Monday comes a bit early and I may have gone a bit ham on this one, but worth it! The Battle for Azeroth collectors edition offers a book which tells 2 stories, around the same time, but from both the Alliance and Horde point of view. It gives a better understanding as to what is going on, something that I believe should have been more ingame. Regardless. Lets talk about this War of the Thorns campaign, hope you'll enjoy! Timestamps: Week 1 00:00 - 18:33 Week 2 18:34 - 31:25 Collector's Edition 31:26 - 43:50
This actually does change things for me. One big issue I had on the Horde side was Suarfang's inaction. Now I see that he DIDN'T just sit there and let Sylvanas do this, he tried to stop it. That makes way more sense. The motivations for the war too, those make more sense as well. On the Alliance side... I was worried about Genn being in Anduin's ear. I still am, but I can see that Anduin is pretty sharp and has a good head on his shoulders, and isn't scared to ask the tough questions. I loved the touch with Elune and the priestesses. They deserved a peaceful death, and Elune granted them that. It made me cry, I won't deny that. My ONLY gripe - THESE DETAILS SHOULD NOT BE GATED BEHIND BOOKS!!! They should've been in the in-game story. Not everyone has the money needed to shell out for the collectors edition, and many people - including myself - expect the storytelling for the game to be done IN THE GAME.
There is always Wowgamepedia. I remember I would sit and spend hours upon hours reading the lore of characters, dead and alive, events, wars etc on the old wowwiki site. :/
These short stories makes me even more loyal to my Queen. This should've been in-game so butthurts wouldn't be so ridiculously overreacting. Although, that probably would've made these questlines like over an hour long on top of what is in-game and that's just too much content for what is essentially just pre-patch content. People will say why this is not in-game, but from this point of view is very understandable and even preferrable as I can read the short story on my lunch break or commute whereas I couldn't if it was all in-game. For the Banshee Queen!!!
The whole point was to make people outside of the game react. Say whatever, blame whatever, but keep talking about it. And by outside I even mean players who didnt play through the cutscene, rather just watched the video. Its a success as a marketing standpoint.
The background story makes Sylvanas even worse. She is clearly not fit to lead if she gets triggered that easily. If you wage war and commit genocide because of your hatred towards others, you are even worse than the burning legion. Also - at least for me - it was clear that Saurfang still is representative of the original/honorable Horde and was against it.
she said to not kill those who didn't take up arms against her. that is civilians. she said to capture and question them and that way make sure that she had the leverage to keep teldrassil under control. then she burned it.
Sylvanas: "The divide between the Alliance and the Horde is difficult to mend, and therefore we cannot have peace. So let us strengthen that divide instead."
While the Tree itself is gianormous, i used to think the distance between Teledresill and DarkShore was a few good killometters of distance, so yeah those Catapults must be more like Trebuchets atleast.
Now I understand why you were so eager to publish this video, Nobbel. Hats off, it's one of the best one you've ever made with cooperation with WoWhead - thanks also Perculia for the subsequent analysis, it's very enlightening and amazing to see all the information laid out this way. Good job!
i still think it is pretty fun when i started to play WoW Adnuin was just a little kid prince who was protected by Onyxia in human form and Bolvar now look at our king grown up and taking the lead.
"All grown up" He is still like 18 or 19 and leads 10k yo Elfs Draenei and even seasoned generals like Turalyon and Genn, thats the biggest BS on wow, Anduin is a Mary Sue and shoudlnt lead the alliance
This has been a mess of using different mediums to tell a story. It would be like watching avengers infinity war where the only thing we see Thanos doing is punch people and then cut to snapping his fingers but told to read a book, comics, two novellas and read quest dialogue, all out of order to understand the back story of why he is doing everything and how he got to that point. It’s not specifically Sylvanas I’m comparing to Thanos, just the overall lead up story to this expansion.
Thats blizzard. If you wanna know WoW lore thoroughly you gotta play a thousand hours of WoW, google the removed quests, purchase and read 18 novels, 300 comic books and read 1400 short stories.
Listening to how Astaari gives them a final mercy was hard enough. But of course you go and ask effing Sharm to actually sing it! NOT *sniffle* FAIR! (But well done, I give you that.)
Yes I actually teared up during that part. Especially hearing it sung. My first character was a Night Elf druid. I've seen so many changes since playing the beta. And to see my home, my people burning. It was a lot more emotional than it should have been for me.
Jochen Lillich Thanks for getting back to me. I was not aware of the scene that was going to take place in the Temple of the Moon. Figured it out from context. OMG so sad yet beautiful. I can't even think of revenge yet. Just in mourning. Where did you learn about the scene? I've run the alliance scenario until the end and have not seen it.
Aden Metsastaja Me neither. I played it too, and saw Genn leave with Mia, but after that nothing happened, and I left through the portal. I suppose we get the lyric to that song if you talk to that hpriestess?
Goddamnit Blizz. You put vital information in a book again, twice. Sylvanas' initial motivation actually makes sense now, because she and Saurfang are addressing that Genn tried to assassinate her, and that Anduin didn't punish him. He can't control those around him. And more importantly, her literal motivation for the burning. The cinematic without this context looks like a childish outrage after a night elf made her mad, but with the context of her knowing and pondering that Saurfang didn't kill Malfurion, it suddenly becomes her failing to snuff out their hope via Malfurion, and resorting to the tree instead. This makes me love the cinematic. Her burning actually seems tactical now, she is replacing Malfurion with the tree for snuffing out the night elves' will to fight.
Sylvannas always intended to burn the tree, she left Saurfang to kill Malfurion to test his loyalty. If he kills him she accomplishes her goal and she would do it anyways with Saurfang as her puppet, if he doesn't she is "justified" for the burning and gains a way to removes Saurfang, her greatest threat.
Kieran Chiddix Finally some proper lore for a change. Got even more excited after getting more context. Always hated Sylvanas as a character, but this made me actually like her.
Well. Crap. Why wasn't a lot of the detail from the books in the game? It doesn't fix all my problems, but it certainly fixes a decent number of the biggest ones. I still feel like going this route dramatically limits how things can play out. But at least some of Sylvanas's motivations actually make sense after that. I feel like if they'd added a bit of that nuance into the in-game guests, a lot of the uproar wouldn't have happened. Just the fact Sarufang wasn't standing around and not saying anything during the burning fixes a few issues. Now I really can't wait to read those stories.
"They prayed for mercy" I bawled so hard. I am horde. Much like what happened at Theramor it was gut wrenching. Queue RP: But to be part of a faction who's leader is going against all of your ideals of peace much like how I was raised with Thrall's ideals of peace. This is getting to be too much. I know it's world of WARcraft, but I used to be proud, I used to think we would all eventually grow together. Be it apart, but together into something bigger than ourselves. Much like Zappyboi " The horde is all we have...". this is an emotional roller coaster for me. The only way I can push myself now is to hope one day Elune and all she has touched will forgive us. Know that the horde isn't just 1 person, rather a culmination of generations who have seen blood shed in pursuit of peace and freedom and that not all of us took joy in following blizzard's script. I am deeply and truly sorry. "FOR THE HORDE!" only brings lament for me now. This is Blizzard's script, this is her agenda, not many of ours.
I can't wait to see how they bring Jaina in. I didn't see her little cinematic thing until the other day and that's 100% got me more hyped than everything with this storyline. I want to see what she does. I just hope they keep writing her the way they are. I don't want another sylvanas. I want a good tragic character with major inner conflict and a realization of something to at least quell that termoil a little bit.
I went into legion expecting Kil'Jaden to be the last boss going to Argus and fighting Agramar came out of nowhere so if that proves anything it is that 14 years later Blizz can still Surprise me so I'm not writing Sylvanas off yet Blizz is self aware so I doubt they cooked up an expansion just to boot another warchief.
Doesn't matter what they do. Sylvanas just committed the greatest crime ever committed by a mortal on Azeroth. It dwarfs everything that Garrosh did and she is irredeemable. She needs to die, there is no redemption or anything that could justify what she did and if they try to pull some Kerrigan shit on us that would just be absolutely awful storytelling.
Im expecting this expac to end with N'zoth, there has been old god influence being shown over Legion, and even more with BFA so that's what im hinging my bets on, if not we get wotlk / Mist 2.0
The details mentioned in the books definitely help, but there's still so much that doesn't make sense. As you mentioned in the end: there would have been other forces to help against Sylvanas. Elune, Wild Gods, Nature itself would have done more, the wisps could have been used more offensively than just building a wall, Nature would have told Malf that Horde is coming from the north. All this was missing. Also how does the Alliance control the flow of Azerite? They can move some because they have protection from Darnassus, sure, but it's still mostly Horde's continent and they have safer routes (not on sea) themselves. Also Alliance has a flying city with the Exodar, so they don't even need ships... oh and the Vindicar... and Portals, but they don't exist in the lore... except when it's already too late and then just to save a few civilians... Also Azerite is spawning all over the world now, so this was just for a little head start... but I guess they wouldn't know that it would appear outside of Silithus soon... Oh and I have to mention the uber powerful demolishers that can not only hit the tree from the shore, but can also hit the top of it to start fires... and the tree is so dry that it instantly caches fire... and all the people that could put the fires out or the lakes, nature, druids, shamans that would have helped... don't I guess... demolishers too op, pls nerf Let's get to the stuff that is there: Malfurion: for the first time in WoW (not Warcraft as a whole) he is finally portrait as strong as he really is and not just whining or sleeping. He has Sylvanas at his mercy TWICE before the duel but just doesn't do anything! "Begone, witch!" -> blinds all enemies aaaaand disappears himself?!? And here I thought they would finally save the character of Malfurion... guess not Then Saurfang throwing the axe in Malf's back is just... I mean yea he instantly regrets it, but he wouldn't have done it in the first place! Maybe the explanation that Sylv saved him earlier from Malf makes this acceptable but it still feels wrong to have this honor bound guy interrupt a duel by falling someone in the back... And Tyrande... she's not there for the whole fight and then only shows up just in time for a dramatic showdown with Saurfang and to safe Malf (lazy writing) and then just leaves her people at the Horde's mercy?! She wants us to help them instead, while she helps them find respite... in Stormwind?! I vote for Mia to lead the nightelves now, she has tried to save as many as she could while Tyrande wasn't even there! Which leads to another problem: what nightelves? I mean yea there are of course some in other locations too, but most of them were in Teldrassil, Darkshore and Ashenvale and are dead now! This was basically a genocide! Their whole army is dead and (I don't know if there's a leaderboard, but if you're good) you save maybe 50 of 1000 civilians in Darnassus. I mean sure, that's just ingame and there's way more, but if you accept this ratio than basically 95% of all Nightelves are dead now. The fact that in the books Saurfang tries to stop the burning and ingame doesn't kill civilians helps, but there's still a lot of Tauren in the army and - in my opinion - even non-druid Tauren would not like what's happening! Same with other Horde Druids and maybe Shamans. I never had an issue with Sylvanas starting the war, her reasoning in game was good enough for me: if you expect war then you should make the first move and catch the enemy off guard. The tactic of occupying the city to have hostages and maybe dismantle the alliance is even smarter and is probably the best strategical move anyone has ever done in warcraft history... or would have been if she pulled through with it! Burning the tree still doesn't make sense from a logical standpoint! Yes Malf is not dead, or even if he was, their spirits weren't broken, but so what? As far as I understand it, that would have been a bonus to make the fights easier 'cause it would have broken the morale of the NEs, but at this point the fighting is already over. Sure burning the tree may also break the morale of the alliance with them losing a capital city, but the bigger arguments are still against the burning: Having a whole city of hostages would ensure that Anduin won't make aggressive moves and even with Malf alive would still break the Alliance (from her viewpoint). The fact that Malf is alive doesn't change that by occupying the city they would have stopped a war before it even began. They would have interrupted the trade routes for the Alliance's Azerite. They would have had a lot of hostages. There would not be retaliation, at least not in a big way, like Sylv had planned from the start. Malf not being dead shouldn't change the plan and it didn't! Seeing that there's still hope did! But trying to eliminate that (for no real reason) by sacrificing the rest of your plan to ensure peace, is a very impulsive move that should have needed more consideration. If they took the tree, they could burn it at any point if they see that their plan wasn't working. Doing it like this only makes the other side angry and leads to more fights and big retaliations AND to louder voices against her in the Horde itself! This move only makes sense if you see it as an emotional unstable character being confronted with the reality that she might be wrong and that there's people with more willpower out there then she had when she was alive. Trying to break that willpower/hope by any means necessary without thinking about the consequences. Which is fine, because she seems like an unstable character anyway. I mean her wanting to take out Malf on her own multiple times during the campaign (which she never could do) and the way she says it, already makes her seem like a megalomaniac. So yea, still a lot I don't like about this. The Horde not leaving her a week later when the Alliance attacks Undercity is fine, 'cause to do smth against her takes a lil longer, but then going to new Islands and forgetting about what happened for months seems weird. And as far as I know, no one except for Saurfang does anything. At least Baine and Eitrigg need to say something!
