The horde council is pathetic.

[GreenJesus]

its clear the concept of this Horde council is just temporary and wont last.
i suspect it will be done with by beginning of the next expansion and we'll have ourselves a warchief again.
but who? hmmmm.....my vote is Rexxar!

Baine is the effective warchief, but Blizzard knew a sizable amount don't like him so they didn't make it official. Baine alone decides who gets to join the Horde and is the one that all the races report to. Our warchief is a blond chubby cheeked teenager's pet. /spit

[BB8]

The council didnt even had real game time.
We have no clue how they are going to rule.

[Ardenaso]

You know the so called alliance boot licker formed the horde right? With no interest in war. And just wanted a home for his people.

on the other hand that's not a good argument; I mean look at Azshara

- - - Updated - - -

I simply want the horde to have a leader that isn't a genocidal maniac, but takes absolutely no bullshit from anyone. Someone who stakes a claim, and then defends it. Someone who say to the alliance, for example: "This area here, consider yourself invited, but remember that you are guests, not equals. This area over here is off limits. Your people enter it, they die. We may trade, we may make common cause against greater evils, but we will never be brothers." Someone who makes it heard loud and clear when he feels that the horde has been wronged, and isn't afraid to take proper action against those who did that wronging.
Garrosh had the potential to be that character, but they fucked it up. Sylvanas wasn't that character. The council aren't these characters. Thrall probably got closest back then, but he also no longer fits the bill.

This !!!! bring back WoD Horde !!!

[Feanoro]

I simply want the horde to have a leader that isn't a genocidal maniac, but takes absolutely no bullshit from anyone. Someone who stakes a claim, and then defends it. Someone who say to the alliance, for example: "This area here, consider yourself invited, but remember that you are guests, not equals. This area over here is off limits. Your people enter it, they die. We may trade, we may make common cause against greater evils, but we will never be brothers." Someone who makes it heard loud and clear when he feels that the horde has been wronged, and isn't afraid to take proper action against those who did that wronging.
Garrosh had the potential to be that character, but they fucked it up. Sylvanas wasn't that character. The council aren't these characters. Thrall probably got closest back then, but he also no longer fits the bill.

I'd think most Alliance players could get behind this too. The Horde doesn't need to be a choice between appeasing and exterminating.

[loras]

Our current cast of leading characters is truly pathetic. They are underdeveloped, underused, underpowered and lack any sorts of investment that could draw a horde player emotionally to them. To fix these issues it is needed that the horde council gets replaced with characters that could actually stand off against the big alliance super heroes.

Orcs - kill Thrall. Bring back AU Grommash
Trolls - Rastakhan and Jindo the Breaker
Tauren - Sark Ragetotem
Blood elves - kael’thas Sunstrider
Nightborne - Grand magistrix Elisande
Undead - sylvanas can come back.

Then the horde would be fixed.

Underused and underdeveloped i agree, however in terms of power i like them better than Alliance leadership and they're less toxic to the story that way. Having even one world-bending character would be much for any story to bear especially in a leadership position.

In that sense i hope they will have the horde do what they do best: defy expectations.
In having effective leadership outmanouvre a cast of overpowered characters who shouldn't be in leadership positions just because they're good at something tangentially related they would give us a nice breath of fresh meritocratic air while somultanously evening the scales a bit, both in practice as well as in the hearts and minds of the player.

And frankly i'm much more a fan of council-style leadership than the somanieth moronic strongman/strongwoman.

[Gann Stonespire]

Theres a difference between being a boot licker and wanting to avoid pointless loss of life... Thrall and Baine are the latter, not the former.

Baine banishes tauren for fighting the Alliance in a war against the Alliance, thats boot licking.

[Pebrocks The Warlock]

Baine banishes tauren for fighting the Alliance in a war against the Alliance, thats boot licking.

Garrosh killed a Orc Overlord for fighting the Alliance in a war against the Alliance. Is that boot licking?

[Gann Stonespire]

And why do you think you keep loosing them?

Because Blizzard caves to demands like mine to makes the Horde evvuuuulll so I can live out my moralistic power fantasy.

I Fixed your message.

Infracted.

[Powerogue]

But on topic, how do we improve what we have?

