The "modern values" argument

[Mehrunes]

1. Reread chronicle portion of wrathgate.

But I wasn't replying to a point about Wrathgate.

1. Blight isn't normal artillery it's depicted as an especially excruciating way to die.

True. It's not a normal artillery. Because unlike normal artillery it kills you instantly, whereas with normal artillery it's not always the case.

[GreenJesus]

See, would that be so hard for Blizz to put ingame?

I just don't get how Blizzard doesn't understand that players liked how the Horde had different sets of morals based on each race. I loved rolling a forsaken and riding a skeleton horse through Silverpine forest with Sylvanas and fighting alongside the Valkyr kill and raise humans to fight. I loved interacting with forsaken characters that were tinkering with new forms of blight or poisons and tested them on scarlet crusade. Seeing them blow up or melt in their cage was awesome. But now it seems like Blizzard is trying to kill off the forsaken so "muh honor bois" can quest for Boi King Anduin. They want everyone to be consolidated into one identity and it pisses me off.

[MikeBogina]

Well that's fine because cultures IN AZEROTH think what the Forsaken do is bad, hell before BFA most of the Horde didn't trust them

Did you miss the part where Sylvanas' approval ratings are through the roof? She's so approved of by the rest of the Horde that we have paladins and druids using the blight at Lordaeron. In fact the only person who disapproved of her actions using the Blight was some retarded Orcs while Baine didn't protest about it at all.


A lot of "cultures" dislike what others do, that's why this is called "Warcraft" because no matter who's in charge, there's going to be fighting. It's literally the top priority of Blizzard, to find figure out a way to keep us fighting for "content"

[Skytotem]

But I wasn't replying to a point about Wrathgate.

True. It's not a normal artillery. Because unlike normal artillery it kills you instantly, whereas with normal artillery it's not always the case.

1. My apologies, got your reply crisscrossed with someone else's. I still think it's dumb for Horde troops to be fine with being blighted.

2. Yeah I think Blizz needs to explain why it's so much worse, but right now it just 'is' to everyone ingame.

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I just don't get how Blizzard doesn't understand that players liked how the Horde had different sets of morals based on each race. I loved rolling a forsaken and riding a skeleton horse through Silverpine forest with Sylvanas and fighting alongside the Valkyr kill and raise humans to fight. I loved interacting with forsaken characters that were tinkering with new forms of blight or poisons and tested them on scarlet crusade. Seeing them blow up or melt in their cage was awesome. But now it seems like Blizzard is trying to kill off the forsaken so "muh honor bois" can quest for Boi King Anduin. They want everyone to be consolidated into one identity and it pisses me off.

I mean, folks who like the Honor Horde don't WANT to quest for Anduin, I want a GOOD REASON to fight him though outside of "Well I'm a genocidal goose stepping bastard"

[cparle87]

1. I mean, regardless of whether Sylv was a victim or not, the Orcs aren't going to be happy with what happened. It's still going to color their view of the blight and they're going to possibly even see the Forsaken and Sylv as incompetent for trusting a damn dreadlord.

2. That... doesn't make any sense, she didn't lure anyone anywhere

3. I mean... you're not saying anything anyone doesn't already know man. That doesn't address anything that you quoted.

1. Said Dreadlord supposedly broke the iron rule of his race, killing another dreadlord, to prove his loyalty to Sylvanas. She got outgambitted.

2. When do you think she had time to set up enough bombs to blow all of the capital city into a blighted ruin? She certainly couldn't have done it since the battle was begun. Which only leaves that she took losing the city as a possibility and was prepared to retreat, retreat, retreat until as much of the Alliance was inside the city as she could, then blight them all to hell. Would've worked too if not for Jaina.

3. Garrosh was orcs first screw everyone else. Sylvanas lip service is for the entire Horde. "The Horde is worth saving" is what she said to Saurfang. When she talks about the wars and what's going on, she doesn't single out any one people. She doesn't even arrogantly call it "her" Horde. So far she's acting as if she actually wants what's best for them. Whereas we knew as early as Cata that Garrosh saw the non-orc races as lesser and expendable.

[Helgrimm]

I think most of the defense is trying to justify bad writing. Cultural values of the past (or an Azeroth akin to humanities past) is just an excuse to justify the bad writing. Stories of video games are just as important as those in movies or tv shows, and WoW is definitely falling short.

