This appears to be outdated as of Chronicles Volume 2, where we get a more detailed account of the fall of Stormwind and it says that Lothar burned most of the boats at Stormwind harbor so that the Horde couldn’t follow the refugees.
By the time Lothar declared Stormwind lost, the Horde had already breached the city and controlled most of it, with fighting ongoing in every corner of it. It was not an orderly evacuation that allowed for large numbers of refugees to be gathered and transported. It was actually so disorganized that the Queen wasn’t even able to secure a spot and died in the street-to-street fighting that was required for Lothar and his band to even reach the harbor.
Based on the descriptions in Chronicles, we’re talking about, at most, a few hundred refugees and maybe a couple dozen soldiers. Not even enough to found their own settlement when they arrived at Lordaeron.
Actual it says " when Lothar and the survivors finally reached the docks. before they set sail, they destroyed nearly all the remaining boats so that the Horde could not follow". I interpret that to mean most of the boats were used, but those that were not were burned so it could not be used by the Horde. Also the Horde did not control the entire city at the time but fighting had engulfed the entire city.
Why not? Gilneas was evacuted by boat(giant ships but still) Why can’t Stormwind?
Here is even the exact Wording from Chronicle. And even in Tides of Darkness there were never thousand of thousand ships, but only a few. The people there don´t even saw the boats but the people from the boots in the mist arriving in southern lordaeron.
most of the ships of the city stormwind were destroyed by the few survivors, there were enough to fill a few ships, the rest was destroyed by themself, and they lost almost all of it in the streetfights around stormwind, we get even in tides of darkness a few hints of doomhammers inner thoughts about the sacking of stormwind…and how unhappy he was because the orcs…harm the last remainer on a terrible way, but he didn´t stop them.
Again, reread it! It does not say what you are saying, it say, “destroyed nearly all of the remaining boats.” Meaning they got on boats and then destroyed nearly all the remaing ones. Not that they destroyed most of their boats!
Again, reading comprehension! " There were not hundreds but thousands approaching them, a veritable nation, more boats then they had ever seen before "
“The first boat breached itself, and ONLY NOW could the villagers see the figures with it”
But in tides of Darkness were never Descripted THOUSAND SHIPS! there were a few ships there aswell.
And i know, i know…gameplay scale and a little bit odd writing here and there…but we have never an information about …THOUSAND Ships, thats out of nowhere.
Maybe thousand survivor, yes, possible, but thousand ships? Never
(There were enough surviver to be splittet in half, one half was in southorn Lordaeron, the otherin capital city)
I just quoted you the passage. It specifically mentions the boats as being “thousands” and that passage could not be talking about people because the next paragraph talks about not being to see the figures inside.
It might be, but it only says they destroyed the remaining boats which does not mention how many there are. So in theory there could have been one ship, two ships or even a thousand boats of varying size used. It would not contradict the statement. This is the annoying part about warcraft lore, often things get soft retconned by things implying something else, but never outright defies what is already established. So we have to speculate.
let me quote Tides of Darkness.
Then finally it breached the fog, piercing its veil, and the shape divided into many and took on form. Boats. Many, many boats. The villagers relaxed slightly, for boats they understood, yet still they were wary. Southshore was a quiet fishing village. They had a dozen small boats themselves, no more, and had seen perhaps a dozen others through the years.
Suddenly there were hundreds approaching them all at once. What did this mean? The men grasped short wooden clubs, knives, hooked poles, even weighted nets, whatever came to hand. And they waited tensely, watching as the boats drew closer. More boats were emerging from the mists, an unending procession, and with each new row of ships the villagers‘ shock grew. There were not hundreds but thousands approaching them, a veritable nation, more boats than they had ever seen before!
If you actually read my quote then you’d see that the book calls them ships further down in my quote. Saying “Each new row of ships”.
All ships are boats, but not all boats are ships.
This is actually pretty easy to answer. If you check the picture of Lothar the boat/ship(again based on Skycaller’s quote it doesnt look like Blizzard makes a distinction) he was using was actually pretty small. One could reasonable assume it was a Dunkirk evacuation of sort with plenty of small fishing/small trading ships being used as well as the regular navy.
I wouldn´t call them ships…but fine, well, if this are the ships…we speak about then okay fine, maybe they are thousands but even then…this ships have place for…how many? 30-40 People?
Even thousand of this would only result in 30-40 thousand surviver and most of them never returned to stormwind.
30-40.000 surviver on a navy sized ship would mean…a few ships…(20-40 ships ca)
Or there are a mixture of both. If you look at the ship behind, it looks like a regular ship from WoW. Warcraft has never been great with population so I really doubt Blizzard thought that far ahead.
i doubt very strongly that this ships could even travel around the sea for very long…a storm there, bigger wave here, and this ship would be completly sunken…so yeah, blizzard never thought a bit on this regard…again.
but, tbf, Skycaller, you were right and i was wrong in this reggard, there were thousand "ships)
I’d imagine there’d be a mixture of both as they’d just get whatever ship they got their hands on, but I also advice on taking some game art at face value as there is still a lot of “rule of cool” going on, especially in background stuff.
Truth is that we have no idea how many are native to Stormwind, as with most wow lore it’s cobbled together and in one source it’s implied that there wasn’t many survivors even if not outright stated, and in another it says there’s thousands of ships. So we will never know unless blizzard outright states the right answer.
I also think this thread has strayed from its purpose of discussing forsaken population.
i thought we all have understand that population don´t really mater in this game…since they handwaved genocide and other huge problems in a single line, maybe two. So…renewal is the new rule of cool XD
That’s true, I’d not be surprised if in the name of renewal we’d have Calia group up the forsaken and living Lordaeronians only to turn them all into lightforged undead like her, in the name of renewal and forgetting old hatreds. Showcasing how they’re one people in Lordaeron, in the Light.
Would be one way to piss off a lot of people. All of the undead player base and a large part of the Alliance.
