World of Warcraft It’s near and dear to my heart, as many of you will know. If you’re reading this, it’s probably near and dear to you too, and I’d love to hear your thoughts on it.
I just reviewed World of Warcraft: Midnight, and my review score mainly due to bugs and polishing issues. Whether it’s missing voice lines and texture bugs in Haranir, new talents that don’t actually work, crafting bugs, the Great Vault, and more…Blizzard’s self-imposed patch cadence is nice for content pacing, but it’s come at the cost of polish.
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Death of Horde and Alliance
Blizzard seems to be intentionally removing the Horde vs. Alliance factional conflict that has been a staple of the entire franchise for decades.
Since Warcraft 1, various permutations of the Horde and Alliance have fought against and in cooperation with each other to defend and rule the planet Azeroth.
The Alliance historically represented the classic Tolkien-esque heroic races: noble humans, druid elves, tough dwarves, and hardworking gnomes. There was a darker edge to it; It consisted of shamanic orcs, nomadic tauren, wild trolls, and twisted undead Forsaken. No matter what your preferences, there was something for everyone. But WoW has become a bit more homogenous over the years in this regard.
Under the guise of the game, WoW has added tons of new races to the Horde and Alliance split, many with fairly lame and arguably underdeveloped reasons for doing so. It’s gotten worse over time as more and more races are offered as “content” for expansions. Blizzard hasn’t been shy about putting gameplay before story expectations, and there’s nothing wrong with that—it’s something that comes from being a live-action game. But the core of the philosophy, in my opinion, is to undermine one of the most iconic and distinguishing factors of the game.
When players chose their race in WoW, you used to be presented with an entire story arc that explained your place in the world and gave context to your faction. Horde and Alliance players were previously unable to communicate directly and could even kill each other on servers with PvP enabled. It’s created a lot of memorable moments for me, but I admit that as an aging player, I no longer have time to be in the corpse camp at Blackrock Mountain. The ability to play alongside opposing faction players is convenient, and not at all lore-shattering when you consider that all players are essentially “mercenaries” of sorts. But the fact that it’s largely ignored story-wise aggressively undermines the sense of immersion that WoW used to promote.
WoW’s new player pitch these days is pretty simple and almost childlike in its simplicity. One zone for all the races, one dumb, 10 minute story and then you’re sent to one of the modern expansions – all assuming you’re a veteran player.
In the last few expansions, Blizzard has refused to create separate stories for both the Horde and Alliance playerbases. In past expansions, we’d effectively have two main campaigns offering different perspectives on the same story. It was a great reason to sub for one reason, but it could also pack a lot of flavor when done well.
It is in these storylines that we get information and context about each race, something that has been sorely lacking in recent expansions. We’ve seen the odd quest with an orc here or a dwarf there, but the game is increasingly focusing on “neutral” races as it emphasizes the Horde and Alliance player factions.
It happened to me at midnight when Silvermoon City, a Horde city, was openly attacked by Xal’atath and the Void. A giant hollow laser beam blasts the Sunwell. After twenty years of formal allegiance with the Horde, who did the Blood Elves turn to for help?
Night Elves. The Blood Elven probably killed thousands after participating in the burning of their entire city.
Not the Forsaken next door. Not an Orc army, but supposedly the core of the Horde. I was teleported to a newly built Night Elf city where, with only a pinch of doubt, they immediately prepared their armies to defend the Blood Elf’s Sunwell. i as their ambassador. I One who happily participates in in-game Warfronts on Darkshore, killing hundreds of Alliance NPCs and players and merrily burning Teldrassil, while pledging allegiance to the then Warlord Sylvanas.
Blizzard actively and intentionally de-emphasizes Horde and Alliance in general, but for Horde players it looks more and more like de-emphasizing Horde. It’s easy to throw conspiracy theories around it. Is Blizzard pushing “prettier” races to make the game more engaging? WoW now has about 100 different types of “elf” players, for example. As sentient zombies, the Forsaken Undead were central to the game’s entire story. Now they are nowhere to be seen. Because they seem too violent and unapproachable? Given that the Undercity is within walking distance of Silvermoon City, the reluctance to showcase Forsaken here in any capacity seems deliberate and deliberate. If there are narrative reasons for this, what is the explanation?
From a story and immersion perspective, the problems are pretty obvious. This means less content, less context, less flavor and reduced immersion. But above all else, I think it hurts the whole franchise’s sense of belonging and community – a key pillar of why the game remains so strong.
Killing Warcraft’s sense of belonging
World of Warcraft’s iconic Horde and Alliance have been a pillar of the gaming community for decades. Players who have historically identified with one faction or another, and Blizzard itself often leans into it with Horde and Alliance branded merchandise, hype at BlizzCon and other events, the game’s PvP systems … the entire franchise has historically revolved around it.
The Horde and the Alliance often put their differences aside to deal with a greater threat, but it’s too unrealistic for me to assume that these sentient creatures will forget all past transgressions, cultural differences, and values after just a few years of quiet peace. Blizzard knows this, and therefore does it for gameplay or ideological reasons rather than more sensitive, well-informed ones.
Blizzard created some anger Recently, it seemed that building the franchise around “War” made it “unaffordable” and thus limited its marketability. Considering how the game’s writing has been going lately, it’s hard to ignore these types of comments, even if they’re playful.
In terms of gameplay, it should be convenient to reduce friction between factions. Even as a player, as I mentioned, being able to easily group with friends from other factions is great. But this does not come at the cost of factional conflict, more importantly, the erasure of factional identity.
A big part of WoW for me is the sense of community the game has. It is an MMORPG after all. Blizzard is falling into the trap of focusing more and more on the mechanical, telemetric aspects of games and franchises – I can only assume that some spreadsheets have identified factional conflict as a potential roadblock to finding new players, as Blizzard avoided in an earlier interview.
I could be wrong, but I feel that faction identity is actually one of Warcraft’s biggest historical strengths. That sense of identity and belonging is how you keep players when they are no is playing I played the Horde because they felt isolated. I identified with this, and it felt healing to celebrate it in the safe context of a video game with other people who felt the same way on some level. It’s not as deep as some want to make it out to be – to me it’s just fun. Beating Alliance players with a Forsaken villain with a missing jaw and exposed bones is far from realistic. I feel weirder than ever in modern WoW as their past behavior is being glossed over by the game’s increasingly “safe” script.
If it’s about wanting to avoid real-world parallels, I’d argue that virtual tribalism with elves, werewolves, and foxmen is a healthier way for people to express themselves, as long as it stays in the spirit of fun and humor.
Turning WoW’s races, factions, and characters into a homogenous sludge that behaves the same way, with the same values and morals, does a disservice to both the game’s story and the game’s larger, diverse community. People have different perspectives and motivations for playing, and Blizzard has generally done a great job of appealing to these different play styles. But one area that ultimately suffers, in my opinion, is around faction identity.
The passion and personality surrounding the Horde and the Alliance cannot be eliminated as a result of the board meeting. Many players have decades of experience in this world. This is a history of decades. Blizzard’s current game players intend to drop as quickly and sometimes randomly as possible. If Blizzard is doing this because they think it will appeal to a wider audience… I think they are getting the history wrong. But hey, I could be wrong.
If you’re a WoW player, I’d love to hear what you think about it.
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