The horde council is pathetic.

[Gann Stonespire]

And here we have an exhibit for all you Hordies as to why you're always villain batted.

Because people like you always ask for it and throw a fit whenever the Alliance does anything slightly morally dubious.

[Daronokk]

And here we have an exhibit for all you Hordies as to why you're always villain batted.

Oh no, people actually like war in a war game, the horror! Shame on you!

[Feanoro]

Because people like you always ask for it

The only ones asking that the Horde is evil is Horde players who want to be the WC1-2 Horde, of which there is no shortage. I quoted an example for you. In most cases I've seen, Alliance players would prefer the WC3 Horde or simply being left alone/leaving Horde alone because they know they'll get the short end of the stick. Another place blown up and we're told it doesn't matter, while Blizz rushes to console Horde players over it, and tells us that wanting justice would be evil.

throw a fit whenever the Alliance does anything slightly morally dubious.

Wrong. I'd love to see the Alliance actually be proactive for a change. A large part of the problem is that it's always reactive. Not my fault if you magically forget what came first.

- - - Updated - - -

Oh no, people actually like war in a war game, the horror! Shame on you!

Liking it is fine, just don't be surprised when evil acts get the villain bat. Was that hard to follow?

[Soon-TM]

Or... If the OP really wants the Horde to be 100% evil and keep losing wars... Shotoa

The Dark Shaman tauren at least

I mean... The Horde will be fully back to its "genocidal warmongering faction of morons" version come 10.0, so that Ally fans, starting by Golden, can pat themselves on the back about how they can never be wrong. And of course, there will be a Garrosh 3.0, ditto for yet another SoO - but bigger and better, just like e.g. Maldraxxus is a bigger and better Scourge. Just wait and see

[Super Dickmann]

I mean... The Horde will be fully back to its "genocidal warmongering faction of morons" version come 10.0, so that Ally fans, starting by Golden, can pat themselves on the back about how they can never be wrong. And of course, there will be a Garrosh 3.0, ditto for yet another SoO - but bigger and better, just like e.g. Maldraxxus is a bigger and better Scourge. Just wait and see

Given the state of our cast, this time I'm all aboard for it. There's no character of note left to lose or race that's maintained much of itself except the Mag'har and god knows I can already see the focus on saving Anduin from hell or being Green Jesus's life coach growing very boring, very fast. Make Bob declare himself an elf supremacist or Calia begin the Holy Crusade, hell have Baine flip out after Anduin slights him at dinner and declare war.

[Your Mommy]

The whole "Council Leadership" idea just doesn't fit the Horde.
The "Warchief" idea worked perfectly when the Horde used to have good, functional Warchiefs.

[Klingers]

The "Warchief" idea worked perfectly when the Horde used to have good, functional Warchiefs.

Name three.

[Your Mommy]

Name three.

I can only name two.
Original Thrall and Cata Garrosh.
I'd say Saurfang as well, but I don't think he was ever an official Warchief. He'd have made a fine one, atleast to me.

[Broken Fox]

Original Thrall was good until he fucked off to... wherever he went I dont even remember. I remember seeing the first makgora back in Wrath(?), he was still badass back then.

Cata Garrosh was like 5 characters in one so I can't count that. At least he was consistent when he became orc Hitler.

Warchief Sylvanas was pretty cool during Legion and that BFA cutscene but then something happened.

[Aucald]

Original Thrall was good until he fucked off to... wherever he went I dont even remember. I remember seeing the first makgora back in Wrath(?), he was still badass back then.

Cata Garrosh was like 5 characters in one so I can't count that. At least he was consistent when he became orc Hitler.

Warchief Sylvanas was pretty cool during Legion and that BFA cutscene but then something happened.

He decided to prioritize Shamanism over being Warchief, and became the de facto leader of the Earthen Ring as well as the World Shaman (and had a brief stint as being the Earthwarder in Neltharion's stead).

[Daronokk]

Name three.

I can name four: Blackhand, Doomhammer, Thrall, Garrosh.

The only bad Warchiefs were Vol'jin and Sylvanas.

