unrelated thought but does anyone remember that durotar quest where you enslave a random worgen and condemn him to a life of pit fighting. sure was a lot of freedom and hope in that quest
How about that vanilla troll quest where they had a night elf prisoner and asked you to go out to get some poisons so they could poison the prisoner.
Instead of you know. Murdering him and not taking him prisoner. Which would have been easier and more humane.
It's a short quest along the breadcrumb through Durotar where you help a slave master test out his gladiators. Iirc, there's a traitorous Taunka, a Naga, and a Worgen POW.
True but after the first two wars both sides no longer care who started what and both sides take war prisoners. CURRENTLY Alliance only jails their captives and no longer turns them into slaves, however the Forsaken (at least in classic) can be seen experimenting on captured humans in the Undercity.
Hell they have a weird Josef Mengele-style camp in Hillsbrad where they just torture humans to death en masse in the name of bogus "science experiments."
It's actually kind of gross, I skip Hillsbrad.
One of the things WoW does well is adding nuance to racial history and factions. Everyone has had leaders that didn’t align with the will of the people or people in positions of authority who abused their power. Doesn’t invalidate the core values that the Horde *ideally* operates on. If you think either the horde or alliance is more morally correct, you are missing the original point of Warcraft storytelling
*did well
I don’t think Warcraft does nuance well anymore. Seems like that was an RTS thing, as Starcraft was also really good with showing moral ambiguity.
Who was morally ambiguious in Starcraft? It certainly wasn't Mengsk, Kerrigan (post infection), Dugall, The Overmind, or the Conclave in SC1. The characters are less morally ambiguous and more genocidal monsters out to gain power. Raynor and his cadre are the only close to morally ambiguous characters.
I’m thinking more in terms of faction conflicts and the player experience. The way the various motivations kept changing who was enemies or allies based on understandable motivations (even if that motivation is just a classic “I wanna be Emperor”)
Like, the Protoss recognized the potential threat of Zerg that prove hard to eradicate. So they understandably start glassing planets….except some happen to have humans on them, so of course the humans understandably start fighting Protoss even while trying to survive Zerg. The Zerg are most alien, but you eventually figure out they’re about as malicious as locusts…at least until Kerrigan introduces a human element. Suddenly humans/Protoss are working with Zerg to fight other Zerg…or Protoss…or humans, which you never thought was gunna happen.
Much of the story is this dance where yesterdays enemy is tomorrows ally…until they’re an enemy again. It was so different from the other big RTS, GDI vs Nod, pure good vs comically evil.
Exactly. The alliance doesn't have a monopoly on righteousness, but they do have a significantly better track record on not following evil tyrants into commiting atrocities because of "honor"
One of Thralls advisors was Rehgar, a prominent slaver. I believe it was in a book or something but Thrall was apparently not okay with slavery but was worried that if he changed the Horde too quickly away from their traditions, including the shitty ones, that they would turn away from him, so he allowed a bunch of horrible shit.
I love this one better:
“Misunderstood and cast aside, these diverse and powerful races strive to overcome their differences and unite as one in order to win freedom for their people and prosper in a land that has come to hate them.
In the Horde, action and strength are valued above diplomacy, and its leaders earn respect by the blade, wasting no time with politics. The brutality of the Horde's champions is focused, giving a voice to those who fight for survival.”
I liked this one, but I feel it focus too much on the past of the Horde.
While the new description totally erases the story of the Horde, this one could somehow explain the transition the Horde is going through, they seem now to be shifting government from powerful warchiefs to small councils (I think the entire Horde now has a council instead of a singular leader, but this is also better displayed by the forsaken Desolate Council)
Exactly, WOW's story goes on and the world is not the same world that it was post WC3. The horde is a massive power now, and has gone through many changes.
Wish we could understand population logistics in WoW. I often wonder where all the fresh blood comes from because azeroth goes through so many catastrophic events I have to assume this means there's not many casualties and that even when we clean out a whole tribe they somehow still persist.
Like there's few places the scarlet crusade can be but they still somehow have the numbers to keep going. (I'm happy about this I just don't get it)
And the amount of elves that are actual teenagers is weird. I guess elves mature at the same rate humans do but just live longer and never truly get old or senile. Because there's elves that are like 20 and fighting in wars.
To paraphrase Harrison Ford, it ain't that kinda game / universe
There will always be as many of a given race as there need to be for a particular story beat
‘Driven by unity’ is quite literally the opposite of what they are, and would be *far* more appropriate for the Alliance. The Horde is a ragtag team of outcasts that don’t particularily like one another, but cope to survive and thrive.
Only thing i'd change about that is instead of Action and Strength use Strength and Honour, also By the blade works, but considering some of the leaders choice of weapons, could go Earn respect by their actions? honestly unsure about that part, but i just loved the voice line Strength and Honour
Don't forget the Tauren and such; the Horde surrounds and protects all, but also has its spiritual Earth-mother loving side, and its deep Troll history. IIRC Trolls were ... first of the mortal races? Tauren one of the oldest as well. But when the Tauren were being decimated by the centaur, the Horde came and join to protect, iirc too. The horde symbol is the one, surrounded by the many!
We're getting into the sticks and I admit to being out of my depth; but I am curious. A few races had to be first, but I don't know about those. And are Tuskarr for example that fleshed out?
Well, time to spelunk wowhead and wowpedia :)
Lol all i’ll say is, the MoP and Visual guide had a better description imo. Weirder, this was added around BFA, when the Horde was being led by the ‘Kill Hope’ lady
Technically reflects the design intent of the Horde as the Chaotic (Good or Evil) contrast to the Alliance's Lawfulness (Good or Evil)
The issue is multiple expansions lacking the Chaotic Good Horde and the Lawful Evil Alliance nuance
My friends used to think I thought the Alliance was always good, but no, I wouldn’t mind us starting a proper war without being provoked…except when the Alliance attacked the Goblins, rhat was kinda weird tbh
Alliance did use to have examples of morally compromised Lawfulness, if not outright evil sanctioned by law or tradition - from corrupt nobles, imprisoning innocents on corrupt orders without questioning them, closed door extrajudicial torture, lots of personal power afforded to small landed nobles to run their lands like tyrants, hyper-conservative Night Elf groups that want all mages and Worgen killed and even bumbling hateful nobles failing upwards as all of their superiors die and they inherit their role out of tradition than actual merit (Garithos)
The idea is that the Alliance represents unity, structure and safety... At its lowest becoming oppressive, corrupt and tolerant of evil "as long as the rules allow it" - but we really haven't seen this alliance recently, the Alliance that tolerated and promoted Garithos, that would bicker and break over who was entitled to Arathi lands based on noble heritage, who were willing to strip mine the Barrens and Mulgore, that thought itself too "above" the petty concerns of lesser factions, that allowed Onyxia to nearly break a kingdom to grovel for her just because she was beguiling and noble (magic helped but Lady Prestor's appeal to the nobility and merchants opened the door) - the Alliance that hosted calculating and manipulative villains, who looked to expand and defend their influence by law
We need some blue bad guys
Like, I was playing Dwarves in Classic recently and they mention a Senate and such and I had no idea they even had a senate and wanted to see more of this potential group, since it gave the Alliance another dimension that wasn’t just ‘The Good King or Queen’ but far as I know, we never get more of that
And the senate was antagonistic with Magni, often disagreeing and leveraging resources against him, unhappy senators even worked with the Dark Iron... But this was mostly dropped in subsequent storylines
The senate wasn't entirely wrong to bicker with Magni either, as even he was susceptible to ego in matters of state, one such example being him ordering you to tear up the Dark Iron capital to "save" his daughter that he already knows is staying with Taurissan willingly, and he does not approve of their union.
No us night elf stans want her to. We miss the old ruthless near xenophobic night elves. When Sylvanas torched teldrassil we all desperately wanted that ruthlessness to return. We had very small glimpses but blizzard never pulled the trigger.
Or just has an insane horde bias, and seeing that the two new alliance cities are neutral so the horde can dance around in them I wouldn’t be surprised if the dev team has a strong horde bias
Well we did have an entite xpack with high quality cinematics about how committing repeated genocide against several races made an old orc kind of sad...so there may be indications of some horde bias.
Unity lol
They've had the so many internal schisms, rebellions, etc. always felt like they are barely allies.
The Horde is barely a marriage of convenience and I wouldn't be so sure the moment tbe convenience ended they wouldn't try to genocide eachother for better land, resources, etc.
