Now that we know that our benevolent Calia wants to give Gilneas back to the Gilneans, I saw some Alliance players saying that it is time they too unblighted Southshore and give it back to the alliance.
I disagree.
Southshore went from being a little fishing town to a military outpost.
It went from being a little fishing town to a military target, and as is often the case in war - it ended up being targeted with an experimental weapon.
It’s former residents, either be risen unto undeath or now being the descendants of the Worgen of Fenris isle - are no longer human, it would be silly, so silly to remake it as either a neutral, horde or alliance port considering it could be used as a monument of the former wars Hillsbrad had, a cruel but perfect example of what War would mean to those characters who are now moving into a peace narrative.
Having it remain destroyed also means the place where Kel’thuzad began his Cult of the Damned? Where the first straws of the Scarlet Crusade begin to construct the Ashbringer?
There can be so much potential with it remaining in ruins.
Biased in regards to what exactly? I tried highlighting four different points of view from four different mini-factions.
So here’s the deal.
If both Gilneas and Lordaeron have an Innkeeper,
Well, tbh the whole point of blight as a narrative device is that there isn’t a straight way to counter it - Maybe Jaina froze it for a bit, but even then it really seems like Ice magic was only able to temporarily contain it. Alextraza fire?
Well, and this is without thinking about the different strains. The thing is that the questing said it wouldn’t be possible to remove it for ten thousand years, and now a book retconned that?
While in Return to Lordaeron, not even the constructs of the top dude who researched it for a living(?) knew how to get rid of it.
We could ask why isn’t there an anti-blight group tasked with researching it, why didn’t the alliance soldiers wear a mask when trying to invade Lordaeron?
forsaken destroyed southshore to push alliance back but they just pushed them into forsaken lands, southshore humans now lives in fenris isle and they control the zone, the forsaken shooted themselves in the foot.
southshore is already being reconstructed for humans:
Several years after Southshore’s destruction, after the Fourth War, it has been reclaimed from the Forsaken by the Alliance who are undergoing the process of cleaning up the remaining threats.[24]
leave southshore alone so worgens retire from fenris isles (that is bordering with undercity coast) and go back to their lovely southshore.
keep the entire lordaeron in ruins then using the same logic, the entire lordaeron should be kept as a monument of what humans once were and not what they have become.
Southshore was a fun leveling area that had nothing to do with the Horde. If you weren’t on a PVP Server the only things going on in Southshore was fighting Nagas, Murlocs, Yeti’s, making Turtle Soup, and the starting point of the Alliance’s Scarlet Monastery Questline.
The Alliance has the problem that a lot of the fun zones got gutted by the Cata revamp. At least with Chromie time we can dispense with the lackluster revamp finally.
I hadn’t played since Wrath when I came back in Legion. And when I got to Hillsbrad and saw Southshore in ruins I got a viscerally emotional reaction.
The emotion was of course complete and utter joy. Seriously I don’t care if you remember the place fondly, it made questing in Hillsbrad impossible in Vanilla and even in BC and Wrath I frequently had to park my main nearby because it was always a ganker’s buffet. My hatred eclipses your love with it’s passion and enthusiasm, I assure you.
Seriously that zone had to be designed before PvP servers were thought up. Putting a level 20 Horde hub up the street from a level 30 Alliance hub was a bad enough idea. Then to top it off it’s mostly a field so there’s nowhere to hide or try to juke opponents. My only lament is that I personally didn’t get to fumigate the place with Deathfog and pick off anyone who managed to escape the goopifying green gas.
With that being said, I wouldn’t be opposed to the place being reclaimed by the Worgen. Because at least they have proper spooky architecture. I’m a firm believer that save for the Hinterlands everything between Thoradin’s Wall and Thalassian Pass should be Spookslyvania. To that end I certainly cant say werewolves with glowing eyes don’t also belong there.
I also presume a revamped Hillsbrad wouldn’t have the same imbalance problems unless Blizzard is deliberately trying to screw with us. If it’s revisted it will almost certainly be used for max level content so it would actually be a fun fair fight as opposed to a killing field. And those looking to level in the area will presumably be doing the Chromie timewalk Cata version anyway so, no skin off anyone’s rear there either.
This is the comparing of Apples to Oranges when it comes to this zone (and other things like it).
The different experiences between PVP Servers and PVE Servers are creating a gulf between two view points concerning Southshore.
