So, I take it you believe that of the share of players who are interested in the story of WoW, most of them are satisfied with the current direction?
Do you play on/involved with the RP circles of those servers btw?
Yes I do, I haven’t been active for awhile due to s hift changes but I was active on both Alliance and Horde sides of Earthen Ring.
I was under the impression Wyrmest Accord and Moonguard were the largest RP servers. Either way, from your perspective the rpers there are fine with the direction of the story?
I’m going to object on the basis of the leading question. What I said is that the vast majority of the players don’t give two spits about the story, or the RP, and I know quite a few rp’ers who’ve been ignoring the main line story since day one because they’re doing their own thing.
Your statement was about players. Not the tiny slice of them who are invested in lore focused rp.
When I say they can’t write the faction war in a way that satisfies most people, by most people I obviously meant people invested in the story… and we are on the story forum discussing, for the most part, the story.
Furthermore, you said this
By specifically speaking of roleplaying servers, I assumed you were speaking of role-players, which lead me to the questions I asked. Otherwise there was no need for you to specify the “most roleplaying of roleplaying servers”.
I do too, but depending on the groups they RP with, some basic facts about their character are gonna have to contend with what happens in the main story. If role-play a Forsaken that lived in the Undercity, well my RP can’t really ignore the fact the whole city got blown to smithereens and the people who inhabited it are refugees in Orgrimmar. If I just pretend that didn’t happen, most people I approach are gonna look at me funny.
Unless you’re level 110 or above, UnderCity and Darnassus still stand for you. Even if that’s not true unless the roleplaying story is particurlarly dependent on being in the Undercity, than it’s irrelevant. If my character is involved in a Stormwind plot, the fact that Teldrassil is a smoking ashheap isn’t going to be part of the story.
For gameplay purposes, sure. Not really for RP… Even if I am below 110, my RP is gonna have to take into account current events when they possibly become relevant in conversation. I can’t walk up to someone who has as an aspect of their character the fact they want vengeance for their lost home and say “Wait… you want vengeance for Teldrassil? Why? That still stands for my character” just because I am below 110. I think a lot of people, from my experience, are okay with lore bending… but not to the extent that you completely ignore and pretend certain major events in the story haven’t occurred.
Here’s the thing… there is no such thing as a global timeline. the history of the gameworld is dependent on your level. if you’re level 40, cataclysm hasn’t even happened for you yet. Canon as a result is a personal thing, not a global event. It’s incumbent on RP’ers who are going to tie their roleplay that way to keep this in mind. and be flexible in how they conduct their RP.
And the sad fact of the matter is… you’re not the people that Blizzard makes this game for. The PVPers, the Raiders and the Cosplayers all hold a much higher priority in consideration.
Okay, cool.
I think many of these people are not satisfied either, even if not for story reasons. So when you say:
I would still Press X To Doubt.
He personally recruits them.
Just earlier in the story Malfurion tells him that he doesn’t care at all about an “honorable duel”.
If these are the standards of Orcish honor, nobody could possibly judge them accurately.
They were. They would have had differing intentions of the purposes and direction of the attack, and all of them get undermined by killing Rastakhan and not pressing the war to let the Zandalari grieve. I’d also say that Anduin’s goal wasn’t just the fleet, given that pushing the Zandalari closer to the Horde and Sylvanas directly plays against ending the war by specifically targeting her, as it’s making more enemies who have reason to continue to fight the Alliance.
Additionally, as I noted before, the diversion allowed quite a bit of the Zandalari fleet to escape. If the idea was to separate the Zandalari from the Horde politically this is fine, since they would end up not fighting for the Horde anyway, but if the idea was to blow up the fleet, allowing part of the fleet to escape makes no sense, hence the goals being incompatible.
You might say that’s Blizzard’s terrible writing, I might say that’s Anduin being completely stupid in a way that’s consistent with his character.
During their conversation, Sylvanas and Saurfang talk about all of the Alliance nations splitting, not just Gilneas, just in terms less specific than the Gilneas example. I also think it’s arguable that the burning didn’t break the Alliance’s hope, it certainly did for the raised Night Elves, and Tyrande abandoning everything to become an avatar of vengeance could also be said to be that.
So do you want me to analyze it or do a breakdown of your own analysis? I’ve already noted that overall you tend to take the idea they’re emotionally unstable and present every passage through that lens of reasoning. Mostly it seems to come down to you thinking the ideas they’re presenting are wrong, and therefore in order for them to think those thoughts their cognition must be impaired. And you’re also insisting their ideas are wrong because their thinking is emotional. It’s a bit of circular logic, where your reasoning is just feeding on itself for fuel.
