Horde lore discussion

Lore Story
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Hello Everyone.

I made this topic based on a few reflections I came up with after reading this topic:

I thank to Anouk for creating this post after all this thread only exists based on her topic.

As Zarao stated her topic was not the best place to hold certain discussions and to avoid derailing it further I decided to create this topic.
See this more like a Horde discussion.

My question is what exactly is the Horde in BfA ?

  • Chaotic ?
  • Lawfull ?
  • Morally Grey ?

My opinion: neither of the above 3.
It’s nonsense.
Something that tries to be something and achieves nothing, can be called Hypocrite as well.

There was this interesting reply by Bahzerak:

"-They are not (or do not feel like) a bunch of rag-tag survivors banding together in order to survive in a world that hates them, unironically I think the Alliance fits that description far better nowadays, what’s with most of its races being homeless and/or persecuted. The Horde moreso than the Alliance becomes whatever the devs want it to be. One minute it is a band of ragtag survivors trying to repel the evil Alliance, the next is a bunch of manabomb-dropping, plague-spreading, tree-burning, manically laughing sociopaths. The Horde writing gives Jaina’s flip-flopping a run for its money.

-The fact that “anything goes” when it comes to who joins makes the faction feel to me “superficial”, inorganic, forced. Like, I look at the Alliance and I get why they are allies. I look at the Horde and all I see is a faction cobbled together with whatever the devs thought would be cool/necessary/planned. I see a lot of Horde mains claiming this as a pro of the faction and I get why they do so, but in the context of the franchise I personally consider this a “con”.

So in conclusion, the reasons I don’t care about the Horde are “meta” in nature (writing and/or planning). Team Red feels too disjoined for my tastes, both in writing and “roster” to the point of sometimes having a hard time suspending my disbelief."

This is exactly what I have been thinking about Horde lore, lately.

The Horde is what the Devs think it should be:

  • Someone that fights with the Alliance in one expansion.
  • Someone that fights against the Alliance the other.

My opinion:
This is wrong and can never work in the long term.

  • The minute Thrall Horde was fighting the Alliance, under the leadership of Garrosh Hellscream it had regressed to Orgrim Doomhamer Horde, so a end like Warcraft 1 or 2 was necessary.
    Enemies till death separate them apart.
  • When the Horde and the Alliance and Night Elves fight together, like in Warcraft 3 the game doesn’t go back to faction conflict again, that feels overused and forced.
    That was stated by several players in that topic as well.

What makes in my opinion Warcraft 1, 2 and 3 so good ?
They had a end.
All 3 of them.
WoW is a never ending story, that repeats itself over and over.
From Warcraft 1 to 2 we had the Orcs and the Humans, in Warcraft 3 we had the Orcs, Humans, Night Elves and Undead.
The game progressed to a stage where the number of factions increased.

In WoW however, I consider that they gave a step back.
They shoehorned the 4 factions of Warcraft 3 in to two, the Horde and the Alliance.
Things that became much worse than when the story was being portrayed in the RTS game:

  • One faction can’t beat the other like the Orcs in Warcraft 1 and the Humans in Warcraft 2.
  • We can’t have new games like Warcraft 4 because of WoW.
    We can’t have WoW 2 because of WoW.
    So characters and story feel overused and repetitive.
    Example: Jaina flip, flop, Thrall saving the Horde from descending in to the vilain road and the Horde going evil or cooperative mode.

People often say they would rather have a faction lose BfA even if it meant his own, so the story felt more organic.
After reading some replies in Anouk thread, I conclude the majority of people would not want it, in fact if one faction would lose BfA I think that we would have a mass unsubsrciption from the losing side, even through it’s already happened in Warcraft 1 and 2.

