What are the best ways to make the Alliance more popular and interesting?

[Loreth88]

Remove all racial traits. They have to do that after Vanilla really, but maybe not to late.

[Zuben]

Update Ironforge to today's standards and make it the Alliance capital once more. Anduin needs a break and so do the humans in general (except for the Lordaeron campaign, that one would logically be driven mostly by humans).

[Romanthony]

Give them some story, and some conflict, I mean the only Character Development as a whole they had was when Varian died. the faction is to perfect, and un touchable.

Like I expected some Conflict, because Varian was chosen to be High King, Anduin was not, there should of been conflict here, with him winning people over to be elected.

I always said it would of been better of Genn was behind the burning of the tree, so blinded by his rage for Slyvannas, he would fake all this to push Anduin into war

[Makabreska]

Careful with making Alliance "interesting", because I so much more prefer "bland Alliance" than the shitshow, genocidal and raid boss spawning Horde we had for the past 10 years.

- - - Updated - - -

Update Ironforge to today's standards and make it the Alliance capital once more. Anduin needs a break and so do the humans in general (except for the Lordaeron campaign, that one would logically be driven mostly by humans).

I could see him going on a break after what he went through in SL.

[Syegfryed]

It has been a parody of nonsense actualy,im not against faction conflict,but it was simply writen poorly,i get its not easy in an mmo,heck even in star wars you have sith and jedi working against common enemies

faction conflict was fine until bfa

[deenman]

faction conflict was fine until bfa

Objectivly wrong,it was nonsensical from day 1 vanila,and made only worse over time

[VladlTutushkin]

faction conflict was fine until bfa

It became bullshit when they raised the stakes to burning cities and one sided genocides. You cant do that in two faction game and expect either faction to be happy with it. They should have kept shit limited to what was essentially battlegrounds like Warsong and etc.

[Syegfryed]

Objectivly wrong,it was nonsensical from day 1 vanila,and made only worse over time

"objectively wrong since vanilla"

its your point ehre just to say nonsenses all together? of course wow lore isn't a masterpiece but saying it never make sense is just straight up ignoring the lore

[omeomorfismo]

It became bullshit when they raised the stakes to burning cities and one sided genocides. You cant do that in two faction game and expect either faction to be happy with it. They should have kept shit limited to what was essentially battlegrounds like Warsong and etc.

or you know, start to do 2 sides genocides? so making WARcraft a game about war

[Ogren]

faction conflict was fine until bfa

Eh, I'd actually agree it was a little bit better but at the same time it was still a huge letdown of missed potential and really questionable story decisions that I still have some odd nostalgia remembering.

Really BfA is just the exact same story as MoP but not as impressive because, well, the same story was done all over again.

Although at least with BfA they did have the Night Elves immediately respond after the destruction of Teldrassil, it still had all the impact of a whimpering fart but it was more than what Worgen got when they experienced the same absolute destruction of their homeland and disintegration into a refugee race that was never followed up until Legion.

[Soon-TM]

Blizzard really seems to push the idea that you can only ever be a psychotic warmonger or a peacenik doormat in this setting.

/thread

It's annoying to all hell to see the writers claiming that Azeroth is a Morally Grey™ world, whereas the only possible conflict is between the Satan du jour and the flawless, often Sue-ish hero(s).

So I doubt they'll have the patience to actually flesh out Alliance characters and races, unless they decide to villain bat a couple of them in turn and have, say, Turalyon become a 40K Inquisitor overnight or something.

That is correct. They won't spend even a single second trying to villainise Alliance characters. Why should they, anyway? The Horde is always there to provide an easy bad guy (or girl, as the case may be), and the best part is that you don't even need to develop him/her. Just drop a couple of heavy handed retcons, and presto.

[Aucald]

/thread

It's annoying to all hell to see the writers claiming that Azeroth is a Morally Grey™ world, whereas the only possible conflict is between the Satan du jour and the flawless, often Sue-ish hero(s).

