO go play SWTOR - wehtehr the republic or empire are winning/losing you never actually feel that any one faction hs faourtism. Now one wonders if that's so hard.

My conclusion? Only if you have favourites and writ ethe story to push them.

Solution: Love both factions, love all the major races. But its' an American company, its all about the winner, and i'm sure even the writers getting to have their favourites win the day in the story is a triumph they enjoy.

so it's not going to change, not with the current people in charge anyway.

But some people like this.. so no biggie right?

This Horde player hates playing the villain every single time. When Vol'jin came along, I was holding out hope that we could get that Classic-Wotlk Horde feeling again, but no, they dropped it the first chance they got, and everyone was like "it's gonna be like Garrosh again, it's completely obvious" and Blizzard acted like it was a surprise. Everyone saw it coming, so it wasn't interesting, and it only made the two halves of the playerbase mad at each other. I get the feeling Blizzard doesn't feel like they can keep players engaged unless they're angrily defending their own side's actions and attacking the others, which is unfortunate because they told great stories in Classic, BC, and WotLK. They need to do more world-building stuff that isn't a big bad.

Blizz needs to take the story away from individual characters and make it about large groups instead. How often did you see Thrall from Classic-WotLK? He was like a celebrity you'd glimpse and be like "Dude! It's Thrall!" Now you can't get away from them.

[VladlTutushkin]

This Horde player hates playing the villain every single time. When Vol'jin came along, I was holding out hope that we could get that Classic-Wotlk Horde feeling again, but no, they dropped it the first chance they got, and everyone was like "it's gonna be like Garrosh again, it's completely obvious" and Blizzard acted like it was a surprise. Everyone saw it coming, so it wasn't interesting, and it only made the two halves of the playerbase mad at each other. I get the feeling Blizzard doesn't feel like they can keep players engaged unless they're angrily defending their own side's actions and attacking the others, which is unfortunate because they told great stories in Classic, BC, and WotLK. They need to do more world-building stuff that isn't a big bad.

Blizz needs to take the story away from individual characters and make it about large groups instead. How often did you see Thrall from Classic-WotLK? He was like a celebrity you'd glimpse and be like "Dude! It's Thrall!" Now you can't get away from them.

Yeah, i remember when seeing Thrall was something significant (outside of Orgri i mean). Also villainy is not a good story but i will not lie when i say that some Horde players seemingly liked it and refuse to accept more mellow or mild story based on Horde’s “good” side. Well, i also see lots of Alliance people howling for blood and demanding a chance to inflict a genocide or some kind of horrible war crime on a Horde. Its one thing to have a reason of resources (like Garrosh) which no longer even exist with additon of Zandalar, Highmountain, Suramar and other zones and thats another to be continuously attacked and exterminated or displaced (Gilneans, Night elfs) by the Horde or just harassed by them without any way of striking back meaningfully. Thats frustrating and idk if Blizz can solve that problem. Its just too convoluted and deepply embedded in their own bad writing

[Koryn123]

Yeah, i remember when seeing Thrall was something significant (outside of Orgri i mean). Also villainy is not a good story but i will not lie when i say that some Horde players seemingly liked it and refuse to accept more mellow or mild story based on Horde’s “good” side. Well, i also see lots of Alliance people howling for blood and demanding a chance to inflict a genocide or some kind of horrible war crime on a Horde. Its one thing to have a reason of resources (like Garrosh) which no longer even exist with additon of Zandalar, Highmountain, Suramar and other zones and thats another to be continuously attacked and exterminated or displaced (Gilneans, Night elfs) by the Horde or just harassed by them without any way of striking back meaningfully. Thats frustrating and idk if Blizz can solve that problem. Its just too convoluted and deepply embedded in their own bad writing

The sort of storytelling obsessed with individual characters the way they do it now worked well for their RTS games, but it's not good for WoW. Because of the way they do it now, your race feels meaningless if the story isn't focused in on a character that represents them.

