Blog Azeroth

I'm not the type of person who plays both Horde and Alliance.
I'm also not the player who pays a lot of attention to the lore for the Horde, since I do play Alliance.

A lot has been thrown around this expansion - in both directions - about who lost what territory, and the emotional significance of those losses.

Is there anyone out there who can either discuss both sides of the coin, or two folks who can talk about their side in a combined/shared article?

I think it would be really nice to actually see something beyond my gut reaction of "Ok, already, we're losing*. Give it a rest!" Which is how I felt question through most of Kalimdor and a not-insignificant chunk of Eastern Kingdoms.

Well, I'm not a Horde player either, so I'm not 100% clued up on this, but I have been following quite a lot of it. The bones are thus;

Cataclysm Offensives

Alliance

• Camp Taurajo. The Alliance moved in with tanks and armies, wiping out the peaceful Tauren village of Taurajo.
• Stonard, the Horde equivalent of Theramore, was attacked by the humans of Marshtide Watch. The attack was repulsed and Stonard still stands.

Horde

• Ashenvale. After 6 years of WoW, the Horde has finally defeated the Night Elves of Ashenvale. Astranaar is permanently under attack, and is burning. There is a new Horde camp, Hellscream's Watch, which overlooks Astranaar.
• Southshore. Sylvanas marched into Southshore and released her New Plague, effectively turning all the inhabitants into piles of green goop. The Mayor escaped with the few survivors to the town of Hillsbrad Fields, which was subsequently wiped out by the Forsaken.
• Gilneas was attacked by Sylvanas and her Forsaken. The Alliance managed to hold on for a while, but the city now pretty much belongs to the Forsaken.
• Andorhal (Western Plaguelands) was fought over by Thassarian and Koltira Deathweaver. The Horde eventually won.
• Theramore. Not happened yet, we don't know much about it. The Horde will raze it to the ground.

This is very diluted and by no means comprehensive. I may consider writing a fuller post on it in the future.

I would be really interested in writing this. I have played both Alliance and Horde but only Horde in the last 2 and a half expansions.

Those points that were brought up were good, there's a few more that the Alliance did towards the Horde, except that no one considers these 'Horde' since it's not a 'city/village/town/camp' that people could get to with NPCs for players to interact with.

You've got the Shatterspear Vale situation. The dancing trolls of Vanilla. They may have made an offensive towards the Night Elves but the Night Elves went in there and stomped the ever living crap out of them.

You've got the Siege of Splintertree Post. That would have been a win to the Alliance if the siege hadn't gotten broken. We have to fight our way in there and then we're really really hurting there.

Plus of course, the whole crappy situation in Stonetalon Mountains. (Killing innocent baby druids does not sit well with me.)

Now, as for Gilneas, at the end of our quest chain through Silverpine Forest, we lose Gilneas right back to the Alliance. Or at least the Worgen. Crowley (from the Worgen starting area) leaves back to Gilneas after pushing the Forsaken offensive back to the great gate there.

But that's a couple more. Anuillae, if you'd be interested, I'd love to do a tandem post with you!!

Karegina

Are you talking about strictly major shifts from the Status Quo, such as the loss of Southshore and Turajo? Or would you prefer to include some of the stand-in conflicts like Thal'darah Grove in Stonetalon, which was added in Cataclysm for pretty much the sole purpose of being destroyed by the Horde? As far as the story goes, it's still fairly one sided, but I think one of their major intentions with the cataclysm revamp was to smooth out the leveling experience, and the Alliance actually gained content in a lot of zones such as Stonetalon and Thousand Needles, even if it wasn't exactly very empowering content.

I was thinking some of the other shifts too, like the compete F-up that the Horde did in Stonetalon, etc. I actually think this is too big to do in one post (at least from me since I tend to ramble). I'm currently working on a post that is very interesting to me We'll see how this goes!!

And of course, I can really only do the Horde perspective

I wish I was more versed in military history so I could write a bit more intelligently about this - I find the idea of tracking Azeroth's armies around quite a bit. The fall of Theramore has me really excited (and I'm Alliance) - how will it happen? Maybe there's a post in there....

Probably the best way to go about it would be a zone by zone analysis. There's a few zones I haven't quested through, but I've done most of them.

Kalimdor:
Teldrasil: Mostly unchanged.

Azuremyst and Bloodmyst: Completely unchanged.

Darkshore: Auberdine was destroyed in the Shattering and occupied by Twilight's Hammer. The Horde offered the Shatterspear Trolls membership in the Horde if they drove the Night Elves out of Darkshore, the Night Elves wiped out the Shatterspear Tribe. Forsaken Apothecaries were found working with Satyrs from the Burning Legion.

Ashenvale: The Horde invaded Ashenvale in Wolfheart, kicking off the 4th War. Chronological order is Wolfheart>Horde Questing>Ally Questing. The Horde takes Silverwing Refuge, canonically winning Warsong Gulch. The Horde then firebombed astranaar, laid siege to Mystra's Post, killed two members of the Argent Crusade, killed an ancient, corrupted several members of the Cenarion Circle, ad corrupted the Heart of the Forest. The alliance quests involve breaking the siege on Mystra's post and Astranaar, cleansing the Heart of the Forest, incinerating the corpse of the Ancient, euthanizing the insane druids, and eventually unleashing Furbolgs onto the Horde. The zone ends with the Horde still in control of Silverwind refuge, and pretty much everything east of astranaar, save Forest Song.

Stonetalon: The Horde nuke the Night Elf Druid school at Thal'darah Grove, The Alliance throws in with the Grimtotems to cut the Horde in Stonetalon off from reinforcement.

Southern Barrens: The Alliance burned down Turajo, the Horde lay siege to Northwatch and assasinate the Alliance General, the Alliance blow up a mine, the Horde Blows up Bael Modan, zone ends with the Alliance out of ammunition to the point of firing china dishes at the Horde forces.

Felwood: The Horde is tearing up northern felwood, the Alliance disrupts their operations.

Thousand Needles: The Horde loose Freewind post to the Grimtotems. The Alliance fights the Grimtotems for Freewind Post, and upon success, give it back to the Horde. (I was a little confused by this one, I could of sworn the Alliance was allied with the Grimtotem in Stonetalon.)

Desolace: Blood Elves use a relic of Elune to wipe out the Alliance at Nijel's Point.

Azshara: The Horde wipe out the Night Elves living in the region.

Dustwallow: No major changes.

I haven't done Silithus, Un'Goro, Winterspring, or Feralas since Cata release.

I'll go over EK after the raid tonight.

I'm working on a post for Silverpine Forest/Gilneas at the moment. Hopefully I'll get that finished up tonight. This headache is completely kicking my ass. I need to go over some of these a bit more too