Should we have another war?

[Alanar]

I'm pretty tired of the back and forth. one moment, we're getting along. the next, we're at odds again. it doesn't make sense for the characters to get to a point where they actually like each other then flip flop and decide murder is the best option. why can't the PVP stuff be explained as friendly competition rather than bloodlust?

We are at this crossroads again and again jaina!
But but we are together now.

I throwed up in my mouth a little.

[Dreadgear]

I will always prefer war and conflict of races and factions in fictional settings, it creates stakes and intrigues, With that said since blizzard is not willing to actually have any consequnces what so even consider putting the alliance in bad light what we get is a monotone pseudo-wars where the Horde gets to be the aggressor, the horde gets to loose leaders and characters and a patch later we are all friends again with no consequences.

The whole thing became so boring and uninspiring that a friend of mine recommended me warhammer and i like it way way more.

[Cyanu]

absolutely not, it's old, it's stale, it's boring it always lead to the same narrative

nothing meaningful can happen because both factions are the protagonists, wearing their thick plot armor, just childish spats in for minimal gains lost always lost in the next counter-offensive

i don't want another thrall and jaina scene reflecting the horrors of war, the horde has already lost twice and lack strong leadership, none would start a war there

and considering that most players picked alliance exactly because they wanted to be the good guys... i mean just look how many paladins and druids are there in the alliance, they'd probably be extremely dissapointed to find themselves forced to play the light-crazed zealots, exterminating any faction that does not bend the knee to their 'righteousness'

it's the xpac none wants

[VladlTutushkin]

Should we have another war?

No. The faction war plot is pointless, literally. It's dead on arrival. BFA made that most obvious and no this is not me saying that BFA was crap all over, just that the faction conflict is a dead plot string that is only repeated because people (especially on the Horde side) cannot identify with their faction if it's goal is not the annihilation of the other faction, without realizing that this goal will never ever be fullfilled as long as both factions are player factions.

There was so much talk about how BFA was the chance to do things differently and how there might be major changes incomming for the factions, with maybe faction-restrictions of races removed, cross-faction play and so on. In the end, none of that happened and we were left with another end of an expansion that was completely unsatisfying and has no consequences. What we got was an almost exact repeat of the faction war in MoP:
Warchief goes mad, Horde happily supports them, Horde flattens Alliance city, kills civilians, Warchief turns on Horde, Horde not so happy anymore, Alliance helps Horde rebels to beat Warchief up, then forgives everything that happened. Meanwhile mad Warchief pisses off into another time/dimension.

Yes, one could say that now that the Horde has a council there actually were consequences. One would be wrong on two counts then:
1) These consequences are purely for the Horde's benefit, the Alliance gets jack all out of this as the injured party of this whole thing.
2) These consequences will hold for maybe one expansion, then they will find a new warmonger that starts the faction war again, executes the council and calls himself Warchief and all the kids in the Horde playerbase will break out into thunderous applause.

This brings me to my second point:

Will we have another war?

Yes. Absolutely. 100%.

The backlash from the Horde community against the Council and all it represents is so immense that Blizzard will have little choice but to revert back to the old model and old story. Change is bad, new ideas are bad, keep the WAR in Warcraft.
If you ever wonder why the plot does keep repeating then look no further. It's simply because a big part of the community wants WoW to be stuck in WC3 time forever and ever and ever.

You know, this post is so perfect that i cant even add or detract from it. Its like that perfect sandwich that requires nothing more or less to it and has everything done to a right degree.

I can only say that i am both tired of faction war and yet you said EXACTLY why they keep happening and why they always end up in such a shitty way.

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absolutely not, it's old, it's stale, it's boring it always lead to the same narrative

nothing meaningful can happen because both factions are the protagonists, wearing their thick plot armor, just childish spats in for minimal gains lost always lost in the next counter-offensive

i don't want another thrall and jaina scene reflecting the horrors of war, the horde has already lost twice and lack strong leadership, none would start a war there

and considering that most players picked alliance exactly because they wanted to be the good guys... i mean just look how many paladins and druids are there in the alliance, they'd probably be extremely dissapointed to find themselves forced to play the light-crazed zealots, exterminating any faction that does not bend the knee to their 'righteousness'

it's the xpac none wants

You must have really failed to notice what Alliance players want. They want to have a stable, poweful but DEFENSIVE Alliance.

