Is the events of BfA the "Fourth War"?

[mickybrighteyes]

I would assume this "Fourth War" denotes the more modern set of conflicts following the close of the Third War with the Legion which culminated at Hyjal. Basically the "Fourth War" includes the renewal of conflict of WotLK, the conflicts that Varian and Garrosh set-up across Kalimdor, Theramore, all of MoP, the brief cessation of conflict during WoD, and the renewal of it during and after Legion. The Blood War is just a single incidence within this longer chain of conflicts, all of which fall under the umbrella of the Fourth War.

I don't think that makes it any better given how events of Wrath leading through Cata and into MoP turned out and how they've been setting up the BFA conflict. Moshing that all into ONE singular 'war' starts making those work together moments make even less sense.

[Aucald]

I don't think that makes it any better given how events of Wrath leading through Cata and into MoP turned out and how they've been setting up the BFA conflict. Moshing that all into ONE singular 'war' starts making those work together moments make even less sense.

I'm not a fan of the designation myself, but that is how I assume it's working in this case.

[mickybrighteyes]

I'm not a fan of the designation myself, but that is how I assume it's working in this case.

also, wouldn't the handling of events like War Crimes and Broken Shore kind of mess up the whole notion of one big war?

Edit:

realistically the '4th War' should have been during Garrosh's time as part of the horde and came to a close once Garrosh was captured and put on trial.

The Transition to WoD and Legion revelation shouldn't extend things to a whole new war where we sit and have stories outright stating parties are instigating NEW wars with reasoning such as a current temporary truce/peace.

[cuafpr]

to me, it implies that this concludes the conflcit between the factions, vs the ceasefires of previous expacs. I hope it doesn't lead to no factions or cross factions though.

[TheFirstOnes]

Imagine being a Veteran of the 4th War.

PTSD all around.

[cparle87]

And how exactly does the game show this?

a one off talk in a back room or a short story outside the game.... and the only presence concerning it IN game is a cycle or rotation of units in an event that takes place once or twice a month....

Ahh, I see. You're one of those guys who go "not in the game don't care, writing sucks nothing makes sense, no I don't consider supplementary material to exist, I'm gonna ignore it so I can keep complaining it doesn't make sense". Always a pleasure.

[mickybrighteyes]

Ahh, I see. You're one of those guys who completely ignores supplementary material then complains that the lore doesn't make sense.

You clearly don't know my post history...

Since the post you first responded to mentioned the game was a poor medium for showcasing the lore, your first response of listing zones seems to indicate that you saw the point in the same manner original trilogy stormtroopers hit their targets.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

So this should be 5th war with it starting with Genn assassination attempt on the warchief.

they were not at war until the horde attacked the elfs the horde didn't care enough about genn to start the war there.

[mickybrighteyes]

they were not at war until the horde attacked the elfs the horde didn't care enough about genn to start the war there.

Honestly the only reason they weren't at war is because some writers weren't paying attention to how it looks to have national armies engaging in combat with intent to kill/capture one another and how that's basically the way they've been doing the 'wars' anyways.

[KayRule]

Honestly the only reason they weren't at war is because some writers weren't paying attention to how it looks to have national armies engaging in combat with intent to kill/capture one another and how that's basically the way they've been doing the 'wars' anyways.

Or maybe it's because Sylvanas knew what she was doing was selfish, evil, wrong, counter-intuitive to the war against the Legion and therefore she knew she wouldn't receive any assistance or support from the Horde and knew to keep it to herself.

[Malikath]

No. The war that went from Varian declaring war on horde in under city during Wrath up to end of SoO is the 4th war. Metzen I believe was asked this during that time and said as such.

So this should be 5th war with it starting with Genn assassination attempt on the warchief.

that's wrong, 'the shattering: prelude to cataclysm' states that the war that ended in MoP started in cata by garrosh's command, taking advantage of the cataclysm to conquer new lands.
the war that varian declared during the seige of undercity was ended during the events of wrath's last two patches where the argent crusade brokered an armistice in icecrown due to the fallout of garrosh's attack on alliance north of the wrathgate leading to the scourge almost overtaking the argent crusade's forces throughout the area.
then the canon events of icecrown has varian at the precipice as arthas dies, giving canon status to the interaction he has with varok over the corpse of his son dranosh.
a role they've reversed with varok and anduin in BFA, one of the few good ideas they've had in a while.
- - - Updated - - -

Or maybe it's because Sylvanas knew what she was doing was selfish, evil, wrong, counter-intuitive to the war against the Legion and therefore she knew she wouldn't receive any assistance or support from the Horde and knew to keep it to herself.

she tried to, but both factions get the message from the forsaken ship that ran-aground in azuna clearly as a lead-in to the sub-plot for the next expansion after BFA.

