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

[Varodoc]

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.

No, he already told Rehgar in the WoW comic (WotLK) that he wanted to conquer all of Kalimdor for the Horde.

[Super Dickmann]

No, he already told Rehgar in the WoW comic (WotLK) that he wanted to conquer all of Kalimdor for the Horde.

Yeah, taking Kalimdor was his goal for a while. I'm saying that his goal wasn't world domination until the end of Tides of War and that he didn't start the war. And that in the context of any war destroying a hostile port is fine.

[Varodoc]

Yeah, taking Kalimdor was his goal for a while. I'm saying that his goal wasn't world domination until the end of Tides of War and that he didn't start the war. And that in the context of any war destroying a hostile port is fine.

Which Theramore is a part of.

Following that logic, Sargeras was also doing nothing wrong when he tried to destroy Azeroth, because it was a valid military target.

[Super Dickmann]

Which Theramore is a part of.

Following that logic, Sargeras was also doing nothing wrong when he tried to destroy Azeroth, because it was a valid military target.

No, if the Alliance king declares war on the Horde and a trade embargo prevents the Horde from getting vital resources then waging war on them is proportionate. Ditto, Jaina was doing fuck all to resist Garrosh by helping attacks chiefly on tauren.

[Varodoc]

No, if the Alliance king declares war on the Horde and a trade embargo prevents the Horde from getting vital resources then waging war on them is proportionate. Ditto, Jaina was doing fuck all to resist Garrosh by helping attacks chiefly on tauren.

Again, it doesn't matter who started the war because we know that Garrosh always wanted to claim all of Kalimdor and then the world. It's like saying that the Iron Horde did nothing wrong when they tried to destroy Stormwind because technically it's Varian who declared war on them as soon as they stepped out of the portal, but we know that that's stupid because the Iron Horde always wanted to kill everyone.

[DemonHunter18]

--- snip ---

I still don't believe how characters like Sylvanas had personal deals with Azshara and Jaina, Blood Elf dude, Thalyssra fought Azshara while Tyrande and Malfurion didn't even meet her even though they had the most reason to LFMAO.

Same how they didn't talk with Illidan in Legion.

Or Wrathion and Alexstrasza even though they are in the same room.

Mod Edit: There's no need to quote a super-long post for a brief response.

[Super Dickmann]

Again, it doesn't matter who started the war because we know that Garrosh always wanted to claim all of Kalimdor and then the world. It's like saying that the Iron Horde did nothing wrong when they tried to destroy Stormwind because technically it's Varian who declared war on them as soon as they stepped out of the portal, but we know that that's stupid because the Iron Horde always wanted to kill everyone.

This is a less retarded comparison, so you're making progress. Action > words though. Garrosh wanting to take over Kalimdor means far less than Varian actively declaring war or Jaina sending tons of dudes to enable him to wage that war, including hitting before Garrosh hit Ashenvale in Cataclysm at Honor's Stand. Especially given that the whole reason for Garrosh's grievance with the Alliance is the deprivation caused by said policy and the embargo and rightly viewing Thrall as an appeaser.

Infracted.

[Mehrunes]

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).

Except Jaina invaded the Barrens before Garrosh started his warmongering. And at the same time she merrily followed the Alliance warmonger that started this war in the first place, which he did because he simply disliked the Orcs, so trying to conjure an anti-warmonger position and project it onto Jaina to justify her doesn't really work.

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.

When did he state so for Jaina to hear?

No, he already told Rehgar in the WoW comic (WotLK) that he wanted to conquer all of Kalimdor for the Horde.

Now transmute Rehgar into Jaina and you've got yourself an argument.

Again, it doesn't matter who started the war because we know that Garrosh always wanted to claim all of Kalimdor and then the world. It's like saying that the Iron Horde did nothing wrong when they tried to destroy Stormwind because technically it's Varian who declared war on them as soon as they stepped out of the portal, but we know that that's stupid because the Iron Horde always wanted to kill everyone.

Except it most certainly matters because Alliance's hostility and Thrall's limp-wristed response to it is not only one of the chief reasons for Garrosh's outlook, but also the reason why he gained traction within the Horde at the start of his reign.

[Varitok]

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.

In the words of the great J.C. Denton. "Do you have a single fact to back that up?"