[VladlTutushkin]

The sort of storytelling obsessed with individual characters the way they do it now worked well for their RTS games, but it's not good for WoW. Because of the way they do it now, your race feels meaningless if the story isn't focused in on a character that represents them.

True. Also it leads to stuff like Sylvanas story - they cant wrap it up without either pissing her fans off if they kill her or pissing whole Alliance and part of the Horde off if they spare her and make her a Death Deity or something. There is no safe way out here. Or how they will develop night elfs now if they focus on Tyrande only and that can EASILY go sooo wrong.

[Nuggsy]

Blizzard doesn't feel like giving any nuance to character motivations. Not a word in the Tides of War novel had Garrosh or anyone mentioning how Theramore had been encroaching on the Horde and helping the Alliance for years, then as an active participant for an entire year before he attacked Theramore. It was just "rawr me smash, for the horde."

It's really obnoxious to have to play the villains all the time. If we're gonna fight, Blizzard needs to give us legitimate reasons to that aren't "I don't like them so I'm gonna fight them." There's nothing lazier than saying we're fighting a war because of "old hatreds."

The way things turned out is that Blizzard's presentation of the story was that Garrosh was doing it all because "rawr blood and thunder me like killing" and so that's the perception taken by the player base, where you don't get any nuance unless you're a deep lore fan who reads books and gives the reasons for the characters who Blizzard refuse to allow to defend their own actions, opting instead to just have them say it's because they wanna defeat so-and-so and make so-and-so strong, like how I have to mention Theramore NPCs setting up camps with invasion plans for Horde bases in Durotar that Garrosh doesn't mention himself.

For instance, with Garrosh, the orcs (not the Horde) needed resources. Did he say "We need trees and stuff, and the Night Elves are hogging them all and won't share, so while it's not what I'd like to do, we unfortunately have to take what we need." No, he said "rawr, i wanna kill night elves, lok'tar ogar, for hellscream." Not saying he was right or wrong, that's not what this is about, but the way it was presented didn't give players any investment in the story. Just "here we go again..." and that's the way it's been over and over and over.

Blizzard needs to give good reasons behind conflicts that aren't "old hatreds" bubbling back up to the surface again. Westfall and the Defias are interesting because they're fighting for the people (or at least they claim to) who've been neglected by Stormwind who aren't helping any region outside of Elwynn Forest while they fight wars all over the world. There's a good reason behind the conflict and I can see the merits of both sides. It's very boring to be fighting just because you don't like the other side. When the leader doesn't share any legitimate reason for a conflict and keeps it to themselves, only inspiring others to fight because they don't like their enemy, it's not fun. If Blizzard spent more time presenting the orcs' desperate situation in-game and Garrosh's reaction to it, and he frequently cited it as his reasons for what he did, it would be far more interesting.

It honestly brings me joy to see that some people know the reasons why he did what he did and it was more than 'rawr me smas.' Despite Blizzard trying to make it look that way with their awful writing, Garrosh actually had a story/plot/reasons for the things he did. Truth be told I was a huge lore fan once upon a time but I like consistency in my stories and WoW will never have that.

Every piece of fiction has plot holes and rough parts but as a whole, Blizzard fails at writing and part of it has to do with them scattering pieces of story over several mediums; books, the game, comics, small clips. It astounds me how many people I run into know nothing about what happened in Arathi where Sylvanas gunned down her own people, including the ones that were obeying her. It's never mentioned in game and the only hint do it is a grave yard in Arathi. It's absolutely criminal. I get that you can only fit so much into the game because there's supposed to be a lot of story but man, they really miss the target when it comes to important bits of information being given to the player.

[Lazuli]

It honestly brings me joy to see that some people know the reasons why he did what he did and it was more than 'rawr me smas.' Despite Blizzard trying to make it look that way with their awful writing, Garrosh actually had a story/plot/reasons for the things he did. Truth be told I was a huge lore fan once upon a time but I like consistency in my stories and WoW will never have that.

