That's what we're afraid of.
It has been the Alliance's experience that things happening is never a good thing.
Yea, I'm just kinda done empathizing with this uber-skeptical, "we've been burned before" type of response to anything regarding faction content and story. The cynicism and sense of despair coming from Alliance players whenever story progression is discussed in any capacity is starting to come off a little forced. It's definitely not very useful.
Soooo... what? We've just imagined all these issues?
We imagined Southshore getting turned into a sludge filled wasteland with no Alliance reprisal?
We imagined the Alliance being driven out of Andorhal?
We imagined the Horde getting the end to the Worgen storyline with no Alliance access to that story whatsoever, and having to learn from third party sources who Ivar Bloodfang is and why Godfrey is a Forsaken in Shadowfang Keep because you can't discover these things ingame without playing Horde?
We imagined the Goblins getting an entire zone revamped to be their 10-20 experience while the Worgen get shipped off to Darkshore to be forgotten (which is especially frustrating as the Ruins of Gilneas is an empty, unused zone. Why not turn that into the Worgen 10-20 zone before they leave)?
We imagined the Park getting blown up, killing the proposed Worgen District, and instead being reduced to a tree at the outskirts of the second least visited capital city in the game?
We imagined the Horde getting an epic intro to Twilight Highlands while the Alliance intro is cut and is instead reduced to a ride on a Dwarf's plane and a fade to black before arriving?
We imagined it when Fandral Staghelm, a Night Elf plotline that's been percolating for years, was instead used to service the story of Thrall?
We imagined it when the betrayal of Benedictus, a Human plotline that's been percolating for years, was instead used to service the story of Thrall?
We imagined it when you turned the once and future Horde Warchief into a character which even Alliance characters had to follow around, instead of using someone like Nobundo for the Alliance side?
We imagined being denied a victory in Stonard, only disarming the Horde there while allowing it to continue to exist, while the far more important Alliance counterpart to Stonard, Theramore, gets totally annihilated?
So did we just imagine all that stuff (nevermind all the stuff I've forgotten)? Apparently so, because you labeled the destruction of Theramore as the first move in a chess game, as if nothing had ever happened prior to that when clearly the Alliance has been taking constant hits over and over since the end of Wrath and throughout the lifespan of Cataclysm. And what has the Alliance done in return? Watched Sentinel Hill burn for all of eternity, and barely even noticed there was a war going on... until we're abruptly introduced to the war only to be told "Oh, you lost. Well, time to move on".
I understand the need to balance the number of zones and I support it, but that doesn't mean that the Alliance has to lose damn near every single battle that occurs. You guys could've easily worked in Alliance victories over the Horde throughout the Alliance leveling experience in zones which would've remained Alliance controlled. You could’ve built in an awareness of the war on the Alliance side throughout the entire leveling process just as you did on the Horde side, instead of only having brief acknowledgements about the war before jumping back to having the Alliance getting screwed by other events unrelated to the war.
The frustrating thing, though, is that you haven’t just received criticism, but constructive criticism as well. Plenty of people have offered copious amounts of suggestions since even before the release of Cataclysm, and you’ve ignored every single one. For instance, since Cataclysm was in Beta, I and many others were suggesting that the Ruins of Gilneas be turned into the Worgen 12-20 zone. That the Worgen players get to stay behind and team up with Crowley, Bloodfang, and the 7th Legion and continue to fight the Horde as a member of the GLF. A questing experience which complimented the Horde questing experience in Silverpine Forest would’ve been great. And it wouldn’t have required you to take a preexisting zone and completely revamp it as you did Azshara, or create a wholly new one out of whole cloth. You could simply use the zone which is already sitting there, completely empty, and just populate it with NPC’s (quest givers, vendors, random NPC’s, monsters, etc). End the zone with the Alliance pushing the Horde back to Greymane’s Wall before the battle grounds down to a stalemate, at which point the player is sent off and has the option to either go to Ashenvale or Duskwood.
Suggestions were also made to alter the questing experience in Duskwood and Ashenvale to take into account the Worgen presence. These are two zones which are tied into Worgen lore as Velinde Starsong was in both zones with the Scythe of Elune, and each zone has something interesting to offer the Worgen lore experience. You could’ve fully repopulated Raven Watch into a Worgen town, put in a quest chain or two on the Dark Riders and why they were looking for the Scythe in Duskwood, done something interesting with the Twilight Grove, etc.
