The Frost Wolves were a fragment of a fragment; and if they ever were a real threat they would have been wiped out ages ago. They were also betrayed substantially by the Horde; and no one even knew Thrall’s lineage until BC. The Gurubashi and Amani were people destroyed several times over and were both canonically old enemies of the Darkspear. What you are essentially asking for is a faction diverse in only aesthetics only; defined exclusively by a “Noble Savage” motif (and protected by more plot armor than we are even now).
Like, if the Amani joined the Horde, the High Elves/Blood Elves would have joined the Alliance faster than your head could spin. They would have also likely recognized that the Horde is every bit the monsters they thought they were and corrected their mistake of putting the Orcs in camps (because they would be right, by all indications they would see the foundation of another WC2 Era Horde). There would be absolutely no reason in the world for the Alliance to tolerate what is even perceived to be the formation of such a genocidal entity again (and it wouldn’t just be a random fleet from ONLY Kul Tiras that would try to wipe out Thrall’s Horde in that situation).
EDIT: Essentially its a faction of decimated: Orcs, Trolls, Tauren, (probably Ogres and Goblins) against … Humans, Gnomes, NEs, Dwarves, Draenei (if they exist), Blood Elves, and Forsaken (if they exist). Wow … the Horde is doomed as hell.
No, your point was how the story presented the Horde, claiming that the story presented the Horde being whatever Garrosh lead, and I have shown that the story presented the Horde as everyone else.
I’ve shown my point well. You’re the one not even trying, as if your “You can do better than that” statements actually contribute to anything.
My argument is your argument is faulty to begin with. You haven’t proved Garrosh and his forces counted as the Horde, so assuming your conclusion is true based on itself leaves your entire point unfounded.
You don’t actually have an argument to disprove. I have never conceded the Alliance might have won. And defeating Garrosh did not count as defeating the Horde. This is more just you avoiding the point instead of being able to defend your own.
And when was the Alliance winning before Patch 5.4? Once again, looks to me like Vol’jin was the winner, even if that only came in the last few chapters of the over all war.
Covered that already:
Story himself presented Vol’jin as the victor specifically because he gathered the Horde together to overthrow Garrosh.
Nice deflection there. You’re saying the Alliance getting involved, regardless of how much they helped Vol’jin win, had anything to do with the Horde picking Vol’jin? Because I do not find that to be true.
I think you’re aware that the Alliance did not force a regime change. Garrosh himself did, and no other factor made the Horde decide it needed a change. It definitely was not the Alliance forcing them to.
If you’re actually better than that I’d like to see you defend your point instead of just rephrasing it as if that actually proves it, which it doesn’t.
Right, because the humans suffering from rebellions in their own kingdoms by the Defias somehow makes them a stronger entity. Aesthetics play a big part of the game but I don’t see how they aren’t diverse already. The Orcs have the elements and strong warriors, the Trolls worship the loa and spirits and the Tauren are mix of the two. It has nothing to do with “noble savage” it’s just different cultural aesthetics from the European aesthetics of the Alliance.
I don’t even know what you mean by “protected by plot armor” other than you believe the Horde can’t possibly be strong without Elves(were the Elves not decimated?) and that you think Alliance is magically the strongest thing ever even though half of the Eastern Kingdoms was destroyed by the plague and Stormwind the only functioning human kingdom is beset by famines and rebellions in Westfall. The Kul Tirans wouldn’t do anything because Jaina ran Theramore and she had a truce with Thrall and let her own father be killed for it. What I’m saying just makes more sense and ties in much better with WC3 with better story possibilities than the nonsense we’ve been given since then.
Blood Elves simply weren’t added into the Horde for any coherent lore reason they were merely added because Blizzard didn’t like the Horde being underpopulated and they wanted their girlfriends to play something “pretty” their exact words. They had to give Horde something that belongs to the Alliance in order to create a pop version of the Horde. Bottom line is BC should have had Blood Elves to the Alliance and Ogres to the Horde but that’s not what happened and here we are in BFA with nonsensical story plots within the Horde because they ruined the Horde by making it this ridiculous political body of Elves and Undead with the Shamanistic races of Orcs, Trolls and Tauren. It’s a total mess.
