BfA Lore and Criticism

[Niroshi]

Tell an actual war story, instead of a story where we fight maybe 2 battles and then the rest is nonsense.

Focus the story on the followers given throughout the story, make them key participants in the war and turn them fully into your crew. Similar to how Guild Wars 2 handles its characters with the player. There's pretty much no reason to even remember you have followers, and BFA had the chance to turn those characters into important people for the player.

[shadowmatrix]

I would have liked a world revamp and a return to something like Classic storytelling, where we're helping people with localized issues and building on a real world.

We are already helping locals with local problems. The witches are a local problem for the people of Druustvar, the tidesages are a local problem if you live in stormsong valley, Ashvane's goons are attacking local people. Almost all of the threats are local threats that are affecting the nations as a whole.

[Syegfryed]

They need to stop trying to create "great stories" when they don't have the ability to do so, warcraft is not rly a "too deep" story-line, its simple, its war and fun, and they trying to force Got shit here is bad.

they also need to stop giving moral lessons, of how war is bad and we should feel bad for liking in a fantasy game, this is not he-man cartoon, the questlines i had more fun it was the goblins ones with Gallywix, it was simple and direct, take something and kill alliance in the process, the game need more of this

they need to drop the pampering to elf races

about the factions, i know the alliance is more about humans but they need to drop it a little bit, stop the human potential, make then background for a while. For the horde? just bring back their theme we had from war3 to cata, elves and undeads are not the face of the faction and should not define it.

Less friendly interactions to enemy races, heroes and cities is also something rly needed, i don't want to do quests with alliance leaders, alliance races os stay near alliance cities. Mirror quests would solve this a bit, just changing the npcs

[Soon-TM]

Some really good suggestions ITT so far, for what I've read. My $0.02:

1) No War of Thorns or Siege of Lordaeron. Those two episodes are probably the dumbest in the entire history of Warcraft, maybe second only to DrAEnOr iS fREe (TM).

2) More actually #MorallyGrey characters, instead of Saint Anduin and (literally) the Army of the Light on one side, and on the other Garrosh Redux, Undead Tits edition, backed by Scourge 2.0. At the very least, if Sylvanas is going to be featured as pretty much the Lich Queen (with her ubercringey "war on hope" lul) let us guess her reasons. She has always been a vengeful, shadowy, brooding b1tch, but she was never shown to be a bloodthirsty warmonger. And I'm sorry, but ZOMG TEH SHADOWLANDZ /wrists doesn't cut it.

3) Instead of the tired, beaten-to-death, unoriginal and hamfisted as all !@#$ faction war as the opening theme, I'd have very much preferred a "cold war" approach, where Sylvanas knows that she's militarily inferior to the Alliance (after all, VEs and LF goats are presumably much stronger, lorewise, than moose cows and crack-addicted NEs) so she tries to not raise any suspicions. Eventually the Alliance learns about Azerite; Genn, Jaina, Tyrande and the like want to launch a preemptive strike, which is opposed to by Anduin, Velen and maybe even Malfurion. The latter emphasizes the need to heal the planet asap, and is mirrored in the Horde by Hamuul Runetotem or even Zappyboi, in order to develop new blood for the Horde leadership.

As far as raids go, I'd like it like this:

• Uldir (Horde): no changes, except that they fail to contain G'huun (which will in turn empower Azshara/N'Zoth) so Horde has to flee, tail between the legs.
  
• Uldir (Alliance): as in Stormheim, Genn prepares an expedition to ambush the Horde contingents, but there have been some intel flaws (looking at you, Shaw) and the Horde army has already fled. G'huun, after preying on the Horde expedition, does the same with the Ally one.
  
• BoD (Alliance): Anduin chastises Genn, but declares war on the Zandalari nonetheless, in order to show some authority. The declaration of war refers to the Horde agents breaking Talanji and Zul out of prison, as well as Rastakhan giving aid and shelter to Horde forces. The Zandalari are caught with their pants down (Rastakhan's Zul-induced reluctance to team up with the Horde features prominently here) and cannot prevent the Alliance push that ends killing their king.
  
