Is the word "honor" an empty sound in the lore of Warcraft?

[Aucald]

Checking the relevant sources, it looks like you're right that nothing confirms it as the most numerous. I do have other arguments though in the lack of confirmation, both in connection to its size vis a vis Stormwind. The first is that what you say about Lordaeron having these lands primarily for agriculture is true, but not necessarily disqualifying. The same can be said of Westfall as a whole, and Darkshire in general is presented as this kind of small, moody place. Additionally, both were the target of the First War and Stormwind was actually sacked. It's stated in Chronicle that large amounts of refugees who'd moved to Lordaeron after the fall of Stormwind ended up staying there even after the Alliance collapsed.

The size and layout of these areas aren't represented well in-game, so either way we've only get generalities to work with. The sheer number of towns and cities within the purview of Stormwind seems to outstrip Lordaeron by a fair margin, though; which is why I infer that it's the larger of the major Human population centers. With the rumors of the plague and the troubles following the Second War many Lordaeronians either migrated or returned to Stormwind as well, further increasing its population (as was shown in "Before the Storm").

The second point ties into this - Hearthglen, Andorhal and Stratholme being destroyed doesn't speak against Lordaeron being populous, especially since they were all able to continue playing a role and housing very substantial garrisons and in the case of the latter two, were actually used to create Scourge anyway. They are perhaps points that Lordaeron at this moment is less numerous than Stormwind, but even that is questionable. We have not had a Forsaken numerical problem implied in the way Stormwind's conscription issue has been brought up and this is without any real implication that Sylvanas is using mass necromancy as she was in Cataclysm. If I had to headcanon it I'd say it's for PR reasons.

Hearthglen has the look of a garrison town more than a population center, although that's speculation on my part. Either way it's not mentioned as a major city in the same way Andorhal and Strathholme are portrayed. As for Stormwind's losses, they've been involved in every conflict since the Third War. The Forsaken were victims of the War but didn't fight in it, and they didn't take majority parts in most of the other conflicts since (for reasons mostly unknown). Stormwind has involved itself in nearly all of them, and has suffered as a result.

I see your point in that paragraph, but I don't think that convincing Saurfang that Malfurion must die because of how powerful he is and how he would endanger their plan to splinter the Alliance would be impossible. The dude isn't a moron and he doesn't mind using trickery, as he did with the Sentinels, provided he assumes it's for A Good War. This is very much Sylvanas shooting herself in the foot by not telling him, rather than wisely excluding a portion of her plan she'd know he'd object to. Even more so because she clearly doesn't have this understanding of Saurfang, since she assumes he'd take the chance to behead him and when he doesn't she gives both him and herself shit.

Handled another way it's quite possible it wouldn't have been an issue, but Sylvanas did not opt to handle it in that way and so here we all are. I would wager this is an outgrowth of Sylvanas' general MO of seeing people as disposable tools for her ends - it can be very difficult to empathize or sympathize when your outlook on people presupposes that they're simply tools to be used and then thrown aside. Sylvanas fails to understand the nature of her key piece in this particular game of Chess with the Alliance, and she loses it in short order and is forced to pursue another strategy to push the game back in her favor.

This is true and it's why doing this kind of moralistic story is a lost cause from the start and can't really be taken seriously. It's impossible to commit to it, either out of cowardice, for example Rexxar's Alliance-seeking azerite bombs or how Anduin generates a whole army of worgen and night elves who would happily die for the cause so he doesn't have to sacrifice troops, or out of sheer dissonance with the gameplay. Such as my warlock, who is deeply invested in not using chemical weapons and conscientiously objects to using the Blight, so he can instead honorably suck out his enemy's soul and then feed it to the abyss to summon an evil demon. You can't moralize selectively, because then your moralizing becomes nonsensical and hypocritical. This expansion is very, very guilty of this.

You certainly can moralize selectively - much of the history of real-world atrocity is actually based on just that. I don't disagree that it's nonsensical and hypocritical, not to mention disingenuous, but it most certainly occurs.

I disagree. That might be the intent of some quests, such as the ones in Darkshore and bits of the war campaign, but entire areas of gameplay even up to this patch, depend heavily on you being proud of your faction and your Warchief and fighting for them. From all manner of NPCs coming back as commited to the war and never once citing the risk to themselves in favor of their grievances with the Alliance to the quippy warfronts. The Island Expeditions rely on you wanting to give Sylvanas your azerite as a gameplay element, Battle for Dazar'alor depends on you defending your city from them. Hell, you're selectively shown bits that will make you hate the Alliance like altered dialogue in BFD and how Jaina is shown as purely hostile unless you do the Alliance content. Large portions of the expansion are fun jingoism, far more so than any sort of self-flagellating pity party. When they intersect, the pity party wins, but it also comprises a miniscule portion of gameplay.

Segregation of gameplay and story once more, really. The writers are already up front about this being a story about the Horde determining what it is supposed to be, so "word of god" in this case lends itself to the view that the Horde story is about introspection and possible revolution/reform to some degree. Island Expeditions are largely divorced from the narrative, more or less side content with a loosely connected and makeshift goal. Battle of Dazar'alor is about an Alliance assault on your would-be allies the Zandalari, with the need to respond in kind in order to preserve and further cultivate the relationship. Warfronts are direct Alliance vs. Horde battles, so posturing and jingoism are to be more or less expected on all sides. Desperation and grim perseverance sort of inform jingoism in any case, so this isn't really outside the set of expectations either.

