Spoilers: Why is the Alliance story so weak in BFA compared to the Horde?

[DeicideUH]

In a recent interview it was said that the war in BfA was essentially the final conflict between the factions and there will be a clear winner, so that could be a hint.

I didn't see that.
But... clear winner? This has the potential of ending in a shit storm.

[Friendlyimmolation]

I didn't see that.
But... clear winner? This has the potential of ending in a shit storm.

Not a potential, one side is going to be furious. Either the Horde is put at the mercy of the Alliance again, and told they are not a world super power possibly losing another leader, or Sylvanas gloats over a defeated Alliance, I can see how that would make some Alliance unhappy.

[DeicideUH]

Not a potential, one side is going to be furious.

There's a tiny chance of the ending be good enough to appease the other.
But I doubt Blizzard can hit that jackpot.

[ChampionChains]

Of the 4/6 zones we’ve seen so far, the Alliance has gotten the very short end of the stick in regards to the importance of the questing.

In Drustvar, the entirety of the zone is dealing with the Witch Coven and the Drust. There is not a single thing in the zone that would suggest that this story will matter in BFA outside of the zone. It’s nice to see them introducing new lore but they really should’ve connected them with the rest of the story somehow.

Tiragarde Sound may have a relevant plot line in Lady Ashvane and House Ashvane, but the zone concentrates just too little on them. Only about 30 minutes of questing is actually significant probably.

On the Horde though, in Nazmir you deal with loas, including Bwomsamdi who may play a big role. This is also where most of the character development of Talanji occurs who likely will be around the Horde for a long time. Then there also is the overarching theme of G’huun who is some form of Old God and parts of the raid are related to N’zoth. So that’s obviously huge.

Zuldazar fleshes out Zul a lot. And he’s been around for a very long time. It also connects Zul to Azshara for the first time which can possibly be a huge plotline later on. And probably will be.

So I’m just not seeing how the Alliance zones as currently constructed can compare.

So kinda like how Horde was more or less nonexistent for the entirety of Legion? Every zone consisted of helping either a third party faction or the Alliance.

[|Dexter|]

They going to do the same story build up than they did in Legion, with patches adding in much more stories, but unlike last time they didn't spoil it at Blizzcon!

[Kwento]

In a recent interview it was said that the war in BfA was essentially the final conflict between the factions and there will be a clear winner, so that could be a hint.

So... The Horde gets and keeps Kalimdor and the Alliance’s counter attack fails.
Or Alliance wins and Horde becomes slaves.
Or the Dark Portal suddenly glows purple! And we go into an alternate Azeroth where tye war goes the other way and we get to choose where we prefer to live?
So many possibilities!

[BlackBoss]

I'm surprised no one said "because the alliance isn't full of conflict like the horde is". The alliance being what it is, will always be boring or an after thought. We frigging raided orgrimmar for petes sake

[Aevix]

In a recent interview it was said that the war in BfA was essentially the final conflict between the factions and there will be a clear winner, so that could be a hint.

Do you mind pointing out where this was stated? I can't seem to find the reference that you are referring to :S

[Deleted]

At least the Horde gets Troll and Tauren focus from time to time, with the Darkspear/Tauren rebellion in Mists, and the Highmountain/Zandalari more recently. The zombies do start to take up too much space, but that's because of Warchief Waifu mostly. I hope we can get Saurfang, Baine and... whoever is supposed to lead the Darkspear now back on track soon enough. Plus it's still nowhere as bar as the near total absence of Dwarves and Gnomes since... what, Wrath? Early Cata? Unless one really wants to count that one scenario in Mists.

And yeah, when you speak of that, some people counting SoO as ''Horde content'' never ceases to amuse me. How about we raid Stormwind because Anduin is now a Void worshiper, we get to call it Alliance content so it's fine right?

Well so far we raided Undercity and Orgrimmar. Oh and shifted the balance in Dalaran to a more Alliance friendly one.

Personally I'm not concerned about the quality of Alliance content. In Cata the Horde got goblins who are either irrelevant or doing something shady ever since. The Alliance got Gilneans with lots of cool lore and the second best starting zone.

