The goal of the Alliance in attacking Dazar'alor clearly was not to destroy the Zandalari navy. The explosives were already planted on the ships and if that was their main goal, they could've blown them up at any time. The reason they waited (risking discovery) was to make the Horde think the city was defended, so that blowing the fleet up gave them a window to attack the now undefended city. Attacking the city was clearly the main objective.Now why the Alliance would want to attack the city is completely unclear to me. They could never have reasonably held on to it, so that can't be it. Driving the zandalari away from the horde by raiding their city and killing their leader is completely nonsensical. Even if killing Rastakhan was their goal, just killing an enemy leader isn't necessarily a good thing, especially if there is a clear heir that may even be more dangerous. I really struggle to find any reason that makes sense even remotely.Sadly, seems like just another episode of the Alliance having their head up their asses strategically, only to serve as a plot device to further Horde storylines (in this case Talanji as the brand new strong and independent female faction leader).
This story is just dumb and irrelevant through and though. Everything they do to try and make it some high stakes drama 24 clone just turns it into more and more of a self parody.The core problem is that drama only matters if there's consequences. In a world of infinite soldiers, infinite food or natural resources, unbound random magic and technology that can do everything or nothing depending on the whims of the author, and characters which constantly come in and out of focus and lack any obvious personality or character traits which explain their actions, literally nothing can matter. Blizz is now the Michael Bay of gaming. They come up with these cool fanfic set pieces and then just kludge their way into stringing them together.Yawn.
So, again the Horde loses a major ally in Rastakhan. The Alliance loses a side character. The Horde consistently loses major characters. When do we get a turn killing major lore characters.When do we kill the alliance version of Garrosh? Gul'dan ? Rastakhan ? Eventually Sylvanus? When does the Alliance lose a character equivalent of Thrall? Vuljin? Kaelthas?
well all know that the "mekkatorke coma" and "jaina wounded" will mean nothing.The only thing that matters here is that rasthakan is dead, it doesn't even matter all those ships destroyed and those random soldiers killed.because numbers means.. nothing.in fact, it doesn't matter who win this battle or the faction war, status quo will return and the story would have done nothing to move aside from a key places destroyed and named characters killed, nothing else matters.
No mention of Saurfang and what his future holds? Insuregency against Sylvy? Combined might of Azeroth vs Sylvy and her old god allies? With 8.2 being about the Naga. Many many twists to come!
Perhaps I missed something due to my limited play time this expac, but as far as the alliance storyline would have us know - we think we've just assassinated the leader of the Hordes newest ally, in an attempt to throw their court in disaray. We wouldn't know that the princess was friendly to the horde, that the king wasn't - this entire time it's looked like horde and zandalar have been working together from the very start. They've attacked out lands together, they've defended their lands together... it looked like a united front. Any distrust or difficulties? None of us technically know about it. The only rough spot seemed to be the Sanlayn.The whole thing seems like a stupid plan from the get go... from the horde perspective of course. The Alliance's side of BFAs story so far feels largely out of touch - with first warcampaign storyline focusing on a new horde ally, that horde players never even hear about or see in game. Probably because the Alliance exterminated them. Then we spent the next one rushing out Grong as a raid boss for Daz'Alor, and setting up explosives we ended up waiting way to long to detonate... (we couldn't have Kelsey, Keeshan or Shandris hiding out somewhere on land to set them off? SI:7? Why on a warship that had to... get in range I guess? Where'd our submarines go?)As an aside - it feels like the Alliance story is seriously lacking in any real drama. The only tension right now is Tyrande finally remembered to do something about Darnassus. Anything else as far as internal drama goes has more or less been wrapped up with happy endings.But Horde? They get to play game of thrones, again.
So...nobody is going to bring up Genn lecturing Anduin on what a king needs to be willing to do? Come on people, it hasn't been THAT long since "I know that better than anyone" earned its reasoning.
8.1 and 8.1.5 really unloaded a lot in the way of story progression.All the current events and aftermath considered, we're seeing far more focus on the Horde's story as it plays out. Sylvanas has blatantly become trigger-happy, while the Alliance recovers from its assault on Dazar'alor. -Zelling is executed, Baine is imprisoned, Jaina is weakened, Mekkatorque is essentially comatose, and we're left wondering "what happens next?". The Horde leaders are overwhelmingly concerned or outright opposed to Sylvanas' regime. God only knows how that will play out. Kinda makes you wonder why the Highmountain and Nightborne joined the Horde in the first place. Honestly, some of the Allied Race's allegiances are concerning at best. I would be surprised but delighted if we saw some of them become Faction-neutral based on the events of BfA.-So far, 8.1.5 says that Naga presence has increased, so that can only hint at the upcoming "Crucible of Storms" Raid and the inevitable 8.2 inclusion of Azshara. But we're left to wonder how the Horde and Alliance can once again unite against a common enemy, especially after all the atrocities that have been committed.-It's gonna take a miracle to unite Azeroth at this point, and I can't wait to see the reason(s).-P.S. Incorporating M.O.T.H.E.R. into the story was a much-needed touch, but we need answers! We're fighting World War Azeroth while the planet is dying, but we're still no closer to fixing the problem, and it's maddening.