Sylvanas on the Buring of Teldrassil and Saurfang's Honor

[yetgdhfgh]

The Mists rethread is getting more and more obvious. The old text was strategically unsound, but at least it gave Sylvanas motivation beyond conquest for its own sake. Now the Horde is attacking the Alliance on the off chance that they might use Darnassus as an Azerite smuggling port, the Warchief is the aggressor again, the Night Elves are punching bags, again, and an Alliance city gets nuked, again.

Or maybe they just move the actual motivations for the war to a stupid novel again.

They do appear to be toning it down and down but they need to emphasize sylvanas reasoning's which is that the Alliance attacked the Horde in Stormheim and that was the opening salvo for the next faction war and the destruction of Teldrassill is just a necessary military tactic to stop the Alliance from having a workable port used to take azerite which is the new plutonium from reaching the Alliance stronghold of Stormwind.

[sillag]

tbh we are always going to have a problem here which is that we as players know that blowing up teldrassil is morally wrong. im sorry if you ever made long posts trying to defend the awful writing in this expansion but we know it is ethically wrong by the standards we as rl humans have and all the mmo champion posts in the world cant change that.

now you can still write it in a way that makes sense in the story. but you wont be able to make the horde look good doing it that ship has sailed.

the interesting thing is that blizzard's approach seems to be to attempt neither of these 2 things and just have it make no sense but happen anyway. their primary concern now appears to be to make us like and/or not despise sylvanas which is going to be a tough sell.

[Traveler Voltin]

Can i freak out yet?

[Highwhale]

Waiting for Sylvanas loot table now...

[Zulkhan]

The Mists rethread is getting more and more obvious. The old text was strategically unsound, but at least it gave Sylvanas motivation beyond conquest for its own sake. Now the Horde is attacking the Alliance on the off chance that they might use Darnassus as an Azerite smuggling port, the Warchief is the aggressor again, the Night Elves are punching bags, again, and an Alliance city gets nuked, again.

Or maybe they just move the actual motivations for the war to a stupid novel again.

My money's on that. Sure as hell Blizzard wants to keep things "simple" for the in-game scenario, just like they did with the Theramore scenario and Tides of War back then.

[steelballfc]

My money's on that. Sure as hell Blizzard wants to keep things "simple" for the in-game scenario, just like they did with the Theramore scenario and Tides of War back then.

they want to sell the book to angry nerds like us.

[Dagoth Ur]

My money's on that. Sure as hell Blizzard wants to keep things "simple" for the in-game scenario, just like they did with the Theramore scenario and Tides of War back then.

Maybe it's for the better. I mean at least they can explain it properly there as opposed to one or two sentences we would get in game. It's also going to be interesting to see who's POV's we'll be getting, apart from obvious Anduin and Sylvanas.

[Mehrunes]

Pointless change. The only thing it actually changes is adding the line about Alliance using Darnassus to transport Azerite from Kalimdor to EK. Which makes little sense, given how Darnassus is on the other end of the continent from Silithus, so they have to transport it to Darnassus somehow in the first place. And if they can do that, they can transport it from Silithus to EK just as well.

[Verdugo]

Pointless change. The only thing it actually changes is adding the line about Alliance using Darnassus to transport Azerite from Kalimdor to EK. Which makes little sense, given how Darnassus is on the other end of the continent from Silithus, so they have to transport it to Darnassus somehow in the first place. And if they can do that, they can transport it from Silithus to EK just as well.

I am sure after Blizzard rewrites the line for the tenth time they will figure it out.

[Highwhale]

Pointless change. The only thing it actually changes is adding the line about Alliance using Darnassus to transport Azerite from Kalimdor to EK. Which makes little sense, given how Darnassus is on the other end of the continent from Silithus, so they have to transport it to Darnassus somehow in the first place. And if they can do that, they can transport it from Silithus to EK just as well.

Silithus's doesn't have Alliance fleet bay. The nearest is in Feralas. So way Feralas - Darnassus - EK looks logical.

Considering Darnassus have established sea routes with Stormwind long ago.

