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

[Jiastanna]

Factions are an outdated system (storywise), that did not do Blizz any favour in telling the story of BFA. Too many races, too many different interests. Too many cooks spoil the broth. Too many races will spoil the factions and thus the story. You cannot involve all of them in the same way. And the idea of an allout-war didn't work out (especially after the class focus in Legion. Can anyone explain to my paladin, that he should be killing his paladin companion, he risked his live for? Or why my demonhunter gives two cents about killing anything else but demons?). It bamboozles me, why Blizz is not taking a focus on races instead, making use of the old world.

Gnomes: Give the gnomes their city back and add Mechagnomes as a new customization, after Gnomeregan is back in their hands?
Dwarves: Let the dwarves fight an internal conflict about the throne and finish the story in an interesting way, afterwards add the Darkiron as a customization.
Trolls: Let the Darkspear look for new leadership, bring back the other troll tribes and continue their story from Cata/MoP.
Goblins: Why is Gallywix still in charge? What about Undermine?
Worgen: Get your city back! Build a new kingdom somewhere else! Interact with the other human kingdoms and how they see Gilneans after their isolation.
...


Every race already has its own conflicts and interests. Why Blizz devs don't use those conflicts is beyond me.

[omeomorfismo]

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.

dude, you are making a big movie in your head.
alliance, or better, ally's races are always doing the best, being the best and having the best. i mean, ok, the human potential meme is true, but anyway isnt like night elf were left so behind. take the classes. most of them are developed with ally in mind. paladin? then it will be an human story. druid? oh, forgive that blizz expanded them other than being nelfs, they will be always nelfs stories. mage? oh, a kirin tor story! priest? oh for the holy light! damn even the shadow artifact forgot voodoo or the forsaken for the cult of the forgotten shadows. only humans allowed! warlocks? damn, better making an human protagonist for the green fire quest, isnt like orcs practiced it way longer than them.
then do you want watch all the stories they wrote? when was the last time a shared questline included an horde character? bfa-> magni. argus->velen, alleria, turalyon, illidan. sargeras tomb->illidan maiev (dungeon), velen and kadghar. nighthold->kadghar. emerald nightmare-> lol malfurion. wod->kadghar kadghar and another time kadghar (with her night elf guard and the kirin tors!) pandaria-> i dont know, maybe you see voljin. cata-> yay thrall and garona! but ehy, another time malfurion and his druids in hijal, aaaaaaand the ally archaeologists :|
and blizz didnt felt in love with draenei and night elves? damn the former stealed every single spotlight in the revenge against the burning legion. the orcs that were enslaved and their planet destroyed, noooooooooooooooo. the forsakens that were genocided, ressed and mind enslaved? noooooooooooooo. belf? ehy, a random liandrin appears! its not very effective...
the night elves? i dont know. having the most expanded setting of every other races combined isnt enough? damn, even kalidmor is covered of night elf ruins. and with humans are the only race that consistently has to be experienced by everyone (damn even trolls have to help them)

and sylvanas with more spotlight than tyrande? lol, she was mia until cata levelling, then a cameo, even smaller than tyrande, in soo, and legion was basically initial quest in the broken shores and then 2 cameos (unlike tyrande that even horde have to help her in valsharan). thats all. even in bfa the spotlight on tyrande is so bigger that at least you had your "8.1 token". we had only fingers in our asses with all the shitty baine quests.

and horde races arent more "nuanced" than allies because blizzard care more, but only because they are more esothics for us westerns. allys are basically standard fantasy races, explored and copied tons of times. trolls are basically the only original thing that blizz pull out in warcraft, orcs, undead and goblins are standard fantasy enemies but playable. thats not something that is solvable, i mean, its even the reason why blizz had to add belf for the easterns, apparently nobody wanted to play the equally esothic faction but ugly.

and all lore devs play horde? i call it bullshit. golden plays an human warlock and if i dont remember wrong afrasiabi should play an human paladin (but im not sure, i dont remember in which interview i read it). only hazzikostas is known to play his shaman orc.

and you advocate for dimished focus on nelfs? damn its the 2020, the fucking npcs still call me "living" even playing a dk forsaken

[Soon-TM]

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.

When an entire faction is painted as goody goody two shoes, without even a shade of differences or internal struggle, you are bound to get a very bland picture. And I am quite sure that most Alliance players prefer that rather than getting the sort of "narrative focus" given to Horde.