[mickybrighteyes]

Or maybe it's because Sylvanas knew what she was doing was selfish, evil, wrong, counter-intuitive to the war against the Legion and therefore she knew she wouldn't receive any assistance or support from the Horde and knew to keep it to herself.

That's a fine interpretation for stormheim...

But that's not the only Casus Belli the horde had to go to war over, it's only the most glaringly obvious.

Still, you seem to be suggesting that it would be the horde starting a war when the events of Stormheim would be better described as Genn starting it... as they were the one to take the first shot.

Overall, it's very forced and horribly botched how the horde are deemed the ones instigating events given the way the story lead us along.

But yeah, in hind sight, Genn's preemptive self defense manuever was TOTALLY justified in sucker punching the horde out of the blue.

[Aucald]

also, wouldn't the handling of events like War Crimes and Broken Shore kind of mess up the whole notion of one big war?

Edit:

realistically the '4th War' should have been during Garrosh's time as part of the horde and came to a close once Garrosh was captured and put on trial.

The Transition to WoD and Legion revelation shouldn't extend things to a whole new war where we sit and have stories outright stating parties are instigating NEW wars with reasoning such as a current temporary truce/peace.

Not really, no; just think of Cata and MoP as their own theaters of a long-running war. Real-world history is replete with wars that have run a long duration: the Dutch War for Independence for 80 years, the Seleucid-Parthia War for 109, etc. etc. All of them have periods of inactivity or armistice where the fighting stops for a time, and then reignites at some point. I doubt any of those wars were considered one long slog in the proverbial moment by the fighters, as it were, it's only in the historic sense that we now classify them as eras of war lasting several decades. The Fourth War would be the same kind of classification - the cycle of conflict that roughly began in earnest in WotLK and has continued in one form or another up until the close of the Blood War in 8.2.5.

Though I agree and prefer with this being the Fifth War, myself. I think WoD and part of Legion was a significant enough of a pause to demarcate two separate wars.

[Kyphael]

Well they kind of retroactively named the 1-3rd wars after their respective games. With WoW it's harder to pin down. Technically we should be at least at the 5th War, if we're only going by faction conflicts, and IDK if there even was a faction conflict focus in Warcraft 3 it was kind of a mixed bag like WoW is today.

War - a state of armed conflict between different nations or states or different groups within a nation or state.

Fourth War: Against Illidan and his Lieutenants. Fought in Outland. Kil'jaeden was a last minute conflict, not all-out war against the Legion.
Fifth War: Against The Lich King and his Scourge.

Deathwing was an aspect with no organized army, not recognized as a state (meaning no banners or territory to dispute over) and his followers were either monsters or cults. He was a monster at best.

In Mists of Pandaria, the Alliance and Horde had some conflicts, but ultimately it became about civil war with the Alliance aiding Vol'jin's rebellion. It was a civil war at best, not sure it'd qualify as the "sixth war." I suppose Garrosh had declared war on the Pandaren and their allies (Horde and Alliance) for defiling their land, and the Pandaren in turn aided the Horde and Alliance in removing Garrosh from power, so yeah...

Sixth War: Garrosh and his loyal orc army vs. everyone.

Seventh War: Horde and Alliance vs. The Iron Horde.

Eighth War: Horde and Alliance vs. The Legion. Fought on Azeroth and Argus.

So we are now in the ninth war, Horde vs. Alliance. Azshara was a mere sub-plot distraction. Sylvanas destroyed an Alliance City, and Anduin retaliated by trying to re-take a Horde city, formerly Alliance. War moved on to new A/H territories, Kul'tiras and Zandalar. Outcome pending.

[cparle87]

You clearly don't know my post history...

Since the post you first responded to mentioned the game was a poor medium for showcasing the lore, your first response of listing zones seems to indicate that you saw the point in the same manner original trilogy stormtroopers hit their targets.

My first quote was in response to the statement that no kingdoms had been destroyed or large tracts of land conquered. I pointed out all the time lands were razed or siezed. To which you responded they shouldn't count because they're not relevant to the current conflict. To which I responded a moment in recent history where Anduin's response to Horde actions could have been influenced by his fears of the reactions of a fellow Alliance leader to one of those losses. Your post of "how does the game show this?" led me to the assumption that you're one of the people who goes "if it doesn't happen in game I'm going to ignore it even if it creates plot holes I'll complain about later." Also, is it possible for you to respond to anyone without passive-aggressive insults?

