WoW and Weaponry.

[CalamityHeart]

This rubs pretty close to one of those things that it's really best not to discuss too earnestly unless you're intentionally fixing to fuck yourself out of your enjoyment of the subject matter. It's just magic.

The actual veracity of military tactics and warfare in a fantasy MMO? Why would anyone even want to try and open that door?

[Freedom]

Ehhh... Warcraft wasn't built with modern day war or space war in mind.

I just can't imagine the aesthetic going well with orbital strikes or carpet bombings. A giant stabbing a planet with a sword or a big dragon ripping the landscape with earth magic fits. A giant satellite dropping tungsten impact rods onto hardened targets or a big strategic bomber dropping massive numbers of explosive devices on a city or battlefield doesn't fit the feeling of traditional fantasy or powerful heroes who can make a huge difference just by themselves.

Modern war doesn't favor melee at all, just look at how Japanese banzai charges fared in WW2. So there goes half your DPS and all your tanks.

As far as existing stuff goes sounds like OP wants WH40K, and even then, WH40K is mainly about space and ground combat, with no real mention of true water based navies and the airforces in WH40K are rather anemic and not well developed compared to real world ones. It kind of makes melee work, but only by making there be various super tech armors that are light and very durable.

I am messing with a concept of an IP that is part magic part technology and focusing more on the interplay of the two, but in a more futuristic setting. I just don't know how well traditional Warcraft medieval might and magic would go with advanced technology. Otherwise you get holes like the Vindicaar or how an elf with a bow is supposed to help their pet beast do "DPS" to a tank armored at all. I can understand the desire for a certain look, but a Native American penetrating a modern MBT with a "magic" bow and arrow would feel more like a bad or silly superhero movie than anything else to me.

TL;DR Warcraft is built more for cool than anything even as "realistic" as WH40K and using more modern stuff can only serve to slowly choke its existing identity. You want something else, you need to build it from the ground up to make sense and be cohesive around the idea of higher technology.

[VladlTutushkin]

you think that, but just make sense, orcs have being ragging war for over 35+ more straight years, while night elves spend most of the 10 thousands years doing nothing, the example of Spanish and the inca kinda make sense here, you have heavy armed and armored living tanks with war strategy and mentality vs people who didn't had much conflict, using wood weapons and guerrilla tactics.

Something to point is also mentality, for orcs they will die for the mission/cause, having people like that is extremely effective like or not, plus, i think people always forget that, Orcs also have magic, there is no such thing of "sissy" or "metal", elves are just not better at it.

And it still makes no sense. In WoW we have races that have no right to win in any kind of warfare defeating races that are either MADE for war, wage war for ages or just really big and strong and suited for war.

Only reason night elves, who are by the way far from “peaceful” and have their own fierce mentality which however focused on defence and not attacking others constantly used as a punching bag is because Blizzard have clear bias towards orcs.

[Syegfryed]

And it still makes no sense. In WoW we have races that have no right to win in any kind of warfare defeating races that are either MADE for war, wage war for ages or just really big and strong and suited for war.

like what? examples would be good, cause we are missing a lot of context

Night elves were in "peace" for most part of ten thousand years, that the men were sleeping in the dream, if you don't use a muscle or in this case skill(warfare) it atrophies, they went thinking orcs were just random unintelligent monsters, they realize they were wrong too late, there was scourge and the legion mining their strengths, plus, losing their magic/immortality, of course they would never recover.