They dont usually want to go and put undead on fire or bury orcs alive but they want to feel powerful... on defence. Which was denied to then again and again. Right now most druids who are primarily worgen or night elf want to rip some Horde throats off and shit down their necks for all the crap they put us through.

- - - Updated - - -

No one hates the Mists clones more than Horde posters who are otherwise pro-war. The entire narrative is built around the neutering of these elements, which are themselves out of focus, and it has left the faction a hollow husk with no qualities that differentiate it from its counterpart save surface aesthetic. This isn't because it's meant to pander to those who enjoy the faction war, but the opposite - it's a lecture aimed against them, and a lecture that runs counter to the core purpose and gameplay of a story based entirely around violence and which you experience through the lens of two distinct and separate factions, with their own hooks and stories. That doesn't mean they must constantly be at total war, but it does mean that even when their goals align, they must be identifiable and self-motivated. There's no confusing Saurfang Jr. and Bolvar at the Wrathgate, despite them teaming up. But I dare you to find a point of distinction between the jokes loitering around Icecrown, their lines and personalities are interchangable, their leadership structure and values identical. That is the wage of these repetitive, insufferable morality fables and not even those who want the unifaction are ultimately happy because the game has no means of delivering on their desires without collapsing as the core of gameplay centers around violence.

Anyway, generalities aside, BFA started with major changes but discarding the issues with Teldrassil and Lordaeron, heavy as they are, the main issue is above - it's not actually a faction war expansion. After those big trailer moments with the two capitals you then pivot to your own segregated area where the other faction is barely a footnote in a self-contained storyline, fight once in those new areas while the entire old world content occurs off-screen with the exception of two cocktease Warfronts that satisfy no one due to their lack of narrative heft and emotional investment, and then it's off to team up in front of Orgrimmar. Wrath had a more consistent throughline of faction conflict than BFA, and so did its spiritual predecessor Mists. Cata towers over both in faction war content. Stormheim alone provided a morally grey conflict that both fanbases of the involved races could care about and argue over than all of Mists, primarily because it sought to tell a story pertinent to the worgen and Forsaken rather than a morality play that doesn't even function in a vacuum let alone in light of prior lore.

You know, when you said about game being centred around violence... Hey, if we put aside “violence against third party threats”, can Alliance have some violence too? And not have our leaders fucken condemn their own peer as “insane madwoman” for being mad about genocide which also sent most of her race to WoW Hell.

All i ever want is to gut blood elves (for example, actually any horde race works) and have it fucken splayed in several books, tear-inducing cinematics and ingame quests.

You know, blowing up Sunweel or turning it into a Void Well and watching life and mana being sucked out of shriveling and screaming blood elves could make for some Michael Bay level scenes...

[geco]

absolutely not, it's old, it's stale, it's boring it always lead to the same narrative

nothing meaningful can happen because both factions are the protagonists, wearing their thick plot armor, just childish spats in for minimal gains lost always lost in the next counter-offensive

i don't want another thrall and jaina scene reflecting the horrors of war, the horde has already lost twice and lack strong leadership, none would start a war there

and considering that most players picked alliance exactly because they wanted to be the good guys... i mean just look how many paladins and druids are there in the alliance, they'd probably be extremely dissapointed to find themselves forced to play the light-crazed zealots, exterminating any faction that does not bend the knee to their 'righteousness'

it's the xpac none wants

As disappointed as all the Players the Horde chose to be the W3 Horde.
You already know the good and honorable, even though they are monster races.


Besides there is one more issue of how badly written this BFA is.
According to BFA. If the Kaldorei let us say kill all the Orcs they would not be bad. Because it's the only way to make sure the Orcs don't murder the remaining Children of the Kaldorei.

