After finishing an adventure that had been going on for more than a year and got most of the party to level 8, we're taking a bit of a break from the campaign I'm running and starting one with one of the other people in our D&D group running one in his new setting.
It's very exciting, as I get to play a character and focus on him instead of carrying the whole world around in my head.
One of our players missed the session (we're going to have a 5-player group, as there are six people in the D&D group) but the four who made it got to introduce themselves.
Our DM made sure to have us not reveal our races or classes (or anything about our characters) unless our characters knew each other.
So first to be introduced was Nott, our Dwarf Sorcerer. I have yet to figure out what Sorcerous Origin she has (though I suspect Giant Soul thanks to a comment about having tall brothers and sisters.) She appears to be in the small town of Fleming's Crossing as a newcomer, working for the head of the local merchant's guild.
Then we were introduced to two other characters, Dolph, a Dwarf Barbarian, and Digby, a Human Ranger, who are fur-trappers who have a small business called "D&D Furs."
The three were both sent to an inn called the Gelded Unicorn for different reasons, but while they were there, the innkeeper sent them to check in on the last character, a human man who had been staying in the attic room for nearly a week and barely coming out. So they went up and met me, Conrad, a Warlock.
There's a lot about my backstory I have yet to reveal, but (presuming that none of these people read this blog,) the last few days have gone like this:
After wandering the forest outside the mental hospital in which he had been a patient, but which was now a smoldering run that Conrad is pretty sure he destroyed immediately after making contact with his Great Old One patron - a seemingly sentient tower in some kind of alien plane that is continuously shattering but never falling town - Conrad tried to make his way back to civilization only to black out as soon as he reached the nearest town.
Conrad awoke in a hired coach just about a minute before his driver cheerfully informed him that he had arrived at their destination. Conrad had a stack of books about folklore, which he took to the inn where the driver dropped him off and then found that he had a room already paid for. Conrad went into the room and decided to read through the books searching for anything he could find out about the Tower, which he knew to be named Oedom-Het.
After you put a lot of effort into a character's backstory, it can be a little scary to hand that over to your DM and only be able to really react to the world as it is presented.
So far I've leaned heavily into Conrad's Neutral Good alignment - I like the idea that he's a fundamentally good person who nevertheless wields disturbing and dark magic.
We've only had two combat encounters, and after a low initiative roll in the first one, Nott and I didn't get to act before our Barbarian killed a Black Bear with a single strike (given that he primarily trades in bear pelts, it was fairly appropriate.
Our next fight was against a Cockatrice who had holed up in a barn full of chickens (making it difficult terrain.) After doing a lot of flavor for my Hex and Eldritch Blast after getting first on the initiative roll, I wound up missing with a natural 1, obliterating several chickens and enraging a mule who, as the DM described it, loved the chickens (our Ranger was able to use Animal Handling to calm the mule down so we didn't have to kill it.) This fight did manage to get to a second round, and I hit with a natural 19, and then I rolled minimum damage, dealing 1 Force and 1 Necrotic, which didn't feel great.
I know the character will have the potential to do a nice amount of damage, especially once we hit level 2 and I can get the Agonizing Blast eldritch invocation. But I'm hoping that next session, should we get some combat, I can actually feel a little more useful.
Still, for now we're very much dealing with a lot of level 1 kinds of challenges. I suspect we're probably going to be fighting some bandits next time, and I'm probably going to be happy that I took Moderately Armored to put my AC up to 18 - which is kind of insane for a pure caster character.
Thursday, August 9, 2018
Wednesday, August 8, 2018
Simon Belmont, Richter, and King K. Rool Announced for Smash Bros. Ultimate
A reminder to me that I've got to get one of those Nintendo Switches, there have actually been a couple of character announcements recently that are pretty cool.
First off, in addition to every single character they've ever had in a Smash Bros. game (including both Young Link and Toon Link, for example,) we're also getting some new folks.
