Actually, most Horde players I know think she has been ruined as a character. They don’t care much what happens to her, as long as is isn’t more “noble Alliance taking care of the evil Horde”.
The Broken Shore, which represented the largest single battle of the war, was a complete dissaster for the Alliance. The Horde also got mauled, but they retreated before the bulk of their army was destroyed.
It’s hard to tell with game scale, but it seems all the Alliance survivors fit on a single airship.
Actually the Horde retreated when they were overrun, with major heroes down. The Alliance started to retreat when they saw the Horde leave and before they were overrun.
And yes, by the “flexible” scaling Blizzard uses, the entire Alliance army could have arrived by that one airship.
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God. That would be a cool ending to this. One side just gets a cinematic amid some patch.
“We can’t press on much longer! We’re just out of people, my Fearless Leader!”
Fearless Leader slams their fists on the table.
“Dang it! Dang it all to heck! … Fine. Signal our surrender. Get envoys out to make contact with Enemy Team.”
Imagine all the ways things could unfold from there! One side giving up before the other would have been forced to do the same. Both factions just nearly completely run ragged and bereft of manpower and resource. And because the one surrendered early (Don’t care which!), they’re now at the mercy of the other. There’s a tension from the unspoken knowledge both carry, that this power dynamic is tenuous and artificial - unenforceable really - but for now they concede to the dynamic.
Could be fun!
The cinematic clearly shows an entire invasion fleet, Horde and Alliance ships.
The in game cinematic shows the Horde starting to lose, then Sylvanas calls the retreat. If I remember correctly Horde forces make their way back to the shore.
Further compounding the loses the Alliance suffers, we never meaningfully see Stormwind soldiers engaged anywhere in the Broken Islands. Night Elves and Worgen being the main Alliance forces. Elegy further compounded this by stating that the Kaldorei had the best remaining fleet in the Alliance.
It’s very safe to say that thematically and effectively that Stormwind suffered an absolutely crushing defeat. Their king, most of their fleet, and seemingly the majority of their army were lost.
Stormwind being the strongest single nation in the Alliance before this, and after this not so much. Stormwind is only meaningfully deploying troops to Arathi, and gearing up for the proper invasion of Zandalar.
Compare that to Wrath, Pandaland, and WOD and the wounds of war are extremely apparent.
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The point is that Blizzard doesn’t have any consistency in this. If they wanted to show the same number of people arriving in one ship, they would have.
You need to explain how this implies heavier Alliance losses.
But the message for the Horde was the same. It you play the Horde side, you get the same theme.
I guess I do agree that the army was more human and other Alliance races (IIRC). OTOH, Blizzard always shows the humans a lot. The fact is that the humans will always have as many people as they need for the next story. Of course that is true of all the races. I think there is some quote about the NE’s being reduced to a fraction of their original numbers, yet here they come attacking everywhere in Tides of Vengeance.
I don’t have a moment to full reply, but I’d like to reiterate that points akin to “Blizzard is incompetent at storytelling and numbers” is not a constructive argument. Especially when you use it, instead of lore arguments, as your rebuttle.
But to answer the proper rebuttle you made:
-The Kaldorei being a fraction of their past power: A fraction of a world spanning empire is still a potent number.
-I played the Horde side version of BS after the Alliance side. The take I got was that both suffered greatly, but that the loss was more heavily felt by the Alliance. Testament to this is that the new park is a Memorial to the lost of that battle. 1/6 of the city.
I miss Garrosh. He was a tactical genius that managed to ambush a full nelf force with the loudest contraptions the Horde had in their arsenal: the gobbo shredder.
True. Every time the nelfs faced an enemy in an open field they got wrekt.
I think you got your losses mixed up, bud. The poster emphasized the Horde breaking first. It’s obviously shown in the cinematic when Thrall needed Baine to carry him as the spirit of Garrosh laughed at his weakness. If the Horde fought to the end, they would have died and the Alliance army would have been surrounded. Luckily, Varian called retreated before that happened so the loss of life is comparably less.
The only reason people feel like the Alliance loss more was because Blizzard dragged on Varian’s sacrifice to emphasize the character growths of Anduin and Genn, and the end of his story line. Not only that, but like you said, they built him a memorial in the park. Compare this to the Horde where Vol’jin’s death is an afterthought only to prop up Sylvanas. The Horde isn’t known for their grand statues that give the players a constant reminder of a heroes’ sacrifice.
Why? They’ve admitted that details that go against their narrative get ignored. You’re looking for lore reasons that we can’t provide.
Neither is it useful to try and draw conclusions from aspects of the story that Blizzard has shown to be unreliable indicators of lore.
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Tactical? Yes. Strategic? No. Long term planning was a curse word to that guy.
I’m looking for bits of context that paint a bigger picture when out together. Ie; Trying to make sense of the actual world of the story. Blizzards done their best to get people to hate the story, and they are welcome to that.
Other people like to have fun and discuss the world and history of a setting that they enjoy without useless meta context throwing a wet blanket on the conversation.
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Have you read the novels to make this statement? It is said in several novels that the races of the Horde are much stronger than those of the Alliance. But just to stay in the main races, orcs are faster than humans, are stronger than humans, have higher reflexes than humans, and even have predator-like reflexes.
In addition, orcs can see at night, they can smell an enemy at great distances and have a stamina far superior to the Alliance races. Could you explain to me how this would make an army of creatures like this be less than Alliance footmans?
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So. . . they like to lie to themselves? Pretend they’re the actual writers? Have at it, World’s End Tavern is right next door.
With 8.1 it seems like the balance is 5000% Alliance Victorious. Super Night Elves are taking back Darkshore and killin’ Valks while losing nothing. Alliance destroy the Zandalari King, fleet, and people. Talanji sobs that the Horde is going to abandon them now that they are worthless garbage. Meanwhile, Jaina gets a scratch on her pinkie that she heals instantly.
well, they needed to make 8.1 an alliance victory.
and yet we can’t even feel good about that "the alliance achieved a great victory but at what cost? ![:frowning:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/frowning.png?v=6" ":frowning:")
"
we failed the ridiculously objective of cutting ties with the zandalari and the horde and we put mekkatorke into a coma and soon i will have the great aotc “defeat jaina proudmoore”
or the soldiers that died in the suicide mission.
all while the alliance is recruiting farmers because they are running out of soldiers.
so i don’t really see it as a crushing victory as you are putting it.
So you know why we’re upset?
Our immersion has been ruined due to Blizzard’s writing choices that are usually based on gameplay. That doesn’t appear to be a useless meta context.