It ties into my view that there was a change fairly early on in development from a genuine faction pride expansion - which was marketed and which still informs huge portions of the content, to our current Mists 2.0 model and Blizzard have and still are doing their best to obfuscate it, with things like changing Sylvanas' lines to make them more understandable in Brennadam, toning down the Darkshore Warfront (where Nathanos going "For the Horde!" is clearly meant to be a rallying moment) and so forth. It's a story at war with itself.

I won't argue that the developers have done some waffling as concerns intent toward production, as they certainly have. But most of this has been a more or less behind the scenes shuffling of plot points. I mean, we still see memes about the "Purge Squad" and "Human Potential" being bandied about despite the fact that both of these points have been rendered non-canon at this point by virtue of never escaping the PTR. I would theorize that much of your view is still being colored by elements like this that have fallen by the wayside or were never fully realized - you are casting speculation from the expansion you wanted (or perhaps didn't want), not the expansion we're currently playing.

[Super Dickmann]

The size and layout of these areas aren't represented well in-game, so either way we've only get generalities to work with. The sheer number of towns and cities within the purview of Stormwind seems to outstrip Lordaeron by a fair margin, though; which is why I infer that it's the larger of the major Human population centers. With the rumors of the plague and the troubles following the Second War many Lordaeronians either migrated or returned to Stormwind as well, further increasing its population (as was shown in "Before the Storm").

Stormwind was mentioned as a secondary power per WC3. It had no link to Lordaeron and Lordaeron was listed as the 'beacon of humanity' as well. I don't know why you think Stormwind has more towns, on the contrary, given how many zones Lordaeron stretches over, it easily beats it in that view, especially since those towns are generally larger. Stratholme certainly had far more people in it than Goldshire or Darkshire, both in terms of in-game representation and its story significance. The last point is wrong, per canon. It's the people of Stormwind who stayed in Lordaeron after the Second War, we've got no indication of any movement in the reverse before the Scourge destroyed the kingdom, at which point you had refugees. Stormwind, as already mentioned, was defeated in the First War and sacked, and many of its people migrated over to Lordaeron. While it was rebuilt later, it seems strange to assume its population has risen instead of decreased across WoW given that it's been at the forefront of endless wars and our most recent source tells us that they're running low on troops and will need to be calling up parts that aren't in the professional army.

Also I just noticed you acknowledged this in your second paragraph, so since I think we're losing the plot on what we're arguing here, what I'm getting at is that pre-Third War Lordaeron has more people than any version of Stormwind we've seen on-screen and that absorbing current Stormwind would not put the Forsaken at numbers approaching the Scourge. All this tying into how Sylvanas' up to now visible objectives don't logically have a sufficient kind of cosmic impact that would disrupt 'the balance', more so than stuff we've seen before.

Sylvanas fails to understand the nature of her key piece in this particular game of Chess with the Alliance, and she loses it in short order and is forced to pursue another strategy to push the game back in her favor.

I have issues with the writing here in that I don't think the obfuscation here is necessary. There's a precarious line being balanced here in that Sylvanas understands Saurfang and the Horde enough to sell them on a war we're meant to believe they wouldn't do otherwise, but not on one of the comparatively least objectionable parts, i.e killing an enemy demigod. My complaint is Doylist.

You certainly can moralize selectively - much of the history of real-world atrocity is actually based on just that. I don't disagree that it's nonsensical and hypocritical, not to mention disingenuous, but it most certainly occurs.

You can do it, of course, they're doing it right now and it's done constantly, but your audience will point it out and, lacking a real life motive to side with you because it's all fiction, will be less than amused as has happened here.

I don't understand the argument in your first paragraph. These are elements of the story. They do happen within the story and in fact occupy far more of the story than the moralizing aspects. The framing device they use from an in story perspective is that you are invested in seeing your faction win and so do these things to help your faction. The last part I think is the closest your argument comes to projection. There's not one part of the Arathi Warfront or the invasions that gives the idea that these people are sad or forced to be here or even grim. They're having the time of their lives. Ditto in Battle for Dazar'alor - if you only do Horde-side and read the Horde LFR blurbs, you have nothing but a negative view given of the Alliance. They go as far as to change lines to make you view them worse. When this, far more extensive and pro-war segment of the content is then met by the moralizing portion, the moralizing portion 'wins', but so far it's been very much on the backburner and whatever their intent, it's been very, very distant from the execution.

I would theorize that much of your view is still being colored by elements like this that have fallen by the wayside or were never fully realized - you are casting speculation from the expansion you wanted (or perhaps didn't want), not the expansion we're currently playing.

On the contrary, those things are memes, but the reason they remain, especially human potential, is because it summarizes an actual plot element. The Purge Squad on the other hand has sadly died down over time. But I wasn't tricked by deleted content or any such nonsense. Their entire marketing campaign didn't allude to this being a sad time where we would overthrow our Warchief yet again for fighting the Alliance. On the contrary, it banged that faction drum in every single advertisement and encouraged you to get behind either Sylvanas or Anduin all the way into Blizzcon, where they clearly intended to pivot away from that and into the Unifaction future. Yet even there they didn't really commit, since they'd just introduced the halfassed Sylvanas option when confronted with the backlash and one of their trailers, the Darkshore one, also was intended to rally the Horde under a Forsaken and Sylvanas-connected character.