Nobody really responded to my post earlier, I still think this is a far better waste of time than expecting them to resurrect an entire cast of dead villains to be the horde council.

On ones I didn't post about the first time, I think Talanji got her moments in the sun between this expansion and the Shadows Rising novel. Rokhan, Kiro, and Lor'themar would be three I'd be interested in investing some story work into making them more interesting but I don't know how.

[Raisei]

Nobody really responded to my post earlier, I still think this is a far better waste of time than expecting them to resurrect an entire cast of dead villains to be the horde council.

On ones I didn't post about the first time, I think Talanji got her moments in the sun between this expansion and the Shadows Rising novel. Rokhan, Kiro, and Lor'themar would be three I'd be interested in investing some story work into making them more interesting but I don't know how.

The problem is that you will never please the "Evil Horde"-crowd with these people unless you change their characters 180°. They won't be satisfied until another evil Warchief comes around, turns Baine into a burger and executes all other leaders for their supposed treason towards the Horde. There is just too much internal hatred towards the decent people in the Horde leadership that any of these is given a chance.

I mean the council has done nothing yet, because nearly nothing happened, yet it is apparently so horrible that people want genocidal maniacs that tried to kill them to take over again. I couldn't wrap my brain around that logic if I tried.

But if it has gone this far that people rather want the Horde wiped out then lead by the people you have, I see no future for the Horde as a narrative entity anymore (or at least none that the fanbase will accept). Let it end. The decent people can join the Alliance and we go for a one-faction game that can finally focus on some more interesting story then the faction war.

[Super Dickmann]

Nobody really responded to my post earlier, I still think this is a far better waste of time than expecting them to resurrect an entire cast of dead villains to be the horde council.

On ones I didn't post about the first time, I think Talanji got her moments in the sun between this expansion and the Shadows Rising novel. Rokhan, Kiro, and Lor'themar would be three I'd be interested in investing some story work into making them more interesting but I don't know how.

Because with some exceptions I'll get into later, there's nothing to talk about - they're bores who do nothing in expansions that aren't about the further filleting of their own faction, to the point where there's nothing left. To be able to tell a 'Horde' story you have to decide what the Horde is and the Horde has no major ideological or cultural barriers between it and the Alliance - what, other than colour preference and gameplay necessity makes Blood Elves, Nightborne or the nu-Forsaken a Horde race? What necessitates their presence other than the fact that you quite literally can't do it? @Raisei, you say this in jest or to push a point, but you're not just right, you're late. There are two classes of Horde characters currently present in the faction. The first are those that could as easily be Alliance and would be in a better narrative given their overall thematic and aesthetic appearance and the fact that every factor having them be part of the Horde, be it in their own identity or their perception by the Alliance has been surgically removed. The second are those that are culturally unique in being more tribal rather than civilized races, caring about shamanism and the like, but that that serve no real narrative purpose that couldn't be better fulfilled by an Alliance-leaning character.

To give the ideal example, why would you double up on Baine and Anduin, when the two are virtually the same in a non-faction context, except one, that being Anduin has far more depth and effort put into his characterization, has far more bonds with extant characters and stories and thus has more of a story to tell. And given that, in what situation would you use Mayla instead of Baine, given she's essentially him, but without any of the history or ties to the present setting. The only reason to use her, as she's being used now, is to have a reserve Baine when ours is occupied, but even ours being occupied is naff, since it's a story that doesn't require him and has nothing for him to do.

Writing choices accumulate and continual disuse and removal of characters combined with building up those of the other faction take their toll. The Council's entire basis is that they fundamentally agree on all values, they've rid themselves of all conflict on goals or ideology but only occasionally can brush against each other on method and is consequently naturally boring because of its lack of chemistry. The only ones that do have promise are either those who might, under writers better aware of what the genre requires, enter into internal or external conflict - like Geya'rah, or characters who individually stand strong enough to be able to carry stories, with background and themes unique to them and impossible to better to do with any other character - Thrall or Talanji. Any proactive answer must first address what distinguishes the Horde and Alliance and why would one side would join one of them but not the other, and then once you've set the bounds of what the faction is and what stories are more for the other faction, work on creating dynamics within its races that produce such. Failing all else you can at least add a shaman afterlife so that there'd be some objective reason to use the WC3 Horde races.

