One faction discussion

Lore Story
1

Hello Everyone.

It has been hinted by BellularGaming that the factions may come together in patch 9.0.

Consider this as speculation purely as I may be proven wrong, as Activision Blizzard already stated they believe the two factions to be core of the game.

That brought something similar in my mind from LoTR: the One Ring.
From Wikipedia: One Ring
“One ring to rule them all, one ring to find them,
One ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.”

Which in WoW would translate to:
“One faction to rule them all, one faction to find them,
One faction to bring them all and in the light bind them.”
That would be hinted to Anduin.

As we know he is set to rule for many years to come and having Velen by his side.
But where is the Horde ?
My gess: it’s now part of the Alliance.

Here’s what I gathered from the forums, during this months, player opinions:

  • Burning of Teldrassil, an act written to be as shocking as possible.

Alliance players wrote many times, only the dismantling of the Horde could be the solution, for BfA.

My guess: it was intended that way.
An act described as Horde going too far, for the second time after Theramore, there will be no third time, in the narrative, this time, Anduin will rule the Horde as High King.
Baine is his personal friend, Anduin went as far as rescuing him, risking Jaina and Shaw.
Saurfang, should had been killed by the Alliance soldiers, but Anduin didn’t allowed it.
Why ?
Because he wanted to know if the Horde is still worth saving.
Remember the lost Honor cinematic ?

He asked him, questions many of us would deem silly:
“At Lordaeron you had the chance to take my life, maybe end the war.
Why didn’t you killed me ?”
“I spared you because i believed you have Honor, was I wrong ?”

I think by now everyone: Alliance and Horde players can agree on one thing: Saurfang being hypocrite.
He knows that, that’s why he wanted to throw kill himself twice.
None likes being a hypocrite.
But now my question is: why is he being written like this ?
My guess: It is meant to be that way, a character with conflicting emotions, between the Warrior Horde that drank demon blood, slaughtered woman and children and the more honourable, the shamanistic Horde that was ignored, during Gul’Dan rise to power.

Sylvanas reminded him of the Warrior conquering Horde, with her arguments, why the Horde needs to wage war on the Alliance and win.
Many Horde players stated he was responsible for Malfurion getting away.
Had Malfurion died and the plan would had succeed.
But that plan was never meant to succeed, because that’s not was meant for BfA.
The Horde will wage war on the Alliance, but they will not succeed.

Zekhan reminded him, that the Horde needs him, in Undercity
Anduin told him he can’t stop Sylvanas, not alone, it his responsibility as a Honorable Orc to help him clean up Sylvanas’s mess.

Now we have two Horde characters siding with Anduin: Baine and Saurfang.
All related with the Honorable Horde.
Why ?
Because Honor is also something that is engraved in the Alliance.
That’s what allowed the Horde and the Alliance to work together in the past.

Let’s analyse the measures taken in the past, from Warcraft perspective:

  • All out war, with one faction being decimated and the other becoming victorious.
    That was done during the first, second war and ended with the alliance going to the other side of the dark portal.
    Results: Gul’Dan sold his people to the Legion in exchange for power.
    The Orcs were bound to not succeed from the start.
    A new Horde was born under Thrall after he fled imprisonment, under a more Honorable banner and cooperation with different races.
    My conclusion: This method has been done and tried and failed, because it didn’t prevent the Horde of being reborned.

  • Cooperation, the two factions remain independent, with border conflict.
    That was tried by Varian and Thrall.
    But the coming of a third force that ultimately would break the state of cold war between the two factions always emerged.
    Arthas scourge army and the Legion army.
    Loss of armies and many valuable characters like Dranosh Saurfang, Bolvar Fordragon, Varian and Vol’Jin.
    Upcoming of all out war afterwards with retaliations, caused by misunderstandings like:
    Wrathgate incident and the retreat from the Broken Shore by the Horde leaving the Alliance behind.
    Old Gods manifestation.
    My conclusion: This method doesn’t work either.

