What would had happened if Kil'jaeden defeated us in the Sunwell?

[Lord Pebbleton]

He would've despawned.

[ralphie]

I wonder what kind of demos the races of Azeroth would have been transformed into. Satrys from Nelfs is a pretty damn cool transformation.

[Blznsmri]

I saw you write this somewhere else recently and it literally makes no sense. *shrug* I guess watching thousands of orcs battle hundreds of men at Helm's Deep was like watching someone do Sudoku for you then. Different folks...

The opening scene of Jackson's LotR: Fellowship of the Rings (the first fall of Sauron) was epic. It was two massive armies clashing together. 25 or 40 people attacking one person/ animal/ demon feels like overkill, and a little redundant.

Blizz has done a good job of keeping boss fights fairly interesting (more so on 10man than 25), especially when comparing it to other EQ style MMOs out there, but large group raiding doesn't really "tickle my pickle" if you will.

[Aquamonkey]

The same thing that happened to Archimonde.

[shadowmouse]

He would have gotten by us, but the guys in the top guild would have had him on farm.

[Airwaves]

Well we would be fighting for the legion. Like almost every other race they have overpowered.

[Clockwork Pinkie]

We would all be playing something else. (as in dead)

Would of came back, Rift style, "It is not your time yet, Ascended!"

[Kelimbror]

25 or 40 people attacking one person/ animal/ demon feels like overkill, and a little redundant.

Then I guess you fail to realize that the point is to emphasize the power of the enemy. One that is highlighted in the scene you think is epic and contrary to this point. It wasn't merely two armies fighting two armies, as it took an army to even challenge Sauron himself with the One Ring. You saw it as he mowed down dozens of men with each blow, only being susceptible to having his weakness exploited by the advances of a large group of people on him individually.

It's not like Isildur could have strolled into Sauron's bedroom and chopped off his finger, then waltzed out his front door. This is honestly the entire point why your view makes no sense, as pointed out with your own words. Now, as to it not really doing anything for you personally...that's fine. That's just a taste/preference. Not going to tell you you're wrong or can't feel that way, it just makes no sense.

[Futhark]

The same thing that happened to Archimonde.

Awww I was going to bring up Malfurion's sparkle fairies, but you beat me to it.

[Florena]

At BEST another devastating war like Reign of Chaos, at worst, the Legion would conquer Azeroth.

[KrazyK923]

Pretty much game over.

[Deleted]

A three sided war between the Legion, the Scourge and the followers of the Old Gods.

At the end, the Old Gods would win.

[Deleted]

Nothing would have happened, I died enough on him to know... we resurrect at the graveyard and he patiently waits untill we are back...

Yea
There is not enough powered Villian in this world who can deal with "press the Release Spirit button"

[Florena]

Yea
There is not enough powered Villian in this world who can deal with "press the Release Spirit button"

LK could...though sadly he shortly gets pwned by super saijan Tirion.

[Noorri]

Gamon would run up to him and one-shot him.

[Deleted]

They would have unplugged the servers.

[Ellesarr]

he would have despawnen and we would have tried again after a corpse run

[Blznsmri]

Then I guess you fail to realize that the point is to emphasize the power of the enemy. One that is highlighted in the scene you think is epic and contrary to this point. It wasn't merely two armies fighting two armies, as it took an army to even challenge Sauron himself with the One Ring. You saw it as he mowed down dozens of men with each blow, only being susceptible to having his weakness exploited by the advances of a large group of people on him individually.

It's not like Isildur could have strolled into Sauron's bedroom and chopped off his finger, then waltzed out his front door. This is honestly the entire point why your view makes no sense, as pointed out with your own words. Now, as to it not really doing anything for you personally...that's fine. That's just a taste/preference. Not going to tell you you're wrong or can't feel that way, it just makes no sense.

I guess it's not so much an army going after one guy (like in Sauron's sense), it's more or less the wailing away on the guy for 5-10 minutes that I'm not super crazy about. Yeah, there are a number of fights that have really interesting mechanics, but there are a number where, as a dps, can just sit on the boss the entire fight, with a target switch or two in between.

I've never really been good at expressing my thoughts via text I guess.

[Jokubas]

This is an interesting topic. If Kil'jaeden successfully made it into Azeroth (assuming we weren't killed and could continue playing ;P), things would be different, but I don't think they would be world-ending. The Burning Legion would probably still have to ramp up its invasion over time, and couldn't just shove everyone through the Sunwell all at once. This would have meant our (the factions') attention would have been on the Legion.

Would the Lich King have taken this opportunity to wipe us out while we were distracted? Probably not. Why? Because he hates Kil'jaeden most of all, since Kil'jaeden was the one who cursed him with undeath and trapped him in a block of ice/suit of armor. The Scourge were the Legion's vanguard at the beginning of Warcraft III, but they betrayed them at the first chance they got.