[Raisei]

Because with some exceptions I'll get into later, there's nothing to talk about - they're bores who do nothing in expansions that aren't about the further filleting of their own faction, to the point where there's nothing left. To be able to tell a 'Horde' story you have to decide what the Horde is and the Horde has no major ideological or cultural barriers between it and the Alliance - what, other than colour preference and gameplay necessity makes Blood Elves, Nightborne or the nu-Forsaken a Horde race? What necessitates their presence other than the fact that you quite literally can't do it? @Raisei, you say this in jest or to push a point, but you're not just right, you're late. There are two classes of Horde characters currently present in the faction. The first are those that could as easily be Alliance and would be in a better narrative given their overall thematic and aesthetic appearance and the fact that every factor having them be part of the Horde, be it in their own identity or their perception by the Alliance has been surgically removed. The second are those that are culturally unique in being more tribal rather than civilized races, caring about shamanism and the like, but that that serve no real narrative purpose that couldn't be better fulfilled by an Alliance-leaning character.

I was actually dead serious. I know I write such things with sarcasm now and then, but not in this case. I would add that considering the Night Elves are a very tribalistic culture that litteraly live(d) in a tree (now close to one), there would be no real problem with the more tribal parts of the Horde. The Draenei after all have shamans of their own and are just as much part of the Earthen Ring as the Orcs and Tauren.

In fact I find the possibilities of desolving the Horde and incoporating the remains into the Alliance downright intriguing. There is a lot of potential for conflict there, that would just be limited to political instead of instantly grabbing axes (not that this could not happen, but if such a radical change happens, you need to first build a status quo and then you can break it). And political plots can be extremely good, if well written.
For an example I recommend the Star Wars Darth Plagueis novel, that discribes Palpatines rise to power in detail, with all the political machinations and very little direct lightsaber chopping.

Writing choices accumulate and continual disuse and removal of characters combined with building up those of the other faction take their toll. The Council's entire basis is that they fundamentally agree on all values, they've rid themselves of all conflict on goals or ideology but only occasionally can brush against each other on method and is consequently naturally boring because of its lack of chemistry.

Kinda feel like Shadow's Rising (and we do not really have much more action of the council) showed it much more diverse then you make it sound. It seems more like Thrall in his function as founder of the modern Horde keeps it together more then their agreement on values. The Trolls and Mak'har are more then ready to just jump into war, since they consider anything else as cowardice and Talanji would gladly lead them to kill the hated Proudmore that cruelly murdered her sooo innocent father. The two Elven races want to focus on rebuilding (and making Hybrids), the Forsaken have their own issues that they hope Calia to help with and the Pandas... eh... did Ji get invited to the session?

The only ones that do have promise are either those who might, under writers better aware of what the genre requires, enter into internal or external conflict - like Geya'rah

This we will disagree on again. I find conflict for conflicts sake very boring and literally pointless. So I find characters that call for war after barely surviving one with no regard for the resources they have left and with the only reason that "diplomacy is cowardice" extremely flat and stupid. Geya'rah probably is supposed to work as a counterweight for the Orcs in general to not shoo away the Orc-fans with Thralls self-doubty peaceful manner, but at the moment I see no potential for her beyond that.

or characters who individually stand strong enough to be able to carry stories, with background and themes unique to them and impossible to better to do with any other character - Thrall or Talanji. Any proactive answer must first address what distinguishes the Horde and Alliance and why would one side would join one of them but not the other, and then once you've set the bounds of what the faction is and what stories are more for the other faction, work on creating dynamics within its races that produce such. Failing all else you can at least add a shaman afterlife so that there'd be some objective reason to use the WC3 Horde races.

In general yes. But for that we would have to establish what the factions want and the Horde has been ping-ponging there for a decade now, depending which faction of the fanbase the writers wanted to cater to. For financial reasons they have avoided forever to establish what the Horde wants from their existance on Azeroth and just kept throwing a switch between "peace" and "conquest" whenever they had no other villain to throw against the Alliance. That has cost them a lot of credibility and left the Horde in a state where no matter where it will turn now, halve the fanbase will hate it.
And because of that I cannot believe their "breaking the cycle", because that would mean making the "Conquest" fans mad, but making such a big deal of this only to go back to the faction war in 2 expansions will be even worse, because not only will it make the "Peace"-fans mad, it will also completely invalidate BFAs storyline. The expansion might as well not exist then.

