If the war ends, what would be the consequences for both the winning and losing side?
If the Horde wins, it seems fairly obvious that the Alliance would be mostly wiped out and risen as Forsaken, but what if the Alliance wins? I personally don’t see how the Alliance could make a choice on the fate of the Horde without tearing itself apart, at least a little. If Anduin tries to negotiate peace, he’ll likely lose at least the Night Elves, maybe the Worgen and Kul Tirans too. I don’t see how he could make the decision to wipe them out, though.
Well that could make for some pretty good story if blizzard decides to become half decent at writing.
This expansion should end with the Alliance winning the war handily, the Horde losing most of its leaders. But Anduin does what Anduin does, and spares the remnants of the Horde. The Alliance splinters as a result, no longer having that strong bond, and really having no reason to stick together.
While the Night elves reclaim Kalimdor, they hunt down the remaining soldiers of the Horde, shutting them out of almost all of Northern Kalimdor(against the wishes of Anduin).
The Horde would slowly rebuild itself, do some heavy self reflecting and remember what it was founded on. Gaining new leadership and a resolve stronger than ever, striving for peace with the Alliance instead.
The only stump here is that it would be hard to say how the Alliance would react to this. By this point, the Kaldorei would want nothing to do with anyone, and anyone following their lead would probably turn their backs on Anduin.
Idk for me this would be a great ending. It’d bring some long needed justice for the Kaldorei, a solid story that isn’t a villain bat for the Horde, and some interesting conflict for the Alliance.
I can see the end of the war needing to be a cease fire, and both factions needing to cooperate to repair the Azerite/giant sword in Sillithus problem. It wouldn’t resolve a lot of the conflict, but the world soul telling everybody to knock it off so she can go back to sleep and heal the planet would end the chapter at least, and we pick it up next expac.
I’ve gone into this expac with the mindset that the biggest victory the Horde can really hope for is to simply survive it. Sadly, that means Sylvanas loses. Despite cheep talk, I don’t believe for one second that she has the Horde’s best interest at heart. To her, it’s just the same as the Alliance. Just another conglomeration of warm bodies that haven’t been changed into walking cold bodies yet.
Saurfang knows this and so does Baine, so does Anduin.
I hate it, but Horde best interest is at least partial Alliance victory.
As the OP said though, not everyone in the Alliance is going to be happy with trying to make peace. Or…at least…they shouldn’t. You never can tell with Blizzard and their proven ability to donkey up a story.
Nothing that would make me happy is going to please a Horde player, that’s the reality of it. We’re not getting a satisfying conclusion here because Blizzard will try to please everyone and end up pleasing nobody. With that mindset, I expect nothing.
The Horde and Sylvanas need to pay for their crimes, and the Horde needs to feel like the Horde again, if it doesn’t, it simply won’t be a satisfying ending.
I think the Alliance forgets whom made Sylvanas and how the Blood Elves were allies to the Alliance. Frankly as a Blood Elf …i would be happy to see Orgrimmar and Stormwind burned to the ground . Silvermoon needs land to expand. As long as the forsaken are in check. I see no problem winning or losing a war as neither of them affect the plans of the elf heritages to continue to rebuild. Sylvannas is the weapon of the blood elves , after death still is the champion but not our leader. My concern is the rise of the trolls… and the void.
Really winning and losing is a issue with the trolls, orcs, and tauren. Many people forget the horde is not the alliance. its a “tribe” agreement not a nation like the Alliance where as the Alliance is all or nothing nation. loosing the war frankly is worse for the Alliance than it is for the Horde. Horde became a burden to the Alliance as pure expense and loss and im happy with that. However, the Alliance new boss in town doesn’t want boy king to be dead . Seriously Alliance thinks sylvanas is evil should pay for “crimes”. You know how many evil god cults i had to learn about in kul’tiras with the alliance?!@!, basically twilight all over again.
After the war, personal Blood Elf opinion , the Horde should enslave the pandas many Blood Elves agree that i spoken with. Pandas should become our new slaves. plus, universal healthcare . Too many orcs getting scurvy and all kind of new stuff that i didn’t know was medically was possible for an orc post war. Who knew!?
Saurfang leads the honorable elements of the Horde over to the Alliance, creating a single player faction. The remnants of the Horde then become the primary NPC antagonists for the duration of WoW’s lifetime. Players who were once proud members of the Horde will find themselves part of the Alliance, fighting against the Horde.
Because, you know… there couldn’t POSSIBLY be backlash from that…
Still, it’s how I worry the expansion is going to end at this point. BFA is supposed to be the swansong for Faction Conflict, but you can’t really remove that without removing the factions themselves. If all the players are lumped into one faction, well, we can have Faction Conflict against an NPC antagonist.
I just really don’t see anyone happy about this. Horde players obviously have the most to lose, but as for Alliance players… especially Night Elf players, the idea of working with Horde races would be repugnant. To see Orcs, Trolls, and Undead walking around Stormwind would be disturbing. Just as disturbing as it would be for those races. I mean, imagine Zandalari walking around Stormwind, knowing Talanji was imprisoned there!
Still, I’m worried we’re moving towards a single-player faction game at this point. The only way I see the Horde having player-characters in it at this point would be as a kind of Perma Warmode thing where the characters don’t even really do Dungeons or Raids. They just exist to fight the main faction.
A fair ending would be the Horde holding all Kalimdor and Alliance EK.
Some of the races lose, some of them win something. This would end the faction conflict that a majority of pve childrens hate because no reasons and we could finally finish the burial of the kaldoreis.
As a consequence of this narrative, which was presented as the outcome of the expansion by the devs themselves, I hope there will be a revolt of kaldoreis fans, and that the situation becomes so unsustainable that they finally see how being in the Alliance has always been a disaster for kaldorei lore.
