The best way it works is how MoP did it, and people for some reason threw the baby out with the bathwater over that. Even that is unlikely to come back though. The main ‘war heavy’ devs have basically been given the boot or have quit.
Metzen you have to remember is the architect of the Alliance and Horde coming together to face a greater threat trope.
The funny thing, I find is, MoP was full out war - to the same level as BfA post 5.1 You had Horde fighting Alliance directly, with Garrosh and Varian at the helm.
There was no cold war meme about it - it even ended same way as BfA.
But also for this to work you need separation too.
MoP ended with an Alliance win more than BFA ever did. It’s just as the official protagonists™ of the Warcraft franchise they aren’t allowed to be evil.
Yes, because it’s been the plot he’s been writing since Warcraft 3 in 2001. It’s not really something he injected into the setting, it’s something that’s been going on for longer than the MMO existed, and certainly longer than a lot of its players have lived. It can still happen, even if minimal, and if not HvA, such as the new battleground where ‘faction conflict’ does happen; it just doesn’t happen to be red versus blue.
That aside, I’d much rather have the Arathi Empire be its own thing. We have complained too much about certain races getting forced to either go red or blue only to do a full 180º just because they make a habit of wearing Tier 2 Paladin set as a racial outfit.
I dearly, sincerely, hope that they don’t gentrify into yet another case of ‘Stormwind but (different footman armor color)’ from one of the most unique factions we’ve seen in a while. It would kill my interest so fast the Arathi Empire might as well be retconned back to collapsing with no trace over a thousand years before WoW’s timeline; doubly so if they decide to add nerubians to the Horde to make their dynamic yet another case of red vs blue.
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Really for the Alliance and Horde division to be overcome properly you would need a third faction akin to the Arathi to be the ‘antagonist’ force in the same way I suppose SWTOR made Zakuul the enemy of the Empire and Republic. It’s the only way you can have something that would not cause gallons of tears from wounded pride players on both sides.
I actually think the Arathi empire even have a potential to shake the factions, if not make them obsolete. They technically can try to retake the old human lands in EK and the human kingdoms can have their own inner struggle whether to join or not. The Empire could win, pretty much destroying the Alliance and without the Alliance, Horde has barely any reason to exist. However, it could be even preserved, if the Empire would reforge the Alliance to their liking, becoming the main leader. The potential with the Empire is huge, but I am afraid, Blizzard will squander it.
Stormwind Raid lets GO
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I don’t care about them being used as an artificial way for both factions to unite or the divide to cease. I really wouldn’t want either faction to become the same. As they stand right now, is perfectly by me. Separate entities, but still relatively allied with one another.
My thoughts aren’t related to the idea that they might be a narrative tool to cease, nor increase, the faction divide or conflict, however. It is related to the fact that shoving them into either faction would devoid them of what makes them genuinely unique to the folks of Azeroth as it stands.
It is not about the fact that they might be related to the faction conflict, whether to stoke it, or to avoid it.
It’s that it would be damn boring.
Let them be their thing, please.
Evil Light Faction Joins Alliance
Evil Shadow Faction Joins Horde
ten BILLION years of WAR
Just drink this mountain dew.
PEAK. CINEMA.
WRONG!
We’re taking your lands, blue-boy.
We’re taking them and raiding them.
We’re burning down Ashenvale and putting a big beautiful goblin factory on the Stormwind Cathedral.
And if the Arathi try to take that from us, we’ll just have to put them in their place too.
A new zone for horde land development
Alright, I’ll admit it , i’ve no idea if you’re being IC Corpseburner or just memeing, if it’s the latter, I do apologise.
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I am a mighty warlock and I desire nothing but the complete destruction of humanity.
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He’s projecting everything the Horde used to be (and should be) and it’s extremely painful to witness because now the Horde needs the Alliance’s permission to take a piss.
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Honestly… I can’t argue with that.
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Obviously we’re never getting another MoP or BfA, but by now it’s clear we’re never getting another expansion that affords room for both conflict and cooperation either. Which is a shame, because the latter isn’t particularly meaningful without the former.
