World of Warcraft: Battle For Azeroth V2 - Daelin Was Right (feat. Mark Addy) - Games

I don't see the tauren ever leaving the Horde. They, alongside the orcs and trolls (primarily) are the one's who shaped the Horde. Moreover, they basically promised eternal friendship with Thrall and the orcs and trolls, and I see absolutely no reason Baine or the taurens overall would forget that. Lastly, it's in their nature to be peaceful. It really isn't unusual for them, or Baine, to seek an end to the war.

once again Baine shows up just to say "HEY YO THIS SUCKS WE SHOULD DO SOMETHING" then leaves without doing anything I miss Cairne.

Have we talked about the fact that they've introduced two legged naga that have full armor?

I'm pretty sure it's a Jinyu.

Oh i guess that would make sense. This is the picture im talking about.

Yeah that's a Jinyu

I know it's pretty likely, but I really do hope Junker Gnomes will be an allied race. Definitely will be my race of choice for an alliance alt. Also if they are playable it'd be another race for a potential Tinker class in the future and anything that makes that more of a possibility is more than welcome.

So XP has been adjusted again in 8.1 on the PTR. FGrom around 40 to 75 requires 30-40% less XP, peaking around 60-65.

I don't think they're Jinyu, the guy on the What's Next panel called them "Unkoen (sp)" and said they're a deepsea tribe of people who have been getting slowly exterminated since the rise of the Naga, and the few you (Alliance) side with are the last remaining of their race and have given up hope for the survival of their species and instead simply desire to hurt the Naga as best they can. Source: https://youtu.be/_4PXd042fkk?t=1825

So I've begun thinking about something, something that's been alluded to since Legion, but we didn't realise how bad it was until the Lost Honour cinematic. Back in Legion, when the Allied Races were first introduced, the message was clear: we need to recruit new allies because our own armies are almost completely expended. That made sense, since both factions would no doubt have committed every resource and soldier they could to combatting the Legion. And despite what we might've seen in-game, there can also be no doubt that the Legion didn't only attack the Broken Isles, but also attacked other regions of Azeroth. Now, we haven't actually seen much of this "our armies are depleted" in-game (obviously for gameplay reasons), but in Lost Honour, we are told in no uncertain terms that the Alliance is rapidly running out of capable soldiers. As Greymane says: "That's the last of the soldiers. We'll be calling up farmers next." If we take Genn at his word, the Alliance is at its last legs, and it needs to win the war yesterday. That would also explain the in-game characters emphasis on a speedy victory; if it goes on too long, the Alliance will quite literally run out of soldiers to fight the Horde with. That said, the Horde is most likely in an equally awful position (again, despite what we see in-game), and in a way, only the Forsaken have the capability to rapidly replenish their numbers through the val'kyr. Once again, it then makes sense for them to recruit allies. I take a lot of this from what Sylvanas says about the mag'har when Eitrigg mentions them as a potential ally: "a militarised people - they will be useful." Much like the Alliance, they're also in desperate need of soldiers, and thus it would be very useful for them to gain the allegiance of a people that is immediately ready to venture towards the frontlines. The point with all this, is that I am interested to hear if you guys think this will have any sort of impact later in the expansion. Will we actually see the Alliance and Horde struggle to maintain their respective war efforts due to a lack of soldiers? Or will this quite significant plot point be forgotten?

I posted a while back that I'm expecting a significant shake up of the factions. My crackpot theory (which probably won't happen at all is): Saurfang boots Sylvanas the fuck out of the Horde. She goes off and makes her own faction, along with whoever is still loyal to her, Gallywix and maybe Lor'Themar. Anduin and Saurfang, now having respect for each other and seeing the toll the war is taking on both sides, finally realise that war is stupid come together to form a more permanent pact between the Alliance and Horde. Tyrande flips her shit and leaves the Alliance, Genn reluctantly goes with her. Jaina stays for some reason, maybe she cools off after taking huge losses at Zul'Dazar and realises once again that peace is the way to go. I terms of gameplay I don't see it changing from Alliance/Horde, but in terms of narrative it gives the player more choice. Do you want to put everything aside and work together for the future of Azeroth? Work with Anduin/Saurfang. Just want to kill the other faction? Go with Tyrande/Sylvanas.

Except there's no way there'll ever be a third faction. WoW is just not designed to accommodate that. Genn would also not leave Anduin's side, no matter how much he feels he owes the night elves.

That's why I said I don't see it changing from Alliance/Horde gameplay-wise, I see it purely as a narrative thing.

