Anduin's Questline - Where's the Horde part?

#1 - April 19, 2017, 5:25 a.m.
Blizzard Post
Hey Blizzard,

We got news from MMO-Champion from the Live servers, no less! There's a whole chain worth of quests for the Alliance characters that centers around Anduin.

Having watched the whole thing on YouTube and pausing the video at key points to actually read all the text and NPC dialogues, I must say that thing is a gold mine for lore fans. There's quite a bit of character development there and story refinement in general. Seeing Genn and Velen actually do something (while still playing the roles of concerned grandpas) was a nice touch as well.

My question is... so where is the Horde part of the lore quests? I'm pretty sure there were LOTS of opportunities to tell something as amazing and heartbreaking as what Anduin just went through but we never got anything other than an edgy dead elf going out on a revenge quest. Again.

[EDIT3]

Ion Hazzikostas has voiced his opinion regarding this problem in the latest Live Q&A.
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/138463238
Time stamp: 1h13min30sec.
TL;DW from MMO-Champion (cross-reffed these points with Ion's actual words to make sure it's 100% accurate, just in case):
- Vol'jin is dead, what update do you want?
- Stories are told in a way that makes sense for the narrative.
- This felt like the right time to finish the Alliance story arc.
- The team doesn't want to force symmetry and tell a story where it doesn't feel right.
- Going back to the initial Broken Shore experience, the Horde did have an extra cinematic.

So there you have it. That's the most Blue answer that you can ever get - coming from Ion himself.

My personal take on all these points is, not surprisingly, covered in this very post so there's honestly not much to add here other than what I've already said.

Consider this thread closed. We have provided our feedback and this is the Blizzard answer. It is quite final.

[EDIT2]

Well damn.

Taliesin and Evitel have decided to cover this thread in their latest video. You can find it here: https://youtu.be/eBLjADmLDGs

They have discussed a lot of things, but guess what! They didn't get the main problem here either! Or even read the TL;DR in this updated original post here where it's spelled out in the most simple way possible for reader's convenience.

Why. Just why.

[EDIT]
Alright, this thread got blue-tagged and the Blue, just as the majority of the people who replied here completely misunderstood what I talking about in this original post.

Clarification:
- More lore is GOOD and I'm happy for the Alliance that they got this quest line.
- Horde side of the current story event needs to be covered too.
- AP rewards from Anduin's quest line are irrelevant. Forget about them, they are not important AT ALL.
- Cinematics are NOT the only way to experience lore with. I don't care how many cinematics Horde/Alliance has compared to their counterpart. We also need actual story quests with quest logs, NPC interactions and character conflicts and develop BOTH factions further and don't leave them at a cliffhanger after the initial leveling experience to max level is over.

Quoting the wall of text from my later post couple of pages down this thread to give you a better understanding of where I'm standing and where I'm coming from:

21/04/2017 13:30Posted by Великогрив
You lads are still missing the key point of this entire thread.

This is not about the amount of cinematics. This is not about which faction's races got more screen time in these cinematics. It's about the lore. As in, the whole story and not just those juicy parts of it that are shown in the pre-rendered cut scenes.

The fact that some of you, like Honík and Immortall, are trying to dumb it down to specific events, "evening everything out" and counting quests and cut scenes speaks volumes about you not understanding the problem that I was trying to point out in the first place.

I'm talking about quests logs, NPC dialogues and the player character's responses to NPCs when you interact with them, about what's actually going on in the given faction during the unfolding events.

Was it good before, in previous expansions? No. You do quests while levelling, you get your story fix, and that's it. Well, unless you hit Accept Quest and Complete Quest faster than you can physically read those mysterious walls of text where you are told about what is going on and what you've just done. Then, after hitting level cap, it's all on endgame content to get more story.

I want to know what BOTH faction have been doing while I was levelling and while I'm progressing through the content that is being gradually unlocked.
I want to know whether Sky Admiral Rogers found out that there was a Dreadlord in place of Shaw in SI:7 and that she was manipulated to attack the Horde by the Legion based on her hatred towards the Forsaken for the destruction of Southshore.
I want to know why the Fel did the Forsaken race leader suddenly decided to piss off and go do her own thing right after delivering that speech to unite the entirety of the Horde against the Legion on the basis of getting revenge for Vol'Jin's death and why no one tried to question her.
I want to know how the rest of the people inside the Horde reacted when it became known what she was planning and almost accomplished.
I want to know what the actual factions are going through right now, and we got a glimpse of that in Anduin's quests for the Alliance side. What are the citizens' of Orgrimmar or Thunderbluff thoughts on the current Legion Invasion crisis? What are both Alliance and Horde specifically doing about this? So far the faction-less class halls have been the center of attention with faction political leaders being awkwardly shoved in because there's just no one else who is known well enough to tell the story with.

The Krasarang campaign in Pandaria was a great example of the storytelling done right - we got both sides of it, with controversies, conflicting viewpoints and vast development for both red and blue that lore lovers are still arguing about to this day.

If you are talking about cut scenes only and how much more one faction is featured in them over the other, you either didn't read what I wrote in the original post and just saw the shiny word CINEMATIC, or you don't really care about lore at all unless it's right in your face and you don't have to read it.

Alternatively, you are purposefully trying to be clever and steer the discussion toward such meaningful nonsense as the merger AP rewards from Anduin's faction exclusive quest line that wasn't even remotely the purpose of it.

Whole expansions in the past that were more heavy in narration towards a given faction and now YOU feel justified to feel good about yourself at others' expense? How could you even come down to such childish reasoning? The story SHOULD be balanced across both factions and it SHOULD be told in equal manner for both sides of he conflict.

TL;DR for the lazy cinematic watchers and counters: Blizzard, please step up the quality of your in-game storytelling - it's lacking in weird places and is comically skewed towards one faction or the other at varying times.
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Community Manager
#36 - April 20, 2017, 3:24 p.m.
Blizzard Post
The Anduin quest-line and cinematic is intended to tie together the loose ends with the leadership of the Alliance following the events of the Broken Shore in 7.0.

It's aimed to be similar in nature to the second cinematic Horde players saw following the 7.0 introduction quests which solidified Sylvanas as the new Warchief of the Horde.

We're forwarding on the feedback that Horde players are unhappy that Alliance players have a one time source of additional Artifact Power. Thanks for the feedback.
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Community Manager
#148 - April 24, 2017, 3:55 p.m.
Blizzard Post
Having been keeping tabs on this over the weekend I realise my original post really missed the mark. In my haste to post the details we received about the intent of the Anduin cinematic I didn't really do a very good job of addressing the points (other than AP) that had come up in similar discussions on the internet. It wasn't my intent to come across as disregarding, mocking, sarcastic or anything of the sort with my original post. I'm sorry if it came across that way.

We definitely hear that Horde players would like to see more story development for their faction following the events of 7.0, and likewise we understand that players of both factions are hungry for more story development in general. Both of those points were also included in the feedback we collated and forwarded regarding this topic, and will continue to be included going forward.