Baine Rescue Questline (Horde) - Patch 8.2

[Super Dickmann]

I do agree the choice is poor for Scourge and Sylvanas supporter, but I you think about it, you didn't have any choice to start with. Blizzard added one with Saurfang choice but in the end the only choice that was planned was to support Saurfang and stay loyal to the Horde identity, not siding with the lich queen.

Before anything else, what are the Horde's values and what is their source?

[Tarba]

It's sad for you if you lick the boot of the Alliance. I never got this feeling being Horde.

Fighting at their side against Azsharra and Nzoth is not licking their boot, it help the Horde
Freeing Derek, in order to redeem the Horde is not licking their boot, it help the horde too

The Alliance is our rival, not our worst ennemy.

The alliance literally bombed horde's ship and sent an assassination team against the warchief of the horde while the legion was invading the world.

[nysisyn]

I dont either, unless I am following Baine or Saurfang.

And what do you call "licking alliance boots" exactly? Neither of them did

And it's more likely to happen when following Sylvanas and losing the war that joining the winning horde faction.

Before anything else, what are the Horde's values and what is their source?

To me, the best example is what Thrall said in Cataclysm : The horde is familly

That's something both Garrosh and Sylvanas failed to understand and uphold. Under their reign, the Horde was divide (And losing)

The alliance literally bombed horde's ship and sent an assassination team against the warchief of the horde while the legion was invading the world.

That is true. Some stupid Alliance dog attempted that and sadly were not punished by Anduin for treason.
Still, Alliance acting like moron is no reason for us to do the same.
The legion was the great danger. And it sadden me because if prefer the faction war; but now Nzoth & Azsharra are becoming the greater ennemy. We should pause the war with the Alliance for now. (As Lorthemar stated the best)

[Aeula]

Pause the war? To put down one fishy girl and her overgrown hentai collection? Are you mad? We’ve gon toe-to-toe with titans. Killing one without help and the second with a little help. What threat is ol’ Madame fishy and Mr.Bigbad McTentacle? Even if we’re at war with each other we shouldn’t be having any issues.

[nysisyn]

Pause the war? To put down one fishy girl and her overgrown hentai collection? Are you mad? We’ve gon toe-to-toe with titans. Killing one without help and the second with a little help. What threat is ol’ Madame fishy and Mr.Bigbad McTentacle? Even if we’re at war with each other we shouldn’t be having any issues.

Very bad example. Antorus and the two titans were not defeated by Horde and Alliance but a group of heroes and the army of light.. which later became Alliance member.
And Nzoth may probably be the biggest menace Azeroth has to offer since Wow started

[Super Dickmann]

To me, the best example is what Thrall said in Cataclysm : The horde is familly

That's something both Garrosh and Sylvanas failed to understand and uphold. Under their reign, the Horde was divide (And losing)

Honor is an undefined meme term that nobody has any consistent idea of and that the Horde in any case doesn't follow anyway.

But as regards the comment about the Horde being family, this was never the case. The Kalimdor Horde know each other for like six years by the time Garrosh took over, whereupon Vol'jin immediately threatened ol' Garry with death, and Cairne was so incensed about some false flag that he didn't investigate while Varian had already declared war on the Horde that he committed suicide by cop. His son doesn't even bear comment. The Eastern Horde on the other hand has always been an alliance of convenience, as is stated in both of their race intros.

Sylvanas is a whole different kettle of fish because she hasn't divided the Horde proper, nor has she had any racial conflicts in there the way Garry's leadership of the Horde did. She's divided the limpwristed leadership who are ineffectually committing acts of self-sabotage even as they acknowledge that she has the support of the masses.

[Skytotem]

Honor is an undefined meme term that nobody has any consistent idea of and that the Horde in any case doesn't follow anyway.

But as regards the comment about the Horde being family, this was never the case. The Kalimdor Horde know each other for like six years by the time Garrosh took over, whereupon Vol'jin immediately threatened ol' Garry with death, and Cairne was so incensed about some false flag that he didn't investigate while Varian had already declared war on the Horde that he committed suicide by cop. His son doesn't even bear comment. The Eastern Horde on the other hand has always been an alliance of convenience, as is stated in both of their race intros.

Sylvanas is a whole different kettle of fish because she hasn't divided the Horde proper, nor has she had any racial conflicts in there the way Garry's leadership of the Horde did. She's divided the limpwristed leadership who are ineffectually committing acts of self-sabotage even as they acknowledge that she has the support of the masses.

WHY does she have support of the masses though? We just had MoP and WoD, the folks who supported Garrosh are dead, aren't the ones left supposed to be the 'honor' Horde!?

[Super Dickmann]

WHY does she have support of the masses though? We just had MoP and WoD, the folks who supported Garrosh are dead, aren't the ones left supposed to be the 'honor' Horde!?

They turned on Garrosh because he a rayciss and they're very into diversity. They had no issue with the war part of his agenda. Largely because it wasn't even his agenda initially, Garrosh picked up on the moods of the general orc population that didn't want to pay racial penance for all eternity, and as stated, the Alliance was already at war since Wrathgate.