When the product being sold is not the actual product received, as is the case here, it's not the fault of the audience that they didn't get with the program, when those involved have done everything in their power to obfuscate what it actually is, even up to now. They're slowly shifting in that direction, but even now they've effectively shot their intended story in the foot. The player was meant to join Saurfang in Dagger in the Dark 2.0, but since they didn't, they now need to keep escalating and escalating to find a way to get the player off the Sylvanas train and onto the Unifaction one. We reach the apex of this nonsense in ten days, when we help the Old Gods enact their plan and then, regardless of our allegiance, pass the knife to Sylvanas. Fair reminder that originally, since only the Saurfang player would exist, it'd be the Saurfang player giving the evil Warchief they were supposedly opposing the evil knife.

[Aucald]

[QUOTE=Super Dickmann;51032796]Stormwind was mentioned as a secondary power per WC3. It had no link to Lordaeron and Lordaeron was listed as the 'beacon of humanity' as well. I don't know why you think Stormwind has more towns, on the contrary, given how many zones Lordaeron stretches over, it easily beats it in that view, especially since those towns are generally larger. Stratholme certainly had far more people in it than Goldshire or Darkshire, both in terms of in-game representation and its story significance. The last point is wrong, per canon. It's the people of Stormwind who stayed in Lordaeron after the Second War, we've got no indication of any movement in the reverse before the Scourge destroyed the kingdom, at which point you had refugees. Stormwind, as already mentioned, was defeated in the First War and sacked, and many of its people migrated over to Lordaeron. While it was rebuilt later, it seems strange to assume its population has risen instead of decreased across WoW given that it's been at the forefront of endless wars and our most recent source tells us that they're running low on troops and will need to be calling up parts that aren't in the professional army.

Mentioned where? I don't recall any mention of Stormwind's power level in WC3 - it's barely mentioned at all. Stormwind was also still a member of the Grand Alliance of Lordaeron, although its status of recovering from the First and Second Wars did make it more of a silent in and inactive partner. Lordaeron took the place as "beacon of Humanity" due to the sacking of Stormwind and the slow process of it being rebuilt (larger and more grand than it was before). According to the Wildstorm Warcraft comic series Stormwind was slowly and steadily growing in population after the close of the Second War, and since I don't think they could breed those numbers back in such a small window it is far more likely that its previous refugees returned from Lordaeron. It's current population didn't come from nowhere, after all.

Also I just noticed you acknowledged this in your second paragraph, so since I think we're losing the plot on what we're arguing here, what I'm getting at is that pre-Third War Lordaeron has more people than any version of Stormwind we've seen on-screen and that absorbing current Stormwind would not put the Forsaken at numbers approaching the Scourge. All this tying into how Sylvanas' up to now visible objectives don't logically have a sufficient kind of cosmic impact that would disrupt 'the balance', more so than stuff we've seen before.

I'm not sure "cosmic" is really the descriptor I would use, since that implies a kind of cosmological or universal scope where this is seemingly something more terrestrial. To put it succinctly, both the Lich King and Bwonsamdi seem to worry that Sylvanas' plans will make her a threat - undeath is an unnatural and cursed state, and an overabundance of it could have effects on the fragile energies of Life and Spirit that constitute Azeroth's own mystical underpinnings. Like the Scourge before it, too high a concentration of Forsaken could imperil the world beyond just the threat of conquest or war - and given that Azeroth is already grievously wounded and trying to heal itself, it's possible that this could tip that balance more toward destruction and dissolution.

I have issues with the writing here in that I don't think the obfuscation here is necessary. There's a precarious line being balanced here in that Sylvanas understands Saurfang and the Horde enough to sell them on a war we're meant to believe they wouldn't do otherwise, but not on one of the comparatively least objectionable parts, i.e killing an enemy demigod. My complaint is Doylist.

It's in keeping with the historical nature of her character and attendant pathology, I guess I don't understand the nature of your complaint or you've not properly explained it? Manipulating someone doesn't mean you have to understand them beyond what is necessary to achieve your ends. Sylvanas understands Saurfang well enough to steer him where she wants him to go in the general sense, but when external elements extrude into the plan it falls apart because she doesn't understand him as a person or appreciate his history. There's no obfuscation or confusion there, I would say.

You can do it, of course, they're doing it right now and it's done constantly, but your audience will point it out and, lacking a real life motive to side with you because it's all fiction, will be less than amused as has happened here.

One of the primary arguments I've heard about the bad writing is that it is unrealistic and inauthentic - but that is as real and authentic as you can get, which is the point I was making. Perfect understanding and omniscient license would mean conflict could not exist. We're afforded a much larger scope in the Doylist sense than the characters internal to the narrative, after all, and somewhere we have to recognize this fact.

