So I ended up with an interesting conversation about the general forum. Anyway what is your option on Siege weapons? Do we assume some of them are actually magically operated? Or do we just assume that Blizzard just doesn’t render drivers for them the majority of the time?
I thought that it was a generally accepted fact that they require drivers, at least the Dwarven, Gnomish, Human, Orcish, and Goblin varieties.
Draenei vehicles seem to be autonomous on occasion.
The short story is they are claiming high elves did not help during the Second Siege of Ogrimmar because the only units we see are “unmanned” high elven balistas.
As I mentioned before, Ballistas, and certain seige engines seem to require supervision, (Surrounded by NPCs that are meant to be the ones operating it) but are not personally manned, and seem to operate independently. We have examples of manned balista models in many places, like Azsuna (where the player is require to kill the target manning the ballistas)
The nature of how ballistae work preclude them from being unmanned. They’re basically giant crossbows and need an operator to load it, aim it, and fire.
Even a theoretical magically autonomous ballista would still require someone to load it.
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Agreed, which is why there are generally NPCs found near artillery.
And we see Balistas/Glaive Throwers firing even without anyone around them. But we assume they do need drivers/pilots. And ultimately this does mean if high elven balistas were in Ogrimmar during the second seige, so too were high elves.
Pointing out that there aren’t NPC’s nearby only proves that there aren’t NPC’s nearby, and it wouldn’t make much sense for there to be operators nearby in this context because the battle had not commenced.
You can argue that not having people nearby represented a security risk because it left the equipment vulnerable to sabotage but it isn’t an indication that the weapons were unmanned.
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Generally Balistas are surrounded by NPCs, and I would surmise that instances that they’re not are few and far between and likely oversights.
There are probably half a dozen quests where we see balistas operating on their own only for us to need to jump in and actually use said balista.
There are plenty of NPCs nearby that can operate a Ballista, the argument that a specific type of NPC that is not present anywhere, or even shown to be present is where the problem comes in.
Then you’re just arguing about game mechanics then, which are largely inconsistent and unreliable. Instances where our player encounters enemy Ballistas, are generally accompanied by enemy units. I cannot personally recall any instance where I
I don’t think it is, because generally Ballistas are manned, or surrounded by NPCs to some capacity. Anyone can operate a Ballista, heck for all we know Vareesa intended to use it during the battle, or assumed it would be useful. But we cannot say that Silver Covenant High elves were present, or were the ones operating based off the presence of a single, unmanned ballista.
If the idea was to give the impression they were present, they would’ve easily added an NPC or two to showcase this.
Except plenty of artillery and siege enegines do show themselves being manned. For instance the Glaive throwers in the Isle of Conquest have seats on them that clearly show the player operating and firing them. You’re not going to convince me that there’s an invisible man operating a ballista.
I think that this is splitting hairs, especially if the fundamental argument is that the lack of specifically designated ballistae operators proves a lack of High Elf involvement in the siege.
Even if you’re correct and there weren’t High Elven operators present, someone still needed to assemble those ballistae (and they’re in the Thalassian style) and apply High Elven colors and heraldry to them (which also shows that the Alliance considered them a significant enough participant to warrant displaying their heraldry.)
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If Ballistae are firing by themselves, I think that’s really weird, and they should go back and update it. It’s clearly confusing.
Generally it has been this way since Warcraft 2. Blizzard is generally lazy with regard to actually adding drivers to them.
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Keep in mind that in that scenario, Alleria and Vereesa are present at the beginning and go off scouting. Two elves alone is not enough of a scouting force to cover much ground, even if Alleria is one of them. I think it’s a fair conclusion that Silver Covenant forces, and Void Elves, both went with those two. This would leave the ballistae the Silver Covenant brought unmanned and unguarded, although I imagine other security measures could’ve been taken as well.
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Speculation, especially if they’re intending to be covert and unseen. In the past vareesa and alleria have announced when they’re deploying their forces, but in this case they specifically name only each other before scouting.
Anyone can come up with any number of theories, but in the end thats all they are. We can only go off what we can actually see, especially if we’re going to argue it as a point.
As now, there are no examples of any silver covenant npcs present at the battle. Its totally fine if thats your theory, but please dont tell others that they have to take your word for it like its an established fact in the lore.
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Well, I saw the leaders of the Void Elves and Silver Covenant, and I saw the Ballistae of the Silver Covenant.
I didn’t.
If you would kindly in turn not pretend I’m trying to pass off speculation, theory, or opinion as fact, I’d greatly appreciate that.
But no silver covenant. So…
Sorry, i dont mean to dismiss the idea or possibility of your theory, the person im talking with is just convinced that hes right, and keeps implying that i have to take his word for it.
And neither are you right. You imply we need to see the Silver Covenant when again it simply Blizzard simply not adding more NPC to an even that was already packed with NPC.
Considering Shandris and Lor’themar co-led the siege on Orgrimmar’s gates, and the ballistae they used were split even between Darnassian and Thalassian, I’d make a strong wager they were Lor’themar’s contribution and Blizzard just forgot to use the right color.
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