Change my mind: faction war detracts from the story rather than enhances it

[Super Dickmann]

the greater thematic problem of the faction war is that the longer it goes on the more it invalidates every event and the character of all the heroes in warcraft 3, aka the one that actually had a story.

most clearly atm you can see this in thrall, who can now only be read as a misguided imbecile who didn't understand what orcs were like and didn't actually have the strength of character to create a new future for the horde because they instantly reverted to type when he was gone, and also in daelin proudmoore, who wc3 showed us was a misguided racist, but now appears to be the only sane man to have ever lived in the alliance.

but the main issue is that if eternal red vs blue race war is unavoidable, then there was no point in warcraft 3 ever happening. its basically the same problem you see in the new star wars trilogy. everything the old characters did was pointless because it lasted like 4 years and then the universe sprang back into its original shape because the writers and idiot fanboys cant envision the franchise without rebels vs. empire, just like the less intelligent wow fans think every expansion has to be about alliance vs horde.

There's nothing particularly sacred about WC3, certainly not more than WC1 and WC2 which had a greater combined tenure, or WoW, which was both massively more successful and dunked on WC3 from release onwards in terms of the "Everyone is a friend now" position people bizzarely attribute to it now. Looking back though that reading gives WC3 a huge disservice, since in isolation and separate from having to lead into an MMO it's among the better stories in isolation. More importantly also because it was full of low-level personal conflict driven by character agendas as much as good and evil. The entirety of TFT is about character dynamics and internal conflict between playable factions. You have Illidan, Maiev and Malfurion/Tyrande as separate poles within the night elves, you have Arthas, Sylvanas and the Dreadlords in WC3 and then the clash between the two. These are comparatively low level conflicts compared to the RoC plot, but they're based on interpersonal, regional and factional struggles. It's just that those factions aren't the Horde and Alliance.

The Alliance, as it is in WC1-2 and then WoW is nonexistent in Warcraft 3. Jaina is essentially a tiny fraction of humanity's overall forces and representative of no one, with Lordaeron destroyed in the very first campaign. Their entire extended cast doesn't exist. The same is the case for the Horde. Every character in WC2 is gone, to be replaced with Thrall, and the Horde is the one faction that, in TFT, has no internal conflict, only an external one. The Alliance doesn't count because it doesn't exist, the Alliance campaign is about blood elves and Illidan. Unless we count Daelin, in which case it's the original Alliance being used a caricatures to beef up Green Jesus.

It's not that WoW betrays the themes of WC3, it's that the only element that carries over in terms of playable groups is the Horde, while the Alliance is an entirely new faction and the Horde, as already discussed, has had all its problems solved. Which is why it was immediately changed to avoid this problem, and the Alliance was an aggressive force in some respects - like dwarven imperialism, the Forsaken purging rule Stormwind had, the corrupt nobles and so on, all to enable the two to be in conflict. From the start, WoW has placed the factions in some form of opposition. By virtue of its gameplay, attempting to squeeze in the "We're teaming up and are friends now " thing from RoC is not viable. Blizzard realized it, but they also realize that a lot of their imagery stems from WC3, which is how we end up in this endless cycle where they realize that WC3 in WoW was never going to work, change it and flesh out the setting, then go "but muh honor, muh noblesavagery" and reverse track, then back again.

This is what BFA is, it's an attempt to default to a WC3 characterization that only worked within the context of that game. Taken out of an RTS context where the orcish story is just one of many, the WC3 Horde is just as much of a bore as the WC1/2 one, being completely one note and utterly homogeneous under a flawless leader. The same can be said of the WC3 Alliance, which is literally just Jaina in terms of carryover. All of the depth was in the other playable factions and elements that aren't such in WoW. Yet, because of how evocative those are, they are the benchmarks they're trying to drag their present incarnations, that are manifestly unsuitable for it, into that mold. When at the end of this they turn the Horde into some pantomime of WC3 Thrall's Horde despite the playable classes and races being manifestly unsuitable for it both in actions up to this point and theme, and the Alliance is already basically WC3 Jaina "Just kill my dad fam" Proudmoore, it'll be the result of this square peg in a round hole mentality that has fucked the story beyond repair to ape one element of one game seventeen years ago.