Thank you. Precisly what i think about this whole scenario. Plus: Even among the Forsaken she is not well thought off. As far as i am aware, there are (or at least there was) an small faction of Forsaken who where quite disgruntled with Sylvanas after she was crowned Warchief. I do believe that, if they are not out of the picture yet, this group will be pivotal to the incoming rebellion inside the Horde. I don't think Gallywix cares, as long as his income is not affected, but Baine, Lor'themar and Ro'khan (i think he is the leader of the Darkspear now, isn't he?) do care. Not only that, but the allied races might as well disaprove of her decisions. The Highmountain Tauren and Mag'har orc especially.
Alliance will continue to get shit on. We know Alliance will always be the reactionary faction, the faction of "morally good" to a level where they just keep losing and losing and losing and never get a victory or any reparations.... so tired of it. But, ya, let's keep making everything focused around Horde, let's keep ignoring half the playerbase/an entire faction... sigh..... A list of towns/cities lost to the other faction (so not due to the Cataclysm/other forces, just to the other faction) over World of Warcraft's timeline. So far I have: Horde: - Camp Taurajo - Undercity (soon) - Brill (soon) - Silverpine Forest (or at least parts of it) Alliance: - Gilneas (could argue it's not technically Alliance territory at the time it fell, to be fair and apparently get it back in BFA) - Theramore - South Shore/Hillsbrad Field - Darnassus - Lor'Danel (Darkshore's last real town really) - everything in Ashenvale (Astranaar, Forest Song, Maestra's Post, etc) - Pyrewood (as Sylvanas went after Gilneas) - Bael Modan - Andorhal (at least, the Alliance portion they had as they and the Foresaken worked to drive out the Scourge and then, later, the Foresaken drove out the Alliance, might not count this, it's debatable). And what's REALLY frustrating? The Horde only players that refuse to admit the FACT that Alliance have been made the whipping boy of the story for WoW for ages... the fact that Alliance gets NOTHING for all the shit has been done to them.... and then when Alliance characters are angry over Horde's actions and attack them, the Horde players cry foul. If Blizzard keeps this kinda thing up, I hope all Alliance just quit. There's no point being the side of losers for nothing.... I still like playing Horde too, but, as I said, I like being Alliance more and we get nothing.
andrejoss475 that battle hasn’t even begin yet, don’t count the chickens before they hatch, especially there are those of us who enjoys just watching the epicness of the said chicken hatching
It's amazing how this addresses most (but not all) of the issues the Horde players have had with the last few weeks. -The reasoning for the the invasion is better outlined - Sylvanas knows that Saurfang 'failed' and needed to destroy the tree to continue her idea of breaking the Alliance's spirit (coupled with the 'provocation' from Delaryn) - Saurfang does try to stop Sylvanas from burning the tree I wish they'd put this short story out at exactly the same time and made it accessible to the community, you're right, it's not great, but it does make a big difference
It makes absolutely no difference. There is nothing new here. We already knew sourfang is against sylvanasis 'final solution' i.e. genocide of all life on azeroth just to protect herself. What does this address that we did not already know? All it does is make the horde look even worse, since sourfang follows her orders regardless. Its ok to murder innocents if I was ordered to do it! Thats the honourable horde. The current dishonourable horde is just sylvanas on a power trip. Either way. Horde still 100% evil.
No, she did not planned to burn the Tree untill Delaryn provoked her in to doing so by saying that she can not kill hope. Her first words in cinematic are "secure the beach, prepair to invade the Tree". The main goal was to hold Alliance away from Kalimdore by keeping Darnassus in hostage. That's the problem, she snapped in a matter of a second like a child and escalated a full face to face war which she tried to avoid to begin with. Even Nathanos was like "wtf are you doing?".
Those shortstorys literally change nothing and the way that they arnt even in the game/event makes it even worse... sounds more like cut content, shown as a collectors edition gimmik than actually being canon.
The short clearly has Sylvanas intending to invade the tree. She literally says, "Prepare to invade the tree." The writers intentionally wrote it so that she would get provoked into burning a the tree. They clearly drew an extra frame of her frowning just to emphasize that a nerve had been hit. You cannot write around this without retconning it. You can say she needed to kill Malf but then you'd have to explain why she wanted to invade it in the first place. And more importantly the fact that she would receive pity from a dying night elf triggering her was something Blizzard wanted to show because I guess it reveals a lot about her character which they're not wrong. Something about what that night elf said clearly means a lot to Sylvanas.
It doesn’t answer why Sylvanas could have avoided ALL of this by just KILLING MALFURION HERSELF. Like wtf? There was no reason to leave it to Saurfang, especially after he just said he regretted the first blow he dealt.
The tree Archimonde targeted was Nordrassil and magical in nature, Teldrassil is the current one and not magical so Sylvanass didn't burn it down except for pure hatred
I quit at the end of Wrath and came back last year in November. Missed so much stuff, not the least of which was this entire event. Varian's death at the beginning of Legion is such a gut-punch, as someone who used to delve deep into the lore and enjoyed reading about everything, especially as an alliance main. And now I see this. Fingers are literally trembling right now, and I feel a deep sense of hate for Sylvanas and for the Horde. The motivations aside, this was good storytelling for the most part. I really wish I'd been playing when this happened. Once Shadowlands hits, my night elf druid is definitely going to "upgrade" with the new customizations to show he is a survivor of the event. This was phenomenal. Thank you for this video.
Did they just Obi-Wan'ed Astarii? :O STRIKE ME DOWN, AND I SHALL BECOME MORE POWERFUL THAN EVAAAAAAAAAAAAA. On the other hand, the night elf wisps can really teach Sylvanas a thing or two about the dead... the dead should be a bulwark to nurture and protect life, not stifle it or overwhelm it or even to kill life. The wisps (night elf ancestors) have ever protected the night elves, and that's why they never feared death the same way Sylvanas does.
Never feared death? Wasn't the tree planted for the sole reason to make night elfs immortal, which made most dragon aspects say screw you to night elves and not bless the tree?
Another great video @Nobbel! I only discovered about the short stories after viewing people play the "War of the Thorns" instance. I especially liked "A Good War" as it explains the Horde's motivations so much better.
I don't understand why blizzard keeps insisting on keeping such important story footnotes out of the game. It would not have taken much to have Saurfang speak up in the Warbringers episode, or shown him speak up in game. It's just stupid. They have some serious isssues with how they deliver their stories. It's ridiculous that the player has to gather pieces from multiple different sources and piece the story together themselves.
This really fleshes the story out better for those of us who haven't had the pleasure of reading the collectors edition shorts stories, Pity it's not represented in game .... yet! Thanks Nobbel!
Yeah Nobbel, as you said, why isn't that ingame? Mind you, it's still stupid reasons for all that happened, but less stupid than what's ingame. I like that we have in depth contents in the books but I wish Blizz wouldn't make them the only place where there's in depth contents for the lore. Specially on a event on that scale and inportance for the expansion to come. Well, thanks for bringing this to us, at least through you se can experience some of It!
What Sylvanas doesn't understand is that the Alliance is Tempered in Battle (The Horde are Forged for War) and pissing them off and destroying the tree isn't going to stop them. All it's going to do is Rally them against the Horde more. "This wound will make them Bleed" Except... she Cauterized that wound by Burning it down.... She could have held the Civilians as hostages which would have been smarter.
Welcome to WoW. Where you have ghosts burning an innocent tree and killing civilians claiming that 'Horde' has to stop them while she doesn't even speak for the Horde only but herself. Interesting choice Blizzard you nailed choosing your next Warchief instead of Baine or Lorethmar..
Cyka Blyat Idi Nahui Pidar It goes deeper than that Vol'jin was speaking to the loa before he died and vol'jin himself never really trusted her. But i believe blizzard has something big planned for sylvannas hence why the loa picked her and not coincidentally were going to zandalar soon...
SlamzJonez Same invasion could be said about the Kul'Tiras humans. Also, the Horde reformed and was an aid to the world when the legion attacked, don't just compare them to the first Horde. Else by that logic, I might as well compare the Draenei with the Eredar since they were once the same race and allowed themselves to become demons, or the Alliance of Lordaeron for wanting to genocide Blood Elf refugees with the Alliance of Stormwind. Just because the predecessor held a name, doesn't mean that its descendant does. The Horde definitely does not sit well with this whole war, but time will tell if Blizzard will actually do anything with this story than another "Uh oh, one of your warchiefs have decided to fuck shit up again! Time to get a new one!".
BTW the alliance only contains one native Areroth race, whereas originates from out of space ;-) Hord on the other hand has only TWO NON-Native races...
I was asking myself "Why would Elune not interviene? Why didn't she help the Night Elves?" and now I'm pretty happy to know she did, as heartbreaking as it is. And all those details, those better explanations... Blizzard should release this stories soon, to easy the raging fury of many Horde players who can just know of the ingame story (and I don't blame them for being angry, even as Alliance/Night Elf fan)
Sylvanas is basically, "I know the Alliance would attack us, because we would attack them." She's so narrow-minded and can only see evil in others because she herself can only think like that.
To be fair she is right. They have literally just discovered the atom bomb. It is just a matter of time before some lunatic decides to use it. Sylvanas is still a genocidal maniac though. She is outright lying about her good intentions. She wants everything dead so she can control it.
Thank you for sharing the parts with those who didn't want the way to expensive collector's edition (taking into account what it contains). Really glad that you made this pre-event a little more interesting again :)
7:18 I have to admit when she asked me who i was the first time i had a full on Beowulf moment. who am i? WHO AM I, I AM RIPPER, SLASHER, KILLER OF KINGS AND GODS, I AM THE BEAST YOU FEAR AT NIGHT, I AM champion.
OOOOh I can't tell you how much I love that you added the collector edition stories.... seriously, I can't, because I'm still listening to that part. Still the best dutch cookie EVER! Thanks again for another great video.
The Sylvanas cinematic would've amazed everybody if they didn't show us the picture of burning Teldrasil. It's like they teased us with "Who burnt the tree?" and we get the most expected answer... If we didn't know at all we would get surprised by Sylvanas even greater ruthlessness that we've previously seen. If everybody is worried that this is Garrosh 2.0 then you think very little of writers. My guess is that Alliance and Horde will unite but this time Sylvanas wins and creates her own faction... so many different amazing possibilities besides this one.