[DemonHunter18]

Factions are an outdated system (storywise), that did not do Blizz any favour in telling the story of BFA. Too many races, too many different interests. Too many cooks spoil the broth. Too many races will spoil the factions and thus the story. You cannot involve all of them in the same way. And the idea of an allout-war didn't work out (especially after the class focus in Legion. Can anyone explain to my paladin, that he should be killing his paladin companion, he risked his live for? Or why my demonhunter gives two cents about killing anything else but demons?). It bamboozles me, why Blizz is not taking a focus on races instead, making use of the old world.

Gnomes: Give the gnomes their city back and add Mechagnomes as a new customization, after Gnomeregan is back in their hands?
Dwarves: Let the dwarves fight an internal conflict about the throne and finish the story in an interesting way, afterwards add the Darkiron as a customization.
Trolls: Let the Darkspear look for new leadership, bring back the other troll tribes and continue their story from Cata/MoP.
Goblins: Why is Gallywix still in charge? What about Undermine?
Worgen: Get your city back! Build a new kingdom somewhere else! Interact with the other human kingdoms and how they see Gilneans after their isolation.
...


Every race already has its own conflicts and interests. Why Blizz devs don't use those conflicts is beyond me.

LOL yeah, especially DH.

they are Illidari and loyal to Illidan only and will hunt demons for eternity.

but hey Lord Illidan, I will go and do a genocide on your former people for no reason. we will also kill your brother as well and your childhood best friend who you loved so much.

no biggie, really xd

[Soulwind]

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?

I've always argued that biased writers are fine, as long as you have a team with multiple biases.

They could have a writer that adores Sylvanas, the Forsaken and such. But also another writer who loves Malfurion, Tyrande and the night elves. And another who likes writing about the heroes of the Second War. And another who likes writing about orcish honor. And another who likes writing about gnomes and goblins...

And then they argue. For hours. And then they decide who wins what. And the story will be balanced organically. Not perfectly, but better than what we have.

There are multiple problems with this way of doing things, but mostly because it's not how Blizzard develops WoW.

They like to say they aren't reactive, but they very much are. If you complain that the first patch of an expansion focuses too much on something, you'll see them rush to take the story somewhere else, coherence be damned.
That only kind of works if you have a simple straightforward story to begin with. If several people come together to craft a complex story with multiple points of view, any attempt to change it on the fly will break the continuity of multiple stories, and it'll be very noticeable.
And they don't just react to the playerbase, but also to the gameplay. If they start an expansion planning to write the story around a feature that's in development, but it ends up not working as intended, they'll be forced to weave it in a different direction (e.g. garrisons or warfronts).

So my suggestion, as simple as it is, would actually require that they change their priorities, and that they were brave enough to finish the stories they want to tell before moving on to something else. But money comes first, gameplay comes second, and the lore is just an ornament on top, and it's always been that way with this company.

[ravenmoon]

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.

Oh, I agreed with you

Steve Danuser is from Everquest, sometimes when people liek that come in they bring the rigid stereotypes of the lesser fictional genres. I found wow's races to be refreshing and unique, they were teh only fantasy (when i started playing ) that actually had Elves, Orcs, Dwarves .. i.e. non-human races being about more than one thing.

I loved that, and they took the conventional cliches sand streotypes and added interesting things tot hem. Most impressive of tha tlist was the Night elves - who were dark elves but with a twist of nature, and given what I viewed as anovel arcane identity linked to the Stars and Moon.. never seen that. Dark elves were typically living underground in caves, with their civilization having a more savage edge to them, despite being high civ, very magical but the darker side ofmagic and evil

Night elves were outdoors, night base defining them, not dark (event hough they're based on Dark elves), Magical well , arcane infusion, and a beautiful nature side that blew my mind.. the duality was so appealing (which is why I keep arguing the existence and role of the arcane in the night elf make up for those who love to peg em as forest elves).

But above these were the fact that these Dark elves weren't evil. They are the only company that dared do that.

