Datamined race intros shows Blizz set on whitewashing Horde.

[Reinhart11]

In fairness to Blizzard though, you won't get many new players choosing the Horde if their past deeds were clearly exposed during the intro (unless the player is a sadist, psychopath or sociopath.)

Of course sadists, psychopaths and sociopaths are the problem here. Not people who are not even able to differentiate between reality and a story. I guess every writer who created more or less evil characters in its stories and every actor who portrayed antagonists must fall in your three categories. Man o man...

[naeblis495]

After reading this ,as a Horde player , i really want to Persona 3 myself .

We'll reach a point where Pandarens are the most violent Horde race. Fucking Altruist Forsaken ... i can't even.

[Raisei]

As I pointed out in another thread I got the feeling that Blizzard is seeing the problem with the Forsaken as an evil race inside the non-evil Horde faction and they are trying to fix it. Having Sylvanas piss off was phase 1, this reinvention is phase 2.

The question is, if there is going to be involvement of Calia that does result in this change in the race, and I daresay I hope so (*waits a moment for the death threats to subside*), because there SHOULD be a reason for the change. The Forsaken up until now are definately not the ones portrayed in this line, as everyone clearly sees, but they are standing at a crossroad now because of Sylvanas.

They can either stay as they are and remain a thorn in the eye of many people or they can become better then what they were under Sylvanas, I think this line references that the Forsaken are actually taking the latter road and I like it.
Of course people who specifically joined them to be "sick sociopaths" will not, but that is just the point is it not? The Horde is not the villian of this story, if you want to be a villain you cannot be part of the Horde. Or at least you cannot be part of the Horde anymore.

[Eapoe]

3rd time the Orcs have pinned all their problems on a scapegoat, shirked responsibility and then acted like they are finally free to be peaceful.

I don’t really see them pinning anything on a scapegoat. They never stated they had no free will and/or no choice outside of the Legion, when they were literally enslaved due to the blood.
It’s not like after Garrosh or Sylvanas they went “we had no choice. We had to do it.” They chose to follow them, and it lead to splintering of their race during those times.

[Xilurm]

Of course sadists, psychopaths and sociopaths are the problem here. Not people who are not even able to differentiate between reality and a story. I guess every writer who created more or less evil characters in its stories and every actor who portrayed antagonists must fall in your three categories. Man o man...

Yeah imagine wanting to play a non "good" race/faction and being an actual normal human being irl. Jesus Christ.

[Sondrelk]

As I pointed out in another thread I got the feeling that Blizzard is seeing the problem with the Forsaken as an evil race inside the non-evil Horde faction and they are trying to fix it. Having Sylvanas piss off was phase 1, this reinvention is phase 2.

The question is, if there is going to be involvement of Calia that does result in this change in the race, and I daresay I hope so (*waits a moment for the death threats to subside*), because there SHOULD be a reason for the change. The Forsaken up until now are definately not the ones portrayed in this line, as everyone clearly sees, but they are standing at a crossroad now because of Sylvanas.

They can either stay as they are and remain a thorn in the eye of many people or they can become better then what they were under Sylvanas, I think this line references that the Forsaken are actually taking the latter road and I like it.
Of course people who specifically joined them to be "sick sociopaths" will not, but that is just the point is it not? The Horde is not the villian of this story, if you want to be a villain you cannot be part of the Horde. Or at least you cannot be part of the Horde anymore.

I guess the problem is that this change is so sudden there is no feeling like the Forsaken or even Horde in general has learned anything from BfA. It looked like they were on the track to learning something, but then that story was cut short when Sylvanas runs away. And now i get the feeling that the writers are working off a different script where the Horde had to face an actual choice in whether to side with Sylvanas and be evil, or side with Saurfang and risk being killed by the Alliance.

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I don’t really see them pinning anything on a scapegoat. They never stated they had no free will and/or no choice outside of the Legion, when they were literally enslaved due to the blood.
It’s not like after Garrosh or Sylvanas they went “we had no choice. We had to do it.” They chose to follow them, and it lead to splintering of their race during those times.