• BoD (Horde): Saurfang decides to aid the Zandalari army on his own authority, and the Horde presence is key at pushing back the Alliance expedition and forcing them to evacuate Dazar'alor. The aftermath would be pretty much like it is now.

[Skytotem]

Alright, home from work. Proper response now expanding on my three points from earlier


1. No War of Thorns or Burning Teldrassil
2. Better demonstration of azerite's importance.
3. Actually Grey Conflict


The Goals:
1. So we need to make the conflict after Legion somewhat reasonable.
2. We need to show Azerite as something meaningful in the narrative. Atm it's just good for making bigger tanks.
3. We need to make the Horde less stupid-evil and the alliance less stupid-good.



The Problems:
1. There's several problems with the War of thorns. First was that it worfed the night elves (again). And in order to make the Horde seem both strong they had it devised by Saurfang but the fact that it was orchestrated by a bunch of rogues undermines the 'honorable' half of the concept. Now the night elves WHOLE THING is guerilla warfare and stealth, so anytime the Horde beats them with rogues or stealth ON THEIR TURF, it makes them look stupid/weak.

The Horde's motivation for it in BFA proper is also nebulous, we're fighting to prevent some potential war in the future, but after Garrosh and the Horde's resource issues being addressed at the end of MoP it's unclear why there's this much support for war against the nelfs when all they've ever done is try and maintain their own territory, and it's still not clear what we're using the wood for, or why the orcs aren't able to adapt to their own environments in durotar/barrens. Orcs aren't stupid, they should be able to figure this out. We know they can make things with clay, and WC3 burrows said they grew tubers and mushrooms so they can absolutely grow food, and the Tauren can help cultivate land. We have shaman and druids. Why is this SUCH a stumbling block?

It's a lazy conflict ball and there are better ways to start the war.


2. Azerite is dumb. It's magic planet blood. it's absurd and difficult to make distinct from other magic crystals in the setting because we've had Azeroth bleed out before with the well of eternity just being liquid arcane energy. As written azerite is 'just' an amplifier. The best bet to make it meaningful in any way is to drum up the variety. Not just big tanks but other kinds of azerite constructs or spells and such, taken from things that were 'big' in prior Expacs but can now be done much more easily with Azerite. Maybe show various 'mongrel' forces or smaller groups like pirates and such suddenly able to take on the Horde and Alliance's forces that don't have comparable azerite empowerment. Make the azerite effects visually distinct ingame too.


3. There's really not a DIRECT 'problem' here. The Alliance has ample justifications after Legion not to trust the Horde even if they find out the Horde didn't intentionally abandon Varian to die. Sylvanas enslaved Gilneans, has had the Forsaken develop and use really sketchy weapons, hasn't demonstrated a great ability to keep the Forsaken reigned in (wrathgate) and tried to go after Eyir in Legion.

The Horde sadly has fewer recent motivations to really give a damn about the Alliance, just lots of old ones that are never properly addressed. (Dwarven encroachment, Alliance forces in Durotar and Barrens, etc)




The Solutions: Part 1
Longer focus on Silithus, we actually see the Alliance pulling azerite out to Darnassus by sea, and the Horde airlifting it out in a pair of zeppelin towers. This makes the Horde and alliance aware that as more azerite pops up elsewhere in the world, the Horde will be at a disadvantage since it doesn't have enough Zeppelins to keep pace with the Alliance navy. Zeps are faster but can't carry even half of what a decent sized ship can, and they're much more fragile.

Genn and other Alliance warhawks push Anduin to pre-emptively strike the Forsaken, reasoning that the Horde will be in disarray if they lose Sylv and won't have a chance to misuse Azerite. They figure Kalimdor forces can be confined to the barrens, Durotar, and Mulgore, and the Belfs will be isolated in northern EK, but that no one will care enough about the Forsaken to pursue further war from such a weakened position, ensuring world peace.