Simon Belmont, original protagonist of the Castlevania series, was always something of a surprising omission when they started going outside of 1st and 2nd party characters. Well, the badass vampire-hunter is joining the fray, along with Richter, one of Simon's descendants. (It's unclear if he'll be a clone fighter or have unique abilities.)
Additionally, King K. Rool, the original bad guy from the SNES Donkey Kong Country games (though he dropped King and became Captain and then Doctor in the 2nd and 3rd ones, respectively,) will be joining the list of heavies along with Ridley from Metroid (who was announced earlier.)
I love that Nintendo is going all out insanity for this iteration of the Smash Bros. series. It has always been a game (that is almost - Jesus Christ - 20 years old now) where restraint is kind of anathema to the whole concept.
First off, in addition to every single character they've ever had in a Smash Bros. game (including both Young Link and Toon Link, for example,) we're also getting some new folks.
Simon Belmont, original protagonist of the Castlevania series, was always something of a surprising omission when they started going outside of 1st and 2nd party characters. Well, the badass vampire-hunter is joining the fray, along with Richter, one of Simon's descendants. (It's unclear if he'll be a clone fighter or have unique abilities.)
Additionally, King K. Rool, the original bad guy from the SNES Donkey Kong Country games (though he dropped King and became Captain and then Doctor in the 2nd and 3rd ones, respectively,) will be joining the list of heavies along with Ridley from Metroid (who was announced earlier.)
I love that Nintendo is going all out insanity for this iteration of the Smash Bros. series. It has always been a game (that is almost - Jesus Christ - 20 years old now) where restraint is kind of anathema to the whole concept.
The Greater Context Threat of Battle for Azeroth
Right now, Sylvanas is shaping up to be Battle for Azeroth's villain. The Burning of Teldrassil and, to a lesser extent (as it's a more reasonable scorched-earth tactic until you consider the Horde troops slain by the Blight and raised as skeletons) the Battle of Lordaeron, show her to be cruel, vindictive, and murderous.
The speculation machine is running on overdrive right now about how, exactly, the story will proceed. Is Sylvanas going to be deposed like Garrosh? Is the Horde simply going to submit to this kind of behavior in the shadow of a survival crisis it has caused? Can Sylvanas somehow be redeemed at this point?
Before we get into what people have read into the expansion, let's look at the story as Blizzard has presented it and promised:
Battle for Azeroth is about the Alliance/Horde conflict. It's a story that Blizzard said, in its announcement, needed a resolution, and that BFA is meant to provide that. A resolution to the faction conflict has the potential to be really huge, but it could also mean a return to a kind of stalemate with a promise that, somehow, things will be different this time.
There has been only vague mention of an external threat that needs to be addressed, but there are a ton of hints that the community has more or less settled on as the clear direction that the expansion, or potentially the one that follows, will take.
I'm going to be talking spoilers here, so I'll do a cut. I'll note that I haven't done a lot at the level cap in the beta (I didn't get a Horde character there, for example.) But I've gleaned a few things and I've at least done all the major zone quest lines in Kul Tiras.
The speculation machine is running on overdrive right now about how, exactly, the story will proceed. Is Sylvanas going to be deposed like Garrosh? Is the Horde simply going to submit to this kind of behavior in the shadow of a survival crisis it has caused? Can Sylvanas somehow be redeemed at this point?
Before we get into what people have read into the expansion, let's look at the story as Blizzard has presented it and promised:
Battle for Azeroth is about the Alliance/Horde conflict. It's a story that Blizzard said, in its announcement, needed a resolution, and that BFA is meant to provide that. A resolution to the faction conflict has the potential to be really huge, but it could also mean a return to a kind of stalemate with a promise that, somehow, things will be different this time.
There has been only vague mention of an external threat that needs to be addressed, but there are a ton of hints that the community has more or less settled on as the clear direction that the expansion, or potentially the one that follows, will take.
I'm going to be talking spoilers here, so I'll do a cut. I'll note that I haven't done a lot at the level cap in the beta (I didn't get a Horde character there, for example.) But I've gleaned a few things and I've at least done all the major zone quest lines in Kul Tiras.
