You KNOW that I meant the Horde which formed in WC3. That is the Horde we are currently playing in.
And You KNOW we are not currently playing in “Gul’dan’s Horde”.
So, this Horde, was originally formed by Vol’jin, Thrall and Cairne.
But hey, if you want to act dismissive by distorting what I say, go for it. Whatever makes you happy, buddy.
They had about the same restraints as the Warsong. Which, back in Vanilla, were about as or even more bloodthirsty and cruel than them.
And regarding the Tauren bit, I recall she was a terminal patient that had already been turned down by most priests and shamans of her own people, and was treated by the Forsaken who tried to cure her, but ultimately didn’t care whether she died for as long as they could salvage what killed her.
The only difference they had with the rest, is that they at least tried instead of telling her to go die elsewhere.
And regarding the Grimtotem, if I recall correctly, they were Horde members sheltered by Cairne himself. They had their own district in the Pools of Visions under Thunderbluff.
Fail to see how that’s an issue now.
We made several deals with the Zandalari in Zulgurub and then killed many of those same guys in MoP.
I fail to see how is this related to the obvious fact that the Forsaken were introduced as playable race at the same time as orcs, Tauren, and trolls.
Who spoke about traitors?
I’m just pointing out the fact that the founding ideals of the MMO playable faction includes the ones the Forsaken offered.
And if you want to go back to the initial Horde values, I’ll again point out that those same values gave us guys like Garrosh, Magatha, the Warsong…
And that the ‘honourable’ approach had Baine punishing or exiling the ones that tried to fight back invaders of their homeland.
Dealing in absolutes tends to fail easily. The initial Horde values aren’t some kind of unmoving and absolute truth.
The game has offered scenarios where alternatives to put it simply…are better for the faction.
Even Voljin was willing to forsake honour if the fight demanded it.
Warsong were fighting for wood. Night elves didn’t want to share so Warsong went for it. But they assaulted only military outposts.
She said that other Horde priests and shamans did try but it didn’t help her. And forsaken didn’t really attempted to help her, the main guy literally said “Well she is gonna die anyway, so let’s make out of her experimental rat”.
The Grimtotem in Dustwallow Marsh in Thousand Needles and Feralas were Hostile to the Horde. Horde PC had to kill both them and the forsaken and they retrieved some information about them exchanging formulas. I believe it was set up for Cairne’s poisoning.
Zandalari aren’t part of the Horde, even now - they’re just allies.
And I think that dominant spirit of the faction shouldn’t be twisted to fit just one subfaction that wasn’t such dedicated member to begin with as it’s hurting the identity of other races. Necromany is a taboo for majority of them.
I also think his approach was stupid, even Vol’Jin didn’t agree with that but Baine was back then responsible for his own people, he was not leader of entire Horde. And Baine did it to not escalate conflict even more not because it had anything to do with honor. I think it was retarded of him too but let’s be true to what his actuall reasoning was.
This is why imo trolls are the most realistic races when it comes to combat approach, they don’t pretend that they have some sort of ethos, but they never cross certain borders, their concern is to survive.
The problem with orcs and the forsaken is that developers never created a proper “info chart” about them. So how exactl orcs view Honor, perhaps the view is different to each clan, they should make it clear not just for themselves to further write the story but for players too.
And same goes to forsaken- what is their weakness, are they really fragile or besides not having to sleap/ eat/ breath they have other strenghts?
That’s an understatement.
Warsong fought for resources, but also because they liked it.
There are quests that had orcs ambushing towns and Night elf villages far away from their lumbering settlements.
And if resource wars are somehow excusable, the Forsaken back in Vanilla had two goals: developing weapons against Arthas, and securing their homeland.
If warmongering is excused for orcs for as long as it’s backed with ‘they needed stuff’, I’d say that fighting for someone’s home is about as excusable.
The quests says “Try this, it may cure her”. That’s trying.
And I think that the dominant spirit of the faction shouldn’t be dictated by an outdated concept out of touch and that only resonates properly with a single race.
You keep dodging the fact that those same old school Horde values had orcs stomping their way into Ashenvale and Stonetalon with about the same sort of destruction and mirrored brutality as Forsaken had in Silverpine.
