Have the races been neutered?

[Friendlyimmolation]

They were gone from the lorderon alliance who betrayed them only to just go back into an alliance with lorderon again in the form of Forsaken.

The Alliance today is the same faction as it was before. Lordaeron just stopped being part of it.

[MyWholeLifeIsThunder]

My favorite portrayal of humans was in Lord of the Clans, they were portrayed as a lot less egalitarian as a society.

The Foxtons were practically forced to obey Blackmoore's whims. Even allowing their daughter to be sexually abused by Blackmoore.

The guards were mostly portrayed as illiterate footmen from poor, probably peasant backgrounds. There was even a female soldier that pretended to be a boy to be able to fight in the Second War and when her gender was revealed, she was sent to fight on the frontlines in hopes that she would be killed.

I also wish the human kingdoms/cultures were more discernable and diverse.

TBH that doesn't feel like a very compelling portrayal; how are more backward thinking humans a good or even interesting thing? Or do you mean as villians/antagonists?

I too wish the human kingdoms had a bit more flavor, but at the end is rather irrelevant. We play as Stormwind Humans so we are already contextually secluded to Stormwind Culture overall (not that your character has to be a Stormwind Human) Stormgarde and Arathi overall could have been very interesting, yet we only pass through there so there's little focus. Dalaran is already unique enough (very high fantasy and magic-reliant), ditto for Gilneas (they have their unique flavor and aesthetic), and I guess those are all the ones still standing?

The mayor problem is that no kingdom beyond Stormwind is relevant to the narrative, and the few opportunities there was have been mostly wasted.

They were gone from the Alliance long before WoW became a thing. People act like they were best buds coming into WoW and their Allegiance to the Horde came out of nowhere.

But I'm not saying that Blood Elves should have been alliance or not, only that the lore was shaped by gameplay concerns. If the onus wasn't on giving the horde a pretty race, high elves would have probably ended on the alliance -the whole 90% of high elves became blood elves info came when the belves were introduced in BC-. The Blood elves by the time of vanilla didn't really make sense on either side.

I'm not saying they didn't justify it enough or that it doesn't make sense, but the main reason why high elves weren't added to the alliance was because they wanted the blood elves on the horde for gameplay reasons. The point is that giving Blood Elves to the horde locked the High Elves out of being playable for the alliance, yet for lore purposes, they still keep being relevant members of the alliance even when they are supposed to be decimated.

Blizz wasn't sure what path take their elven lore during vanilla, there was a large alliance high elven presence still, and even when they chose to lock the high elves out of the alliance based on design choices, they didn't remove them as a factional presence, cause it was actually a hard thing to do. There was a bunch of loyal high elves in outland they couldn't just dismiss, and come WotLK, they had to address the existence of high elves that never left the alliance because they lived in human nations or had human ties, The Silver Covenant, which has been a featured faction in two expansions (WotLK and MoP) and present in Legion due to Vereesa who will, or has to be relevant on an expansion where Alleria, the most relevant high elf ever, returns.

Honestly, completely ignoring gameplay, I honestly think Forsaken, night elves, blood elves and draenei should be neutral at this point.

The faction binary REALLY limits the development of the races themselves. Night elves, going by lore, should have retained their independence and be a neutral faction working for their own best interest. Even if their alliance with the, alliance, was indeed the thing of convenience it would have more likely been, that has been completely butchered by making them subservient to the alliance in terms of hierarchy. Same goes for the blood elves, but the game has been far more succesful as framing their place on the horde as an alliance of convenience, they even explored the idea of Lor'themar considering switching sides!

