Honestly I think the suggestion that the Horde should spend the entire expansion saving souls from Torghast ludicrous.
But in general, the Horde has reformed. It really changed its government quite a bit. From a absolutely whatever they say goes Warchief, to a Council of all member races and they get a vote on all matters. That to me is great and is how the Horde has already rebuilt and is moving forward.
But let’s also get another thing straightened out…no one WON the Fourth War. An Armistice was signed to end the fighting, and in essence return to the prewar state. Outposts were removed from Zandalar and Kul’tiras, lands taken were seemingly returned, etc.
War is bloody, and while the Horde did many terrible things in it’s history, the Alliance doesn’t have clean hands either.
But in short, I think we are already on our way to rebuilding a brighter Horde due to the reformation of the Government and not much else is ultimately needed.
The Alliance has made significant gains in the Northern Eastern Kingdoms that Exploring Azeroth Eastern Kingdoms says they intend to keep. Namely, the Arathi Highlands, Southern Hillsbrad, Gilneas, Southern Silverpine, and Lordamere Lake, in addition to it retaining its current holdings in the Hinterlands and southern Western Plaguelands. The Argent Crusade seems to have undergone a political schism as well with the Knights of the Silver Hand openly supporting the Alliance in the Fourth War, which could have implications for the faction status of Argent holdings in the Plaguelands (I doubt they’re eager to welcome the Horde back to Lordaeron with open arms even if their neutrality is retained)
The book is unclear about the status of the Tirisfal Glades. Shaw says it “belongs to the Forsaken” but he also said that in the context of talking about the region’s history shortly after the Third War, and doesn’t say whether the Forsaken currently occupy it, given that Undercity and Brill are both destroyed and uninhabitable and the Forsaken had no other major settlements in the zone and both in-game and in Shadows Rising we see that the Forsaken are still in Orgrimmar.
If they do return, it’s because the Alliance has allowed them to, probably as a gesture of goodwill in the hopes that Calia’s reforms happen and stick, paving the way for the Forsaken to be integrated with humanity.
Since there weren’t really any commensurate gains for the Horde in Kalimdor, aside from maybe Ashenvale (although I will be astonished if the Horde is still there) I’d absolutely call it a win for the Alliance in terms of territory gained. The Eastern Kingdoms is more fully united under Alliance control than at any point since the Third War (shoot, maybe even the Second given that Gilneas and Stromgarde had left prior to the Third and are now back,) and the regions that aren’t under Alliance control are pacified and defanged. Finally, all approaches to the Eastern Kingdoms are guarded and controlled by the combined fleets of Kul’Tiras and Stormwind.
It is frankly one of the biggest comeback stories in Warcraft history given just how dire a position the Alliance was in during the Third War and how marginalized in Lordaeron it had become in Cataclysm and it makes me and many other Alliance players very happy. Which is why the notion that the Horde should reverse those gains, or that they should be returned, or that they should be retconned sits so poorly with us.
Especially given that the Alliance has now lost BOTH of its major cities and strongholds in Kalimdor (Theramore, which was destroyed by the Horde and has been in ruins for 5 expansions and counting, and Darnassus along with the entire zone of Teldrassil) the idea that the Horde should inexplicably gain territory in the Eastern Kingdoms when they already dominate Kalimdor as a whole and thoroughly dominate Kalimdor south of Ashenvale (an area that is much larger than Lordaeron) is even worse.
I’m starting to wonder if I’m the only one here who has actually engaged with Shadowland’s story in any significant way given that apparently people interpreted my suggestion that the Horde pursue redemption by way of helping souls that they inadvertently sent into the Maw as “So you’re saying the Horde should LITERALLY just go to Hell forever?”
It’s almost like people intentionally assumed the worst possible faith and intentionally interpreted the suggestion as being inherently malicious because I have a blue background and therefore anything that I think is a good idea must in fact be a terrible idea for the Horde.
That does not mean they have made up for what they did, and they have not. I agree that the Horde is moving forward, but that does not erase their debt.
Don’t even try with the both sides nonsense. One side commited genocide, the other reacted to that event.
Can’t agree with this, at all. And I hope the writers doesn’t either.
During the BFA disaster, I tossed out the idea that maybe the Vindicaar didn’t take part in the conflict at all, because Oculeth & a cabal of his underlings kept teleporting it in random pockets of space whenever it got close to entering orbit.
It’s food for thought, if you’re looking for ideas to remove the laser space ships from the board in a storytelling capacity without escalating and making two.
Naturally I prefer having less flying gunships in a setting all together, but, a flying Necropolis would also definitely do it.