I don’t need to reject blight if the alternative is having my family maimed and butchered by some orc.
No race should dictate ANYTHING in the faction.
Rather they did what they sold me about the Horde: a faction with differentiated races that tried to concile their mindsets and cultures if only to manage a functional entity.
I don’t need Fifty Shades of Orc.
No, not really. In ashenvale Gorek assault was about attacking sentinel outpost. And that outpost was right next to road that leads to barrens attacking them was securing the path for resources.
Other activities they did was scouting.
This is why back in vanilla they were excusable. But even in vanilla they showed their true colours by admitting that they want to kill the scourge and the living.
One of the Forsaken even spilled the water and admitted that it was all Sylvanas initiative.
And she died.
It was working for majority of Horde races. They were doing fine for quite some time. Now it’s not working at all because the faction is once again about to splinter.
Lol it can’t be compared at all. Orcs don’t want to raze everything at their path, they needed resources to live. Forsaken blights everything and everything that is blighted is literally useless to everyone. Orcs still want to live in harmony with world and its primal aspects, and they want to live on the lands they settled on. Forsaken turn their lands to literal ruins. Nobody would benefit from it.
And I do have issue with it for the stuff mentioned above. Blight on the long term will benefit nobody. You may kill your enemies, but you won’t be able to return and live there. That place is contaminated for god knows how long.
I always viewed Horde as a shamanistic faction. It doesn’t have to be pretty but it has certain standarts that resonates well with majority of it’s members.
Forsaken way on the other hand works well with just forsaken.
I have no idea what you’re talking about. for many years we had time to learn about Tauren way to be and a bit of troll way to be, they were different and yet they coexisted very nicely. Because they had a lot of similarities, like reverence of ancestors, love to the land they live on and creatures that surround it, the spirituality, and that they like to brawl and prove themselves. This is what tied Horde together. And this is why for a long time there was no clash among them.
Not “Blight blight blight!” and scourge wannabe-ism.
It was still invading, destroying and killing other people on foreign land.
The updated Ashenvale experience is even more explicit in that regard. And carried out in almost its whole entirety by Orcs, Tauren and Trolls.
Stomping and chest thumping all the way.
Even if we are to discard the soft retcons that moderated their initial goals, there are plenty other quests about as representative that have them stating that they simply want to take back whats rightfully theirs.
Even in Cataclysm.
But they tried. Which amounts to about as much help the rest of shaman and priests gave her.
Difference being that the Forsaken didn’t boot her out to have her die elsewhere and would rather salvage whatever they could for an ongoing war campaign.
No, it wasn’t.
That’s the point why Garrosh became so popular in Cataclysm.
The Horde ended up resenting that way of life.
Those principles helped.
But became about as detrimental as rampant warmongering when they started causing them to starve, or turn a blind eye to the obvious threats and shortcomings they caused.
This is a lie. A downright lie.
A well trodden cliche, thats for sure. But a lie nevertheless.
The Forsaken aren’t about blighting everything. And simplifying their motives into such, is about as stupid as saying that the only thing trolls want to do is lick toads on their island.
I could quote several sentences from both quests and novels, that have those orcs stating that they rather cut down the entirety of Ashenvale or burn it to the ground for as long as they prevent their enemies from having it.
Orcs can be about as destructive as Forsaken.
Ask Night elves, or take a stroll around Stonetalon. Or Azshara, which by the way counted with the seal of approval of both Garrosh and the Orcs.
So…you are passing on your own opinion on what the faction should be and making it as if its the best depiction possible?
Shamanism you say? Yeah, shamanism was great when it was used to burn Teldrassil or Ashenvale.
Orc values? Yeah, it must feel great for an average soldier, to know that their general would be willing to sacrifice entire towns or regiments for as long as they ‘died pretty’.
Sorry, but I always viewed the Horde as a multicultural nation that tried to reconcile the different aspects of its races, regardless of the frictions it caused.
And people should probably check on what they consider “True Horde” when displaying the sort of mindset that seems much more narrow-minded than the one Orgrim Doomhammer (the orc Thrall based most of his psyche and values on), had.
This is how I view the Horde.