There are several races that make more sense as independent, but it's just too much work to either implement a third faction system -which could go against the alliance versus horde ethos- or make said factions neutral and join a side a la pandaren -which would be hard because Blizz would have to write a narrative for them each expansion instead of being able to lump them on a given faction's storyline-

[Friendlyimmolation]

But I'm not saying that Blood Elves should have been alliance or not, only that the lore was shaped by gameplay concerns. If the onus wasn't on giving the horde a pretty race, high elves would have probably ended on the alliance -the whole 90% of high elves became blood elves info came when the belves were introduced in BC-. The Blood elves by the time of vanilla didn't really make sense on either side.

I'm not saying they didn't justify it enough or that it doesn't make sense, but the main reason why high elves weren't added to the alliance was because they wanted the blood elves on the horde for gameplay reasons. The point is that giving Blood Elves to the horde locked the High Elves out of being playable for the alliance, yet for lore purposes, they still keep being relevant members of the alliance even when they are supposed to be decimated.

Blizz wasn't sure what path take their elven lore during vanilla, there was a large alliance high elven presence still, and even when they chose to lock the high elves out of the alliance based on design choices, they didn't remove them as a factional presence, cause it was actually a hard thing to do. There was a bunch of loyal high elves in outland they couldn't just dismiss, and come WotLK, they had to address the existence of high elves that never left the alliance because they lived in human nations or had human ties, The Silver Covenant, which has been a featured faction in two expansions (WotLK and MoP) and present in Legion due to Vereesa who will, or has to be relevant on an expansion where Alleria, the most relevant high elf ever, returns.

Except Blizzard used the Blood elves as an example for why the High elves weren't playable before burning crusade was announced. Unless they were planning day 1 to give the blood elves to the Horde, there were other reasons that they didn't end up on the Alliance as playable. And the high elf presence wasn't large, blizzard mentioned several times it was very, very small.

The faction binary REALLY limits the development of the races themselves. Night elves, going by lore, should have retained their independence and be a neutral faction working for their own best interest. Even if their alliance with the, alliance, was indeed the thing of convenience it would have more likely been, that has been completely butchered by making them subservient to the alliance in terms of hierarchy. Same goes for the blood elves, but the game has been far more succesful as framing their place on the horde as an alliance of convenience, they even explored the idea of Lor'themar considering switching sides!

There are several races that make more sense as independent, but it's just too much work to either implement a third faction system -which could go against the alliance versus horde ethos- or make said factions neutral and join a side a la pandaren -which would be hard because Blizz would have to write a narrative for them each expansion instead of being able to lump them on a given faction's storyline-

One thing, that the Horde does much better than the Alliance is when a race is shown, it just doesn't feel like a different type of orc. Its a little wounded by the "alliance of convince " thing no longer being true after Dalaran, but a blood elf still feels like a blood elf etc. With the Alliance, everyone is stuck being a human because Blizzard has admittedly said that humans are easy to write, so the more difficult and complex Alliance races are thrown under the human bus.

The neutral faction thing is so unlikely that the best hope is to wish the writers wake up magically better.

[Daedius]

Tauren:



Sad times.

[Wyrt]

I really hope that in the next expansion, we focus on races just as we focused on classes in Legion.

The Alliance lost its High King and the Horde is... you know... And both factions are largely irrelevant now anyway.
What better time than now to progress through the ranks of your own race?

Yeah, um, last time we got faction focused content the Alliance got humans, humans, humans, more humans, night elves being shat on to prop up humans, and every other race being ignored.

Forgive me if I'm not excited for Alliance focused content.

[Khirok]

The Humans also had most of their interesting lore removed when they made the Brilliant decisions to have the Alliance lose all its holdings north of the span, effectively removing any connection they had to warcraft two and three.

[rpdrichard]

The excesive focus on Horde vs Alliance leaves little space to take a look at races, it reduces everything to Humans vs Orcs, which only recently Blizz understands it's boring as hell.

The Humans also had most of their interesting lore removed when they made the Brilliant decisions to have the Alliance lose all its holdings north of the span, effectively removing any connection they had to warcraft two and three.

Another casualty from the conflict when they tried to ballance leveling zones.

