One Horde. One vassal. One Azeroth

I made a full examination of it back when the event was still relevant, but it’s been erased by the forum rework so here’s the short of it:

Sylvanas positioned the non-Forsaken part of her army outside the walls during a siege in which they were outnumbered. The only reason to do this is to kill them.

There are no legitimate tactical reasons for this decision, and so I posited that Sylvanas’ intention was to kill as many (non-Forsaken) Horde as possible in the battle, which is why she waited to deploy the Blight until the Horde were well engaged with the Alliance and had no possibility of withdrawing, being pinned against the walls of their own city.

Had her intention been to kill as many Alliance as possible, keeping the Horde safely behind the walls and unleashing the Blight only once the Alliance were at the walls would have been far more effective, as the blight launched from the catapults would trap the Alliance forces to then be massacred from the walls, instead of allowing them to retreat away from it, as happened instead.

Once the Alliance breaches, it is revealed that she not only had a significant Forsaken force inside the city, but had it composed of heavy, expendable shock troops such as Abominations, and highly mobile cavalry that could easily have been used in place of the massed Horde infantry to weaken the Alliance attack and possibly won the battle decisively, had it been utilized at all. Instead it is only used in a last-ditch attempt to kill Anduin once the Horde army has been almost entirely wiped out.

The Loyalist cutscene after The Reckoning makes explicit that I was, in fact, correct all those months ago. She did it to kill Horde, not Alliance. She reduced Alliance casualties with her tactics. She wanted the Horde to lose so it would spread death far and wide and drag things out as much as possible.

Well, Blizzard can’t account for some people being stupid. The Horde were never going to win, because that would break the game.

The Horde can only win by defating the Alliance, which can’t happen because the Alliance needs to exist for gameplay reasons, but the Alliance can win because all they need to do is make peace thanks to Golden Boy Anduin and putting all the Horde’s crimes on the Warchief, so the Horde can remain a playable faction even after being ““defeated””.

Because the plot demands it. You can’t have the faction war again without characters deciding that genocide is super cool, unless, I don’t know, you actually make the Alliance the aggressors and that sounds like effort!

No, the only way to do a faction war and not put any effort into it is to have the Horde be tricked into launching another war of aggression so that it can be resolved with a single cinematic that kicks the evil Warchief out. It’s just how it’s gotta be.

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You are being awfully selective here cause there were also no belfs, goblins, or other smaller races on the front line. In fact it looked like each race was positioned across the city to take advantage of their natural strengths with the bigger, more physically able races forming the front lines. She also kept the belfs back to take advantage of their ranged capabilities when she sprung her trap. You wouldn’t want to call her a belf lover now?

There are. For example notice how riot police officers tend to be really big fellas? It’s not only a combat tacting but an intimidation tactic.

Her intention was to draw the Alliance into the city. In order to get them to follow they had to be convincing in their retreat. I suggest you watch some documentaries about battles during the dark ages to see how convincing this tactic had to be and how effective it could become.

Cavalry might have been a good idea before the Alliance took up a reinforced position on a hill or did you not see what happened to that giant war machine?

It was actually used as a trap that was sprung and Anduin totally fell for it. In fact were it not for the Velfs tearing through space and time to teleport heavy machinery right in the middle of that battlefield he would have been screwed right there.

I think you really want to see something that isn’t there to be seen. The fact is there’s almost no connection between Sylvanas from the start of BFA and the Sylvanas throwing a fit at the gates of Orgrimmar. Personally I’m not inclined to buy into it because that would meant I’d have to accept the ridiculously idiotic writing that has been pushed for this expansion.

That being said, Sylvanas’ trap, or traps were mostly tactically sound as far as they could realistically be.

Their current story says otherwise.

Let’s be honest now. The Horde can’t win period. Even if they are ““defeated”” and there’s ““peace”” someone, somewhere still has an axe to grind and will eventually start something. But when the Horde does it, it’s evil, when the Alliance does it, we’ll let’s conveniently forget about it. And yes, I am talking about Stormheim.

That makes no sense whatsoever.

Well I can’t argue with Blizzard’s idiotic methods of instigating a war that’s pretty much already there.

I think many of you don’t seem to get that people aren’t buying this “SYLVANAS IS REALLY EVIL GUYS” stuff some of you seem to be trying to sell to us, especially when we don’t buy it from Blizzard themselves not because we don’t believe you or Blizzard, but because our only other choice is Anduin and the Alliance.

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There weren’t any blood elven forces at the Undercity. You have four priests around the Translocation orb, they leave once the battle starts.

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That’s right. Lor’themar was commanding the dark rangers, not the belfs.

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Metaljaw, you don’t know anything about medieval siege warfare.

