War of the Thorns annoyances

[Lupis]

If I'd seen them going down this route, no, I wouldn't have rolled Horde. There were a lot of reasons I chose Horde (even when I swapped to Ally for friend reasons my heart stayed with Horde), but chief among them was their concept of found family and compromise- something well summed up by the cinematic! A group of outcast, struggling people who needed one another even if they didn't all get along, and all had wildly different takes on culture and custom. Seeing them all trying to work together anyway because they had nobody else was super compelling.

I'll take some moral ambiguity from them- but I think this goes a little too far, alas. I have no issue with the Horde doing some questionable stuff out of necessity or vengeance. But a blanket acceptance of genocide is going a little too far for what I would have liked to see from the really cool concept the Horde started with. It strays entirely from what I loved in the first place, so I'd have no reason to choose them beyond liking the races more appearance wise.

[GormanGhaste]

I think when many people say they don't like overly good characters, they mean they don't like lawful good characters. I didn't create a paladin for the longest time because of this, and she's still lingering in her 40s. I don't like playing lawful or evil characters, but anything else I enjoy.

[Teigan]

Bit of a side topic, but it got me thinking... if one of the factions had been planned as truly evil from the start, would you have played it? Would you enjoy playing a character that was a true villain?

It would certainly be interesting, and I can see how it could be fun, but I'm not sure it would be for me.

I guess it depends on how evil we're talking. Do we mean killing innocents in terrible ways with a smile evil? Or stealing bread to live evil, which isn't evil at all? I'll assume we're talking truly evil. I would try it. I'm too curious of a person not to. And then I would probably feel awful and leave and regret having gone there.

I admit I sometimes feel bad even doing normal quests. Like, it's really sociopathic and disturbing, the stuff that we do in the course of a normal day in WoW if you really think about it. And we're the "good" guys (by we I mean all of us generally speaking, not talking about factions).

It depends on what the Horde would be doing since Vanilla. If it is what we've seen in recent days, then no, I wouldn't play them.

What if it was the morally dark period for the Alliance?

If the Alliance was doing what the Horde is doing, I would have reservations about playing at all.

[Valnaaros]

If Blizz did to the Alliance what is being done to the Horde, I either would go Horde (assuming that they aren't also doing what they are doing now) or I just wouldn't play.

[Wain]

I admit I sometimes feel bad even doing normal quests. Like, it's really sociopathic and disturbing, the stuff that we do in the course of a normal day in WoW if you really think about it. And we're the "good" guys (by we I mean all of us generally speaking, not talking about factions).

Same! Quests like "these furbolg/moonkin are being driven crazy, so just kill them" for the 100th time. Especially that one in Val'sharah where we kill most of them and then fix the thing that was driving them nuts

[Wain]

The Azeroth approach to treating mental illness: beat the crap out of them until they either come to their senses or die

[cowmuflage]

The Azeroth approach to treating mental illness: beat the crap out of them until they either come to their senses or die

Well they don't have free healthcare yet XD

[cowmuflage]

Bit of a side topic, but it got me thinking... if one of the factions had been planned as truly evil from the start, would you have played it? Would you enjoy playing a character that was a true villain?

It would certainly be interesting, and I can see how it could be fun, but I'm not sure it would be for me.

I would more so then playing a truly goodie good good guy. Those I've never found to be interesting at all. It can be really hard to make them interesting.

[Sukurachi]

Bit of a side topic, but it got me thinking... if one of the factions had been planned as truly evil from the start, would you have played it? Would you enjoy playing a character that was a true villain?

It would certainly be interesting, and I can see how it could be fun, but I'm not sure it would be for me.

No. I would not have.
My character may have been involved in events or actions that were morally questionable, but never outright evil.

Evil is never justified. I think there are people who are redefining a word here to mean something it does not. There is never a justification for evil. Evil is absolute selfishness, an unwillingness to consider the hurt of other people. It's taking pleasure in causing pain. It's considering yourself completely above all else. The only "justifications" for evil acts are pure selfishness and greed: completely unacceptable justifications. They are signs of sociopathy.

No, I would never have played a character from a faction that was evil from the start.
And I am very unhappy that the leader of the Horde is going along a path that is undeniably evil.

[SylviaDragon]

if ally got an equally fancy 6 min cinematic I would be floored. the animation and detail in those is so good now. I can only imagine how much work goes into those.

as for the question of if i would play Horde if they were advertised as the evil guy right from the get-go, of course I would. I don't just make characters to fill a role gap, i give them all backgrounds and personalities. Some of them are good, some are evil, and many are somewhere in between. I would be all for a truly evil faction as long as there was no beating around the bush and no flimsy reasoning to support poor plot choices.
the reason I don't like what Sylvanas did is because it was poor and predictable reasoning that flew in the face of basic common sense and stomped on the free agency of a lot of players and lore characters. It forced a war that we should not be having.

ironically if I could have done the Ally quests on my blood elf and the Horde quests on my Nelf, it would have suited their personalities much better. My main is one of my darker characters and is not really emotionally invested in the situation and will fight for whoever feels like paying her. My Pally on the other hand, is a good guy just looking for some peace and quiet and burning the tree goes against everything he stands for. had i known that learning one mount would cause you to automatically learn the other, i never would have done the horde quests on him. =/

[Rawr]

Found this funny, had to share

[Thwip]

Bit of a side topic, but it got me thinking... if one of the factions had been planned as truly evil from the start, would you have played it? Would you enjoy playing a character that was a true villain?

It would certainly be interesting, and I can see how it could be fun, but I'm not sure it would be for me.

