Alliance Theramore Scenario - Get your fist pumping pride here!

[leaks]

Actully, I found Varian fully accountable for this if that is the case. It was him that used theramore as a staging ground for the assault on the barrens, leading to the burning of Taurajo. I'm certain even now, Jaina lost control of the situation in preventing Varian from doing this, and her inaction caused what happened in the barrens, and now the destruction of her city and death of her people. If she had the balls to stand up and tell Varian 'keep your bs out of my city!' things might have be different.

Yeah that was my point, I wasn't blaming Jaina for the assaults I'm blaming her for letting it happen.

[Florena]

I've always wondered what Jaina's stance on the Barrens war was. She doesn't seem to have taken on a more aggressive stance. But the soldiers there have Theramore, not Stormwind, tabards, and clearly came from Dustwallow. My guess is that Jaina, while peace keeping, couldn't really do anything to stop it, but her novel will hopefully shed more light on it.

[Trassk]

I've always wondered what Jaina's stance on the Barrens war was. She doesn't seem to have taken on a more aggressive stance. But the soldiers there have Theramore, not Stormwind, tabards, and clearly came from Dustwallow. My guess is that Jaina, while peace keeping, couldn't really do anything to stop it, but her novel will hopefully shed more light on it.

Given how in icecrown citadel, Jaina is more or less kissing Varians back end with her whole 'my king!' speech, ever since then she's done nothing to uphold the individual acts of peace she and Thrall worked for, she just sat on her back side and did nothing well Varian did whatever he wanted and her not even preventing it for the peace she claimed to uphold.

[Puck]

Is anyone honestly surprised?

[Summerwine]

As a proud member of the Alliance, I actually think this isn’t bad. It shows that we save the city (I think) lay honour to our dead and show the Horde that they can’t just trample on us without retaliation.

I will wait until I actually play the scenario to pass my judgment, but just because we don’t kick the entire Horde’s tooshies there and then; it doesn’t mean we are going to get the weak side of the story. A good story doesn’t entail killing the most of the opposite team or the dropping of bombs on civilians; it will be about what happens, what it will lead to come MoP and how it develops Jaina as a character. I am hoping this is going to be the start of something grand for the Alliance lore wise.

---------- Post added 2012-05-18 at 04:52 AM ----------

There's "We're taking these bastards with us!" and there is "Sorry, you got here about six hours too late. Enjoy clicking on civilian corpses".

Would you rather be riding on a gunship and bombing Theramore or walking around, picking off stragglers and clicking on unconscious civvies?

The latter actually, I would prefer to be the one doing the saving then spreading the carnage. As I said, big explosions and attacks do not make for the better story.

I do wonder what the Horde side of the story will be like. I kind of hope that we don’t actually take part in the attack itself, murdering civilians is not what the Horde is about. I would like it if perhaps Vol’jin or another senior Horde member discovered Garrosh’s plan and sent the player out to ether stop or minimize the damage, only for it not to work out that way…

[Maxilian]

As a proud member of the Alliance, I actually think this isn’t bad. It shows that we save the city (I think) lay honour to our dead and show the Horde that they can’t just trample on us without retaliation.

I will wait until I actually play the scenario to pass my judgment, but just because we don’t kick the entire Horde’s tooshies there and then; it doesn’t mean we are going to get the weak side of the story. A good story doesn’t entail killing the most of the opposite team or the dropping of bombs on civilians; it will be about what happens, what it will lead to come MoP and how it develops Jaina as a character. I am hoping this is going to be the start of something grand for the Alliance lore wise.

No... the city is destroyed, we go into the ruins of the city and save the remaining people and kill the remaining invaders, these will make Jaina a more active character of the Alliance and she will have a great role in these war

[Summerwine]

No... the city is destroyed, we go into the ruins of the city and save the remaining people and kill the remaining invaders, these will make Jaina a more active character of the Alliance and she will have a great role in these war

What I meant by save was not let it fall in to Horde hands, it may be ruins but it’s still our ruins! I do hope this has everlasting changes for the Alliance leaders, as well as Jaina, who I hope is going to come out of this better than ever.

