I bounce back between WrA-A and WrA-H and there is a stark difference in the amount of swords. There have always a lot of swords on WrA, but I’ve noticed a steady shrinkage of people using swords. I’ve had several friends who have swapped factions because there are more swords on the other side.
My question is, why are swords dying out? Do people find sword lore and wielding one boring? Uninteresting? Have swords become toxic or is it the lack of sword guilds? Or is it that people just prefer wearing all the new fancy backpacks, bedrolls, and other back cosmetics now?
I’ve been to a couple of events on both Alliance and Horde, and it saddens me to see the lack of swords at these events in comparison to backpack turnout.
If you stopped using a sword, what was your reason for it? Will swords ever come back?
I mean, I’m going to be an absolute nerd here, but historically, swords were not a very common weapon.
More often than not, the bulk of the weapons would be, in order, Spears/Polearms, Maces, Axes, Swords.
Swords actually became significantly less useful as armor technology increased, and we went from leather armor, to studded leather, to chain-mail, scale-mail and eventually the various types of plates, most types of Swords became less and less useful.
A polearm allowed you to attack the enemy at range and keep yourself safe, and was highly versatile, being useful against enemies mounted on horse-back, against heavy armored targets and even, in a pinch, being used with another polearm to form stretchers or similar to carry the wounded from battle.
Maces have always been a valuable and useful weapon. Able to crack bone, bruise flesh, break shields and shatter blades, the humble mace, warhammer, tetsubo and the like only became even more useful as armor technology improved. A good strike with a properly weighted mace could cave in a breast-plate that could easily turn a sword-strike or arrow-head, causing the enemy to drown in their own blood and shattered ribs, break an arm or leg and render a valuable target unable to fight or run away, or even cripple the mobility of a heavily-armored target because you’ve ruined the piece of armor that allowed them to turn a part of their body.
Axes were very close to maces in terms of usefulness on the battlefield, combining the weight of a mace with the cutting edge of a polearm or sword, but an axe used for combat has a very thin, sharp profile compared to an axe used for lumber. A far less complicated weapon to wield compared to a sword, it also required less expertise to make one useful for combat than the absolute levels of nonsense required to make a functional sword, and significantly less metal. Many polearms included either an axe-like head or a spike to utilize the combination of weight, leverage and the focus of both of these things into a small area intended to crush or puncture even the heaviest of armors.
Swords, by comparison, became rarer and rarer as technology improved, and often were both a status symbol and a declaration of intent. Unlike an axe or mace, a sword’s sole purpose was killing other human beings. A mace could be used as a tool in a pinch, an axe could be used to cut wood, skin prey and the like, but a sword had only one function, and few purposes. It was a tool made specifically for killing other people, and given the requirements to both make a useful blade, and how much it would cost, a declaration of both wealth and power. One of the reasons nobility were often depicted with swords was both a declaration of both status and wealth, but in battle, the nobles would use more useful weaponry and leave the sword as more of a ceremonial tool, or one to be used to deliver the finishing blow, or as a last-ditch effort to save their own lives in a fight.
I’m genuinely unsure, given the responses, if this is actually about people not using swords or high art satire of people complaining about RP dying out.
Just bringing some levity. It’s been fun seeing two Horde posts about RP dying out and it also currently booming vying for top position. I know the nuance of one thread being older and recently necro’d but I figured RP is booming so we could do with a little satire of some of our previous worries.
I apparently made it too high-art, though. I copied the original OP maybe too closely, I think. I should have referred to Chuck Norris or something.
Maybe if alot of the swords weren’t so large and decorative. Some of them a half the width of the character. They need to redo some of the early swords with more graphic detail that they possess now.
Everyone crying about sword RP dying out and the truth is it’s because the bow is far superior. Going to snipe you from afar and them let you die a heroic death like Boromir did in the films.
I will admit. In any medium with swords, sorcery, and / or tech, my favorite character will always be the one that just punches things. That being said:
Caught me.