Only reason night elves, who are by the way far from “peaceful” and have their own fierce mentality which however focused on defence and not attacking others constantly used as a punching bag is because Blizzard have clear bias towards orcs.

they were racists isolationists, sure, but what enemy they had who was tough enough for then polish their skills? the legion was thousand of years ago, their "fierce" mentality don't help against people who throw themselves in battle in the hope to die by taking as much they can

Night elves were just never this hot shit people like to believe, maybe 10k years ago, but not in wow/warcraft

And its amusing to see someone saying how blizzard have bias towards orcs when they are fucking the race over the years, like losing characters, leaders and even the leadership of the faction they created , night elves still have tyrande and malfurion, orcs don't even have a faction leader, and a troll sit on Grommash hold leading the orc city, so much bias /s

[loras]

why do you think wizards in hp, are so few? A gun have the same effect of a unforgivable curse, magic can't always win, especially against numbers and technology/strategy, thats why orcs streamrolled the elves all the time, they are build over the years for war and combat, they are not humans, they are bulkier, stronger and more resistant

Except it's much like the witch burning thing: There's likely a trivial cantrip for nullifying the damage conventional weapons can do.

And Warcraft orcs were not doing so well without demon magic to juice them up.

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Except that, in this example, guns would straight up wreck Harry Potter style wizards. HP style wizardry is reactionary. They fight "wizarding duels". And while yes, a quick wizard could easily kill or incapacitate someone, a wild west gunslinger would probably have about an equal chance of killing the wizard before he got his spell off. Never mind the kind of carnage someone with a sniper rifle could inflict. Hard to protect yourself if the bullet arrives seconds before the sound of the shot even reaches you. Remember, HP wizarding society has largely survived purely because they hid, and have spent centuries actively masking their presence from the muggles. Outright conflict would go badly for them, unless you were willing to drastically re-write pretty much everything we know about how their magic works.

See my previous reaction: if guns were much of a threat to them (as opposed to the way it's depicted in the books, where wizards can casually inflict natural disasters on normal men without fearing reprisal) they'd just make a spell to deal with it.
I mean fire outright doesn't harm them with a minor trick, what good will some speedy metal bois be with that in mind.

So yeah, as i said: an entertaining discussion, but one showing the limitations of those revering technology.

[Rafoel]

WoW in-universe combat "mechanics" are based on D&D.

In D&D, even the most advanced non-magical weapon is whole tier below the slightly magical weapon.

WoW is absolutely saturated with magic. Even green items are already magical in nature.

And, like in D&D (lorewise, not gameplay), every "magical" creature requires magic of at least similar level to be harmed.

This is even an important plot point of WC3. Orcs couldn't do anything against Cenarius until they drank Mannoroth's blood and their attack type changed to "chaos". "Divine" armor in WC3, which represented magical nature of the creature, granted immunity to all ordinary attacks. Similarly, combined forces of humans orcs and elves couldn't do anything against Archimonde, as they didn't have magic powerful enough to overcome his own.

In those situations - you could have 1000 machine guns or bombs, and it wouldn't even cause a scratch on Cenarius or Archimonde. And yet, Cenarius was killed by "some orc with axe".

[VladlTutushkin]

like what? examples would be good, cause we are missing a lot of context

Night elves were in "peace" for most part of ten thousand years, that the men were sleeping in the dream, if you don't use a muscle or in this case skill(warfare) it atrophies, they went thinking orcs were just random unintelligent monsters, they realize they were wrong too late, there was scourge and the legion mining their strengths, plus, losing their magic/immortality, of course they would never recover.



they were racists isolationists, sure, but what enemy they had who was tough enough for then polish their skills? the legion was thousand of years ago, their "fierce" mentality don't help against people who throw themselves in battle in the hope to die by taking as much they can

Night elves were just never this hot shit people like to believe, maybe 10k years ago, but not in wow/warcraft

And its amusing to see someone saying how blizzard have bias towards orcs when they are fucking the race over the years, like losing characters, leaders and even the leadership of the faction they created , night elves still have tyrande and malfurion, orcs don't even have a faction leader, and a troll sit on Grommash hold leading the orc city, so much bias /s

Lol. This is downright pointless to argue with you - you just dug your heels in and will die on the hill that one race constantly being fucked up by writers out of some mix of bias and “plot convenience” (of course that would be harder to fuck over humans, dwarves or other Alliance races because that would require actually writing a new story and not another “orcs smashing sissy elf maidens”). That would require Human Potential to be challenged and Alliance not being centred around Stormwind and Stormwind alone.

