No, the horde and alliance did not stop the legion. The whole idea was that they both fail to do exactly that, so class halls emerged to stand against the legion.
What you pointed out is not the premise of the story at all. The premise is the main idea behind the story, not the plot, not the synopsis, nor the introduction.
Sylvanas and the tree is the plot, not the premise. Saying it is, is like saying elementals attacking Stormwind is the premise of Cataclysm, or Garrosh bombing Theramore is the premise of MoP.
Also, as nonsensical as the burning was, the actual reasoning behind the war is given in the short stories "A good war" and "Elegy" which actually makes sense.
Only way is allowing players to play together from both factions. They should leave factions as they are now and only expand DF tool and random queues for both factions. Keeping players base splited making only complications.
I completely checked out in MoP - well, AFTER MoP - I actually quite liked the MoP story, for the most part, although I know a lot of people hated it at the time because it was too "cutesy". Personally, that never bothered me - I just sort of ignored that stuff TBH.
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I think there is potential for this - Factions still exist, but there is an "uneasy truce" between the factions allowing them to fight together against the greater evil.
PvP remains unchanged, Warmode has two different zone types, with one being free for all, a true warzone, where anyone not in your party can be attacked if you have warmode enabled. This would need some tweeking and tinkering, but shouldnt be too dramatic at all. From a lore perspective, Battlegrounds are renamed Training Grounds, and are used for exactly that purpose.
I would absolutely love to bring opposing faction players to my raids, It creates more diversity and anything that lets or encourages more people to play together is a good thing, imo.
Are these books outside the game? If so, I cannot fathom why Blizzard does this. I'm left confused and disappointed because half the story seems to be written in books or short stories you have to buy in addition to the box game and subscription in order to understand why things are happening at all.
Ah so basically the writers give the unchecked alliance aggression a pass. Gotcha.
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Its funny because alliance war crimes never really get touched. I mean we all forget that camp taurajo happened. I'm also not surprised that you don't recall.
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anyway excuses as usual so its whatever
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it doesn't, actually. you just get salty alliance players.
Classic - Alliance has the most polished narrative and quest design. The stories of Onyxia, Ragnaros, AQ, and Naxx revolve around Alliance races and Alliance centric narratives. Horde is along for the ride.
TBC - The main established villain is an Alliance one. Fair amount of focus on "Horde" Blood Elves.
WotLK - Lore, events, developments heavily Alliance centric. Arthas, Bolvar, Tirion leading Tournament, Brann coordinating Ulduar. Undead get a moment in the quest campaign and are subsequently slapped down. Thrall, Sylvanas, Garrosh are all tertiary and disposable to the overall events of the plot.
Cata - Thrall. Besides that, fairly even balance. Either zones are neutral or revolve around conflict, for example Twilight Highlands is Wildhammer focused for Alliance, Dragonmaw focused for Horde.
MoP - Balanced narrative with a Horde centric antagonist.
WoD - Orcs.
Legion - Insanely, heavily Alliance. 3 of the 5 zones are historically Night Elf / Highborne. The big driving characters: Illidan, Khadgar, Velen, all Alliance. The lore of the raids, the Tomb, Argus... whether it's Night Elf, Highborne, Draenei, or Titan (which in turn extends to Human, Dwarf, Gnome) all becomes Alliance validating narratives and resolutions. Like WotLK, you have Sylvanas / Undead doing one weird, potentially treacherous thing and then ghosting the rest of the xpac.
BfA - Actually pretty great how each side got their own campaign, but now that I said something positive about BfA everyone stopped reading. That said, Alliance won all the fights on the lore front. Azshara is a historical Night Elf figure and the last patch's efforts were introduced by Anduin, Magni, etc.
I'm not sure that the actual game validates you claim that everything going on is Horde centric. Horde is actually where I play to experience a sense of individuality in the absence of an overarching, driven narrative.
