Thrall's panel really shows how out of touch the writer's are with the Horde.

[Varodoc]

Eh...yeah, actually. Huh, never thought I'd be caught lacking in information regarding Warcraft, especially in its current lore. RiP.

But yeah, no, BFA was just the Black Empire expansion in disguise. Blizzard's not clever.

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Listen, I'll tell you this right now. If the Sanctum of Domination doesn't end with Sylvanas being used as bait by the Jailer, and him finally claiming the final covenant keys necessary to escape the Maw and potentially reach the Arbiter (Hence making us lose, and making the Maw MUCH, MUCH bigger than before), I'll fucking eat Broccoli for the first time.

In fact I'm not complaining about 8.3, which at least felt thematic enough (though the total exclusion of Alleria and the Ren'dorei from an Old God patch is SACRILEGE), but the faction war itself was underwhelming after an expansion like Legion, for the reasons that have already been mentioned many times, and will keep being mentioned, until people realize that faction wars are a waste of time.

Ah Legion Patch 7.3, now that was a climactic moment in WoW's history if I've ever seen one. BfA couldn't hold a candle to it.

[TheFirstOnes]

The only reason why Rastakhan died was so they could prop up Talanji, and to try and make Bwonsamdi look bad, I think

"And make Bwonsamdi look back"

Bwonsamdi in SL: Aye, mon. Sorry bout dat lil incident at Zul'dazar, wanna help an ol' loa out?

Us:

[Super Dickmann]

I mean...

If you actually PLAY Warcraft 3, you would know why the Horde became as strong as it was in Classic-WoTLK.

I genuinely don't understand your point. In WC3 the Horde's standing force consists of whoever they brought in on the boats they stole from one (1) harbor, one island worth of trolls that were threatened by murlocs and were even later on suppressed by one (1) battalion of Kor'kron and tauren that were driven to near extinction by centaurs. Their power in the MMO, much like Stormwind's power, or the heavy nerf of the night elves is an arguably necessary contrivance for the sake of allowing any plot to take place.

Besides being wrong, I don't know what argument you're trying to communicate here. What does the relative strength of the Horde matter? Does it have a role to play in the main Legion-Scourge story of TFT, no. Is there an ongoing orcish story in Vanilla - which doesn't exist in the way say, a human or Forsaken story arches across zones? No, and the human-orc difference is in any case reopened there from what scene setting there is. Is there a cultural difference between orcs, trolls and tauren except in those regards that orcs are more fleshed out? No, it's purely aesthetic. Are the orcs drastically retooled as the MMO goes on back to closer to their original incarnation along with Thrall having surgically added flaws that would prevent any of the above from taking place? Obviously so.

[Syegfryed]

I very much doubt that this is presented anywhere in this form. If I am mistaken, please provide me the example and I will admit that I am wrong and that I learned something new today.

what you mean by that?

they do have different versions of an event, like when the alliance attacks the horde in vol'dun you can see a lot of vulperas burned to death, but if you do the zone from the alliance point fo view, you don't see those.

more likely, in the war of thorns scenario, when you did as horde, Saurfang freed the civilians and the ones that were caught, but in alliance point of view you can find a pile of corpses diluted in plague, that never happened in the horde scenario.

Once again, just to be sure: Attacking Brennendam and killing everyone would have been "fine". An act of war, sure, many would even call it merciless, but nothing unsual here. The problem is not the attack itself, it is the HOW and the aftermath.

And im not saying that is right, but this happens in both sides, is the way to "fuel" the player against the enemy faction, is like the kul'tiran people target practicing with horde people shooting then do death, or when the alliance beat the shit out of an orc until he got blind

those are individuals, and they do not make for the entire faction, what if the group who attacked the place was a bunch of crazy forsaken loyalists and other bloodthirst/racist guys? we know for a fact that sylvanus was bringing up even the san'layn, what if she brought a bunch of other evil people? then of course some of then would seize the opportunity to do such things, and the alliance would do the same if they had opportunity because wicked people exist everywhere.

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No WoW Conflict is like that. 80% of WoW Conflicts the horde knows that they are the bad guys and the other 20% where the Alliance should be the bad guys take you out that in the end they were the good guys for Potato. (Like when Geen attacks Sylvanas for no reason and in the end Sylvanas was doing something bad but no one knew, not even Genn

i would say that only in MOP that start to happens, cause pretty much from vanilla to wtlk the alliance were the aggressors, plain and straight, only in Cataclysm with Garrosh that he decided to fight back against the alliance aggression and expansionism.