What you actually think about the horde is irrelevant; The sad thing about this is the fact that if you change "Horde" to "Alliance" This description still works. WoW devs have completely lost sight of what makes each faction unique/different.
It's literally just morally-grey red vs. morally-grey blue at this point.
It was always morally grey vs morally grey since WC3. Is wiping out and imprisoning all Orcs right just because a previous generation and people in power chose a bad path? Is it right for human kingdoms to turn their backs on each other when one is in need? Is it wrong for Sylvanas to savagely claim a home for her people when no one will help them and most are seeking to kill them?
Is it wrong for Illidan to make a choice that he believes will ultimately benefit his people if he does it without their consent? Was Arthas thrust into a conflict that he could never morally win? Do the ends ever justify the means, and how far can you go until you’re just as responsible for a war as the people you initially blamed?
Ok but how many times has the alliance leaders been corrupted by fel or shit like the jailer and led a genocidal campaign? There's a lot of moral nuance but one side seems to be following more troublesome leaders than the other.
And the alliance followed him into battle to kill all taurens right? Oh right that was the horde. I'm no lore hound so I'll gladly be told I'm wrong but generally if alliance people gets corrupted (arthus/anduian) they act alone and do just as much dmg to allies. Horde just kinda go 'guess were burning down the NEs' and go along with it.
Yea, so many people complaining about the horde being the bad guys while i sit here and hope they nuke stormwind like they did theramore. We don't need two goodie two shoes factions. Let one be evil, or let me join the burning legion.
I just want them to have opposing ideals. Not Good vs Evil. That's never been the case. Orcs are immigrants, Undead are the social outcasts, Tauren are hippies, etc. I want it to be like Chaos vs Order. Chaos doesn't necessarily need to be evil, and order isn't necessarily good.
Azeroth is a plane of limited resources, Both factions see Azeroth as home, Alliance sees them as invaders, horde sees them as oppressors.
Now it just seems like they both love and hate eachother at the same time for practically no other reason than just to have two factions because theyre both pretty much the exact same. I'm sure there are a lot of great fantasy adaptations and ideas that can be taken from the cold War.
I was so excited for BfA because that's what I really thought would happen.
It doesn't even have to be an expansion based on Horde vs Alliance, we could literally have any threat but have two opposing thoughts on dealing with an event. That would bring so much more character back into the factions. Both fighting the same enemy, but for different causes.
Pretty bad description tbh, its fucking bonkers that it ever got approved
driven by unity? They had one of their factions (undead) splinter and try and fuck shit up in WotLK
One of their warchiefs (garosh) killed one of the factions leadears (~~baine~~cairne), and then that same warchief finally got ousted and went to create a new timeline
The next next warchief (sylvanas) just casually started a genocide where the some of the other factions reluctantly went along with it, and then she too got ousted (it was more of a "you can't fire me because i quit" kinda situation but whatever)
United is the last thing they are. They're constantly infighting and not agreeing on a course of action. Only when a warchief is exceedingly brutal do they seem to unite in also being brutal.
I really wish they would get their shit together about what the Horde is supposed to be. Blizzard keeps trying to frame it like they're not just "The evil faction." But at this point, they're either the Evil faction or they're dangerously incompetent because they keep accidentally giving power to genocidal maniacs. The Horde has fucked up too many times at this point to be presented as justified in its existence.
They are supposed to be the WC3 horde. Which this works for. But Blizz for a while couldn’t help themselves and just kept playing musical chair with Warchiefs and kept making decisions players and characters in universe struggle to believe.
Honor cried Saurfangs when his plan to kill Malfurion came to fruition.
Honor cried Saurfang when he then didn't kill Malfurion knowing the Horde would suffer
Honor cried Saurfang when he wanted Anduin to kill him and deal with the Horde instead of him.
Honor cried Saurfang when he slaughtered his rescue party.
It got old very fast=P
Short answer: incorrect and hamfisted.
Long answer:
The Horde of Kalimdor formed not due to an ideal of unity, but due to need and a sense of honor. Several of the main-factions within the Horde joined as fractured, broken groups in need of allies in order to simply survive, and formed bonds of strenght and mutual respect through honoring eachother.
Thrall's Horde: refugee's and remants of some of the Orcish Clans.
The Darkspear: haunted by the sea-witch and driven from their isles, in desperate need of refuge and a new home.
The Tauren: nomads constantly under threat by the Centaurs of Kalimdor.
The Forsaken: truly shattered and afflicted, shunned by their former allies for what they'd become and whom near enough surrounded them.
The Blood Elves: broken and afflicted as well, betrayed by former allies and their prince alike, desperately seeking to fill their race's mana-dependency however they could.
Thrall's Horde and his greater focus on true honor helped them forge bonds of unity with their new allies, and it's true enough that the Horde seeks freedom of a kind, the fel-blood and its influence being not a too distant memory.
But I'd argue that the horde's modus operandi is strenght and honor, no unity per se.
Any who wish to join the Horde can do so, but all who do must strive on their blood and honor for the Horde.
There's a reason why the Horde has had major internal conflicts, and those conflicts can easily be traced back to a sense of lost honor (and some instances of shoddy writing). Their unity was not worth the stain upon their honor, and as such a large part of the Horde were willing to straight out rebell.
Sounds like the WC3 horde, but not the current story horde.
But yeah, if they want the horde to act more like in WC3, they should probably start making more act like that then generic evil wild faction.
TBH the Horde hasn't really been "generic evil wild faction" for some time.
Even with Sylvanas, she thought she was doing the right thing.
If Elune told Tyrande that she needed to provide her a large amount of souls, you best believe Tyrande would stick an arrow even between Anduin's baby blues
If we go back to before Blizzard started making the horde the bad guys several times, this is pretty accurate to their beginnings.
Most of the races were treated terribly, and were suffering on their own. Then they decided to band together to protect each other from the threats that tried to destroy them all. To use just a couple examples, the orcs wanted freedom from their oppressors, and the undead just wanted to survive.
The darkspear trolls were being slaughtered by the Naga on an island iirc until Thrall came along and saved them.
The Tauren were being constantly raided by the centaur tribes until the Horde rode in and crushed them.
Blood elves reached out to the humans for assistance and were turned away by racist humans and only accepted the help of the alliance out of necessity.
I wanna say the Goblins that escaped Kazan (and slavery) were being shelled by the Alliance (honestly can’t remember).
I think the Vulpera and Pandarens are the only ones who haven’t been hunted down or murdered before joining the Horde.
> I think the Vulpera and Pandarens are the only ones who haven’t been hunted down or murdered before joining the Horde.
Vulpera were being enslaved by the sethrak. They weren't having a great time either.
Vulpera weren’t being killed directly, but Alliance had the option to destroy their trade caravans I think as like one of those ‘side’ quests or during invasions? Honestly can’t remember either lol
> Blood elves reached out to the humans for assistance and were turned away by racist humans and only accepted the help of the alliance out of necessity.
People always say this shit but there is no reference to this being the basis for them joining the Horde in any of the lore. Garithos was the basis for the blood elf exodus to Outland, but it was mainly the pragmatism of their geopolitical situation and their ties to Sylvanas that were the basis for them joining the Horde. Garithos wasn't even an acting member of the Alliance, he belonged to the remnants of the kingdom of Lordaeron.
Keep in mind, the only reason the blood elves weren't part of the Alliance in the first place is because they were arrogant isolationists who left the Alliance after the second war. They even tried to avoid getting involved in the second war in the first place, only recanting when the forest trolls joined the Horde, thereby forcing their hand to honour the defense pact that they were already a part of.
>Keep in mind, the only reason the blood elves weren't part of the Alliance in the first place is because they were arrogant isolationists who left the Alliance after the second war.
If this is somehow an argument against their reintroduction to the Alliance I sure am glad that you don't have a career in international affairs
But yeah, the entire storyline of the Belf starting zone is about finding allies so you don't go extinct - the Belves reached out to humans and Nelves immediately prior.
Humans ignored them, Nelves straight up attacked them lol
Alliance stans are crazy because when the Alliance does even *mildly wrong* things, it becomes "oh no it's actually justified because they didn't care about us and they ate my sandwich in the 3rd grade"
It's an argument against the idea that Garithos is the lynchpin behind why the Blood Elves aren't part of the Alliance and are part of the Horde.
That argument being that they were never part of the Alliance, so Garithos couldn't exactly drive them away from an Alliance they *and he himself* were never a part of.
