I get that going fully genocidal on the other faction isn’t really an option. We can’t go on total annihilation wars because that would just destroy pretty much everything, and most halfway resonable persons within the world actually aren’t that keen on that.
I get that the setup of the game makes it very, very hard to have a clear win for any faction, where the loser gets essentially conquered, because both sides are supposed to meintain their own undiluted identity and have their own triumphs and losses. An occupation-style scenario might be possible, but it would be a momentous change that could annoy pretty much everyone.
I get that a cold war style setup with mutually assured destruction is a bit restricitve, in that it is prohibitive of any direct armed conflict between the factions. For the game the fun needs to be in the action, for the cold war the fun would mostly be in the suspense. Not really what the faction stuff was made for.
I get that marriage alliances between the factions are not really as much of an option as they might have been in human history, since… well, the factions are drawn around racial lines, and political interbreeding is a whole different topic that I’m sure Blizzard isn’t keen to bring up.
But what about another usual historical practice? Honored hostages. You want the peace or armistice to last? Well, you better make sure that any breach of peace has the risk of creating very dear repercussions to the ones in charge. And an exchange of hostages is a relatively effective way to do that. They don’t have to be children, but kin of the leaders usually makes sense. But there can be other criteria of choice, that can be negotiated.
If Thrall’s firstborn spent a few years as Genn’s honored ward, or Aggra were sent there as a kind of ambassador, learning about dwarven culture and such, it would certainly raise his investment in peace. Just like it would change matters for the other side, if Arator spent some time among the blood elves of Silvermoon, learning more about his mother’s heritage, or if Katherine Proudmoore found herself enjoying the highest level of hostpitality that the golden pyramids of Zandalar have to offer.
Just like the mutually assured destruction scenario, the ensuing peace would be so much more believable, but different from it, it could really be shattered by an author’s whim without having to change everything about the faction. An accident, or a third party murder of a hostage and we are right back on the brink of war.
I’m just thinking out loud here, but I feel that adding hostages into the mix could really help to sell us the current situation. Even more than that, it actually would fit Blizzard’s focus on character drama perfectly, and could actually create characters that have a reason beyond the authors’ imposed morality to see the other faction as real people. Thrall’s backstory as a valued human slave made it easy to sell him as a special kind of orc. Hostage experiences could do the same for other characters, giving them a new perspective on their own cultures and allies.
So am I completely wrong here, or is there something to this idea? I mean, I know that it can’t fix bad writing, but this is meant to be an attempt to make the best of a bad writing situation.
Actually I think people would be okay with that if they knew for certain that things had real chances to get evened out with the following expansion. That would imply for Blizzard not to be so lacking in the continuity department though.
But the hostage idea is real good. It reminds me of the situation with Moira Thaurissan. The hostage could also have the opposite reaction and develop pure hatred for the race he would be living with. Cool plots could come out of this
Nice idea in theory but somehow I doubt Thrall of all people would offer his kids for it…and a problem with horde leaders is that with the exception of Thrall, Blizzard won’t allow them living family members.
You could take Baine though, that should work, too?
Nobody would notice a difference and of course the horde would do anything to make sure he stays safe cough
As for political marriages, we could marry off all important Blood Elf characters to humans. Since they never seem to mate in their own circles anyway
I’d personally be okay with it, even if the balance never shifted. I don’t care about balance, if I can get a good story instead. I’m just saying it is a high-risk move with very uncertain rewards for Blizz. So in reality I could only ever see it happening for such a short time that it wouldn’t have any of the possible positive effects anyways.
Indeed. That the factions are kind of isolated from each other makes the enimity a bit stale, I feel. The only personal thing about it, is the reality of loss. There are no personal relationships involved.
Like I said, it doesn’t have to be kids. Kin would be prefered of course, but the exchange of hostages is a negotiation and you don’t need to get the most valuable of hostages to have an impact. Also… what Thall would be willing to do would kind of depend on what might happen if he doesn’t do it, I feel. A time-limited wardship under certain predetermined conditions, and with a hostage from the other side to enforce it isn’t that bad, if you can avoid war with it.
Humans have been doing it for quite a while irl.
Well, that’s easily changed. Just introduce new characters. The Vol’jin book told us he had children and a wife, for example. Most of the characters we have are so bare-bones that you could add books worth of context without creating contradictions. And you can always add a mother or a sister or a lover. Before BfA Blizz outright told us that Tandred wasn’t canon, but there he was. And I don’t think it would be very objectionable to actually fill out the familial background of some of Warcraft’s characters.
