Tauren-Are-Awesome
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Is faction antagonism story-driven or player-driven?
Spoilers for Cataclysm in this post, me hearties. One of the things I've noticed in my time back-and-forthing between Alliance and Horde toons is that each faction seems to have many, many vocal partisans who believe the opposite faction to be filled to the brim with churls, knaves and scalawags. Perhaps even hooligans and ne'er-do-wells. You see it all the time in general chat: "Those ally fellows are nothing but mountebanks!" Or perhaps: "Horde? Nothing but disreputable scoundrels, bounders and cads!" What I find interesting is how much of this factional divide is created by the game itself ... how much comes from quest lines and zone design and world events ... and how much is purely based on the players. It's true that over the past several expansions, we've seen a shift in the game itself from the days of the AQ gate event and the opening of the Dark Portal, when Horde and Alliance stood shoulder-to-shoulder against threats to Azeroth, to the present Wrath/Cataclysm direction when even Old Gods, Lich Kings and insane dragon aspects can't get the Horde and Alliance to cooperate. Still, until fairly recently, I'd never really felt much of the infamous Horde/Alliance hatred from the game itself. Even the Wrathgate /Battle for Undercity and the Broken Front quests didn't come close to matching the intensity of a forum flame war or a really acrimonious Wintergrasp battle. Playing Horde back in the day, you couldn't help but notice the perception of superiority Horde players (including myself, at the time) felt over Alliance. But the story didn't really have much to do with it.
All The World's A Stage: Impromptu RP Raiding
Hey everyone. I'm back. David is not tied up and gagged in his own shoe closet. And even if he were, there would be nothing you could do to prevent me from writing this column since, like Adrian Veidt, I'm doing it before I tell you about it. Fiendishly clever, I know.So, it's generally known (by those that care to know) that I play both Alliance and Horde. My horde play nowadays consists of my orc shaman who I am slowly leveling resto because I am an insane masochist and my tauren warrior, who is a raiding arms warrior.... mostly... because again, I am an insane masochist. That, and the abiding love I have for both the warrior class and the tauren race. As I said in yesterday's Breakfast Topic, I love pretty much everything about tauren. (Oh, and Karilyn, I did go stand back to back with a female tauren yesterday, and you're wrong and right at the same time. I'm taller, but she holds her head higher and stands straighter. I'm talled because my massive shoulders are higher than her head. She does look pretty freaking regal, though.)My love for my tauren is so oddly obsessive that I've taken a staff that was going to be sharded to wear around town (It's my walking stick) even though it cost me a shard to do it. It was that run, actually, that introduced me to a fun concept for the insomniacs among us. See, none of my characters are on RP servers, but if it's late enough and you're putting a PuG together of people's alts and unsaved characters (I miss half of the Naxx raids due to schedule conflicts) then it's possible to get 9 or 10 folks together who are willing to throw caution to the winds and actually raid in character.