Tuesday, August 7, 2018
One Week Until Battle For Azeroth
Technically, thanks to the global launch, it's really more like six days. On the west coast we're getting it at 3PM on Monday.
If the Beta represents how the expansion will go live, then it looks like the Battle for Lordaeron that launched today will be the equivalent of the Broken Shore battle - something we can currently do as a launch event but that will also be what characters who just hit 110 will get. The stuff in Ashenvale and Darkshore (and for Alliance, Darnassus) will not be available, though, so make sure you do those quests to get the Teldrassil Hippogryph and the Undercity Plaguebat mounts (doing it on one character is enough for both, but as always I recommend doing both sides.)
Alliance and Horde will then split up and go to their respective continents. Both involve a scenario-like involved quest. Alliance heads directly to Kul Tiras with Jaina, and then has to deal with the problems of coming back to Kul Tiras with a figure people refer to with terror as the "Daughter of the Sea." Horde players are sent on a rescue mission to get Saurfang out of Stormwind, but in the process make contact with the Zandalari and escape the city on a Zandalari ship, going to Zandalar instead of back to Orgrimmar, where they begin their questing on their continent.
Players will primarily quest through the three zones of their respective continents on the way to 120, but they'll have a few opportunities to start the "War Campaign" by doing a few short quest chains that take them to each of the other continent's zones before the level cap.
At 120, the War Campaign continues and content opens up fully on both land masses. I'll confess I haven't done a ton at the level cap in the Beta (I actually only did much on the Alpha) but it appears that the two Mythic-only dungeons, which serve as large culminations of each continent's storylines, will need to be unlocked through questing (though hopefully it won't take as long as it did to get Arcway and Court of Stars opened up.)
Uldir isn't launching until next month, so the main thing to do will be leveling, and then at the cap doing War Campaign stuff. After finishing the 8.0 War Campaign and hitting certain reputation thresholds, you'll be able to unlock Dark Iron Dwarves and Mag'har Orcs as new allied races. Zandalari Trolls and Kul Tiran Humans are likely coming in 8.1.
Still, I think the best plan of action is to get your favorite characters leveled up, do story quests on at least one character (probably per faction,) and then it'll be Mythic Dungeons as the top content for about a month.
I'm a little sad to be leaving behind Legion, but all good things must come to an end (and I of course am happy to have something new.) There's a lot of story left to tell in Battle for Azeroth, and I can only hope it'll be good (if they somehow, some way have a redemption plot for Sylvanas, they better do it better than Grommash, whose triumphant status at the end of Warlords made very little sense to me.)
To prepare, I actually think my best advice would be to take a break. Unless you're still grinding rep for the Lightforged and Void Elves, which might feel less rewarding when you have to go back to old content.
I'll hand it to Blizzard that Legion kept me playing up until the next expansion - even Wrath had me step away for a couple months before Cataclysm was out. But that's as good a reason as any to take some time off from WoW and save up your enthusiasm for the new stuff.
If the Beta represents how the expansion will go live, then it looks like the Battle for Lordaeron that launched today will be the equivalent of the Broken Shore battle - something we can currently do as a launch event but that will also be what characters who just hit 110 will get. The stuff in Ashenvale and Darkshore (and for Alliance, Darnassus) will not be available, though, so make sure you do those quests to get the Teldrassil Hippogryph and the Undercity Plaguebat mounts (doing it on one character is enough for both, but as always I recommend doing both sides.)
Alliance and Horde will then split up and go to their respective continents. Both involve a scenario-like involved quest. Alliance heads directly to Kul Tiras with Jaina, and then has to deal with the problems of coming back to Kul Tiras with a figure people refer to with terror as the "Daughter of the Sea." Horde players are sent on a rescue mission to get Saurfang out of Stormwind, but in the process make contact with the Zandalari and escape the city on a Zandalari ship, going to Zandalar instead of back to Orgrimmar, where they begin their questing on their continent.
