By Blood and Honor: What Needs to Happen to Bring Back Alliance Pride

[Deleted]

Amm Blood and Honor are not words wich the Alliance uses.

[Lightfist]

Those people are revealed for the spineless flip floppers they are. The Alliance had no identity until now. All the races had their own identities, while the Horde had a faction. You're too caught up in the present and can't see the forest through the trees. What exactly do you think is going to happen? You are proposing a cartoonish alternative through implication. As if Blizzard's change in Cataclysm is indicative of a new attitude at Blizzard against the alliance? It's laughable. As if mean old Metzen was just lying about his passion for druids and paladins, and Samwise just pretends to love dwarves, and all this time they've been biding their time to,...

Nevermind, this stuff is too silly to talk about seriously.

The Alliance has always had an identity, but it has rarely been portrayed correctly in World of Warcraft. Cataclysm and, from what I've seen, Mists do nothing to make the Alliance feel more unified. You still mostly just see humans, and when you see another race, it's usually just that race. That is not unity, and it is not the Alliance.

In regards to my 'cartoonish alternative', I implied nothing. I even made it very clear that I wasn't going to imply anything (see the giant red letters?).

People need to realize that Blizzard is a small team with a huge fictional universe to cover that is filled with characters, and they work on what get's their juices flowing. As a result, we have to make due with this narrow spot light that only shines on the parts of the story we personally like.

Just because you don't see your favorite characters or races being given new face time, doesn't mean they are abandoned or changed. When the story only moves every 2 years or so, this is what you get.

No. I will not accept anymore 'limited resources' bullshit from Blizzard or their fans. Nothing I brought up would require much more effort (if any at all) on Blizzard's part. If they cannot think of interesting things for the Alliance, they should bring in people that can.

What the Alliance needs is more of its races showing up, in the RTS-games, alliance forces were a combination of all its races, each doing what they were good at, but as a combined force, in WoW it's "every race for him/herself" most of the time, and that isn't really very much like an alliance at all TBH, more like "Humans and friends"...

Secondly, the Alliance needs to actually show the desire to win! This doesn't mean they have to steamroll the horde until nothing remains but a gooey paste and some banners, but they at least have to lose the "Oh that darn horde invaded our lands, let's mop up!"-attitude and think more about what THEY are going to do, the alliance just responds to the horde, which makes them seem wishy-washy and weak.

I agree. It currently feels like a group of disjointed factions too busy getting their asses kicked that they can't even talk to each other.

Amm Blood and Honor are not words wich the Alliance uses.

They most certainly are. Hell, Tirion writes it in his letter to King Varian, and it's even on the statue of Turalyon in Stormwind.

[nnelson54]

I am well aware of his original quest chain in WoW (having done it on no less than three characters), as well as the lore behind it. Regardless, he was a hero of the Alliance of Lordaeron and promised to reform the Knights of the Silver Hand - an exclusive and iconic Alliance organization.

You can't use him as an example of an Alliance hero turning neutral when he was turned away as part of his origin story. Malfurion was an Alliance hero who turned neutral. Malfurion was a member of the Alliance in games and in lore and then was turned neutral for quest purposes. The players knew Malfurion, controlled Malfurion, did quests about Malfurion and read books about Malfurion before he turned neutral. Tirion was never an Alliance hero as the player knows him. There's a large and important difference between a character who was turned neutral after the players know him and a character who was created neutral. Tirion was created neutral. I'm not disputing the point about Alliance heroes turning neutral(Horde actually has the same problem; except all their heroes turn bad guys and get killed by the players), Tirion is just a terrible example because the players never knew him as an Alliance hero.

And yes, I know they still say "Blood and Honor", but there's a difference between a couple NPCs using it in that context and an army shouting it as a battle cry while attacking members of another race during a war divided upon race lines.

---------- Post added 2012-09-27 at 02:56 PM ----------

TThey most certainly are. Hell, Tirion writes it in his letter to King Varian

He also writes it in the letter to Thrall(Garrosh now, I guess. Never leveled a DK after Cataclysm. Is it phased with Thrall or something? Because the DK story happens before Cataclysm and Garrosh isn't the type to let a member of the Scourge - which are all but gone at that point, anyway - casually walk up to him and hand him a note).

