The Alliance and Horde has and will always be the way the players experience the WORLD of Warcraft.
So yes these are essential foundations to the MMO as a whole.
For example: When Blizzard done a terrible job at returning Gilneans their country back a lot of people were upset about it.
Like you mentioned Sylvannas. The “shattered legacies” mess removed agency from her thus damaging her character.
Even if it is not Alliance vs Horde all the time.
Why not have the factions steer away from each other?
Such as what they done with Kul Tiras and Zandalar back in Battle for Azeroth.
There is so much potential here.
Talanji goes to Pandaria in order to restore the public reputation of the Zanadalari Trolls more specifically that the Zandalari ressurected Lei Shen the Thunder King.
Lucille Waycrest being half witch. Tries to unite Drustvar. Since Kul Tiran’s can now become Warlocks not only does she learn the Drust Sorceries of her mother but she brings the rest of the Coven into the fold. With the Thornspeaker Druids to try and show the Kul Tiran people that the Drust can be helpful.
Lucille having no talent in MageCraft and also not a physical powerhouse. Can then become an exceptionally talented Affliction Warlock.
Rokan of the Darkspear realizes that the Loa themselves are in danger. Since Zhul has found the secrets of the Drakkari who ate their gods. Making sure the Alliance does not learn those secrets the Darkspear Trolls go to Northrend.
Repopulation efforts can be made. To either resettle Alliance and Horde races or find new territories for the allied races.
Will there ever be a return to Alternate Draenor or is that world doomed as well then High Exarch Yrel brings her people to Azeroth?
The current devs and writers team are ignoring so much of what has already been told.
Will the Gnomes ever give up on Gnomeragon?
Perhaps the Troggs have been amassing their forces to exterminate all Gnomes but the MechaGnomes stood with them to reclaim Gnomeragon. Thus Prince Erazmus returning the favour owed to Mekkatorque.
One of the problems is that for almost 20 years. Once there is a new expansions or new land mass the current content areas became ghost towns. Blizzard never thinking of new reasons to visit old zones.
Think of it like going on holiday. Even if you have been to the same country - city - town before. You still go there again.
For the same reason why you don’t restict everything by race, class, or even race+class-combo: Because the same amount of quests and areas get seen by less people. Same investment, less content per person. Zandalar and Kul Tiras had nice questing areas. But if the faction conflict wasn’t a thing, would it really have made much of a difference if an orc character could help the Waycrests or an Alliance character save a loa? The cost of resticting experiences to half the playerbase is obvious. The gain of said restriction? Less so. There might be times when it adds something, just like class and race restrictions have their place. But doing it regularly - or even all the time - doesn’t sound that reasonable.
You don’t have to sell me on the idea of going back to old zones and get an update on what happened there. And you certainly don’t have to sell me on diving deeper into the different cultures, characters and histories. You have to sell me on not telling the Zandalar story to my gnome or the Kul Tiras story to my goblin.
It made sense, when the conflict created a story that divided us naturally. Yes, the cost was the same, but the gain was that you could tell a different kind of story that could get players involved in a more competetive way. I don’t think you can get the same gain without the conflict.
This is part of what gave the Alliance and Horde their soul.
That every race brings something unique to the Alliance and Horde.
Night Elves are World of Warcraft’s version of Wood Elves. Then other off shoots spread from them. Without the Night Elves then the Alliance does not have a connection to nature.
Without the Dwarves and Draenai the Alliance does not have a connection to the elements.
Without the Blood Elves and Tauren the Horde does not have a connection to the Light. As for their Priests each race has their own power source.
Tauren Mages are a very recent thing. So for so long it made sense that Sylvannas will send mages to Thunderbluff in order to keep portals open for the Tauren.
The Forsaken being Undead Abominations and creatures of the Scourge. It made sense that they were no Druids - Shaman - Paladin among them. Forsaken Hunters does not make sense as well since their senses and such would perish and decay as their rotten bodies do. Even if they’re pets are loyal to them in Undeath.
Incorrect. Orcs are an invasive species that at some point all natives and such of Azeroth have suffered under. Daelin Proudmoore went to rescue his daughter but found Orcs and their allies such as Trolls that slain them.
There is no reason for Orcs to be anything other than a hostile force.
As for Alliance saving a Loa? These have always been worshipped by and connected to Trolls. Interfering in a Troll civil was does not serve the Alliance at all no matter who wins. As all Trolls without exception are and have been hostile to the Alliance.
That is simple. The Horde has their own shenanigans on Zandalar. But the Gnomes were considering a way to kidnap / steal the golden city of Dazar’Alor.
The Alliance has some humans that are interested in making a deal. With Priscilla Ashvane being open to dealing with the Horde and her unfortunate “transformation” by Azshara. There is opportunity to make profit. Pirates are easy to deal with anyway.
Here in lies the problems with the peace lovers. Despite this being WARcraft. They are tired of fighting. Having something to fight is just as important as having reasons to fight.
You are not even trying to make any points anymore.
Coming from you that is hilarious. You keep declaring vengeance against the Alliance for Rhastakhan. Then multiple people having to explain to you that the death of Rhastakhan is none of the Horde’s business. Zandalari Trolls became Horde members under Talanji.
Yeah, you’re really missing my point in general, I think. This is about dev-time investment. When we have the time budget for 100 quests, we could have 100 quests that everyone could play, or we could give each faction 50, each race 7, or each race-class combination… less than one, I guess. The devs did the same amount of work, but less and less people get to play it with the character of their choice, so, all other things being equal, class, race and faction restrictions lower the return the player gets for the dev’s investment.
Since that’s not a good thing for the players or the game, anyone arguing for these restrictions has to point towards some gain that comes from them that you can’t get another way and which might outweigh the obvious cost.