Players will primarily quest through the three zones of their respective continents on the way to 120, but they'll have a few opportunities to start the "War Campaign" by doing a few short quest chains that take them to each of the other continent's zones before the level cap.
At 120, the War Campaign continues and content opens up fully on both land masses. I'll confess I haven't done a ton at the level cap in the Beta (I actually only did much on the Alpha) but it appears that the two Mythic-only dungeons, which serve as large culminations of each continent's storylines, will need to be unlocked through questing (though hopefully it won't take as long as it did to get Arcway and Court of Stars opened up.)
Uldir isn't launching until next month, so the main thing to do will be leveling, and then at the cap doing War Campaign stuff. After finishing the 8.0 War Campaign and hitting certain reputation thresholds, you'll be able to unlock Dark Iron Dwarves and Mag'har Orcs as new allied races. Zandalari Trolls and Kul Tiran Humans are likely coming in 8.1.
Still, I think the best plan of action is to get your favorite characters leveled up, do story quests on at least one character (probably per faction,) and then it'll be Mythic Dungeons as the top content for about a month.
I'm a little sad to be leaving behind Legion, but all good things must come to an end (and I of course am happy to have something new.) There's a lot of story left to tell in Battle for Azeroth, and I can only hope it'll be good (if they somehow, some way have a redemption plot for Sylvanas, they better do it better than Grommash, whose triumphant status at the end of Warlords made very little sense to me.)
To prepare, I actually think my best advice would be to take a break. Unless you're still grinding rep for the Lightforged and Void Elves, which might feel less rewarding when you have to go back to old content.
I'll hand it to Blizzard that Legion kept me playing up until the next expansion - even Wrath had me step away for a couple months before Cataclysm was out. But that's as good a reason as any to take some time off from WoW and save up your enthusiasm for the new stuff.
Room for Forsaken Dissent?
Sylvanas has always existed in a "just one toe over the line back in the hero part of anti hero" space since she became undead. The fact that she continued development of the Blight after being released from the Lich King's grasp was always very shady, but there was a slight angle on it where one could justify it as a weapon to use against the Scourge and maybe the Scarlet Crusade.
When I started playing WoW in Vanilla, my Undead Rogue was actually a later character I rolled - in fact, I was initially going to play an Undead Mage, though vanilla casters were a super pain in the ass to solo (actually, everything was kind of terrible to solo on, but casters, who could see spells extended to four times their cast time if they were getting hit in melee were particularly painful.) My initial impressions of the Undead were that they seemed to be for "edgy" players, though this was very early in my WoW playing and was a time when I thought Gnomes were redundant with Dwarves.
Once I got to know the Undead story, I found it pretty compelling. Here were a group of people who were, essentially, humans. But they were being hunted down by the Scarlet Crusade, a group of fanatical zealots who didn't seem to understand that there was a difference between the Forsaken and the Scourge. And then, of course, there was also the Scourge to deal with.
The Scourge are my favorite villains we've ever had in WoW. I was running Naxxramas for transmog gear on an alt the other day and was just reflecting on how perfectly menacing, perfectly wicked the Scourge felt. They're an enemy I love fighting, and the idea of being an Undead person fighting against the Undead felt really cool - that he was getting revenge for the horrible thing done to him.
My take on the Forsaken story (and I'll confess that with eight years having passed since Cataclysm revamped the world, I don't perfectly recall all the old quests and could very well be looking at this with rose-colored glasses) was always this idea that things would be fine if the living could just recognize the Forsaken as people. That the Forsaken were not aggressive, and fundamentally just wanted peace. That if the refugees of Lordaeron agreed to share the ruined countryside, that the Forsaken would happily live side-by-side with their countrymen.
Of course that wasn't totally accurate - I personally assassinated the leadership of the town of Hillsbrad (which is now the Sludge Fen,) and that wasn't exactly a "let's just get along" move. But there was this sense that the Forsaken were really desperate and clinging to their lands in the early days, and that all they wanted was some respect and dignity.
