Bad press is only good if it leads to increased sales.
Everything I have seen is overall player engagement is down from Legion. People may be talking about it but are they playing the game still?
I don’t have the numbers to back it up, but I’m going to take a wild guess and say most of the people quitting didn’t do it over the story.
Heck, we don’t even know how many of those quitting just switched over to classic so Blizzard didn’t even lose anything in the end.
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It’s worth noting then, that prior to the War of Thorns, Genn attacked Sylvanas and the Dark Irons attacked civilian Goblins in Silithus, all based on the suspicion that they were “up to something”.
Those unprovoked attacks and that history of distrust is what Sylvanas was using to try and justify her own preemptive strike.
Also, you cited a certain other real world precedent. It’s worth noting that only a dozen individuals -of the hundreds of thousands of soldiers and millions of citizens complicit- only two dozen were tried, only half were put to death. The rest either got jail time, no decision, or were acquitted. Many dozens of scientists were also hired by the US to help them in their battle against the USSR… who ironically were of the opinion that the whole lot of them should be killed. And we saw how they saw fit to treat the East Germans. Justice, I suppose?
It was an ugly situation all around.
Decades later, the US, Canada and UK (and others former WWII Allies) launched an unprovoked war against Iraq under the rationale that they were going to attack first via terrorists wielding weapons that we later found out they never had. And that was before unlawful detention, torture of prisoners, use of white phosphorus on enemy troops, extrajudicial killings, civilian slaughters by Coalition troops, and other additional acts that could be categorized as war crimes were committed. Not to mention it directly lead to the creation of ISIS. The “people responsible” for allowing all that to happen -and continue- certainly have a lot to answer for. One can only wonder at what a “justified punishment” would look like.
I hope we bear all this in mind as we sit here and try to cite real world examples as precedent in how to deal with fictional characters in a videogame with moral authority.
Why is this thread still going lol
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We talk about WoW a lot. It’s moved on from the original premise of the thread, though.
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Maybe because the problem of Night Elves getting ignored after getting completely destroyed still exists and the story doesn’t make sense in any way.
Just a guess.
I mean tbh I agree nobody should preorder this garbage but a forum thread wont effect it and also people have got the point but you do you.
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They were up to something: creating weapons of war.
The Alliance has every reason to be distrustful, absolutely. But the Horde has had every single chance to demonstrate that they’re not scheming and plotting terrible things. Silithus being a prime example.
Anduin’s expressed goal was to find ways to heal the planet. Sylvanas wanted to use Azerite to make war.
Whether the justification in this case comes after or before the fact, the Horde was researching Azerite to build weapons for war. Case and point.
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Genn’s attack on Sylvanas and the continued attacks throughout Legion weren’t based on suspicion that the Horde was developing Azerite weapons. They were based on his mistaken belief that the Horde had betrayed them at the Broken Shore and that Sylvanas was “up to something”. He didn’t even know what. And the attacks on the Goblin miners occured before there were even Azerite to develop into weapons. The stuff was still being mined to find out what it was.
To people who weren’t aware of Sylvanas’ secret deal with the Jailer to cause as much death as possible by burning Teldrassil, the suggestion that the Alliance was preparing for war footing does seem reasonable.
Does the Alliance have a reason to be distrustful? Absolutely.
The Horde was wrong for attacking the Night Elves because they distrusted. But their distrust of the Alliance was not unfounded, either. But distrust is not the measure by which we determine what wars are rightly/wrongly executed.
Correct, I was talking about Silithus.
Depending on what order you do the stories in during Legion, yes - it can be reasoned that he knew she was up to something; there’s a quest in Azsuna which reveals as much.
And anyways, Genn’s actions in Stormheim probably saved us a lot more trouble during that expansion. Imagine if the “Horde”, via Slyvanas’ actions, had been targeted by Odin and the armies of the Titanforged as retribution for trying enslave the creations of the Titans. Does that sound like a great way to fight the Legion?