Well, the way Blizzard seems to see him that might work, the way players see him it wouldn’t.
Sure, but it’s a bit of a stretch to try to represent the Horde with Blood Elves alone…
Do you think? Seriously I don’t see it, not with his history.
And I sure wish to learn more about them. Not exactly in the context of this scenario though. We know Vol’jin did give his youngest to the Gurubashi and also how that turned out…
No idea what you’re talking about. Baine is the best the horde has to offer
They’re by far the most popular horde race so that’d be fine by me.
Actually especially with his history. Thrall certainly has seen what humans like Blackmoore can do, but he also experienced quite a lot of human kindness. Not to mention that the knowledge and techniques the humans gave him helped to raise him to the very top of his own people, so he would have to be stupid to see no value in his harsh education. And that was what he got from being a slave. The situation of his son would be quite a lot less harsh.
So yeah, personally I could see it.
But Thrall’s boys aren’t really the point. If you think them unlikely, think of any Horde character that is not currently an important leading figure, or any kin they might invent. You most probably know more of them than I do. Thrall’s children would be the holy grail of hostages, but other people could still work out very fine.
A boy and a girl actually. According to Shadows Rising , she goes by the name of Rehze.
Sadly, I don’t. Because as I said, living family members of horde leaders are nonexistent. At least I can’t think of any off the top of my head.
Edit: Calia could work too! Not officially a leader ( yet? ) but an important character nonetheless because she’s everywhere for whatever reason. Yes, take Calia.
Well, sounds to me that that is something that should be changed anyways, so I don’t see much of a problem there. Show me Eitriggs wife, Gazlowe’s gay lover and willful adult daughter, Lor’themar’s simple cousin, Thalyssra’s offspring of 10k years of cougardom, and Rokhan’s childhood friends. Give me the bastard children of Rastakhan, give me the bedmates of Geyarah and Drek’thar.
Really, even adding characters just to make them hostages could make your characters quite a lot deeper. At least they would have some personal relationships that supposedly helped them become what they are.
I think it’s far too late for them to insert any such nuance into their story now. If there was a moment to pursue a more real and nuanced conflict, that moment was in BFA… and they completely botched it. I’m repeating old arguments here, but Sylvanas torching Teldrassil when they had the Night Elves at their mercy was a stupid move (unless you apply the “oh but she wanted as many deaths as possible it was super smort” – that smortness relies on everyone in the horde being incapable imbeciles). Rather than having Teldrassil disappear from the game, what if instead we for the first time saw a Teldrassil occupied by Horde forces? This would of course infuriate the Alliance playerbase (just as the burning did), but then you could have ended the expansion with a truce between the two factions where each faction is forced to relinquish their occupations – perhaps some territory could have been traded, even. How would the aftermath of Teldrassil look after the occupation?
My main issue with WoW is the rigidness of the game world and how it is not really utilized in the narrative at all. We saw some changes to the old world in BFA, but these changes mainly turned the zones turn into lootbox-esque “rare” NPC hunts. I don’t think anyone visited these zones because of any narrative reason. No, they were there for the mounts and the loot. There was nothing there to really immerse yourself in. I never felt “Wow! We’ve got an active conflict going that is reflected in this zone.”
Your idea itself is not bad. I think it could have opened up a lot of interesting options for political intrigue. But I wouldn’t trust Blizzard to do it. When Malfurion was subdued there was no talk of capturing him or anything. There were two options: kill him or let him go. That’s Blizzard’s morally grey for you.
Well, this was more of an idera to sell the ending of the conflict anyways. And it would still be feasible, they’d just have to announce the details of a newly fleshed-out treaty. I mean, I know that it won’t happen, but I did want to bring the idea to our playerbase here, since our arguments tend to run in the same lanes that Blizzard drew for us. If we can’t think about other ways than eternal genocidal war, permanent humiliation of one side, or forgive&forget-peace on the trust-principle, should we be surprised that other second-rate author’s can’t think of anything better, either? So I feel like we should at least throw some better ideas out there, ideally for them to pick up.
And I’m well aware that better doesn’t mean perfect. I might just be discussing techniques of polishing a turd, but if I have to look at the turd anyways, I’d still prefer it a bit less disgusting.