  • Can a Honored Horde led by Thrall, Vol’Jin and Cairne exist ?
    No.
    Because players want the Horde to be “different” from the Alliance.
  • Can a chaotic Horde exist, similar to Gul’Dan, Blackhand and Doomhammer ?
    No.
    The Alliance would not want it.
    Examples:
    Daelinna
    “There cannot be a chaotic Horde because that would mean that the Alliance is wiped out, and forgive us Alliance players if we demand and deserve the same rights that Horde players have.”
    Zarao
    " A chaotic Horde shouldn’t happen because it would be an unpopular route for Alliance players…"

So what exactly, is left to the Horde narrative ?
This:
Zarao
“…but at the same time we should accept an unpopular route for the overall story (cinematic above), because Blizzard decides what to write?”

The Horde is what Activision Blizzard decides it must be.
Evil, chaotic, treacherous, useful, repentant, sometimes shown to have signs of dignity when fight along side the Alliance.

My conclusion:
What to expect from the Horde narrative in future expansions ?
More nonsense.

  • If the Alliance goes fight N’zoth the Horde will be there as well.
  • If the Alliance goes through the Dark portal and see what happened to Yrel so will the Horde (together, remember WoD first quests with Kadgar ?)
  • If Sargeras comes back the alliance and the Horde will be together again for another Wrathgate/Broken Shore military disaster.
  • If the Alliance needs a antagonist, the Horde will be there as well, with a evil Warchief like Garrosh/Sylvanas.

Yes the alliance can complain about the same.
But i see the Alliance narrative as a faction every good parent would want their 16 years old son to play.
I don’t want to insult anyone, that’s my experience, playing my 120 Alliance Warrior in BfA, so everyone is free to contest this idea.
The Horde narrative is what the young teenagers think it’s “cool” and don’t like in the Alliance.
Any doubts look at how many Horde players (Story Horde players are the exception here) praised the burning of Teldrassil in general forum, as this being finally what the Horde is all about.

Remember Activision Blizzard is a game company, they are not a book publisher, if their game isn’t “cool” enough who will want to play it ?

I will end with this quote from Zarao:
“I don’t know why Blizzard feels like highlighting so much how nastily things can/will/are turning up between the “two Hordes”, when they could expand on so many other things and create engaging stories that conciliated both.”

Remember faction pride ?
It’s a lie.
If it was, the Horde would had never had Saurfang and Sylvanas fighting each other.
The Alliance and the Horde would end Bfa as either:

  • Sworn enemies till death brakes them apart, Sylvanas turned the Horde in to a War machine, which is the exact oposite of what the Alliance stands for like yin and yang.
    Or
  • One faction destroying the other.

Either we would have to shut the servers in BfA ,GAME OVER or have, only, war themed expansions in the future.

That’s my opinion.

What’s your opinion ?

Cheers.

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That you seem rather bitter Aster.
Can’t blame you by the way, and as you must have deduced, i agree with most you said.

Its a damn shame how they have used most of the Horde narrative elements to pave the road for a few “chosen heroes” to shine (not really referring to Alliance or Horde here, i’m just speaking generally).

And its shameful how the story about having two distinct points of view in a faction war, was turned into a guilt trip for Horde players that railroaded them into this mess since the pre-patch.

No wonder how its speculated that the marketing team had distanced from the story one.
Taking a look at the initial cinematic, its almost as if you are seeing an entirely different expansion.

EDIT: Not saying the Alliance had all of it being peaches…but regardless of personal bias, the second civil war is quite the hit for the Horde side of the story.
Kick-starting a story while having one side portrayed absolutely righteous, whilst the other randomly slaughters civilians…
Way to sell on those Pick a Side ads.

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Both factions don’t make sense anymore, that’s the truth. WoW’s lore has never been brilliant, but the last few expansions, it has become truly terrible.

Like, I would like (kek) to comment something witty and offer a solution or a proposal which would make sense, but I honestly can’t.

Just dive into transmog and play with friends, stop banging your head about lore.

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Thank you Araphant and Zarao.
You guys just read my mind.

