I was wondering today about this topic, it’s related to Warcraft 3 and the factions that originated WoW:
Humans;
Orcs;
Night Elves;
Undead;
If we look closely lore wise this 4 factions have nothing to do with each other.
They have different units, architecture and lore yet they were merged in 2 faction system, for me is lore inconsistency made for the sake of gameplay.
2 faction system is easier to manage than 4 faction system (Humans, Orcs, Night Elves and Undead).
But lore wise is more logical to write 4 different factions than 2 factions (orcs and humans) that have the 2 other factions in the background (Night Elves and Undead).
A few examples of inconsistencies in BfA I can think of are:
Lore wise Azshara should be fought by Tyrande and the Night Elves since she is related to them, but in terms of gameplay that would mean the other races are out of the raid.
Lore wise, Sylvanas should be the Queen of the Undead faction not the Warchief of the Horde a faction created by Orcs from the Warcraft 3 faction, but that would mean splitting the Horde community in to two, in terms of gameplay.
Others:
lore wise, Blood Elfs should had remained with their prince Kael in outland and Vereessa and her men became playable race for the Alliance.
Game play: Horde needs a pretty race so Blood Elfs join the Horde.
Lore wise the Nightborne should join the Night Elves but game play dictated they should join the Horde (another elven race in a tribalistic faction, with undeads).
I am starting to think they should just separate the lore that is told on the books from the lore that is told in game.
Simply put the lore in game should focus more on zone stories, where the player character race is irrelevant.
He doesn’t participate in actual lore events, such as: defeating Deathwing, killing Arthas, defeating the legion, etc.
Those events are written in books and they get defeated by the protagonists of WoW.
I could go on but I think, you got the rough idea.
I am more interested in knowing what’s your opinion ?
I see you’re calling your headcanon “lore wise” and everything that deviates from it “gameplay wise”. I’m pretty sure you don’t understand what those words mean.
They’re slowly trying with Sylvanas and Tyrande to make hybrid factions, whom you can freely choose to follow? I mean, if you are Horde, you get to choose to side with Sylvanas or thrall, if you are alliance, you get to choose Tyrande or Anduin.
In my dreams I think of something like eso (never played it but from what I can understand it’s different). Or you could have allies of convenience and strict allies. Like, Elves council, tribal people, elves council n.2, FOHTHEEMPRAAAAHHH. I know what I’d choose for sure, I’d like to witness my doom.
"SPOILERS
So far in the datamining, Thalyssra has a huge role in the lore against Azshara, Jaina plays the major role for the alliance, Shandris and Lor’themar are tag alongs, Tyrande and Malfurion aren’t presents. Nightborne and humans mostly involved, darnassian kaldorei seem to be marginal
Little to No Role for Kaldorei, Shendralar or Farondis Highborne
I may have understood why night elven armies of priests, druids and sentinels werent going into Naz’jatar because of Darkshore though its a piss poor excuse - but what about the Highborne, Shen’dralar and Farondis? ILLIDARi too? They could have been the major night elf representsation there.
I’m sad to see they arent playing a role so far leaked, and rather than Jaina working with them, she is unstead replacing them on the alliance side, similar to Khadgar did in Legion.
How hard is it to write actual night elves who knew Azshara (already in the lore) and were greatly affected by her playing a major role against her…? unless this is only the start and alot more of her is coming after her raid…big IF tho. If Jaina can star in 8.0 and 8.1, why is Tyrandes token appearance in battle for Darkshore all she gets against her racial nemesis Azshara? I dont get it, Or Thalyssra are sent but not Farondis or Evenshade and their people
At least Thalyssra is playing a role which is good, and while I really don’t mind Jaina being there, people like Prince Farondis and Mordant Evenshade along with the rest of the Farondis and Shen’dralar highborne should be playing the leading alliance role from the night elves, while the druids and sentinels are still in Darkshore.
I hear Tyrande and Malfurion aren’t even there, which makes them look super stupid, for being more concerned with revenge and a zone instead of stopping their ancient adversary responsible for every hardship and weakness the night elves have endured in the last 10,000 years, including their greatest genocide, which makes Teldrassil look like kiddies play. That enemy, who is plotting another otherworldly invasion that could give the void victory over all creation. I mean why arent these people leading the fight against someone they clearly hate and need to stop…same with Prince Farondis, its their racial lore.
If this isn’t the end of Azshara and they will get involved a lot more later on, then fine, but that is a big if. Again, like Legion, it feels like the Darnassian night elves, who were the main group of night elves, seem to be cut out of what’s going on.
What is so hard about having both Farondis and Thalyssra playing similar roles together for their respective allies? What was so hard about having Jaina alongside the older more knowledgeable mage like Mordant Evenshade who’d be far more familiar with the arcane magic worked of Elven people and great tools and methods long lost to human and high elf trained magi? Yes we get she is powerful, but she is a child in breadth of knowledge compared to others like Thakyssrwm Mordant or Farondis and doesn’t have to be alone.
This is the 2nd major night elf enemy after the Legion, their own former Queen, it doesn’t get more night elf than this, it seems a snub to have them play so little a role but instead have more newbies like Lor’themar and Jaina doing everything.