[Dagoth Ur]

Pointless change. The only thing it actually changes is adding the line about Alliance using Darnassus to transport Azerite from Kalimdor to EK. Which makes little sense, given how Darnassus is on the other end of the continent from Silithus, so they have to transport it to Darnassus somehow in the first place. And if they can do that, they can transport it from Silithus to EK just as well.

Yeah that was my thinking as well. Initial dialogue made more sense than this. I guess they're still figuring it out though.

[zito]

Pointless change. The only thing it actually changes is adding the line about Alliance using Darnassus to transport Azerite from Kalimdor to EK. Which makes little sense, given how Darnassus is on the other end of the continent from Silithus, so they have to transport it to Darnassus somehow in the first place. And if they can do that, they can transport it from Silithus to EK just as well.

It's implied that the tree in darnassus is sucking up azerite

[Zulkhan]

Wait, if the dialogue was changed it means MMO-Champion's today update is not really that "up to date" anymore? Am I missing something?

[corebit]

Wait, if the dialogue was changed it means MMO-Champion's today update is not really that "up to date" anymore? Am I missing something?

Wowhead is faster than MMOC in most datamining nowadays.

[Dudas]

Pointless change. The only thing it actually changes is adding the line about Alliance using Darnassus to transport Azerite from Kalimdor to EK. Which makes little sense, given how Darnassus is on the other end of the continent from Silithus, so they have to transport it to Darnassus somehow in the first place. And if they can do that, they can transport it from Silithus to EK just as well.

Probably they go Silithus -> mountains go into Feralas -> Darnassus. So the Horde takes out Darnassus to disable reinforcements and siege Feralas so no more azerite is leaving that zone => the horde gets to control it all. And one warfront will be in Feralas as the Night elves's last stand or evacuate/ship as much azerite as they can. That would be the logical way for both factions but then again this is blizzard storytelling.

[Doffen]

They do appear to be toning it down and down but they need to emphasize sylvanas reasoning's which is that the Alliance attacked the Horde in Stormheim and that was the opening salvo for the next faction war and the destruction of Teldrassill is just a necessary military tactic to stop the Alliance from having a workable port used to take azerite which is the new plutonium from reaching the Alliance stronghold of Stormwind.

Why do they need to emphasize that IF it is not the reason? Not saying it is not(one reason for the escalating war, likely) but we don't know the reasons yet. Gotta wait for the new novel or some more ingame text to be 100% certain. If it isn't in the datamining and I have missed it.

[Deleted]

I think maybe the change was mainly because the 'we will divide Azeroth into two continents' didn't make much sense from the ingame perspective at that point. If she says that before attacking Teldrassil and about taking Kalimdor for the Horde it would mean she'd be ok with the Alliance taking Eastern Kingdoms and I just can't see that being the case. Maybe after it happens as a grudging 'well, now at least we're divided by an ocean' but when Undercity and most of the North Eastern Kingdoms still belongs to the Horde she'd never say: 'Let's take Kalimdor so we're divided by an ocean' .. because they wouldn't be.

So they had to make this change to actually make it fit. She can sell the 'divided by an ocean' as a good thing afterwards, when it actually makes sense.

[Minikin]

I think maybe the change was mainly because the 'we will divide Azeroth into two continents' didn't make much sense from the ingame perspective at that point. If she says that before attacking Teldrassil and about taking Kalimdor for the Horde it would mean she'd be ok with the Alliance taking Eastern Kingdoms and I just can't see that being the case. Maybe after it happens as a grudging 'well, now at least we're divided by an ocean' but when Undercity and most of the North Eastern Kingdoms still belongs to the Horde she'd never say: 'Let's take Kalimdor so we're divided by an ocean' .. because they wouldn't be.

So they had to make this change to actually make it fit. She can sell the 'divided by an ocean' as a good thing afterwards, when it actually makes sense.

that could definitely be one way to show it. but mind you this way, all the horde's moral highground is lost or horde constant "why are we always the bad guys" happens again.