[Wyrt]

The excesive focus on Horde vs Alliance leaves little space to take a look at races, it reduces everything to Humans vs Orcs, which only recently Blizz understands it's boring as hell.



Another casualty from the conflict when they tried to ballance leveling zones.

Last time they did faction conflict was in MoP when the Horde got appearances from trolls, goblins, and blood elves. At the very least they did better than the only human show that was the Alliance story.

[Tiwack]

Best not to question it and just go along with it... as with most of blizzards writing.

[Magnagarde]

The more I think about it the less it starts to make sense either. They're literally physiologically and biologically adapted to being nocturnal, they see in the dark and evolved from a subterranean race of trolls.

Damn you Blizzard, stop turning kaldorei into purple humans!

It made more sense to put tauren and night elves into a faction of their own. Tauren in the Horde make sense, but then night elves would be alone in theirs.

"Cenarion XX" "XX of Cenarius"

I personally wouldn't mind disproportionate numbers when it comes to playable races either.

[Oneirophobia]

They honestly just need to add more race themed gear and weapons. One thing that Guild Wars 2 does well is "cultural" armor and weapon skins, so if you want to look as Nelfy as possible you can.

In WoW we really only have neutral stuff or either generic Stormwindian Alliance or generic Orcish Horde. Racial looks aren't that common. Blood Elves have it easiest at least, the Sunwell patch added quite a bit of stuff for them, and as of late we have a fair amount of Draenei things to choose from.

[Radaney]

Night Elves were neutered completely, they're easily the strongest race of the Alliance. Tyrande and Malfurion were the Thralls of the Alliance and easily the strongest faction leaders other than Velen in the entire story but apparently that just stopped being a thing and they've had absolutely no presence in World of Warcraft whatsoever.

Yet apparently Humans are the leaders of the Alliance, makes no sense.

The Alliance has been neutered pretty significantly in general due to the entire Kirin Tor, Every Paladin in the game, the Wardens and Malfurion becoming neutral. The Horde have only really had Thrall become neutral, not so much an entire faction.

Also the Forsaken being in the Horde and a non-Orc becoming the Warchief? Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeh.

Gnomes, Goblins, Tauren never had much to neuter but they're still non-existant in the story.

Naturally Trolls had 1 small entry into the story in MoP with Garrosh trying to kill Vol'jin and starting a rebellion then Trolls disappeared from the Story completely and don't even have a faction leader now.

Lady Liadrin became the Blood Elf Faction Leader at some point, can't even remember when this actually happened though but according to Blizzard it did at some point.

[Techno-Druid]

The Humans also had most of their interesting lore removed when they made the Brilliant decisions to have the Alliance lose all its holdings north of the span, effectively removing any connection they had to warcraft two and three.

Ironically for pushing humans so prevalently in the Alliance, Blizz sure has a fetish for destroying any human kingdom that's not Stormwind or Dalaran (which was counted amongst the Seven Kingdoms, but is, for all intents and purposes a multiracial city).

Would at least like to see new human civilizations appear, even if they aren't apart of the original Seven Kingdoms. Maybe do something with the Wastewander bandits in Tanaris? Maybe they eventually give up raiding and evolve into a major trading power in-lore, building some sort of city-state with a government. Would be interesting to see a human nation (and a nation in general) that wasn't so caught up with being chivalrous and honorable.

What about the Eastern Plaguelands? It's (most likely) under the rule of the Knights of the Silver Hand and even being a neutral organization I don't see any reason why they wouldn't reject to resettling Lordaeronian refugees in their lands after the Plaguelands are completely cleansed. New Lordaeron? East Lordaeron? Eastaeron?

On the other side with the Horde, I think it would be interesting if new orcish clans or even tauren tribes developed. One of the ideas for a project I did focusing on the races in the future included the concept of the Dawnchaser tribe staying in Pandaria a little longer and absorbing some pandaren cultural elements.