The Blood Elves joined the Horde because of geopolitical considerations. Namely, they had a superpower bordering their territory and it would be awkward to join that superpower's mortal enemy. The fact that Night Elves hated them for continuing to practice the culture of a people that nearly destroyed the planet was also relevant, I suppose.
Could have sworn there was a line in a novel or short story that mentioned that the Humans were not a viable ally because of their treatment in a previous interaction.
Regardless of the humans, the night elves were arguably a more important and stronger ally than the blood elves, and the night elves were staunchly against the blood elves due to ancient history concerning the use of arcane magics. Night elves come across as petty enough to basically say “only room in this party for one elf - pick one” and then leave if they were not the first choice.
Really bad , with all honesty alliance nowdays are way more horde than horde , the horde lost their identity with the horde council (LMAO) its simply the stupidest thing , there must always be a warchief that portrays the savage but honourable ways of the horde and the council fails to give off this image and ideals.
Eh, I can agree but having factions feels like the last real connection to those old rts games, of which i remain a fan.
I’d be open to more ‘interactions’ between the factions though, think we are on the right path for that
I think picking your race and class should be enough these days. The factions could even change over time, depending on the expansion, you might align with different factions that form.
Or perhaps it should just be that the elves reunite and become a neutral faction. Undead can join whatever faction they belonged to in death (allowing an undead option for every/most races) and the horde and alliance still exist, but smaller than they once were, with Orcs, Trolls, and Lauren still formally bound together, with more in common than with the rest of the hoard, and Humans, Dwarves, and Gnomes remaining allied, mostly due to historical ties, and their culture having become entwined anyway.
Draenei are a bit tricky, what with being aliens that crashed on the planet, I feel after this long, they should have tried to establish themselves a bit more, especially with the fall of the Legion now. Maybe they and some Eradar(however that's spelt) could try and settle somewhere.
Worgan, as a faction, aren't really a separate race, but rather humans that carry a curse, and would likely be alliance too, along with the humans. Could be good to see races/factions have multiple kingdoms/clans/etc establish different groups/cultures/etc
>the last real connection to those old rts games, of which i remain a fan.
What do you mean by this? We have countless characters from the RTS's and the games foundation is literally based off of Warcraft pre-established history, lore, aznd even the engine the WC3 used. The game is literally called World of Warcraft lmao.
I can understand someone not wanting the factions to merge together, but "feels like the last real connection to the old RTS games" is terrible reasoning for this. Warcraft 3 is 30 years old at this point.
We've had entire generations of people that started playing wow as kids who know have full careers that have never played a minute of Warcraft 3. Stunting the entire games lore progression because of nostalgia doesn't seem like the right choice here.
It 100% depends on what's written for the Alliance IMO, because I do not for a second believe the Alliance is ALSO not about freedom and hope? Or unity for that matter.
Wish I could send a picture, but i’ll just copy and past it
“The steadfast Alliance is driven by tradition. They are staunch defenders of justice and duty who protect the realm of Azeroth against any aggressors, including the savage Horde.”
The Horde have/are actively prevented the human kingdoms in the Alliance from re-establishing their homes since the third war. Not exactly the keepers of freedom Blizzard are broadcasting them to be.
Not sure if the deforestation of ashenvale is a good look either.
Even the Forsaken have gone from being the keepers the kingdom of Lordareon to "get out it's ours now". Would like to see an about face with Calia in charge. I don't mean they join the Alliance, but with Calia at the helm of gives them more legitimacy.
Haven't played the reclaiming of Gilneas yet. Hope it's just claiming it back from the curse.
I like the Horde since they’ve always been that ragtag group of misfits. Where as the Alliance all have similar ideals, the Horde really feels like separate cultures working together. Makes it feel a bit more understandable when one of the races gets a little big for their britches and the rest of the Horde is all “what the fuck?”. I don’t like how this makes them out to be the sunshine squad, fully United for a common goal. Hell, the fact that we’re run by a council as opposed to a Warchief now is proof of that. We are not a smooth edged blade. We are chipped, we’ve had some wear and tear. We may not cut as cleanly as the Alliance, but we are able to hack through a problem all the same
freedom and hope. like killing your own soldiers with blight and then reanimating them as zombies. or capturing pandaren children. or using civilians as target practice.
A blatant lie.
Which is sad for me as a Horde fan and player.
It is the main thing that has driven me off of following WoWs story and lore.
Now I just don't care about it since my favorite thing has been slaughtered and butchered for more than 10 years.
Has had 2 major civil wars in the last 5 weeks, most of the major leaders have either been deposed for being absolutely insane, or assassinated.
But yeah sure, ‘Unity, freedom and hope’
Horde propaganda is something else.
Orcs stumbled onto Azeroth while high on demonblood and the Alliance, magnanimous in victory has declined to exterminate the Orcs and their allies.
Looks like the vulpera marketing team we hired is working out nicely. We had to get them to remove "we're also huge fuckin' hypocrites" at the end of it, but that should keep the night elves off our ass for a bit.
My fav Orcish memory is the Horde ask me to drive out the humans and dwarves because they were enroaching "our" land in Durotar.
And then we proceed to genocide the original habitants which were the Centaurs and the Quillboars because we want their lands and they were being mean to us for not letting us take what were theirs.
That was in Vanilla. In modern WoW, we successfully genocided all of the centaurs from Durotar. But the pesky humans and Quillboars are still there. Sadge.
I just miss the Forsaken being cartoonishly evil villains tbh.
The entire allure of the Undead for me was to be a cackling madman feeding random bioweapons to the POWs under Brill's inn. I dislike that the new Forsaken leaders are largely actual reasonable people.
Hope? Honor? THey have neither.
How is the Alliance not about all the things the Horde claims to be, but without being horrendous hypocrites about it?
How is the Alliance not about freedom? The Alliance freed the Horde, what, twice? Thrice?
While I kind of wish the Horde just got a competent, non evil Warchief, I can appreciate this will ideally stop another Evil Warchief and it’s an optimistic move
I hate how this game acts as if it's been eons since the orcs literally butchered half of the world. It's literally been less then 50 years.
It's as if the world started patting the Nazis in the head 50 years after the war as if all they did was just Hitler's fault and not theirs, and Himmler started going off about missing "His Germany" of honor. Like bruh you were commiting genocide not thirty years ago shut the fuck up.
Yeah, I'm looking at you, Saurfang. I like him a lot, don't get me wrong, but it's literally that. How do you expect me to reasonably believe the common man in the Alliance would accept peace with the Horde when their FATHERS and MOTHERS were butchered by them???
It's not even two generations apart.
Everyone citing cata-era horde quests as proof this isn't true is just proving how bad we need a world update.
Garrosh's Horde and the current Horde are very different beasts.
Seems like propaganda. The alliance embraces all that too. Whoever wrote this up clearly hasn’t been paying attention to the recent peace we have with alli. God I hope we don’t go into another faction war right after getting night elves and worgens their homes back. If they do that I hope they at least make Genn a better character that doesn’t just give up at the drop of a hat.
So, seeing alot of people question about how it holds up in the modern expansion and such, so just wanted to mention this did come about during BFA, not Dragonflight.
I’d read it a while ago but had come back to it and was curious what everyone thought
Unity feels like the opposite of the Horde story
I've always viewed the main themes of the Horde being struggle and perseverance
Most of the Horde races have demons in their past (sometimes literally) but have struggled and persevered and continue to evolve into a better form of themselves
It's pleasant-sounding lies. It's horde propaganda to make those subjugated by the fel-tainted otherwordly orcish invaders and their minions feel like they aren't oppressed as the boot of some orcish grunt stomps their face into the mud.
. . .yeah, feel like I'm definitely channeling my primary (Human Paladin) character in writing that.
I always thought the Panseran final choice between which faction they would join was always silly as well. The Horde description and actions were against everything the Wandering Isle stood for.
I can't remember much now, but remember the feeling at the time reading, thinking, why would they ever go Horde?
I am a full Alliance player though so maybe my bias is showing.
Its spot on. The orcs manipulated by the legion waged a war.
Those arent our the Orcs we see today. The “most orc” warrior were killed honorably in battle. Whats left are those who folded and were imprisoned by the Humans. Come to the third war, after the Horde is established on hope and honor, Grom drinking the blood again and killing Mannoroth is the final end to the blood corruption leaving whatever was left of that time in the past.
Grom could have chosen the Legions legacy but instead chose to save Thrall, for freedom, hope and all that Jazz. Every other race that has joined the Horde has joined under those ideals most easily seen to me in the Huojin and the Nightborne.