Thing is there has to be 1 faction in a 2 faction conflict that swings the first blow. Now we can go into depth and detail about stormhiem and the goblins in silithus but those honestly are general faction skirmishes like the ones happening all over the world. Ashenvale, South Barrens etc. Burning down a major city with multiple civilians goes beyond that.

I kind of dont want to go that route, of horde bad guy, horde warchief raid boss again. We have seen that. Hoping for something different. because before if the sequence is flipped as in undercity first, then teldrassil then the horde has a means to explain their reasoning and aggressive stance in kalimdor. But if teldrassil is burnt down as a pre-emptive strike then it rings very close to what Garrosh was doing, not just with theramore but also with the divine bell.

sadly, leaving horde players with two options, "prepare for another back step and do a redemption line AGAIN" "feel bad for being the bad guys again"
and taking alliance again on over used stream of, "lets go save the world AGAIN" "we are the reactionary force, again"

[Deleted]

that could definitely be one way to show it. but mind you this way, all the horde's moral highground is lost or horde constant "why are we always the bad guys" happens again.

Thing is there has to be 1 faction in a 2 faction conflict that swings the first blow. Now we can go into depth and detail about stormhiem and the goblins in silithus but those honestly are general faction skirmishes like the ones happening all over the world. Ashenvale, South Barrens etc. Burning down a major city with multiple civilians goes beyond that.

I kind of dont want to go that route, of horde bad guy, horde warchief raid boss again. We have seen that. Hoping for something different. because before if the sequence is flipped as in undercity first, then teldrassil then the horde has a means to explain their reasoning and aggressive stance in kalimdor. But if teldrassil is burnt down as a pre-emptive strike then it rings very close to what Garrosh was doing, not just with theramore but also with the divine bell.

sadly, leaving horde players with two options, "prepare for another back step and do a redemption line AGAIN" "feel bad for being the bad guys again"
and taking alliance again on over used stream of, "lets go save the world AGAIN" "we are the reactionary force, again"

I don't think the new dialogue paints the Horde as a bad guy. As an aggressor, yes, aggression on a larger scale than there was before, but if you look at the situation closely it's not like there is much choice than to attack.
I said that before in another thread but do we realistically think that there could be a peace treaty between Alliance and Horde that doesn't demand much of the Forsaken conquered lands given to the Alliance, lots of amends made by the Forsaken and afterwards is still kind of shakey because some Alliance guys would rather see the 'cursed Undead' completely extinct?
Peace between the Alliance and the Horde would demand such a lot of good will on both sides that I don't see it as viable, at least not quickly. And there comes the Azerite.

Apart from that I also think that Sylvanas actually wants to conquer the world completely, which is also why she'd ally herself with Zul. He wants the same thing, or at least that's what his guys claim in ToT very loudly and resolutely. Together they can make it.

The Alliance is not saving the world by fighting the Horde. They are saving their world and their way of living. The world wouldn't be destroyed only because the Horde conquers it. But the Alliance and their people would probably have a very, very hard time or even go near extinct.
You could say the same of the Horde and its people when the Alliance conquers the world.
So it's really a fight for survival, the Horde the active and aggressive part, but just as justified in this as the Alliance is in defending against it. A preemptive attack by the Horde can be seen as an aggressive defense too, just less easily justified maybe. But from a Horde perspective it would make perfect sense, I think.


The problem arises, when we see the bigger picture, which we players from an outside perspective do. Killing, war and suffering is what gives the Old Gods power. Weakening Azeroth itself by taking the Azerite makes it easier to corrupt. Both things are not prevented, but as I said above, they kind of cannot be prevented, if both sides want to keep on living their lives.

My only gripe with this war thing is, that the player characters should know better. They have more information, more insight and more contact to all kinds of people from 'the other side' than anyone else. But Blizzard doesn't give us the choice to just turn our backs to the faction war and fight the real war.
Maybe they'll give it to Saurfang. He should be capable of it too.

[Darktbs]

Waiting for Sylvanas loot table now...

I roll Need on the bow.

5 (1-100)

Sh*t