Alliance and Chris Metzen

[NickCageFanatic]

So Chris Metzen said

Don't worry, Alliance! I love ya dearly. There's some epic things yer about to do that will have you smiling and fist-pumping for years.

https://twitter.com/ChrisMetzen/stat...04612213886976

That was in March 2012

What do you guys think?

Load of smoke blown up our buts or is it coming ?

Edit:

problem is, you guys keep telling us the next patch will offer alliance "fist pumping" sessions but tomorrow never comes it seems
Dalaran didn't work for you? (Source)

So I guess Dalaran was that moment

Personally I don't bother looking into what Blizzard reps say in those tweets that get posted on sites like mmo-champion. As of late all I see are half-ass comments/questions/complaints being made by bad players and Blizzard taking the time to respond with wise ass remarks.

It's the Community and Blizzard at their lowest. Such is the world of tweets.

[luccadeo]

It's about 68 years by now and the casual racism and hatred actually has gotten stronger from what I can tell. You can't be racist or political incorrect against anyone in the UK, unless they are German or to a lesser extent French. And since the younger Generations do not actually have any real knowledge or interaction with them they are even more reactionary and aggressive. It goes so far that even half Germans are labele "Hitler boys" and at times chased and beaten up for their heritage just because they are acceptable targets. And yes Germans is pretty much interchangable with Nazis for many people around here.

- - - Updated - - -


The problem is, it's not actually a win for the Alliance but for the Horde rebellion. The Alliance merely assists US in removing Garrosh and putting someone else in power. Their contribution is about on the level of what they were doing during 5.3. We have a mayor quest line, we have a lot of developements, loads of trops being moved around, actual warfare, Chen showing up and so on. They get a few agents and a robo kitten and watch us doing stuff, then we let them play with us for a bit because we've grown bored of doing stuff ourselves.

Even their supposed victory in Pandaria is a joke. Let's sum up Pandaria so far:

1. Theramore is nuked, loads and loads of elite Alliance soldiers, Naval forces and other stuff is wiped out. Huge Horde victory. Jaina chickens out at doing anything in retaliation.

2. Both sides arrive on Pandaria, there's some fights in Jade Forrest but effectively both sides give as good as they get. I'd actually argue that we do more Alliance killing than they do kill Horde. Their quest to kill Horde people ends after taking out initial base there with the insane warlock. We still get to kill the Alliance parachute warriors and take that one hill from them after their equivalent ended long ago.

3. Nothing much happens till 5.2 aside from Anduin actually taking a pro Horde stance towards the Celestials fawning over us like a fangirl. OH and he helped me gank Alliance players at the temple of Chi-ji.

4. 5.1 Is effectively a stalemate, neither side is going anywhere.

5. 5.2 Stalemate again, Lorthermar and Jaina talk things out and both go their ways.

6. 5.3 By now the Alliance has fallen by the side. Their contribution is playing our story line and controlling a robo kitten while we kick mayor ass with Chen who finally dropped the pretense of being neutral. Alliance gets to s*** off Vol'jin.

7. 5.4 Siege of Orgrimmar, the Horde rebells take the city making the Alliance take much of the losses after Voljin can't be bothered to actually live up to his side of the whole bargain, quite likely on purpose. Sylvanas talks about raising fallen Alliance and nobody gives much of a f***. Meanwhile Stormwind harbor and parts of the city are apparently destroyed despite the whole thing being Siege of Orgrimmar for no apparent reason.
At the end of the raid the Alliance is declared victor despite having lost about every single last battle over the last 3-4 years and just walks away to let us rebuild. We get to keep everything we've gotten, Orgrimmar is expanded, Stormwind trashed. If this ammounts to an Alliance victory, what exactly is an Alliance loss?

Well said.

[Zenny]

The problem is, it's not actually a win for the Alliance but for the Horde rebellion. The Alliance merely assists US in removing Garrosh and putting someone else in power. Their contribution is about on the level of what they were doing during 5.3. We have a mayor quest line, we have a lot of developements, loads of trops being moved around, actual warfare, Chen showing up and so on. They get a few agents and a robo kitten and watch us doing stuff, then we let them play with us for a bit because we've grown bored of doing stuff ourselves.

6. 5.3 By now the Alliance has fallen by the side. Their contribution is playing our story line and controlling a robo kitten while we kick mayor ass with Chen who finally dropped the pretense of being neutral. Alliance gets to s*** off Vol'jin.

