9.0 General Discussion

[LemonDemonGirl]

This is because Rezan put his power into Voljin, he was the "hand of valor" mentioned in BFA questing that sent him back to Azeroth. They are likely treating his death or sacrifice as permanent.

Watch Vol'jin come back as a T-Rex.

Maybe he'll look like a bit of both, or he'll just become the Ultimate Being and grow wings lol

That was a joke don't hurt me

[Aeluron Lightsong]

I can see Blizzard doing a future event where there's a bit of a falling out with Jaina and Calia(As in I see it happening not that its smart or even a good decision). There really isn't a easy way to honor Alliance's origins with Lordaeron and still make the Forsaken Horde satisfied to. Not in a world like Warcraft, coexistance is temporary so them living together as nice as that is.. think Blizzard are too easily tempted to break that for "OOH FACTION TENSION AND WAR."



TLDR: I have no easy answer and I don't think there is one. Forsaken being playable is what makes it difficult(DEspite the fact it was a no brainer when wow launched).

[EbaumsTipster]

I can see Blizzard doing a future event where there's a bit of a falling out with Jaina and Calia(As in I see it happening not that its smart or even a good decision). There really isn't a easy way to honor Alliance's origins with Lordaeron and still make the Forsaken Horde satisfied to. Not in a world like Warcraft, coexistance is temporary so them living together as nice as that is.. think Blizzard are too easily tempted to break that for "OOH FACTION TENSION AND WAR."



TLDR: I have no easy answer and I don't think there is one. Forsaken being playable is what makes it difficult(DEspite the fact it was a no brainer when wow launched).

They just won't unless Stratholme/the new Forsaken area is open to Alliance as well, which it may very well be due to the possibility of cross-faction questing/neutral territories opening up.

There is no way to give Alliance Lordaeron without it being a spit in the face of Horde players, UNLESS they just make a fancy new Lordaeron territory that both sides can enjoy (see: Cata Western Plaguelands)

[FlubberPuddy]

Except this is only because of the idea that being Horde means you're Anti-Alliance, which Blizzard seems to be stomping to the ground and forcing into players faces "nope, deal with it" through BFA. I think most of the "nooo dont worry she's not Horde!!! don't worry!!" is mostly meant to defuse angry players that are mad about Calia's connections to the Alliance that she mostly just has through relationships and oldddd politics: the fans see Lordaeron = Alliance when it really has never been that way in World of Warcraft, so Blizzard has to basically deceive players so they don't think that Sylvanas is getting replaced with what they see as an Alliance plant.

TL;DR: Calia is not Alliance or Anti-Alliance by leading the Forsaken, but because players see it that way regardless Blizzard is playing it very carefully. They have absolutely set her up as a Replacement Sylvanas down to her being an unusual form of undead with a "hot undead" boyfriend.

You're right it doesn't have to mean Calia is Anti-Alliance but like you said this is how Blizzard is currently portraying it. So it's not the players' fault for thinking in that way.

To be in a world where Calia being Forsaken Queen doesn't also means she's Anti-Alliance means that Horde and Alliance aren't strict opposing forces anymore either.

As long as Horde v Alliance continues to be shored up by Blizzard as "these two factions will eternally battle with no friendship in between" then leaders of a particular race will back whichever faction that race is tied to.

Ergo, in the current state of faction affairs Blizzard wanted to egg on during BFA, Calia leading Forsaken does mean she's Anti-Alliance.

Since they have side-lined the faction story for the time being with Shadowlands, they have given themselves time to (if they wish) place the seeds for less dichotomy between the Horde and Alliance.

We'll have to wait at least 2 years to see where they're going with it though, or if they delay it again by another unrelated faction expansion (Light v Void for example). In which case they get even more time to leave the factional loose ends BFA ended on.

[EbaumsTipster]

Ergo, in the current state of faction affairs Blizzard wanted to egg on during BFA, Calia leading Forsaken does mean she's Anti-Alliance.

Since they have side-lined the faction story for the time being with Shadowlands, they have given themselves time to (if they wish) place the seeds for less dichotomy between the Horde and Alliance.

