Horde Players: Do you want Ashenvale with the Armistice?

Lore Story Forum
706

The Horde should retain control of the land they had before the War of Thorns. It’s in their best interest to maintain control of Southfury River. It’s Orgrimmar’s main water supply. It’d be foolish to be downriver of the Alliance. I wouldn’t expect the Night Elves to resort to poisoning it (although enchanting it in some way isn’t off the table), but it’d still be incredibly irresponsible for a nation to allow their enemies to control their water supply.

The Horde had 5* non-contested zones to the Alliance’s 6*. That alone is a ~17% difference. And of the contested zones, there were more zones that the Alliance could rightfully claim as their land despite Horde presence, like Ashenvale and Felwood, as well as a number of zones that were “contested” despite there being zero Horde presence, like Redridge Mountains, Duskwood, and Wetlands (Horde has no quests and no flight paths, they are basically Alliance zones that allowed PvP). The only zone I can think of where the opposite is true is Thousand Needles. And this is not even mentioning Theramore, of which the Horde had no equivalent version of (lol Stonard).

It makes sense story wise for the Alliance to have more considering the Horde was still very young, but it could also have made sense for that not to be true, say if Blizzard made different decisions in Vanilla. Night Elves could have been a Horde race, for example, and all of their holdings could have been Horde holdings. Or the Echo Isles could have been it’s own zone. Or the Barrens could have been split into multiple zones from the beginning. There are a number of things they could have done but they ran out of time because the Alliance side was developed first.

.* Durotar, Mulgore, Barrens, Tirisfal Glades, Silverpine Forest
** Elwynn Forest, Westfall, Duskwood, Teldrassil, Darkshore, Dun Morogh, Loch Modan

Edit- I misremembered Duskwood as non-contested when it was, in fact, contested, so I restructured the paragraph to reflect that change.

1 Like
707

You’re right that many of those “contested” zones were basically Alliance only quest zones (Wetlands, Duskwood, Redridge, etc), but the very very terrible flip side of that on PvP servers is that Alliance can basically be relentlessly ganked and shut out of questing from what are basically their own zones. It all depends on the angle you come at it from.

The solution of course shoulda been that the Horde got a couple more zones of their own, rather than destroying the whole world come Cataclysm.

2 Likes
708

Don’t get me wrong, the way they handled it in Cataclysm was poor in my book, and I sympathize with the Alliance posters who dislike losing their land to the Horde. The point I was trying to make was that Vanilla was more generous to the Alliance (which, for the life of me, don’t understand how this is even up for debate). Cataclysm is a whole new discussion in which, yeah, Blizzard was cruel to the Alliance.

10 Likes
709

It was not only cruel to the Alliance too. It just all over sucked. Thousand Needles flooded? That big ugly scar in the Barrens? STV?!!

3 Likes
710

Making Garrosh warchief…

6 Likes
711

I’d be more concerned about being downriver from the goblins.

Yet Barrens was also almost twice the size of Ashenwood.
And Felwood was hardly an Alliance Zone. If you’re counting Felwood, then Stonetalon counts for the Horde.

And Thousand Needles definitely counts as Horde.
If you count faction presence by virtue of quests avalible to each faction respectively, the Horde had WAY more Presence there then Alliance.

And so much of what is considered “Alliance Land” is only because of their Proximity to their Capitals and their remoteness from the Horde.
So by that definition, a good 1/3 of Kalimdor belonged to the Horde.

Technically, The Horde’s equivalent of Theramore is Brackenwall Village.
It ain’t much compared to Theramore but it was more then the Alliance had in Felwood.

712

It was a Cataclysm. It was meant to suck for both the Alliance and the Horde. This is honestly how they should have handled N’Zoth’s invasion for 8.3. A whole lot of Old God and Void themed attacks on different lands all across Azeroth, maybe even him gaining control of these zones so that we were cut off from using flight points or inns or anything there and generally making its people start to think things might have been better if the Legion destroyed them. Then players having to struggle to get it all back before their final assault on Ny’Alotha, which, and I can’t keep emphasizing this enough, should have been at least an entire questing zone in itself instead of just a raid.

That, IMO, would have been a fun patch or even a fun expansion since I already said BfA should have been an Old God expansion from when it was first announced.

Nope. Sorry guys. Sylvanas is the personal waifu of probably more than one of the CDevs so they had to put her at the center of things first.