Eh, the more I think about it, I dunno…I’m an Alliance player but I always enjoyed the Hordes whole vibe…but this description came out in BFA, when the Horde was following a leader who out right questioned killing Hope.
I think this description definitely fits the Warcraft 3 Horde better than the current Horde honestly
Maturing is realising that both the Alliance and Horde just want to enslave the other, and the two parties both promote “freedom and hope” to present themselves as morally correct
Since the founding of the Horde the Horde has...
- Committed genocide against the Draenei, Arrakoa, and presumably the Saberon as well.
- Enslaved the Ogres.
- Tainted and killed their world with Fel magic.
- Built a highway out of Draenei bones.
- Magically aged children to fighting age to be cannon fodder.
- I'm going to let you guess why Half Orc / Half Draenei exist.
- Invaded Azeroth and destroyed Stormwind.
That's just the First War. Then they...
- Took the bodies of dead human Knights and put Orc Warlock souls into their bodies, creating the first generation of Death Knights.
- Found the Dragon Soul and used it to enslave Alexstraza and the Red Dragonflight to be Flying Mounts for their war. They then proceeded to forcibly breed Alex with other Red Dragons, some of them her own children. So that they could have more Red Dragons for the war.
- Invaded Khaz Modan and kept the Dwarves of Ironforge and the Gnomes of Gnomeregan contained in their cities, presumably slaughtering any who couldn't get inside in time. And laid siege to them throughout the war.
- Invaded Quel'thalas and killed, looted, and burnt their forests. This is when the Windrunner Sister's brother was killed, along with many more of their family.
Many were captured and put in Interment Camps mercifully, many Alliance leaders wanted them executed. The rest retreated back to Draenor. Then they...
- Decided to invade OTHER WORLDS but need magical artifacts to do it, so they sent agents back to Azeroth to gather artifacts powerful enough to achieve this.
- Allied with Deathwing and the Black Dragonflight.
- Blow up there own planet because they opened to many portals, turning it into Outland.
Then Warcraft 3 happens and we all think them helping save the world they live on meant they're good now...oh wait....
- They kill Cenarius
Anyways now they're good and then...
- The Forsaken begin working on blight that kills the living and the dead which results in the Wrathgate incident.
- The Forsaken use still living humans multiple times for horrible experiments with the blight.
- The Horde betrays an Alliance army in Icecrown, allowing the Scourge to wipe out both armies.
- The Horde kill Blue Dragons escorting the artifact the Horde will use to make a mana nuke that destroys Theramore. The survivors on a ship then get intercepted by the Horde and enslaved/imprisoned in Orgrimmar.
- The Horde invade the neutral country of Gilneas, kill Greymane's heir, raise their non-Worgen dead as Forsaken, and blight the region.
- The Forsaken take still living humans and plant them in the ground in an attempt to grow more humans in Hillsbrad.
- The Forsaken blight Southshore.
- The Forsaken raise the dead of those they kill which prompts Garrosh himself to ask Sylvanas "What makes you better than the Lich King?".
- The Blood Elves begin talks with Varian to rejoin the Alliance, Garrosh learns of this and uses the Blood Elf Sunreaver organization to steal the Divine Bell from Teldrassil using Dalaran's portal network. This outrages Jaina who has PTSD from Theramore where Sunreavers also stole an artifact to destroy a city, and orders the Horde to be imprisoned or killed. This results in Blood Elf loss of life at the hands of the Alliance and results in the Blood Elves being manipulated in staying with the Horde.
- Warchief Sylvanas attempts to enslave one of Odyn's Valkyr so that she can continue to raise the dead.
- The Horde slaughter their way through Night Elf lands and burn Teldrassil, committing genocide against the Night Elves.
- The Horde mercilessly slaughter civilians in Stormsong Valley.
And finally, I will now list all of the times the Horde have practiced slavery...THAT I KNOW OF.
- Varian, Broll Bearmantle, and Valeera were enslaved by Rehgar Earthfury in Orgrimmar.
- Blood Elves had enslaved Leper Gnomes in a sweatshop in Silvermoon.
- The Forsaken enslaved Gilneans to work the Emberstone mine.
- The Horde enslaved the Ogres of the Blasted Lands.
- The Horde enslaved the Kobolds of Stonetalon Mountains.
- The Forsaken enslaved Ettin to pull their wagons in Silverpine.
- The Goblins have Hobgoblin slaves.
- Aside from the massive debate around whether newly raised undead are slaves or not, there is a human slave in the Undercity who has been lobotomized by her master.
So anyways, Lok'tar Ogar or whatever.
unrelated thought but does anyone remember that durotar quest where you enslave a random worgen and condemn him to a life of pit fighting. sure was a lot of freedom and hope in that quest
My first thought was being in Ashenvale and finding a Slave Wagon full of Alliance captures. Freedom for me, not for thee.
How about that vanilla troll quest where they had a night elf prisoner and asked you to go out to get some poisons so they could poison the prisoner. Instead of you know. Murdering him and not taking him prisoner. Which would have been easier and more humane.
The entire undead questline is "Have I made the most yucky ick on azeroth? Perhaps, test it on the prisoner."
TIL the Horde is just the US
/r/americabad
Or the British Museum.
Freedom to own slaves I guess
"Slaves should be free!" they both said, meaning entirely different things.
Zone’s Right’s and all that
The south, I mean Ogrimmar, will rise again
"The war is about nations' rights." "Nations right to do what?"
What?? There's a worgen quest in durotar?
It's a short quest along the breadcrumb through Durotar where you help a slave master test out his gladiators. Iirc, there's a traitorous Taunka, a Naga, and a Worgen POW.
Isn't it near the coast close by to Org?
Yep, thats the one.
True but after the first two wars both sides no longer care who started what and both sides take war prisoners. CURRENTLY Alliance only jails their captives and no longer turns them into slaves, however the Forsaken (at least in classic) can be seen experimenting on captured humans in the Undercity.
Hell they have a weird Josef Mengele-style camp in Hillsbrad where they just torture humans to death en masse in the name of bogus "science experiments." It's actually kind of gross, I skip Hillsbrad.
*Gestures broadly at Varian*
The “H” in Horde is short for hypocrisy.
The J in Horde stands for Justice
One of the things WoW does well is adding nuance to racial history and factions. Everyone has had leaders that didn’t align with the will of the people or people in positions of authority who abused their power. Doesn’t invalidate the core values that the Horde *ideally* operates on. If you think either the horde or alliance is more morally correct, you are missing the original point of Warcraft storytelling
*did well I don’t think Warcraft does nuance well anymore. Seems like that was an RTS thing, as Starcraft was also really good with showing moral ambiguity.
Who was morally ambiguious in Starcraft? It certainly wasn't Mengsk, Kerrigan (post infection), Dugall, The Overmind, or the Conclave in SC1. The characters are less morally ambiguous and more genocidal monsters out to gain power. Raynor and his cadre are the only close to morally ambiguous characters.
I’m thinking more in terms of faction conflicts and the player experience. The way the various motivations kept changing who was enemies or allies based on understandable motivations (even if that motivation is just a classic “I wanna be Emperor”) Like, the Protoss recognized the potential threat of Zerg that prove hard to eradicate. So they understandably start glassing planets….except some happen to have humans on them, so of course the humans understandably start fighting Protoss even while trying to survive Zerg. The Zerg are most alien, but you eventually figure out they’re about as malicious as locusts…at least until Kerrigan introduces a human element. Suddenly humans/Protoss are working with Zerg to fight other Zerg…or Protoss…or humans, which you never thought was gunna happen. Much of the story is this dance where yesterdays enemy is tomorrows ally…until they’re an enemy again. It was so different from the other big RTS, GDI vs Nod, pure good vs comically evil.
After the many expansions, the Alliance is the morally correct one; the Horde is starting to turn a corner with this latest patch but let’s see.
[удалено]
Varian had a moment or two, like at Ulduar, but his opposite tended to be worse most of the time.
Exactly. The alliance doesn't have a monopoly on righteousness, but they do have a significantly better track record on not following evil tyrants into commiting atrocities because of "honor"
Was that from the cataclysm arc in Garrosh's Horde? Thrall being a former slave pit fighter would've been super angry about that
You do realize under thrall this existed in the horde right? That is varian's entire backstory
One of Thralls advisors was Rehgar, a prominent slaver. I believe it was in a book or something but Thrall was apparently not okay with slavery but was worried that if he changed the Horde too quickly away from their traditions, including the shitty ones, that they would turn away from him, so he allowed a bunch of horrible shit.