My Rogue, being a Rogue, is of course fine with doing some morally questionable acts if it means getting paid. And given that the Alliance isn't willing to bankroll him, he's willing to take the Horde's gold. He's not too different than how he was in life, though given that the pleasures of the flesh are kind of inaccessible to him these days, he's focused more on the acquisition of wealth and fancy luxuries (he's incredibly happy that Suramar, with its decadent culture, is now a Horde city, and would retire there if that was an option.)
But the characterization of the Forsaken has pushed more and more over WoW's lifespan into a cult of personality. The Forsaken all seem totally dedicated to Sylvanas as a quasi-religious figure. Whenever the Horde needs the most morally questionable characters, they go with Forsaken.
And I get that the bitterness of undeath has a dulling effect on positive emotions, and that that's part of what they want to talk about with the Forsaken, but they're pushing them in a direction of being the "token evil team member," and I think that robs the Forsaken of what makes them interesting.
We do get a handful of good undead, like Archbishop Faol, Leonid Bartholomew, and that one guy in the tower near Stratholme who explicitly calls out Sylvanas as having gone too far. But these guys have all rejected the Horde as a whole and are part of neutral factions.
I'd love, for example, to see some Forsaken characters who are still working with the Tauren to actually reverse the plague and become living humans again. Maybe they've spent enough time with the gentle giants of Mulgore that they've learned to really appreciate Tauren culture. Maybe they've spent time with their shamans learning about balance and sought out some new methods to give themselves peace.
Sylvanas turned the Undercity into a trap for the Alliance. There was nowhere near the loss of life at Teldrassil - knowing the fight would destroy the city, Sylvanas had her people evacuated ahead of time. But if you're a Forsaken character, this means you've lost your home. Not just the home that you carved out after being freed from the Scourge, but a home that you inhabited before you died in the first place.
That home would still be there if Sylvanas hadn't attacked Teldrassil, or even if she just stuck to the plan and held the world-tree and its people as a deterrent. Just as in the real world, the threat of force is generally a more useful tool than actual force. Sylvanas went nuclear, and now the Forsaken are suffering that mutually assured destruction.
It's not an element that ever seems to come up, but Sylvanas is not from the same people as most of the Forsaken. The shared experience of dying and then re-emerging years later as Forsaken could very well be enough for the vast majority of people to see past racial divides. And the Quel'thalas and Lordaeron were old allies, so again, that divide might not be so strong. But still, might some of the Forsaken resent that Sylvanas allowed Lordaeron City to be effectively destroyed while she can go back and wander the streets of Silvermoon any time she damn pleases? Her home is remarkably intact.
She led them against the Scourge, but on some level, isn't Sylvanas a carpet-bagger?
The Blight was very useful as a deterrent, but Sylvanas seems to only act in ways to provoke. Her invasion of Gilneas, to be fair, was ordered by Garrosh, but her methods were literally atrocious. And while you might argue that they're nasty, but they get the job done, in fact they don't. Gilneas has been a quagmire for the Forsaken. Burning Teldrassil undercut the entire war strategy Saurfang had devised. So far, what does Sylvanas have to show for all her cruel tactics? She has lost the Horde foothold in the Eastern Kingdoms and splintered her own faction.
As one of the Forsaken, my character would be incredibly pissed off that he's forced to stay in a hot desert, and that Sylvanas has just proved everyone who ever said the Forsaken were not to be trusted, that they were bloodthirsty monsters who deserved to be wiped off the face of the planet, basically right.
There's ruthless pragmatism, which is something he can respect. But provocation on the bet that the Alliance can't fight back is just reckless. So he'll be polite, and salute the Warchief, and he'll certainly bloody his blades with Alliance blood when he has to. But he's now going through every possible scenario in which the Dark Lady might be quickly and carefully eliminated. In the name of the Forsaken, the Banshee Queen has to go.