[Talen]

So the choice was either the Alliance make a brave, but ultimately futile, stand during the battle itself or smashing the Horde garrison and reclaiming the Isle for the Alliance after the fact. Blizzard weighed the options and picked the latter.

Find Jaina? Kill any Horde remaining? Destroy the remaining Siege engine....fromt he sopund of it, they didn't pick the latter.

You get there and wipe out the stragglers who stayed behind to loot the place. Hardly epic or exciting. And to be honest, even if it is the latter...Blizzards mishandling of the entire story is simply highly biased and uninteresting.

Noone wnats to loose all the time. Theres no point to playing.
Noone wants to win all the time. Theres no challenege.

And while this might be the story Blizzard wants to tell, so far their story has been poor, and told even worse.

Right now, I am uninterested in both the Horde and Alliance stories. For something so important to the game, something that is supposed to hook the players, to keep them attached to the gameworld, thats a very bad sign.

Jaina lost control of the situation in preventing Varian from doing this

The Lady who stopped Varian from fighting to retake Undercity? Just the kind of person to give into Varians whims and agree to everything shes previously fought against with a passion, to the point of sacrficing her own father.

OTOH, maybe she agreed that Garroshs attack and invasion of Ashenvale was worth stopping. Maybe she felt upholding her commitments to the Alliance in the face of naked Horde agression was worth a fight. Of course, its not beyond possibility that Blizzard butchered her character too.

EJL

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

Oh ok, I didn't realize a major military stronghold that houses 10k people counted as ruins.

You didn't see what Garrosh reduces it to.

[Deleted]

The Alliance don't "reclaim Theramore" they reclaim a load of ruins by that are prolly suffered from the same arcane fallout you see from mana bombs. Blizzard could have gone with a bitter-sweet win for the Horde (they succeed but with massive losses and are left to question what the point was), whilst the Alliance and garrison perform a heroic last stand to get the civilians away. Yes they lose but the damage to the population is minimised and it very much feels like a Pearl Harbour scenario rather than "Sorry but your victory is in another quest zone" that Cataclysm was.

Think about it like the Hoth battle in The Empire Strikes Back, "One transport is away" that sort of thing instead of the end of "A girl worth fighting for" in Mulan.

[Chonar]

Any word on where Jaina's tower is ending up? Last I heard about it, it was to be teleported off somewhere, or so it was theorized.

... it aint hovering above the Stormwind Park Crater now, is it?

[Ryve]

There's "We're taking these bastards with us!" and there is "Sorry, you got here about six hours too late. Enjoy clicking on civilian corpses".

Would you rather be riding on a gunship and bombing Theramore or walking around, picking off stragglers and clicking on unconscious civvies?

So, what you're saying is that you're rather fight a losing battle that was a surprise attack where it makes no sense for you to get there "in time", rather than do something that makes sense?

[mysticx]

So, what you're saying is that you're rather fight a losing battle that was a surprise attack where it makes no sense for you to get there "in time", rather than do something that makes sense?

Well, logic-issues aside (We have magic in this world, instant alerting half the globe away should be possible...), heroism beats mop-up work, especially since alliance spent most of Cataclysm being the punching bag for the horde to practice their chest-thumping "Lok'tar ogar! for the horde!"-routine on... ~_~

[Quenden]

I'm content with how this scenario is shaping up - coming from someone who is pretty loyal to the Alliance and specifically, Theramore. Despite it being my FAVORITE hub for the Alliance, it is exciting to see some changes. And the dynamic roleplay possibilities.../drool

[Austilias]

Any word on where Jaina's tower is ending up? Last I heard about it, it was to be teleported off somewhere, or so it was theorized.

... it aint hovering above the Stormwind Park Crater now, is it?

