r/warcraftlore • u/Sunshado • 2d ago
Discussion Why only Horde characters die when Alliance has the narrative lead for majority of the time since BfA? Spoiler
The Horde losses:
- Cairne Dead, Vol'jin Dead, Garrosh Dead, Grommash 1-2 Dead, Saurfang Dead
- Thrall-Baine-Rokhan are disfunctional and exists for token purpose
- Thallysra had nearly 0 lore in the new expansion despite she is Queen-Regent (or whatever)
- Forsaken is led by Calia Menethil an Alliance representative
- The Goblins feels more neutral, despite Gazlowe is Horde.
- Eitrigg and Arathi are now besties.
- Syl is no longer vanas
- Liadrin cringed out
The Alliance losses:
- Varian Heroic Death, Tirion dead,
- Malfurion had the chance to die but swapped with Ysera for 5 mins
- Tyranda could have died in Ardenweald but was saved
- McTorque could have died in BfA but got better
- Magni could have died in TWW but just lost conciousness
- Khadgar could have died in TWW but was resurrected
- Alleria survived a blade into her spine and her soul sucked out and beng thrown into the Darkwell and falling to the core of the world (I mean she probably lives)
- Turalion also survived
- Anduin is sad.
- Jaina could have died in either Theramore or in Battle for Zuldazar but no.
At least Tharan Zhu survived MoP. Chad almost died like 5 times in the xpansion, lived through all of the mand also had time to deliver some of the most memorable speeches in the franchise.
I could bring up the shit writing too but it was proven with Forsaken Kingdom that they have the capacity to create good writing teams. They just dont do it for WoW but this does not explain WTF is going on with Horde getting murdered 1 by 1.
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u/KubariDeva 2d ago
The alliance lose locations.
The horde lose leaders.
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u/Zealousideal-Ear-870 2d ago edited 2d ago
they got scared silly by the orc-fatigue expressed after WoD, which sets the stage for
Battle for Azeroth broke the narrative. Yes, seriously.
The identity crisis post- War of Thorns basically makes writing the Horde as a continuation of their 20 years of story impossible to reconcile. You can't fit together the Horde that rose up against Garrosh for warmongering with the Horde that burnt down Teldrassil to no reaction from the likes of Baine, Rokhan, Lor'themar.
Remember the timeskip after Teldrassil? There's no story told after the fire before Varok stands on the ramparts of the Capital City. It's insane to think the Horde leadership did nothing to alleviate the situation, depose Sylvanas - even the fact the War of Thorns went ahead breaks everything they setup since 2010.
They made the Dragonflight timeskip and have begun to bleach the setting clean, because the prospect of verbalizing 1. The Alliance let's the Horde get away with genocide again, and 2. the Horde is about honor, survival but also it's about domination, death to the Alliance? They tried to have their cake and eat it too, and now it intimidates the hell out of them. It's a complete shitshow because Afrisiabi decided to blow the fuse on the faction war.
The Alliance by comparison is full of relateable, milquetoast classic fantasy characters they could easily form a pseudo-DnD party around your playable main character. It's cozier, it's easier, and these characters don't bear the baggage of destructive writing nor the inherent complexity to writing good monstermen stories.
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u/Dolthra 2d ago
- The Alliance let's the Horde get away with genocide again
Hey now, don't forget that the Alliance also let the person responsible for that genocide go, so that they could face "appropriate justice" which will seemingly never come.
At least Sylvanas isn't taking her time in the maw as an opportunity to attack the Alliance again, though, so one out of two ain't bad.
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u/Worried-Advisor-7054 1d ago
Yup. Teldrassil fucked the lore In a way that it hasn't really been able to recover from.
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u/HasturLaVistaBaby 2d ago
Battle for Azeroth broke the narrative. Yes, seriously.
This!
It was our "GoT s8", or "Star wars TLJ".
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u/Gold-Cry-7520 2d ago
I think I completely lost interest in the Horde as a faction after BFA, and frankly so did Blizzard and probably most of the fanbase. At first it was the shock of "Okay, guess I'm a war criminal now," and then it was the Lordaeron battle and a whole bunch of other shit that just completely tore apart any of the appeal the Horde had. It all built up to a plot point that never really happened.
And then in Dragonflight's forsaken heritage, you... get samples of the Plague of Undeath and use it on people trying to kill your famously super-genocidal undead regime and this is written as a good, moral thing.
I was out at that point. Like "aight the Horde's a dead faction" and committed fully to the Alliance from then on out.
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u/BellacosePlayer The Anti-Baine 2d ago
its just stupid because they bent over backwards to try to please the alliance fans and nelves specifically over the backlash to BFA (I didn't say they succeeded), but then their response to the Horde is to tell them to eat shit
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u/Imaginary-Arguments 2d ago
...You think the Night Warrior story line did anything at all but further piss off Alliance/Night Elf players?
Sylvanas got away with everything she did and in her most recent appearance, she is portrayed as a deus ex machina hero that saved the Sunwell.
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u/AshleeHeard 2d ago
Proud Kaldorei here. Our leaders are immortal idiots.
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u/BellacosePlayer The Anti-Baine 2d ago
I mean, you got a new island and tree, the Allaince basically got a win on every front, sean copeland wrote a book about how cucked the horde were in kalimidor, you lost nobody of actual plot relevance, the horde's beat over the head over Afrisisabi deciding to do the burning at least once every expansion
Tyrande sentencing Sylvanas to super-hell until every last innocent is saved only sucks because Sylvanas can apparently just leave whenever. They tried to please you guys, they really did.
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u/Darktbs 2d ago
sean copeland wrote a book about how cucked the horde were in kalimidor
The Horde played its own part during the War of the Thorns. The Army of the Black Moon won the warfront, but the blood spilled here made for an empty victory. Little life remained in the mists of Darkshore. Even the birdsong be gone now … chased off by the wails of those unwilling to pass on to the Other Side.
Darkshore remained desolated and the night elfs fans got a tree on a zone they didnt want it, arathi was split 50/50 with the horde
Every single little thing the alliance won in Bfa was slowly made irrelevant.
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u/BellacosePlayer The Anti-Baine 2d ago
was he supposed to retcon darkshore as being immediately healed? The same book has the nelves pushing past their old borders and outright threatening org. Darkshore is fucked until it can be restored but that is one of many regions they hold.
you are conflating "not getting a perfect painless victory" with "not getting a victory"
Every single little thing the alliance won in Bfa was slowly made irrelevant.
They got half of Arathi they didn't have before, the Horde still has alliance forts jammed into its heartlands, Gilneas is restored
the idea that the Alliance got nothing out of bfa in the long term is silly even if you ignore stuff like amirdrassil that was not directly due to the war or post war diplomacy.
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u/Darktbs 2d ago
- was he supposed to retcon darkshore as being immediately healed?
Given that it was supposed to be a Victory, by your own words, then we should have at least seen it being healed. Instead the book is explicit that it was a empty victory.
- you are conflating "not getting a perfect painless victory" with "not getting a victory"...''the idea that the Alliance got nothing out of bfa in the long term is silly even''
Its funny that so called victories have half a dozen '*' attatched and require everyone to take things at face value.
Stromgarde was taken because the ebon blade wiped out everyone in legion and then left. So no, the alliance didnt get stromgarde out of bfa, what did happen was hammerfell went from a small ruins to the capital of the maghar.(the ones who sided with Sylvanas)
Gilneas gets restored, not agaisnt the people who invaded it, but agaisnt the scarlet crusade, the enemies of the forsaken.
Darkshore is reclaimed, but devoided of life and inhabitable except by the troll tribe that helped in the burning of teldrassil. Oh but dont worry, despite losing the capital of the night elfs, they are *gasp* enchroaching on Orgrimmar.
Its a very interesting definition of victory. Kinda like saying Stormwind won the First war because they survived.
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u/Outrageous-Cod-3750 1d ago
dont know if i would say they tried to please them, everytime the night elves were trying to do something it ended up being worse than before.
