let me answer that, and i am not a nelf player.
1)Lordaeron was lost on sylvana’s terms, in fact, she was the one who destroy it.
2)she had time to prepare and evacuate civillians, so no civilians were killed.
3)The horde had the reinforcements in time, while the nelfs didn’t.
4)the nelfs were caught with their pants down where the horde killed everyone in their path and burned women,man and childrens alive.
5)Dazarl’azor isn’t an attack on the horde, is an attack on the zandalari.
6)we did the horde a favor killing rasthakan and putting the “strong prideful independent and open mind” ruler.
7)The attack from the alliance wasn’t “make a wound that can never heal”.
8)don’t forget sylvanas laughing and mocking alliance leaders to make us even more angry.
So when the alliance goes their way,murder everyone in their path, try to make “a wound that can never heal” and commit the biggest atrocity in the history of the franchise without losing anyone of importance and destroying the horde capital, then we can talk of payback.
so no, dazar lazor and lordaeron isn’t enough, the horde deserves to lose a city the same way the nelfs did.
Do you really want the Alliance to nuke a defenseless city of civilians?
Undercity was a clear military victory that forced Sylvanas into destroying her own capital.
Zuldazar is seemingly presented as an Alliance victory as well - a quick strike that destroys at least half of the Zandalari fleet and kills their king and escapes without much loss.
Teldrassil feels “worse” because it actually spurred the night elves to react. It impacted their behavior to reflect their loss.
Losing Teldrassil and Darkshore has led Tyrande to demand vengeance from her goddess and driven the night elf armies to a state of aggression not seen since WC3.
Losing the Undercity led Sylvanas to…continue reanimating more and more slaves that get arbitrarily called free-willed as the Forsaken brew up unspeakable monsters and plagues, perform horrific experiments on people and express general indifference to members of the other Horde races that die for their purposes.
I.e. exactly what they’ve always done, since WoW started, irrespective of anything else. Every now and then a novel hints at some sympathetic basic humanity still existing among them, but back in-game the Forsaken come across as little more than a new Scourge with their own Lich Queen, squatting inside the Horde and doing increasingly horrible things until the day she finally gets enough power to decide the Horde 's no longer necessary and begin a Scourging of Kalimdor.
Why? she wasn’t the one who started it. the horde did.
After teldrassil? Yes, in fact, i wanted that jaina did it in mop after theramore because it would be a escalation just like the horde did, they wanted to escalate? then let her escalate it more. but stupid morals stopped her. we would end up all dead? probably, but at least we would die in peace knowing that they payed.
And hey, if she did it then the horde would had to be the ones who forgives the alliance to the inevitable return of status quo. (i am fine with her dying as long as she does something like that) otherwise? yeah no. that didn’t happened.
i am not sure if you are getting it it was all on her terms, as she smirks :’ )
i am not denying that it was victory, i am saying that isn’t enough. not as long we don’t do the same that the horde did to the nelfs.
What i am saying is pretty much impossible, i know that.
but that is pretty much how elegy, war of thorns, or even alliance narratives are in general “bad things happens to good people”. this seems to be how blizzard loves to write the alliance and i hate it.
But maybe i am letting my salt speak from me.
so i just wanted to say why lordaeron and dazar’lazor isn’t enough and probably we will never have true payback due to the nature of the game. it sucks, but it is what we had, or that is my opinion.
Because hey, the alliance isn’t the one trying to do “a wound that can never heal” is like the writers knew exactly what teldrassil would be but they went for it anyway.
Zuldazar does count. UC doesnt, in a world with logic it would but this is BFA- the loss of that city was a 0 to the left on the forsaken’s population, ability to wage war and morale (literally only 2 ppl cared, nathanos and garden guy)
Nevermind the fact that sylvanas blew up the place in her own terms
As a former blizz employee i can confirm this is -more or less- what will happen:
-Azshara and N’Zoth start acting up, they bend over and spank both factions
-we fight them, sylvanas dies during the fight bc knaifu’s body led her astray
-saurfang raises his axe and yells: AZEROTH IS SAFEEEE
-bfa ends
So here’s the thing. Both sides have grudges. Alliance can point out more, sure, but both sides always toss away their squabbles, petty arguments, and the murders of thousands of civilians in horrific ways every couple of years.
This is World of Warcraft. After Garrosh was knocked off the Warchief chair, literally the only person in a position of real power among both factions to hold a grudge was Genn. Even Jaina was softening during MoP on the Isle of Thunder, and her loss was as great as Genn’s while also being more recent. Genn tried to assassinate Sylvannas, and it only was worth mentioning as an after-thought (at best) during the build up to war. A couple years before BfA, the only recent contact the Horde had with the Zandalari was not what one would call a happy one, yet when they find a Zandalari princess locked up in Stormwind, it was all like “hey you’re a troll! We have troll friends! That means you must also be our friend and we should break you out!”
Azerothians suffer from ongoing cases of amnesia. To the point where if the final boss of the next expansion turns out to be some memory-eating Lovecraft that has sat on the moon and preying on the races of Azeroth for millennia, nobody would be surprised. Hell, it might be a better received theme than BfA’s had going for it.
The only payback the Alliance will get in killing Rastakhan and maybe, eventually Sylvannas. Possibly Nathanos too. If you’re looking for more than that, I’m sorry but Amnesiuregos the Dread Eater of Recollections made everyone forget people other than those two were responsible for the war.
Give it another half-decade break and Blizz might throw us a bone with Tyrande pulling a Genn in Stormheim and we can have Horde players wax on and on about how wrong vengeance is, especially when its been soooo long since the offending/inciting action.
If the Horde wins a battle it is a total victory achieved through immoral or unhonorable means. Thus, alliance players want revenge but horde players are not satisfied.
If the Alliance wins a battle, its moral high ground prevents it to do as much dommage as the Horde. Then, alliance players want more wins as a payback to previous losses (Dazar’alor, Undercity) but horde players feel punished for wins they didn’t like for the most part (Teldrassil, Brennadam).
This is the eternal circle of hatred of the playerbase.
Everyone alllways jumps to the Mongols when they wanna talk about China. When’s the Manchus gonna get their time to shine huh? How many millions did they kill during their reign, let alone in their period of conquest? Would do the Horde proud.
People didn’t have a contention with Stormheim because “it has been soooo long”, people had a problem with it because the Horde and Alliance had made peace since Gilneas and Stormheim was a blatant breaking of that peace.