1. No one had done an arcane magical elf group that was fused with nature in this way - like two extreme and polar opposites yet existing side by side (which is the case int he pre-sundering era before the invasion period like we see in Azsuna which was one fo the few areas that maintained the original Kaldorei ethos of the nature and arcane), and off course inthe modern post vigil era, where the highboren are now accepted back and working alongside druid and priest, and yet are very separate from them , as preiest is also separate from druid despite eachh having aspects form the other. The orders don't mix

this is neverl

2. They had the whole moon and stars thing - fit with the night, but it's arcane visualitsation gave some meaning and focus that no other race had

3. They were good, not evil, though Azshara went evil, she was the excpetion not the norm, most of her kingdom rebelled against her, including the highborne her closet sect. In fact only the palace highborne styayed faitfhul and even amognst them a sizeabel grouop rebelled (the other rebels were the Farondis who she punished, the Shen'dralar far to the west, Menaar, the highborne in Suramar (Suramar wasn't an all highborne city, but like most of hte zone where the resistance is born and marches to Zin'Azshari they also rebel). Most of the evil night elves turn into naga or satyr, making those who remain night elf, whether priest, druid, mage or Demon hunter good guys.

And it was quite intersuting to have a user of evil magic being noble -- like illidan was - anti-ehro of sorts.


Ths same was for the orcs. My first love, I was stunened that the orcs were not stupid savage brutes. They had an honour to them, were very cunning and also intelligent beings, despite being clearly evil at first it was not what it seemed. Loved that. If it wasn't for Night elvs and my brother, i'd probably still ike the orcs the most.

However, when you come from games like EQ, tendency is to bring that limiting culture, and your own preset ideas of what groupss houdl be.. Ir emember how the wow classes started changing when they brought developers from EQ in, devs who started impsing EQ constratins like only Mage/Rogue/warrior could be actual dps classes, classes like Paladin, druidsd, shaman etc shouldn't be able to compete, becuase this roele was for mages only, adnt hat was not how the intiial release of the classes was like. It took Ghostcrawler to fix that mess, and glad he did, or I'd have stopped playing wow..

Who knows what Danuser thinks about other stuff, but I noticed in his interview with Taliesen, when he was asked if had any regrest that any of his faves didn't make the cut - He said, no, I'm pretty satisfied we got it right. D'uh Taliesen, this is the guy that decides who'd come, all his faves are in there, he's not going to go based on logic. He has faves, and they'll show up, and others would just wilt.

Chris Metzen I always felt genuinely liekd all the races in wow, he had a hand in all of them, you could say created the bulk of the versions of htem we see in wow. THe problem with him is that he didn't work on most of the detailed material we get to see in -game. in TBc he did the overall story, but the zone to zone quests and who to show, what races to do, others decide and he just okays. He started working on the move way back as TBC, and that hit so many walls eventually failing, I think that split role was why he never really had hands on in the nitty gritty of wow. If he had, wanna bet the races would not have been so abused on the alliance side?

But then he wasn't the only one making decisions, and I suspect the poor guy got overuled several times, which is why he eventulaly quit.

- - - Updated - - -

I've always argued that biased writers are fine, as long as you have a team with multiple biases.

They could have a writer that adores Sylvanas, the Forsaken and such. But also another writer who loves Malfurion, Tyrande and the night elves. And another who likes writing about the heroes of the Second War. And another who likes writing about orcish honor. And another who likes writing about gnomes and goblins...

And then they argue. For hours. And then they decide who wins what. And the story will be balanced organically. Not perfectly, but better than what we have.

There are multiple problems with this way of doing things, but mostly because it's not how Blizzard develops WoW.

They like to say they aren't reactive, but they very much are. If you complain that the first patch of an expansion focuses too much on something, you'll see them rush to take the story somewhere else, coherence be damned.
That only kind of works if you have a simple straightforward story to begin with. If several people come together to craft a complex story with multiple points of view, any attempt to change it on the fly will break the continuity of multiple stories, and it'll be very noticeable.
And they don't just react to the playerbase, but also to the gameplay. If they start an expansion planning to write the story around a feature that's in development, but it ends up not working as intended, they'll be forced to weave it in a different direction (e.g. garrisons or warfronts).

So my suggestion, as simple as it is, would actually require that they change their priorities, and that they were brave enough to finish the stories they want to tell before moving on to something else. But money comes first, gameplay comes second, and the lore is just an ornament on top, and it's always been that way with this company.

I agree with you there. I really do, that approach could work. But judging by the results we get, I suspect what has happened is the game directive drive to push the horde that started mid classic to fix the horde, that has led to the senior team being biased.. as new people come, what has happened is tha the horde loving seniros have ismply had their way on everything. Theya re supposed to be the unbiased ones.

But it doesn't matter how split biased your team is, if your leads are all pro one, the juniors who may love the other guys more aren't going to really change thigns much.