Khinlop I hope your theory is right. So many dispute the idea of a third faction. But I fought alongside the horde for two years, I saw honor and came to understand that the unity among us made us stronger force than any history Azeroth has ever seen. In the beginning, it felt so awkward, by the end.... I longed to heal the horde, to give them life as I did my beloved alliance. I cannot say what the future holds for Azeroth or the factions. I can say, the loss I feel right now is great. I feel the loss of life in Teldrassil, I feel the loss of kinship and understanding among the horde. Ahead I go, in war.......and despair. Ahead I go, with what hope remains that I will be so blessed to once again be united with the good honorable horde folk again one day.
Actually I was thinking that it would finally solve these problems. There would be third playable faction that is evil(about 40% of Horde players would love to play this considering how many still support Sylvanas), and Horde with alliance will be the somewhat good guys but still with tensions between each other. This will basically please everybody: the people who want honourable Horde and the people who want to be dirty winners and follow the Lich Queen.
Khinlop think about the amount of players - we're currently (more or less) 50/50 alliance and horde. You basically split horde in two, so thats 50% of the whole player base alliance, 25% honorable horde and 25% Sylvanas horde. How is that balanced? It's an interesting idea sure but I just don't see that happening without braking the game. Not with this or any other new factions
I wish one of these days someone would have the gall to walk up to Sylvanas and say "you're a worse monster than Arthas ever was and a bigger coward as Arthas at least faced death with dignity."
You do have to wonder what held Blizzard back on making a masterpiece animation with the entire story surrounding the War of Thorns and name it Warbringers: Sylvannas, of course it would have required a lot of time and many more people working on it, but at this point, it is the type of thing we can expect from them. Blizzard raised the bar when it comes to good animation to tell story. Hearing the song at the end... You can almost picture it in your head, as the final scene. Thanks for the video, keep up the great work.
Nobbel, what do you think tyrande's character progression?. The one leader who has led her people out to distant lands in the dark times ,from elundris is now a fool to flee leaving her people to burn alive?. She should have stayed in teldrassil and persuade her people to escape from the tree
Weak questline but a decent storyline. Can't wait to retake Loarderon now, been wanting that since wc3. For the Alliance! We're coming for ya Sylvanas!
Take it. No one outside of the Garrosh apologists will want to defend it at this point. ... We will do it anyway, cause we want to play the game, but the horde is dead.
One thing I keep forgetting about despite it being such a focal point for the expansion is Azerite. It changes people, enhances their deepest selves. When Sylvanas first takes hold of it, she thinks of war, destruction and death and wants to exploit it. Anduin thinks of all it could heal, mend, yet fears its power of destruction. I’m beginning to think the Sylvanas who decides to burn the tree might be an azerite-enhanced version of her usually more pragmatic self. Maybe. Time will tell, I suppose 🤷♀️ Kudos on a brilliant video 👌
the only reason he lost, was because if he beat Sylvanas ( He wouldn't kill her ofc) is that there would be no reason to have the rest of expansion, so he lost because of plot armor...
he finally get's shown as how strong he really is, yes, but he doesn't act upon it. He has at least two opportunities to take Sylvanas out before the duel and doesn't do anything! And him not noticing and reacting to Saurfang is also weak.
I grew up playing this game. But although I haven't played in a few years, I love keeping up with the lore. my very first character was a nightelf, and they've always since held a special place in my heart. when I first learned of teldrassil burning i honestly shed a couple of tears. I'm anxious to learn what they will do next.
It'll never happen, but if there was any justice, if you get the chance to take the Banshee Queen down, when she's lying defeated and begging for her unlife, begging to not have to face the Hell that awaits her, you have the option of getting a little payback for the world tree. You get to look down at the cause of so much misery and say "Burn it." And then you set fire to this thing that use to be a noble High Elf and watch it burn.
First and foremost, thank you Nobbel. These videos do help alleviate the anger I feel as a player. I play both Alliances and Horde because I like stories. I like seeing perspectives. This does change a lot for me. I hate this was pay gated behind books and special editions but I realize why. But this also doesn't make me any happier with what was shown us in game. In game, I am still the bad guy for following my warcheif to commit genocide so soon after coming back from a campaign that that should have seen us United. I hate myself for it. In game on the alliance side I hate that the night elves went down without much struggle. They are pretty ruthless in battle especially holding ashenvale for so long. Why didn't Tyrande do something? She helped lead the kaldori within Suramar, where did that go? As a player I wanted more to be shown to me. I want to know why I am choosing to fight mortals and not the bigger threats that appeared in legion. Void has been a big thing threatening our world, Old gods are moving, whispering again, fricking Azahara is back and seems to have an army of her own. Why fight my comrades instead of them? I am mad but your videos help me deal with that anger. Thank you.
Some1 pls tell me, how is it possible to burn the tree with catapults? It took around 15-20 ingame sec to get from Teldrassil to Darkshore, with a mount you had to fly through the fagitured ocean at some point to reach it and you're telling me that a lousy catapult can make a hit from the shore? :'D The zeppelin bombs maybe but the catapulting is just BS.
Not to mention trees are generally pretty resistant to fire, being comprised largely of water when they're actually alive, which Teldrassil most certainly was. It even had rivers and pools in it... Not to mention it was growing straight out of the ocean... Not to mention even the sheer size of the thing would take forever to completely burn...
The distance is definitely an issue. Considering the farthest shot a catapult could go would be 1km. However, the Forsaken are alchemical genius's. I'm sure they could come up with a compound that would burn a tree down.
You should take in mind that everything depicted in-game doesnt show how it is "in real life" (wow lore), you can see 20 catapults but in lore were 200, in the movie of Warcraft they show us how big is Stormwind compared to its in-game version, sizes and quantities are reduce in the game for obvious reasons
Another youtuber, in an attempt to show how Blizzard might have been about to make this whole situation more 'morally gray' suggested that perhaps the night elves (or someone else - cough - cough - Genn) might have been stockpiling azerite. This could make the tree catch fire and burn faster and hotter. (not my idea, just his concept)
Great video! I really wish a lot of these details would've been implemented in game, perhaps there would be less frustration within the playerbase. However I'm still glad the stories are told and not just completely omitted
In my honest opinion world of warcraft is a video game, not a book series. All this core story details must be available in-game, not in outside media. The books and novels are made as to support the in-game core story and expand on the mytology, not the other way arround. I consider this a poorly executed work. But then you realize this is a cheap maneuver to milk more money.
I kind of agree, while books like Before the Storm are necessary as stand-alone events that push the story forward and develop characters. Taking a major event like this and dividing up plot points, even single conversations, across multiple media is a mistake.
I was fine with the motivation given to us in-game, but this stuff from the Collector's Edition adds so much more to it! Gonna have to buy it for sure :) Really awesome video btw Nobbel!! :D I may or may not have started crying during the song D:
mojusk goblins found it and kept it secret, the properties went dormant after cataclysm until sargeras stabbed the world, at that point gallywix told sylvanas about it.
I know I am late, but... it literally is the blood of the Titan Azeroth, and Sargeras sword struck deep into the the core of the world - deeper than Deathwing could ever reach.
My guess is still trying to repent with the spirits. His cheating in the fight vs garrosh made him Lose the majority of his power. He set him giving the player his doomhammer. I imagine once he has found peace with the spirits he'll come and fuck even malfurion up
That little bit at the end hinting at Sylvanas's 'true goal' got me thinking. What if her plan all along was to burn the tree, under the guise of trying to occupy it? If he plan was to wipe out as many kaldorei as possible, she pulled it off pretty fuckin well, herding them all up through Ashenvale and Darkshore into Teldrassil, where they'd surrender and wait for occupation, only to all die in the biggest barbecue in history. Why would she want to burn the tree? Why would she lie about her goals? What if her ultimate goal is to wipe out all life on Azeroth, one 'unfortunate tragedy' at a time? The Horde would never support a genocidal campaign, but they would absolutely support a war effort to spread the hordes influence. Those theories about her becoming the Lich Queen later down the line might be aiming a little too far into the future. There's also Alleria's void whispers when she catches up with Sylvanas in her comic, and Malfurion's words to Saurfang; 'You have lead your Horde in service of death', that lend credence to this theory/thought. Think about it, she kills her own people to avoid risking a coup in Before the Storm, then massacres her own troops again at Lordaeron, while killing a huge amount of the Alliance forces as well. Seems pretty similar to Wrathgate right? This is going a bit far into tinfoil hat territory, but that was another 'unfortunate tragedy', and was also orchestrated from Undercity. (She was still trying to go all out against the Lich King then though, so that's probably a stretch, but still, food for thought). She might be trying to do something similar to Arthas; not just raise everybody as undead and be some kind of death god, but reinforce Azeroth against threats like the void.
They're trying to make sense out of Sylvanas being a nutcase but it's not working. Yes, Sylvanas only wants to protect her people from the Alliance, that's why she completely destroys the Night Elves home to stop Azerite coming in..... Because boats and flying boats don't exist in WoW
There is just one small problem with that... it seems everyone (including sylvanas) forgets Exodar exists... Or does the Draenei no longer have a capital on Azyremyst isle which is only a bit off Kalimdor's coast?
Spencer, I so apologise but I didn't express what I wanted to fully, I must've got distracted. What I meant was I got the impression Sylvanas wants to remove the Alliance from Kalimdor thinking that the alliance are just gunna use Darnassus as a funnel for Azerite to use against her. Even with Darn gone.. It's not like the alliance doesn't have access to flying boat things with huge cannons.. Added Azerite cannons surely they're able to levels cities real quick if they wanted.
So, I've catched Sylv's motivation behind the whole campaign and behind the burning almost 100% accurantly. Good. And Saurfang got trigger of PTSD from SW events in Warcraft 1? Next time someone tells me "blizz story doesn't go that deep" I will simply burn him with 8 demolishers fireing across the whole continent. Yes Nobbel, this little addition changed a lot for me, not in my relationship with Sylvanas, but in my relationship with Saurfang. I was preparing a video (as I am trying this whole content creator thing myself) about my opinions about Saurfang, reminding his story and what the hell is happening with him now - I was gonna spit so much acid his way. Now, I have to reconsider it, now it's far more of the good old Saurfang. Thanks you for releasing the video in the moment I turned my recordings on - and way before monday. Becouse you have saved me a lot of work which would eventually go into nothingness, as my opinion would go 180 on monday. Thankfully, I wouldn't have to deal with any kind of shitshow, you know, 20subs, but still it would piss me off. All in all - thanks.
You fucking kidding me, why wasn't that in the game???? I still don't like it but that detail at the end turns this 50 shades of grey to at least twilight. Still bad but better then what we got.
How about this: Azerite is actually... something... from the Old Gods and everyone who wears armour made out of it will go insane (strange whispers, uncontrollable actions/movement, can't tell friend from foe, etc.). Towards the end of the expansion both factions will slowly begin a descend into madness as the true enemy reveals itself.
As a Horde player I don't want to this questline, and I don't want Sylvanas as Warchief, I think Saurfang or Baine should Challenge her to Mak'gora. Something I noticed now on the cinematic when Sylvanas orders the Burning of the Tree, Nathanos is looking away from her
Mak'gora vs Sylvanas is unwinnable she can kill almost everything with her banshee scream. And that's on top of her being skilled ranger. For the Banshee Queen!!!
