Ideal Horde Council set up

Lore Story Forum
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That’s because pretty much all human history that we know of happened in Lordaeron. It makes sense given the human relationship with Vrykul and its proximity to Northrend, but WC2 and WC3 were all Lordaeron all the time, and even the foundations of the Seven Kingdoms that were elaborated on in WoW were about things like Arathor and the Troll Wars.

Hell, Stormwind has been the capital of the Alliance for literally all of WoW and STILL nothing of any interest has happened there. Lordaeron is where the action is and always was. Stormwind’s defining feature is that it’s far away from where all the action is and a place where people can go if they want to live boringly.

Human players strongly identify/identified with Lordaeron because that was literally all that they knew. It’s the exact same circumstance as people claim it is for the Forsaken; Undercity is all they know, what would they do without it?

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I remember you saying that to me before. But maybe it’s just Lordaeron itself changed in a way you didn’t like, rather than them never owning it in the first place.

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504

Not sure what you’re getting at here. The Forsaken didn’t really identify with Lordaeron or humanity at large at all in Vanilla. In fact, if you played Forsaken and you saw the Seal of Lordaeron, it meant that you were probably in danger.

That changed in Cataclysm, but by then it was too late, especially when coupled with the Forsaken’s actions in Cataclysm.

Maybe I was just older when I started playing but I wasn’t stupid. When I went to Hillsbrad and culled peasants in their fields it was obvious that I was emulating the Scourge campaign in WC3 and that the comparison was intentional.

Anyway, the thing is, when I think of Lordaeron I think of the Kingdom of Lordaeron. I wanted Paladins, Knights, Wizards with long grey Antonidas beards. I wanted heroes who at least tried to do the right thing, I wanted wise but shrewd kings and nobles, and most of all I wanted to see how they reacted to the decimation of their homeland by an unimaginably horrible enemy. I liked them too. I wanted to see them succeed, as is the intent behind any kind of protagonist role.

It should not be hard to understand why I was not getting what I wanted from the Forsaken. I wanted to help Lordaeron recover from this calamity. Playing as Forsaken, not only was I not helping Lordaeron recover from this calamity, I was actively pissing on its memory.

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505

…abominations that constantly /flirt and shake their head to make their long silky hair swish around?

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506

The human in Classic Eastern Kingdoms loading screen is literally holding a book with Lordaeron symbol on it. I really don’t see how anyone can deny vanilla humans had heavy Lordaeron ties.

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I’m not trying to say you were getting what you wanted out of the forsaken; I know you weren’t. What I meant was that what you liked died.

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To be honest it would feel really weird to interact with them if they try to put levity into it.
“Haha, I have your entire family in me, and Bobrot over there was made from the kids that didn’t even make it to a ship”.

509

Maybe you’re right. But in other ways it lived on, which is something else that felt more present in WoW. Humanity was on the backfoot. Lordaeron had fallen, and yet its people and legacy survived. They retreated to distant lands and regrouped.

That was the scenario that the human player entered in. On the character creation screen, the human profile made explicit reference to how as a human you would be seeking to rekindle your fallen glory. The WoW Classic human opening narration finishes with “Now is the time for heroes. Now humanity’s greatest chapter can be told.”

There was always a prevailing sentiment that with time, hardship, and heroism, humanity could bounce back from the Third War and retake what it lost. For human fans this feeling never really went away, even as the game dragged on and on and on with no meaningful progress on that front.

From Vanilla through WotLK at minimum, human fans were absolutely being strung along and led to believe that soon, the day would come where they would return to Lordaeron in force, drive out the Scourge, and maybe eventually, go all the way to Icecrown to destroy the traitor, Arthas.

Which is why when Cataclysm happened, seeing that humanity’s situation in Lordaeron had actually gotten worse with the Scourge’s defeat, combined with the Forsaken suddenly strutting around talking about how they’re the True People of Lordaeron felt like such a goshdamned betrayal.

It really, really genuinely sucked. Cataclysm was to me what BfA was to you. Something died in me with that expansion and WoW’s storyline has never had the same magic ever since.

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510

Nah. Humans haven’t had Lordaeron since mid-WC3.
Even during the events, humans lose it and all human lordaeronians – save for a very small number of escapees – died and became forsaken.
WoW made it abundantly clear: The human alliance player character is of Stormwind, not Lordaeron.
WoW also made it abundantly clear: Lordaeron is of the Forsaken, who are the inheritors of their own lands.

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511

The leader of the Abominations is one that use to be multiple Blood Elf aristocrats and refuses to let go of her former beauty

Sold

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So I’m sitting here after having written just over 700 words about how I think I can relate more than you think because BFA was my second Cata since that expansion really, really sucked for me too, but I’m having a rare moment of a limited-yet-existent sense of shame that is making me hesitant to copy-paste it back into the reply box.

But the tl;dr of a lot of it was that BFA wasn’t just worse than Cata for me, but doubled down on it.

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513

No thanks. Seems like a very mean-spirited joke for something that shouldn’t be funny.

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514

Well funnily enough it was actually represented as the Forsaken symbol on the first generation of PvP shields, just on a red background. So no I think the Forsaken still used it to some extent - can’t see why the rest of the Horde would put a random Alliance symbol on their shields otherwise. https://classic.wowhead.com/item=18826/high-warlords-shield-wall

I don’t think it is. But I think Lordaeron’s identity shifted. The fact is, Warcraft 3’s narrative of Lordaeron focused not on its glory days, but its fall. The themes of the noble Kingdom of Lordaeron and their tragic fall to the Scourge are inseparable. The tragedy of that fall is huge, and can definitely be felt in its echoes - both the refugee population in the Alliance, and the undead remnants in the Forsaken.