Multiple sources describe her as calculated and cunning, both Chronicle and BtS just off the top of my head. But as far as planning goes, she’s not exactly one to go into a rage and pointlessly undermine her strategies. The closest thing to that would be Arthas in WCIII, where you might say her desire to kill him slowly led to him getting away, but given that killing him slowly was the plan, you might also say the flaw wasn’t the objective itself, but rather that she was ambushed in the process of pulling it off. And anyway, she was dealing with Arthas specifically in that situation. Him, and arguably her sisters, are just about the only things that have ever been shown to compromise her emotionally.
Again, that’s very likely not to be the case. If you think about it, there are practically infinite ways to get the Alliance to split, and most scenarios probably aren’t contingent on the Horde fighting honorably.
If anything, it’s the opposite. If the Horde fights dishonorably, the Alliance will be forced to decide whether or not they’ll keep Varian’s promise from SoO, which Anduin himself clearly doesn’t want to do. In a certain way, that even initiates their own “honor crisis”, where the right thing to do becomes very unclear. This is doubly true when you have multiple factions of the Horde and both of them were party to the war.
But if she was so full of rage that she couldn’t be trusted to think coherently, how could she even restrain herself from killing Saurfang right then and there?
But even in the event of an honorable win, Sylvanas expected Anduin to desperately lash out in an attack.
Based on his actions during the invasion, she had every reason to believe that his concept of honor included things like ambushes and sneak attacks. Again, what Saurfang did with Malfurion was so out of character for him that she correctly assumes divine intervention must have played a part in it.
When I was talking about vagueness, I was referring more towards her overall plans, which the story foreshadows multiple times as being hidden while vaguely referencing them.
Well, you said you’d “take their support over your dismissal”. Seems like you were suggesting that their support invalidates my dismissals.
But they don’t agree? They just retroactively accept when Jaina does it. Genn is upset that she’d even help Baine.
That’s an idea, sure, but in the Horde warfront they Blight most of the landing area specifically to stop the Night Elves from attacking via that route, so unless the Night Elves can purge the Blight, their invasion doesn’t work. Also there’s the fact that their part of the cycle literally happened first.
But he and his soldiers don’t adhere to that idea of honor during the war. Saurfang himself tries to bait Malfurion into a duel purely so their battle plans could be taken away.
Considering the Horde hardly has any fleet left and what they do have can’t match the Kul Tirans, using it as bait to destroy their enemy’s much larger force is very reasonable.
Nobody in their right mind bets on miracles happening when they plan things.
Well, Sylvanas did at least deliver that. Part of burning Teldrassil was to send the message that one way or another, this was a war to the end. No pointless half-measures leading to another stalemate, someone is winning or losing this one. So the Horde either gets victory, or they get defeat and death. It lacks the honor Saurfang wanted, but part of that was his own fault.
They and Tyrande were at least there, played a part in the battle, and had a say in the settlement.
I also have no faith in them, but it’s pointless to argue only within the confines of their bad writing. We should at least consider what makes sense for the story.
So? Then both sides have their justifications and they can go forward while not feeling like insane monsters or pathetic doormats.
Why? If anything that last presentation was the confirmation. The lore simply doesn’t move in a way that we’re provided constant updates for zones or characters, we have to use the information available to us.
Was there supposed to be an “aren’t” in there? What, do you think people pretend to think she’ll get a super Saiyan redemption arc so that Blizzard will instead have her go through with the Garrosh damnation arc? What about all the people who keep predicting her to be Garrosh 2.0 anyway, or just those who want her dead either way?
How many layers of ironic contrarianism do you think people operate under?
Well that’s still one of the big criticisms levied at Alliance writing, still. Frankly I’d say it’s a deep-seated issue that’s plagued both factions.
But the predominant reaction to that was to say that it was bad and nowhere near enough.
But if that’s the case, why do you keep insisting that’s not what they’re going to do?
One patch like the Barrens patch, effectively. Also all of Maiev’s issues were forgotten and ignored by everybody, I don’t think that much speaks to Tyrande’s character specifically.
First off, I don’t think saying “go back to vanilla” in response to ongoing issues with the game is a very good position to take. Secondly, it was an issue even then, less so than now, but the Night Elves in particular had still been watered-down from WCIII.
Saying it would work “like the Pandaren, but opposite” may as well be saying it would work “like the Pandaren, but not at all”. That doesn’t explain how the world would work going forward, how reputations and old faction-locked content would function, or what this theoretical faction would look like or how it would come about.
Aren’t they just mustering for Darkshore? They never go to Arathi.
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As part of an overall plan. He himself is not an assassin.
I don’t see how this should automatically make Saurfang abandon his own sense of honor.
Or it’s just you and Sylvanas who can’t judge the character of Saurfang accurately.
We already covered this:
The Zandalari aren’t a threat any more.
Hahaha, well, I won’t disagree with you there. Anduin has not been a good wartime leader. But that’s what miracles make up for, it seems.