[RobertMugabe]

I mean it's always been kinda clear that the "BATTLE For Azeroth" isn't the battle between the Alliance and Horde, but it's something else. I mean the planet got stabbed, is dying (and we're atm fighting over her blood) and there's some salty Old God somewhere just about to be released.

[GreenJesus]

The intro To twilight highlands would have been way cooler if Garrosh didn't call off his air support in the land of twilight dragons and griffin riders.. like.. come on.. Blizzard sometimes shows Garrosh as a tactical genius and then other times as a complete idiot.

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I mean it's always been kinda clear that the "BATTLE For Azeroth" isn't the battle between the Alliance and Horde, but it's something else. I mean the planet got stabbed, is dying (and we're atm fighting over her blood) and there's some salty Old God somewhere just about to be released.

I like how the faction campaign's focus is to get more Azerite for your faction, but Magni's goal for you is to suck it all up. It's told extremely poorly since you have completely opposing goals. You'd think your faction would tell you to stay away from any Azerite.

[B-Man]

On the contrary, all of these regional conflicts have been better motivated than the asshole of the week trying to destroy the world. That people are even arguing for the motivations of these characters demonstrates this, likewise in terms of arguing which of them will make it before it became clear to those more charitable that it was a Mists retread. The same can't be said for the typical expansion baddie, who exists, fails to accomplish anything and dies.

Bullshit. The faction war does nothing but strip the world and characters of complexity: take the Night Elves, the biggest losers of this faction war shitstrom. They have been deprived of homeland, they have been made a mockery due to their tactical ineptness in general and inability to defeat one Forsaken Hunter, their lore has been destroyed and they are likely doomed to be sidelined to Human sidekicks for the remainder of Warcraft barring massive retcons. Wow, so deep, much complex. The Faction War, as Blizzard writes it, takes characters/races/nation states people like and grinds them into inconsistent/simplistic cardboard cutouts to engage in a big dumb war that leaves the world a more hollow and ruined mess than before. Why are even fighting this war? Because Sylvanas's oh-so NOT convincing BS about everyone turning against one another given enough time? Azerite which is no more powerful or game changing than any other half-assed magical mcguffin? Racism that everybody but the Forsaken seems to have pretty well gotten over?

In the mythical realm of thought-experiments, where Blizzard did give a shit about lore, characters and worldbuilding and did not ruin redemption arcs/destroy established characterization/obliterate notable Warcraft landmarks to run with a story they, in their Blizz bunker, think is cool, then yes maybe a good faction war could be written. But not under the current CDev team.

This is what BFA is, it's an attempt to default to a WC3 characterization that only worked within the context of that game. Taken out of an RTS context where the orcish story is just one of many, the WC3 Horde is just as much of a bore as the WC1/2 one, being completely one note and utterly homogeneous under a flawless leader. The same can be said of the WC3 Alliance, which is literally just Jaina in terms of carryover. All of the depth was in the other playable factions and elements that aren't such in WoW. Yet, because of how evocative those are, they are the benchmarks they're trying to drag their present incarnations, that are manifestly unsuitable for it, into that mold. When at the end of this they turn the Horde into some pantomime of WC3 Thrall's Horde despite the playable classes and races being manifestly unsuitable for it both in actions up to this point and theme, and the Alliance is already basically WC3 Jaina "Just kill my dad fam" Proudmoore, it'll be the result of this square peg in a round hole mentality that has fucked the story beyond repair to ape one element of one game seventeen years ago.