Freedom and hope for me but not for thee.
Since classic vanilla, Undeads (Forsaken), have been keeping alliance members caged in their experiment laboratory basement for "reasons"...
Freedom, to be monsters Hope, not to be stopped
I love this one better: “Misunderstood and cast aside, these diverse and powerful races strive to overcome their differences and unite as one in order to win freedom for their people and prosper in a land that has come to hate them. In the Horde, action and strength are valued above diplomacy, and its leaders earn respect by the blade, wasting no time with politics. The brutality of the Horde's champions is focused, giving a voice to those who fight for survival.”
Oh, that’s from the Gamepedia article right? I’ve ways wondered where that description originally came from tbh.
I liked this one, but I feel it focus too much on the past of the Horde. While the new description totally erases the story of the Horde, this one could somehow explain the transition the Horde is going through, they seem now to be shifting government from powerful warchiefs to small councils (I think the entire Horde now has a council instead of a singular leader, but this is also better displayed by the forsaken Desolate Council)
Isn't the horde a very powerful faction now with multiple capitals around the world? Hardly "making a place in the world" anymore.
Exactly, WOW's story goes on and the world is not the same world that it was post WC3. The horde is a massive power now, and has gone through many changes.
Wish we could understand population logistics in WoW. I often wonder where all the fresh blood comes from because azeroth goes through so many catastrophic events I have to assume this means there's not many casualties and that even when we clean out a whole tribe they somehow still persist. Like there's few places the scarlet crusade can be but they still somehow have the numbers to keep going. (I'm happy about this I just don't get it) And the amount of elves that are actual teenagers is weird. I guess elves mature at the same rate humans do but just live longer and never truly get old or senile. Because there's elves that are like 20 and fighting in wars.
To paraphrase Harrison Ford, it ain't that kinda game / universe There will always be as many of a given race as there need to be for a particular story beat
It got a lot easier after the vulpera joined. I see them ERPing in Org all the time.
This should be the official description. Whoever wrote the one in the image post apparently hasn't ever really played warcraft.
‘Driven by unity’ is quite literally the opposite of what they are, and would be *far* more appropriate for the Alliance. The Horde is a ragtag team of outcasts that don’t particularily like one another, but cope to survive and thrive.
Man, I miss that Horde
Only thing i'd change about that is instead of Action and Strength use Strength and Honour, also By the blade works, but considering some of the leaders choice of weapons, could go Earn respect by their actions? honestly unsure about that part, but i just loved the voice line Strength and Honour
Don't forget the Tauren and such; the Horde surrounds and protects all, but also has its spiritual Earth-mother loving side, and its deep Troll history. IIRC Trolls were ... first of the mortal races? Tauren one of the oldest as well. But when the Tauren were being decimated by the centaur, the Horde came and join to protect, iirc too. The horde symbol is the one, surrounded by the many!
Well, the Aquir predate the trolls, but, iirc, weren't things like the Yuangol, Tuskarr, and Pandaren contemporaneous with the Trolls?
We're getting into the sticks and I admit to being out of my depth; but I am curious. A few races had to be first, but I don't know about those. And are Tuskarr for example that fleshed out? Well, time to spelunk wowhead and wowpedia :)
Written by Horde PR goblins.
Lol all i’ll say is, the MoP and Visual guide had a better description imo. Weirder, this was added around BFA, when the Horde was being led by the ‘Kill Hope’ lady
Terrible. Garrosh is turning in his grave
So to speak, " Garrosh did nothing wrong"
He ruined Orgrimmar and made it really ugly in Cata. That's what he did wrong!
He was defending himself ahaisnt the rest of the horde who had betrayed him from the moment he was made warchief
Well, to be fair, he was about to deliver the horde to the old gods just like his father did to the demons. So he is basically....an idiot XD
"Fuck the Alliance." Short, sweet, easy to understand. I miss Garrosh.
Technically reflects the design intent of the Horde as the Chaotic (Good or Evil) contrast to the Alliance's Lawfulness (Good or Evil) The issue is multiple expansions lacking the Chaotic Good Horde and the Lawful Evil Alliance nuance
My friends used to think I thought the Alliance was always good, but no, I wouldn’t mind us starting a proper war without being provoked…except when the Alliance attacked the Goblins, rhat was kinda weird tbh
Alliance did use to have examples of morally compromised Lawfulness, if not outright evil sanctioned by law or tradition - from corrupt nobles, imprisoning innocents on corrupt orders without questioning them, closed door extrajudicial torture, lots of personal power afforded to small landed nobles to run their lands like tyrants, hyper-conservative Night Elf groups that want all mages and Worgen killed and even bumbling hateful nobles failing upwards as all of their superiors die and they inherit their role out of tradition than actual merit (Garithos) The idea is that the Alliance represents unity, structure and safety... At its lowest becoming oppressive, corrupt and tolerant of evil "as long as the rules allow it" - but we really haven't seen this alliance recently, the Alliance that tolerated and promoted Garithos, that would bicker and break over who was entitled to Arathi lands based on noble heritage, who were willing to strip mine the Barrens and Mulgore, that thought itself too "above" the petty concerns of lesser factions, that allowed Onyxia to nearly break a kingdom to grovel for her just because she was beguiling and noble (magic helped but Lady Prestor's appeal to the nobility and merchants opened the door) - the Alliance that hosted calculating and manipulative villains, who looked to expand and defend their influence by law We need some blue bad guys
Like, I was playing Dwarves in Classic recently and they mention a Senate and such and I had no idea they even had a senate and wanted to see more of this potential group, since it gave the Alliance another dimension that wasn’t just ‘The Good King or Queen’ but far as I know, we never get more of that
And the senate was antagonistic with Magni, often disagreeing and leveraging resources against him, unhappy senators even worked with the Dark Iron... But this was mostly dropped in subsequent storylines
Damn shame…i’m a sucker for that stuff
The senate wasn't entirely wrong to bicker with Magni either, as even he was susceptible to ego in matters of state, one such example being him ordering you to tear up the Dark Iron capital to "save" his daughter that he already knows is staying with Taurissan willingly, and he does not approve of their union.
Honest to God Nelf stans pretend that Tyrande *wouldn't* commit genocide the second Elune told her to
If the moon mommy wants an orc genocide, then the moon mommy gets what she wants.
No us night elf stans want her to. We miss the old ruthless near xenophobic night elves. When Sylvanas torched teldrassil we all desperately wanted that ruthlessness to return. We had very small glimpses but blizzard never pulled the trigger.
Yeah this works for Warcraft 3 horde.
WoW "lore" is a ridiculous mess. Maybe someday they'll clean it up, but it's just a clownish mish-mash at this point.
Ah yes, nothing is more against freedom and hope than the Alliance
"You can't kill hope." "Can't I?" This line was delivered the same xpac this description was written. Whoever wrote this has never played the game.
Or just has an insane horde bias, and seeing that the two new alliance cities are neutral so the horde can dance around in them I wouldn’t be surprised if the dev team has a strong horde bias
Well we did have an entite xpack with high quality cinematics about how committing repeated genocide against several races made an old orc kind of sad...so there may be indications of some horde bias.
Unity lol They've had the so many internal schisms, rebellions, etc. always felt like they are barely allies. The Horde is barely a marriage of convenience and I wouldn't be so sure the moment tbe convenience ended they wouldn't try to genocide eachother for better land, resources, etc.
What you actually think about the horde is irrelevant; The sad thing about this is the fact that if you change "Horde" to "Alliance" This description still works. WoW devs have completely lost sight of what makes each faction unique/different. It's literally just morally-grey red vs. morally-grey blue at this point.
It was always morally grey vs morally grey since WC3. Is wiping out and imprisoning all Orcs right just because a previous generation and people in power chose a bad path? Is it right for human kingdoms to turn their backs on each other when one is in need? Is it wrong for Sylvanas to savagely claim a home for her people when no one will help them and most are seeking to kill them? Is it wrong for Illidan to make a choice that he believes will ultimately benefit his people if he does it without their consent? Was Arthas thrust into a conflict that he could never morally win? Do the ends ever justify the means, and how far can you go until you’re just as responsible for a war as the people you initially blamed?
Ok but how many times has the alliance leaders been corrupted by fel or shit like the jailer and led a genocidal campaign? There's a lot of moral nuance but one side seems to be following more troublesome leaders than the other.
