Is it time to scrap the Alliance and Horde?

[Feanoro]

No. The Tauren are Horde through and through.

Based on what? A personal oath from a dead leader to Thrall, who's no longer in charge.

They've been either ignored or used as cannon fodder by the Horde the entirety of WoW, and their beliefs about nature have been repeatedly violated by the Forsaken and goblins. Their leader was imprisoned and threatened by his supposed allies.

There's no real reason for them to be loyal, because the Horde definitely isn't loyal to them.

[qwerty123456]

It was time like 4 expansions ago.

[username993720]

Perhaps that's how the story has devolved into. But there should be a line that they wouldn't want to cross.
"For the Horde" becomes meaningless when it means Tauren are just the collective bitch, lower than goblins.

I agree that Baine kind of ruined their reputation. They need a stronger leader. But, that doesn't mean they should be Kaldorei-aligned. The Horde's core are Orcs, Trolls and Tauren. The others are supplementary.

Based on what? A personal oath from a dead leader to Thrall, who's no longer in charge.

They've been either ignored or used as cannon fodder by the Horde the entirety of WoW, and their beliefs about nature have been repeatedly violated by the Forsaken and goblins. Their leader was imprisoned and threatened by his supposed allies.

There's no real reason for them to be loyal, because the Horde definitely isn't loyal to them.

The Forsaken should leave before Tauren do. The Horde is primarily a tribal faction.

[Biomega]

The Horde is primarily a tribal faction.

Is... or was?

Good chance that Blood Elves + Forsaken + Goblins + Nightborne together now outnumber the actual tribal parts of Orcs, Trolls, and Tauren.

[Loreth88]

Is... or was?

Good chance that Blood Elves + Forsaken + Goblins + Nightborne together now outnumber the actual tribal parts of Orcs, Trolls, and Tauren.

In the case of trolls, the core concept is no longer so prevalent, there are far fewer Darkspear trolls than their Zandalar counterparts. And Zandalar is a kingdom, not a tribe.

[Biomega]

In the case of trolls, the core concept is no longer so prevalent, there are far fewer Darkspear trolls than their Zandalar counterparts. And Zandalar is a kingdom, not a tribe.

Yes of course, I guess those need to be counted with the non-tribals, too.

[Shadowferal]

I agree that Baine kind of ruined their reputation. They need a stronger leader. But, that doesn't mean they should be Kaldorei-aligned. The Horde's core are Orcs, Trolls and Tauren. The others are supplementary.

Currently. My rewrite replaces Tauren with Ogres. (Their history with Colossi, which will be the basis for their belief structure is a wip)

[username993720]

Is... or was?

Good chance that Blood Elves + Forsaken + Goblins + Nightborne together now outnumber the actual tribal parts of Orcs, Trolls, and Tauren.

Yes, but they're not the core of it. Remember, Forsaken and Blood elves started out as neutral to the Horde. The Blood elves almost left it for the Alliance, the Forsaken betrayed them twice and the Goblins will sell their own kin for the right amount of money.

In the case of trolls, the core concept is no longer so prevalent, there are far fewer Darkspear trolls than their Zandalar counterparts. And Zandalar is a kingdom, not a tribe.

With primitive rituals.

[richardhuntr]

I don't think it's time to scrap them, however I do think allowing any race to be any faction could open some interesting opportunities

[Feanoro]

Still haven't gotten a good answer why the Tauren should stay Horde.

[Loreth88]

With primitive rituals.

Yes, but you pointed to the tribal faction, not the primitive rituals. The two are not necessarily related.

- - - Updated - - -

I don't think it's time to scrap them, however I do think allowing any race to be any faction could open some interesting opportunities

Yes, for example, a third faction. Of course, due to game technical reasons, dungeons, Raids, AH can be cross factions. This is what the developers are moving towards.

[username993720]

Yes, but you pointed to the tribal faction, not the primitive rituals. The two are not necessarily related.

You know what i meant. The less civillized faction.

[Shadowferal]

The word "civilized" can be pretty dodgy. Perhaps "refinement" would be better? Compare the stereotypical Sin'dorei with a stereotypical Troll.