- - - Updated - - -

This is a less retarded comparison, so you're making progress. Action > words though. Garrosh wanting to take over Kalimdor means far less than Varian actively declaring war or Jaina sending tons of dudes to enable him to wage that war, including hitting before Garrosh hit Ashenvale in Cataclysm at Honor's Stand. Especially given that the whole reason for Garrosh's grievance with the Alliance is the deprivation caused by said policy and the embargo and rightly viewing Thrall as an appeaser.

Going for the whole "The Japanese had no choice but to attack the US because they wouldn't provide Oil to their asian conquests" argument eh? Good luck with that.

[Super Dickmann]

Going for the whole "The Japanese had no choice but to attack the US because they wouldn't provide Oil to their asian conquests" argument eh? Good luck with that.

No need for luck, it's a cut and dry case - Alliance declared war, the orcs required material - Garrosh owes the Alliance fuck all and his people need it to survive, so self-evidently he should seize it by force if he can't get it in any other way, which the story states he can't. Especially since the deprivation preceded him taking over in the first place, so appeasing politics had already failed.

[omeomorfismo]

@ravenmoon
blizzard wrote for the horde after classic? lol?
tbc has basically zero story, with the only develpment being murdering blood knights characterization.
wrath could be take as the epithome of ignoring horde.
first no forsaken and belf involvement against arthas . the most hurted by him completely ignored. putress could be an awesome moment, but randomly wasted with a random BL putsch
icc and toc are basically a celebration of an human pally organization, with the shittiest deus ex machina ever. even the dks, that anyway is mainly composed by humans, are completely ignored in the raid.
ulduar is mainly titanic theme, with only gnomes and dwarfs representatives.
blue dragonflight is mainly a kirin tor affair, with the magisters and forsaken kirin tors ignored (these arent never used btw, like the trolls mages that dont have any sense).
black one is so random that it resemble tbc storytell.

then really, i cant understand how someone can believe that using ally characters as neutral can be well received by horde players.

[Mehrunes]

In the words of the great J.C. Denton. "Do you have a single fact to back that up?"

The previous faction war being declared by Varian? Alliance attacking the Horde in Silithus? Genn and Rogers going "Imma interpret Anduin's orders in a way that allows me to attack the Forsaken fleet no matter what"? Theramore's forces invading the Barrens before Cataclysm even happened (i.e. before Garrosh invaded Ashenvale)? Dwarves waltzing in to three different Horde zones just because they felt entitled to digging for artifacts in there?

You not paying any attention to the story is your problem.

Going for the whole "The Japanese had no choice but to attack the US because they wouldn't provide Oil to their asian conquests" argument eh? Good luck with that.

The small issue with your otherwise stellar comparison is that unlike Japan and US, the Horde and Alliance had a trade treaty in regards to Ashenvale resources that the Alliance then violated.

[ravenmoon]

@ravenmoon
blizzard wrote for the horde after classic? lol?
tbc has basically zero story, with the only develpment being murdering blood knights characterization.
wrath could be take as the epithome of ignoring horde.
first no forsaken and belf involvement against arthas . the most hurted by him completely ignored. putress could be an awesome moment, but randomly wasted with a random BL putsch
icc and toc are basically a celebration of an human pally organization, with the shittiest deus ex machina ever. even the dks, that anyway is mainly composed by humans, are completely ignored in the raid.
ulduar is mainly titanic theme, with only gnomes and dwarfs representatives.
blue dragonflight is mainly a kirin tor affair, with the magisters and forsaken kirin tors ignored (these arent never used btw, like the trolls mages that dont have any sense).
black one is so random that it resemble tbc storytell.

then really, i cant understand how someone can believe that using ally characters as neutral can be well received by horde players.

Oh they ignored lots of things, read all what I wrote, also mentioning how they use their favourite human characters, but suddenly both factions have access to rather than create new ones for the horde.

it's not alliance favouritism going on there.

There was a directive to push the horde you view writing a villain as some sort of bias against horde, but you're not looking it from a developer/writer or creator perspective,.

it's not that the horde being portrayed as villains is an indication of horde hate, it is the horde at the centre and being the main thrust of the story telling, whether it has villains or heroes, and it has both, for every villainous horde action it is the horde that is main counter. .

what is happening here is that they are focusing on the horde, and trying to write an interesting story. It's not going to be the horde kissing and picking flowers.. it's going to be what they think is cool and horde like and making it in a way that works.