Every piece of fiction has plot holes and rough parts but as a whole, Blizzard fails at writing and part of it has to do with them scattering pieces of story over several mediums; books, the game, comics, small clips. It astounds me how many people I run into know nothing about what happened in Arathi where Sylvanas gunned down her own people, including the ones that were obeying her. It's never mentioned in game and the only hint do it is a grave yard in Arathi. It's absolutely criminal. I get that you can only fit so much into the game because there's supposed to be a lot of story but man, they really miss the target when it comes to important bits of information being given to the player.

The lore is never going to make sense as long as they require the books to be read in order to understand, like sylvanas raping the lich king. And lore book or not, its still retarded either way. Blizz is pretty bad at story, most MMOs are, but afaik WoW is the only one that actually requires you to purchase books outside of the game to understand anything.

Its just another greedy $ grab , and they're still running with it instead of improving the ingame lore.

[Kayb]

Ultimately you should NEVER have to read a book or some other external source of info to know what is happening in the game. The important story bits should always be present in game. Leave the side line stuff to the novels.

[ravenmoon]

This Horde player hates playing the villain every single time. When Vol'jin came along, I was holding out hope that we could get that Classic-Wotlk Horde feeling again, but no, they dropped it the first chance they got, and everyone was like "it's gonna be like Garrosh again, it's completely obvious" and Blizzard acted like it was a surprise. Everyone saw it coming, so it wasn't interesting, and it only made the two halves of the playerbase mad at each other. I get the feeling Blizzard doesn't feel like they can keep players engaged unless they're angrily defending their own side's actions and attacking the others, which is unfortunate because they told great stories in Classic, BC, and WotLK. They need to do more world-building stuff that isn't a big bad.

Blizz needs to take the story away from individual characters and make it about large groups instead. How often did you see Thrall from Classic-WotLK? He was like a celebrity you'd glimpse and be like "Dude! It's Thrall!" Now you can't get away from them.

Well ofc he does, cos you're human.

And tbh, blizzard presented the horde in wow as "not the bad guys". In SWTOR, you knew The Empire were the bad guys, it didn't make people less happy with them, in fact they were the more popular faction, but by a tiny majroity.

In that game, your character could at least choose a different path, you could be a total a.hole or a decent person despite your factions penchant for decadence and evil.

THe horde presents orcs as honourable yet always doing dishonrouable things, then blodo eves. At first they were bad boys, and people loved that, but they were becoming the high elves they once were and this also attracted a l ot of people, as the highest played race, many d on't perceive their bElf toon as an evil jerk. A misunderstood person by goody goody alliance, but not evil.

so it stings to have been portayred as the villain, but not giving the player enough agency to decide that he would walk a different path to what Warchief X was ordering. And ofc it woudl have helped if there was support for his decision from an NPC team.. like eventually came with Saurfang.

- - - Updated - - -

Ultimately you should NEVER have to read a book or some other external source of info to know what is happening in the game. The important story bits should always be present in game. Leave the side line stuff to the novels.

Well, I agree in pricniple.. look at the night elves, my brother and I spend a lot of time recently here pointing out the Night elves as a race are far more than a wood elf/forest elf race, but a dark elf /forest elf duality race - however the arcane side of the night elve sis mostly in the novels, it has 4 novels with a lot of involvement and lore on their arcane side, a good chunk of Chronicles that puts it entirely in perspective and the 5th book while about demon hutners sees night elves in a non druid capacity cos its oabout Illidan mainly and Maiev's hunt for him.

Why do players not see it how we do? Becuase most of the lore is i book, and by the tiem the Highborne, demon hutners and wardenn made it into the game, the image of hte night elf in most who plyaed classic to WotLK is a treehugger nature wildsman, who is a slightly primitive elf with savagery (the savage because they're supposedly primiitve becuase most night elves are in the forest and druids.. I eman


Why is this like this? because most of the lore that shows you otherwise is either in books, and when more came in cataclysm most people already had toons and didn't level up to read the story, so missed all the other stuff.

the game suffers from not only most of hte story told elsewhere, but the story in the game is in quest text boxes, and your average guy HATES to read when playing a video game.

why they haven't voiced the quests by now, I have no idea, ..and they blocked a fan made porject to do exactly that.


