No one should genuinely care about Teldrassil

Lore Story Forum
102

The war.

I only considered for a second leaving it at that one sentence, I swear!! On to the actual rest.

But no, really, the war. Because the only victory in WoW is seeing the enemy defeated. When Illidan and Kael’thas were defeated, nothing was won except for the threat to be eliminated. Same with Arthas. Deathwing. The Iron Horde. So on.

Same in WCII. The Horde was defeated. The Alliance won. They didn’t get a prize for it; they just won the war. Their enemies were defeated or dead. There’s no new territory added, no new resources gained. But to say it’s not winning the war is pure idiocy.

So why would it be different with Garrosh and the Horde? If Garrosh is defeated and the Alliance got to force a regime change (even if they’re not picking the new leader) and a peace agreement, then how is that less of a victory than in WCII? How is it less of a victory than against Arthas, etc?

Is it less of a victory for the Alliance because some people who were rebelling against the Horde leadership in charge at the time helped? Does that make the defeat of Illidan not a victory just because Akama and his people betrayed Illidan and helped? Or the victory against Arthas, because the Ebon Blade betrayed him and helped?

See above. I tried to address both of you there.

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103

I don’t think you actually get it though. The Alliance doesn’t actually come out the victor in this scenario. They mutually agree to end the war with the Horde. We know this will be the case with BFA too. And you keep mentioning victory over the Horde, but we all know Sylvanas is not being counted as the “real” Horde. Just like Garrosh was not the “real” Horde. Baine is the “real” Horde, and before him Vol’jin was.

This isn’t Alliance v Horde. This is Horde v Sylvanas with Alliance tacked on.

No, neither faction can truly end the other. But you’re led to believe that the Horde could, and easily too. You’re led to believe the Alliance could never win over the Horde, even with their Deus Ex Machina plot devices like Jaina and Tyrande. They’re essentially meaningless.

So yeah, ‘defeat’ doesn’t mean anything to the Horde when you can just brush it off with “We could have won if we hadn’t been so split”. And the ‘victory’ for Alliance doesn’t mean anything when Alliance doesn’t actually get any tangible benefit for ending the war with the Horde.

“Well our city was raided” so what? Alliance just give it back because they can’t afford to hold it and never could. And apparently taking Thunderbluff would be a bloodbath pyrrhic victory but suddenly Sylvanas will be able to burn it with just her followers?

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104

Ok, but what enemy was defeated? Was it the Horde? Or was it Garrosh? Because Garrosh’s Horde consisted of only a small portion of the Orcish population.

I really am having a hard time understanding your thought process. You don’t see the difference between these two scenarios? The Alliance in WC2 beat the Horde, drive them almost totally from their territories and put them in camps.

In WoW Alliance raids Orgrimmar and deposes Garrosh in order to give it back to the Horde.

Do you really not see how those two are not equivalent?

Let me pose this to you in another way: What are you afraid of if the big bad Alliance won this war? What do you think will happen to the Horde at the end of BFA when the Alliance “wins” this war? Do you think they’ll be put in camps? Or do you think that Genn and Tyrande will bow to Anduin’s divine wisdom to allow the Horde complete governing autonomy despite everything that happened just like they did in MOP?

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105

Don’t forget losing Azshara as a zone and all the places the Horde ruined are still ruined in the game.
The best we got was “We will end you!” Four words. That is all the Alliance got for putting up with 1 city blasted into nothing and multiple settlements destroyed and given to the horde playerbase.

Cataclysm was a complete insult to the Alliance playerbase and MoP that was supposed to rectify it completely fell short of what was required.
Meanwhile the Alliance playerbase have been droping the game in droves.

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106

Sylvanas does tend to be more creative in her tactics. If she really wanted to terrorize the Tauren, she can start raising their ancestors. And we know she’s got competent enough bat riders to rip apart the Skyfire, so blight bombing the relatively unprotected mesas wouldn’t be hard.

Of course, as others have pointed out, she’s just as likely to misdirect everyone and hit Boralus or Stormwind. But, I’m side-barring pretty hard here.

The issue of narrative balance is more of this, to me- not that the Alliance did not win during SoO. They certainly did! They took down the warmonger holed up there, ended his immediate threat, and dismantled his forces. However, to the Alliance perspective, particularly in the context of the Cata/MoP era, what was the equivalence? Settlements raised during necessary zone rebalancing, a constant feeling of loss, Northwatch and Triumph wiped out in a novel, Theramore destroyed utterly.

