Like he was pissed off at the Orcs for chopping up Ashenvale and killing Cenarion? Like he preached intolerance as the Legion invaded? Like he couldn't forgive Illidan or accept the aid of the Naga? I think you have completely misjudged the character of Furion. As for losing heroes to neutrailty, where do you think Thrall is going when Garrosh takes over the Horde? Thrall also being the only really "likeable"* hero in the Horde, and the reason many Horde players picked the faction.

*Sylvanas is cool as well, but not really likeable, the other leaders are just to anonymous. What has Lor'themar Theron, Cairne or Vol'jin ever done...

The Burning Legion was about to kill everything when Malfurion, at the behest of Medivh, formed the Alliance with the orcs. This would be the second time the orcs as a race have wronged the Night Elves massively. That he was open minded enough to forgive his brother and accept help from the former elves that are the Naga is completely beside the point. His species, his home, his family have all been raped by the orcs. Twice, now. Peacenik or not, it would be unbelievable for him to just turn the other cheek to that. Especially with a purported new attitude.

Alliance heroes that have been turned neutral for the sake of horde inclusion in defiance of logic-
Tirion Fordring
Rhonin (bad character aside he took the entire alliance-aligned nation of Dalaran with him)
Khadgar
Brann Bronzebeard

Horde heroes that have been subject to the same treatment-

Thrall. kinda. in the future.


And leaving all that, I said hope. Not expect. I expect malfurion to suddenly not really give all that much of a damn about his people and forgive the horde, again.

c'est la vie.

Except Thrall is the sole salvation of the entire orc race. While your heroes would be like the American Founding Fathers, Thrall would be Jesus. His impact is far more significant and thus removal carries far more weight. The alliance will always be, well, the alliance. The horde however, and current horde players like to view themselves as being the actual 'good' side of the game given the rampant racism and xenophobia exhibited by Alliance leaders. All that centers on Thrall himself. Without Thrall, and with a hot head like Garrosh thats traditional orcish CHOPPA SMASH in charge, the major lore aspect tying a majority of Horde players to their faction evaporates.

Right. As a Horde player I feel somewhat bamboozled by Blizzard. I always like to play good characters and when WOW first came out, Horde was mostly good. The ideals were survival and peace, but not by sacrificing honor or principal for it. As a more colorful "good" faction, it was very appealing.

It's hard to argue for the Horde maintaining their goodness when the spiritual leader is replaced by a complete idiot. It's an additional slap in the face to lose Cairne and Saurfang.

This doesn't make me want to fight alliance... it just makes me want to switch factions or unsub. Probably the latter because I love the horde as it is and find running as alliance bland and distasteful (no offense alliance players).

This is a dumb post.

1) Fordring was exiled from the Alliance nation of Lordaeron for years because he rescued an orc from unjust imprisonment. He returned to lead the Argent Dawn, one of the major remanents of Lordaeron after the Third War. (With the Scarlet Crusade being the other.)

2) Dalaran was obliterated by Archimonde. It was never part of the modern Alliance. The Alliance that used to include the key nations of Stromgarde, Kul Tiras, Alterac, Greymane, Lordaeron, Dalaran, and Stormwind no longer includes most of those nations. It's not the Alliance of WCII or WCIII. Rhonin deciding that he has bigger fish to fry in Northrend is very much like him.

3) Khadgar is the same way. He was an Alliance champion but his encounters with the Naaru made him decide that there were bigger fish to fry. Danath Trollbane is still an Alliance hero and Khadgar doesn't really DO much of anything. Keep in mind that he's working with the Naaru who explicitly allowed the Scryer faction to have a home in Shattrath.

4) Brann never really became a neutral hero. There are quests in Grizzly Hills to try to capture the dude if you play Horde. He leads the expedition into Ulduar along with some of the Kirin Tor, with whom we are working no matter which side we play on. Nevertheless the Alliance gets a lot more Brann than the Horde does and in a different fashion.

Also, let's keep in mind that none of these except Khadgar are pre-WoW heroes. Thrall is on par with Malfurion and Tyrande, Arthas, or Illidan in terms of major-character status. The Horde has other characters who end up in neutral positions in WoW despite their Horde origins, as well as half of a race (hi Silver Covenant) that is still working for the Alliance!

