[spoiler] Ghostcrawler confirms ridiculous Alliance outcome in 5.4

[Wyrt]

Varian has the power to declare peace on behalf of the alliance on his own.

RIP Alliance.

[Dreknar20]

That's neither victory or vengeance. .

and revenge = justice?

[Faroth]

They've already practically stated that the Alliance will be in the position of strength in the story going into the next expansion, and they will be the major initiators against the next big threat (leading the charge would probably be a good way of interpreting it). Given that at the end of this expansion, they are the ones that weren't nearly broken by a civil war, it's one of few ways the story could progress that makes sense - if Blizzard manages to botch it up, more's the pity (when I'm feeling particular cynical, I fully expect them to botch it up, to be honest).

With the game mechanics limiting what they can do, they have written themselves into a corner with how they can end this expansion, especially with the raid being in Orgrimmar.

Cataclysm, they said the Alliance was going to fight back and have this awesome moment of retaliation against the Horde attacks.
Mists of Pandaria, they said the Alliance was going to have their fist pump moment, their big victory over the Horde and a defining moment to be proud of.
Next expansion, the Alliance will be in a position of strength.....

"Wait til next expansion" is the repeat mantra for Alliance awesomeness. :P

I simply don't have any faith in Blizzard delivering on it anymore. I'd love to be pleasantly surprised and really proven wrong, though.

[Nomial17]

If an "Alliance moment" consists of the Horde being able to do what it wants for an expansion, then being able to scapegoat all its crimes onto a single, tyrannical Orc and his band of loyal followers, then you will forgive the Alliance for not enjoying their "moments".



Follow the Silverpine quest line from the Alliance and Horde perspective and you get a series of events that results in the Forsaken killing the heir of a kingdom and sending its King, Queen and few remaining people running with their tails between their legs with the aid of the Night Elves. The consequence of this, as is seen on a return visit, is a ruined Gilneas. This is just one example; all this was done to Gilneas without the dignity of it happening in a raid.

Yep. 1 race. That wasn't even a part of the alliance until afterwards.

Nailed it. Next please.

And the horde wasnt "doing what it wants", Garrosh was doing what he wants. It's been expressed pretty well though not entirely in game that since pandaria, people havent exactly been supporting him aside from Orcs.

So if your idea of an expansion is that two factions come to a random island, and both of them restrain themselves from war to kill...the Sha and Thunderking and then wait for 2 years because it doesnt make sense to put any other larger evil there. (Can't even really put an Old God because the last expansions end raid was Old God/DW themed as well.)

So basically. Horde and Alliance both land, draw Pandaria in half, and each take 50% on the flip of a coin. Both factions work together, assuring themselves to only take parts of the land. The Alliance, having lost it's land previously due to Deathwing and Garrosh's reckless desire to control more, takes an additional zone in Pandaria, just to get things nice and even.

Oh and Cata was about as much of a horde expansion as WoTLK was Alliance. So they were both 1-1. Now, it is impossible to play both sides in a game about Wars and death and destruction equally.... So one of them has to become 2-1 before they can become 2-2.

[Dreknar20]

Sounds like fun for Alliance players.

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yeah, and invading your own city, attacking your own Warchief, killing your own people, so much more fun over here

[Deleted]

So...the two things they said...That the Alliance would have 'their moment' this expansion and that 'everyone would love Varian at the end of Orgrimmar' basically meant that the Alliance 'did a little bit this time' and 'the Horde love Varian for letting them live'

I've been playing the game since vanilla and the Alliance hasn't really had a good story or the like since then. Even in vanilla, there were half finished quests, but it was even more prevalent in Cataclysm, in Swamp of Sorrows in particular, where the Alliance strike back only to find the part where they actually win against the Horde has been conveniently removed from the game and the quest is left on a cliff hanger.

"Alliance gain ground in Cataclysm" Yeah, but just about every piece of ground they were given was taken back by the Horde in their quest lines, while we engage in amazing quest lines where we lose everything and have to fall back, the Horde got quests where they took everything. They were also given cooler quests with more vehicle segments (the kodo quests in the barrens were fun)

The Goblins are given a city, an actual place to call their own in game in Ashara...Worgen get a tree in Darnassus with about 12 NPCs and Gen's in Stormwind for some reason. Their city is deserted. Forsaken park their festered, rotten backsides on Alliance face again in Lordaeron because they weren't already 'awesome and allpowerful' enough.

