Garrosh would have lost the war already if.. *spoilers*

[hyperio]

Or sylvanus goes crazy and plague bombs the entirety of ek and boom no more alliance

[Telwar]

Or sylvanus goes crazy and plague bombs the entirety of ek and boom no more alliance

That's about as likely as, say, the Cenarion Circle and Red Dragonflight cooperating on a gigantic seed that consumes the dead flesh of the Forsaken and generates a new World Tree over Lordaeron.

...which would be an improvement, certainly.

[StationaryHawk]

I honestly don't think that the Alliance gaining the blood elves would automatically allow the Alliance to reclaim Lordaeron. The Forsaken have already proved that they can hold back an Alliance assault on their land without the aid of the Blood Elves, and they've also proven to be capable of taking land FROM the Alliance. The blood elves attacking from the north east would certainly make things more difficult, but unless the Alliance redirected its military to the Eastern Kingdoms (which would, in turn, drain resources from their battle for Pandaria), I don't see Lordaeron falling swiftly.

I also don't see the tauren or the trolls joining the Alliance. Baine has formed friendships with Anduin, but aside from that what reason does the Alliance have to welcome them with open arms? Both races also feel that they have obligations to the Horde and, while they don't like Garrosh, the rebellion which usurps him is a more likely result, or else they'd simply go neutral.

[Dreknar20]

Had pandaria not been discovered its possible thanks to the fall of theramore that the horde couldve seized kalimdor
with its southern flank secured the horde couldve poured everything into ashenvale and drove the nelfs back without supplies and reinforcements from the EK the nelfs couldve been in serious trouble

Yeah but the plan for that didnt go as well as Garrosh wanted to.
Though Thermore was a great Horde victory, it didnt have as much of a crushing blow to Alliance moral as he wanted.
Plus the Alliance took back Northwatch, so the Humans pressure in the Southern Barrens isnt as crushed as he wanted it to be.
Plus the blockade he put into effect has been recalled.

Pandaria is the endgame for the war.
Its a whole giant continent full of potential recruits, plenty of resources, and powerful artifacts, whichever side can claim all that for themselves, it would be GG at that point

---------- Post added 2012-11-06 at 03:42 AM ----------

There's also a complete difference between aiding one side and allowing one side to enter directly into an enemies capital city through their portals.

How is there any difference, Jaina is lending her support and resources to help defend an Alliance city against the Horde, that is anything but "neutral"

[hyperio]

That's about as likely as, say, the Cenarion Circle and Red Dragonflight cooperating on a gigantic seed that consumes the dead flesh of the Forsaken and generates a new World Tree over Lordaeron.

...which would be an improvement, certainly.

well we all know she i still working on a plague and if she is forced into a corner as the original posts states she would be she has no reason not to use it, so probably a lot more likely than whatever you are talking about.

[Telwar]

well we all know she i still working on a plague and if she is forced into a corner as the original posts states she would be she has no reason not to use it, so probably a lot more likely than whatever you are talking about.

I'm pretty sure neither is going to actually happen.

Though I do find it interesting that in her short story, in her vision, they *hadn't* deployed the plague, even though they were on the ropes. Funny, that.

[Dreknar20]

well we all know she i still working on a plague and if she is forced into a corner as the original posts states she would be she has no reason not to use it, so probably a lot more likely than whatever you are talking about.

hell, If i was backed into a corner thats what I would do.

If I knew my game was up, I would fuck up the world as much as possible and kill as many enemies as possible to make it a pyrhicc victory at best, and just to have the last laugh

[Haven]

Imagine what would happen if Horde took the worgen in...

[nyc81991]

I think it is possible to see the Alliance get High Elves out of this whole thing. I mean think about it, Technically the High elves are still apart of the Alliance. Their numbers are just very small at the moment. But if a faction of Blood elves were to leave the Horde and rejoin the Alliance they would then be redeemed as High Elves.

With the Blood elves seeing what the Horde has become and obviously not liking it, Some of them are bound to want to go back to the Alliance. In game this would work pretty well now due to Pandaren being split on both sides.

There is also still apart of the Eastern Kingdoms that we can not get to. The zone is named Quel'thalas, not to be confused with the land Blood elves are currently on. If you look at the Eastern Kingdoms map just above Eastern Plaguelands to the left you will notice a zone that does not light up and you can not click on it. If you try to fly there you will hit an invisible wall which goes all the way from the left side of the zone to where stratholme is.

That zone is most likely where the last of the Alliance High elves are and we are yet to see them. That zone also appears to be the last zone on Azeroth we can not get to.

[Justignoreme]

But if a faction of Blood elves were to leave the Horde and rejoin the Alliance they would then be redeemed as High Elves.

Playable Blood Elves do not need any redeeming nor do they need a revision of their Sin'dorei naming. The race at large hasn't done anything wrong beyond whatever crap the Horde has associated them with. The angry, desperate portions of the race that were vengeance-driven power-mongers followed Kael'thas and kicked off with him; good riddance.

[PlatedPriest]

i have a hard time seeing the deal actually go through. the drenai would be pissed

[nyc81991]

Playable Blood Elves do not need any redeeming nor do they need a revision of their Sin'dorei naming. The race at large hasn't done anything wrong beyond whatever crap the Horde has associated them with. The angry, desperate portions of the race that were vengeance-driven power-mongers followed Kael'thas and kicked off with him; good riddance.