That’s sadly, my conclusion.
I can’t get immersed anymore.

It’s sad with all this expensive cinematics and a new York prize writer you would expect something outstanding, but it’s not bad it’s awful, in my opinion.

Time to just ignore the quest texts and just read the objective descriptions, down below, because I definitely, do not see why I should even care for the game story anymore, or waste my time on it.

Cheers.

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As I have said on many times - The time is coming when the game engine can no longer support the game they are trying to keep running. If the basic operating and maintenance costs alone doesn’t get it to crumble then it’ll simply cease working properly with one too many ad-hoc alterations made to it. Think of a game like Skyrim with too many mods. There comes a point where you’ll get a cascade failure somewhere and sure it can be fixed. And then another. And another. And another. I get that they don’t want to make WC IV (No real money in RTS apparently. Yes looking at you RELIC with DoW III), but they won’t have any choice in the matter eventually regarding the main MMO.

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For me the Horde really started to lose its identity at the end of BC. Before that you could actually argue that it was actually an alliance of survivors, with very, very different peoples who would stand together because they had to. The Forsaken felt a bit forced, but if you imagine that the Horde mostly got to hear thesob-stories, and not the crazy scientist stuff it fits well enough.

At the end of BC though, the Horde got High Elves. Not Blood Elves. Blood Elves could have fit the Horde. Blood Elves had fallen from grace, they had a great culture, but lost most of it, and their addiction was a great threat to their dignity. They were stooped so low that they were willing to ally with those they saw as monsters. That’s kind of cool, and I say that as an avowed elf-hater.
But after the Sunwell? They are High Elves. So much so that Blizzard really can’t see a difference.

WotLK was mostly fine, though it did seem to introduce the Warchief as an absolute dictator. The individual soldiers all seemed to be sworn in to his service, instead of being sworn to their leader, who was in turn sworn to the Warchief, as was kind of what I would have expected in a tribal empire. This wasn’t important when Thrall was Warchief, but it set the stage for Garrosh.

And with cata the final nails hit the coffin. The Forsaken gave up the subterfuge that allowed people to think that the Kalimdor Horde just hadn’t known about their excesses. We now had to assume that the Horde was mostly ok with the stuff they did now. And what they did was gruesome.

I think after that most of what would have been called Horde identity before was already gone, and the talk of family and survival just felt cheap and hypocritical.
And BfA made everyone see that the Horde really was nothing more than a walking corpse.

Also, nitpicking here:

Void Elves. Just one race, I know, but just to show that the Alliance isn’t immune to being forced together with elements that just don’t fit.

And really, you could argue the Night Elves only fit because they seem much, much “nicer” in WoW than they ever did in WCIII… Well, the rest of the Alliance, too, I guess. The faction of progress with dwarves and gnomes should have had differences with the Night Elves that shouldn’t be easy to reconciliate.

But I agree that the “Horde identity” isn’t even fit to be used as toilet paper, while there might be some way to safe an Alliance identity… in theory (I haven’t the slightest clue how that could really include Void Elves, though). So get rid of it. I’d just like the factions gone, but really, another nice way would be to find a reason to fit the Horde under zandalari banners, instead of the other way around. At least the Empire has an identity that is broad enough to find a place for all of the Horde’s races, with a bit of care and Bwonsamdi-deals maybe even Forsaken.

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They are purple humans. Seriously. It’s all fine with logging and heavy (polluting) industries cos…we’re allies! Yep. Who wants Tyrande the Housewife back as a serious character? :nauseated_face:

I would prefer being a third faction and villainous at times - like the neighbour that is always around the corner in Kalimdor but no one messes in the backyard. Cos you die.

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Thank you Wimbert.

That’s exactly what i felt when going through Zandalar with my Blood Elf paladin.
Join the Zandalari.
They still have a identity, yes a empire identity, nevertheless I felt more Horde vibes, serving Rastakhan and Princess Talanji than Sylvanas.