More horseshit. What the fuck is your suggestion? Have the Horde be generic evil bad guys, something Warcraft is painfully unable to do better than fantasy IPs like Warhammer? Have the Alliance be generic Human paladins like Warcraft 1/2? That seems to be going so well since MoP where they have utterly subsumed every other aspect of the faction. Like it or not Warcraft 3 is the game that DEFINES the Warcraft IP as something other than a generic copy of Warhammer Fantasy. Where the classicly good Fantasy races could be bigoted, corrupt assholes and the classicly evil fantasy races, the Horde, could be complex, introspective and redeemable characters. Trying to argue we are better off in this BFA/Warcraft 1/2 simplistic dichotomy of Good Alliance, Evil Horde, is moronic. It shits on everything Warcraft is and can be, as defined by the game that made the fucking franchise a hit to begin with: Warcraft 3. This perverted nostalgia for the Red vs Blue days shits on all the established lore of WC3 to late Wrath, y'know, the parts of Warcraft people identify with and cherish and not some twisted nostalgia for an early bare-bones RTS with generic devil Orcs vs generic holy Humans.

[rowaasr13]

From the start, WoW has placed the factions in some form of opposition. By virtue of its gameplay, attempting to squeeze in the "We're teaming up and are friends now " thing from RoC is not viable.

Might of Kalimdor, Argent Dawn, and hell - pretty much entire questing since about level 40... Rings any bells? Pretty much all mid to endgame is about working for combined factions.

Please, just stop this shit. Classic was never about faction conflict. Go ahead, name a few memorable quest chains. Hell, any quest chains that were about sticking it up to other faction. Classic lower levels WERE about each faction minding its own separate business - yes, but not about antagonizing each other.

[Super Dickmann]

Bullshit. The faction war does nothing but strip the world and characters of complexity: take the Night Elves, the biggest losers of this faction war shitstrom. They have been deprived of homeland, they have been made a mockery due to their tactical ineptness in general and inability to defeat one Forsaken Hunter, their lore has been destroyed and they are likely doomed to be sidelined to Human sidekicks for the remainder of Warcraft barring massive retcons. Wow, so deep, much complex. The Faction War, as Blizzard writes it, takes characters/races/nation states people like and grinds them into inconsistent/simplistic cardboard cutouts to engage in a big dumb war that leaves the world a more hollow and ruined mess than before. Why are even fighting this war? Because Sylvanas's oh-so NOT convincing BS about everyone turning against one another given enough time? Azerite which is no more powerful or game changing than any other half-assed magical mcguffin? Racism that everybody but the Forsaken seems to have pretty well gotten over?

Whatever BFA's many, many sins, it isn't the worst offender vis a vis the night elves. 8.1 is actually the closest they've been to their original characterization. Vanilla did them in and Cataclysm finished the job. Vanilla is what turned them from a continent-spanning empire that shot those who got into its territory for looking at a tree funny, were proactive defenders of nature with strict-gender roles and were entirely against the misuse of magic to the point of going to another continent to stop it into jokes. Gender-roles, gone, replaced with nothing. Empire, gone, replaced with being the vassal state of humans they had zero interaction with throughout WC3. Their dislike of magic lasts a bit longer, it's gutted in Cataclysm, to the point where one of their most established characters, Maiev, gets declared to be evil for opposing it and their main hero, Malf, does nothing while orcs invade their home.

By contrast, in A Good War the night elves stand their ground defending their home against massive odds, use brutal tactics to get it done, and in 8.1 tell Anduin to fuck off and go off to fight the Horde and win the Warfront canonically sometime down the line by the datamined quest. This from a race that hadn't won a fight and had been human bootlickers for years on end.

The rest of your argument is self-defeating. That the grudges between races over resources and clashing ideology are currently nonexistent because the writers waved a magic wand and chose to write a fight with the complexity of the Care Bears is a sign of bad writing, not a sign that these things never existed in the first place. The faction war, in its early incarnation was used to flesh out races. The Forsaken's alienation from humanity and their conflict thereof, the tauren's love of nature and willingness to protect it versus dwarven imperialism and love for artifacts, the resource problems regarding the orcs that were emphasized in Wrath and were the main part of Cataclysm. Conflict between races and factions produces development.