Since the BFA reduced the Horde to a group of brutes who cannot reason and who only wait for the next evil leader to lead them.

[Nivram]

Yes, gnomes need to be exterminated by both factions... jk... maybe.

[loras]

Simple as that - should there be another faction war on a scale of Cata or BfA? And not just some skirmish on the border that is forgotten a week after it started and ended after both parties got tired and went to the tavern but an actual warfare with both factions actively engaging in it.

Personally i cant stomach any more of that stale crap they call "war" which makes me actually loathe it (which is the first game about war that made me feel this way) (maybe thats because i mostly main night elves which makes me feel like i am not fighting but rather being gassed in a "shower room" each time war starts).

But at the same time i fucken crave it since the only way for Alliance to actually move forward without night elves and worgen ejecting from it is to wage war and avenge the BfA in some absurdly bloody murder fiesta.

Which will also allow Horde to have some moral parity with Alliance, maybe waging war honorably, even if at the cost of quickness of their campaign or something like that. Not "hampering" themselves but also visibly slowing down because they refuse to sunk to "Old Horde/Sylvanas" level and mass murder civilians or burn down populated centers instead of taking it more conventionally.

While Alliance can have "madness of war" narrative when we see many characters broken by BfA, now only wanting to either even the score by slaughtering and burning as much as they can or seeing horde as potentially too powerful and calculating that only a "culling of the Horde" (herd pun, heh, look i am funny...) can save Alliance's future. Which will also hamper them - all that civilian hunting, executions, enslavement and such will slow down the advance while making locals and maybe even neutral forces refuse to cooperate with Alliance since they see their acts as empty hatred and waste of life.

In the end we can finish it all off with either a huge battle after which both factions can fight no more , not just "oh we kinda low on troops" but actual depiction of a battlefield littered with corpses all the way to horizon with faction leaders bloody and dying there, when there is no hands left to fight and swords and axes are blunted and broken.

After that they can either make both factions cut ties forever, Horde doing so because they dont want to "continue the cycle" and Alliance doing so because they cant stand the Horde and see them as absolute monsters OR because more "goodie" leaders of the Alliance see their own faction as no longer right in this war.

Or they can throw in a big bad who will take down both factions, maybe not a "Big Bad" as a singular figure but some organization or "order" which grew in secrecy, maybe even using this war to recruit more people into their ranks since "Horde and Alliance are at it again, see, they cant govern Azeroth! But we can..."

Frankly speaking i am tired of war, and have little faith in writers (scratch that - i have NO faith in them) but now, all the way since BfA there is simply no other feasible way for factions to coexist. Yeah, even with Horde Council in place, you heard me. At this point Alliance forgiving the horde will lead to Alliance (at least logically) losing several member races and as a player i cant stand looking back at BfA. It was a travesty and it can only be remade in blood, guts and absolute agony to even the score and THEN throw the war narrative out entirely.

Warcraft without war can just pull down the shutters imo, but i do agree that the way it has been done was *not* great.

I'd like to see more "factions" emerge too, proper factions that can give the horde and alliance a run for their money, that way it needn't be so bad dyring cold or hot war, as it'd logically make sense not to go "all in" every time in every war as there are obvious third parties lined up to benefit from a horde vs alliance war.

Frankly it seems to me that the writers somehow can't wrap their heads around a "grey" world in the sense that it lacks superpowers or other superpower blocks, which would align with the observation of others here that there's some tendency at Blizzard to be, shall we say, "mainstream aligned" in their thinking and writing.

[TheFirstOnes]

IMO the only thing going for cosmic war is there's next to nothing out there for the cosmic forces concerning concrete lore.

We've only gotten a peak at Order and Chaos and barely even touched on the basics of Light and Shadow. SL is letting us peak at death.... but I'm not sure we can say we really know anything about life.

At least they can't fuck up lore that isn't already established

What do you mean? We literally fucked over the Cosmic Force of Chaos, and aided the Titan Pantheon itself. Sure, we haven't seen the realm of Order yet or anything like that, but who's to say that won't be in the Light/Shadow expansion if Sargeras ever returns or some shit like that?