Now, don’t misconstrue this- I do not refer to balance against the Horde. I mean, strictly internally to the Alliance experience, a balance of feeling a victory against the feeling of defeat.

Now, should have Blizzard set up some kind of occupation force or reparations? No, that’d be dumb and arguably punishing to the Horde players who, like all players, are ultimately just along for whatever ride Blizz hands them. The outcome here was the necessary one.

Yet, two things can be true at once here- the outcome was the correct one, but it was also nothing like an actual victory emotionally, particularly paired against the defeats that came before it. This, despite Garrosh (and, frankly, Sylvanas) being the major actors of these acts, has very little to do with the Horde at all, and everything to do with the Alliance player experience. Loss, after loss, followed by a victory that doesn’t match up against the beating they just took.

Now, you might say “maybe that’s the point, war is hell.”, but at the same time, it is a game, a long running one with an ongoing story, and you do want the players to continue to enjoy said story. You will note that this sentence applies quite readily to the Horde experience as well, even if the specific circumstances are different.

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107

Originally I was going to break this paragraph up and address it point by point, but I feel it will all make more sense lumped together.

In the case of MoP, the only reason the playerbase feels the Alliance didn’t defeat the Horde is because the Horde playerbase wasn’t on the losing side, but it’s a purely player-made argument. In-game, the Horde leader, in the Horde capital, surrounded by Horde NPCs that were led by him was defeated. Nazgrim didn’t change factions; he remained loyal to the Horde war chief. The same goes for all the other Horde NPCs present. It was the Horde players who “left” and joined the Darkspear rebellion. That’s the story of MoP, plain and simple; Garrosh led the Horde, Vol’jin led a rebellion after leaving the Horde. Arguing the Darkspear rebellion was actually the “real” Horde goes against how the story actually played out.

The exact same will likely apply to Sylvannas, asuming it follows similar and already-aparent lines; Thrall and company will be leading a rebellion against the Horde Warchief, Sylvannas.

To put it another way, all the tasks the Horde player performs before joining the rebellion are still Horde quests, rewarding Horde reputation, with Horde-centric rewards and in Horde areas. And those Horde quests were following the orders of a warchief we later rebelled against.

I’ll agree that early BfA gave that feeling, but we know as of BfDA that the Alliance was on the verge of victory. So those Deus Ex Machina plot devices certainly work.

As for MoP, I’m sorry but having also played both Horde and Alliance through all that content, the only moment the Horde felt powerful was when they used a one-shot bomb that they couldn’t mass-produce to blow up Theramor. While tragic and huge, it doesn’t make the ongoing threat of the Horde suddenly a big deal. If anything, it showcased that Garrosh was an incompetent military strategist, having a magic nuke and using it on an outlier town instead of a larger concern about a similar distance away in Darnassus.

I’m not going to actually address this argument, except to quote myself from earlier:

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108

You had asked what the WCII Alliance had won. I gave you an example of the same prize; nothing, there was no prize. A prize doesn’t make for a victory. By arguing that WCII is still a victory because some conditions were met, you’re just further proving that yes, some conditions alone are the victory. WCII imprisoned the orcs. MoP had a change in leadership and a peace agreement. So to answer this question:

They are equivalent. Because both imposed a condition on the enemy. That it’s not a condition you like or feel is large enough is irrelevant; it’s still a victory.

I think when the Alliance wins, we’ll have Warchief #5, another peace agreement, and lose our claim to all Lordaeron territories, while withdrawing all forces from Darkshore to Ashenvale. In story at least, because game mechanics and all that.

Which by any metric should absolutely be considered a victory for the Alliance. Because none of their leaders are genocidal maniacs, and the Horde of today is too large for another mass-imprisonment.

Now, my question; what would have to happen for you to consider it an Alliance victory? What ultimate conditions would you think are 1) reasonable for the Alliance to impose on the only other superpower on Azeroth, and 2) able to be effectively enforced?

What would actually be enough?

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Yes … Azshara. A zone that barely had a NE presence in Vanilla, and the majority of the Locals the Goblins now inhabit where either NOT NE towns; or were Naga infested ruins. So by ruined, you mean … moved in and took over a territory that the NEs largely had left to erode over time (because they had no interest in the areas Imperial Kaldorei heritage, because they abandoned that way of life and culture). THIS was a MASSIVE loss to the Alliance this NEUTRAL ZONE that had like a grand total of 36 quests within it.