More horseshit. What the fuck is your suggestion? Have the Horde be generic evil bad guys, something Warcraft is painfully unable to do better than fantasy IPs like Warhammer? Have the Alliance be generic Human paladins like Warcraft 1/2? That seems to be going so well since MoP where they have utterly subsumed every other aspect of the faction. Like it or not Warcraft 3 is the game that DEFINES the Warcraft IP as something other than a generic copy of Warhammer Fantasy. Where the classicly good Fantasy races could be bigoted, corrupt assholes and the classicly evil fantasy races, the Horde, could be complex, introspective and redeemable characters. Trying to argue we are better off in this BFA/Warcraft 1/2 simplistic dichotomy of Good Alliance, Evil Horde, is moronic. It shits on everything Warcraft is and can be, as defined by the game that made the fucking franchise a hit to begin with: Warcraft 3. This perverted nostalgia for the Red vs Blue days shits on all the established lore of WC3 to late Wrath, y'know, the parts of Warcraft people identify with and cherish and not some twisted nostalgia for an early bare-bones RTS with generic devil Orcs vs generic holy Humans.

I've given my position on this multiple times, but to restate it yet again. The Horde was at its best in the Tides of Darkness/Chronicle version of Orgrim's Horde and in Cataclysm. If I could pick and choose, toss the TBC blood elves in the mix rather than that travesty we've had going around since then and bring in the WC3/8.1 night elves. Remove all human potential. As for this idealized noblesavagery having ever been represented in WoW itself, that's pure revisionism. The Forsaken were already present in Vanilla, tossing Thrall's nonsense in the bin. TBC had its blood elves, Cata had the goblins, all races with zero interest in the tribal circlejerk people here would have me believe the Horde was always about. Wrath had a faction-based fight in its end raid, the only expansion to do so, and had the faction conflict as its prevailing secondary plotline throughout. The idea that Thrall was a failed leader who had his people starving in the desert out of racial guilt and who failed to represent the orcs is from Wrath, Glory and every zone in it with orcs specifically. Cataclysm was the natural extension thereof.

Again, your points are self-defeating. The format is what renders these things inoperable. The game, with the setup it had - two factions opposed to one another, to a smaller or larger extent, runs counter to WC3, which could have as many factions and races switching allegiances as they like. The entire plot of TFT is impossible to continue with the major players in WoW, because two out of three - the Illidari and the Scourge aren't playable. The WoW Alliance is the WC2 Alliance, and meshing the night elves into it failed spectacularly, and it fails even more spectacularly as human paladin simulator. The WC3 Horde is an unspeakable bore that had resolved all its problems in their introductory scene in WC3, where their leader had united everyone in perfect accord with his will, had already reformed the Horde and since then fought only demons and strawmen like Daelin. This is even before it was involved in genocide, accepted tons of races that had none of their core themes or aesthetics and went through the same rebellion story twice in a row. Trying to transplant either into the current Alliance and Horde is doomed to fail, but it is the end goal of this shitshow.

@rowaasr13

This'd be a good counterpoint if my claim was that the faction war was the sole focus of the plot then, but since it wasn't, you're shit out of luck. Factional conflict and faction-only storylines were part of the game from the beginning. Many of the founding elements of this - the Stonespire tribe, the dwarven excavators in Mulgore, everything to do with the Forsaken, the night elf-orc turf war and so on, are all from Vanilla and were expanded on from then. That something is a foundational aspect of something doesn't mean it's omnipresent, nor were these neutral factions the all-consuming voids they were in say, Legion. The faction conflict waxes and wanes throughout the game's life span, but it was always there because the basic gameplay systems from zones, to quests, to guilds to PvP, all tie into it.

[Broken Fox]

It's the only interesting part of the story left, aside from maybe the Lich King. Taking out the villain of the week is a fun side distraction but it holds no dramatic weight. Orcs vs Humans. That has always been the foundation of Warcraft.

[LazarusLong]

You are absolutely right. The main plot of BfA is very average at best, and downright moronic and worst. The only decent lore happening is around secondary plots: void, death, Azshara.

[VladlTutushkin]

You are hilarious my friend. Hilarious. And slightly pitiful too... I mean i understand you 100% but sad and pitiful thing is that another faction so heavily “treated” by electricution from hating you that it makes no sense. Alliance is told that hating Horde is bad and if we hate them and fight them we lose because this is against morals or whatever. So yes you want to have cake and eat it to so screw you big time since we cant even have cake.