Also, Sylvanas is an absolute dictator and controls all information outlets and the book mentions how she panders to the Horde, we've also seen she makes no demands of them ideologically whatsoever, she just wants them contributing.

Mind, I do expect Blizzard to change that line, funny as it is and aligned as it is with all we've seen up to now.

[Skytotem]

They turned on Garrosh because he a rayciss and they're very into diversity. They had no issue with the war part of his agenda. Largely because it wasn't even his agenda initially, Garrosh picked up on the moods of the general orc population that didn't want to pay racial penance for all eternity, and as stated, the Alliance was already at war since Wrathgate.

Also, Sylvanas is an absolute dictator and controls all information outlets and the book mentions how she panders to the Horde, we've also seen she makes no demands of them ideologically whatsoever, she just wants them contributing.

Mind, I do expect Blizzard to change that line, funny as it is and aligned as it is with all we've seen up to now.

They retconned the alliance declaring war though, or retconned in a peace or treaty after wotlk, I forget which

And Baine and Vol'jin and others had issues with the war itself too, it wasn't JUST the racism, even if that was mostly it.

(Tbh I think Blizz making Garrosh evil/racist was dumb)

- - - Updated - - -

My issue though is from Vanilla to Cata we had numerous times where the Horde mistrusted the Forsaken or thought badly of them due to their tactics, where the hell did that go?

[Super Dickmann]

They retconned the alliance declaring war though, or retconned in a peace or treaty after wotlk, I forget which

And Baine and Vol'jin and others had issues with the war itself too, it wasn't JUST the racism, even if that was mostly it.

Nah, even in Chronicle Varian declares war and the peace summit later fails, meaning the Horde is at war. Ditto all the resource problems are maintained as are the reasons for war.

The race issue in general is a can of worms, because racial conflict is to be expected in-game, Baine for instance reflects that he dislikes aspects of orcish aesthetics and culture and that the tauren are better and people with incompatible beliefs obviously clash. Neither Baine nor Vol'jin turned on Garrosh because he was rayciss, Vol'jin didn't want to be involved in a war when his people's problems were basically solved already and Baine was Baine. Simultaneously, Garrosh based his view of these races on how much they aligned with what is typically orcish and also their conduct. He saw, not without cause, that the trolls were freeloaders and found the tauren similar to the orcs. His take on the undead is even fairly moderate compared to other orcs like Drek'thar who think the undead are pure evil and that there's genuinely nothing more evil than aiding them.

My issue though is from Vanilla to Cata we had numerous times where the Horde mistrusted the Forsaken or thought badly of them due to their tactics, where the hell did that go?

Yeah, that's one thing I don't like either. While the Forsaken have had a decently positive interaction with orcs in Silverpine and later with Cromush, the tension between living and dead has been heavily downplayed. They're fundamentally different from the rest of the Horde and ideally a story with Sylvanas as Warchief would have this as one of her main issues to deal with. You'd have the races reach out to each other, things like the val'kyr used as cultural touch points and so forth.

In the context of what we have though, Sylvanas is said to be pandering heavily to the separate races' customs as Warchief, moved to Orgrimmar despite wanting to be with her people in Undercity to fulfill her duty as Warchief, saved thousands of Horde warriors personally in the War of Thorns and blew up her own city and the center of her empire to take a shot at the Alliance, giving up something of seeming value to her for the sake of the Horde. A separation between her and the Forsaken is not far fetched, with Sylvanas herself being more personally popular by the Horde at large than the Forsaken themselves, because her acceptance by the Forsaken is itself for very similar reasons - she appealed to them, not vice versa.

[SirKickBan]

Already covered mostly above. But when were those occasions in which Lor'themar has shown he thinks anything in particular about Baine? The two barely ever existed in the same room at the same time. And the dialogue between the two has zero lines.

When has he ever said anything implying otherwise? -You're leanring he feels this way now. It contradicts nothing, and is literally the writers explaining his motivations to you.

Would it be better writing if they'd established it in advance? Yes, obviously. But this is Blizzard. They're literally explaining to you why he's doing this, and what he believes, and you're saying "He can't believe that, I've never been told he believed that before.".

He's a literal traitor.

There is, literally, no such thing. There is no 'traitor' element one can look for in his bloodstream. Even if he considered himself a traitor (And I'm almost, like.. 100% sure he doesn't, since.. Y'know. In his mind, whatever he did was to prevent the massively, almost objectively worse things Sylvanas was doing..), that doesn't mean Lorthemar would. Or Thrall. Or anyone else, at all.

You're throwing an objective term around like a fact, and using it as a linchpin of your arguments.

[Mehrunes]

When has he ever said anything implying otherwise? -You're leanring he feels this way now. It contradicts nothing, and is literally the writers explaining his motivations to you.

