Dawns and Crusades: Why do they exist? - Page 6

#126

08-03-2013, 02:41 AM

Pixy

Arch-Druid

Join Date: Jun 2013

Posts: 1,134

Quote:

No one is a protagonist when attacking a player-sided faction in its own territory.

You're not even trying.

#127

08-03-2013, 02:43 AM

Fojar

Elune

Join Date: Aug 2010

Location: Toronto, Lordaeron

Posts: 17,442

Quote:

Originally Posted by ARM3481

Well yeah, after the war with the Scourge in Northrend. So yeah, obviously by then the Scourge was a very deeply ingrained source of anger and fear in the memories of the Alliance as a whole, because the Ghoul Plague, the assault on the harbor, the second Scourge Invasion, and the deaths of fifty thousand Alliance troops in Northrend had all happened by that time. By the time of Stormrage, Stormwind had its own contemporary tally of horrific losses to attribute to the Scourge other than recalling what it did to Lordaeron.

We've never been given any good indication of the actual scale of the Ghoul invasion and the new plague. We know that it afflicted Goldshire (and incidentally the nightmares that afflict the residents of Goldshire are also all Scourge related) and the Harbor assault was just the harbor and was also handily repelled.

If what you're saying is true, shouldn't N'zoth have conjured Scourge attacks on Orgrimmar as well? But instead he conjured a Demon-fuelled Horde attack, something that according to your logic SHOULD have been unleashed on Stormwind, but wasn't.

N'zoth's intention was to exploit the biggest traumas of each people's histories in order to frighten them into submission. The war in Northrend was a big deal for Stormwind, yes, but it was a big deal for others as well and if Stormwind's population was largely comprised of native Stormwinders, it should have shown Orcs or Black Dragons or something. But instead it showed them the Scourge and it showed only them the Scourge. Not even the Forsaken saw the Scourge (their nightmare was, somewhat amusingly, dreaming that they were humans.)

__________________
"Noble countrymen, evil is upon us. Darkness has befallen our shores. Rise and slay thy enemies� strike, strike so others shall live. The meek shall not fade into the night� live my brethren, live." - King Terenas Menethil II

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Originally Posted by BaronGrackle

You are right Fojar.

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Originally Posted by Pajamasalad

You are right Fojar.

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Originally Posted by Thunderbraid

You are right Fojar.

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Originally Posted by Triceron

You are right Fojar.

#128

08-03-2013, 02:48 AM

ARM3481

Loremaster

Join Date: Jan 2006

Posts: 9,572

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fojar

If what you're saying is true, shouldn't N'zoth have conjured Scourge attacks on Orgrimmar as well? But instead he conjured a Demon-fuelled Horde attack, something that according to your logic SHOULD have been unleashed on Stormwind, but wasn't.

Well, that's easy. The orcs weren't traumatized by the Scourge like the Alliance was. The Alliance sees something like the war in Northrend as a terrible yet necessary thing and mourns that it cost so many lives, while the orcs tend to consider it a glorious struggle against an enemy worth defeating because it cost so many lives to pull off the win.

Victories with high body counts don't depress orcs; they pump them up and give them a goal to aim for in the next battle.

Last edited by ARM3481; 08-03-2013 at 02:51 AM..

#129

08-03-2013, 03:03 AM

Fojar

Elune

Join Date: Aug 2010

Location: Toronto, Lordaeron

Posts: 17,442

Quote:

Originally Posted by ARM3481

But the Orcs hate and fear dying without being able to defend yourself or fight the attacker. Shouldn't they then remember the plague and how it killed even the ablest warriors while itself being untouchable? Shouldn't they remember perversions like Orcs being raised into undeath? Seems like that would be an awful thing for a society rooted in Shamanism, to have your soul stolen.

In fact, I remember in the Wrathgate short story that the protagonist was terrified and extremely upset when he died because this wasn't a glorious death, it was a slaughter by cowards that didn't let him fight back. And the kind of tactic that the Forsaken used at the Wrathgate was also heavily favored by the Scourge.

If you're going to say that Stormwind getting dreamform attacked by Scourge is due to the war in Northrend and not due to any conception of the Scourge being a more personal enemy to the Alliance than to anyone else, then we should've seen a similar impact on the Orcs. I mean again, not even the Forsaken dreamed of the Scourge or had dreamform Scourge attack them. It was literally just the humans despite the war in Northrend being something that everyone fought in.

