Oh wow, no, I don’t believe that for a minute. If the writers are actually being consistent over the amount of dudes, there’d be no dudes left.
Okay, but serious response. Anduin’s “We’ll be calling up farmer’s next, man we’re almost out of dudes” statement does three things.
Justifies why the Alliance isn’t just dismantling and occupying the Horde.
Gives the Alliance a potential plot hook that will be ignored.
Justifies the Alliance working with the Horde against Sylvanas loyalists.
Where as the Horde’s “Oh no, somehow Sylvanas has enough supporters that our scrappy rebellion of most of the Horde’s leaders has no chance.” accomplishes three similar things.
Justifies why the Horde doesn’t just quietly fight their civil war by themselves while the Alliance watches on via a robot cat.
Establishes Sylvanas and loyalists as a threat that we can expect next expansion.
Justifies the Alliance working with the Horde against Sylvanas’ loyalists.
It’s a little ridiculous but… I see what they’re doing with the story.
I like to think that in Blizzard’s accounts department is a guy who, just for funsies, decided to tally up casualties and attrition from Classic to current patch… and discovered that this war has probably killed like eleven billion people or something.
Like by the numbers, the Alliance is just Shaw and Anduin’s horse, while the Horde is just one of Vol’Jin’s toenail clippings that is very slowly growing back into a whole new Vol’Jin.
True enough though i would really just like it if both sides didnt just get more people as needed out of the blue. I can take them always having an army but either side suddenly having tons more out of no where despite apprent massive set backs is just dumb.
Honestly the idea of either of these factions having a constant standing army is completely ludicrous.
Stormwind, Gilneas, Ironforge, and Silvermoon are feudal societies. Their “Kings” are dependent on the pliability of landed nobles, whom whom troops are levied to the field. Since every levy means that many fewer men filling fields, generating tax revenue, and defending the lord’s own land, they tend to not want their levies raised for too long. And a huge war as costly in lives as this has been is pretty much guaranteed to see the lords rise up against the king - or the commoners rise up against both.
The Orcs, Trolls, Tauren, and Night Elves are tribal warrior societies; the idea of a standing, professional army is probably a very new one to them, and their cultures are more about individual warriors, winning glory and, you know, avoiding death since all of these people are - per the damned lore - kind of on their last legs.
Meanwhile the goblins probably just hire mercenaries to fight for them, and the closest thing the Pandaren have ever had to a military in living memory are volunteer town militias and the - again, all volunteer - Shado-Pan
Of all the standard races, only three have any business fielding standing professional armies. The draenei have a history of their own advanced societies on Argus, followed by the necessities of constant defense when alternating between fight and flight from the Burning Legion. And the forsaken, since they have actually been organized into a race-wide standing army by a charismatic dictator bent on conquest. Said dictator has ditched them though, and frankly neither race has the numbers to begin with to make either army a realistic proposition. And then you have the Gnomes, who… actually make perfect sense to have mechanized infantry and military career paths.
Night elves were never tribal honor warriors. They were savage yes but there has never been a tribal honor culture. They had several wars and kept an army because their whole sacred charge was guarding the wotld tree.
Name me a night elf tribe you dont need to write a novel just name a tribe
Oh, I’m sure that somewhere it says they did have a big ol’ army. tens of thousands of dudes, no doubt, just waiting around for a century or eight for a silithid to pop up again or whatever.
It says that about all the other factions and groups too. Because EPIC! MASSIVE! ARMIES! BATTLING! is kinda the flavor of the setting.
I’m just contending that it really makes no sense at all.
General point is the night elves had a reason to have to have an army not like they exactly have fields to work or taxes to collect it seems.
At this point the races keeping an army makes sense given how many threats constantly pop up there is no way to get rid of them given you need them every year.
This statement is wrong. This was literally a ceasefire with neither side defeated since Honor Horde and Anduin didn’t want to fight anymore with a squid face coming.
This is already incredibly wrong. Genn, Varian, even the gnomes have all sent specialists or much more to aid the Night Elves before. Varian helped beat the Horde in a final battle for Ashenvale for example. There are examples of Alliance specialists in the questing area’s helping the Night Elves. Heck, the Draenei are even building an outpost for that purpose in far eastern Ashenvale.
Everything sucks for everyone in 8.3. Gallywix is still Goblin leader arbitrarily. The Gilneans get to reclaim Gilneas AND get Tess accept the curse … in a dream. The Forsaken are being installed with a pair of leaders that shatter their entire racial fantasy. The Darkspear wait three years to get a new leader and it come with a “Meh, guess I’ll lead … Mon” from Rokhan.
Also, pretty sure the Alliance of EK invested in this war as a result of Teldrassil, and nowhere has it stated that Anduin’s peace negotiations wont include the captured NE territories as a topic. The Alliance ALSO came to help the Kaldorei in Cata and MoP (why do you think Taraujo happened)? Are you being purposefully forgetful to ramp up your NE victimhood? Because what it sounds like you’re saying is that the other Alliance races should be more than happy to send their own people to die en-mass for the Kaldorei (not to win the War, but MERELY for the NEs revenge).
Which is a horribly bad focus of the narrative, it’s one of the major events that sparked the faction war. It should not be forgotten, and just used as an idle plaything for the Story to drive forward… not giving a resolution is a mistake. The Night elves and Forsaken have been abused for the sake of the story, not trying to come off as victimhood either, they just haven’t tied up their lose ends… maybe 8.3.5 will??
it has not been forgotten, every single patch there is a quoute “there must be vengeance for teldrassil” that is far more than many other plot points recieved and now is promissing to keep that story going with tyrande not being happy with anduin’s peace.
Now sure all that horde focus sucked but is not like they have forggotten about it.
The real problem here is waiting months or years to get a resolution.
Yeah true, and I am not saying the night elves and forsaken need from and center, but they need that story moment that says… yes, we have finally gotten what we need to begin healing the wounds.
Also with the info that has dripped in for the Teldrassil event during BfA has felt like they threw it in last minute.
It would be nice if they dealt with it properly in this expansion, but to be fair it has been mentioned/part of the narrative far more than Theramore was in MoP and Southshore was in Cata.
While I will agree that Teldrassil was not forgotten, the narrative focus for BfA is in fact, absolute garbage.
For an expansion that started with the sacking of the night elves home, you’d think the story would you know…involve that as it’s primary driver. But it isn’t and it’s at the end of the day treated like a side show.
Just like how this expansion made a big deal of us going to Zandalar and Kul Tiras, and once again they are more or less a side show. Hell Anduin the one everyone loves to hate and place the blame on for everything wrong with the expansion…is a sideshow.
This expansion was full of sideshows for sideshows in the middle of another sideshow.
I think the sequencing of information on the state of the war in game and the lack of any context in the game end up creating a confusing and nonsensical situation:
a) “We are calling up the farmers!”
b) “The Alliance is winning on all fronts!”
c) Horde Rebels plus the whole Alliance is not as strong as Sylvanas’ Horde.
a) and c) can logically flow together, but as soon as we throw b) into the mix it falls apart. If the Alliance is winning the war on all fronts (mere weeks from total victory), how can Sylvanas’ Horde be stronger than Horde Rebels plus the whole Alliance?
I get rule of cool, but they should try and at least have some internal narrative consistency.
True, even kultiras,zandalar, jaina,talanji,anduin hell even sylvanas feels like a sideshow when you have what it seems to be all THE CGI cinematics about saurfang.
so all of this has been… For saurfang’s story?
meh…