Nope. Big fat lie! ( on the it being just social issue part)
Why? It started out as a racial imblance. Lets be real clear, the troll and orc if memory serves right where the OP racials.
In time it became a pure money/raider numbers. To many raiders/top raiders/high end raiders etc moved towards the horde. Not just because of the OP racials. But also because that was the competetive races to pick. Getting a mini beserk was/is very handy.
Problem is, even with good racials on alliance side. People will not change. A player/hero is more then just 1 hero/raider. People have alts that are a small social network. Raiding alts, alts that supply gold/mats/farming/proffesions etc to support your main etc etc. And high end raiders last time i checked ( might be wrong) have several alts.
When i raided HC/mythic i always had atleast 1 if not more alts raiding ready.
I do agree in my eyes ( i know not everyone agrees do not start a qoute war please) that the game is more horde focussed. No that does not mean the hord always wins etc. But more that most of the story, cool moments etc are centered around the horde.
But a solution, yeah there is non i think. They listened to late. We have been saying this as alliance for a LONG time now. If like MoP or even Cataclysm they fixxed the damm racials it maybe would have become a bit more normal. But right now. Nope i do not think there is 1 chance to fix it.
Why? because they do not even get the problem ( if they think its just a social).
Even if they balance racials, it would not motivate people to high end raid on alliance side. They need more to draw people to the alliance. Story focus, better racials etc.
So nope. think its pointless.
Right now the horde has more story, better racials, hero's that are cool/narative cool and not just a bunch of emo's . The races they have a warriors etc. Alliance has a lot of joke races. Emo elves, zealot dreanei etc.
Think they best discription of the problem how weak/poorly tought of the alliance is would be kul tirans:
- Less classes then you think they could/should have. Even more if you put it against there horde counter.
- druid forms are taste i get that. But kul tiran druid forms are badly desgined. They have a nice head, body is bland and legs a see through. desgin standpoint they are weak. Kul tiras/gilneas ( where they come from) have many cool witch like animals. Wolfs, raves, hell nautical they could have gone with crap form etc. But nope standard forms vs new dino's for zandalari. Yes i know moonkin is ugly, and its just looks. But that also counts.
- fat. No they are not bulky etc. the own male dance for kul tirans is the fatty dance. And nope fat hero's are not a problem. But acting like they are not is!
- racials!!!
haymaker: a 2,5 min knockback that takes time to cast and damages. But does not work on many things. and 2,5 min cd. Most classes have dps CD that are around that time. needs a shorter cd
brush it off +1% versa and heal for 2% for 4 seconds of damage taken....that procs when ever it wants. Have killed bosses as tank and it proct on the last hit. very random at best. If it was a active skill it would work.
jack of all trades +5 on all proffesions...woot....freaking pointless. it takes just a bit more mats. to small of a increase.
sea thingy hold your breath longer and swim faster....in all the water content we have. oohhh wait we fly over stuff or use water walking. again pointless skill.
and a damage reduction for nature/frost damage
only win is their beards :S
This is what is wrong with the alliance. bad to no story, saving 1 member from the horde. Just to let it join the horde :S. No racials to speak off, bad design etc.
Only way to fix it. Find a way to motivate more top guilds to split to horde and alliance. and more equal story time. And balance the god damm racials.
I like how you conveniently ignored Velf, which is a shameless 1:1 copy of belves, because PeOPle WaNTed It whilst nightborne are a horrid abberation of a rig, that mechagnomes have probably the most busted racials in a cheat death AND stacking main stat which noone have anything close to.
Not to mention human/nelf which have the best utility racials for pvp/pve by a significant margin. All horde has for pvp are orc. Meld is extremely strong. EMFH is still very strong in spite of nerfs.
anyway, I'm not surprised you think that way because most alliance posters on this forum are oblivious to the facts that exist in the game
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I'd argue that WoD isn't even horde centric, as there was just as much draenei as orc in draenor. You had orc antagonists, but no real association with the horde past that. Also; Khadgar
Classic: yeah
TBC: nope, illidan was never alliance. Yes he is a member of a race. But that was before there even where humans. And you must have missed the blood elves and orcs we fought and saw everywhere ( and some alliance broken members)
Cata: agree
MoP: BS. It started out balanced. But quickly become Garrosh this, Garrosh that. Vol'jin this. had a troll rebellion patch and a god damm raid in the horde capitol.