There were also suggestions made that you alter the ending to Swamp of Sorrows so that Stonard is, in fact, sacked and burned to the ground. It wouldn’t deny the Horde a questing experience in Swamp of Sorrows, as they wouldn’t lose Stonard until the end of the quest chain. But would it have really been so bad if the Horde had tasted defeat in Swamp of Sorrows and lost a small camp in the middle of a swamp which is in Stormwind’s backyard, and the Alliance had won an outright victory? I don’t see how there’d be a downside to that, but nope, that’s another suggestion that went unheeded.
It would’ve been nice if you guys would’ve completed the Alliance intro to the Twilight Highlands and given us our epic entrance to that zone. Better late than never, but nope, once dropped it was never picked up again.
And I won’t even go into my horrendously long suggestion for how the destruction of Theramore could be handled while still giving Alliance players a sense of pride. You can find that here.
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/3657610384?page=7#122
Point is, you’ve received plenty of suggestions from plenty of people who, many of which are very reasonable and very doable and involve only making slight alterations to present quests, placing NPC’s in places where they currently aren’t, altering some quest text here and there, or completing intros which you’ve already begun working on. So you can’t say this hasn’t all been useful as you’ve received tons of constructive criticism for well over a year now. That you’ve chosen to ignore every jot of it and even deride the justified criticisms which Alliance players have had for a while is a problem on your end, not ours.
And your solutions have been so far, what? A) Make Varian High King, and B) The Siege of Orgrimmar. First off, the Alliance is, oddly enough, an Alliance. It consists of parties on equal footing working together to oppose a common enemy. There shouldn’t be a High King to lord it over the other members. It’s one thing to select someone to lead the combined forces of the Alliance, like an Eisenhower, but nobody ever made Eisenhower Emperor of the Allied forces. Likewise, Varian has no business being High King over Darnassus, Ironforge, the Exodar, Gnomeregan, or Gilneas. At best he should just be the allied commander… which he is already, so what’s the point?
My other problem with this is that, as others have said, it seems like an excuse to justify not giving any development to the other faction leaders. Tyrande, the Council of Three Hammers, Velen, Genn, and Mekkatorque just all have some sort of role in the story, and at present they’re pretty much non-existent. It’s especially mind-blowing given how much development we’ve seen Sylvanas and Vol’jin receive along with Garrosh. Would making, say, Tyrande and Genn more proactive and more involved in the plotline really be such a terrible thing?
And lastly, there’s the Siege of Orgrimmar. You did it in Durnholde Keep. You did it in that insipid quest chain. You did it in Hour of Twilight. And now you’re doing it again. This siege isn’t about the Alliance. It’s not about the Alliance scoring a victory. It’s about Thrall. It’s not a victory for the Alliance if we help the Horde get their favorite Warchief back and unify them so they’re stronger than ever. Not to mention that it makes the Alliance look weaker than ever. Honestly, the Alliance is starting to look like the French of the Warcraft world. “The Alliance only beats the Horde when the Horde lets them” is pretty much what this situation is. Apparently the Alliance is incapable of laying siege to Orgrimmar without the Horde helping them out. Or rather, the Horde is laying siege to Orgrimmar, and they’re allowing the Alliance to help, seeing as how the whole point is to reinstall Thrall as Warchief.
Would it have really been so terrible if it was an Alliance only affair? That’d be a huge boost to Alliance players to be able to lay siege to Orgrimmar, while the Horde side was the Horde trying to defend against the siege and failing. PLEASE NOTE THE FOLLOWING: Losing a siege does NOT mean that the city is lost. It doesn’t mean that Orgrimmar is destroyed. It doesn’t mean that the Orc player base loses its capital city. It’s attacked and sacked, yes, but that doesn’t mean it’s destroyed. What it could mean is that the Alliance, after having conquered Orgrimmar, uses that victory to force the Horde to surrender with terms and gain concessions from the Horde in exchange for Orgrimmar*. A full withdrawal of Horde forces from Gilneas, for instance. A withdrawal of Horde forces from Dustwallow Marsh so that Theramore can be rebuilt. A withdrawal of Horde forces from Ashenvale and a cessation of all activity there. Having met those terms, the Alliance would then return Orgrimmar to the Horde and the war would be over. Now THAT would be a great end. It’d give the Alliance a victory without denying the Horde any cities while advancing several plotlines at once.
• (They certainly wouldn’t be able to get an unconditional surrender, because even with the loss of Orgrimmar the Horde would still be a force to be reckoned with. A surrender with terms is probably the best result)
Unfortunately that’s not what we’re getting since, once again, it’s all about Green Jesus.