How should Blizz Balance the Horde and Forsaken?

[Aucald]

I'm not sure what you mean by "their own lore". People usually aren't RPing a homebrew setting or Star Trek on a WoW retail RP server, but certain things people aren't going to touch like WoD or Shadowlands.

Mind you my experience with RP servers is minimal - I play on a standard PvE server with little RP. But the few times I've dipped my toes into that pool, so to speak; I've found people kind of doing their own things with the lore and RP'ing as stuff like dual classes, impossible race/class combos, "special cases," and so on. They're obviously not pretending to be in an entirely different IP like Star Trek, but they're doing their own things with WoW lore and the story surrounding it.

[Shadowferal]

If it's anything, I'd play with the idea of ending WotLK with the creation of a Scourge state.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Mind you my experience with RP servers is minimal - I play on a standard PvE server with little RP. But the few times I've dipped my toes into that pool, so to speak; I've found people kind of doing their own things with the lore and RP'ing as stuff like dual classes, impossible race/class combos, "special cases," and so on. They're obviously not pretending to be in an entirely different IP like Star Trek, but they're doing their own things with WoW lore and the story surrounding it.

Depends on where you go. If you go to Goldshire on Moon Guard then anything goes because nobody gives a crap, but if you walk into Stormwind claiming to be the champion (as in the player character who is the chosen one of Azeroth and the First Ones, personal friend of the faction leaders, slayer of all the big bads, etc), gnome with the powers of the black dragonflight or then you are unlikely to find anyone willing to RP with you. Moon Guard RPers tend to RP as normal people in Azeroth, ie soldiers or shamans, sometimes intermediate level officers or nobles or politicians. Not superpowered warriors or nation leaders.

[Aucald]

Depends on where you go. If you go to Goldshire on Moon Guard then anything goes because nobody gives a crap, but if you walk into Stormwind claiming to be the champion (as in the player character who is the chosen one of Azeroth and the First Ones, personal friend of the faction leaders, slayer of all the big bads, etc), gnome with the powers of the black dragonflight or then you are unlikely to find anyone willing to RP with you. Moon Guard RPers tend to RP as normal people in Azeroth, ie soldiers or shamans, sometimes intermediate level officers or nobles or politicians. Not superpowered warriors or nation leaders.

Interesting. I've always been warned away from Moon Guard specifically due to, ah, perhaps its most famous locale and associated behaviors. So my experience there is almost nothing. I think I have a character on Wyrmest Accord, fairly low-level. I think my most memorable experience there was a Worgen Hunter using a toy to RP as a "Void Worgen" perpetually in conflict with the voices of the Void trying to drive him insane. He wasn't a one-off, either; as the whole RP set-piece was him trying to enter Stormwind and some RP guards actively denying him due to his corruption and so on.

[Grazrug]

The problem was always that the only role of the forsaken was sylvanas. We later found out she sought out ways to procreate, but even that turned out to be just about her. I do miss the old dark lady and it sucked she didnt care for the forsaken in the end. They failed her story, but thats another topic.

The forsaken literally need their OWN story and the council is helping with that to give all forsaken type they repressent a voice. Isnt that a good thing?

I dont care so much about Calia, she doesnt mean harm and is there to help the forsaken. Sure her lightforged form is a bit off and it sucks this didnt happen IN game, but outside that.. I dont even know what to hate? Is it her hair color?

How can you represent everyone when the two crucial members who make most decisions on the Horde council are full of the appeasement movemen(Calia and Voss).

[Feanoro]

That's a bold statement, Cotton

Is another of your attempts to be clever?

made pitiful by the twin facts of it making zero sense

Sorry the idea of the Horde purists attacking the less rabid Horde posters is difficult for you.

having no basis in reality.

In your mind at least. A truly objective person would have noticed the Alliance posters declining and leaving. I'm sure though that you have some nice reddit tier mental gymnastics to explain it though.

Since I'm sure in your mind this is somehow trolling (failing to grovel before the Lorekeeper or some other imaginary offense), I'll be on my way. Only check in from time to time out of morbid curiosity and the lack of forum activity, particularly on Dragonflight topics, tells me everything I need to know.

[Aucald]

Is another of your attempts to be clever?

Meanwhile, another chapter of "How Do Jokes Work?"

Sorry the idea of the Horde purists attacking the less rabid Horde posters is difficult for you.