That is actually a great idea, might certainly help to making the Alliance happy after Cata; the Horde having gotten a bigger and downright better Orgrimmar, whilst the Alliance got a still-smouldering Stormwind for an entire expansion

[Talen]

I'm content with how this scenario is shaping up - coming from someone who is pretty loyal to the Alliance and specifically, Theramore. Despite it being my FAVORITE hub for the Alliance, it is exciting to see some changes. And the dynamic roleplay possibilities.../drool

It sounds like you are one of the few who is.

You get to take part in a mediocre storyline against a few mediocre opponents. Hardly appealing.

EJL

[Ryve]

Well, logic-issues aside (We have magic in this world, instant alerting half the globe away should be possible...), heroism beats mop-up work, especially since alliance spent most of Cataclysm being the punching bag for the horde to practice their chest-thumping "Lok'tar ogar! for the horde!"-routine on... ~_~

You say this, so if that's the case why would anyone launch a surprise attack ever? For that matter, how could anyone ever take any land? Any minor confrontation should result in the full military power of either side instantly being teleported on top of each other by that logic.

[Falrinn]

It sounds like you are one of the few who is.

You get to take part in a mediocre storyline against a few mediocre opponents. Hardly appealing.

EJL

I think we should wait until we see it before we call it a "mediocre storyline".

Like I said before, probably won't be as epic as the Horde version, but that was unavoidable without doing away with the fall of Theramore completely.

We have a few Scenario objectives that are presented without any context. "Destroy any remaining Horde in the ruins of Theramore" can mean anything from defeating a handful of stragglers, to defeating a small force left on the isle as a garrison, to defeating half the Horde army since they haven't had time to move most of their troops off the isle. The last Siege Weapon can be anything from a random demolisher to some sort of one-of-a-kind Goblin Ultra-tank. The "Horde Shaman" could be a nameless Shaman, true, but there is no reason to assume this.

I understand we have to account for the possibility that Blizzard is going to mess this one up. But always assuming the absolute worst is no way to enjoy the game.

[Deleted]

Ohhh, you get to destroy a... siege engine! One lonely siege engine! It's ok, Garrosh has 10 at the backgate of Orgrimmar. Now if you'd have destroyed a Horde skyship I'd have said, it's epic for both the Horde and the Alliance, but a siege engine? hahhahahahahahahahaha.

What I meant by save was not let it fall in to Horde hands, it may be ruins but it’s still our ruins! I do hope this has everlasting changes for the Alliance leaders, as well as Jaina, who I hope is going to come out of this better than ever.

Indeed, considering how most Alliance bases look and how Theramore looked in that preview a few weeks ago, we just need a bunch of tents and it's as good as any Alliance stronghold:
-tents check
-partially destroyed walls check

[Talen]

I think we should wait until we see it before we call it a "mediocre storyline".

On past performance? We've already seen enough to judge. The Horde storyline was pathetic but involved a small elite team infiltrating a city and demolishing the entire army, navy and air force. The Alliance has to lose....but the known quests - rescue a flag, kill a few Horde soldiers, blow up the one tank that remains - doesn't seem very exciting. Not even a rear guard action.

Like I said before, probably won't be as epic as the Horde version, but that was unavoidable without doing away with the fall of Theramore completely.

Nonsense. Thats the lazy answer. You can build an epic story out of a defeat. Its all in how you handle it. People here on this very forum have given the basis of more credible/epic storylines that would still end with Theramores fall.

We have a few Scenario objectives that are presented without any context. "Destroy any remaining Horde in the ruins of Theramore" can mean anything from defeating a handful of stragglers, to defeating a small force left on the isle as a garrison, to defeating half the Horde army since they haven't had time to move most of their troops off the isle. The last Siege Weapon can be anything from a random demolisher to some sort of one-of-a-kind Goblin Ultra-tank. The "Horde Shaman" could be a nameless Shaman, true, but there is no reason to assume this.

Destroy the Horde siege engines that yet remains....?
Destroy any remaining horde in the ruins of Theramore...?

Maybe the wording is misleading. As things stand...the Horde appears to be pulling out.

I understand we have to account for the possibility that Blizzard is going to mess this one up. But always assuming the absolute worst is no way to enjoy the game.

Its proven fairly accurate to date.

EJL