I take it more as Gilneas being the domino that starts the process, like Quel’thalas was after the Second War.
Countered by the living Night Elves fighting back even harder, and Tyrande taking everything she discarded back up immediately upon becoming the Night Warrior.
The Undead Night Elves don’t even do anything. Most of them get re-killed by Tyrande and the Alliance player right after they join the Horde, and then they don’t even contribute anything of value to the Darkshore Warfront.
Either way’s fine with me.
Calculating and cunning are not mutually exclusive with emotional and impulsive.
This is a conversation for the future, or a conversation for never if the Alliance doesn’t split.
She almost didn’t:
- Saurfang met her eyes without flinching. “Stormwind, I’d guess. Tyrande intervened and took him away.”
It wasn’t often Sylvanas was left speechless.
It didn’t last long. “Malfurion lives?” she snarled. “You let him escape?”
His lips did not smile, but his eyes did. He was happy— happy!— about this. “I could not stop Tyrande. Perhaps you could have.”
“Perhaps I made a mistake in trusting you,” Sylvanas shot back. Her hands twitched toward her bow.
No. Not yet, she decided.
And then she turned away from them because she didn’t want them to see her not being composed.
Which she expected Anduin to do after the Alliance was already rotted from the inside out, not when they were unified. It would have been Anduin’s final attack, not his first. It wasn’t the first attack, the Battle of Lordaeron, that has the Horde losing on all fronts, but the Alliance simultaneously winning at all fronts while still being unified that has cost her everything.
Or it was in character and Sylvanas had no sense of Saurfang.
Which was my point. The narrative did not spoon feed us every fact there is.
It does invalidate your dismissal, in that you’ve confused yourself for someone whose dismissal matters. It doesn’t make what I speculated be canon, though. Just that I don’t care that you disagree with me. While I do care that others with whom I have more interests with might agree with me.
In Nazjatar they slowly build up from agreeing to non-interference with the Horde to actively working side by side with Lor’themar and Thalyssra.
Here’s a picture of Shandris even joined forces with a Forsaken:
I posted my speculation on that once:
Though, yes, that would mean that the Night Elves can purge the Blight.
Appearantly that’s honorable.
It is reasonable, I actually agree with you there.
But still puts her back to square one with no way to attack the Alliance further.
So you admit that Sylvanas wasn’t in her right mind then:
- And that was almost certainly true, wasn’t it? Elune had intervened. Perhaps she had even stayed Saurfang’s killing blow. And she wouldn’t be the only force beyond the Alliance to oppose Sylvanas’s true objective.
Sylvanas’s anger grew cold.
She had known this would happen. It had simply come sooner than expected. That was all.
Humor aside, if Sylvanas was in her right mind, she was predicting that miracles would oppose her. So she really should have stopped betting that they wouldn’t come at the perfect time to mess up her plans again.
Yeah, but what Saurfang wanted was the honor, and Malfurion living could have given him that.
And I wanted Battlefield: Ashenvale concurrently with Battlefield: Barrens, but instead we got robocat and Vol’jin’s corronoation and, yes, the Night Elves got the participation ribbon. It wasn’t appropriate representation for Garrosh invading all the Night Elves’ land. And it’s not a Night Elf exclusive problem. Blizzard constantly does peoples story arcs disservice by not including them in the conclusions of those story arcs.
So I’d completely expect Blizzard to make that mistake again with the Night Elves now.
I focus more on discussion what the story is and what Blizzard might write. Discussing what would make more sense is fun, but it just sets up disappointment when Blizzard can’t live up to what millions of different people have in their heads.
Take my desire for Battlefield: Ashenvale as Patch 8.3. It’s not going to happen, so I’m just setting myself up to be more disappointed with whatever 8.3 actually is.
Likewise, people thought the Tyrande and Malfurion would be involved with Azshara in 8.2, and now, now matter how good Nazjatar is or isn’t, it will already be tarnished by what people hoped it would have been instead.
Which is even sadder, because we should have all seen this coming when the avoided any contact between Illidan and Malfurion and Tyrande until after they had Illidan safely locked away in the Seat of the Pantheon, which is not what people looking forward to a reunion wanted.
Are you kidding? I’m not playing any of my Horde alts during BfA. I haven’t logged onto them since before the War of the Thorns event because I like my Horde characters too much to put them through the Horde’s story for BfA. If I don’t want a warmongering story for my Horde charatcers, I don’t want a warmongering story for my Alliance characters even more. Especially not my Night Elves.
If my proposal of the Horde rebels helping the Night Elves take their lands back happened, then, too, could both sides go forward not feeling like insane monsters or pathetic doormats.
No we don’t, because we don’t actually have any information available to us. Admitting we don’t know what’s going on is the most honest thing we can do.