The Darkshore scenario has tyrande watch helplessley as her own people got raised into loyal horde soldiers and they werent being raised against their will, they chose to side with the Horde and slaughter their own people. Meanwhile Tyrande killed a valkyr who had absolutely no impact on anything and blizzard wasnt joking when they said it was the night elves revenge because they really didnt get anything after that...Nathanos died because he wanted to and tyrande just did his bidding. Then Tyrande lost to sylvanas, well literaslly nobody thought otherwise but both Genn and Saurfang were much more accomplished in foiling her plans.
And Darkshore not only got abandoned by the Night Elves, they let the Shatterspear (aka the Horde) into their vale again, an empty victory which is basically the night elves sacrificed tons of their own life just to leave for the dragon isles on the other end of the world. Tyrande is the biggest jobber in the game. Blizzard loves to use the night elves as punching bag but to please? and Amirdrassil...that one i would give them the benefit of the doubt but it is simply the proof that night elves suck that they cant protect themselves and have to run away to the other side of the world to "heal"...i honest to god hope blizzard will leave them for the next decade or at least wait until someone actually likes them.
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u/BellacosePlayer The Anti-Baine 1d ago
"anything other than complete obliteration of the horde is anti alliance bias" is so fuckin tired, dude.
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u/Imaginary-Arguments 2d ago
I don't understand the tribalism. I enjoy the story of WoW as a whole, both alliance and horde. There is no "you guys" and "us guys".
Both "sides" are cucked by the bad writing, lol.
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u/BellacosePlayer The Anti-Baine 2d ago
I mean, I agree. my point wasn't that Blizzard actually made up for BFA, its just that they tried to do so for one side.
I'm certainly not out here acting like the Alliance is getting amazing stories, the "netural" era blows for everyone
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u/Rage17Blaze For the Horde 2d ago
More specifically, the "neutral" era ended up being bad for one and worse for the other.
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u/Agentwise 2d ago
They should have just leaned into the horde being evil villains at that point to be honest. Oust all of the “honorable” horde characters (who did nothing while they genocided the NEs lol) and lean fully into them being villains. It would at least have been interesting and would have allowed them to continue writing horde stories.
It’s hard to pretend to be a noble group of monsters after the war of thorns.
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u/Sylgin-Shadebough 1d ago
As an Alliance player, despite being a druid to boot, I genuinely felt bad for horde players. The glossing over of the fact that horde druids were forced to participate and the Tauren should have practically had a schism from the horde over it. Along with the zero fallout from the Cenarion Circle.
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u/break_card skimblee 2d ago edited 2d ago
How you gonna forget my boy Rastakhan, from the same raid as the Jaina fight except Rastakhan dies and Jaina flees
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u/tameris 2d ago
Or the fact the we fight Mechatorque (gnome leader) and only incapacitated him, while Rastakhan was killed.
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u/BellacosePlayer The Anti-Baine 2d ago
and blizzard had to go out of their way to tell you that Genn and Jaina weren't rude when they were slaughtering their way through a city and murdering its king. Perish the thought, that was just a silly troll's perspective.
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u/DrWaDoW 2d ago
Irony that Forsaken Kingdom had an actually good writing is because NOBODY from WoW team even touched it. It was made by mostly fans from Hive Workshop & Blizard devs from their RTS department & Hearthstone.
Surprisingly Story & Lore is listed by Chris Metzen so either Metzen is more interested in Warcraf 3 & Forever, that's why in Retail his work (which the devs try to convince us is his) feels so underwhelming, or he had a great team which were able to take the best parts of his ideas & make it a cohesive story.
In either way WoW Retail writing team should be kept under quarantine style lockdown in Retail department only.
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u/Landeyda Lore after WC3 doesn't count 2d ago
My theory on Chris Metzen is one of two things.
A) He came back to WoW and realized it's written by committee (he alluded to this in an interview) and can't really do anything there. And, let's be honest, the committee sucks anyway.
B) He lost all his edge and thinks the current writing is fine. That is based on the secondhand statement that he 'wished they didn't name it Warcraft because it's too intimidating'. People change as they get older, and not always for the best.
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u/AgainstThatGrain Gilneas Liberation Front 2d ago edited 2d ago
It's B. People were really quick to forget how reviled Thrall was by the time Metzen first left. 'Green Jesus' was not a term of endearment.
You can see all the foreshadowing of Dragonflight onwards' writing in the World-Shaman quests.
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u/Hallc 2d ago
And, let's be honest, the committee sucks anyway.
If I'm going to be honest, I don't think any story written by committee could be good. No one has a personal stake in the story when everything is done around a table.
You might have a really really great story for a character like Liadrin that you feel passionately about and giving her a full proper arc. You pitch it and then everyone else weighs in and your idea slowly gets shifted and changed around until it's nothing close to what you wanted to tell.
That's not even factoring in so much of the story/lore is written solely to work for the raids.
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u/DrWaDoW 2d ago
Or C) He can spew you an endless stream of ideas & it's the team's job to fish out the best parts & make them cohesive. He's a fountain of creativity, but logical structure & realistic dialogue writing is not his forte.
In other worst he can place point on the graph, but it's the team's job to draw proper lines between them.
I mean I WANT to believe that Sky Elves wasn't his original idea for WoW Forever, but I CAN believe that they asked him to make NEW elves & he made sky Elves.
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u/TheUltimate3 2d ago
If I recall, apparently the Forever team wanted to just use high elves and it was Metzen that went "go bigger" and that eventually became the skyborne.
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u/GrumpySatan Why use 1 sentence when 20 will do? 2d ago
The way they describe it, they were implementing High Elves but were feeling like they couldn't make their starting experience cool enough with the zones they planned for launch. I.e. they would've started in Dalaran but it wasn't big enough for a full experience.
So they put a break on it until we do a Quel'thalas update (which they confirmed is planned) and then Metzen came in and told them well get creative and take risks with something totally new.
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u/DrWaDoW 2d ago
Yeah but none of us were in that room. That's why I said I WANT to believe Sky Elves wasn't his starting idea & he made them after the ELF race was requested from him, but as a Bioware fan, I am used to dissapointment by now,
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u/Hallc 2d ago
As a Doctor Who fan having one of the original big names return to a franchise does not inspire me with confidence.
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u/DrWaDoW 2d ago
Never watched it, but I can imagine what you're referring to.
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u/Stormfly 2d ago
Russel T. Davies, probably.
Showrunner for much of the great period but also currently the writer again and it's not as good as it was. Moffat was another person that was a great writer for individual episodes but fell flat over longer narratives.
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u/Renatusisk 2d ago
I always felt Davies did great over arching stories but Moffat could flesh them out so much better. The Davies/Moffat era was Peak New Who.
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u/Dolthra 2d ago
Yep. Davies was good at slow building an arc, whereas his individual episodes were always pretty lackluster. Moffat was the opposite—he couldn't write a logically satisfying conclusion to a season arc to save his life, but he can write a damn good episode. The big issue RTD2 faced was that Davies wrote like 80% of the the episodes.
It's no coincidence that one of the best episodes in RTD2 is the Moffat one.
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u/Stormfly 2d ago
He lost all his edge
I said this recently.
A lot of "Metzen's decision" design choices have been... not great.
I think he can still write great lore, and I like his lore for the most part, but some things like Skyborne and the Worldsoul saga feel like poor decisions.
Like I think there are a host of people who can share the blame, but the two "This was Metzen's idea" choices are skyborne and the saga and I don't like them.
I see people defend them by throwing around his name and it just makes me think he's like George Lucas in that he has great ideas but he needs other people to tell him no.
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u/HasturLaVistaBaby 2d ago
realized it's written by committee
Whaat??? Don't you know councils are a good thing, and that every leader should be replaced by one =P
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u/BellacosePlayer The Anti-Baine 1d ago
Its likely A, but B can also be a factor.
Metzen was never going to wrangle the story issues single handed, he was overseeing things in a much much less story/narrative dense era and there was still insane fuckery between the teams.
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u/Sunshado 2d ago
Irony that Forsaken Kingdom had an actually good writing is because NOBODY from WoW team even touched it. It was made by mostly fans from Hive Workshop & Blizard devs from their RTS department & Hearthstone.
So thats why it was so awesome?!
Forsaken Kingdom was so different from everything we have on retail its crazy.
Retail writers should be replaced because at this point even AI could write better story n how to kill someone gloriously than them and tehy even make some alliance char die.
