Teldrassil remains the 10 ton elephant in the room.

[Feanoro]

Since when are we taking Golden seriously.

Or Afrasiabi, or anyone who speaks ill of the Lich Queen, right? What do Blizz employees know about the story they're paid to write?

[Verdugo]

Or Afrasiabi, or anyone who speaks ill of the Lich Queen, right? What do Blizz employees know about the story they're paid to write?

Apparently nothing since Afrasiabi routinely forgets what the fuck happened in recent events.

Dont take it as defending the "waifu", Danuser sucks too if it makes you happy (it shouldnt, but you get the idea)

[mysticx]

Since when are we taking Golden seriously.

That’s the common attitude towards lore for both sides: “If it supports my argument, it’s canon”, otherwise it’s conjecture, headcanon or whatever. :3

[eurojust]

It really grinds my gears when people call the Burning of Teldrassil a "genocide"... It was a massacre indeed, but in no way a "genocide"..
Sylvanas didn't want to exterminate NElves, she wanted to deal them a "wound that couldn't heal" (shitty writing ftw). Her actions weren't directed by a particular hatred of NElves, and a desire to see them all dead....
Or maybe you consider SoO was a genocide too because you raided a capital city mostly populated with orcs and murdered most of them ? If the Burning of Teldrassil was a genocide to you, you can't argue that SoO was one too...

No? If you wanted a comparison with what Sylvanas did, that would be Jaina on the verge of nuking Ogrimmar as a payback for Theramore. And she was stopped.
Also the little difference if you didn't notice is that every horde member took part in this genocide.
There's also a high chance that nightborns slaughtered their own families which they were cut from 10 000 years ago.
FOR HONOR!!!

[Friendlyimmolation]

No? If you wanted a comparison with what Sylvanas did, that would be Jaina on the verge of nuking Ogrimmar as a payback for Theramore. And she was stopped.
Also the little difference if you didn't notice is that every horde member took part in this genocide.
There's also a high chance that nightborns slaughtered their own families which they were cut from 10 000 years ago.
FOR HONOR!!!

The Honor god does not care from where the honor flows.

[Shiza]

Lets be honest:

The Scarlet Crusade should have been Alliance and a main human faction. Justice/Vengeance and the nuances of both concepts should have been the main Alliance theme. It is what binds the different races the most, all of them tend to stick more to Order and Law and feel a strong commitment to the concept if Justice. It binds and includes most of the races and it is a concept that can be played for morally grey or even dark actions and viewpoints.

I mean, in One Piece Terms, Horde and Alliance would work best if they would be basically like Pirates and Marines.

[Vishy]

No one honestly gives a shit about that 10 ton stump. If they did, there would be a vocal outcry and they would respond..But since there isnt... Its just a stump, move on.

[kendro1200]

It really grinds my gears when people call the Burning of Teldrassil a "genocide"... It was a massacre indeed, but in no way a "genocide"..
Sylvanas didn't want to exterminate NElves, she wanted to deal them a "wound that couldn't heal" (shitty writing ftw). Her actions weren't directed by a particular hatred of NElves, and a desire to see them all dead....
Or maybe you consider SoO was a genocide too because you raided a capital city mostly populated with orcs and murdered most of them ? If the Burning of Teldrassil was a genocide to you, you can't argue that SoO was one too...

SoO attacked the military force of Orcs loyal to Garrosh, not all of the Orcs on Azeroth, and the people inside certainly weren't locked within the city and then thrown through a meat grinder.