Sylvanas’ actions then, and in BFA, proved to be self serving; even before Legion, there was a precedent for suspecting she was up to no good, and that’s entirely ignoring the Broken Shore.
The attacks on the Goblin miners occured before there were even Azerite to develop into weapons. The stuff was still being mined to find out what it was. “The Alliance will develop Azerite weapons!” is exactly what the rest of the Horde was lead to believe as well.
If we’re operating with meta knowledge and assurances everything is going to work out for Genn no matter what conclusions he jumps to…
Genn should had went with Anduin to the Horde Champion and told them of Sylvanas’ plot and worked with them to uncover it and discredit her instead of just blindly attacking her. It could have denied her a situation to point at as evidence for the Alliance’s aggression. He could have stopped the War of Thorns before it even began.
Of course this is a silly meta argument. We can’t really determine what characters should rightly/wrongly do based on information and tropes we the players have knowledge of, but the characters in the story don’t.
We don’t need to operate on the meta though, because for these characters - specifically - there is no reason for any of them to believe that the Horde isn’t up to any good. 9/10 times that suspicion has been vindicated, and the Alliance’s actions have been justified. So, yeah, the characters should operate on the grounds that the Horde is gunna be the one to be up to no good.
I hate that it is written that way, but history has repeated itself way too many times.
This would have gone GREAT for everyone if it didn’t mean that Sylvanas would have successfully gained control of the Val’kyr. Sylvanas doesn’t putter around; she went for her goal. If Genn had waited, Eyir would have been in Sylvanas’ hands, and therefore, in Death’s hands. Bad for the Alliance, bad for the Horde.
And of course it’s a silly argument, but it’s still an engaging opportunity to discuss different points of view and factors with other players.
In universe, Thrall’s Horde Horde has been around some 13 years now, had 5 different regime changes, and in those years, it’s only been “up to something” twice. Under Garrosh and then Sylvanas, both of whom were promptly opposed by the second highest ranking individual Horde and a popular rebellion that saw them ousted.
No, the Horde isn’t up to something 9/10 of the time in universe. It’s only up to something when they decide want an Alliance character to attack the Horde, but want to downplay/retroactively justify it… and not even then. They weren’t up to anything when Daelin attacked, either.
If the people in the universe are aware of the tropes at play throughout the franchise’s, then they should have been acutely aware that Sylvanas was manipulating the Horde as her pawns and that all this fighting was unnecessary and focused all their attention on trying to expose/depose her and not wasted any time bombing goblins and orcs or invading Zandalar. Any destruction of troops is a loss, as it’s only a matter of time before a giant cosmic menace shows up, requiring everyone to team up to defeat it or else perish.
This would have gone GREAT for everyone if it didn’t mean that Sylvanas would have successfully gained control of the Val’kyr. Sylvanas doesn’t putter around; she went for her goal. If Genn had waited, Eyir would have been in Sylvanas’ hands, and therefore, in Death’s hands. Bad for the Alliance, bad for the Horde.
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No, she wouldn’t have succeeded, because the Horde champion would have helped him stop her without any kind of unilateral action.
I’ve heard conflicting info (so even I have no idea bloody idea anymore) but while it’s been 13 years for us, in game it’s been much less.
I wouldn’t call the rebellion popular in Sylvanas or Garrosh’s case until it came to the point of “oh, Horde people are being targeted as well”. These rebellions aren’t out of compassion for living beings, they’re out of desperation to save themselves. There is a huge difference to be noted there.
As far as it’s concerning the Horde v. Alliance story, it’s absolutely the case. Sylvanas was developing Blight with the intention of using it against the Living and the Dead. Wrath gate is arguable, but it’s there. The Broken Front in Icecrown was the Horde savagely betraying the Alliance mid-engagement, and costing either faction any foothold in the region. Cata’s faction conflict was precipitated by the Twilight’s Hammer, for sure, but Garrosh aggressively pushed into Ashenvale thereafter and it snowballed. Attacking the Blue Dragonflight to attack the Alliance at Theramore, was the Horde. Etc etc.