The plus side for night elves is that if itwasn't for the books there'd be like no lore and it woudl be such a waste.

[Minikin]

You see horde fans think they are hated because their warchief becomes a villain-ish or their city invaded.. but conveniently forget it never gets destroyed, and it is the horde that heroically pulls down or drives away its tyrant, coming out the hero, and once more the centre of the story. Always. Always about the horde, for the horde and by the horde. Alliance are second bit characters that must exist to continue to make thehorde and the horde hero player character look amazing.

Lol someone in this forums summarized this a while back perfectly
"Most people forget that in SoO, it took the alliance and HALF THE HORDE, to take the city from the OTHER HALF of the Horde".

That's my opinion anyway. They may think they're neutral, but they're not, and it shows. FI you wanna see what true neutral writing is on storyboard level on an MMO go play SWTOR - wehtehr the republic or empire are winning/losing you never actually feel that any one faction hs faourtism. Now one wonders if that's so hard.

SWTOR has a set basis of good and evil though. The sith are very clearly bad. the jedi very openly good. Warcraft doesnt have that distinction as clear.

Solution: Love both factions, love all the major races. But its' an American company, its all about the winner, and i'm sure even the writers getting to have their favourites win the day in the story is a triumph they enjoy.

so it's not going to change, not with the current people in charge anyway.

But some people like this.. so no biggie right?

100% this. I honestly am completely lost when I come across people this far into the game who only support one faction out of bias. It makes no sense. Anyone can see there will never be a full conclusion.

- - - Updated - - -

The way things turned out is that Blizzard's presentation of the story was that Garrosh was doing it all because "rawr blood and thunder me like killing" and so that's the perception taken by the player base, where you don't get any nuance unless you're a deep lore fan who reads books and gives the reasons for the characters who Blizzard refuse to allow to defend their own actions, opting instead to just have them say it's because they wanna defeat so-and-so and make so-and-so strong, like how I have to mention Theramore NPCs setting up camps with invasion plans for Horde bases in Durotar that Garrosh doesn't mention himself.

Presentation has a massive effect. As @ravenmoon mentioned, most people dont give a damn about the books or quest text. But they do see ingame cinematics and trailers and enjoy them.

The book talks about Theramore helping the alliance
The in game event with a cinematic shows Garrosh bombing it

The quest text talks about Taurajo, and how that alliance general attacked but allows the tauren to escape
The in game event with a cinematic shows the orcs bombing stonetalon

The quest texts in ashenvale read about how the orcs need lumber
The game has a raid in SoO about a warchief who wants to put people on spikes, blows up a very beautiful valley in someone elses land, wants to paint that continent red and uses Ysharjj's heart to empower himself

The book mentions Sylvanas regretting not being able to save Varian
The cinematic shows her setting a whole city aflame and commiting genocide

and then finally. We have Nathanos and Sylvanas.
Nathanos spiteful of the player. Sylvanas with her schemes. All the while a netflix drama of saurfang runs on how he will not forsake honor. Eventually sacrificing himself for the horde, while sylvanas attacks thrall and says out loud that the horde means nothing.

People wont and dont remember letters on a book.

But they will definitely remember those sick animations.

[Mehrunes]

Given how Alliance instigates the fight more often than not, rendering all your claims of how the Horde is a bully that lacks the stimulus to act against the Alliance I can see why you put "WoW lore fans" in quotation marks when describing that Discord group.

and then finally. We have Nathanos and Sylvanas.
Nathanos spiteful of the player. Sylvanas with her schemes. All the while a netflix drama of saurfang runs on how he will not forsake honor. Eventually sacrificing himself for the horde, while sylvanas attacks thrall and says out loud that the horde means nothing.

But I thought people didn't pay attention to quest text and the books? You know, where Sylvanas' schemes or Nathanos trash talking the player are conveyed?

[ravenmoon]

Lol someone in this forums summarized this a while back perfectly
"Most people forget that in SoO, it took the alliance and HALF THE HORDE, to take the city from the OTHER HALF of the Horde".



