The other faction: my friend or my enemy?

This post contains minor spoilers for the quests in Deepholm and Vashj'ir. They're nothing major, but if you wish to avoid them, here is your warning.

As I have already written about, WoW circa Cataclysm has been less than consistent with its storytelling, and the same sort of mood-whiplash I wrote about before relating to our motivations in Uldum compared to our motivation in Cataclysm's other zones has shown up again. This time, it has shown up in how inconsistent Cataclysm's storytelling is in terms of how we should view the other faction: the Horde. Different people may have different opinions on how the other faction should be viewed, but I think we can all agree that if Blizzard wants us to feel a particular way about the other faction, they'll be much more effective at making us think a certain way about them if they can be consistent in enforcing that viewpoint. Now, Blizzard has said that they want there to be more faction conflict than there was in Wrath of the Lich King, so you would think that, with Cataclysm being a complete redesign of WoW, they would design the game to foster that kind of combative atmosphere, yet Cataclysm hasn't been very consistent with that goal.

This inconsistency shows up best (for the Alliance, anyway) if you quest in Vashj'ir first and then move on to Deepholm. In Vashj'ir--from the Alliance perspective, anyways--your entire reason for going there is to fight the Horde, for they have attacked us in our attempts to scout out a new land mass. But after finishing up Vash'ir, you go to Deepholm, where while searching for a fragment of the World Pillar, you discover that the Horde ship that was delivering it might have been attacked by the Alliance. Upon returning with this news to Stormcaller Mylra, she has this to say:

"The Earthen Ring is a neutral organization, [name]. We cannot pick sides in the war between the Horde and the Alliance. Look around you -- our members come from all backgrounds. Our mission would be compromised should racial tensions be put above our goal. Let's try to keep this under wraps until we have more information."

So in two sequential zones, we go from being entirely motivated by the need to fight the other faction to being expected to cooperate with them. Something just doesn't add up here.

The animosity in Vashj'ir was to be expected. Like I said, Blizzard has said that they want Cataclysm to reignite the fires of war between the Alliance and the Horde, and they have shown some effort towards making that happen. The Worgan starting area is an example of this kind of effrt, for it contains much Forsaken aggression against the innocent Gilneans, the kind that makes me as ready to fight them as they clearly are to fight me. This is exactly the kind of animosity that it seems Blizzard wants players to have for the other faction, and yet when we get to Deepholm, we are asked to put that animosity in check for the sake of saving the world. Many players have expressed their desire for the factions to stop their bickering and come together to save the world, and for once, we actually get it. But why now? Why, after so many instances of being told that we should hate the other faction, do we get to cooperate with them now?

We saw this inconsistency in other parts of the game, too. Northrend featured the event that forever cemented that the Alliance and the Horde would never cooperate again (the Wrathgate), yet also includes numerous examples of the players putting aside their differences to help out one of the many neutral factions on Northrend (the Kirin Tor, the Argent Crusade, the Sons of Hodir, etc.). And yet, in addition to this cooperation, we also saw many examples of faction animosity in Northrend (the quest Catch More Dispatches, the Gunship Battle in Icecrown Citadel). In Hyjal, we rallied behind the Guardians of Hyjal to save the mountain, and in Deepholm, we rallied behind the Earthen Ring to save the world. Yet in the face of trying to take down one of the biggest threats to Azeroth at the time (the Lich King), the factions still had an air battle. So it seems as if the only time we can get the Alliance and the Horde to cooperate is when we have a third party that they are both rallying behind; in other words, having a common enemy just isn't enough to get the Alliance and the Horde to put aside their differences. I guess that's just what it takes to get the two to cooperate.

As a non sequitur, I have often noticed that if you read the story that unfolds in WoW like a novel, it seems that the theme of that novel would be the destructive nature of faction conflict and how much good can be wrought when the two sides put aside their differences. In Hyjal and Deepholm, the Alliance and the Horde work together and save the mountain and the world, respectively. In Vashj'ir, we ride into battle ready to face some Horde scum, and we are attacked by a kraken and almost die. When we cooperate, good things happen, and when we don't, bad things result. Perhaps that's the whole moral of WoW, that cooperation is good and needless conflict is bad. That could explain why we veteran players often complain about the damage wrought by faction conflict: we have already learned that moral, and to see new content that is still trying to teach it to us means the game is re-teaching us something we already know. When that thing we already know is a moral lesson, and the game tries to teach us that lesson through demonstration, watching those demonstrations of why faction conflict is bad long after we have realized this fact is just frustrating.