I don’t understand Blizzard’s decision to center the identity of the Forsaken around Lordaeron. Warcraft 2- Warcraft 3 Lordaeron was a very generic Medieval Fantasy kingdom, and not that much different from Stormwind. In other words: It was boring af. What makes the Forsaken interesting is the concept of undeath, not Calia Menethil. They’re a coalition of free willed undead, mostly elves and humans, who share a common goal regardless of their original nationalities. Centre their identity around the Cult of the Forgotten Shadow, now that Arthas is gone. But please don’t turn them into an Alliance client state.
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The playable human model Forsaken are largely from the Lordaeron area(notably including the Plaguelands mind you). With them being distinguished as Sylvanas’s followers specifically. Everyone that follows her is doing so, because they want to. I know there has been some revisionism introduced, in order to separate Sylvanas from the Forsaken(stupid decision, but what can you do?)
It’s just that the Kingdom of Lordaeron was bigger than Stormwind, and spanning so much territory and being more religious it had a lot of political relationships and diplomacy with the bordering kingdoms that it made it more interesting to some Humans fans, unlike Stormwind that is smaller, it has still quite a lot of internal problems and it’s rather isolated in comparison. Also Lordaeron was the heart of the Alliance in Warcraft 2, a game that was played by quite a lot of people in comparison to Warcraft 1, and in addition Lordaeron won unlike Stormwind.
But mostly it’s just the feeling, for some Human/Alliance fans (who are mostly on the US forums though) to get something that they perceive it was theirs since the beginning from the Forsaken/Horde. So I think Lordaeron is basically just the pipe dream of some (few) Alliance players to achieve a good and big victory against the Horde, and to get back what was originally theirs long ago.
But as I said, they are rather few, and they have to understand that any victory the Alliance will get in Lordaeron will probably be mirrored by the Horde conquering the north of Kalimdor and exterminating the Night Elves (once again). So when the Humans fans ask for getting back Lordaeron (which is culturally pretty similar to Storwmind anyway as you said, as they were “sister kingdoms”), they are passively asking for the Night Elves to be damaged by the Horde. Since that already happened recently in BfA anyway, I hope any human conquest of Lordaeron never happen anytime soon (getting back Stromgarde is already good for them after all), just like the Orcs should leave the Night Elves alone for a while now 
Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for more territory for the Forsaken, and of course most Forsaken have ties to Lordaeron / Quel’Thalas. It is their homeland, after all. But their territorial expansion should to be motivated by more than irredentist nationalism. Maybe religious motives (“We have to convert more people to the Forgotten Shadow”).
If you feel that way about the usual mediveal human themes, that many people enjoy, why the heck would you expect to understand it better with Lordaeron? Seems to me it’s just not your thing. I can’t begin to understand why people find elves or demon hunters interesting, but that’s what different tastes do. The stuff about mediveal structures, fighting nobles, Knights in shining armor and a dominant church that you find boring is the exact same stuff that Lordaeron fans like. And while Stormwind went into many of the same themes, it was always the cheap knockoff, not the original, and has been written to be a multicultural wonderland now. Lordaeron on the other hand can still remain pristine in their memory, because it cannot change anymore. And some people like wallowing in its ruins for that, I guess.
My main point is that clinging to said pristine memory doesn’t fit the Forsaken. It wasn’t the reason why so many people chose to play undead. And those who did would end up playing Alliance anyway. The Forsaken should mirror Lordaeron culture in the sense that they’re religious though.
Indeed. Just like being in a faction or playing the world-saving hero doesn’t really fit the Forsaken. Being slimy evil schemers fit them well enough. Alas, it doesn’t make much sense that people, and a whole faction at that, support them, if that’s what they are. The Forsaken need a new identity. “We’re obviously evil, but the Horde just doesn’t notice” doesn’t cut it anymore, especially not after Sylvanas.
I certainly agree that whatever they will be changed into now will not be what many Forsaken-players signed up for. But that’s just another casualty of the horrible plot they decided to do. I guess they can try to cry about it like the choir of unhappy nelves does, but that won’t really change it.