The fact that the writings say something and show something else is the basis of all this.

i agree completely with that, i even talk about it too.

Why do they force us to spend an entire expansion fighting a war that we are going to lose because we are the bad guys?
Why are we rebelling for Jaina's brother and not why did we break our honor?

Thats because blizzard is out of touch with the horde and they have bad writers who can't handle complex things like that, i acknowledged that too.

the point im making is just because blizzard is doing a poor job, don't mean the entire horde is evil, they are just prisoners of the plot they are trying to make

And not everyone who plays horde want the faction to turn into murder hobo villains, those are an extremely low but loud fanbase of sylvanas supporters who consist mainly by forsakens and blood elves who are not the classic horde races, the horde start going downhill exactly because they wanted to please the "Easter kingdoms horde" and damn tradition and everything else about the horde we started to like

[TheFirstOnes]

I genuinely don't understand your point. In WC3 the Horde's standing force consists of whoever they brought in on the boats they stole from one (1) harbor, one island worth of trolls that were threatened by murlocs and were even later on suppressed by one (1) battalion of Kor'kron and tauren that were driven to near extinction by centaurs. Their power in the MMO, much like Stormwind's power, or the heavy nerf of the night elves is an arguably necessary contrivance for the sake of allowing any plot to take place.

Besides being wrong, I don't know what argument you're trying to communicate here. What does the relative strength of the Horde matter? Does it have a role to play in the main Legion-Scourge story of TFT, no. Is there an ongoing orcish story in Vanilla - which doesn't exist in the way say, a human or Forsaken story arches across zones? No, and the human-orc difference is in any case reopened there from what scene setting there is. Is there a cultural difference between orcs, trolls and tauren except in those regards that orcs are more fleshed out? No, it's purely aesthetic. Are the orcs drastically retooled as the MMO goes on back to closer to their original incarnation along with Thrall having surgically added flaws that would prevent any of the above from taking place? Obviously so.

Our argument was based on Thrall's horde being built upon honor throughout the entirety of Warcraft 3. Throughout it, you see just how harshly the Humans were treating Thrall, you see him deal with Grommash and co's addiction, you see him meet the Tauren and the Trolls, and throughout it all, you see him team up with the Humans and even try to provide diplomatic ties with people such as Jaina Proudmoore.

The Horde wasn't important in the Frozen Throne at all though, and neither was the Alliance. So, I don't get this argument. TFT's story was about Illidan and Arthas, mainly. That's it.

There is about as much story in Classic regarding the Orcs as there are the Alliance Humans and the Horde Forsaken, unless you wanna debate me on that. Did you forget the Barrens, the ties with Theramoore? All that shit?

"Is there a cultural difference between orcs, trolls and tauren except in those regards that orcs are more fleshed out?" It is far more fleshed out. The Horde has its own style of living, not everyone is a fucking guard there, and overall the city was far more like somewhere such as Thunder Bluff, in that it was much more safe for citizens to walk and for people to thrive in. Whereas, in Cata, the city became a walking fucking barracks for Orcs. So much so, that almost every building was fortified/spike filled.

And it doesn't matter how much you want to downplay Thrall's Horde and its beginnings (Such as Sen'jin dying to Murloc rituals, etc). The point is that the connections between each race was made, to show the players that the Horde's current races st the time were not based on savages or anything like that, but more so people whose ancestors affected their current lives in some way, and have teamed up to provide a much better future for both them and their people. Idk what's so hard to get here. Hell, that's why the Forsaken were allowed to the Horde to begin with. They BELIEVED that the Undead had no other home, and that they would find a place within their unified, new faction. Tho, it's revealed that Sylvanas only wanted to be in the Horde as a means to an end...the bitch.

No one was arguing "relative" strength either. Strength means many things. Hell, Garrosh's Horde was stronger military wise than Thrall's Horde ever way. But, in terms of its beliefs and its ties with one another, Garrosh's Horde was definitely weaker in that regard. The moral strength of Thrall's Horde was as strong and as flawed as the Alliance's at the time.

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Like I said, you could get most of what Thrall's Horde actually meant if you actually played the game you were talking about, or if you read a book. Might I recommend "Lord of the Clans"?

[Accendor]

what you mean by that?

they do have different versions of an event, like when the alliance attacks the horde in vol'dun you can see a lot of vulperas burned to death, but if you do the zone from the alliance point fo view, you don't see those.

more likely, in the war of thorns scenario, when you did as horde, Saurfang freed the civilians and the ones that were caught, but in alliance point of view you can find a pile of corpses diluted in plague, that never happened in the horde scenario.