When I started playing WoW in Vanilla, my Undead Rogue was actually a later character I rolled - in fact, I was initially going to play an Undead Mage, though vanilla casters were a super pain in the ass to solo (actually, everything was kind of terrible to solo on, but casters, who could see spells extended to four times their cast time if they were getting hit in melee were particularly painful.) My initial impressions of the Undead were that they seemed to be for "edgy" players, though this was very early in my WoW playing and was a time when I thought Gnomes were redundant with Dwarves.
Once I got to know the Undead story, I found it pretty compelling. Here were a group of people who were, essentially, humans. But they were being hunted down by the Scarlet Crusade, a group of fanatical zealots who didn't seem to understand that there was a difference between the Forsaken and the Scourge. And then, of course, there was also the Scourge to deal with.
The Scourge are my favorite villains we've ever had in WoW. I was running Naxxramas for transmog gear on an alt the other day and was just reflecting on how perfectly menacing, perfectly wicked the Scourge felt. They're an enemy I love fighting, and the idea of being an Undead person fighting against the Undead felt really cool - that he was getting revenge for the horrible thing done to him.
My take on the Forsaken story (and I'll confess that with eight years having passed since Cataclysm revamped the world, I don't perfectly recall all the old quests and could very well be looking at this with rose-colored glasses) was always this idea that things would be fine if the living could just recognize the Forsaken as people. That the Forsaken were not aggressive, and fundamentally just wanted peace. That if the refugees of Lordaeron agreed to share the ruined countryside, that the Forsaken would happily live side-by-side with their countrymen.
Of course that wasn't totally accurate - I personally assassinated the leadership of the town of Hillsbrad (which is now the Sludge Fen,) and that wasn't exactly a "let's just get along" move. But there was this sense that the Forsaken were really desperate and clinging to their lands in the early days, and that all they wanted was some respect and dignity.
My Rogue, being a Rogue, is of course fine with doing some morally questionable acts if it means getting paid. And given that the Alliance isn't willing to bankroll him, he's willing to take the Horde's gold. He's not too different than how he was in life, though given that the pleasures of the flesh are kind of inaccessible to him these days, he's focused more on the acquisition of wealth and fancy luxuries (he's incredibly happy that Suramar, with its decadent culture, is now a Horde city, and would retire there if that was an option.)
But the characterization of the Forsaken has pushed more and more over WoW's lifespan into a cult of personality. The Forsaken all seem totally dedicated to Sylvanas as a quasi-religious figure. Whenever the Horde needs the most morally questionable characters, they go with Forsaken.
And I get that the bitterness of undeath has a dulling effect on positive emotions, and that that's part of what they want to talk about with the Forsaken, but they're pushing them in a direction of being the "token evil team member," and I think that robs the Forsaken of what makes them interesting.
We do get a handful of good undead, like Archbishop Faol, Leonid Bartholomew, and that one guy in the tower near Stratholme who explicitly calls out Sylvanas as having gone too far. But these guys have all rejected the Horde as a whole and are part of neutral factions.
I'd love, for example, to see some Forsaken characters who are still working with the Tauren to actually reverse the plague and become living humans again. Maybe they've spent enough time with the gentle giants of Mulgore that they've learned to really appreciate Tauren culture. Maybe they've spent time with their shamans learning about balance and sought out some new methods to give themselves peace.
Sylvanas turned the Undercity into a trap for the Alliance. There was nowhere near the loss of life at Teldrassil - knowing the fight would destroy the city, Sylvanas had her people evacuated ahead of time. But if you're a Forsaken character, this means you've lost your home. Not just the home that you carved out after being freed from the Scourge, but a home that you inhabited before you died in the first place.
That home would still be there if Sylvanas hadn't attacked Teldrassil, or even if she just stuck to the plan and held the world-tree and its people as a deterrent. Just as in the real world, the threat of force is generally a more useful tool than actual force. Sylvanas went nuclear, and now the Forsaken are suffering that mutually assured destruction.