[Jastall]

Well they kind of retroactively named the 1-3rd wars after their respective games. With WoW it's harder to pin down. Technically we should be at least at the 5th War, if we're only going by faction conflicts, and IDK if there even was a faction conflict focus in Warcraft 3 it was kind of a mixed bag like WoW is today.

Yeah, Horde and Alliance barely fought each other during the Third War. There were only three instances, first when Orgrim/Thrall liberated the internment camps and subsequently feld to Kalimdor, second the, what, two missions in the Orc campaign where Thrall and Jaina's forces fought each other, and Daelin's attack on Durotar which was more of a Kul Tiras solo tour than an actual Alliance action at all. Conflicts like humans vs undead or NEs vs, well, kind of everyone else in turn were far more important.

By that reckoning, I'd say we're at the Sixth War at least. Cata-Mists would be the fourth, and surely the global conflict against the Legion (where Horde and Alliance hostilities limited themselves to Stormheim and a few towers) counts as a Fifth.

[MikeBogina]

First War: Horde vs Stormwind(Legion caused)
Second War: Horde vs Northern Kingdoms(Still Legion caused)
Third War: Thrall frees the Horde, sails to Kalimdor, Scourge invades destroys Strongest of the Alliance, Legion invades Mount Hyjal, Kul'tiras attacks the Horde

They all have the Horde and Alliance involved, but the Third War was more about another Legion invasion and the Horde was trying to get away from the Alliance. If we count every major conflict between the Horde and the Alliance, not including skirmishes, then...

Fourth War: Varian declaring war on the Horde in WotLK after the Forsaken traitors attack at WrathGate, which then went into full swing during Cataclysm and ending in MoP.
Fifth War: Genn and Rogers attack on the Horde Fleet in Legion, which then went into fullswing with BFA.

[mickybrighteyes]

War - a state of armed conflict between different nations or states or different groups within a nation or state.

Fourth War: Against Illidan and his Lieutenants. Fought in Outland. Kil'jaeden was a last minute conflict, not all-out war against the Legion.
Fifth War: Against The Lich King and his Scourge.

Deathwing was an aspect with no organized army, not recognized as a state (meaning no banners or territory to dispute over) and his followers were either monsters or cults. He was a monster at best.

In Mists of Pandaria, the Alliance and Horde had some conflicts, but ultimately it became about civil war with the Alliance aiding Vol'jin's rebellion. It was a civil war at best, not sure it'd qualify as the "sixth war." I suppose Garrosh had declared war on the Pandaren and their allies (Horde and Alliance) for defiling their land, and the Pandaren in turn aided the Horde and Alliance in removing Garrosh from power, so yeah...

Sixth War: Garrosh and his loyal orc army vs. everyone.

Seventh War: Horde and Alliance vs. The Iron Horde.

Eighth War: Horde and Alliance vs. The Legion. Fought on Azeroth and Argus.

So we are now in the ninth war, Horde vs. Alliance. Azshara was a mere sub-plot distraction. Sylvanas destroyed an Alliance City, and Anduin retaliated by trying to re-take a Horde city, formerly Alliance. War moved on to new A/H territories, Kul'tiras and Zandalar. Outcome pending.

you're missing the war of the shifting sands

[Kyphael]

you're missing the war of the shifting sands

I stand corrected, we are now on the tenth war.

[Terongor]

WoW fails to show a proper war, it's always small skirmishes at best. Just compare the scale of the war to Warcraft 1, 2 or 3 and you'll see that the wars in WoW are so small, they dont't cover entire continents, kingdoms aren't destroyed, large pieces of land not conquered.

WoW fails. It's always 1 or 2 patches with a few small skirmishes and then it's back to working together again. It's boring and feels like a betrayal of the word "war".

MoP failed, BfA failed. Let's see a proper war in Warcraft 4.

Well first war was kinda minor.... as it covered only black morass, redridge, brightwood, westfall and elwyn..... yeah stormwind was destroyed but still.

If compare it to cata part of "fourth war" we war in silverpine gilneas which led to destruction of a kingdom. Horde driving alliance presence out of western plaguelands and hillsbrad.

Battle in swamp of sorrows which ended in alliance victory. Ashenvale which first horde victory and many nelf settlements destroyed aftet that alliance took the area pack the whole southern barrens storyline which IIRC horde won and destroyed few alliance settlements.

Comparing first war to just that makes first war seem kinda small and though I'm betting you never quested after wotlk from 1-60.

Also in bfa we don't see it but we can read about it from the missiona se sen our followers on which is pretty large scale.