It’s a diverse faction, but unlike our world where we favor diversity instead of merit and performance, the Horde does diversity correctly and each race brings something of value to the table and is respected for it and regardless of Warchief, the one leading the Horde respects what each race brings.
Garrosh and Sylvanas, despite being the more questionable Warchiefs, have shown great interest and respect for the races that were recruited during their times as Warchief. Indeed, I’d say for Sylvanas, the idea of an allegiance with the Shal’dorei would be something she would not want to pass on.
I didn’t question that, the point was how warfare was carried, and the reasoning behind it. You’re knocking on wrong adress if you think I was against war, skimrishes and fullfilling specific objectives.
I was questioning the way it was carried. So yeah Warsong done it much better in vanilla than what current Horde is doing atm.
Gorek with 5 orcs assaulted outpost full of sentinels. They didn’t slay villagers and needlessly tortured them. Can you spot difference?
Because war was escalated to higher levels. In Vanilla there was cold war.
And as I said it was excusable, in Vanilla they didn’t purposely make forsaken out of slain enemies, they gathered those who were already around. So in my opinion vanilla forsaken were better than their further iterations.
They didn’t intend to cure her, that was the point. They said “oh well she’s gonna be ded, let’s make use of her”. This is where I have a problem.
Garrosh had propaganda going for him, and Vol’Jin even said that in Echo Isles starting zone why he was praised, but he also underlined his issues and why it will lead to the downfall. Everything is good in moderation, going extreme always ends in fatal way.
And in Cataclysm you also had split opinion, Trolls in their very intro were said to hunt for threats not only outside of Horde but inside. the orcish Shaman was openly saying his dissent to Garrosh way, hence the tale about the wolf, you also had frostwolf clan who openly denouced aiding forsaken and therefore the current at that time Horde warfare.
So you’re saying that now is much better? The way Sylvanas is ruling? Where Horde is once more at it’s crossroads?
Horde was always allowed to enter conflicts, it’s the way that is was carried which changed drastically. Previously Horde avoided needless bloodhseds or cruelty. This is why we had Gorgonna in Grizzly Hills to show us the line, this is why we had that quest to escort Alliance deserters back to Alliance in Borean Tundra.
Horde is allowed to dislike and fight Alliance - I have no problem with it, but I would like to not antagonize Horde for it, make their objectives valid and not portray them as idiotic brutes. Because they do have a culture that defines them and “Me Smash!” isn’t their deffinite trait.
Shooo chill dude.
They DO use blight. And Blight DOES make usage of land useless. I’m not saying that it’s all they do, but they DO IT, they DO USE necromancy which is taboo for majority of Horde races, Orcs, Tauren, trolls, belves, pandaren…
And that is what is causing shism within the faction. There are too many methods in forsaken warfare that are not approved by the rest of the Horde and this is why forsaken shouldn’t be the face of the Horde.
If you cut trees and burn them you can still plan new ones on the soil. In fact after the burning soil is much more fertile. I’d rather take land that was taken over by orcs than what was taken over by forsaken. Simply because orcs are still living creatures, they need to eat, they need to drink, so even if they conquer the land they need to take care of it and make it serve them if they want to survive.
Stonetalon and Azshara is still usable people can live there. this is not Southshore or Undercity where you can’t enter if you don’t want to die.
And what are people doing so far for past months on forums? Throw a stone if you’re without the guilt.
And nice that you’re cherry picking my sentences and skipped the part where I said :
In other words I viewed shamanism as a glue that sticked all those races together back in WC3. All those traits that mentioned above. I don’t claim it’s fitting all of the Horde races, as elves and forsaken don’t match here and goblins to some extend too, but all the rest? Yes their culture is similar on many degrees, and so they agree on majority of stuff.
I never said that, I wrote quite a textwall elaborating on what I want from horde and neither is needless destruction and escalation of idiotic conflicts. I also elaborated why I think vanilla plots were better, and why I think BfA ones are ridiculous. I’m surprised why you didn’t throw Brennadam in this lot to show that “this is who Horde trully is and this is what it should be”.
Yes but the majority of Horde races have similar cultures. And that is therefore dominant culture. They’re monster faction but majority have lots in common. Even if Pandaren way at first seems to be drastically different from orcish. And Trolls are quite different from Tauren.