Can I get whatever you are on? 5.3 had a "major" quest line for the Horde? Funny, all I got was basically the same shit the Alliance had. Also, Chen did almost nothing, except say a few words.

[therealbowser]

Seriously, it feels like the majority of alliance want to have wow just be about the alliance, and fuck the horde. No balance, no swinging back and forth, just alliance alliance alliance.

What a load of shit. I thought about writing up a list of things that would appease the Alliance (not everyone, but most of them), but why bother? You're not going to listen because you don't care. You are literally incapable of seeing things from anyone else's perspective, nor do you want to. You want to pretend like every Alliance player is being selfish and unreasonable without cause, when there is pretty damn big causes.

The Horde bias is not something that's an opinion, it's something that's actually measurable. How many scenarios were there for the Alliance in 5.3? Which faction was playing with a mechanical cat and which faction was retaking cities? Which faction in Cataclysm was actually gaining victories, and a large amount of them? But I imagine you feel justified in all of these things and pretend that the scraps Blizzard deigned the Alliance worthy of having was completely sufficient while the Horde feasted on juicy, satisfying lore and stories.

And yes, a part of it is opinionated. 5.1 and 5.0 are good examples of this. 5.0 is one case where I feel, for once, both factions are equal in story quality (the Alliance might have actually had a more epic one for once here, but the catch is that the Horde story felt lacking because the Alliance made a more poor enemy than the Horde did for the Alliance... ironic?).

I don't care which side is winning, nor have I ever expected nor desired Alliance to be more important or exciting than the Horde (Horde has always been Blizzard's passion, I respect that and I am okay with that), all I want is to have something the Alliance can be proud of (ideally more than one thing, but hell, at this rate I'm not picky), to have races that remain relevant after their given expansion (and during it, in the case of worgen), and to have satisfying stories (meaning ones that actually impress you) -- and I don't even need them to be at or near the level of the Horde, 5.1 is a great example of this with the Horde having a better story, but frankly I didn't care, because I enjoyed the Alliance's story.

A big reason why the Alliance is pissed is because of false promises from Blizzard, and them just serving the same shit again and again feeling no need to throw us a bone. I mean, how in the hell did Blizzard end up focusing 5.3 entirely on the Horde and think Alliance were going to be okay with this? Oh yeah, they gave us one fucking scenario that has almost nothing to do with the ongoing story, totally makes up for it right? I won't even bother explaining that it replaced what was to be the 'trials of the High King' that a lot of Alliance players were looking forward to, leading to yet another broken promise from Blizzard...

A good (but somewhat random) analogy would be if a poor, struggling family asked for a chance to earn more money to earn enough to simply survive while the rich and fat tell them how good they have it, and that they should be content with what they have. The main difference here being that in WoW's community, the amount of story focus should be equal, and no one earned their lore. If anyone is 'rich' and anyone 'poor' it's because of poor planning or utter bias.

I am not really sure why I am wasting my time typing up a reply to this, because I quit the game -- in a large part due to me being tired of the broken promises and awful story of the Alliance (notice that I did not say "because Blizzard constantly caters to the Horde", as I am okay with that), but mostly for less petty reasons -- and because people like you are all exactly the same. You refuse to consider any perspective but your own, and you insult and attack the other side constantly. Two extremes constantly battling eachother, it's almost as bad as a fucking political or religious debate. I may as well try to talk reason and logic to a stump or a brick wall, I'd have better luck there.

PS: I should elaborate and mention that I play both factions, and have considered both stories. I have always slightly leaned towards the Alliance in actual time played, but I enjoy the Horde as well and play them quite a lot. I am coming to these conclusions with almost no bias at all. I can't claim to have no bias, as that's impossible and would be a lie, but I always focus on considering both sides of the story, putting extra effort into considering the perspective of the other side, and realizing that even if I disagree with you, I respect your opinion and understand there are valid reasons as to how you came to that conclusion.

What I don't respect is your obnoxious bashing and insulting of the other side like we're a bunch of fucking morons or crying babies that are never appeased. Perhaps someday, if you ever stop acting so high and mighty and stuck up on yourself, you might be able to consider someone else's opinion and think on why they might have come to the conclusion they did.

[Arcanist]

it's not about booting people that still care. it's about being sincere. people that quit the game and are playing something else and say they're having so much fun while still QQing about their old game are like a guy that got rejected by his crush. "it's good that she rejected me, I'm having way more fun as a single guy getting all the ladies. the bitch isn't even that good. she's ugly and her armpits smell!".