[MyWholeLifeIsThunder]

Except Blizzard used the Blood elves as an example for why the High elves weren't playable before burning crusade was announced. Unless they were planning day 1 to give the blood elves to the Horde, there were other reasons that they didn't end up on the Alliance as playable. And the high elf presence wasn't large, blizzard mentioned several times it was very, very small.

Honestly I think they feared having two elven races on the same faction, and also it's obvious they had plans for the blood elves since Warcraft III when they were developed. We can only speculate how early on WoW's development the idea of adding blood elves to the horde came, but I think it was rather early. While it's clear that Blizz wanted to make its generic elves more unique when they came up with the blood elves, they still made known that high elves were still a thing, even in much reduced numbers; that's what my comment about high elven presence is about, not the population numbers, but in game presence with several alliance aligned npcs (including two lodges) To be honest I don't have any knowledge pre BC info about the high elven population numbers being too low to sustain a playable faction. I know they have said it later, and even so given how much presence the silver covenant has had and how small other playable factions are, it was never a good excuse. (Trolls are a displaced island tribe, draenei are the survivors of one ship of a genocided race, a boat full of goblins)

I do believe that the first reason why helves weren't playable was because the reticence of having two elven races on the same faction, but once belves were decided to be joining the horde, that became the biggest reason. Given that future expansions gave us humans but with werewolfism, and a neutral race, had belves not been given to the horde, is very likely high elves would have joined the alliance eventually. (specially since they keep showing on the storyline

One thing, that the Horde does much better than the Alliance is when a race is shown, it just doesn't feel like a different type of orc. Its a little wounded by the "alliance of convince " thing no longer being true after Dalaran, but a blood elf still feels like a blood elf etc. With the Alliance, everyone is stuck being a human because Blizzard has admittedly said that humans are easy to write, so the more difficult and complex Alliance races are thrown under the human bus.

The neutral faction thing is so unlikely that the best hope is to wish the writers wake up magically better.

Like, yeah, and at the end is the reason why IMO is more enjoyable to play horde. The factions feel more unique and stand on their own instead of all following a human ethos. Sure there is more faction pride on the horde races now, but that's also a result of years working together, and each race remains culturally interesting by itself.

The alliance is just boring at this point.

Personally, I even think the Silver Covenant high elves have gotten more development than even playable races.

[Magnagarde]

Ironically for pushing humans so prevalently in the Alliance, Blizz sure has a fetish for destroying any human kingdom that's not Stormwind or Dalaran (which was counted amongst the Seven Kingdoms, but is, for all intents and purposes a multiracial city).

Would at least like to see new human civilizations appear, even if they aren't apart of the original Seven Kingdoms. Maybe do something with the Wastewander bandits in Tanaris? Maybe they eventually give up raiding and evolve into a major trading power in-lore, building some sort of city-state with a government. Would be interesting to see a human nation (and a nation in general) that wasn't so caught up with being chivalrous and honorable.

What about the Eastern Plaguelands? It's (most likely) under the rule of the Knights of the Silver Hand and even being a neutral organization I don't see any reason why they wouldn't reject to resettling Lordaeronian refugees in their lands after the Plaguelands are completely cleansed. New Lordaeron? East Lordaeron? Eastaeron?

On the other side with the Horde, I think it would be interesting if new orcish clans or even tauren tribes developed. One of the ideas for a project I did focusing on the races in the future included the concept of the Dawnchaser tribe staying in Pandaria a little longer and absorbing some pandaren cultural elements.

Oh I'd definitely love to see some Alliance(human and dwarven) presence in Stromgarde lead by Danath/the Wildhammers and Alterac turning into a war zone between the Forsaken and them as it is a junction between the Hinterlands and Arathi Highlands. It would even out the Andorhal acquisition the Forsaken have made and Stromgarde would ensure Alliance settlements south of Thandol.