Same, honestly. <3 My character here, Sarestha, is an undead former Paladin who’s tried to reconcile her new identity in death whilst also trying to remain at least somewhat true to her ideals in life. Not unlike the Desolate Council I guess.

I think this is one of the greatest failings of the IP, and frankly, one of the greatest tragedies from a storytelling perspective. The Forsaken have always had the potential to be presented in a much more nuanced and interesting fashion than they ultimately were. Scourge 2 has been a disappointing arc, both for the Forsaken people and for Sylvanas Windrunner.

I think the Forsaken have the potential to move that direction though. Characters like Lillian Voss have really been presented very well, in a nuanced fashion. She has Forsaken brutality, but also a sense of compassion, especially for others going through the trauma of undeath. Calia Menethil and Alonsus Faol, as undead probably involved in one way or another in a new Forsaken Lordaeron, have the potential to bring the themes of Lordaeron and the Forsaken closer together, in my opinion.

I think at the end of the day, this is why my sincere belief is that we need to share. The Forsaken and the Living Remnants of Lordaeron must, in some way, divide those lands between them and coexist in at least relative peace.

Furthermore, I’m a bit of a radical amongst Forsaken fans when I say the Forsaken really DO need to rebrand their image somewhat. I don’t think they should turn their backs on the Horde by any means, but I think they need to rebrand. Their constant evildoing cannot continue to be tolerated, by the Alliance OR the Horde. Even purely from a story point of view, to prevent themselves being entirely eradicated they need to become at least more morally nuanced! I’m not saying all evil aspects of the Forsaken need to be entirely expunged, but they can no longer be the forefront. The Forsaken need to learn to coexist with the living in the modern world, or else I can’t see why anyone would tolerate their existence at all, on either faction.

Reading over your posts at first I just thought you were unreasonably hostile to the Horde, but ironically I think a lot of our interest in this matter comes from the same source - the story of the humans and the scourge in Warcraft 3. I guess our difference is you saw the Forsaken’s evil and saw it as an utter betrayal whereas I guess I held out hope for the Forsaken’s human origins to be explored. I feel as if that’s happening slowly before us now, but maybe it’s not. I dunno.

Either way, I stand by my East-West Lordaeron divide theory. I think that way both parties, who have an equally legitimate claim to Lordaeron, can explore that aspect of their heritage while also creating some new Cold-War esque political plotlines… or alternatively, maybe even some degree of reconciliation. I can see that being a driving part of Calia’s agenda.

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Cata was when I rage-quit. I was an officer in a guild I helped found for raiding.

I’ve never tried to go back to raiding. I’ve never taken the story seriously since.

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Watsonian Answer: They are idiots.
Doylist Answer: The writers are idiots.

Daily reminder that while harsh, Durator as Thrall found it wasn’t as bad as it is now due to Daelin clear-cutting most of the trees and thus heavily contributing to local desertification.

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517

This is something that Blizzard itself doesn’t even remember.

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518

Right now, the big thing is the writers need to stop using catch phrases like “nuanced”, and “morally grey”; while reflexively falling back on Horde like the Forsaken as aggressors and bad actors.

It’s unbelievable as a Horde player to think: Here we go again.

And it’s unbelievable as an Alliance player to think the same thing.

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519

There was extensive discussion about this on the Wyrmrest Accord forum, back in BFA. But the consensus we largely came to was that the impacts sucked all over.

It sucks for Horde players to be marketed as isolated outcasts banding together, with noble orcs breaking the shackles of the fel, wise tauren living in harmony with nature and so on and so on, while constantly being hit with the villain bat, again, and again, and again. We go from beings of ostensibly noble purpose to full-blown genocidal villains again and again, and it’s exhausting, and feels like a betrayal to what we’re supposed to stand for.

It sucks for Alliance players to have no real internal development while constantly being forced to bravely respond to the Horde’s evildoing,… without ever getting a satisfactory resolution. Each time there’s a war the Alliance seems to react, fight, experience HUGE losses, and make peace with next to no consequence for the perpetrators of the horrors they’ve faced.

Blizz hasn’t been delivering on nuanced faction conflict at all, really. They do much better with Cold War than actual war. So I’d like to see more Cold War :stuck_out_tongue:

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520

It’s why that other thread trying to earnestly speculate whether Rokhan indicates whether the Horde is planning to attack the Alliance is ridiculous.

We all know that’s what the writers are going to do.

Again, the entire point of this thread is pointing out better lore is not only possible, but not that hard.

The issue that you’re pointing out is the struggle between Diasporas and the people who stayed.

Diasporas do not have more of a right to the land they fled than the people who “survived”, whether by choice or by force.

Lordaeron was literally everything north of Gilneas, west/north/south of Alterac, north of Hinterlands, and south of Quel’thalas.

The Alliance, in this hypothetical scenario, would control all that land except northern Silverpine and Tirisfal Glades. They would control all the Plaguelands (ie eastern Lordaeron), Hillsbrad Foothills and southern Silverpine (southern Lordaeron), and southern Silverpine (half of western Lordaeron). That’s literally just abouts 60% if not more of the original holdings.

And yet it is still not enough for him.

So long as factions exist, and they will and must exist because of the nature of the IP unless they do “WoW 2” and abolish the factions and instead we have a FF14 type universe, giving anymore is unreasonable.

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521

Exactly. Anyone claiming to have a strong cultural attachment to Lordaeron from the WC games is full of it, because it looks just like everywhere else in those games.

Yeah, well, Arthas killed all those. All long time ago. Get over it.

What IS hard to understand is why you ever thought that was a thing you might get.

I’ve said it before, but while restoring the Forsaken is something the characters might want, it’s not something any Forsaken PLAYER would want, as it undoes everything about what made them pick the character in the first place.

Don’t you dare waste precious San’layn materials to make abominations!

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