I'm usually a rather patient individual, but this sort of denial behavior is not something I have much patience for. if he was having so much more fun playing something else, he'd be playing something else, not complaining about his old game on the internet.

It's because I've played this game since BC, spent a lot of time on it and have a lot of great memories. The lore, the universe used to be something great but now it's just predictable trash. It's difficult to write for a game such as WoW, where you have to develop each faction individually while having some sort of reasonable engagement between them. Which is why Chris Metzen needs to step down and let someone competent take over because he clearly lacks the ability. And frankly? I'm sick of having to deal with him in game through the likes of Thrall in WoW, or Raynor in SC2.

Also, no one addressed this wonderful post yet:

The problem is, it's not actually a win for the Alliance but for the Horde rebellion. The Alliance merely assists US in removing Garrosh and putting someone else in power. Their contribution is about on the level of what they were doing during 5.3. We have a mayor quest line, we have a lot of developements, loads of trops being moved around, actual warfare, Chen showing up and so on. They get a few agents and a robo kitten and watch us doing stuff, then we let them play with us for a bit because we've grown bored of doing stuff ourselves.

Even their supposed victory in Pandaria is a joke. Let's sum up Pandaria so far:

1. Theramore is nuked, loads and loads of elite Alliance soldiers, Naval forces and other stuff is wiped out. Huge Horde victory. Jaina chickens out at doing anything in retaliation.

2. Both sides arrive on Pandaria, there's some fights in Jade Forrest but effectively both sides give as good as they get. I'd actually argue that we do more Alliance killing than they do kill Horde. Their quest to kill Horde people ends after taking out initial base there with the insane warlock. We still get to kill the Alliance parachute warriors and take that one hill from them after their equivalent ended long ago.

3. Nothing much happens till 5.2 aside from Anduin actually taking a pro Horde stance towards the Celestials fawning over us like a fangirl. OH and he helped me gank Alliance players at the temple of Chi-ji.

4. 5.1 Is effectively a stalemate, neither side is going anywhere.

5. 5.2 Stalemate again, Lorthermar and Jaina talk things out and both go their ways.

6. 5.3 By now the Alliance has fallen by the side. Their contribution is playing our story line and controlling a robo kitten while we kick mayor ass with Chen who finally dropped the pretense of being neutral. Alliance gets to s*** off Vol'jin.

7. 5.4 Siege of Orgrimmar, the Horde rebells take the city making the Alliance take much of the losses after Voljin can't be bothered to actually live up to his side of the whole bargain, quite likely on purpose. Sylvanas talks about raising fallen Alliance and nobody gives much of a f***. Meanwhile Stormwind harbor and parts of the city are apparently destroyed despite the whole thing being Siege of Orgrimmar for no apparent reason.
At the end of the raid the Alliance is declared victor despite having lost about every single last battle over the last 3-4 years and just walks away to let us rebuild. We get to keep everything we've gotten, Orgrimmar is expanded, Stormwind trashed. If this ammounts to an Alliance victory, what exactly is an Alliance loss?

^^^Do you really think the above is an awesome story that makes sense?

[RyanEX]

It's all well and good to talk about that now especially now that you know you're getting what YOU want.

I'll agree that the faction war was a bad idea and that it was carried out poorly. But a lot of Horde posters rode high on what was done in Cataclysm touting how, "it was done for zone balance" (understandable) and "war isn't fair". Now that the end it's coming the song's changed to how its "all about how war is bad". But in this case the war wasn't that bad for the Horde.

And it isn't about "winning" per se. We already know we're going to "win". It's about how it's being portrayed. The Alliance victory is tantamount to the Ally win at the end of WW2 when the Soviet Union just swallowed Eastern Europe piecemeal and the rest of the Allies did nothing to prevent it.

[Deleted]

And it isn't about "winning" per se. We already know we're going to "win". It's about how it's being portrayed. The Alliance victory is tantamount to the Ally win at the end of WW2 when the Soviet Union just swallowed Eastern Europe piecemeal and the rest of the Allies did nothing to prevent it.

Honestly? This actually defeats one of the most common arguments from some Alliance posters, that the SoO ending is not logical. It is as logical as many outcomes of our own history.

[Arcanist]

Exactly, the portrayal. It's an Alliance "victory" but the devs do everything in their power to downplay it for the Alliance (robot cat, begging Vol'jin, cannon fodder for the Horde, visions of a smashed up Stormwind, ect...). Considering these factors, it's a "win" but not really, which was the goal from the start. Horde saves face, Alliance "wins" but gets to embarrass themselves every step of the way.