You'd think if I was the rabid pro-Horde tyrant you imagine me to be, I wouldn't even bat an eye at it, right? People are allowed to have extreme opinions of all kinds in a purely fantastical context - sorry the supposed tyranny doesn't lean the way you want it to. I still find the existence of fantastical bigotry to be intrinsically weird, though.

Only check in from time to time out of morbid curiosity and the lack of forum activity, particularly on Dragonflight topics, tells me everything I need to know.

The pot is always in need of continuous stirring, I suppose. See you next time the Anduin signal shines brightly in the night sky of Gotham.

[Mehrunes]

See, for that, you'd need a crash course in the concept of Horde Purism - the doctrine that holds that any Horde NPC that has ever been in a non-violent encounter with any Alliance NPC is completely and ineluctably tainted by them, forever tarnished and incapable of being truly part of the Horde. Calia, having had peaceful relations with Anduin, Jaina, and Derek is for all intents and purposes an Alliance NPC masquerading as a Horde one - no matter what her stated or demonstrated intent is, she is forever marred by her association. The same is true for Baine, Lor'themar, Thrall, Thalyssra, and anyone else who has ever had a conversation, written a letter, spoken a kind word, or even had a non-violent conversation with an Alliance member. This taint is referred to by many names, of course: Blandiunism, the Blue Fever, the Blue Pox, ADS, and so on but it all stems from the ultra-paranoid notion that Alliance sympathy is somehow pathological in its nature - a virus that destroys all is good and true (and Horde). Thus, the only suitable leaders for *any* Horde faction must be someone utterly committed to the cause of war with the Alliance, and the more genocidal they happen to be about it the better.

Obviously none of that has anything to do with Calia's first real interaction with the Forsaken being an attempt to make them defect to the Alliance. Ditto for Baine who went crawling to the Alliance to get indebted to them based on complete pretzel logic for not reaching out to other Horde races (arguments for some of which should have excluded the Alliance as well), continued to correspond with the Alliance leader even after prohibited by his sovereign, mutiliated himself for said Alliance leader and - you know - repeatedly betrayed his own faction to the point of repeatedly killing Horde members for the benefit of the Alliance.

You know your argument is atrocious when you have to support what is already a colossal straw-man where you're projecting the issues people may have with specific characters that literally betrayed the Horde to side with the Alliance against it onto any and all Horde characters' interactions with Alliance (because you apparently can't spot the difference between positive interactions with the Alliance and outright sycophancy and subservience or the part where the characters engaging in the latter repeatedly have done so during an outright war with the Alliance) with this monumentally disingenuous misrepresentation of the criticism the Alliance lackeys in the Horde actually receive.

Blizzard are more than capable of taking a story that appears to be going one way with a boring messianic figure and doing something far more interesting instead:

Given how he ended up as the jailer of Sargeras he still got to be a savior figure just like Blizzard intended from the get go and the whole Xe'ra bit was just Blizzard creating a smokescreen to silence criticism about their very apparent plans for Illidan by pretending they weren't going to follow up on them. So instead of a glowing messianic figure we got an edgelord messianic figure whining about his scars. Not sure how that's an improvement.

Sorry the idea of the Horde purists attacking the less rabid Horde posters is difficult for you.

In your mind at least. A truly objective person would have noticed the Alliance posters declining and leaving. I'm sure though that you have some nice reddit tier mental gymnastics to explain it though.

Since I'm sure in your mind this is somehow trolling (failing to grovel before the Lorekeeper or some other imaginary offense), I'll be on my way. Only check in from time to time out of morbid curiosity and the lack of forum activity, particularly on Dragonflight topics, tells me everything I need to know.

If @Aucald was really a lorekeeper or any kind of purist you pretend them to be one would think most of the regular Alliance posters here would have been perma-banned within a month for repeatedly and vehemently trolling a lore forum by peddling fanfiction (and fanfiction so inept that the very few chances they ever dare to support their headcanon with sources they immediately contradict themselves even on something as simple as chronology of events in a single short scene), which is the antithesis of the very concept of lore and, consequently, this forum's purpose.

Meanwhile if you paid attention the forum (and MMO-C as a whole) gets less traffic in general and plenty of Horde regulars have stopped posting as well. It's almost as if WoW's popularity in general was steadily declining and the lore aspect of it even more so thanks to the last 2 expansions being absolute dogshit story-wise. So as usual the "everything that exists is Horde bias" doomsaying doesn't seem to live up to even the most rudimentary scrutiny.