They're not judging it from "playing the good guy" means this is the favoured faction. Stories are not good because they only have good guys, they're good because they're interesting and drama happens -at least this is how Western entertainment views is. When the main thrust of your story is centred around one faction over the other, this is an indication of where the development priority lies.

You have to ask why? I did, my conclusion was this was intentionally taken not because blizzard loved the horde anymore than the alliance. They did not, I honestly think so. It was taken to help fix the imbalance in the game. If the alliance races and heroes looked the best, had the best, and were always doing the cool things and being the centre of the story, no one would play the horde, People needed to identify with the horde (hence blood elves going horde), horde relatable, so you had nuanced characters, shades of grey instead of vanilla good/white (which is currently or at least at the time viewed as boring in western entertainment culture) - this is why your horde characters re more nuanced, the races more varied etc.

To fix the gameplay imbalance the development mandate to push the horde was made, which is why most of you now play it. However what happened as always when you do something a lot, you fall in love. I believe blizzard and its writers fell in love with what they were doing moreso, to the extent it was preferred and better. So you saw better things, and nicer things. and what you view as bias against they view as interesting and complex and good for a story board.. meanwhile the alliance is left mostly vanilla, hardly any nuance or complexity, and they don't even care to bring other races to the forefront, let' just quickly show humans, because alliance is humans and that will do, toss in a token night elf, draenei, a sprinkle of dwarves and gnomes and have to do something for the other side, and their heart isn't all that in it.

They are the only ones that can buck the trend, they need to fall in love with all their races and factions. Rather than do something nice for one, then grab it for their fave faction. And until blizzard fall in love with the alliance , night elves and draenei etc, I'm sorry, whether you like it or not, your horde will see more attention and have the quality of writing you see because the writers are trying their best to make it as interesting and complex a story, almost game of Thrones like, because that's been the big buzz around entertainment in the previous decade.

At the end of the day, they want their game to work, if they notice that the imbalance has swung to heavily to the horde, they'll focus more on the alliance, but the problem for the alliance is that it will never swing far enough to kickstart a similar initiative but for their side. The sides are close enough for the status quo to continue, which I'm sorry means bad news for alliance fans, you're not going to get that much. Night elves had to seriously complain to no end about the token thing 8.1 was, the absence of the Kaldorei in Naz'jatar for Tyrande to be given a serious role in Ardenweald.

otherwise forget it, you'd probably have seen half arsed development. .and it remains yet to be seen if you'd get more. Why do you think Sylvanas is far more used than Tyrande. Why should one woman be more used over the other, with both being very important figures in WC3 and quite popular? Well one was on the horde that needed attention, the other was on the alliance that already had been given loads, so was dropped in development. Tyrande does Jackass for 5 expansions, till a cameo in MoP, Legion, 14 years later, when the night elves are visited for the first time, the first time an expansion is focused on the story of race that is alliance predominantly, is when she gets a long enough role - and look at how cringeworthy it was. With Suramar being little different, and her role in the broken shore was axed ..swapped for more Legion and class order halls - if you didn't know that, go listen to their own interviews and panels.

[Minikin]

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.

I dont know if iam totally sold on the idea of the devs being biased to one faction, HOWEVER, until midway through BfA i was still optimistic that they can bring about a good story. However now that I have completed the story all of that optimism is gone. While I might still not be sold on faction bias, I do agree that the current arc has had some pretty lousy consequences.

As for blood elves. I thought the reasons for their inception [as per the source in my sig] were somewhat more.....simple?

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)

Huh i didnt know that about the nightborne.

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.

hmm its hard to imagine that the devs are totally biased, like I am sure there might be evidence but it seems a bit....tin foily that they have it out against the alliance, because in the end, two warchiefs were ousted and a human king lectured orgimmar about honor TWICE in their own city. Yes personally id like some world changes for the war. Like land retaken and such but I think that might be more a developer resource issue?

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.

hey the same people on this forum that complain jaina is golden's self insert, conveniently forget that nathanos is Danuser's insert.

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 .