Really, even if no intrigue came out of it, I’d prefer the situation we have now with hostages over that without. It would at least be one additional argument for why the characters would think the peace could hold more than 5 minutes this time. Yes, I think there are a lot more chances in the idea than that, but if Blizz uses none of them, I still think we’d come out better than before. Even a tiny bit of progress is progress.
I won’t argue against that, I just feel that that’s beside my point.
Before going on any details, IMO it’s necessary to be clear if the discussion is about the current narrative team, or what could be done conceptually. With this out of the way.
Depends on the execution. Aka not with the current team, no.
Depends on the execution. Besides, that might be the point - to get factions on even-ish power lvl, “retire” some older characterss, go back to more simple stories and less cosmic villains. It’s just a narrative tool IMO.
Can’t be done. Currently we have:
unquestionably correct™ approach from Anduin, going since his (and celestials) talks in MoP, all the way to BfA with “this is the only right path”.
Revendreth. It’s a thing. And as a concept, it’s really bad, because in the current iteration that means that there is 1 standard for what is sin™ and what is right™ across the universe, regardless of context, culture, circumstances, achievements, etc.
Because of that there is no room for even 2 equally valid approaches when it comes to ideology, hence no possibility of a decent multi-faction narrative: there will be the correct™ path, and badness of various degrees.
WotLK is gone for a while already. But yes, there is more on the Classic front coming out soon (again), so, there are some things of that kind. Not retail though.
Depends on the execution (not with the current narrative team).
Depends on the execution. There are possibilities for espionage, diplomatic work, bargains, set ups, manipulations, bribes, “proxy” conflicts, “creative” usage of the events. Aka, likely won’t happen.
I do not think the current dev team cares all that much about why the product they’re working on became popular to begin with.
Could’ve been interesting, sure. Question is, when we have 1 unquestionably dominant way of acting and thinking from the devs, who sacrifice everything and anyone to make it “work”, what is the likelyhood that this take will be taken in a direction to portray one of sides as villains? I mean, like every other “modern” take on factions did?
There is theory and there is practice. In practice I just find a new reason for facepalm at least once a week, when it comes to the current narrators.
But we can, of course consider discussing a potential feedback for a hypothetical situation that after another financial collapse the dev team would undergo serious changes.
Indeed, that is one of plausible ways to tell such stories, that can be taken wherever the devs would want to: from solidifying peace, to outright leading to catastrophe. From “going well”, say, Genn bonding closer with the former alliance members, to going very wrong, like, a draenei volunteering to take a role, only to realize the level of pressure of being among those who did what they did, and lead to a mental breakdown and opening old wounds instead of healing them.
Just like it’s possible to use it, say, to place horde hostages in places like Southshore, or Theramore, or others so that they would be face to face with the actions of the horde, and realize the scope of the actions.
Similarly, alliance ones could be among the families / relatives of those who suffered because of the Dalaran events. (not sure there are other places where horde had problems, and showing the details of what was happening in Undercity would like serve to antagonizing the sides, than doing anything for the peace)
But, that all, and many more things (narrative possibilities to explore cultures, update places, learn about the past, have more sides to familiar and not so much characters) is a debate to prepare for the possible future IMO
because that is IMO not going to happen. There is the_way™ that is right™. And everyone either supports it, or wrong. There is no more depth to the story as is, when it comes to faction related characters.
War with who? We would need eradicate Anduin and Anduinization from the story for it to work.
Depens on… you know. It could’ve been done to actually build up tention within the horde, if Baine would have to be 24/7 surrounded by the consequences of the horde actions. Aka not with the current team.
On the other hand, he could “donate” more than just a horn to Anduin this time.
They are the majority of the player population, so, would work technically. On paper we could even have elves vs. elves (on the leading roles) as a stage of faction “relationships”. Aka not with… you know.
Confirmed by the devs, heart of the horde (Lor’themar in game, and Evolution of Thrall blizzconline panel).
I mean yeah. I can imagine a situation, if, say, Geya’rah would learn about his story, assuming she would be a decently polished character, could conclude that despite looking like orc, Thrall is fundamentally a human. A tool when “peace” card needs to be played, but no more than that.
Aka…
She has no place in the horde
Hopefully ever.
Could be. Not in the horde though.
Sure, but not as a “horde character”.
It could. And indeed is a potentially source of interesting interactions for a variety of purposes.
…
Depends. With the current team - won’t work IMO. But we can humor the potential of such take on the narrative, should an opportunity arise (depends on the financial success of Shadowlands, of course).
