Well, looks like WoWInsider has put together a fairly comprehensive indictment of the treatment of Alliance lore in WoW, and it makes for a pretty compelling argument even if I think there are other conclusions to draw on how to revitalize the faction's story.
I'm not going to go into Horde lore here, because I actually think they're doing a great job with it at the moment. It's not that the Horde should lose what it's getting, it's that the Alliance should be getting equally compelling stuff to deal with.
The first problem that I think the article identifies is that all of Alliance lore rests squarely on the shoulders of Varian. Varian's a decent character, but even Hamlet needed supporting parts to be a compelling story. It's not simply a matter of how the other races are not given enough exposure (though that is totally true,) but everything seems to relate back to Varian. Now, Jaina's response to the operation in Darnassus was a nice little curveball, but we never really got to see how this would screw up talks with the Blood Elves. Varian's overtures to Silvermoon were only mentioned after the fact.
The most frustrating thing, I think, is that there are actually quite a few really great potential stories there within the Alliance, but after one expansion that involved pretty much only working with neutral factions (the biggest being led by a former Horde Warchief) and another that was supposed to be about how both sides have recklessly brought destruction to a basically innocent land, but has really turned out to be about how the Horde brought that destruction and the Alliance is simply doing what anyone would do, it seems as if the Alliance is a background player in the Horde's story.
The article suggested that what the Alliance needs is to be able to act proactively. The last time the Alliance did anything particularly exciting was the invasion of Undercity. Sure, back when Wrath first came out, we had been playing a game where the Horde was basically good guys, and Thrall was perhaps the most admirable person in the world. To see Varian get so pissed off that he decides to carve his way through the Undercity, and then declares his intention to destroy the Horde entirely gave a lot of us pause. It seemed that we had, all of a sudden, a warmonger for a leader.
In retrospect, Varian was probably right in his intentions. When Sylvanas retook her city, we gave her the benefit of the doubt, accepting that the plague research had been meant as a weapon against the Scourge, and that Varimathras' coup was meant to make the Forsaken out to be just as evil as people suspected. Yet in Cataclysm, we discovered that, actually, the Undercity should have been burned to the ground, and that the Horde would be turned against the Alliance in earnest soon after.
The invasion of Orgrimmar should be the Alliance finally rising to the challenge, to prove that they are strong enough to take on the Horde. The Alliance needs to push back, to really rain destruction down on the Horde. There have been more than enough Pearl Harbor moments: the Wrath Gate, Southshore, Gilneas, Theramore. Yet the giant that is the Alliance remains asleep.
So here's what we need first:
A major offensive against the Horde, without any sort of cooperation or intention to leave their takings in Horde hands. I'm ok with SI:7 propping up Vol'jin, but when we hit the city, I want to see the Alliance betraying Vol'jin's trust somehow, showing that they aren't there to bring stability to the Horde. They are here for blood.
But Orgrimmar is going to be a joint victory, no matter how it plays out. This is required mechanically, and because Horde players should not be denied a victory (as I said before, the Horde lore is on the right track - we just need to bring the Alliance up to their level.)
No, Kalimdor is still going to be the territory of the Horde for the most part. But the place where the Horde is vulnerable most is not at the heart of their territory - it's Lordaeron.
Among the many missed opportunities for the Alliance to feel awesome was the way in which the Worgen storyline dried up. The Forsaken kicked the hornet's nest, but the hornets mostly just flew away.
I want to see an entire fleet of Alliance ships sail up Baradin Bay and land in the Hillsbrad Foothills and Gilneas. I want to see Sylvanas' empire crumble around her. Up until now, her trump card has been the possession of Val'kyr, stolen from the Scourge to serve her and raise the dead. Without the Val'kyr, she could never have taken Silverpine, and her battle for Andorhol would have been a total quagmire, if not an outright loss.
I want to see an army of wolf-men tear their way across the continent of Lordaeron, burning the Forsaken infrastructure the ground, and I want to charge through there and slaughter Sylvanas' Val'kyr. The Blood Elves may or may not enter the fray, but it strikes me that they would be ill-advised to do so.
And this would lead to the second thing we need:
The Alliance needs to have and deal with an identity crisis.
