The problem is, that blizzard usually is good with designing morally grey or partially evil, yet conflicted characters.
But they’re terrible when it comes to good/peaceful ones.
And don’t get me started on transitioning. (sylvanas…).
So it’s to no one’s surprise that bad guys are usually the more favored ones.
I think this is a matter of perspective. You can view it as “if not for the guiding hand of the alliance…” sure. In that sense I totally agree, it’s a bit of a bummer.
However, does someone like Baine going “Okay, so i’ll going to clarify with Jaina, we’re not really down for attacking her at this point because X, which will screw Y, so imma gonna give her a heads up and try to knock this on the head.” really the alliance guiding it? I see such as a horde character taking a decision that, yes, involve the alliance in some manner, but it is not the alliance steering the horde away from the edge, but rather the horde character recognising that attacking the alliance will put them closer to the edge, so they seek to stop that from happening.
It may seem like frequently the alliance are “there to save the day” as it were, but to me, this is alrgely because where the horde is being run into the ground, it’s usually because whomever is doing that is focusing principally on the alliance and not the horde, they don’t care if their people suffer so long as they get one over on team blue. Obviously people like Baine care about the horde enough to reckon that the alliance being whomped is not more important than the horde’s stability/wellbeing, and ebcause the cause of the issue is conflict with the alliance, the solution to resolve it is to circumnavigate that conflict altogether.
Were the horde being run into the ground by other means, that had nothing to do with the alliance, we may see different, but fact is we don’t. Principally where the horde starts to unravel, or behave in a way where it is “hurting itself” in some respects, so far it has ALWAYS stemmed from the handling of the faction conflict be it plugging too many resources/lives into it, or treating horde members badly due to suspicions of treason/conspiracy whatever. Whenever the horde takes these wonky decisions, it’s usually because of the alliance stance- so it makes sense those seeking remedy to the situation are somehow involved in contact with the alliance - that doesn’t mean the alliance are the ones “enforcing the peace” however.
This said your take is completely valid, which is why I called it a difference of perception.
And I wouldn’t agree to that partial definition by the alliance. Nowhere in Thrall’s new horde is the alliance mentioned once when establishing Orgrimmar. The fact many of the races have “suffered” at the hands of the alliance does not mean that suddenly is the Horde’s stated purpose is to eradicate the alliance in the same way if I open a coffee shop for the purposes of drinking coffee, but many of my customers happen to have come to me from a greasy cafe across the street, it doesn’t suddenly make my modus operandi to drive the cafe out of business (unless they’re compromising my business somehow).
It’s complex as to what the horde actually is, but for me (and others may not agree) this is what the Horde is (note brackets for when warchief was a thing)
“A collaboration of nations whom are united for the purposes of mutual benefit regarding security, safety, resources and in some cases a shared history or cultural practice.”
“Within the Horde although all the nations agree to an overarching form of political authority in the council (warchief) this authority largely extends only to political and national decisions. Each nation largely pursues their own agenda regarding matters such as cultural habits, practices, faiths and beliefs and this is supported by the Horde.”
“The Horde is about political allegiance, not cultural allegiance.”
“The Horde does not support an overarching political ideaology beyond respecting the authority in place and recognising it. There is no national religion or code of behaviour although concepts of honour exist, but they are ill-defined and where individuals do not recognise them (Forsaken, Goblins) they are free to do so without reprimand so long as it doesn’t extend to undermining the political authority.”
“Many of the Horde races share a history of being persecuted for fact of existence/culturally and in this respect the Horde tends to place a high degree of value on individual expression of member states, and does no require them to conform their behaviours in any particular manner other than shared political obligation. The protections of this political agreement allow these nations to continue to carve their cultural identities out as they wish under protection and peace, free from said persecution.”
“Many of the Horde races have a history with the Alliance as the instigators of their persecution.”
COnversely the alliance to me is:
“A political community of nations that are united (in large part) by a shared history, geography but principally ideology, belief and culture.”
“The alliance is about cultural/ideological allegeance as well as political allegeance.”