Wrath of the Lich King, in that case, would have turned into a three-way battle between the Alliance and Horde, the Scourge, and the Burning Legion. The fighting between the Scourge and the Burning Legion would probably have meant that our factions would have taken a similar amount of damage in the long run. The tipping point may have been the Wrathgate. It seems that Putress was working for the Legion even in the canon story. That betrayal could have been much more devastating if the full might of the Legion was there to back up Putress when the Alliance and Horde counterattacked him. However, this also might have led the Lich King to forming a temporary alliance with us to cripple the Legion. The Lich King may want all life extinguished, but he's not an idiot. If there was an enemy that could take him and his enemies on at the same time, he'd make sure that enemy could no longer pose that kind of a threat before he returned to his normal course of action. Who knows, that necessity might have even rekindled the good in Arthas (and even Ner'zhul, he wasn't always a bad guy), although I wouldn't bet on it.

Perhaps the biggest danger that two fronts provide is that it would have been a distraction from Yogg-Saron. The factions may not have noticed his stirrings until he succeeded in breaking out. Of course, neither the Scourge nor the Legion would be fond of the Old Gods butting in, so that probably would have just turned it into a four front war.

Ultimately, I think we still would have pulled off a victory, but it would have been a very different victory. There wouldn't have been an all-out assault on Icecrown Citadel. Instead, everyone would have split up, each taking a different enemy and taking advantage of the chaos of a multi-sided war to get close without having to personally eradicate the entire army. Tirion probably would still have used the Ashbringer against the Lich King, considering its anti-undead nature, but I'm not so sure the Argent Crusade would exist in its current form. The multiple threats might have led Tirion to form a more varied organization, since they couldn't really afford to focus on the undead with the Burning Legion actively engaged in undead lands.

There are so many variables, but I think this is a really interesting question. It's not like Cataclysm, where the answer to what would have happened if we failed was: the world's gone.

I saw you write this somewhere else recently and it literally makes no sense. *shrug* I guess watching thousands of orcs battle hundreds of men at Helm's Deep was like watching someone do Sudoku for you then. Different folks...

An army on an army is epic, but that's not what happens in raids. Was Darth Vader defeated by an army of Rebels that threw themselves at him for half an hour? Was the Terminator defeated by an army of cops shooting at him until the negligible damage added up? Was GlaDOS defeated by an army of Aperture scientists? Did the final form of Sephiroth involve every possible ally simultaneously beating on him? Outside of crossover/team comics, do superheroes commonly need armies to help defeat their nemeses? Was Diablo defeated by more than a handful of adventurers? Was Mannoroth defeated by a Horde strike force?

A really good example from something I saw recently was One Piece Film: Z. At the end of the movie, who confronted the main antagonist? Just Luffy. Where was the rest of his crew? A couple of them were facing the villain's lieutenants, and the rest were facing ridiculous odds against his army of mooks. If the entire crew were wailing on the villian, it would have been impossible to showcase them all and might have given the impression that the heroes had no sense of honor or a fair fight.

Heroic armies on a single villain do not happen often in fiction, because it makes the heroes look weak or like dirty fighters. The opposite is okay, because you're usually meant to be on the hero's side, and we're used to rooting for the person going up against the biggest odds, so if a hero can take on an army of horrific undead or an evil military, it's something we're probably cheering on.

That said, you can make an army of heroes fighting a villain feel epic. As you said, it can easily be used to show exactly how powerful this villain is. The problem with that, in relation to Warcraft, is that it's applied to every villain. When it's not just the final bosses that require more than a handful of people, but every lieutenant and made-for-the-dungeon minion that needs a small army to confront, it doesn't make them look powerful, it makes us look weak. And that's ridiculous. This isn't Lord of the Rings Online, where the power level of the player is intentionally kept grounded. Outside of raids, it's clear that we're insanely powerful. Quest givers instruct us to wipe out armies single-handedly and we do it without breaking a sweat. Canon heroes like Thrall and Grom can duo one of the highest ranking demons of all time when the former had only recently come into his powers. That moment in Warcraft history was extremely epic. I don't see what's so epic about it requiring an army of us and a significant investment in time to take on a mundane orcish general. Against someone like Deathwing, it works. Against someone like Nazgrim? It makes us look like bullies.

Anyway, I'm not trying to tell you that you're not allowed to feel that raiding's epic, I just want to explain why some of us don't.

[seni]

You present a really interesting point Jokubas. Especially the bit about the realistic split-off in lore about how the legion would be up against all of Azeroth. Would the Twilight's Hammer ally with the Legion, though? The Old God's biggest desire is to get out of their prisons, and what better way than having a 25,000-year old Archdemon melt off the prison-top with tsunamis of demonic fire?

A lot of different factions would be worrying about a lot of different things. Like how Shaohao was worried about Pandaria during the events leading up to the Sundering. When he heard the waterspeaker's vision, he didn't think, "Oh, we should probably try to go help the Night Elves fix the problem".

It was, "OH *%(&, get us away from this!". What would the responses from the other factions across Azeroth be? Would the Draenei try to commandeer the rest of Tempest Keep and try to rescue who they could on Azeroth? Or forsake their friends and flee the Legion like they'd done for milennia past.

Theoretical timelines are fun, but dangerous.