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I find the non-faction war stuff boring. At least cosmic threats like the Legion, Old Gods, Void etc... They’re loot piñatas that call you mortal a lot scream in a variety of different ways about ending you.

Legion in particular was insufferable. Being forced to command a bunch of Humans, Dwarves, Draenei and a Night Elf or two to beat a threat that was in no way threatening? Why? I’m Horde. The only thing I want to have to do with those races is beating the ever-living shit out of them. As amusing as it was to force Boros to kill Worgen in the name of the Horde, the entire idea behind the order halls was stupid. All I wanted was the Ashbringer.

While vanilla mechanically isn’t really a game for me, I enjoy enemies like the defias, Scarlet Crusade, burning blade and other small-time threats a lot more than some big ugly demon calling me a puny mortal. Especially when these threats are morally grey (Like the Defias, who have an understandable view point).

For big threats I prefer fighting the enemy faction, whether it’s smaller skirmishes like Warsong or full on wars like the battle for Lordaeron or even in the incursions. I’m more motivated to kill Alliance than I am some generic stupid-evil demon army with motivations and personalities so bland that I couldn’t possibly care about them less.

Blizzard’s problem is that they can’t make the Horde act morally grey once the actual war breaks out. They have to make us the bad guy so they have an excuse to enforce world of peacecraft later on. I’m sick of it. And I’m sick of having to team up and fight alongside Alliance ‘heroes’. When there’s no faction war, the Horde all but ceases to exist. When there is one, we’re randomly made evil so Blizzard can have us lose and put the war under the rug for later.

TL;DR: Don’t give a shit about demons and Old Gods. Let me kill enemies that I actually hate.

Well... what can i say:

[Erwarth]

Changing an MMO-C' poster's mind is harder than breaking graphene so I agree with OP

[Nalorakk]

I think what OP is actually trying to say is that poorly structured story detracts from the narrative experience instead of enhancing it.

Which is true. It just happens that the faction war is the current story vehicle that's plodding along with a broken engine.

[Xaviaton]

Faction war was used to instigate the main conflict of MoP's story but it wasn't faction war for the sake of faction war until 5.3. It was used as a vehicle to show the dangers of the Sha. If you ask people what they liked about MoP's story, it most likely won't be SoO and the time traveling shenanigans that followed. Horde vs. Alliance war was completely irrelevant to the story of the Thunder King, the mantid etc.

I'd argue that you here point out an example of faction war enhancing the story line? It served as a way to add a sense of urgency to the sha problem. In Stormheim, I would argue that it served the same purpose for ALLIANCE specifically. You learn more and more about vrykul lore and that Helya is the prime evil of this zone, who must be avoided or defeated. However, when you finally find her she has made a deal with Sylvanas and you (at least me) instantly add a sense of urgency to the plot. Sure, Helya is a baddie, but she has been around for a while and seems to be playing the long game. Sylvanas is out to kill you and your friends NOW. Rejoining the faction war therefore seems like the correct thing to do. I agree that the Horde version of Stormheim is far less well done, and that is the issue. The faction war can and has enhanced the story in many ways, it is just done extremely poorly in most cases.

[Timester]

MoP had Faction war and it was one of their best crafted story expansions to date.

Oddly enough, the story was about how Faction War is bad for Azeroth.

[huth]

Here is another argument.

We CAN lose against an external threat. Blizzard has never attempted that of course but it is very much possible to do.

Actually, that's pretty much Legion's story. We lost against the Legion and then tried to find ways to get back on top. Which only kinda-sorta worked.

[Zaktar]

Here is another argument.

We CAN lose against an external threat. Blizzard has never attempted that of course but it is very much possible to do. We can be forced to flee, we can have lands destroyed. Just look at Teldrassil or Lordaeron; sinking them beneath the waves and under N'zoth's control with a Bronze dragon there to reverse the effect so you can offer Sylvanas a charm from sawed off bones of her enemies is entirely possible.
But we cannot actually lose against each other. The playerbase would simply not accept it. Every victory needs to have a counter and everyone is keeping tally. What kind of shitstorm would there have been if Varian had occupied Orgrimmar and on the next expansion the Horde had to desperately fight from Thunder Bluff to reclaim it? Surely one that could only be answered by an unequivocal answer that Stormwind would get sacked next xpac.
But an external, neutral antagonist CAN do that as long as he harms both factions without breaking parity or gameplay.