[Deleted]

Exactly, the portrayal. It's an Alliance "victory" but the devs do everything in their power to downplay it for the Alliance (robot cat, begging Vol'jin, cannon fodder for the Horde, visions of a smashed up Stormwind, ect...). Considering these factors, it's a "win" but not really, which was the goal from the start. Horde saves face, Alliance "wins" but gets to embarrass themselves every step of the way.

Really? Now the Garrosh vision of a future never to come is downplaying the Alliance?

Can't you really see where that snowball of silliness is going?

[Arcanist]

Really? Now the Garrosh vision of a future never to come is downplaying the Alliance?

Can't you really see where that snowball of silliness is going?

Why is that vision even in there? And what about the other things I mentioned.

Pretty clear, the story as written as such that the Alliance embarrass themselves to "victory".

[Deleted]

Which faction in Cataclysm was actually gaining victories, and a large amount of them?

Forgive me for taking such a teeny excerpt of your post, but it's something I want to zoom in on. Though I'm with you on the rest of your post, I am personally greatly opposed to 'balance' in the unfolding of the narrative. That is to say, I think 'Horde gets a city, alliance gets a city; horde takes a hit, alliance takes a hit' makes for a shitty boring story.

For me, the imbalance is in the perceived value imbalance in Horde/Alliance storyline developement and NPC characterisation. It feels like Blizzard is content to have it's narrative value fall mainly in the one faction with interesting well rounded characters with intriguing and often conflicting goals; and to just accept that the Alliance is less interesting or worthy of plot. Making a rich and engaging ensemble of Alliance characters participating in their own internally valuable plotlines isn't even hard; it feels like they can't be bothered. It feels like they're not considering quality narrative as an element of gameplay and enjoyment that needs to be served equally across factional lines; but rather that the game has a certain quita of 'lore' development that needs to happen somehow, and whatever poing, in which ever faction. WoW is not a book, it's a game; the point of the lore isn't to unfold a story for it's own sake, it's to accentuate and complement the gameplay experience for players in both factions.

I keeps saying 'feel' because I'm 90% sure Blizz is well aware of all of this, but just falling short in such a way as to make it feel like they are unaware, or don't care.

As a openly horde biased player, openly disgruntled with this whole SoO affair, accepting that it is taking place I'm even more disappointed that the Horde won't be suffering any of the logical conquences of an alliance occupation and strategic upper hand. Because it ruins the verisimilitude of it all; it shatters my suspension of disbelief. I like Garrosh, and seing him go makes me sad; but seeing the Alliance take Orgrimmar, then just shrig and leave it snaps me out of my immersion entirely. I can literally see a giant hand of mandatory gameplay balance restoring the status quo.

I'm not saying that the status quo and gameplay concerns aren't valid- I'm saying the plot should detour around pitfalls like that, rather than just careen straight into it, then reset itself.

[Faroth]

Really? Now the Garrosh vision of a future never to come is downplaying the Alliance?

Can't you really see where that snowball of silliness is going?

Blizzard can't spare resources to phase 2 outposts in Ashenvale back to the NE controlled versions they already have from pre-Cata to show an effect of Garrosh's loss because it would take away from new zones in the expansion.

.....Blizzard spares resources to do custom changes showing a Stormwind under siege, damaged, and on fire for a portion of a raid which will get even less visibility...but doesn't take away from new zones in the expansion.

I think that's where the Stormwind hooplah is stemming from.

[Deleted]

Blizzard can't spare resources to phase 2 outposts in Ashenvale back to the NE controlled versions they already have from pre-Cata to show an effect of Garrosh's loss because it would take away from new zones in the expansion.

.....Blizzard spares resources to do custom changes showing a Stormwind under siege, damaged, and on fire for a portion of a raid which will get even less visibility...but doesn't take away from new zones in the expansion.

I think that's where the Stormwind hooplah is stemming from.

Because the world design and raid design teams are not the same.

[Faroth]

Forgive me for taking such a teeny excerpt of your post, but it's something I want to zoom in on. Though I'm with you on the rest of your post, I am personally greatly opposed to 'balance' in the unfolding of the narrative. That is to say, I think 'Horde gets a city, alliance gets a city; horde takes a hit, alliance takes a hit' makes for a shitty boring story.

