Factions wars

[Moltensage-turalyon (Moltensage)]

@Grumblemore-draenor

That’s a massive issue with Blizzard though. They are too scared to add a bit of drama. A bit of depth.

Thr balance doesn’t always have to be there. Both Factions will still exist and the tides of power will change.

The Horde could occupy Stormwind for a few patches. Similar to how Varian was missing for ages, or when their precious garden was destroyed. It doesn’t remove the Alliance.

Sounds like Horde fanfiction. Horde occupying Stormwind?
That is not going to happen.

Blizzard should instead carve new territory for the Allied races and do small scale race wars instead of full blown faction wars.
Some of the devs don’t want to do another Battle for Azeroth style faction war.

Trolls have motivation to stop the Alliance from learning Zhul’s secrets that steals the power of the Loa. Without the Loa the Trolls can be depowered and made weaker.
Forsaken could try and take pre-emptive strikes. Seems that Gilneans would take Gilneas back but the Forsaken violated Kul Tiras as well, So some human kingdoms will want to make sure they won’t become Forsaken in death.

Maghar might cause the Alliance to return to Draenor. They were defeated by High Exarch Yrel. So if the Horde was to go back to Draenor on behalf of the Maghar then the Alliance can’t just leave High Exarch Yrel to take them on alone.

The Kul Tiran tidesages and shaman going to Pandaria to seek out Immerseus to try and restore territories plagued by the Forsaken.
Then the Night Elf people that have always been savages might want revenge once they get their new Tree back made from the souls of those the Horde burned with Teldrassil.

There would always be reasons for conflicts.
But lets be realistic. Horde are not strong enough to occupy Stormwind. Horde are worse off after the 4th war and are still recovering.

[Grumblemore-draenor]

Well, pissing off the playerbase is the drama they are scared of.

The Horde have been on a constant losing end when it comes to Horde vs Alliance wars and people still play that Faction! We already have had the Alliance win every single conflict, why not let them lose for once without compensation.

People still played the Alliance despite the Horde popularity. They are not likely going to be deterred if the Alliance are placed on the back foot. You don’t stop supporting your sports team just because they lost a match. Do you walk out of films or stop reading a book as soon as “the struggle” starts for the main characters?

Again, why do we need all this tit-for-tat compensation every time one faction does something so that the other must or mustn’t do the same? Orgimmar has been seiged twice now. Occupation by the Alliance at this point would just scream favoritism.

There was no compensation for the Horde each time, yet any time the Alliance is inconvenienced, the Horde gets dragged down as well. That’s fine, as long as there is a healthy waxing and waning of power. The Alliance are in ascendency for ages, when does the Horde get a protracted time in the spotlight?

@Moltensage-turalyon

Blizzard should instead carve new territory for the Allied races and do small scale race wars instead of full blown faction wars.

Uh, you can’t see two Idealogical enemy states in an occupation struggle, but you’d like a race war instead? Bit of a yikes moment there!

I get that you’re trying to open more reasons for the Horde and Alliance to fight, but the way that Allied Races have been implemented, these wouldn’t be proxy wars. These’d be a fully fledged AvH war.

It’s true, it’s too soon after BFA for another faction conflict. We just gotta settle for “border skirmishes” for now. Both sides are pretty beat up after the Fourth War, but if they had done BFA right (3 expansions, middle being the actual Faction War expansion) then the Horde easily could have had their time to shine.

Maybe it’ll come later, but for now the other issue is the Horde’s writing. They really need to be updated as currently it’s “Alliance Wunderweapons” vs “Horde Sharpened Sticks” which is hardly fun at all!

[Moltensage-turalyon (Moltensage)]

@Grumblemore-draenor

Uh, you can’t see two Idealogical enemy states in an occupation struggle, but you’d like a race war instead? Bit of a yikes moment there!

I get that you’re trying to open more reasons for the Horde and Alliance to fight, but the way that Allied Races have been implemented, these wouldn’t be proxy wars. These’d be a fully fledged AvH war.

It’s true, it’s too soon after BFA for another faction conflict. We just gotta settle for “border skirmishes” for now. Both sides are pretty beat up after the Fourth War, but if they had done BFA right (3 expansions, middle being the actual Faction War expansion) then the Horde easily could have had their time to shine.

Maybe it’ll come later, but for now the other issue is the Horde’s writing. They really need to be updated as currently it’s “Alliance Wunderweapons” vs “Horde Sharpened Sticks” which is hardly fun at all!

It seems to be the most reasonable next step.
Some races within the Alliance and Horde fared worse than others. So would have to rebuild etc… However racial tensions and rivalries are continued or new ones began.

