Here’s another interview with Travis Day and Jimmy Lo, and also dated April 5, 2018. They must have been making the rounds that day.
https://blizzardwatch.com/2018/04/05/wow-developer-qa-travis-day-jimmy-lo/
Mitch: In terms of the story, were you guys concerned with having… it sounds like Horde being the ones to start the attack. Was there any point where you considered, maybe, the Alliance will be the aggressors to start?
Travis: So… who started it, right? I think it’s interesting – I think what we’ll find, honestly, is that, uh… you guys remember the intro to Legion, where we have the Assault on the Broken Shore, where Varian dies and Sylvanas had… she made a choice, right? She made the choice to retreat rather than letting the whole Horde die up on that hill, which they probably would have. She’s probably not wrong. She sucks, but she’s probably not wrong.
Mitch: Whoa!
Travis: Alliance, sorry. [Laughs]
Mitch [to Jimmy]: Are you Alliance?
Jimmy: Yeah.
Mitch: Sighs
Travis: In coming out of that, I think a lot of the Alliance players were really, like –trying to not swear — were really anti-Sylvanas coming out of that. And a lot of the Horde players were like, ‘Oh no, she made totally the right choice. Actually, the Alliance was just diving to their own deaths. To hell with them, let them die.’
So, I think, in the way that the story’s gonna be told, and the two-and-a-half/three pieces that are coming out ahead of time, where we’re actually gonna see the burning of Teldrassil, and what that’s gonna do is… hopefully leave it open to debate. I definitely think that you’ll come to the conclusion that Sylvanas burned the tree. But…
How much of the Horde is behind that? [That’s] up to debate.
And how much of the retribution is driven by the Boy King trying to prove his manhood, and how much is actually strategic objective? [It’s] also up for debate.