And im not saying that is right, but this happens in both sides, is the way to "fuel" the player against the enemy faction, is like the kul'tiran people target practicing with horde people shooting then do death, or when the alliance beat the shit out of an orc until he got blind

those are individuals, and they do not make for the entire faction, what if the group who attacked the place was a bunch of crazy forsaken loyalists and other bloodthirst/racist guys? we know for a fact that sylvanus was bringing up even the san'layn, what if she brought a bunch of other evil people? then of course some of then would seize the opportunity to do such things, and the alliance would do the same if they had opportunity because wicked people exist everywhere.

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Which quest / event includes the target practice? Never heard of that until now. Also not about the orc, could you point me there, please?

Besides that, you are right. Lets assume the guys who beat up the orc until he gets blind exists - yes, crazy individuals. The same would be true if the roles were reversed, so Orcs beating up a human e.g.

Neither Brennendam nor Teldrassil were individuals tho, it simply was the army of the horde, simpel as that.

more likely, in the war of thorns scenario, when you did as horde, Saurfang freed the civilians and the ones that were caught, but in alliance point of view you can find a pile of corpses diluted in plague, that never happened in the horde scenario.

Thats the point here - it did not happen while the PC and Saurfang where there (two of the very few people with an intact morale compass), but as soon as they were gone, apparently the rest of the horde took over and finished the job.


And just to point this out: While burning people (or foxes) to death is gruesome, its "in line" as long as happens during an active fighting (e.g. nobody would complain if a troll mage sets a human soldier on fire while they are engaged in battle).
The equivalent would be if the alliance rallied the vulpera up and burned them after the fighting was over, but there is no indication (as far as I know) that this ever happened.

I would love to be the crazy people in the horde to be the minority, but that is simply not true. Compare the MoP storyline with the BfA storyline. In MoP you could easily argue that a few misguided individuals at the top caused a lot of damage, but the majority of the horde rallied against them. In BfA its the complete opposite now: Nearly the whole horde stood with Sylvanas till the very end. Even then, they did not abandon her because of the orders she gave and the general direction she lead the horde but because SHE ABANDONED THEM.

[Super Dickmann]

Our argument was based on Thrall's horde being built upon honor throughout the entirety of Warcraft 3. Throughout it, you see just how harshly the Humans were treating Thrall, you see him deal with Grommash and co's addiction, you see him meet the Tauren and the Trolls, and throughout it all, you see him team up with the Humans and even try to provide diplomatic ties with people such as Jaina Proudmoore.

No, you don't see how harshly the humans were treating Thrall, because as you unknowingly pointed out here:

Like I said, you could get most of what Thrall's Horde actually meant if you actually played the game you were talking about, or if you read a book. Might I recommend "Lord of the Clans"?

Thrall's story occurs place entirely off-screen in Lord of the Clans, as does his taking over of the Horde, which accompanies the removal of absolutely every prior orcish character with the exception of Grom. Ergo, at the time the narrative starts the orcs already have their problems solved - there is never a moment within the narrative where Thrall faces any interior opposition and Thrall as a character is completely static from start to finish. The only character who does develop and who's arc the orcish story in WC3 is about is Grom, because Grom actually was involved in what the orcs did prior to WC3 and is trying to change and you see him struggle with this throughout, culminating with him offing Mannoroth. He is the one who's problem (old ways vs. new), representation of his inner demons (Mannoroth) form the core of the orcish narrative. Thrall, being a messiah figure, never has any trouble or moment of temptation. Indeed, it'd be incongruous for him to have such since he was entirely uninvolved in what the orcs did. WC3 does nothing with this, the MMO, past TBC begins working with this and it's only then that Thrall becomes an interesting character rather than Metzen roleplaying as Moses.

The Horde wasn't important in the Frozen Throne at all though, and neither was the Alliance. So, I don't get this argument. TFT's story was about Illidan and Arthas, mainly. That's it.

There is about as much story in Classic regarding the Orcs as there are the Alliance Humans and the Horde Forsaken, unless you wanna debate me on that. Did you forget the Barrens, the ties with Theramoore? All that shit?

All participants in TBC are associated with either Arthas or Illidan, the Alliance, as it exists in WoW, never appears in WC3 and Stormwind isn't mentioned a single time. The point I am illustrating is that the orcs have no ties to either of these plotlines, which form the central franchise and while in Vanilla, the human story regarding Varian, the Defias and Onyxia stretches out from the start of the questing experience up to the end. The Forsaken story regarding their nemesis, the Scarlet Crusade, also goes on for much of the questing experience. The orcs lack such an experience. They are involved in every contest up until C'thun purely because they're nice dudes, not because there's any internal reasoning for it. Nor does their setup lend itself to conflict the way the Dwarves do with their imperative to seize land, humanity's nobles, etc. It's funny you bring up Theramore, though very appropriate as well, since it was so much of a literal questless shithole that it's near enough a meme and had to be entirely re-done in TBC.