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110

It was given away as a consolation prize so that the horde “stops” attacking.
The Alliance got literally nothing at the end of MoP besides the 4 words Varian spewed.

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111

Really? Its a single largely destitute (in vanilla) NEUTRAL zone that had little purpose on a story level back before Cata. It was shockingly irrelevant and there was barely a story there. The friggen NAGA had a bigger presence in Vanilla Azshara than the Alliance did. Not to mention it is RIGHT NEXT DOOR to the main capital city of the Horde. Giving Azshara to the Horde cost the alliance absolutely nothing, because it was never theirs to lose. It was always considered a contested zone … so re-purposing it to give some variety to the Horde questing experience was a GREAT call by Blizzard.

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112

To put an even finer point on it; the night elf “presence” in that entire zone was limited to a single building with about three quest-givers, and it was right over the bridge from Ashenvale.

If that’s a loss for the Alliance, it’s overwhelmbed by their “gaining” Southern Barrens by virtue of more of a presence there, more towns, with far more NPCs hanging around an area they had no prior presence in at all. Hell, they also kicked all the old Horde NPCs out of Duskwood on top of that. Can we say we lost Duskwood? It only had one fewer NPCs than Alliance had in Azshara.

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113

blablabla.

Answer the original question. What did the Alliance get at the end of MoP war?
What was our prize?

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114

What exactly did the Horde get at the end of MoP?

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Multiple zones, blown out Theramore among many other Alliance settlements we had since vanilla and all their faction leaders.

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116

Addressed, answered, and covered above.

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We got … Azshara? And we get to quest in Cata Ashenvale, but canonically it was in the hands of the Kaldorei post MoP (which IS your current metric; and NO cata zones got a revamp to reflect territorial shifts post Cata).

Azshara was a contested zone with almost no story or Alliance presence. You didn’t LOSE anything there with it getting re-purposed. Stonetalon was a contested zone, and remains a contested zone. I think the biggest shift in the game was Hillsbrad foothills (which, yeah, always felt like an unnatural and unnecessarily dangerous questing zone for Alliance players in Vanilla). It was also a contested zone in Vanilla (despite, like Azshara, being SUPER close to a main Horde seat of power).

EDIT: Essentially, what the Alliance “lost” was several zones that were RIGHT NEXT DOOR to Horde Capital Cities and primary territories.

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So Alliance got nothing on a narrative level so your only defense is on a meta level which is fine by me.

Would you like to discuss the disparity of the level design in Alliance zones that were barely updated out of Vanilla because Blizzard ran out of time and the Horde got massive new zones AND overhauled zones with new models from Wotlk whereas Alliance players were stuck with the same vanilla crap?

Either way Alliance playerbase got screwed and you with your horde rose tinted glasses are not going to get away from it unless you address it.

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119

Not destroyed? Dumping any acts against the alliance on Garrosh? Entirety of Hillsbrad?

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120

I genuinely do not think Droite or most Horde players understand what the Cata zones did to Alliance players.
I don’t think they are maliciously biased. They just don’t know because they didn’t play those zones.
And how when you add them all up for the finale that was SoO why the Alliance playerbase was so damn pissed off.

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121

The Horde didn’t really get anything on a Narrative level either, considering our “Prize” for all the Alliance losses your toting was; a civil war that canonically decimated our peoples (ESPECIALLY the Darkspear). I’m uncertain what game you’re playing but its consistently apparent that the Horde playerbase is not meant to perceive the events like Theramore or Thal’darah Grove as positives or “good”. We’re intended to feel guilty about those tragedies (whether players actually feel bad is another matter entirely).

You seem really concerned about “prizes” for some reason. Why? What prizes did the Horde get in Legion? Our Warchief (who’s Troll regeneration that was so strong that it overcame him having his throat slit by a blade coated in poison designed to nullify Troll Regeneration) was killed by a Trash Mob (after he was allowed to do NOTHING after taking the position) … to setup THIS expansion; and to keep things “even” with Varian’s heroic sacrifice? Then total irrelevancy for the rest of the expansion outside Surumar. Hell, the FRIGGEN ORCS were NOT ALLOWED relevance against the very entities that corrupted them; turned them into monsters; and destroyed their ENTIRE WORLD!

How’s that for prizes?

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