I can’t wait for the Midnight expansion where people will have the same “Oh wait, why is there only Horde characters here?” as they stand in the Kingdom of Quel’thalas and having to deal with Amani shennanigans that the Zandalari Trolls will have to mediate… My god this is exhausting. I don’t wanna throw shade or engage in another 50+ posts of comparison of A VS H, but this mentality can poison or dilute narratives if you are in a perpetual state of “fairness” to the other factions in a story where it would be stronger if it’s tailor made for a single faction/playable race(s)… Granted Blizzard forged this poison chalice themselves so I’m not entirely sympathetic either. You can’t reap the benefits of having binaric factions but claiming everyone is at peace and totally cooperating without dismantling the system itself.
As for the Anduin matter… Sigh Best I can say is that I hope it’s not the same people who handled the Jaina’s arch in BfA working on it. My sentiments prior to his Shadowlands arch have already been stated and its quality.
Ever since… Cataclysm? This is their standard excuse to bad story beats??? Players, who haven’t even bothered to learn the Lore, have predicted their simple story beats since forever… Yet they keep on clinging to their worthless “wait and see” approach?
Its a -approach to a -story, which holds no suprise at all, and they know it. Thats why the keep calling on the “Wait-and-See-approach” which ends up in literally everyone being unhappy, lmao…
They might have changed the sock-puppet from Danuser to Metzen, but a sockpuppet can only do so much when the rest is unable to change
It’s not unreasonable for people to expect a healthy balance in terms of faction representation, especially when many of the characters pushed to the forefront are guilty of directly or indirectly slaughtering civilians and soldiers alike from the opposite faction.
I do not care for either the Horde or the Alliance. I think only having two factions was a mistake and that certain playable races suffer immensely due to being forced into one of two factions.
Though I loathe certain characters that are pushed to the forefront and forced to interact with characters who are members of the very faction/race they have inflicted atrocities upon.
Yes, it’s ‘convenient’ to have the faction divide scaled back on some fronts to ensure that queues for content are more reasonable but outside of that, speaking purely on the subject of the story? It makes no sense.
They can trot out the same tiresome excuses about how there needs to be ‘peace’ but it’s immensely unsatisfying. They’re only backtracking away from the faction conflict because they wrote themselves into a corner by repeatedly hitting the Horde with the unapologetic villain bat all whilst downplaying any and all horrific acts conducted by characters associated with the Alliance.
It doesn’t help that there’s a frequently peddled myth of ‘Horde favouritism’ as if the faction having the vast majority of its racial leaders killed off (either unceremoniously or as a ruthless raid boss) is being given special treatment.
I’m not interested in having one side favoured and then the other, even though I am a fan of the Horde rather than the Alliance. Every expansion and every story should allow fans of both factions to feel involved, in my opinion.
If Midnight is going to be Horde-centric (I personally consider this very unlikely), I’ll probably be quieter about it due to my favouritism but it’ll still be a bad thing. Each faction has its fans and both groups should be able to enjoy the story and have their interests catered to. It’s not a herculean task, it’s as simple as maybe seeing Hallowfall through the eyes of Thrall as well, from an orcish perspective. That would be a start.
Exploring different perspectives doesn’t water down the narrative and in fact, I would argue that having a laser-focused narrative that focuses exclusively one thing and then the next thing and then the next is detrimental, when the primary appeal of Warcraft is its kitchen sink nature and how it has something for everyone. By focusing their storytelling so heavily on one thing at a time, Blizzard is in danger of boring the people who just aren’t interested in that thing - which is potentially a lot of people, considering how everyone likely has their own part of the kitchen sink that they enjoy more than any other.
For example, the fact that the story of Hallowfall is mostly Anduin’s story means that has a lessened appeal for anyone and everyone who doesn’t really care about Anduin. Spread the focus a little by putting Thrall in there and maybe giving us Thrall’s perspective on Hallowfall and suddenly, you’ve also got the people who like Thrall interested too. Of course it gets a little watered down if you involve too many characters, but a one-man-show has a very limited appeal. It’s that simple.
Doesn’t even have to be two separate quest-lines based on faction.
I’m not asking for four hours with Anduin for the Alliance and four hours with Thrall for the Horde, maybe two hours with each of them for both factions would be enough and help to break down faction barriers?
Blizzard need to sell that TWW will give Horde players a reason to care. So far it’s not done that. “Wait and see” doesn’t do that. Right now, from what we’ve seen, it’s “Wait two years for Midnight, then you might get some content you care about”.
And that’s not a problem with player expectations. That’s a problem with marketing and content shown so far. If you wanted Horde players to be excited, why is Thrall constantly sidelined in the marketing? The artwork? The interviews? Why did his storyline have to be hastily rewritten after everyone pointed out how much the elemental dysfunction retread sucked?
Do you really think Alleria isn’t going to be a central character
Do you think they had Arator living in Silvermoon just for kicks and giggles and not because he’s going to be in Midnight as part of the “elven unification” stuff.
There’s more “Alliance” elf tribes than there are Horde, so when Midnight is marketed around Silvermoon, the tagline of Elven Unification means that it’s going to have a hefty Alliance presence. It is not going to be the ALL HORDE ALL THE TIME NO ALLIANCE NERDS HERE expansion.
This is, again, not a problem with player expectations. This is how they marketed it.
If players have the wrong end of the stick after looking at all the stuff Blizz put out…then that’s Blizz’s fault, and it’s on them to fix.
The fact that Blizz insisted factions were necessary (they’ve been a bad idea for decades), then went HARD on the Faction Identity hype for BFA (terrible idea) and now is having to deal with Faction based lack of rep complaints is hilarious* to me.
.* Well. Hilarious in a schadenfreude kinda way, not funny at all in a design and storytelling way
I think they’ll be around, central however is yet to be announced. Assuming Bae-blade survives the expansion to carry onto the next, Alleria’s hunt will naturally do as well.
PS : Arator living in SMC is still a ridiculous idea.
Setting aside everything else, the tone and scale of Shadowlands doesn’t lend itself to a starter experience at all, whereas BFA and Dragonflight do (exploring Kul Tiras and Zandalar or the Dragon Isles vs. crossing the breach into the realms of death).
I am fairly certain that the original draft had him in Stormwind and it was changed later on during the writing process. There are so many weird details, including strangely human names of some blood elves he mentions, meeting with Turalyon, or him training with Blood Knights, that would make much more sense if everything was happening in Stormwind instead. But, I think they wanted to emphasize the rift between Alleria and blood elves, so it was moved to SMC with pretty much no changes to the rest of the story.
Him being in Stormwind, Dalaran, heck even Light’s hope Chapel or that one High Elf settlement in the Hinterland would feel more natural.
But yeah you are right, it was about Alleria’s and her rift with the Blood Elves… Which is justified by the way even outside the consideration for the Sunwell. She poached from her own kingdom and had the people recruited them fight against said Kingdom, she ain’t no diplomat but military leader.
-approach to a 