I don't understand the argument in your first paragraph. These are elements of the story. They do happen within the story and in fact occupy far more of the story than the moralizing aspects. The framing device they use from an in story perspective is that you are invested in seeing your faction win and so do these things to help your faction. The last part I think is the closest your argument comes to projection. There's not one part of the Arathi Warfront or the invasions that gives the idea that these people are sad or forced to be here or even grim. They're having the time of their lives. Ditto in Battle for Dazar'alor - if you only do Horde-side and read the Horde LFR blurbs, you have nothing but a negative view given of the Alliance. They go as far as to change lines to make you view them worse. When this, far more extensive and pro-war segment of the content is then met by the moralizing portion, the moralizing portion 'wins', but so far it's been very much on the backburner and whatever their intent, it's been very, very distant from the execution.

Nowhere did I state or even imply that the mood of the game on the Horde-side was 100% doom and gloom, only that it was something of an overarching theme. The Warfronts specifically are contexts where that theme isn't explored because they're direct engagements in micro. Conflict here is clearly cut and cleanly defined, I would almost say it's entirely too clean, but that's another argument altogether. The BoD raid is similar case, it's also clearly cut and defined as it's an Alliance raid on a Horde stronghold. Introspection and rumination are themes for the spaces between the battles, such as when the Horde leaders gather at Warfang, or the debates aboard the Banshee's Wail. In the thick of combat itself there's no real reason to dwell on those themes (albeit with some noteworthy exceptions).

On the contrary, those things are memes, but the reason they remain, especially human potential, is because it summarizes an actual plot element. The Purge Squad on the other hand has sadly died down over time. But I wasn't tricked by deleted content or any such nonsense. Their entire marketing campaign didn't allude to this being a sad time where we would overthrow our Warchief yet again for fighting the Alliance. On the contrary, it banged that faction drum in every single advertisement and encouraged you to get behind either Sylvanas or Anduin all the way into Blizzcon, where they clearly intended to pivot away from that and into the Unifaction future. Yet even there they didn't really commit, since they'd just introduced the halfassed Sylvanas option when confronted with the backlash and one of their trailers, the Darkshore one, also was intended to rally the Horde under a Forsaken and Sylvanas-connected character.

How does "Human Potential" actually factor into any of that?

When the product being sold is not the actual product received, as is the case here, it's not the fault of the audience that they didn't get with the program, when those involved have done everything in their power to obfuscate what it actually is, even up to now. They're slowly shifting in that direction, but even now they've effectively shot their intended story in the foot. The player was meant to join Saurfang in Dagger in the Dark 2.0, but since they didn't, they now need to keep escalating and escalating to find a way to get the player off the Sylvanas train and onto the Unifaction one. We reach the apex of this nonsense in ten days, when we help the Old Gods enact their plan and then, regardless of our allegiance, pass the knife to Sylvanas. Fair reminder that originally, since only the Saurfang player would exist, it'd be the Saurfang player giving the evil Warchief they were supposedly opposing the evil knife.

I think you've mistaken your own speculation for the intent of the developers here. I'd agree that the message about what BfA was supposed to be has indeed been somewhat muddled, but not the extent you seem to claim here. Blizzard has a pretty clear roadmap of where they want to take the game from point A to point B, after all, and while they can alter minor things or shift up some general plot points the big picture is always going to move in a pre-established direction that none of us are privy to until it lands. The story of WoW's next expansion has already been written, and the conclusion of BfA existed in its earliest days. They can't do a 180 now (for better or worse) without tanking what's already likely been created, and they've got no real reason to do that. The elements of BfA they've changed in responses to criticisms have been relatively minor. They've given us a veneer of agency, but I would argue it would be foolish of anyone to think that illusion of a choice will actually have a profound effect on the ending of the game, which has already largely been written.

In the end, we'll go exactly where we're meant to - there isn't and really never has been another choice.

[Zandalariprelate]

I think we're increasingly seeing it drawn out into the open how it's a personal concept and very ill-defined. It can be considered honorable to send a division of rogues to assassinate guards, but not to attack Malfurion from behind?

Sylvanas demonstrates what the Horde can devolve to without concerning itself with honor, only victory. It's not hard to see that things have gotten worse.

They are losing the war badly even without the "honor" thing while the alliance fights dirty as well but they aren't call out often in the narrative and let's be real, Azeroth needs some laws for both faction and some international ones, you can't depend in sense of honor alone that varies from race to race or else if some human or evil x character from any alliance race decides to exterminate the horde and not considering then as "intelligent beings" then who is at fault?

[MatthiasVonTzeskagrad]

Guys, you really are getting this bad. Honorable is whatever is good for the humans, and more specifically to Anduin. That's why honor does not have to be consistent, but is good anyways.

[Feanoro]

The thing with Pandaria is that in terms of WoW, they essentially made it out of whole cloth. Not that it was some kind of stunningly original thing, but that none of this had any basis in WoW, yet all the races, history etc. were fairly fleshed out and there was actual logistical thought put into it, from the wall to the Valley as the breadbasket explaining how they can all live and all the regional differences. The actual main story was shit on a crusty roll, but Pandaria was let down largely by the Pandaren themselves.

Oh I won't argue that there was no effort put into MoP, just that it was definitely not uniform effort. You pointed out one of the flaws unintentionally, in that we have Valley as a huge farmland, yet there's almost no Panda population shown. Think about it, you have two villages in Jade Forest so A and H players can be lied to, a village in KunLai near the tunnel up from Valley, and that's it. Pandaland is barely inhabited by pandas.