It's an unsalvageable situation, so I see only two options: 1) Actually stick to "breaking the cycle", ignoring the "Conquest"-faction and suck up the financial loss when people unsub because of it or 2) Abandon the factions alltogether, which I feel should have been the result of BFA. It was the perfect moment to try something new.

[Lora]

thats an absurd list for leaders and would be absolutely awful writing, especially considering how a lot of those guys are dead.

[mysticx]

I want to go even crazier and want a full blown evil Horde:

Orcs - Ressurect Gul'dan
Trolls - Not even a troll leader, have Hakkar take over and let him mind control all other trolls to do our bidding
Tauren - Magatha Grimtotem probably
Blood elves - Kael’thas Sunstrider
Nightborne - Grand Magistrix Elisande
Undead - Arthas ofcourse

Having them all combined gives us our own Legion of Doom

So? You know what happens to evil characters in WoW, right?

The Horde edgelords (Not all Horde players, just the "Garrosh/Sylvanas did nothing wrong"-brigade) just *love* waddling after an evil leader, and then they act all surprised when (Like every other baddie in the game so far) the evil leader(s) get deposed and/or killed off, that's what happens to bad guys in World of Warcraft since Vanilla!

I agree that the current Horde leaders need development (Baine is an exception, develop him into a hamburger for all i care), but give them a while to actually *do* something before complaining you want another psychopathic leader with an obvious target on his/her/its back.

[Iheartnathanos]

No u /10chars

Infracted.

[Super Dickmann]

I was actually dead serious. I know I write such things with sarcasm now and then, but not in this case. I would add that considering the Night Elves are a very tribalistic culture that litteraly live(d) in a tree (now close to one), there would be no real problem with the more tribal parts of the Horde. The Draenei after all have shamans of their own and are just as much part of the Earthen Ring as the Orcs and Tauren.

In fact I find the possibilities of desolving the Horde and incoporating the remains into the Alliance downright intriguing. There is a lot of potential for conflict there, that would just be limited to political instead of instantly grabbing axes (not that this could not happen, but if such a radical change happens, you need to first build a status quo and then you can break it). And political plots can be extremely good, if well written.
For an example I recommend the Star Wars Darth Plagueis novel, that discribes Palpatines rise to power in detail, with all the political machinations and very little direct lightsaber chopping.

We're in the no-man's land right now, where functionally the Horde and Alliance don't actually differ on much of any point except aesthetics, with their baggage really not mattering given how everyone we're meant to like drops it, but without gameplay union. Personally, I heavily disagree with the idea that the Night Elves show that savage elements fit in the Alliance, it's more proof that the Night Elves don't belong and never did belong in the Alliance given the amount of neutering they've endured to have to fit and how they, to remind, still have no canon cause or moment of joining the faction. More effort was put to justify the Forsaken in the Horde than the Night Elves in the Alliance. This is not to say the Night Elves should've been Horde, that'd be even stupider, but the whole vassalhood to a state they've never seen at the end of WC3 to protect from an enemy who came on a total of three boats and to whom they now fully adapt their society, ditching gender roles and milennia of tradition is absurd.

No, if they were going to go that round and what would have been more natural in BFA without requiring such a headache is to achieve gameplay unification by collapsing the faction. Then they can set up a UN and cycle through blocs depending on the issue and how political circumstances change. Then you'd also have the freedom to do things like have tauren and night elves team up against goblin and dwarf mining operations that deface nature or what have you as well as keep the night elves' present direction as exemplified by Tyrande without needing to neuter her later. Collapse is the best solution if the factions are to go.

Kinda feel like Shadow's Rising (and we do not really have much more action of the council) showed it much more diverse then you make it sound. It seems more like Thrall in his function as founder of the modern Horde keeps it together more then their agreement on values. The Trolls and Mak'har are more then ready to just jump into war, since they consider anything else as cowardice and Talanji would gladly lead them to kill the hated Proudmore that cruelly murdered her sooo innocent father. The two Elven races want to focus on rebuilding (and making Hybrids), the Forsaken have their own issues that they hope Calia to help with and the Pandas... eh... did Ji get invited to the session?