The Gilneans went against the instructions of Anduin Wrynn and followed the Night Elves with the Dark Shore scenarios.
It also actually adds to the Alliance and Horde. Outside of the player character. Their respective race actually doing something in the Alliance and Horde and not get the Baine Bloodhoof treatment that was literally sat on his butt on the sidelines for practically the entirety of Shadowlands expansion.

More of a case of carving out new territories. The maps have constantly had to be redrawn and the allied races themselves can not become deadweight for the Alliance and Horde. Have to actually pull their weight and contribute something. But naturally Alliance and Horde interests conflict with each other.

So then it would create nuance among the factions. The peace keepers vs those that want to initiate conflict. Look at Battle for Azeroth. Baine was the only voice that spoke against Sylvannas and was calling for peace.

Ah you mean Jaina Proudmoore’s Arcane powered flying ship?
Well Thalyssra of the Nightborne did aske Jaina how they done it.
Gilneans / Gnomes / Night Elves the Alliance has a lot of refugee races that would need to be rehoused. But Blizzard has left them on the backburner. Except Night Elves for so long now.

Horde does have the mana bomb that nuked Theramore. So it is more than sharpened sticks.

[Grumblemore-draenor]

The retaking of Gilneas City should have taken place during BFA. It would have been a pretty cool “surprise” to have it suddenly become the de jure capital for a few patches too with the whole Horde occupation of Stormwind but that’s just chaff in the wind now.

It would have been a nice stress point for Anduin’s early career as king as Darkshore and then Gilneas theatres broke out without his consent.

The Horde is definitely meant to be more of an Alliance of disparate races. The Alliance seems more of a solid human-led conglomerate ironically. The Horde could do with their individual races having their own agendas, I can agree there.

The issue is, Blizzard will either be way too soft or stupidly over aggressive with them. The Darkspear want to survive and be happy, but if they have their “own agendas” then Blizzard will write them as trying to invade STV and North Eastern Lordaeron all at once!

Natural conflict of interest is way better than “suddenly the warchief goes mad” stupidity.

[anon85751942]

Factions have killed warcraft lore since world of warcraft. Look at this video by PlatinumWoW. It shows, how Night elves would have been way cooler, if they never joined the alliance and remained this third powerful force of nature. It also, as mentioned by me before, kills the potential of having complex lore in wow with betrayals, new allies, etc. Very sad! Factions have no purpose. It limits gameplay, and it cannibalises the lore. Get rid of factions, and make the lore good!

The Embarrassing Fall of the Night Elves

For example, we could have had gnomes and goblins competing with eachother to sell weapons to various capitals, but nooo… We had to tie them to factions, even if it makes no sense! By removing factions, I do not wanna see conflict removed. On the contrary: I want to see conflict, but now more complex like game of thrones, and not just orcs vs humans zugzug, because looking at the lore, that was never what warcraft was about until wow.

[Moltensage-turalyon (Moltensage)]

Battle for Azeroth was a war on multiple fronts. Anduin wanted to focus on supporting Trollbane as Etrigg was making incursions.
But the Night Elves were not going to wait as the Forsaken was trying to create new plague lands.

It would be good to return to the WORLD again. Time and time again with each new expansion old territories that used to be flushed with players become ghost towns.
So new reasons to visit old territories would be great. Then there is the Bronze Dragonflights time phasing that would allow players to return to what it was once like.

So this way it opens up the world again. Not depending on nostalgia and member berries. Silithus is just a ruin now.
The living survivors of Lordaeron could train the Kul Tirans to become Paladin. So that they could use the Light to bolster Alliance forces and prevent the Forsaken from doing to other Kul Tirans what was done to Derek Proudmoore.
The Light prevented the Death Knights from raising Tirion Fordring into undeath.
Too long Lordaeron was represented by the undead the Forsaken. So perhaps some of the surviving remnants can actually do something.

Darkspear are also powered by the Loa. So depowered Loa could be a Troll problem. The Horde won’t allow the Darkspear to move along being one of the core members. Could see the Darkspear could rise again as they were often the runts of the Gurubashi trolls.
Alliance and Horde can tend to overlook certain things. Like take the Thunder King events. That was Silver Covenant / Kirin Tor vs Sunreavers.
Blizzard can downsize the faction conflicts.

Warchief was meant to be an over-ruling authority that all the members should get behind. In a democracy and different factions and groups pulling multiple directions the Warchief is one single direction.
But their history is often telling. Like the servant Sylvannas - or Garrosh that dreams of an Orcish Horde again.

[Zhilin-argent-dawn]

Alas, separating a declining player population into two factions isn’t great for the games health. I also don’t see a reason to do another big faction war if they’re not gonna back it up with some large-scale PvP content (which they won’t) and I doubt they’ll be doing warfronts again.