The "morally gray" thing is actually one of the main disconnects between the developers and the audience because the Warcraft universe has never really been morally gray. The milieu of the game's setting has always been one of high fantasy good vs. evil - it's not intricate or meticulous in its various plots, and it leverages tropes and narrative devices the same way a toddler would those wooden alphabet blocks. And all in all that's fine, really; until you try to stage a story that's really beyond the setting's means to meaningfully contain, as it were. WoW does its best work when it's heroes vs. an outside evil - evil like the Legion, or the Old Gods, or the Void. When it tries to get gray and tell a story full of moral ambiguity or relativity, it inevitably gets caught up in its own continuity, like tripping on your own coattails.

[Raven]

Sadly only way to get people to switch is making Alliance a much stronger option, people wont care if they have a better story or more interresting story, in todays Wow all that matter is what is strongest.

Class and Race A has 10 times better story.

Class and Race B sim 2 % more dps.

We all know which one most people would pick.

[Aresk]

Dialing back humans to focus on other races or injecting more division between the human factions would be nice. They have Gilneans, Kul Tirans, and Stormwindians as distinct races but essentially trending toward the same identity. The dwarves have been relegated to a joke race (injected with an overabundance of humor), and the gnomes have always had that identity. The draenei feel like an afterthought for the most part. With exception of the void elves, every allied race has essentially just been another flavor of an existing race (lightbound are more fanatical draenei, mechagnomes are more mechanical gnomes, dark iron are darker dwarves). The night elves are the only ones who have had any development lately, and most people seem pretty dissatisfied with how that played out, so I'm not really sure I'd trust the lore team to flesh out anything else in a way that would be considered popular or interesting by the player base at large.

Honestly, as long as Blizzard is writing two different stories--one for Horde and one for Alliance--I'm not convinced that they have the focus to make both stories interesting.

I always said it would of been better of Genn was behind the burning of the tree, so blinded by his rage for Slyvannas, he would fake all this to push Anduin into war

While I agree that Sylvanas being the one behind the burning of Teldrassil was not at all surprising, I think Genn destroying his second home in order to get back at people who destroyed his first home is a little extreme.

[McNeil]

The Alliance could get interesting to me if they fully invest in retaking Lordaeron and restore the Capital City, which would lead to more conflicts with the Forsaken and how they are getting close to the blood elves in Quel'Thalas. Have some more crazy leaders who will do anything to achieve their goals and don't take half measures. The void elves want to ''take back'' Silvermoon and we're long due to revisiting that city at this point.

[Verdugo]

Perhaps you find the Alliance uninteresting. This entire post is nothing but subjective viewpoints. Why not just expand cross-faction play in the future allowing players the freedom to play whatever race they want without locking out the other portion of the playerbase?

That doesnt really fix the story now, does it?

[Jastall]

/thread

It's annoying to all hell to see the writers claiming that Azeroth is a Morally Grey™ world, whereas the only possible conflict is between the Satan du jour and the flawless, often Sue-ish hero(s).



That is correct. They won't spend even a single second trying to villainise Alliance characters. Why should they, anyway? The Horde is always there to provide an easy bad guy (or girl, as the case may be), and the best part is that you don't even need to develop him/her. Just drop a couple of heavy handed retcons, and presto.

I think there's somewhat of a chance that the next villain bat will hit an Alliance character. While I'm not betting on it, having Turalyon become more extreme might end with him having at his own turn at the "go insane and be beat up for purples by both factions" routine. Then again it looked like they were slating Tyrande for it but in the end she just accepted peace in her time instead. Whenever that is a worse fate I leave up to the beholder.

The funny part is that Blizzard tries to make it a suspense if she kills Sylvanas. Yes, the Tyrande that just heavy-handedly learned to turn the other cheek and never hold a grudge is going to kill the new Sylvanas that literally never did anything wrong and has gotten her like fifth brand new model, innocent puppy dog blue eyes and all. Sure, that's going to happen.

[OwenBurton]

The funny thing is humanity can be such an interesting thing to write about. Humans are such a varied crazy hypocritical complicated bunch. Heck its why every non-human race is heavily inspired by some human culture.