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u/Hallc 2d ago
At this point they could tell a better story just by plagarising their older expansions. Just take Varian's death, file the numbers off and give it to Liadrin.
Way better than what was shown.
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u/Sunshado 2d ago
They should TBH. That makes more sense. They already doing it with reusing the core concepts of expansions btw.
Liadrin was wierd because if they were added some ingame bars/Effects like she is overusing the light to keep us in the battle that could have been goo indication.
Also listened to Nobbels video on Liadrin and he theorises that Khit'ix was a secret boss for the Ula'tek raid like Ra-Den in ToT because the conversation and other stuff madethe impression on him that it was chopped off from the raid tier for some reason to be its own 1 boss raid.
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u/Hallc 2d ago
it was chopped off from the raid tier for some reason to be its own 1 boss raid.
Best guess? Simply to add mid-patch raiding content to keep more players subscribed. Their whole goal right now is to keep as many people as possible scribed for the full length of patches and actively engaging as much as possible.
It's why every patch now needs invasion content, extra ilvl and everything else.
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u/Sunshado 2d ago
Yea, probably. But for me it causes more harm. Even the constant state of buggines proves that tehy forcing this thing without looking through for lack of time and effort perhaps?
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u/Dolthra 2d ago
Eh, partially. Writing a story for 25 nameless heroes is also completely different from writing a story revolving mostly around one guy and his revolving cast of side characters (incidentally, this is also why the Warcraft 3 stories are so much stronger than anything that comes after. All the campaigns focus mostly on one or two main characters at a time).
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u/Cookiewaffle95 2d ago
Because the alliance characters are useless lolol thats why Baine didnt die in shadowlands he sat on the floor all safe the whole xpac. Thats us every xpac.
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u/sonicrules11 2d ago
Because the current writing team does view the Horde as the bad guys and the Alliance as the good guys.
they have the capacity to create good writing teams.
They do have a good writing team because the side quests this expansion are decent imo.
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u/Rude-Temperature-437 2d ago
Well, the Horde are outright villains in Warcraft 1 and 2. Metzen has a hard on them back in the 90s and 2002 which is why he's bent on making them heroes and the Alliance boring
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u/BellacosePlayer The Anti-Baine 1d ago
I don't necessarily think its even that as much as I joke about it.
I think they just have a boring ass generic fantasy lean and they wanna write about pretty elves and lawful good humans, and they're willing to write the Alliance as bad but never dwell on it in a way that takes away from that fantasy. Its the equivallent of the people who used LOTR as the whole of their argument for why belves should be alliance.
It kinda sucks because the orcs and tauren should not be that hard to write. Generic template orcs should be wise veterans who acknowledge their past or zug zugs fighting every fight like Freebird is blaring. Make Tauren wise and diplomatic but utter fucking terrors when you push them too far. Like, I think even most blueside fanatics would rather have some of that than yet another anduinlike char.
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u/AngryDew 1d ago
Ah Jesus , this is why their writing is so bad . Saying they have a good writing team is such an obvious lie just to not put them down . Nothing about this story is good . It’s just way to emotional and has no hype involved at any point. It has more cinematic then any expansion combined and every single one of them is meh
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u/sonicrules11 1d ago
No, their main writing team is bad because they force the good writers to the sides lmao. Are you fucking 12?
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u/Clockwork-Too 2d ago
Was Tirion considered an Alliance hero when he died...? I'm pretty sure he was neutral during his entire time in WoW.
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u/Enenra1177 2d ago
Part of the issues with these types of discussions is that people have different metrics for what counts as a "Faction Character".
Personally, I find that the factions run so deep in the franchise's foundation that almost every character ends up leaning one way or the other.
Even purely neutral characters can come off as red/blue tinted due to things as simple as what race they are, or their history. Or even aesthetic.
Trion was only ever neutral in WoW's run time. But just by being a Human Paladin means he's gonna be more of an Alliance vibe than Horde.
That isn't a bad thing. But it's something I keep in mind when considering WoW's writing issues.
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u/Darktbs 2d ago
Because these type of discussions have double standards
Its always 'look how many horde characters died vs alliance' but alliance is anyone who is from a alliance race or is sympathetic to the alliance while Horde has to meet several criterias in order to be horde.
Case in point in Op's post:
-The Goblins feels more neutral, despite Gazlowe is Horde.
Goblins FEELING more neutral is counted as a lose for the horde.
-Tirion dead,Khadgar could have died in TWW but was resurrected,Magni could have died in TWW but just lost conciousness
These three characters who ARE neutral are counted as alliance because of their race.
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u/Dolthra 2d ago
I saw one of these complaint posts yesterday (that Midnight "kept killing Horde leaders" despite "not even being about the Horde") that said "blood elves, which are supposedly part of the horde..." Like even the first race added to the Horde is considered not Horde enough if the author is trying to make a point they're inconvenient for.
Oh, but of course, despite blood elves not counting as Horde for the story focus, Liadrin counted as a Horde death.
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u/Shadostevey 1h ago
Tirion, Khadgar, and Magni aren't counted as Alliance because of their race, it's because they are all ex-Alliance members. The latter two within WoW's story itself. Khadgar has a 30 foot statue out in front of Stormwind ffs.
What, are we supposed to pretend Thrall in Cata wasn't a Horde character just because he was officially neutral?
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u/MixAmbitious307 2d ago
One just have to compare the difference between Varian and Vol'jin's death, to see how the current writing team has a MONSTROUS Alliance bias.
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u/Bartowskiii 2d ago
It’s so funny to see this because when I played wow ( up to mop) everyone cried about green Jesus and how every time any lore or cinematic it was horde.
- but also I realise this was a long time ago and that makes me old 🥲
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u/MixAmbitious307 2d ago
People forgot how human centric was Wrath.
Horde char in the spotlight, and Alliance crybabies made a scene about "Green Jesus".
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u/Hallc 2d ago
Green Jesus was more a Cataclysm thing given Thrall became the chosen one, stand-in Earthwarder who had a special questline regarding his soul being broken into elements and then he got to Kamehameha Deathwing.
Basically all of the final patch of Cataclysm was "The Thrall Show ft. Dragons".
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u/BellacosePlayer The Anti-Baine 2d ago
People cried about doing a few quests for Thrall like Malfurion wasn't doing crazy shit in Hyjal and nelf questing
I get that it was the first expansion to really push active questing with the big lore characters but the Thrall cata stuff is quaint compared to how certain lore figures are shoved down our throats today
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u/Cabbage_Vendor 1d ago
People got sick of Thrall and he got the "Green Jesus" monniker mostly because there was almost a year between the Dragon Soul raid's release and Mists of Pandaria. Dragon Soul had Thrall front and centre as Azeroth's saviour.
When you look at the actual content, Malfurion and Thrall had about equal representation in Cata.
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u/AgainstThatGrain Gilneas Liberation Front 2d ago
Lol everybody was sick of Thrall. That's the reason he didn't become Warchief, because the collective groans of him potentially getting the job again after Garrosh was announced to be a raid boss pissed off even Horde fans. Even showing up on the Echo Isles to help the rebellion had people leery of 'Metzen forcing his self insert to be important again'.
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u/Any-Transition95 2d ago
current writing team
I don't think that's the current writing team anymore, muchacho
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u/HasturLaVistaBaby 2d ago
Yeah, this shit has been constant since the end of Legion when Kosak left.
Then BTS came and literary shit hit the fan
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u/Landeyda Lore after WC3 doesn't count 2d ago
I seriously wish that were the current writing team. They weren't great either, mind you, but the current one seems to actually hate the IP and is trying to change it into something they enjoy instead.
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u/Hallc 2d ago
I don't think they hate the IP at all, if they did they'd very likely be looking for work elsewhere give what we know of Blizzard's pay practices.
It very much just seems a case of 'too many cooks' and they need someone to directly head up take charge of the story with one or two direct assistants and then the rest of the writing staff are there to pitch ideas or to handle side quests.
You would be amazed what a singular vision can do when it comes to something like this.
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u/aoibhinn-mw 2d ago
Bwomsamdi/Muezala betrayed Voljin and then lied to him. Varian likely could have escaped dying but essentially chose to stay behind and fight. It’s not even clear if he needed to. I think he just did that shit for aura and so Guldan could get gassed up as a villain. Dead ass don’t think he needed to die.