And they did touch the basics on Light and Shadow. We just need to actually face them, now. Outside of what, we know what those forces want, we know those forces have leaders, and we know those forces have their own realms as well as plans all across the Universe (Including Azeroth and Draenor).

"SL is letting us peak at death.... but I'm not sure we can say we really know anything about life."

I actually talked about this with Huth in another thread. We are talking about Life, albeit it's the afterlife of Nature itself, but Ardenweald and the Dream are the highest expressions of Life within the Cosmos itself, as well as personify Life itself. The Dream being life in its waxing state, and Ardenweald being Life in its waning state.

So, we're likely going to visit the Dream again if the Enemy Infiltration plot regarding the "Plane of Life" ever comes to play, especially since Ardenweald is not only highly connected to the Dream (Which is basically the Plane of Life, as it's the polar opposite of the Shadowlands within the Cosmic Chart), but is also kind of a gateway to the Dream in a way, since they're highly connected with each-other. Could be a mini raid, or a questline for Ardenweald.

And in regards to them not fucking up the already established lore? Ehhhh? I wouldn't really say that.

[AbalDarkwind]

Another faction war is inevitable. Unlike the peace in MoP, where it seemed like another faction war would be far off (Which is why BfA's narrative felt far too familiar), the next war seems much nearer. There is quite a bit of resentment on the Alliance-side for the Horde's actions under Sylvanas, and multiple characters in the Alliance seem to want retribution.

Because of that sentiment, I expect the Alliance will be the aggressors next time. That'll be the big difference compared to the last two faction wars.

[mickybrighteyes]

What do you mean? We literally fucked over the Cosmic Force of Chaos, and aided the Titan Pantheon itself. Sure, we haven't seen the realm of Order yet or anything like that, but who's to say that won't be in the Light/Shadow expansion if Sargeras ever returns or some shit like that?

I'd say we fucked over Sargeras, an avatar of Chaos that was a corrupted force of order.
[QUOTE=HighlordJohnstone;53006930]
And they did touch the basics on Light and Shadow. We just need to actually face them, now. Outside of what, we know what those forces want, we know those forces have leaders, and we know those forces have their own realms as well as plans all across the Universe (Including Azeroth and Draenor). [quote]
Touched on the basics.... BARELY. we know they exist and a basic fundamental if that. We can't really say anything concrete about either beyond Naaru are on one side and void beings are on the other... but even void beings were "chaos" before

"SL is letting us peak at death.... but I'm not sure we can say we really know anything about life."

I actually talked about this with Huth in another thread. We are talking about Life, albeit it's the afterlife of Nature itself, but Ardenweald and the Dream are the highest expressions of Life within the Cosmos itself, as well as personify Life itself. The Dream being life in its waxing state, and Ardenweald being Life in its waning state.

Problem here is that Ardenweald is death because we're in the plane of the cosmic force of death with it preciding as a major power within the scope of death

[Combatbutler]

All i ever want is to gut blood elves (for example, actually any horde race works) and have it fucken splayed in several books, tear-inducing cinematics and ingame quests.

You know, blowing up Sunweel or turning it into a Void Well and watching life and mana being sucked out of shriveling and screaming blood elves could make for some Michael Bay level scenes...

Tauren could be used even better, first beating them sacking their settlements, most of them enslaved by humans and dwarves, then some stormwind noble eats one out of curiosity realizing they are delicious as such reducing the most of the slaves to livestock, using the retaken Arathi to build camps to raise them as cattle.

[VladlTutushkin]

Tauren could be used even better, first beating them sacking their settlements, most of them enslaved by humans and dwarves, then some stormwind noble eats one out of curiosity realizing they are delicious as such reducing the most of the slaves to livestock, using the retaken Arathi to build camps to raise them as cattle.

You just described a typical game of Stellaris.

[Combatbutler]

You just described a typical game of Stellaris.

Not quite, they have yet to be genetically engineered and nerve stapled.