Though that's not actually my favorite part of your post, my favorite part would be when to counter my sentiment about how the tauren and trolls are underdeveloped mini-mes of orcs until Garrosh's arrival gives them some dimension, you state verbatim how similar they are and how it was only in Cataclysm that there was a clear line between them and the tauren and trolls:

"Is there a cultural difference between orcs, trolls and tauren except in those regards that orcs are more fleshed out?" It is far more fleshed out. The Horde has its own style of living, not everyone is a fucking guard there, and overall the city was far more like somewhere such as Thunder Bluff, in that it was much more safe for citizens to walk and for people to thrive in. Whereas, in Cata, the city became a walking fucking barracks for Orcs. So much so, that almost every building was fortified/spike filled.

You are correct that the Forsaken were added for the Horde in-story because of the tauren's support for them. The reason they were added is because people wanted to play zombies and, on a narrative level, the Forsaken introduced conflict that Thrall's Horde were unable to sustain because they were terminal bores with no forward momentum to go for. You are mistaken when you say that Thrall's Horde and the Alliance were equally as strong and as flawed. The Alliance in Vanilla was a much more interesting faction, the internal state of humans - with a corrupt nobility, uprising of peasants, machinations by black dragons and the dwarves' imperialism, on top of the entirely separate night elves a continent away giving a faction united by being established powers and rough culture but still varied and with plenty of avenues for internal and external conflict. Thrall's Horde meanwhile was handicapped by its lack of connection to much of anything and the fact that all of its stories were already resolved in WC3, its best aspects are when it's digging the WC2 well, which is the actual wellspring of the orcs. Thrall's Horde is indeed more moral than Garrosh's Horde and more moral than the Alliance, Forsaken exempted, but Anduin's Alliance is more moral than both combined and it and Thrall's noblesavage community have one thing in common - they're dull. They do not serve the purposes of the game, hence why they were altered. It is objectively better for the inhabitants of the setting if Thrall is a messiah, Durotar is fecund, orcs, trolls and tauren get along on all fronts and their troubles with humanity are mostly sorted. But it's directly adverse to the occurrence of any story. I defy you to find me a single character trait of Vol'jin beyond 'Thrall's buddy' until Cataclysm.

To close, it's good that you bring up the trolls, because they're a key example of how WC3 was building off a foundation and a foundation that only got its proper mileage again in the MMO. There's a reason the headhunters say 'Vengeance for Zul'jin' or why there's even trolls in the faction in the first place out of story, and it's because trolls and orcs were already together in WC2. And lore-wise, the guy to bring them in isn't Thrall, it's Doomhammer, much like Thrall didn't create the playable Horde but inherited it from Doomhammer. Since we're giving each other reading tips and I've already gone over yours, I invite you to leaf through the WC2 manual and see how in an entirely villainous cartoonish faction there managed to be more distinction in clan identities totally stripped from the WC3 Horde than there were between the WC3 Horde races prior to Cataclysm.

[geco]

the point im making is just because blizzard is doing a poor job, don't mean the entire horde is evil, they are just prisoners of the plot they are trying to make

So we have the same idea but we explain it differently.

How dare you imply the writers aren't deliberately trying to ruin our lives. You don't understand - Christie Golden has RUINED the lore evenfishesbeenheresinceriseofthehordeandhasneverreallynotbeenhere

I could have a counter argument for that.
But the truth sounds very logical what you say.

[Syegfryed]

Which quest / event includes the target practice? Never heard of that until now.

aperently is in the hub of boralus, i don't remember the instance but there is pics:

Also not about the orc, could you point me there, please?

https://wow.gamepedia.com/Oltarg

A <class>, you say? Still brave and free? There's no hope for me, friend. I have lost my eyesight and am no longer fit for battle.

I dared speak up while Captain Peake savagely beat one of the prisoners. In return he kicked me in the head. And kept kicking. He kicked me blind, <race>.