You use night elves for night elf stuff, because you will ignore them for human, orc, draenei and every other races stuff, yet still feel they should play minimal roles in their own lore stuff…just wow"
Well I read this post and I agree with the author:
And another example from the US forums:
“We had an entire expansion in Pandaria where the moral of the story ended up being “you two can be great if you work together,” followed by two expansions demonstrating this. Yet Blizzard still wants to claim that the faction war has a leg to stand on.”
If they’re gonna push the faction war, fine. But at least be consistent about it - don’t spend a whole plot line hammering in that we’re bad for fighting, than immediately try and goad us into fighting again."
As you can see I am not the only one complaining about inconsistencies.
Look at BfA and Legion.
We spent an entire expansion where the game told us how Azeroth united defeated the Legion, so In BfA we are told to grab arms and fight each other.
Just be honest about it all say it’s game play purposes.
Activision Blizzard wants to make a war expansion fine.
Don’t come and tell us how it’s justifiable by the lore.
Things I never understood while a player that only plays Warcraft:
Undeads in Orc faction;
Night Elves in Human faction;
Elfs in Horde faction;
War, peace, war, peace, erh … can you make up your mind please ?
Thrall is the founder of the Horde, but the current Horde looks more like a undead faction;
Alliance helping the Horde, in BfA, when they should be slaughtering them, for what the Horde did in Teldrassil;
Finally:
" The concept of “continuity exists to enhance a story, not to tie the hands of creators” is what finally made me quit this game.
This feels so pointless. I can’t get myself immersed in the story of a character… If that story is completely changed on a whim without any explanations. It feels like a waste of time. This isn’t a story, there is nothing to anticipate. No development I can look forward to and be excited about… Because they are willing to, just like that, ignore everything that was established in order to introduce something that makes zero sense but seems “cool” to them.
The lack of continuity makes me feel like playing this game is an utter waste of time."
I’m just here for the memeing at this point, had a passion/hobby trashed and lost friends thanks to the events of the last month(s). 8.2 PTR was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I’ll write my own fiction rather than reading the current lore, which is an insult. What was the point of painstakingly reading and comparing to canon lore for hundreds of hours, when the official treatment is to just ignore it? And I did not exaggerate the time spent researching.
And I’ll just point out that what someone might think is the natural course of events is entirely subjective.
Lore consistency isn’t contingent to predictability.
Regardless of how much people dislike it.
The Op list is lore consistent. Even if the lore itself is bad.
And regarding separating books from the game…what’s the point of books then? If I wanted a completely different story I’d simply read some other fantasy piece.
There was never declared peace between factions, there were only periods of non-open agression. The only reason Horde and Alliance choose to cooperate was because the nemy was stronger than any of them, so only by combining strenght for a short period of time was acceptable for them, but that doesn’t mean that the problems they previously had magically disappear.
There it is again. The idea of intersectional faction racism for the sake of overdone fantasy themes. I’m quite happy with how the current factions worked out. I don’t want to limit myself with outdated stereotypes.
Sounds more like “Simply put I dont like how they developed the story so here’s how I would write it , along with my wishful thinking of nelf gods and highelfs for Alliance all in one thread”
In all seriousness, people recallling WC3 history, are like ignoring all of WoW lore and thats like an entire Chronicle worth of lore. So you really need to do some homework.
If you dont like it is fine. But it doesnt mean its wrong, just cause you dont like it
But you woukd be kidding yourself if you thought the current state of affairs wrt factions was some literary or creative statement aimed at reinventing stereotypes.
It was entirely gameplay determining, and is done to drive the game style 2 faction setting. Most of it doesntaddup, or make sense, missing key exp,anations, with little or no follow through but all those are forgiveable, the glaring inconsistencies where new stuff just replaces old as if the old didnt matterand means nothing this is the lowest state…why trust anything you see in a franchise that supposedly continues telling stories if the ones told before dont matter?
It effectively kills its strongest asset. Why should i care what Zandalari, void elves orblood elves do now if its going to meannothing or changed later?..
I am going to stop caring about wow lore totally if they show no sign ending this, because I feel there is no point in investing in the lore emotionally or financnially.
All those stories andbooks i bought and sometimes reread…,most of their lore onvalidated or irrelevant…,no effort for complete comsistencies.
I still don’t get where that “nelves are invincible” sentiment came from. I went through nelf campaigns and they really weren’t that OP as people made them to be. They were strong and more populous because for thousands of years they lived in isolation without anyone contesting them.
As for “helves for Alliance” I don’t think belves shoul’ve joined Horde. It was shoddy writing and I’d rather have Amani instead. There is no reason why Horde that has capital named after Orgrimm Doomhammer would allow former enemies in, and only because Sylvanas asked for it.
Why would Horde fight Amani when they were in Alliance before? Why not renewing that bond and take over the rest of northern Lordaeron? In fact entire WC3 was about belves leaving their home to move to Ouland. That was a very big retcon to revert all of that.
It’s not exactly rocket science. People would rather play an attractive avatar and not some lanky, hunched over troll or beefed up orc with the proportions of the Michelin Man.
Blizzards fault really for not giving em a more, shall we say visually appealing aesthetic
![:stuck_out_tongue:](https://d1bg94bbsh66ji.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/stuck_out_tongue.png?v=6" ":stuck_out_tongue:")