This entire time i was extremely pissed off how Saurfang reacted to the entire thing, or lack there of. I still hate it, but not as much as before. All of his speeches about "Honor young heroes..." and his speech in Warsong Hold where he explicitly says that he'll kill Garrosh (and in extension anyone) that takes the Horde down the dark path again were all ignored throughout this entire campaign. Slyvanal declares war completely out of left field, after having defeated the Legion a VERY short time ago (in-game time). Saurfang is pretty much ready to march the Horde army into Darkshore like a good, obedient boy while COMPLETELY forgetting about all character development he gained throughout Wotlk. Now I found out that Saurfang was actively trying to stop the catapults (and ALL the other stuff you mentioned in the video about the event that was not included in-game)....and now i wonder why in the FUCK WAS THIS NOT IN-GAME ???????? Like, what in the fuck are Blizzard smoking to keep such important plot and character development outside of the fucking game, where everyone is going to experience it ?
You know what's funny! That scene 0:15 is almost the SAME shape guitar seen at Lion Rest if you fly directly above it! The area walking down to Varian grave...is a guitar! (Thought I'd say that :P)
I prefer the story going this way because I want to see more mistakes the lore characters do so we can delve into their mind and see how they think. This wrong decision from Sylvanas will cost her in the coming events in the battle for Lordaeron because we already know that she will lose the Undercity. People that cry bad writing do not understand how stories are written. This is basically the start of the story (inciting an incident) and there is a climax and a conclusion after. Give it time and we will know what will happen later. I'm certain and I have faith in blizzard not turning Sylvanas to Garrosh because she has to learn from this mistake and evolve. She has always been more intelligent and calculating compared to the stubborn and thickhead Garrosh. Garrosh was a Hitler but in my opinion Sylvanas is turning to be like a Cao Cao from Chinese history or an Oda Nobunaga from Japanese History. Look them up and you'll understand what im talking about.
Burning Teldrassil isn't a mistake to "evolve" from, its a war crime and her own self-written death sentence. Greymane will definitely convince the rest the leaders to kill her after this and Anduin will have no choice.
I feel so much hatred towards sylvanas. There was so much hope for peaceful coexistence as was indicated by the legion cinematic with varian and syl working side by side. And now this shit. Sylvanas is so blinded by hatred that she threw away the best chance of achieving a permanent peace and rallied the rest of the world against her and is even turning elements of the TRUE horde against her. I hope Jaina, the Alliance, and the still honorable parts of the Horde rip Sylvanas a new asshole.
Frostmournes curse is what killed sylvanas. Arthas was always a just and right person, always much better than those around him. Cant say mind control is the same as sylvanas being a pussy and choosing genocide of all life over her own death out of cowardice.
i agree with half and what you said but keep in mind during his attack on startholms uthar and jaina didnt follow his plan and arthas had a choice to make base on doing what is right. we all know how he ended up . stay tune for now and sorry for your lost alliances , coming from your beloved horde "me" :)
IncubiAkster Explain the culling of Stratholm then. Arthas is the EXACT same character as Illidan. Yet, we see Illidan as a villain (Burning Crusade). Jaina is a ticking time bomb. Sylvannas has pushed the war between the Horde and Alliance to the brink by burning Teldrassil. All of the main story characters are flawed. There is no heroic or evil faction... there's only WAR craft.
Someone has to do a animation of burning of teldrassil and show in slow motion people running crying and stuff with that song played at the end oh my god... Lets all write to IK edit to do it guys... There is no other person who can
This story so far is really building up Saurfang for me, hes had a long history in the story of WoW for people that like the lore, and Im glad to see him getting his spotlight as such a rich and dynamic character. From Blood thirsty Marauder to Veteran, now pulled back into a war that brings his past back to him, he knows what the difference is between senseless disgraceful war and Honorable combat, I really hope they do more with him over the expansion.
Wasn't it created by Standral Faghelm, which he somehow fucked up and instead connected it to Yogg-Saron / N'Zoth? I don't rember now if it was eventually fully purified.
Ninja Kuma - Let's Plays, Reactions, Memes well the elf bitch was basically like “ I will bet you can’t kill my hope” and sylvanas just go “challenge excepted, ok someone hold my beer”
I would not say she got triggered but it was a milliary move. Think about how many resources it would take to invade and maintain the takeover of Teldrissil. When Dalarn said what she gave Sylvanas an advantage as she helped Sylvanas to realize what a waste of time invading the tree would have been and to little effect.
A good video, thanks for the needed details. *Horde POV* So for everyone, Sylvanas actually thought as a leader here, and the tree basically would replace the "misfortune" of Malfurion not dying.(Sylvanas' PoV). Her duty was to serve, protect and create a future for the horde, and that is precisely what she was trying to achieve. The war, didn't turn out as planned. Thus, there is a world tree in flames. *Alliance POV* They suffered a great blow, but what seemed amazing to me were Anduin's final words, and Genn's loyalty to helping the night elves. There is a much stronger bond in the Alliance, than there is nowadays in the Horde. This may prove to be advantageous. Mourn today, and fight tomorrow. *Neutral POV* The planning by Sylvanas was fantastic, the implications and Sylvanas not killing Malfurion were unfortunate. Varok did a poor job at obeying his Warchief, everything would have went smooth. This is a bonus for Alliance tho, yes Darnassus is burnt, but Alliance's bond grew ever stronger. Overall, not great implications in game. But oh my, the lore by those comics, decent.
I'm sorry to say this changes very little for me. At the very most, it helps Saurfang's reputation a TINY bit. Otherwise, even with all the excuses Sylvarthas gives (because make no mistake, those are excuses for war and bloodshed, not legitimate reasoning), I see nothing but a bloodthirsty and petulant leader committing mass genocide, and a whole faction's moral compass failing at this crucial time. Sylvarthas is nothing without the Horde, and still the Horde failed to stop her when it mattered the most. The whole of the War of the Thorns seems like a pointless exercise in futility, with massive costs and little gain. Because the Horde won't end up with Azerite, after all of this. And the Alliance never intended to weaponize it. So at the end we'll be back at roughly the same point, just with heavy losses. And we'll all be scratching our heads, wondering why it even happened at all. And even if the Horde expels the Forsaken altogether, or some more honor-driven leader the likes of Saurfang sacrifices themselves 'for the Alliance', all I'll see is a late, late rectification of a disgrace of the Horde's own making.
![The Story of The Pride of Kul Tiras - Ally 8.0.1 Ending [Lore]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/jRNfO4tz2lo/mqdefault.jpg)
![The Story of The Pride of Kul Tiras - Ally 8.0.1 Ending [Lore]](/img/tr.png)
![The Story of Bwonsamdi (and the Loa) [Lore]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/7QsEma3B5_E/mqdefault.jpg)
![The Story of The Siege of Nighthold [Lore]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/FqJAjngzJsc/mqdefault.jpg)
![The Story of Alliance intro into Kul Tiras - Battle for Azeroth [Lore]](/img/1.gif)
Monday comes a bit early and I may have gone a bit ham on this one, but worth it!
The Battle for Azeroth collectors edition offers a book which tells 2 stories, around the same time, but from both the Alliance and Horde point of view.
It gives a better understanding as to what is going on, something that I believe should have been more ingame.
Regardless. Lets talk about this War of the Thorns campaign, hope you'll enjoy! Timestamps:
Week 1 00:00 - 18:33
Week 2 18:34 - 31:25
Collector's Edition 31:26 - 43:50
30:00 Chekhov's gun comes to mind. That child is going to be important later on.
I'm so glad they have finally mentioned how shady Genn's assassination attempt was.
Awesome video! Loved the extra information! Work on your alliance voices though ;P
"penetrated the world with his sword"
Nobbel87 they could have used the vindicaar to erase the hord presence in darkshore. Just saying
This actually does change things for me. One big issue I had on the Horde side was Suarfang's inaction. Now I see that he DIDN'T just sit there and let Sylvanas do this, he tried to stop it. That makes way more sense. The motivations for the war too, those make more sense as well.
On the Alliance side... I was worried about Genn being in Anduin's ear. I still am, but I can see that Anduin is pretty sharp and has a good head on his shoulders, and isn't scared to ask the tough questions. I loved the touch with Elune and the priestesses. They deserved a peaceful death, and Elune granted them that. It made me cry, I won't deny that.
My ONLY gripe - THESE DETAILS SHOULD NOT BE GATED BEHIND BOOKS!!! They should've been in the in-game story. Not everyone has the money needed to shell out for the collectors edition, and many people - including myself - expect the storytelling for the game to be done IN THE GAME.
There is always Wowgamepedia. I remember I would sit and spend hours upon hours reading the lore of characters, dead and alive, events, wars etc on the old wowwiki site. :/
I agree man.
If we have to consume other media to understand the story and make sense of characters, then it's just lazy and shitty business
These short stories makes me even more loyal to my Queen.
This should've been in-game so butthurts wouldn't be so ridiculously overreacting. Although, that probably would've made these questlines like over an hour long on top of what is in-game and that's just too much content for what is essentially just pre-patch content.
People will say why this is not in-game, but from this point of view is very understandable and even preferrable as I can read the short story on my lunch break or commute whereas I couldn't if it was all in-game.
For the Banshee Queen!!!
The whole point was to make people outside of the game react. Say whatever, blame whatever, but keep talking about it. And by outside I even mean players who didnt play through the cutscene, rather just watched the video. Its a success as a marketing standpoint.
The background story makes Sylvanas even worse. She is clearly not fit to lead if she gets triggered that easily. If you wage war and commit genocide because of your hatred towards others, you are even worse than the burning legion.
Also - at least for me - it was clear that Saurfang still is representative of the original/honorable Horde and was against it.
Nobbel gives us the knowledge we love but are too lazy to find ourselves. A hero
but not the one we deserve.
I had to
Or too poor. I can't afford the Collector's Edition.
@@stopcoby u have done something beautiful
"with a single strike we will guarantee generations of peace"
*same person like 10 seconds after*
"BURN IT"
Are you trying to imply that Sylvanas is mentally unhinged?
Who would've thought.
pretty sure thats still part of the "strike" she's talking about. peace as in dismantling / destroying the alliance. not peace "with" the alliance
Germany had a strategy like that in the second world war, with the blitzkrieg and all.
I'm sure that's what she keeps telling her more honorable soldiers.
she said to not kill those who didn't take up arms against her. that is civilians. she said to capture and question them and that way make sure that she had the leverage to keep teldrassil under control.
then she burned it.
"I've been going on for long enough" It's never long enough, Nobbel - I could listen to you talk about lore forever.
So true
A compilation of 8 hour is in order I believe, the story of world of warcraft with all important character and less important events included
Sylvanas: "The divide between the Alliance and the Horde is difficult to mend, and therefore we cannot have peace. So let us strengthen that divide instead."
Horde catapult technology has come a long way. Hitting Teldrassil from Darkshore. That's pretty impressive.
While the Tree itself is gianormous, i used to think the distance between Teledresill and DarkShore was a few good killometters of distance, so yeah those Catapults must be more like Trebuchets atleast.
Damn that Azerite can do wonders.
S. F. P. If you saw the cinematic, it wasn’t goblins, it was catapults
Jackson Simpson *rocket assisted boulders*
Azerite. The ultimate mcguffin.
Now I understand why you were so eager to publish this video, Nobbel. Hats off, it's one of the best one you've ever made with cooperation with WoWhead - thanks also Perculia for the subsequent analysis, it's very enlightening and amazing to see all the information laid out this way. Good job!
i still think it is pretty fun when i started to play WoW Adnuin was just a little kid prince who was protected by Onyxia in human form and Bolvar now look at our king grown up and taking the lead.