I've played both factions, and my main is Horde. It's SO biased to us in every way. The ammount of faction leader appearances in quests, coolness, lore and detail put into everything 'Horde' is through the roof, we get to hang out with Thrall (and so do Alliance, for some reason) in Cataclysm doing some awesome quests. The Alliance were supposed to have an equivalent to this in MoP, yet all they had was Varian in a few scenarios saying 'No, we wait, BE PATIENT TYRANDE! I'M TELLING YOU TO WAIT!' or 'Yeah, you Dwarves go get yourself killed, I'll just go enjoy wine in Stormwind and be back later to say stuff'

In 5.3, the Horde get an amazing quest line in taking Razor Hill...the Alliance run around as a mechanical cat and save a troll for some reason. Now you say 'Oh no, WOTLK was Alliance centered! Yeah, Arthas was Alliance and it was great seeing that story...well cataclysm was Horde centered with Cho'gal. He was Horde once, makes perfect sense right!? Let's take these characters that have absolutely nothing to do with their respective factions anymore and say that it's centered on that faction and how detailed their stuff is now because of these characters that used to be Horde/Alliance being bosses in an expansion. PERFECT SENSE, RIGHT!? OH YEAH, DON'T FORGET ABOUT VOL'JIN RIGHT!? TBC SO HORDE CENTERED, OMG!

So to all of you Horde fanboys telling the Alliance to stop bitching, you stop bitching instead please. The Alliance actually has things to complain about and it's unfair that things have been left half finished, half detailed and half arsed for so long.

Now I'm going to enjoy levelling yet another alt throughout all the awesome Horde quests that piss all over the Alliance's half detailed and half fun quests while hanging out with Thrall, Sylvannas and all the cool cats while we wait for next expansion where for some reason, Turalyon and Alleria who hate the Horde and what Sylvannas has turned into will for some reason kiss the Horde's ass until it's raw an bloody and they become the heroes of yet another expansion while Blizzard keep telling the Alliance players 'Don't worry, we'll fix everything and you'll have so much super awesome stuff coming next expansion, we promise! (not)'

[Shefu]

ppl still dont understand the horde is wow alliance is just there so the horde have something to farm greates heroes are on the horde side just droping some names : broxigar only mortal to stand against sergeras and only mortal who wounded guess whos side was he on the horde dont spect to see an alliance do that no no the shit themself before the kill themself or the will come to their king an theirr king will tell em to build him a statue or something like that so deal with it horde is wow alliance is just cannon fodder or something like that

nice punctuation there bro!

[Nomial17]

Cataclysm, they said the Alliance was going to fight back and have this awesome moment of retaliation against the Horde attacks.
Mists of Pandaria, they said the Alliance was going to have their fist pump moment, their big victory over the Horde and a defining moment to be proud of.
Next expansion, the Alliance will be in a position of strength.....

"Wait til next expansion" is the repeat mantra for Alliance awesomeness. :P

I simply don't have any faith in Blizzard delivering on it anymore. I'd love to be pleasantly surprised and really proven wrong, though.

I don't recall them saying that about Cata. Since WoTLK was more Alliance than horde it wouldn't have made sense for them to hint that the Alliance would gain more ground.

[Austilias]

and revenge = justice?

If the Alliance is going to take the 'moral highground' with this, then fine. I won't pretend for one moment that it's any more satisfying than being in a faction that can do what it wants for an expansion, then scapegoat all its crimes onto one Orc and his loyal followers. Not only that, but a faction that can even get its enemies to help them kill said scapegoat.

What lessons will the Horde learn from Mists of Pandaria? That they can do what they want without fear of reprisal from an enemy faction that values honour much more than they do.

[Scummer]

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yeah, and invading your own city, attacking your own Warchief, killing your own people, so much more fun over here

Defeating your dictator and redeeming your faction sounds pretty good. Combined with story development for characters who never had story eg. Vol'jin and Lor'themar is a big bonus too.