I miss the old Southshore zone, but any mention of PVP with it makes me wonder WTF the person is talking about cause none of that ever took place during leveling unless some level 60 was making a nuisance of his or her self. That however was not specific to Southshore and occurred everywhere else too. You simply parked the character you were on and switched to another character else where on Azeroth and went on about your game.
[As an aside to Classic, I want the old zones back, not the gameplay mechanics.]
Well I can certainly see you played on PvE servers.
Ashenvale didn’t have this problem. Even if a max level really had it out for you some quick thinking and a potion of lesser invisibility could get you out of a lot of problems. A particularly vindictive Druid or Hunter might still track you down but as CC actually worked on higher levels back then you still had a shot.
Hillsbrad on the otherhand has nothing you can hide behind or try to lose people in. It is mostly just a rolling field. There’s a reason the place turned into the sort of warzone that lagged like a mf and threatened to crash servers with the sheer scale of battle.
And that part was actually really fun. Trying to get a Horde toon to level 30 by squeezing every last drop out’ve every other zone on the otherhand was not. It was outright unplayable. You couldn’t even land in Tarren Mill safely. Very good chance you’d get insta killed and find the FM dead and the town in the midst of battle.
It wouldve been inspired design for an end level zone. For a level 20-30 one, not so much. It was a problem that was dealt with.
If it gets rebuilt it shoukd be a Worgen town. Because they could use more than 3 and a half towns. Humans got Stromgarde, they can stay on their side of the wall and go rebuild Menethil Harbor or they can be on the dinner menu, far as I’m concerned.
I doubt Ivar is going to give up fenris isle anytime soon. He and his pack are still at war with the forsaken, and it’s a strategic place to hold and launch attacks from
I still say that and Alterac City should become an EBG and BG respectively.
Fenris Isle would have to be made larger in it’s EBG instance but w/e the scale is always janky in this game. Figure you could do a Strand of the Ancients type game but simplified. Sides get assigned offense or defense and you only play once. Seriously it was bonkers that defenders in that EBG had to win twice.
Also be a good way to show off Gilneas’s might. I’d have the siege engines be NPCs you protect and give players control over hero units like in Darkshore. For the Gilneans I’d have a harvest witch as an airborne support, just a human lady on a broomstick in witch garb with some Autumn themed heals, CC’s and buffs. Something I’d call a Gentlettin (pronounced like Gentleman) which would be an ettin weaponized by putting an XXL enchanted tophat on one head that makes it partially act like a Victorian fop, serving as a walking tank.
Head 1: “SMASH PUNY GITS!”
Head 2: “Indeed, let us give these knavish scoundrels a proper fight” .
And have the third be a Feral Bloodfang who’d be a stealthed berserker meant to jump in and jump out. Basically if a Sub Rogue and a Fury Warrior had a baby and fed it nothing but HGH and horse steroids.
The Forsaken’s answer to this would be a Banshee, Abomination and Lightslayer respectively.
And then for Alterac City revisit the idea of a urban combat EBG from Gilneas City. But turn it into an attrition based BG and mix in some open areas with narrow alleys and room to room fighting.
Seriously it’s weird to me nobody thought about the obvious trouble with an urban EBG. Clearly they never played a raid on any faction city. Because any given doorway can become an impassable no man’s land if you’ve enough warlocks, mages and hunters just bombarding it with slows, stuns, roots and AoE.
How can anything living settle in southshore now? With this much blight you shouldn’t be able to fish with blight run off or grow anything with blight seeping into the ground.
If Stromgarde gets remade into a proper city rather than the Garrison lazy ripoff that it is then… sure why not.
Let South Shore stand as destroyed or an in-repair kind of a settlement. Great memories from that place but as long as Alliance has content that revolves around it. We can have other hubs around the place if necessary.
Alliance has had Southshore since Exploring Eastern Kingdoms. So if Forsaken wanna stop it, break theatmistice and see the united three kingdoms of Khaz Modan drop on them. No plot armor- if Forsaken wanna pick a fight while they’re weak, then they should have to suffer consequences.
What alliance holds should -not- be retconned just for Horde plot. Forsaken are not gods, they lack a means to reproduce, and we know without it, Sylvannas knew their holdings on the Eastern kingdoms would begin to crumble. So if Forsaken wanna fight the Alliance, do not IGNORE what was established in their lore a decade ago, that has come to pass, and do not retcon what the alliance objectively holds.
