The Horde and The Alliance rivalry, the very core of WoW is slipping!

Lore Story
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Orcs vs Humans. The Horde versus the Alliance. This conflict has been the very core of world of warcraft. Consider the title “Warcraft” - it’s about “war” - a reality where soldiers die and collateral damage is unfortunate, but inevitable, consequence.

I don’t mind the Alliance and the Horde uniting against a common enemy; they have done so before, from the events of Warcraft III till Battle for Azeroth. However, these temporary alliances have always existed within the nuanced framework of their classic rivalry.

As a Horde player, the lore established before the recent “goody” narratives made me empathise with their cause. Yes the Horde regrettably committed savage crimes under the influence of the Legion but they are no longer fel-bound slaves. Since the beginning of WoW, they tried to convince the world of their redemption. Yet, the Alliance refuses to accept it, remaining a thorn on their side.

Conversely, the Alliance has seen their cities and homes destroyed by the Horde, with many of its citizens losing loved ones. This cycle of violence creates an inevitability of their rivalry, which has always been the heart of the lore. The Alliance may now understand the Horde is free of fel magic, but still view them as savages. And the Horde, despite their efforts to prove its newfound innocence, must still contend with the Alliance’s misunderstood bravado, silently resigning themselves to the fact that no matter how hard they try to convince them, the Alliance will never fully understand the trials and tribulations of the Horde.

Therefore, this enduring rivalry exists alongside external threats - The Legion, The Void and even the The Light, to a certain extent. It is precisely because of their understanding of this rivalry that they can band together against a common foe. However, such cooperation can never mean they will be “friends”. In the face of extreme adversity, even sworn enemies will unite to protect what matters most to them both. This is a universal truth, transcending a rare friendship once shared by Thrall and Jaina.

This is the narrative that the current WoW is missing - The very core of their story-lines!

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Rivalry? Sure, but how about any faction-specific storylines first? I don’t exactly miss the faction war stories, but that we have to invite Forsaken to Night Elf stories, Orcs to Dwarven stories and Everyone to Blood Elf stories without any differences in content is absurd. If the end of the faction conflict had led to focussing on the positive identities of the different peoples within their factions, instead of contrasting the two factions in conflict that might have been relatively fine with me. But just removing or ignoring the differences isn’t. This is certainly worse than the rivalry we had before, even when I argued that the factions were an unproductive restriction to (conflict) stories. At least when we had that there was always one antagonist that actually had some halfway plausible motivations. Now all we get is “stop the bad guys that are bad because they are bad or magicked to be bad”.

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I also don’t want an all-out faction war story but at least stories that are skirmish based for example the Warsong Lumber resources conflict with the Night Elves or the Gilnean war with the Forsaken. The latter one came to an unfortunate end when Genn Greyman - the man who hated the very existence of the Forsaken suddenly became considerate towards his daughter’s request of seeking their assistance against the Scarlet Crusade because now they are ruled by Calia Menethil? The Genn I knew would have taken her as a traitor.

So this is an exhibit where a character suddenly changes his core trait just to fit the “friendship forever” narrative. I dont mind even that but it should have required a much longer and steady development rather than one storyline to establish that. This is what bothers me.

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There’s arguably a few things here that I feel are being heavily glossed over …

While I mostly agree, the conflict of Orcs versus Humans, the Horde versus the Alliance, has and always was more of a red herring or set dressing—it was only a part of the full story, of the true and full picture.

For ages, the fallen titan Sargeras plotted to scour all life from Azeroth. To this end, Sargeras possessed the human sorcerer Medivh and compelled him to contact Gul’dan, an orc warlock on the world of Draenor. There, Sargeras’ demonic servants among the Burning Legion worked to corrupt the once - peaceful orcs and forge them into a bloodthirsty army known as the Horde. This cursed force invaded Azeroth through the Dark Portal, a dimensional gateway created by Medivh and Gul’dan, and clashed with the human nation of Stormwind. Aided by the half-orc Garona, human champions like Anduin Lothar fought valiantly to protect their kingdom. Yet, in the end, the mighty Horde shattered Stormwind’s defenses. Amid the city’s tragic fall, Garona betrayed her allies and assassinated King Llane Wrynn, sealing the nation’s defeat.