[Lightfist]

You can't use him as an example of an Alliance hero turning neutral when he was turned away as part of his origin story. Malfurion was an Alliance hero who turned neutral. Malfurion was a member of the Alliance in games and in lore and then was turned neutral for quest purposes. The players knew Malfurion, controlled Malfurion, did quests about Malfurion and read books about Malfurion before he turned neutral. Tirion was never an Alliance hero as the player knows him. There's a large and important difference between a character who was turned neutral after the players know him and a character who was created neutral. Tirion was created neutral. I'm not disputing the point about Alliance heroes turning neutral(Horde actually has the same problem; except all their heroes turn bad guys and get killed by the players), Tirion is just a terrible example because the players never knew him as an Alliance hero.

Once again, I am well aware of his origin. Regardless, he was one of the original five Paladins and swore to reform the Knights of the Silver Hand. If you refuse to see it as the Alliance losing a hero, then you're free to view it as the Alliance losing an entire order of heroes. Either way, I'm not very fond of it.

And yes, I know they still say "Blood and Honor", but there's a difference between a couple NPCs using it in that context and an army shouting it as a battle cry while attacking members of another race during a war divided upon race lines.

While I recognize concern over it in such an extremely PC age, I find it silly to be worrying about this coming off as a 'race war' when it is abundantly clear that it absolutely is (to many members of each faction, at least). Humans and Orcs have derogatory terms for one another based on skin color, and Blizzard doesn't seem to care very much about hiding that fact.

He also writes it in the letter to Thrall(Garrosh now, I guess. Never leveled a DK after Cataclysm. Is it phased with Thrall or something? Because the DK story happens before Cataclysm and Garrosh isn't the type to let a member of the Scourge - which are all but gone at that point, anyway - casually walk up to him and hand him a note).

I honestly wouldn't know, as I haven't done the quest on Horde since long before Cataclysm. It would seem a little odd with Garrosh.

The phrase, however, is derived from an archaic human expression. It is unquestionably an Alliance phrase.

[Scummer]

Well I agree wholeheartedly with all your points .

I think the biggie though has always been a lack characters with personality and meaningful back story. You can kinda track this back to vanilla WoW where all Horde racial leaders had good back story and a known personality and attitude from where they had been in WC3 which gave the faction as a whole a good bedrock.

While the Grand Alliance was pretty much a new thing that hadn't really received much background for the given races working as closely as they were, as prior to this we had the Alliance Of Lordaeron which ofc focussed almost exclusively on the Human kingdoms (And for the most part left out the IF Dwarves and Gnomes). Most if not all of our leaders were new in some shape or form. Bolvar was new, Magni was new as a character as prior to this he had merely been mentioned by Muradin in WC3 simply as the King, Mekkatorque was new and finally we come to Tyrande who had her personality removed along with the rest of her race's.

We've always been on the back foot of developed characters while the ones we do have decide that going neutral is the way forward which removes that said personality they brought to the table. I think the loss of the Silver Hand is probably the biggest loss of an Alliance organisation. I think this why we've always clawed for Turalyon and Alleria as those characters do fit the bill precisely of characters with personality and story which itself is embedded in the Alliance winning the Second War.

Trials Of The High King's a good start especially and obviously for Varian.
Tyrande has the opportunity to do something in Krasarang Wilds given how it was her vision that sent the Night Elves there, it would be nice to see her personally involved not to mention how the War could bring out her old self.
Shandris saw Theramore's destruction so she has every reason to go after the Horde and develop herself and the Sentinels back into what we knew in WC3.
Whether or not their leaders are involved the 3 Dwarven Clans need to be shown working together and probably bickering as the 3 clans living under one roof is a big deal.

[Lightfist]

Trials Of The High King's a good start especially and obviously for Varian.
Tyrande has the opportunity to do something in Krasarang Wilds given how it was her vision that sent the Night Elves there, it would be nice to see her personally involved not to mention how the War could bring out her old self.
Shandris saw Theramore's destruction so she has every reason to go after the Horde and develop herself and the Sentinels back into what we knew in WC3.
Whether or not their leaders are involved the 3 Dwarven Clans need to be shown working together and probably bickering as the 3 clans living under one roof is a big deal.

I would especially like to see something with Shandris. I always thought it was kind of silly that they had this gigantic army in Feralas that they don't seem to do anything with.