[iosdeveloper]

Vol'Jin spirit could be a cool warchief

[Raisei]

We're in the no-man's land right now, where functionally the Horde and Alliance don't actually differ on much of any point except aesthetics, with their baggage really not mattering given how everyone we're meant to like drops it, but without gameplay union.

From a ingame perspective, sure. But the playerbase is more divided then ever I would say. BFAs biggest success was making people "choose their side". It's worst failure was doing this, knowing it can't possibly deliver on it. I think what truely annoys me is the grey area we ended up with now and no real way out. The playerbase rips each other apart, the characters hug and talk about breaking the cycle, yet we see nothing truely happening for all that talk. We are stuck somewhere in the middle, if they had merged the factions, okay, we would have had to swallow our disagreements and make up, wouldn't have made everyone happy, but at least it would have meant some payoff.

At the moment, BFA might just as well not exist, because everyone knows that nothing will truely change. If they had meant to deliver some real payoff to the faction war story it would have come with the end of BFA, having not done so AND sending us off to save Death instead of spending time on solving the issues we have left, can only mean that BFAs only point was showing Sylvanas off as evil so she can be the big bad in the next expansion. Everything else is an afterthought and will be summarily forgotten if necessary.

I find this a shame, because in genuinely liked a lot of BFA and it's very thorough improvement on the storytelling aspect.

Personally, I heavily disagree with the idea that the Night Elves show that savage elements fit in the Alliance, it's more proof that the Night Elves don't belong and never did belong in the Alliance given the amount of neutering they've endured to have to fit and how they, to remind, still have no canon cause or moment of joining the faction. More effort was put to justify the Forsaken in the Horde than the Night Elves in the Alliance. This is not to say the Night Elves should've been Horde, that'd be even stupider, but the whole vassalhood to a state they've never seen at the end of WC3 to protect from an enemy who came on a total of three boats and to whom they now fully adapt their society, ditching gender roles and milennia of tradition is absurd.

Have to agree here. I suppose they could not make the Night Elves neutral. Too important characters, but yes, them changing for the benefit of the Alliance is weird. I remember in Wolfheart there was still talk about them goign away from their nocturnal lifestyle to better work together with their new allies, but I don't think it was ever brought up again.

I praised this aspect in the Shadows Rising thread, but to reiterate my point from there, my main misgiving is that this was a very unique situation - it was an exclusively Horde story and related to an exclusively Horde topic, that being Zandalar's membership. It was a genuinely constructive Horde story that could not be told in a neutral setting or involving the Alliance. Certain characters were very good at it - Thrall and Talanji were highlights of the book, though having seen some dialogue I doubt this'll carry into the Thrall we see. But even then, when push came to shove, they were all of one mind, even Talanji pushes things to the backburner rather than building her own powerbloc. The elves are in particular the odd men out and both they and Ji suffered in that this was around the right time to bring up the Zandalari history with their races, but it didn't go anywhere. It was not badly done, the character beats were decent, but I don't see it working in the long term without other Horde-exclusive beats and Shadowlands shows that isn't in store. My go-to example is in the meeting with Tyrande where Calia, Thrall and Baine have basically all the same things to say and I think I've already written biblical amounts regarding how Tyrande's grudge with Calia is meant solely to demonize Tyrande in the eyes of the audience and makes no sense, so I won't push it here. To summarize, the strength of it is in the individual characters, not in the dynamic - the dynamic is weak, Rokhan, Thrall and Talanji are good and they are placed in a story that suits them well.