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u/AgainstThatGrain Gilneas Liberation Front 2d ago edited 2d ago
I've said it a bunch here recently already, but Horde characters suffer heart attacks and Alliance characters suffer lobotomies.
Yes the Alliance cast tend to make it through the stories alive, but afterwards they're so unrecognisably boring and formed of the exact same flavourless, dull, wholesome chungus together sludge that the only difference between them is how they look. And that's assuming they even had anything interesting going on in the first place and didn't come off the factory line that way already (looking at you Anduin).
Horde characters at least occasionally get good sendoffs, or die before their time and are remembered as cool. About the only Alliance character you can really say that of is Varian and that's entirely due to the manner of his death. Before the Legion intro he was still reduced to the flavourless lawful good sludge that barely resembles his early Wrath self.
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u/Sylgin-Shadebough 1d ago
Tyrande is by all accounts a millenia old, incredibly experienced war veteran, but not BFA was portrayed as a bit clueless and kept being given tactical advice by Anduin.
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u/BellacosePlayer The Anti-Baine 1d ago
tbf tyrande has been portrayed as an idiot more than she's been portrayed as wise/diplomatic across wow and arguably wc3.
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u/Lythaera 1d ago
Horde characters are also lobotimized before being killed off tho. Especially the Tauren and the Elves.
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u/SiLKYzerg 2d ago
Hot take, I'm a diehard Horde fan but I don't mind the Cairne death even if it was offscreen. He was one of my favorite characters in WC3 so it was really felt really impactful. The problem is THEY KEPT DOING IT. Vol'jin was set up to be an interesting Warchief and felt similar to Thrall, Gallywix showed that the Horde was diverse and exemplifies the fact that the Horde is made up of misfit races trying to survive even if they are assholes. Not to mention it was interesting to see characters like Sylvanas and Gallywix warm up to the Horde after joining skeptically. They just kinda threw out what was meant to be Horde out the window.
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u/Ygg999 2d ago
The current writers don't understand the appeal of the Horde in a narrative sense and wish they never existed as a playable option.
They're interested in stories that revolve around elves and humans in the Alliance because that's what appeals to them, so that's all we get.
Simple as.
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u/bold_snowflake 2d ago
I was always horde since vanilla, but started to lose interest in MoP when Garosh went batshit crazy. The final nail was BFA & Shadowlands when Sylvanus also went batshit crazy.
Nothing like seeing great characters being given a nonsensical arc with piss poor pay off.
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u/RosbergThe8th 2d ago
Because most of the "main cast" whom the writers champion and are invested in are Alliance, and thus mostly untouchable.
Horde characters by comparison are viewed as just relevant to their respective stories, so fair game to be spent for shock or engagement value.
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u/WorstWarframePlayer 2d ago edited 2d ago
Its really surprising that Malfurion and Tyrande made it this far. They could kill off a bunch of Gnomes too or something
Edit: You know what? Kill Genn too and have his daughter rise to power
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u/Odasto_ 2d ago
Forsaken is led by Calia Menethil an Alliance representative
Why the fuck do people keep saying this? When was Calia in the modern Alliance?
The playable forsaken are specifically the people of Lordaeron. Calia was... the princess of Lordaeron. When she popped up again in Legion, she wasn't repping the Alliance. She was under the tutelage of Alonsus Faol.
If Calia is Alliance, then literally every forsaken character in the council is as well.
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u/Oreofox 2d ago
Its the same reason people say Arthas is Alliance when he stopped being any form of Alliance when he became the Lich King (and possibly earlier than that).
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u/Martzillagoesboom 2d ago
He stopped being alliance when he betrayed the mercenaries
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u/Odasto_ 2d ago
Ironically, killing trolls and ogres is arguably the most Alliance thing you can do.
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u/Martzillagoesboom 2d ago
True dat. But killing them after using them is kinda skivy . Not really paladin behavior
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u/Sunshado 2d ago
She tried to convince the Forsaken to join the Alliance. Sylvanas murdered for it the moment she saw her for this.
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u/Odasto_ 2d ago
I mean, yeah? Sylvanas went full dictator and starting murdering her own people, including the first Desolate Council. She was also doing this as the Warchief of the Horde.
That sounds like a damn good reason to leave the Horde...
Crucially, Calia no longer supported that position once Sylvanas was removed. She isn't funneling forsaken troops over to the Alliance. that would be disadvantageous for the forsaken as a people, considering both Calia and Derek now buy into the idea that humans "aren't ready" to accept the forsaken. That's a Horde talking point, not an Alliance one.
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u/Real_VanCityMinis 2d ago
Same reason everyone is forgiving each other for genocides not even decades old and same reason why modern wow lore is soft
The writers don't care about good storytelling, only about sending their message and they are bad at writing
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u/BellacosePlayer The Anti-Baine 2d ago
I'm entirely fine with the leaders having common sense and realizing nobody's going to "win" an eternal hellwar. It shouldn't mean everyone's buddy buddy though.
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u/stevie242 2d ago
The implication that the continuous wars they had going on was somehow good storytelling is funny. Warcraft has always had mid storytelling
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u/ExplanationMundane3 2d ago
Ditto for Ironforge and Dark Iron Dwarves. They have been at war with the Dark Irons for hundreds of years and now they have little to no tensions with their heir being of half-Dark Iron. They need to have Thargas Anvilmar take on the Magatha/Godfrey role, opposing Dagran II’s claim to the throne due to his half-Dark Iron blood, and tries to kill/usurp him. Would be fascinating internal conflict and having their own feud story instead of them just being comedic alcoholic sidekicks to humans and happy with everyone.
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u/flaks117 2d ago
The writers have had a massive anti horde bias now for the better part of a decade. I’d probably say since mop at least.
I think the last semblance of any horde faction pride we saw in this game was in cataclysm and it’s all been downhill from there. I’d also say this is around the time where world of lovecraft/friendship craft became a thing with the thrall love story in cataclysm overshadowing the transition on horde leadership and garroshs development while they went all in on whitewashing alliance crimes and making varian more levelheaded instead of just an alliance Garrosh how he was initially set up.
The entire wow story feels focus tested and watered down and the direct effect it seems to have had is making the horde into “let’s just let the players play some bad guys” instead of the nuanced ragtag bunch of misfits it was initially envisioned as.
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u/Mercurial_Laurence 2d ago
It's 'funny', a post I saw here recently had a few comments referencing how Thrall making Garrosh Warchief had extreme flow on effects, everything from before MoP to Legion, and was spectacularly stupid.
Or well, I at least entirely agree.& again here, I agree; they've beaten the Horde with the villain bat then got very acclimatised to knocking their stars off so much worse.
And I just think this is funny, because whilst I never played it, I think MoP had really cool lore, but if not MoP itself, Garrosh has seemingly had the largest nuclear fallout in a sense, seemingly more than the fumbled handling of BC (eg: Kael being underwriten etc), although it's definitely subtler than the clusterfuck of things that went wrong with Shadowlands. …but there's enough bitching about Xpacs been done, so ima quiet down;
I wish they did more with the Zandalari having allied/joined with the Horde, and whilst I felt both Nightborne & Void Elves were …maybe not redundant, but something; they've given the Void Elves some neat lore (eventually), but the Nightborne do feel underutilized … and like I couldn't care less about the boring Mechagnomes, and view the addition of Lightforged Draenei as redundant and boring in the most extreme way; it does sadden me that Nightborne, Zandalari, Dark Iron Dwarves, and Kul Tiras; all have such potential to be significant focus, they seem kinda light, but for other reasons I'm chill with Human Kingdoms politics and likewise for the 3 Dwarven Clans, and Zandalari have shown up in midnight (i haven't analysed their presence yet as such); Nightborne just feel like a lot of potential doing nothing (or well, helping evacuate Quel'Thalas, is doing something, but like compare to the maybe hopium, of at any point the Dwarven situation might spill out into something dramatic due to internal situations; likewise leaders/representatives of Kul Tiras and Gilneas could be interacting with leaders/representatives of Stormwind a lot, but like generally Alliance leaders squabbling is seen so idk)
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u/Sunshado 2d ago
MoP lore was amazing overall, one of the peak we ever had, and despite the garrosh stuff I don't see everything occured there should led here. Like the MoP book, Prisoners of waar on the trial of garrosh set up so many stuff already on its own.