  • One faction, like we have in real life the UN.
    The Alliance integrates the Horde and Anduin is the High king.
    My conclusion: This would show that the story is progressing form a state of all out war in the RTS games, to the cold war in the MMOG, to the end of all out conflicts between the Horde and the Alliance.

As I see it, this would be the answer for the community many complains, because it was meant that way, by the writers, we all complain about it:

  • Sylvanas going villain mode: Pyromancer from Youtube stated that it was done on purpose, all according to her plans, she wanted Elune to come and aid the Night elves.
    https://youtu.be/Zk37dTQMAdM
    Assuming he was right, than even Sylvanas is making things change from the current two faction systems to something else. Which than proves her supporters were right, but not the way they expected.
  • Baine being close friends to Anduin.
  • Saurfang regretting his actions and helping Anduin.
  • Jaina helping Baine.
  • Thrall coming and talking things with Jaina and regretting everything.
    He needs someone to take care of the Horde.
    Garrosh showed that Orcs are too violent.
    Vol’Jin was irreplaceable, the Horde needs something that can provide stable government, even if the leader dies and the Horde can’t do it, but the Alliance can.
    One good ruler dies another comes and another and another.
    Example: kill Varian and Anduin comes, kill Anduin and another will replace him.
    Never changing anything, regarding the Alliance.
  • Anduin caring about the Horde more than his own faction, the Horde is about to become Alliance as well.
  • Lor’themar speaking to Jaina.
  • Calia Menethil turned in to a Undead of the Light, she his the rightfully heir to the throne of Lordaeron, now turned in to a holy undead.
  • Teldrassil as something that can’t be healed, or forgotten, something needs to be done to the Horde.

Final hints:

  • Christie Golden loves Anduin as a character.
    What better way to end the next expansion as Anduin the ruler of the new Alliance, this time made by all Horde races ?
  • Evil is never allowed in Azeroth to persist otherwise we would be ruled by Gul’Dan as Horde players and Sargeras would already triumphed against the Alliance and Night Elves with Arthas as his champion, Archimonde and Kil’jaeden.
  • It’s easier to write a narrative for one faction than two, I think this is the most important aspect of all.
    Did any horde paladin felt integrated in the paladin order hall quest in legion ?
    Lady Liandrin was there, but the rest of the characters were all humans.

Gameplay advantages:

  • No more overpowered faction stomping the other.
  • Method and the best guilds can now recruit the best race/class combos.
  • It makes no difference if you are Horde or Alliance, because they are one faction everyone can apply for the best guilds.
  • Free for all pvp like the Dalaran sewers in Legion.
  • Faster BG’s, LFR’s and LFD’s.

That’s my thoughts.
It’s just my theories based on speculation and yes they may be proven wrong.
What’s your opinion ?

Thanks for your attention.
Cheers.

2 Likes
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If Blizzard would force the Horde to side with the Alliance and players would be united under one ruler i would legit join the Burning Legion or what is left of it

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I’ll tell you what I already told you in that other thread. I am going over to Classic if that happens. And I will be disgusted if Blizzard pushes the narrative that Jaina is lost and can’t do anything without Daddy Thrall coming to her rescue.

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I do not see this becoming true. Blizzard stated themselves, regarding the theme of BfA, that the faction conflict is at the heart of Warcraft. Removing it is bound to cause a lot of negativity. It is like taking the force away from Star Wars.

I find it more likely, and better, that the two factions decide to go together to form a neutral “Defenders of Azeroth” league, with representatives from both faction, charged with protecting Azeroth from threats within and without.

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Everyone becoming Alliance with High King at top? Not so much. Baine and Anduin as personal friends agreeing factions are stupid and start a united Azeroth with a new leadership direction? Now that sounds like the way Blizzard intended this to go.

Lordaeron doesn’t exist anymore. Neither their infrastructure or(non undead) people. She(Calia) is nobody’s ruler but her own. If GRR Martin would have seen Blizzards idea on how medieval succession systems work, he would start ripping his hair out, slap them with his books and starts of some lecture courses how to write medieval fantasy kingdoms for them.