Lol nice virtue signaling here, and I thought we had nice conversation there without throwing tantrums. I was enjoying it so far, pity you had to throw accusations.
As i’m not particularly fond of complicated and confusing quote trees, i’ll just answer the important bits that more or less wrap up the rest:
No. Never did.
I’ve said already a few times that dealing in absolutes with either mindset is about as detrimental as going for the opposite path.
And the “old Horde values” were shown to be about as detrimental for the Horde as the needless warmongering that came punctually with the new ones.
Cataclysm and Garrosh remain as testimony of it.
Same reasons as to why the opposite shouldn’t happen. Same happened when Thrall or Garrosh tried to force their own mindset upon the rest.
Shamanism differs amongst races. Tauren dislike several Orc values.
Orcs under Garrosh scorned and threw Darkspear trolls out of Orgrimmar.
Even the “old” Horde races aren’t about as monolithic as you seem to think they are.
Its not virtue signalling, it’s pointing out the obvious.
Orgrim had zero in common with Zul’jin, Teron Gorefiend, Dentarg, etc.
But still respected them for the contributions they made for the faction. Even when he dealt with life-long enemies like the ogres, or felt repulsed by the energies that gave his powers to Gorefiend.
And because of it, Orgrim remains as one of the most revered Warchiefs of all time. Even from Thrall’s point of view.
Going about saying that the Horde ideals should be chosen and tailored around one or several specific races, or implying that those that don’t follow said values have no place in it, goes against one of the first initial premises that defined the Horde when it arrived on Azeroth.
For all the baggage, warmongering, and cruelty Orgrim had, he at least understood that strength came from working together and creating bridges that salvaged the differences.
In short, the Horde shouldn’t be defined by any race values. Be them old or new.
Time has shown that they have worked best when they managed to reconcile all the different approaches that make up the cultures that form the faction.
There shouldn’t be a dominant Orc values, and there shouldn’t be Forsaken ones either.
Then how come you missed my entire point in :
How come that you quoted me so many times but missed the entire point which was where I essentially wanted for Horde to not be portrayed as mindless brutes, to have valid objectived and not be antagonized for it?
But Thrall had advisors that were also suggesting him many ways, but one could argue that Thrall did ignored Vol’Jin’s warnings against Kul’Tirans just like Garrosh completely disregarded his council.
I said that “shamanism is a glue” - It’s like having issue that Western civilization is based on latin/greek heritage. I’m a slav but my country was as well influenced by them. We might differ among countries just like Italy is different from France despite the fact that have a lot of similarities, but they also have that common thing that ties them. And same is with Horde imo, they have different cultures, but they have something in common that ties them together.
I thought it was quite simple to understand. Or maybe it’s just me that is not clear enough. I fail to see why do you have a problem with that claim especially when I never claimed that Horde is monolithic. But as a faction they have quite a visbile factor that ties them all.
Then can you explain to me why do you have issue with people that don’t want for Forsaken warfare to dominate the Horde? Because this is what is happening, I see one side condemning Saurfang for not wanting to follow forsaken methods, but what about complains to people that they want to act different way, according to the subfaction they’re playing? And how many threads we had so far praising such a turn of action because Sylvanas way is apparently the true way.
Well I disagree, I want a golden middle. I want to fight Alliance but not be antagonized for it, I want for Horde actions to make sense and to be enganged in it. What we currenty have is extremely demoralizing.
Majority of people were writing why they’re unhappy with current development because they can’t make any sense on how their race could follow such acts.
They don’t see any sense in objectives and actions taken.
And this is why people miss vanilla - at least one of the reasons.
I have a feeling that we actually agree but there is some misunderstanding going on.
Because far from reconciling the faction as a whole, more often than not the “complaints” are thrown in a way that argue for the removal or punishment of the outstanding race culture/society as a whole.
That the way to “fix” this, is by switching from the Forsaken dominated theme, back to the Orc dominated one.
That the only “valid” approach is the one of those nostalgic times. And be damned with Blood elves, Goblins, Forsaken, and all those that came afterwards.