If anything Zandalari should have been a main race lorewise too because tehy posses vast amount of knowledge and power and should reset the horde direction and setup wise.
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u/HasturLaVistaBaby 2d ago
MoP lore was amazing overall,
Yeah, as much as i didn't like playing that expansion, its lore was undeniably superb
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u/BellacosePlayer The Anti-Baine 2d ago
the core issue with MoP is it didn't satisfyingly wrap things up given how cartoonish they made Garrosh in the end, and it lead to Danuser "fixing" that which got us BFA.
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u/MixAmbitious307 2d ago
FR, the hate boner current writing team has for the Horde is something else.
The entire wow story feels focus tested and watered down and the direct effect it seems to have had is making the horde into “let’s just let the players play some bad guys” instead of the nuanced ragtag bunch of misfits it was initially envisioned as.
It's so appalling that, after creating such an awesome iteration of the Horde with Warcraft 3, they went back with "evil Horde". And when the Horde is not villainous, they're just Alliance sidekicks.
They should have the writing team see a full playthrough of Warcraft 3 Orc campaign and The Founding of Durotar campaign. THAT was the Horde that a lot of player loves and want to see again.
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u/CoverGlobal8352 2d ago
Have you even played warcraft 3? Thrall has always been this way
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u/Dolthra 2d ago
This is r/warcraftlore , you think people here have played the games? We're just here to complain!
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u/Hethsegew 2d ago
They didn't even let the players play the bad guys as you had to fight against Garrosh as horde too...
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u/catgirlfourskin 2d ago
they do the flying, we do the dying
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u/break_card skimblee 2d ago
Notable horde characters who have actually died, in order (10): Grommash, Dranosh Saurfang, Cairne, Garrosh, Vol'jin, King Rastakhan, Varok Saurfang, Nathanos, Gallywix, Liadrin
Alliance characters who have actually died, in order (7): Anduin Lothar, Daelin Proudmoore, Lady Katrana Prestor (jk), Liam Greymane, Fandral Staghelm, Rhonin, Varian, Tirion
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u/Gerilion 2d ago
It’s because Blizzard hates the Horde. I know it sounds silly and extreme.
Horde has always to suffer. We lose every NPC we get. In a NPC story driven game where our characters are faceless nobody’s. Those NPC are the whole story they drive it they make it and they live with the consequences. Our actions have very minor consequences if you think about it it’s always one of the NPC who does something we just help them.
In the attempt to make such a story interesting they try to create friction und high stakes but never for us always for the NPC‘s
One easy way to let players feel something and to push the feeling of high stakes is to kill someone.
Then you have to decide who dies and there you go by popularity.
Lady Liadrin is very popular char and at the moment the mightiest Paladin on Azeroth. So if we kill her people will talk they will feel the high stakes. But it doesn’t work that way.
They just killed another of the symphatic Horde characters and it doesn’t feel like: oh no the world is on fire. It feals like : there goes another one. It’s just a minor thing even in the story.
She deserved better way better.
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u/Independent-Wave-744 2d ago
As someone who took a multi year break, I always find these sorts of topics strange. From my PoV, no faction holds any prevalence - since there effectively are no factions anymore. Sure, there is some token animosity here and there, but almost always portrayed as something characters have to let go of.
And if a character wants a prominent role in the story, they have to kind of go neutral first. Turalyon seems to have done nothing of import while an alliance leader. Only got to do stuff when he took charge of the more neutral army of light. Liadrin didn't get to do anything important until she joined the bridging divides team. Alleria basically went rogue from everyone, etc.
Honestly, compared to back in the day, none of the real important characters feel like they are really part of either faction anymore, beyond, well, being of a race associated with a faction. There is nothing specific about most their actions that make them feel like part of any faction, really. If the Arathor family was all tuskar, it wouldn't make that much of a difference, really.
They are all just props, recognizable names in the good guy faction. So, it seems weird to see the most recent death as a blow to the horde at all.
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u/salYBC 2d ago
And if a character wants a prominent role in the story, they have to kind of go neutral first.
It's unfortunately a problem with the format of a two-faction MMO. Content has to be accessible to both factions unless you want to double the development costs and have unique storylines each expansion for both factions. Reason number 6.022 x 1023 why the RTS stories have much more freedom and are generally better.
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u/Independent-Wave-744 1d ago
I mean, stories don't have to be bad because of that, tbh. You can make a good story with a faction-agnostic cast of characters in an MMO. Even in WoW good stories can be easily be told even today, just look at some of the side quest. There is some good stuff.
The problem is more that Blizzard, unlike, say SE with FF14, has about zero faith in the reading comprehension skills or even just attention span of their players. So they give a rat's looted behind about the story and just slap something together that makes a resemblance of sense if you don't look too closely, in a Netflix second monitor kind of way. They know that a high percentage of players just skip the cutscenes anyway.
Only the trailers get some attention, I think, because that is what you use to hype people into coming back. After that, wow is mostly a gameplay focused game, not a story focused one, so they do the bare minimum there.
It's also why they put checklist things like representation there, I think. Most people just skip it anyway, but they can say it's there.
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u/DoctorTomee 2d ago
Calia is not the leader of the forsaken. She got a seat at the table because historically her family was the reigning dynasty and because of her efforts to help cleanup the undercity, but she’s explicitly not a queen or otherwise a leader. The forsaken are governed by a council and the de facto leader and representative is Lillian Voss still.
And what is that bs about Gazlowe “feeling” neutral? The Bilgewater cartel is explicitly horde
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u/Real_VanCityMinis 2d ago
Ahh yes the modern wow message "kings are bad, queens and councils are good" if I'm not mistaken mekkatorque is the last male faction leader where power isn't shared or taken by a support character (looking at you liadrin, taking up all the screen time lothormar could have had) and it was well done when moria's arc happened, now it's bland and boring and also overdone as it's happened to like every faction over the last few expacs
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u/JimmyBim 2d ago
Mekkatorque is interestingly the opposite of the modern wow style of leaders. Originally in vanilla to bfa. He was the high tinker which is the like only democratically elected position in Warcraft. So he had to be voted in. He just keeps being voted in cuz his people love him. As of bfa tho he becomes a proper king during the mechagon stuff
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u/DoctorTomee 2d ago
Oh I don’t disagree with that. The infatuation with councils feels very forced. It’s almost like they are overcompensating for having too many leaders in the past who ended up being a tyrant and/or a traitor. With the dwarves it makes sense because they’re made up of three distinct clans, but every race doesn’t need their own council.
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u/FinalToe5190 2d ago
idk man the story takes places in silvermoon and somehow is an alliance story? xd
but i do agree that alleria should not have survived a fucking dagger in the back.
you wanna know why the horde characters die? because alliance characters never do anything and if they did they will just die.
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u/Sir_Drinklewinkle 2d ago
- Forsaken is led by Calia Menethil an Alliance representative
Wut, no they ain't. Blizz specifically saw the pushback already occurring when they started trying to push her as the faction leader and wound up doing the desolate council instead. Which I'd like much more if they did anything with them but uh, until we get anything new with Forsaken they just kinda exist... Goblins feel big horde, Undermine is primarily neutral territory but Gazlowe is still a good ol' horde lad, Eitrigg has been a free agent for... Well since back in the Tirion book like 30 years ago.
Also Tirion wasn't alliance, Magni was basically slapped into a neutral role from Cataclysm straight through to TWW (I remember since I was playing Alliance back in Cata and was peeved we lost him) Khadgar's neutral, Taran Zhu is neutral...
