I guess we will just agree to disagree on all this.
Thanks for keeping things civil, it was a nice debate.
I mean, I don’t think it’s up for debate. If you were a mercenary you could go and denounce your faction and walk into the other faction’s capital, but you’re going to alert the guards and be met with a hostile visit. So yeah, it just points out that you’re a conscript, that you’re an adventurer in service of your faction. The same way Rexxar was one in the campaign of Warcraft 3. You can lend your service to other neutral factions as you’re an agent and a representative and it might boost diplomacy, but you have to either not be understanding to the storyline if you can’t see how much factions are involved.
And you can say, yeah, this big bad guy is maybe a bigger problem than the faction conflict, but that doesn’t mean you become best buddies with them. You temporarily cease fire to deal with a bigger threat, or perhaps that it’s a win win for both of you. The same way the Americans and the Russians dealt with the Germans in World War 2.
It is not about if it is up for debate or not. I think it is more about how strongly the game was built by the team to reflect that in the story or not.
In my personal opinion it did not but in your personal opinion it did.
At this point it is like trying to argue if a jalapeno pepper is spicy enough or not
Then you must not read quest texts a lot. I don’t think it’s a matter of opinion that’s appliable to this case.
I was reading the quest text diligently from 2006 until the last couple of expansions where the increased pace made me less likely to chill while reading every single side quest.
I still do not personally feel that what they say matches our status and tasks. But that is just me
This reminds me of a topic, I created in the story forum, 4 years ago about the player character:
"Hello Everyone.
I just completed the Blood Elf heritage armor and the Saurfang quest. (How could some people, have missed the white baloon saying “I will not betray my warchief.” and clicked right of the gold ! is beyond me.)
I have read in the forums, some points of views regarding the player character.
My opinion: the player is nothing but an actor, that goes along the narrative.
We are suposed to go with it, not interpretate it.
This is how my character is supposed to act, from my point of view (cold perspective):
- The Alliance is the enemie, there is no turn around here.
Any doubts just walk on the streets of Stormwind. - All she knows is: the Horde decided to attack the Night Elves, Saurfang, Sylvanas, Nathanos are there, Lorash helps her at the beginning to assassinate Night elves operatives, the battle escalates and … there was civilian casualties by the end. The Night Elf capital is destroyed.
- Than she fights the siege of Lordaeron, in which Undercity is destroyed.
- She than follows Nathanos trough out most of the story.
While he goes and get Zul and Talanji from prison and tries to convince Rastakhan to aid the Horde. - She is suposed to not know that, Sylvanas and Saurfang had a arguing about the way Teldrassil was burned, until the moment, she is told to go after Saurfang and decides to side with Saurfang, against dark ranger Lyanna and her operatives.
I assume here, the videos from Old Soldier, Lost Honor play their role since nothing is explained to my character why she is siding with Saurfang.
I will assume, in this case she is disturbed with the atrocity comited on the Night Elfs, but she should still fight for the Horde.
My character is suposed to be, someone important to the Horde to the point Saurfang asks her to return to her duties.
No choice is given. - While playing the Heritage armor quest, Lor’themar Theron, reminds her of how much the Sin’dorei had to endure at the hand of Arthas, the death knight, during the invasion of Scourge invasion of Quel’Thalas.
From: wow gamepedia
" The elven homeland was overrun by the Scourge, the capital of Silvermoon was sacked and reduced to ruins, roughly ninety percent of the high elves were killed – including the [elven king]. Anasterian_Sunstrider, [ranger-general], Sylvanas_Windrunner), and [grand magister] Belo’vir Salonar – and Arthas successfully managed to defile the Sunwell, bringing forth the dread necromancer as a powerful [lich].
In this case my character is told (in my opinion) how much she has to value Sylvanas sacrifice. If it wasn’t for Sylvanas buying time against Arthas, than perhaps litle than 2% of the High Elves would had make it.
The Alliance player character (what I know so far, playing my alliance alt):
- The Horde is the enemie;
- She is caught by a surprise attack on the Night Elfs on Darnassus, which ends in a atrocity, the burning of the world tree with civilians inside.
She plays the narrative, that her faction was decieved, by a master plan from the Horde. - She fights at the siege of Undercity where the Alliance seeks revenge on Teldrassil, but no military gains were made, only the city was destroyed.
- She follows Jaina throug out all of the Kul Tyras campaign, while Jaina tries to get them, back as an allies.
- She follows Anduin instructions.
In the end the narrative portraits the Horde as taking the initiative, the Alliance responding to it, no quarter is being given to any of the factions, (I assume, after Teldrassil event).
It’s a do or die now.
I assume somehow by the end of the expansion Horde and Alliance are back to a non agrression treaty. This was stated several times before, but I had to end this text.
What’s your opinion ?
Thanks for your attention.
Cheers."