I can't refute your point about thrall being jesus, nor do I want to lessen the impact the loss of the character (especially considering his "replacement") will have.. I just was pointing out that the horde's been on the path of being the "badder" guys for a while now while the Alliance characters always choose the greater good and go neutral. It's frustrating, as the horde is learning.

Going further into the horde being the good/bad guys.. well, that'll probably just end up in factional bickering rather than good discussion of the story and it's prospects. I kinda want to leave that alone.

Edit: Speaking of factional bickering, go away Khaz with your attempts at trolling an argument and insults.

Actually they were cannibals until they joined the Horde and they were pushed out of Stranglethorn Vale since they were one of the smaller tribes.

For now I think we can't really pass judgment to much on Garrosh until we know what happens in Icecrown Citadel. We still don't know who starts most the hostilities and other changes such as Cairnes leaving the leadership of the tauren.

/sigh

Orcish imprisonment was not unjust. The race had just very nearly committed genocide against every race on Azeroth. Imprisonment was an immense mercy on the part of King Terenas that resulted in the fracturing of the Alliance. Gilneas outright said fuck you, I'm building a wall and leaving you lot to your own devices. You are right about the Argent Dawn being a major remnant of Lordaeron, though. However, I'm not quite sure why you mention that specifically.

I said Alliance-aligned. They were not a member nation of the alliance, and haven't been for some time, but they were on friendly relations for trade and interaction, whereas the Horde's only interaction with them was to kill them. For dubious-at-best reasons. Rhonin is also a horrible self-insert mary sue character on the part of Knaak, invincible without any real flaws. He is also inexplicably (literally, there is no explanation anywhere in the canon writings) the leader of the magocracy which reviled him as a renegade and a reckless fool in the very works that introduced him.

I really fail to see how this has anything to do with refuting what I said. Alliance hero, turned neutral. The Naaru were pulled out of an idea hat at the start of Burning Crusade, they weren't even in the WoW launch lore. It's a case of using alliance characters to further a neutral story and having the alliance faction play nice throughout the quest lore, while having the horde snigger and backstab and keep all of it's characters (or have them killed because they turned renegade, which sucks just as much for you guys as losing chars to neutrality does for alliance, if not moreso).

You're doing a very good job of proving my point now. Brann was an alliance launch hero, he's a dwarf, even in the LK expansion you hunt him and are hostile.. yet he mysteriously turns friendly in time for the horde to be included in the Titan/Ulduar/Storm Peaks questlines. No "Hey, didn't I see you killing a bunch of Explorer's League in Grizzly Hills?" or "Didn't you try to kill me?". Just "well, you stole a dwarf comm device, so HELP MEH!"

Why that would be Garithos, of course. A former general of Lordaeron. Now represented in game by the Forsaken.

Same with Arthas.

As for the third, I'm guessing you mean Medivh? The Guardian that was possessed, through no fault of his own, by Sargeras?

I also love that you are cherry picking around the fact that Medivh's great sin was to inflict the Horde, meaning the ORCS, on Azeroth.

So you'll try, lamely, to condemn a faction because of the action of a handful of people (who actually more represent one of the facets of the current horde) while dismissing the entire Horde's (barring the Tauren's) past out of hand "because they were high" or other questionably mitigating circumstances?

I wonder if a mod could delete some of these posts, including my own past the points I made discussing Sunwalkers. It seems you can't even mention any disparity between the Horde and Alliance without fanboys and ignorant apologists coming out of the woodwork to screech at you.

The sun is a massive nuclear furnace. It produces light and heat. We use this light and heat to survive, grow crops, generate power, etc, etc. We can call it Apollo's Chariot or the Eye of Ra if we so desire, and venerate it. It doesn't change the end result and the veneration can be used for good or ill.

So, say we have some magical power source called The Light. Paladins and (most) Priests use it for "Holy" purposes. I see no bar to the Taurens using the exact same Light for the exact same purpose. If they choose to wreath its use in a philosophy that "The Light is provided by An'she", it should make no difference. Same power, same usage, just attributing it to a higher power. I'd go so far as to argue that the Night Elves reverence of Elune has no affect on their use of the Light. Same power, attributed to Elune and the moon.