Stratholme could become a new kingdom, which would be a neutral hub or even better; simply call it the kingdom of Stratholme. The kingdom would include Hearthglen, Light's HC, the former Scarlet Enclave, all the way down to Andorhal and Alterac.

[MyWholeLifeIsThunder]

The Humans also had most of their interesting lore removed when they made the Brilliant decisions to have the Alliance lose all its holdings north of the span, effectively removing any connection they had to warcraft two and three.

To be honest, Lordaeron itself was pretty generic, in the same way Stormwind is really, what unique lore was truly lost? I really don't think that another generic human kingdom above the span is any solution.

The problem is not that we lack human kingdoms, but that we lack any conflict within the human kingdom we already have. Adding Gilneas again was a good choice, making Dalaran neutral not so much but yeah, it made sense. They could have made Stormgarde have a more unique presence instead of feeling like generic humans though, they could have made them much more gung-ho about reclaiming the fallen human kingdoms, a gathering of human forces displeaced with Stormwind's lack of intervention.

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Oh I'd definitely love to see some Alliance(human and dwarven) presence in Stromgarde lead by Danath/the Wildhammers and Alterac turning into a war zone between the Forsaken and them as it is a junction between the Hinterlands and Arathi Highlands. It would even out the Andorhal acquisition the Forsaken have made and Stromgarde would ensure Alliance settlements south of Thandol.

Stratholme could become a new kingdom, which would be a neutral hub or even better; simply call it the kingdom of Stratholme. The kingdom would include Hearthglen, Light's HC, the former Scarlet Enclave, all the way down to Andorhal and Alterac.

If the idea of neutral playable factions was a thing, I'd really enjoy a neutral human kingdom. That's what the Silver Hand is now basically.

[Magnagarde]

To be honest, Lordaeron itself was pretty generic, in the same way Stormwind is really, what unique lore was truly lost? I really don't think that another generic human kingdom above the span is any solution.

The problem is not that we lack human kingdoms, but that we lack any conflict within the human kingdom we already have. Adding Gilneas again was a good choice, making Dalaran neutral not so much but yeah, it made sense. They could have made Stormgarde have a more unique presence instead of feeling like generic humans though, they could have made them much more gung-ho about reclaiming the fallen human kingdoms, a gathering of human forces displeaced with Stormwind's lack of intervention.

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If the idea of neutral playable factions was a thing, I'd really enjoy a neutral human kingdom. That's what the Silver Hand is now basically.

Such forces were highly represented within the Scarlet Crusade, Brotherhood of the Light and the Argent Dawn, but they're all pretty much gone now. Whoever was upset about Lordaeron being ruled by the undead, they joined the Scarlet Crusade I guess.

It was nice to have a "radical" human faction. Initially the Alliance had ambassadors from the Scarlet Crusade, but I believe only two or so are left. It was a good counterpart towards the Garrosh mentality within the Horde, but Blizzard chopped both up.

[MyWholeLifeIsThunder]

True, but I kinda like the idea of Stormgarde being less "genuine" about its goals, Like saying it's to restore a rightful human kingdom, but it's more about claiming lands from the forsaken and the scourge. Would they even be wrong by taking such opportunity?

[Friendlyimmolation]

True, but I kinda like the idea of Stormgarde being less "genuine" about its goals, Like saying it's to restore a rightful human kingdom, but it's more about claiming lands from the forsaken and the scourge. Would they even be wrong by taking such opportunity?

They’d obviously be wrong to the horde. If Anduin ends up trying to be peace and flowers for everyone then it would be wrong for him too. The moment the alliance took over the ruins of stromgarde the forsaken would be forced into action.

[Maljinwo]

They’d obviously be wrong to the horde. If Anduin ends up trying to be peace and flowers for everyone then it would be wrong for him too. The moment the alliance took over the ruins of stromgarde the forsaken would be forced into action.

And we all know that the Forsaken don't like killing people. Poor guys