Cracks starting to show?

[luckton]

They killed Cairne in a novel???

Um..yeah...they did.  I rather liked the novel too.  Sets up Cataclysm right nicely it did.

That's horseshit.

No, it's a book.

This is horseshit.

[Fordel]

You could just compare the Horde quests around what happened at Camp Taurajo to the Alliance quests about what happens to Southshore.

[Merusk]

I've always fit the Horde-Alliance narrative in the frame of PVP results.  Seeing Alliance go "whelp.."*dies* while Horde fights for every inch works very well within that frame.

Your experience may vary.

[Fordel]

Really that's the crux of the issue, The Horde, Lots of the Players and Blizzard themselves still treat the Horde like the scrappy underdog.


When that hasn't been the case since halfway through Vanilla WoW, if even then.

[WindupAtheist]

Yeah the whole "Metzen sucks our dick at every opportunity and we have a 9-to-1 numerical advantage on my PVP server, but somehow I still think I'm the underdog!" Horde thing was always annoying.

[caladein]

Honestly, that shit needs to fucking stop. If they're going to put it in your crappy novels, at the barest minimum thet should get their machinima team to throw together a quick cutscene for the paying customers as well.

They did.  Most of the old races' character creation intros are pretty much "Previously on World of Warcraft..." for example: Tauren and Dwarf.

Also, server population-wise, it's about the same 60/40 split for Alliance on PvE servers or Horde on PvP servers at level cap in the US.

[Sheepherder]

I got a guffaw out of that Thrall quest when he asks that orc chick to be his 'life-mate'. What a cheezy term. Couldn't they have came up with something that sounded a bit more, well, not that.

War-consort?

Bush wife?  Camp follower?  Short time girl?

[Lakov_Sanite]

Old lady

[apocrypha]

I've finally unsubbed. Hardly played at all since 4.2, burned out on daily quest grinding 2 years ago, fed up with a guild leader who dictated raiding schedule based on what items she wanted for her warrior, have more important things to spend £27/month on atm (GF's account, not played for 6 months, forgot to unsub it lol, and 2 accounts for me... too much!).

When the only thing keeping me subbed was the vent conversations with friends I figured I could have those for free without putting up with a game I was bored of.

[Kageru]

I remember being irritated by the half-orc assassin (Garona?) who basically had a whole sequence of quests in which she was the star and you the support. Clearly I'm supposed to care who the hell she is but since most of her back-story was from comics or books out of game it just reeked of product tie-in. I always sort of assumed a lot of Garrosh material was the same but since he was an irritating emo definitely didn't care, though at least he was introduced in the game.

[Merusk]

IIRC, Garona's back story starts back in Warcraft 1.  She's a half-orc (previously though human retconned in BC to be Half-Dranei) I read her bit in the OvH manual a few months back when I found it while cleaning.

She killed the previous King Wrinn, Llane Wrinn.


Hell, reading that book made me realize the Horde bias dates back to the origin of the IP.  The orcs and subsequent Shadow Council stuff has this really detailed back story and the human/ alliance entries are "well, here's the kingdoms."

[Sheepherder]

Not really.  Medivh, Lothar, Uther, and Arthas.

Thrall just steals the show.  Which is okay, I guess, because Metzen just doesn't know when to quit.

[SurfD]

I remember being irritated by the half-orc assassin (Garona?) who basically had a whole sequence of quests in which she was the star and you the support. Clearly I'm supposed to care who the hell she is but since most of her back-story was from comics or books out of game it just reeked of product tie-in. I always sort of assumed a lot of Garrosh material was the same but since he was an irritating emo definitely didn't care, though at least he was introduced in the game.

The thing that REALLY pissed me off about Garona is that, as far as warcraft lore goes, she is a fairly important figure in the assassination / underworld / shady dealings of warcraft lore, and after she gets free of the controll of the shadow council, she has this massive hardon for hacking off Cho'gals heads.  They set this up nicely with a whole series of interconnected quests in Twilight Highlands for the Horde.  And then you pretty much dont hear from her again.  Ever.  I was really hopeing that she would actually show up during the Cho fight in BoT.  But nada.  I mean, come on, Maiev (argeuably one of the most overrated NPC's ever) gets to chase emoass Illidan across worlds and shows up in Black Temple for the final showdown, but Garona has to make due with shanking a big ettin and then dissapearing?

[Fordel]

In War1 and War2, there was no ambiguity. The Alliance was the good guys, the Horde the bad guys the end.