So I realize I'm focusing on the Worgen a lot here, but there's a reason why: the Worgen are an enormous ball of unrealized potential. This was supposed to be the race that could darken the Alliance, to bring a degree of moral ambiguity to what they were doing.
The Worgen are obviously the most motivated to defeat the Forsaken, particularly in reclaiming their country. But even if their feral nature is actually born out of a benevolent Ancient, the fact is that they are bloodthirsty and vicious. Even those that are good at heart must fight those strong instincts. The Forsaken have pretty much spent all the sympathy we might have had for them, and frankly I'm not sure if it would even feel that bad to see the Sepulcher or Brill put to the torch. If the Blood Elves did join the fight, though, that would give some potential to see the Alliance begin to question what they had done.
Graymane, remember, advocated the eradication of the Orcs following the Second War. He's a very sad and regretful person after losing his country and his son, but that could easily translate into a merciless bloodthirstiness. To Graymane, as well as some of the human or other forces assaulting Lordaeron, there may be no limit to what they could do against the Forsaken. Yet to an Alliance that values restraint (to an absurd degree) it might be very troubling to see their own people implementing a scorched-Earth policy.
Does Sylvanas have to die for this victory to feel sufficient? No. In fact, the campaign should be filled with problems, because...
The Alliance needs inner conflict.
The reason that it seems the Dwarves, Gnomes, Worgen, Night Elves, and Draenei have no personality right now is because they don't get to voice their opinions. Varian speaks for the Alliance, and the only time there was any conflict whatsoever between its members was because Varian didn't let Jaina know about his overtures to Silvermoon until it was too late. Now it seems that the one leader who could have caused trouble, namely Moira, is now towing the Alliance line.
That's bullshit, people!
I want arguments, I want fighting. We don't necessarily need two racial leaders who are actively trying to kill each other, but... wait, no, that would be awesome!
Though I don't want to bring power-level into this too much, part of the reason the Alliance feels weak is that the Horde, which is tearing itself apart, is still evenly matched for a perfectly unified Alliance. That makes Alliance players feel like chumps.
I want Velen threatening to leave the planet if they don't drop things to fight the Burning Legion. I want Tyrande to try to take over as the most powerful leader of the Alliance, believing herself far more wise and experienced than these short-lived humans. If we want Moira to try to redeem her Dark Iron brethren, then I want some other Dwarf to try to kill her (I'm thinking the Wildhammers. I don't think Muradin wants to murder his niece.) Gnomes! Gnomes should have something to do! And I think Genn Graymane should be making a list of how many hundreds of barrels of flaming oil he wants to use to burn the Undercity to the ground.
The Simple and Easy Way to Make a Course Correction:
It may seem daunting to try to create all this conflict from a point when the Alliance is blandly singing kumbaya together, but there's an easy solution. We just need to see the various leaders (or, what would be more exciting, new, rising voices in the populations) reflect the problems that we players are seeing. Players are pissed off that all we're doing is helping Vol'jin fight Garrosh? Have someone-in game say that. The thing is, we don't want Varian as a perfect leader guy. The whole "trials of the High King" narrative that we never really got anyway was invented as a way to make Varian the undisputed leader of the Alliance. I think Chris Metzen even said that the other leaders would "bow down" to him after he proved how badass he was.
Don't do that.
What's a more interesting story? A guy leads his people successfully and everyone gets along? Or a guy desperately struggles to keep a bunch of discontented people who have suffered a long and traumatic war unified while he faces accusations of weakness from ambitious rivals?
Hint: it's the second one.
Lastly, there's the problem of people wanting revenge. For a long time now, Alliance players have been strung along, suffering incident after incident, each of which seemed like the dark nadir out of which we would climb to take brutal retribution (there's even a spec of the class that was originally alliance-only called that!) on the people who wronged us. Yet we never get to. Helping Vol'jin take over isn't going to cut it. We need to strike at the Horde and leave them devastated. None of this equivocating or having "a little patience" (a scenario whose mechanics I enjoy, but whose message is kind of indicative of all these problems in the story.) I don't care if Prince Anduin is horrified by what we're doing. In fact, I hope he is.
Because if we can make such an earnest, genuinely good guy horrified by what his own people are doing, that's DRAMA.
And drama is all we want.
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