- - - Updated - - -

dude, you are making a big movie in your head.
alliance, or better, ally's races are always doing the best, being the best and having the best. i mean, ok, the human potential meme is true, but anyway isnt like night elf were left so behind. take the classes. most of them are developed with ally in mind. paladin? then it will be an human story. druid? oh, forgive that blizz expanded them other than being nelfs, they will be always nelfs stories. mage? oh, a kirin tor story! priest? oh for the holy light! damn even the shadow artifact forgot voodoo or the forsaken for the cult of the forgotten shadows. only humans allowed! warlocks? damn, better making an human protagonist for the green fire quest, isnt like orcs practiced it way longer than them.
then do you want watch all the stories they wrote? when was the last time a shared questline included an horde character? bfa-> magni. argus->velen, alleria, turalyon, illidan. sargeras tomb->illidan maiev (dungeon), velen and kadghar. nighthold->kadghar. emerald nightmare-> lol malfurion. wod->kadghar kadghar and another time kadghar (with her night elf guard and the kirin tors!) pandaria-> i dont know, maybe you see voljin. cata-> yay thrall and garona! but ehy, another time malfurion and his druids in hijal, aaaaaaand the ally archaeologists :|
and blizz didnt felt in love with draenei and night elves? damn the former stealed every single spotlight in the revenge against the burning legion. the orcs that were enslaved and their planet destroyed, noooooooooooooooo. the forsakens that were genocided, ressed and mind enslaved? noooooooooooooo. belf? ehy, a random liandrin appears! its not very effective...
the night elves? i dont know. having the most expanded setting of every other races combined isnt enough? damn, even kalidmor is covered of night elf ruins. and with humans are the only race that consistently has to be experienced by everyone (damn even trolls have to help them)

and sylvanas with more spotlight than tyrande? lol, she was mia until cata levelling, then a cameo, even smaller than tyrande, in soo, and legion was basically initial quest in the broken shores and then 2 cameos (unlike tyrande that even horde have to help her in valsharan). thats all. even in bfa the spotlight on tyrande is so bigger that at least you had your "8.1 token". we had only fingers in our asses with all the shitty baine quests.

and horde races arent more "nuanced" than allies because blizzard care more, but only because they are more esothics for us westerns. allys are basically standard fantasy races, explored and copied tons of times. trolls are basically the only original thing that blizz pull out in warcraft, orcs, undead and goblins are standard fantasy enemies but playable. thats not something that is solvable, i mean, its even the reason why blizz had to add belf for the easterns, apparently nobody wanted to play the equally esothic faction but ugly.

and all lore devs play horde? i call it bullshit. golden plays an human warlock and if i dont remember wrong afrasiabi should play an human paladin (but im not sure, i dont remember in which interview i read it). only hazzikostas is known to play his shaman orc.

and you advocate for dimished focus on nelfs? damn its the 2020, the fucking npcs still call me "living" even playing a dk forsaken

Who knows, maybe I am, a few other things line up though that make me have the suspicions I have. But Nightborne were not designed to be an allied race, they're cool because blizzard wanted to show the arcane pre-sundering civilization of the night elves, and that in the lore is said to be incredible and highly advanced before it fell.

Afrisiabi was asked the question when fans started asking for playable Nightborne, he told us they weren't any plans, but that could change.. Later he said we were definitely going to see more from them, they've proved a lot more popular than we thought.

Anwyay you can tell some of these things by following the story. The original story in 7.0 , you culd tel is entirely foucsed on the ngiht elves and what happened to them under the shield, arcane addiction in night leves that starts in the pre-sundering time that you read in WotA, and that side of their ancient culture that the playable group is only just coming back to after 10k years of long vigil and isolation. Self contained story, like most of the other sub-races we meet.

It was during this time that they finally decided they would do sub-races and settled on how too, and it made logical choice because of their popularity to state with the likes of Nightborne - notice because of the design of the zones and the story they didn't need to do much to make the likes of Nightborne and Highmountain appealing. The work to be done was on Lightforged and void elves, who are designed to be playable from the get go. The reason we get some draenei as Lightforged in the way that you see them is because that is what they wanted to go for a playable sub-race. could have been Krokul or Man'ari, but Lightforged was coined.

Same with void elves, but I now suspect you get void elve because the Nightborne were given to the horde, and they were THAT big a prize to warrant the blood elf model going over, except they made it purple, because it's okay for the horde to get purple night elves, but not for the alliance to get blond, pale skinned blood elves.
A conclusion I wouldn't have reached if Ion hadn't come out saying "if you wanna play a blond haired, pale skinned elf, well the horde is for you"

Still don't see the bias?

