The black moon army was absent. Shandris brought usual nightelf to siege of og
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She straight up tells Anduin the Night Elves are going to go it alone in 8.1 because he wants to focus on Zandalar and Sylvanas instead of restoring the Night Elves. And they retook Darkshore, meaning the Horde forces there lost. As of Exploring Kalimdor, the Night Elves have mostly pushed them out almost entirely, with the exception of Splintertree and Warsong. That’s one subfaction going it alone against The Horde, mind you, and the conflict is pretty one-sided at least up that point.
I’m not arguing the Alliance are necessarily powerful (apart from their fanfic faction leaders, who very much are—do I need to bring up Jaina’s one-woman-siege on Lordaeron?), but the Horde was on the ropes. But for this being a two faction game and Anduin chiding everyone for being rational actors in a world with career genociders, the Horde should have been ended in some capacity. But that’s not feasible because deleting a faction is understandably dumb. Which means they shouldn’t have told a story that brought us to that crossroads, but they did anyway. Which means they set the stage with stakes they couldn’t ever possibly pay off for Alliance that destroyed any sense of faction pride or identity left with the Horde.
I know “because bad writing” gets to be such a cop out, but that’s how it be.
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Wrong…we know anduin was ignored by malfurion+tyrande and the strongest army the alliance had during the fourth war wasn’t there. And malfurion+tyrande pre 4th war was according to saurfang equal to the horde…a night warrior could have crushed the horde. See the maw…tyrande killed thousand of thousands without real problems
We know it from books, we know it ingame. Shandris brought only a few soldiers without black eyes to og
Yes. Obviously. I’m just expressing that I’m not convinced that Afrasiabi is solely, or even partially at fault for the state of the story. Except maybe indirectly because of the chaos created by his dispicable behavior.
What I think is likely, is that Afrasiabi, with his track record of respect for the world and the story, set the story on a daring/risky course. Like speeding down an icy road, it doesnt tend to fall apart until someone tries to turn the car.
I dont think the War of Thorns was very bad. I think it was risky, and required a clear vision and a dedicated execution, which it didn’t get. BtS was far more lore damaging, but thats par for the course with Golden.
Because Afrasiabi is both gone, and a pariah, he makes a convenient scapegoat for current Blizz. But they suck. Eventually, he’ll have been gone too long for them to blame their failures on him.
…not really. They created an enemy with a real grudge against them, and stopped short of totally breaking the Zandalari as a nation or possibly a culture. It was a short term plan with no long term vision.
Then there’s the issue of throwing the lives of many long-lived races away for a small gain that Jaina immediately invalidates because she gets Fallujah Feet. Any plan that relies on suicide troops is a failure of leadership. Only the Himbo mains think Dazar’Alor was a good win Alliance side.
I thought as of the siege the fighting was still ongoing in darkshore. Arathi included and that the siege was a way to end it all.
So powerful she kills thousands of satan’s armies but can’t kill a dude with a bow.
Bad writing? Certainly, does it set a bad precedent in the lore? Absolutely. Saurfang or anyone else could praise Tyrande, Jaina or Malfurion as these Kratos level threats but if they don’t do it but very much want to do it but can’t do it then it means they really can’t do it.
The same inexplicable jump in strength is cancelled with the same inexplicable fall in strength.
I don’t think Blizzard needed the Alliance to actually end the Horde to send that message.
We could have changed the final confrontation, where Alliance could have done it on their own but Saurfang asked to participate. That Andiun was really being a good boy by bringing Saurfang along… Maybe the Alliance invaded Orgrimmar and marched right into Sylvanas’ throne and then thee duel took place there.
Yeah, its absolutely an Alliance power fantasy and blizzard is just patting our head with “see you can win too, mommy loves you”
But that would have been shown for sure that the only reason the Horde lives is because Alliance lets them rather than the Horde can exist on their own without Alliance permission.
But I do agree the biggest problem is the Alliance is not asking “You want me to work with this monsters… Them? AGAIN? Are you high sir?”
Option A was a straight up fight by land and sea that would have resulted in catastrophic losses.
Option B was sacrificing a token force so that a small team could remove the Zandalari fleet from the equation.
Anduin being a whiny dumb-dumb that couldn’t conceive of killing soldiers/citizens and destroying their fleet (and that isn’t even taking into consideration King Rastakhan) as an action that might generate a grudge from their victims doesn’t change that Option B was preferable. Nor does it change that Option B was a success. Were it nor for Azshara and Sylvanas striking up a secret bargain, the Horde would have lost the entire war as a result of their attack on Dazar’alor. This is plainly pointed out before the quest where Horde players set off with Nathanos and Xal’atath to set up 8.2 and Nazjatar.
I don’t know how setting a plan into motion and achieving it as intended is being considered a failure here.
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I think there are far more options than that but we destroyed the fleet with a remote control detonator. So they weren’t really a threat.
Because we aren’t talking about how good the Alliance is at making plans and executing them. We are talking about Alliance is so damn strong that it’s like comparing the American military to that of Bhutan’s.