Issue is, in other stories players can openly point and say, yea that faction leader is evil. E.g: Vitiate and Nathema. The jedi have no equal in response to that character. I am not talking about power here. More on what they did. No jedi fed on an entire planet to increase their power. And the interesting thing is, Vitiate was not the only sith to ever do so. Now anyone who says "yo man vitiate was not evil", would be considered trollish at best, stupid at worst. And you would be HARD PRESSED to find anyone who claims that. Now flip the universe. Sylvanas creates a war just so people can die and she builds her power as they are fed into the Maw. This is quite literally THE SAME thing. Yet you still have a faction of the horde who claim she did nothing all the while claiming that the alliance doesnt admit to its wrong doing lol. This is the same faction of players that wants some agency and resources wasted on choice to follow a known evil leader. And that is the problem. The devs might not be perfect at their job but a certain populace of the players are to blame too.

[Powerogue]

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

What? Every single one of them has had a badass moment within the last expansion and a half. Velen technically had a bonus if we count AU-Velen. You don't remember everyone else being willing to go home and Velen is just "NO MORE RUNNING! NO MORE HIDING!" And runs into the portal to duel Kil'jaeden head-on while we cleared trash?

I agree with the general sentiment that they didn't give the Alliance enough reason to be perceived by the Horde as a threat and enemies to be destroyed (which is why my thread on minor story changes included a war capaign chapter where they kill Drek'Thar)

[Soon-TM]

• Highmountain - was turned into a Tauren zone. Saying that HM is a Horde zone is like saying that Mechagon is an Alliance zone.
• Stormheim - was turned into a TVrykul zone. Why shouldn't it?
• 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. You still got two entire zones dedicated almost exclusively to NEs, and Broken Shore's biggest features were CoEN and ToS, with heavy ties to NE story. That's more than what any other race has got, except maybe Draenei/BE back in BC.
  
• Thal'dranath was removed - we don't want another night elf ruined zone ion said, we're going to give you something much better. See above.

Not to mention that the Horde spent the entirety of Legion meekly following Dadgar, and later freaking Velen. Hell, Orcs had no presence whatsoever in Argus, even if the BL was responsible for their original corruption and for their exile from Draenor. Actually, there was no Horde presence in Argus at all, aside from an AFK Liadrin. That's certainly proof of Horde Bias™.

[Talrath]

I agree with Ravenmoon, most Alliance people are nagging not because we dont get the spotlight, but because the story for Alliance races are too bland as if there is no heart in it. Right now, if any spotlight is given to the Alliance its Always the humans. The Alliance consists of night elves, draneai, gnomes, dwarfs, but you dont hear any exploit of them. Yes yes, there is Magni, but again hes bland and neutral. Lets look at each Alliance race:

Dwarfs: In vanilla they took in the gnomes, the dwarfs can make big ass structures and machines which are durable and dwarves can become several hunderd years old. Are mostly drunk and talk funny. If you look at their structures:
- Made an ENTIRE city in a mountain, and thats just ONE clan. ALL clans have made one.
- Made a big ass dam to regulate water.
- Have tunnels inside the mountain regions for faster travel.
- Have a knack with building war constructs and armour.
- Use gryphons for air combat.
- CONSTRUCTED A TRAIN THAT GOES UNDERGROUND FROM IF TO SW

Now, what did they accomplice since vanilla? Literally nothing, there isnt a major victory of them or an important invention. Magni -before suddenly becoming a saint- hated the horde like hell, cuz of orcs. The same can be said to Muradin, but they somehow forgot it??? Any decent writer could come with a story with dwarves, but yeah blizzard....

Gnomes: They are literally the smartest beings in Azeroth, they make blueprints and dwarves construct them. K what did they accomplice before vanilla:
- Made a hypermodern city underground
- Every invention like the tanks, helicopters is theirs.

What happend after vanilla? They designed a submarine and a flying ship and thats it. Also they lost their city to troggs, the most stupid race on azeroth and they still havent got their city back. Just look at mechagon, if blizzard had decent writers then mechagon wouldnt have existed and gnomeregan would actually look like mechagon. The robots could have been made by gnomes aswell and used against enemies, but nope. The gnomes have been wasted aswell by blizzard.

Draneai: Holy, well it took them 10 years to build a spaceship while not contributing at all in the horde vs Alliance (except for the small dirt north of ashenvale). They are space goats with space tech, BLIZZARD WTH. Use them to reinforce the Kaldorei settlements which can have a posotive influence to night elves to embrace the arcane side again. Since the tools those space goats have are very handy, but again nope. Regarding characters, well Velen could be the pacifist in the Alliance and will only send help to defend settlements like in ashenvale and feathermoon stronghold.

