Yeah, no, we need less centralized power in WoW, not more.
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That’s another topic however. I agree that the centralization of the factions and the way the factions work is bad.
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And I’d go farther and say that they need to get rid of the factions or at least break them up, if they ever want to make anything out of old enmities ever again.
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Can’t deny that the beginning of Cata was one of my favourite times in WoW.
Well, the devs never were able to decide if this game should be about factions or not about factions. So, we got neither approaches well developed. Basis is good, but can’t say the same about the execution in the game.
After I finish with Ve’nari reputation I’ll ask if brokers could allow me to use their transportation network to transfer Calia into the alliance.
Why not both? I mean, on paper that could be interesting if both factions would be seriously ideologically different.
Given how that story was handled before, I have to agree, the execution on that front was a rather sad experience. It could’ve been better and then I would be more pro-conflict, but we have what we have.
gl hf
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Always wondered what would happen if two Ereviens met. Thanks for providing.
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I kill Alliance with glee. Make them all suffer.
I can see that from your honor lvl 5 and the astounding 1488 honorable kills.
Erevien’s unrelenting resilience in those replies is awesome! 
I really needed this good laugh.
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I will not stop until the alliance is defeated.
Horde was dead the moment they killed Garrosh and the “True Horde” in order to facilitate peace and harmony with humans and other Alliance trash.
I still believe horde was the best under Garrosh lead when we wanted to destroy pandas and burn their “zen” gardens to ash!
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I tend to agree with the OP. I used to main Horde, but I was worn to the bone by ‘leadership’.
I understand that a more red blooded faction would go through multiple iterations of leadership… but I imagined that each leader would surpass the previous in strength/honour. What I have seen however is the exact opposite, each leader has become more and more diluted over time until now the Horde has no one to lead them at all, like the OP correctly stated.
I’m interested to see how the next expansion goes. This current one is a fluff in the wind in terms of story writing and overall progression of lore. All the rehash of old/dead characters, the alternate universe nonsense and the utter departure from factions as well as any racial focus means we’re effectively in cyro till they tackle the next expansion.
I would also like some faction (Horde) development, but I can’t see anything in the foreseeable future. In my opinion they care more for game mechanics than story.
What diff is there if you play one faction or another?!?
In my limited experience of the game so far I haven’t noticed a single diff in what faction you play. I think they have totally thrown in the towel concerning the faction divide. They are shoehorning every player to be covenant focused, what a success that has been.
(tbh the only way I’m getting through this current iteration of the game is to put myself on Azeroth Auto Pilot to get through the content. That’s how far it’s come for me personally)
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Problem is gameplay, more than lore. There was a Zone Course Correction in Cata - which saw Horde getting many victories and many zones. Gameplay-wise, this was needed because the Alliance had more zones earlier. The problem arose when they went about giving those zones to the Horde due to military victories. Those zones had no story before, they just were Alliance by default.
Now Horde got those zones, but the story left a very bad taste in the Alliance Players’ mouth. And the curse of the 2 Faction Game is this - There will always be a stalemate. Neither side can ever win decisive victory or make the other faction feel too bad. So the price of those military victories was the “True Horde” and dead Garrosh. The grand tradition of villain batting Horde Warchiefs started from there, as ever since it’s just a regurgitated story. It’s the same case now with Sylvanas - just the price of conquering or destroying Alliance Territories, or in other words “The Price of being too successful in a 2 Faction Game”. Had the Alliance conquered in-game, you would have seen the same scenario, only with an Alliance Leader in place of a Horde one.
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Not really the only way to solve the problem, though. Instead of making them conquer Alliance stuff, they could have just given them quest hubs in former Alliance zones. This was not just a matter of evening things out, else they didn’t really have any reason to give the Alliance a relevant presence in areas like the southern barrens, where they didn’t have one before. And it doesn’t really touch on stuff like the Horde winning Andorhal, which didn’t really affect any gameplay issues at all. Giving the Horde military victories wasn’t necessary for gameplay. It was a story decision.
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You bring up an interesting point Rendra. I never thought of the imbalance having this effect on the playerbase.
With each ‘victory’ and toing and froing needed to tell the story of faction conflict it seems that the player base did nothing but whinge over how their side was supposedly treated unfairly. I never understood this mentality, it’s like the most vocal meatheads only ever played one side. Don’t they have alts on the other faction?!?! The best part of the well written faction conflict stories were switching sides to see the other side of the story (when it was written in a sympathetic manner ala Warcraft3).
On a side note, I didn’t mind the initial experience with the burning of the teldrassil (not because it was at all a good example of showing the otherside of the story, but,) because it started to galvanise faction based loyalties again. Silly me, had hope that they could pull off that sympathetic faction conflict thing again.
Blizzard’s crime was that they didn’t present a plausible sympathetic Horde-side point of view… This justified player whinging. On one side Alliance cronies were justified in crying that their city was wiped out and that the Horde were nasty, ugly and could hurt their feelings. Whilst Horde cronies were justified crying out that they were being depicted as genocidal maniacs. Blizzard denied us a chance to log in on your other faction toon and get the otherside of the story.
