Well, since the Warchief is Sylvanas this time, it very much appeals to me.
Doubt she’ll be killed off though.
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See, that there is a mistake.
You try to drive down Reasonable Logic Street. But it was filled with pot holes, so Blizzard closed it for maintenance, but didn’t supply funds for the maintenance, so it’s just permanently closed for trafic.
It’s not about killing X or Y, it’s entirely about this being a story about the Horde, written for the Horde player as they experience the story, given the lion’s share of the writing quite literally as effort and resources are once again siphoned from the Alliance in a zero sum game to give the Horde an engaging, detailed narrative.
It truly does not matter that you disapprove of possibly having to kill Sylvanas, you still get a whole expansion devoutly dedicated to you as a Horde player to experience whereas the Alliance meanders about, acting and reacting as a narrative tool rather than a faction with agency.
You’re not being objective. The Alliance loses Teldrassil as a story vehichle for the Horde’s advancement, the genocide demonstrating how far gone Sylvanas is as she has become what she hated (look at the visual and narrative parallels in her Warbringers special) and this kicks off the snowball effect for the Horde to pursue a multilayered story where they are faced with war, division and sinister agendas. The Alliance has no equivalent and isn’t a real faction in that sense.
The antihero stereotype of a protagonist with flaws and objectionable methods is in full swing with the Horde, the Alliance being designed more like a classic protagonist but gaining few of the benefits beyond a figleaf moral purity that’s still burned away by the simplest transgression against their “villainous” foe. It’s been 8 years since Taurajo and it’s still a black mark that’s brought up, not just because Horde players insist whilst justifying worse by the Horde but because the Golden Glory Alliance is more tarnished by black marks than a Horde that rolls in the mud on the regular.
A villain has no incentive to change, pursuing their villainous ways without regard for annoying obstacles like dignity, freedom or life itself. The Horde is the troubled protagonist, heroically resisting itself from becoming what Sylvanas, as a villain, is demanding it become. A villainous Horde would not resist, and dissenting voices like Baine, if written to be such at all, would be executed to demonstrate this. As Horde, your story as Protagonist is to save it from itself and be the Hero.
I really wish that you’d read my posts as more than “The Alliance can do no wrong, look at my big words! Ragafragablaha!” but I think that ship might’ve sailed and between my analysis and your own biases, we simply cannot agree on things.
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No confirmation of new Cheeses.
1/10
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Holy Cheese from the Sunwell was spawning out like crazy.
I saw it with my own eyes - Blood Elves had their eyes turn a cheese color.
That wasn’t the Noble enduring Levey mentioned, those were the losing.
In many cases, they are not wrong. The thing is that people who really care about the story - like RPers, who are heavily affected by it - are not the target audience.
The story wants to be flashy, twisty and turny yet obvious, to draw the attention of the average PvEer and make them spend some of their sub time doing the story quests.
Blizzard is trying to do this while having their storytelling be as cheap as possible. This is why the story never goes into much detail (other than the leveling quests) and why large considerations are just completely skipped over - like why X character is doing Y, or why Z character has changed their mind about B thing.
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It’s not about killing X or Y, it’s entirely about this being a story about the Horde, written for the Horde player as they experience the story, given the lion’s share of the writing quite literally as effort and resources are once again siphoned from the Alliance in a zero sum game to give the Horde an engaging, detailed narrative.
I find it interesting that you say this after the entire Horde War Campaign is invalidated by actions of the Alliance.
Zandalari fleet in ruins. Rastakhan and a lot of his most devout followers all dead. Scepter stolen. Zelling dead, Derek returned (probably by design but who can tell these days). Capital City uninhabitable and many of the Forsaken’s holdings under assault.
That and the ‘winning on all fronts’ thing.
That and the fact that both loyalist and ‘rebel’ horde players have been very vocal that this is not a story they enjoy. For whom is this written?
the Golden Glory Alliance is more tarnished by black marks than a Horde that rolls in the mud on the regular.
You know that there are significantly more Alliance atrocities than this. Many of which are in the war campaign. I don’t even have to mention them - you know what they are. Why are you feigning ignorance?
The lack of admonishment for the shady things the Alliance does is a factor of bad writing, not a sneaky conspiracy to actually cater to the Horde.
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While I hate the 8.0-8.1 writing, I do believe that this will badly backfire to Alliance in any sort of way, letting Horde to finally have an edge in the war. I do not know how, I do not know when, but all indicates just that.