It's not an element that ever seems to come up, but Sylvanas is not from the same people as most of the Forsaken. The shared experience of dying and then re-emerging years later as Forsaken could very well be enough for the vast majority of people to see past racial divides. And the Quel'thalas and Lordaeron were old allies, so again, that divide might not be so strong. But still, might some of the Forsaken resent that Sylvanas allowed Lordaeron City to be effectively destroyed while she can go back and wander the streets of Silvermoon any time she damn pleases? Her home is remarkably intact.
She led them against the Scourge, but on some level, isn't Sylvanas a carpet-bagger?
The Blight was very useful as a deterrent, but Sylvanas seems to only act in ways to provoke. Her invasion of Gilneas, to be fair, was ordered by Garrosh, but her methods were literally atrocious. And while you might argue that they're nasty, but they get the job done, in fact they don't. Gilneas has been a quagmire for the Forsaken. Burning Teldrassil undercut the entire war strategy Saurfang had devised. So far, what does Sylvanas have to show for all her cruel tactics? She has lost the Horde foothold in the Eastern Kingdoms and splintered her own faction.
As one of the Forsaken, my character would be incredibly pissed off that he's forced to stay in a hot desert, and that Sylvanas has just proved everyone who ever said the Forsaken were not to be trusted, that they were bloodthirsty monsters who deserved to be wiped off the face of the planet, basically right.
There's ruthless pragmatism, which is something he can respect. But provocation on the bet that the Alliance can't fight back is just reckless. So he'll be polite, and salute the Warchief, and he'll certainly bloody his blades with Alliance blood when he has to. But he's now going through every possible scenario in which the Dark Lady might be quickly and carefully eliminated. In the name of the Forsaken, the Banshee Queen has to go.
Lordaeron: A Half-Victory for the Alliance
The Battle of Lordaeron is now live, and with it, Alliance players who have been feeling frustrated (again) after a big loss right before an expansion (again) have a chance to lay siege to the Undercity and attempt to secure some kind of justice.
Spoilers to follow, but it's live, so go do it if you're worried:
Spoilers to follow, but it's live, so go do it if you're worried:
Monday, August 6, 2018
An Analysis of Sylvanas' Strategy
Last week, we discovered that, contrary to our earlier theories that the Horde would find Teldrassil aflame and merely be blamed for the actions of another, instead it turns out that Sylvanas ordered the burning, killing off massive numbers of Night Elf civilians, destroying the Alliance's most important foothold in Kalimdor, and escalating the Alliance/Horde war to the highest possible degree. She took what had been a struggle over resources into an existential conflict.
Fan reaction has been intense.
Horde players feel that they are once again being pushed into a villainous role, while many were drawn to the Horde because it allowed them to play as seemingly monstrous races that were actually heroic. Sylvanas has hardly been a good guy basically since she first died, but she has historically always had some kind of justification behind her ruthless behavior. In Cataclysm, she defended raising dead humans as a way to keep the Forsaken going given their lack of ordinary reproduction (for obvious reasons.)
But her smug smirk, in which she responds to the claim that she cannot kill hope with a wry "Can't I?" seems so incredibly over the wall into full on villain territory that it's hard to imagine her finding any sort of redemption barring some reveal that she wasn't actually in control of her body at the time, or that that wasn't actually Sylvanas there - neither of which seem very likely.
But there's another question, which is whether the decision made sense strategically.
The mission presented to the Horde was conquest - they would take Teldrassil and occupy it, holding the Night Elf population there as hostages to prevent the Alliance from moving in on the Azerite emerging in Silithus. It would be a way to secure Kalimdor for the Horde.
If this had gone the way she sold the mission, we would now be seeing Horde soldiers occupying Darnassus and the Night Elves would most likely be waging some kind of resistance. Such a thing would almost certainly be bloody and filled with brutal suppression, but for the Alliance, it would certainly be preferable to a total massacre that did happen.