And hey, you ambushed night elves while their army was in Silithus at the moment... And still you only won by Deus Ex Saurfang and with 8 to 1 casualty rates fighting Malfurion and some militias plus whatever guards were left in Teld. Truly a proof of military prowess...

[Syegfryed]

Except it's much like the witch burning thing: There's likely a trivial cantrip for nullifying the damage conventional weapons can do.

?

And Warcraft orcs were not doing so well without demon magic to juice them up.

they did quite well without demon blood, they only struggle when a demigod show up

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Lol. This is downright pointless to argue with you - you just dug your heels in and will die on the hill that one race constantly being fucked up by writers out of some mix of bias and “plot convenience” (of course that would be harder to fuck over humans, dwarves or other Alliance races because that would require actually writing a new story and not another “orcs smashing sissy elf maidens”). That would require Human Potential to be challenged and Alliance not being centred around Stormwind and Stormwind alone.

you know this can be said by yourself right? you are so dead on that writers hate the night elves and “orcs smashing sissy elf maidens” that you are blinded, "night elves are in fact the most powerful race in every way, magic, warfare and strategy, elves are the best, they only loose because blizzard bias and hate against then!1!

And hey, you ambushed night elves while their army was in Silithus at the moment... And still you only won by Deus Ex Saurfang and with 8 to 1 casualty rates fighting Malfurion and some militias plus whatever guards were left in Teld. Truly a proof of military prowess...

Malfurion already being a deus ex machina character require another lv of deus ex machina to be put down, the horde would never strugle if it was not by his god like absurd powers

and the dude didn't even died like he should, please

[VladlTutushkin]

?



they did quite well without demon blood, they only struggle when a demigod show up

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you know this can be said by yourself right? you are so dead on that writers hate the night elves and “orcs smashing sissy elf maidens” that you are blinded, "night elves are in fact the most powerful race in every way, magic, warfare and strategy, elves are the best, they only loose because blizzard bias and hate against then!1!



Malfurion already being a deus ex machina character require another lv of deus ex machina to be put down, the horde would never strugle if it was not by his god like absurd powers

and the dude didn't even died like he should, please

And you are so used to treating them as some... plough-dragging peasants incapable of combat and any kind of successful military operations that you dismiss even a possibility of them facing off against orcs on equal footing or winning.

I am not asking them to be the best warriors in Warcraft, i am saying that you are not only wrong but also blind to the fact that they are more then just capable fighters. Plus i was speaking specifically about them fighting in the woods. Facing orcs in Durotar or in any region without dense forestation would have ended up badly for them, no arguments here.

But nooo, you have to strawman, you have to be combative over the fact that a playable race in Warcraft deserves to be at least shown as competent now and then and not used as a cheap drama fuel and then discarded as writers prance away to make another vomit inducing story about Anduin and Sylvanas...

I would have said more but i dont want to get banned.

[Surfd]

You have to be incredibly unimaginative to think HP wizards would lose to guns. Don't tell me there isn't a single spell that works like a personal force field. I Googled it just now and all they'd have to do is create some variation of the shield spell, Protego. Not sure what your bullet is going to do about that.

Except again: closed society hidden from muggles for hundreds of years, who have actively survived by NOT engaging with the people who outnumber them likely tens of thousands to one. Protego is a defense against magic. For all we know, they have specialized (ie, they have fought only amongst themselves) for so long that they may functionally have no defense against modern weaponry. I mean, remember, this is a world where the average individual is literally flabbergasted at basic modern concepts like "electricity".

Could they adapt if an actual war broke out between Mages and Muggles? Sure, but you can bet your ass that the carnage on both sides would be astronomical before they started figuring things out.