No? Might be clearer this way, though:
Players are rolling their eyes and predicting that Blizzard will make Sylvanas Kerrigan 2.0 exactly because Blizzard would want to be contrarian against the players want her to be Garrosh 2.0 instead, you know.
That’s how the game goes. Bad guy attacks. Heroes attack back. We already roll over the bad guys like they’re nothing as is. Having us attack the bad guys first would just make the bad guys look even weaker than that, and they already look weak as is. Iron Horde? Legion? Azshara? They’ve all been going down like punks. Even the Horde as the acting villain this expansion went from their Broken Shore style triumph against the Alliance to a continuous chain of loss. Which sucks even more, because the Horde is a playable faction, and not one thing the Horde has done in their War Campaign has paid off. Even Priscilla Ashvane predictably betrays them.
Like I said, I want nothing to do with a warmongering storyline on the Alliance, either.
More that it was a good start, but indeed, a good start is nowhere near enough.
Once again, I want Battlefield: Ashenvale, and for the Night Elves to be there for Sylvanas’ final death. But I don’t expect either to happen, and will still be complaining that, while Tides of Vengeance was good, it wasn’t nearly enough.
Because I don’t expect Blizzard to even do that. I expect exactly SoO 2.0. The Night Elves might show up, Tyrande might have some gossip text at the end, and we move on to the next expansion, and I wouldn’t expect more than that.
To be completely honest, I did not expect the Darkshore Warfront or its related content at all.
When BfA launched, I honestly though all the Night Elves were going to get was the Mission Table missions and that’s it. So, yeah, we actually got a lot more than I expected.
But even what we got isn’t enough to make up for getting pushed out of Ashenvale in a novel and the burning of Teldrassil and then the story focusing on how the Horde feels about itself.
And the burning of Teldrassil might be forgotten and ignored by everybody, too.
No so much my telling them to go back to vanilla as much as I expect those kinds of players are already planning to do that on their own.
I was talking about faction homogeneity as in cross-playability. When Classic comes out people will be able to go back to a time where you couldn’t even make a character of the opposite faction on the same server again.
Huh? Yes it does. Old content would still be old content. Just like there are Gnome only quests that I can’t do as Night Elf, if you couldn’t do a lower level quest as a Blood Elf you still wouldn’t be able to do it after unlocking being able to group up with Alliance players.
During the quest The Fall of Zuldazar, Shaw’s opening line when explaining the invasion plan is “An assault on the city of Dazar’alor will destabilize the Horde’s relations with the Zandalari.”
Later, during the Dead Reckoning quest, Anduin says “Our mission was to drive a wedge between the Zandalari and the Horde. Instead, we may have strengthened their bond.”
Shaw’s dialog is from before the raid, Anduin’s is from after. This shows that Anduin’s ideas about the purpose of the raid were not just his alone, it was known that was the objective before they attacked.
Again, if the purpose of the attack was only to negate the Zandalari fleet, nothing about the attack makes sense. There would have been no reason to draw off the Zandalari’s forces, or to invade the city itself at all. As it is, the Zandalari are actually left with just under half their fleet. As far as the strategic purpose of the battle, it was a complete debacle, even if Halford believes it was a victory on a tactical basis.
They have nearly half their fleet left and are now firmly part of the Horde. And Anduin and Jaina’s sympathy for them effectively destroyed their own advantage. Them choosing not to attack at that time allowed Sylvanas to do exactly what Genn knew she would if given a chance, hatch a scheme to turn things around for her.
I don’t take it that way. Sylvanas brings up the idea that if the Alliance can’t act as one, each nation will act in their own interests to protect their own lands. The Darkshore campaign does play into that, even if the Night Elves aren’t completely isolated. And at the time, it was a reasonable idea that Genn would act in such a way, because not too long ago he had spent Alliance lives pursuing his personal grudge against Sylvanas.
Them fighting back harder doesn’t mean they aren’t playing into that idea. In one of the quests I cited earlier, there’s this dialog from Anduin:
“We may be on the cusp of winning but we cannot lose sight of ourselves or we will have lost what is most important and our victories will be for nothing.”
Tyrande actions absolutely fall into this theme the writers are going for, and no she doesn’t take everything back up at all. You can argue it’s a stupid theme or that they haven’t fleshed things out enough, but Tyrande throwing away everything to become the Night Warrior is clearly intended to be exactly what both Sylvanas and Anduin reference.
An Undead Night Elf is literally the Horde leader of the Darkshore warfront.
Fine, I’ll start with the analysis’ you’ve presented in this thread for a start.
Killing them was clearly always part of the plan for her. Whether or not that passage is even saying the point was to end them as a people, or as a nation in either direct terms or in regards to what Saurfang knew is debatable, but if we take the basic strategy of divide and conquer she outlined to Saurfang, and apply that to the idea she wants to completely destroy the Alliance, killing the Night Elven leaders completely aligns with her goals. If their ancient leadership was destroyed, the Night Elves would be much easier to deal with. We might say there are some replacements for Tyrande and Malfurion, but none of them carry the same ubiquitous respect, among either their own people or the Alliance as a whole.