There is a singular question that is being asked here:
“Can the Alliance, on a canonical/story level, destroy the horde and kill all its people despite rigorous Horde defense?”
My answer is a categorical NO. How about you?
Darkshore was 8.1, Saurfang’s duel was 8.2.5, and N’zoth was 8.3. It is partly why I get so bent out of shape at “no use for a Warchief in a time of peace!” N’zoth was unleashed and trying to conquer the world and the Night Elves were (presumably) annihilating Horde forces in Ashenvale. I don’t recall precisely when the Darkshore victory cinematic was released, but I want to say it was no later than 8.2.
Saurfang needed to be the one doing the duel because the story was hellbent on telling its stupid Depressed Horde vs. Genocider Horde. Y’know, the exact thing the players begged them not to do when they saw the early concepts of Sylvanas standing in front of Teldrassil, asking not to do Siege/Garrosh 2.0, not to villain bat the Horde again, not to yeet another Warchief off the throne. So they promised faction pride, morally grey, and then treated those player fears as a checklist for success. Then told us to wait and see. That it would pay off. That Sylvanas’ motivations would make sense in time. /wetfart
If we’re trying to make what we got fit without changing too much, I would have just had Tyrande and friends roll in after all the Ashenvale trouncing, show that they could end the Horde then and there (would at least give the Nelves a moment of triumph in a sea of being dumpstered, I reckon), then have her exchange with Thrall occur under those circumstances—he hands over Sira, the captured loyalists, and vows to deliver Sylvanas to Tyrande.
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Christ, did you play the same game as me? Not a threat? The Horde needed Zandalar specifically because of their fleet. The Alliance were able to remove the fleet from play altogether because of the distraction in Nazmir that drew their attention away from the surprise attack on Dazar’alor. The Horde was going to lose the war entirely due to this one mission succeeding before Azshara got involved. But yeah, it wasn’t a threat. Just a minor win. Total naval dominance means nothing in war, I guess.
You brought up Dazar’alor. You wanted to pitch it as a humiliating defeat. It plainly wasn’t. Since it was the exact opposite of what you tried to frame it as, suddenly it doesn’t matter and isn’t relevant? Don’t bring it up, then.
And continuing to invent some childish version of my own argument isn’t going to work either. I’ve been abundantly clear that it is the Kaldorei army I expect could steamroll The Horde as of Saurfang’s mak’gora, not the ragtag band of followers Anduin brought to the gates. Agree or disagree, I don’t care, but at bare minimum you can engage with what I actually post.
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There seems, at least to me, two groups of alliance posters on here. Those upset about how the Night elves were portrayed(including those who agree with the NE fans) and posters who make up nonexistent story beats to feel like a victim.
I get the first group being upset, but the second group? I honestly don’t get it
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The Horde is the inferior faction. The loss of BOTH war fronts proved that. Blizzard hates the Horde. And this is not going to change anytime soon for as long as Danuser and Ion are in charge of the lore. The entire writing team needs to be purged if we want to make the Horde great again.
Maybe you misunderstood what i said here, yes the Zandalari fleet was no longer a threat because a covert mission involving the player had us place bombs on the ships. The Zandalari navy was not a threat because they could been blown up remotely and they were.
Alliance could have parked their ships in the harbor and pounded the port to ashes because there was no zandalari fleet to stop them. Hence, yes… they were no threat.
The distraction did nothing except allow the Alliance to raid the city and kill Rastakhan before the Horde figured it out and rushed back and Alliance high tailed it out of here.
In the events I described to you at no point is it obvious that Alliance is militarily more overwhelming. The Kultiran navy did not take on the Zandalari navy to really decide who is the best.
The Alliance raiders/army didn’t land on the zandalari capital, best the Horde at a proper defense and come out at top.
In both cases Alliance, while successful, had to resort to AVOIDING to fight the horde/zandalari to scrape a victory together. This was NOT Roman legions militarily dominating their enemy.
I am pitching it as Alliance not actually taking on the Horde military in a straight fight. If the Alliance was so much more militarily superior that could have devastated both Zandalari or the Horde they would not have needed to resort to these actions.
Just as you view the actions of Sylvanas in sinking the Kultiran fleet, the Alliance did the same with the Zandalari fleet.
Based on what evidence is the Kaldorei army supposed to steam role the ENTIRE horde behind their greatest fortress? Are Kaldorei supposed to be stronger than the combined strength of Saurfang rebels, entire alliance could muster + Shandris and her NE forces?
What are you saying?
This is pure headcanon, Alliance can’t steamroll anything. There is zero evidence for it.
There is however ample evidence of the Alliance needing mcguffins and “clever” plans to avoid fighting the horde but still win somehow.
They can do exactly that. See the war fronts. See Zandalar. See Nazjatar. See Orgrimmar battle. The Alliance always had the upper hand. Blizzard is obvious in their favoritism. The Horde is just a footnote in history who plays no role in the lore whenever the big bad guy shows up.
I didn’t say he was solely at fault for the state of the story. I said he was responsible for the worst event to ever happen to the story, one that I’m not sure it is possible to recover from.
