World Of Warcraft

I like how Jaina's the one who shoots down Genn's Kick Them While They Are Down proposal now. It really shows how much she's grown since Mists.

What interests me about what I've played of the 8.1 Alliance War Campaign so far is that they didn't just steal the Abyssal Scepter back, they replace it with a fake. While I'll have to see more to be sure, I'd speculate that the Horde discovers the scepter they have is a fake at the worst possible time.

More specifically,, I think the Battle of Draz'alor closing cinematic will involve the Horde trying to use their scepter to destroy Jaina's vessel. Only for Jaina to reveal she has the real scepter and destroy the pursuing Horde vessels instead.

Right, right. Things almost went well for the Horde there for a hot second, after all.

Yeah cant have the Horde actually do something ever can we....

this shit is the worst, they go in kill a leader then leave and show that they were basically toying with the Horde the entire time... thats BS of the highest order.

Edited by Memers on Oct 25th 2018 at 8:39:18 AM

I'm not going to disagree with the idea that the Horde story in BfA has issues, but I got to call it like I see it.

And it's not like things are all sunshine and happiness on the Alliance side. the Alliance took much heavier casualties then they anticipated and while they did suceed in crippling the Zandalari fleet their ultimate goal was to force the Zandalari out of the war entirely. In that objective they made things a whole lot worse by giving the Zandalari a personal reason for joining the Horde.

Edited by Falrinn on Oct 25th 2018 at 11:38:18 AM

The whole war campaign was a sham... all those weeks of rep grinding and questing were for a joke. Screw Sarufang, its on! Hey Silvermoon, Get one of those Mana bombs to drop on Stormwind.

Seriously WHAT THE HELL BLIZZARD!

Edited by Memers on Oct 25th 2018 at 8:47:02 AM

the fact that the abyssal scepter gets stolen back without us apparently even noticing means that the Horde.s 8.0 war campaign was essentially a fucking "Shaggy Dog" Story

I mean, at this point it's kind of just kicking the Horde while it's down. Sure, Zandalar might be more motivated to join the Horde now, but we were approaching them specifically for their navy, which they don't have anymore, and the Alliance has the Abyssal Scepter again anyway, so it would hardly matter if the Zandalari navy was up and running.

Sure, this doesn't mean the Horde is entirely crippled or anything, but I would love for the Horde to be shown to have some manner of military advantage that isn't amoral at best (goblin engineering, which is countered by gnomish engineering, which doesn't turn entire zones into ecological disasters) or a war crime/crime against sentient life like the Blight.

And yeah, this does invalidate the Horde War Campaign pretty completely. If you play both sides and headcanon that your two Champions are essentially getting in each other's ways through the War Campaign... then I suppose it makes sense. But otherwise, the Abyssal Scepter, the cornerstone of the Horde's naval strategy and the only option they had for contending with Kul Tiras after Zul's betrayal, was stolen from Sylvanas's right hand by a pack of SI:7 nobodies and nobody, not even the former Tidepriest whose job it specifically was to attune to the Abyssal Scepter, noticed?!

Edited by RedSavant on Oct 25th 2018 at 12:14:43 PM

Yeah, its a problem when the only way for this war to keep going for a whole expansion seems to be assuming both sides are incompetent as fuck and incapable of controlling or noticing what their minions are up to to the tune of invalidating entire previous story arcs to keep nobody ever getting an actual edge.

I don't disagree, but I do like that we're seeing some move and countermove action. Do we know what the Horde part of this entails? Or is that the business with Zekhan and Saurfang?

x4 I guess I understand that. Obviously we know that one way or another Jaina makes it out of the Battle of Draz'alor, though there are many potential ways for her to do that without making use of the Abyssal Scepter.

Overall I do think the writing of the War Campaign in 8.0 was a bit weak. Like, 80% of the Alliance War Campaign is buildup to assassinating a character of extremely doubious loyalty to the Horde who is never mentioned outside of the Alliance War Campaign itself.

Then all the actual setup for future events and most of the fighting the Zandalari is crammed into the final chapter, which aside from starring the same cast of characters, is completely disconnected from the rest of the War Campaign.

The Horde War Campaign had the same problem with Valentine. Huge amount of buildup for him to do nothing that couldn't of been achieved a hundred different ways and then offed by a random Kul Tiran.

My point I guess is that since I don't really place a lot of value in the War Campaigns to begin with, so there isn't much value to be lost.

Edited by Falrinn on Oct 25th 2018 at 12:38:07 PM

fair, but theyre emblematic of the problem with BFA's plot in general. We already know blizzard wont allow either side to lose to duch a degree that theyll be wiped out as a faction becauyse status quo is god with the current dev team, so why pretend this war matters?

I've said this before, but the start of Battle for Azeroth did not go very well for the Alliance with Teldrassil and the Siege of Lordaeron, so it's nice to see some actual straight up Alliance successes against the Horde for once.

Besides, the story is not done yet. There will probably be a turn in the other direction.

Edited by StormKnight on Oct 25th 2018 at 7:40:04 PM

I mean. from a horde perspective nothing we've done has mattered at all for more than 5 narrative seconds.