Yes … because Ogre’s would have helped the Population issues of Vanilla. After all, Goblins (another long sought Horde race) TOTALLY ended up having a ton of people play them (being the least played core race on either faction, if you include all Pandaren players as one group) ![:stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye.png?v=6" ":stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:")
And you’re right, there were a lot of functional (rather than narrative) reasons that the BEs ended up on the Horde. If they had ended up on the Alliance, the population issues would have been exacerbated immensely. Their inclusions did also give the Horde some genuine Arcane talent, and avenues to explore higher magic setting storylines than they otherwise would have.
Since then however, I’ve personally grown to like their inclusion (and tbh, their initial inclusion in the faction is no worse than the reasons given for the NEs to join the Alliance). But … the diversity of the Horde (in culture, ideals, and ideologies) is what drew me to the faction in the first place; so my preferences are VERY unlikely to line up with yours.
So when is Garrosh and the Horde he led stated to no longer being the Horde? Because even your quotes show he’s leading the Horde. Vol’jin’s not calling him the warchief of the Motley. He’s acknowledging that Garrosh was the warchief of the Horde, though one he feels isn’t the true warchief.
I’ve shown that they had previously been the Horde when the Horde do Horde quests as members of the Horde, before and still during the Darkspear Rebellion. At no point during the rebellion is it stated that Garrosh no longer leads the Horde.
You’re jumping to a conclusion based on no actual evidence. All to force an argument that the Alliance didn’t beat the Horde when they invaded Horde territory, seiged a Horde city and deposed the Horde warchief.
That is literally your argument, because you believe in spite of facts that Garrosh was, what? Voted to no longer be the Horde Warchief by people who left the Horde to join a rebellion?
Irrelevant because I never said they were. If your argument is that the Alliance didn’t win the war because they weren’t winning before they won, then ok. We can both agree there should have been more build-up.
But if your argument that because they weren’t winning until they won, so Vol’jin won? No.
Thrall is praising him for his actions in keeping members of the Horde together, not saying Vol’jin won the war. That is so obvious that I’m either forced to question your judgment or assume you’re intentionally trying to misread the entire situation.
Yes. Because if the Alliance wasn’t there, Vol’jin would have failed to lead his rebellion successfully. His own words. And Garrosh would be in charge. So there’s no picking Vol’jin as warchief.
I think you just don’t understand what a forced regime change is. If you did, you’d know Garrosh didn’t force himself out of the position because he was content to stay in the position. A regime change was forced the moment he was defeated, not before, because it didn’t happen before.
So for clarity’s sake, a forced regime change is when an outside agent (in this case the Alliance) removes someone from power, to ensure a more favorable leader (Vol’jin in this case) takes over. Typically this is a leader of a rebel faction, which conveniently enough is what Vol’jin led.
You can try and debate that, but you have no ground; it is what a forced regime change is.
I guess we have to agree to disagree because I believe there was already diversity in the Horde to begin with. They can be diverse but still a unifying faction otherwise what’s even the point of being a faction?
Really my only hope at this point is they just dissolve the factions as there is hardly a difference between them now. That way they can focus on individual races. Night Elves no longer have to take commands from a Human high king and Orcs and Taurens no longer have to follow a High Elf worshipper of death.
This is your opinion, and I can’t say I agree. But again … agree to disagree.
In the mean time I’ll just enjoy the thematic potential of what our new ARs (and perhaps future ARs) can do for us as a faction. So far, each of them has loosely served to distinguish their core races more. The Nightborne allow the BEs to have more prominence within the Faction; while the Zandalari, Mag’har, and Highmountain highlight their core races differences from one another (enhancing their individual Racial power, but diluting their core faction power).
Its fascinating to me seeing a NEW form of the Horde take shape, that may very well be more inclusive for ALL our current members. I’m OK with that … I’d rather worry about renewal than concern myself with the slavish maintenance of a Faction concept long gone.
Well of course you are. The Horde just received all of NE’s lore free of charge.