It's a visual design thing as well. They can tell me all they want that Kung-Fu Panda was after Frozen Throne and that's true, but the way the pandaren looked and moved were Jack Black. And Jack Black doesn't lend himself to anything but comedy, which when the Pandaren are meant to be all sorts of different people, including brooding, sad, serious, etc. just doesn't fly.

Yep, Blizz clearly went out of their way, including the racials, to make jokes about them, to make them buffoons. Kinda hard to take them seriously when their creators don't.

The mantid I really enjoyed, though I disagree with you in terms of the lesson, since that they depicted a social darwinist society of literal insect people doesn't mean that they were necessarily encouraging it. Not that Blizzard's actual moral lessons aren't socially harmful if someone were to take them seriously. In fact, they're worse in some regards because they can be applied to one's detriment in real life.

Of course we're meant to ultimately view the Mantid as bad, especially at Exalted where shut my mouth and call me Charlie, we've been working for bad guys who support Old Gods again. I would never have seen one of Metzen's favorite cliches coming there! But on to the point, it's not the Mantid who push the lesson, it's the pandas as they express that the regular swarms weed them out. Heck, Wrathion's bartender lectures us about it, that we're strong because we fight each other, even though the prior patch had that the "lesson of Pandaria" was to end the cycle of hatred. In either case, it's Chinese fortune cookie philosophy, sounds good until you apply two brain cells.

[Zandalariprelate]

Guys, you really are getting this bad. Honorable is whatever is good for the humans, and more specifically to Anduin. That's why honor does not have to be consistent, but is good anyways.

I fully agree with you, the narrative has become very toxic with all the PC and the shitty characters they are shoving in our throats like Nathanos the hedgehog, Soy boy Anduin and Baine, senile Saurfang, the current screecher and Lady Elsa. I miss the old days when we have bastards like Daelin and Arthas around and the people couldn't pretent their race is more holy thant he light and even the evil guys won many battles and wars.

[Felixon]

Honor is relative. I mean, remember Varian telling the Horde "If you fail to uphold honor again, we will end you" at the end of SoO. See, nothing happened. Horde can go around genociding all they want and nothing happens to them.

It's difficult to uphold something you never had.

[Powerogue]

Guys, you really are getting this bad. Honorable is whatever is good for the humans, and more specifically to Anduin. That's why honor does not have to be consistent, but is good anyways.

Clearly the only reason Teldrassil burning was dishonorable was there was a gilnean (and thus human) in there.

[Felixon]

Clearly the only reason Teldrassil burning was dishonorable was there was a gilnean (and thus human) in there.

This made me laugh. On topic - I think,that I was clear enough in my first post about all the "honor" talk is bullshit. Yet,some of the vocal Horde fans find yet another opportunity to whine about "only the Alliance is about HONOR" and other shit. I know,that my english is not perfect,cause it's not my first language,but damn...I think,that I was clear enough. Some people just have to whine at every opportunity about how misunderstood the Horde is.

[Eggroll]

It's difficult to uphold something you never had.

Saurfang would disagree Well, I'm on your side obviously.

[Felixon]

Saurfang would disagree Well, I'm on your side obviously.

Invading kaldorei territories and start an unprovoked aggresion,thus slaughtering hundreds of unexpecting night elves - that's a good war. Throwing an axe in the back of Malfurion,who is about to kill off Sylvanas - THERE IS NO HONOR IN THIS.

[Melsiren]

The Horde is too diverse to have a a solid definition of Honor, It's one of the reasons why I never liked the Forsaken in the Horde from the start. However, even within just the orcs you have enough culture diversity to have a shaky definition of honor at best, with clans holding different values as honorable. Orcs tend to have a warrior leaning culture, but the Warsong might find a heroic last charge against a hated enemy as extremely honorable even if that same warrior who is marching to his death burned down an entire village, murdered all the people, and skull fucked every last one of them. Other clans might not share the full sentiment but respect the warriors death, which is just about the only thing other than respecting the elements and ancestors that binds all the orc clans together. (And even the dead and the elements are not beyond exploiting for the glory of battle.)

The Alliance on the other hand has a much more clear cut idea of honor that is more relatable to western society. I mean what we see of the Alliance under the massive shadow of human potential is roughly the same moral values. They tend to all agree on the same ideal of the heroic and the honorable. They also tend to hold their moral values to a higher regard than their own survival. Which is why I think it's very easy to see the Alliance as good, they hold relatable values, and they always stand up for what is right.

The point is honor is a rather subjective idea, with cultural diversity muddling the waters.

[Eggroll]

Invading kaldorei territories and start an unprovoked aggresion,thus slaughtering hundreds of unexpecting night elves - that's a good war. Throwing an axe in the back of Malfurion,who is about to kill off Sylvanas - THERE IS NO HONOR IN THIS.

I agree, but... Saurfang is a warrior, he's got to CHAAAAARGE!! Only rogues do it from behind.

Of course you are right, especially since Tyrande agreed to let the Horde use Aszharas ressources after SoO in turn for the Horde to stop attacking Ashenvale. Should've killed them all right there and then apparently.