It is telling that you call it “dark ages” considering that castles were not a prominent feature of the “dark ages” (more properly called the “Early Middle Ages”, in the period between 500 and 1000 AD, often ending at 1066) but instead were at their height during the High and Late Middle Ages from about 1066 to 1492. Nobody with any serious interest in the period calls it “The Dark Ages” anymore.

The “faked retreat” theory doesn’t make sense anyway, as I’ve done the Horde side of the battle and no such plan is laid out. You cannot have a feigned retreat without everyone on your side being made aware that it is feigned, or else a “feigned” retreat turns into a very real rout.

Further, the Alliance were not able to breach the walls until Jaina appeared with her flying battleship, and Sylvanas was blocking the entrance with Blight - so how exactly did she plan for the Alliance to push into the city for her “trap”?

Oh, and for the record? The Horde frontline of “big guys”? There’s Goblins in it too. They even gave Goblins a brand new skeleton model so that after Sylvanas Blights them, she could raise them.

I already addressed this;

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The term is used to describe the period between the fall of Rome and the Renaissance. Whether you think it’s hip or not, does not change it’s meaning.

I never said “feigned” I said it was convincing. You said it yourself. The troops that fought by the walls and the troops that fought in the inner city were not the same. The front line retreated and the reserves were used to spring the trap.

It’s called a contingency plan. Quite often used by the military.

There were goblins throwing bombs, just like there were dwarves shooting guns, the big guys were still at the front.

No, you really didn’t.

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Whoa the amount of pettiness. I wouldn’t personally give a damn if Azshara had original shape or not, it doesn’t benefit me in the slightest.

What affects Horde playerbase is constant villain batting and killing off characters.

Complains about Azshara layout are laughable. And I pity all those who liked this comment too.

Horde has serious identity crisis but that ooking shore shape is apparently undeniable truth that we’re so damn favored.

Imagine the QQ fest about Horde bias if Humans, Night elves and Dwarves have been all leaderless for few expansions even! Imagine having no proper rooster left other than B-tier characters.

That is a true disaster.
“Horde favoritism” my as$. I would gladly trade, really.

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It might not have been about making people happy, just about making people debate. And look how it works. The real faction war is much more happening here than in the game.

Ah for that they’ve done a brilliant job. They’ve been promoting flame wa-- err-- faction pride since 2017, when they first announced BfA.

the humans was leaderless pretty much all of classic and tbc you don’t see it bother us ye sure we had regent lord bolvar and king anduin but stormwind wasen’t even the hub for most people it was ironforge

it wasen’t unti varian came back we had a leader

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If you had regent lord, then by definition it means that you have a leader.
A head of state that is there to govern people.

If you go to the keep you see NPCs acting like a leader.

Frankly in Vanilla Leaders were like any other NPC, they didn’t do much anyway.

I’d be perfectly happy to have a regent leader at least appointed, but we don’t even have that.

So yeah, if people crave so much for this “Horde favoritism” then go ahead. Take it, watch as your faction leaders are either killed offscreen, villainbatted or killed in the most insulting way for cheap shock factor.

But hey you will get massive cliff with lion shape on it, it means that Blizzard really loves you. Sure your identity is in ruins, and was over 2 internal conflicts, but that lion shape.

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Can we put it in front of Erevien’s house, please?

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You can, but first you need to take entire Horde Bias on your shoulders. But we warned, it’s very heavy burden. Might actually break some of you.

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Question: Who are you actually talking to?

Because the only people who are “hardcore Alliance fans” the way you identify with the Horde is… Daelinna/Arctur I think, and I don’t even know if he’s joking about it half the time.

Thing is, nobody who plays Alliance gives a crap about the Alliance as a faction. That’s kinda what the Horde bias is about - the stories are always about Horde, the promotional material is about Horde, Blizzard always talk up the Horde.

There’s a reason “For the Horde” is a slogan for the game, whereas nobody gives a f* if you shout “For the Alliance!” because nobody has that kind of commitment to the faction.

I know that you want to imagine a heated battle between the two “teams” of fans, but in reality people who complain about the Horde are mostly people like me - people who play both factions and get bored with the Horde being badly written and annoyed by weirdos who think they’re real-life Orcs and Trolls.

There’s no “our faction leaders”. It’s the Alliance. I am not, in fact, a member of a fictional fantasy world faction. I play Draenei because they’re the best race, not because “WOOO TEAM BLUE!!”

I identify more strongly with a hockey team I haven’t seen play in 15 years than I do with the Alliance. Go Leksand Stars!

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Oh my goodness, you’re actually serious about it. I was hoping that you were actually trolling before, as it was Erevien thread.

I’d be embarrased by making such a dumb claims such as :

And you claim that you didn’t care about Alliance as a whole while ramming about Horde bias.

If you really play both factions then how come you make such a silly and petty arguments?

How come you don’t see glaring issues that entire faction is facing, - that includes subfactions, identity crisit, lore rape, killing off characters, and pull up shore shape.