See Nazjatar. I have to switch to Horde to see any semblance of relevancy within my own story.
Dude … the story in Naz is hot garbage.
I think Thalyssra has like ONE quest and it sets up a single boss in the upcoming raid (and its a trash quest with some of the laziest writing I’ve ever seen). The only saving grace of that region is the Kelpin, which is a good thing because they’re the ones the story focuses the most on for us (not the Naga; not the Kaldorei lore; not Thalyssra’s relation to any of that; but a pack of oddly adorable socialist water goblins and their Giant+Lobster friends).
EDIT: You are barking up the wrong tree for complaining about Naz’jatar. Its not the Horde that negatively impacted the Kaldorei’s relevance there (and I sure as hell will argue that it makes total sense to me that the Nightborne would end up on the Horde (just … not nearly as quickly as they did). If you’re being honest about the NE and HE interactions with the NBs in Surumar (when compared to the BEs interactions with them) … you’d understand WHY that’s the case.
It’s a very short series of quests, but yeah. It tells the story of the Warbringer cinematic and tells us there’s a boss in the raid.
To be fair though, I stopped doing anything in the zone after getting flying due to time constraints, so maybe there’s more later on in the zone.
well obviously. The Horde has to get the better content.
I mean Suramar all that lore obviously belongs to the Horde because… um… Tyrande was mean?
Of course the best thing to add to the Alliance are some random silvermoon scientists that you only unlock by farming Broken reputation on argus.
- The brazen warchief has also turned against other members of the Horde to create a purely orcish force of his own. Now this "true Horde" is amassing strength within Orgrimmar's iron ramparts. With Garrosh bent on total victory, he plans to demonstrate the potency of the true Horde by conquering not just the Alliance but the whole of Azeroth.
And from the dungeon journal you can read in game:
- The tensions stoked by Garrosh Hellscream's arrogance have reached a boiling point with the destruction unleashed upon the Vale of Eternal Blossoms. Leaders of the Alliance and Horde lay siege to Hellscream's capital in order to topple the ruthless Warchief once and for all!
And from the introduction to Garrosh’s fight itself:
- Garrosh Hellscream yells: We are the Orcish Horde, the True Horde. We die, bloody and thrashing on the field of battle, like true orcs SHOULD.
Garrosh Hellscream yells: You are an Orc no longer, and speak for none but yourself. You betrayed our people to forge your fragile alliances and I will take great pleasure in tearing them apart.
The infers that Garrosh was no longer the Horde. However, at best, you can say that the Horde was both Garrosh and the Horde leaders that opposed him. What you cannot say is that defeating Garrosh was also defeating any of the other Horde leaders that weren’t him.
I’ll clarify my argument here:
Which you have just tried to avoid.
Relevant, because your point was to that because the entire Cataclysm/Mists of Pandaria war was not about Vol’jin that somehow that makes it not Vol’jin’s win. Which it was still Vol’jin’s win even if the rest of the war wasn’t about him.
My arguement there is that if your point was that Vol’jin rebellion only started at Patch 5.3 and so Vol’jin’s win doesn’t count, then because the Alliance only finally defeated Garrosh in 5.4 then the Alliance doesn’t have any wins you can count across the rest of the campaign, either, by your logic.
Vol’jin came out Warchief. If you do not consider that winning the war then I’m not sure what you think a successful rebellion is.
You’re still intentionally sidestepping the point. The Horde still picked Vol’jin on their own, without the Alliance having any say in the matter, even less so forcing them to pick Vol’jin.
And you can watch the cinematic I already linked before. The Horde choose Vol’jin on their own, and the Alliance was surprised he was picked. The Alliance had no say in who would be the new leader, they just got lucky it was Vol’jin. And then not lucky when he died and it became Sylvanas instead.
Tyrande is the main political leader of her people and the highest religious authority amongst the Kaldorei. To say that her opinion holds weight within their civilization would be the understatement of a lifetime (and she was acting TOTALLY in character with her behavior).
