Why Do The Alliance Zones Suck Compared To The Horde Ones?

[Siglius]

Yeah, I've been noticing that personal taste seems to have a lot more to do with non-Drustvar zones than any other. Some people like the humor in Tiragarde Sound, and others hate it. Some people really like Flynn, others think that he's shit. So I'm less critical of it overall, since it seems it's still got an audience who'll enjoy it.

Stormsong Valley strikes me as another zone that will get mixed reactions. It's more plot heavy and significant, but I also feel like it frontloads everything way too early. I suppose I tend to feel Lovecraftian horror is supposed to have buildup, yet Stormsong goes through it all at an incredibly rapid pace. Also, I've got no fucking clue why there are Quillboar.

I kind of feel like each Alliance zone is suffering from a very different problem. Not enough happens in the Drustvar plot, which stretches across the whole zone, and there's rather little lore and exploration of Kul Tiran culture even when this is the perfect time to tell us about Druids. The scale of events just isn't portrayed well. Stormsong Valley takes the opposite approach, and starts dumping a ton of new lore and culture, jumping almost straight to obvious Old God/Azshara shenanigans with tentacles and Void magic everywhere. The kind of stuff that I'd expect to see near the end of the zone was right at the beginning.

Anyhow, I haven't checked out Tiragarde in awhile. Last I looked at it, it was fairly buggy.

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I've never said the Alliance zones were awful, except as deliberate hyperbole, but the Zandalar ones seem to be noticeably more competent overall.

Never said you did, but seems like some people got that impression, albeit while screeching about faction bias. I have on the other hand read some critique of the horde zones on the official forums as well. Namely of Zuldazar. Nazmir seems generally well liked but still suffers from some of that repetitiveness that Drustvar also suffers from. Probably due to the zones being as big as they are. For example you end up fighting Ateena 5 times before you can actually kill her.

[KrakHed]

Never said you did, but seems like some people got that impression, albeit while screeching about faction bias. I have on the other hand read some critique of the horde zones on the official forums as well. Namely of Zuldazar. Nazmir seems generally well liked but still suffers from some of that repetitiveness that Drustvar also suffers from. Probably due to the zones being as big as they are. For example you end up fighting Ateena 5 times before you can actually kill her.

Sure. The Horde zones aren't any kind of perfect godlike creation or anything. I find the critique for them has a different nature. Ateena's not really an interesting character, just being a sort of serviceable face to the Blood Trolls, and there are dull quests in every zone. Also, considering how Troll heavy these zones are, there are always going to be people who just don't like Trolls.

I doubt there's ever going to be any zone entirely devoid of repetitiveness. And considering how much of a nitpicker I personally am, I doubt any zone in Warcraft will ever leave me 100% satisfied. The thing is, I feel the Horde zones are more or less working as intended. They're doing what they set out to do, and they're doing it competently. "Competently" is pretty much the most I expect out of Blizzard these days, though sometimes they manage to go so far as "memorable".

I take issue with Drustvar since it's leaning towards "forgettable", despite all the opportunities its setting provides.

Going to have to say that while the other Alliance zones have some issues, I suppose they do a reasonable job. Just found out about some other sidequests in Stormsong, which seem to be better than the Quillboar and similar crap.

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Yeah. Revising my opinion of Stormsong Valley. It's overall a pretty cool zone, with a few unfortunately bad parts that could be revised.

[Siglius]

Sure. The Horde zones aren't any kind of perfect godlike creation or anything. I find the critique for them has a different nature. Ateena's not really an interesting character, just being a sort of serviceable face to the Blood Trolls, and there are dull quests in every zone. Also, considering how Troll heavy these zones are, there are always going to be people who just don't like Trolls.

I doubt there's ever going to be any zone entirely devoid of repetitiveness. And considering how much of a nitpicker I personally am, I doubt any zone in Warcraft will ever leave me 100% satisfied. The thing is, I feel the Horde zones are more or less working as intended. They're doing what they set out to do, and they're doing it competently. "Competently" is pretty much the most I expect out of Blizzard these days, though sometimes they manage to go so far as "memorable".

I take issue with Drustvar since it's leaning towards "forgettable", despite all the opportunities its setting provides.

Going to have to say that while the other Alliance zones have some issues, I suppose they do a reasonable job. Just found out about some other sidequests in Stormsong, which seem to be better than the Quillboar and similar crap.

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Yeah. Revising my opinion of Stormsong Valley. It's overall a pretty cool zone, with a few unfortunately bad parts that could be revised.

Oh for sure. Really glad that there is actually somebody on this site who has realized it's possible or dislike(Or recognize the flaws) of something, without that thing being the worst thing on the freaking planet.