Shame.

3 Likes
713

If the character assassination of the Forsaken and Sylvanas is done because someone loves Sylvanas, I’d like to see what they do to someone they hate.

8 Likes
714

Spuddyc pointed out that I messed up on Duskwood, so I changed my post a bit, but the main points are the same. Just wanted to give a heads up so the conversation still flows in a way that makes sense.

Orgrimmar is actually upriver from the goblins, so that’s not an issue.

It’s true that the Barrens was huge, but it’s the second zone for three races, and as a result the Horde didn’t have a lot of choice/variation in their questing experience. Plus, the Alliance actually had access to a dock, a flight path, and neutral quests in the Barrens, which is non-contested Horde land. It’s also why the Crossroads was a popular town for the Alliance players to attack. Horde had no easy access to Alliance lands.

Felwood, to my knowledge, is Night Elf land by right, the same as Ashenvale. Horde just has access to it and can quest there. I counted Thousand Needles as Horde territory even before my edit.

Wetlands, Duskwood, and Redridge are Alliance lands because they were developed entirely for the Alliance players. They function just like non-contested lands in that they have absolutely no function for the Horde. There are no quests or flight paths for Horde in any of those zones. The only difference between them and, say, Westfall is you are vulnerable to getting ganked on PvP servers. That’s it. The only contested zone I can think of where the opposite is true is Thousand Needles, and even then, not really since the Alliance still had a flight path and a few quests.

Vanilla was more generous to the Alliance than it was to the Horde. That’s a fact. We can argue about why Blizzard did what they did, or whether it was the right thing for the game and the setting to put Horde at such a disadvantage, but it doesn’t change the fact that Vanilla was more generous to the Alliance.

715

Might want to recheck the direction of that River, since it’s flowing south.

WAS Night Elf land by right. Keyword being WAS. Lost it to the Demons and Furblogs thousands of years ago.
Pre-Cata, it only had a single outpost in a hollowed-out tree with maybe 4 Alliance NPCs.
EDIT: Sorry. 6 NPCs and a small house.

Horde had a larger Outpost there then the Alliance did.

That’s because those surrounding zones were ALL THAT WAS LEFT of the Former Human Nations. The Alliance Lost 3/4s of all their land TO THE HORDE.

I really don’t think you understand the meaning of the word “Generous.”
Considering how much the Alliance Lost to the Horde BEFORE Vanilla, the way I’m seeing it, it was MORE then even.

716

I think people are unable to distinguish gameplay reasons and lore reasons.

5 Likes
717

Wrong

Wrong again.

Read chronicle 3 and/or elegy and a good war.

New lore is mor legitimade then older source.

In short: the nightelves with the help of the pc, draenei and worgen kickem them out before mop even started.

Your discussion is so anoying. Whats your point, have you any problems with objective facts?

To wot

The nightelf civilians was a really difficult challenge to overcome for the entire Horde.

  • young stars
  • malfurion

Was almost to heavy for the horde.

This is canon since good war/elegy

The sentinelarmy + Tyrande was too much to handle for the horde and they lost.

Here have the nightelfplayer a point, so why discussing?
You don’t like it? Fine. Well, i unterstand, me neither, but i’m able to say.

In an 1on1 match between nightelf and the whole Horde in nightelf forrests, is the entire Horde in a weaker position

There were 3 attempts to conquer Ashenvale, three of them, each time the end of the attempt was a bitter defeat for the Horde in that area, and of course the Blitzkrieg worked for now, and Ashenvale was overrun, but the Table Missions showed that the Horde is getting a very bloody nose again, and are gradually being knocked back from every place they conquered in WOT.

So it was a complete waste of lives and resources, and without a Scourge, without leverage in the form of a city full of civilians, Saurfang saw it as impossible to hold this area, which is why Teldrassil was so important in his plan to use holding as a bargaining chip.

718

Since we can’t even agree on simple terms, I’m busting out the dictionary.

up·riv·er

/ˌəpˈrivər/

adverb

  1. at or toward a point nearer the source of a river.