Night elves: Omg, where do I even start. Alright, they made a race -that is considered in the fantasy world as higher race- and wrote them as complete incompetent race. The Night elves before vanilla were written meh, not bad but also not decent. There were times where I couldnt figure out why a race that is already smart and are being even amplified by the world tree, made the desicion to make a young night elf girl who has no experience in leading become the race leader. Its just astounishing, heck I thought the smartest person, Jarod, would have said nope were not going to do that, we are going to make a councel so that no1 becomes the second queen Azshara. But blizzard already did something stupid with that and made Tyrande the boss. Do you know how much lore stuff there could have been if there was a councel?! There was Fandral to be her enemy, but Blizz butchered him in vanilla because humans and orcs had to become the main focus. Its just astounishing how blizzard pats themselves on their back and say: We did a good job. Heck, when I wrote a report and see it was rubbish, I wasnt saying that it was good, heck, I would change the living heck out of it until im satisfied and let other people read it aswell.

There are soooo many points where blizzard dropped the ball. Remember that they said that they plan 3 expansions ahead? aaah heck no, they dont do that, just admit it, we can clearly see it by reading the books and see it ingame. Also, let the real writers write the story and choose which one you are going to follow. Christy Golden and others are good writers, people bash them while they dont know that these writers dont have any power when its about lore decisions. Writers just write the narrative and thats it. Im pretty sure the writers must have voiced a million times about inconsistencies of WoW lore but just get ignored millions of times. Eventually the writers just do what they have to do and peace out, cuz they dont want the headache of blizz decision makers.

Now let me give you a great example, look at FF14, they HIRE writers to write the LORE and because of this their storyline is phenomenal. Every lore is in the game, every narrative is IN THE GAME. Blizz, just dont think that you know how to write a story, just let some same dedicated writers do it until the end of times.

The horde gets screen time, doesnt matter if it is good or bad. They get screen time.

[ravenmoon]

Not to mention that the Horde spent the entirety of Legion meekly following Dadgar, and later freaking Velen. Hell, Orcs had no presence whatsoever in Argus, even if the BL was responsible for their original corruption and for their exile from Draenor. Actually, there was no Horde presence in Argus at all, aside from an AFK Liadrin. That's certainly proof of Horde Bias™.

You've not read the post, and taken the section out of context, the purpose of bringing it up was not to criticise that it's a tuaren zone or verykul zone - but to illustrate the diminshing of the Night elves role and importnance in an expansion that was originally focusing on them for a change.

My opinion is that the devs or the senior ones who aren't that i nlove with the race, got tired of doing stuff related to them, after 1, 2, 3 zones, it became boring. You hear Ion several times mention over the years of Legion, "we felt having more night elf stuff would be boring, or too mcuh etc" and it's not that they're wrong, but something is boring only if you make it such, you could hae easily created noew aspects of the night elves to show us, and dint' ahve to substitute there stuff consistently..


They are well witin their rights to do so, and it's not a matter of wrong or right etiher, it just illustrates that the love isn't there which is the point I'm making, they don't care that much. Now some do, but it's innherently not that important - it is one of a large number ofpoints made that show again how little the night elves mean to them. The same nighte lves are basicaly the source of the fodder for the horde. This is beyond "being a focus " because night elves are not heroes or victors here, they're just victims that are slaughtered in the machinations of the horde (now in evil mode whhich you don't like) all to show the grand complexity of the matyr-type Saurfang who emerges and the horde who gather and rallies behind waht is right and eventually challenges Sylvanas to save the horde.

And the Night elves just pawns, who'd have got nothing if the outcry from their fans wasn't so heated, that htey outright stated, people were so upset, we rushed in the Darkshore warfront. it's possible, Sivlermoon or Feralas were initially going to be the warfronts, but it went to Darkshore, and did it actually achieve or mean anything no. Token. Yay you beat afew horde forces - your people are already slaughtered, you home destroyed, you're no longer immortal, and you're nothing like how you were originally written about in your very own lore - but that's okay - the effects of Legion , the plot revals, the truth about the legion, about illidan, about the cure finally for arcane addiction, the return of a loved city - i mean this citeis destruction is what drives Maiev off the deep end, NONE of that is explored.. yoru existence hafor the last 10,0000 years has been affected by this foe tha tis finally defeated and role in the new chapter, nothing changed, nor sign of any of the mamoth implicaitons, it's now all about being slaughtered by the horde, in a culling that isn't a patch on what the Legion did in the 1st invasion...