Besides that, you are right. Lets assume the guys who beat up the orc until he gets blind exists - yes, crazy individuals. The same would be true if the roles were reversed, so Orcs beating up a human e.g.

never said it was not the case, im literally pointing those things happens in both sides

Neither Brennendam nor Teldrassil were individuals tho, it simply was the army of the horde, simpel as that.

nope, the first was not the entire army and you cannot possible say that every single member of the attack did that

second, the entire horde didn't burn teldrasil, sylvanas gave the order and the people with the catapults did, its not like every single horde soldier had throwed their own torch in the tree.

you are blaming the entire faction for a few, when we already pointed out that there is bad individuals in both factions, the point is how they don't want to highlight the ones in the alliance and use the ones in the horde to drive the plot.

Thats the point here - it did not happen while the PC and Saurfang where there (two of the very few people with an intact morale compass), but as soon as they were gone, apparently the rest of the horde took over and finished the job.

thats not possible by the time of the scenario and how the scenario unfolds, there is also not many forsaken troops to do that after the fact

regardless, it shows that one faction will look worse for the enemy, because blizzard use that to fuel the faction patriotism

And just to point this out: While burning people (or foxes) to death is gruesome, its "in line" as long as happens during an active fighting (e.g. nobody would complain if a troll mage sets a human soldier on fire while they are engaged in battle).
The equivalent would be if the alliance rallied the vulpera up and burned them after the fighting was over, but there is no indication (as far as I know) that this ever happened.

the foxes were not soldiers, they are pretty much civilians merchants trying to survive and they were burned to death, no different than some civlains being plagued to death by crazy forsakens

I would love to be the crazy people in the horde to be the minority,

they are minority, is a canon fact said over and over by blizzard.

In BfA its the complete opposite now: Nearly the whole horde stood with Sylvanas till the very end. Even then, they did not abandon her because of the orders she gave and the general direction she lead the horde but because SHE ABANDONED THEM.

and thats because their writing is garbage, not because they are evil.

[Accendor]

aperently is in the hub of boralus, i don't remember the instance but there is pics:



https://wow.gamepedia.com/Oltarg




never said it was not the case, im literally pointing those things happens in both sides


nope, the first was not the entire army and you cannot possible say that every single member of the attack did that

second, the entire horde didn't burn teldrasil, sylvanas gave the order and the people with the catapults did, its not like every single horde soldier had throwed their own torch in the tree.

you are blaming the entire faction for a few, when we already pointed out that there is bad individuals in both factions, the point is how they don't want to highlight the ones in the alliance and use the ones in the horde to drive the plot.



thats not possible by the time of the scenario and how the scenario unfolds, there is also not many forsaken troops to do that after the fact

regardless, it shows that one faction will look worse for the enemy, because blizzard use that to fuel the faction patriotism




the foxes were not soldiers, they are pretty much civilians merchants trying to survive and they were burned to death, no different than some civlains being plagued to death by crazy forsakens



they are minority, is a canon fact said over and over by blizzard.




and thats because their writing is garbage, not because they are evil.

Just to be clear: yes, the writing is utter garbage. But it is what it is and we have to live with that.
And yes, of course you can blame the whole Horde army for Teldrassil. It was not only the people with catapults, there were also shamans and mages involved to let the catapults shots fly further and make the fire burn faster/better.
There was enough time to speak up or to refuse the order for genocide. Nobody did of course and everyone stood by and is therefore guilty as well.

There was a second chance for redemption afterwards, but nobody stood against the warcrimes, so still, all are guilty.

This also has not much to do with faction patriotism, because all of this is a clear black and white scenario.
One dude loosing his mind and kicking one orc blind does not equal impaling civilians to let their children watch.

Attacking allies of the Horde / the Zandalari which provided important war ressources (and here its even unknown if world quests are really canon) is not the same as genocide.

I understand that you want this to be grey areas amd bad people on both sides, but thats simply not the case.

[TheFirstOnes]

Don't know where you got where I was tryna argue that the Humans aren't shit to Thrall. In fact, I actually state that the Humans were absolute dicks to both him and the other Orcs, which is why they went against the Humans and grouped up together to begin with. Guess you also forgot just how much Taretha Foxton helped him aswell? And while his beginnings were off-screen, Thrall's entire story with the Horde mostly wasn't. So, idk where you're getting this backhanded argument from. Seems like you're just trying to ignore everything that happened in Warcraft 3, and are repeating your claims ad-nauseam for your own weird echo chamber.

Also, TBC has a lot to do with the Horde. Arthas is only mentioned ONCE, and Illidan is legit mostly around for like...what, 1 zone and a mini patch? Did you just forget about the Blood Elves and the Sunwell? The Blood Orcs and Kar'gath? The fact that Thrall literally met Garrosh Hellscream at Nagrand? We also just gonna ignore the fact that this is the Orc's broken world? lol ok.