Would it be better writing if they'd established it in advance? Yes, obviously. But this is Blizzard. They're literally explaining to you why he's doing this, and what he believes, and you're saying "He can't believe that, I've never been told he believed that before.".

You could, I dunno, have read the entire post instead of cherry-picked snippets. Hell, even this post you decided to cherry-pick made an explicit remark to another paragraph of mine. Where I explained how prior to 8.2 Lor'themar was operating based on vastly different values to those of Baine's.

There is, literally, no such thing. There is no 'traitor' element one can look for in his bloodstream. Even if he considered himself a traitor (And I'm almost, like.. 100% sure he doesn't, since.. Y'know. In his mind, whatever he did was to prevent the massively, almost objectively worse things Sylvanas was doing..), that doesn't mean Lorthemar would. Or Thrall. Or anyone else, at all.

You're throwing an objective term around like a fact, and using it as a linchpin of your arguments.

Breaking your nations laws (obedience to the Wachief), killing your compatriots and aiding the enemy is as clear-cut treason as you can get, so sorry, but you're grasping at straws here. And even Baine's own standards of treason support that. He argued Vol'jin was a traitor for Garrosh that Garrosh could have punished with death when Vol'jin's actions in question paled to what Baine did in BfA.

They retconned the alliance declaring war though, or retconned in a peace or treaty after wotlk, I forget which

Just the opposite, Chronicle v3 made an explicit confirmation the Alliance started the previous war.

[tangers58]

>tfw your greatest achievement as Warchief is reusing assets left to you by a much better leader

A "much better leader" that lost to him.

[Skytotem]

A "much better leader" that lost to him.

Ehhh, he didn't though? Voljin never fought Garrosh, and his rebellion never got in the front door

Tyrande had to do that

[Feanoro]

Before anything else, what are the Horde's values and what is their source?

Being the Legion's greatest success, and the Legion.

Otherwise, I agree Metzen was vague with his Californian "brotherhood of misfits" hippy bullshit.

[Super Dickmann]

A "much better leader" that lost to him.

To the Alliance, mostly. Without the Alliance, Vol'jin loses either in the S. Barrens, which he mentions he can't even contest without their help or at the gates of Orgrimmar, where he runs his people into the scorpion and has to bail.

@Feanoro

All my issues with Thrall aside, the Horde does have unified, definable cultural values in WC3. Tribal, shamanistic societies of somewhat warlike former nomads. All those races have that in common. It's just flies out of the window as soon as WoW comes out, even without the Forsaken because the orcs are given their continuity back soon after.

[Feanoro]

All my issues with Thrall aside, the Horde does have unified, definable cultural values in WC3. Tribal, shamanistic societies of somewhat warlike former nomads. All those races have that in common. It's just flies out of the window as soon as WoW comes out, even without the Forsaken because the orcs are given their continuity back soon after.

Part of the problem is that Metzen, being a ripoff artist and hack, never really set down those values, not clearly and definitely. If he had, when the honor discussions happened, people would be able to easily point out exactly what it means. I also suspect a certain amount of California leftist not wanting to offend anyone, maaaaaaaaan.

The modern Horde is a complete mess that has members that in no way adhere to the tribal societies or vague cultural standards. What do undead humans, Blood Elves, goblins, and Nightborne have in common with that? Heck, half the Horde should be at each others' throats if not for The Plot Demands It.

[Mehrunes]

Being the Legion's greatest success, and the Legion.

Otherwise, I agree Metzen was vague with his Californian "brotherhood of misfits" hippy bullshit.

Legion itself disagrees. That's kinda the very point of the Scourge.

To the Alliance, mostly. Without the Alliance, Vol'jin loses either in the S. Barrens, which he mentions he can't even contest without their help or at the gates of Orgrimmar, where he runs his people into the scorpion and has to bail.

He just needed maybe 3 extra Troll squadrons to completely jam the Juggernaut with their minced bodies though. They were probably on their way from Sen'jin when we arrived.

[tangers58]

To the Alliance, mostly. Without the Alliance, Vol'jin loses either in the S. Barrens, which he mentions he can't even contest without their help or at the gates of Orgrimmar, where he runs his people into the scorpion and has to bail.

@Feanoro

All my issues with Thrall aside, the Horde does have unified, definable cultural values in WC3. Tribal, shamanistic societies of somewhat warlike former nomads. All those races have that in common. It's just flies out of the window as soon as WoW comes out, even without the Forsaken because the orcs are given their continuity back soon after.

lol no, the alliance hardly contributed. They just ran in to try and take credit, made some empty threats and ran.

[Arrashi]

One thing I'd like to add.

So we rescue Baine. And then Baine, who was lawfully imprisoned and escaped with Alliance assistance escapes to . . . Thunder Bluff? I mean he is in Thunder Bluff for the heritage armor quests. So he is exposing all the civilians of Thunder Bluff to the possible collateral of the Horde seeking to apprehend him.

Its not like baine is the brightest cookie out there so its not really surprising. The only other place he could hide i can think of is anduins bedroom.