[Skytotem]

1. Said Dreadlord supposedly broke the iron rule of his race, killing another dreadlord, to prove his loyalty to Sylvanas. She got outgambitted.

2. When do you think she had time to set up enough bombs to blow all of the capital city into a blighted ruin? She certainly couldn't have done it since the battle was begun. Which only leaves that she took losing the city as a possibility and was prepared to retreat, retreat, retreat until as much of the Alliance was inside the city as she could, then blight them all to hell. Would've worked too if not for Jaina.

3. Garrosh was orcs first screw everyone else. Sylvanas lip service is for the entire Horde. "The Horde is worth saving" is what she said to Saurfang. When she talks about the wars and what's going on, she doesn't single out any one people. She doesn't even arrogantly call it "her" Horde. So far she's acting as if she actually wants what's best for them. Whereas we knew as early as Cata that Garrosh saw the non-orc races as lesser and expendable.

Why would she ever believe that the Dreadlords had rules on killing each other? They're a race of backstabbers and liars.

I mean, she didn't need bombs to destroy all the infrastructure, just the upper city, tbh she wasted the bombs imo.

That's the problem, aside from one line to Saurfang she's said little else to support that imo, and sadly, large chunks of the playerbase will support her anyway.

[Super Dickmann]

That's the problem, aside from one line to Saurfang she's said little else to support that imo, and sadly, large chunks of the playerbase will support her anyway.

Most of the playerbase that support her do so for a different reason than her in-story support. Her in-story support is based on not being privy to the intimate details, her being a fairly successful war leader and having a cult of personality among those in who's territory her failure is most obvious. Also on the fact that most of the Horde want war and conquest and always have. They don't know she's an evil old god puppet who intends to betray them to fail at whatever she goes on to do.

Her player support on the other hand is aware of all those things but on balance considers it more palatable than being part of Anduin's harem of noblesavages.

[Eggroll]

Modern values aside. The issue I take with the whole thing is that the moral lesson of BfA is that genocide is ok and cool. And I don't think this is the right message in a PG12/13 game, played not exclusively, but also by teenagers in their formative years... that is just... wrong in my book.

[Super Dickmann]

Modern values aside. The issue I take with the whole thing is that the moral lesson of BfA is that genocide is ok and cool. And I don't think this is the right message in a PG12/13 game, played not exclusively, but also by teenagers in their formative years... that is just... wrong in my book.

It's more that genocide is very bad for your friends, but the victim should just be friends with the ones who helped do it provided they feel really, really sorry. An extremely wholesome lesson.

The way the entirety of the Horde will be forgiven and everything pinned on Sylvanas as if they're mindless drones who had no choice is gonna be one of the biggest fuckups in a war story composed almost entirely of them.

[Irian]

Modern values aside. The issue I take with the whole thing is that the moral lesson of BfA is that genocide is ok and cool. And I don't think this is the right message in a PG12/13 game, played not exclusively, but also by teenagers in their formative years... that is just... wrong in my book.

This kinda rubs me the wrong way as well. I don't mean to sound like the middle-aged mom saying "video games are bad!" but in 2019, with the social climate being the way it is right now, it feels bizarrely tone-deaf at best for BfA to be making light of and kind of disregarding complete genocide of a people as a plot point.

A big detail I feel like nobody ever talks about in this story is how heinous the burning of Teldrassil is. The night elves aren't coming back from this, almost their entire population was wiped out and there are likely much less of them than even blood elves now. The idea of this being supported and even defensible by a huge portion of the playerbase because "they're the enemy" feels like the absolute wrong message to send right now in modern times.

It's one thing to create a situation where the moral implications of a terrible event can be discussed and the repercussions of such an event can be a plot point, but WoW isn't a mature or intelligently-written enough game to do so. The game doesn't treat these subjects with the respect they deserve.

[Skytotem]

Most of the playerbase that support her do so for a different reason than her in-story support. Her in-story support is based on not being privy to the intimate details, her being a fairly successful war leader and having a cult of personality among those in who's territory her failure is most obvious. Also on the fact that most of the Horde want war and conquest and always have. They don't know she's an evil old god puppet who intends to betray them to fail at whatever she goes on to do.

Her player support on the other hand is aware of all those things but on balance considers it more palatable than being part of Anduin's harem of noblesavages.

IS she successful though? Horde took 8-1 casualties in darkshore and we're apparently losing in all fronts before 8.2, where we lose the REST of our navy.