Anduin, not wanting to start the war but under heavy pressure, talks to the lightforged draenei and turalyon for guidance, and they say it's dangerous to let the Horde grow unchecked and it could be a threat in the future as bad or worse than the Legion, thinking the Horde needs 'guidance' and Anduin decides to go for it, planning to install Calia (who's reluctant but willing to go along) as the regent of Lordaeron and any remaining forsaken after the battle's won.

Turalyon also tells him that while the Vindicaar is still too damaged from fighting on Argus to be used in battle (and just death-laser everyone), that it can still transport troops and the Lightforged's infantry are still ready to go.

Anduin leads EK forces on a surprise attack on Undercity, much like ingame, though in this version there's an actual siege. Other Horde forces are portaled in and some leaders on Hordeside become unsettled by the Lightforged's zeal on the battlefield.

Ultimately, the city is evacuated using a mix of Belf and Nightborne portals and seeing that the battle is lost, Sylvanas orders the Forsaken navy out, loaded with blight explosives planning to blow up all the ships. A few of them blow, damaging Alliance navy, but the other Horde leaders talk her into using the rest to evacuate some of the Forsaken's other EK territories that can't use UC's portals, before they're all destroyed by Alliance forces. Sylvanas still rigs undercity to blow, Calia is injured in the blight explosion but is healed by being Lightforged.

Surprising both Sylvanas and the Alliance, the rest of the Horde doesn't abandon the forsaken just because their powerbase in EK is gone, while the rest of the Horde still doesn't LIKE Sylvanas they're concerned enough about the Lightforged and Azerite to keep her around.

The Horde unloads the Forsaken Refugees in Kalimdor and other outposts in the world, and then uses the Forsaken navy to start doing hit and run attacks on the Alliance's azerite shipments as Sylvanas plans her counterattack with the rest of the Horde leaders, but ships on BOTH sides begin going missing.

(SPOILERS: It's the naga, they've sunk both Forsaken and Alliance ships, and got ahold of both blight and a whole mess of azerite.)

Anduin is saddened by forces lost in retaking tirisfal, and with Gilneas mostly secure, he's feeling that the Alliance has enough of an upperhand in EK to start negotiations despite the Warhawks still wanting him to go farther.

Just as he's planning to call to meet with Horde leaders in Kalimdor for talks though, the Horde makes an attack on Teldrassil to steal its azerite stockpiles, many of its zeppelins are destroyed but there's an azer-blight based explosion on Teldrassil, and while the entire tree isn't destroyed, large parts of it are poisoned with blight (the tree is sick, picture ghostlands trees with big green pustules) and much of Darnassus is destroyed. Malfurion is tied up healing the tree and repairing the sickness but he's having to use a lot of the Alliance's stockpile of azerite to do it, partially evening out the playing field between Horde/Alliance in azerite stockpile and the navy/air forces for the factions.

Obviously the Horde did this in retaliation for UC! (Spoilers: It was the naga, the Naga did this in the middle of the Horde attack) The war is on, the Kalimdor Horde thinks Sylvanas went too far but are stuck with her, Sylvanas doesn't really care what anyone thinks but wants to win the war, and Anduin and the Alliance forces are divided on his leadership but all gunning for the Forsaken and the rest of the Horde.

As more azerite pops up, the Alliance begins reopening talks with Kul'tiras to rebuild its navy, while the Horde approaches the Zandalari. Both groups are dealing with resurgent Old God and Naga forces and so while not immediately best buds with either faction, they're willing to talk and let the Alliance and Horde get their respective foot in the door.

[matrix123mko]

There is that saying - better to remain silent and look like a fool, than say something and remove any doubt about it.

And that right here is main problem with warcraft lore from cataclysm onward, but was most visible in recent years. Blizzard simply put aren't good writers, who can't write complex thought-provoking story with multi dimensional characters. And its not a bad thing on its own, its just that blizzard puts almost all their focus on a weakest link in a chain, and not only doesn't make it better, it exposes its weakness even more.