Bloods elves were once named High Elves. It was only when Kael'thas decided to change their name did they call themselves Blood elves. Obviously Kael'thas turned his back on them and they are now apart of the Horde. Now they are finding that they can not trust the Horde and Garrosh.

Lore wise if some Blood elves rejoined the Alliance they would fit in best with the High elves that are still there. Thus retaking on their original name "High Elves". Blood elves would still be apart of the Horde as a different faction.

Also, Alleria Windrunner is a High Elf hero of the Alliance and if the next expansion is based on the Burning Legion we will most likely see her return. Making the High elves even more likely as a playable race for Alliance.

[PetersenIII]

As much as I love Belves and would like to see all Elves on one side, to think that upon bringing the Blood Elves into the Alliance Varian would immediately order them to mobilise against Undercity would simply not work in any capacity. The whole reason Lor'themar was sick of the Horde was because Garrosh was treating his people like worthless cannon fodder. It would sting twice as hard having another human do that right after you re-established an *Alliance* with them. Throwing Blood Elves against the Forsaken would be just that, treating them as cannon fodder fighting a proxy war.

I don't think that New Varian would have been that stupid. I think he rather would have tried to amend for Garithos' douche-baggery and made it clear that they (the Belves) would be working *WITH* not merely *FOR* The Grand Alliance and given them the necessary support to accomplish the objective.

[nyc81991]

I don't think that New Varian would have been that stupid. I think he rather would have tried to amend for Garithos' douche-baggery and made it clear that they (the Belves) would be working *WITH* not merely *FOR* The Grand Alliance and given them the necessary support to accomplish the objective.

I agree. Varian is pretty level headed now and like you said he would want to work with them and not just boss them around.

[Rend Blackhand]

It just won't happen for gameplay reasons. What are they going to do? Give every blood elf player a free faction or race change? You would need a race to replace the blood elves AND another race for faction balance. Even if they go neutral, its more work than you can justify just to please high elf fanboys.

[nyc81991]

It just won't happen for gameplay reasons. What are they going to do? Give every blood elf player a free faction or race change? You would need a race to replace the blood elves AND another race for faction balance. Even if they go neutral, its more work than you can justify just to please high elf fanboys.

The Pandaren are both Horde and Alliance. It can obviously be done.

[Stormdash]

I have come to really enjoy the lore of both factions, but the Blood Elves are my favorite race by far, and I would have no problem following them to Alliance or, if they were neutral, I would consider a faction change depending on how I felt and, most importantly, whether I could keep my Blood Knight tabard.

How close a thing was this move supposed to have been? I haven't listened to all the sound files, was this supposedly a done deal for Lor'themar that he backed out of because of the Sunreaver purge? Was he on the fence? Or was Varian mostly just kidding himself from the start?

EDIT: The Sin'dorei name would never just be abandoned, no matter which faction Quel'thalas affiliated with. That was a major cultural touchstone for a race that survived near genocide. Those currently called "high elves" really have actually just changed names twice, because there was no immediate break off when Kael'thas first began his campaign against Arthas and wanted to work with the Alliance -- they were already "Sin'dorei" at that point. They didn't expatriate themselves until they took issue with the use of fel magic. So they basically differentiated themselves by going back to calling themselves Quel'dorei as a rejection of Kael'thas. But the Sin'dorei are who the elves of Quel'thalas are, they aren't going to abandon that just because Kael'thas went nuts. If they were, they already would have.

[Zaelsino]

How close a thing was this move supposed to have been? I haven't listened to all the sound files, was this supposedly a done deal for Lor'themar that he backed out of because of the Sunreaver purge? Was he on the fence? Or was Varian mostly just kidding himself from the start?

Sounds like it was early days. Varian says he was "trying to negotiate with the sin'dorei" after Theron has enough of Garrosh, and goes on to say he was "opening discussions" to bring them back to the Alliance. Jaina going rambo on the Sunreavers kind of killed whatever fruit those talks might have borne.

[Scummer]

The Pandaren are both Horde and Alliance. It can obviously be done.

The problem is that then the Horde would need a new race to compensate, which would then inevitably lead to people whining that the Horde get a new model/race while the Alliance got a race that was just Blood Elves with Blue eyes.
I'd like to see High Elves be playable, but the fact is the playerbase who don't care about the lore would just bitch about the Alliance getting a rehashed race.

---------- Post added 2012-11-06 at 03:06 PM ----------

i have a hard time seeing the deal actually go through. the drenai would be pissed

How come?
Draenei are one of the very few races that actually as a whole look at things for what they truly are rather than brash assumptions like the other races who typically only have a couple individuals who think that way.
The Draenei obviously saw why the Blood Elves did what they did which is why Velen practically saved their race from their sad state of affairs with leeching off other creatures. They're very good at looking at the big picture.

[Stormdash]

Well, they would have been tricky talks. Total renunciation of Garithos would have been required, as would apologies for the aggressive acts like Night Elf espionage and Dwarven sabotage in Quel'thalas when they were still not part of the Horde and therefore didn't deserve such treatment. I mean, had the Night Elves and Dwarves been there to try to help rebuild, things might have gone much differently; on the contrary, the race that showed up to help was the Forsaken.

I do think the Horde would have been crippled by such a move, the Blood Elves leaving. Too late to save Theramore, though, and that's also an apology that Lor'themar would have needed to make, for their role. Were they under implicit threat because of how Garrosh runs things? Sure. But they had other options.