It was a good while ago that Blizzard announced that, in the run-up to Mists of Pandaria, Theramore will be destroyed. Reactions have been heated, certainly, but I think that, if done right - and that's a big if - this could revitalize the story for both sides.
The reworking of the old world did wonders for questing and soloing up in the Vanilla zones. Having done pretty much every one of these revamped zones on my army of alts, I can honestly say that they did a fantastic job. Here's the thing, though: the Horde has a better story.
When it was announced that Garrosh would become Warchief - either as a temporary position or permanently - there was great outcry. It seemed that Blizzard was pushing this dumb jock as someone we, as players should get behind. Now, I don't exactly "role play," but I do like to come up with a plausible backstory for some of my characters - one that motivates what kind of titles and vanity items they might go after. Having Garrosh as Warchief allows you to make a decision about your character. Is he a Thrall loyalist, worried that Garrosh is going to herald in the Fourth War? Is she a Garrosh die-hard, who's actually pretty psyched about the impending Fourth War? Even outside of the Thrall/Garrosh dichotomy, you've got stuff like disenfranchised Trolls and Tauren struggling to survive in a world even more war-torn than it was before. You have Sylvanas going from a pragmatic, dangerous woman who is nonetheless committed to securing the freedom of her people and becoming a mind-controlling tyrant with basically nothing differentiating her from Arthas except that she's smart enough to make allies.
I think that Blizzard has a problem, which I think you could call "snowball storytelling." The more interesting and original something is, the more motivated you are to write about it. The complexity of the Horde - a people who are simultaneously afraid of returning to the evil ways of the past but also too proud to cast aside their warrior ways - is a compelling idea. So when it comes to the Alliance, I think that there's maybe not an overt hostility toward their stories, just a lack of a creative catalyst.
If the Horde is a group of people struggling between a desire to redeem themselves for past atrocities and a desire to expand and become the dominant force in the world, what is the Alliance, on whole? What I see is a kind of mirror image. Where the Horde was born out of bloodlust and aggression, the Alliance has always confidently considered itself the good guys. We need to see some evidence to the contrary of that.
As a brief tangent, let's look at the Worgen. I adore the Worgen. They are my favorite playable race (even though the very two classes they cannot be, the Paladin and the Shaman, are my two favorite classes... well, I also like Death Knights, but read the name of the blog if you don't see where this is going...) and they have the potential to be an excellent shot in the arm for the Alliance. They are not Horde-like, but even before they were all turned into wolf-men, Gilneans were not interested in sticking their necks out. They were confident in their own strengths, and had little desire to stick around fighting those Orcs they would have rather just put to the sword in the first place.
The Worgen should be a force within the Alliance that allows for team blue to do things it's not going to be comfortable with. We actually see a little of this in Silverpine - the Worgen who let themselves be killed to lure the Forsaken commander into a trap - but when the Forsaken have started employing Val'kyr to actually raise the dead rather than just providing a place for any free-willed undead to go should they be upset about the whole undead thing, it's kind of hard not to think the Worgen are justified. If you put the Alliance's darkest race up against the Horde's darkest race (wow, that could be misinterpreted. Let me specify that I mean darkest thematically) it doesn't really help the Alliance delve into moral ambiguity.
If the Worgen had been better incorporated into the old-world revamp, just think of what we could have seen. Maybe the Worgen have been torching Tauren villages left and right throughout Kalimdor. Sure, the Night Elves and even the humans are probably thinking "hold on a minute, let's not go crazy here. Burning villages? That sounds like the Horde." The Worgen just shrug and say "that's war for you."
Ok, so where am I going with this? Theramore. In Wrath, the dichotomy of Thrall and Garrosh was mirrored by Varian and Jaina. Thrall and Jaina, who are old friends and allies, always pushed for a reconciliation between the two factions. Varian not only saw his childhood innocence ripped out of his father's chest by an Orc, he also spent years abused as a slave in the Horde's world. Garrosh... I actually have absolutely no idea why Garrosh hates the Alliance at all. None whatsoever.
Moving on!
You might need to do a little motivation gymnastics to pull this off, because even during Cataclysm, Theramore has clearly been supporting the Alliance military action in Kalimdor. But I like to think this is kind of their "Lend Lease Program," and that the destruction of Theramore has to be the Alliance's Pearl Harbor.
We haven't really seen much of the Alliance's strategies against the Horde, because most of the zones with the most intense fighting are Horde leveling zones (Horde gets Azshara, Silverpine and Hillsbrad, Alliance mainly fights non-Horde villains.) We can kind of infer that the Alliance has been pulling their punches. The closest thing to a serious attack was the destruction of Camp Taurajo, which, if you do the Alliance side of that zone, you realize was a total snafu (it also happens before you even get there.)
If Theramore gets destroyed, the Alliance is going to have to pick up the game. That's all well and good, and I really hope they do, but there's still something the Horde has that the Alliance doesn't. It's not something that actually helps them beat their enemies, but from a story-telling perspective, it's absolutely crucial:
Conflict.
The Alliance gets along like one big happy family. They've even let the werewolves in and there doesn't appear to be any real problem with them (yes, I know that there is in the tie-in materials, but let's see this in-game.) When you start your Troll character post-Cataclysm, you realize that Garrosh and Vol'jin have literally threatened to murder each other, and that you really need to watch your step in Orgrimmar. I'd like to see the people of Stormwind freaking out about the Worgen in their city. I'd like to see growing evidence that Moira's planning to sell out the Alliance in a bid for power. I'd also like to see a division grow between Varian and Jaina. Jaina's always been the calmer, peace-loving one, but with Theramore destroyed, I think we could see some serious shifts. Maybe Jaina takes it too far. Let's have more people like Ivar Bloodfang (as seen by Horde players,) eschewing "honor" in favor of killing their enemies.
What it boils down to is choice. What kind of Alliance player are you? I've often thought that while my main, Jarsus, has always hoped for a future where Horde and Alliance are united, Oterro, my Draenei Death Knight, would rather just see the Orcs exterminated after what they did to his people on Draenor. There's very little in-game story in which to explore those types of choices. So if I can make one, quick soundbite of a suggestion, it's that they give the Alliance a choice.
No comments:
Post a Comment