I praised this aspect in the Shadows Rising thread, but to reiterate my point from there, my main misgiving is that this was a very unique situation - it was an exclusively Horde story and related to an exclusively Horde topic, that being Zandalar's membership. It was a genuinely constructive Horde story that could not be told in a neutral setting or involving the Alliance. Certain characters were very good at it - Thrall and Talanji were highlights of the book, though having seen some dialogue I doubt this'll carry into the Thrall we see. But even then, when push came to shove, they were all of one mind, even Talanji pushes things to the backburner rather than building her own powerbloc. The elves are in particular the odd men out and both they and Ji suffered in that this was around the right time to bring up the Zandalari history with their races, but it didn't go anywhere. It was not badly done, the character beats were decent, but I don't see it working in the long term without other Horde-exclusive beats and Shadowlands shows that isn't in store. My go-to example is in the meeting with Tyrande where Calia, Thrall and Baine have basically all the same things to say and I think I've already written biblical amounts regarding how Tyrande's grudge with Calia is meant solely to demonize Tyrande in the eyes of the audience and makes no sense, so I won't push it here. To summarize, the strength of it is in the individual characters, not in the dynamic - the dynamic is weak, Rokhan, Thrall and Talanji are good and they are placed in a story that suits them well.

This we will disagree on again. I find conflict for conflicts sake very boring and literally pointless. So I find characters that call for war after barely surviving one with no regard for the resources they have left and with the only reason that "diplomacy is cowardice" extremely flat and stupid. Geya'rah probably is supposed to work as a counterweight for the Orcs in general to not shoo away the Orc-fans with Thralls self-doubty peaceful manner, but at the moment I see no potential for her beyond that.

As a character she's a non-entity, but she stands out for a few reasons. The first is she's the first new orc character in a fairly long time and she represents the accumulated Warlords clan lore which has a ton of potential as I've written at length about elsewhere, for another, she's a warlike character and belligerence is needed in a war game, hypothetically her issues with the Light could bring her into conflict with both Calia and the blood elves, as well as the Alliance of course. For a third, she's the only character in the entire Horde cast who didn't turn on Sylvanas because of muh honor but out of a separate, uniquely orcish position - it's not that she acted wrongly, it's that she had the wrong motives in not prioritizing her group first. Her takeaway isn't that Sylvanas was a bad warchief because she did bad things, but because strength alone is not valuable if it's not spent to help others. It's an orcish perspective in a faction where everyone else aligns on a core view. It's not her personally that's good, since she's a non-entity, it's what she represents in better hands than the current writers'.

In general yes. But for that we would have to establish what the factions want and the Horde has been ping-ponging there for a decade now, depending which faction of the fanbase the writers wanted to cater to. For financial reasons they have avoided forever to establish what the Horde wants from their existance on Azeroth and just kept throwing a switch between "peace" and "conquest" whenever they had no other villain to throw against the Alliance. That has cost them a lot of credibility and left the Horde in a state where no matter where it will turn now, halve the fanbase will hate it.
And because of that I cannot believe their "breaking the cycle", because that would mean making the "Conquest" fans mad, but making such a big deal of this only to go back to the faction war in 2 expansions will be even worse, because not only will it make the "Peace"-fans mad, it will also completely invalidate BFAs storyline. The expansion might as well not exist then.

It's an unsalvageable situation, so I see only two options: 1) Actually stick to "breaking the cycle", ignoring the "Conquest"-faction and suck up the financial loss when people unsub because of it or 2) Abandon the factions alltogether, which I feel should have been the result of BFA. It was the perfect moment to try something new.

As I've written in other topics, the failure of the current Horde is not just that it has gutted out one part of its appeal entirely, a lot has been spilled on that already. It's the fact that it has no defining characteristics, not even the ones it's WC3 incarnation, which I freely admit was really boring to me, had to itself - it's not tribal, it's not made by previously beaten down races, it's not an underdog in a savage world. It's a powerhouse who's honor doctrine is the same as that of the Alliance and who has just as many civilized races as non-civilized ones, who arguably have as many great magic users race-wise as the Alliance and aren't in conflict with it either. Neither necessity, cultural factors or much else ties them together. It's a faction that has no real reason to exist.