“The political authority of the alliance is two-fold. Although the position of the High-King acts as an overarching vehicle for congregational decision making, the matters of state of each nation (military, economy, buisness) are independent and governed entirely by the ehads of state of each nation individually. Although the high king may request actions/resources in these areas from the nation-states, the high king has no right to politically compel a nation-state to comply with such a request.”
“Alliance nation-states tend to be united by vaguely similar philosophical and belief-based structures. For example many races share religion in the Holy Light, whereas although there is a decided amount of Cenarion-based Druidism as well. Many alliance races are committed to ideas such as fairness, justice, righteousness etc.”
“The alliance is largely unconcerned with being expansionist for reasons pertaining to resources (their nations are wealthy) rather they tend to make incursions into other lands on the basis of what they perceive as moral infractions as far as they consider it.”
“The alliance has a history with the Horde (and several of the races therein) where the opposition largely stems from a) history of conflict with the Orcish Horde and b) opposition to some of the cultural ideologies present within the horde that they view as potentially harmful.”
you forgot the /s somewhere I think xd
If I could choose, I’d rather have my man Doomhammer lead, but oh well, they try to act like he never existed,kinda what They do with Ner’zhul too,hence why they both had way smaller roles in WoD
ner’zhul is some lame soul trapped in next raid now … like he was never the Lich King
Yeah I know, it’s so sad
What transitioning?
Going from chaotic neutral to chaotic evil?
Sylvanas is defined by two things - incompetence and self-serving(self-service?) in life and self-serving(self-service?) and deceit in (un)death.
they better bring Garrosh back among the living
one of the worst thing they did was giving hem the villain card in mop for no got damn reason
I have a toy that lets me sing it ANYWHERE I want. I will find you, and when you least expect it… When you’re sitting in an outhouse perhaps, you will hear it. >:3
Blizz should just make factions a bit simpler - blue=good guys, red=bad guys like in SWTOR. That would clear things out and make it more cohesive for a story. I really don’t know why they insist at bringing goodness in factions as it makes conflict b/n alliance and horde less meaningful and interesting. How many times are we supposed to fight against each other untill we realize ‘Hey, Horde and Alliance are not so different. Let’s team up and fight against this big threat that destroys our homes.’ and then instead of capitalizing at it, go back to conflict for some arbitrary or ‘crazy’ reason. Will we in patch 10.3 team up again, just to start drums of war again in 11.0? As “exciting” as it seems, probably, as we have been in this cycle for past 12 years. Writers have proven again and again that they cannot handle such ambiguity with both factions being ‘morally-grey[tm]’.
If they cannot handle it, let’s reduce it to something more simple such as good vs evil, so the story might get a bit more satisfying and coherent.
Or if they don’t want to reduce factions to that trope, let’s just remove faction conflict as that cycle of conflict->peace->conflict, seems to be a bit overused as of now. I was hoping with covenants, they will get rid of factions, and make wpvp based on covenants, but then they had to make covenants into mechanic/build decisions over just ice cream/colour/tmog flavour, so it is impossible as of now to balance it reasonably.
Dude… his appearance in WoD was such a let down.
“I believe in the democratization of fear” - Darth Jadus
The Empire is clearly the good guys!
Also, Horde vs Alliance in a nuttshel:
Let’s not, Garrosh epitomises what it means to be an Orc, a petulant child with anger issues.
Critical Thinking isn’t something they are very good at.
“Means to an end” that’s Garrosh, whereas “the end justifying the means” is Sylvanas.
Hard Agree.
Yet he was loved also by his flaws, and some wished him to have a better outcome after his biggest mistakes in Mop, a redemption of some kind, him learning finally abput his flaws and having a little story with overcoming them, maybe a heroic sacrifice during next Legion invasion would had been okay.
Before Warcrimes novel was made by Golden.
True, me included, sad I never got to properly play on Horde but now from time to time.
No war, no WARcraft.
I’m still waiting for the 5’th faction war. It’s time to take Gilneas back.
This topic was automatically closed 30 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.