But they have axed the Alliance vs Horde story as abruptly as 8.3, where many Alliance/Horde characters are hanging out. There are no skirmishes. The only NPCs that talk about continuing to fight anything Horde are Night Elves, and they specifically say its about Sylvanas and Nathanos vs Tyrande.

Tyrande is the ONLY faction leader on either side still pissed and unsatisfied about the war. Not even Genn. Not even Talanji!! (in the game at least, we'll see about the book)

Calia leading the Forsaken now is not Anti-Alliance. It's just the fans who feel this way because they do not agree with the abrupt ending to the war and still want AvH outside of War Mode, when it's looking like that may never ever happen again (especially when there's stuff seeded like the Ashenvale questing turning into everyone vs Botani instead of Nelf vs Horde).

Also the Alliance players who still think Lordaeron = Alliance when Blizzard clearly doesn't care anymore.

[FlubberPuddy]

They just won't unless Stratholme/the new Forsaken area is open to Alliance as well, which it may very well be due to the possibility of cross-faction questing/neutral territories opening up.

There is no way to give Alliance Lordaeron without it being a spit in the face of Horde players, UNLESS they just make a fancy new Lordaeron territory that both sides can enjoy (see: Cata Western Plaguelands)

True, at which point cross-faction grouping will also likely happen.

There's no way they make a town where Human and Forsaken are cool with each other while also keeping the current dichotomy of Horde and Alliance.

Inb4 people state "but cities like Dalaran!" uh yeah those cities existed with clearly drawn lines of where one faction stayed and where one faction couldn't go, those were also times where a world-ending threat didn't give a shit about who was on who faction.

Very different from seeing Humans and Forsaken co-habitation occurs.

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But they have axed the Alliance vs Horde story as abruptly as 8.3, where many Alliance/Horde characters are hanging out. There are no skirmishes. The only NPCs that talk about continuing to fight anything Horde are Night Elves, and they specifically say its about Sylvanas and Tyrande.

Tyrande is the ONLY faction leader still pissed and unsatisfied about the war. Not even Genn.

Calia leading the Forsaken now is not Anti-Alliance. It's just the fans who feel this way because they do not agree with the abrupt ending to the war and still want AvH outside of War Mode, when it's looking like that may never ever happen again (especially when there's stuff seeded like the Ashenvale questing turning into everyone vs Botani instead of Nelf vs Horde).

I want what you're saying to be true but it's not. There are Human Alliance NPCs in Boralus that speak of wondering how long it'll be till the next war essentially or something to that effect, not just the Night Elves.

Blizzard themselves said at Blizzcon the Horde and Alliance are uh some kind of uneasy treaty or something like that. I can't remember off the top of my head. But they stated they're back to how it was in wrath where some small skirmishes will still happen.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

I want what you're saying to be true but it's not. There are Human Alliance NPCs in Boralus that speak of wondering how long it'll be till the next war essentially or something to that effect, not just the Night Elves.

Which to me always showed that Blizzard is self aware of the vicious circle AvH is. I still think sometime after BFA was learned about they had second thoughts on their end to the faction war.

[EbaumsTipster]

I want what you're saying to be true but it's not. There are Human Alliance NPCs in Boralus that speak of wondering how long it'll be till the next war essentially or something to that effect, not just the Night Elves.

Because it's bad writing to have every character go through with the "oh cool no more war ever" ideology. NPCs should be embittered or cynical.

But when they spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on BREAK THE CYCLE and the war was literally based around an evil manipulative villain, they are smacking you over the head with "IT'S DONE". Fans have every right to be cynical and not expect this to be followed through on, but literally everything besides said cynical NPCs and Tyrande point to the AvH war being done. Probably forever outside of Warmode.

BFA was a last ditch attempt to milk faction war stuff. Blizz now sees the "war" as the Alliance Horde faction split, not so much there being an actual war. Cooperation is likely, as is no more war questing outside of maybe the occasional skirmish.

[Sondrelk]

What could in theory work is have Calia be the leader of a separate Forsaken who is not directly tied to the Horde players.
The easiest way would be to have her be Queen of Lordaeron, and therehore ruling over both Lordaeron aligned Undead as well as Humans. Then you have someone like Voss be the leader of the Horde Forsaken. This allows Blizzard to effectively make much of the Forsaken Alliance aligned, or at least Neutral, while at the same time having Horde aligned Forsaken who hate the Alliance without too much friction. Afterall, it isnt like we have not had Forsaken who distance themselves from the Horde and join other groups.