And who's to say Tauren, Night Elves, or anyone else are wrong? An'she, Elune, or any other name another race may select, may indeed be the source of the Light. Or it may be a group effort. Or completely unrelated, but the gods may know it'd cause more confusion and strife than it's worth to remove the misconception.

I guess I will go through your paragraphs of nonsense for you.

The unjust imprisonment Tirion was against was not the entire orc race and was Eitrigg alone. When Tirion met Eittrigg the 2 fought in a abandoned tower which began to collapse knocking Tirion unconscious. Instead of letting him be buried alive Eitrigg saved Tirion and with this he came to realize that orcs are just as capable of honor as humans are just as capable of being vile beasts. After this Tirion was then captured and had the Holy Light 'taken' from him and was exiled. If Tirion never met Eitrigg then he would of continued to think of the orcs like the rest of the Alliance.

For Khadgar it was easier to write in a Alliance hero realizing that things can change instead of having orcs like Kargath (who were corrupt even before the bloodlust) suddenly deciding they want to be everyone's friend. The Mag'har were a very small part of the orcs on Outland at the time and so them leading anything would of been odd.

Brann has always been neutral in lore ever since he was introduced and that is how he went around Azeroth documenting things (all the RPG books are based on that). The orc that hunts Brann is a single orc who later has his orders overturned in Storm Peaks since it isn't 'the way the Horde acts'. The Horde also never killed a single Explorer's League dwarf in Grizzly Hills nor did Brann know he the Horde was trying to capture him (not kill) in Grizzly Hills.

Does it really matter whether Garithos was the catalyst for Kael'thas' initial anger? He isn't represented at all by the Forsaken now considering Sylvanas' proceeded to gut him after she re-took Lordaeron. Even then Kael'thas' changes mostly came when he was working with Illidan who started losing it himself after he lost to Arthas. No one can argue Kel'thuzad was someone who decided to turn evil. Neither side is good or evil and it all falls to how each person decides to look at it.

@Exemplar: Right. The power of the Light is based on faith. Faith in the power itself being granted to you by whatever it is you believe is granting it. In most cases this would be that the Light is granting the power itself, but for races like the Night Elves who believe in Elune and now potentially the Tauren who may believe it's the power of the Sun, it may merely be the Light by a another name. In both cases it's still a holy power granted by faith, so I think it's safe at the moment to assume it's just another rendition of the Light, at least until we get a good clean explanation from Blizzard (which we may or may not).

True Gods in Warcraft lore have always been extremely vague and conflicting with a lot of other lore. Demi-gods and beings of great power (Titans, and maybe the Naaru) we have some information on and at least have proof they exist, but actual Gods and the true nature behind The Light are still very undefined. The Demi-gods of Azeroth are the only links we really have to the Gods themselves, and their nature seems somewhat conflicting with that of the Titans (who we know are a driving force behind the creation of Azeroth). The Naaru are kind of similar to the Titans, in that while we know they're very powerful beings that most races could see as Gods, they're not. Their existence doesn't explain the existence of the Light, because the Light still exists in their absence. Much like Azeroth's Gods, they bring up more questions than they answer.

I think the most interesting thing about the Titans is that so far they have shown no link to the Light at all. Meanwhile, the Naaru are building an army to fight against the Burning Legions, a force that originated from the Titans.

About the Alliance leader neutrality disparagity vs the Horde...I think you'll find that in dire circumstances, leaders arise that temporarily unite both factions - Brann in Ulduar, Tirion in ToC/IC, Rhonin in the Nexus War.

However, Horde leaders have been known to practice neutrality in dire situations - take Saurfang leading the Might of Kalimdor in AQ. Is that not an example of neutrality?

I think your arguement comes from the fact that throughout Warcraft, there have been numerous more Alliance affiliated characters around than there were Horde. Many Horde affiliated characters belong to the Old Horde, and are either dead or evil. How many famous Trolls, Tauren, or Blood Elves can you name? How many of those that aren't raid bosses? Even with Orcs, there aren't many ones compared to the sheer amount of Human heroes that have been around and are still around in Warcraft.