WoD: they wanted it to be balanced. but it was orc orc orc.
Legion: euhhhh did you even play legion. val shara was night elf...AND druid zone. Horde has druids. Aszuna yes was alliance. Valheim was neutral. High mountain was horde ( and allied race), and the biggest content of the whole expansion was around a futured horde allied race!! Argus was less content then suramar. Big driving characters....you forget the new lich queen sylvanas, or a certain orc named gul dan? or all those nightborn....
BFAeuuuhhh Horde burned 3 zones a lot of pre quest around it. We fight a battleground there. No real answer how it ended ingame. Like a cinametic etc. Horde city raid vs alliance city dungeon. Raid drops a HORDE themed mount from a alliance boss :S:S. Story about evil sylvanas and brave baine. Ohhh and anduin was somewhere around 2. and Jaina was missing. yes lorderaon was sacked. All the horde story's about saurfang, and the quest. Where you got to pick sides etc. Things we did not even see.
Only pro alliance thing bee mount and i must say mechagone was epic. only win for us. raids in BFA where in Horde zone, horde city, ( 2boss) allaince raid and 2 neutral raids. So a heavy win for horde again.
And if you count Azshara as night elf....holy crap. then we can count all night elf story's as troll. Since they where once trolls.
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Nope i am not. I did say emo elf right? And yes they are. And yes they look nice. For blue smurfs. And nope, we wanted high elves. Not a race of void addicts from a race of former fell addicts.
And i agree nightborne are also piss poor.
And yes mechagnomes have a very strong racial. https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comment..._2020_edition/
most other sources put them behind on them 2. And if they where so OP they would be played by a lot of raiders and pvp players.
And yes , if pvp was played SOOOOO much. but its not. On top of that, because of the broken pve racials most of the best players went horde. So less pvp players to fight with against the horde.
So about facts.
Numbers show horde is more favorite,
1 or 2 racials does not draw/eqaul a lot of broken ones. On top of that, if alliance racials are so OP. The top raiders would change to alliance for it.
And other fact:
WoD is horde centric. Orc raid, Orc raid and Orc raid. Most of the questing and story and mid to late game progression was all around ...ORCS. Also: Garrosh, Thrall, Guldan, Iron HORDE. we got a NEUTRAL khadgar and a alliance crazy dreanei women.
I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you on some of those as it's a matter of perspective, but some of your pendulum swings still don't validate the idea that the game is "Horde centric" as OP says. Like I said, I personally main Horde to escape from the overarching narrative and enjoy some more grounded experiences, so if "a lot that you do doesn't really matter" qualifies it as being "centric", then I guess I am wrong.
I don't buy the Azshara is as much related to Night Elves as Night Elves are to Trolls. We have no stories of Night Elves being connected to or embracing those roots, or transitional characters that elaborate on the cultural shift. A majority of who we know Azshara to be, her characterization and motivations are defined by her existence as Queen Azshara of the Night Elves, and she lies at the center of world defining events as such. After she became Naga, her story was one thing - servant of Old Gods making trouble for mortals until we saw her again in BfA. Even in her zone Nazjatar they made a whole section that revolved around historical Night Elf lore.
That said, I'm not sure that I can agree with you that Alliance showing up and owning Horde cities necessarily qualifies as Horde-centric content. I feel for something that revolves around victories and succeeding at warfare, it's actually the opposite.
I don't know about the rest of you, but for me, my choice to play one faction over another has been completely arbitrary and has depended on which friend I join back up with whenever I get back into the game after a hiatus.