Living Lordaeronians have and always existed, and were always being killed by the Forsaken in Hillsbrad simply for trying to exist in what remained of their homeland. If the Forsaken, in their weakest state, wanna fight maybe the strongest form of the Alliance, than they should not be given any plot armor. Because Lordaeron is as much a kingdom tied to the fantasy and history of humanity and this setting, just as much as it is the Forsaken. Nobody else has historical ties to Thunder Bluff but the Tauren, or anyone but Dwarves for Ironforge, there’s no city that was so well established to another race and faction within the RTS series that warcraft lore was built on.
Southshore is an example of the contrasts the Forsaken questing experience from Cata that constantly mess with me every time I do it. Because on one hand, you have some very interesting characters that appear, and are genuinely likeable. But then they do something needlessly brutal/edgy that tosses any nuance out the window. Then you have a bit of time where you get a breather and then it’s right back to it again.
Silverpine is a lesser example of this, though obviously still very present. Hillsbrad, especially the first portion, is especially egregious because the people the Forsaken essentially brutalize are also Lordaeronians, and have just as much of a claim to that land as the Forsaken do. Moreover, the Forsaken and the Horde don’t actually do anything with the land they take. Generally the best way to argue the taking of land is the conqueror’s people needing it, but in the case of Hillsbrad pretty much anything useful is either left to rot or destroyed.
The farmland is turned into the Sludge Fields, the infrastructure of Southshore, as well as any decent port, is made useless due to the Blight. The towers are taken, which has some use, but they apparently aren’t used effectively at all because a mess of refugees from Hillsbrad made it into Silverpine regardless. It means there’s no real redeeming factors to the conquest of Hillsbrad, the Forsaken are shown as destructive and incompetent when prior to this they were portrayed as being adept at using what was left behind to build something useful and effective.
It’s all very strange, and to justify it with ‘well it was a military base’ isn’t accurate, I feel. The Forsaken attacked, and did so with such lack of care or any form of efficiency that they created far more problems for themselves than they had before and an immense amount of waste, not even considering the sheer ruthlessness against people who had been sharing that zone for ages and were just as native to it as the Forsaken themselves.
Southshore should be rebuilt as an Alliance town and reflected ingame. Enough with Alliance towns/zones sitting in eternal ruins. There’s enough of that ingame as it is. Having Southshore rebuilt either as a Gilnean settlement, Stromgarde settlement or some Lordaeronian themed town again would be ideal. It would show the Alliance at least being somewhat competent and logical by rebuilding something. Especially something that was thought to be long gone considering how badly it was blighted.
As a Vanilla Player, I was thrilled when the story progressed and showed Southshore blighted to smithereens in Cata.
I can understand why Alliance fans were attached. But it was still a great moment for the Horde!
However, if the state of the current lore is that they are reclaiming it, then I guess we can go back to the vanilla days of picking fights with each other.
Sure. Blizzard could have left Southshore as a ruin, but they decided to have the Alliance reclaim it. We are all better off if lore is reflected in game.
The “Shadow Lore” that comes from Tweets and Q and A sessions is a sorry substitute for Events in game.
How about instead of just saying:
“Alliance won Darkshore and Arathi”, actually make these things reflected in game. Or at least a short story on the website. Same with Southshore.
The Forsaken reclamation of Lordaeron was a good start. At least it was content and lore reflected in game.
Blight doesn’t get to be something the Alliance just seems to forget the Forsaken use and have very obvious counters for that work both ways, then. And if we cant have than, then bring in the Vindicaar.
That’s the problem. We literally never get anything like this ourselves, EVER. EVER. We constantly fight stupidly, not using all the abilities we were written to have, seemingly just to make the Horde look better. We have, since pretty much the dawn of WoW, been the fodder faction that doesn’t really get anything meaningful. When our characters show up, they usually suck. Sure they ‘live’ but it’s subjective if thats better when blizz warps them into the opposite of what made people like them in the first place.
How many times do you really want the Proudmoore lady rescuing the Alliance?
Oh please. If Draenei: Citrus Surge brought that into the atmosphere the Sin’Dorei would crash it into the Exodar. They took out that capitol ship and took over the rest of the fleet, I’m not too concerned about that glorified escape pod. Especially not with Aethas Sunreaver having had plenty of time to poke around in it.