[TheFirstOnes]

[QUOTE=mickybrighteyes;53006974]I'd say we fucked over Sargeras, an avatar of Chaos that was a corrupted force of order.
[QUOTE=HighlordJohnstone;53006930]
And they did touch the basics on Light and Shadow. We just need to actually face them, now. Outside of what, we know what those forces want, we know those forces have leaders, and we know those forces have their own realms as well as plans all across the Universe (Including Azeroth and Draenor).

Touched on the basics.... BARELY. we know they exist and a basic fundamental if that. We can't really say anything concrete about either beyond Naaru are on one side and void beings are on the other... but even void beings were "chaos" before


Problem here is that Ardenweald is death because we're in the plane of the cosmic force of death with it preciding as a major power within the scope of death

Yes, but Steve expanded upon that exact mindset in an interview with him: "Steve Danuser, lead narrative designer, explains Ardenweald’s great purpose in the cosmos. “How could Nature, a force of Life itself, have a home within the Shadowlands? For though it is indeed rooted in the cosmos-shaping force of Death, this realm is the highest expression of the relationship between endings and beginnings. Slumber and awakening. Death… and Life."

[Lane]

But on the other hand i stopped playing in 8.1 and will likely never return because i feel like my favorite race (second favorite are blood elves and third are dwarves) got pounded into bloody pulp, "showered" and then left to dry in the sun like some obscene guro manga character.

The faction war and what happened to the Night Elves factored heavily into my decision to not buy BfA and skip it entirely. As much as Horde complain about their musical chair warchiefs, Alliance tends to lose the territory battles. Even if supposedly it's canon that they get some of it back it's usually never shown in game so from a player's perspective it looks like Horde always wins. I've joked that they need to redo the Stormwind quarters for all the refugee races. It started out Horde was the rag tag bunch, now except for Dwarves the Alliance is basically made up of Stormwind humans and all the races that have been exiled or pushed to the brink of existence.

War of Thorns went too far. There will never be a sense of equity between the factions unless Alliance is directly responsible for almost wiping out a Horde race - in WoW. I sincerely hope there isn't another faction war because I don't have the stomach to keep watching Alliance do what they've been doing for the past 16 years, which is essentially nothing.

[VladlTutushkin]

The faction war and what happened to the Night Elves factored heavily into my decision to not buy BfA and skip it entirely. As much as Horde complain about their musical chair warchiefs, Alliance tends to lose the territory battles. Even if supposedly it's canon that they get some of it back it's usually never shown in game so from a player's perspective it looks like Horde always wins. I've joked that they need to redo the Stormwind quarters for all the refugee races. It started out Horde was the rag tag bunch, now except for Dwarves the Alliance is basically made up of Stormwind humans and all the races that have been exiled or pushed to the brink of existence.

War of Thorns went too far. There will never be a sense of equity between the factions unless Alliance is directly responsible for almost wiping out a Horde race - in WoW. I sincerely hope there isn't another faction war because I don't have the stomach to keep watching Alliance do what they've been doing for the past 16 years, which is essentially nothing.

Indeed. Lack of visible, bombastic victories is one of Alliance's many, many low points brought in by absolutely retarded writing team of clowns who seem to GENUINELY think that Alliance likes CBT and cuckoldry and will just revel in being brutalized and then forgiving its enemies. Ridiculous and disgusting, at the very least.

And yeah, War of Thorns was a step too far, it reached further then Thearmore ever hoped to and pretty much ended WoW for me.Then i came back in hopes of some "rise from the ashes" and got slammed down with undead fucken night elves and 8.1 fucked up story and just completely lost any will to go on.

[Super Dickmann]

You know, when you said about game being centred around violence... Hey, if we put aside “violence against third party threats”, can Alliance have some violence too? And not have our leaders fucken condemn their own peer as “insane madwoman” for being mad about genocide which also sent most of her race to WoW Hell.

All i ever want is to gut blood elves (for example, actually any horde race works) and have it fucken splayed in several books, tear-inducing cinematics and ingame quests.