In other words, she’s not moving the goal posts, you just didn’t know where the goal posts were to begin with.
None of that is emotional rambling. Losing either, or especially both of their ten thousand year old leaders would be an absolute morale crusher for the Night Elves and even the rest of the Alliance, and the void created by their absence would heavily damage the Alliance’s cohesion. As it is, Tyrande’s makeover and desire for vengeance due to Teldrassil’s burning directly opposes Anduin’s desire to see the war ended quickly and for both factions to slowly recover. The characterization of all of this as a “festering wound” is fairly accurate, because it should have a huge long-term impact on the Night Elves and the Alliance.
Her idea of what Anduin would do if said “wound” was inflicted is completely in-line with what he actually did.
Your idea that her thoughts “devolve” is not accurate. It makes complete sense for someone to think about what their plan was, and then shift to thinking about how and why it had come undone, which she correctly assesses was partially her own fault in overconfidence.
None of that is panic or her thoughts spiraling out of control. When someone’s plan for the future is upended, it is only natural that they would consider what would now happen instead of their desired outcome.
Sylvanas’ suspicions about Elune were completely accurate to the reality of what happened. And if she had believed that her goals were ultimately something Elune would oppose, it’s reasonable for her to suspect that opposition had come now, given Saurfang’s nonsensical actions and Malfurion’s literally miraculous survival.
In the absence of a new idea that involved the tree’s destruction, it is completely reasonable for her to be in the process of following through on capturing Teldrassil. There was little to no reason not to do it at that point.
Sylvanas still had her strategy of divide and conquer in mind, but she was only just then beginning to consider an alternative method of division. Her interactions with Delaryn simply helped her hit upon an idea that would wildly stress the Alliance, and as I’ve previously been arguing, it’s found some success.
His sole blame of Sylvanas for what was happening was unfounded. By his own admission, he doesn’t understand at all why she’s burned the tree yet. From his previous self-satisfaction after sparing Malfurion, he had likely not even thought of anything being wrong or for any reason for such a thing to have been done.
She correctly states that Teldrassil itself was not their objective, the objective was actually to divide the Alliance, and by sparing Malfurion at a critical moment, Saurfang ensured the Alliance would remain united, high in morale, and level-headed as they engaged the Horde in war.
He correctly recognizes her logic as being the case. It isn’t emotional abuse, it’s his admittance that no matter how much he doesn’t want it to be true, it is, as he goes on to explain.
Saurfang was partly to blame for the situation. He did know that just capturing the tree wasn’t the purpose of the invasion, he knew Sylvanas wanted Malfurion dead, and he also knew that Malfurion would return to make the Horde pay in blood. His survival and rescue was a major stumbling block to the purpose of the invasion, in every regard. Even in terms of the idea of splitting the Alliance apart and taking it down piece by piece, Malfurion’s solo defense of the Night Elven lands, with a skeletal garrison backing him up, had shown that the Horde might not even be able to take the Night Elves alone with both leaders in the fray.
His assessment of what would happen with the Alliance in reaction to Malfurion’s unbelievable survival is completely true. Him escaping would be a huge morale boost.
He recognizes that in the situation he set up, his worst fears of a pointless grinding war resulting in a stalemate setting up future generations for failure would come true. Once again, his assessment is true.
She quite literally did see it before he did. It’s a running theme of the story that she’s far ahead of Saurfang in terms of recognizing strategy.
Sylvanas burning the tree to send the message that the war wouldn’t end in a stalemate, which was Saurfang’s greatest fear, is exactly true. It’s not a mockery of the idea of Lok-tar ogar, it’s an avoidance of exactly the outcome neither of them wanted.
He’s right to blame himself, he bears partial responsibility for the war and everything that would result from it.
The burning was partly his fault, so he’s right to take responsibility by facing it head-on.
He’s right to be ashamed. He had been invigorated by the war in Ashenvale, loved it even, while hiding behind the idea that it was honorable. In effect, slaughtering the Night Elves in defense of their lands and slaughtering those in the tree is the same thing, which Saurfang up to this point had never realized.
The lack of a haze to soften the situation speaks a bit against the idea that his mind is compromised. Basically he has to face the fact that he has no excuses and did everything under his own faculties.
He did lead the Horde in the war though. He led them far more than Sylvanas. The entire name of the novella is in reference to the irony of Saurfang thinking war could be good, so his blame isn’t misplaced.
He has those all the time. In short, shame doesn’t equal a compromised train of thought, as I’ve talked about before.
