It’s still the weirdest thing in the entire expansion, to me at least, that the warfronts had no PvP mode. As any PvPer could’ve explained - the thrill of it comes from fighting other people who can think outside the box and surprise you in a way no PvE content can.
I don’t attack Stormwind because I really enjoy killing interchangeable dudes in armor. I do it to pick a fight with other players. If it was just a dudes in armor genocide I might do it for the novelty once, or a couple of more times for associated rewards, but that’s about it. Which was exactly my relationship to the warfronts.
Earlier on I’d hoped for A. PvP Warfronts and B. More of them. Get some more odd couple match ups like what we saw in Darkshore. Perhaps a Tauren VS Gnome affair in The Barrens - just a brain VS brawn, nature VS technology blowout. Trolls VS Draenei could be something expanded on. Maybe Blood Elves and Dwarves what does that look like?
Hell - I still can’t believe there was no Zandalari and Kul Tiran one. I remember seeing Kul Tiran forts and thinking ‘Right, can’t wait to stomp a Zandalari War Devilsaur around in here’, not knowing I’d apparently go to my grave waiting on that.
It just highlights how little faith Blizz had in this. Entire gameplay features were left to wither on the side of the road as this bizarre busywork nobody seemed to like. Hell I still wish I could do an actual island expedition where I could explore them and learn about what the deal was. Some of them looked kinda neat, I think, they whizzed by pretty quick as I’d do 4 heroic ones in 20 minutes to get my Azerite with the same energy and enthusiasm I bring to laundry and other weekly chores.
You keep mentioning no condition. We have no idea what the peace treaty will remain, possibly not until Shadow Rising at the earliest. However, I doubt the Alliance would simply let them keep Ashenvale.
Also, the Alliance having retaken Arathi now more then ever have a firm grip on the Eastern Kingdoms. The last nation in it that doesn’t side with the Alliance is Silvermoon and they said they fought the Alliance in Arathi because losing it mean the Alliance now has a straight shot to them if need be.
Sank a chunk of their navy, which turned out to be pointless because Sylvanas would’ve dropped it into Nazjatar for Azshara anyway when the Alliance was baited into the super obvious trap.
A foreign power successfully attacking Zuldazar has pretty never happened, either. Not even a sign of the Legion’s attacks, there. Gave the Zandalari a bloody nose which just drove them into making pals out of the Horde.
So what did the Alliance accomplish?
They helped the Horde by forcing the King that wouldn’t have worked with them into an early grave and giving his daughter plenty of incentive to hate the Alliance aside from her imprisonment (which she didn’t seem terribly broken up about).
That certainly was failure but I understand why Anduin would have preferred to try that method. It would have been the method that mean the least amount of people would die. Hell, if they could take out Zadalari from the equation then Sylvanas would have been sunk.
Presumably the navy would not have sunk if Gelbin and his machine were no where near the ships.
We kinda know that the peace treaty doesn’t involve anything for the Night Elves as Danuser mentioned in his most recent interview:
“we wanted to show that Tyrande clearly has not forgotten what happened and will not accept any treaty that doesn’t see Sylvanas—and the Horde—answer for the crimes of burning the World Tree and the murder of innocents”,
The sad part is that she’s wrong and she will die for it, otherwise atleast some other leaders would agtee with her.
You actually make a valid point. The cutscenes imply that the Horde is winning, but gameplay suggest the Alliance was winning.
The question was what were their goals? Sylvanas’ goals was to cause as much death and destruction as possible, and to prolong the war. I guess that’s why the Horde have such a poor military record in the war. They’re losing all fronts because Sylvanas wants them to lose. If the Horde are unable to make a breakthrough then they will just send more to die in the meatgrinder. Consider that besides Zuldazar the Alliance have been fighting a defensive war.
The Alliance’s goal was to remove Sylvanas from power. They were winning in the battlefield, but they were unable to remove Sylvanas until they sent Saurfang. He was able to politically destabilize the Horde and his death helped the Alliance propt up an Alliance friendly government.
I posted this before, but even better yet if it was Sylvanas’ secret Half-Elf child she had with Nathanos when they were alive that Lor’themar meets and cheers up and brings to the Horde to be Garrosh 3.0.
We got our tails handed to us in the War of Thorns, but the subsequent 4th War had the Alliance with the upper hand for most of the time.
You see, Sylvana’s plan involved killing people to feed the Jailer, not actual warzone strategy. We see this with Brennadam and other zones where the red side goes full First War and just kills everyone in sight with no purpose other than mass murder.
The Alliance won because we were fighting a faction war. Horde lost because their orders were just “kill everyone”, even if nobody but Sylvanas knew. She won too, as she got enough power to solo Bolvar and I think that power level was her objective.
So… Alliance won the faction war
Sylvanas won the death toll
Horde won…nothing. They were just used to further someone else’s agenda AGAIN. It’s The Dark Portal all over again, and I find it funny how the Horde seems to be the go-to murder tool for any cosmic power with 3 active brain cells to manipulate them.
I got the impression that Anduin was basically saying that the Alliance and Horde Rebellion only had the resources for a single decisive strike at Orgrimmar. If it failed, things would have gone back to a grinding war of attrition. As is, diverting to a fortified capital on the other side of the world wouldn’t be something the Alliance could do every day while maintaining a war effort on other fronts.
Logistics don’t really matter though. The Alliance could be winning or losing on any and every front, and it wouldn’t really matter in the narrative compared to the story they want to tell. Desperate last-shots are the in-thing.
Did you miss what happened in Teldrassil when you burned it and conquered 2 other zones entirely?
Or did you miss the part that Horde broke into Stormwind, left it in flames and then obliterated the fleet that pursued them?
Or did you miss the part where the Horde bombed their own city to kill all the Alliance soldiers and Heroes inside? You know since only the main leaders got saved by teleporting outside.
Or did you miss the part where the Horde desecrated Darkshore, rose NE undead to fight for them.
Maybe you also missed the part where the main Horde Army came to the rescue of the Zandalari after killing another Alliance force to drive back the Alliance and severely injuring 2 of the main A cast Alliance characters.
Or maybe its the part where Andiun is telling us Alliance is running out of soldiers and he cant possibly stop Sylvanas and the Horde. Only with Horde’s help can he stop the Horde?
But yeah… some guy over on an interview says “Alliance won everything!” And suddenly its all you see in the game and other content they put out.