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Alliance & Horde shit is so... blegh. That players have had no real choice in participating in atrocities, that none of the groups really get shown disagreeing with the inexplicably singular leaders to any real effect/without being framed as unreasonable, all of that? Blows.
Like... I adore Anduin and Jaina’s story this expac was interesting, but are there any other characters in the Alliance who are allowed to have a say or matter to the story? Greymane shows up alongside Anduin every now and then, Tyrande was allowed to get mad before vanishing, -
- but. Is that it? Where are the dwarves, gnomes, draenei, all the allied races? And that’s not even ADDRESSING the mess that’s Horde shit.
Horde players just have to go along with all the bullshit from the war campaign to progress and it just. Sucks. Rokhan is just kind of... there? for Darkspear, hanging with the Zandalari, neither of which have much visible involvement in any of Sylvanas’ shit besides Zappy.
Orcs, well, Saurfang, but he was very involved in the atrocities themselves before changing his mind and growing a spine. Also Thrall shows up again? Tauren, Baine’s there a little bit to return Derek and subsequently gets locked up. Undead... Presumably all just go along with -
- all of Sylvanas’ schemes? They can’t be bothered to write any dissenting voices and Sylvanas has been raising & manipulating more Forsaken into service so... lol...
AND then there’s belves. Lor’themar initiates the rescue of Baine, but it’s the orcs who go with you to save him and a bunch of Sunreavers attack the rescuers. So that’s fun! Vengeance against Jaina for the events of Dalaran isn’t unreasonable, but uhhh... Sylvanas loyalism?
Lorth: “Please go save Baine! Sylvanas has him held...”
Player: (has to kill Lorth’s people because they’re helping hold Baine prisoner)
Player: (has to kill Lorth’s people because they’re helping hold Baine prisoner)
As for goblins, they’re present but not really important as characters (just uhh weapon makers) beyond Gallywix and Gazlowe. But Gallywix sucks ass and Gazlowe only comes into play for Mechagon, so. Yeah.
Oh yeah, and again, allied races again play basically no role in the new shit.
And the Horde should absolutely be accountable for what’s been done but also... why was the Horde just going along with all this shit anyway? Like yeah, orcs love war (woof) and goblins love war profiteering (woof x10) but... really? This is it?
They really had an opportunity to maybe show how the Forsaken, who were raised against their will by the Lich King into a world that didn’t want them, feel about their Queen’s continued obsession with raising more dead! And how they feel about her suppressing their will! But!
Like, Zelling was an interesting character to have in the war campaign and I was upset but not surprised when he was unceremoniously executed for helping Baine. He was newly undead, but what about those who were raised by Arthas? Hello?
Like, clearly having a singular warchief for the entire Horde isn’t working! It hasn’t been working! And for the Alliance, aren’t they supposed to be a council? Anduin as the high king of the ENTIRE ALLIANCE is uh. Well. It’s ridiculous. And I say that as AnduinLiker3000.
Placing Sylvanas and Anduin at the heads of their entire respective factions was a failure to begin with, so I’m hoping that now that the Horde is apparently going to have some sort of council as well (lol) that maybe they’ll both actually have more than 1 person making decisions
All the lore characters need to sit the fuck down and talk about and come to terms with what they’ve been complicit in and figure out how the hell to start making amends for it because it’s all a fucking mess but shit, at least things are Calm(?) for the time being.
Also, all the political & social upheaval of factions coming together is WAY more interesting to read about than senseless faction wars, just saying. There’d still be fighting, things would be rough, but also? It’d be a nice change from all the fucking genocide, Blizzard.
It’s kind of like how learning history in school often sucks because most of the time they focus on battles and numbers, not how the people react to the battles and how their cultures develop and change (despite that part actually being far more interesting and telling).