The Warchief position is a relic of the old Orcish Horde, and one that at the best of times was only reflective of the WC3 Horde. At the worst of times it really only represented Orcish culture’s oppressive presence in the Faction. A council may change nothing on a meta-game level, but it by it very natures implies investment by all the Horde’s parts to keep it running. Far more investment than was needed with the Warchief position in charge.
Its an opinion certainly, but with the inclusion of the ARs … I like the concept that there isn’t a supreme entity over the Faction anymore. Its just a bunch of different peoples, cultures, and communities all building a larger community.
Lets hope that this one is something as simple as referring to Sylvie’s actions. There is another entity it could be referring to that is much more unpleasant to think about. The Fall of the Night revealing the true face of the Moon.
This! It is honestly so disappointing. I’m… I’ll reserve full judgment for when 8.3 launches, but…
For what it could have been, 8.3 is massively disappointing from a lore-standpoint. Ny’alotha, something hyped for three years, is just a raid? It looks cool, but that was easily zone material. I’d have much preferred it to be a zone. It definitely feels like N’Zoth has been reduced to “Sylvanas Tool No. 4”.
Right now, the lack of a zone is making me feel like N’Zoth’s bad influence will be limited to a 30-min quest chain that sets up the 8.3 mechanics. And I doubt there will be much story in the Visions (since they’re the narrative equivalent of a dream-sequence) or the Invasions.
However, again and critically, I will reserve full judgment until I see what plays out in 8.3 and 8.3.5.
It didn’t stop the races from having autonomy outside of a conflict.
It’s kinda funny you mention that a council requires investment from everyone to keep it running, because you just gave an example of how Blizzard can make it fail and fall to infighting, have others usurp the positions and start a conflict anyway.
Blizzard can do whatever it wants, but with what they’ve done repeatedly is show that the Warchief position is a focal point of contention for the Horde. They wrote it to be an untenable, unstable position that reflects the WC1 and WC2 Horde as much as it did the WC3 Horde. Blizzard can do the same for a council absolutely, but its not going to stop me from sort of digging the concept of it.
The Warchief position never made the Horde for me. I wont weep at its loss. And the notion that Blizz at any time could send the Horde careening back into villain territory wont stop me from hoping for the best for the faction and its races.
I find it funny though, As It basically represents what the Alliance used to be, A group of nations with equal say voting on matters. There is little difference between what the Horde is now to how the Alliance was run.
The Horde whole structure was about each races pledging a blood oath to the Warchief. It was the reason the Tauren never left as they had an oath to the Warchief. Without that the Horde has now become Alliance lite, While it not necessarily a bad thing it does frustrate me that Blizzard had both factions trade Thematics. Almost like they are trying to encourage people to buy faction transfers.
Blizzard gave the Alliance a high king they never asked for, on the Flip side they gave the Horde a council that was never asked for. Some players might like the change but honestly I think most of the player base hates the direction change. Honestly feels like the writers didn’t know how to continue writing the factions as they were so flipped the script.
Hmm … perhaps me being more accepting of the High King on the Alliance and more accepting of a Council System on the Horde is just my tendencies towards functionalism.
The best way I can describe this is, the Horde across all its races has little in the way of cultural norms that provide a natural, passive form of cohesion. So, in order for this increasingly diverse political entity to make sense, it would require active and intentional forms of cohesion from all its parts to make it work. The Warchief position, ironically, works in opposition to this core structural idea; as it allows the parts to essentially be lazy on their effort in upkeeping the whole. So, while it worked allright to begin with to maintain a cohesive unit … the more diverse the Faction became, the the more forced it felt that that position continued to work. A Council is a very active form of government conceptually, one that relies on all its parts to intentionally maintain a cohesive unit
As for the High King on the Alliance … I dunno, it never bothered me beyond it clearly being Blizz being lazy. With the exception of the NEs, the Alliance races structurally have an immense amount of shared cultural norms serving as a passive cohesive force. On top of this, the cultural differences each Alliance race does have actually prevents conflict as well; as none of them are in direct competition for terrain and resources with the others. A High King is conceptually fine for such a massive political entity, because for the most part that position is just more likely to at least be somewhat representative of most of the peoples of the Alliance. However, with how naturally cohesive the Alliance is … functionally the High King position is just sort of superfluous at best.
Leave it to Blizz to do the obvious thing instead of opting to be a little creative. I wonder if it ever crossed their minds to allow Alleria to fall to the Void and go insane. If it ever did come up, I imagine it was like that meme where a guy presents a too-common-sense idea to the board and gets tossed out a window.
They might not like it, but they can’t deny that it makes sense. The number of bad warchiefs outnumber the number of good warchiefs 3 to 2. Maybe 4 to 2 depending on how you think Ogrim Doomhammer sways. After that amount of fail and bringing their peoples closer to ruin, it would be brainless to think “hey maybe if we try again this time it will stay good”.
Alleria never really worked as Ogmot’s shepherd. The reason for this is simple, Alleria’s people had already fallen off the cliff before she got to them; she led them nowhere … since they were already in free fall. Azshara was the other option, and she also had issues. The reason for this was that Azshara’s sheep were never blind. The Naga were fully aware of what she was, who she was, and who she served. They didn’t need to be blind to follower her off that cliff, they’d do so willingly.
While all 3 female characters worked with the “Cloaked in the Shadows of her Past” part to some effect, only Sylvanas really worked with all the portions of that Dream Journal page. She led a herd of Blind Sheep in the Forsaken/Horde, and the War was the Cliff she led them off of.
Wasn’t exactly a huge cliff then since the Horde survived her tenure as Warchief and they’re arguably better off than they were when she took over. Wasn’t exactly the “Splat” that Ogmot described.
Maybe his dream didn’t take into account Saurfang’s rebellion? Who knows. Predicting the future is a fickle thing at best.
Or it could be that the bulk of the damage from Sylvanas’s actions is yet to be felt.
It took canonically months for Saurfangs rebellion to apparently kick in; in that time she led countless Horde to their deaths in what amounted to a worthless war. On top of this, the Horde was almost immediately on the defense after the WoT … and was still losing on all fronts canonically by 8.1.5. Had Anduin not been the Horde’s opponent, Sylvies actions could have very much led to the destruction of the entire Horde and all its races.
The Horde is losing on all fronts, but Sylvanas’ loyalist army is stronger than the Alliance and Horde rebels combined… Was the Horde losing because everyone was just chilling in Orgrimmar instead of fighting or what?
More so because Sylvie was playing a game fixated on maximizing collateral damage on both sides, rather than actually fighting to win. Funny how ones prioritize in an act can often shape the outcome of that act. That, and plot convenience … lots and lots of plot convenience.
Blizzard math. 1 faction = 1 faction, but then suddenly 1 faction + 1/2 faction < 1/2 faction.
It seems whenever a splinter group breaks off, they suddenly become more powerful than their original faction and the other one combined. I wonder if all the night elf secessionists were just extrapolating Blizzard math to make breaking themselves into even smaller fractions somehow cause them to become exponentially more powerful.
Hell, Nazjatar should’ve been an entire expansion. Azshara’s been underwater for ten thousand years, a major enemy since day one, and then when we finally get to her domain… it’s a single zone, with a single raid.
Legion and BfA could’ve been 4~5 separate expansions, but Blizzard glue them together and decided to burn through Kil’jaeden, Sargeras, Azshara and N’Zoth as fast as they could to get to… Sylvanas and the Jailer, I guess.
As if the new writers were trying to get rid of the old lore villains and get to their own stuff…