[Feanoro]

I agree, but... Saurfang is a warrior, he's got to CHAAAAARGE!! Only rogues do it from behind.

Of course you are right, especially since Tyrande agreed to let the Horde use Aszharas ressources after SoO in turn for the Horde to stop attacking Ashenvale. Should've killed them all right there and then apparently.

As much as Hordies love to trash Tyrande, it's interesting that they don't list her biggest mistake, trusting the Horde.

[Mehrunes]

I still think Gelbin should have just filled Garrosh's bunker with stealth explosive charges and the next time the Horde decided to be stupid turn orgrimmar into a Sinkhole.

He's too busy planning the next nuking of his own city.

[Super Dickmann]

Mentioned where? I don't recall any mention of Stormwind's power level in WC3 - it's barely mentioned at all. Stormwind was also still a member of the Grand Alliance of Lordaeron, although its status of recovering from the First and Second Wars did make it more of a silent in and inactive partner. Lordaeron took the place as "beacon of Humanity" due to the sacking of Stormwind and the slow process of it being rebuilt (larger and more grand than it was before). According to the Wildstorm Warcraft comic series Stormwind was slowly and steadily growing in population after the close of the Second War, and since I don't think they could breed those numbers back in such a small window it is far more likely that its previous refugees returned from Lordaeron. It's current population didn't come from nowhere, after all.

I mean the WC3-time period. The sources I'm referring to are Chronicle and obliquely the WC3 manual which mentions Stormwind was in the process of being rebuilt. You list the right reasons for Lordaeron becoming the beacon of humanity, but these don't contest my point. That Stormwind was destroyed and its surrounding lands sacked whereas Lordaeron was intact, peasant revolts and the Cult of the Damned aside, up to the Third War are further arguments for Lordaeron being a bigger deal than Stormwind. The last portion about the refugees coming back is contradicted in the material, but even if we accept it, which'd be conjecture, it'd at best revert them to square one, namely with Lordaeron as superior on account of not having lost a war quite so badly.

To put it succinctly, both the Lich King and Bwonsamdi seem to worry that Sylvanas' plans will make her a threat - undeath is an unnatural and cursed state, and an overabundance of it could have effects on the fragile energies of Life and Spirit that constitute Azeroth's own mystical underpinnings. Like the Scourge before it, too high a concentration of Forsaken could imperil the world beyond just the threat of conquest or war - and given that Azeroth is already grievously wounded and trying to heal itself, it's possible that this could tip that balance more toward destruction and dissolution.

Yes, and the issue I take with this is that the Scourge already comprises more undead than Sylvanas' hypothetical Lordaeron + Stormwind Forsaken fusion would, whereas Bwonsamdi has magnitudes more souls than either of them. The Lich King isn't some natural element either to be going on about balance, he's a literal alien created by demons to take over the world, or in this case, the host of one, who still performs the same basic functions. Also, the Death: Undeath distinctions seem questionable. We know that the Undead are agents of the cosmic force of Death after all, and Bwonsamdi's only difference in conduct is that he keeps the dead in his realm rather than on Azeroth.

It's in keeping with the historical nature of her character and attendant pathology, I guess I don't understand the nature of your complaint or you've not properly explained it?

Put bluntly, Sylvanas not telling Saurfang that Malf was her target was out of character and so was her not killing Malf when she had the chance. It's plot-convenient stupidity that passes minutes later when she bemoans her own retardation and how thoroughly it ruined her plan.

One of the primary arguments I've heard about the bad writing is that it is unrealistic and inauthentic - but that is as real and authentic as you can get, which is the point I was making. Perfect understanding and omniscient license would mean conflict could not exist.

On the contrary, because it's not the characters who have these views, but the setting itself. The setting bends over backwards to allow selective morality. For yet another example, when no one in the Horde brings up that whole business with their diplomats being tossed in the void or their shopkeepers burned but are cloth-rendingly mad to the point of treason because one human got tortured, that's not a treatise on their failings as characters, it's Blizzard wanting to preach in one case and not in another. The selective morality is not an intended in-story element, it's an out of story choice. Blizzard doesn't want these people to look like treacherous hypocrites, that's just the result.

Introspection and rumination are themes for the spaces between the battles, such as when the Horde leaders gather at Warfang, or the debates aboard the Banshee's Wail. In the thick of combat itself there's no real reason to dwell on those themes (albeit with some noteworthy exceptions).

I'm disputing that these are overarching themes considering they're scarcely ever brought up. Only one person in Warfang brings up how they're forced to keep fighting and that's Rokhan. Everyone else takes issue on a moral basis in isolation (Mayla, Eitrigg), coach their resistance in terms that would have happened regardless of the state of war with the Alliance just later (Garona, Bob) or support it under separate premises (Gallywix, Geyarah). The only one to ever bemoan the futility of the war at all is Baine. When you get a glimpse of others' motivation, very few believe they're forced into it. People like the tauren LW quest giver, Usha, Cromush, even Rexxar at the start all either agree with the initial premise of the war - i.e that fighting the Alliance was the right call, tree aside, cite their historical grievances or just want a fun fight. The idea in A Good War that after Teldrassil they're now committed to fighting to the death and they have no choice but to go on is interesting and would be correct, but is not only wrong, but no one acts on it. Even the one who voices it, Saurfang, proceeds to engage in self-sabotage five minutes later despite believing it to have become an existential race war where treachery would result in his people's destruction.