In The War Within you have Turalyon and Geya’rah being passive aggressive to one another, and at one point he calls her a savage, but you never get the sense this alliance is at genuine risk of collapse should the stakes get any lower. Mediating it takes no interesting dialogue, no intervention from Thrall or Jaina - you just get Adelgonn complaining that they’re arguing, and that it’s annoying.
I like seeing characters who despise each other forced to work together by the circumstances for drama or for comedy, but a) you get neither here and b) this is the most friction between the Horde and the Alliance we’ve seen since BfA ended. If this is all the ostensible ‘evidence’ left that overt faction conflict is not dead, then overt faction conflict is most definitely dead.
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There’s a solution to this. We blow up the Vindicaar and have the shards crash into Stormwind.
Sadly. There is no faction conflict. And the playerbase is all about “nuance” and “friendship” these days. Taking the mask off for a moment here, but the game I loved is languishing. Not in a “WoW is dead” kind of way, but writing wise. It’s hard playing Horde at all during these last few expansions. The leveling experience for TWW is being Anduin’s token green friend and then Thrall shows up. With Garrosh, hell, with Sylvanas and the “civil war” her stint caused, we had something. With Thrall, too, when he was worthy of Doomhammer. But now… Now we have a council. Now, most decisions are made by elves. Baine gets half a cool scene. All our stories get contained in minimal sidequests, zero screentime, zero relevancy. ALL of TWW is an Alliance psyop. Earthen have no place in the horde. Furthermore, our neo-trolls from the depths are more elfy than trolly. We, as the horde, are supposed to care about Dalaran and Jaina and Khadgar and all these ALLIANCE characters whilst the slightest bit of faction pride is shot down with a “b-b-b-but Sylvanas!” “but Garrosh!” because the slightest step on that line of complete sanitization is a slight to Fluffcraft’s family friendly storyline. The Alliance are toothless diplomats who answer the genocide of their various peoples with invitations to tea parties and neutral zones (LOL) and the horde has been so thoroughly whipped and elf-icized that Aethas Sunreaver has done more to establish the Horde’s presence in Khaz Algar than the actual racial leaders. Geya’rah is a cheap garrosh. Turalyon is a cheap varian. And not even that, because if they were either of those characters, the mission to get the horde and alliance to work together would have actually had SOME sauce to it rather than “beat up the locals while we parade around.” TROLLBANE is here RIDING A HORSE WITH SEVERED HORDE HEADS ON IT. Why was Garrosh so bad, again? We have become a faction of weaklings and caravaneers. No offense to Vulpera, their lore is peak Warcraft 3 horde and they’ve earned their place here moreso than the Nightborne, I’d say. We’ll never get faction conflict. We’ll never get characters answering for their actions. Properly answering for their actions. Sylvanas will return in Midnight and the Xal’atath feet crowd will eat her up and praise her, even though she’ll be Alleria, again. Wonder if they’ll use that third Windrunner sister at some point, maybe kick Thrall down from the spotlight too so you can have a full lineup of attractive pale-skinned humanoids without moral flaws the writing team can self-insert into. Like the Arathi. Where we are told they are this great, xenophobic empire. But they are desperate for us. For our help. And when and if we get there, wether they are our allies or our enemies, we will get there flying red and blue flags whose symbols will have long since lost their meaning.
Rant over.
The Old Horde is dead. Long live the Old Horde.
Also I can’t wait for the Arathi to Klaxxi us so I can bust Kyron’s head open with my axe.
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LIKE THE GOOD OLD DAYS AFTER THERAMORE!
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First War colorized right there.
A lot of interesting thoughts and pieces stated in this section.
My hot take is that whilst there is some Age of Sigmar and 40k vibes to the faction they’re really just a unified Scarlet Crusade.
That’s just my two cents.
Either way…You have my shield Gul’dan-…Corpseburner.
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I keep hearing this but I think it’s only in the vaguest possible sense, if at all. - Their Asethic may be close to that of AoS. But honestly, I got more of the vibe from the Humans from V Rising with the worship of day versus defending against the ‘evils’ of night.
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Oh yeah 100% it’s just a case of interpretation and how you see it. I can see some comparisons and similarities to AoS and what people are meaning.
As I said I just chalk them up to more “built up” Scarlet Crusade. Like if the Scarlet Crusade actually unified and wasn’t corrupt by the Dreadlords.
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