Then War3 went and said "oh btw, the horde aren't actually REALLY bad guys, they were victims too, you should totally forgive them and root for them. Also the Alliance are clearly unreasonable assholes for holding the horde accountable for it's actions in the previous games."

This sentiment never stopped. It makes the Horde feel awesome and lets them justify anything, with their magical do-over point. It leaves the Alliance wondering why they are stuck in War2 and why they are being shit on for it.

[Sheepherder]

On the plus side, Metzen obviously doesn't give a shit about most alliance races, so we don't have to put up with lollore that's sort of like that game where each person takes turns adding to a story.  "...And now Thrall is the guardian of the natural order in Azeroth!  And he's in love!" ... "Uhh, Chris, not to be overly critical, but isn't he technically an invasive alien species to that planet?  And doesn't he have an awkward association between love and motherfucking heads getting sawn off?"

[Tannhauser]

Worked for Henry the VIII.

[Simond]

In War1 and War2, there was no ambiguity. The Alliance was the good guys, the Horde the bad guys the end.


Then War3 went and said "oh btw, the horde aren't actually REALLY bad guys, they were victims too, you should totally forgive them and root for them. Also the Alliance are clearly unreasonable assholes for holding the horde accountable for it's actions in the previous games."

This sentiment never stopped. It makes the Horde feel awesome and lets them justify anything, with their magical do-over point. It leaves the Alliance wondering why they are stuck in War2 and why they are being shit on for it.

Well the Horde are the good team, after all. 

Seriously, though, the Alliance is Team Arsehole.
Stormwind: Hid behind its (unpaid-for) wall during War3, hoping the Scourge wouldn't notice them. Turned away the kingdom who saved their arses in War2 because they were cursed, accepted with open arms the kingdom that told everyone else to GTFO in War2 despite that they were cursed. King has bigger impulse control problems than either Hellscream.
Gilneas: Likewise, except 1) they actually paid for their wall, and 2) they got fucked over anyway.
Night Elves: Psychotic "shoot first, ask questions never" xenophobes who are the root cause of most of the ills of Azeroth.

Gnomes and dwarves are kind of neutral on the whole arsehole scale, and the only decent Alliance race are the Draenei who, if they had any sense, would repair the Exodar and find some planet less likely to explode to land on crash into.

Oh, and Jaina's lot who, despite helping to save the fucking world in War3, are just treated as an extension of Stormwind rather than an independent queendom in its own right. (That bit in ICC where Jaina goes only about 'her king' finally not acting like a rampaging dickhead for thirty seconds? He's not her king. She's either a princess of Kul Tiras or the queen of Theramore, depending on how you look at it, neither of which are vassals to Stormwind.

[Fordel]

Yes, I can see how not paying contractors on time is morally reprehensible but we should totally forgive all that open aggression, warfare and down right genocide.

Simond you're a caricature of the exact "Woe is Horde, Horde be awesome *pats self on back*" sentiment I'm talking about.   



The Jaina thing is just proving the point. What SHOULD be a strong heroic figure and leader on the alliance side, is written as a weepy teenager chasing after old boy friends and generally being really annoying and useless. One of the most powerful mages in the world and her job is currently "crying chick #3".



Maybe we just need more patches that show Thrall holding the world together or something, that will fix it. 

[March]

I guess I should have read the quest text?

[Mattemeo]

I doubt we'll ever see Jaina given her due as I've noticed a complete, symptomatic failure on the part of the writers to come up with anything interesting for female characters who aren't either Dragons or bat-shit crazy genocidal dead bitches that Horde apologisers rock back and forth on a daily basis trying to tell themselves she's just misunderstood.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Not to jump into another lolore argument but I'm pretty sure them
Majority of undead players(not just role-players) are happy being evil along with their queen and not really trying to pretend she's sympathetic.

[WindupAtheist]

Yes, I can see how not paying contractors on time is morally reprehensible but we should totally forgive all that open aggression, warfare and down right genocide.

Simond you're a caricature of the exact "Woe is Horde, Horde be awesome *pats self on back*" sentiment I'm talking about.

The fun part is that I've refuted most of his bullshit to his face about a million times over the last couple years. He just goes silent for a few weeks/months and then repeats it all over again next time it comes up. He's never stopped bellyaching about how the mean Alliance turned it's back on the Forsaken just for being undead, for example, no matter how many lore threads I've run him out of just by asking "When did that happen?"

