The Pre(r)amble
Let it be known that I love War. In Warcraft. Instead of quoting an abridged parody version of an abhorrent cyborg German man, I’ll make it abundantly clear that my number one, ultimate source of Role-Play enjoyment comes from the Faction War. I see other endeavors (either as an organizer or a participant) usually almost as enjoyable, but the good old HvA interactions have always left the kind of lasting impression that remain unmatched by any raid marker/NPC-driven server campaign.
As such I acknowledge my own bias. I embrace it and I see how others may consider it outdated. A relic of a time of RP-PvP campaigns riddled with OOC planning, drama and powerplays, of disagreements and gank squads, of unfair campaign mechanics and magic brews.
Thus my post and ultimate message is for those who have and will likely always have a similar preference. It is not intended for those who want the faction wars, barriers, misgivings and warmongering gone. It is not intended for those who want and prefer a united Azeroth, or one where the factions are dissolved and every race fends for themselves either in open conflict or upholding a tenuous peace. No, this is for my warboys and wargirls, the troublemakers of Red and Blue, and I hope every talking head acknowledges this. We have heard your opinion on how the factions should stop fighting. I actually accept it and understand that it’s that mentality and approach generated the most memorable, enjoyable or positive experiences on Argent Dawn and other RP servers for you.
I would prefer if you don’t chirp in. This thread is for the warmongers. And for my fellow eternal soldiers I say
It is fine that you’re still fighting the opposing faction. You are doing nothing wrong. There is no right or wrong and don’t let others make you think otherwise.
So why is Faction Conflict and RP-PvP post-BFA Fiiiiiine?
There is a prevalent mentality of anti-Faction War that a vocal part of the community likes to remind everyone else each and every time conflict is discussed, and this is not unmerited or even vitriolic.
The many times the Horde was written into a position of the instigators and frankly evil force, the many times the faction war was injected into the setting at the expense of something else (whether that’s cohesive writing, world building or the shifting focus in the narrative) justify any naysayer. Post-BFA I might even agree with them because the Fourth War was ultimately a jarring, disjointed mess.
But that’s not what we focus on. That, or the morality of who started which conflict, who did worse or who’s morally or mentally deranged are all ammunition you should spend in another thread. Here we discuss why faction conflict, even in Dragonflight and beyond, is acceptable and fine.
Naturally you ask why? Why would that be the case?
The Scale of the World and the dreaded CONSEQUENCES of RP-PvP
Whenever the local madmen of the AD Community organize an RP-PvP event (or, Light forbid, a CAMPAIGN) the usual reactions come up. How can you justify such scuffles when there’s an armistice in the lore? Why wouldn’t you be arrested and your camp dissolved by the Alliance/Horde Peacekeeper Association? Why wouldn’t you be violently executed for orchestrating violence?
It is a good time to remind everyone that the scale of the game’s world is not the same as how we experience it as players (except when it comes to intercontinental Azerite Demolishers but that’s a mess regardless of what scale we consider). The world of Azeroth, its regions and populace are far, far greater in number, scope and size in the lore. Redridge Mountains is not a collection of three hills, a village, a ruined fort, a tower and a saw mill, it’s a series of mountains with an undefined number of hills, villages, ruined forts, towers and sawmills. Stormwind City is not a small town and the quarter the size of Suramar City, it’s a metropolis. You can’t traverse across Ashenvale within 8 minutes. You get my point. It’s a gameplay concession so you don’t spend an unholy amount of time traveling.
However your guilds, war bands and military units of Role-Players are not scaling up with the rest of the world. Lore-wise your clan of Orcs, squad of Human Footmen or cohort of Zandalari shieldbearers don’t number in the hundreds. You are the same force in the setting whether you use the lore lenses or the in-game lenses when you inspect your troops.
As such, when a gaggle of, say, 200 players converge in Ashenvale or the Burning Steppes for a good old campaign, it’s not a global conflict that’s erupting across entire zones. It’s not the entirety of Ashenvale or Blackrock Mountain that get covered in marching legions battling each other for conquest. These are minor skirmishes. Foot notes. Localized, small battles that we as players see ginormous and pivotal because the game’s engine buckles and dies the moment more than 40 players are present in the same area and how everything is scaled down.
These brawls are thus not decisive beyond how they affect our characters. The big factions, the great Blue and Red, they are not monitoring every inch of their landscapes and consider a gaggle of 10 Warsong Orcs ransacking a Night Elf farmhouse an act of war. Nor is the retaliation of a similarly gargantuan strike force of two handfuls of Worgen and Elves a viable casus belli. These are inconsequential. Specks on the grand scale of Warcraft’s storytelling.
Go nuts with your RP-PvP because anything you do is ultimately only affecting the attendants and not worth the attention of anyone important. You enjoy yourself!
Why would these conflicts go unnoticed? My peacekeeper character overheard the attendants bragging in Stormwind City!