SWTOR has a set basis of good and evil though. The sith are very clearly bad. the jedi very openly good. Warcraft doesnt have that distinction as clear.



100% this. I honestly am completely lost when I come across people this far into the game who only support one faction out of bias. It makes no sense. Anyone can see there will never be a full conclusion.

I've wondered the same thing, I honestly have. I honestly play both factions, and enjoy different things in both. When I harp on about Night elves, it's not because I love the alliance or am alliance pro, it's because I love the race, and the way alliance is treated, I’d rather they not be in it.

Pointing out the imbalances and favouritism makes people think I am an alliance fan, but it just shows their bias because they refuse to admit what's in front of them...as if accepting that somehow would cause the developers to nerf them …

it's ridiculous, the developers won't nerf the horde, because the half way through classic the directive for Warcraft changed. they had a meeting, because the game was designed to have players play both factions fairly evenly, and the vast majority were playing the alliance because of Humans and Night elves - the two grossly most popular races.

From that moment on, they went into overdrive, they built the horde up (and rightly so if you ask me), this is the reason blood elves are so amazing and well done, they wanted to make them draw alliance players to play the horde - and it worked, they turned their focus to writing the horde up, making it powerful, giving the player feel good factor. Not only were the racials more powerful, but the roles and focus were more meaningful for an A vs B type game.

This was all intentional, but the directive has continued over the years, and they don't even realise I think that decisions, directions, are all pro horde. Why would you even think to make the Nightborne horde, they're clearly night elves and should have been either with the Night elves or at least both or neutral (an easy example would have had those who took the Arcan'dor convert to night elves because it reverses the chronic distortion over indulging in the Nightwell did) whiles the elite that had tons of arcwine mostly went horde, fitting the horde races like Orcs and Blood elves who joined the demons for a while but saw the error of their ways. These ones would remain with the Nightborne appearance and be horde).. but no, it all went horde and void elves I know were coined and thrown in to compensate (I use to think it was the other way round, but after hearing developers at Blizzcon a few years ago, it wasn't)

These are just examples.. this comes at a time when the horde is the majority faction, - it may seem pretty even overall when you count all the players that pay, with a slight horde or alliance majority, but for the really game - the end game, where most of the content is played by most of the people who actually care, it is heavily horde across the board - as seen by the competitive structures in raids, m+, arenas, BGs vastly overwhelmed by horde. switch WM on and you have a vast out numbering at end game , and if you had any toon on the alliance, you constantly see people faction changing to horde, but the reverse happens once in a blue moon.

when you see them continue to make decisions like that - you have to see bias ( I mean, can you imagine Suramar, a full night elf city, designed when they knew they were going to destroy Darnassus, and Atal'dazar was coming, but ends up being so nice, the senior devs who we know ALL play horde, yes that's right, the senior devs ALL play horde, when they say that horde/alliance fan base is even amongst the dev team.. they are talking the overall team, the juniors, programmers, CMs etc, when you look at the senior team, the Danuser, Afrisiabis, Hazzikostas, - the leads and directors - ALL Horde. Which I don't have a problem with, but when its clear and easy to see how centric the story is based on them, and decisions made are, who can argue.

Battle for Dazar'alor was the first time in WORLD of WARCRAFT history the alliance actually looks smart, competent and out plays the horde. I've never seen it in Warcraft.. you see it in other games with multiple factions, pendulum swinging and regardless of who wins or loses, no one ever gets the feeling the enemy is not very dangerous and powerful.. except in Warcraft, where the alliance is literally a lame duck...

People wonder why the night elves are so crap and get such tidbits - it's the bias at play, the best thing done for them, the most amount of work, the broken isles, and Suramar in legion is basically taken completely from them and seems to have happened without any impact to them. They skip straight to night elves been slaughtered but ignore the MAMOTH implications of the Legion's true goals, the Legion's defeat - the group that basically dominated how the night elves lived in the last 10k years - the curing of arcane addiction, the return of a pristine night elf city, and the one where all the kaldorei leaders and resistance came from, and the return of the biggest temple of Elune.. by 7.2 they intentionally scrapped the work they had done on the Priesthood and Tyrande for the zone, swapped it for the Class order hall focus, and more legion stuff, and we never saw anymore from the night elves.