I guess you could say in a way, this reflects the population of the races. Humans are undoubtedly the most populous sentient race on Azeroth, whereas Darkspear Trolls are a limited number, Blood Elves were decimated and then experienced a racial schism, and pre-WoW, Tauren were nearly hunted to extinction by the Centaur.

That pretty much sums it up right there. For the most part every important orc in Warcraft history was part of the Old Horde and then either died during the proceeding wars, was killed off when the New Horde was first starting or decided they preferred to stay evil even after the demons blood dissipated (or decided to find new demons blood). For example Doomhammer would probably be similar to Saurfang with Thrall had he not died. There is also the matter of the races that are part of the Horde. The tauren never existed in Warcraft until Warcraft 3 and for the most part we have been given little of them. The Jungle Trolls had little on them until the Darkspear joined the Horde in Warcraft 3 while the original Old Horde allies the Forest Trolls were all but forgotten until they decided to kill Zul'jin off in TBC which was unfortunate. The blood elves are relatively new and most of those characters are newly created and serve no further purpose at the moment.

Since then we have been given new heroes such as Tirion and Saurfang but most important new figures usually belong to the Alliance at first since overall there are just more of them that are still alive. The Alliance races are also more heavily explained in old and current lore and thus have far more written on them as compared to the newer or more recently expanded upon races.

This.

Also, keep in mind the development history of the game, keeping in mind the importance of the word "game" in the description.

WC1 - Summoned by a wizard gone mad, an army of orcs rolls through a portal intent on destroying the human kingdoms. The player plays either the righteous humans defending their homeland and ultimate crushing the invasion, or plays the brutal and destructive orcs, fighting off both the human defense and internal struggles. The good vs. evil element is very clear here, where the humans are obviously good because they are righteous and just defending their homeland, while the orcs are evil but somehow still heroic (because being a brutal badass is COOL).

WC2 - Assuming the Orcs won WC1, the humans gather new allies to fight a new war with the evil Orcs and THEIR new allies. Thematically, the roles stay about the same -- the evil orcs are brutal, backstabbing, but still fucking metal and awesome; the humans are still good, though we get some betrayals going on to change it up a bit. Orgrim Doomhammer is introduced in a manner that makes him both heroic, noble, AND fucking metal, without necessarily harboring the same kind of "good" as the Alliance.

WC3 - Assuming the Alliance ultimately wins WC2, the Horde are defeated, their metalness and attitude taken from them along with their heroes. The Alliance becomes progressively less "good" when they bicker about what to do with the orcs -- it's a moral quandary, which introduces a lot of shades of grey to the Alliance side. Meanwhile, the Horde goes through a metamorphosis as a uncorrupted, genuinely good (and somehow still metal) orc becomes their new focus and rallying point. Thrall then proceeds to do lots of good and noble things, despite the insistence of some of his subordinates to continue doing bad things (Cb-Grom: Hey everybody! Free wood!). Meanwhile, the Alliance gets stuck with a TON of douchebaggery in their ranks, leaving only a few genuinely uncorrupted characters at the end of the game.

So by the time we get up to WoW time, we have two factions that both have substantial amounts of good and evil credit to their names, and the game focuses on providing content that operates on both sides of that credit, while our characters are intended to be (for the most part) heroic types who generally have good intentions.

Ultimately, neither faction is any better or worse than the other in terms of metering good vs evil. Having a leader with less sense than a basic campfire might suck, but leaders are temporary, and the leaders aren't going to affect what your character is able or not able to do. I don't like the idea of a warmongering Garrosh leading the Horde, but if the blues tell me that's not going to be the case, I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and see what comes out of this.

That's because they aren't blood elves -- they are high elves. They have remained a part of the Alliance since WoW was launched -- there were always high elves around, allied with the Alliance. The blood elves are the largest group of their race alive, and they chose to split from the Alliance, not that it makes any sense whatsoever, and chose to join the Horde, which makes even less sense. But the high elves never left and most of them hate the orcs and trolls with a passion, so don't expect them to come around any time soon.

I sincerely hope Blizzard will eventually capitulate and make high elves and blood elves two separate races, and allow Alliance players to roll high elves. Not that it's very likely, but one can hope.