I've often thought about this, why does there have to be parity? Why couldn't one side completely and utterly dominate the other, and the other side have essentially a guerilla network. One side "wins" and the other is forced to endure Alliance/Horde guards controlling their towns; some of their quests involve evading the law and fighting the power. Could do a phased instance on top of the old world, so prior expansions aren't touched, we just get to see what has happened to Azeroth over time by pasting new zones on top of the old ones, and the expansion can be a kind of asymmetric war between resistance and occupiers. Maybe it has to end such that there is parity again (boring) or maybe you have this imbalance going forward or maybe you use it to break down the faction system and ultimately merge the two (resistance and occupiers find fight is unwinnable, resistance achieves enough leverage to force some kind of representative government, there are probably better ideas but there are a lot of possibilities).

I understand what you're saying about the player base, and maybe this would be too radical a shift for them to accept and it would confirm "zomgar [insert faction here] has always been teh blizztard favurit," but hey the game is slowly sinking, why not try something a bit more bold and different. Sorry, sorry, this is a corporation, I'll go back to my desk, what was I thinking.

[Feanoro]

Because "Side X wins, form La Resistance" and so on isn't generic content that can be easily tweaked for both sides. Please see BoD. The hype was two totally different raids with different perspectives. The reality is you race change for certain fights.

@Super Dickmann
Yes, they butchered the NElves spectacularly, and 8.1 only seems like the old days because everyone's so used to them being doormats. If anything, it's pathetic. "One Night Elf took out four peons? Impossibruh!" Two Val'kyr = one goddess. This isn't remotely the "Grom Hellscream is pissing his pants" NElves.

[Rosefern]

I think the faction war made sense initially in WoW. I think MoP was better for having Garrosh. I think Legion did a decent job of letting the faction conflict simmer but not overtake.

I think what bfA has given us is more a realization that the factions no longer work as most players find themselves more loyal to a race than the entire faction. The Forsaken's place in the "old hounrable horde" has never been on solid ground and this entire expansion has only made it worse. The redemption for Night Elves will be difficult to give them as long as they're still a part of the Alliance. A win for them would then require a subsequent loss to another race in the alliance to balance out the entire system.

People always say you can't take the "war" out of "warcraft" and that horde and alliance have to stay for the good of the story. I think we're approaching a point though where we could leave the war in by simply breaking off into loyal races rather than factions. Orcs loyal to Saurfang, Forsaken to Sylvanas (or Nathanos). You can still have old allegiances with Genn and Anduin remaining friends, but it would give them more range in telling Worgen vs Forsaken stories without having to justify the entire alliance vs horde positions. Let the Blood Elves and Void Elves settle their own conflict without dragging everybody into it.

[Zaktar]

Because "Side X wins, form La Resistance" and so on isn't generic content that can be easily tweaked for both sides. Please see BoD. The hype was two totally different raids with different perspectives. The reality is you race change for certain fights.

Naw, you can make it fairly cheap and easy, mostly a matter of changing the town guards around. They already invest heavily in making the quests different for each faction, so no excess cost there. Throw in an occasional quest where you're hunted in what used to be your faction's capital, but otherwise have your papers in order thanks to forged documents etc, and you're golden. It doesn't have to be expensive.

[Katchii]

I agree though, not going to change your mind. The faction war, as it's currently being told, is a sideshow to the main narrative with the titans, and void lords and old gods and whatnot.

Seems so petty in comparison.

Granted, it's a bit exciting seeing the world change as a result of the conflict, but when you know neither side can "win" to keep balance, it really makes it seem contrived, especially when you consider the presence of the MUCH bigger bads out there.

[Feanoro]

@Zaktar
True, but you're assuming creativity. Besides, any such event would likely be limited time, and people already whine about limited time events.