The most notable thing Horde players point towards that the Alliance did was Daelin following the Horde to Kalimdor.
Daelin was responding to the attacks at Alliance shipyards in Lordaeron where Thrall’s Horde stole ships and murdered the guards. He hunts them across the sea to Kalimdor. Who is going to stop and be like “Hmm, are these better behaved Orcs? Maybe they aren’t genocidal monsters… hmmm.”
And you nail this on the head, but the issue is that our characters and every leader is written as either chaotic or lawful stupid. It’s obnoxious that they run us in circles with the story.
Ultimately, we’re stuck being spoon fed disgusting crap and we just need accept that sensibility and rational, coherent narrative sequencing is utterly unattainable.
The mission tables do imply this. And the mission tables also don’t require the presence to be seen, as the point was those missions were done subtlety:
- Every war is fought on multiple fronts, <class>. King Wrynn has tasked Halford Wyrmbane and his 7th Legion with securing our position in Kul Tiras as well as Zandalar. But they cannot succeed without us. We are the unseen hand. The shadows in the darkness. I have been charged with establishing an elite strike force, and I need you to act as liaison between Wyrmbane’s efforts and my own. You will help direct our missions going forward.
Except now we know he was right. And in all likelihood it could be a plot point now that Sylvanas left things unclarified to the Alliance about the Broken Shore to promote hostilities between the two factions.
If I’m remembering correctly, Before the Storm made it so the Goblins actually attacked the Explorer’s League before the in-game quests in Silithus.
Sylvanas’ point wasn’t that the Alliance was preparing for war. Saurfang specifically said that Anduin wasn’t preparing for war as a rebuttal. Sylvanas’ point was that the Alliance maybe eventually - upwards to one-hundred years from now - might attack the Horde, so the Horde should attack them first now while they had the opportunity.
If the Alliance is genre savvy enough to know that Garrosh/Sylvanas are the ones up to stuff, they should be genre savvy enough to recognize that the rest of the Horde turns on them and they can team up for the next big threat.
The characters in the world aren’t that genre savvy. This is what leads to everyone doing in universe stuff that exacerbates the conflict and allows people like Sylvanas and Garrosh to do their thing… up until it’s time for everyone to learn a lesson and go back to square one.
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Distrust actually would be the measure, by modern standards (which obviously don’t exist in Warcraft). The crime is a War of Aggression or Conquest. The defense against that is justification of self-defense. But I do not think Sylvanas’ points were reasonable enough to merit the war as self-defense based on that distrust.
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Why would anyone suspect that the Horde would betray their warchiefs when, in the first place, they wholly supported the war mongering nature of them in the first place?
Garrosh was loved by the people.
Sylvanas was someone they’d follow to the ends of the earth for leading the Horde during the Legion crisis.
The Horde were wholly in support of their lust for war.
OK … outcome and intent are not the same thing. Even if I will fully admit I am all on board with the outcome of Genn’s actions in Stormheim, I will not attempt to justify is BS intents behind it. He and Rogers attempted an assassination against the Leader of a World Power right after they had lost their previous leader. And btw, the Alliance was aware of this, because the Horde held an incredibly public funeral right outside the Gates of Orgrimmar.
Honestly, if Blizzard wasn’t so obsessed with progressing Sylve’s personal narrative at the expense of the Horde Faction, and keeping the Alliance’s image as sterile and clean as possible, this alone would have been an impetus for war between the Factions. The reaction from Anduin due to the gathering, when he stoked paranoia in the Horde by shoving so many SI:7 agents into Org that you could trip over them … would have pushed that impetus further.
Genn’s actions in Stormheim had a positive outcome, but that doesn’t validate his intent.
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When I said “right” I did not mean his actions were correct. He still went against orders and ultimately likely played right into Sylvanas’ hand to spark fighting between the Alliance and the Horde that wouldn’t get pinned on her directly. But I do mean “right” in that we now know that he was probably correct that Sylvanas did abandon them to death intentionally all along as part of her plans.
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