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Because it's bad writing to have every character go through with the "oh cool no more war ever" ideology. NPCs should be embittered or cynical.

But when they spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on BREAK THE CYCLE and the war was literally based around an evil manipulative villain, they are smacking you over the head with "IT'S DONE". Fans have every right to be cynical and not expect this to be followed through on, but literally everything besides said cynical NPCs and Tyrande point to the AvH war being done. Probably forever outside of Warmode.

BFA was a last ditch attempt to milk faction war stuff. Blizz now sees the "war" as the Alliance Horde faction split, not so much there being an actual war. Cooperation is likely, as is no more war questing outside of maybe the occasional skirmish.

I think the Tyrande scenes with Shandris after Ny'alotha are the best example of this.
We as the players are, at least i owuld guess, supposed to think Tyrande is being unreasonable. But she is making a perfectly valid point in that the Horde has not actually changed, meaning that nothing is stopping them from getting another genocidal maniac at the helm and attacking again, and unless the Alliance takes a firm stance when they have the chance then they are implicitly okay with the Horde doing it.

[FlubberPuddy]

Which to me always showed that Blizzard is self aware of the vicious circle AvH is. I still think sometime after BFA was learned about they had second thoughts on their end to the faction war.

They clearly changed their tune from the recent Blizzcon, they kept trying to reinforce 'yeah Horde and Alliance this is war wooooo!' but having that person ask about cross-faction and denied made the community get more into an uproar about the cycle of AvH and how tiresome it is.

This change in tune is shown when Patrick Dawson gets asked about it again in an interview after Blizzcon and how they know that Breaking the Cycle cinematic was a really powerful story moment that didn't get its payoff. Then also admitted they have tested internally of cross-faction gameplay happening.

The thing is at this point there's likely far more players that want cross-faction and are tired of the excuses drummed up to continue the cycle of HvA, which is why we're hearing inklings of cross-faction coming up at Blizzcon or WoW Devs mentioning internally testing it.

And their reasons of 'but I still like to kill Alliance as Horde' are frankly weak. In a game where War Mode exists, faction v faction continues to exist.

[EbaumsTipster]

I think the Tyrande scenes with Shandris after Ny'alotha are the best example of this.
We as the players are, at least i owuld guess, supposed to think Tyrande is being unreasonable. But she is making a perfectly valid point in that the Horde has not actually changed, meaning that nothing is stopping them from getting another genocidal maniac at the helm and attacking again, and unless the Alliance takes a firm stance when they have the chance then they are implicitly okay with the Horde doing it.

I don't think the implication is that she is being unreasonable. Honestly I think they know that a large chunk of players are going to be in agreeance with the idea that ending the war like that is stupid or unsatisfying: that's why she's being set up as one of the main protagonists of Shadowlands, and it makes her a more compelling character when a lot of people simply didn't like her/found her annoying prior.

However it also shows that the mass majority of NPCs are just going through with the peace. So it's kind of signalling to the players that they shouldn't expect anything crazy after this outside of maybe Tyrande acting out (but now from what we can see it seems she's going to be an angry and violent hero, but a hero all the same).

[FlubberPuddy]

Because it's bad writing to have every character go through with the "oh cool no more war ever" ideology. NPCs should be embittered or cynical.

But when they spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on BREAK THE CYCLE and the war was literally based around an evil manipulative villain, they are smacking you over the head with "IT'S DONE". Fans have every right to be cynical and not expect this to be followed through on, but literally everything besides said cynical NPCs and Tyrande point to the AvH war being done. Probably forever outside of Warmode.

BFA was a last ditch attempt to milk faction war stuff. Blizz now sees the "war" as the Alliance Horde faction split, not so much there being an actual war. Cooperation is likely, as is no more war questing outside of maybe the occasional skirmish.

I hope so, because Blizzard has admitted that BREAK THE CYCLE didn't get its payoff yet, but did admit it was a powerful story moment.