We also know that the Nightborne going horde was not the original plan at all, it came after a board discussion during the testing of 7.1, which is why 7.0 has the not a hint of blood elf or Thalassian elf involved with the Nightborne, nor does the Nighthold itself, because all the changes came after that meeting and the decision that the Nightborne would be playable - because the fans requested it, and the majority horde blood elf fan base - yes, the hard core fan base that post most often on boards, have a horde majority , and the senior devs were all to happy to use their request for Nightborne to make it so.. meanwhile the alliance ones who've been crying for high elves since day one are told if you want white skinned blond haired elves go play horde, yet they give the horde purple skinned white haired elves no problem... I mean... not noticing? They changed a lot of 7.1 text, initially it was Vereesa and Liadrin doing the alliance/horde quests in Suramar. Tyrande is doing other things in the city, and is in the confrontation at the gates where Elisande taunts her about "their mutual acquaintance" i.e. Malfurion. Instead, this is cut and Tyrande is put there instead of Vereesa for quests (a better decision), but instead is made to be disgusted with the Nightborne (because they are now pre-disposing them to the horde, as the decision has been made), Liadrin is portrayed as helpful, compassionate and willing, and Vereesa is not made to give any world quests. Notice how the Nighthold end cinematic still has Vereesa instead of Tyrande, because the cinematic was already done by the time all those decisions were made and there was no time to rebuilt it to swap Tyrande in, and it was considered acceptable anyway, seeing Vereesa was there anyway.

I'm no longer annoyed as I use to be, but it was very blatant , the horde did not need the Thalassian kingdom, the Kaldorei empire and the Zandalari empire assets all to it, given the Kaldorei are in the alliance - I’m not saying this because I’m alliance biased, but because it is very biased to do what they did.

However I also accept it is well within their rights. If they want to make their favourites win and get everything, sure okay, it's their product, it's not like they haven't been "biased" before, in Wc1-3, although heavily victimised, it was pro alliance - but then two sides imbalance meant nothing. Everyone played both factions anyway, and watched the story.

It's in wow that they split the player base and force people to pick, and give incentives to fall in love with one faction over the other even though they can play too, there is a divide, and the structure is set up to partition, and so equal treatment is much more important. But only as far as getting even numbers or bragging rights really, beyond that you may ask what's the point? Well appealing to our sense of fairness and justice.. if you like the alliance, it feels unfair the way they've been treated, and while it is entirely their right to do so, it's not a good thing they're doing and that sucks for nearly half their player base.

Tod ate, I'm sorry, alliance has largely just been thrown a bone here and there. Night elves will all agree the utter meaninglessness of Darkshore was a bone thrown - and the devs themselves tell you this is Tyrande getting her revenge, and the night elves their compensation.. fans were like WHAT !!? Yeh, they said so , shows how they think.. and they don't see bias. Furthermore, the reason Tyrande is not in Naz'jatar and Zin'Azshari - is because she has shown up in Darkshore…? Again WTF!? So Jaina who's been there all through including Battle for Dazar'alor and should be injured like Mekkatorque after being defeated, is all of sudden up and ready as grand admiral to chase a few horde ships into a chasm... but Tyrande who's supposed to be smart and wise, and other night elves, see their ancient queen and arch enemy on the move and at the centre of the plot for an old god, and only care about claiming Darkshore back after all the night elves in it are dead? And this makes sense?


Surely N'zoth and Azshara is the higher importance, and dealing with the horde in Darkshore can come after.. this is the same woman who was leading her people after a far bigger genocide in the War of the ancients. Again.. makes no sense, except Jaina is a favourite (yes she's alliance, but we know even though there is bias, humans have far more presence than anyone else, and get the best roles nearly all the time... another example was Legion, you should have had a Highborne taking you to Azsuna, meeting the Illidari out of the Wardens cave, and cracking the magical code of Suramar - why? because it's their country, their people, their magic, they'd know, if you had Khadgar do it, you should have stuck a night elf advisor who was showing him and telling him what the score was, but no, let's have favourite Khadgar because again, humans) This is why it would seem Jaina and Genn make more sense in a night elf lore based zone like Naz’jatar instead of say Tyrande or Mordant or Farondis and Genn.

