I can only come at this from a Horde perspective, as I don’t spend much time on any of my Alliance characters. The thing that bothers me the most about faction RP is when the drive for animosity takes presidency over what I interpret to be the inherent logic of the world.
But animosity is desired, because hostile RP breeds situations in which player and character ability are challenged. It makes things interesting, and the patriotic faction route is the most obvious one to take there. There is nothing wrong in that! We all come here for our own kind of fix.
I can get why it can be a little exhausting right now, what with some interpretations pertaining to some themes (totalitarianism, authoritarianism, patriotism) that are inherently more oppressive than others. I feel that therein lies a lot of the divide in RP interests at the moment, and OOC conflict.
2 Likes
I don’t watch football so I root for fantasy factions instead
3 Likes
alliance sucks shut up shut up big nerds
2 Likes
Thanks for all the responses guys!
Apart from the few condescending “It’s an RP realm” comments, it’s nice to see the community isn’t all of the same mindset.
Weirdly enough, I think having a big Alliance vs Horde conflict at this point in the timeline makes perfect sense; the Legion was just defeated, so there’s no big threat on the horizon, but there is a valuable new resource to fight over, so it makes sense the faction tensions would flare up. Even if it did start with the seemingly random burning of Teldrassil (do they ever explain that?)
Certainly makes more sense than the Horde and Alliance deciding to murder each other in the middle of a siege on Icecrown Citadel… that still has me shaking my head. And during Legion the factions did work together for the most part, which also made sense.
My main concern was that I don’t want ALL RP, all events or guilds, to just always be about faction pride chest-thumping… I’m not especially interested in sports team enthusiasm, and neither is my character. But from the responses here it seems there’s still plenty of other opportunities, so I’ll be looking more for those.
2 Likes
Horde went there to kill hope. The idea was to do this in the form of baiting Malfurion into the open and killing him, but Saurfang donked it by sparing the elf, so instead they obliterated Teldrassil to achieve a similar result.
A Good War is a good read, I can really recommend it.
2 Likes
I’m enjoying the faction pride/war going on, but I’m not liking how it’s being done by Blizzard. I think roleplayers portray faction war/pride waaay better than what people come up with for the expansion.
10 Likes
I second Carbek. The Wetlands campaign was far more better than whole War campaign Questline.
1 Like
I’m not sure what you mean by this. If you’re familiar with RP servers beforehand I might understand how someone explaining why AD differs from a regular PvE realm (where players on average care less about the lore) could come off as condescending, but that’s not how it was intended. Since you didn’t specify and said you transferred, most people probably assumed you weren’t familiar with RP. The fact AD is an RP server does play a large part in why people here are passionate about the faction conflict, since it has to do with their immersion.
8 Likes
The Horde burnt Teldrassil mainly because of the war over Azerite. The Horde had no major ports along the coast of Kalimdor between Silithus and Darkshore meaning that the Alliance basically had a free shipping lane. Sylvanas took back Zoram’gar Outpost and then planned to annex Teldrassil or at least destroy Lor’danel to set up a blockade against Alliance ships taking Azerite to Teldrassil. She wanted Malfurion dead to intimidate the Night Elves but Saurfang failed to kill him and gave Tyrande her chance to strike. Angered by Saurfang failing her, Sylvanas spoke with the Night Elf on the shore just for her to brag that ‘you can never kill hope’. Having failed to crush the Night Elves spirits with the death of their archdruid, Sylvanas then decided to burn Teldrassil which could be considered to be a tactical move as much as it was a move driven by sheer anger.
Mainly it was a tactical manouver which got out of hand due to Saurfang’s incompetence and Sylvanases zealotry.
1 Like
As the person who arranged the protest march which resulted in total rioting and chaos in the Cathedral Square yesterday, I can only say;
This is the World of Warcraft, and we are Roleplaying in the World of Warcraft. This expansion revolves entirely around the faction conflict, and Blizzard has given, at least Alliance, a lot of reason to absolutely hate the Horde (even if I wish Alliance was less white-washed these days).
While I think everyone should RP what they want to RP - what I find more strange than zealous “gung-ho” faction loyalists, is the opposite. How can someone of the Alliance sympathize with the Horde during this expansion?
3 Likes
by reading Wowpedia IC :^)
12 Likes
Because they read Baine’s blog.
9 Likes
By fighting, suffering and dying alongside them just an expansion ago.
2 Likes
Pretty sure we blew it after Teldrassil. Dudflex’s post seems more accurate.
2 Likes
How to win friends and influence Alliances.
I really loved the faction war and all the player-based feelings of pride and allegiance that came with that, but then I realized BfA butchered faction identity to such an extent that the divide is as simple as red vs blue. There’s not much that separates the Horde and the Alliance anymore - everyone’s basically a bunch of good guys, really. Just look at how much bull**** (the whole Teldrassil business) Blizzard had to set in motion to get the faction war started. If this really was an interesting, well-written conflict, it wouldn’t have taken Sylvanas to cosplay Buck Turgidson and re-enact a Warcraftized Hiroshima & Nagasaki to get things moving.
It can still be a fun basis for RP, but turning it into an OOC thing is definitely quite nonsensical.
If you’re put off by Faction v Faction conflict, just don’t engage in it. I can assure you, that there’s a lot of ‘casual RP’ for you to take part of on Argent Dawn, that steers clear of any form of serious ‘expansion-plot’ content.
Also, keep in mind that a lot of the time these ‘frothing at the mouth’ nationalists are just characters, and aren’t the actual player.
8 Likes
IC there is good reason to have faction loyalty and conflict, BFA put the factions at war with each other again, in Legion they were more working together to overcome a greater enemy.
Players themselves I don’t feel have faction bias , I personally play characters on both factions and enjoy seeing it from both sides.
BfA’s problem isn’t the faction war; it’s just that nu-Blizz can’t write decent story or lore - the N’Zoth / Azshara stuff is also rly. boring, too.
6 Likes