I’d say it is. How can someone be simultaneously be calculated, cunning, and emotional and impulsive? Isn’t the idea of something being done on impulse in direct contradiction with something being done out of calculation?
Regardless of if the split occurs along the lines I’ve suggested, it’s still the case that fighting honorably is not the only way to possibly fracture the Alliance.
And if we look at historical precedent, the only time the Alliance really did fracture is when the Horde was fighting dishonorably, and the Alliance couldn’t decide on what to do with them after everything they’d done. It’s almost exactly the situation I’ve been laying out.
But she did. She did have self-control and restrain herself from doing something drastic like killing him on the spot. And your argument hinges on her being so unstable in the moment that she made a nonsensical impulse decision. Her not killing Saurfang directly contradicts that.
She explicitly said that the Alliance would be united at first. All that’s changed now is the timetable. That makes the situation more complicated and difficult for the Horde, but not untenable.
It really wasn’t in character. None of his actions in that situation make sense with his previous actions. Unless we’re meant to believe that his character is to be inconsistent, what he did at that time could not have been predicted by anybody. And the story literally does have him enveloped in Elune’s light at that time. You can’t say Sylvanas simply failed to read him when a deus ex machina actually did intervene.
Sure, but we’re seeing this vagueness in two different places and aspects of the story.
Still sounding more and more like an argument from popularity. You may say “that doesn’t make my speculation canon”, but at the same time you’re bringing it up against my arguments against your ideas being correct.
Shandris. Not Genn. And them being forced to work together in the moment isn’t exactly evidence against them forgiving the Horde long-term, it’s never worked that way.
That’s an idea, sure, but just as you admit, it means the Night Elves would need to be able to purge the Blight. Which raises the obvious questions - Why do they not purge the Blight anywhere else, and why is this ability not actually ever referenced? The timeline of events in questing is also questionable given the status of the area when players zone in for the quests.
It clearly isn’t. In fact if you wanted evidence of Saurfang not thinking clearly, the fact that he tries (And fails) to bait Malfurion into a fake duel just to let his subordinates escape only to later think it was an actual duel that he lost fairly is just about the best there is.
It puts the Alliance into the same position, except if their forces were to die there, their losses would be much worse.
Except she didn’t bet on a miracle happening, a miracle happened and she correctly assessed that it did. And while she did expect Elune to eventually oppose her true goals, she couldn’t have expected that opposition to happen right then, at exactly the worst possible time. She’d thought that such opposition would come later down the road.
Also Elune =/= A miracle. I get that she is literally a divine entity and can do miraculous things, but she’s also hands-off like 90+ percent of the time. Everyone had just gone through the worst Demon invasion of all time where her biggest contribution was making a dragon into a constellation. She usually just sits things out, kinda hard to predict that she’d intervene right then.
Well he can’t have honor and no pointless bloodshed, and Malfurion living guaranteed the latter.
But Blizzard did at least include them at the climax and have Tyrande voice her support for the end of the war. As things currently are it would be absurd to even do that.
I think Alliance division through Tyrande is what Blizzard might write though. It’s both been hugely ham-fistedly set up and is a rehash of a previous storyline, so it’s par for Blizzard plots.
Hence the “not insane monsters” part. You don’t need to write factions as warmongering if they both have legitimate reasons to go to war against each other.
I think the pathetic doormat part of that would still apply though. For both sides, actually. There are few Horde players I know who would want to “atone” by helping the Night Elves against their own faction.
But, we do? Newest available information is valid information.
Again, what? None of that makes sense. Are you saying people are rolling their eyes on four dimensions or something? And none of these predictions are uniform to everyone anyway, tons of people want or predict vastly different things.
The solution to all of that is just to not write one side as bad and one side as good.
I thought the reaction was mostly that it was a bad, poorly done start though.
Your expectations seem very narrow. Even in MoP the Night Elves got more play than just that. It seems like you just really really don’t want anything like ALP in any form again and are hedging your bets against it by suggesting that Blizzard is incompetent in an extremely specific way.
Then you should ask for more, not argue against it.
Maiev’s issues were mostly in a bad book and are generally irrelevant. Teldrassil’s burning is extremely important for the entire setting.
But again, vanilla isn’t a viable alternative for the ongoing issues of the game.
But… That’s not even true? Only on PvP realms, and I’m not sure it’ll even be the case in vanilla servers. Anyway, that wasn’t the kind of homogeneity I was talking about.
But you could do a system like that just as well by breaking the factions apart, not uniting them. We already have mercenary mode, after all. And generally I think a system that factionalizes further is healthier for the game than one that simply unites all players into the same faction and quest paths.
Just compare Legion’s order halls to BfA’s war campaigns. They cut twelve systems and questing experiences down to two. Sure the class halls were all functionally similar, but so are the war campaigns, and they’re far worse in just about every regard.