Speaking as someone who has and still does Roleplay Villains regularly for years. I probably would. I don't RP in WoW, mostly cause I just find it odd. (I'd like to just play the game!) Before I even knew what was what in WoW, I picked characters solely based on races. I found the Horde to just have the more interesting ones, while I do like a few Alliance races. From a story perspective, I've just always gotten bored with playing super morally 'Right' characters. While this does include RP purposes outside of WoW, in WoW that attitude always extends to the types of quests you get. For me it feels like they have less depth, which is not entirely true I know.

If Horde were established well ahead of time to be just a villainous faction, it wouldn't be hitting me nearly as hard as it is. I'm torn right now, because while I do enjoy a good villain, because good stories NEED good villains, BUT...That's not what Horde is. Once you get in game for that first time, you actually realize they're just lovable, scruffy individuals who are just trying to find their place in the world. (With an aggressive streak.) They have their own moral code, which is different then Alliance who typically have the kind of generic good guy moral set up. I always loved Sylvanas being that Morally Dark character off on the sidelines helping the Horde while being Ms. Murder while no one was looking. It made the Forsaken into the 'Ones You Call When You Mean BUSINESS', because while they may not do things in the most morally ok manner, they got shit -done-. (And it was that way for -ages-, Vemonspike in Dragonblight a good example.)

This is also something that makes me sad. Because this was a prime opportunity to actually have allowed that Goody-Goody appearance the Alliance portrays to have faltered for once and they just didn't do it. It would have been AMAZING to -me- personally if we got to see Greymane push his agenda against Sylvanas through Anduin (And the entire Alliance Army) by trying to take Lorderon FIRST and then have the Burning of Teldrassil be Horde's reaction.

[Lupis]

I always loved Sylvanas being that Morally Dark character off on the sidelines helping the Horde while being Ms. Murder while no one was looking. It made the Forsaken into the 'Ones You Call When You Mean BUSINESS', because while they may not do things in the most morally ok manner, they got shit -done-. (And it was that way for -ages-, Vemonspike in Dragonblight a good example.)

This is also something that makes me sad. Because this was a prime opportunity to actually have allowed that Goody-Goody appearance the Alliance portrays to have faltered for once and they just didn't do it. It would have been AMAZING to -me- personally if we got to see Greymane push his agenda against Sylvanas through Anduin (And the entire Alliance Army) by trying to take Lorderon FIRST and then have the Burning of Teldrassil be Horde's reaction.

This sums up my thoughts pretty well! I think there could have been a very complex story here if they'd made a few changes, and I LOVE having characters who aren't purely honorable or noble. If they'd changed things around a tiny bit, let the Alliance have a more unreliable leader character (not Anduin he's a good boy) that pushed them into something morally questionable, I think this would have made a LOT more sense. If Sylvanas lost the Undercity, yeah, honestly, I can 100% see her burning down Teldrassil and I can even see some of the Horde helping, without it needing to be forced at all. Plus, that would mean that the Alliance would be questioning things too- it wouldn't be black and white anymore, with just one change of sequence.

[cowmuflage]

I agree that would be 100% a better story.

[SylviaDragon]

I agree about having more muddy ally leaders would have helped. I would have been much more on board if the whole reason for attacking had made more sense in the first place. Aside from the skirmishes in Stormhiem, the Horde and Ally have been getting along fairly well for the most part for a while now. There needs to be a better reason behind the start of the war than Sylvanas being paranoid. I'm surprised they didn't use Genn to start things off since he probably would have had the best murky reasons for starting a fight. Hes got a personal grudge against Sylvanas, wants his city back and has the personality of someone who would probably be willing to go behind Aundin's back a bit. I would be more willing to believe that an attempt to take back his city with new Azerite weapons snowballed into a more personal vendetta against Sylvanas, than I am willing to believe that Sylvanas would march half way across the world to burn the home tree of a race she had no personal issues with in a fit of anger and single out their largely neutral leader for murder.
If Genn felled Undercity in a personal vendetta, having Sylvanas march on the city the worgens use as their personal refuge would make a little more sense. And the loss of her city would make the burning more believable.

[Wain]

Found this funny, had to share

love it


The thing with Genn Greymane is that it's still only a few years' game time from when the Forsaken rolled into Gilneas unprovoked and wiped the place out with blight. So even if they had acted first in this expansion's prologue, they would still have a degree of justification, and not just 'destroy it to destroy all hope'. But I can't see Anduin going along with that plan anyway.

[cowmuflage]

I'd think going against Anduin's wishes would be a good plot to go with at some point. Maybe even a civil war type thing with the Worgen not agreeing with Anduins veiws etc.

[Setanta]

I'd think going against Anduin's wishes would be a good plot to go with at some point. Maybe even a civil war type thing with the Worgen not agreeing with Anduins veiws etc.

I think that is kind of an offset of where at one time you had like 8 kingdoms of humans to where you have basically one (well two once bfa is released).

The problem now is we still see Anduin for what he is..a young idealistic leader who knows more than he lets on most of the time, and seems to embody everything that one would want in a King. He seems to lean on Velen the most for advice, and Genn is second...the full time reintroduction of Jaina and presumably an "out for blood" Tyrande may start to bring a darker view to the alliance perspective.

On the other hand, isn't this the world that was dreamt of by the "anti green-jesus" crowd when they were very vociferous in their complaints about how Thrall was handled in the first two+ expansions of the game?

[Castile]

I actually had a massive rant planned but ill hold back for now and just say poor freakin furbogs!! They always seem to cop it and they aren't actually evil...always something sending them mad

[cowmuflage]

I actually had a massive rant planned but ill hold back for now and just say poor freakin furbogs!! They always seem to cop it and they aren't actually evil...always something sending them mad

Add in Boomkins to that list.