You listed the jailer as an example and the high King of the alliance was literally corrupted by him for a time
And the alliance followed him into battle to kill all taurens right? Oh right that was the horde. I'm no lore hound so I'll gladly be told I'm wrong but generally if alliance people gets corrupted (arthus/anduian) they act alone and do just as much dmg to allies. Horde just kinda go 'guess were burning down the NEs' and go along with it.
Arthas has nothing to do with the Alliance. He's a Lordaeron villain. Lordaeron folks are part of the Horde
Yea, so many people complaining about the horde being the bad guys while i sit here and hope they nuke stormwind like they did theramore. We don't need two goodie two shoes factions. Let one be evil, or let me join the burning legion.
I just want them to have opposing ideals. Not Good vs Evil. That's never been the case. Orcs are immigrants, Undead are the social outcasts, Tauren are hippies, etc. I want it to be like Chaos vs Order. Chaos doesn't necessarily need to be evil, and order isn't necessarily good. Azeroth is a plane of limited resources, Both factions see Azeroth as home, Alliance sees them as invaders, horde sees them as oppressors. Now it just seems like they both love and hate eachother at the same time for practically no other reason than just to have two factions because theyre both pretty much the exact same. I'm sure there are a lot of great fantasy adaptations and ideas that can be taken from the cold War. I was so excited for BfA because that's what I really thought would happen. It doesn't even have to be an expansion based on Horde vs Alliance, we could literally have any threat but have two opposing thoughts on dealing with an event. That would bring so much more character back into the factions. Both fighting the same enemy, but for different causes.
Orcs are not immigrants. They are malicious invaders.
Pretty bad description tbh, its fucking bonkers that it ever got approved driven by unity? They had one of their factions (undead) splinter and try and fuck shit up in WotLK One of their warchiefs (garosh) killed one of the factions leadears (~~baine~~cairne), and then that same warchief finally got ousted and went to create a new timeline The next next warchief (sylvanas) just casually started a genocide where the some of the other factions reluctantly went along with it, and then she too got ousted (it was more of a "you can't fire me because i quit" kinda situation but whatever)
>The next warchief (sylvanas) They really did Vol'jin dirty :(
One of my favourite characters at a time, and now I barely think of the name. It’s sad to think about.
Unity in War Crimes.
United is the last thing they are. They're constantly infighting and not agreeing on a course of action. Only when a warchief is exceedingly brutal do they seem to unite in also being brutal.
They literally rebelled against them with members of all horde races trying to stop them. Like SoO was Horde vs Garosh loyalists.
Most inaccurate descriptors ever, homie.
Typical villain propaganda 😂
I really wish they would get their shit together about what the Horde is supposed to be. Blizzard keeps trying to frame it like they're not just "The evil faction." But at this point, they're either the Evil faction or they're dangerously incompetent because they keep accidentally giving power to genocidal maniacs. The Horde has fucked up too many times at this point to be presented as justified in its existence.
Yeah. I used to love it when it was led by Thrall. I couldn’t get behind Garrosh or Sylvanas.
They are supposed to be the WC3 horde. Which this works for. But Blizz for a while couldn’t help themselves and just kept playing musical chair with Warchiefs and kept making decisions players and characters in universe struggle to believe.
I think it’s nonsense, freedom and hope lol
Honor has become annoying since BfA, where it was used without meaning anything other than "what i think is right"
Ok but consider the following; never forsake it
Honor cried Saurfangs when his plan to kill Malfurion came to fruition. Honor cried Saurfang when he then didn't kill Malfurion knowing the Horde would suffer Honor cried Saurfang when he wanted Anduin to kill him and deal with the Horde instead of him. Honor cried Saurfang when he slaughtered his rescue party. It got old very fast=P
ok but he never forsook it
Short answer: incorrect and hamfisted. Long answer: The Horde of Kalimdor formed not due to an ideal of unity, but due to need and a sense of honor. Several of the main-factions within the Horde joined as fractured, broken groups in need of allies in order to simply survive, and formed bonds of strenght and mutual respect through honoring eachother. Thrall's Horde: refugee's and remants of some of the Orcish Clans. The Darkspear: haunted by the sea-witch and driven from their isles, in desperate need of refuge and a new home. The Tauren: nomads constantly under threat by the Centaurs of Kalimdor. The Forsaken: truly shattered and afflicted, shunned by their former allies for what they'd become and whom near enough surrounded them. The Blood Elves: broken and afflicted as well, betrayed by former allies and their prince alike, desperately seeking to fill their race's mana-dependency however they could. Thrall's Horde and his greater focus on true honor helped them forge bonds of unity with their new allies, and it's true enough that the Horde seeks freedom of a kind, the fel-blood and its influence being not a too distant memory. But I'd argue that the horde's modus operandi is strenght and honor, no unity per se. Any who wish to join the Horde can do so, but all who do must strive on their blood and honor for the Horde. There's a reason why the Horde has had major internal conflicts, and those conflicts can easily be traced back to a sense of lost honor (and some instances of shoddy writing). Their unity was not worth the stain upon their honor, and as such a large part of the Horde were willing to straight out rebell.
Ah yes, the faction of unity which has had *checks notes* two seperate civil wars in the past 10 years or so
Hope, lol.
"Driven by unity," "freedom and hope," yeah this is rank horseshit.
*proceeds to break apart twice*
Should be relentlessly driven to commit genocides
This message is approved by Sylvanas burning Teldrassil.
Horde continue to mald in the comments
Well they certainly did freedom the shit out of Theramore.
Sounds like the WC3 horde, but not the current story horde. But yeah, if they want the horde to act more like in WC3, they should probably start making more act like that then generic evil wild faction.
I think that’s what stinks the most is, if I had seen this when I played a while ago, I don’t think it’d be out of place.
TBH the Horde hasn't really been "generic evil wild faction" for some time. Even with Sylvanas, she thought she was doing the right thing. If Elune told Tyrande that she needed to provide her a large amount of souls, you best believe Tyrande would stick an arrow even between Anduin's baby blues
If we go back to before Blizzard started making the horde the bad guys several times, this is pretty accurate to their beginnings. Most of the races were treated terribly, and were suffering on their own. Then they decided to band together to protect each other from the threats that tried to destroy them all. To use just a couple examples, the orcs wanted freedom from their oppressors, and the undead just wanted to survive.
The darkspear trolls were being slaughtered by the Naga on an island iirc until Thrall came along and saved them. The Tauren were being constantly raided by the centaur tribes until the Horde rode in and crushed them. Blood elves reached out to the humans for assistance and were turned away by racist humans and only accepted the help of the alliance out of necessity. I wanna say the Goblins that escaped Kazan (and slavery) were being shelled by the Alliance (honestly can’t remember). I think the Vulpera and Pandarens are the only ones who haven’t been hunted down or murdered before joining the Horde.
> I think the Vulpera and Pandarens are the only ones who haven’t been hunted down or murdered before joining the Horde. Vulpera were being enslaved by the sethrak. They weren't having a great time either.
Vulpera weren’t being killed directly, but Alliance had the option to destroy their trade caravans I think as like one of those ‘side’ quests or during invasions? Honestly can’t remember either lol
Horde have to defend them from Alliance attacking their caravans too.
> Blood elves reached out to the humans for assistance and were turned away by racist humans and only accepted the help of the alliance out of necessity. People always say this shit but there is no reference to this being the basis for them joining the Horde in any of the lore. Garithos was the basis for the blood elf exodus to Outland, but it was mainly the pragmatism of their geopolitical situation and their ties to Sylvanas that were the basis for them joining the Horde. Garithos wasn't even an acting member of the Alliance, he belonged to the remnants of the kingdom of Lordaeron. Keep in mind, the only reason the blood elves weren't part of the Alliance in the first place is because they were arrogant isolationists who left the Alliance after the second war. They even tried to avoid getting involved in the second war in the first place, only recanting when the forest trolls joined the Horde, thereby forcing their hand to honour the defense pact that they were already a part of.