[Trumpcat]

The writers and the developers obviously don't know what to do with the factions. Most of them haven't played the original Warcraft games, nor show to have any understanding on what the factions were meant to be or what should be adjusted in terms of gameplay to fix the massive population imbalance. At this point it's better to just drop the idea of faction division and just pool the players together... Which seems to be what they are doing.

[Nymrohd]

The writers and the developers obviously don't know what to do with the factions. Most of them haven't played the original Warcraft games, nor show to have any understanding on what the factions were meant to be or what should be adjusted in terms of gameplay to fix the massive population imbalance. At this point it's better to just drop the idea of faction division and just pool the players together... Which seems to be what they are doing.

Well people who played the original warcraft games would realize that the factions of Warcraft 3 do not exist in WoW because the Kaldorei, Blood Elves and Forsaken were all squeezed into the Alliance and Horde respectively when they used to be their own factions. And much of the tension and problems in the story created at both sides are largely because of that. So it has far less to do with the current writers not knowing the lore and far more to do with the creators of the game making poor decisions about faction composition back at release and in TBC. Ofc the Horde will lose its original identity when they keep stuffing it with races that have nothing in common with the original ones.

If they had to have an Alliance elf, High Elves existed. The three I mention above could all have been their own factions. If Kaldorei had been a faction, they could have had an exclusive druid class (like paladin and shaman should have stayed exclusive to Alliance and Horde) and then tauren culture would not have had to be reshaped from nomadic shaman warriors to flower picking cow people.

[Caiphon]

Still haven't gotten a good answer why the Tauren should stay Horde.

They're original founding members of the current Durotar-based Horde (along with orcs and Darkspear trolls), and were literally saved from extinction by Thrall's New Horde during the events of Reign of Chaos. Not to mention they share the core concept of honour with the orcs (stated by Cairne and Baine multiple times throughout the history of wow). Sylvanas certainly didn't treat them well, but with her out of the picture and Thrall reinstated as the leader of the orcs I don't see the tauren leaving anytime soon.

[Maljinwo]

With primitive rituals.

Imagine calling the Zandalari 'primitive'

[Aresk]

One bad expansion that barely anybody played because most people thought it was trash dosent crush decades worth of RTS and great WoW xpacs that have all cemented the idea that in the Warcraft universe there is horde, and there is alliance. [...]
What makes warcraft, warcraft. Its the alliance, versus the horde.

You claim to be a big WC RTS fan, yet you're harping about a conflict that took center stage in only one of the three RTS games. There was no Alliance in WC1. WC2 was Horde vs Alliance. WC3 had some Horde vs Alliance in the tutorial and then that was dropped to focus on all the other stories, with the orc campaign pointing out (in the two missions where they actually fought) that it was versus the "human expedition" (the game itself doesn't refer to Jaina's survivors as Alliance forces once in that campaign). Furthermore, the Alliance campaign doesn't once deal with the Horde, focusing on rebel orc offshoots in the two missions where orcs make any appearance.

Now if you were to say orcs vs humans was a cornerstone of the RTS, I'd agree with you (even if the main orc vs human story in WC3 was tacked on to the end of the expansion). But while I think it works in an RTS perspective, where the player takes on some pre-selected commander persona or is completely absent from the narrative, it doesn't work as well in an MMO where we're playing the individual characters with their own goals and ambitions that have more frequently diverged from said factions (e.g. Covenants and Order Halls, though even Tirion's tournament or Vol'jin's anti-Zandalari assault attempted to pull characters away from faction conflict to deal with other threats). And that ongoing orc vs human conflict feels even further removed when the player base is largely not even of those races (the last census data that I could find put human/orc at about 20% of the character population). While I agree that keeping some of that old RTS flavor is good, Warcraft has only briefly been strictly an Alliance vs Horde situation, and we need not bind our characters to such institutions when exploring the game's mechanics or narrative arcs. After all, you're the one who claimed that the last expansion heavily tied to the faction identities was considered "trash" by most people.

[username993720]

Imagine calling the Zandalari 'primitive'

I'm sorry, blowing dust to summon a voodoo death entity is not exactly the definition of an advanced civilization.

[Maljinwo]

I'm sorry, blowing dust to summon a voodoo death entity is not exactly the definition of an advanced civilization.

In a world where the entity is real?

I wouldn't call that primitive, it's just using magic