From our perspective - yes. From the dev one - no. Because they clearly stated the purpose of the faction story there - to change the horde into something new. Something they consider to be better. Because the reason why people chose to play the horde was in hopes it will be changed into something different, of course.
Goal “accomplished”, all consequences might be ignored (assuming that is possible).
I mean, the dev team needed validation to change the horde to the current “council is correct” approach, etc., with all the takes, ideology changes, etc. To make it work they needed to invalidate the W3 horde, by making it (hard to find polite words) incapable not to do the same stuff as they did with Garrosh, aka flawed by design.
How much damage it did to the game and the story - not sure they cared.
If consistency is of value, that would just be a question of time till that would start a war.
However the devs see fit.
On a “logical” note the consequences would be horrific, just like with what happened currently. Because night elves are long lived with few kids. It’s after the W3 events we started seeing somewhat regularly elven children. Which means that currently the horde itself killed the generation born in the time of “cooperation” between the factions, and those who come after will know the price that was paid for trusting the horde.
Change would not be too big, because you would still have a situation where an entire generation would grow up by seeing the consequences of trusting the horde.
But with the current team, this part of the story is likely to be ignored.
Game is more about characters currently, not about the world. World changes when convenient for the character stories.
Yup, not currently.
We can think of dozen ways to execute like every step of the story done, to make it work without retcons and contradictions. It requires time, and respect to the story and the playerbase. Not what is doable with “our story to tell” approach.
So, yes, it’s perfectly fine to disect what could’ve been done with whatever many turns of the story there are.
Cool. Pick the ideas. Pick the starting point. Where to go from there. What’s the goal. What’s the way to “measure” progress in the direction. We can discuss it all (over time).
I just have 0 expectations from the current team, because they just push their views and preferences all rest be doomed.
Conceptually. The more agreement we have on what would a good idea conceptually, the more unified and useful our feedback can be. And I think you already know that I pretty much agree with everything you are saying about the narrative team. I just feel that while that topic is relevant to many discussions (especially speculations on future developments), as a topic of discussion it’s nothing but depressing for anyone who has any investment left. So that’s not what I wanted to talk about here, and that is which is why I won’t be replying to most of your post.
I don’t really think it does. I much rather think that these are actual querstions of concept, given some of the game’s premises. You can’t have a total war setup without killing the player factions over time and making any other stories secondary to that. There is no uniting against the comming threat on the planet in the total war scenario. So if they want Horde and Alliance to persist, like they said they do, and they want to have shared stories whenever possible, which they have demonstrated pretty clearly, that option is just out.
That having one faction conquer the other is very difficult to do satisfyingly, and has the risk of annoying everyone seems pretty clear to me as well. I didn’t say that that one was impossible, but I did say it was high risk with an uncertain reward, thus not really something I would recommend to anyone who wasn’t already set on trying out that idea.
Well, I guess with the cold war it really depends on execution. Looking back at games like SW:TOR I guess that has actually been done successfully already, especially the espionage and proxy war bits. I don’t really think there is room for much of the diplomatic side with the action-oriented playstyle we have, though. And a big problem with proxy wars is, that we’d actually need to have other factions of any relevance and with some agency. We don’t really have that in the “old world”. You can do that on new continents like was done in the jade Forest, I guess, but you can’t really take these conflicts home, the way the world has been build.
So I guess that one might be less impossible than other ideas of dealing with the conflict.
No. My question here is if it should happen, not if it will. If we can agree that it is an improvement on the given situation.
Ask Horde posters and Saurfang. Everyone was pretty certain that it was very probable that Anduin’s Alliance would wage war, if the Horde didn’t strike first. Not because Anduin was so agressive, but because he was to weak to stop it. And I don’t even need it to be a likely development of the story to work, I just need it plausible enough that enough characters within the world still believe war is on the table. Considering that the one setting the table on Alliance side right now is Turalyon and not Anduin might help with that.
We’re talking story, not player’s choice here. Belves are not a particularly major population center of the Horde in lore, and they aren’t exactly the cultural centre either. Sure, creating bonds or mutual securities between belves and humans wouldn’t hurt, but it hardly would secure peace between the whole of the Alliance and the whole of the Horde. So more than that would be required.
Good to hear you agree.
I thought I did just that here.
Idea: Hostages.
Starting point: Right now in the story.