As I said the current expansion affords them time on how they want to deal with it going forward, so players will just have to wait and see how it develops.

I would be happy if what you're saying is true, since its ekes ever closer to cross-faction gameplay.

[EbaumsTipster]

They clearly changed their tune from the recent Blizzcon, they kept trying to reinforce 'yeah Horde and Alliance this is war wooooo!' but having that person ask about cross-faction and denied made the community get more into an uproar about the cycle of AvH and how tiresome it is.

As you mention, they seemed to be confused about what the players meant by cross-faction. From the "Horde and Alliance" comments they seemed to think that people were asking for factions to go away (people DO ask this but that wasn't the question) and were saying that no, the factions aren't going away. I personally don't think the factions will EVER go away.

From their later interview comments they then realized people were just asking to group cross-faction. They were much more understandable to that and said they were testing it out.

I firmly believe factions are never going away and that races will always be faction locked to keep their aesthetics and communities looking and feeling different. But I also believe that we are eventually getting cross-faction grouping and communication based on what Blizzard has said.
I honestly think there is no lore reason why there isn't cross-faction in Shadowlands. They just didn't have time to implement the feature, or they want to put it in 10.0 as part of it being a huge "shake-up" expansion features wise.

[FlubberPuddy]

What could in theory work is have Calia be the leader of a separate Forsaken who is not directly tied to the Horde players.
The easiest way would be to have her be Queen of Lordaeron, and therehore ruling over both Lordaeron aligned Undead as well as Humans. Then you have someone like Voss be the leader of the Horde Forsaken. This allows Blizzard to effectively make much of the Forsaken Alliance aligned, or at least Neutral, while at the same time having Horde aligned Forsaken who hate the Alliance without too much friction. Afterall, it isnt like we have not had Forsaken who distance themselves from the Horde and join other groups.

Yes, and at that point there would not be a hard-line anymore between the identities of Horde and Alliance. It opens up to further other races co-mingling as well.

It actually would emulate real world groupings too. But it makes too much sense and we as players all know if something makes too much sense it won't happen. /s

[Sondrelk]

I don't think the implication is that she is being unreasonable. Honestly I think they know that a large chunk of players are going to be in agreeance with the idea that ending the war like that is stupid or unsatisfying: that's why she's being set up as one of the main protagonists of Shadowlands, and it makes her a more compelling character when a lot of people simply didn't like her/found her annoying prior.

However it also shows that the mass majority of NPCs are just going through with the peace. So it's kind of signalling to the players that they shouldn't expect anything crazy after this outside of maybe Tyrande acting out (but now from what we can see it seems she's going to be an angry and violent hero, but a hero all the same).

The implication leans very heavily into us seeing her as unreasonable, from Shandris saying she is and that she is acting out, as well as Tyrandes story in Shadowlands seemingly being about letting go of her hatred, which is fine as a plot point for Night Elf redemption, but not really when you simultaneously pain everything she did as acting out and too extreme.

Of course, probably shouldnt judge too much before the expansion comes out and all the dialogue changes have happened. Though this being Blizzard and Nelves i don't have much hope.

[EbaumsTipster]

The implication leans very heavily into us seeing her as unreasonable, from Shandris saying she is and that she is acting out, as well as Tyrandes story in Shadowlands seemingly being about letting go of her hatred, which is fine as a plot point for Night Elf redemption, but not really when you simultaneously pain everything she did as acting out and too extreme.

Of course, probably shouldnt judge too much before the expansion comes out and all the dialogue changes have happened. Though this being Blizzard and Nelves i don't have much hope.

I haven't seen anything that implies this. Just that the power is dangerous and has greater implications for cosmology, not that she should be okay with it and chill out.

Understanding that it was mostly (albeit not all) Sylvanas that was responsible for murdering her people I could understand, but "letting go" doesn't seem to be in the cards at at all.

[Cosmic Janitor]

They had the beginnings of some interesting interplay between the nobility and the commons back with the original Westfall story where the commoners who rebuilt Stormwind didn't get paid and took to the hills in revolt, but it's hard to treat that kind of intra-faction (and intra-race) warfare with the detailed attention it might otherwise receive in a world beset with orcs, dragons and undead. They even had a kind of rois faineants situation with Anduin Wrynn versus Katrana Prestor, and played it out fairly interestingly.