I mean, just consider how many alts people have these days. Rolling the factions together basically halves the amount of content a single player has access to if they previously played both factions.
Still don’t trust Shaw this expansion. He just seems far too involved for him not to have some massive role to play by this stories conclusion; and I can’t imagine its just an excuse to square him off against Blightcaller. Nate, I kind of get, the chances are fairly OK that he’s being setup as a replacement for Sylvie … which is why he’s EVERYHWHERE, but why is the Spymaster of the Alliance just so on the front lines (and out in the open) this expansion (when, if Blizz just wanted some military type to make grand speeches … Wyrmbane could use some love)?
This is one of the reasons I take the game view which doesn’t have that light show up until Tyrande appears over the novella. Because if Elune is the reason that Malfurion is alive than Saurfang had no agency in the most important decision made during the War at that point.
Although one has to ask if Elune is going to intervene to save Malfurion, WHY DIDN’T SHE DO SO WHEN SYLVANNAS ORDERED THE CATAPULTS LAUNCHED?
It’s not like she had already invested her power in turning Tyrande to the Night Warrior yet. She hadn’t put up a permanent New Moon over Darkshore yet. Did stopping Saurfang really take that much out of her?
Sylvanas is 2spooky.
But seriously, I don’t think he had no agency, he was just influenced somewhat.
2 Likes
Still… if Elune intervened AT ALL with Saurfang, it still dilutes his agency in making that critical decision and leaves the glaring problem of her inaction later on.
Ultimately this is all that matters, and that the narrative presents the Alliance as winning regardless of everything you pointed out and no where in the narrative does anyone consider anything thrown away or wasted, so this does not divide the Alliance. Unfortunately Blizzard has no actual sense of writing military narratives.
Which she is still wrong about, because each nation doesn’t act in their own interests to protect their own lands, as the Night Elves still participate in attacking Zuldazar and the Gilneans help in both Zandalar and Kalimdor.
Yes it does. Breaking hope was supposed to make them despair so much that all of the Night Elves wouldn’t fight back any more. And this is the opposite of that.
She literally takes back her bow and mount. Asides from the tome that describes the ritual, that’s all she discarded, and she took them back.
And she doesn’t really do anything substantial.
Saurfang didn’t see it that way:
- Nathanos finally spoke up. “And it will give you a chance to hunt Malfurion alone, Warchief.”
The look in Sylvanas’s eyes gave Saurfang pause. She was more annoyed than he would have expected. If the Horde managed to kill both Tyrande and Malfurion, yes, it would be a great victory that would weaken the Alliance, but the objective was supposed to be conquering the World Tree. That wedge would split the Alliance no matter who ruled the night elves.
“Festering wound” was the emotional rambling, as it demonstrates her focusing on the idea of a wound and is lost in the vague notion of it and doesn’t demonstrate any thought on how the abstract concept would actually split the Alliance.
And had nothing to do with the miracle of Malfurion’s survival.
Devolve is accurate, because it is non-linear thinking and just jumping from random thought to random thought.
And a natural emotion to be in when this happens is panic leading to spiraling thoughts of undesired outcomes.
And powers beyond the Alliance and Elune, as if the whole world was going to be out to stop her.
Which is, as we discussed, Sylvanas doesn’t actually come up with anything during all this internal monologuing.
And I’ve been arguing shows Sylvanas neither was able to come up with something during all that emotional monologuing, and burning Teldrassil did not end up splitting the Alliance.
See above. All that mattered was holding Teldrassil, and Sylvanas threw that away.
Which she was incorrect about, because Teldrassil was the means to their objective. Without it they could not split the Alliance.
It is emotional abuse, as she admits to herself that she is as much to blame as he is, but publically throws all the blame on Saurfang to displace it from herself so that she could hurt him.
Once again, see above on Saurfang coming into this believing that only taking Teldrassil mattered.
But showed no indication in a change of perception that he believed Genn would suddenly change from wanting to prioritize Gilneas to not.
He also recognizes this was always going to be the situation the moment his troops stepped into Ashenvale, regardless of what happened with Malfurion. He was regretting agreeing to the plan at all.
And, as she is also consistently wrong about what people would do, her being right about some things does not make her right about everything, which Saurfang was emotionally vulnerable enough to not see in that moment.
It is a mockery of his beliefs, because there would be victory or death, but without honor in either situation.
And now come “Safe Haven” he realizes Sylvanas is to blame for the burning of Teldrassil and all the aftermath, even if he does also bare responsibility for the war before then.
I do agree with you that he is right to be ashamed. But that shame also compromises him emotionally in that moment.
It is true that he has no excuses. But the fel haze is a different sort of being compromised. There’s a difference between what amounts to chemical substances getting in the way of your ability to think straight and your own emotions getting in the way of your ability to think straight.
On this I do not disagree with you.