Blizzard should completely give up on character driven "ongoing" story and instead focus on "background" lore and world building - aspects that are their strongest, and are reason why people fallen in love with franchise all those years ago. Rather than having few poorly written characters who are everywhere (hi nat and jaina) have many diffrent characters who are heroes of their own stories or zones. Give us more Runas and less Jaina.

Lets be real - blizzard writers aren't Martin, Tolkien, Taro, {insters writer here} and they should stop pretending they are.

On top of that few more things - raids being a way to "resolve" lore are a big no no. Im not saying that raids should be loreless, but lore-heavy raids with lots of RPing aren't really that good.

You are very wise. Indeed Warcraft(and Warhammer) are best at world building, not stories between specific characters. The problem is that Blizzard has problems with giving us reason to explore new worlds so they are trying to convince our non-toxic masculinity to do so.

[Powerogue]

I'd say I wanted more Alliance internal conflict instead of focusing so much on the Horde this time around. We got sparks of it with Tyrande rejecting Anduin and going off on her own with Genn following, but they dialed back the dialogue seemingly to specifically counter the fan speculating that the Alliance was splintering, when really I saw that and was like "hell yeah, give us some internal conflict too! I got this popcorn toy, I wanna use it!"

That and my horde pandaren giving another morally dubious warchief an old god artifact was retarded. The absolute dumbest thing ever. Now I know how those tauren druids felt at Teldrassil.

Kinda wish our resident pandaren spoke up about this too. Like "WTF guys, did we learn nothing from Pandaria?" and leading anti-war protests.

[matrix123mko]

- SNIP -

Well done. Long and logical. I love that part about azerite magic and azerite blight. I am looking forward for part 2.

Maybe I am not convinced for Anduin starting the war. I would prefer Greymane to start it in secret from Anduin.

[Aeula]

I'd want it to be about an actual faction war rather than civil war and old gods. For starters. Get rid of the genocide and replace it with full on conquest. Occupying cities and the like.

I've talked about what I'd want too much to go into further detail here.

[Mehrunes]

I don't think shaking things up and having a completely different story is constructive. Let's see if we could tell this story better, not tell a different story.

In this case that's impossible. The story we have has flaws that run too deeply for it to be fixable. Lordaeron makes no sense on multiple levels. So to make the story logical you either remove Lordaeron (consequently significantly changing the story afterwards) or write Lordaeron to its logical conclusion of Alliance getting their ass absolutely handed to them (consequently also significantly changing the story afterwards).

[Skytotem]

Well done. Long and logical. I love that part about azerite magic and azerite blight. I am looking forward for part 2.

Maybe I am not convinced for Anduin starting the war. I would prefer Greymane to start it in secret from Anduin.

Thanks, I plan to write up part 2 tonight to address other characters like Saurfang and Jaina.

As for Anduin, in the execution of part1 I have planned he kind of caves to pressure from House of Nobles, Shaw, Genn, and Turalyon/Lightforged Draenei paint a very grim picture

Plus he sort of thinks he can just smooth things over with Baine once it's done.

[TigTone]

Imo BFAs best lore is in all the side stories/lore and new zone lore. Like the island expedition little hints of future stories/lore.

[tripleh]

BFA lore at this point is just not worth following much anymore. Danuser and the narrative team can't write anything engaging that makes sense. Ignoring previous lore to push there own objectives without thinking about how players are gonna view it.

[Mehrunes]

Lordaeron definitely makes as much sense as the catapults burning down Teldrassil.

Catapulsts are just the result of Blizzard being too lazy to write some additional panels of a ship with a fuckton of flammable material sailing to Teldrassil. Literally nothing makes sense about Alliance surviving Lordaeron.