The intra-faction story lines are underused in my opinion. There is plenty of stuff that you could do, even in regards to high level content, that relates to political intrigue. I think the last time they actually had a plotline like that though was in cata. It always seemed a bit of a waste to mention things like nobility and advisers urging Anduin to look for a wife but never actually doing anything with this. There could be questlines about convincing/bribing those people to give it a rest or others that try to dethrone him because of that and elect in a new royal bloodline. These types of stories, even in the looney-toon level fantasy of WoW, could serve as a means to do some world building and show the sides of factions. I guess you are right though, much like everything these days is about saving the world and helping some farmer in goldshire is out of our scope, finely crafted character drama is probably as well. Though I don't think it's the fantasy angle that is the issue here, fantasy universes like the witcher's or even (sometimes) the elder scrolls' manage to pull this off.

[FlubberPuddy]

As you mention, they seemed to be confused about what the players meant by cross-faction. From the "Horde and Alliance" comments they seemed to think that people were asking for factions to go away (people DO ask this but that wasn't the question) and were saying that no, the factions aren't going away. I personally don't think the factions will EVER go away.

From their later interview comments they then realized people were just asking to group cross-faction. They were much more understandable to that and said they were testing it out.

I firmly believe factions are never going away and that races will always be faction locked to keep their aesthetics and communities looking and feeling different. But I also believe that we are eventually getting cross-faction grouping and communication based on what Blizzard has said.

I honestly think there is no lore reason why there isn't cross-faction in Shadowlands. They just didn't have time to implement the feature, or they want to put it in 10.0 as part of it being a huge "shake-up" expansion features wise.

Yeah I think so too. Blizzard does that a lot, misunderstands what's being asked. I agree I don't think factions will ever go away, but cross-faction grouping and communication will eventually happen.

I think it was they didn't have time to implement it. As we've seen recently there's game systems they implement without telling us a peep about it until it's finished (party-sync, 3d quest tracker, map pinning, etc) and that we know they've done some testing on it means there's probably more iterations to go through.

Also yeah a feature like that is likely to go with an expansion release rather than be picked up during a X.X patch.

[Sondrelk]

Yes, and at that point there would not be a hard-line anymore between the identities of Horde and Alliance. It opens up to further other races co-mingling as well.

It actually would emulate real world groupings too. But it makes too much sense and we as players all know if something makes too much sense it won't happen. /s

Blizzard has kinda written themselves into a corner here though. Calia is on a colission course onto becoming the Queen of Lordaeron, and therefore by proxy the leader of the Forsaken who still considers themselves Undead Humans of Lordaeron. The only possible way out would either be for her to be stuffed into a fridge or for her to become the leader of a separate faction that is neither Horde nor Alliance aligned.
From the standpoint of the Forsaken there isnt many other places the story can go anyways, in the absence of the Forsaken being the Cult of Sylvanas they have to make the choice of whether they are Undead Humans or something else entirely, and while i imagine that the Horde aligned Forsaken would consider themselves something new there is no getting around the fact that there are loads of Forsaken who wish to meet their families again.
Unless of course Blizzard wants to say that Sylvanas has all of them killed, which wouldnt both be kinda weak, but also jeopardize the Forsaken storyline if they distance themselves from the Alliance Humans, as that would implicitly make her correct in killing her own citizens.

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I haven't seen anything that implies this. Just that the power is dangerous and has greater implications for cosmology, not that she should be okay with it and chill out.

Understanding that it was mostly (albeit not all) Sylvanas that was responsible for murdering her people I could understand, but "letting go" doesn't seem to be in the cards at at all.

Maybe not exactly that, but given the way the Night Warrior is supposed to be an avatar of vengeance, saying that Tyrande is letting that part go would coincide with her letting go of her hatred.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

The thing with Nelves is, they sorta need to acknowledge their anger over their lost home but not let them completely taint them and make them all Night warriors but just purple. Sorta a problem with the Forsaken to, most Forsaken you see are all about Sylvanas. Some players(that I've seen) what something "cathartic." I think you have to achieve that without sending a message that revenge and spite is a good thing(It isn't at all).