[Nymrohd]

You'd think if I was the rabid pro-Horde tyrant you imagine me to be, I wouldn't even bat an eye at it, right? People are allowed to have extreme opinions of all kinds in a purely fantastical context - sorry the supposed tyranny doesn't lean the way you want it to. I still find the existence of fantastical bigotry to be intrinsically weird, though.

I'll say this and take my leave. I could send it to feedback but it would be locked and ignored and we all know it. Most lore forums I know straight out ban LARP-style posters. Y'all don't and it has often taken discussion down. They also give a warning to certain duos to take things to PM or get banned; here they get to post pedantry for ten pages; it might be on topic but it is in no way constructive.

[Shadowferal]

In the larpers defense, a place I'm uncomfortable with, at least they're more interested in lore, even if it's to reinvent it to fit their own narrative. Not the casual dismissal of lore I see in posts in other forums.

[Aucald]

I'll say this and take my leave. I could send it to feedback but it would be locked and ignored and we all know it. Most lore forums I know straight out ban LARP-style posters. Y'all don't and it has often taken discussion down. They also give a warning to certain duos to take things to PM or get banned; here they get to post pedantry for ten pages; it might be on topic but it is in no way constructive.

Roleplaying outside the designated RP subforum of this subforum is prohibited, as several regular posters here could inform you if they so chose. The problem with out-of-bounds RP is that for a lot of people, it's subjective, and often it's a charge leveled at people who present an intense focus on one aspect of WoW lore (e.g. the Void, the Horde, the Alliance, specific races, cosmic fantasy, etc.) but aren't really pretending to be a character within the story for whatever reason, which is what our rules and guidelines define as RP. You also get a lot of charges of censorship, general and specific, if you try to limit people's "pedantry" or take too heavy a hand in attempting to prevent thread derailment. Everything is a matter of perspective.

[Alanar]

Sorry just got back, didnt had time to read and respond.

But thanks for your anwsers skytotem and aucald.

I literally typed a response twice now and halfway the website stopped working for me and the reply is gone. Cba trying it a third time.

[Feanoro]

@Mehrunes
1) If Aucald wasn't Horde biased, you'd have long been perma-banned for egregiously breaking forum rules, as you viciously attack anyone who doesn't agree with your interpretation (including Blizzard). Meanwhile, Alliance posters who give back even a fraction of your vitriol are instantly infracted.

2) I know this is hard, but a couple truth bombs for you.
a) You do not define canon. Blizzard does.
b) However poor it may be, Blizzard writes for both factions. Alliance is every bit as canonical as Horde.
c) Based on a and b, posting the Alliance side is not headcanon, no matter how much you dislike it.

3) The remaining posters here are overwhelmingly pro-Horde or Horde sympathetic. Alliance regulars slowly gave up when Aucald decided that your hate-filled screeds towards other posters were fine and Horde RPers are just dandy.

Enjoy your "victory" over a dying forum.

[Grazrug]

@Mehrunes
1) If Aucald wasn't Horde biased, you'd have long been perma-banned for egregiously breaking forum rules, as you viciously attack anyone who doesn't agree with your interpretation (including Blizzard). Meanwhile, Alliance posters who give back even a fraction of your vitriol are instantly infracted.

2) I know this is hard, but a couple truth bombs for you.
a) You do not define canon. Blizzard does.
b) However poor it may be, Blizzard writes for both factions. Alliance is every bit as canonical as Horde.
c) Based on a and b, posting the Alliance side is not headcanon, no matter how much you dislike it.

3) The remaining posters here are overwhelmingly pro-Horde or Horde sympathetic. Alliance regulars slowly gave up when Aucald decided that your hate-filled screeds towards other posters were fine and Horde RPers are just dandy.

Enjoy your "victory" over a dying forum.

I don't hate the alliance. I hate that alliance aligned characters are majorly present in the neutral plot while the Horde ones usually get sidelined, get only minor attention(Baine failing to save Bovan) or being useless(Thrall losing his axe and Baine sitting around in Oribos), not to mention that the faction plot disappeared entirley from Legion once the Stormheim quests are over. Blizzard has tiptoed around not evil Horde characters since they don't have magical powers strong enough to be a direct opponent to the current big bad guy of the story and those evil doers got ousted totally in Bfa. I don't know what Blizzard has planned for the Horde a s a whole further down from the disaster that was Bfa but after waiting 6 years it is kind of unfun not having any answers. It is easy to write a lawully good guy archetype but it is harder to display conflicting interests when you are on the same team. Which might be the main reason we never see internal Horde activity ingame.