Suicidal thoughts themselves are a symptom of being emotionally compromise. It is practically the primary medical indicator psychologists and psychiatrists are concerned about as a risk alarm.
Because people can be self-contradictory, same as people can be honest and liars and still be the same person. If you believe a person cannot be both calculating and impulsive I don’t believe you have a very broad understanding of people.
It is not the only way to split the Alliance. It was the only way that Sylvanas was going to with the War of the Thorns, though. Unless you’re right and it works out later on. But you’re not right yet, and could very well be wrong as you are presently. As I said, a conversion for the future, or never.
It is not a contradiction. Once again, if you think a person cannot control themselves one moment and then act in impulse the next you don’t really understand what people are capable of. It was just a bit of impulse control she had left, before she did not have any impulse control after her emotional rambling internal monologue.
And if they stay united then she’ll have been as wrong as she can be.
I would say we are.
We just covered the same section. You did give a rebuttal to my analysis, but you didn’t really present Sylvanas as presenting any way to split the Alliance in the middle of her monolguing, which is vagueness I interpreted as her not coming up with anything because she was emotionally compromised.
No, I’m bringing it up because your argument against my ideas doesn’t make them incorrect. And in such a case “that doesn’t make my speculation canon” is the only factor in argument from popularity.
The Night Elves are the ones you hold in question of splitting from the Alliance, as Genn fully supports Anduin’s actions in Zandalar. Shandris is the representative of the Night Elves there.
If Blizzard ever bothers to answer those questions I will let you know.
But given the switching of hands it is pretty clear that the Night Elves can purge the blight. This would be even more factual if the sides were to switch sides multiple times, most evident with Ivus, who would then get purged cleansed over and over.
Obviously my analysis would conclude that the Horde players are zoning in to the past for gameplay purposes.
I agree with you that it would be a desperation move that wasn’t actually thought out, or even more likely just another suicide by cop Alliance play by Saurfang.
Though as I said, Saurfang’s notion of honor is seemingly arbitrary, and we haven’t really been shown reason to believe it isn’t, given how inconsistent it is.
And they don’t die there, as amusingly the Horde actually helps Jaina, Genn, Shandris, and more survive Azshara.
Sylvanas calls Malfurion’s survival a miracle granted Saurfang’s hand, and then says that Elune probably stayed Saurfang’s hand, so Sylvanas effectively was saying Elune was the miracle.
But betting that miracle forces would oppose you and not expecting them to happen at the worst possible times is not planning for things properly. Hence, Sylvanas should stop betting against miracles.
Sure he could have, in that fighting against Malfurion while trying to hold Teldrassil would have been given meaning in its honor.
I don’t put faith in Blizzard for this at this point.
And I think Blizzard will even more ham-fistedly have everyone be at peace, just like after Garrosh.
Edit addition:
This was in an interview about Tides of Vengeance and the Night Elves leaving for Darkshore:
- That being said, while the Horde story is currently one of deep division, Danuser notes that the Alliance aren’t at each other’s throats. “The Alliance is like a family. Brothers and sisters can disagree, and things can get heated, but there’s still a deep and abiding love and trust there.”
And I don’t trust Blizzard not to go with “insane monster” part, because of Sylvanas in BfA.
Someone’s going to be dissatisfied with whatever comes next. I presented how I would not be dissatisfied, which yes, would dissatisfy the Horde players you mentioned, and even some Alliance players. But obviously I don’t expect a situation that satisfies everyone, so I’d rather see one that I prefer instead.
The point is we don’t have any new information. Newest information is not necessarily valid information if things can change since we last got that information.
I’m confused at what you’re confused at. I’m not sure how to make it any clearer than what I wrote.
This is entirely true, and why Blizzard does not actually have a chance to satisfy everyone.
And I do not trust Blizzrd to do that.
I’ll argue that the Darkshore Warfront, “Terror of Darkshore”, and all its related content was great. Just not enough.
I don’t think you’re wrong here.
Oh, I have:
It hasn’t been made important enough. This is what people keep complaining about, especially from things like the Horde being more concerned about the raising of Derek Proudmoore and the arrest of Baine than the burning of Teldrassil.
Um… but people who like Classic seem to consider it the correct route to play Classic instead of the current expansion to do away with those issues entirely.
Isn’t it? Wasn’t the point that people don’t want to faction identities to go away by letting all players play together instead of being divided between the Horde and Alliance?
That won’t ever be the case, because that would be splitting friends and guilds up, as Alex Afrasiabi said:
Allowing all players to play together would solve a lot of Blizzard’s issues, I believe.
The Legion Order Halls were ultimately unsustainable, as they couldn’t keep up with making that much content that only even smaller fractions of players would actually see any way, and why we ended up with the junk quests for the Broken Shore campaign because they spent all their time on the Order Hall Mount quests.