[Wilfire]

My only complaint is about what they have done to the Horde player character. Rest of my grievances I can set aside because they won't matter a few expansions down the line. But as someone who roleplays, I feel like BfA has left a permanent smear on my character. Going from being a Champion of Azeroth to an Old God puppet and actively snitching on one half of the Horde to help the other half kill it is just terrible.

[Florena]

Broad strokes since I'm at work and not able to go into as much detail as I'd like over phone


1. No war of thorns or burning Teldrassil

2. Better demonstration of why azerite is important

3. Let the conflict actually be grey, Alliance can be aggressors

This is an issue that tends to get overshadowed but yeah, all they've really done with azerite really is make it 'super gun poweder' and have it buff our necklaces. It never really FEELs like a game changer considering the firepower the factions have shown off before. The Azerite War Machine in the battle for lordaeron didn't feel special. It could have been a normal tank with no mention of azerite and I'd have just as easily bought a super goblin tank taking out those siege towers.

[Shampro]

Not intentionally point for point basically copy and paste Mists of Pandaria. It doesn't matter if they didn't like how it went the first time, it really doesn't. It's insulting to the playerbase for them to do this, and there's a very good chance that I'm never going to return because of it. It shows that they do not respect thier characters and narrative invested players.

[Seylene]

Well I would start with Silithus and the intervention between SI:7 and the Cenarion outpost, and the Goblins (some horde organization) being the sides for the first warfront and quest zone, which gives us a ton of info as to what Azerite is and what it can do. We maneuver with Magni and all the intro stuff here. Then we learn some dire things.

Aserite is really killing Azeroth like not a slow bleed but really really. And with Sargeras's sword the essence of his power permeates the world and awakens Azshara into motion, kind of like an ex coming in the room. But it boots her into action, and is using the dying planet to power N'zoth (steal his power whatever) The point is Azshara is causing trouble and actively on the move instead of just posturing and she is in the middle of the ocean so we need ships as the legion battle drained all our resources.

So this is where KT and Draz come in. Preferably with some opening explaining exactly what Talanji and Zul were doing how they got caught etc. so there is actually some agency and we learn about the loss of the KT fleet so it spurs Jaina to actually get involved then pretty much everything else can continue as is now.

[Skytotem]

Well done. Long and logical. I love that part about azerite magic and azerite blight. I am looking forward for part 2.

SOLUTIONS PART 2

Part 1 mostly focused on Anduin and Sylvanas, with Genn and Turalyon playing secondary roles. In part 2 we see other faces pop up, as we move out of the 'prepatch' phase and into the 'meat' of the Expansion. Now, BFA launch had some problems with the Kul'tirans throwing diplomatic envoys in jail, and the Horde doing a heist in Stormwind with Zandalari royalty there for... some reason? So I'll be adjusting that, Aaaand some of the regional problems as well.


Phase 1 (The Launch Patch Equivalent)
The basic premise for both sides is the same, the House of Nobles, Alliance leaders, and representatives from other Human Kingdoms meet in Stormwind. While the Darkspear and Revantusk representatives (Shatterspear are sadly, still defunct as a tribe in this canon... For Now) talk with the other Horde Leaders about the upcoming gathering of tribes on Zuldazar.



Alliance:
The Alliance sends a delegation to Kul'tiras made up of myriad leaders and headed by Genn and Jaina, as in BFA proper, with Alleria, Shaw and others still tagging along.

When approaching Kul'tiras we see a battle going on where the Kul'tirans fight some old god forces attacking the harbor gates and we join in, though it's clear the defenders had things well in hand, this gets the gates opened up so we can speak with Katherine.

Rather than immediately take Jaina and the players into custody (Though Ashvane and other Kul'tiran nobles push to do so) they're protected due to being diplomatic envoys (Genn essentially won't let them take the player and Jaina away, the whole initial meeting is tense), Katherine eventually tells everyone Kul'tiras isn't interested in rejoining the Alliance that left Daelin unavenged and their troops to die in Kalimdor, and is strong enough to survive on its own.

