Bad faith is arguing to make one side extra suffer just because you feel entitled to break the peace treaty after the leaders of the WoT already got their judgement. Thrall and Baine might be cowards but I will be dammed to allow the last good things that came from Bfa being removed. Sylvanas is saving night elf souls. Saurfang is dead. You got your justice.
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The side we chose was pointless. Sylvanas bad and If you disagree everyone tells you you are wrong.
Talk again when someone actually important dies. I care for Bovan because he has a name and got RTS energy. You care for night elves because you fell for marketing strategy ignoring that everything what came after Teldrassil was scoring victories.
You get a new tree. Horde won’t get new leaders and the replacements are appeasement politicians. Every loss is permanent.
All those responsible are gone and the Horde army dispersed.
So was Delaryn.
She took over Draenor what else do you want? Mag’har could have been the best allied race yet they got beaten down.
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That choice felt pretty clumsy to me, but it’s bitterly amusing to know that the horde-side anger over Teldrassil was big enough that it caused Blizzard to derail the war campaign questline (which cost alliance players an equivalent choice) by pushing up the Saurfang junk earlier to try to placate them. Alliance players were supposed to learn about his escape at some point (possibly meeting Saurfang himself?) with their own pro/anti-war choice, from what I heard.
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I understand where you’re coming from. I think the disconnect is coming because of a there’s two things going on at once.
As players, I agree with the message I think you’re putting forth: Specifically, in a game about war, it’s a situation where your loss is my win, and vice versa. Under normal situations, I would also likely agree. In the case of the Legion opening, for example? Demonizing the Horde for ‘abandoning’ the Alliance isn’t something I would do. No one is - or should be - asking the Horde to stand trial for those actions.
This, though, is not a normal situation. This is quite literally a genocide, as the writers have clarified.
Though this might be moot. I suppose I should ask for some clarification, because I might be operating under an inaccurate premise.
Do we agree that the Burning of Teldrassil was wrong in a “beyond the pale” way? Do we agree that the Horde forces - under the command of the warchief Sylvanas Windrunner - was singly responsible for that?
The reason I’m asking this is because most of the distaste I feel, and a lot of what I’ve gleaned from other people? Is the fact that they are genuinely upset that they are being forced to do something they know is wrong. People don’t like the fact that their faction identity that was supposed to be about honor was being dragged through the mud and they are forced to do this. I know a lot of Horde RPers left during BFA because they couldn’t reconcile playing their character with what they were being forced to do. Even in this thread, Horde RPers were voicing concern about this. This was the same thing that happened during Siege of Orgrimmar, where a lot of Horde RPers didn’t like just being forced to be either the villain, or closely associated with the villain.
I bring that up because if there’s no agreement that this was actually wrong, then I doubt we’re going to see eye to eye on this.
To the second point, I’m asking about the Horde having responsibility for this because this isn’t a case of treachery, like the Wrathgate, or Onyxia messing with the nobles. This is a case where a direct command was given by the warchief at the scene, and it was carried out.
After this, there were many people in the Horde who stood up against this, even going so far as to take up arms against the warchief. Canonically, I don’t think (aside from some odd quest references) any Horde player currently in the game is actually one of Sylvanas’ people (though I don’t have a lot of experience on this, and welcome corrections).
Unless I’m grossly misreading these things, people are not asking to mow down Horde players any more than I would be mowing down Alliance members if I’m killing the Defias. The solution given was to create actual characters who are not remorseful for their part in genocide, and to have a victory against them.
These would not be members of the Horde in the same way the Defias aren’t really members of the Alliance, or the Shadow Council aren’t members of the Horde. Or Baron Vyraz wasn’t part of…the House of the Chosen, I think?
I think you might be under the impression that the goal here is to demonize the Horde playerbase. I do not think that is what is being suggested. I think people are trying to come up with a way to isolate the bad actors into a specific, concrete thing that can actually answer for a very serious crime.
This is a solution that is trying to not make the Horde players suffer. I would even suggest after those Sylvanas loyalists were killed by night elf forces? You could have an Horde war party show up right after. After a few seconds of tension, they could say something like “We had been tracking those people for weeks. Those butchers know nothing of honor, and have no place within the Horde.”