Well it's no biggy, it's not like we can do anything about it, and they're well within their rights to do that, let's never forget that. You are also well within your rights not to like it if you don't. Also remember that.

[Stelio Kontos]

These topics are always pointless.

Alliance players complain they never get to be proactive, and Horde players always hand-wave and defend blatant genocide and evil actions while screaming "muh taurajo!", "muh dark lady!" or saying Jaina arresting blood elves in Dalaran is basically genocide.

In the end, it all goes round and round and no one convinces anyone. For hardcore Horde no murder or genocide is ever wrong (mehrunes) because it's always the scapegoat races that brings the mass murder on themselves, for hardcore Alliance players it's...well, are there any hardcore Alliance players around here and single-minded obsessed with the racial/ideological purity of their side like mehrunes and some other Horde fans are?
[Infraction]

[ravenmoon]

When an entire faction is painted as goody goody two shoes, without even a shade of differences or internal struggle, you are bound to get a very bland picture. And I am quite sure that most Alliance players prefer that rather than getting the sort of "narrative focus" given to Horde.

Oh yes, they very much do, they'd be livid if blizzard did whta they did to the horde with the alliance. but then i suspect the reason blizzard feel the horde is easier to write, is because they feel they can't do that elvel of disparity they show in the horde.

Sigh, if only someone could tell them they don't need to have the alliance like the horde for it to be nuanced and interesting, they could have other things that show diversity, it deosn't have to have someone going all bad, but it could, you jus thave to love them enough to want to write something interesting for them rather than keep putting all your eggs in the horde basket, and making it so convluleted teh very fans you wanted to please and stimulate with grand heroics gets so cheesed off, because they're now part of the side also doig evil.

the game of thrones approach kinda backfired. It's happening to the horde BECAUSE the horde is the focus and the loved one. It's jsut that most people and loving what that love is doing to their faction. It's not the horde they fell in love with.

I'm sure theyll turn it around, they're focused on em enough to do so, just give it sometime. It's the alliance i'm more worried about, no sign of change in affections. 8.1 was a classic example sure the cineamtic was cool but everything about the event was trivial and irrelevant, and it was supposed to be Tyrande's revenge and done so the fans would be satisfied, like they'd be satisfied after stripping the night elves of their immortality, their civilization side, most of their identity (both pre-sundering arcane and long vigil female warrior pirest - what happened to the Well of Eternity, what happened to the Illidari after we've found out their not legion agents and Illidan wasn't betraying the kaldorei, what happened now arcane addiction is completely cured by the Night elf Valewalker order? Moonguard return - all these things done, and just left, what exactly is the focus on the stars and moon all aobut such that mages, priests and druids cast these unique type of celestial arcane spells, their civliziation has Astrology arcane towers, and Star Augurs) only to reducing them to human yes men "fawning over human potential" " oh yes, Varian, he's worthy to be king over us " - a mere child to an ancient.


See what I mean by neglect or not really caring? Started with a great effort in legion, and it' s like they dropped the ball, because the race is too boring to carry on showing stuff. Well I didn't find it boring. The reason they find it boring is because their HEARTS aren't there. So they won't make it interest, they want to do more with naughty lady Sylvanas, and death mask, death ssquad, death x infinity - cos you know it's all about metal and death and metal and death etc, that's the real interestin gstuff.. so guess what is the forefront most of the time SKULLS- Legion skulls, forsaken skulls, trolls -skulls, now Shadowlands and an entire expansion on death.. because one on life would be just too boring...lol.

[Powerogue]

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.

Not sure how the thread wound up on this topic. But I'd say, as with most war actions, doing something wrong and valid military target are not in any way mutually exclusive. Military targets almost always contain civilians. Theramore was a military base and port city.

That's what made Teldrassil distinct. It was not a valid military target; it contained only civilians.

Trying to keep to the main topic though, I think with the distancing from the faction war we'll see less focus on the factions fighting with each other so much as the inner conflicts within themselves as the Alliance grapples with members who still seek vengeance, and the Horde grapples with maintaining order while transitioning from a dictatorship. I think on that note it'll focus on the night elves relationship with the Alliance on one end, and the Forsaken finding themselves without their paragon on the other.