I mean heck, the war in Northrend wasn't the first heavy-casualty war that Stormwind fought. I'll bet that the Second War had more casualties; why didn't they get a dreamform-Horde attacking them if it's simply high-casualty war that they're afraid of?

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Originally Posted by BaronGrackle

You are right Fojar.

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Originally Posted by Pajamasalad

You are right Fojar.

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Originally Posted by Thunderbraid

You are right Fojar.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Triceron

You are right Fojar.

#130

08-03-2013, 07:25 AM

Xilizhra

Elune

Join Date: May 2009

Posts: 6,971

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fojar

The Scourge is mostly human, its primary leader and second-in-command are humans. It seems that humans and orcs each got dreamform attacks of corrupted versions of themselves.

#131

08-03-2013, 11:19 AM

Millenia

Elune

Join Date: Jan 2012

Posts: 10,836

BattleTag: Millenia#1386

Quote:

Originally Posted by ARM3481

Except that even the orcs mostly abandoned Northrend because it held so many bad memories for them. They couldn't handle the "or death", after all, like how you pointed out a long time ago.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ARM3481

Regardless of specific, canonical fights between their armies (which didn't happen largely because neither was officially mobilized), picking your faction is the first thing you do before entering the world. It's a significant thematic context that's chosen right out the gate, and that decision basically frames your character and your choice as the primary opposite of the other faction. Before you even get into the story, "not Horde" or "not Alliance" is offered up as the primary defining characteristic of the character.

Coupled with Stormwind being the central human powerbase in WoW, the presence of Alliance humans who were actually in Lordaeron during the Third War is significantly outweighed by a thematic preference for institutionalized hatred of the Horde, an enemy that Stormwind's inhabitants have dealt with directly. The Scourge are an enemy, but they're never made out to be the enemy like the Horde is, and considering how far away Stormwind is from Lordaeron, it would have felt bizarre for them to do focus on the Scourge when the players wouldn't even be meeting it until they traverse most of the EK and reached level 55.

Even Theramore - a city-state inhabited significantly by actual survivors of the Scourging - was made to focus predominantly on the Horde as an enemy over the undead, with its citizenry never really portrayed as thinking much about the homes they lost or considering the possibility of reclaiming said homes and their concerns revolving primarily around whether they'd be attacked by the orcs.

Additionally, proximity is a big part of such things. Stormwind is a goodly ways away from Lordaeron, and unlike the reactions to Stormwind's fall, the Scourge wasn't about to land on the shores of Elwynn like the orcs were in Hillsbrad. There would be no sense of geographical immediacy to the Scourge in a city as far away as Stormwind, so while they might occasionally toss out a lament for the fall of Lordaeron, the urgency to reclaim it wasn't fueled by the knowledge that the Stormwind was itself under direct threat of attack by the undead, unlike in the Second War, when the promise to reclaim and rebuild Stormwind arose from an Alliance that formed with the knowledge that the orcs were swiftly coming for them next.

But... even with the game's character creation screen forcing the player to choose between Horde and Alliance, the emphasis on the Alliance has very rarely ever dealt with fighting the Horde, especially in vanilla when the Alliance only incidentally got to kill Horde NPCs in quests. Even in Cataclysm, the Alliance was never as invested in fighting the Horde as the Horde was the Alliance, period.

And while you do have a point with proximity... the Horde was never all that close to Stormwind, except for Stranglethorn Vale (where they went unmentioned in quests that focused mainly on Kurzen), and Swamp of Sorrows (whose quests might have been BC).

Beyond that, just because you're given a choice of A or B, doesn't necessarily mean the choice was placed onto the factions in the narrative itself, or even in the mind of players. Just because I made a mage, doesn't mean my characterization should instantly be considered to be anti-warrior/paladin/priest/warlock/hunter/death knight.

Quote:

I'm not sure what that has to do with it, but...such conflicts aren't petty in and of themselves. They never were.

The Argent Dawn has never gone to Stormwind and declared the Alliance petty for fighting the Horde. The only time they bring up such an a label is in their own camps, on the front lines against the undead. And frankly, if an Alliance individual is so intensely driven to kill any Horde they see - or vice-versa - that they insist upon doing so in the Argent camps, then they don't belong in the fight against the Scourge, because clearly it takes backseat to killing "the other guys" in their minds.