[Syegfryed]

And you are so used to treating them as some... plough-dragging peasants incapable of combat and any kind of successful military operations that you dismiss even a possibility of them facing off against orcs on equal footing or winning.

im not saying they can't hold they ground, but before they could not, be real, Night elves were doing nothing for most part of ten thousand eyars and suddenly get to face the war machine of the warsong, you can't possible think they could win

if they were that what you saying they would lost waaay before, and in wow they were more or less "equal" to the orcs, since ashenvale was always a contested zone with power shifting time to time.

I am not asking them to be the best warriors in Warcraft, i am saying that you are not only wrong but also blind to the fact that they are more then just capable fighters.

they are, thats why they never lost ashenvale, but thinking they are equal to orcs, and should not lose, when obvious circumstances say otherwise, is being silly.

But nooo, you have to strawman, you have to be combative over the fact that a playable race in Warcraft deserves to be at least shown as competent now and then and not used as a cheap drama fuel and then discarded as writers prance away to make another vomit inducing story about Anduin and Sylvanas...

I would have said more but i dont want to get banned.

thats not really the main point of the topic as far i can read, you are mostly complaining that elves lost to the orcs, when they should not and complaining about bias when other races are getting the same shit or worse, its a big problem with elves is thinking their problems are bigger and worse than everyone else

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Except again: closed society hidden from muggles for hundreds of years, who have actively survived by NOT engaging with the people who outnumber them likely tens of thousands to one. Protego is a defense against magic. For all we know, they have specialized (ie, they have fought only amongst themselves) for so long that they may functionally have no defense against modern weaponry. I mean, remember, this is a world where the average individual is literally flabbergasted at basic modern concepts like "electricity".

Could they adapt if an actual war broke out between Mages and Muggles? Sure, but you can bet your ass that the carnage on both sides would be astronomical before they started figuring things out.

humans would start to exploit magic things like items, beats, plants and the whole shit making experiences to fuck up the wizards

[VladlTutushkin]

im not saying they can't hold they ground, but before they could not, be real, Night elves were doing nothing for most part of ten thousand eyars and suddenly get to face the war machine of the warsong, you can't possible think they could win

if they were that what you saying they would lost waaay before, and in wow they were more or less "equal" to the orcs, since ashenvale was always a contested zone with power shifting time to time.



they are, thats why they never lost ashenvale, but thinking they are equal to orcs, and should not lose, when obvious circumstances say otherwise, is being silly.




thats not really the main point of the topic as far i can read, you are mostly complaining that elves lost to the orcs, when they should not and complaining about bias when other races are getting the same shit or worse, its a big problem with elves is thinking their problems are bigger and worse than everyone else

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humans would start to exploit magic things like items, beats, plants and the whole shit making experiences to fuck up the wizards

What “other races” got it worse? In WoW, not in Warcraft pre-WoW or “10000 years before WoW”. In the span of the game itself nelfs lost most of all races. And if you say “trolls” i say “not playable trolls”.

[loras]

?



they did quite well without demon blood, they only struggle when a demigod show up

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you know this can be said by yourself right? you are so dead on that writers hate the night elves and “orcs smashing sissy elf maidens” that you are blinded, "night elves are in fact the most powerful race in every way, magic, warfare and strategy, elves are the best, they only loose because blizzard bias and hate against then!1!



Malfurion already being a deus ex machina character require another lv of deus ex machina to be put down, the horde would never strugle if it was not by his god like absurd powers

and the dude didn't even died like he should, please

They explain in the books that the witch burning trials didn't really matter for actual wizards and witches because they had a trivial spell that would protect them from the flames, making the fire harmless to them.
Similar spells likely exist for other naturally occuring sources of damage, such as blunt force trauma from explosions of piercing damage from gun shots.

Additionally they can heal just about any nonmagical wound with relative ease, so only instant death the like of which even guns rarely inflict would really stop a wizard in its tracks.

[Syegfryed]

They explain in the books that the witch burning trials didn't really matter for actual wizards and witches because they had a trivial spell that would protect them from the flames, making the fire harmless to them.
Similar spells likely exist for other naturally occuring sources of damage, such as blunt force trauma from explosions of piercing damage from gun shots.