In Mop The Horde got shit throwing monkeys as allies and a retard as a Pandarend representative. The Alliance got the second coolest fish people and two cool Panda representatives.

In WoD the Alliance expedition was lead by Crispin Freeman while the Horde was lead by "oh god, not him again...."

I'm pretty sure the Alliance will get something good now as well as content keeps comming.

[united]

People are expecting complex storytelling in this expansion?

When christie golden blows you all away I'll laugh in y'all faces.

[Al Gorefiend]

In a recent interview it was said that the war in BfA was essentially the final conflict between the factions and there will be a clear winner, so that could be a hint.

I'm going to need a source on this if you can find one.

I remember them saying it's not going to end in a stalemate and there's going to be a winner, but I don't remember "final conflict" being used, that sounds like one of the two is going to be destroyed beyond what WoW's gameplay can handle.

[Doomchicken]

Damn you for making me remember that fiasco.

That's what I'm here for!

[Shibito]

You just had a alliance expansion and you complain? Legion was 95% alliance

[ello]

I didn't see that.
But... clear winner? This has the potential of ending in a shit storm.

They never said "clear winner"

https://www.pcgamer.com/blizzard-ans...e-for-azeroth/

Alex Afrasiabi: We feel the Alliance-Horde divide is foundational and fundamental to World of Warcraft as a franchise and as a story, but we danced around it for a very long time. We've had run-ins, we've had close calls, but we've never been able to finish it—to have that resolution. We're coming out of this expansion, Legion, and the world is not in a great place—the players and the factions themselves are not in a great place because there is all of this old animosity that hasn't been resolved. It's time to resolve it.

"resolution" could be a lot of things. It could mean a cold war scenario where neither side wants to strike because we are both armed with Azerite nukes, it could mean N'zoth pwns us and we are forced off the planet, it could mean east vs west divide etc.

[Unholyground]

I'm going to need a source on this if you can find one.

I remember them saying it's not going to end in a stalemate and there's going to be a winner, but I don't remember "final conflict" being used, that sounds like one of the two is going to be destroyed beyond what WoW's gameplay can handle.

I feel like it is a merger of the factions, at least for the PvE side of things which is LONG overdue.

[Deleted]

Blizzard has a weird thing for the Horde. They always end up designing them first, and the Alliance is forced to just play along.

Here's an example. It's quite possible that, when thinking about adding High Elves to the Alliance, they thought "well, what we're doing for the Horde"? So, they came up with Nightborne, then, concerned they wouldn't feel right, tried dumping as much effort as they could to make everything look interesting. Thing is, they've just spent all the resources thinking about the Horde. Now, there's nothing left and all they could think was a cheap scenario and adding these Void Elves just to make them different enough. Also probably because they thought "it wouldn't be fair to Horde belfs if they looked similar!"

When Blizzard think about Horde design, they think about the Horde. When they think about Alliance design, they think "how does the Horde feel about it"?

And why does this happen? Because Alliance has to be a good faction, and good factions usually don't create drama, they have drama forced onto them.

If Blizzard would change their stance on "Horde = bad / Alliance = good" and would incorporate villaneous themes into the Alliance - like, extreme bigotry of Humans in general (or Human dominance over other races in the Alliance leading to an uprising compared to the Horde rebellion against Garrosh), violent xenophoby of Night Elves, dogmatic crusades of the Church of the Light or over-zealous Draenei Light Worshippers, technocratic Gnomes who are so far gone that they lose all connection to living things and do more harm than good with their machinery, Dwarf Clan intrigues, Worgen struggle with their bestiality, etc. - then the Alliance could actually provide stories instead of being steamrolled by them.

If we would truly have a World of WARcraft, then both faction ought to have an evil side. "Game of Thrones" has good examples of these. You have in every House characters to root for, and even the "goody" House Stark does have flaws. I hate Cercei Lannister with passion, and yet, I sometimes cheer her if she succeeds. Like the season 6 finale. It was evil, and beatiful, how she got rid of all her enemies in direct proximity, at once. Jainas purge in Dalaran was kinda similar, BTW. It's also easier to keep a never-ending war going, if you don't have an objectively "good" side to root for, but only select the faction by allegiance and not by morality issues.