Frankly, I did not enjoy the book for several reasons that would make this post much longer then it is gonna be already. Suffice to say that it felt like written for Horde players, especially those unhappy with being the villains in BFA, with the clear intention of making the Alliance look darker and thus balancing the scales a bit. And with that goal we see Tyrande behaving like a bitch, despite her anger being justified. She attacks Calia who has nothing to do whatsoever with Teldrassil (in fact they should get along well, since they are both victims of the Banshee), Thrall who was hiding on Outland and even some innocent harp player. She is demonized as you say, but I think she is not the only one. Turalyon and Alleria get similar treatment. This is not to say that I dislike their pro-active role, but it does not feel like "pro-active" it feels like "Look, Horde player, they can be evil too!". The worst in this regard is Anduin who seems to go from "peace at all costs" to "yeah sure, torture civilians, all good" just for this book.
Again I like and want him to be more realistic, but it feels like this is exclusively done to appease the other faction, because there is nothing worthwhile in this book for Alliance fans (unless you are a heavy Shaw/Flynn-shipper I guess) all the active parts of the plot are about the Horde's problems and how noble it overcomes them. The Alliance is not even involved in the final battle against Nathanos despite that being absolutely of interest to them too and only returns to the plot to receive the generous gift of Shaw and Sira.

This was a bit of an excourse...

As I've written in other topics, the failure of the current Horde is not just that it has gutted out one part of its appeal entirely, a lot has been spilled on that already. It's the fact that it has no defining characteristics, not even the ones it's WC3 incarnation, which I freely admit was really boring to me, had to itself - it's not tribal, it's not made by previously beaten down races, it's not an underdog in a savage world. It's a powerhouse who's honor doctrine is the same as that of the Alliance and who has just as many civilized races as non-civilized ones, who arguably have as many great magic users race-wise as the Alliance and aren't in conflict with it either. Neither necessity, cultural factors or much else ties them together. It's a faction that has no real reason to exist.

You are correct, but I wonder if this does not make sense actually. Yes, the Horde is not much different from the Alliance anymore, but we could attest that to "Nature vs. Nurture". Maybe the shared living in the constantly war-ravaged world of Azeroth has actually socialized them to be similar on purpose. People tend to evolve through contact with others, be they friend or enemy. This process is by no means complete, but it would explain a lot.

This does not mean I disagree on your point, just saying that it somewhat makes sense that the Horde is not a purely tribal organisation anymore, in fact I always found it weird how "orcish" it was considering how many races are part of it. I mean can you picture Nightborn sitting down to learn orcish?

[LemonDemonGirl]

I can name four: Blackhand, Doomhammer, Thrall, Garrosh.

The only bad Warchiefs were Vol'jin and Sylvanas.

How was Vol'jin bad? Because he didn't do anything?

Vol'Jin spirit could be a cool warchief

Well, considering He's going to become a Loa in SL, he's coming back. It would be very weird having him be a Warchief as a Loa tbh

[tromage2]

How was Vol'jin bad? Because he didn't do anything?

Vol'jin did nothing as Warchief.
And this is in a time after SoO and one of the larges deaths in the Horde faction.

We came back from AU Dreanor and the Horde was the same in ruins and that is why he was killed by a random demon with a small Horde assault group because he did nothing to recover or add new allies to the Horde in the meantime.

[Talon8669]

And here we have an exhibit for all you Hordies as to why you're always villain batted.

I want to be the villain though...so how is this bad.

[javierdsv]

Kind of off topic, how is that I keep seeing threads initiated by banned people, or "today's" posts, made by banned people. How quickly are these people getting infracted? lol

Also, Sylvanas did nothing wrong. Imagine a world without death, her people will finally be able to thrive.

[Melius]

is faction pride still a thing in wow? man im getting old

[Feanoro]

I want to be the villain though...so how is this bad.

The Horde playerbase is divided in three parts:
- "I want to be evil" or WC1-WC2 Horde
- "I want to be good" or WC3 Horde
- "I want to be evil BUT DON'T YOU DARE CALL ME EVIL"

Two of those groups complain when Blizz caters to the evil Horde fans, and often try to blame Alliance players.

[tommyhil622]

The Horde playerbase is divided in three parts:
- "I want to be evil" or WC1-WC2 Horde
- "I want to be good" or WC3 Horde
- "I want to be evil BUT DON'T YOU DARE CALL ME EVIL"

Two of those groups complain when Blizz caters to the evil Horde fans, and often try to blame Alliance players.

I Think you're missing a few groups there lol. Some people don't care about that at all or don't see factions as good or evil and merely neutral etc.