"You are mistaken when you say that Thrall's Horde and the Alliance were equally as strong and as flawed. The Alliance in Vanilla was a much more interesting faction"

Interesting doesn't matter. The Humans had the Defias Brotherhood, and the Alliance had their fair share of conflicts, yes. But the Horde had a lot of shady shit going on with the Forsaken, the Tauren were dealing with some guys that went against the ideals of the Horde, the Darkspear Trolls were in an internal conflict, as well as an external conflict against the other Troll tribes, and ontop of that, Thrall had to deal with his own people that were still believing in the ideals of the old horde. I will agree to this however, that the Alliance's conflicts were far more mainstream. Teldrassil was made originally as a cursed world tree, the Dwarves had Moira and the Dark Irons to deal with, the Humans had the house of nobles that disbanded and became the Defias Brotherhood, and the Gnomes had some dickwad wanting to claim Gnomeregan for himself.

"I invite you to leaf through the WC2 manual and see how in an entirely villainous cartoonish faction there managed to be more distinction in clan identities totally stripped from the WC3 Horde than there were between the WC3 Horde races prior to Cataclysm."

Allow me to tell you why you never use manuals: They're old lore, and a lot of stuff from WC2 was either changed or retconned by the time WC3 came out. Reminder that the Humans of WC2 were far more generic than they are in WC3. Hell, their armor is not even close to being the same. Not to mention shit regarding the Orcs, Sargeras, etc were far different as well.

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"my favorite part would be when to counter my sentiment about how the tauren and trolls are underdeveloped mini-mes of orcs until Garrosh's arrival gives them some dimension, you state verbatim how similar they are and how it was only in Cataclysm that there was a clear line between them and the tauren and trolls"

Yeah...it's almost like the races of THRALL'S HORDE were similar in development.

[Th3Scourge]

Somebody better not tell you the people who invented Superman and Batman are long gone and there have been dozens of writers since then.

OK cool no one cares. has nothing to do with wow

[cparle87]

OK cool no one cares. has nothing to do with wow

"The problem is that most of the original creators of the lore are long gone from Blizzard so what we are left with is someone else's bastardized interpretation"

"The problem is that most of the original creators of the lore are long gone from DC so what we are left with is someone else's bastardized interpretation"

Irrelevant, huh?

[Syegfryed]

But it is what it is and we have to live with that.
And yes, of course you can blame the whole Horde army for Teldrassil.

you can't because the lore says so, you can't like it but you have to live with that,

stand up for your argument.

It was not only the people with catapults, there were also shamans and mages involved to let the catapults shots fly further and make the fire burn faster/better.

thats simple not true, in the book is stated it was only one troll amge to lift the fire of the catapults, there is no such things of fly further and burn faster,

even so, you are still comapring a few with the entire army

There was enough time to speak up or to refuse the order for genocide.

A second volley launched, and that broke the shock that had paralyzed him. “No!” he roared.
“Stop firing! Stop!”

It was too late. The second barrage hit, and within moments, the lower half of the World Tree
was engulfed in flames.

no, they didn't had time, they stop when Saurfang said, but it was too late, because ~~reasons~~

Nobody did of course and everyone stood by and is therefore guilty as well.

no one said they are not guilty by association, but their only blame is to stay with her, because blizzard forced it, but since you said the lore " it is what it is and we have to live with that.", you ahve to live witht he fact that the blame is only on sylvanas and the Horde is not evil.

There was a second chance for redemption afterwards, but nobody stood against the warcrimes, so still, all are guilty.

nope

This also has not much to do with faction patriotism, because all of this is a clear black and white scenario.
One dude loosing his mind and kicking one orc blind does not equal impaling civilians to let their children watch.

why not? the dudse lost his mind and impaled a civilain, people die when you invade other people territory, they at elast didn't kill the children, unlike the alliance job in in taurujo and stonespire tribe where civlains are burned to death

Attacking allies of the Horde / the Zandalari which provided important war ressources (and here its even unknown if world quests are really canon) is not the same as genocide.

neither killing people with lances

I understand that you want this to be grey areas amd bad people on both sides, but thats simply not the case.

it is the case because blizzard said so, and you have to live with that because is the canon

[Th3Scourge]

"The problem is that most of the original creators of the lore are long gone from Blizzard so what we are left with is someone else's bastardized interpretation"

"The problem is that most of the original creators of the lore are long gone from DC so what we are left with is someone else's bastardized interpretation"

Irrelevant, huh?

Yes. DC is dogshit what's your point?