Genocide does require intent, but Sylvannas didn't accidently leave a match in Darnassus and then Teldrassil burned down. Sylvannas did not achieve the goal she wanted, and so if she couldn't have a complacent group of live hostages then she would prefer to kill as many people as possible. She gave the order to burn Teldrassil knowing full well what that meant for the Night Elf people. She didn't start the War of Thorns with the intent of wiping out most of the Night Elves in an instant, but she certainly chose to do so when she didn't get what she wanted.
Also remember, Sylvannas was and probably still is planning the genocide of Stormwind, which is incredibly short sighted. If she does need a continual supply of fresh corpses to maintain an army/"people", then she needs living people that can continue to breed to eventually make more corpses. What she really needs to do is create a civilization like Palawa Joko did in Elona in the Guild Wars setting. The military force is undead, thus completely loyal to the undead ruler. The living exist to breed and die, living their lives almost as normal, except for devoting their lives to their god-king ruler. The undead get to come back and get the option of protecting their families in unlife. It's a very macabre form of society, but it certainly can work. That is certainly something Blizzard could have set up with Sylvannas, as well as the Before the Storm novel. The situation in Arathi could have gone perfectly fine, everyone could have met their families and been happy. The undead could have intermingled with their living relatives. Sylvannas could have staged a peace, offering undeath to those who agreed to it as a means to protect their families after death. The Cult of the Damned could have been revived as a counter movement against Stormwind and other portions of the Alliance, almost like the Twilight's Hammer before Cataclysm. A war could have eventually broken out due to an attempted coup that was shown to be orchestrated by Sylvannas. Hell, Blizzard could have still burned Teldrassil, but done so by Cult of the Damned fanatics within Teldrassil that wanted the "gift" of undeath for as many as possible.
Of course the problem with that whole story is that it would have to be a side plot that slowly built up across multiple expansions before bringing on full scale war, and Blizzard does not have the attention span to do that. They don't want to do world building, they want self-contained episodic stories. The problem with those kinds of stories is that they are far too shallow for RPGs. Good as backdrops for card games like Hearthstone, bad for literally everything else.

[Leodric]

*snip*

That would be a way better story than currently with a deeper meaning and still not too "complicated" for the casual player to understand.
Again one of so many good narratives I read across several lore forums for WoW and the writers don't come up with something similiar, even though they get payed, lul.

[Zandalariprelate]

He didn't want people to realize how nearly everything was ripped off from better writers?

More like his nerd ego with the others geeks of his company were too prideful and cheap to hire better people than them. Yeah most of his works comes from others fictional works but Starcraft 1 and Diablo 1 were very original though

[Eggroll]

Well, I agree with the OP.

I know I'm not resubbing until the nelves are fully reinstated, with capital, moonwell and Temple of the Moon.
The devs are treating the nelves as if they were an npc race, not acknowledging that this affects the players of the 2nd most popular
Alliance race.

[Feanoro]

More like his nerd ego with the others geeks of his company were too prideful and cheap to hire better people than them.

Likely so.

Yeah most of his works comes from others fictional works but Starcraft 1 and Diablo 1 were very original though

Starcraft? C'mon, it's chock full of rips from Warhammer 40K, Star Trek, and science fiction authors.

Heck, it's well known that fledgling Blizz had Metzen come up with stories when they were denied licenses to make Warhammer and W40K games.

[Zandalariprelate]

Likely so.

Starcraft? C'mon, it's chock full of rips from Warhammer 40K, Star Trek, and science fiction authors.

Heck, it's well known that fledgling Blizz had Metzen come up with stories when they were denied licenses to make Warhammer and W40K games.

I mean Starcraft story with Kerrigan, Jim and the Protoss was kinda unique back then and diablo a game where you face the forces the hell was still a bit taboo but yeah they weren't a big twist in concepts already pressed like Star Wars that re-defined the hero journey. Anyway the thing I always appreciated about the story of warcraft was the simplicity and not pretending to be something they aren't and the mmorpg gender doesn't help to tell stories.

Still I always push the idea to hire new people and better writers because the current ones are a bunch of hacks that either want to push their fan-fiction or someone like Ion or most likely Afrasiabi are the ones pushing this, so more resources can be handle to others deparment while the lore is relegated to moba/group shooters levels

[Mehrunes]

Too bad, because it was a genocide according to Christie Golden.

Golden doesn't get to redefine the language, especially legal terms.

Or Afrasiabi, or anyone who speaks ill of the Lich Queen, right? What do Blizz employees know about the story they're paid to write?

