Teldrassil's burning was a short-sighted decision on the writers' part

Lol “2 years later we’re doing something different so the past is erased”

Not how that works. In the slightest.

I’ve mentioned this before, but I really think Teldrassil as a mystery would’ve been perfect as a set up to a stealth N’Zoth expansion.

Picture it;

The Horde are beginning to occupy Teldrassil and the Alliance is withdrawing/ still putting up some guerilla resistance points.

Then both sides see Red/Blue NPCs deliberately burning the place with these strange looking bombs. The thing goes up wayyyyy quicker than anyone could’ve expected. The Alliance casualties are the same but the Horde also suffer some as their soldiers hastily try to get off the tree.

The Alliance blame the Horde, understandably, and then we get the Battle of Lordaeron as is.

Expansion continues the same till about 8.2.5 and that’s when we discover we’ve been getting played by N’Zoth and the Twilight Hammer. He’s been screwing with our perceptions the whole time. His agents have been launching horrifying war crimes but all we see is the opposite faction doing it.

And instead of it being Slyvanas just, leading everybody to their doom, the Nazjatar whirlpool could’ve happened during a massive naval battle and that’s when we learm we’ve been played.

N’Zoth’s chains were broken by Sargeras’s sword and he’s been throwing the Horde and Alliance against eachother this whole time to soften up Azeroth for his Black Empire invasion.

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To be fair, there was as Goblin couple in there using the space for a picnic at least.

Anyone else still pissed off that they tried really hard to make it seem like we’d be arguing who burned the try or why it was burned months to years later but literally after it happens many of us called it or were just dumbfounded that blizzard was super obvious about it.

I think it might of been better if Nzoth had tricked the Night elfs into attacking and burning their own capital thinking it was the Horde doing it (The army that is coming back) While the night elf defense force valiantly defends not understanding why the “Horde are attacking”

All the while Tyrande and Co are thinking the Horde somehow killed and occupied Teldrasill and it eventually burns due to cultist.

Once the Alliance Marches towards Lordaeron all the Horde are scrambling wondering what in odyns name is going on and why are the Alliance attacking after we just joined forces against the legion.

Would give the Horde a good Defense and reason to fight somewhat, while the Alliance are Rightfully pissed about past actions while believing the Horde must of done this.

I think the real problem was the writers never intended to do a proper ending or succession of events with this barbecue, though they’ve done this to each playable race(Trolls especially) but in this case at being done in a cinematic made the message reach to everyone and couldn’t be gloss over.

In any case I still don’t get people believing this was a huge thing, our characters literally have killed parents in front of children(Vanessa Vancleef), kidnapp children(wolvars) and participates at massacres(Kirin tor with elfies, Gilneas, most of the Troll story lines, kill syndicates, red dragons, orcs, etc) and yet I only see Teldrassil being only show up constantly cause it was show at a cinematic.

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Guess it’s confirmed then blizzard is that kid in the class room who likes to help make a huge explosion or mess, but doesn’t like to clean it up afterwards…at most they put some things away so they stop getting yelled at

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Baine basically called it a sickness within the Horde. The issue is the Horde can never absolve itself so long as there are willing parties that took part in the actions of Blackhand, Garrosh, and Sylvanas. So long as this “sickness” is not addressed and it being removed not by a few quest where Saurfang somehow “redeems” the Horde. To the Alliance how should that be redeeming? How can the other parties within the Horde not be prosecuted for the crimes they partook in the Fourth War? I guess my point is that like when Garrosh went “crazy” the Horde just blamed everything on him and now it’s the same with scapegoating it all on Sylvanas and Nathanos. If Baine is correct that this is a sickness then the Horde needs to redress it not just by ending the Warchief tradition, but offering reparation’s.

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Two big reasons for me atleast was

  1. It was shown in much more detail, and implied to have been much worse than what you mention, both in terms of numbers and the damage it did to one race. And 2. The Horde both did this, and they also avoided a similar tragedy at Undercity. Sure the city was lost but they lost it on their own terms, and it’s population was said to have escaped relatively unharmed. Which further stoked the anger among Alliance players.
    And ultimately it’s shown and said to be much bigger and worse, so you can’t headcannon it and pretend that most of the elves survived, or anything of the sort. You’re just flat out told that almost everyone on Teldrassil died.
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Yeah, I got that part loud and clear. I just don’t get what sort of footwork you’re trying to execute by somehow claiming that doesn’t include the Horde PC/player, or whether you think that should sound reassuring. (Though I do appreciate the effort.)

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The funny thing is … this story maybe could have worked if the components were handled a bit differently. Quite frankly, an unbelievable amount of this story would make a whole lot more sense if the angle was Sylvie using Teld as a form of entrapment to keep the Horde in line long enough to get what she wanted out of them. The fear of Alliance being invested in a War of Extermination against the Horde for Teld suppressing descent and rebellion.

This would create a situation where the Horde is allowed to respond to Teld; recognize that the Alliance is justified in wanting revenge; but not being in a position to just let them slaughter all their people. Combine this with something as simple as the Alliance aggression proceeding the WoT being allowed to count, justifying that conflict as an independent event … and you do have a functional (albeit … frustrating) story. Not great, but functional at least.