You know, blowing up Sunweel or turning it into a Void Well and watching life and mana being sucked out of shriveling and screaming blood elves could make for some Michael Bay level scenes...

I mean, I don't care too much about blood elves personally, but I'd be entirely on board for them getting the Teldrassil treatment. Have a novella emphasize how the Alliance needs to con them to be able to get through the Elfgates, then have Alleria piledrive the Sunwell and turn into a void well, melting all the bland-o high elves and, much like the night elves reverting back to their proper WC3 characterization, have the blood elves turn into the only version of themselves that fit in the Horde, that being the TBC one. They can even get the Tyrande treatment afterwards of a few good cinematics but ultimately being lectured and not accomplishing anything, since we already did that song and dance with them teaming up with Jaina to kill that Sunreaver guy upset about the Purge. The Sunwell being destroyed would be the most interesting thing that could conceivably happen to that sorry bit of a race.

Past that, the Alliance could really do with a proper bombastic victory against the Horde proper. Lordaeron should have been it, a proper triumphant reconquest that's the culmination of fifteen years of story. It'd also give the Forsaken something to be salty about and lower the temperature regarding Sylvanas by having the Alliance unambiguously nab her capital. Sadly, while the Alliance can win - they do it for all of their war campaign, they did it in Mists and they did it with both warfronts, the narrative is set on net letting you enjoy those wins. See the Dazar'alor win be capped off by Anduin and his council of castrati whining about how hurt the trolls' feelings must be over this whole business.

[VladlTutushkin]

I mean, I don't care too much about blood elves personally, but I'd be entirely on board for them getting the Teldrassil treatment. Have a novella emphasize how the Alliance needs to con them to be able to get through the Elfgates, then have Alleria piledrive the Sunwell and turn into a void well, melting all the bland-o high elves and, much like the night elves reverting back to their proper WC3 characterization, have the blood elves turn into the only version of themselves that fit in the Horde, that being the TBC one. They can even get the Tyrande treatment afterwards of a few good cinematics but ultimately being lectured and not accomplishing anything, since we already did that song and dance with them teaming up with Jaina to kill that Sunreaver guy upset about the Purge. The Sunwell being destroyed would be the most interesting thing that could conceivably happen to that sorry bit of a race.

Past that, the Alliance could really do with a proper bombastic victory against the Horde proper. Lordaeron should have been it, a proper triumphant reconquest that's the culmination of fifteen years of story. It'd also give the Forsaken something to be salty about and lower the temperature regarding Sylvanas by having the Alliance unambiguously nab her capital. Sadly, while the Alliance can win - they do it for all of their war campaign, they did it in Mists and they did it with both warfronts, the narrative is set on net letting you enjoy those wins. See the Dazar'alor win be capped off by Anduin and his council of castrati whining about how hurt the trolls' feelings must be over this whole business.

You have too much optimism about night elves "reverting" to anything. Because yeah, sure they had like a minute glimpse, a small spark of that same feeling they gave in Warcraft 3 buuuut... Not Tyrande - they "headpiece" of that spark is pretty much buried alive already by entire cast and coffin being cobbled for her as she still fights while Shandris became a human sycophant and actually went against her mother (not too far but it shows) to defend Andy the Blandy. And guess who propped up harder then Talanji as "next , better , wiser" leader of Night Elves? Shandris. By the end of Shadowlands Tyrande will either die, "retire" or get stuck in Shadowlands or the Maw and Shandris will take the reins fully.

Plus they even added that vomit inducing line of "we are so tired of this war, peace is better then it even if its humiliating" to night elven soldiers in Boralus (or were they in Stormwind?)... Like, war havent gone for a YEAR yet. Being tired of it is ridiculous especially for a nation that took such a vile hit to their civilian population, they should be screaming for more blood and yet all we see is whimpering and "maybe we really should just lay down the weapons and talk...?".

[KainneAbsolute]

they should do it on wc4, not on wow

[BB8]

I still vote for 4 factions.

So some internal wars would be cool.