Sony God xD
When I started playing wow I was in the 4 th grade now I'm 23! I feel like I grew up with him
Anduin is now a Manduin
"All grown up" He is still like 18 or 19 and leads 10k yo Elfs Draenei and even seasoned generals like Turalyon and Genn, thats the biggest BS on wow, Anduin is a Mary Sue and shoudlnt lead the alliance
Embrace the light bro
This has been a mess of using different mediums to tell a story. It would be like watching avengers infinity war where the only thing we see Thanos doing is punch people and then cut to snapping his fingers but told to read a book, comics, two novellas and read quest dialogue, all out of order to understand the back story of why he is doing everything and how he got to that point. It’s not specifically Sylvanas I’m comparing to Thanos, just the overall lead up story to this expansion.
Absolutely. Here's hoping they learn from this by the time they release the rest of the expansion..
Thats blizzard. If you wanna know WoW lore thoroughly you gotta play a thousand hours of WoW, google the removed quests, purchase and read 18 novels, 300 comic books and read 1400 short stories.
I really hope this isn't what we are going to see going forward into BFA.
Listening to how Astaari gives them a final mercy was hard enough. But of course you go and ask effing Sharm to actually sing it! NOT *sniffle* FAIR!
(But well done, I give you that.)
Yes I actually teared up during that part. Especially hearing it sung. My first character was a Night Elf druid. I've seen so many changes since playing the beta. And to see my home, my people burning. It was a lot more emotional than it should have been for me.
Jochen Lillich please explain this. It sounds like I've missed something very important I don't recognize Astarri although I know and love Sharm.
Aden Metsastaja Not sure what you're asking, supposing you watched the video...
Jochen Lillich Thanks for getting back to me. I was not aware of the scene that was going to take place in the Temple of the Moon. Figured it out from context. OMG so sad yet beautiful. I can't even think of revenge yet. Just in mourning. Where did you learn about the scene? I've run the alliance scenario until the end and have not seen it.
Aden Metsastaja Me neither. I played it too, and saw Genn leave with Mia, but after that nothing happened, and I left through the portal. I suppose we get the lyric to that song if you talk to that hpriestess?
Goddamnit Blizz. You put vital information in a book again, twice.
Sylvanas' initial motivation actually makes sense now, because she and Saurfang are addressing that Genn tried to assassinate her, and that Anduin didn't punish him. He can't control those around him. And more importantly, her literal motivation for the burning. The cinematic without this context looks like a childish outrage after a night elf made her mad, but with the context of her knowing and pondering that Saurfang didn't kill Malfurion, it suddenly becomes her failing to snuff out their hope via Malfurion, and resorting to the tree instead.
This makes me love the cinematic. Her burning actually seems tactical now, she is replacing Malfurion with the tree for snuffing out the night elves' will to fight.
It's still a retarded plan. She obviously fails to break any hope anyway, since the Alliance fights back and the UC falls just next week.
Sylvannas always intended to burn the tree, she left Saurfang to kill Malfurion to test his loyalty. If he kills him she accomplishes her goal and she would do it anyways with Saurfang as her puppet, if he doesn't she is "justified" for the burning and gains a way to removes Saurfang, her greatest threat.
the opposite actually, in the book she seems upset about Saurfang leaving
Kieran Chiddix Finally some proper lore for a change. Got even more excited after getting more context. Always hated Sylvanas as a character, but this made me actually like her.
Well. Crap. Why wasn't a lot of the detail from the books in the game? It doesn't fix all my problems, but it certainly fixes a decent number of the biggest ones. I still feel like going this route dramatically limits how things can play out. But at least some of Sylvanas's motivations actually make sense after that. I feel like if they'd added a bit of that nuance into the in-game guests, a lot of the uproar wouldn't have happened. Just the fact Sarufang wasn't standing around and not saying anything during the burning fixes a few issues.
Now I really can't wait to read those stories.
"They prayed for mercy" I bawled so hard. I am horde. Much like what happened at Theramor it was gut wrenching.
Queue RP: But to be part of a faction who's leader is going against all of your ideals of peace much like how I was raised with Thrall's ideals of peace. This is getting to be too much. I know it's world of WARcraft, but I used to be proud, I used to think we would all eventually grow together. Be it apart, but together into something bigger than ourselves. Much like Zappyboi " The horde is all we have...". this is an emotional roller coaster for me. The only way I can push myself now is to hope one day Elune and all she has touched will forgive us. Know that the horde isn't just 1 person, rather a culmination of generations who have seen blood shed in pursuit of peace and freedom and that not all of us took joy in following blizzard's script. I am deeply and truly sorry. "FOR THE HORDE!" only brings lament for me now. This is Blizzard's script, this is her agenda, not many of ours.
That song at the end is amazing, I had no idea that was there
4L3X143 Yeah, I cried..... For like the fifth time. Didnt think they could nail me in the feels on same Ysera and Varian level. I lose.
29:22 This is fine.
that is amazing. maybe blizzard knows what they are doing after all. lol
It is fine...
Haha, I found that guy when playing myself and was wondering the exact same thing.
This can't be unintentional now, can it?
It’s intentional.
They used a Worgen as it was a Dog they used in the comic
I can't wait to see how they bring Jaina in. I didn't see her little cinematic thing until the other day and that's 100% got me more hyped than everything with this storyline. I want to see what she does. I just hope they keep writing her the way they are. I don't want another sylvanas. I want a good tragic character with major inner conflict and a realization of something to at least quell that termoil a little bit.
she shows up at Lordaeron, wont say more then that
FUCKIN SWEET
Poor Tyrande has to save Malfurions sorry ass all the damn time
Roses are red, Violets are blue, WAAAAH TYRANDE, WHERE ARE YOU?
WHERE IS MY BELOVED
Malfurion is an actual manchild
And this is the same guy who was gonna kill the war chief in a 1v1.
Tyrande saving his ass was literally how he was introduced in Warcraft III.
I went into legion expecting Kil'Jaden to be the last boss going to Argus and fighting Agramar came out of nowhere so if that proves anything it is that 14 years later Blizz can still Surprise me so I'm not writing Sylvanas off yet Blizz is self aware so I doubt they cooked up an expansion just to boot another warchief.
Personally i believed that we would fight sargeras in legion
Doesn't matter what they do. Sylvanas just committed the greatest crime ever committed by a mortal on Azeroth. It dwarfs everything that Garrosh did and she is irredeemable. She needs to die, there is no redemption or anything that could justify what she did and if they try to pull some Kerrigan shit on us that would just be absolutely awful storytelling.
Im expecting this expac to end with N'zoth, there has been old god influence being shown over Legion, and even more with BFA so that's what im hinging my bets on, if not we get wotlk / Mist 2.0
The details mentioned in the books definitely help, but there's still so much that doesn't make sense.
As you mentioned in the end: there would have been other forces to help against Sylvanas. Elune, Wild Gods, Nature itself would have done more, the wisps could have been used more offensively than just building a wall, Nature would have told Malf that Horde is coming from the north. All this was missing.
Also how does the Alliance control the flow of Azerite? They can move some because they have protection from Darnassus, sure, but it's still mostly Horde's continent and they have safer routes (not on sea) themselves. Also Alliance has a flying city with the Exodar, so they don't even need ships... oh and the Vindicar... and Portals, but they don't exist in the lore... except when it's already too late and then just to save a few civilians... Also Azerite is spawning all over the world now, so this was just for a little head start... but I guess they wouldn't know that it would appear outside of Silithus soon...
Oh and I have to mention the uber powerful demolishers that can not only hit the tree from the shore, but can also hit the top of it to start fires... and the tree is so dry that it instantly caches fire... and all the people that could put the fires out or the lakes, nature, druids, shamans that would have helped... don't I guess... demolishers too op, pls nerf
Let's get to the stuff that is there:
Malfurion: for the first time in WoW (not Warcraft as a whole) he is finally portrait as strong as he really is and not just whining or sleeping. He has Sylvanas at his mercy TWICE before the duel but just doesn't do anything! "Begone, witch!" -> blinds all enemies aaaaand disappears himself?!? And here I thought they would finally save the character of Malfurion... guess not
Then Saurfang throwing the axe in Malf's back is just... I mean yea he instantly regrets it, but he wouldn't have done it in the first place! Maybe the explanation that Sylv saved him earlier from Malf makes this acceptable but it still feels wrong to have this honor bound guy interrupt a duel by falling someone in the back...
And Tyrande... she's not there for the whole fight and then only shows up just in time for a dramatic showdown with Saurfang and to safe Malf (lazy writing) and then just leaves her people at the Horde's mercy?! She wants us to help them instead, while she helps them find respite... in Stormwind?! I vote for Mia to lead the nightelves now, she has tried to save as many as she could while Tyrande wasn't even there!
Which leads to another problem: what nightelves? I mean yea there are of course some in other locations too, but most of them were in Teldrassil, Darkshore and Ashenvale and are dead now! This was basically a genocide! Their whole army is dead and (I don't know if there's a leaderboard, but if you're good) you save maybe 50 of 1000 civilians in Darnassus. I mean sure, that's just ingame and there's way more, but if you accept this ratio than basically 95% of all Nightelves are dead now.
The fact that in the books Saurfang tries to stop the burning and ingame doesn't kill civilians helps, but there's still a lot of Tauren in the army and - in my opinion - even non-druid Tauren would not like what's happening! Same with other Horde Druids and maybe Shamans.
I never had an issue with Sylvanas starting the war, her reasoning in game was good enough for me: if you expect war then you should make the first move and catch the enemy off guard. The tactic of occupying the city to have hostages and maybe dismantle the alliance is even smarter and is probably the best strategical move anyone has ever done in warcraft history... or would have been if she pulled through with it! Burning the tree still doesn't make sense from a logical standpoint! Yes Malf is not dead, or even if he was, their spirits weren't broken, but so what? As far as I understand it, that would have been a bonus to make the fights easier 'cause it would have broken the morale of the NEs, but at this point the fighting is already over. Sure burning the tree may also break the morale of the alliance with them losing a capital city, but the bigger arguments are still against the burning: Having a whole city of hostages would ensure that Anduin won't make aggressive moves and even with Malf alive would still break the Alliance (from her viewpoint). The fact that Malf is alive doesn't change that by occupying the city they would have stopped a war before it even began. They would have interrupted the trade routes for the Alliance's Azerite. They would have had a lot of hostages. There would not be retaliation, at least not in a big way, like Sylv had planned from the start. Malf not being dead shouldn't change the plan and it didn't! Seeing that there's still hope did! But trying to eliminate that (for no real reason) by sacrificing the rest of your plan to ensure peace, is a very impulsive move that should have needed more consideration. If they took the tree, they could burn it at any point if they see that their plan wasn't working. Doing it like this only makes the other side angry and leads to more fights and big retaliations AND to louder voices against her in the Horde itself!
This move only makes sense if you see it as an emotional unstable character being confronted with the reality that she might be wrong and that there's people with more willpower out there then she had when she was alive. Trying to break that willpower/hope by any means necessary without thinking about the consequences. Which is fine, because she seems like an unstable character anyway. I mean her wanting to take out Malf on her own multiple times during the campaign (which she never could do) and the way she says it, already makes her seem like a megalomaniac.
So yea, still a lot I don't like about this. The Horde not leaving her a week later when the Alliance attacks Undercity is fine, 'cause to do smth against her takes a lil longer, but then going to new Islands and forgetting about what happened for months seems weird. And as far as I know, no one except for Saurfang does anything. At least Baine and Eitrigg need to say something!
Thank you. Precisly what i think about this whole scenario.
Plus: Even among the Forsaken she is not well thought off. As far as i am aware, there are (or at least there was) an small faction of Forsaken who where quite disgruntled with Sylvanas after she was crowned Warchief. I do believe that, if they are not out of the picture yet, this group will be pivotal to the incoming rebellion inside the Horde.