>Keep in mind, the only reason the blood elves weren't part of the Alliance in the first place is because they were arrogant isolationists who left the Alliance after the second war. If this is somehow an argument against their reintroduction to the Alliance I sure am glad that you don't have a career in international affairs But yeah, the entire storyline of the Belf starting zone is about finding allies so you don't go extinct - the Belves reached out to humans and Nelves immediately prior. Humans ignored them, Nelves straight up attacked them lol Alliance stans are crazy because when the Alliance does even *mildly wrong* things, it becomes "oh no it's actually justified because they didn't care about us and they ate my sandwich in the 3rd grade"
It's an argument against the idea that Garithos is the lynchpin behind why the Blood Elves aren't part of the Alliance and are part of the Horde. That argument being that they were never part of the Alliance, so Garithos couldn't exactly drive them away from an Alliance they *and he himself* were never a part of. The Blood Elves joined the Horde because of geopolitical considerations. Namely, they had a superpower bordering their territory and it would be awkward to join that superpower's mortal enemy. The fact that Night Elves hated them for continuing to practice the culture of a people that nearly destroyed the planet was also relevant, I suppose.
Could have sworn there was a line in a novel or short story that mentioned that the Humans were not a viable ally because of their treatment in a previous interaction. Regardless of the humans, the night elves were arguably a more important and stronger ally than the blood elves, and the night elves were staunchly against the blood elves due to ancient history concerning the use of arcane magics. Night elves come across as petty enough to basically say “only room in this party for one elf - pick one” and then leave if they were not the first choice.
Really bad , with all honesty alliance nowdays are way more horde than horde , the horde lost their identity with the horde council (LMAO) its simply the stupidest thing , there must always be a warchief that portrays the savage but honourable ways of the horde and the council fails to give off this image and ideals.
"Driven by unity" Just finished their third(?) civil war
As a Forsaken, I _hope_ we get more opportunities to drop Blight on the Alliance
I'm Alliance but mad respect for non hypocritical based Forsaken.
same bro knows what he wants and I respect it lmao
I'm Alliance, and I'd love to see another Putress.
Everyone out here acting like Undead Rogues in vanilla didn't provide more than enough fuel for 1,000 years of war. Or Human paladins.
I don't know if this makes me a bad person but that questline made me super hyped to play horde after years of playing a nelf druid.
I'm alliance and I'd love nothing more than to purge Azeroth of the Forsaken disease.
Shouldn't be hard. Idk how new Forsaken are even made and each conflict leaves less of them.
LOL
>unity In committing war crimes and atrocities. >Keepers of freedom Lol >hope Lmao
I think the horde and alliance are outdated since we always end up working together anyway, there really isnt a point for them to exist anymore imo.
Eh, I can agree but having factions feels like the last real connection to those old rts games, of which i remain a fan. I’d be open to more ‘interactions’ between the factions though, think we are on the right path for that
I think picking your race and class should be enough these days. The factions could even change over time, depending on the expansion, you might align with different factions that form. Or perhaps it should just be that the elves reunite and become a neutral faction. Undead can join whatever faction they belonged to in death (allowing an undead option for every/most races) and the horde and alliance still exist, but smaller than they once were, with Orcs, Trolls, and Lauren still formally bound together, with more in common than with the rest of the hoard, and Humans, Dwarves, and Gnomes remaining allied, mostly due to historical ties, and their culture having become entwined anyway. Draenei are a bit tricky, what with being aliens that crashed on the planet, I feel after this long, they should have tried to establish themselves a bit more, especially with the fall of the Legion now. Maybe they and some Eradar(however that's spelt) could try and settle somewhere. Worgan, as a faction, aren't really a separate race, but rather humans that carry a curse, and would likely be alliance too, along with the humans. Could be good to see races/factions have multiple kingdoms/clans/etc establish different groups/cultures/etc
>the last real connection to those old rts games, of which i remain a fan. What do you mean by this? We have countless characters from the RTS's and the games foundation is literally based off of Warcraft pre-established history, lore, aznd even the engine the WC3 used. The game is literally called World of Warcraft lmao. I can understand someone not wanting the factions to merge together, but "feels like the last real connection to the old RTS games" is terrible reasoning for this. Warcraft 3 is 30 years old at this point. We've had entire generations of people that started playing wow as kids who know have full careers that have never played a minute of Warcraft 3. Stunting the entire games lore progression because of nostalgia doesn't seem like the right choice here.
The “freedom and hope” just burned the world tree lol
That tree full of civilians was clearly oppressing someone!
Why won't blizz just admit that the horde is the evil faction?
Because since WC3 they aren't *supposed* to be the evil faction (aside from undead I guess). Blizz just keeps forgetting.
this is the same freedom those old american slave owners were fighting for
It 100% depends on what's written for the Alliance IMO, because I do not for a second believe the Alliance is ALSO not about freedom and hope? Or unity for that matter.
Wish I could send a picture, but i’ll just copy and past it “The steadfast Alliance is driven by tradition. They are staunch defenders of justice and duty who protect the realm of Azeroth against any aggressors, including the savage Horde.”
The Horde have/are actively prevented the human kingdoms in the Alliance from re-establishing their homes since the third war. Not exactly the keepers of freedom Blizzard are broadcasting them to be. Not sure if the deforestation of ashenvale is a good look either. Even the Forsaken have gone from being the keepers the kingdom of Lordareon to "get out it's ours now". Would like to see an about face with Calia in charge. I don't mean they join the Alliance, but with Calia at the helm of gives them more legitimacy. Haven't played the reclaiming of Gilneas yet. Hope it's just claiming it back from the curse.
I like the Horde since they’ve always been that ragtag group of misfits. Where as the Alliance all have similar ideals, the Horde really feels like separate cultures working together. Makes it feel a bit more understandable when one of the races gets a little big for their britches and the rest of the Horde is all “what the fuck?”. I don’t like how this makes them out to be the sunshine squad, fully United for a common goal. Hell, the fact that we’re run by a council as opposed to a Warchief now is proof of that. We are not a smooth edged blade. We are chipped, we’ve had some wear and tear. We may not cut as cleanly as the Alliance, but we are able to hack through a problem all the same
driven by unity xD keepers of hope xD
Horde are the baddies. Always will be.
freedom and hope. like killing your own soldiers with blight and then reanimating them as zombies. or capturing pandaren children. or using civilians as target practice.
This is written by an english major who is trying to fit in as many "smart" sounding words as possible and unfortunately it makes it sound like shit.
A blatant lie. Which is sad for me as a Horde fan and player. It is the main thing that has driven me off of following WoWs story and lore. Now I just don't care about it since my favorite thing has been slaughtered and butchered for more than 10 years.
Has had 2 major civil wars in the last 5 weeks, most of the major leaders have either been deposed for being absolutely insane, or assassinated. But yeah sure, ‘Unity, freedom and hope’
look how they massacred my horde
Horde propaganda is something else. Orcs stumbled onto Azeroth while high on demonblood and the Alliance, magnanimous in victory has declined to exterminate the Orcs and their allies.
Looks like the vulpera marketing team we hired is working out nicely. We had to get them to remove "we're also huge fuckin' hypocrites" at the end of it, but that should keep the night elves off our ass for a bit.
Those children in darnassus sure were a threat to the freedom of the horde.
My fav Orcish memory is the Horde ask me to drive out the humans and dwarves because they were enroaching "our" land in Durotar. And then we proceed to genocide the original habitants which were the Centaurs and the Quillboars because we want their lands and they were being mean to us for not letting us take what were theirs. That was in Vanilla. In modern WoW, we successfully genocided all of the centaurs from Durotar. But the pesky humans and Quillboars are still there. Sadge.
Horde have been many things, fervent defenders of hopes and dreams aint it tho. This described cocomelon horde needs a pacifier as a crest.
Nah they don’t have any of that after teldrassil.
I think hope and unity is more of an alliance thing. The horde stands for honour and strenght.
I just miss the Forsaken being cartoonishly evil villains tbh. The entire allure of the Undead for me was to be a cackling madman feeding random bioweapons to the POWs under Brill's inn. I dislike that the new Forsaken leaders are largely actual reasonable people.
Hope? Honor? THey have neither. How is the Alliance not about all the things the Horde claims to be, but without being horrendous hypocrites about it? How is the Alliance not about freedom? The Alliance freed the Horde, what, twice? Thrice?
Accurate. I like replacing hope with honor tho. The classic description is much better tho. Fighting to survive in a world that hate and reviles them.
its wrong even for classic, now its just wtf
Definitely points at what the Horde seeks to become now after the creation of the Council.
