And exactly why would the Horde want to destroy their own land and capital? And no, trying to lay a trap in case you couldn’t hold it doesn’t make it an “objective”. Given the Alliance strength, it was just good sense. And, in fact, that trap failed completely.
And the idea that she inflicted very heavy casualties is based on a scene where the exclamation was “She’s killing her own people”?
The Alliance forced Syvlanas to destroy her own capital and lands in a failed attempt to lay a trap. That is a victory no matter how it doesn’t fit “we never win” meme.
The stalemate in Darkshore and losing their fallen to the horde is about all the “revenge” they will most likely get. Then their story will be sidelined until Blizzard needs to beat up the night elves again.
I will be forever confused on what exactly in Azeroth counts as a fair fight, the Hordes abhorrence to Blight for example seems especially confusing considering that we’ve seen equally destructive weapons used by both sides, just not in the same quantities. In a world where Napalm is confirmed to both exist, be acceptable for use on civilian infrastructure, the gasps of horror at being hurled at a military target will always make me arch an eyebrow.
I can only conclude that because of Wrathgate we put it under the category of some sort of special evil, even though the rank and file warlocks are several times worse then being hit in the face with chemical goop. Hell, even your run of the mill Shadow Priest is basically an extremely messed up Psi Op on legs that can also manipulate the souls of the dead, when you combine this with Silverpine questing it only gets more confused.
“So wait, we can still use blight, but regulations have it as watered down blight? It causes skin irritation, but judging your interaction this isn’t supposed to be how it goes, it’s supposed to kill it’s enemy right? So wait, the blight is supposed to STILL KILL YOU, but not kill you as hard? is watered down blight supposed to not kill you as painfully by killing you slower? or are you only supposed to be MOSTLY dead?”
As someone who has never said the Horde should be eliminated… I notice these arguments only present themselves when it is Alliance players asking for some victory. Horde players talk about eliminating the Alliance constantly, talking about how cool it is that Sylvanas is trying to eliminate the Alliance and end the war forever, and the consensus of this thread is that damaging the other faction in any way is something anti-fun that should not happen… does not appear when a Hordie says that. At all.
The Alliance has been bled BAD by the Horde since Cata launched, 10 years ago. The one thing you guys are saying should not happen to appease the Night Elf fans. That is 10 years of what you guys say is a bad play experience that will feel terrible for you to go through. And yet Alliance players did, without it even being a ‘retribution’ for the Horde; they did it just because the Devs wanted to ramp up stakes. And if you’ve been here for any length of time, all the talk red-side is how the Alliance ‘deserved’ that for things like ‘fighting back’ (Theramore) and ‘existing in the vicinity of the Horde’ (Southshore).
Do you red players have any sense of the other half of the playerbase as humans deserving to have some fun? Because from the statements made in this thread, I’m honestly getting the sense that you don’t.
The reason that happened in Cata was for balancing. The Alliance started with way more resources to level than Horde up until the revamp of the zone. It was done purely for balancing issues, not “ramp up the stakes.”
I honestly don’t care about the Alliance story nor about their characters. I honestly wish the Horde didn’t interact with the Alliance with the exception being teaming up to beat the big bad. Having their stories collide is never going to work. People will always be unhappy with something that was done.
Did I want to burn down those Alliance cities? No. I could careless. I would also dare to say not many Horde were demanding the Horde burn down as some Alliance posters talk about retaking Silvermoon/Lordaeron. Do some Horde players think it was a cool moment, sure but no one on these forums were demanding it.
I wish you all the fun to play the game, I just don’t want it at the expense of the faction I play. This works vice versa, I want the Horde to stop attacking the Alliance because ultimately it just wrecks them long term in the lore department where again the Horde loses more characters.
And at no point in this post did you bring up that the Alliance is another faction that deserves to have fun as well. You and others keep talking about how the Alliance has to realize the Horde is all of these things… but you just said you could care less about it. Kind of mixed signals, there, isn’t it?
Whether you care or not about the Alliance is not important, the important part is that, as paying customers, they deserve to have fun as much as you do, being part of a faction that cannot be deleted just to appease the bloodlust of red players, and neither should it be harmed this badly.
Also, Balance? Interesting. Now, the Horde has way more victories, and has all but crushed the Kaldorei people. And you and others are saying there should be not ‘balance’ to that.