The source of the river is Mt. Hyjal. Orgrimmar is closer to Mt. Hyjal than Ratchet. Orgrimmar is upriver of Ratchet. It has nothing to do with compass directions and everything to do with the flow of water.

gen·er·ous

/ˈjen(ə)rəs/

adjective

1a : liberal in giving :

b : marked by abundance or ample proportions

Blizzard, when designing Vanilla zones, was more liberal in giving Alliance players zones than the Horde. As a result, the Alliance had more ample proportions of zones, quests, flight paths, and general access to the world than the Horde did. Vanilla was more generous to the Alliance than it was to the Horde.

It doesn’t matter whether the Horde, in your eyes, even deserved the little we got. We aren’t measuring who was more deserving of more, we are measuring who actually received more zones and content when the game launched. The answer is unequivocally the Alliance. You even acknowledged this.

I’m arguing that Vanilla was more generous on both counts, but I made a distinction between zones like Ashenvale and Felwood, which are Alliance for lore reasons, and zones like Wetlands, Redridge, and Duskwood, which are Alliance for gameplay reasons and lore reasons.

1 Like
719

Character assassination of Sylvanas? Really? She’s always been selfish and vile. As far back as Pit of Saron where she merely scoffed at the death of Horde soldiers.
In Cata, Garrosh tells her, “Don’t use the blight against Gilneas.” As soon as he leaves, Sylvanas: “We’re using the blight against Gilneas.”
At the end of Siege of Org you click on her to see her comments on Warchief Vol’jin and find out she’s not exactly got any loyal feelings towards him. Evident now that we’re finding out she worked with the Jailer to set him up at Broken Shore so she could become warchief.

No, there was no “character assassination”. She’s been consistently vile since the beginning.

3 Likes
720

hes one of those players that ignored all the bad things sylvanas did cause it wasnt against him.

721

If your point was the Night Elves got help from the Alliance player in Cataclysm, the Horde actually were stalled out in their campaign in Ashenvale before the Horde player arrived. Even the bombing of Astranaar questline you posted the Alliance response for (though you didn’t also post the Alliance quest where Alliance players shoot the Horde Wyverns out of the sky) didn’t happen without the Horde player:

And then the Horde player leaves, and the Alliance player comes in and undoes everything the Horde player did, or as you yourself posted:

And now we have the additional information from Elegy that showed that the Night Elves took places like Silverwind Refuge back from the Horde without the Alliance player, who never met Anaris Windwood.

The Horde didn’t control any of Ashenvale before the War of the Thorns, though? This was even referenced in A Good War. The Horde had stayed out of Ashenvale after the Siege of Orgrimmar as part of the peace treaty Tyrande offered with letting the Horde use Azshara’s lumber.

Felwood is ironically one zone where Night Elves and the Alliance gained more presence and the Horde lost theirs in Cataclysm.

I’m pretty sure Faelia was talking about the Goblins in Azshara after the Cataclysm, not the Goblins in Ratchet that have been there since Classic?

4 Likes
722

Is that right? I hated the War of Thorns so much and opted not to read A Good War and Elegy. Seems like a terrible idea to give the Night Elves access to land that close to your city, though. Why does Southfury River have to be the border between Ashenvale and Azshara? Why can’t we call Falfarren River the border? What’s even on this side of Falfarren that the Night Elves want to keep?

Ohhh. That didn’t even cross my mind since the Bilgewater are settled in the harbor and don’t have any structures at the river. My mind went to Ratchet. Thanks for clearing this up.

723

The Night Elves and Horde used to be trading partners before the Wrathgate, seemingly even despite the Warsong’s aggression since Classic. The Night Elves and the Horde resumed cooperation after the Siege of Orgrimmar. Being that close to trading partners seems pretty practical.

Ironically it is the Night Elves that still have the structures at the river with Talrendis Point. This was most notable during the Legion Invasion pre-expansion events, where we saw the Talrendis Ancient had grown back and Night Elf forces still stationed in Azshara, and both helped the Goblins fend off the demons from the back gates of Orgrimmar.

724

It’s hard to know where the Horde stands with the Night Elves at any given point. Blizzard has never been consistent in letting us know, especially with Tyrande. If we had a solid relationship with her like we do with Velen, I would be less wary of letting the Night Elves in that close. She may be focused on Sylvanas now, but she doesn’t seem to be thrilled with the rest of us either. My meta brain doesn’t expect anything to happen, but if I put myself in the game, what assurance do I have that it won’t? Why give the one group in the Alliance with the biggest grievance with you an opportunity?

1 Like
725

The horde has to prove too the alliance they can be trusted not the other way around.

1 Like