The conflict would then boil down to Sylvanas trying to maintain the façade of the Alliance being invested in ending the Horde, to maintain control as long as possible; and Anduin trying to wage a war, without reinforcing Sylvie’s narrative to allow the Horde breathing room to turn on her. With various factions on each side frustrating both their efforts. Which would make sense of WHOLE lot of both of their tactics still employed throughout the expansion.

EDIT: This angle is also there … buried deep in Horde rep dialogue if you really search of it. But I honestly think Blizz decided against using it due to how people were getting pissed at them for what appeared to be MoP2.0 (which it totally was, they lied for 2 years straight). Which is why they went the route of removing Teld almost entirely from the Horde side of the story instead.

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And since you do have knowledge you also know that the player has the option of targeting just the Sentinels, so taking out civillians is entirely by choice. Logrash does give you an appropriately salty response if you do choosee one though.

You mean something like …

?

Gotta say, though, the “entrapment angle” doesn’t really improve the experience at all as far as I’m concerned. And I’m also willing to bet you’ve given it a lot more thought than the writers did.

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I have a gut feeling that the reason [for that change] is the scene in War Crimes. Because Tyrande was the one who brought Alexstrazsa and an example of “any evil can be forgiven”. So, with Tyrande there is a path to push her to forgiving the horde already. Brief explanation of the part.

[With Maiev there would be no “plan B”]


gl hf

My goal really wasn’t to make a more enjoyable experience, but simply a more functional story with what ingredients we had. I’ve also grown so sick of Sylvanas I’m not about to move heaven and Earth to rearrange the story so she can be a hero. If the goal with BfA was to settup SLs, then this is the easiest way towards that goal with what they had. Nearly every major story beat up through Azshara could have remained the same, just altered for the perspective of “entrapment”.

And yes, a small part of this is me being bitter about people throughout Legion telling me they killed my favorite character (and the last WC3 Hero in the Horde, which means they in effect symbolically killed the WC3 Horde) in one of the most insulting ways imaginable … “because Sylvanas is more popular”. Outside of the ARs, the only “good” thing to come out of BfA was Gob content and Loa’Jin’s story for Horde (and I’d still prefer he’d be alive).

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Yes what I said but the numbers thing is up at the air, we’ve a priest saying their race is likely done but at the next time we see nelves have numbers enough to assault both Darkshore and give soldiers for a suicide mission.

Don’t get me wrong I don’t like genocide as a storyline because like time travel, it’s pretty hard to give a good ending without holes or the lector/player wondering if all these trouble was worthy

It was lost on Sylvanas terms

and they’re ignored, supposedly some are at Lordaeron still but it’s barely a mention. The nelves however got Teldrassil and a small enclave being built in there already.

As I said, this storyline sucks for many reason but I don’t like when people over-exaggerate it to the point it seems they’re just memeing now or the classic “no other race suffered like this and Blizzard needs to address it asap”

Ehh And yes and no.

Personally I am not a fan of the removal of capitals, but if the devs wanted to do it then they’d better would do it in more compelling way. You don’t describe in a short novel how short catapult reach is just to disregard it shortly after and make them reach across the sea and completely ignoring various other issues which would stand in line of burning Teldrassil.

Even “Meggic fire” should have some restrictions.

So if you want to destroy such a massive tree, then either it must’ve been done by a creature who possesses such as destructive power - like Sargeras, or Achimonde who destroyed Dalaran by playing in a sand. Or the assault takes a really long time to actually make it happen. Such a massive object wouldn’t burn like a piece of paper.

I am not that opposed to attacking Alliance, but it’s incredibly repetitive for Horde to be portrayed as the bad guys who start all of the agressions, and this event … this even is so big that will forever stain the faction’s reputation.

MoP stuff was already dancing around the “never crossing certain border”,but BfA crossed that border with so little regard.

In ideal world, Alliance started the war and they did it because they couldn’t trust the Horde after Broken shore, the Nelf army is attacking the Horde in Silithus, and Horde retaliates and manages to push through because they deployed azerite thechnology faster than anyone else. And when they reached the Teldrassil the majority of population was already secured and redirected to safe place. So even if the place would be destroyed, it would be just a place, without massive kill count, and third party could be even involved as well.

And the destruction of such zone could lead to some more interesting narrative, to bring the tenshion in Alliance, make nelves more savage and make them get newer fancier home to start a new era.

But it was all wasted opportiunity and they delivered a content that makes nobody happy.

I think the biggest offender is that they started and ended the war in the very same expansion.
The previous conflict lasted 2 expansions, not 2,5 of a patch, come on!

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I think we won’t get the resolution of Teldrassil in WOW, but if it will ever exist, in WC4. RTS has almost no limitation to bring such a story

This is super interesting, because it’s the exact opposite of the WCII Horde. Back then, Orgrim knew what they were doing was wrong, but felt compelled to keep things going because his people were bloodlusting and there wasn’t much else for options. This hypothetical is reversed, in that the Horde population would hate being forced into war, with their Warchief blackmailing them into continuing it.

If this was to be the arc that wrapped up the story of the Horde getting past its dark roots, this would have been the perfect poetic reversal of that very past from which they stemmed.

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Well I won’t be attending their conflict resolution seminars I guess.

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Don’t worry.

It will become relevant soon once we plunder its burnt out remnants to kill whatever has made its home in the ruins.