I didn’t mind Jaina the first bit of the expac. I mean, who else is going to be our lead-in to Kul Tiras?
In Nazjatar, she started to get a little grating. Not that she should be cut. Azshara did pull shenanigans in Kul Tiras, as well. But, barring Tyrande, I feel the dynamic should have been with Shandris leading the charge, with an occassional “Hey Jaina, help me with the magic thing.”. As someone said, Genn feels the most out of place, but at least he’s staying in Worgen form.
Then comes Crossroads, where Jaina, who should know more than anyone (save perhaps the Draenei) what the Night Elves are going through, 180°s and unilaterally decides the Alliance needs to make peace with the Horde because Thrall is sad or something. That’s where I really checked out on the character.
Meh, part of that was a response to the idea that you didn’t want to focus on Kul Tiras (so the implication was taking back the NE territories immediately). And … honestly, tactically … that would have been a costly and disastrous decision (and yes, I understand that in hindsight Tyrande’s insane gambit payed off; but it doesn’t make it any less risky).
The primary reason Alliance players seem to believe that taking back the captured NE territories immediately is even possible is because … yeah, the Alliance Power Fantasy TOWERS over the Horde’s (unless they were being handicapped severely). There is a truth to that impulse. Despite being tasked with being the antagonists in the Faction Conflict again, Blizz really does not seem to like the idea of powering us up to actually present a Challenge to the Alliance (hence the reason Tyrande’s Night Warrior moments felt so flat; because there isn’t a single substantive character other than Sylvie on the Horde that she could test out her new abilities on).
Nah, story could continue on to Kul’Tiras if that’s where it wanted to go. I just didn’t want my characters to go along with it. The mission table clearly shows there were Night Elves staying behind on Kalimdor and taking back their lands. Narratively, I see no reason why my characters personally would have gone to Kul’Tiras when others did not. I did not want to play Jaina’s glorified babysitter.
And I’d rather be in Silithus trying to mend that gaping wound in the planet, alongside the rest of the Earthen Ring; but … I’m on vacation in Zandalar (it was a good vacation admittedly, but still … vacation). I also got to tag along for the cremation of thousands of Elves in a giant tree (while also being sort of irritated that Blizz was clearly so desperate to preserve the traditional WC3 fantasy motif the Horde was actually using tech dating back to friggen BC). But, we are both passengers on this wild and unfinished ride that is BfA.
Blizz … why the catapults? I don’t care that they’re the Forsaken upgraded ones from Stormheim, they can not bridge that distance! Goblins have been masters of rocket propulsion for ages, Wix’s goons are incompetent (but not SO incompetent that they couldn’t develop a payload to bridge the distance between Darkshore and Teldrassil). But NOPE, catapults it is! Its sort of like how the Primes got depowered like crazy (Alliance players, they are supposed to be obscenely strong … but Blizz decided to not let them use one of their most devastating abilities for some reason).
It is a problem that blizzard keep using this Narrative of Horde being bad guys and then us working together to defeat the big bad. The have beat that dead horse so much that player are numb to it and the story seems so flat that we are looking for anything to make it more plausible.
The Horde need some serious narrative development and in its own champions. A trilogy of Novels from Horde perspective building up some of these neutral champions to be at the Same level as the Alliance.
Where the Alliance needs to be shown to act more realistically in game. Be more aggressive and rebuilding itself so it doesn’t feel like we are continually losing ground. We can afford to lose our champions as we have a huge roster but we need to take back some of the stuff we have lost.
That really is some of the worst part of the War of the Thorns. Horde (and Alliance) players in Legion that defeated Argus got to go deliver Illidan’s message to Malfurion and Tyrande, and they literally go on about how we have work to do now to save Azeroth from bleeding out.
What does Blizzard have the Horde hear? “The Alliance is an threat that will blow us all away with Azerite maybe in a hundred years from now!”
i think that the idea was that the alliance needed allies and these allies was the kultiran fleet, theramore was destroyed because jaina was helping the night elves, so she now intents to confront them to ask for their help on the war versus the horde. this was the premise for going to kultiras.
but i agree with the general sentiment that all this jaina focus, even for me as a fan of her feels simply out of place in the context of war of thorns, if that was done differently then it would be more acceptable the absence of the nelfs characters and not just in the awful darkshore warfront limbo.
As much as i like her, i feel like now,after the kultiran fleet is destroyed and dealed with azshara who caused pretty much 70 % of the problems in kultiras. the main focus should change to other characters.
i think that a bigger problem for all of us is that the story takes too long to advance and patch contents don’t really have much story in the first place, just look at the nazjatar storyline, only 3 chapters.
I think what I find bonkers is that Blizz KNOWS this is an issue.
Of our roster, two newcomers to the Horde are now our big-guns (Talaanji and Thalyssra). Rommath WOULD be a big gun if Blizz ever used him (but they dont). Outside of that we have almost nothing but Warriors; Rogues; and Hunters (when the hell was the last time any of these three non-magical classes were allowed to show off other than Varian)?
Hell, even our World Shaman seems to have no Shaman left in him (fitting, considering the Horde barely has any Shaman representation left in it). Its just a bunch of big bricks with Axes standing around waiting for a Druid, Mage, Paladin or Priest to throw them through a building.
I think Kul’Tiras could have been great in any other context, but yes, the context of Kalimdor really undermines it. It could have also used some better writing, especially in the quest text, which just felt not even bothered with. But, at least, I did like Stormsong and its squidfaced people, and, added to an already long checklist, am disappointed that Nazjatar ignored all of that story, too.
The BEST route IMO is now that this so-called “Rebellion” is in full swing; all character who are in support of it should be shuffled into a single narrative thread (more-or-less) and freeing up space for others to take the spotlight. The focus NEEDS to shift to the Kaldorei and Forsaken (as their very fates as peoples will be defined by this expansion). They ABSOLUTELY need that focus and TLC … and now that Jaina’s Kul Tiras arc is complete (and Saurfang has started his rebellion) … its time to move onto the darker consequences of your narrative Blizz.
I would say the horde needs more powerful heores and more of them but well blizz will just make them bad guys. The seemingly most powerful horde member is sylvanas for some reason.
I think it is fair to say both sides like to exaggerate their points.
As for your own point.
You mean the No Small Mercy quest right?
## Description I will not slay innocents. If they do not raise arms against us, we shall spare them. Enter Lor’danel and capture any civilians you find there. They shall be questioned and then released.
## Completion We’ve shown honor to our enemy today.
It isn’t enough in my opinion, at least not in the way that would paint Saurfang in any real positive light, they should have worded his quest better as well as have him ask the Horde player to save people in Teldrassil as it burned.
As Tyrande says that whole war was without honor and Sarfang had no justification in invading and killing night elves (combatant or not).
His sole excuse was “so the Horde may endure”… oh please this is no better than Sira’s reason for joining our side being reduced to “I don’t have time to explain right now”.
This whole scenario was not only tragic but the ‘honor’ horde’s inaction in the face of the atrocity is deafening.
I mean a random unprovoked attack based on the logic of one day maybe not soon maybe long after we are all dead the alliance might maybe possably attack the horde.
I already addressed your point.
The whole war was dishonourable and every person Saurfang killed was an innocent who did not directly planned or wanted to threaten the Horde they were simply defending themselves.
Saurfang and the Horde. We. Did not have any justification to kill these people.
Just because we were not despicable enough to kill random civilians indiscriminately does not reflect a great deal about our moral character.
The best you could say is “hey at least we are not as bad as the first Horde”
![:roll_eyes:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/roll_eyes.png?v=6" ":roll_eyes:")