People comparing the faction story to MOP say "we've done this before" and "nothing will really change" but I think they're trying to pave new ground here. We've disrupted the status quo of the faction dynamic in ways that cannot be undone. Now we see what new stories come out of that.

[Varodoc]

Not sure how the thread wound up on this topic. But I'd say, as with most war actions, doing something wrong and valid military target are not in any way mutually exclusive. Military targets almost always contain civilians. Theramore was a military base and port city.

That's what made Teldrassil distinct. It was not a valid military target; it contained only civilians.

Trying to keep to the main topic though, I think with the distancing from the faction war we'll see less focus on the factions fighting with each other so much as the inner conflicts within themselves as the Alliance grapples with members who still seek vengeance, and the Horde grapples with maintaining order while transitioning from a dictatorship. I think on that note it'll focus on the night elves relationship with the Alliance on one end, and the Forsaken finding themselves without their paragon on the other.

People comparing the faction story to MOP say "we've done this before" and "nothing will really change" but I think they're trying to pave new ground here. We've disrupted the status quo of the faction dynamic in ways that cannot be undone. Now we see what new stories come out of that.

Even I don't know how it came to that topic, since at this point it's obvious Garrosh was a villain and committed a war crime (there's literally a book about it).

[Mehrunes]

These topics are always pointless.

Alliance players complain they never get to be proactive, and Horde players always hand-wave and defend blatant genocide and evil actions while screaming "muh taurajo!", "muh dark lady!" or saying Jaina arresting blood elves in Dalaran is basically genocide.

In the end, it all goes round and round and no one convinces anyone. For hardcore Horde no murder or genocide is ever wrong (mehrunes) because it's always the scapegoat races that brings the mass murder on themselves, for hardcore Alliance players it's...well, are there any hardcore Alliance players around here and single-minded obsessed with the racial/ideological purity of their side like mehrunes and some other Horde fans are?

At least have the backbone to tag me when you're projecting your salty fantasies on me.

[Talrath]

But then he wasn't the only one making decisions, and I suspect the poor guy got overuled several times, which is why he eventulaly quit.

Its no wonder he started to get panic attacks. Being in a big company but he isnt allowed to do what he wants for the story that he came up with.

Also I need to watch what everquest actually is. Do Alex and Steve actually have some decent writing experience? I cant find anything on google about that. I know that Ion was actually a lawyer, dont know how in the world he got in this.

[omeomorfismo]

Oh yes, they very much do, they'd be livid if blizzard did whta they did to the horde with the alliance. but then i suspect the reason blizzard feel the horde is easier to write, is because they feel they can't do that elvel of disparity they show in the horde.

Sigh, if only someone could tell them they don't need to have the alliance like the horde for it to be nuanced and interesting, they could have other things that show diversity, it deosn't have to have someone going all bad, but it could, you jus thave to love them enough to want to write something interesting for them rather than keep putting all your eggs in the horde basket, and making it so convluleted teh very fans you wanted to please and stimulate with grand heroics gets so cheesed off, because they're now part of the side also doig evil.

the game of thrones approach kinda backfired. It's happening to the horde BECAUSE the horde is the focus and the loved one. It's jsut that most people and loving what that love is doing to their faction. It's not the horde they fell in love with.

I'm sure theyll turn it around, they're focused on em enough to do so, just give it sometime. It's the alliance i'm more worried about, no sign of change in affections. 8.1 was a classic example sure the cineamtic was cool but everything about the event was trivial and irrelevant, and it was supposed to be Tyrande's revenge and done so the fans would be satisfied, like they'd be satisfied after stripping the night elves of their immortality, their civilization side, most of their identity (both pre-sundering arcane and long vigil female warrior pirest - what happened to the Well of Eternity, what happened to the Illidari after we've found out their not legion agents and Illidan wasn't betraying the kaldorei, what happened now arcane addiction is completely cured by the Night elf Valewalker order? Moonguard return - all these things done, and just left, what exactly is the focus on the stars and moon all aobut such that mages, priests and druids cast these unique type of celestial arcane spells, their civliziation has Astrology arcane towers, and Star Augurs) only to reducing them to human yes men "fawning over human potential" " oh yes, Varian, he's worthy to be king over us " - a mere child to an ancient.