I think you've mistaken your own speculation for the intent of the developers here. I'd agree that the message about what BfA was supposed to be has indeed been somewhat muddled, but not the extent you seem to claim here. Blizzard has a pretty clear roadmap of where they want to take the game from point A to point B, after all, and while they can alter minor things or shift up some general plot points the big picture is always going to move in a pre-established direction that none of us are privy to until it lands.

You misunderstand me. Yes, the developers knew fairly early on in development, though not at the start, certainly not when the cinematic was released, that it was going to be Mists 2.0. But that was not what they sold. Genuinely no element of their marketing, even past Teldrassil, so much as suggested it, in favor of pushing the factional divide. They altered texts and went over separate drafts of Sylvanas' motivation to go into Ashenvale in the beta to find one that worked, neutered her lines and talked about both factions needing to look inside themselves and such piffle to obfuscate what they really had. This has now moved on into the actual expansion, where because they sold the thing under false premises, they can alter details, but not the whole thing, which while entertaining for me and others with my viewpoint is only bound to end up worse because they can't actually commit to it. As you say, the story was already written and the Unifaction is the future, but because they lied about it for ages and even now are trying to feign that that's not what's gonna happen it will be met with even more hostility.

[Aucald]

I mean the WC3-time period. The sources I'm referring to are Chronicle and obliquely the WC3 manual which mentions Stormwind was in the process of being rebuilt. You list the right reasons for Lordaeron becoming the beacon of humanity, but these don't contest my point. That Stormwind was destroyed and its surrounding lands sacked whereas Lordaeron was intact, peasant revolts and the Cult of the Damned aside, up to the Third War are further arguments for Lordaeron being a bigger deal than Stormwind. The last portion about the refugees coming back is contradicted in the material, but even if we accept it, which'd be conjecture, it'd at best revert them to square one, namely with Lordaeron as superior on account of not having lost a war quite so badly.

Reverting back to square one would imply that the current Stormwind was the equal of the one that was sacked, which "Chronicle Vol. 3" denies - modern Stormwind is several orders of magnitude larger and more magnificent than the city that was lost in the First War, rebuilt to be larger and stronger such that it has become the greatest Human civilization of the age. Being a "bigger deal" doesn't imply it was more populous or even larger in terms of land area - it was a bigger deal in the Second and Third Wars because with Stormwind having been taken out in the First War it was the de facto head of Human government. Without any kind of census numbers or actual survey maps we're both kind of drawing on conjecture, speculation, and vague details from "Chronicle."

Yes, and the issue I take with this is that the Scourge already comprises more undead than Sylvanas' hypothetical Lordaeron + Stormwind Forsaken fusion would, whereas Bwonsamdi has magnitudes more souls than either of them. The Lich King isn't some natural element either to be going on about balance, he's a literal alien created by demons to take over the world, or in this case, the host of one, who still performs the same basic functions. Also, the Death: Undeath distinctions seem questionable. We know that the Undead are agents of the cosmic force of Death after all, and Bwonsamdi's only difference in conduct is that he keeps the dead in his realm rather than on Azeroth.

The size of Sylvanas' forces may not be the larger issue, it may simply be that with Azeroth in its current state it can't take the sheer amount of undeath present in its systems, as it were. Bwonsamdi is a more or less natural aspect of the world, he's a psychopomp of souls, shepherding them onto what is a natural outcome of death. He does not, as it puts it in contrast to Sylvanas, "keep what he kills." The Lich King (in the role Bolvar has chosen) is an unnatural component but necessary now that the Scourge exists and (apparently) cannot be so easily undone. He maintains the level of the undead and ensures they do not rampage out of control. Sylvanas threatens this role by creating free-willed undead beyond his purview and control. Void is also a cosmic force in the Warcraft universe as well, but we've seen what it can do to a world when it is out of balance with the rest of the forces. Not *all* these forces are conducive to life, after all, and Void and Undeath are two you don't want an abundance of.

Put bluntly, Sylvanas not telling Saurfang that Malf was her target was out of character and so was her not killing Malf when she had the chance. It's plot-convenient stupidity that passes minutes later when she bemoans her own retardation and how thoroughly it ruined her plan.

And I am arguing that it wasn't out of character for her, though I will accept that it was plot-convenient - I wouldn't call it stupidity more than I'd call it short-sightedness. If people were perfect and always made the right decisions you wouldn't have conflict. Sylvanas made an error in not accounting for Saurfang's personality, but Sylvanas doesn't care about Saurfang on a personal level, she thought she had moved him where she needed him to be and that was the end of it. Having someone's ethics or morality throw a monkey wrench into a finely-tuned plan is pretty much Sylvanas all over. It happened in "War Crimes" with her plans for Alleria, as she didn't factor Alleria's love for her children into her plans. It happened with Koltira when she didn't factor Koltira and Thassarian's closeness into the equation at Andorhal. Sylvanas' lack of foresight with people and their personalities is something of a recurring motif.