I don't think Gallywix cares, as long as his income is not affected, but Baine, Lor'themar and Ro'khan (i think he is the leader of the Darkspear now, isn't he?) do care. Not only that, but the allied races might as well disaprove of her decisions. The Highmountain Tauren and Mag'har orc especially.
Alliance will continue to get shit on. We know Alliance will always be the reactionary faction, the faction of "morally good" to a level where they just keep losing and losing and losing and never get a victory or any reparations.... so tired of it.
But, ya, let's keep making everything focused around Horde, let's keep ignoring half the playerbase/an entire faction... sigh.....
A list of towns/cities lost to the other faction (so not due to the Cataclysm/other forces, just to the other faction) over World of Warcraft's timeline. So far I have:
Horde:
- Camp Taurajo
- Undercity (soon)
- Brill (soon)
- Silverpine Forest (or at least parts of it)
Alliance:
- Gilneas (could argue it's not technically Alliance territory at the time it fell, to be fair and apparently get it back in BFA)
- Theramore
- South Shore/Hillsbrad Field
- Darnassus
- Lor'Danel (Darkshore's last real town really)
- everything in Ashenvale (Astranaar, Forest Song, Maestra's Post, etc)
- Pyrewood (as Sylvanas went after Gilneas)
- Bael Modan
- Andorhal (at least, the Alliance portion they had as they and the Foresaken worked to drive out the Scourge and then, later, the Foresaken drove out the Alliance, might not count this, it's debatable).
And what's REALLY frustrating? The Horde only players that refuse to admit the FACT that Alliance have been made the whipping boy of the story for WoW for ages... the fact that Alliance gets NOTHING for all the shit has been done to them.... and then when Alliance characters are angry over Horde's actions and attack them, the Horde players cry foul.
If Blizzard keeps this kinda thing up, I hope all Alliance just quit. There's no point being the side of losers for nothing.... I still like playing Horde too, but, as I said, I like being Alliance more and we get nothing.
"their anger will prove a weakness not a strength"
i wonder if she will be saying the same thing after the alliance takes lordaeron
andrejoss475 you are assuming they will, that elf watching the tree burning disagrees with you
i'm not assuming tho
takes? its burned ground.
andrejoss475 that battle hasn’t even begin yet, don’t count the chickens before they hatch, especially there are those of us who enjoys just watching the epicness of the said chicken hatching
Lordaeron is destroyed
The memes at the beginning already killed me :))
"He would become my enemy, a terrible one." - Sylvanas #Saurfang2020
Blagoj Nikolov lok’tar ogar. Victory or death. Not victory AND death.
Let’s bring honor back to the Horde, Saurfang for Warchief.
Where has honor taken the Horde? Dead bodies and lost battles that's what.
Sota Steelwing "Honor, young heroes... no matter how dire the battle... Never forsake it!"
I hope Sylvana's kills every single gnome.
#makeazerothgreatagain
Blagoj Nikolov
"Throws Axe In your Back"
It's amazing how this addresses most (but not all) of the issues the Horde players have had with the last few weeks.
-The reasoning for the the invasion is better outlined
- Sylvanas knows that Saurfang 'failed' and needed to destroy the tree to continue her idea of breaking the Alliance's spirit (coupled with the 'provocation' from Delaryn)
- Saurfang does try to stop Sylvanas from burning the tree
I wish they'd put this short story out at exactly the same time and made it accessible to the community, you're right, it's not great, but it does make a big difference
It makes absolutely no difference. There is nothing new here. We already knew sourfang is against sylvanasis 'final solution' i.e. genocide of all life on azeroth just to protect herself. What does this address that we did not already know? All it does is make the horde look even worse, since sourfang follows her orders regardless. Its ok to murder innocents if I was ordered to do it! Thats the honourable horde. The current dishonourable horde is just sylvanas on a power trip. Either way. Horde still 100% evil.
No, she did not planned to burn the Tree untill Delaryn provoked her in to doing so by saying that she can not kill hope. Her first words in cinematic are "secure the beach, prepair to invade the Tree". The main goal was to hold Alliance away from Kalimdore by keeping Darnassus in hostage. That's the problem, she snapped in a matter of a second like a child and escalated a full face to face war which she tried to avoid to begin with. Even Nathanos was like "wtf are you doing?".
Those shortstorys literally change nothing and the way that they arnt even in the game/event makes it even worse... sounds more like cut content, shown as a collectors edition gimmik than actually being canon.
The short clearly has Sylvanas intending to invade the tree. She literally says, "Prepare to invade the tree." The writers intentionally wrote it so that she would get provoked into burning a the tree. They clearly drew an extra frame of her frowning just to emphasize that a nerve had been hit. You cannot write around this without retconning it. You can say she needed to kill Malf but then you'd have to explain why she wanted to invade it in the first place. And more importantly the fact that she would receive pity from a dying night elf triggering her was something Blizzard wanted to show because I guess it reveals a lot about her character which they're not wrong. Something about what that night elf said clearly means a lot to Sylvanas.
It doesn’t answer why Sylvanas could have avoided ALL of this by just KILLING MALFURION HERSELF. Like wtf? There was no reason to leave it to Saurfang, especially after he just said he regretted the first blow he dealt.
Sylvanas learned from Archimond that Tree are bad for evil people. Instead of hugging them, she burned it to the ground
The tree Archimonde targeted was Nordrassil and magical in nature, Teldrassil is the current one and not magical so Sylvanass didn't burn it down except for pure hatred
I quit at the end of Wrath and came back last year in November. Missed so much stuff, not the least of which was this entire event. Varian's death at the beginning of Legion is such a gut-punch, as someone who used to delve deep into the lore and enjoyed reading about everything, especially as an alliance main. And now I see this. Fingers are literally trembling right now, and I feel a deep sense of hate for Sylvanas and for the Horde. The motivations aside, this was good storytelling for the most part. I really wish I'd been playing when this happened. Once Shadowlands hits, my night elf druid is definitely going to "upgrade" with the new customizations to show he is a survivor of the event. This was phenomenal. Thank you for this video.
Did they just Obi-Wan'ed Astarii? :O STRIKE ME DOWN, AND I SHALL BECOME MORE POWERFUL THAN EVAAAAAAAAAAAAA.
On the other hand, the night elf wisps can really teach Sylvanas a thing or two about the dead... the dead should be a bulwark to nurture and protect life, not stifle it or overwhelm it or even to kill life. The wisps (night elf ancestors) have ever protected the night elves, and that's why they never feared death the same way Sylvanas does.
Never feared death? Wasn't the tree planted for the sole reason to make night elfs immortal, which made most dragon aspects say screw you to night elves and not bless the tree?
Another great video @Nobbel!
I only discovered about the short stories after viewing people play the "War of the Thorns" instance. I especially liked "A Good War" as it explains the Horde's motivations so much better.
Thank you Nobbel. This story needed some fleshing out to understand.
I don't understand why blizzard keeps insisting on keeping such important story footnotes out of the game. It would not have taken much to have Saurfang speak up in the Warbringers episode, or shown him speak up in game. It's just stupid. They have some serious isssues with how they deliver their stories. It's ridiculous that the player has to gather pieces from multiple different sources and piece the story together themselves.
last time i was this early, Thrall was still warchief
this video is longer than actually playing those questlines in-game, which is kinda sad.
Thanks for your work, Nobble. I've only played the Horde side so far and your video completed the picture.
Where's Thrall when you need him?
GTXGAMER Oh please, no Thrall until they find the way to get Actual Thrall back, not green Jesus.
Bring back OLD thrall!
Thrall is busy talking to rocks and water, leave the Orc alone.
banned for cheating
This really fleshes the story out better for those of us who haven't had the pleasure of reading the collectors edition shorts stories,
Pity it's not represented in game .... yet!
Thanks Nobbel!
Yeah Nobbel, as you said, why isn't that ingame? Mind you, it's still stupid reasons for all that happened, but less stupid than what's ingame. I like that we have in depth contents in the books but I wish Blizz wouldn't make them the only place where there's in depth contents for the lore. Specially on a event on that scale and inportance for the expansion to come. Well, thanks for bringing this to us, at least through you se can experience some of It!
Omg the extra stories put into this was amazing! I agree that those stories should have been told ingame. That song was amazing!
What Sylvanas doesn't understand is that the Alliance is Tempered in Battle (The Horde are Forged for War) and pissing them off and destroying the tree isn't going to stop them. All it's going to do is Rally them against the Horde more. "This wound will make them Bleed" Except... she Cauterized that wound by Burning it down.... She could have held the Civilians as hostages which would have been smarter.
Welcome to WoW. Where you have ghosts burning an innocent tree and killing civilians claiming that 'Horde' has to stop them while she doesn't even speak for the Horde only but herself. Interesting choice Blizzard you nailed choosing your next Warchief instead of Baine or Lorethmar..
Cyka Blyat Idi Nahui Pidar It goes deeper than that Vol'jin was speaking to the loa before he died and vol'jin himself never really trusted her. But i believe blizzard has something big planned for sylvannas hence why the loa picked her and not coincidentally were going to zandalar soon...
Expecting the writers at blizzard to have any knowledge of actual warfare and battle tactics is just setting yourself up for disappointment.
SlamzJonez Same invasion could be said about the Kul'Tiras humans.
Also, the Horde reformed and was an aid to the world when the legion attacked, don't just compare them to the first Horde. Else by that logic, I might as well compare the Draenei with the Eredar since they were once the same race and allowed themselves to become demons, or the Alliance of Lordaeron for wanting to genocide Blood Elf refugees with the Alliance of Stormwind. Just because the predecessor held a name, doesn't mean that its descendant does.
The Horde definitely does not sit well with this whole war, but time will tell if Blizzard will actually do anything with this story than another "Uh oh, one of your warchiefs have decided to fuck shit up again! Time to get a new one!".
BTW the alliance only contains one native Areroth race, whereas originates from out of space ;-) Hord on the other hand has only TWO NON-Native races...
I was asking myself "Why would Elune not interviene? Why didn't she help the Night Elves?" and now I'm pretty happy to know she did, as heartbreaking as it is. And all those details, those better explanations... Blizzard should release this stories soon, to easy the raging fury of many Horde players who can just know of the ingame story (and I don't blame them for being angry, even as Alliance/Night Elf fan)
Sylvanas is basically, "I know the Alliance would attack us, because we would attack them." She's so narrow-minded and can only see evil in others because she herself can only think like that.
To be fair she is right. They have literally just discovered the atom bomb. It is just a matter of time before some lunatic decides to use it. Sylvanas is still a genocidal maniac though. She is outright lying about her good intentions. She wants everything dead so she can control it.
I mean Genn had already tried to assassinate her
cause sylvanas ruined genns live and killed his son? yea ofc he is trying to kill her.
Well Genn's son tried to kill Sylvanas so was she supposed to spare him?
Yeah well Sylvanas was invading their country.
That song in the end got me right in the feels. Lovely singing, Sharm.
Jaina: _Dismantle [Nobbel: the alliance!]_ I loved that edit.
Thank you for sharing the parts with those who didn't want the way to expensive collector's edition (taking into account what it contains). Really glad that you made this pre-event a little more interesting again :)
7:18 I have to admit when she asked me who i was the first time i had a full on Beowulf moment. who am i? WHO AM I, I AM RIPPER, SLASHER, KILLER OF KINGS AND GODS, I AM THE BEAST YOU FEAR AT NIGHT, I AM champion.
Hi, Champion, I am Hero.
Hi Hero, I am Richmon. HEK HEK HEK
OOOOh I can't tell you how much I love that you added the collector edition stories.... seriously, I can't, because I'm still listening to that part. Still the best dutch cookie EVER! Thanks again for another great video.