The OG team is gone, and their creative vision is gone with it. We are left with the withered husk that remains. Having some fat fuck like Danuser lead the lore has been the worst thing for wow since titanforging

[Super Dickmann]

I don't know why you address my arguments in a separate post but don't tag me, though given how you start off arguing with something I didn't say that could provide a hint.

Don't know where you got where I was tryna argue that the Humans aren't shit to Thrall. In fact, I actually state that the Humans were absolute dicks to both him and the other Orcs, which is why they went against the Humans and grouped up together to begin with. Guess you also forgot just how much Taretha Foxton helped him aswell? And while his beginnings were off-screen, Thrall's entire story with the Horde mostly wasn't. So, idk where you're getting this backhanded argument from. Seems like you're just trying to ignore everything that happened in Warcraft 3, and are repeating your claims ad-nauseam for your own weird echo chamber.

Also, TBC has a lot to do with the Horde. Arthas is only mentioned ONCE, and Illidan is legit mostly around for like...what, 1 zone and a mini patch? Did you just forget about the Blood Elves and the Sunwell? The Blood Orcs and Kar'gath? The fact that Thrall literally met Garrosh Hellscream at Nagrand? We also just gonna ignore the fact that this is the Orc's broken world? lol ok.

I too have read Thrall's wowpedia page Lord of the Clans, but I don't see how this bears any relevance to my claims regarding the cultural distinction in his Horde and how fitting the character and faction were in an MMO as compared to their RTS appearance. On its own merits though, I don't see how you can seriously claim I'm trying to ignore things in WC3 while bringing up examples of things that never take place in the span of the RTS. Almost as funny as taking an argument I made regarding the Frozen Throne and talking about TBC, which combined let us know which one of us actually played the RTS rather than leaf through the cliffnotes.

When I tell you that we don't know how the humans mistreated Thrall from the RTS I'm not making some sarcastic jibe at you, I'm observing fact - we don't see the mistreatment or the camp breakout. All of this is about a page in the manual whereas not even the game proper but the launch cinematic itself depicts the vision that has Thrall leave Lordaeron. The handover of the Horde from Orgrim to Thrall has already taken place, so has the readoption of shamanism. There is no overall arc of change for the Horde because the Horde has already changed. Ergo, the Horde's journey is mostly external and once its main character, i.e the only bridge we have between WC2 and 3, which is Grom dies, so too does its overall role in the plot. Now, not having a further role in the story with Arthas, the Legion and the night elves that is the center of TFT isn't bad - basically none of the EK Alliance playable in WoW even exist in WC3. But where the WoW Alliance of Vanilla and the WoW Horde of Vanilla differ is in the stories they're telling and their internal dynamics.

Interesting doesn't matter. The Humans had the Defias Brotherhood, and the Alliance had their fair share of conflicts, yes. But the Horde had a lot of shady shit going on with the Forsaken, the Tauren were dealing with some guys that went against the ideals of the Horde, the Darkspear Trolls were in an internal conflict, as well as an external conflict against the other Troll tribes, and ontop of that, Thrall had to deal with his own people that were still believing in the ideals of the old horde. I will agree to this however, that the Alliance's conflicts were far more mainstream. Teldrassil was made originally as a cursed world tree, the Dwarves had Moira and the Dark Irons to deal with, the Humans had the house of nobles that disbanded and became the Defias Brotherhood, and the Gnomes had some dickwad wanting to claim Gnomeregan for himself.

You are quite right about the Forsaken and the Alliance, but you are demonstrably wrong about the orcs. Do you know how many quests there are regarding the Dark Horde Horde-side in Vanilla? Three, the one linked and the two before it. Past that, nothing. And the quest where they first send you after the Dark Horde has absolutely nothing to do with some kind of internal issue within Thrall's Horde but is a checklist that you're sent on for money. The quests it leads into are A) much shorter than the Alliance's own Onyxia questchain and how it goes through the entire leveling experience B) spend two quests telling you about what buddies with humans Thrall and Eitrigg and how nice it's to help them out. Which is true, it's very nice, but it's not a narrative in which the orcs are actors. They're hangers on. You can, and the game in fact does, cut them entirely from the canon course of events per Chronicle, without changing anything, something you can't do with the Alliance and the Onyxia/Defias conspiracy. The closest the orcs have to such a narrative is the Burning Blade stuff with Neeru that abruptly ends and goes nowhere. In as much as there is an orcish narrative exists, both it and the TBC story that does have more for them to do, as you point out and I agree with, it's based on departing from Thrall as the be-all end-all of the Horde and for upping the peril of the orcish position by having Durotar be resource-deprived or the orcs in general being happier to kill humans, see everything about the Vanilla Warsong. Hence my point that to tell any sort of orc story, you had to water down the WC3 foundation and add flaws to Thrall after the fact because the WC3 foundation is done.