Warcraft: Orcs & Humans - WoW Timeline Chapter 1

The rivalry we’re talking about here was and arguably always has been born out of an artificial conflict as orchestrated by a cosmic threat, I’d posit it was never the foundation. Nor was it the core of anything. It was meant and intended to be a distraction and subvert expectations. As such, the primary problem with perpetuating the conflict in that way is that it is inherently an unreasonable conflict. It was born out of a lie, and that lie is well known.

As an example, the Fourth War was born mostly out of Sylvanas’ actions alone.

The Alliance required an act of aggression to jump into the fray. While later contextualized as to have been for the Jailer’s aspirations to grow his influence, we saw first hand how difficult it was to write the conflict because it required the nuances of Saurfang’s perspective. That there was no honor in what they did. There was no glory to be had.

Because there isn’t a real reason to fight. That particular fight is more or less pointless.

For that reason, I’d say this classic rivalry is sometimes very difficult to justify.

The wars in Warcraft have and always continue to be about the bigger picture.

For more than two decades, this is what the war in Warcraft arguably has stood for.

Why would they be sworn enemies? Why wouldn’t they see reason in the cosmic interventions that have often pitted these two sides against each other? Because some characters explicitly do.

That said, I don’t necessarily want to suggest the writing teams haven’t taken to the response to ideas of faction pride and that conflict and capitalized on it, perpetuating those concepts beyond what the narrative seemingly supports.

Entering Player v. Player in any capacity still feels weird to me.

It’d make far more sense to have any and all Arenas, Battlegrounds etc recontextualized as the Alliance and the Horde doing various training scenarios for the real fights, for the real battles.

I’m not so sure how to best move forward with the factions in a way that makes sense.

I wager this is something that they’re discussing heavily behind the scenes as well.

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I understand and to some extent, I get your point. But if I take your word for it then by the time vanilla started, most of the Alliance members already knew that Thrall’s Horde is not exactly the same as the previous bloodthirsty ones. Even before that, when the old Horde was slipping into a lethargic state during their time at the internment camps, some key members of the Kirin Tor including Antonidas began to realize that something was amiss, they nearly began to understand that the Horde was influenced by an external magic - fel magic - the nature of which was already known to them via Aegwynn and Medivh (the very reason behind why a Guardian was created in the first place). Yet, despite all of that they decided to continue to imprison them, costing them more despite the fact that they now had a chance to cure them of their fel influence and come to a more permanent solution. This outright denial was not influenced by any external/cosmic forces. It was an oversight which was not the first time for the Kirin Tor - considering how they avoided the gravity of this newfound Plague which turned out to be more deadlier than the Horde invasion later on.

So, while you are right that there are influences from external sources that causes the factions to fight against each other, that doesn’t necessarily mean that absolutely all of it can be attributed to the bigger picture which exists - true, but certain situations like the aforementioned ones are quite exclusive of that. Conversely, consider Garrosh Hellscream - he was not influenced by any external forces. The Heart of Y’shaarj was only “used” by him long after he harbored a destructive form of hatred against the Alliance. His brash nature was more of a reason behind such a situation rather than any external force.

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Yet that is just the thing and precisely the point, though …

I see your point, yet that was what I in turn was pointing out; if you remove those cosmic influences, neither side have any real reasons to be enemies.

As you’re mentioning here, there were several individuals that kept up that animosity regardless. And they were plenty, from Garithos to ultimately Garrosh—as I would suggest.

Simultaneously, there arguably was no real foundation for that animosity. By all means, we can suggest any kind of hatred to a people that is different needs no foundation.

However, I’d yet again then posit that’s an issue on an individual level. Not a whole people.

Garrosh had never been slighted by the Alliance in any way, he had no history with the Alliance prior to taking out his anger on them. This is an example of the writing teams doing precisely what I suggested above, feeding this animosity with no real foundation simply due to this overreliance and feeding of the ideas and concepts of faction pride.