And this is supposed to somehow change the night elves irrepairably?

it clearly wasn't thought through properly, it wasn't really even about them, they were just story tools to further that plot, nothing more, if they actually cared, they'd spot these, and have told waht happened in a far more fitting way. the victim night elves woudl have featured a lto more heavily with other aspects of rescent events being showed genuinely proving to us, that aight, the foucs atm has swtiched to the night elves. The neglect and bone throwing, shows you it wasn't at all, they're jsut the plot tool used to create mass drama, and tossed aside, not properly delved into.

Again it's their right to do this ofc, but, it shows you what it is, it's right there infront of you. You can deny it, but this was never about night elves it was about struming up a war , and weaving a cool ass jerk-off story about Banshee Goddess Sylvanas and the Death knells, it even eclipsed Azshara ndN'zoth which end feeling like side plots really - oh yeh, and we also have to deal with an old god threat.

If that's where they wanna go, that's where they wanna go. Their story!But don't pretend as if night elves are important or that bias doesn't exist even if it wasn't actually consciously intended. They just go with their gut and the flow, but it shows you the gut and teh flow is focused on the horde and Sylvanas.

It is just how it is atm. let's not kid ourselves.

- - - Updated - - -

I agree with Ravenmoon, most Alliance people are nagging not because we dont get the spotlight, but because the story for Alliance races are too bland as if there is no heart in it. Right now, if any spotlight is given to the Alliance its Always the humans. The Alliance consists of night elves, draneai, gnomes, dwarfs, but you dont hear any exploit of them. Yes yes, there is Magni, but again hes bland and neutral. Lets look at each Alliance race:

Dwarfs: In vanilla they took in the gnomes, the dwarfs can make big ass structures and machines which are durable and dwarves can become several hunderd years old. Are mostly drunk and talk funny. If you look at their structures:
- Made an ENTIRE city in a mountain, and thats just ONE clan. ALL clans have made one.
- Made a big ass dam to regulate water.
- Have tunnels inside the mountain regions for faster travel.
- Have a knack with building war constructs and armour.
- Use gryphons for air combat.
- CONSTRUCTED A TRAIN THAT GOES UNDERGROUND FROM IF TO SW

Now, what did they accomplice since vanilla? Literally nothing, there isnt a major victory of them or an important invention. Magni -before suddenly becoming a saint- hated the horde like hell, cuz of orcs. The same can be said to Muradin, but they somehow forgot it??? Any decent writer could come with a story with dwarves, but yeah blizzard....

Gnomes: They are literally the smartest beings in Azeroth, they make blueprints and dwarves construct them. K what did they accomplice before vanilla:
- Made a hypermodern city underground
- Every invention like the tanks, helicopters is theirs.

What happend after vanilla? They designed a submarine and a flying ship and thats it. Also they lost their city to troggs, the most stupid race on azeroth and they still havent got their city back. Just look at mechagon, if blizzard had decent writers then mechagon wouldnt have existed and gnomeregan would actually look like mechagon. The robots could have been made by gnomes aswell and used against enemies, but nope. The gnomes have been wasted aswell by blizzard.

Draneai: Holy, well it took them 10 years to build a spaceship while not contributing at all in the horde vs Alliance (except for the small dirt north of ashenvale). They are space goats with space tech, BLIZZARD WTH. Use them to reinforce the Kaldorei settlements which can have a posotive influence to night elves to embrace the arcane side again. Since the tools those space goats have are very handy, but again nope. Regarding characters, well Velen could be the pacifist in the Alliance and will only send help to defend settlements like in ashenvale and feathermoon stronghold.

Night elves: Omg, where do I even start. Alright, they made a race -that is considered in the fantasy world as higher race- and wrote them as complete incompetent race. The Night elves before vanilla were written meh, not bad but also not decent. There were times where I couldnt figure out why a race that is already smart and are being even amplified by the world tree, made the desicion to make a young night elf girl who has no experience in leading become the race leader. Its just astounishing, heck I thought the smartest person, Jarod, would have said nope were not going to do that, we are going to make a councel so that no1 becomes the second queen Azshara. But blizzard already did something stupid with that and made Tyrande the boss. Do you know how much lore stuff there could have been if there was a councel?! There was Fandral to be her enemy, but Blizz butchered him in vanilla because humans and orcs had to become the main focus. Its just astounishing how blizzard pats themselves on their back and say: We did a good job. Heck, when I wrote a report and see it was rubbish, I wasnt saying that it was good, heck, I would change the living heck out of it until im satisfied and let other people read it aswell.