The Horde, on the other hand, is primarily paying a moral cost. In burning Teldrassil, the Horde does not need to commit resources to occupy it, and the threat of the Night Elves' bastion has been totally eliminated.
Now, I would imagine that this does not remove the Night Elf presence in Kalimdor. Teldrassil is a relatively new thing for a population that has inhabited (in many cases individually) the forests for ten thousand years. Night Elves in Kalimdor are more motivated than ever to strike back at the Horde, and I would be shocked if we didn't see Kaldorei guerrilla units attempting to strike at any Horde targets - military or civilian - throughout the Horde's northern territories.
Still, comparing guerrilla remnants to the fully-backed Alliance military, the Horde can likely weather the storm of the angered Night Elves, but it won't be without a cost.
Indeed, the Horde military is probably going to have to dedicate some of its power to holding off guerrilla attacks by extremely angry Night Elves, many of whom have nothing to lose and no reason to hold back.
The obvious consequence of this action is the attack on Undercity, due to arrive tomorrow if I'm not mistaken. Here, the main force of the Alliance military has an advantage in terms of logistics (notice how every expansion, the Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor seem to get farther away from one another?) We of course know that the Alliance will be cutting a swath across Tirisfal Glades and besieging Undercity.
If you haven't played the Beta and don't want tomorrow spoiled, I'll do a cut here.
Fan reaction has been intense.
Horde players feel that they are once again being pushed into a villainous role, while many were drawn to the Horde because it allowed them to play as seemingly monstrous races that were actually heroic. Sylvanas has hardly been a good guy basically since she first died, but she has historically always had some kind of justification behind her ruthless behavior. In Cataclysm, she defended raising dead humans as a way to keep the Forsaken going given their lack of ordinary reproduction (for obvious reasons.)
But her smug smirk, in which she responds to the claim that she cannot kill hope with a wry "Can't I?" seems so incredibly over the wall into full on villain territory that it's hard to imagine her finding any sort of redemption barring some reveal that she wasn't actually in control of her body at the time, or that that wasn't actually Sylvanas there - neither of which seem very likely.
But there's another question, which is whether the decision made sense strategically.
The mission presented to the Horde was conquest - they would take Teldrassil and occupy it, holding the Night Elf population there as hostages to prevent the Alliance from moving in on the Azerite emerging in Silithus. It would be a way to secure Kalimdor for the Horde.
If this had gone the way she sold the mission, we would now be seeing Horde soldiers occupying Darnassus and the Night Elves would most likely be waging some kind of resistance. Such a thing would almost certainly be bloody and filled with brutal suppression, but for the Alliance, it would certainly be preferable to a total massacre that did happen.
The Horde, on the other hand, is primarily paying a moral cost. In burning Teldrassil, the Horde does not need to commit resources to occupy it, and the threat of the Night Elves' bastion has been totally eliminated.
Now, I would imagine that this does not remove the Night Elf presence in Kalimdor. Teldrassil is a relatively new thing for a population that has inhabited (in many cases individually) the forests for ten thousand years. Night Elves in Kalimdor are more motivated than ever to strike back at the Horde, and I would be shocked if we didn't see Kaldorei guerrilla units attempting to strike at any Horde targets - military or civilian - throughout the Horde's northern territories.
Still, comparing guerrilla remnants to the fully-backed Alliance military, the Horde can likely weather the storm of the angered Night Elves, but it won't be without a cost.
Indeed, the Horde military is probably going to have to dedicate some of its power to holding off guerrilla attacks by extremely angry Night Elves, many of whom have nothing to lose and no reason to hold back.
The obvious consequence of this action is the attack on Undercity, due to arrive tomorrow if I'm not mistaken. Here, the main force of the Alliance military has an advantage in terms of logistics (notice how every expansion, the Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor seem to get farther away from one another?) We of course know that the Alliance will be cutting a swath across Tirisfal Glades and besieging Undercity.
If you haven't played the Beta and don't want tomorrow spoiled, I'll do a cut here.
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