The reason why I really like Drustvar is mainly due to the atmosphere and enviorment, that carries the zone a lot for me, even if the quests themselves arent all that great.

[KrakHed]

Oh for sure. Really glad that there is actually somebody on this site who has realized it's possible or dislike(Or recognize the flaws) of something, without that thing being the worst thing on the freaking planet.

The reason why I really like Drustvar is mainly due to the atmosphere and enviorment, that carries the zone a lot for me, even if the quests themselves arent all that great.

Well, the main reason I have a distaste for Drustvar is my hatred of waste. To bring up an issue that may not seem immediately related, there were going to be Dark Trolls in Cataclysm. There was even a partly complete model that I discovered in the game files for them. Because they were cut, Dark Trolls are now a borderline extinct race that will never be expanded upon on the future. Or we could look at WoD's squandered opportunities to explore the Infinite Dragonflight further, cutting their involvement, because they were afraid of being seen as the stupid time-traveling Orc expansion. Like that could possibly help. Or how they cut massive parts of their story that could have built up interesting characters, forcing us to rely on our imaginations and ponder what the fuck Yrel's dark secret was going to be. Or how Azjol-Nerub was cut from Northrend.

When Blizzard fucks up, we lose the opportunity to see something done well. Something released as a shoddy version of what it could be will remain so. We're stuck with Sylvanas being Warchief instead of Vol'jin in an expansion where Warchief Vol'jin makes sense.

I don't want Drustvar to go into my folder of things that could have been cool if Blizzard hadn't dropped the ball. I've got far too much shit in there already. Drustvar is a zone with a lot of good potential. I don't want it to be all for naught.

I guess the quicker way to put it is, I don't think Drustvar is the zone it wants to be. Nazmir and Zuldazar 100% are exactly what they're meant to be, whether you like what that is or not.

[etheldald]

i am still waiting for the "heroes of azeroth" to do something.
the fact that they aren't part of the leveling experience is a huge dissapoint to me.
so are they going to be part of the end-game? i hope that this is not another "genn and sylvanas are going to be protagonist">only 10 mins of screentime and see you in the next xpac.
still no sign of thrall,i hope that he is in voldun at least as a cameo.

but to be fair, alpha is alpha, i am just really worried that blizzard could repeat the same thing with the "protagonist" of legion.

[KrakHed]

i am still waiting for the "heroes of azeroth" to do something.
the fact that they aren't part of the leveling experience is a huge dissapoint to me.
so are they going to be part of the end-game? i hope that this is not another "genn and sylvanas are going to be protagonist">only 10 mins of screentime and see you in the next xpac.
still no sign of thrall,i hope that he is in voldun at least as a cameo.

but to be fair, alpha is alpha, i am just really worried that blizzard could repeat the same thing with the "protagonist" of legion.

Evidence suggests that Jaina is supposed to be in Drustvar. "Supposed to be" being the keywords, with the reality being "Jaina isn't anywhere and I can't see how she fits into Drustvar's plot at all."

[Zaganite]

We're not talking about the Horde and Alliance here, not really. We're talking about Zandalar and Kul Tiras. The Horde lore for the past few expansions has been awful. However, Zandalar is good.

I dont think a lot of giving out is about the lore of the zone, I think its actually the quest line itself. For Horde you literally get a cinematic showing the big bad right away and you dive right in while Alliance rescues a mine and has to skin bears and collect eagle eggs. You see the difference? The questing for Alliance is sporadic and the idea they wanted to go with was we have to really build up trust because of Jaina, however, its slow and clunky to the point where I couldnt do it anymore because I had to walk away. Its been a VERY long time since I had to stop questing on Alliance and think I might or mightnt come back to this.

[Nikkaszal]

Jumping in to say that Drustvar is one of the most engaging and interesting zones I've ever played. Suuuuuuper creepy, the music is bang on point, the story started fast and the air of mystery and wierdness felt just right

[Deleted]

^ I enjoyed the preview of Drustvar music too.

It's funny how many people whined about the latest Alliance zone being Pandaria met Highmountain yet nobody complains about Vul'dun being Silithus met Uldum.

[Ithekro]

Horde players don't complain as much. They just take it out on Alliance players instead.

[Ramz]

^ I enjoyed the preview of Drustvar music too.

It's funny how many people whined about the latest Alliance zone being Pandaria met Highmountain yet nobody complains about Vul'dun being Silithus met Uldum.

I dunno each to it's own. I don't see any issue witch each mentioned above zone xD, in the end the questing is what matters the most.

[Velerios]

Release is now on August 14th. So it's confirmed that the alliance-zones stays bad. Good that i never pre-ordered BfA.