I hope something happens with the factions. Finding reasons to fight each other in between way more important conflicts where we then work together and then it all falls apart again is not fun at all. They did it with MoP and they did it with BfA and i don't want to ever have to sit through one of these stories again. I'd rather they focus on doing one good story that everyone plays with racial quest lines or some other type of quest lines revolving around the remnants of the old factions instead. I think Legion actually did a great job of what this would look like where heroes from all sides are working together and we really only see small places where the "politics" came up again. This is especially evident when the only way they can ever write a faction conflict is having the horde be unnecessary aggressors.

realistically, both the alliance and horde have been fighting a massive world war for like 15 years straight against increasingly dire foes as well as themselves. its like if ww1 just never stopped. At some point they've depleated an entire generation of able bodied soldiers and it get even more dire when you remember the alliance is a mixed gender force, they are loosing both the men and women of a generation, and it gets worse for some races like the night elves or draenei who don't seem to reproduce quite as fast

That's what I thought too (although the Horde field mixed-gender forces as well). Like you said, it's probably particularly tough on races such as the night elves, draenei, blood elves, and even gnomes. The latter 3 races have only a fraction left of their original populations, so every life lost is huge. The night elves, I think, are actually quite numerous, but they don't seem to have been reproducing very much prior to the Third War. This would mean that the next generation isn't even of age yet, since night elves spend a lot more time actually becoming adults. Hell, even the tauren and Darkspear can't take much either. The tauren were already at risk of extinction during the Third War, and the Darkspear is also one of the smallest tribes. Orcs and humans have always made up the bulk of their respective armies, but now that even they are struggling to maintain a steady number of troops... It would be a huge missed opportunity if Blizzard doesn't do anything with this. Watching this, I still think it's a Jinyu, albeit some kind of Deep Sea-version. This wouldn't be unusual, as there also exists Deep Sea murlocs.

I mean its hard to really estimate the economic and social stability of either faction when the Alliance have the only zone in the game that has farmland on it in Westfall.

replace them all with harvest golems, nothing bad has ever happened from deploying murderbots harvesters built by farmers.

The game has conditioned me now so that whenever i see a harvest golem I mentally prepare myself for the "gawsh my golems have gone haywire!!!!! please kill 10"

I really want blizz to do a whole questline at some point that lets us go to the factory where those are built and kill the boss

Clarification on how reps will work in 8.1.

So I've started a Pandaren because I've yet to shake my altitis and there's some unfortunate naming going on here. Specifically, the boss Ruk-Ruk that you have to kill for one quest. Imagine if he was called Wank-Wank instead and that's how I feel right now.

Interview with Alex Afrasiabi on Sylvanas: World of Warcraft and the masterplan for Sylvanas | Eurogamer That was really our goal with Sylvanas, to create enough plausible deniability in the actions she's committed where she can still have a fanbase Cool. When do we get to see that plausible deniability?

The current writers probably think they're masterminds at moral ambiguity.

I've been going through some old content on some of my characters and I'm doing Battle for Mount Hyjal right now. Jesus mother of fuck, this is utter shite.

Yeah now imagine grinding Battle for Mount Hyjal multiple times for the rep, pets and class tokens as a warrior (read: only one ranged attack and it's on a cooldown). The orc base is a snorefest if I've ever seen one. Takes fucking ages.

Honestly, just look at where this is all heading. We kind of already knew that, but Sylvanas isn't really hiding it: she wants Anduin (and by extension, the Alliance) to kneel before her, not the Horde. She will accept nothing less than total victory, and she has now completely dropped the pretense that she is giving the Forsaken a second chance at life - forcing Derek Proudmoore back to life, torture him, all with the end goal of having him assassinate the rest of the Proudmoore family. If she gets the Kerrigan treatment, I'll feel genuine despair. It would be spitting in the face of all the players.

The thing is, I don't even see why they need to give Sylvanas plausible deniability for her to have a fanbase?. Some people like villains, Sylvanas has been fine as a character for ages. She's always been working in the shadows, playing her own angles, using morally ambiguous or even outright abhorrent tactics to ensure her people survive - and that's cool because it's interesting, that element of disparate factions from all over the moral compass uniting against persecution gave the Horde depth that the Alliance never had. I just don't get why we need to be retreading the Garrosh plotline again? Can't Blizzard come up with a better way to to facilitate a conflict than just having one side lose all depth, with everyone but the player and a select group of rebels becoming the moustache twirling villains that the players can fight without feeling guilty about it. I would actually be pretty happy about the fact Sylvanas is finally getting her chance to be cruel and ruthless if It wasn't for the fact that I know everyone is going to turn on her in the end.

What's the 'Kerrigan treatment'? Never played Starcraft

I disagree. The Syndicate has absolutely no reason or desire to work with the Horde, and vice versa. Same with the Alliance. And the Kerrigan treatment is how, well, Kerrigan was treated in Starcraft. As you probably know, she was made the queen of zergs. At the end of her storyarc in the zerg expansion, it's revealed she's "the chosen one", and effectively turns into a god-like being, which makes all her previous monstrous acts, murders, genocide etc. completely obsolete, and everyone instantly forgives her. It's awful.