There. Night elves get a chance to do something (both having some retribution, and actually being able showcase being good at tracking things in the woods), and the Horde in general also gets to reestablish that honor is still important to them and don’t sound like they’re about go off screen and beat a puppy to death. It could resolve a lot of resentment from night elf players feeling like they’re being asked to just suck it up, and a lot of resentment from Horde players who didn’t roll on Horde to feel like a Saturday morning cartoon villain.
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The weirdest, most surreal thing for me about this whole thing?
Is how Saurfang ended up with people calling him weak/cowardly/etc. That…this is 100% speculation, but I think that’s maybe when Blizzard realized they may have kind of messed up a bit.
Saurfang? Cleave Saurfang? People talking smack about him? Like…I genuinely thought people were joking. He had been one of the people who things were kind of ironclad that he was one of the baddest buttocks on the planet.
There was that joke (though I suppose they’re called memes, now) where Saurfang decided once a week everyone should rest. That’s what we call ‘Tuesday maintenance’.
I suspect that Blizzard thought their Horde playerbase would see that they could team up with Saurfang, and just know everything was going to be all right. I think they were suddenly surprised when they realized that A) Some people didn’t care about that, and B) some people didn’t want to do that.
In my head, that’s why there were a bunch of changes all of a sudden.
…
…seriously, I am still a touch gobsmacked at the Saurfang thing.
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This is a weird take.
Having characters created specifically for an Alliance-only quest in mind, that are shown to be Sylvanas-supporters & unrepentant criminals, doesn’t impact the story nor should it impact you. You’re turning something that a player has proposed and further continuing the “Tit for tat” premise that means the Nelves/Alliance should continue having something taken away from them instead of something they could wholeheartedly enjoy.
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Unfortunately, a ton of faction conflict/lore is tucked away in the other side’s questing - the Alliance player doesn’t participate in the defense of Tiragarde Keep, and the Horde player doesn’t defend the Forsaken studying the Tower of Althalaxx. This scenario wouldn’t be the first, and wouldn’t be the last example of this division. And frankly, while I think that each faction should absolutely be able to see its own side’s grey actors, I think that the blackest actors should be saved for only the opposing faction to interact with in scenarios where the player gets to defeat the evil NPC. And that’s what this scenario is trying to accomplish - separating some clear-cut evil NPCs from the faction.
How about the Horde’s matching quest being one about driving out the Alliance from Southern Barrens? No need to toss the Burning in the Horde player’s face then, just fighting and defeating the Alliance to reclaim some home territory. (Of course, to truly match my scenario’s construction of separating the NPCs from the player’s faction, this would involve a bunch of ex-Alliance now-Daelin loyalists or something, but I at least am fine either way.) It would still have the matching “Alliance lore in Horde questing” issue, but eh, no big deal.
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I agree. No side is objectively the worst off, and arguing from that point only causes conflict.
Each player group - Alliance, Horde, night elf fans, Sylvanas fans - has been impacted in different ways that can not be directly compared and do not have the same solutions. That’s why I want to try to find the best methods to solve each part of the equation, and try to negotiate how best to do so without directly hurting the others - trying to organize each piece so that everyone has a net gain. I’m most familiar with the night elf view, so that’s what I’m trying to address in detail, and I’d like to get other views on how to manage the other parts.
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- I went to them in Ashenvale, and found a new place to belong. I eventually proved my strength to all of them through a mak'gora, and now I lead the Warsong.
I will never allow us to lose our honor again.
Doesn’t state where the Warsong are now, if Gorgonna pulled them out of Ashenvale, or what the Warsong will be doing now under her leadership.
speaking for myself at least, I suspect that Horde players wanted to team up with Saurfang, not mopy Sadfang. The Saurfang who threatened Garrosh with death if he were to drag the Horde back into an age of dishonor, and showed up in SoO intending to keep that promise. Saurfang who wouldn’t have been stupid enough to go through with Sylvanas’ bull#### to begin with, and would have been the first to smack her undead @$$ down into the dirt when she ordered the catapults to fire on civilians out of apparent spite.
Sadfang did too little too late, and then tried to shirk responsibility by self un-living.
“I don’t understand; we made one of the Horde’s favorite characters a genocidal psychopath and the other a pathetic failure, why are Horde players so upset with us? Don’t they want to play as N####/Don’t they realize the Horde has always been N#### and that if they wanted to play as heroes they should have rolled the Perfect True and Just Alliance from the beginning?”