[Powerogue]

If it's anything, I'd play with the idea of ending WotLK with the creation of a Scourge state.

I think that's the crux of the issue here. Some players do want to play villains. Something WoW has occasionally let us dabble in under the justification of "an evil leader manipulated/mind controlled/tricked us into doing so" but always went back to us as somewhere between generic hero and good-enough murderhobo depending on your class/RP.

Contrasting WC3 where we were able to play different factions that were allowed and encouraged to do evil, evil things, and pit evil against more evil with things like Arthas's whole arc and his infighting with the Burning Legion.

I'm not sure how to sate that in an arc that is deliberately trying to move away from the horde/alliance conflict permanently. Warcraft 4? Questlines like Zul'drak where we infiltrate evil organizations?

I think moving the Forsaken a bit closer to the Horde's values instead of being blatantly evil in the wake of Sylvanas's desertion is welcome. It tracks with the war justifying their methods being over and the person pushing them to embrace cruelty and hopelessness being gone. but it seems clear that leaves a vacuum of players who just like quests where you smash in peasant's heads with a shovel!

[Mehrunes]

@Mehrunes
1) If Aucald wasn't Horde biased, you'd have long been perma-banned for egregiously breaking forum rules, as you viciously attack anyone who doesn't agree with your interpretation (including Blizzard). Meanwhile, Alliance posters who give back even a fraction of your vitriol are instantly infracted.

Given how hell would freeze over before you'd point out Blizzard not agreeing with my interpretation without resorting to twisting the hell out of the piece of Blizzard's writing in question, my post or both, you're *this* close to spotting the issue I have with the people I direct my "vitriol" towards. Speaking of which, given how for the past few years your interactions with me are mostly someone else making a jab at me and you using it as an opportunity to instantly throw in your three cents to discredit me without actually addressing my post yourself or paying any attention to how flimsy the jab your're bandwagoning is in terms of lore accuracy, please spare me the tales about how you lot only engage in a fraction of whatever, because it's rather unconvincing.

2) I know this is hard, but a couple truth bombs for you.
a) You do not define canon. Blizzard does.
b) However poor it may be, Blizzard writes for both factions. Alliance is every bit as canonical as Horde.
c) Based on a and b, posting the Alliance side is not headcanon, no matter how much you dislike it.

Except you and your compatriots in peddling fanfiction aren't posting about just the Alliance and you misrepresent the hell out of Horde story at every given opportunity. The story as it's defined by Blizzard - which makes what you're peddling precisely headcanon - so here goes your first "truth" bomb. As for the "truth" bombs #2 and #3, let's not pretend you're not peddling headcanon when you're "just posting the Alliance side" either, when time and time and again it was precisely the Alliance's versions of given quests or Alliance characters' statements (chief among them being Jaina) that disproved the fanfiction peddled by Alliance posters.

3) The remaining posters here are overwhelmingly pro-Horde or Horde sympathetic. Alliance regulars slowly gave up when Aucald decided that your hate-filled screeds towards other posters were fine and Horde RPers are just dandy.

Enjoy your "victory" over a dying forum.

The main RPer on this forum continues to be a Void Elf aficionado so this is just more of you posting stuff that has no basis in reality.

[Shadowferal]

I think that's the crux of the issue here. Some players do want to play villains. Something WoW has occasionally let us dabble in under the justification of "an evil leader manipulated/mind controlled/tricked us into doing so" but always went back to us as somewhere between generic hero and good-enough murderhobo depending on your class/RP.
Contrasting WC3 where we were able to play different factions that were allowed and encouraged to do evil, evil things, and pit evil against more evil with things like Arthas's whole arc and his infighting with the Burning Legion.
I'm not sure how to sate that in an arc that is deliberately trying to move away from the horde/alliance conflict permanently. Warcraft 4? Questlines like Zul'drak where we infiltrate evil organizations?
I think moving the Forsaken a bit closer to the Horde's values instead of being blatantly evil in the wake of Sylvanas's desertion is welcome. It tracks with the war justifying their methods being over and the person pushing them to embrace cruelty and hopelessness being gone. but it seems clear that leaves a vacuum of players who just like quests where you smash in peasant's heads with a shovel!

I've been playing with the idea for awhile now. An evil toon needs a starting zone...similar to the old death knight starting zone. And a base of ops...which could be an openly evil city, or hidden in any other city. There are moments that would define the toon, such as "Discovered!" Which would get him moving to new locations (and levelling up). The whole system might be a bit too dynamic and overwhelming. At least these were a few ideas I had.