The Covenant and the Sunreavers are two small orders based in Dalaran with little-to-no power outside of areas under Dalaran's influence. They mostly serve as a sort of "hedge" that allows Dalaran to include both factions while maintaining order and segregation. Their in-game purpose has always been to separate the factions. There might have been some underlying plot planned for them at the beginning of Wrath (see: the encampments in Crystalsong), but that was never followed through. In essence, they have very little real power of their own.

I would hesitate to call the Covenant representative of an entire race for those reasons alone. Allieria said what I was going to say about Quel'dorei demographics.

Well it seems neither Muradin or Saurfang die in the airship battle. Was watching Vodka do the fight and they were focusing on killing Saurfang and he ended up just sitting at 1% HP which means the point of the fight is to deal with the lesser NPC's while damaging the other ship.

I didn't quote it as a fact, actually, the part of that article about Sunwalkers maybe being "not paladins, but similar" was written by me myself. I merely wanted to mention it, to stir thoughts about what Tauren paladins/Sunwalkers would be. I did not write "read this, it's true", I meant (though did not explicitly write) "read this and think about it".
It's all speculation right now, but above all, I can't see Tauren just picking up the Holy Light without extensive lore backup. Best explanation is that Tauren 'paladins' are druids/shamans with warrior training (or the other way around) similar to Human paladins stemming from priests learning melee combat skills. Very similar in terms of effectiveness, and close enough to merge them gameplay-wise, but still not the same.

What you're saying doesn't make sense. Druids and shamans are already trained in melee combat. Priests aren't.

Druids and shamans are similar creatures, but they are different; whereas shamans revere elemental spirits, druids revere animals and nature itself. Neither practice has anything at all in common with the Light.

There's no reason why the tauren cannot worship the sun in the same manner the night elves worship the moon. It won't be the entire tauren people -- it will probably only be a small subgroup. But from that subgroup will come tauren paladins and priests.

Sunwalkers, if that is indeed their name, must get their powers from the Light, just as blood knights do, just as paladins do.

In yet another notch to a string of references to a connection between the Lich King and Yogg-Saron, Lady Deathwhisper says the following when she sacrifices a living add to create an undead one during her encounter: "Loyal adherent, I release you from the curse of flesh." Now is this just a quote with no hidden meaning since the resulting add is a skeletal one, or is it yet another show of a "power struggle" between the Lich King and Yogg-Saron as to who has more command over the mortal races?

I did not mean exactly like priest>paladin, rather a more generic "(heavy armored=plate wearing) melee fighter with positive magic skills". Like death knights are an "evil" mirror of paladins, sunwalkers would be another "version" of this positive class.

And I did not say Sunwalkers would use the Light, but "the powers of the sun/nature", though with similar effects as paladin spells.

I don't like how everyone says "sun instead of moon" when Tahu speaks of balance. Ok, gameplay-wise the borders between the classes are quite definite, but lore-wise, they aren't, especially for the Tauren, prime example Cairne, who is a warrior type, but has "shamanistic tendencies". At Red Mesa, Thunder Bluff and Splintertree, many quests from Tauren use the theme "hunting as a way to prove your worth", and Tauren quests often involve interaction with the spirits.
What people first thought after noticing Tahu's conversation with Aponi was that this heralded additional druid lore, and maybe alternative spell effects, like a "Tome of Sunfire".
If they don't forget about this, I can still see stuff like this coming, in addition to Tauren 'paladins'.

It's probably an intended reference, but the Lich(ess? can we call her that? ) probably just meant "the curse of life".

How does it not make sense? The Quel'Dorei remnant was abandoned in their time of need, imprisoned, and later sentenced to death by the Alliance. The Blood Elves (a differing faction from the High Elves not race) then are granted entrance (through their 'close' relations with the Forsaken) into the Horde by proving their worth and destroying their betrayer, Dar'Kahn and taking back their lands.

I would like to see how alliance affiliated High Elves are properly explained. You would think after your people have almost been destroyed by a mass-genocide and then after the remaining population is threatened by its former allies that you wouldn't REMAIN in league with them. At least the Valeera Sanguinar character touched on this issue in the comic.