Jaina speaks briefly with Katherine and the others about what happened with Daelin, how the Horde is still a threat and the world is dying under them, and how she doesn't want Kul'tiras hurt anymore and surrenders herself to be taken prisoner if they'll at least hear out the Alliance delegation. Katherine imprisons Jaina and allows the delegation to stay in the Harbor until Jaina is sentenced for betraying Daelin by a tribunal of the Kul'tiran nobility's major houses.

Genn and Cyrus talk about getting the houses to support Jaina and win Kul'tiras support back to the Alliance.


Tiragarde Sound has Ironforge Dwarves and gnomes work with Cyrus (Roughnecks merged with Taelia/Flynn's group) and Tandred Proudmoore (House Proudmoore, Tandred not lost at sea here) to oppose Ashvane, her pirates and Orc/goblin forces in the region (a bit of a WC2 vibe). It all still culminates in the "Mechagon" subplot.

Drustvar has Worgen, Night Elves, the Thornspeakers and Order of Embers oppose the Coven/Drust, and Forsaken/Darkspear forces in the region, though Gorak'Tul isn't killed off right away, merely delayed. (Note, to avoid the 'worgen are nelf sidekicks' vibe, I have the worgen keep more of their 'monster hunting monster' feel working with the Order of the Embers, and the Nelfs here are Wardens with little direct interaction with the worgen).

Stormsong has Tushui Pandaren, Void Elves work with the "Stormriggers" and Storm's Wake to fight against Tauren/Zandalari forces, oppose the K'thir and Naga, who get away with some of the artifacts from the Stormsong monastery. (The Tauren here are horde-aligned grimtotem under the command of Jevan Grimtotem aka "Stormsong" so they're a bit more hostile than usual tauren)

As in BFA proper we oust the corrupt house leaders, replace them with a new generation of non-evil/crazy folks, but there's a few twists. When Ashvane attacks the city with naga forces, Jaina helps fight the Kraken alongside the players and freezes the tidal wave it was making to wipe out the city. This does not make everyone immediately like her again, but public opinion is fickle and some people consider her a hero even if others still blame her for Daelin's death. Saving the entire city and the Alliance's much warmer support in aiding the outlying territories is enough for the assembled Houses to Pardon Jaina and let her reconcile with her family.

Cyrus, who was once a very minor noble through his harbormaster position, is elevated to replace the deposed and imprisoned Ashvane, with House Crestfall taking control of Ashvanes former holdings.

The Alliance has the support of the Kul'tiras fleet, but their leaders can tell there's still clearly more at play here


COMING SOON:

Horde content

STROMGARDE

"War Campaign" Revamp

[Skytotem]

Horde:

Rokhan leads a delegation of Horde aligned troll tribes (Darkspear, Revantusk, and the now named Firegrin Tribe from Twilight Highlands), as well as representatives from other Horde races to Zandalar. Now at this point in time only Troll representatives are allowed onto the isle still so most players and most Horde representatives would be stuck on the boat until Rokhan and the others negotiate, but at the docks we hear the princess's ship went out to visit some temples on a nearby isle but hasn't returned yet, and the Zandalari have been so busy preparing for the Summit of Tribes that no one's been sent out yet. (Implications that Zul's members of the Zanchuli are playing it off to Rastakhan that Talanji is just off being irresponsible on that isle rather than in danger to keep him from sending anyone)

Rokhan sends the players and some other troops to investigate, hoping to win some points with Rastakhan, and on the isle we find Talanji and her personal guard have been fighting to protect the temples from some malfunctioning titan constructs who are pouring out of the sea and apparently trying to destroy the temples, suck the energies out of the temples to use them to fix the wounds in Azeroth.

In this variation, Talanji is a priestess of Torcali and commands their forces the Torcalin (I feel Torcali being a Direhorn works better thematically with Talanji's focus on barriers and shields, I'd rationalize it as saying Torcali was her Mom's loa) rather than Rezan (who's still Rastakhans loa).