Arazlok with respect, while it is true that it was primarily balance issue, it does not abrogate the frustration and anger within the Alliance playerbase. Because it is a zero-sum interaction. This is the problem with anything involving the faction war. To gain those new zones, it came at the expense of Alliance setting items. Furthermore, Cataclysm was a crapshow where it comes to Alliance lore, especially on the Ek, AND the fact that the continuation of the Worgen story can only be experience by playing through the Forsaken starter zones.
These are fundamental issues that have not been really addressed, and part of the total of Alliance player grievance. As much as you may not care about the Alliance story, Asher’s point is that there was little empathy as illustrated by your post toward the Alliance players except with how it impacts your own story.
alliance losing those places could have been by external factors that weren’t the horde, and yet here we are. with the feeling that we deserve to destroy the same amount of places.
Something not helped by the fact Blizzard seems to be actively encouraging us to hate each other, all that’s succeeded in making me feel is a distaste for both factions.
If I could make it so, my background would be purple instead of red or blue.
I agree 100%. This is why faction war story lines never work. Blizzard can try to bake in a victory for either, but majority of people will never see it as a victory. Also I truly believe Blizzard loves the fact the players of opposing factions hate each other. Sadly I think it helps market the game better to the lowest denominator, the problem though it they make only the Horde do the evil acts. It feels as the developers are trying to make people who play Horde feel like they shouldn’t be playing the faction.
Which says nothing about Horde losses or whether they were just as big, or greater, than the Alliance. And it seems quite reasonable that ,if the only time her side was on the offensive was because she had to kill her own people, they were high also.
You get that scene to give Anduin something to emote over, not as a statement of relative losses (which can’t be so high as to prevent the Alliance from taking the offensive in 8.1). The reason there isn’t a Horde counterpart is a) since Sylvanas is evil, she doesn’t need to show any positive traits and b) In fact the horde lost people and the land they died on.
I honestly don’t know why people would think the Hordes losses were just as big. Sylvanas started evacuating the city early on and unloaded a WMD on the Alliance instead of fighting a conventional battle, resulting in the Alliance getting routed outright.
That the Alliance ranks actually broke tells me the Alliance was losing hard.
The bottom line for me is that I am so tired of being the villains in our own story, that lesser concerns like how much we win can’t even compete. And yes, the Alliance deserves to have fun, but it make it hard to care when they not only complain about something that you wish could be your problem, but many of them try and push a “Horde bias” meme and make themselves out to be the victim.
This I disagree with, your interpretation does not take into account that the Horde had already evacuated civilians, and atleast in game comes across as being very conservative overall. Also it feels like you are attempting to minimize Alliance losses in bad faith by stating it is so Anuin can “feel bad” when non-named NPC losses have been at the heart of the Alliance’s loss column in BfA.
Now, this does not resonate for reasons I wrote nearly 800 words one in its own post, but those losses are core to Blizzard’s telling of the Alliance narrative.
Well, you can make any claim you want about my motivations. As I can claim that the Alliance is trying to make their victory into a loss to justify demanding that rest of the expansion goes their way. That is why ad-hominem attacks are a logical fallacy. (See the wikipedia page on fallacies)
And all I’m doing is pointing out that there is no evidence the Alliance losses are much greater than the Horde losses (let along less than the Hordes) in the Battle for Lordaeron. Yes, those losses are part of Andiun’s narrative, but that doesn’t mean they are greater than the Hordes and it doesn’t mean that BfL was a loss. I am addressing the claim that the the Battle for Lordaeron was a “loss”.
Now yes, Teldrassil was a huge loss for the Alliance. But lets be honest about that. It wasn’t done for Horde players (for whom it was a “story disaster” that made them villains in their own story). It was done to make the Alliance noble heroes by making the Horde evil. And your foe can’t be evil without them having done something evil. And they can’t be a great evil without having done a great evil. The fact is that this is price you paid for being able to be heroes.
Now if you didn’t want to be the heroes, and would have preferred, for example, making Jaina the evil of the expansion, then I have some sympathy (though then you wouldn’t be demanding revenge so much). Otherwise, you are asking to have your cake and eat it too. You want Blizzard to screw over the Horde story to make you heroes and then for Blizzard to give you wins to make up for being made the heroes.
They could’ve even with Garrosh’s story. Contested zones could have a visible victory for one side using phasing. They did it for Theramore and Andorhal. The Alliance apparently won in the Swamp of Sorrows and Stonetalon Mountains, but there wasn’t any phasing to show it.
Alternatively they could have given them in writing. Iirc the Alliance lost every holding owned by Theramore. We also lost in the Arathi Highlands, with Stromgarde being controlled by ex-Forsaken in Legion. Not sure where all these Stromgarde humans are coming from in BfA.