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That might be what they were going for. But it would still be an addon marketed as the faction pride addon that was, on its very foundation, a lie. Not some clever misdirection, but true misleading marketing. It wouldn’t reflect any better on the writers, if they had a bad plan, than if they had no plan at all. And it would still show a fundamental misunderstanding of the MMO-medium, to have us raging for 2 years before telling us that the rage was stupid, even if the plan was a good one.

And really, Anduin as the leader of the Azeroth UN, the Forsaken, which had become more and more radically evil, turned into Calia’s good boys, Sylvanas being right in any way whatsoever… I can’t imagine that there are many people who could like that. Taking away Horde identity altogether, violently having their way with Forsaken identity, taking away ane revenge the Alliance might ever get, taking away the conflict that for many is at the center of the game…

And I say that while personally really disliking the continued existence of the factions. I would be mostly quite happy if we could just make the factions disappear and pretend that they weren’t a thing. I would be thrilled if the factions both broke apart from the inside. I would be ok with one faction conquering and subjugating the other. And there are scenarios where the factions could fuse together naturally. But this kind of story? Where they highlight all the bad blood to throw a “GET OVER IT!” at us, at the end, while just crashing through everything that was before? That’s worse. So. Much. Worse.

I kinda disagree. But I won’t elaborate in this thread.

3 Likes
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I don’t think its feasible. To much blood.
It requires to dismiss a circus worth of elephants in that particular room.

The only other way to tackle this, IF we are to meddle with the faction system, is by dissolving both organisms and forming a more loose relation amongst the moderate sectors on punctual occasions.

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But that’s the thing with bad writing… everything is possible. I myself have given up on predicting the future, based on how stupid the past was. Who knows, maybe Trunks from the future will apear when N’zoth is freed, easily kill him, and warn us about the Androids we have activated by killing King Mechagon, who will destroy everything in two years?

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And he will still not be a fully grown Elekk by then for reasons.

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That’s even better than the Trunks I was thinking of.

Make this canon, please.

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You are too wishful. Blizzard knows faction pride is stupid stuff that turns players hostile against each other. So before someone commits homicide over it, better delete the factions for good.

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not sure 2 factions is needed, though I doubt we se only one faction, but I would not mind if both horde and alliance as they are now would be dispanded, where one faction become truly dark, and one more light sided, but at same time remove what race can be on what ever side there is, becuse there is realy no need to have races faction locked anymore, and as it looks like this might happen becuse not all horde belivies in sylvanas ways, where actualy not all alliance eighter belive in in anduin anymore

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I fundamentally disagree on merging factions on all levels. I do not associate with Herd.

But damn…

Not gonna lie, that one makes me twitch in excitement… I’ve been dealing with Alliance incompetence for 12 years and I really want to soothe my frustration about it.

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They don’t need to completely merge both factions to remove some of the barriers between them. Let’s face it, apart from Oceanic servers over on the US client the Alliance is in terminal decline in endgame content. The current situation isn’t a viable long term strategy in a game with less and less players.

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Even though the idea of the faction merger is getting flung around a lot, I think a lot of people are forgetting the fact that while Thrall and Jaina might be best buddies now, they are not their respective faction’s leaders. They don’t have the power to force the factions together, that lies with the Warchief of the Horde and the King of Stormwind to make that decision.

A good idea would be to perhaps allow certain groups of Horde and Alliance players to “team up” in the future, but a total faction merger will never happen.

Me personally, I’d like to see more race pride rather than faction pride tbh. Each race has their own starting area and capital, so I’d love to see more race pride and having the race capitals being upgraded to the standards of Stormwind or Orgrimmar. Still have each race flying their respective faction flags, but less focus on being a “Horde player” and more on being an “Orc player” or “Worgen player”.

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It’s sad how you say that the ultimate decision belongs to King Anduin when it is an -ALLIANCE- ruled by a High Command comprised of all members of the Alliance.

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How is that relevant? Sylvanas most probably won’t stay leader and will be replaced by someone of #TeamThrall, and Anduin is the one who sent Jaina to save Baine, he certainly isn’t any harsher on the Horde than she is.

Just because T&E said that doesn’t make it a very striking objection.

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