Lore-wise they have already done the groundwork in Before the Storm, where they depicted Sylvanas’ regime as one that directly repressed any identification of the Forsaken with their former lives. So with her gone, the poor undead Lordaeroinans can once again be free to be the good people they actually mostly wanted to be. They certainly could have gone in different directions, but they made sure that Voss was pretty toothless and without any vision, and no other Forsaken stepped forward.
But don’t worry, they won’t just be lordaeronians now. That would require consistency. They’ll still be all over the place, when you get to see them outside of the main character drama.
The Forgotten Shadow from the RPG just never made it into the game at all, at least not in any meaningful way. And now in Legion it was actually most closely connected to a living human, instead of the Forsaken. I totally agree that the Forsaken as mostly definded by a cult about self-empowerment with its very own kind of morality would have been a great move. A decade ago or so. I don’t see how they can really do that now, though.
To be fair Stormwind was the original…to the point that in Warcraft 1, at the end of the orcish campaign, it’s only slightly implied that another human kingdom could exist in the north for the Horde to invade, but the name “Lordaeron” is never mentioned until Warcraft 2.
Also I’m not sure how the Alliance players who are specifically fans of Lordaeron can’t identify their own fantasy in Stormwind now…I mean, I’m pretty sure in lore the majority of the population is actually from Lordaeron, because Terenas sent several Lordaeronians to help the few remaining Stormwidians to rebuild the city. Meaning, it’s called Stormwind, but it’s actually people from Lordaeron who live there for the most part.
That’s just a gameplay result of the existing factions, Orgrimmar feel multicultural as well, despite Undead and Elves would usually have not a lot of reasons to go there in lore.
Also the old Lordaeron Kingdom was multicultural as well, at least for its times in the past. Dwarves and High Elves were allowed by Terenas to live there as they wished (although High Elves preferred Dalaran for magical studies) and they could even join the army and fight for Lordaeron like it was their own original kingdom, so…
Not in any way that matters. In WC1 there wasn’t much world-building at all.
Not compared to Stormwind today, certainly.
Also this is more or less the same “issue” that some (again, few) fans of the High Elves (Quel’dorei) STILL have and STILL complain about it sometimes…I could understand when only the Blood Elves were playable as they are in the other faction and their story had radically changed, but now? We are at the point that the Void Elves were even given Quel’dorei features like skin and hair color so I don’t really see how some can still complain about the High Elves “not playable” in the Alliance and it’s not the same feeling about playing Void Elves because of the racials, or because your new homeland is in space rather than a classic elven magical kingdom like Quel’thalas…
it’s like all these fans of Lordaeron and of the original High Elves played Warcraft 2 but then skipped Warcraft 3 at all. After the Scourge invasion no kingdom in the north will be the same ever again , and same for the people living there who radically changed in undeath, or because of fel magic or because of the worgen curse…and there’s no way to undo all of this now (unless the Jailer wins, I guess ) . And even if the Alliance somehow returned in Lordaeron they will have to share a kingdom with the Forsaken and I am sure it won’t feel like Warcraft 2-3 Lordaeron at all, even hoping the peaceful cohabitation would last for long anyway…
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It’s the writer’s job to find a way to solve that issue, not just give up and completely betray everything which made the race appealing trying to make the excuse that “They had no choice”. That’s literally what they’re paid to do.
Amending the Sylvanas situation would be a first step, Aliance perspective doesn’t matter, because the setting is based on mutually antagonistic conflict and no amount of wishful thinking is going to change that. The excuse of “She is too aggressive against our hated enemies” never got off the ground with the players and had them scrambling in damage control, because they already invested who knows how many milions into cinema quality cutscenes about Saurfang’s emotional story, which everyone rejected.
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And they are doing that. You just don’t like their solution.
Alliance player perspective matters, though. If the story matters to Blizz, it’s in as far it manages to keep customers angaged. What happens on the other side is part of that. If they can’t please majorities of both sides, they have a systematic problem. It’s not relevant if Night Elf players are right to quit over Sylvanas being mean to them without getting punished. It is relevant if they quit, and there is a reasonable impression that it was because of the story.