Scapegoat in the sense that after the Demon blood they seemed to pin everyting on Gul'dan and those dastardly demons, despite all signs pointing to the demons simply giving them what they wanted with conquest.
More egregiously is what happened with Garrosh, where the Horde was dragged along with his conquest seemingly until it became an inconvenience to them and they decided to rebel, then pin all the problems they caused on that damn Garrosh.
And now we have the same thing happening again with Sylvanas, where she slightly nudges them in a direction she wants them, and they wantonly kill with seemingly no problem until it starts being a problem for them, at which point they, surprise surprise, pin all the problems on Sylvanas being so evil, and then act like they were honorable this entire time after she is gone.

[keelr]

I want to vomit. If pandaria was the coffin, I guess they've decided to hammer in the nails.

This game is now purely just high fantasy bullshit. Dragon Ball Z power levels of an ever greater big bad.

Faction conflict no longer makes sense, because they didn't want it to make sense.

Warhammer 40k still has faction conflict decades later and everyone LOVES IT.

Fuck blizzard, is there even anyone there left from the original crew who wrote Warcraft 2, 3, Diablo 1 and 2, Starcraft 1?

holy shit, this is some real edgy opinion.

Don't expect great story telling of faction war where you have to balance the story for the two factions.

[TheRevenantHero]

Imagine comparing the two. All of the Alliance's worst actions don't even equate to Teldrassil

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If they don't paint it as them always being this way it's fine - it actually makes sense for many within the Horde to have radical moral and identity changes after Garrosh and now Sylvanas - I think the Horde makes much more sense and a freedom fighter movement than scourge that kills everything non-horde as it has been since Cata

I'd point out all the terrible things the Alliance has done as a whole but as the language in your comment points out, Alliance fans will only see that the Horde is the evil faction and no matter what the Alliance does it's always justified via comments like "The Horde deserves it." or "The Horde was worse." even when they really weren't. Teldrassil is the only action that the Horde has done that has been incredibly atrocious and even then, most of the Horde feels bad about it and regrets ever following those orders Sylvanas gave.

[Xilurm]

Fuck blizzard, is there even anyone there left from the original crew who wrote Warcraft 2, 3, Diablo 1 and 2, Starcraft 1?

No. Pretty sure there isn't.

[Thage]

The only one of these that has significantly changed is the Forsaken, whose new direction makes sense if Derek, Calia, and Lillian are now the influencing factors rather than Sylvanas's cult of personality. The Darkspears have dropped most of troll culture's more brutal aspects as far back as Classic, the orcs have been characterized as 'working to better themselves' so constantly that it's become their race's only defining trait while they're put on a treadmill, the blood elves have generally been improving now that they're not teetering on the brink of extinction and genuine Light worship has come in vogue again (thanks to Liadrin's infuence post-Sunwell).

It makes some level of sense. Up-and-coming adventurers aren't privy to the wealth of information that long-standing champions of the Alliance and Horde are. These intro cinematics are told from the perspective of a fresh-eyed true believer out to make a name for themselves. If the new company line for the Forsaken is akin to the Ebon Blade's in that they work to protect the living, Average Joe who just wants to make his way in the world is going to buy it, especially when Sylvanas totally abandoned him at what felt like the hour the Forsaken needed her most.

To the average citizen, it could entirely feel like Sylvanas abandoned the Forsaken as soon as things got a bit too hot for her to handle, leaving them to pick up the pieces. And here come Lillian sponsoring two new Forsaken with a new message, that things might not completely suck and they could enact some good change in the world. Even hope-hating Delaryn and her cadre seem to be digging this new take on things.

[Xilurm]

There is non-good and then there is omnicidal.

Leaders motives =/= the entire race's motives. Even back when Thrall was the Warchief, the Horde weren't the paragons of virtue that are being described as by these one liners.

[Naramag]

It's crazy, man. Think about Danath Trollbane, his whole family is named after killing another race. Imagine if you had a dude in Germany called Hans Jewkiller.

Yeah, that guy. Everyone knows about him. But he changed his name in the 50s to Hans Antisemitist.