See what I mean by neglect or not really caring? Started with a great effort in legion, and it' s like they dropped the ball, because the race is too boring to carry on showing stuff. Well I didn't find it boring. The reason they find it boring is because their HEARTS aren't there. So they won't make it interest, they want to do more with naughty lady Sylvanas, and death mask, death ssquad, death x infinity - cos you know it's all about metal and death and metal and death etc, that's the real interestin gstuff.. so guess what is the forefront most of the time SKULLS- Legion skulls, forsaken skulls, trolls -skulls, now Shadowlands and an entire expansion on death.. because one on life would be just too boring...lol.

rotlf, like there arent uncountable zones where even i, a fucking forsaken, had to help druids druids and still druids (oh clearly night elves, the shapeshifter trolls are good only to be genocided)
when was the last time a non dk ally had to defile the nature, or animate a corpse?
damn, they are the only class that have quest tailored aroud them forced in the throat of everyone

and for the other answer, are you saying that expanding highborne, draenei and traitors velf lore is somehow horde bias? and having not blonde belf isnt like having only magic addicted elfs? "why we poors horde cant have a treehugger elf?!?!!" (<- sarcasm, baine its enough)

[Zero Wing]

Its no wonder he started to get panic attacks. Being in a big company but he isnt allowed to do what he wants for the story that he came up with.

Also I need to watch what everquest actually is. Do Alex and Steve actually have some decent writing experience? I cant find anything on google about that. I know that Ion was actually a lawyer, dont know how in the world he got in this.

I always inferred that Chris Metzen had a nervous breakdown owing to the the failure of Project Titan, and although they were able to salvage some of their work and repackage it as Overwatch, that things never were quite the same after that.

How Ion got into this is that he was the GM of the guild Elitist Jerks. There were longstanding close ties between EJ (and EJ-adjacent hangers-on) and the devs going all the way back to early Vanilla. Ion's main character--Gurgthock--was given a shoutout in WoW long before he joined the dev team.

[trololo681]

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.

Q:
The Alliance army who invaded the Barrens wore the tabard of Theramore. Were they under Jaina Proudmoore's command? And their invasion happened way before the time of the incoming destruction of Theramore incident, so what's the reason behind their attack on Orgrimmar's territory? It seems the Alliance and the Horde were already in total war in Cataclysm.

A:
Because Garrosh wants to defeat the night elves and conquer the whole of Kalimdor under the banner of the Horde. So the humans of Theramore sent their army and tried to establish a military line between the night elf territory and Theramore. But it seems the result is not what they expected

https://www.scrollsoflore.com/forums...ad.php?t=21125

[sam86]

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.

go do SoO to lose that feeling then
blizz horde biased? when exactly was that? when they turned us evil twice? when they turned our cities to a scenario or to a raid? or when our warchief was turned to loot piniata? or when they flat out stated that alliance is the only super power and they can do whatever they want, making horde literally their b8tch and under their 'mercy' for whatever they decide?
what horde biased? it seems because blizz piss on us alliance see it they giving us rain and want to even cut that, blizz sh8t on horde since ages, with except of green jesus who was turned to a meme and left horde for good
I hate garrosh, but i wish i can do like Nazgrim, stand with him against alliance instead of be with them against my capital, i don't want to burn a tree because our queen who is 1502 steps ahead and dying 5 times is part of her plans didn't have a comeback so let's burn it for the lols
Blizz ruined the horde in wow, it is nothing like wc3 horde who helps the weak and stand united, i loved how in classic while alliance is obviously superior to horde, they are only allied in convenience and have no intention to unite against an enemy out of (rightful) believe of superior power, while horde were brothers to degree that trolls and orcs both talk orcish and voljin was orgrimmar affiliated, none of that exist anymore, we have since ages a blue horde and a red alliance, alliance are united more than ever (with tiny crack of Tyrande who is shown as villain for that), and horde have zero leadership with a council of p8ss8es

If that is blizz biased to horde then i want them to be biased to alliance, i want to have stormwind on weekly farm and anduin as loot piniata, with alliance worshiping the old gods for a change, with another city invaded in a scenario like Battle for Undercity
But sadly blizz is 'horde biased', if anyone will get f8cked again it will be our entire council (why stop with 1 warchief?) and maybe 2 capitals for change, with alliance ascending to godlike status and leftover of horde worshiping them instead of just be the superpower which decided fates of Azeroth as blizz literally said at end of MoP

[Mehrunes]

Q:
The Alliance army who invaded the Barrens wore the tabard of Theramore. Were they under Jaina Proudmoore's command? And their invasion happened way before the time of the incoming destruction of Theramore incident, so what's the reason behind their attack on Orgrimmar's territory? It seems the Alliance and the Horde were already in total war in Cataclysm.