It's not a matter of story. It's a matter of words meaning things. And even then, the only mentions of genocide in the short story is that of Alliance characters stating their views, which are subjective.

Lets be honest:

The Scarlet Crusade should have been Alliance and a main human faction. Justice/Vengeance and the nuances of both concepts should have been the main Alliance theme. It is what binds the different races the most, all of them tend to stick more to Order and Law and feel a strong commitment to the concept if Justice. It binds and includes most of the races and it is a concept that can be played for morally grey or even dark actions and viewpoints.

I mean, in One Piece Terms, Horde and Alliance would work best if they would be basically like Pirates and Marines.

Alliance? Sure. But main human faction wouldn't have worked that well. Their holdings were too close to a Horde capital and it'd be just a clusterfack back in vanilla.

[Syrah-the-Old-One]

No? If you wanted a comparison with what Sylvanas did, that would be Jaina on the verge of nuking Ogrimmar as a payback for Theramore. And she was stopped.

No, that was going to be the action of Jaina alone, and is not relevant at all to the situation we are currently discussing

Also the little difference if you didn't notice is that every horde member took part in this genocide.

.....Just like every Alliance member participated in SoO... I fail to see your point here too....

[Shiza]

Alliance? Sure. But main human faction wouldn't have worked that well. Their holdings were too close to a Horde capital and it'd be just a clusterfack back in vanilla.

They could have made a main faction, in that they are officially part of the Church of Holy Light or even have the Church announce the Scarlet Crusade. It also would have fit better with the Tirion Fordring Plot, that the Silver Hand is gone which never made sense because the Silver Hand was pretty active in Stormwind and Kalimdor. Basically have the Scarlet Crusade be the Alliance Paladin Order.

[Kantoro]

This thread really got me thinking, what is the average weight of an elephant. Could care less about Teldressil.

[sirmalta]

Well, we sieged the undercity, forcing sylvanas to destroy and abandon it. We attacked the zandalari capital city, current operating city of the Horde, and killed their king. Being the alliance, and not the kind of people who want to murder innocent people, Im not sure why you ever expected to be burning down cities in retaliation... Vengeance would be killing Silvanas, it doesnt matter if that also happens to be justice.

This is a petty nitpick. There is plenty to be upset about, dont make shit up. The alliances reaction to teldrasil has been a respectable and honorable one. We'll kill sylvanas eventually, but I suspect her rise to evil queen is going to be one that goes well beyond the horde.

Complaining about the story is like reading half of Fight Club and saying its bullshit.

[Feanoro]

Being the alliance, and not the kind of people who want to murder innocent people, Im not sure why you ever expected to be burning down cities in retaliation... Vengeance would be killing Silvanas, it doesnt matter if that also happens to be justice.

Here's a hint: At no point has the Lich Queen acted completely on her own with no other Horde members whatsoever. It was bullshit when they decided Garrosh had one helluva packed schedule and the Horde were meek little bystanders, and it's bullshit to claim they're innocent now. Vengeance would be wiping out the undead, especially justified since they've been the NuScourge since Wrath.

The alliances reaction to teldrasil has been a respectable and honorable one.

If "Oh well, we tried at Undercity, got even more massacred due to incredible stupidity, guess we'll just pretend the tree never happened. Oh and we must absolutely not press a military advantage in BoD!" is respectable and honorable, then I see the "honor in WoW is being a fucking moron" meme is true on Alliance side too.

The single most evil act ever shown in WoW, a petty nitpick.Good Lord, spot the blue PR account...

[tripleh]

One thing that I noticed, if it wasn't for Saurfang attacking Malfurion from behind with his axe. Teldrassil burning would've never happened. Sylvannas was loosing the fight. Another thing Anduin tells Saurfang that he doesn't have the power to beat Sylvannas. Yet Malfurion is back and no spotlight is being shown on him. He was able to easily take her on while in Darkshore. Let that simmer for a moment. Blizz writting on the narrative team lack any potential for telling good lore/story with the current group.