The Battle for Azeroth was lost because they gave up writing in a sympathetic manner. They won the battle and lost the war. Now we’re stuck in an afterlife of purgatory playing what the OP has outlined as ‘all-alliance toons’ despite whatever colour/faction you choose when making your characters back in 2004.
It might be closer to what the Alliance was than to what the Hore was… But the Alliance was also the faction of Garithos and Daelin, the faction of dwarves digging wherever they pleased and being perfectly willing to wipe out any primitive natives who objected, the faction of people who’d hunt trolls for sport and “population control”, and the faction of endless politicing and backstabbing. What we have now is certainly not ‘all-alliance toons’. The Alliance identity is just as dead as the Horde identity. Love, peace and tolerance might be more believable for the Alliance, though I’d argue it isn’t, but it certainly never was its identity.
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Well, quantity is not the same as quality. Besides, there is no need to rush with the changes. And, given that the question about “why even keep factions when they’re so similar” is not helped by attempts to make them mirrors of each other like this decision.
Nah. Relatively few players got what they wanted from BfA. Peace fans got a lot of unresolved tension in both the game, and outside. Conflict fans’ hopes were pushed high by the devs when they claimed that they are ready to go however far, only to backpedal halfway through with Teldrassil being mostly omitted on the Horde side, and being pushed aside even on the alliance one.
You can. They’re just not “synchronised”. Like you can spare the civilians as a horde players, but when you play on the alliance side, all are slaughtered.
IMO it was lost because making such drastic start would demand focusing the entire expansion story on it to explore at least a tiny part of it’s impact. Yet there is nothing of the kind, just hopping back and forth from “we hate each other” to “we’re fighting together”.
Horde has to suffer and is sentenced to listening to Anduin on a regular basis. Almost makes me feel bad for them.
You know, I recenly got Rise of the Horde by C. Golden. And you know how it ends? From the epilogue:
The man looked stricken. “You don’t understand,” he said, urgently. “Not those pathetic creatures— draenei! There—there was ship. From the skies. It crashed like an infernal stone two nights ago.”
Thrall inhaled swiftly. No one had missed seeing that strange object in the night sky. looking like a star crashing to earth. So … it had not been a star, nor even an infernal. It had been a vessel…
The man was still talking. “Proudmoore has agreed to aid them. There is one among them—pale, noble, his presence commanding, though he is not physically strong. They call him Velen.”
Thrall stared. The draenei? The Prophet Velen? Here? He sank slowly in his chair as the full significance struck him. The worst enemy the orcs had ever known had come to Azeroth. Had been welcomed into the Alliance. How could there possibly be peace between Horde and Alliance now?
“Ancestors save us,” Thrall whispered.
Could anybody believe, after all the time Velen dominated the image of draenei, Hand of Argus and other sides of the race mostly forgotten, then by orcs’ standarts, and C. Golden’s opinion, draenei supposed to be the worst enemy the orcs ever faced?
Not sure if I should 
or 
gl hf
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I don’t know man.
For example, what would be if Garrosh lives and is de-facto leader of the horde (because AFAIK this is the way of the horde - strongest one lives). He nearly destroys Pandaria but Alliance teams up with pandas to push Horde back and Pandaria then is kind of divided into Horde and Alliance territory (Horde has less territory because they were pushed back hard).
Obviously it implies that Pandas would be Alliance exclusive then but for me this scenario totally makes sense.
He still hates Sylvanas but cannot afford to kick her out because she is the queen of Undeads which he needs for the Horde Army.
Bla bla, fast forward Sylvanas makes same things she did now to kill everything - Horde and Alliance. The same story that is now could be done regardless. But at least Horde would not lose its identity.
I think there is nothing wrong in allowing people to play the “bad guy” in games, in fact in MMORPG it is very important - it is a ROLE PLAYING GAME. Not a ethics simulator.
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Now that’s a fun one… I only ever saw the Draenei treated as victims. Maraad going berserk in his WoD-video was the only thing I saw even hinting in that direction…
Lmao what is this even. Does she know the Horde own lore at that time?
Well, to be honest, draenei from the time they were added to the game had more than just Velen’s pacifist approach. It was never placed infront, so maybe it’s just somebody made mistakes when making the quest text, or the devs just for whatever reason forgot about those things.
Examples from the starting draenei zones:
Kessel:
Heavy-handed violence is not the draenei way, but sometimes it is the only way.
This is one of life’s truths that many do not understand until it is too late. So it was for our people, when we were slaughtered at the hands of the orcs.
Becoming a Hand of Argus is a process of rebirth. And with birth comes pain…
Vindicator Boros:
Are you ready to spill some blood in the name of the Light? For Velen? For Argus?
…
What it means to be a Hand of Argus… We are agents of the Light. We serve without question. We die without question.
Vindicator Aldar:
Here, let me read those plans.
The blood elves have followed us here? They are evil to the core and should be wiped from existence!
The vindicator takes a moment to regain his composure
I apologize, that was uncalled for.
But yeah. That was… interesting to read. To be honest, I am not sure if that would be the way race would’ve been developed, the draenei would be more interesting. But I guess this side likely will be merged with the lightforged.
gl hf
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