They’re not making lemonade out of lemons. They’re throwing the lemons out ang going to buy beer. That’s giving up on finding a solution to how the Forsaken could mesh with the Horde. It’s a worst case scenario, which has not fully happened yet so there is time for them to backpeddle and salvage it for that part of the fanbase.
Regarding the fate of Sylvanas and her relationship to the Horde it really doesn’t. She is meant to be a villain to the Aliance and always has been they’ve never been meant to like her, from the Aliance perspective so nothing changes for them. And if we’re being honest it shouldn’t. Her positive relationships and respect were with the Horde cast so there is nothing for her to rebuild with the Aliance, in a potential redemption arc.
I can sympathise with them on a player level that Blizz jumped the shark, with the Night Warrior and it’s frankly underwhelming, even baffling conclusion. Blizz could have set up and written the confrontation much better, while still having both characters walk away from it. I knwo that there are some of them(especially on mmo-c forums), who wouldn’t be satisfied, until the Horde was dissolved, Forsaken were wiped out and Sylvanas’s head was on a mantle in Stormwind, but that’s never been something,w hich struck me as even remotely realistic. (Not to mention they’re not even the second worst off race in BfA)
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I don’t get how that would apply. The only way I can interpret that is… well, “they aren’t doing what I think they should be doing”. Talking about lemons really has no explanatory power here.
Subs matter. No matter from whom. It’s one game, not two. It doesn’t matter what players should or shouldn’t care about. It matters what they DO care about. That’s what affects their behaviour and their opinion of the game.
It’s a referrence to the saying “If life gives you lemons make a lemonade”. I disagree with completely discarding everything that made the Forsaken the Forsaken and replacing it with another version of human, when their selling point was that they’re anything but.
Of course subs matter, but here they wrote themselves into a corner and really can’t please everyone. To put it bluntly they stand to lose more in screwing the Horde over again than having the Aliance, in a spot where they didn’t like her and still don’t, but now have a conflict of interests with the Horde.
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I get that. And in this case it only obfuscated what you were saying. And that’s just that you disagree with the direction. Which is a bit of a redundant statement at this point.
That doesnt change who matters, though. And that’s everyone. No, they can’t please everyone. But they have to have everyone in mind while deciding what to do, and they can’t tune a faction out because it “shouldn’t” affect their experience, when they know that it actually does. It’s one thing to say that you think that when balancing all players’ feelings on the matter you think Blizzard might be better off with sticking to a version that will disappoint many Alliance players. It’s another matter entirely to state that the Alliance shouldn’t enter into the calculation at all. The first one makes a prediction we can disagree on. The second one is just ridiculous in the context of a product that’s sold to both sides.
My point was that they didn’t come up with a solution to the problem of “How to make the Forsaken work, in the context of the Horde.”. The level of change is effectively tossing the Forsaken out of the window and replacing them, which means they still don’t fit, but have been replaced by something else that does.
My statement is in regards of Horde’s internal payoffs and internal relationships. The same way Anduin naming Genn his successor should anything happen has no direct baring on a Horde only player, for example. There are more than enough reasons to dislike Genn and think that nothing good for the Horde would come out of it, but it’s worth recognising that it’s not something made for the Horde side of things, but a payoff to the relationship between Genn and Anduin.
Sylvanas’s and by extentiont he Forsaken’s fate is a very contentious topic, for the Aliance side of things it could be used to spark organic animosity over the disagreement. The distinction between negative investment and positive investment is very important here. In that the people negatively invasted in Sylvanas would like to see her die(or worse) regardless of her Horde relationship status.
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I’m all for the creation of a third faction, with Blood elves, Forsaken and Nightborne. But that’s just me. 