Forcing one side to play loser victims who will never get proper closure due to the way the game works, and the other side to play as perpetuators of war crimes will never make sense to me. I just can’t see how they thought it was a good idea. Malice or incompetence, which was it?
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These are the terms I have proposed. I do think it would be best if this was part of the Night Elf heritage armor questline. Because if Horde players would be participating in this it would likely be given by Horde NPCs to eliminate the Sylvanas loyalists in this vein:
- Lady Liadrin:
- Remain vigilant for any signs of N’Zoth’s influence… along with any who cling to Sylvanas’s twisted ideals.
Overlord Geya’rah: Keep an eye out for any who still obey Sylvanas!
Overlord Geya’rah: And remember the lesson to be learned from her.
Overlord Geya’rah: She was a strong warchief. She did whatever it took to achieve victory.
Overlord Geya’rah: But she fought only for herself, not for the Horde!
Overlord Geya’rah: We were nothing to her! She abandoned her own people!
Overlord Geya’rah: A great leader must have more than strength.
Overlord Geya’rah: They must be true to their people. They must live and die for them!
Overlord Geya’rah: Do not forget this. We will not repeat Sylvanas’s mistakes!
Difference is the Horde is destined to lose by default in those battles while the alliance fortresses all over Horde territory got fresh garrisons to support them. Not to mention alliance eladers never die while the Horde has to deal with a massacre every few years. Don’t act like Blizzard treats us equally because they don’t.
except we know that they will do it all over a again as soon as the writers get their hands on enough airplane glue. That could possibly by BFA’s greatest sin- the story was SO nonsensical that it broke the Willing Suspension of Disbelief and it hasn’t been repaired yet and it might never. We enter a world with magic and elves and dragons and dragons that can turn into hot elf chicks in skimpy armor and demons and Native American minotaurs and living elements and time travel and can take one look at the the BFA faction war and go “I dunno man, that’s pretty hard to swallow.”
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You didn’t lose the war. Have you even played Bfa properly? Anduin was having the final say after the death of Saurfang and returned to Stormwind unharmed. The Horde betrayed their own on the benefit of the alliance. We are toothless now and not a threat to anyone anymore.
Hopefully not. Thrall made terrible decisions and the shortage of basic resources comes from it. Durotar will never be the home of the Orcs. Draenor is.
It is basically a premise to end Horde suffering. We lost enough in Bfa. Even more then back in MoP. Enough is enough.
In my opinion, Saurfang just straight up sucked. The game’s choice of picking between “honor or pragmatism” was a false one, and I mean that on both sides. The latter is obvious because nothing should be justifying genocide in the first place, but the former is trickier because such a choice canonically comes too late for a character to make sense in-universe.
You simply cannot engage in any BFA content (or beyond) without chronologically being complicit in genocide and staying with Sylvanas’s horde for a time beyond that. Your character has to be “okay” with it to some extent due to the nature of quest railroading. It’s the entire impetus behind why you’re on Zandalar, why you’re doing any “heroics” on the island at all; you’re there to help secure an alliance between the Zandalari and a horde that just finished genociding the night elves and also blighting your own side in a scorched earth tactic at Lordaeron. As was Saurfang.
So when Saurfang’s content finally shows up with a false appeal to honor, it means nothing because it’s still coming from someone who also aided and abetted in genocide, but also abandoned your side to be left with the consequences. And the moral at the end is basically “the whole pretense of your immersion as a horde player is a lie.”
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According to Liadrin, those who repented were forgiven, but those who clung to Sylvanas’s “twisted ideals” were dealt with as N’zoth’s cultists were dealt with.
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That’s, I think, the bitterest pill. There are always people who are going to want to go out and just do wanton acts of violence and whatnot in games. I get that. But there’s the difference between choosing to do something and being forced to do it.
I hate - I hate - that Horde players are put in that position. Before we’re blue and red, we’re humans. I have a hard time believing most people signed up for the Horde hoping to be on the Genocide Train.
One of my characters has Really Sticky Glue in his inventory, and I have the soft wool cloth appearance. I don’t like that I’m hesitating to really get into the story - the story, and I’m from Moon Guard - because I don’t like being written as just being unilaterally bad.
I try very hard to be fair on these forums. I understand people have some cynicism from past experiences, but if I’m being honest?
I’m sorry you’re being dealt that kind of crappy hand. It sucks.
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Okay I know this is an example of character attachment but the sudden interjection of glue had me cracking up. 
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