[Super Dickmann]

IS she successful though? Horde took 8-1 casualties in darkshore and we're apparently losing in all fronts before 8.2, where we lose the REST of our navy.

That was against a demigod like Malf though and it's good for Sylvanas' approval rating anyway because AGW says she personally saved thousands of Horde troops from getting bodied by Malf. End result is they gain Ashenvale which they were after for 15+ years and the night elves are stuck in a stalemate because Blizzard hates them even more than they hate non-noblesavage Horde. As for losing on all fronts, this is due to the naval domination which gets removed once both fleets are down to 0 in 8.2.

[Kallisto]

hell, even dark ages europe would've considered a lot of the forsaken do messed up

The only thing that until WW2 the Forsaken have done would have been considered messed up would be raise the dead, and that's because that's quite simply impossible in real life. If it were possible expect leaders to have done it for their own means.

Even the allies in 20th century wars. The ones portrayed as heroes in movies were bombing civilian cities in manners no different to Teldrassil during WW2

[Skytotem]

The only thing that until WW2 the Forsaken have done would have been considered messed up would be raise the dead, and that's because that's quite simply impossible in real life. If it were possible expect leaders to have done it for their own means.

Even the allies in 20th century wars. The ones portrayed as heroes in movies were bombing civilian cities in manners no different to Teldrassil during WW2

Yeah but at least the allies had the decency after Hiroshima and Nagasaki to go "my god what have we done"

Sylvanas just doesn't care

[Super Dickmann]

Yeah but at least the allies had the decency after Hiroshima and Nagasaki to go "my god what have we done"

Sylvanas just doesn't care

That's because the Japanese surrendered, otherwise they had like five more bombs in the pipeline along with a full invasion. The conventional firebombing of Tokyo inflicted more casualties than either nuke and all sides bombed each other's civilian population. It's just how you did things.

[Evilfish]

There's no real justification for many of the acts in Warcraft. The idea being that it's a fantasy world.

That being said, what you are talking about is not justification for some horrible act of violence, but a counter to the selective outrage that comes up whenever Sylvanas is involved. Take the Forsaken blight as an example. Wherever that's uses you have certain people throwing down a toddler tantrum over morality when in reality (or as far as reality goes in a fantasy game) it's just another way to kill the other guy.

So yeah, I don't see people going "YEAH GENOCIDE IS COOL WE SHOULD DO IT OVER THE WEEKEND". But I do see a lot of people acting as if people actually do say that.

[Skytotem]

That's because the Japanese surrendered, otherwise they had like five more bombs in the pipeline along with a full invasion. The conventional firebombing of Tokyo inflicted more casualties than either nuke and all sides bombed each other's civilian population. It's just how you did things.

What? That's nonsense, horror at the nuclear massacre of civilians had nothing to do with whether they surrendered or not

You think Sylvanas would feel bad if nelfs has surrendered? The concept is laughable

[Super Dickmann]

What? That's nonsense, horror at the nuclear massacre of civilians had nothing to do with whether they surrendered or not

You think Sylvanas would feel bad if nelfs has surrendered? The concept is laughable

No, it's not about feeling bad, it's that feeling bad is mostly a post-war phenomenon, and not even one with a consensus on it. No one would have stopped waging the war because they felt bad about an attack when the whole point of the attack was to demoralize and engineer a surrender. Had Japan not surrendered, the US would have invaded and kept dropping nukes, which they were making, until they won and rightly so.

Additionally, the nukes had fewer casualties attached to them than conventional firebombing, such as in Tokyo.

[Skytotem]

No, it's not about feeling bad, it's that feeling bad is mostly a post-war phenomenon, and not even one with a consensus on it. No one would have stopped waging the war because they felt bad about an attack when the whole point of the attack was to demoralize and engineer a surrender. Had Japan not surrendered, the US would have invaded and kept dropping nukes, which they were making, until they won and rightly so.

Additionally, the nukes had fewer casualties attached to them than conventional firebombing, such as in Tokyo.

Oh cmon, people felt bad before the war ended too, folks who made the bomb were horrified and rightly so

Regardless, Sylvanas amorality is blinding her to better use of the horde, she's going for easy edgy solutions and saying they're necessary, when really if you apply moral weight you're forced to be a better leader, and it keeps internal friction down and morale more steady