The Sylvanas cinematic would've amazed everybody if they didn't show us the picture of burning Teldrasil. It's like they teased us with "Who burnt the tree?" and we get the most expected answer... If we didn't know at all we would get surprised by Sylvanas even greater ruthlessness that we've previously seen.
If everybody is worried that this is Garrosh 2.0 then you think very little of writers. My guess is that Alliance and Horde will unite but this time Sylvanas wins and creates her own faction... so many different amazing possibilities besides this one.
Khinlop I hope your theory is right. So many dispute the idea of a third faction. But I fought alongside the horde for two years, I saw honor and came to understand that the unity among us made us stronger force than any history Azeroth has ever seen. In the beginning, it felt so awkward, by the end.... I longed to heal the horde, to give them life as I did my beloved alliance. I cannot say what the future holds for Azeroth or the factions. I can say, the loss I feel right now is great. I feel the loss of life in Teldrassil, I feel the loss of kinship and understanding among the horde. Ahead I go, in war.......and despair. Ahead I go, with what hope remains that I will be so blessed to once again be united with the good honorable horde folk again one day.
Blizzard would never make a third faction. They already struggle to balance 2 factions. Unless you meant it as unplayable faction, then ofc
Actually I was thinking that it would finally solve these problems. There would be third playable faction that is evil(about 40% of Horde players would love to play this considering how many still support Sylvanas), and Horde with alliance will be the somewhat good guys but still with tensions between each other.
This will basically please everybody: the people who want honourable Horde and the people who want to be dirty winners and follow the Lich Queen.
Khinlop think about the amount of players - we're currently (more or less) 50/50 alliance and horde. You basically split horde in two, so thats 50% of the whole player base alliance, 25% honorable horde and 25% Sylvanas horde. How is that balanced? It's an interesting idea sure but I just don't see that happening without braking the game. Not with this or any other new factions
Or if we go by your estimates than the honorable horde faction would be only like 10 procent of the whole player base
I wish one of these days someone would have the gall to walk up to Sylvanas and say "you're a worse monster than Arthas ever was and a bigger coward as Arthas at least faced death with dignity."
I find it funny how Sylvanas said that her victory againstr Malfurion was inevitable... He had her on her knees. xD
Obsidianflame Giggity.
You do have to wonder what held Blizzard back on making a masterpiece animation with the entire story surrounding the War of Thorns and name it Warbringers: Sylvannas, of course it would have required a lot of time and many more people working on it, but at this point, it is the type of thing we can expect from them. Blizzard raised the bar when it comes to good animation to tell story. Hearing the song at the end... You can almost picture it in your head, as the final scene.
Thanks for the video, keep up the great work.
“The lord of the legion penetrated the world with his sword.”😏😏
Grow up.
Nobbel, what do you think tyrande's character progression?. The one leader who has led her people out to distant lands in the dark times ,from elundris is now a fool to flee leaving her people to burn alive?. She should have stayed in teldrassil and persuade her people to escape from the tree
Weak questline but a decent storyline. Can't wait to retake Loarderon now, been wanting that since wc3. For the Alliance! We're coming for ya Sylvanas!
Take it. No one outside of the Garrosh apologists will want to defend it at this point. ... We will do it anyway, cause we want to play the game, but the horde is dead.
kinuuni I trust vol'jin so i trust sylvannas too
Anyone not playing forsaken trusting Sylvanas at this point is a moron.
Keep an eye on her.
Thornwalker not to spoil it to you mate, but i don't think alliance will make use of it being all plague bombed and all.
For the Banshee Queen!!!
I know mate, but one day maybe.
One thing I keep forgetting about despite it being such a focal point for the expansion is Azerite. It changes people, enhances their deepest selves. When Sylvanas first takes hold of it, she thinks of war, destruction and death and wants to exploit it. Anduin thinks of all it could heal, mend, yet fears its power of destruction. I’m beginning to think the Sylvanas who decides to burn the tree might be an azerite-enhanced version of her usually more pragmatic self. Maybe. Time will tell, I suppose 🤷♀️ Kudos on a brilliant video 👌
malfurion just gained all the respect I lost from the end of legion back and more
he (almost) beat Sylvanas, that is enough for me
the only reason he lost, was because if he beat Sylvanas ( He wouldn't kill her ofc) is that there would be no reason to have the rest of expansion, so he lost because of plot armor...
I was thinking malfurian was going to kill her but wanted to arrest her and hold her for trial cause he be like that
he finally get's shown as how strong he really is, yes, but he doesn't act upon it. He has at least two opportunities to take Sylvanas out before the duel and doesn't do anything! And him not noticing and reacting to Saurfang is also weak.
you're right, they don't show him as strong as he is, but at least stronger than before
I grew up playing this game. But although I haven't played in a few years, I love keeping up with the lore.
my very first character was a nightelf, and they've always since held a special place in my heart. when I first learned of teldrassil burning i honestly shed a couple of tears. I'm anxious to learn what they will do next.
It'll never happen, but if there was any justice, if you get the chance to take the Banshee Queen down, when she's lying defeated and begging for her unlife, begging to not have to face the Hell that awaits her, you have the option of getting a little payback for the world tree. You get to look down at the cause of so much misery and say
"Burn it."
And then you set fire to this thing that use to be a noble High Elf and watch it burn.
First and foremost, thank you Nobbel. These videos do help alleviate the anger I feel as a player. I play both Alliances and Horde because I like stories. I like seeing perspectives. This does change a lot for me. I hate this was pay gated behind books and special editions but I realize why. But this also doesn't make me any happier with what was shown us in game. In game, I am still the bad guy for following my warcheif to commit genocide so soon after coming back from a campaign that that should have seen us United. I hate myself for it. In game on the alliance side I hate that the night elves went down without much struggle. They are pretty ruthless in battle especially holding ashenvale for so long. Why didn't Tyrande do something? She helped lead the kaldori within Suramar, where did that go?
As a player I wanted more to be shown to me. I want to know why I am choosing to fight mortals and not the bigger threats that appeared in legion. Void has been a big thing threatening our world, Old gods are moving, whispering again, fricking Azahara is back and seems to have an army of her own. Why fight my comrades instead of them?
I am mad but your videos help me deal with that anger. Thank you.
Some1 pls tell me, how is it possible to burn the tree with catapults? It took around 15-20 ingame sec to get from Teldrassil to Darkshore, with a mount you had to fly through the fagitured ocean at some point to reach it and you're telling me that a lousy catapult can make a hit from the shore? :'D The zeppelin bombs maybe but the catapulting is just BS.
Not to mention trees are generally pretty resistant to fire, being comprised largely of water when they're actually alive, which Teldrassil most certainly was. It even had rivers and pools in it... Not to mention it was growing straight out of the ocean... Not to mention even the sheer size of the thing would take forever to completely burn...
The distance is definitely an issue. Considering the farthest shot a catapult could go would be 1km.
However, the Forsaken are alchemical genius's. I'm sure they could come up with a compound that would burn a tree down.
You should take in mind that everything depicted in-game doesnt show how it is "in real life" (wow lore), you can see 20 catapults but in lore were 200, in the movie of Warcraft they show us how big is Stormwind compared to its in-game version, sizes and quantities are reduce in the game for obvious reasons
Another youtuber, in an attempt to show how Blizzard might have been about to make this whole situation more 'morally gray' suggested that perhaps the night elves (or someone else - cough - cough - Genn) might have been stockpiling azerite. This could make the tree catch fire and burn faster and hotter. (not my idea, just his concept)
two words : PLOT CONVIENIENCE
Sharm made me cry too. Haunting beautiful voice with such a sad pain filled song.
Does the book tell anything about how Baine and the Tauren feel about the burning of the world tree, or horde druids?
They feel morally grey about it
holy shit that last bit almost had me in tears.. very well done
where can i find that song sung by Sharm? it was really beautiful and i want to listen to it over and over
Great video! I really wish a lot of these details would've been implemented in game, perhaps there would be less frustration within the playerbase. However I'm still glad the stories are told and not just completely omitted
In my honest opinion world of warcraft is a video game, not a book series. All this core story details must be available in-game, not in outside media. The books and novels are made as to support the in-game core story and expand on the mytology, not the other way arround. I consider this a poorly executed work.
But then you realize this is a cheap maneuver to milk more money.
I kind of agree, while books like Before the Storm are necessary as stand-alone events that push the story forward and develop characters. Taking a major event like this and dividing up plot points, even single conversations, across multiple media is a mistake.
I was fine with the motivation given to us in-game, but this stuff from the Collector's Edition adds so much more to it! Gonna have to buy it for sure :)
Really awesome video btw Nobbel!! :D
I may or may not have started crying during the song D:
howcome we didnt see any azerite during the cataclysm? deathwing did some damage to azeroth.. hmm..
mojusk goblins found it and kept it secret, the properties went dormant after cataclysm until sargeras stabbed the world, at that point gallywix told sylvanas about it.
it was hidden deep deep inside the writers arseholes
I know I am late, but... it literally is the blood of the Titan Azeroth, and Sargeras sword struck deep into the the core of the world - deeper than Deathwing could ever reach.
It certianly makes Sylvanas' actions more believable with a purpose. And not just because she wants a hissy fit
same question as in legion , where the f**** is thrall ?
moncef raising his kids to take over the horde
yeah !!
His wife said he should be home and not party with friends anymore.
My guess is still trying to repent with the spirits. His cheating in the fight vs garrosh made him Lose the majority of his power. He set him giving the player his doomhammer. I imagine once he has found peace with the spirits he'll come and fuck even malfurion up
He's off talking to rocks and water.
The bit about the Night Elves who stayed in Darn till the end....that hits home man.
"I promise I want peace."
*3 drinks later*
"BURN IT!"
That little bit at the end hinting at Sylvanas's 'true goal' got me thinking. What if her plan all along was to burn the tree, under the guise of trying to occupy it? If he plan was to wipe out as many kaldorei as possible, she pulled it off pretty fuckin well, herding them all up through Ashenvale and Darkshore into Teldrassil, where they'd surrender and wait for occupation, only to all die in the biggest barbecue in history.
Why would she want to burn the tree? Why would she lie about her goals? What if her ultimate goal is to wipe out all life on Azeroth, one 'unfortunate tragedy' at a time? The Horde would never support a genocidal campaign, but they would absolutely support a war effort to spread the hordes influence. Those theories about her becoming the Lich Queen later down the line might be aiming a little too far into the future.
There's also Alleria's void whispers when she catches up with Sylvanas in her comic, and Malfurion's words to Saurfang; 'You have lead your Horde in service of death', that lend credence to this theory/thought.
Think about it, she kills her own people to avoid risking a coup in Before the Storm, then massacres her own troops again at Lordaeron, while killing a huge amount of the Alliance forces as well. Seems pretty similar to Wrathgate right? This is going a bit far into tinfoil hat territory, but that was another 'unfortunate tragedy', and was also orchestrated from Undercity. (She was still trying to go all out against the Lich King then though, so that's probably a stretch, but still, food for thought). She might be trying to do something similar to Arthas; not just raise everybody as undead and be some kind of death god, but reinforce Azeroth against threats like the void.
They're trying to make sense out of Sylvanas being a nutcase but it's not working.
Yes, Sylvanas only wants to protect her people from the Alliance, that's why she completely destroys the Night Elves home to stop Azerite coming in..... Because boats and flying boats don't exist in WoW
There is just one small problem with that... it seems everyone (including sylvanas) forgets Exodar exists... Or does the Draenei no longer have a capital on Azyremyst isle which is only a bit off Kalimdor's coast?
Spencer, I so apologise but I didn't express what I wanted to fully, I must've got distracted.