Moreover, Tirion's the only one who's really called out the factions for fighting, and he did in Icecrown. On the Scourge's front doorstep. The one place in the world where the attitude that "I'm here to fight the undead, unless I see a human/orc, in which case I don't care about the Scourge until that human/orc is dead" doesn't belong.

Apologies, sometimes I get into one of those whiny moods and read into things.

That said, while you do have a point... Tirion doesn't. How does killing a bunch of Horde/Alliance champions differ from killing a bunch of Argent champions, or the yeti/kobolds/not-one-but-two-jormungar/magnataur?

__________________
"All right, I'll get that kid to eat. Where's my screw driver and my plumber's helper? I'll open up his mouth and I'll shove it in."

The Alliance's three rules on faction conflict:
1) You can't win.
2) You can't break even.
3) You can't leave the game.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mustrum

Because if a storyteller is doing his job, he makes you care. And if that storyteller then says "I dunno, then they stopped fighting, I guess," without any explanation or clarification, his audience has every right to be pissed off. Because they were given reason to stay interested, reason to keep up with his tale, only to be shut down just as things were getting good. A waste of time, a waste of emotional tension, a waste, if you fail to grasp the significance of narrative, of money.

Last edited by Millenia; 08-03-2013 at 11:31 AM..

#132

08-03-2013, 02:21 PM

ARM3481

Loremaster

Join Date: Jan 2006

Posts: 9,572

Quote:

Originally Posted by Millenia

Except that even the orcs mostly abandoned Northrend because it held so many bad memories for them. They couldn't handle the "or death", after all, like how you pointed out a long time ago.

Those who fought, sure, along with Thrall who would have been the one to recall everyone after the war. But the orcish populace back home in Horde lands seemed to think the whole affair was a pretty sweet win given the sheer public adoration for their new favorite Hellscream.

Cataclysm and MoP have made it evident that a lot of orcs at least marginally think like Garrosh does (though not all possess his most glaring character flaws), and we already know that Garrosh's biggest regret looking back on the war in Northrend wasn't its cost in lives. His biggest regret is having had to share victory with the Alliance.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Millenia

Well, remember that in the arena the killing of the other faction's champions wasn't Tirion's idea. Garrosh and Varian kinda insisted.

Otherwise, the yeti, kobolds, jormungar and magnataur weren't there to fight the Scourge. That's where the issue with faction infighting on the Northrend front arises; by initiating further conflict with the other side in that place, at that time, you're killing people who are also there to fight the Scourge while also creating fresh corpses to replace the losses of the undead.

#133

08-04-2013, 01:05 PM

Fojar

Elune

Join Date: Aug 2010

Location: Toronto, Lordaeron

Posts: 17,442

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xilizhra

The Scourge is mostly human, its primary leader and second-in-command are humans. It seems that humans and orcs each got dreamform attacks of corrupted versions of themselves.

The humans didn't see visions of corrupted versions of themselves. They saw visions of dead loved ones who had been scourge-ified.

Seems to lend credence to their connection to Lordaeron and the idea that most of the population bore witness to what occurred there.

Quote:

Originally Posted by BaronGrackle

You are right Fojar.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pajamasalad

You are right Fojar.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thunderbraid

You are right Fojar.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Triceron

You are right Fojar.

#134

08-04-2013, 01:07 PM

PajamaSalad PajamaSalad is offline

Elune

Join Date: Sep 2009

Location: Undisclosed location in the Universe.

Posts: 42,139

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fojar

Seems to lend credence to their connection to Lordaeron and the idea that most of the population bore witness to what occurred there.

You are so goofy.

#135

08-04-2013, 01:10 PM

Fojar

Elune

Join Date: Aug 2010

Location: Toronto, Lordaeron

Posts: 17,442

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pajamasalad

You are so goofy.

You just can't handle the lore.

Quote:

Originally Posted by BaronGrackle

You are right Fojar.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pajamasalad

You are right Fojar.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thunderbraid

You are right Fojar.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Triceron

You are right Fojar.

#136

08-04-2013, 01:12 PM

PajamaSalad PajamaSalad is offline

Elune

Join Date: Sep 2009

Location: Undisclosed location in the Universe.

Posts: 42,139

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fojar

You just can't handle the lore.

Blizzard probably doesn't even know so they only give empty answers because it isn't something they want to have a solid and concrete answer for.

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