But warcraft has some weird really surface level view of humanity as the 'heroic good guys' who live in white stoned structures of oddly shaped blocks. Who's religion is some vauge belief that the light is good (even the draenei have a more interesting relationship with the light) and who the balance of power and one's place in the cosmos is entirely irrelevant.

The Alliance could -
- Recruit the Scarlet Crusaders (that would cause shocking controversy even among Alliance characters, and the playerbase) against the Forsaken to "reclaim" Lordaeron, and seriously splinter the paladins especially; some paladins might hate Sylvanas and the Forsaken enough to fight with the Scarlets, others might stand against them. This could also bring in the Argent Crusade.

- Go to war with the Defias Brotherhood in Westfall and lay siege to the Deadmines, causing Vanessa to return as a major opponent and causing an internal civil war there, and heavily dividing the Stormwind population, some of whom might sympathize with their poverty and plight over the nobles' interests.

- Try to destroy the last of the Alterac remnants, causing them to join the Horde OR try to recruit them as an allied race somehow, perhaps in the light of the massive political changes after the Fourth War; perhaps Genn Greymane and the worgen could be involved, as their kingdoms were close neighbors, and Genn might hold a personal grudge against them. Or perhaps the Gilneans might have an old friendship with them, which makes them receptive to the Alliance's overtures.

That could perhaps spice things up considerably, and make the Alliance MUCH more morally grey in a thousand different ways. Imagine if Stromgarde humans became central to the story, and lots of them joined the Scarlet Crusade (that would tie into their aesthetics), and we could have an entire large group of angry, fanatical, ruthless humans very different in outlook from Anduin's pacificism.

I cringe every time someone suggests that the Alliance could be made more interesting by adding internal conflict. Clearly the writers did such a good job every time it happened to the Horde, and clearly it made people more invested in the Horde identity rather than driving them away from it. Oh wait, it didn't. Please think about what you're asking for and what you're probably going to get when you bring up the idea of internal faction conflict. And furthermore please ask yourself if you think it will actually make the Alliance more interesting to a degree that more people will identify with the faction.

The real problem, and solution, is far more simple. Long ago a bunch a metalhead dudebros decided that the Alliance would be the generic fantasy faction and Horde would be the inverted, "cooler" fantasy faction. What this basically meant is that there was nothing the Alliance had the Horde couldn't have, but there were things that the Horde had that was exclusively Horde. You will never see Gnomes piloting a zeppelin (the explicitly stolen zeppelin in Westguard being the exception) because it was a machine specifically tied to the goblin identity. Gyrocopters, though? Even though they're a specifically gnomish/dwarven invention, you'll see goblins use them all the time. Since Alliance was treated as the generic fantasy baseline, artists and gameplay designers rarely put much thought into what should be reserved for the Alliance identity and what was just some fantasy toy to give to the Horde if it'd make them look cooler.

For years too many artists and game designers knew what they wanted Horde to look like, sound like, and feel like, but couldn't bring themselves to think of an Alliance identity other than "not Horde." It honestly isn't hard; Kul Tiras and Gilneas are both technically generic human factions that have distinct and compelling identities, but for Gilneas it was too little and for Kul Tiras it was too late. Gnomes and Dwarves are in my opinion freakin' awesome and have so much potential but just haven't been given many opportunities to shine because they're apparently better served as comic relief. Hiring artists and developers that are as passionate about these identities as the old guys were for spikes and metal is the best solution. All it takes is some effort to realize that the Alliance isn't just "anti-Horde" and can freely have a personality of their own.

The thing is, even if they focus on some kind of power struggle or rift between Anduin and Turalyon...wouldn't that story STILL be heavily human-centered, and especially on Stormwind? For example, why would most dwarf or night elf or gnome players care about a complicated political struggle in the human capital between two devout Light-wielders?