I loved their final cinematic.
Epic moment.

Cheers.

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Its world of WARcraft not LOVEcraft, horde is fine and mighty queen Sylvanas is perfect. That honor and moraly gray is the excuses alliance finds to whine in the forums.

Alliance is always the most favored faction lore-wise, now that sylvanas killed a few nelfs and burned down the RP tree “shes a criminal” while VJaina is all good butchering the whole dalaran in the dalaran purge.

After the RP tree burning alliance did alot worst in return:
invaded Undercity
Invaded dazar alor
Killed the king
Stole zandalar treasures
Killed plenty of zandalar trolls during invasion
then their buther and her gnome pet escaped like “typical alliance”

Blizzard owes the horde a siege of stormwind, enough with petting alliance and the forum warrior nerlfs.

I hope the mighty QUEEN will burn the 2nd and last tree.
Also the traitors since MoP: Thrall + Saurfang to jail or to alliance, they exist only to please the spoiled alliance forum warriors.

BURN IT!

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It’s WORLD of warcraft
It’s world OF warcraft
It’s world of warCRAFT

Really, this supposed argument has to die. I just see a “I am a moron”-hat on anyone who unironically uses it… so I suppose I’ll interpret you as a troll instead, you’re welcome.

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Yes you are, its WARcraft.

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I thought you were aware that we haven’t been doing anything the last two expansions because there was no Horde vs. Alliance war? It is common sense that there is no content if there is no war. :thinking: :thinking: :thinking: :thinking:

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Oh no!

We should instead discuss the content and story of a crafting game in which warring factions of crafters compete over the natural resources, market share and craftsmanship excellence.

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Nah. the gnome mage wants PEACEcraft.

I guess he/she plays the wrong game, at least on imagination.

Pure gold +1

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Despite I’d love a more warring approach, the story needs to signal that’s fine for players to tag along it.
And of course, it’s essential for said story to be reasonable.
Warcraft needs a realistic and relatable motive to continue with its “war” part.

Otherwise you end up without the heroic or satisfactory feeling of it.

BfA has been a combination of lacking the former, while also trying to turn whatever few relatable or understandable motives the Horde had into something bad too.

They used Sylvanas to point the faction as villains, and Varok, Baine and Saurfang to lecture the rest about not prosecuting or fighting for those few valid points they could’ve had.

It kills the motivation to bring on an enjoyable war narrative, when Blizzard throws at you that deadly combo.

Edit: And for a time I must say they got me hooked on the war premise. I liked the reasons exposed by Sylvanas. And I’d love Talanji to chop of Jainas head.
But it’s crystal clear that as of now, that seems it’ll never happen.

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That is your personal point of view and i totally respect it.
According to mine Sylvanas does exactly what world of WARcraft is suppsed to be and saurfang + baine are traitors to the horde. Just alliance lapdogs since MoP.

You tell me that when alliance sieged your main city, i tell you that blizzard owes me exactly the same special snowflake treatment.

Because so far the “motivation” is towards alliance.

You even imagine the outburst of an alliance “hero” dying? This type of “enjoyable war narrative” so far comes only to the alliance forum warriors.

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Not arguing against it, and maybe i’m being pessimistic.
But the point is, that so far there has been some active intent on demonising the Horde values that don’t fit with the story certain writers want.

Baine will bend over backwards to prove Anduin right. Jaina, no matter what she does, is purposedly shown as someone to be pitied and feel sad about.
Sylvanas, will be shown as a psycho, and Gallywix will be shown as a greedy one-dimensional bastard to be eventually replaced.

You know, i’ll probably be going ‘Sylvanas loyalist’ with this char (got another one at the other side of the fence to see how things go) for as long as the game allows me to.
Yes, this story is bad. Yes, it is centred around making certain characters look good.
Of course they’ll feel like throwing under the bus any other one that clashes with said goal.
Its just how things are at the moment.