Each of the temples represents one of the parts of Zandalar (Zuldazar, Nazmir, Vol'dun) and the loa that live there, and each is assisted by different parts of the Horde delegation as the players run around, though we're shown that their defenders did have things in hand, (just as the Kul'tiran defenders did, This helps set up why neither group feels they need the Horde/Alliance, and why we WANT them to join us). Talanji though is impressed by the Horde's skill in battle and that they came to aid her while the Zul-Zanchuli council's members tried to leave her to die, and makes a deal with Rokhan that the Zandalari will work with the Horde if they help her get rid of the corruption in Rastakhan's court.

Talanji pulls strings and uses the fact that the Horde helped defend the temples to earn the Horde's members rights to actually be on Zandalar as non-trolls, essentially treating the "Horde" as its own group of tribes, similar to the Drakkari, Farraki, Gurubashi, and Amani. Rather than directly in the great seal, the Horde is based in a 'Tal'Razzash' area, which once belonged to a group of tribes called the Razzashi that would later be absorbed by the Gurubashi when it became an empire, the tribes that eventually became the Farraki (Razorbranch) and Darkspear were both once part of the ill-fated Razzashi. Rokhan has the Horde forces in Zuldazar take up this name once more.

Most of the other troll tribes don't like the Horde so Horde forces are divided up in each of the other zones to win them over and secure the continent from both Alliance and Old God forces.

Zuldazar has a mix of Orc and Huojin working with Talanji. They fight both Zul's traitors and the Mogu who were attempting to take over the Amani enclave. In this continuity Zul is not simplyan old God cultist but he still dabbles with their magic (without the Mogu's knowledge) and has still negotiated a treaty with Azshara and still plans to drain and kill off the loa. There's also conflict with Tushui and Night Elf forces in the region which touch on the Pandarens and Night Elves past with the Zandalari.

Nazmir is a bit different from ingame. Darkspear and Forsaken are the primary presence, and still work with the zone's loa. Rather than seeming abandoned for generations it's more clear that it became swamplike due to the cataclysm and there are more settlements but all in recent decline. The area is full of trolls who feel abandoned by the Zandalari royalty and are turning towards rebellion. It also doesn't have Ghuun feature as an 'artificial' old god, and it is instead a Leech-Loa that was force fed old God Blood by the titans in an experiment, though it's still raising the dead as it breaks its bonds. We see both Worgen and Kul'tiran forces in the region.

Vol'dun is seeing a resurgence of Silithid/Aqiri forces due to the Faithless and so we have a mix of Goblins and Tauren fighting against them. The region, instead of being a place solely for exiles, is full of mines, and is also home to a Kaja'mite subplot which has the goblins grow closer together with the Vulpera (Bleh), while the Tauren broker peace between the Sethrak's Faithful, the Vulpera, and the Sandfury forces in Vol'dun. Alliance invaders in the area are Dark irons and Lightforged Draenei.


The questing still culminates in battle against Zul's forces, but it's more of a proper civil war, with Zul and his traditionalists from each tribe, fighting Rastakhan and the members of each tribe that have grown to work with the Horde, here we see the Horde's past with the Orcs-Forest Trolls (Zul'jin), forsaken, working with belfs and nightborne all addressed. Zekhan (Zappy boy) reveals he was a Shatterspear, orphaned by Garrosh's pointless war, but also adopted by the Horde's darkspear. He gives a little speech about how he's fought alongside elves and undead and orcs and more, and unites the members of the other troll tribes who support the Horde in the Shatterspear coalition, reviving his dead tribe.

It's touched on that Zul orchestrated the civil war as a sort of gambit based on his visions, if he won the trolls would be united and survive as part of the new Black Empire under Azshara and the Old gods rule, but independent, not crazed mind controlled cultists. If he lost, then the Horde-troll partnership would be solid because everyone who followed the old ways and would betray or destabilize the Horde is dead and the Horde has proven itself.