A:
Because Garrosh wants to defeat the night elves and conquer the whole of Kalimdor under the banner of the Horde. So the humans of Theramore sent their army and tried to establish a military line between the night elf territory and Theramore. But it seems the result is not what they expected

https://www.scrollsoflore.com/forums...ad.php?t=21125

The question was quite obviously about the Alliance army we've seen during the Cataclysms (vide the part about their tabards). Whereas what @Super Dickmann talked about is an event from before Cataclysm.

[Koryn123]

Jaina frequently confuses standing in the way of the Horde attacking the Alliance with neutrality and innocence.

In the interest of peace? Sure. Neutral and innocent and not a valid military target? No.

[Tharivor]

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.

But you don't though. Go on any forum and try and find a Horde player who feels "near invincible and charging through everyone". No one wanted Teldrassil, and when Sylvanas burned it all you heard were groans as Horde players knew that this meant they were the bad guys again and would be defeated in war yet again. And apart from that, the Horde haven't beaten anyone in BfA.

I'll agree that in Cata the Horde did initially make great advances but that was because Blizzard decided to use the Cata revamp to rectify the zone imbalance, and even that was balanced the fact that the Horde lost its warchief and had to sack its own capital. I mean would you be feel "invincible" if the Night Elves swept through northern Kalimdor for one expansion, only to lose it all shortly after and then be forced to kill Tyrande and Malfurion, leaving the Night Elves without any racial leader forever?

It's important to realise that Alliance players feeling bad =/= Horde players feeling good, and vice versa. Its possible for both sides of the playerbase to be upset.

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,

The Horde and the Orgimmar can't get destroyed for gameplay reasons, so having your Warchief become a villain (no ish about it) and then be forced to raid your own faction capitol and kill several developed Horde characters you've been fighting with for two expansions, is as close as gamplay permits a faction to get for losing.

And the Horde doesn't come out the hero- they come out crying and apologising to the Alliance for being so evil and promising to do better next time. Maybe Saurfang felt like an awesome invincible hero to the Alliance, but he didn't feel that way to Horde players- he spent most of the expansion pontificating about how evil and lost the Horde had become and even in the end only stood up to Sylvanas because Anduin motivated him. At least thats how it feels to Horde players, so if Blizzard's plan was to make us feel great then they failed.

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.

The Horde focus is only true during faction-war expansions like BfA. In other expansions (BC, WotLK, WoD, Legion) the exact opposite is true- there are no Horde characters leading at all ion those expansions, and Horde players have to go around following Alliance heroes and helping them save the day. With the sole exception of Thrall in Cata, everytime there is a good vs evil world ending threat Horde characters disappear and everyone has to follow the Alliance, even if like in Legion or WotLK the Horde has races whose whole story is built about fighting those villains.

No one wants this. Just like Alliance players don't like being invisible everytime there is a faction war, Horde players don't like being invisible everytime there is a big external threat. Blizzrad doesn't favor one faction over the other (why would they, they created both?) but they have a very outdated idea of what roles each faction must fill, and that means the Alliance isn't allowed to be badass or ruthless because they are the "good virtuous hero faction" while the Horde isn't allowed to be heroic because they are the "morally grey conflict faction".

[Super Dickmann]

Q:
The Alliance army who invaded the Barrens wore the tabard of Theramore. Were they under Jaina Proudmoore's command? And their invasion happened way before the time of the incoming destruction of Theramore incident, so what's the reason behind their attack on Orgrimmar's territory? It seems the Alliance and the Horde were already in total war in Cataclysm.

A:
Because Garrosh wants to defeat the night elves and conquer the whole of Kalimdor under the banner of the Horde. So the humans of Theramore sent their army and tried to establish a military line between the night elf territory and Theramore. But it seems the result is not what they expected

https://www.scrollsoflore.com/forums...ad.php?t=21125

That's true, but I don't see your point. Not even because of what @Mehrunes mentioned though that's true but because it doesn't alter anything - Jaina deploying troops aggressively as we see at the Gates of Mulgore and as we see in quests that it was to the point of running out of troops in Dustwallow doesn't cease to be the case just because her motive was a reasonable Alliance military position. The point isn't that Jaina was somehow immoral for defending her domain or for preferring to help the Alliance/night elves to the guy who wants her land, but that she is a participant in a war and her city is a major staging ground that is a rational target for any opposing force. See @TheLoadbearer 's post.