Main Goal: Making the peace/armistice more believable.
Secondary goals: Political drama, new characters in interesting situations, getting the factions to better understand the other side’s perspective, create an easy way to go back to war at any point.
Players have developed overtime a sense of racial pride that would make any attempt at “And now, this other race will have you handcuffed over this character”, an extremely bitter pill to swallow.
The narrative quality of it all could’ve had some potential. But considering the mindset of those involved in the writing, I doubt they could pull it well or in a way that felt satisfactory.
Do you honestly see Night elves (fans and characters) being fine with sending some hostage to live under Orc tutelage?
Or a Zandalari to Stormwind/Kultiras, after BfA?
I’m not sure if I’m not understanding you or you aren’t understanding me here, but there really weren’t any handcuffs involved in my suggestion, just positions in the realm of the other faction, like wards, guests or ambassadors. Something that’s just a gesture of friendship and trust, if you ask anyone about it, but conveniently leaves important people at the mercy of the other faction, so everyone knows what’s actually up here.
And the idea wasn’t to have it one-sided, but to actually have an exchange of hostages here, where both sides are giving securities to ensure their side’s good behaviour. If that feels too forced, well, we can even have it on a voluntary basis. It doesn’t exactly matter if Tyrande would never give an important hostage to the Horde, if Shandris agrees to be the Night Elf representative in Orgrimmar at Anduin’s or Turalyon’s suggestion, does it? What is Tyrande supposed to do to stop her “daughter” from making that decision for the good of all? Indeed, if she is angry about it, all the better, at least there would be some personal conflict here.
Well, someone would whine about it for sure. But that’s true about pretty much everything. And I wouldn’t expect any more significant level of resistance, no.
Would you object personally, if something like that were to happen? Because I don’t really think we are able to speak for others on that one.
To a degree I think it’s possible. But it’s not the place where I would start.
IMO the first question the next narrative team would need to ask would be “is this game about the factions, or not about the factions”. Otherwise the dev resources might be diluted too much.
Answer to this question will define the framework to how the story will unfold.
I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt to the current team post Afrasiabi leadership. But so far I feel like they will take the story very far, and do not care about why people started to like the universe to begin with.
Fair enough. I would not say it’s “depressing”. IMO it’s necessary to understand the tools available and the situation. But since we’re talking about what could be done in general - that’s not too relevant indeed.
In WoW - yeah, you can. Easiest way to do so, would be to combine the story about the Well of Eternity as a “tool” used to accelerate “cycles of growth and rebirth” (you know what that could mean for the population), and Azeroth being the strongest titan - to anima flow (that would mean, anima can be extracted from the dead. Which mean constant necessity to “feed” her power, or suffer consequences).
It’s all about the goal to pursue. Lore has many points and can be taken in many directions without necessity for retcons.
Depends on the story direction. I see no problem with permanently retiring “for Azeroth”. Heroes of the horde, are heroes of the horde. Heroes of the alliance, are heroes of the alliance. A hero for 1 side, might be a villain for another.
I do not think this is a path to consider. You can see in practive troubled development cycle as is. So, I personally would pick either factions, or “cosmic threat” stuff. As is, both directions suffer, with BfA being the biggest offender so far with both bad faction and “void” stories.
IMO better do few things well, than offer a lot of mediocrity.
Since you mentioned
I see no point in restricting the discussion to what the current team does, but to focus on what could make things work in general.
Finding people who can combine a non-trivial concept with rigorous execution is not an easy thing. But it’s blizzard we’re talking here, so they have more than enough money to do so. How they allocate the resources earned - that’s a different topic.
There is still room for many stories of present and the past. Action is a good choice for some situations. Not so much - for the other. Doing “kill 10 bears” regardless of the form of bears might be tedious.
So, variety could enhance the experience related to action. Some downtime, build up, aftermath of events - that could make things look more alive, and give breathing room, instead of hopping from 1 room to another, like it’s a part with attractions where people go for a day to get as many impressions as possible, and move on after.
It’s a game “meant” (maybe) for lasting effect. And as such, sometimes action and story need suitable pacing and timing.
IMO anything could be. But, “depends…”
What should? Depends on the direction and the framework. What is considered to be a “starting point”, where is all should go, how to stucture the narrative in meaningful chunks.
If the story is about factions - one thing. If not - another one. If we go for peace - takes 1 set of assumptions. If factions go in factions paths - a different dungeon master is needed.