Now ask yourself..why won't they think of this? Because their heart is not actually in it, it's all about Sylvanas (a Danuser/Afrisiabi favourite we have been shown), the plot of how their favourites will go hear and there, even on the horde its the same thing, , notice how sometimes races and groups are completely forgotten when they're far more appropriate. Even if you wanted x character to have more limelight fine, remember to at least include said appropriate character.. but no.

The issue is the extent of the bias, it's not really that Sylvanas is the centre of the plot or Jaina is there, it's just how others are blatantly excluded and conveniently forgotten to show up.. it shows this is not who they care about and this is who they are biased towards.

But they're human too right, so if they mainly play horde, they want pretty things on it too, and well, they're in charge, just take the pretty things from the night elves. And well, you can still like Jaina, and Khadgar and other, even on horde if most of the time they do stuff for both factions. You're in charge, you just right the story using them making your fave WC1-3 characters now accessible to your preferred faction, rather than create new likable character on it instead/

Do you see how neatly it explains why we have these disparities?

1. The horde is more interesting. It has conflict, it has betrayal, absolution, resolve, rallying - yes I know it sucks to see your Warchief as a villain etc, but this is what your leads think is interesting writing, and because the horde is their favourite you get there

2. Now you see why alliance race characters from WC1-3 tend to always show up as neutral and accessible to both factions

3. Now you see why humans grossly dominate on the alliance, and everyone else hardly gets a mention - the directive is to push horde, it was initiated to help the game systems, but continued long after the horde both caught up and overtook the alliance in terms of numbers

4. Now you see why we have the Nightborne on the horde instead of the more story based Alliance or both factions (and no model is not an excuse because they could have converted the alliance Nightborne back to their kaldorei original forms and kept the horde ones with the Nightborne model)

A lot of things make sense, when you know what's going on. The irony is the half said devs don't even realise they are, they've been so involved in making decisions and feel it is "for the good of the game" the horde bias was "for the good of the game" in the earlier days, and it's now just the "way things are "

They said they found the alliance harder to writer for, and the horde more interesting.. WTF???! Really? You are the ones that determine what is interesting by making writing decisions, if you want the alliance to be more interesting you can write it such, even within the parameters of what it stands for. I could easily come up with ways to make Night elf/human interaction more nuanced and have a measure of conflict without making either of them evil or non-lawful. The fact that this is "harder" is because they're not that interested, their heart isn't there.

And this is what it boils down to, the heart isn't there, why do you think we can get a major orc focus in WoD, but for the night elves in Legion,4 of the zones were altered to reduce their effect. And then later the best one was taken over to the horde. don't know what I'm talking about?

• Highmountain - was turned into a Tauren zone
• Stormheim - was turned into a Vrykul zone
• Broken shore - had night elven effects removed from the initial design (watch the making of videos in the collectors edition and the Blizzcon panel interviews of 2016/17) if you don't believe me. And a far heavier legion one placed (despite the legion focus of 7.2 and Argus, ..which had the expansion feeling far more Legion than night elf
• Thal'dranath was removed - we don't want another night elf ruined zone ion said, we're going to give you something much better

- then you wonder why it's as if the night elves are just minor plot from7.2 Broken shores zone for the rest of the expansion supposedly based on them for the first time in 14 years of Warcraft - and they already had enough.