It would’ve made sense if Grommash was killed by the Alliance in any way, but he wasn’t. And any suggestion to that effect would diminish his sacrifice to free the Orcs. So Garrosh’s hatred for the Alliance was solely due to them not wanting to willingly hand over their lands.

Narratively his advances were justified solely upon the idea Alliance and Horde having been pitted against each other in the past. Which we by then knew was by cosmic influence. As you said … this was Thrall’s Horde.

Even the Alliance knew it was different.

“I know my father took the demon blood and ultimately freed us all, but I’ll be damned if I don’t carry that legacy of the bloodthirst regardless of the fact that he renounced it! This Alliance shall be the focus of my ire simply … because! It might not make sense, but my time traveling intrigues in a few years won’t either! Deal with it!”

The rivalry between the Alliance and the Horde doesn’t, presently, have any reason to continue beyond anyone picking up arms doing so against all reason and intellect thought.

Or so I argue, anyway.

Addendum

To loop back to the topic and my primary point …

There’s no such thing as the Alliance and Horde rivalry being a core staple of Warcraft. It has been there specifically to divert and subvert from the emergence of real villains. It is a red herring. It is an intentional misdirection.

In my opinion, the two factions still serve a solid purpose in an MMORPG in which the core mechanic of the game in more or less all of the content therein is … unity.

This has been the core idea of Warcraft for twenty years, in the story and the gameplay.

The mechanical elements we share as players is cooperation.

From a design perspective, you’ve got a diegetic foundation with that where players are constantly shown and supported to uphold this faction divide as much in spirit as in the game. As such, our characters are individuals of all walks of life that have to find ways to work together.

Just as we do.

The Alliance and the Horde as two separate entities are arguably not defined because of them but in spite of them. They unite in spite of these differences, because they don’t matter.

I would suggest that the whole point is that at the end of the day … they don’t matter.

Not in comparison to the threats we face together. And as soon as they’re gone? Bam.

There we go again.

My first reply included that I am mostly in agreement with your post, and that holds true. I too think there should be more to emphasize their cultural differences, and as Wimbert suggested perhaps more race specific content in general.

The primary concern I had is that I do not consider that element to be the mythos’ core.

Nor is the faction war that which puts war in Warcraft.

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All about context. Even if we put out a sudden war, something has to be given in context to make it so.

The Horde hasn’t had a third warmongering crazy whackjob lately. Someone give Baine a gun. I can’t wait for the return of the ‘Horde is EVUL’ posts.

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I miss the faction war but I can do without. What I can’t do without is seperate storylines. I’m sick and tired of having to play world of alliancecraft. I want a seperate Horde storyline, it can intersect with thr alliance one once in a while, but I want my Horde quests with Horde characters or at least Horde aligned characters like zen’kiki/zentabra/hamuul for neutral factions like cenarion circle. And not just blood elves alone, I want all of the Horde races in there. I want to see intra-horde-cooperation between the races. I want zekhan and talanji back (who, together with rokhan, should have been helping lady liadrin with the amani), I don’t care for alleria and turalyon and their son’s identity crisis. I want horde defending silvermoon foremost, i want thalyssra helping lorthemar and thalyssra and talanji friendship interactions. I care about the Horde and hordy Horde characters (not just sylvanas, thrall and baine, and especially not calia), that’s why I rolled Horde. Geya’rah is a good start, but where are all the others? The Horde is never going to have relevant characters if they aren’t developed and used in the story (not as a villain, i’m sick of that).

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Without the factions the game feels lame and stale. I miss the time I quested with Horde leaders and not Alleria.

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I don’t particularly want faction wars back, but the current factions feel extremely stale - and as they are the backbone for worldbuilding - the world feels stale.

The factions feel the same, function the same, have the same morals and goals. Everyone is friends and many former enemy groups have been stripped of anything distinguishable and integrated as allied races, customisation unlocks or just questing buddies.

I don’t feel feel any different when I play my NE druid vs my Forsaken DK and to me that’s a big bummer in a game where alts are a major aspect of gameplay.

Legion truly was the golden time for fantasy and player expression - even the two faction who barely had anything to do with the story felt sufficiently different, not to mention class stuff.