Additionally they can heal just about any nonmagical wound with relative ease, so only instant death the like of which even guns rarely inflict would really stop a wizard in its tracks.

yes, and how long those spells last? as long the wizard energy does? numbers will just streamroll over you in the end

they can heal, and sometimes they can't, there still wizards with missing limbs by example

What “other races” got it worse? In WoW, not in Warcraft pre-WoW or “10000 years before WoW”. In the span of the game itself nelfs lost most of all races. And if you say “trolls” i say “not playable trolls”.

what did the nelves lost? a capital? undeads lost that too, they still are prominent in other places like hyjal, they can just switch capital, something undeads can't, since they do not have a place like hyjal, gnomes don't even have one, same as worgens, trolls only got one in cataclysm and is as useless as can be with they putting their leader in orgrimmar

how many racial leaders nelves lost? not a single one yet, Tyrande and Malfurion are there since war 3, despite the fact that malfurion should be dead in the war of thorns.

Did nelves were leaded by another race? no, tyrande and malfurion are there, always.

How many nelves got villain baited and become villains including leaders and prominent figures? you can count Xavius and fandral i guess

Did nelves get shit to stay one or more than one expansion so fucked and ignored that they didn't even had a racial leader? no, never happened, they never lost their racial leader.

Did the night elves story/culture that was being builded since the early days of the franchise was completely screwed over in prol of the plot? no, they sure got hurt by the plot, but nothing in that level, night elves are still the people we saw in wc3.

this one is a stretch, but do we went back in time to screw up night elf lore and kill their prominent characters? best i can tell is how we revived first legion invasion to help then

All things considered, they are in a pretty good spot, and are the second most popular race of the alliance, and probably the ones who get more attention after then.

[loras]

yes, and how long those spells last? as long the wizard energy does? numbers will just streamroll over you in the end

they can heal, and sometimes they can't, there still wizards with missing limbs by example



what did the nelves lost? a capital? undeads lost that too, they still are prominent in other places like hyjal, they can just switch capital, something undeads can't, since they do not have a place like hyjal, gnomes don't even have one, same as worgens, trolls only got one in cataclysm and is as useless as can be with they putting their leader in orgrimmar

how many racial leaders nelves lost? not a single one yet, Tyrande and Malfurion are there since war 3, despite the fact that malfurion should be dead in the war of thorns.

Did nelves were leaded by another race? no, tyrande and malfurion are there, always.

How many nelves got villain baited and become villains including leaders and prominent figures? you can count Xavius and fandral i guess

Did nelves get shit to stay one or more than one expansion so fucked and ignored that they didn't even had a racial leader? no, never happened, they never lost their racial leader.

Did the night elves story/culture that was being builded since the early days of the franchise was completely screwed over in prol of the plot? no, they sure got hurt by the plot, but nothing in that level, night elves are still the people we saw in wc3.

this one is a stretch, but do we went back in time to screw up night elf lore and kill their prominent characters? best i can tell is how we revived first legion invasion to help then

All things considered, they are in a pretty good spot, and are the second most popular race of the alliance, and probably the ones who get more attention after then.

Long enough to make being burned at the stake irrelevant (and that shit can burn for days), and there are plenty of enchantments or spells that do not need much in the way of upkeep.

What good are numbers against a target they cannot harm, and that can easily harm them? It's like expecting me to be scared of a group of ants as i soak their colony with boiling water.

And they cannot heal everything no, but it's only magical injury, death and age that gives them pause, and even then they're hardly powerless.
In the books they literally lose all bones in their body, yet it only takes about a week to recover from that.

A muggle (magicless person) might have some chance if they manage to catch a wizard by surprise, but beyond that not really.
You need just look at the insane nature of magical creatures to figure out that wizards really do not even need to fight if there were to be a war; many of those creatures simply ignore anything corporeal or are outright immune to it.