There are soooo many points where blizzard dropped the ball. Remember that they said that they plan 3 expansions ahead? aaah heck no, they dont do that, just admit it, we can clearly see it by reading the books and see it ingame. Also, let the real writers write the story and choose which one you are going to follow. Christy Golden and others are good writers, people bash them while they dont know that these writers dont have any power when its about lore decisions. Writers just write the narrative and thats it. Im pretty sure the writers must have voiced a million times about inconsistencies of WoW lore but just get ignored millions of times. Eventually the writers just do what they have to do and peace out, cuz they dont want the headache of blizz decision makers.

Now let me give you a great example, look at FF14, they HIRE writers to write the LORE and because of this their storyline is phenomenal. Every lore is in the game, every narrative is IN THE GAME. Blizz, just dont think that you know how to write a story, just let some same dedicated writers do it until the end of times.

The horde gets screen time, doesnt matter if it is good or bad. They get screen time.

What he said.. what this guy has said.

Wondered what happened to the Well of Eternity, Immortality, the arcane side of the night elevs- themes that were central and prominent to the race in war of the Ancietns, Wc3 , and classic, yet when the story continues they disappear, and yet every addition since seems so half baked.

We could go on, about every alliance race.

Shall we talk about how we can't see Draenei without a human by their side?

Or how about how every alliance race only relates to humans, and the interaction between other races is negligent to non-existence even when they are very closely related. When did you see Gnomes and Dwarves interacting and focus being between those two? What happened to Draenei and Night elves who in the starting experience of TBC were supposedly becoming close friends.. and yet we see far more of the friendship between the Night elven Nightborne and the Blood elves and also Draenei and Blood elves than we ever saw of NElves and Draenei. Draenei and humans though have shown up consistently.

Oh we could write essays. Wanna bet, that most people don't even notice this... I guess to focused on complaining that the horde is the villain again so they don't even see, hey it's also the hero and a lot more too, and the other guys well are just pawns to facilitate that.

I don't mean to diminish your concern of the horde guys (yes we know MMO is majority horde fanbase who actively post), trust me, horde fans, you have a legitimate case, but alliance fans have the greater grievance, and they can show it. It doesn't make yours less valid or unlikeable either, just recognise it is there.

[spalernTJ]

I kinda wish they'd do the same thing FF XIV does. Make your character the main character... Or make us an unbiased adventurer... We're stuck in this weird area in between where we're supposed to be the "Champion of Azeroth" The "Commander" of a forward front Garrison on Draenor etcetera, yet we're never the focal point of the story, we're just there to react and to push the plot forward when convenient.

Either make a truly neutral experience by removing faction barriers. Make the players part of a "Neutral" guild of adventurers that chooses who to fight for when it comes to PvP (Faction ideals, resource distribution etc) And let us interpret ourselves into a grander story we take part of, as "the mercenary," "the adventurer," "the soldier," or whatever we see our characters as, instead of pushing us into these roles, that are going to be pushed aside when our "position" might make things more difficult for the story.

Or make us -the- character, whom the story revolves around, while other players (From our own perspective) are the adventurers that helps defeating bigger baddies. With BFA, from Alliance point of view, I have never felt more disconnected from the story since Vanilla... And Vanilla didn't have a story. When I stepped into Uldir for the first time, I had fuck all clue why I was there, was there was, who was there or the reason behind it. This is what the War Campaign could have been used for, but instead I was off doing random sabotage, under the guidance of new members of our faction. /shrug

- - - Updated - - -

- Snip -

Don't forget Worgen. Because other than Greymane, the race practically doesn't exist at all.

[Talrath]

You've not read the post, and taken the section out of context, the purpose of bringing it up was not to criticise that it's a tuaren zone or verykul zone - but to illustrate the diminshing of the Night elves role and importnance in an expansion that was originally focusing on them for a change.

My opinion is that the devs or the senior ones who aren't that i nlove with the race, got tired of doing stuff related to them, after 1, 2, 3 zones, it became boring. You hear Ion several times mention over the years of Legion, "we felt having more night elf stuff would be boring, or too mcuh etc" and it's not that they're wrong, but something is boring only if you make it such, you could hae easily created noew aspects of the night elves to show us, and dint' ahve to substitute there stuff consistently..


