Absolutely not. It needed to happen. Anyone who says differently wants Pillowfightcraft and not Warcraft.
Here’s how I’d do it. Instead of the War of the Thorns, have it be the Gathering that comes first and be playable in-game. Establish outposts in Stromgarde and on the Thoradin Wall, see the reunions between living and undead with varying results, talk to Anduin and Sylvanas and become an unwitting patsy to a conspiracy that doesn’t believe in peace and wants to arrange for war to break out again.
“Wait, what was that last one?”
Basically, it would be a conspiracy similar to what happens in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. Members of the Alliance and Horde work together (ironic, yes) to ensure that peace efforts are ruined and war continues. I figured that the members of the conspiracy would be Sky Admiral Rogers, High Warlord Cromush and a couple other new innocuous NPCs who are suspicious of the opposite faction’s true motives. They’ll have you snoop around the opposite faction camp, dig up some surprisingly incriminating intel and kill some people, then bring this intel to Anduin/Sylvanas. The fleeing Forsaken are attacked by the player on Sylvanas’ orders based on the intel you have, while the Alliance move to protect the people in the fields based on the intel you have. Calia is killed in action.
As a result, Anduin declares that Sylvanas and her actions irredeemable and leaves to prepare his forces to attack Lordaeron. Sylvanas isn’t naive either, and knows that war is coming and leaves to prepare the Undercity’s defenses.
At the end of this, a self-given quest pops up where the player, suspicious of how everything fell into place so easily, and you go confront Rogers/Cromush at the faction base. This is where you realize that both sides, and the NPCs you worked with during the investigative portion, were working together and conspiring against the peace. They don’t rub it in your face or gloat, only say that it was inevitable, explain the nuances of the plot at your request and then thank you for your cooperation.
The Battle for Lordaeron follows, during which the Alliance player tries to warn Anduin of the conspiracy, only to arrive too late as he has already began the siege of Capital City. Horde arrives in the middle of evacuation and defensive preparations.
Finally comes the War of the Thorns. Sylvanas lays siege to the Night Elven lands and the Alliance’s stockpile of Azerite as a response to the attack on the Undercity. The reason it blows up: the Horde is also using Azerite ammunition on cannons mounted on goblin ships that sailed to blockade Teldrassil, it accidentally lights up the Azerite stockpile located in Ru’theran Village (they attacked to destroy the docks) and it goes into flames, spreading quickly.
Of course, these are the broad strokes of my idea. There would be more nuances to it with fully-written quests and dialogue, but I think you get the gist of it.
3 Likes
No. Best to own up to it and press on, and not take lazy way out.
Aren’t they doing both? Pretending Teldrassil never happened while having the factions work together?
1 Like
This is exactly where they’re heading. Having a grump over people not liking Teldrassil and Darkshore so they’re trying to sweep it up and move on as quickly as possible.
2 Likes
We mught as well retcon all of BfA.
10 Likes
I am kinda mad that while this was advertised as a faction war it’s way more like an old god focused expac. I feel like if they portrayed the war as a bad thing from the start, like, uh oh guys we gotta fight again. Then they really could have made the entire fight seem like it’s the old gods fault. Now it just feel like there are some old god bits floating around in this look at how edgy we are faction war.
So I would have flipped it and had anduin attack lordaeron first because the old gods are manipulating him.
If Saurfang would actually finish Malf - i’d think about it
I’d have the Night Elves evacuate and then set the EMPTY tree on fire (possibly by setting off an Azerite bomb) just as Sylvanas’s forces arrive. I would hope that such a grand act of defiance would take some of the sting out of losing the city for NE players, and of course there’s no mass slaughter that way either. Horde players would still have the satisfaction of knowing they were about the capture the tree and that it can’t be used for transporting Azerite, so part of their objective would still be accomplished.
6 Likes
Don’t need to retcon all of it, just the war campaign.
1 Like
That would honestly mirror what ended up happening with the undercity a lot better than most solutions. Basically just give the Horde and Alliance Pyrrhic victories.
2 Likes
I’m sure every night elf won’t mind when Anduin gets all the glory in this expansion while the night elves chill out in the lobby if there’s a Sylv raid.
So… SoO 2.0?
They won’t be chilling, they’ll be participating in the battle! And so will everyone else that Sylvanas has wronged. It’s going to be great!
1 Like
Hey, Jaina was allowed past the lobby and she tried at least.
Night Elves didn’t even get into the lobby. They just held the door open for everyone else.
3 Likes
Blizzard will do that anyway in the next short story/book, so I will just accelerate the process as well
Jaina was the poster child for suffering from Garrosh’s crimes though not the Night Elves. I mean we’re still dealing with how sad it made her. I read War Crimes a while ago but I don’t even remember Tyrande talking about how the Night Elves were affected (I’m sure she does, it’s just not that memorable when 90% of the book was Theramore pathos).
3 Likes
Garrosh’s entire war was to take the Night Elves’ land. Even his speech to the Horde about why he was destroying Theramore was as a stepping stone to taking the Night Elves’ land. Chronicle even retconned it so Garrosh started the war himself to take the Night Elves’ land instead of it being a scheme by the Twilight’s Hammer.
And then Night Elves were ignored in Garrosh’s faction war from Cataclysm’s end game content to SoO, as you so well highlighted yourself. And so here we are again for MoP 2.0.
4 Likes
Not including something =/= a retcon. Blizzard said as much.