At this point my problem isn't that the Horde have gotten the lion's share of the story. I do not wish to compare or insinuate "bias" because I don't know if I feel they genuinely are unlike some people. It's simply that the Alliance story has such a bad conclusion. I was personally looking forward to resubbing for 5.3 for the story and conclusion for MoP however I'm finding it less and less likely the more we hear of the patch itself.

[Austilias]

\
yeah, and invading your own city, attacking your own Warchief, killing your own people, so much more fun over here

Ah, but they aren't "your people". It's "Big, bad Garrosh and his big, bad Kor'kron", so the Horde won't lose any sleep over it.

[Combatbutler]

Ah, but they aren't "your people". It's "Big, bad Garrosh and his big, bad Kor'kron", so the Horde won't lose any sleep over it.

He is an orc player, so yes for him it is butchering his people en masse, killing a warchief he actually liked at one point.(maybe still does)

[Dreknar20]

Ah, but they aren't "your people". It's "Big, bad Garrosh and his big, bad Kor'kron", so the Horde won't lose any sleep over it.

They are "your people", thats why its called a civil war.
You are not killing some rivial nation or faction, you are fighting your very own people, people who you fought and bleed alongisde with on past campaigns.

[Austilias]

He is an orc player, so yes for him it is butchering his people en masse, killing a warchief he actually liked at one point.(maybe still does)

A more fitting comparison would be to say that it's not dissimilar to the Egyptians who recently rose up and revolted against Mubarak and his loyal followers. Yes, they were all Egyptians; and yes, many of the Egyptians may once have even liked Mubarak. It doesn't change the fact that most Egyptians who rebelled had no moral qualms with doing whatever it took to remove Mubarak and those who served him, however.

[Faroth]

MMOs are a poor place to play just for the story, or point me to one where the story actually really matters?

Final Fantasy XI

It was grindy as hell (and I hated it for that), but the story and mission quests drew you in, gave a sense of national pride, and set the players against a common enemy complete with plot twists and cut scenes.

You mean like how people are claiming Cata was Horde biased, since Thrall was a shaman of the ER, whose ultimate duty was to Azeroth, with Horde coming in second?

Exactly. Just like Tirion brought the Silver Hand back to the Allia......wait.

Okay, so Malfurion at least was angry over Ashenvale and the Horde destroying the fo......wait.

Yeah, Thrall was totally a neutral character who isn't still the flagship character of the Horde, not at all. ^_^

[Dreknar20]

Mists of Pandaria, they said the Alliance was going to have their fist pump moment, their big victory over the Horde and a defining moment to be proud of.

According to Kosak I think, those moments were the Jade Forest intro, and the events of 5.1

[Combatbutler]

A more fitting comparison would be to say that it's not dissimilar to the Egyptians who recently rose up and revolted against Mubarak and his loyal followers. Yes, they were all Egyptians; and yes, many of the Egyptians may once have even liked Mubarak. It doesn't change the fact that most Egyptians who rebelled had no moral qualms with doing whatever it took to remove Mubarak and those who served him, however.

No a fitting comparison would be Syria, because Egypt cannot be classified as civil war, but Syria certainly is, but we are moving off topic.

[Sukhoi]

ppl still dont understand the horde is wow alliance is just there so the horde have something to farm greates heroes are on the horde side just droping some names : broxigar only mortal to stand against sergeras and only mortal who wounded guess whos side was he on the horde dont spect to see an alliance do that no no the shit themself before the kill themself or the will come to their king an theirr king will tell em to build him a statue or something like that so deal with it horde is wow alliance is just cannon fodder or something like that

Nailed it.

[Rabka Uhalla]

ppl still dont understand the horde is wow alliance is just there so the horde have something to farm greates heroes are on the horde side just droping some names : broxigar only mortal to stand against sergeras and only mortal who wounded guess whos side was he on the horde dont spect to see an alliance do that no no the shit themself before the kill themself or the will come to their king an theirr king will tell em to build him a statue or something like that so deal with it horde is wow alliance is just cannon fodder or something like that

I think it's trying to communicate.

[Riverness]

I read till the 11th page, and some people are feeding the very obvious trolls in this thread.

On topic though, I think lore plays a huge part in the game for some people and the concerns should at least be gone through in a dev-watercooler or something similar.