LIKE I'll say it, I see your point because horde clearly gets screwed in that anytime the focus is on us it's to kill someone off usually in a much lamer way. (I'll say right now, Vol'jin dying was probably just to even things out with alliance players who would have lost their mind if the horde didn't lose anyone. On top of needing to push Sylvanas more)
I'm also gonna play devil's advocate for a moment: I would be entirely FINE with them killing off long term beloved horde characters: IF they actually replaced them with any of the numerous other racial reps. But they don't even try, Rokahn hasn't done shit outside of a few quests, Desolate council is there but has had no chance to do anything, Baine, and I'm sure Liadrin's daughter will not do shit either. (Admitedly we got Lor'themar still)
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u/TheLoneWolf1407 2d ago edited 1d ago
I mean all of the points valid. Only one correction though. Alleria didn't got her soul sucked out. She had L'ura sucked out. L'ura was a Naaru Alleria consumed so to speak during Argus campaign at Seat of Triumvirate
I know a bit nitpicking but it's noteworthy anyways
But on the other side actually Horde characters atleast get more sacrifice plays than the Alliance xD
PS. Also from Alliance there is for example Rhonin, Veressa husband, who died during bombing of Theramore (and ofc other victims of it, if I remember one of close friends and apprentice to Jaina, got turned to dust before her eyes) or Tirion Fordring who died during Legion invasion, Maraad who died during WoD, Delaryn and Sira who died during BFA and got turned into undead by Sylvanas (as well as Burning of Teldrassil, which quite had many casualties), Liam Greymane, who got killed by Sylvanas during Cataclysm (which was whole point of Genn's aggression towards the Horde, especially during Legion and BFA). Not to mention during WCIII era I think Alliance had more loses overall like Uther, Terenas, Antonidas, Sylvanas (who got later raised as banshee queen ofc), Anasterian, even more Silver Hand paladins, Arthas in a way (though it was his decision to pick soulstealer3000 and he didn't died til WotLK), Daelin Proudmoore, etc while Horde practically lost only Grom Hellscream (who was the goat by the way, but mostly by the end of his life xd)
PS2. Also saying "Anduin is sad" is a great understatement. Bro got massive PTSD from becoming a mind-controlled flesh puppet, being controlled via desecrated sword of his father, infused with soul of Lich King Arthas himself. He was forced to go against all he ever stood for, all of his principles, stand against his former allies, including Jaina, who was his close friend and kinda mother-like figure. When he failed to slaughter all in the room, he almost got his own soul obliterated, which would kill everyone, and he avoided that fate by a hair. In the end he was left with regrets, guilt, doubts and pain, feeling unworthy in eyes of his friend, the people he ruled over and the Light itself, while the one who forced him (Sylvanas) went majorly unpunished, literally no one ever acknowledges what she did to him (only burning of Teldrassil and War of Thorns). People IRL get PTSD from less fucked up shit. PTSD is not a joke, nor "being sad"
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u/Deicide-UH 2d ago edited 2d ago
Because Horde fanboys change their already biased critteria to judge things.
In TWW, the whining was about “Only Alliance heroes get story”, because of Magni, Anduin and Alleria.
Then Undermine patch fully focused on Gazlowe. Were they happy? Nope, it didn’t count because “it wasn’t a Horde story” or, even funnier, because “the story is about an Alliance character (the oh-so-important Renzik, the only Alliance goblin) dying to inspire a Horde leader”. There's this absurd notion that Alliance heroes count as Alliance story because they are there, but Horde heroes don't make a Horde story unless the entire Horde is there shouting "For the Horde!".
It’s the same thing now. Locus Walker died, they didn’t care. Lothraxion died as a dungeon boss, they didn’t care. After all, these guys are more related to the Alliance, so there comes the complaint “No one dies in the Worldsoul Saga!”.
Then Zul’jan dies. “Not fair, only trolls die in the Worldsoul Saga!”
Then Liadrin dies. “Not fair, only Horde die in the Worldsoul Saga!”
And it will still be like this again and again. When Turalyon or someone else dies, they’ll complain "Not fair, Alliance gets all the attention!".
Just check your own post. Thrall or Baine don't count because they are disfunctional. But Anduin counts despite he being totally disfunctional nowadays. Calia (who was never Alliance) joins the Horde, but counts as Alliance. Double standard runs crazy.
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u/Darktbs 2d ago
Want to know about another double standard?
Its always looked as how many died, but look at how many horde characters are animated in the cgi cinematics.
Ally has: Varian, Anduin, Genn, if you stretch back to wc3 you have Malfurion.
Horde has: Thrall, Varok, Sylvanas, Zappy boi, Lorthemar, Liadrinn, Saurfang.jr, If you stretch to Horde aligned you get Chen, Garrosh, Grommash
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u/Deicide-UH 2d ago
I never thought at looking at that, lol.
There’s Maraad for the Alliance too, but that’s the only one I can think of.
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u/Darktbs 2d ago
The problem , is that Maraad was retroactively made into a important character.
Maraad was originally created for DC Unlimited's World of Warcraft action figure series. He was named by Chris Metzen.\75]) His figure, released in mid-2008 as part of Series 2, depicted him in armor inspired by the Lieutenant Commander's Battlearmor, and the box he came in used concept artwork of the Burning Crusade cinematic)'s draenei paladin
So yes, they have one additional character, but it was not the original intent. The tbc cinematic was just a Generic draenei paladin
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u/Deicide-UH 2d ago
I know there’s a technicality there, but still should count, same as Zekhan was originally a CGI character that only later got a name and presenve in the game (though Zekhan’s case was clearly deliberate, while Maraad was accidental)
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u/SeraphStarchild 2d ago
The gorgeous animated cutscenes in BfA were amazing for this. The "Alliance" one was Anduin or whoever visiting Saurfang in prison, and was all about how sad he was that the Horde had committed genocide, yet again.
Same way the Alliance's second war campaign ended in us spying on the Horde and watching their cutscene about Sylvanas outing a traitor in their group - with zero context because the traitor was only ever met in the Horde's war campaign.
I swear that people who say Blizzard favours Alliance never played through BfA, because there's a whole host of things that pissed me off about that, and for a long while, people nicknamed BfA "Blizzard fucks Alliance".
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u/Darktbs 2d ago
Something similar happens in mop, where you cannot play alliance only because so many important plot beats are horde only, while you absolutely can play only the horde side.
Its like
Vol'jin's assassination attempt vs Varian telling Tyrande to be patient
Goblins found Garrosh's secret plan on ragefire vs Dwarfs dealing with random trolls
Battle for Razor hill vs Spy with a cat
Battle of Sen'jin village vs Spy on Garrosh
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u/Sunshado 2d ago
I dont see your pov.
In TWW, the whining was about “Only Alliance heroes get story”, because of Magni, Anduin and Alleria.
That was true for DF and SL and BfA. Whatever story the Horde got here either got somonone killed or was irrelevant
Then Undermine patch fully focused on Gazlowe. Were they happy? Nope, it didn’t count because “it wasn’t a Horde story” or, even funnier, because “the story is about an Alliance character (the oh-so-important Renzik, the only Alliance goblin) dying to inspire a Horde leader”. There's this absurd notion that Alliance heroes count as Alliance story because they are there, but Horde heroes don't make a Horde story unless the entire Horde is there shouting "For the Horde!".
Most goblins are neutral, only the Bilgewater is an exception (mostly due to gallywix who was also killed) and the closure of the storyline hinted Gazlowe turning more neutral aligning the OG goblin way which is more sour than it seems because its the 2nd faction within the Horde after the Forsaken Calia route that indicates leaving them behind.
It’s the same thing now. Locus Walker died, they didn’t care. Lothraxion died as a dungeon boss, they didn’t care. After all, these guys are more related to the Alliance, so there comes the complaint “No one dies in the Worldsoul Saga!”.
Locus Walker - IMO the problem is the entre build up for him came too late. K'aresh was great point in the expansion and cleverly connected Tazavesh and the Brokers to the Ethereals and it was great. But everyone saw his death coming.
Same with Zul’jan
Then Zul’jan dies. “Not fair, only trolls die in the Worldsoul Saga!”
Your reasonig here is bullshit and you know it too.
The community had 2 issues with him.
- His endgame was predictable because writers are incapable of doing anything exciting when chances are there
- He was right on the Loa and therefore that is the storyline where tehy should have moved to since the Loa never helped the Amani against Ula'tek.
But when an exciting concept exists lets butcher it. He shown interesting conflict options and should have been explored - but as community suspected it they abandoned him the moment,
And it will still be like this again and again. When Turalyon or someone else dies, they’ll complain "Not fair, Alliance gets all the attention!".