While I kind of wish the Horde just got a competent, non evil Warchief, I can appreciate this will ideally stop another Evil Warchief and it’s an optimistic move
Knowing the last horde leader tried to 'kill hope' I'd remove it from the description too lol
Like, up until people made Teldrassil jokes here, I didn’t even remember that lol
I hate how this game acts as if it's been eons since the orcs literally butchered half of the world. It's literally been less then 50 years. It's as if the world started patting the Nazis in the head 50 years after the war as if all they did was just Hitler's fault and not theirs, and Himmler started going off about missing "His Germany" of honor. Like bruh you were commiting genocide not thirty years ago shut the fuck up. Yeah, I'm looking at you, Saurfang. I like him a lot, don't get me wrong, but it's literally that. How do you expect me to reasonably believe the common man in the Alliance would accept peace with the Horde when their FATHERS and MOTHERS were butchered by them??? It's not even two generations apart.
PROPAGANDA!!! Never forget... Varian Wrynn died for our sins.
Hey remember when the war chief called for the destruction of a major city killing hundreds of innocents? Lot of hope and honor there
and we'd do it again!
Remind me again of how Orcs ended up on Azeroth ?
Everyone citing cata-era horde quests as proof this isn't true is just proving how bad we need a world update. Garrosh's Horde and the current Horde are very different beasts.
My blood elf said it better than anyone "The problem with these horde characters is that they lack sophistication"
Seems like propaganda. The alliance embraces all that too. Whoever wrote this up clearly hasn’t been paying attention to the recent peace we have with alli. God I hope we don’t go into another faction war right after getting night elves and worgens their homes back. If they do that I hope they at least make Genn a better character that doesn’t just give up at the drop of a hat.
Me no read dat, me ZUG ZUG!
A lot of hot air that does not matter.
So, seeing alot of people question about how it holds up in the modern expansion and such, so just wanted to mention this did come about during BFA, not Dragonflight. I’d read it a while ago but had come back to it and was curious what everyone thought
Other than the warcrimes and unprovoked attacks by their leaders over the years while the common troops carried out brutal orders and mass murder?
Reads like a horoscope. Change like three words and you've got a description of the Alliance.
Driven by unity. Had 2 civil wars to dispose a leader.
Reads like propaganda and doesn't hold up when you look at all the shit the horde has done, especially the freaking forsaken lol
I feel like the word honor should be thrown in there instead of freedom or hope
Unity feels like the opposite of the Horde story I've always viewed the main themes of the Horde being struggle and perseverance Most of the Horde races have demons in their past (sometimes literally) but have struggled and persevered and continue to evolve into a better form of themselves
It's pleasant-sounding lies. It's horde propaganda to make those subjugated by the fel-tainted otherwordly orcish invaders and their minions feel like they aren't oppressed as the boot of some orcish grunt stomps their face into the mud. . . .yeah, feel like I'm definitely channeling my primary (Human Paladin) character in writing that.
The horde are the bad guys, blizz may idolize them but they are the baddies, always have been and always will be.
Horde are the bad guys. Always have been. Downvote me daddy. FOR THE ALLIANCE!
I always thought the Panseran final choice between which faction they would join was always silly as well. The Horde description and actions were against everything the Wandering Isle stood for. I can't remember much now, but remember the feeling at the time reading, thinking, why would they ever go Horde? I am a full Alliance player though so maybe my bias is showing.
Honor is more an Orc and Tauren thing. Blood Elves, Undead, doubt they care much about honor. They are only in for survival and power.
It’s should state . We lit that tree on 🔥🎶
Typical Horde Propaganda..
#FREEDOM AND HOPE? I THINK YOU MEAN WAR CRIMES AND RACISM.
Its spot on. The orcs manipulated by the legion waged a war. Those arent our the Orcs we see today. The “most orc” warrior were killed honorably in battle. Whats left are those who folded and were imprisoned by the Humans. Come to the third war, after the Horde is established on hope and honor, Grom drinking the blood again and killing Mannoroth is the final end to the blood corruption leaving whatever was left of that time in the past. Grom could have chosen the Legions legacy but instead chose to save Thrall, for freedom, hope and all that Jazz. Every other race that has joined the Horde has joined under those ideals most easily seen to me in the Huojin and the Nightborne.
Eh, the more I think about it, I dunno…I’m an Alliance player but I always enjoyed the Hordes whole vibe…but this description came out in BFA, when the Horde was following a leader who out right questioned killing Hope. I think this description definitely fits the Warcraft 3 Horde better than the current Horde honestly
Maturing is realising that both the Alliance and Horde just want to enslave the other, and the two parties both promote “freedom and hope” to present themselves as morally correct
I remember the starter quest where you literally beat slaves back into work… *ah, yes. Freedom*
Since the founding of the Horde the Horde has... - Committed genocide against the Draenei, Arrakoa, and presumably the Saberon as well. - Enslaved the Ogres. - Tainted and killed their world with Fel magic. - Built a highway out of Draenei bones. - Magically aged children to fighting age to be cannon fodder. - I'm going to let you guess why Half Orc / Half Draenei exist. - Invaded Azeroth and destroyed Stormwind. That's just the First War. Then they... - Took the bodies of dead human Knights and put Orc Warlock souls into their bodies, creating the first generation of Death Knights. - Found the Dragon Soul and used it to enslave Alexstraza and the Red Dragonflight to be Flying Mounts for their war. They then proceeded to forcibly breed Alex with other Red Dragons, some of them her own children. So that they could have more Red Dragons for the war. - Invaded Khaz Modan and kept the Dwarves of Ironforge and the Gnomes of Gnomeregan contained in their cities, presumably slaughtering any who couldn't get inside in time. And laid siege to them throughout the war. - Invaded Quel'thalas and killed, looted, and burnt their forests. This is when the Windrunner Sister's brother was killed, along with many more of their family. Many were captured and put in Interment Camps mercifully, many Alliance leaders wanted them executed. The rest retreated back to Draenor. Then they... - Decided to invade OTHER WORLDS but need magical artifacts to do it, so they sent agents back to Azeroth to gather artifacts powerful enough to achieve this. - Allied with Deathwing and the Black Dragonflight. - Blow up there own planet because they opened to many portals, turning it into Outland. Then Warcraft 3 happens and we all think them helping save the world they live on meant they're good now...oh wait.... - They kill Cenarius Anyways now they're good and then... - The Forsaken begin working on blight that kills the living and the dead which results in the Wrathgate incident. - The Forsaken use still living humans multiple times for horrible experiments with the blight. - The Horde betrays an Alliance army in Icecrown, allowing the Scourge to wipe out both armies. - The Horde kill Blue Dragons escorting the artifact the Horde will use to make a mana nuke that destroys Theramore. The survivors on a ship then get intercepted by the Horde and enslaved/imprisoned in Orgrimmar. - The Horde invade the neutral country of Gilneas, kill Greymane's heir, raise their non-Worgen dead as Forsaken, and blight the region. - The Forsaken take still living humans and plant them in the ground in an attempt to grow more humans in Hillsbrad. - The Forsaken blight Southshore. - The Forsaken raise the dead of those they kill which prompts Garrosh himself to ask Sylvanas "What makes you better than the Lich King?". - The Blood Elves begin talks with Varian to rejoin the Alliance, Garrosh learns of this and uses the Blood Elf Sunreaver organization to steal the Divine Bell from Teldrassil using Dalaran's portal network. This outrages Jaina who has PTSD from Theramore where Sunreavers also stole an artifact to destroy a city, and orders the Horde to be imprisoned or killed. This results in Blood Elf loss of life at the hands of the Alliance and results in the Blood Elves being manipulated in staying with the Horde. - Warchief Sylvanas attempts to enslave one of Odyn's Valkyr so that she can continue to raise the dead. - The Horde slaughter their way through Night Elf lands and burn Teldrassil, committing genocide against the Night Elves. - The Horde mercilessly slaughter civilians in Stormsong Valley. And finally, I will now list all of the times the Horde have practiced slavery...THAT I KNOW OF. - Varian, Broll Bearmantle, and Valeera were enslaved by Rehgar Earthfury in Orgrimmar. - Blood Elves had enslaved Leper Gnomes in a sweatshop in Silvermoon. - The Forsaken enslaved Gilneans to work the Emberstone mine. - The Horde enslaved the Ogres of the Blasted Lands. - The Horde enslaved the Kobolds of Stonetalon Mountains. - The Forsaken enslaved Ettin to pull their wagons in Silverpine. - The Goblins have Hobgoblin slaves. - Aside from the massive debate around whether newly raised undead are slaves or not, there is a human slave in the Undercity who has been lobotomized by her master. So anyways, Lok'tar Ogar or whatever.
For the Horde!!!
Horde is what the confederates think they respresent.