I mean there are mole-like creatures with infinite storage space inside them; they could eat a nuke and not notice a thing as the nuke goes off and expands into infinity, to be forgotten as its force and heat dissipate due to being dilluted infinitely.

[Syegfryed]

Long enough to make being burned at the stake irrelevant (and that shit can burn for days), and there are plenty of enchantments or spells that do not need much in the way of upkeep.

What good are numbers against a target they cannot harm, and that can easily harm them? It's like expecting me to be scared of a group of ants as i soak their colony with boiling water.

if there is enough ants they can eat you with time, again, the reason they survived and are hidden is exactly because they would be fucked otherwise, they can't compete, magic isn't fail proof, we are not taking about silly stuff like witch burning.

plus, normal people would just start to gather data, magic information and how to counter, and even use their weapons against then, now the veil is lift they would know about magic plants and other things, its the same kind of logic when you see movies about aliens and how humanity can overcome.

A muggle (magicless person) might have some chance if they manage to catch a wizard by surprise, but beyond that not really.

is everything they need

[loras]

if there is enough ants they can eat you with time, again, the reason they survived and are hidden is exactly because they would be fucked otherwise, they can't compete, magic isn't fail proof, we are not taking about silly stuff like witch burning.

plus, normal people would just start to gather data, magic information and how to counter, and even use their weapons against then, now the veil is lift they would know about magic plants and other things, its the same kind of logic when you see movies about aliens and how humanity can overcome.



is everything they need

Ants could eat me in time if i let them, yes.
Anything could if i let them really.
Issues arise for such creatures when i do not let them though, even moreso if i am intent on removing them as i was with the ants.
Millions are nice, but they did not really matter as the water took care of them.

In the wizard vs. muggle thing it is likewise, but it's further amplified by the fact that that they can use any tactic, strategy and technology muggles can as well, in addition to their magic (though the latter usually precludes the need for the former).

Additionally data and knowledge is cute and all, were it not for their magic being capable of erasing knowledge fully from a given system, such as a living person, machines tend to be easier (and there is less need to do it carefully in an openly hostile situation).

Likewise if there is any reason to expect a surprise attack precautions can easily be taken, in the form of preventative extermination as Voldemort practiced, in the form of reactionary spells such as the "burnt" witches used or by the secrecy the ministry of magic used.

The last version leads to the least violence, but with Voldemort's antics regularily being covered up as natural disasters it's fairly clear that his approach was perfectly viable.

So i would not say they are hiding per se, rather avoiding pointless conflict without actually inconveniencing themselves overly much.

[Syegfryed]

In the wizard vs. muggle thing it is likewise, but it's further amplified by the fact that that they can use any tactic, strategy and technology muggles can as well, in addition to their magic (though the latter usually precludes the need for the former)..

since we are going way offtopic i will sayd that wizards are oblivious to most muggle things, they don't even know how half of the technology works, numbers and weapons of mass destruction in this case will be a huge impact and magic can't do anything

Voldemort was a special cause by his immortality status

[loras]

since we are going way offtopic i will sayd that wizards are oblivious to most muggle things, they don't even know how half of the tecnology works, numbers and weapons of mass destruction in this case will be a huge impact and magic can't anything

Voldemort was a special cause by his immortality status

Harry Potter had no issues learning about technology, and most succesful technology is so by the grace of its ease of use versus its intended effect, and Voldemort was special, but neither the first, the only nor the worst in a lot of senses.

But yeah, we're going off track, point stands that magic vs. technology isn't so easy to determine even in simpler settings.

[Moonrage]

Is a mage mana shield going to last indefinitely against a hundred machine guns or does magic have a limit? Bullets can be mass produced, mages need to drink, mage shields are magic but they aren't impervious to physical damage - they break with enough trauma like anything else. It's an issue.

Shields in HP can be summoned with relative ease and can block pretty much anything. So a Wizard could just erect a shield and wait til his opponent runs out of bullets. Or they can just apparate behind them and kill them then.