And the above is assuming everyone is honest about it. When more often than not, it all becomes just a facade for most, to mask the fact that they rather remove those things because (a) they don’t like the theme, or (b) are spiteful about Sylvanas character specifically.
Ps: Sylvanas way seems appropriate given the circumstances because her character is being used as the poster face of the factional conflict. Someone that apparently is marketed as the alternative that is willing to fight at all costs and with whatever means necessary for the faction interests. Be that as abrasive as it may end up being.
In an expansion advertised as THE faction war expansion, people usually tend to get their hopes high and pumped about doing these things.
Which ends up amounting to nothing.
Let’s be serious here. A faction war expansion can never end with a victory for one over the other. It simply can’t happen because the Horde and Alliance are fundamental elements to this game.
But neither she nor this faction story is truly developing in anyway.
From the very start, the whole cause of this is just to serve as a “distraction.” Shandris and Thalyssra work this out (better late than never, but there you go)
So the whole build-up amounts to precious little, long term, because it’s only here for a distraction.
It doesn’t really have anything to do with her character.
I believe it’s the fact that we know how this is going to end and we know the build up for this faction war is nothing more than “distraction.”
Belves cannot complain imo - they had fair share of development the moment they were introduced. Not once they were ignored through the course of entire expansion. Which cannot be said about DS trolls or Tauren. DS didn’t even had a develoment as the “leading” race. Their turn ended before it actually started. Did we get proper themed gear? Or some extra doodas? I don’t think so.
Like it or not orcs are the founding race of the Horde so they will be predominately used - and tgeir aesthetics fits at least 5 other races to the loint they won’t feel alien inside. So I could see why their stuff is priotized but I also wish we could get some proper lore for their long termed allies - tauren and trolls. Theg were the mosy neglected through the years. But you don’t see people wanting to impose their style on others despite the fact that I really think that Vol’Jin was representing golden middle between Thrall and Garrosh.[quote=“Zarao-colinas-pardas, post:111, topic:50683”]
Ps: Sylvanas way seems appropriate given the circumstances because her character is being used as the poster face of the factional conflict. Someone that apparently is marketed as the alternative that is willing to fight at all costs and with whatever means necessary for the faction interests. Be that as abrasive as it may end up being.
In an expansion advertised as THE faction war expansion, people usually tend to get their hopes high and pumped about doing these things.
[/quote]
Well too bad she is also portrayed as paranoid who kills her own soldiers as much as Alliance. I don’t think she would ever represent the Horde well when she was working on their undoing since WotLK.
Blood Elves have held a presence in every expansion since their release.
Now, some Blood Elf fans will say that due to them not being the main stars, they haven’t had much attention, but that isn’t relevant.
The point is, we’ve had Blood Elves play a recognizable role in every expansion. I won’t list them as I’m sure you know what they are.
Honestly I would ve happy with such a treatment - nobody has to be THE star as you said sometimes simple side progress is great enough.
In entire WoD there was no Tauren initiative for example. Beside first follower there wasn’t any essential lore for them.
That is true.
Indeed, at the very least - I’d have expected some sort of Druidic lore progression during 6.2, but it was a very Orc/Human central storyline (with some more Orcs and Draenei, thrown in.)
Yes Tauren could go to invetigate the everbloom or go to Spired of Arak to learn more about nature of the Sun.
MoP and WoD gave us the opportunity to get rid of the faction dominated by a single race. They went overtop with the Orc lore slaughter in WoD, but still. We are mixed, unlike human potential alliance.
Yes I agree that WoD was a massive wasted opportiunity. I was quite against this expansion as I thought that alternative universe is bound to flop, but that doesn’t mean they couldn’t do something right in there.
And they did few things right. I adored Spires of Arak story and Shadowmoon was entertaining. They could’ve make a story progression for each subrace, but this is the the problem we had with other expansions - that when there is a problem Concerning “x” then only few races are involved in it.
But when we have faction conflicts then there is a chance that majority of subfactions will be engaged in it.
And Ironically Tauren lore was skipped so we actually have only Baine lore.
What is the actual point of a Warchief, if whenever they do something a Faction leader doesn’t like, they turn against them.
If you just want someone who does only what you want, then have a democracy , because they clearly don’t want a warchief at all.