No one will complain when Turalyon dies. He and Alleria are overstaying their welcome. But sadly the ending will be happy family reunion for them.
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u/Deicide-UH 2d ago
You will never be satisfied, because you will always set unreasonable expectations.
Zul'jan is the clear example. Blizzard made two new characters for THIS specific storyline, one meant to be the hero and one meant to be the flawed one that falls from grace. The storyline is all about restoring the bonds with the Loa, while Zul'jan goes on and on about revenge and conquest. So, who the Horde fanbase latches on? Of course the doomed guy. The guy that is working against what the story is about. Because he's edgy, because he's angry.
Then you hit face-first the door because the story that was obviously not about what you wanted didn't do what you wanted.
That's not a bad story, it's poor expectations. And comparing the real story to the idealized version that only exists in your heads isn't criticism, it's escapism. Of course the ideal version that will never get realized and never will get chances to show flaws will always be better than reality.
No one will complain when Turalyon dies.
Oh, they will. Mark my words, they will!
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u/Sunshado 2d ago
You will never be satisfied, because you will always set unreasonable expectations.
Is it unreasonable to see Malfurion remains in Ardenweald and Ysera in Azeroth? Everyone tought that is happening and we got surprised when it was just a temporal replace because it makes absolutely 0 sense.
Because stories are not seen as what they are about and just close it. Story exists to create new stories or just cut everything and end it Zul'jan was the most interesting character in years, his potential was great. Nobody looks it as what it suposed to be, as you say, because its terribly simple and difficult o believe someone is getting paid for something so 0 effort job.
That's not a bad story, it's poor expectations.
So tehre are no bad stories in wow just fan base have poor taste?
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u/Deicide-UH 2d ago
There are bad stories, but criticism is aimed at their flaws, not on comparison with fanfic that never gets to be written.
Is it unreasonable to see Malfurion remains in Ardenweald and Ysera in Azeroth?
Lol, everyone actually wanted Merithra to be Aspect. Merithra had already been developed in BfA. Ysera was dead, Maldurion wasn't, the swap was never necessary because there was already a Green Aspect in the story, and in the end Ysera was used for nothing.
You didn't want Malfurion in the Shadowlands because it was a good story, you just wanted to eliminate an character of "the other faction" for "balance", and that's stupid.
I actually was hoping Malfurion would die in BfA's start. I was actually disappointed when it didn't happen, it would spur things in interesting directions. But I don't want Malfurion to die just so "an Alliance character dies", unlike you.
The way Liadrin was offed could have been done better, but I see why it was done. Her death opens the way for Silvermoon and the Amani to find common ground, and that has potential to lead to something. It's not a matter of whose faction lost anything, the Horde may actually gain something out of this, but you are too blind to see it.
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u/Lucidbr0 2d ago edited 2d ago
You seem to have a very shallow imagination. It's like you can only imagine stories or story threads that end in the death of a character.
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u/Sunshado 2d ago
Lol, everyone actually wanted Merithra to be Aspect. Merithra had already been developed in BfA. Ysera was dead, Maldurion wasn't, the swap was never necessary because there was already a Green Aspect in the story, and in the end Ysera was used for nothing.
1 does not disclose the other.
You didn't want Malfurion in the Shadowlands because it was a good story, you just wanted to eliminate an character of "the other faction" for "balance", and that's stupid.
:'D when was Malfurion ever used to his full potential? The entire Ysera shit was happened because writers wanted to remove him from teh story because gues what. They have zero idea how to use a demigod, but refuse t get rid of him. Its so painful to watch every possible excuse for him to get out of a story but stays alive for no reason.
The way Liadrin was offed could have been done better, but I see why it was done. Her death opens the way for Silvermoon and the Amani to find common ground, and that has potential to lead to something. It's not a matter of whose faction lost anything, the Horde may actually gain something out of this, but you are too blind to see it.
If that would have been the case the writing should have been onpont but Lo'themar was regressing back and forth between patches. Its not working because gameplay and writing team have no communication and appearantly writing teams refuse to communicate because there is an Amani in Silvermoon but even Lor'themar acts like that isnt the case.
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u/Deicide-UH 2d ago edited 2d ago
One thing I'll fully agree is that the writers don't know what to do with Malfurion, which is why I wouldn't mind if he was killed in BfA. I feel Malfurion is a character whose death would benefit the setting because of its consequences, and that other characters would rise up to take his place.
But just removing him for the sake of removing him is still a bad story. The swap with Ysera never made any sense, and in the end even if it stuck it wouldn't matter, because at any moment Blizzard could say "oh, we need Malfurion", and he comes back.
Heck, that's practically what they are doing it with Sylvanas, or what they did (and probably will do again) with Illidan.
Death should move a story in direction and allow new things to take the place of what is lost, not be a mild inconvenience that can be undone whenever the character is needed again.
I'll keep criticizing how Liadrin's death was handled, but I don't mind the death itself because (at least for now) it feels the story is not over, and interesting developments can still come out of it. I'm looking at Zul'jarra and Salandria in particular, but there may be other consequences as well.
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u/Agent-Vermont 2d ago
it feels the story is not over, and interesting developments can still come out of it
I have this awful feeling that it actually is over and we're moving on immediately. A few quests after her death we're already back to Orweyna and Arator discussing Xal'atath. Given that Zul'jarra has no real connection to Xalatath or the overarching plot going on I think this might be the last we ever see of her. Kind of like how when we left Zandalar it was practically the end of Talanji's character.
Salandria is a weird case since you would think that she will get more plot significance in the wake of Liadrin's death. But at the same time she has also largely been absent this expansion outside of helping sustain the Sunwell and that questline in Eversong. Hell she never even interacted with Liadrin this whole expansion. The scene after the funeral with her feels like a setup for some kind of continuation but it could also just be a sad scene for the sake of being sad. Almost like Blizzard had to remember she was her adopted daughter and should also be there mourning.
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u/Deicide-UH 2d ago
Yes, there’s the risk Blizzard just moves on and leaves threads hanging for God knows how long. We should have an idea if that’s the case when 12.2.0 comes. It’s supposed to be the Light vs Void conclusion and the TWW/Midnight conclusion, so hopefully it will pick up a lot of loose threads.
(Yeah, I know how hard is to have any faith in Blizzard nowadays, but when looking back at some DF/TWW/Blizzcon tidbits it really feels there’s a plan and things didn’t happen randomly)
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u/Sunshado 2d ago
My issue with Liadrin is actually 2 issue:
- Feels like Lor'themar would have reached the same conclusion without her death because the setting itself providing those reasons (like the Amani willing to die and cooperate with the Elves) and made good came out of it already + the entire Void armageddon makes his acting during Kith'ix scenario very inconsistent to what he is doing the whole expansion so far....
- Gameplay wise tehy should have been indicating more what Liadrin s doing vs Kith'ix that implies she is going to die but sacrificing herself. The anmations were so well done there that such details could have been reasonable to set the tone there waaaay better - because it does makes it look like Yamcha.
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u/Bawbbot 2d ago
Tell everyone you play alliance in fewer words next time.
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u/Zeejir 2d ago
There's this absurd notion that Alliance heroes count as Alliance story because they are there, but Horde heroes don't make a Horde story unless the entire Horde is there shouting "For the Horde!".
because the story treats you as if you are part of the alliance.
-> I want to know more about the cartels.
Sure thing. Which one?
->Tell me more about Bilgewater.
The Bilgewater Cartel is Monte Gazlowe's crew. They practice whatcha call the classical goblin arts. Building things and blowin' 'em up. Some of the best mechanical minds have been in that cartel. Gazlowe. Grapplehammer, even Gallywix back in the day.
Innovation, engineering, construction. city planning, infrastructure, and all of that stuff in reverse. With explosions.