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And that just seems like another bit of hyperbole to me, when we haven’t enen defined what they are to become. This thread is about focussing the Forsaken on Lordaeron instead of Sylvanas. That’s certainly not throwing everything about them away. Just the part you seem to care about. And really, if you need Forsaken to be obviously evil, and incompatible with any moral standards, as they have been developed to be, there might be no way to deal with them as a playable faction that a good part of their fanbase wouldn’t disagree with. They have been a thorn in many playsers’ eyes for a decade now, Horde players that agreed with Drek’thar’s position on them and players that agree with the Alliance position on them alike. And BfA has now forced a decision.
If they have to push players like you away to make that decision, that’s still a valid decision. They wrote themselves into a corner. They now have to decide who they will have to offend to get out of it. Forsaken players are among the obvious choices. And there really aren’t any ideas on the table how not to offend them, given the situation they created. Sarthoras’ idea was to go back to a religion they have neither introduced as relevant to the game, nor connected to the Forsaken. Your idea was to annoy everyone else and actually go back and make more frickin’ Sylvanas content, because that’s working out so well for them. Both have no relation to the stuff the story has been setting up for years now. Wishful thinking and denial.
Well, prepare to disagree with what is coming, because if you as caring fans have no better ideas, don’t expect the hack writers at Blizz that you and I pay to have them.
If Horde players have stong feeling about it, it does have direct bearing on them, though. Should and shouldn’t don’t change that. And the devs have to account for that.
Why? The goal is to sell the game. Both kinds of investment seem related to that.
There have been players, who have taken issue with it for nearly 20 years. The fringe unreasonable kind, who would just find another goalpost if they were listened to. There are central thematic issue with the Forsaken embracing Lordaeon like why should the ex-elves give a crap about Lordaeron? Why should they harbor anything other than hate toward Calia’s acursed line? (Calia in particular has always been one to shun responsibility, in life and her last action was to turn a diplomatic meeting into a huge mess, with the added benefit of embracing something that actively harms them) And yeah, the number of people who woudl take a big issue with it is likely a lot larger than you’d like to admit given just how vitriolically Saurfang was received through BfA.
That’s not what i said. Matter of fact is that over the last 2 expansions she had like 20-30 minutes of screentime, in total. So far. (not including you wiping in her bossfight obviously) And when she did appear she did basically nothing meaningful or acted as a plotdevice that conveniently sodded off, when the “Get over it and be bffs again” point of BfA came.
Matter of reality is that they would have to stop writing it like they’re children and add some much needed nuance to this disjointed abomination of sequential events they decided to call a “Good enough story”. Instead of pretending that it’s there, because the marketing department told them to. If you want to show the Forsaken doing good then maybe focus on the benefits and merits of uncompromising consequentialism, on the value of comradery in a world that offers you little, on the inarguable fact that they get stuff done, when it needs to be. (This applies to Sylvanas as well) Instead of turning them into 9th flavor of human, with a meaningless gimmick that doesn’t affect anything and amounts to the total of alternate textures/rig.
Giving us an explanation of what and why, in the upcoming content release is basically unavoidable and the first step of many toward repairing the mess they’ve made. Sylvanas herself should take an openended backseat after the events of Shadowlands end in the inevitable whimper it’s been coming to ever since BfA has subverted our expectations and none of the new shiny SL systems worked out the way the had hoped thanks to their inability to take criticism resulting in a halfbaked half finished broken mess. (The latter being often cited as the big reason to leave in the recent massive FFXIV exodus)
Hates Greymane both before and after. Nothing meaningful changed outside of going “Oi, screw you Anduin!”, which they were most likely doing already anyway. There is no meaningful change for them save perhaps making them even more bitter toward Anduin. As compared to the people who genuinely care about their surrogate father-son relationship and would like to see that flourish, for better or worse. The positive investment side of things requires more tactful and nuanced approach from the writers.
By that same token, Sylvanas reaching a common ground/understanding with say Thrall, Kael or something really doesn’t offer any meaningful gain nor loss to people who hate either of them.
Ultimately the issue isn’t related to their position on the DnD Alignment Chart, but rather the quality of the recent story. There are many examples of both well and poorly done characters/factions on all ends of it.
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