Besides, Anduin Wrynn himself is, quite honestly, perhaps NOT the most popular character right now; even I have become more or less indifferent to him, he is certainly a nice and well-meaning person, but he is not what I call deep or very complex character particularly compared with other major characters. Most night elf players also likely have no love for him, given his inexperience and his signing the peace treaty so quickly with the Horde. Varian by contrast was far more well-respected by both the Alliance and Horde playerbase. For example, Jaina, most people either love or hate her, few are "neutral" on her, but with Anduin...it's more, well, <shrug>, I guess? I don't think most Horde players "hate" him per se, but neither do they really admire or like him either, he's just a placeholder character kind of "there", that people have no strong reason to dislike or admire.

The Alliance could get interesting to me if they fully invest in retaking Lordaeron and restore the Capital City, which would lead to more conflicts with the Forsaken and how they are getting close to the blood elves in Quel'Thalas. Have some more crazy leaders who will do anything to achieve their goals and don't take half measures. The void elves want to ''take back'' Silvermoon and we're long due to revisiting that city at this point.

The Alliance could get interesting to me if they fully invest in retaking Lordaeron and restore the Capital City, which would lead to more conflicts with the Forsaken and how they are getting close to the blood elves in Quel'Thalas. Have some more crazy leaders who will do anything to achieve their goals and don't take half measures. The void elves want to ''take back'' Silvermoon and we're long due to revisiting that city at this point.

They really should have implemented a "Battle for Silvermoon" warfront - blood elves are by FAR the most popular Horde race, and would be far more invested in Battle for Azeroth if their precious city was actually under imminent threat of a massive invasion.

- Alleria and Vereesa leads the combined forces void elves and high elves to "reclaim" Silvermoon, backed by Gilneas and Stromgarde's forces perhaps.
- Lor'themar Theron, Grand Magister Rommath and Lady Liadrin personally leads the blood elves against them as enemy commanders, a blood elf ranger and warrior, a fire mage, and a retribution paladin all fighting together.
- Perhaps Sylvanas makes an appearance and personally defends her old homeland mid-way through the warfront as well, along with her dark rangers, a call-back to Warcraft 3?

The idea of ONLY two warfronts seem kind of...incomplete. And there's no canonical reason why the Alliance didn't attack Quel'Thalas in the Fourth War, it was literally the only remaining Horde capital in the Eastern Kingdoms. And the "Battle for Silvermoon" warfront could even have tied in with the heritage armor questline. What is more, an actual Horde warfront victory (the Horde lost both Stromgarde and Darkshore) could invigorate and satisfy most Horde players.

[Asrialol]

The answer is simple: Give more spotlight to Alleria and the Ren'dorei.

Notice how most of the theories about the Alliance's future in the last years always involve Alleria and the Ren'dorei in some ways.

It is clear that people know Alleria and the Ren'dorei are important and can carry the Alliance, the problem is that Blizzard doesn't. That's why they completely and criminally omitted them from Patch 8.3, in favour of Anduin's boyfriend.

The Ren'dorei have it all. Beauty, elegance, wisdom, intelligence, power, a brooding and scheming nature, ruthlessness, pragmatism, a place in the storyline (they are not meme races like the dwarves and gnomes, it's easy to see how they can be relevant in this storyline). But above all else, they appeal to the the largest fanbase of every fantasy game, the people who like ELVES (I am part of that "broad" fanbase btw). All they need is spotlight.

Yeah, no. Most of the playerbase finds Night elves to be a cringefest, their lore much the same. The main reason most people actually play night elves is because of Shadowmeld. The tiny fraction that don't care about shadowmeld is the people who jerk off to night elves dancing.

[guro-tchai]

before all the 9.2 datamining, I was hoping that Anduin shows us all the true meaning of understanding and forgiveness, hugging nu-Sylvanas in the epilogue - only for them both to be turned into a kebab on Tyrande's glaive. instaglaze with moonfire, medium rare plz. dump the pre-legion comic.
I don't think anything else can make the story less shit, because the idol of non-toxic masculinity and human potential will forever poison the well, eventually showing the true path even to Geya'rah. the forsaken are on their way to become faithful to their SL beta description and the orcs will follow. the reaction to the incivility in cross-faction groups will speed up this process. hope fails, indeed.