They are well witin their rights to do so, and it's not a matter of wrong or right etiher, it just illustrates that the love isn't there which is the point I'm making, they don't care that much. Now some do, but it's innherently not that important - it is one of a large number ofpoints made that show again how little the night elves mean to them. The same nighte lves are basicaly the source of the fodder for the horde. This is beyond "being a focus " because night elves are not heroes or victors here, they're just victims that are slaughtered in the machinations of the horde (now in evil mode whhich you don't like) all to show the grand complexity of the matyr-type Saurfang who emerges and the horde who gather and rallies behind waht is right and eventually challenges Sylvanas to save the horde.

And the Night elves just pawns, who'd have got nothing if the outcry from their fans wasn't so heated, that htey outright stated, people were so upset, we rushed in the Darkshore warfront. it's possible, Sivlermoon or Feralas were initially going to be the warfronts, but it went to Darkshore, and did it actually achieve or mean anything no. Token. Yay you beat afew horde forces - your people are already slaughtered, you home destroyed, you're no longer immortal, and you're nothing like how you were originally written about in your very own lore - but that's okay - the effects of Legion , the plot revals, the truth about the legion, about illidan, about the cure finally for arcane addiction, the return of a loved city - i mean this citeis destruction is what drives Maiev off the deep end, NONE of that is explored.. yoru existence hafor the last 10,0000 years has been affected by this foe tha tis finally defeated and role in the new chapter, nothing changed, nor sign of any of the mamoth implicaitons, it's now all about being slaughtered by the horde, in a culling that isn't a patch on what the Legion did in the 1st invasion...

And this is supposed to somehow change the night elves irrepairably?

it clearly wasn't thought through properly, it wasn't really even about them, they were just story tools to further that plot, nothing more, if they actually cared, they'd spot these, and have told waht happened in a far more fitting way. the victim night elves woudl have featured a lto more heavily with other aspects of rescent events being showed genuinely proving to us, that aight, the foucs atm has swtiched to the night elves. The neglect and bone throwing, shows you it wasn't at all, they're jsut the plot tool used to create mass drama, and tossed aside, not properly delved into.

Again it's their right to do this ofc, but, it shows you what it is, it's right there infront of you. You can deny it, but this was never about night elves it was about struming up a war , and weaving a cool ass jerk-off story about Banshee Goddess Sylvanas and the Death knells, it even eclipsed Azshara ndN'zoth which end feeling like side plots really - oh yeh, and we also have to deal with an old god threat.

If that's where they wanna go, that's where they wanna go. Their story!But don't pretend as if night elves are important or that bias doesn't exist even if it wasn't actually consciously intended. They just go with their gut and the flow, but it shows you the gut and teh flow is focused on the horde and Sylvanas.

It is just how it is atm. let's not kid ourselves.

- - - Updated - - -


What he said.. what this guy has said.

Wondered what happened to the Well of Eternity, Immortality, the arcane side of the night elevs- themes that were central and prominent to the race in war of the Ancietns, Wc3 , and classic, yet when the story continues they disappear, and yet every addition since seems so half baked.

We could go on, about every alliance race.

Shall we talk about how we can't see Draenei without a human by their side?

Or how about how every alliance race only relates to humans, and the interaction between other races is negligent to non-existence even when they are very closely related. When did you see Gnomes and Dwarves interacting and focus being between those two? What happened to Draenei and Night elves who in the starting experience of TBC were supposedly becoming close friends.. and yet we see far more of the friendship between the Night elven Nightborne and the Blood elves and also Draenei and Blood elves than we ever saw of NElves and Draenei. Draenei and humans though have shown up consistently.

Oh we could write essays. Wanna bet, that most people don't even notice this... I guess to focused on complaining that the horde is the villain again so they don't even see, hey it's also the hero and a lot more too, and the other guys well are just pawns to facilitate that.

I don't mean to diminish your concern of the horde guys (yes we know MMO is majority horde fanbase who actively post), trust me, horde fans, you have a legitimate case, but alliance fans have the greater grievance, and they can show it. It doesn't make yours less valid or unlikeable either, just recognise it is there.

I actually tried to say that horde lore gets better treatment than Alliance lore

- - - Updated - - -

Steve Danuser said that they had some lore mishap in BFA and here i am thinking that it was a lore butchering.