On the contrary, because it's not the characters who have these views, but the setting itself. The setting bends over backwards to allow selective morality. For yet another example, when no one in the Horde brings up that whole business with their diplomats being tossed in the void or their shopkeepers burned but are cloth-rendingly mad to the point of treason because one human got tortured, that's not a treatise on their failings as characters, it's Blizzard wanting to preach in one case and not in another. The selective morality is not an intended in-story element, it's an out of story choice. Blizzard doesn't want these people to look like treacherous hypocrites, that's just the result.

I think you minimize one scenario and over-emphasize another. It's a war, and people are going to die in its execution - you can't get navel-gazingly close to every single act of violence or death without being completely emotionally exhausted. That being said, there's quite a difference in losing of few people to a specific attack and watching, straight up and in your face, as an individual is raised from the dead and laboriously tortured right under your nose. I agree there's a sort of spotlight effect, sure; but that is how it works in real life as well. There is a difference in a battle report that reads "X soldiers lost to the Void" and a single instance of watching directly as a Void portal opens and swallows someone as they scream and clutch at the ground in an attempt to avoid it. Things carry a different weight when they're intimately close to you, when you're subjected to every detail of them right up close.

I'm disputing that these are overarching themes considering they're scarcely ever brought up. Only one person in Warfang brings up how they're forced to keep fighting and that's Rokhan. Everyone else takes issue on a moral basis in isolation (Mayla, Eitrigg), coach their resistance in terms that would have happened regardless of the state of war with the Alliance just later (Garona, Bob) or support it under separate premises (Gallywix, Geyarah). The only one to ever bemoan the futility of the war at all is Baine. When you get a glimpse of others' motivation, very few believe they're forced into it. People like the tauren LW quest giver, Usha, Cromush, even Rexxar at the start all either agree with the initial premise of the war - i.e that fighting the Alliance was the right call, tree aside, cite their historical grievances or just want a fun fight. The idea in A Good War that after Teldrassil they're now committed to fighting to the death and they have no choice but to go on is interesting and would be correct, but is not only wrong, but no one acts on it. Even the one who voices it, Saurfang, proceeds to engage in self-sabotage five minutes later despite believing it to have become an existential race war where treachery would result in his people's destruction.

There's really no need to bring it up or belabor it, it's something of an understood. The leaders especially aren't going to grouse about it because that isn't what leaders do - but the overarching theme is still present. Baine is the loudest voice calling for the war to end, yes; but he's not the only one. Sylvanas sowing an atmosphere of fear and mistrust has also done its work, with many of the leaders present espousing a kind of "go along to get along" creed (Garona, Lor'themar, Rokhan, etc.) because of an unvoiced fear of the same thing happening to Baine happening to them as well (or their people). Sylvanas wouldn't need this atmosphere if the Horde were all in with the war. On top of this, there is a growing sense within the Horde that the war itself (and Sylvanas) aren't legitimate. Rexxar himself seems poised to take up the banner Baine has been forced to drop, preparing to report to parties unknown that something must be done about what had happened.

You misunderstand me. Yes, the developers knew fairly early on in development, though not at the start, certainly not when the cinematic was released, that it was going to be Mists 2.0. But that was not what they sold. Genuinely no element of their marketing, even past Teldrassil, so much as suggested it, in favor of pushing the factional divide. They altered texts and went over separate drafts of Sylvanas' motivation to go into Ashenvale in the beta to find one that worked, neutered her lines and talked about both factions needing to look inside themselves and such piffle to obfuscate what they really had. This has now moved on into the actual expansion, where because they sold the thing under false premises, they can alter details, but not the whole thing, which while entertaining for me and others with my viewpoint is only bound to end up worse because they can't actually commit to it. As you say, the story was already written and the Unifaction is the future, but because they lied about it for ages and even now are trying to feign that that's not what's gonna happen it will be met with even more hostility.

I don't think you're right about "unification," unless you simply mean the faction war angle is going to be dropped. I think it more likely that the Horde and Alliance will return to the state of uneasy detente they existed in during the TBC/WotLK era - the ultimate result of the factor war being that neither side can destroy the other without also destroying the world in the process. No ultimate "victor," only an ultimate result of the infighting. As for the PTR alterations they were relatively minor at the end of the day - modulation of tone and color, but no real change the broad events that occurred and the ramifications thereof. I don't agree they've sold anything on false promises either. BfA was pitched as an expansion based on the faction war, and that is pretty much exactly what it has been. Much speculation and posturing has been done by the players and fans, sure; but that's not necessarily on the developers. Even the cry of "Mists 2.0" is itself a product of speculation, the assumption that the path of BfA will closely follow MoP in broad strokes. If you ask me I don't think this is borne out at all even at the current moment, and I've doubts it will prove the case when all is said and done. BfA and MoP have some similarities, yes, I don't think that's beyond dispute - but the gulf between two things being similar and one being a copy of the other is pretty vast. TBC and WoD had some strong similarities, after all, but I don't think anyone is going to accuse WoD of being "TBC 2.0." It was a very different story.

[Feanoro]

Why would anyone think BFA is MoP 2.0?

[Jibjub]

"Honor" is Blizzard's terrible writer's shorthand for "how to make savage bad guys morally complex and not 2-dimensional" ...