This issue doesn’t even get into the issues that she’s not even the most extreme when it comes to opinions on the Highborne civilization; or the fact that NEs STILL hold immense contempt for that way of life (which is why the Shen’drelar had to bend over the hell backwards to beg their way back into Kaldorei society; and they still almost got murdered by Maiev). Nothing like a civilization who’s temperament is “We believe your way of life and existence is fundamentally wrong; wanna join us” to scream … no thanks? Damned “Mana-Addicts” in Tyrande’s city.
Beyond that … that doesn’t even get into the core issue of the NE and HEs reason for being in Surumar. It was made explicitly clear that their presence in that city and their aiding of the Nightborne was to defeat the Legion ONLY. This is very apparent in the language that Tyrande and Vareesa use; and is CERTAINLY not the case with the BEs (with Rommath going on full Geek mode about talking Arcane shop with real-life Highborne; but Liadrin genuinely sympathizing with them due to several very key shared experiences).
But … no. The Horde getting something nice was purely to spite the Alliance; even though every elf involved in the Surumar campaign was acting pretty much totally in character.
when you explain to me why the Alliance got such a joke of a race like void elves out of the blue compared to the Horde getting 2 full zones for their ARs I would be open to hearing your theories.
NEs can be mages again since cataclysm and god forbid we develop any race from their initial introduction.
I don’t think this stance or story point holds water any more when Thalyssra has turned around and is talking about how great it was that the Alliance and Horde fought together to liberate Suramar.
I said nothing about the Void Elves. I’m saying that it makes perfect sense with how things were presented that the NBs would start making inroads with the BEs (who wanted nothing more than to make inroads); rather than the NEs (who, from all indications … really still hold one hell of a grudge). And above all NONE of the participants in that story were acting out of character (and yes, that cultural stigma against Highborne civilization is still very prominent in NE life).
Also, you do understand on some level that just because the the Horde gets something; Blizz isn’t insulting the Alliance right? You do know that right? Like, why do you seem to take it as such a personal insult?
I am willing to concede both groups lay claim to the title of “Horde”. Garrosh was absolutely still the Horde warchief, absolutely controlled all Horde territories (save for Darkspear controlled ones, and once the rebellion kicked off in full probably other racial-controlled ones) and for all realistic intents and purposes, was still leading the Horde. But yes, the rebels did also have claim to the title.
But we’re back at my initial statement; even when the Alliance wins, they find a way to say it isn’t enough. You’re right, the Alliance “only” defeated the threat to their safety, they “only” defeated the political leader’s loyal faction, and did not defeat the rest of the leadership. I never claimed they did.
Nope. Not relevant. Not defeating the other leaders of the Horde doesn’t make it Vol’jin’s win.
Vol’jin didn’t officially start fighting until patch 5.3. The Alliance was fighting since Cata. Those are not the same thing.
Did the new president of Iraq win the Iraq war when he was given the role of leading his country?
I mean, clearly no. So no, being made warchief does not mean Vol’jin won.
I’m saying that picking your favorite isn’t the criteria for a forced regime change. However, the Alliance did pick Vol’jin when they chose to back his rebellion. They supported the rebels and the rebel leadership in taking the Horde.
Yup, because Varian expected it to be Thrall.
What was Varian’s reaction when he saw it was Vol’jin? Was he upset? Or did he seem satisfied with the result? Did he say anything along the lines of “some of you fought with honor” and give peace a try? Or did he dismantle the Horde?
But again, picking your favorite isn’t the criteria of a forced regime change. The Alliance won. They got a forced regime change and Ashenvale lands back.
They.
Won.
The.
War.
Yes, Vol’jin and his forces helped. I never denied that, and even addressed that just because we get help doesn’t invalidate the victory, nor does it change that we’ve won. You seem to feel that in this case, it absolutely does.
Why?
I understand perfectly you got superior content than I did because you play Horde.
Nightborne being the fake and phony Night Elves they are were merely added into the Horde to replace Night Elves because Blizzard despises Night Elves. It’s part of the plan of erasing Night Elves from the story and just giving the remains of what is left of it to the Horde because Blizzard has declared the Horde to be the faction of Elves. They do whatever they know will gain the Horde popularity points. It is their main focus of the game.