The Horde's Lasting Problem of Lacking Motivation

I was too broad.

I meant specifically the idea of striking a first, decisive blow to deprive the enemy force of a means to funnel resources overseas and claim supremacy over resources on the continent they have the largest presence in.

No, even then it’s really stupid because Sylv is supposed to be smart and underhanded, instead of biding her time and doing anything actually sneaky she had a kneejerk reaction in BTS and then jumped to war with the nelfs when any sensible decision would’ve been to fake being interested in peace while letting the Horde build up forces and then assassinating as many Alliance forces at the next diplomatic talks as possible.

This ‘Ashenvale Blitzkrieg’ plan that she and Saurfang came up with is literally only feasible because Blizz doesn’t understand how the scale of it would actually work ingame.

Blizz made Saurfang REALLY stupid to have him go along with Sylv with all of this or design this ridiculous plan in the first place.

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You can disagree with it on a micro level I guess, but on a macro level resource supremacy is what you generally wanna go for.

You can’t say a plan is good ‘just’ because it’s ‘technically a good idea if everything works out’

I’ve given this a fair bit of thought, and it’s true that it would have been all but impossible to hold Teldrassil long term, due to the fact that druids could turn the entire island against you with little effort.

That said, trying to keep it anyway would have been perfectly in keeping with Sylvanas’ arrogance, and there are a number of good reasons to try. The most obvious is lumber- you can carve out massive seams of good-quality wood from both the inside and the outside of the tree. Furthermore, Teldrassil had plentiful wild game and even arable soil in its canopy.

Occupying the tree for the space of a few patches would have led to some fascinating content with a feeling of dramatic tension that is largely absent from the “Alliance wins everything in Kul Tiras, Horde loses everything in Zandalar” narrative- Alliance content to subvert the occupation, evacuate citizens, and sabotage Horde harvesting efforts, while reining in elements that would go far enough to invite reprisal against the general population- maybe even player choice on how to deal with collaborators: kill them for treason, or spare them because they, like Tyrande, are just trying to make the occupation “as tolerable as possible,” even if that means playing nice with the occupying forces; Horde content to enforce Horde rule, keep the resources flowing, and punish overzealous officers whose excessive brutality threatens the occupation by inviting insurrection.

After a couple of patches, if they really wanted the tree to go, bring in Malfurion to force them out. With the tree itself resisting their presence, either Sylvanas or the commander on-site cuts their losses and blows the Azerite charges they’d set around the roots.

It would still be a zero-sum event, and a heavy blow to the Kaldorei, but there are a number of factors that I think would have made it more palatable to the player base as a whole:

  • Horde isn’t railroaded into needless atrocity- on the contrary, we’d have carried out the only armed occupation in Azeroth’s history, rather than the extermination that usually happens when territory changes hands.

  • Implicit and explicit toll on the Night Elf population is reduced, due to the story and world quests to funnel enough of the hostage population out that Malfurion was willing to make a play.

  • The burning becomes genuinely morally gray, albeit a dark shade thereof- we tried a peaceful occupation, even punished excessive cruelty, but when Malfurion called the hand, we had to show we weren’t bluffing. Alliance-side, you’ve got Malfurion and Tyrande heartbroken but resolute, much as they are in 8.1, with Anduin furious that they went behind his back and scuttled the diplomatic resolution/detente that… well, no one else in the Alliance was really confident he’d be able to deliver. For bonus pathos, Mia Greymane was never evacuated, since she was too high-profile a hostage(and was probably unwilling to leave the Kaldorei holding the bag), leaving Genn unsure whether he’s angrier at the Horde for blowing the charges… or Malfurion, for forcing their hand.

  • The Teldrassil narrative would be more clear about its zero-sum nature. We wouldn’t be abject monsters, but we would have explicitly lost a territory we were trying to hold. We’ve often talked about how we’d be fine with not dominating the PvP story if it meant not being constantly told by the game itself that we’re the villains of the story.

  • Lordaeron as a feint, to draw Horde forces away from Darnassus- and it kind of works, providing enough of an opening to infiltrate a 7th Legion/Sentinel joint op to mobilize the resistance, but not enough to allow for a reconquest. Sylvanas, meanwhile, remembering the bonfires of her vision, has ZERO faith in a peaceful Alliance occupation of Undercity, and so scorches the earth and evacuates her people rather than risk them being exterminated. Because this happens with Teldrassil still intact, Saurfang, although uncomfortable with the idea, has not been pushed to his breaking point yet and fights a genuine rearguard, taking the opportunity to escape the Stockades along with Talanji and Zul.

  • Peons hanging off the sides of the tree in harnesses, arguing about whether they are chopping lumber or mining for wood.

It’s too late to do any of this now, of course, but there was a lot of content they could have milked from this idea, and avoided kicking off the expansion with a clear hero/villain dichotomy between the factions, and to avoid each and every story beat feeling like a gut punch.

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I didn’t say the plan was good. I don’t know enough about military strategy to judge the individual components of the plan and whether or not they made sense.

I said the motivation was good.

Separate things.

Can you elaborate because you’re not making much sense imo.

Going “Well it was a good idea to control the continent” feels like… not saying much at all, I’d even argue that motivation was dumb because the nelfs have only ever wanted to have their damn forests left alone and after SoO the Horde had Azshara so I’d think the orcs lumber issues are at least mildly addressed.

If we still need resources or security the answer ought to be bettering ourselves or our existing territories, not sinking huge amounts of resources and manpower into a quagmire in Darkshore which we end up wrecking and ruining anyway.

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This sounds like it would’ve been fairly interesting and if Darnassus ended up as collateral because the Alliance wouldn’t allow a peaceful occupation of the Horde in their city, definitely opened up an opportunity for the Alliance to get a bit dirty and show conflict among their leadership that we’re only getting shades of right now because the story only wants to treat Anduin with kid gloves.

The only problem is that it would’ve made Kalimdor the focus of the expansion, when Blizzard clearly wanted it elsewhere.

I wouldn’t have minded seeing this story, though.

Which part? Why resource supremacy is a worthwhile objective or why Darnassus had to go down in pursuit of it?

Why you’re bothering to say Resource supremacy is a worthwhile objective, because that doesn’t even feel specific to BFA, that’s… just something all factions in the world ought to shoot for all the time, you’re not making any sense.

Basically.

The sheer power just means that efforts of one faction to acquire Azerite for themselves while denying it to their enemies is that much more important.

Blizz has completely failed to show Azerite is that key / important.

They told us so in BTS, but nothing ingame has been any different than if it weren’t around vs. any other kind of magic phlebotnium.

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So if it’s not in-game, it doesn’t count?

Ok.

It ‘counts’ in that it’s canon, but it doesn’t change the fact that Blizz is failing to tell a compelling story.

They’ve definitely failed in a lot of ways.

I wouldn’t say they failed at showing Azerite to be potent, though.

Well you’re entitled to your opinion.

So let me make sure I have this right:

You say that resource supremacy is…

But as a resource, Azerite doesn’t count because…

Is that right?

How have they shown it to be more relevant than other forms of power?

It appears to more destructive than other forms of ordinances, and it seems that it can empower people just by being in contact with it. It may not be as powerful as, say, a mana-bomb empowered by the Focusing Iris, but it does appear to be quite versatile in its application.

If Sylvanas had no plans for upkeep, then her original plan to capture and hold it was a stupid one.

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