We're technically worse off than we started with nothing to really show for it.

Edited by Midgetsnowman on Oct 25th 2018 at 10:54:21 AM

Except for that has just ruined the flow of the plot. Instead of making Sylvanas and The Horde the intimidating big bad who the good guys IE the good parts of the Horde and the alliance need to fight aganst... they and the player are the planet wide joke and the Alliance now comes off with massive racist undertones to the point where Sarufang is looking to be the idiot.

Seriously its like Japan did Pearl Harbor then lost in the absolutely EVERY battle after that via being swatted away like a fly.

Blizzard just does not know what the heck it is doing, with writing teams just doing whatever and the main team struggling to close all the plot holes but screwing everything up in the process.

Hell I still don't know what the heck the Tide Pearl that Rexxar found does as it is only mentioned inside the Shrine of the Storm with no questline in or out of that, Blizz has quietly buried that plot hole too I guess.

Edited by Memers on Oct 25th 2018 at 11:00:55 AM

yeah,. and even our new allies we've been hinted well..

I mean. dazar'alor's fleet is destroyed and its more that we;re taking them in out of pity and solidarity than any actual use they have to us anymore, and the vulpera are a victim of once again the devs deciding to show conflicting narratives since apparently the alliance are told to hurt nobody yet hordeside theyre rampaging murderers.

^Basically, yeah. We went to the Zandalari to appeal for their help and their navy, and now we're the only thing standing between them and death by Old God or Kul Tiran, and they were just curbstomped twice in their own capital. Meanwhile, the Alliance has rooted out its own traitors, as far as I can tell, and is doing just fine.

The faction war has always been stupid and I don't know why anyone thought otherwise.

Edited by LordVatek on Oct 25th 2018 at 4:50:42 AM

I think the fact that this expansion has brought the faction conflict front and center is what's causing everyone to turn on it as a concept. Even back in Wrath and Cata, when Varian was at his worst and Garrosh was, well, Garrosh, the faction conflict ultimately took a back seat to the Deathwing, Naga and Old God main plot, and in Warlords the conflict was literally a footnote in the form of Ashran.

But now the faction conflict is being billed as the main story right now, which is causing everyone to realize how badly written it is and how blatant it is that the only reason it even exists at this point is due to how deeply ingrained the PvP system is into the game and its mechanics.

Many wars have been fought over resources like Azerite (Oil) and economic strangulation, both of which have been hinted at in these stories. However the game is going about it completely and utterly the wrong way.

Seriously its like Japan did Pearl Harbor then lost in the absolutely EVERY battle after that via being swatted away like a fly.

... Okay. Is it just me, or this whole Alliance vs Horde thing is getting like Blizzard trying to emulate World War II, with Alliance = Allied, Horde = Axis? I dunno why.

Sylvanas's reported motives are strikingly similar to Japan's at the start of the war yeah and the first strike but after that no.

Japan won victory after victory till Coral Sea and Midway, the horde hasn't had a single victory since the war began. The horde should seem to be an unstoppable Juggernaut conquring Alliance territories everywhere, make short lived fronts in northrend pandaria, outland and have the Horde win them all then have this battle. Horde should have better gear and everything and have the alliance struggling to catch up.

It would stay true to history and also make a good villain side... unlike the laughable farce we got right now.

Edited by Memers on Oct 25th 2018 at 4:26:22 AM

The faction war was always the weakest part of Wo W. I genuinely don't know why they don't just explain the Pv P away via making it be a bunch of mercenaries, adventurers, or such fighting among themselves for loot or fame

I mean that is pretty much what Pv P is already. Story wise it just never really quite made sense to me to start fighting amongst yourselves when bigger threats such as the Legion, the Old Gods, or the Scourge was upon us. Like seriously? I was absolutely flabbergasted at the fact the factions started fighting eachother directly on the Lich King's doorstep back in Wrath considering that all that was really serving to do was to add more soldiers to his army.

I mean realistically Azeroth would of probably of fell a long time ago to outside threats considering the amount of petty and stupid fighting that has been going on. Sylvanas is the epitome of this. Beat back the Legion barely, yeah lets restart the war with war atrocities reminiscent of the Scourge.

Old Gods and Void Lords? Whats that?

Edited by Wispy on Oct 25th 2018 at 5:21:18 AM

Well it isn't just that. Remember how Sylvanas' strategy in Gilneas earned her the comparison with Josef Mengele? Or even Garrosh's motivation. A lot seemed to make comparisons with a certain Fuehrer... right?

This whole 'Pearl Harbor' thing is just another addition to the WW2 comparison.

I was told that if I wanted a story without faction war and more like uniting to fight the common cause, I should look somewhere else because apparently 'faction war' is the heart and soul of Warcraft that made it unique... 'Was told that' is the keyword here.

Edited by ChrisX on Oct 25th 2018 at 7:58:07 PM

https://www.wowhead.com/news=288170/8-1-horde-war-campaign-questline-now-available-on-the-ptr-story-spoilers

Here's the Horde campaign storyline, for anyone looking for more to complain about*

* Not because it's bad, mind you, I haven't had an opportunity to read it myself yet, I just have pattern recognition