Officially they're part of the Horde. but don't let that scare you off. This is Undermine, the jobs here are all about Undermine business.why would ANY horde member be scare to work with a horde faction? because its from the Alliance PoV.
but that is not all. Gazelow just during TWWs leveling patch was pretty much ok with returning to Undermine, but the second the patch dropped; 180° and it takes the token alliance goblin to motivate him to return. the story ends with Gazelow and Shaw.
and you know what's missing in the Undermine story? i don't know maybe the character that allowed Gallywix to be the one that brought the Bilgewater into the Horde and be its Trade Prince. aka Thrall. the one that allowed Gallywix to return to Power at the end of the goblin starting zone is nowhere to be seen in TWW, dispite beeing a "prominent" NPC for TWW and beeing on the loading screen.
Calia (who was never Alliance) joins the Horde, but counts as Alliance.
Queen Calia Menethil, who has more interaction with Alliance NPCs?
- who stayed with Alliance nobility during BfA?
- who's whole personallity and tone changes when she talks to Alliance Characters to be "hey look, i'm part of the Menethil Line, that was part of the Alliance, you can trust me/treat me the same as back than"
- whose whole role was "light/good" Sylvanas? the Pallid Lady, special Human boytoy, special undead, everyone loves her?
that Calia ?
edit: ups i totally didn't mean to write "Queen" in an attempt to place her as the leader of the forsaken in a story line where she and Mia refrence the Royal Menethil line as a reason to trust her ... no, totally an accident /s
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u/AndorFangor 1d ago
Calia is not the forsaken leader. Its a council of forsaken representatives and its worse.
I just want to know who the hell theyre writing the story for. At this point its not the players.
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u/TJzzz 2d ago
Remember when horde were favored heavily up till cata
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u/Gerilion 2d ago
It’s because Blizzard hates the Horde. I know it sounds silly and extreme.
Horde has always to suffer. We lose every NPC we get. In a NPC story driven game where our characters are faceless nobody’s. Those NPC are the whole story they drive it they make it and they live with the consequences. Our actions have very minor consequences if you think about it it’s always one of the NPC who does something we just help them.
In the attempt to make such a story interesting they try to create friction und high stakes but never for us always for the NPC‘s
One easy way to let players feel something and to push the feeling of high stakes is to kill someone.
Then you have to decide who dies and there you go by popularity.
Lady Liadrin is very popular char and at the moment the mightiest Paladin on Azeroth. So if we kill her people will talk they will feel the high stakes. But it doesn’t work that way.
They just killed another of the symphatic Horde characters and it doesn’t feel like: oh no the world is on fire. It feals like : there goes another one. It’s just a minor thing even in the story.
She deserved better way better.
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u/BellacosePlayer The Anti-Baine 2d ago
can't believe you forgot the Alliance's glub shitto goblin or Jaina's apprentice they totally didn't invent just to kill off, I swear
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u/Donjinmester 2d ago
It’s been like this since Cata. The Faction War, an integral part of the WoW experience has been an inconvenience for the writers for over a decade. So better to portray the Horde as the villains and Alliance as the good guys.
I particularly look at BoF. Besides some cool cinematics, there wasn’t much battle between the factions.
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u/HasturLaVistaBaby 2d ago
Forsaken is led by Calia Menethil an Alliance representative
Calia is currently "just there". An advisory role. Even if she sticks out like a sore thumb.
The Horde losses:
You also forgot Rastakhan and Nathanos. And Baine is basically an Alliance representant. He is already shown he cares nothing for the Horde that he kills to aid Alliance.
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u/Gralamin1 2d ago
Rastakhan was never horde. people forget that he did not really want anything to do with the horde.
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u/HasturLaVistaBaby 2d ago
Zandalari are allied to the Horde.
And Rastakhan was friendly too the Horde's representant.
King of all Trolls, and especially the king of the Zandalari player character.
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u/ConsistentAd7066 2d ago
Rastakhan
Lol?
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u/HasturLaVistaBaby 2d ago
He was Zandalari which allied with the troll, and the King of all trolls.
As legendary as Queen Azshara in the lore, and as soon as he becomes friendly with the Horde they off him.
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u/ConsistentAd7066 2d ago
Yes, but Rastakhan wanted nothing to do with the Horde. Only after saving her daughter he considered them an ally, but never intended to join them. Maybe if the raid ended with the Alliance successfuly capturing him instead of killing him (and then having the Horde save him) would that have make him re-consider.
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u/HasturLaVistaBaby 2d ago
but Rastakhan wanted nothing to do with the Horde
He was still on friendly terms with the Horde representatives and we are now Allied. In a lot of ways the Zandalari are similar to the Forsaken's relation with the Horde in vanilla. Far off allies that are ruling themselves.
There are Zandalari player characters. If nothing else, he was their King.
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u/Vyrthic 2d ago
Baine is in a similar boat to Thrall. They both became friends with Alliance leaders during times of need of their peoples. That doesn't mean they're traitors to the Horde, or members of the Alliance. In fact, if it weren't for the assistance of Anduin and Jaina, Baine would likely be dead and the Tauren would have become enemies of the Horde after the Grimtotem took control of Thunder Bluff following Cairne's death. Anduin had given him much needed wisdom, as well as gifted him a weapon forged by Magni to help him fight the Grimtotem, and Jaina had provided the funds for him to gather forces from his tribe, rebel grimtotem, and goblins, to launch a surprise attack that allowed him to retake his homeland. I do not blame the main for maintaining a friendship with the people who helped him save his people in their darkest hour.
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u/BellacosePlayer The Anti-Baine 2d ago
I do not blame the main for maintaining a friendship with the people who helped him save his people in their darkest hour.
i mean, they whipped around and started murdering his people and tried to fund the grimtotem to finish the job so I blame him a bit
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u/HasturLaVistaBaby 2d ago
False equivalence, Thrall didn't kill loyal members of the Horde. He especially didn't do it to feel good about themselves.
Baine is such a rotten character that even the Jailor, who has seen the worst of the worst, was disgusted by Baine's soul.
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u/AdvancedSoldier2649 2d ago
Alliance loses cities/zones/populations, Horde loses characters. It's the age old formula.
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u/PiousStag 2d ago
How is calia alliance she's a lordaeron citizen raised into undeath after being killed by sylvannas like many of the post cataclysm forsaken just because she's not mustache twirling baby murdering human experiment endorsingly evil doesn't make her alliance.
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u/Sunshado 2d ago
She tried to convince the other Forsaken on the field to join the Alliance and Sylvanas murdered her for it.
She became forsaken leader after got resurrected and Sylvanas gone because she wanted to take her people back from Sylvanas's tiranny and remained at Faul's side until Sylvi gone.
Forsaken not joining the Alliance seems more like a writer choice because that was Calia's goal at the start an you aso have to remember that Lordareon is where the OG Alliance born.
She part of the horde council but nothiing is really explained here and whatever lore we have, based on Calia, she would rejoin the alliance under a new war, but obviously that would never happen because writers would create some forced excuse
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u/Defiant_Tomato 2d ago
A key point as well is that she was raised by the Light, and is missing a lot of the innate pain, dampened emotions etc. that the actual citizens of Lordaeron have.
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u/Maxscape7 2d ago
She also shames Forsaken for being the way they are and hands back Gilneas expecting nothing in return
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u/JuxJuxJuxJuxJux 2d ago
because the horde is evil in all ways? and alliance is obviously the good guys who have been the underdog throughout the series
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u/kellarorg_ 2d ago
Let's see... so, in exchange Horde didn't lost forever any major city, while Alliance lost Theramore, Teldrassil, Dalaran, right?
Also, a lot of Alliance characters died, just not a lot of major ones. Ronin, for example, or admiral Taylor.
Aside from this, this is just corporate writing. It's stupid. That's all.
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u/Sunshado 2d ago
Theramore -> Raid on Orgrimmar and raid in Zuldazar later
Teldrassil -> Amirdrassil ( i dont recall horde getting new cities either)Ronin, for example, or admiral Taylor.
I completely forgot Admiral Taylor but tbh they ditched him very underwhelmingly. Ronin, yes and it was great one. another Alliance death thats actually went down well with long lasting consequences.
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u/MiserableMemory5149 2d ago
I think a bigger issue is the lack of quality replacements for any of the losses. They keep dragging out leaders to pasture without any memorable new ones to take over the mantle.
Their reliance on old heroes is becoming an issue for the narrative. Give Rokhan, Baine, more screen time. Get a proper Orc representing Orgrimmar that isn't a half retired Thrall.