I mean, yeah, it is possible, because IMO how he treated Talanji was out of character, and was done just to justify zandalari joining the horde, however silly that looks.
So, if lore consistency is relevant - no, that would not happen. If “do whatever” - then anything could be, however out of place it is. We might have to be more explisit if continuity is relevant for the discussion.
Power of plot armour is way bigger than some could imagine, I’d say.
If narrative consistency matters - not really IMO. But that’s besides the point.
If story of an ever evolving project does not take into consideration how the players play and see events - is there even value in the story in that case?
Hence going to the beginning of this post - depends on the goal. Is peace even needed? Is it even good in the setting? Maybe attempts to do what Anduin does is a path to apocalypse?
What problem and at what point should it solve? Somewhere withing BfA events? Before? After? Is this a framework for the future, post Shadowlands time?
Right now we have uncertainty about “players vs. devs” when it comes to the elf story. Depending on how it goes, many things could happen. We might even hit the point of “a straw that broke the camel’s back” with support of the game in general.
Can’t be done in the current setting. It can’t be believable, because the players do not exist in the vacuum. And irl if grudges of that kind are not resolved, it’s just a question of when the next explosion happens.
So no, armistice here irl could do more harm than good. IMO it would require going back to basics and asking - is the game about factions or not. And either address elements bit by bit till the conflict is left behind permanently, or shift the paradigm to “we go to Shadowlands for info and to make sure not all our “rivals” will come back after”.
What for? That all goes back to the problem that we need more than 1 way of living / thinking / acting to be valid for it to make sense. If not, there will be just same BfA / MoP scenario again and again, when there is only 1 way to live considered right™.
Which is why is all goes back: factions are the core of the story to build the rest upon it, or a waste of resources.
Sounds good, kind of. To me characters are still secondary to the world story, but can be a useful tool, sure.
Should we have 1 idea per faction, or should different races have different perspectives too?
Currently there is no “other side”. It’s just Anduin everywhere.
First, we would need to go back to basics, to what made people play the game originally, and reconstruct the concepts of factions.
Example of the idea:
factions are the core, or a waste of time
goal to retire faction narrative or rebuild it
what is the goal of the narrative - story first, or gameplay first
what core principles lie in the foundation of the horde / alliance
what’s the flaws in their views, to have a spectrum from “good” to “bad” instead of constant mediocrity.
About races, keep them as is or reshuffle, about their history and using it to reinforce some ideas, or to confront them in themselves / enemy, about possible internal changes of the leadership. List goes on and on.
One might as well remove Shandris completely at this point. Her opposing to Tyrande at the end BfA was forced and on a border of out of character as is.
If Anduin would want something, it’s up to “pro peace” crowd to put their lives at stake (like Anduin or Jaina)
Problem is, there is no good in shrugging off the consequences of the tree™ story, except portraying a Stockholm syndrome victim.
That would explode the reaction even more than usual. On the other hand, if the goal is to get to the point when the narrative team is forced to quit the company - that might be a way.
There would be no conflict here, Shandris would just be a betrayer not worth caring about anymore.
It was more of a metaphorical handcuff sort of analogy. Being held by a sense of compromise or dependence.
There is a staple feeling of tribalism that makes it hard to reach compromises that so patently highlight a potential weakness.
And if you try to handle it as a voluntary move, it often seems like you’ve gone to the other extreme (see Baine).
That’s why Blizzard often defaults to the Cold War situation: Both factions remain with a sense of being independent or powerful, with but the slightest of mutual compromise to hold it all in place.
It depends. I think it varies from race to race.
Issue I find here, is mixture of two things.
One:
There are several races that cannot be thrown into this scenario in a way that doesnt aggravate either their players or their characters.
Going with the latter, as it’s more tied with the narrative side of things, I think that several factions have been written into such a corner, that this move would simply place a ticking bomb that would just showcase how this compromise cannot work.
Honestly, I don’t see how the Zandalari, Gilnean, Night elves or Orcs, could realistically compromise to this sort of deal, without it turning badly (talking here about average examples of each race, not about outliers).
And two:
Those races that could realistically or naturally flow towards this sort of compromise are already so used up for said sort of roles, that I don’t see how they could create any sort of realistic deterrent or fulfil their part as buffers for faction hostilities.
Pandaren, Draenei, Goblins,…
Honestly, both factions would just probably just treat them as neutral third parties to be pushed out of the way.