I had Brigante (RIP) writing a good reply:
"I kind of agree. We have to bear in mind (Especially on RP Realms) that the player character has Meta Knowledge. We just do. We know things our character could not possibly know. We are privy to the conversation between Zek’han and Saurfang in ‘Old Soldier’, but we were not there. We are privy to the conversations between Anduin and Saurfang, but we were not there. Sometimes we drive the narrative, sometimes we are driven by it, but -we- as in the -Player- have far more knowledge than -we- as in the -Character-. Heck, Brigante doesn’t even know yet that Saurfang is still alive! He thinks he died at Undercity. He doesn’t know what Sylvanas’ plan was, he was just being a good little Horde Soldier, and leading his Fliers in an attack on Kaldorei lands. He didn’t witness the conversation between Sylvanas and Summermoon, he has no idea why suddenly Darnassus had to burn (and was horrified when it did).
Some times that makes better story, if you view your character as, not a cipher, but a filter. Sometimes they do the thing, at other times the thing happens and they have to react.
It is kind of an unwritten, but generally adhered to rule, on RP realms that your character is -NOT- the one who killed Kael’thas, Kil’jaeden, Arthas, Deathwing, the Thunder King, Garrosh. Oh sure, they will have been involved in some way, I mean Brigante was one of the Dragonhawk riders who guards your back during the Sunwell Bombing Quest(Actually the quest that inspired the character! 
) . He’s one of the Dragonhawk riders fighting Frostwyrms in Icecrown. He was involved tangentially in a lot of things, but as a -soldier- (Or Aerial Cavalryelf rather) not as ‘The Hero’
Do -I- as his player know all these things? Yes. Does Brigante know all these things? Oh good grief no.
So to a certain extent, the Player character is a cross between a filter, and a lens, by which we view what happens in the game.
I obviously levelled Brigante up through the TBC zones, however the character never left Quel’thalas, he was one of those who stayed behind on clear up duty, and later fought in the skies over Quel’danas. He never went to Outlands. I’ve Killed Arthas countless times, but Brigante only saw Arthas -once- during the doomed Dragonhawk rider raid on Deatholme, and only for a second or two, he was that busy dodging Gargoyles and Scourge anti air weapons and magic.
So I don’t think it is so much that they are an actor, I think that they are more the medium of experience, so yes, a lens or filter, by which the greater events of the world are interpreted by us, the player."
This is why, part of me wonders if having characters with no name wouldn’t make far more sense:
Cheers.
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There was also this interesting topic made in the US story forums, which I linked in to the EU as well at the time:
"We’ve talked at length about Baine’s rebellion against Sylvanas, and one topic that frequently comes up is that it seems odd that Derek Proudmoore was the straw that broke the tauren’s back. Many have questioned how Teldrassil alone wasn’t enough.
Which makes even Baine, allegedly one of the more moral Horde leaders, still kind of morally dubious.
But how much worse is the Horde PC, according to Blizzard?
After all, Baine wasn’t even part of the War of Thorns - Sylvanas sent him off to Silithus to get him out of her hair precisely because she was worried about his moral objections. On the other hand, she knows that the PC will be all over any mission she gives us. And we execute her and Saurfang’s plan perfectly.
On top of that, we don’t object when she burns Teldraasil - Saurfang tries to stop it, but we just stand there. And then we go with her to defend Undercity. And then we keep following her orders. We only finally rebel (if we choose) when Saurfang and Baine decide enough is enough and we switch to doing what they tell us.
Blizzard has set up the narrative so that the Horde PC is basically irredeemable. We are tainted by the original sin of Teldrassil, and now face no consequences because we just flow along with the rebel leaders when the time comes. But we don’t earn redemption the way they do by putting themselves on the line.
It’s a bizarre narrative structure that requires Horde players to essentially see themselves as voiceless henchmen who just do whatever we are told. I get the joke about all of us essentially being murderhobos, but for the Horde PC, that is almost literally true."
Basically, I don’t see how our characters can be redeemed for Teldrassil.
This is another reason why I think having characters with no name makes sense.
“If I wipe the name, I may wipe the shame”.
Cheers.
ok
/10chars
This has to be the most un-self-aware hypocritical comment I’ve seen here.
In past comments, when I wrote walls of text about how the Warcraft lore is being done dirty, you kept saying over and over that you disagreed and when I tried using arguments and examples, you said it was all subjective and that’s where the conversation ended. No point discussing something if there is no objective reality…
In other comments, you also accused people who disagreed with the tone of the game of being all kinds of terrible people. Homophobes, racists, bigots, you name it. Even people that tried walking on eggshells to point out they weren’t any of these things but found certain themes in Warcraft jarring, didn’t escape your crusade.
Then you come here, on a thread that points out we went from genocide to kumbaya pretty quickly and you accuse people of just wanting what they want, even going so far as to use the phrase “If I don’t enjoy it, nobody can because me me me” to describe them.