[Orby]

At least the Forsaken have development. It may not represent your Forsaken who may seem a bit more chaotic, and you can keep that, but its more a general consensus of the Forsaken now and not the few who can still be a bit dark and mistrusting if you like, and I am fine with that

The Forsaken have been one of the least developed races since Vanilla. They have had no growth and no change, now they get change, it may not be change you like but I direct you to my comment above.

[Super Dickmann]

At least the Forsaken have development. It may not represent your Forsaken who may seem a bit more chaotic, and you can keep that, but its more a general consensus of the Forsaken now and not the few who can still be a bit dark and mistrusting if you like, and I am fine with that

The Forsaken have been one of the least developed races since Vanilla. They have had no growth and no change, now they get change, it may not be change you like but I direct you to my comment above.

Change has no inherent positive value. You can change for the worse, as BTS and BFA have done in this scorched earth wrecking of the Forsaken, like the orcs and blood elves before them. But more than that, the Forsaken fundamentally changed between their Vanilla to Wrath incarnation and their post-Cataclysm incarnation. They went from being only out after Arthas, living in dilapidated buildings and taking their end for granted, barring elements aligned with Varimathras, to reembracing their claim over Lordaeron, building their own new shit and considering undeath a more positive thing. All things that improved their self-image but made them a lot more dubious to those around them. More than that, that change was organic and flowed from them having completed what they did before and them deciding that existing isn't so bad. It wasn't artificially induced through retcons in contravention to both their initial and updated questing experience.

[bowlink]

I'd point out all the terrible things the Alliance has done as a whole but as the language in your comment points out, Alliance fans will only see that the Horde is the evil faction and no matter what the Alliance does it's always justified via comments like "The Horde deserves it." or "The Horde was worse." even when they really weren't. Teldrassil is the only action that the Horde has done that has been incredibly atrocious and even then, most of the Horde feels bad about it and regrets ever following those orders Sylvanas gave.

Oh please the "attrosities" the alliance commits can be writen on the back of a stamp and like quarter isn't even cannon. Another quarter predates WoW vanilla, but sure the alliance is whitewashed of their deeds.

Horde commits borderline genocide on multiple occasions, people like you go: we are misunderstood, its the warchiefs fault, befehl ist befehl.

Call me a hypocrit all you like i know all the attrosities the alliance commited like all 5 of them because the same ones get brought up

But realise you're just a big of a Hypocrit for disregarding the horde attrosaties, which lets be honest are worse accros the board.

Infracted.

[SLNC]

[...]

Horde commits borderline genocide on multiple occasions, people like you go: we are misunderstood, its the warchiefs fault, befehl ist befehl.

[...]

Yes, because that is usually why atrocities happen. Soldiers defecting or rebelling against orders is not the norm. Usually because the repercussions are severe.

[Makabreska]

Yes, because that is usually why atrocities happen. Soldiers defecting or rebelling against orders is not the norm. Usually because the repercussions are severe.

"I just followed orders" doesn't really hold up in any type of court.

[Combatbutler]

No. Quel'thalas left the Alliance, refused to help Lordaeron deal with the plague and requested help only once Lordaeron was destroyed.

How one can spew such bullshit after all this time I will never understand, try to read chronicle or do a wc3 mission and this pathetic little statement falls utterly apart.

[SLNC]

"I just followed orders" doesn't really hold up in any type of court.

Yeah, true, but we're not talking about punishment of singular actors, but the condemnation of a whole faction.

Doesn't matter whether or not something holds up in court, when it is the prime reason of why atrocities happen. I'm not talking about whether or not the justification is right.

[Sondrelk]

Yes, because that is usually why atrocities happen. Soldiers defecting or rebelling against orders is not the norm. Usually because the repercussions are severe.

That argument works once, at a stretch twice, but this is the third time the Orcs have used this defence, at some point you have to assume that they actually enjoy going around killing people, as indeed Surfang considered in "A Good War".
It's not that orcs cannot change ever, but for everyone to belieive they are actually changed now we would need something more substantial than whatever happened at the end of BfA.