You are entirely in your right to call out and react to these vagabonds and war criminals, more so if they claim that Turalyon or Rokhan asked them to create a warzone (this hasn’t happened). However, similar to how the scale of the world is smaller than what it is lore-wise, so is the given population that much more numerous in any given named location or city. Populations filled with a myriad of personalities, edicts, ideas, ideals and morality.
Such is the consequence of these vast populations that these acts of violence on the outskirts of Horde and Alliance territories could have been sanctioned, funded, supported, encouraged and organized then downplayed, concealed, dismissed, written off by anyone.
30~ player characters duking it out in Northrend could have been approved by the particularly bloodthirsty Blood Guard Gorgmorgh and the equally vindictive Master Sergeant McDunk and not a single soul in High Command, the Horde Council’s room, the House of Nobles or the Feralas Sentinel Base would have heard about them.
The justification of everything being down-scaled in-game works this way as it then feeds into the inconsequential nature of how we as players interact with the game’s theme park world. You can cite consequences, but you and everyone you face are simply a droplet in an ocean of bureaucracy, grudges, interests, skullduggery, unbridled or calculated hate that can exist in any and every layer of the societies we don’t see in-game as they would make our rigs explode if they were present.
Why do we fight? (IC. OOC we are best pals I pinky swear!)
In a setting that constantly distances itself from negative real world parallels while promoting positive ones it comes naturally to the peacekeepers that they have a morale high ground, IC and OOC. Why do we fight if Genn, Jaina, Talanji, Tyrande, Anduin, Thrall and countless other lore characters tucked away their warmongering sides so we see renewal, with the factions working together like we were back in Warcraft III?
Because, dear reader, our characters can be woefully, awfully flawed AND justified in their hatred for the other faction. Much like any character can have a journey of acceptance, friendship and jolly good cooperation, there can always be someone who went down the deep end.
There are characters who may have been alive when the Dark Portal first opened and the Dark Horde bulldozed everything south of the Thandol Span (bar Ironforge and Gnomeregan because the stunty folk are sturdier than everyone else). There can be characters who have had their homes, families, friends, properties, their entire kingdoms obliterated in the First, Second, Third, Fourth Wars or any other event where the Alliance and Horde clashed. They may have lost everything dear to them because a dwarf or troll fancied to use the characters’ livelihood and relatives as target practice.
Or what about the good people of the Alliance and Horde armies who have grown up fighting the other faction? The ones who realized they thrive fighting the other faction? Who profit and excel, who rise through the ranks and earned a name and a living butchering the Tauren or the Draenei? The ones whose lives were shaped by the Faction Conflict to the point they know nothing else and dedicated themselves to their deep-rooted hatred for the other faction?
You can’t sell renewal and acceptance to these characters. It’s not a realistic or organic expectation that these malcontents would ever rehabilitate themselves. That they can ever rid themselves of old grudges when we know for a fact that people on our own dirt ball of a planet take up arms for offenses that occurred generations ago and what we might see as ultimately petty. So why should our fantasy characters be different, in a game where you spend the vast majority of time committing genocide as part of the gameplay loop?
Your character can be justified in how they despise the Horde or the Alliance. Or the Scourge. Or the Kirin Tor, the Shado-Pan. Whoever you see fit. You can craft a story and path that justifies WAR against ANYONE.
Why post this wall of text then Santern? Shouldn’t you be conducting edgy War Crime RP?
I have to say that I feel wrong for the vitriol I may have exhibited towards the part of the player base who advocates faction peace. I have grown to understand, to agree to disagree and I strive for coexistence. Hence, where anyone claims that peace should be universal, I reply that us warmongers can coexist with peacemongers. The world of Azeroth is so vast and undefined in Lore and so vast in the game itself that whatever one party does on Kalimdor may never affect those who merely lurk Duskwood or Stromgarde and nothing else.
And for you like-minded individuals. My fellow warriors of the Horde, Soldiers of the Alliance, the war criminals and war heroes, the veterans and fresh recruits, those broken by war or tempered by it, I say
Live and let live. Keep running your WAR Discords. Keep hitting up other guilds from the other faction for a skirmish or WAR story. Don’t berate the peacemongers, embrace and befriend the WARmongers instead. Choose your battles (may they be innumerable!) and do what you find fun, because whatever you do is solely for the entertainment of you and your friends, not for others to chew on and fume about. Let Vulpera looters disguised as trading caravans rock up to Westfall farms and then pillage the farmsteads. Let the Void Elf insurgents enroach on Quel’thalas and displace Sin’dorei relics. Let Gnomish and Goblin specialists build their clandestine weapon testing sites in Vol’dun or Stormsong Valley, then let the other faction barge in and make a mess.
Godspeed and let there be endless WAR as long as this game lasts.
Uhmmm hello? Based department?