[Merusk]

Simond you're a caricature of the exact "Woe is Horde, Horde be awesome *pats self on back*" sentiment I'm talking about.   

Meh, Simond's trolling.  I've just begun to ignore anything from him with regard to lore.  It's his version of WUA's Mechs vs Tanks with less research, logic and entertainment value.

[Soulflame]

Dwarves reserve their asshole behavior for other dwarves.  Ditto gnomes.

 

[Pantastic]

The Jaina thing is just proving the point. What SHOULD be a strong heroic figure and leader on the alliance side, is written as a weepy teenager chasing after old boy friends and generally being really annoying and useless. One of the most powerful mages in the world and her job is currently "crying chick #3".

The weird thing about Jaina's lore is that she betrayed her own father to protect the Horde, is all lovey-dovey to Thrall, but they still won't leave Theramore alone, there have been horde incursions against Theramore since vanilla quests. You'd think if the horde were supposed to be relatively decent guys who the mean 'ol Alliance picked on they'd leave Theramore alone out of all the kingdoms on the planet.

[SurfD]

The Jaina thing is just proving the point. What SHOULD be a strong heroic figure and leader on the alliance side, is written as a weepy teenager chasing after old boy friends and generally being really annoying and useless. One of the most powerful mages in the world and her job is currently "crying chick #3".

The weird thing about Jaina's lore is that she betrayed her own father to protect the Horde, is all lovey-dovey to Thrall, but they still won't leave Theramore alone, there have been horde incursions against Theramore since vanilla quests. You'd think if the horde were supposed to be relatively decent guys who the mean 'ol Alliance picked on they'd leave Theramore alone out of all the kingdoms on the planet.

Hmm?  Granted, it has been a LONG time since i played through the Dustwallow marsh content, but I dont recall ANY horde quests in Dustwallow that actively sent you against theramore agents, unless it was for a fairly reasonable cause.  Most of the quests I remember doing in there that sent you against alliance forces was usually stuff like dealing with a group of Theramore deserters, thumping on some spies stealthing around the Ogre Camp, and retrieving some documents that some of our spies failed to sneak out of Theramore.

Standard "diplomatic espionage" kind of stuff, which always goes on even between friends in a setting like Azeroth.  I cant recall ever having recieved a quest like "attack that outpost" or something in regards to Theramore.

[Fordel]

Unless you count the Grimtotems as 'Horde', there aren't any Alliance quests that target Horde in Dustwallow for ANY reason. Unless I missed one that was added recently.

[Soulflame]

There was a quest where you attacked a Theramore outpost, but I think it was for an outstanding debt or something along those lines.  A better example would be The Barrens, where the Horde moves against that fort on the coast.  At least, I think that's a Theramore fort.

[Maledict]

It's not a Theramore fort, it's a Kul'Tiras fort. Completely separate, after Jaina stood by and let her father be killed over that very point.

[Ingmar]

The one in Durotar is a random Kul'Tiras one but the one in Barrens I am pretty sure is Theramore?

[Fordel]

The one in the Barrens is a Theramore fort, Northwatch Hold, outside of Ratchet.


The one in Durotar is a remnant of Kul Tiras forces yes.


---edit- Even in Vanilla, Alliance could use the few vendors in the fort. Now it's a full fledged alliance quest hub.

[Sjofn]

A better excuse is "well, the neutral goblins are the ones who send you after Northwatch," but it's still only Horde that could do those. 

[WindupAtheist]

I blame the evil Alliance for not knowing exactly who sent all those Horde warriors to attack them. Stupid intolerant Alliance sees Horde attacking them and thinks they're being attacked by the Horde.

[Ratman_tf]

I remember being irritated by the half-orc assassin (Garona?) who basically had a whole sequence of quests in which she was the star and you the support.

My biggest gripe with quest based grinding is that all of the time, you're doing stuff for someone else. It actually makes me miss camping spawns, because at least I was doing it for the XP and lootz, instead of getting gibblets for some retard I didn't care about.

[Pantastic]

Hmm?  Granted, it has been a LONG time since i played through the Dustwallow marsh content, but I dont recall ANY horde quests in Dustwallow that actively sent you against theramore agents, unless it was for a fairly reasonable cause. 

They weren't on Horde quests, it was on Alliance quests - basically the commanders in the field kept clearing out infiltrators and fighting off Horde (not just Tauren) raids, but thanked you for taking care of stuff without telling Jaina since she wouldn't approve.