You make no sense man.

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Mostly? How do you figure? Because mostly I see upset people worried about the future of their faction and a story they might have enjoyed at some point.

The Horde is not represented by people who pretend they are massive and green or blue, no more than the Alliance is represented by human rets looking to spray their justice in all directions. Your opinion is just an opinion just like everyone else’s and like everyone else on these forums, you are just another plebe arguing about the story, not matter how clear your grasp or reality and fantasy is.

But nice monologue there.

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Because facts aren’t biased to one faction or the other.

Blizzard wrote Sylvanas to be the villain from the start. That is a fact, not a “biased alliance opinion”.

Blizzard made the Horde the active agent in all the plots since WotLK ended, with the Alliance being passive and just responding. That is fact, not “biased alliance opinion”.

You want me to be a rabid Alliance fan, but truth be told I just don’t care about it.

I care about the story of the game as a whole, and since I play that story on both sides I get to see the full extent of it - including the parts that are bad, which often is the Horde parts because as I’ve said many times by now, Blizzard’s writers are lazy and make the Horde cartoonishly evil because that’s the easiest (laziest) way to push the narrative forward.

If I wanted to, I could certainly try to defend evil actions committed by Alliance characters. There’s a lot fewer of them to choose from, but I could. I don’t, because that’s pointless and also quite dumb.

I don’t need to defend Benedictus turning to the Twilight’s Hammer, because it was badly written and I don’t like it, just like I don’t need to defend the Blood Elves somehow trusting Rommath after Kael’thas, and kicking out the Void Elves, because that is also badly written and I don’t like it.

I don’t have to defend the Forsaken executing captured humans by bashing their heads with shovels, because they’re just being evil and it’s boring. I don’t have to defend the Dark Irons running a giant lava-golem over a whole swarm of Goblins who seem to be unarmed (and certainly have no defense against the golem) killing hundreds of them, because they’re just being evil, and it’s hilarious.

I’m just not going to pretend that one side doing something negates the other side doing it in the name of “fairness”. The Horde are the bad guys. The Alliance are the good guys. It’s a bad story, and it kinda goes against everything WarCraft 3 was about, but it’s the story we’ve got.

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pours a bucket of justice over Metaljaw

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I’ve been thinking about this and while on one hand it could’ve been done better, I don’t know honestly, all in all what happened kind of make sense:

  1. Sylvanas, if you think about it, was never a very good leader after Arthas defeat, she was evil and that could be OK, but mainly she was just selfish. Her people followed her so loyally that, in the end, when she turned her back on them like it was only natural for her (after Arthas’ death) to do, they didn’t really know what to do. But that’s the point. They always struggled to find a place for themselves on Azeroth, and Sylvanas gave them some kind of false reason to exist. Now Forsaken have to face the harsh truth of their existence more than before, and I guess it’s what they intend when they say they will need a guide. Whether this one will be Calia or whatever doesn’t really matter, but they’re finally unstuck to begin a new story, probably more important than the one they had up until now.

  2. About making her Garrosh 2.0,they kind of did, but not really too. She never thought about building a stronger Horde, she doesn’t care about both factions, she sees only her goals. Which are, as of now, vastly unknown. Her being the leader of the Horde was “a sad coincidence”, but as other people stated, there wasn’t really a siege, nor a fight, because the vast majority knew what was right to do. So, it’s a step forward from Garrosh. Surely it shares many pieces along the way, but it’s different and I dare to say more mature.

BFA is a transition xpac, this is probably it’s biggest flaw. But I think it’s setting things nice and interesting to step into a new age of WoW. When the greater design will be more clear, theres the potential all these things will be worth it more than we value them now. And, as of now, I don’t think they value little too. There’s of course good and bad writing, but things are shaking in a way they had never before if you think about it. And they’re at the same time opening new stories, into uncharted lands that are almost ready to leave the past Wow behind (kind of represented by the death of one of the last old wow chars, sadfang, leaving a totally “new” one, Anduin to be one of the new leaders).

I like new stories, but to tell them you have to go through an initially painful process, which is this one. By getting some distance from Wow itself though, the picture’s clearer and more acceptable as time passes. In a manner of speaking, if you’re shaken up they kind of did the right thing, just look at how many phrases said by the new npc are so much like many of the comments on the forums…

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Dont worry, Tyrande and Malfurion will live for another 10.000 years and be your questgivers, forever!!!

Meanwhile the Human Paladin space-time-travelled and became Lightforged immortal so we can have an immortal Paladin Human to annoy us constantly in the face of Tyraluon.

Oh and Vellen too, he will also live forever. Oh Alleria is an elf too you say?

Yeah and Jaina will get ALL the spotlight cause ,christie golden duhhhh

Such a bright future for the Horde!!!

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