And I don’t believe that if he had been allowed to follow through on the WoT, he could have or would have saved the story. In the first place, he was still around for patch 8.1 and probably part of the development of 8.2, and they were not improvements. Even if there was something brilliant in 8.3, that’s still over a year of real-time unhappiness for players, which is just not the way to run a successful MMO.
And in the second place, I’ve become convinced that there simply is no way out of it that would not break the fun of the story—unless perhaps you go full-on “It was all a dream,” in which case, see above about a year of real-time unhappiness.
Perhaps with different implementation, it could have worked. Or perhaps if nothing similar had ever happened before and if the Alliance had problems of a similar magnitude, it could have happened without breaking the lore. But the way it was implemented, given the previous in-game story, break the lore is what it did.
BtS utterly destroyed the Forsaken and gave us the abomination that is Calia Menethil, but it didn’t really touch the rest of the game. The War of Thorns narratively damaged the Horde and the Night Elves, if not the whole Alliance.
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Between old god hallucinations, Azshara’s illusions, or dreadlords, there’s no way they couldn’t have thought up an excuse.
They even came up with a whole cast of new characters in the Shadowlands that could’ve mitigated the role she played, and maybe by extension the Horde’s.
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That’s fair. “It was a deception” is kind of the “pull the ripcord” of the story—the obvious, if inelegant, solution that the devs are unwilling to take. Possibly they are forbidden by the Powers That Be.
But if during the WoT everyone was who the claimed to be and everything was what it appeared to be, which is what we’re stuck with, then I don’t see a better way to salvage that story than what we got. Which is not to say that what we got was good, just that it may have been the least bad option overall.
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We really didnt need an excuse to forgive Sylvanas for it to be good. Sylvanas needed a good reason to do what she did.
Arguably, the reason of “we are kinda screwed now because the night elf demigod isnt dead, we cant hold Darnassus indefinitely, need a new plan” was better than “Send all the souls to Zovaal because lava eels cant vore together forever.” We cant blame the latter on Afrasiabi, and the latter makes the WoT worse. Not better.
It is funny to me that anytime the Alliance do something ruthless it turns out they just have whole battalions worth of men eager to definitely die for their Emperor.
In Andorhal the Forsaken’s flank is hit by a swarm of peasants. Who are undisciplined, armed with only farming tools, and wearing makeshift, ramshackle armor.
This would be a pretty cold blooded but effective strategy, as the peasants do manage to break through the Forsaken’s sparsely guarded rear and actually are running around Andorhal attacking people. This nearly wins Stormwind the city. But uh, yeah don’t try to fight a war of attrition with an enemy that can raise the dead.
Turns out of course those guys were all 100% willing though. No coercion or conscription required. Just immediately game to run head first into a fortified base full of deathless Frankenstein’s and their pet monstrosities.
Same with BFA. I thought the Battle For Dazar’Alor was stone cold. The Alliance uses a whole battlegroup as an outright sacrificial lamp. Then they just rampage through Dazar’Alor. They even brought a King Kong to the party.
Pretty ruthless I thought. But of course killing the Zandalari King was a woopsie and they didn’t intend to terrorize any civilians. Because apparently there’s a non threatening way to attack a city
What I would’ve done was just say Anduin ceded command of that operation to some Kul Tiran Admiral.
And instead of not pressing the attack to be nice, they can’t press the attack because the Kul Tiran made a grave mistake when he allowed his men to desecrate and steal from the Zandalari’s sacred alters.
I can just picture Shaw being annoyed with the strategy used but nevertheless contemplating how it’d at least end the war quickly, so their sacrifice wasn’t in vain. Until the Kul Tiran Admiral brags about all these golden idols they stole and how he’ll be able to retire early when he pawns these.
Shaw’s blood runs cold. He grabs the Admiral by the scruff of his neck and demands to know where he took that from. The Admiral reacts with confused annoyance, muttering something about the savage’s shrines.
Shaw immediately goes to Defcon 1, not wasting a moment to explain anything to the Kul Tiran Admiral as he orders troops to man battle stations. Eventually he just jams a spy glass into the Admiral’s hands.
Peering out he sees an approaching Zandalari invasion force. His confusion turns to dread when he realizes they’re nor on boats. They’re on the back of gigantic sea turtles and threshadon. The Admiral quickly runs up the steps to an observation tower to get a better look, just in time to be blown off the balcony to his death as Pa’Ku swoops in overhead, causing a massive gust of wind.
By desecrating the alters they’d not declared war on just the Zandalari, but the Loa of Zandalar itself.
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Thats not what we are stuck with. And thats not what we had. They changed Sylvanas’ motives to have always been burn the tree. In black and white, Saurfang considers that thought, then realizes that this was not the case… then the devs retconned that and made it the case. In AGW, Sylvanas and Nathanos trade some whispers and side chatter about Sylvanas’ alterior motives. Which were clearly not burning the tree. Because Nathanos was shocked that they burned the tree. So what were the alterior motives? That would be interesting to find out.
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