And the above doesn’t negate the fact that there are some valid standpoints that are being consistently discarded and sacrificed in this altar of awful storytelling.
Yes, the Sunreaver was “right” to want Jaina to suffer. Yes, the tauren should be angry at her for Taurajo.
Yes, Gallywix should’ve nuked the SI:7 fleet as a repayment for their “No witnesses” move.

But its not Blizzard’s intention to do so. We can have Theramore, or Southshore, or the Broken Shore, or…whatever they want, thrown at the Horde’s face.
Because they want certain characters to feel like heroes.
And because every time they feel like the Horde might have some counter, they’ll simply villainise their reaction or make them do something worse to overshadow it.

Also, this failure of war narrative isn’t only affecting the Horde. Rest assured, that if Tyrande decides to push for prosecution they’ll villainise their a*** faster than they did with Benedictus.

Writers already picked their side here. And its not the one that vindicates conflict.
Regardless of how their marketing strategy was shown to the world.

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By the forum warrior nelfs? Who cares? I dont at least. They get what they deserve after several expansions of them being the “center” of the wow’s universe. ENough with it, enough with malfy and tyrande.

Again by who? I dont care about them, all i see is Sylvanas doing things right FOR THE HORDE and saurfang-baine doing things right for the alliance.

Anduin begging saurfang while he decide to betray horde again and baine following him again doesnt show anything good.

Its WARcraft, the mighty queen is what the horde needs and what the alliance hates, therefore GOOD.

Did you even see the backlash on social media when Sylvanas burned down their RP tree and tyrande+malfy could not do anything? They just throwing a bone to the nelf forum SJW’s to chill them down and avoid an invasion from them in Blizzards RL headquarters

Even Garrosh was great leader, as he stated in a WoD cinematic Thrall failed him. Thrall is probably one of the worst and most backstabing characters horde has, many years now alliance lapdog.

I want my Siege of Stormwind as they had their SoO, period.

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Is this an oxymoron/irony like how our future Warchief is Baine BLOODhoof? MOST BLOODY WARCHIEF EVAH!

Now who’s up for more recycled content? Maybe a recycled raid boss too?

Tempest Keep really was a setback? I mean…at this point if they’re going to bring back more of the old crew (Hi Thrall)…

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Zarao and I already see where this train is going, directly to the abyss.

Yes.
She is “wonderful”.
Doing the right things FOR THE ALLIANCE.
Now they can raid Horde cities again, because they are justified, thanks to Teldrassil maybe even justified in destroying the Horde completely.

My opinion:
Never give anything to boost the other faction morale.
Burn civilians and the enemy soldiers will realise it’s not worth surrendering to your faction, they will fight till the death.
Of course logistics and army losses count for nothing in WoW.

Activision Blizzard will write thousands of soldiers for the Horde when they feel like and write we are near defeat by the end.
Any doubts look at the “mighty” Zandalar fleet.
In the depths of the ocean.

Because he was a “great leader” everyone turned against him, including Sylvanas and Gallywix.

When the next expansion comes by 2020 the Horde will side with the Alliance and you have no choice on that.
Any doubts look the expansions that followed Cataclysm period, to BfA.
Do they seem like war expansions to you ?

“Every villain is a hero in his own story.”
Batman state in Injustice 2 regarding superman judging and killing people.

Thrall replied:
“You failed the Horde.”
And I agree with him.

Yup he failed the Horde, as a leader and as a character.
Had that character been more charismatic and maybe the Horde community would had accepted him.

He is the founder of the Horde.
You knew that when you joined.
This is not Gul’Dan, Blackhand or Orgrim Doomhamer Horde.
Do you know why you are not playing it ?
Because the community doesn’t want to.
Otherwise Garrosh would still be the Warchief of the Horde, not the villain Activison Blizzard made him.
He was perfect for BfA and with that being said, we wouldn’t had MoP, WoD and Legion, so there you go.

Cheers.

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