For example, someone arguing for class-restricted quests can point towards the opportunities for unique gameplay challenges that fit the class’s toolkit, or towards a darker or lighter tone of the quests that wouldn’t fit for other classes, but would work well with this specific one. Being able to plot for world domination would be something that warlock players might well have a lot of fun with, but which players of paladins and other do-gooders might hate, so a restriction might make sense, to maxmise fun on both sides.
But faction? Remember, my point isn’t about the specific grievance history within the lore, my point is about playing an enjoyable game, where dev time is wisely invested in bringing us the cool content we want. And there I’m just not seeing the upsude. Yeah, it’s easy to find or invent story reasons to exclude one random bulk of mismatched races (also called “faction”) from doing that quest chain. But I don’t see the game becoming more enjoyable because of it. The factions are a very, very large tent, with very different races, so content that caters to faction instead of race is already pretty middle of the road. Horde quests and Alliance quests aren’t so different that they would be enjoyed by different kinds of players that had to be kept from each other. The differences between the blood elf player and the orc player are larger than the differences between the factions. Heck, both factions share pandas, earthen and dracthyr and each have 2 flavours of elf. We’re not in classic anymore, where we had the “human-ish” and the “monstrous” faction. We’re just #TeamRed and #TeamBlue.
Which is why I can’t see dividing questing along these lines as a reasonable idea. I see the cost, but not the gain. I’d much prefer more racial quests or class quests over more faction quests. And I’d certainly prefer actual RPG-player-choice that leads to differing quest lines. And yeah, independent from that I’d prefer more content that keeps our homeworld current over patch after patch somewhere new, but I don’t think we still need to keep a faction seperation for that. The wars are over, the Waycrests can just deal with a heroic orc helping them, and keep their muttering to some slight jabs instead of torches and pitchforks.
They need to add “Peace Mode” that is basically the opposite of War Mode. You can’t toggle PVP at all, but both factions and all cities are open to you. Everyone speaks “common” if not speaking their Racial Language.
Even as a Horde Character, I’ve felt like I was playing for the Alliance most of this expansion, taking a large potion of the quests from Alleria and Anduin, without the shadow of a Horde character in sight.
I also think it’s hilarious that the primary Loading Screen for this expansion shows, Alleria, Anduin and Thrall fighting in Azh’kahet. But while that story was taking place, Thrall was actually off getting the Horde. He wasn’t present for those events. If anything, it should be Gazlow cowering in the background.
Zandalari trolls were the first, from them (d)evolved the Dark (Shadowtooth), Forest (Amani), Jungle (Gurubashi), Blood (Nazmani), and Frost (Drakkari) trolls.
Jungle trolls had a tribe called the Razorbranch that evolved into the Sand (Farraki) trolls after the Sundering turned their lands and capital (Zul’Farrak) into a desert instead of jungle.
According to Blizzard there is an ancestral troll race that predates the Zandalari.
The dark trolls evolved into the night elves. The Shadowtooth tribe are just the last, and only, known tribe of surviving dark trolls.
All the “lesser” tribes (Darkspear, Vilebranch etc) were formed by those that split of from the “main” tribe (Gurubashi, Amani).
Yes, but their war against the Aqir is also what ended up in them adapting to their new empire’s climates.
Trolls that went too Northrend became the frost (Drakkari) trolls, those that went to the north-eastern forests became the forest (Amani) trolls, those that went to the southern jungles the jungle (Gurubashi) trolls.
I do not recall this bieng a thing? We do encounter the goblins plundering the Zandalari treasury though.
Gnomes, unlike goblins, do not care for gold.
The Alliance is getting Arathi customisation options next patch!
Liadrinnand Dezco happily chatting with Arathi while King Danath Trollbane, Lord of Stromgarde, ruler of the ancient Capital of the Arathi Empire, is ignored.
That’s actually a great example of Blizzard’s careless world-building. You’d think that if they introduced a lost tribe of humans as Arathi, they’d do it to build something on the existing lore of that empire. In reality it seems to just be the first thing they came up with when looking for a reason to put humans on other continents.
Oh yeah, I meant to ask that too. Though it’s not exactly a relevant point to the argument, since the gnomes did give the Zandalari a reason for resentment by blowing up their fleet.
Actually there is still plenty of land. You have Northrend - Kalimdor - Zandalar is prime real estate - Pandaria.
The Horde expanded with obtaining Surumar and High Mountain.
The Alliance must grow and expand.
This is why I enjoy the talks on forums. The chance to learn something you did not know. A lot of people are smug with this stuff.
But Troll lore never really appealed to me as they were always something to kill and move on.
During the quest Alliance War effort.
With Gnomes it is not necessarily greed but they do things just to see if they can. Not plunder but steal the city itself. That was before they invented the gizmo that gigantified the random Gorilla pet.
Humans are one of the strongest races in the game. Arathi I think were the first human kingdom since they were abandoned by the Vrykul.
It should not involve the Forsaken as Lordaeron no longer exists as a country.
No it was just years ago.
Morton Cogswald and Megs. During the Alliance War Effort quests when they made landing on Zulduzar. Before they captured Grong the weapon that was used against the Zandalari before the raid on Dazar’alor.
Gnomes are known for their intellect and often surprise many of what they are capable of. There was a discussion between these Gnomes on if they could steal the city itself.
Just post the quest. Or the quote. Or I’ll stick to “You’re probably misrememberiung”.
Edit:
Apart from that, the way you describe it makes it sound like a single gnome’s idea that would never have gotten to the Zandalari, and thus kinda irrelevant to the Zandalari’s resentment towards the gnomes, doesn’t it?
Excuse me?! We Forsaken very much disagree! Lordaeron is very much still a country, our country! And we’ll rain blight upon anyone who dares question our authority!