Allow me to tell you why you never use manuals: They're old lore, and a lot of stuff from WC2 was either changed or retconned by the time WC3 came out. Reminder that the Humans of WC2 were far more generic than they are in WC3. Hell, their armor is not even close to being the same. Not to mention shit regarding the Orcs, Sargeras, etc were far different as well.

Being old or non-canon doesn't mean it isn't an influence or it isn't enjoyable. Most everything in WC3 has been ditched over time and the thread has no shortage of people lamenting its passage. The reason I'm telling you to look at the manual isn't because its up to date lore but because it shows what was sorely missing in the Vanilla Horde - cultural variety. The WC2 Horde is a cartoon, but its individual clans have more separation than do the orcs and many of WC3's elements quite obviously take more from that version than they do of material that didn't exist yet. In turn, that difference and internal conflict as well as a motive to go out and interact with the world are what makes a faction or a playable group compelling. Then again, I don't know why I'm telling you this considering you flat out start a paragraph by saying that something being interesting doesn't matter and don't even contest that the orcs, tauren and trolls are basically the same pre-Cataclysm in favor of giving me the in-story reasoning that everyone here already knows.

[justandulas]

You can criticize it, but you can't "be out of touch" with your own IP. That's head canon taking over at that point. They're out of touch with what OP thinks the Horde is.

I didn't run online to bitch about Blizzard being "out of touch" because I didn't like that they had the Horde start acting a lot like Nazis (in my opinion) under Garrosh and Sylvanas. I just stopped playing Horde and switched Alliance. I didn't cry until I made them give me what I want. I voted with my time and focus.

Yes yes yoI can, especially when they aren’t the original writers or creators. The horde of today are written completely differently than the original horde, or wc2 horde (the best), etc. they are out of touch with their original product and their current writers would generously be described as no talent hacks if I’m being kind.

[Difuid]

Too many cooks. And not a single good one :P

QFT

WoW had too many writers not knowing and/or caring about the story while also trying too hard to leave their mark and reshape it according to their vision.

[Flurryfang]

Not bad that they focus on NPC instead of the entire race. But the problem is that they focus on only one character at a time.

If for example BFA were all the NPCs saying that this is bullshit. That Teldrazzil is unattainable (or whatever event it is). Which is an insult to Honor.

But instead we have a huge group of NPCs who did not care about everything and were only affected by the fact that Baien being a traitor is prosecuted as Traitor.
So the rebellion is because they punish a traitor.

And besides that it seems that this NPC in the end does not represent anything of the entire race. That is wrong.


They are supposed to silence him in the novel.
Well the "Victories alianz" are like the "Honor of the Horde". They tell you but they never show you.
To the Sumo it is like in thorns wars that tell you about a victory that was off camera and in Cata and that they hung the orcs from the trees. Which would be to be shown in the game.

If you have a lot of NPCs talking, you do end up creatng a world-focused story.

I agree with what you say. The problem with Sylvanas for example is not that she did what she did, but that nobody really talked about it. Saurfang did all the action and everybody just followed along with it. It would have been great to hear, what actions got Sylvanas to go burn Teldrassil and what the leaders of the Horde had to say to it. It would have created a living world.

And if the leaders of the races does not represent their own race, what the hell are their purpose then? The idea of racial leaders, are that they are personifications of their face, what it is truly to be X race in the current world. That needs to be reinforced, but its also important to show other characters/NPCs, that are not the main cast. I think that WOW would have been a much richer game, if the Human Alliance had nobles, a real cast of supporting characters, that could make the humans seem much more like houses in game of thrones, than a single group of people following the Wrynn family in whatever they do.

- - - Updated - - -

QFT

WoW had too many writers not knowing and/or caring about the story while also trying too hard to leave their mark and reshape it according to their vision.

Alot of cooks is not the problem, its the lack of a head chef.

WOW has a lot of writers, because they work in many media. Its a normal thing for a francise as Warcraft, but what they lack is main editor, a story guru, a head lore honcho.

If they had that, they could actually be working towards making a grand WoW story, that builds and builds and builds, instead of just doing short stories, that either has only the main cast in the roles, or have a lot of new characters, that are never incorperated fully into the game.

Ohh and then that we apperantly leave Azeroth every 2nd expansion and just let the story go stagnant in peoples memory. That the aftermath of Sylvanas leaving has not been dealt with in the story, is so odd for me, yet typical WoW story.