[Powerogue]

The problem is that you will never please the "Evil Horde"-crowd with these people unless you change their characters 180°. They won't be satisfied until another evil Warchief comes around, turns Baine into a burger and executes all other leaders for their supposed treason towards the Horde. There is just too much internal hatred towards the decent people in the Horde leadership that any of these is given a chance.

I mean the council has done nothing yet, because nearly nothing happened, yet it is apparently so horrible that people want genocidal maniacs that tried to kill them to take over again. I couldn't wrap my brain around that logic if I tried.

But if it has gone this far that people rather want the Horde wiped out then lead by the people you have, I see no future for the Horde as a narrative entity anymore (or at least none that the fanbase will accept). Let it end. The decent people can join the Alliance and we go for a one-faction game that can finally focus on some more interesting story then the faction war.

You may have a point. I went from the angle of "okay, you say these characters are boring, let's invest storytelling into them to make them more interesting." But if their issue with them is that they are fundamentally good people as opposed to evil people that The Horde fought and killed then nothing's going to appease them.

Thrall got a ton of development for example, he's come a long way from Cataclysm Green Jesus, and yet people here still don't seem happy with that. They just hate Thrall because he's Thrall, a heroic and diplomatic orc who's willing to work with the Alliance to protect the world.

They'd rather have a leader who sold the orcish race into slavery in the first place than the one who broke them out of it. That's really telling.

[Super Dickmann]

You may have a point. I went from the angle of "okay, you say these characters are boring, let's invest storytelling into them to make them more interesting." But if their issue with them is that they are fundamentally good people as opposed to evil people that The Horde fought and killed then nothing's going to appease them.

Thrall got a ton of development for example, he's come a long way from Cataclysm Green Jesus, and yet people here still don't seem happy with that. They just hate Thrall because he's Thrall, a heroic and diplomatic orc who's willing to work with the Alliance to protect the world.

I'm actually fairly happy with Shadows Rising Thrall. There's this melancholy to him, which combined with how he at once fears making decisions and yet feels frustrated when things aren't organized as well as naturally takes command that makes him compelling. Ditto how he seems to have gone back to being more forceful like in his Of Blood and Honor letter. I am however very afraid that, much like Shadows Rising Anduin and Nathanos, this is a transitory thing we won't see reflected in game and Thrall's future will be like BFA Jaina - start out compelling, turn out back to factory settings.

[Thage]

I'm actually fairly happy with Shadows Rising Thrall. There's this melancholy to him, which combined with how he at once fears making decisions and yet feels frustrated when things aren't organized as well as naturally takes command that makes him compelling. Ditto how he seems to have gone back to being more forceful like in his Of Blood and Honor letter. I am however very afraid that, much like Shadows Rising Anduin and Nathanos, this is a transitory thing we won't see reflected in game and Thrall's future will be like BFA Jaina - start out compelling, turn out back to factory settings.

Shadow's Rising Thrall is the Thrall we should have had since Cataclysm, imo. And I still think Ji doesn't get enough credit for essentially being the ultimate wingman, which fits the pandaren perfectly since they're not overly invested in politics in the first place, doubly-so the Huojin. Ji pushing Thrall to hurry the fuck up and pick a course of action plays wonderfully with Thrall still grappling with leftover trauma (self-inflicted or not) regarding the absolute train wreck he left behind last time he took charge and made all the calls himself.

[Super Dickmann]

Shadow's Rising Thrall is the Thrall we should have had since Cataclysm, imo. And I still think Ji doesn't get enough credit for essentially being the ultimate wingman, which fits the pandaren perfectly since they're not overly invested in politics in the first place, doubly-so the Huojin. Ji pushing Thrall to hurry the fuck up and pick a course of action plays wonderfully with Thrall still grappling with leftover trauma (self-inflicted or not) regarding the absolute train wreck he left behind last time he took charge and made all the calls himself.

I do think it's among the best incarnations of the character, and it takes into account all Thrall went through. I was very pleasantly surprised by it. I'm in the minority when it comes to Ji, since while they gave him screen time I don't think he really had any notably memorable moment and he doesn't really feel like himself. He's not all that rash to action, he doesn't mention Aysa, he doesn't hit dinosaurs, etc. He isn't even pissed at Garrosh for torturing him but references the Vale. It's weird.