I agree with you, though my disappointment in Cataclysm was the utter failure of the Alliance to lay claim to a single victory. They don't even take Stonard for crying out loud. They don't do anything in Arathi. Nobody even mentions or seems to care about South Shore until Rogers mentions it in MoP. GILNEAN REFUGEES DIDN'T EVEN GET A STORY!!! >_o

The Cata experience was pretty much "Horde kicks your teeth in, do something to stop them from taking your head off. Congrats, they didn't slaughter you. Go cough up that blood and get back to it." Our settlements were in ruins, half built, and seemed incomplete while Horde in the same time frame build fully fortified defensive structures of stone and metal. I mean, we can't even get our shit together to build a tower. :/

I'm okay with South Shore being wiped out (well, not really. It was originally the Cataclysm that wiped it, then we get "surprise, Forsaken did it" instead), I'm okay with the Dragonmaw attacking the dwarves (though I would have liked some indication the red dragonflight aren't cool with Garrosh's Horde accepting their slavers into the fold), I'm okay with Northwatch getting stomped, I'm okay with Theramore even. It's just the complete lack of response from the Alliance and the few times they do take an offensive, they seem to screw it up that was disapointing.

[Austilias]

And here we have a typical Trassk, some incomprehensible ranting and white knighting of some overpaid bloke who's a crappy writer. The only thing Chris Metzen did is to destroy the Warcraft lore most people knew and liked long before WoW came along. He inserted himself into the story and is constantly bloating his self insertion to where it reaches Mary Sue levels.
There is little to no reason to feel bad for someone who has no problem with mocking and belittling fans of a franchise just because he thinks it's jolly good fun (for himself). Who has shown himself to be a horrible writer on level with many fanfics and who for all purposes fails to understand that what he's writing isn't a novel or book. It's a game, a game where both sides are playable and thus there needs to be some neutrality. This however is completly lacking in his case.
If his works weren't attached to the Warcraft franchise or even WoW he would most likely end up as another one of those barely scrapping by if even that authors nobody cares about. Not even the Stephenie Meyer of fantasy books but as one of the cheap knock offs.

That's one of the better summations of both Trassk and the direction of WoW/WoW lore i've read in quite a while.

[Faroth]

Because the world design and raid design teams are not the same.

Redesigning Stormwind is a raid design? I'm normally very much on board with the division of teams, but I dunno if raid design falls into the reworking of artistic elements of zones in the world.

[RicardoZ]

I think it's pretty dumb that Metzen has to get up at Blizzcon and on Twitter and keep promising the Alliance that they'll eventually get something cool to do, or some kind of spotlight on us in the game...That fact in and of itself just proves that the writing and lore team are working from a Horde perspective and although the Alliance's calls are very important to them, they're currently assisting other customers and our concerns will be addressed whenever they feel like throwing us a bone.

[Deleted]

Redesigning Stormwind is a raid design? I'm normally very much on board with the division of teams, but I dunno if raid design falls into the reworking of artistic elements of zones in the world.

No, that falls into another department, that is the artistic one.

[Faroth]

No, that falls into another department, that is the artistic one.

But wouldn't the art team also be handling changing the elements of those zones, even if the art elements are being used in a raid? The dungeon team designs dungeon layout, but art team makes the stuff in there. The raid design team designs raid layout, boss fights, mechanics, and balancing mechanics as well as mob placement/pathing, etc. But I'd imagine the art team still does the art for use in the raid just as they design the buildings to be put in zones.

My point is they had to do actual modifications to design jacked up Stormwind. They already presumably have all the models, textures, etc to phase something like Silverwing post in Ashenvale because they had it previously. Sure it wouldn't be grand that it's just the old version restored but it would still be a little something. Or just phasing at 90 to remove the siege weapons overlooking Astranaar with no other changes.

Just a few little things would placate me anyway.

[Deleted]

But wouldn't the art team also be handling changing the elements of those zones, even if the art elements are being used in a raid? The dungeon team designs dungeon layout, but art team makes the stuff in there. The raid design team designs raid layout, boss fights, mechanics, and balancing mechanics as well as mob placement/pathing, etc. But I'd imagine the art team still does the art for use in the raid just as they design the buildings to be put in zones.

My point is they had to do actual modifications to design jacked up Stormwind. They already presumably have all the models, textures, etc to phase something like Silverwing post in Ashenvale because they had it previously. Sure it wouldn't be grand that it's just the old version restored but it would still be a little something. Or just phasing at 90 to remove the siege weapons overlooking Astranaar with no other changes.

Just a few little things would placate me anyway.

But phasing enters on the world design department, because it would need to create a phasing zone, change the reaction of PCs and NPCs there, check the gather points, etc.