What I meant was I got the impression Sylvanas wants to remove the Alliance from Kalimdor thinking that the alliance are just gunna use Darnassus as a funnel for Azerite to use against her.
Even with Darn gone.. It's not like the alliance doesn't have access to flying boat things with huge cannons.. Added Azerite cannons surely they're able to levels cities real quick if they wanted.
Implying that those ships would even make it to Silithis before being taken down. Stop assuming that the Horde haven't thought these things through.
That only strengthens my point as to why this is completely pointless and Sylvanas is just being Garrosh 2.0
I like it how every1 forget about the ... space ship full with laser and shit the Alliance have and is just like chilling in Azyremyst :D
So, I've catched Sylv's motivation behind the whole campaign and behind the burning almost 100% accurantly. Good.
And Saurfang got trigger of PTSD from SW events in Warcraft 1? Next time someone tells me "blizz story doesn't go that deep" I will simply burn him with 8 demolishers fireing across the whole continent.
Yes Nobbel, this little addition changed a lot for me, not in my relationship with Sylvanas, but in my relationship with Saurfang. I was preparing a video (as I am trying this whole content creator thing myself) about my opinions about Saurfang, reminding his story and what the hell is happening with him now - I was gonna spit so much acid his way. Now, I have to reconsider it, now it's far more of the good old Saurfang. Thanks you for releasing the video in the moment I turned my recordings on - and way before monday. Becouse you have saved me a lot of work which would eventually go into nothingness, as my opinion would go 180 on monday. Thankfully, I wouldn't have to deal with any kind of shitshow, you know, 20subs, but still it would piss me off. All in all - thanks.
You fucking kidding me, why wasn't that in the game???? I still don't like it but that detail at the end turns this 50 shades of grey to at least twilight. Still bad but better then what we got.
man i really like saurfang's reaction to the burning, explains everything he does afterwards
How about this: Azerite is actually... something... from the Old Gods and everyone who wears armour made out of it will go insane (strange whispers, uncontrollable actions/movement, can't tell friend from foe, etc.). Towards the end of the expansion both factions will slowly begin a descend into madness as the true enemy reveals itself.
Possible if old gods corrupted azeroth
I'm not justifying her actions. She can drop dead (again) for all I care. I just want more cosmic horror in warcraft :D
Azerite isn't the same as Saronite. Azerite is the blood of Azeroth herself while Saronite is the blood of Yogg'Saron.
Yea, I know that. I'm just saying... maybe...
A necklace could easily be re-purposed into a collar...
So much feels as soon as it gets to the books.. bravo
As a Horde player I don't want to this questline, and I don't want Sylvanas as Warchief, I think Saurfang or Baine should Challenge her to Mak'gora. Something I noticed now on the cinematic when Sylvanas orders the Burning of the Tree, Nathanos is looking away from her
Sylvanas would win with a single arrow. Also, traitor!
No he was walking toward the warmachines to see it done.
Mak'gora vs Sylvanas is unwinnable she can kill almost everything with her banshee scream. And that's on top of her being skilled ranger.
For the Banshee Queen!!!
Sylvanas would lose to anyone in makgora. Because makgora is about physical strength, not magic
Sasayuri, Hand of Sylvanas she can't use that in Mak'gora, Mak'gora only alows one weapon, no armor or magic
Oh man... I wasn’t ready for the feels at the end of the video with Sharm’s song 😭
This entire time i was extremely pissed off how Saurfang reacted to the entire thing, or lack there of. I still hate it, but not as much as before.
All of his speeches about "Honor young heroes..." and his speech in Warsong Hold where he explicitly says that he'll kill Garrosh (and in extension anyone) that takes the Horde down the dark path again were all ignored throughout this entire campaign. Slyvanal declares war completely out of left field, after having defeated the Legion a VERY short time ago (in-game time). Saurfang is pretty much ready to march the Horde army into Darkshore like a good, obedient boy while COMPLETELY forgetting about all character development he gained throughout Wotlk.
Now I found out that Saurfang was actively trying to stop the catapults (and ALL the other stuff you mentioned in the video about the event that was not included in-game)....and now i wonder why in the FUCK WAS THIS NOT IN-GAME ????????
Like, what in the fuck are Blizzard smoking to keep such important plot and character development outside of the fucking game, where everyone is going to experience it ?
You know what's funny! That scene 0:15 is almost the SAME shape guitar seen at Lion Rest if you fly directly above it! The area walking down to Varian grave...is a guitar! (Thought I'd say that :P)
Alliance players who participated in this event should get a special face makeup that makes it look covered in ash and soot
Assassin Cactus and horde players get blood and tears
Just set the fur on fire
Loved this! Its like Imperial Japon attacking US in WW2 thinking to make a better "peace". Probably going to work out the same for the Horde.
Please put that song in it's own video..
This makes much more sense, I liked the campaign in game, good gameplay, but few things were uncertain to me... this is good, thanks for sharin man :)
Horde showing their true colors in this expansion
This was the Alliance's Pearl Harbor. It was intended to divide but it brought them together.
I prefer the story going this way because I want to see more mistakes the lore characters do so we can delve into their mind and see how they think.
This wrong decision from Sylvanas will cost her in the coming events in the battle for Lordaeron because we already know that she will lose the Undercity.
People that cry bad writing do not understand how stories are written. This is basically the start of the story (inciting an incident) and there is a climax and a conclusion after. Give it time and we will know what will happen later.
I'm certain and I have faith in blizzard not turning Sylvanas to Garrosh because she has to learn from this mistake and evolve. She has always been more intelligent and calculating compared to the stubborn and thickhead Garrosh.
Garrosh was a Hitler but in my opinion Sylvanas is turning to be like a Cao Cao from Chinese history or an Oda Nobunaga from Japanese History. Look them up and you'll understand what im talking about.
Burning Teldrassil isn't a mistake to "evolve" from, its a war crime and her own self-written death sentence. Greymane will definitely convince the rest the leaders to kill her after this and Anduin will have no choice.
Ngl, just finished reading Elegy and I had to come back here for the song. I got all teary.
I feel so much hatred towards sylvanas. There was so much hope for peaceful coexistence as was indicated by the legion cinematic with varian and syl working side by side. And now this shit. Sylvanas is so blinded by hatred that she threw away the best chance of achieving a permanent peace and rallied the rest of the world against her and is even turning elements of the TRUE horde against her. I hope
Jaina, the Alliance, and the still honorable parts of the Horde rip Sylvanas a new asshole.
dont forget what killed her was arthus and we know he was an alliance ,so truly there is no bad or good guy on both factions .
oohlala444 warcraft....
Frostmournes curse is what killed sylvanas. Arthas was always a just and right person, always much better than those around him. Cant say mind control is the same as sylvanas being a pussy and choosing genocide of all life over her own death out of cowardice.
i agree with half and what you said but keep in mind during his attack on startholms uthar and jaina didnt follow his plan and arthas had a choice to make base on doing what is right. we all know how he ended up . stay tune for now and sorry for your lost alliances , coming from your beloved horde "me" :)
IncubiAkster Explain the culling of Stratholm then. Arthas is the EXACT same character as Illidan. Yet, we see Illidan as a villain (Burning Crusade). Jaina is a ticking time bomb. Sylvannas has pushed the war between the Horde and Alliance to the brink by burning Teldrassil.
All of the main story characters are flawed. There is no heroic or evil faction... there's only WAR craft.
damn nobbel you have been a great up date about the lore so far, thank you
Someone has to do a animation of burning of teldrassil and show in slow motion people running crying and stuff with that song played at the end oh my god... Lets all write to IK edit to do it guys... There is no other person who can
04:23 I really like that ultra subtle sarcasm there Nobbel.
My Night Elf wants to kill the Horde now
This story so far is really building up Saurfang for me, hes had a long history in the story of WoW for people that like the lore, and Im glad to see him getting his spotlight as such a rich and dynamic character. From Blood thirsty Marauder to Veteran, now pulled back into a war that brings his past back to him, he knows what the difference is between senseless disgraceful war and Honorable combat, I really hope they do more with him over the expansion.
the tree had it coming >.> right ? ^^
yes, the fucker gave hope to elfs! "Kappa"
Yeah it was asking for it :D
The tree had ligma was dead anyways.
It was coming right for us !!!
Wasn't it created by Standral Faghelm, which he somehow fucked up and instead connected it to Yogg-Saron / N'Zoth? I don't rember now if it was eventually fully purified.
36:45 Genn has grown a bunch behind the scenes. I loved that dialogue
Sylvanas got triggered and burned down teldrassil
Ninja Kuma - Let's Plays, Reactions, Memes well the elf bitch was basically like “ I will bet you can’t kill my hope” and sylvanas just go “challenge excepted, ok someone hold my beer”
That's got to be the funniest way I've seen it put yet. Someone plz make that a reality!
#Oops
I would not say she got triggered but it was a milliary move. Think about how many resources it would take to invade and maintain the takeover of Teldrissil. When Dalarn said what she gave Sylvanas an advantage as she helped Sylvanas to realize what a waste of time invading the tree would have been and to little effect.
Yeah, Delaryn almost told her that she felt pitty for her, TRIGGERED!!
A good video, thanks for the needed details.
*Horde POV* So for everyone, Sylvanas actually thought as a leader here, and the tree basically would replace the "misfortune" of Malfurion not dying.(Sylvanas' PoV).
Her duty was to serve, protect and create a future for the horde, and that is precisely what she was trying to achieve.
The war, didn't turn out as planned. Thus, there is a world tree in flames.
*Alliance POV* They suffered a great blow, but what seemed amazing to me were Anduin's final words, and Genn's loyalty to helping the night elves.
There is a much stronger bond in the Alliance, than there is nowadays in the Horde. This may prove to be advantageous.
Mourn today, and fight tomorrow.
*Neutral POV* The planning by Sylvanas was fantastic, the implications and Sylvanas not killing Malfurion were unfortunate. Varok did a poor job at obeying his Warchief, everything would have went smooth. This is a bonus for Alliance tho, yes Darnassus is burnt, but Alliance's bond grew ever stronger.
Overall, not great implications in game. But oh my, the lore by those comics, decent.
Good analogy. Now I'm kind of not pissed honestly. And just looking forward to the expansion and what's going to happen next
LOL, fuck the alliance! We may lose Lordaeron but they will suffer, and fuck varok, bloody traitor
Wait for them to kill themselves whilst the Lich King feasts in their corpses and raises them :D
TheReaperFist Fuck you!
haha, oh how awesome would it have been if malfurion died tho, we would have to deal with the fuss in the alliance side, oh woulda been great
Anduin has to die. You never know when he will drop an Azerite nuke on an orphanage just for a laugh.
Pure evil I tell you!
I'm sorry to say this changes very little for me. At the very most, it helps Saurfang's reputation a TINY bit.
Otherwise, even with all the excuses Sylvarthas gives (because make no mistake, those are excuses for war and bloodshed, not legitimate reasoning), I see nothing but a bloodthirsty and petulant leader committing mass genocide, and a whole faction's moral compass failing at this crucial time. Sylvarthas is nothing without the Horde, and still the Horde failed to stop her when it mattered the most.
The whole of the War of the Thorns seems like a pointless exercise in futility, with massive costs and little gain. Because the Horde won't end up with Azerite, after all of this. And the Alliance never intended to weaponize it. So at the end we'll be back at roughly the same point, just with heavy losses. And we'll all be scratching our heads, wondering why it even happened at all.
And even if the Horde expels the Forsaken altogether, or some more honor-driven leader the likes of Saurfang sacrifices themselves 'for the Alliance', all I'll see is a late, late rectification of a disgrace of the Horde's own making.