My favorite aspect of the Warcraft setting is the idea that both sides are good guys. It's easy to have villains, who tend to be self-centered, greedy, or zealous, fail to cooperate with other bad guys. Any would-be conqueror of the world is not going to be eager to team up with someone else who also wants to be on top.
But putting forth two factions that both, ultimately, want what is best for the world but nevertheless hate each other is an empathetic and actually quite realistic portrayal of what people are like. The vast majority of real people simply want to get by, live their lives in relative safety and comfort. It's the people who decide that that life can only be achieved by preventing others from getting their way that lead us into conflict.
Now, the Horde has a legacy of aggression. During the First and Second Wars, you really can't make an argument for their being good guys, as they had just come off a prior genocidal campaign against the Draenei and they were backed by the Burning Legion. They had made their own world unlivable and had invaded Azeroth, never once reaching out the locals and saying "hey, our world is screwed up. Mind if we move here?" Instead, their campaign began with death and destruction and continued that way until the end of the Second War.
But I also think that it's very much worth pointing out that the Horde as it was then was incredibly different than it is today. The Orcs have had Durotar for the last decade or so, and while it's a rugged land, it is unquestionably theirs. And Orcs are now just one of the many races of the Horde. The Orcs may have come as invaders, but they share their faction with plenty of Azeroth-native people.
Not only that, but many of their people have long-established homes that have been with their people for generations. The Blood Elves have their ten-thousand-year-old city of Silvermoon. The Forsaken... well, that's complicated and soon to be moot so let's set that aside. The Tauren have returned to their ancestral home of Mulgore, and their Highmountain brethren don't seem to be in any danger of losing their home territory either. The Nightborne are probably very eager to get the hell out of Suramar after being stuck there for ten thousand years, but they've got a home to go back to. And they're about to integrate the Zandalari Trolls, literally the oldest civilization with the oldest home city on the planet.
The Horde's not outcasts: it's the establishment.
And that's a kind of ironic place for them to be, given that that early Horde was so built on the idea of being exiled and struggling for a place to survive. Sure, you can argue that the Orcs, Goblins, Darkspear Trolls, and now the Forsaken have all lost their homes, but the Alliance has Draenei, Lightforged Draenei, Gnomes, Night Elves, Worgen, and Void Elves - which is actually more "Outcasts" than the Horde. (Granted, with the destruction of Undercity, the Worgen might be able to return to Gilneas, but that merely evens the factions for "exiled people.")
There's also a question of responsibility: Of these exiled Horde races, only one can really put the blame for their exile on the Alliance. Three of the Alliance ones can blame the Horde (you could say four if you count the Draenei, but I think they blame the Legion more than the Horde.)
The "both sides have their points" argument that I do believe Blizzard should be making (it is, again, I think the biggest strength of the Warcraft setting) is undercut by how we see the factions behave. The Horde starts conflicts. If you truly had a faction that simply wanted to find a place in the world for itself, you'd see a more diplomatic approach. Following the Siege of Orgrimmar, the Alliance did offer concessions to the Horde to help encourage peace. They ceded Azshara, and agreed to pull out of Orgrimmar and allow Vol'jin's ascension to Warchief. They didn't have to do that.
Now, the chaos at the Broken Shore at the beginning of Legion could have been mitigated easily if the Horde had simply sent envoys to the Alliance saying "hey guys, we're really sorry we had to retreat, but there was another portal behind us and Vol'jin got fatally injured and we were about to die. Crappy battle, am I right? Anyway, we should probably regroup and figure out a better way to fight these guys."
But diplomacy might not make for the most exciting story. Frankly, whenever I hear people talking about putting the "War" back in Warcraft I always feel I need to point out that we've been at constant war against the Lich King, or Deathwing, or the Iron Horde, or the Burning Legion. But if the conflict between these factions is necessary to the story (and has to remain in a kind of story stasis - to be frank, if this were a limited series of fantasy novels I feel like the obvious end would be a permanent merger of the factions) then the Horde's crimes and aggressions have to be mirrored by an equally culpable Alliance.
Which is to say that the problem with the Horde might not be with the Horde, but with how Blizzard writes the Alliance.
One could actually argue that both the Garrosh-era war and the Sylvanas-era war were started by the Alliance. In Wrath, there was a coup in Undercity that allowed Putress to employ the plague against the combined forces at the Wrath Gate. Besieging the city, the Alliance killed Putress and then Varian, having seen the whole Royal Apothecary Society and its plague-making capabilities, decided that any Horde that allowed such work to be done needed to be destroyed.
Likewise, while the Broken Shore events sparked the conflict, it wasn't until Greymane went hunting after Sylvanas in Stormheim that the two factions began to truly clash - fighting to prevent Sylvanas from enslaving the Val'kyr.
See, yes, the Alliance is technically starting these conflicts, but in both cases, they're doing so in response to something horrific the Horde has done.
It's rare for us to see the Alliance acting in cruel or selfish ways. The only really good example I can think of the Alliance pursuing its war against the Horde without regard for the world as a whole is when SI:7 kidnapped Thrall on the way to the Maelstrom in the Goblin starting quests. Thrall was of course needed to help stop the Cataclysm, but the Alliance was interfering with that.
Yet in nearly every other circumstance, when there's a chance for peace, the Alliance gives the Horde the benefit of the doubt. And that makes the Horde look like assholes for acting like brutes.
So how would I fix this?
Well, one idea I had a long time ago was having a group of Draenei who are looking for revenge against the Orcs for the genocide on Draenor - a relatable motivation, but one that could get out of hand. Like, maybe their goal is to just wipe out the entire Warsong Clan, even those who were born after the massacres.
Another is to make use of the Alliance's more morally questionable races. I've never felt that they properly used the Worgen. Yes, Genn's more aggressive attitude has helped push the conflict, but they're still operating like humans. I want to see some creepy wolves stalking through the night, hunting their enemies for sport. We see a little of the hardcore methods used by, for example, the Bloodfang Pack in Silverpine. I want to see way more of that type of Worgen. The type that would strike at the weakest and maybe even eat their foes. Seriously, guys, we've got freaking werewolves on the Alliance. Let them be real monsters!
And of course now we'll be getting the Dark Iron Dwarves and the Void Elves. I get that they're trying to introduce some new nuance to the Light/Void conflict, with X'era representing something of an evil or at least not exactly good version of the Light. But I feel like you could use the Void Elves' ability to touch the edge of madness to inflict terrible curses upon their foes. Imagine a Horde quest chain where you come to a village or something where people are going insane, and eventually you find out that the Ren'dorei are using their Void magics to inflict this upon the people in the name of the Alliance. The Dark Irons have a history of slavery and of course pyromania. The former might not sit right with the tone of the game, but having the Dark Irons torching Horde settlements seems perfectly in line with their MO.
The point is: the Horde needs a reason to hate the Alliance. Right now the only real reason is "they're the other side." Give the Horde a reason to hate the Alliance and the Horde will start seeming more sympathetic without losing any of its edge.
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