This is then followed shortly after by you saying that WoW serves chocolates most of the time, but you want something else now, and now that you have it, people who came here and stayed for the chocolate and who are saying ‘what the hell?’ are bad and selfish. That sounds an awful lots like ‘me me me’ to me. ‘Screw you and your chocolates that you’ve been here for for years, I want biscuits and now that the game serves biscuits instead of chocolates, you need to shut up.’
Meanwhile, you’re also typing things like this after accusing people of being only concerned about their own interests.
Obviously fishing for a fight. Then you go full clown mode and after all that you type this after I suggest you stop interacting with people whose opinions you keep dismissing out of hand, for no other reason than that you personally, disagree.
So you accuse others of ruining the game by being of the opinion that when the metal cafe turned into a gay bar, it lost some of its style. Do you see the problem? Our opinions are bad, subjective, conducive to a bad game, selfish and need to be called out while your opinions apparently are good, objective and conducive to a better game and not selfish.
It’s the old “Fear of others’ opinions” because if Activision listens to us and our opinions, the game will ‘explode’. So you have to fight the good fight and call us out, even if in so doing and arguing the way you have, you paint yourself a massive hypocrite and egocentrist.
Howbout this. Realise this forum is shouting into the void. The only people reading here, are players. So instead of coming into threads where people want to voice their opnions about the sour turn the game has taken for them, make your own thread about everything you like about it. I’m sure that barring some people, you’ll get traction from people who agree. And that way to can achieve your goal of representing both opinions, without coming in here and playing the moral advocate while making arguments that all trip over eachother.
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So, taking in to consideration, that BFA is now part of your characters background and this won’t be the last faction conflict, I thought about, 2 possible scenarios:
Darker characters:
This 2 used to be Alliance soldiers.
Unfortunately they were left to die and their commander fled to fight another day, while they got slaughtered as cattle.
Basically they understand that honour is for fouls as it served them nothing in life.
They are used to betrayal and that would explain why they betrayed Garrosh and Sylvanas.
This character is a demon summoner.
Morals and ethics are not for her.
She’s not evil, just what the narrative tells she is.
By far the most suitable candidate for this narrative. A mercenary who’s paid by the highest bidder and only cares about himself. Anything that puts him at risk, he avoids and that’s why he joined Saurfang during BFA. He understood if the Horde lost, he was going to be sent to the gallows.
I’ve also thought about an alternative.
Orphans raised by the Horde. The only thing they know is: do what they are told.
Yes, sometimes they have a conscious, other times they don’t.
Who determines their moral compass ?
The writers.
People often, call other players by their class, not by their name in LFD.
That’s why it makes sense, calling them by: Warrior, Hunter, Rogue and Mage.
I chose BE because one of the things that I enjoy in this game, is transmogs. But their race is unimportant because the Player characters is never addressed by his race in the game.
Cheers.
Fourth War ended in Nazj’atar I believe. The (almost) 2nd Siege of Ogrimmar and the final ousting of Sylvanas.
Teldrassil was burnt down in the preceding War of Thorns, which was countered with the invasion of Lordaeron by the Alliance.
Blizzard then just got bored and did squat all with the War as they rushed through so many major story beats just to waste them for future expansions.
Effectively, the Alliance won both of the Warfronts, and then took an objective victory at the Battle of Dazar’alor. This was then supposedly nullified when Nazj’atar appeared but there was still seemingly enough troops to march on Orgrimmar.
Still such a lacklustre story. No back and forthes. No actually reasons for winning. Just “they do”. A real shame.
I will also add that the player character perception varies depending on the Faction you play.
So both @Asjon and @Adalon are right regarding their views.
While playing my Human Warrior in my UK account, I never felt anything she was doing was unjustified, unlike her BE Paladin counterpart.
Cheers.
I’m gonna be frank here: while I think the lack of consequences in the wake of the 4th War is pretty meh and generally unsatisfying (at least if you play as Alliance and are forced, once again, to accomodate yet another Heated Horde Moment), it’s a necessary step to move away from the exhausting and clumsy construct that is the faction conflict. So I’m willing to take it if it means I don’t have to deal with that trite concept ever again.
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There was consequences.
The bit your missing is the fact slyvanus took those consequences. Also the idea that you realistically beleive that theyd prioritise a war above a world threat is silly.
Also the capital was night elves.
I missed the plot where tyrande was fighting beside us again realistically. You beleive the dragons should take sides in human war
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Same as the forums some of the ideas on here would ruin wow
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exactly dragonflight feels the best wow has in years
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yeah lets just go silithus pull out the sword and leave a giant volcano wait thats a bad idea 
dude theres nothign we can do get over it. also silvermoon still has ruins from the third war therefore blizz equals bad am i right?
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This is a state of Cold War that sometimes heats up. This is like NATO vs USSR for 50 years. There was Vietnam (MOP) where the super-powers fought a proxy war.
We aren’t really at peace even though we aren’t really fighting either. If we were totally at peace there’d be no PVP anymore.
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What sword? There is no sword in silithus
I can live with that