- - - Updated - - -

Yeah shure you don´t have any horde bias at all...

Where and why is the Alliance at fault for Vol´jins demise hm?

Why and where is the Alliance at fault for Sylvanas is a little pussy and decide to hide her sorry little ass after she coudn´t enslave her some more Va´kyrs hm?

And you have one in numbers (so that even your sorry little brain can comprehend it) 1 zone with Nightelf involvment which (surprise surprise) is mirrored by a whole zone with Tauren (which ofc are totally not in any fucking way related to the horde and all there as in every fucking questline is related to the Alliance).

And the rest of said zones are not specific to any Faction but seeing you claiming that Legion was Alliance themed you won´t even admit that you´re wrong.

It was the SI:7 faulty information which lead to the Broken Shore desaster. So, Vol'jin's death is a direct consequence of Alliance's incompetence in finding demons in their midst. Same goes for Varian's death. So, technically Greymane should not be pursuing Sylvanas, but demand Shaw's head on a pike, along with any other agents too dumb to get the traitor in their organisation.

- - - Updated - - -

Not a potential, one side is going to be furious. Either the Horde is put at the mercy of the Alliance again, and told they are not a world super power possibly losing another leader, or Sylvanas gloats over a defeated Alliance, I can see how that would make some Alliance unhappy.

Since Wrathion is siding with the Alliance now, we have basically 2 options:
He has learned from his mistakes regarding Garrosh and is now betting on the Alliance, which would be the winning side then
or
He repeats his mistake, and siding with the Alliance ultimately leads them to lose to the Horde

In any of these situations, the winning faction would probably show mercy to the losing faction, but in a different way then after SoO: The races of the losing faction have to join the winning faction or try to get by on their own. Technically, the losing faction gets dismantles, but the races get an option to survive in the winning faction.

[dirk123]

You just had a alliance expansion and you complain? Legion was 95% alliance

Stormheim: Alliance, Horde and Odyn/Helya
Aszuna: Blue Dragonflight, Court of Farondis
Highmountain: Highmountain Tauren & Drogbar
Surumar: Nightfallen/Nighborne + Alliance & Horde in later patch
Val'Sharah: Druid/Cenarius stuff. Little bit of Tyrande and Neutral Malfurion. Bradensbrook sort of Alliance with the Jarod/Maievh part
Broken Shore: Armies of Legionfall/Illidan/Maievh/Khadgar
Argus: Army of the Light + Argussian Reach with Velen & Turalyon being neutral

So how is it 95% alliance again?

[Deleted]

I'm mean in blizzard defense from the conception of the two continents Zandalar is the more lore heavy zone? Not sure how to phrase it.

The trolls are the oldest mortal civilisation on the face of Azeorth whilst Kul Tiras is just another human Kingdom. Arguably the Trolls offer more history to build story off.

Not that a zones effect on the larger story really effects how enjoyable the zone is.

[Verdugo]

Stormheim: Alliance, Horde and Odyn/Helya
Aszuna: Blue Dragonflight, Court of Farondis
Highmountain: Highmountain Tauren & Drogbar
Surumar: Nightfallen/Nighborne + Alliance & Horde in later patch
Val'Sharah: Druid/Cenarius stuff. Little bit of Tyrande and Neutral Malfurion. Bradensbrook sort of Alliance with the Jarod/Maievh part
Broken Shore: Armies of Legionfall/Illidan/Maievh/Khadgar
Argus: Army of the Light + Argussian Reach with Velen & Turalyon being neutral

So how is it 95% alliance again?

Same way how WoD is Horde expansion somehow.

[Deleted]

Alliance : *gets to invade and siege Lordaeron FOR THE SECOND TIME as demanded by obnoxious playerbase*
*is the most powerful military force in BFA*
*Already laid siege on Orgrimmar and "killed" a Warchief in MoP*
*Captures and incarcerates frickin SAURFANG in BFA*
->nothing
...
*sees that some questing is unfinished in alpha and doesn't involve plowing Horde*
-> WTF BLIZZARD, Y U HATE ALLIANCE ?!!!!!!!!!



The more things change, the more they stay the same...