I'm not saying it was bad, I think many players agree Argus was better, except those who feel it should have been its own expansion - but the decision shows you its clear senior devs got bored of the night elves, because they aren't a favourite, and the best feature of them Suramar and the Nightborne, they just collected for their preferred faction then tossed the void elves in to the alliance because you couldn't have high elves, because that's their fave on the horde, but it was fine for night elves to be there. One would think that they would have just given a skinnier blood elf model, like the Nightborne was a skinnier night elf model, for the high elves and called it a day, no, they made the void elves purple and tossed them in, hardly any story. (I like void elves, but that not the point)

I am showing you how decisions you can see, have a a very plausible explanation that highlight a bias that is there if you know where to look.

Conclusion

Don't expect a biased story, and know why, these guys don't care that much about it, they have their faves and wanna pump that. Also understand it's their right to do so, they make the game, however it doesn’t' mean it's good for it, nor that it feels good. There is a reason people aren't enjoying the Warcraft story like they use to back in the day. It's all these decisions. The y force the fans to pick a side but then favourite one over the other, alliance fans aren't going to be happy. And in their effort to do such a witty and amazing story for the horde that fits the horde, well the fans they've lured over, don't wanna see their horde like that. I mean you start by making the horde a noble band of marginalised outsiders that have to band together, but then you make them the villain constantly. All your story is focused on showing their plight and making them cool and interesting and varied - but you're messing it up, and equally ignoring the other faction, throwing it tokens and largely focusing on one race, because your old time faves are there, meanwhile grossly under utilising other great ones like the night elves for e.g.. and the Draenei - two very original concept for Elves and demons in fantasy, just to push your faves, and wonder why your product is experiencing a lot of criticism.


I’ll tell you this plainly, players will still love Warcraft, but they'll love it less, they'll love the art and the atmosphere, the game play and gaining loot based on the changes there, but this will continue to poison them and annoy them, and detract away from what they use to love more. The story and the races use to be one of the most fun and exciting things that gave the entire project purpose and meaning, but as it continues to have ridiculous decisions like the best night elf stuff thrown to the other faction in clear bias, the horde having the villain bat for Game of Thrones like level of complexity when the development team isn't willing to put the effort into cinematics, voice overs and story accounts to show the nuance like a lot of games (SWTOR. FFXIV , ESO were able to do despite being MMOs too, even Guild Wars), don’t' expect people to smile .

[Varodoc]

People still defending the Fall of Theramore in 2020. Garrosh made it clear he was a warmonger who wanted to conquer the world. Tf was Jaina supposed to do? Simply let Garrosh wipe out the night elves and pray he didn't go for Theramore (which he would've obviously done since he was a big human hater, he wouldn't give two shits if Theramore was neutral).

[Makorus]

People still defending the Fall of Theramore in 2020. Garrosh made it clear he was a warmonger who wanted to conquer the world. Tf was Jaina supposed to do? Simply let Garrosh wipe out the night elves and pray he didn't go for Theramore (which he would've obviously done since he was a big human hater, he wouldn't give two shits if Theramore was neutral).

The main argument is that Garrosh did not simply attack a poor neutral city that didnt do anything bad.

Which yeah, thanks for confirming that.

[Varodoc]

The main argument is that Garrosh did not simply attack a poor neutral city that didnt do anything bad.

Which yeah, thanks for confirming that.

The main argument is that Garrosh is still the villain. You don't get to complain people attack you when you stated multiple times you'd conquer the world.

[Makorus]

The main argument is that Garrosh is still the villain. You don't get to complain people attack you when you stated multiple times you'd conquer the world.

Theres a difference between a conqueror and a war criminal.

[Varodoc]

Theres a difference between a conqueror and a war criminal.

There really isn't, especially not in the case of a psycho orc supremacist.

[Super Dickmann]

People still defending the Fall of Theramore in 2020. Garrosh made it clear he was a warmonger who wanted to conquer the world. Tf was Jaina supposed to do? Simply let Garrosh wipe out the night elves and pray he didn't go for Theramore (which he would've obviously done since he was a big human hater, he wouldn't give two shits if Theramore was neutral).

Garrosh first stated he wanted to nab the world a bit after Theramore during a war he didn't start. Jaina was attacking the Southern Barrens before hand, to the point where the quests say she was running out of troops in doing so. Her city was the definition of a valid military target.