Not sure about you, but it seems to me, certain peoples idea of a horde redemption is ignoring BfA entirely and basically a certain group of war criminals(In this case the horde) patting each other on the back and going Okay, we’re redeemed even though we did nothing to prove it or show it
Much as people don’t want to admit it, the horde has no choice but to prove to the alliance it’s capable of changing for the better. I hate to admit also, but Ainhin is right to a point, criminals don’t get to decide whether they’re redeemed or not. It’s their victims who have forgive them after the horde proves its changed for the better.
In short, one side, the horde, can’t keep victimizing the other team and than want to pretend what they did never took place
I mean, you literally suggested horde players should spend as much time as possible in the Maw and Torghast, and that this would somehow make us feel better
That sounds indeed like a terrible idea to me.
Horde players aren’t criminals just because they picked Horde. People seem to be forgetting that. I get that it’s frustrating because their seems to be little recourse for one side but at the same time the Horde players only had the following options regarding BfA:
Play Horde, be wrong
Play Alliance, be right
Don’t play (personally, I chose 3 after about 5 weeks of BfA)
This is why I’m working on a hypothetical to build the Horde (primarily) without the following:
Continued narrative chastisement for picking Horde.
Making the Horde subservient to the Alliance
Turning the Horde into the Alliance
I’ve yet to see many (any?) suggestions from people that avoids those because it’s hard to separate the Horde faction from the Horde player. Make the Horde faction pay narratively and the players are going to feel it as well.
That’s why my hypothetical has moved passed Shadowlands into a different (again, hypothetical) expansion to start the rebuilding process.
I get where you’re coming from, but you can’t start the rebuilding process if the horde simply never pays a price for what they did during BfA. As I said, this isn’t about redemption, its about you guys wanting to forget BfA happened, and I get that, but until the horde pays SOME price, we can’t just pretend the horde didn’t commit a genocide.
And as many, MANY Alliance players rightly pointed out, there really is nothing the Horde can do to earn that forgiveness. For one, forgiveness is given, not earned. So the Horde could do what Ain suggests and “get out of his Flawless Moral Absolutism power fantasy” by atoning forever in the Maw. Or all move into some reservation of land so destitute that even survival is unlikely. But none of that guarantees “redemption”, least of all from a Race that lives forever and holds longer grudges. Literally 1000 years is nothing to an NE, but for most Horde races its like 10 generations or more, and those kids 10 generations removed from Teld are still likely to bare the sins of their ancestors (because the Horde’s victims live perpetually and thus generational drift does not exist).
So, after many, MANY threads that all would eventually come to this conclusion (as well as the Alliance players essentially demanding that the Horde players be punished for Blizz using our Faction as a plot device; on top of the active shaming by Blizz’s own writing team for how they wrote our faction) … “Grand Redemptive Acts” became far less appealing. Because they were simply not practical, as there is no real way to escape those chains. And the discussion turned into this one, where the focus should be on rebuilding the Horde. And “redemption” or “forgiveness” would merely have to come as potential byproducts of the faction and its people “doing better”.
I disagree. And again, replace every instance of Horde (faction) with Horde (players). Now tell me, is that something you’d want to play? The game you play for enjoyment is telling you that you screwed up for the sole purpose of choosing the faction you enjoy.
“Yeah, Horde pride! How’s the game going to put us down today?”
Or
“Gee, I’m really looking forward to being punished for a narrative decision I had zero input in.”
Not in my hypothetical. Not everyone is Erevien.
Again, you assume that Horde players are wanting to move passed that narrative decision they had no choice in as wanting to ignore it entirely. You’re right that some would rather retcon it because it was a terrible narrative decision that was executed terribly. But if we linger on that event until everyone is “satisfied” with its resolution we will literally go nowhere because everyone has a different opinion on what a satisfying resolution is.
Sigh When I say the horde, I don’t mean the players, I unlike so many, can and do separate the two. But the Faction itself does need to pay for what it did during BfA.
It’s just my honest opinion and I just hope you guys understand that
Reminder collective punishment violates human rights and is not an acceptable method of reparation by most survivors of genocide, and all the leaders who ultimately had a direct hand in what happened are either dead (Saurfang) or are defectors and soon a raid boss (Sylvanas and her Dark Rangers)
Fair enough, I’m not trying to beat up on you guys personally, I hope you know that. I just decided to be more open and honest about how I actually feel. And don’t get me wrong, I do want the best for the horde players, but it just feels like so many people forget there’s a whole other faction in this game too and players, who like it or not, you do have to consider their feelings on the matter.
