As it stands now, the Warfronts can go either way. They are content for the player that will likely last until the launch of the next expansion. With that being said, -Someone- has to be a winner, otherwise it is just more unresolved story (Granted, Blizzard has left plenty of stories unresolved).
I would expect the Alliance to win Arathi and Darkshore, only for one main reason. The retexturing of these zones seem to be pretty Alliance centric. Darkshore a little more-so than Arathi. Blizzard went to lengths rebuilding the Auberdine dock, with brand new Nelf Inns. Lor’Danel is completely retextured despite being completely untouchable with Blight. Meanwhile, much of the Forsaken structures are mostly copy as pasted from somewhere else.
I think this makes even more sense considering that The Southern Barrens and Eversong are speculated to be Warfronts coming in BfA. Which I would speculate to be the Horde Victories. Considering Eversong is a starting zone for the Horde, and considering the Barrens has more cultural significance to the Horde, similarly to Darkshore and Arathi respectively.
As happy I would be about a Night Elf victory, I also feel like that result would be predictable. So I have 2 questions for the Lore community.
If EversongGhostlands and The Barrens turn out to be the next Warfront. What would you like to see from it? An Umbric and Lor’themar face-off? Will we see Baine do something cool? Who would Baine be fighting in the Barrens? What would you like to see?
If Blizzard were to add a 5th and 6th Warfront, what would you like to see? Assuming one would be a victory for the Alliance and one for the Horde. Goblin’s vs Gnomes in Azsahra or maybe even Kezan? Maybe we see Genn trying to retake Gilneas after Darkshore? Maybe we see something in Northrend or Pandaria?
Let’s just say the Alliance won them all before Chronicles 5 confirms it. We know they are going to win this expansion in the end since they are the heroes of the BFA.
BElf Warfront would feel weird without Liadrin, but she’s on Arathi apparently. Maybe once that’s resolved, we can have a Void+High Elf team up vs. Blood Elves. Vereesa vs. Lor’Themar, Alleria vs. Liadrin, Umbric vs. Rommath.
I’m quite interested to see what Blizzard does with the warfronts after this expansion - do they keep running perpetually, like Wintergrasp? Or do they actually declare winners and use the new art assets as part of permanent revisions to the zones? But then what…do you stick with the old zones during levelling (presumably) and the new ones as soon as you hit level 110, or whatever?
Storywise, I’ve maintained that this expansion is unlikely to alter the zone balance in a significant way, so whatever one side gains has to be offset by a loss. So far, I think that Arathi will likely result in a de facto draw, but Stromgarde will remain rebuilt. I’m not sure if they keep the generic Horde base.
I think Darkshore almost certainly will be won by the Night Elves/Alliance. Which to me indicates that the next warfront, if there is one, is likely to be fought on traditionally Horde territory and result in a Horde win. Probably in the Barrens, though the Gates of Mulgore would be really cool. I don’t see Quel’Thelas coming into play, regardless of datamining, because Blizzard has been so fundamentally reluctant to go into those TBC zones.
If they announce Darkshore and Arathi as Alliance wins, and then they introduce 2 new Warfronts, it would seem the Horde would win the 2 newest ones eventually.
Would the predictability of the outcome take the fun out of them? Would it make the game less enjoyable simply taking turns each few patches? I guess that is what Warfronts do. We do not even know how they will be resolved.
There is always the option that the Alliance just wins the Expansion outright and all the Warfronts.
Considering what he’ll be getting in 8.1.5, I wouldn’t put any expectations on him leading a warfront any time in this expansion. I also makes me think that any possibility of a Barrens Warfont is kinda dead in the water. They have never built up any other tauren in a strong leading role and those who they have, Hamuul, is off doing something else.
I could expect Aponi to perhaps lead it, even just a random other class trainer, or one of the Highmoutain Chiefains in his place. Otherwise you are looking at Rokhan (again), Warlord Crawgol, or any other number of randoms. If you said to yourself “Who?” when I mentioned Crawgol, he was the one that told the first Warlord not to build Desolation Hold on a silithid mound. Yes, the Horde is so devoid of leadership the “silithid expert” is now somehow Warlord of the Southern Barrens. Let that one sink in.
I get a bad feeling we’re never getting a Cataclysm 2 and these places will stay deadlocked until a book clarifies, and even then they’ll stay deadlocked in gameplay.
Aside from Aponi, there’s also Sunwalker Dezco. I’m not sure where his character is supposed to be now. But it wouldn’t be odd to throw him into a warfront.
I am pretty confident we’ll get a Southern Barren Warfront, if you fly to the Southern Barrens, you can already hear BfA music in-game.
With that being said, with Baine’s story arch thus far, it makes me wonder what is going to happen with him. Maybe it’ll be a Horde vs Horde Warfront? I doubt they would do that though, unless also giving us an Alliance vs Alliance warfront as well… which is -possible- but I wouldn’t say likely.
Granted, isn’t Baine meeting with Jaina and Derek in Theramore? That might kick off some unforeseen events.
With Arathi they could split the difference and have the Alliance hold Stromgarde but failing to fully push the Horde from the Highlands.
Darkshore will almost certainly be a canonical Alliance victory, and there is some datamined stuff that indicates this might be established before BfA ends.
If the 3rd Warfront is a Barrens Warfront, then that could be the canonical unambigious Horde win.
I mean… do we really though? I am kind of sick of orcs v humans tbh. It would be cool if Shadowforge was actually revamped to be an actual capital city.
Issue is, personally, Dezco hasn’t been around for some time and was an advocate of peace more than anything. He’s probably still over in Pandaria secretly watching his son.
It would add a bit more diversity to humans, which is always nice. The less humanity is centered around Stormwind, the better.
I always wish humans as a race and the humanity’s=s history got a bit more screentime. Being the “cradle of human civilization”, essentially humanity’s Zandalar, you’d expect that humans everywhere - Gilneans, Kul Tirans, Lodaeronians and, er… Stormwinders? - felt something towards that place.
Human heritage armor questline exploring what it means to be human when???