If that won’t be done due to some half-arsed truce due to vOiD lORdS - then it is safe to assume the ultimate :defeat: and confidently put Fs on the forums.
This is probably Blizzard trying to make everyone happy all at once (Sylvanas fans, you get her as warchief! Other horde players, you get to rebel! Alliance fans, you get the advantage in the war!) without realising that it only makes a mess of the story.
Part of me can’t really blame Blizzard for trying, even if they fail badly. WoW players unleash the rage of ten thousand suns on reddit and the forums if they feel like their faction or side of the story is treated ‘unfairly’ by the story.
The weird tonal shifts(With what ive brought up before regarding the seperate writing teams) become so extremly apparant when you do both faction’s quests, and it is really jarring.
When doing the Alliance War Campaign, which I did first, with the exception of randomly deciding to kill the Horde equivalent of Leaguge of Explorer’s and blowing up the entire Zandalari fleet(Yet on this part, you are hammered down with how horrible it is to do this, but it is needed, and poor civilian trolls, from the Alliance npcs.), you are never really shown that the Alliance is in the wrong or doing anything immoral. Everything is justified by some character for being for the greater good, or trying to approach things diplomatically, or fighting against chaotic evil Horde recruiting San’layn or murdering civilians for lolz. Not a single npc is shown to be doing anything that will make you go “Hang on, wait a minute.”
Then queue Horde War campaign(And Horde questing overall), where the Kul Tirans, SI:7, or any Alliance aligned character, are complete bloodthirst barbarians, who gloat about cutting you up in pieces, butchering you, how great it is to destroy these foul hordies, or lighting vulperans on fire. Yet this is -never- even vaugely hinted at on the Alliance side. And this is also the same for the Horde in alot of situations, but reversed roles.
In every war campaign quest arc, the oposing faction is shown, from an OOC perspective, so it isnt just IC propaganda, to be completly barbaric and like, burning legion/scourge evil, but this is never shown on the same side. Unless Sylvanas or forsaken are involved, because reasons.
It’s really weird.
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If they had consistently portrayed both factions on both sides, I think it would become obvious how shallow the reasoning for this war really is.
Blizzard is trying to make both factions feel justified by dehumanising the opponents from their point of view.
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I did the tauren heritage set on the PTR this morning, and after viewing it from Wowhead, I’m delighted to say two things:
- The totem at the moment is not, in fact, in the cape slot. It equips alongside the chestpiece. Whether this changes or not as they said it would be at Blizzcon, I do not yet know.
- During the questline, you encounter the spirit animal of a chieftain of old to tell you about spirit realm’s current dilemma. In my playthrough, it was a male swoop who turned into a voiced Chieftain Hototo. At the end of the heritage questline, you get a toy that summons this spirit animal (the swoop for me) for a few seconds.
I viewed Wowhead’s version of this quest, and they got a kodo spirit animal and a female voiced Chieftain, called Iti. Seems that there’s many different animals on offer for you to take at the end of the quest, which is pretty neat!
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It would be fine if it was done via like in-character propaganda, but the fact that it is shown so diffrently to us, the players, out of character, makes it just inconsistent.
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Can you elaborate more on the current dilemma in the spirit realm?
Absolutely. I think part of the problem is that for a lot of Horde players right now, it is kinda hard to actually feel your side of the war is justified. So in order to make things seem better, they paint the Alliance as just as bad. Ie, because there is no pride to be had, Blizzard motivates the war by focusing on how bad the enemy is instead, despite consistency issues.
None of that would have been necessary if we only had kept Cata Garrosh…
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Funnily enough, this approach seems to be backfiring as well with another thing, and that is the whole “end the cycle of hatred” & “we must unite against the greater evil.” That works when both factions have been well, at basic war, but when they are portraying the oposite side as genocidial evil uberlords, it seems even -less- likley for both characters in the world, and the players getting motivated by how atrociously evil the other faction is, to band together and end the war for good. Since this was also allegedly supposed to be expansion to essentially end the whole conflict/war storylines.
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That’s the problem too, isn’t it? What reason does the Alliance have for bandying together with Sylvanas against the Old Gods, when Sylvanas is being portrayed as just as evil?
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I mean… https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/336588653872807946/495312660343291954/unknown.png
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/284360431684812801/531164184088674304/honour2.png
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Cus the story sucks and they have to vacuume a reason out of all the dust their game is collecting on the shelves of players that quit.