An expansion with little to no humans, orcs, or elves.

[Wyrt]

To be fair, we didn't have a strictly HUMAN expansion so far. Not even human PATCH.

Um, wasn't that Wrath? And Alliance story for MoP?

Humans are in every story anyway, especially stories that should be about other races.

[Toppy]

Um, wasn't that Wrath? And Alliance story for MoP?

Humans are in every story anyway, especially stories that should be about other races.

Yeah humans have just been a very constant sense of importance. They are always around in a significant way. Their lightest time was likely TBC, but WotLK, Cata, MoP, WoD, Legion, they all had a very major presence.

[NecroVane]

They already did this, it was called mists of pandaria, and everyone whined about it because it wasnt "warcraft" enough.

[Toppy]

They already did this, it was called mists of pandaria, and everyone whined about it because it wasnt "warcraft" enough.

MoP was loaded with humans from the get go. The entire alliance plot was pushed by humans and Varian had a series of questlines about how great he was.

[Techno-Druid]

MoP was loaded with humans from the get go. The entire alliance plot was pushed by humans and Varian had a series of questlines about how great he was.

Of course there are going to be some humans, it's the Alliance.

[alt-ithist]

I'd like that too. Seeing more dwarven, tauren, troll etc. related content. I believe they don't have important roles because there is always one big bad guy or big bad faction everyone has to fight and that leaves no space to deliver these races to prominence. The story has to rely upon known heroes instead, which are usually elves of whichever type, human mages or orcs.

I believe all the past expansions, except Cataclysm, have given no room for such characters to come to prominence. I think Blizzard's motive to include them is clear(ie order halls are a clear sign of the diversity of races if you look at the followers), but they haven't yet gotten a setting where they can do more with them. I think the next expansion, if it is based on a revamp of certain portions of Azeroth, will surely result in changes where these races will have more of a spotlight than they already have.

Mist certainly made a decent try at that. But still it was an orc vs human war story. But most of the races had some small screen time. Trolls with the voljin storyline, Tauren with Dezco’s tragic story, blood elves with the isle of thunder, goblins inside siege (not their finest hour), dwarves with Moira coming to help disputes the council, Night elves with “hush tyrande”’ so on and so forth.

[Toppy]

Of course there are going to be some humans, it's the Alliance.

Once more, thats my point. Why cant it be "Of course there are going to be Gnomes, its the Alliance"?

Its called the Alliance but its more along the lines of "Mankind and friends".

[Techno-Druid]

Once more, thats my point. Why cant it be "Of course there are going to be Gnomes, its the Alliance"?

Its called the Alliance but its more along the lines of "Mankind and friends".

While I want all races to receive focus, I don't want humans or orcs to be pushed aside or play almost no role, because they quite literally are the foundation of the factions.

[Utigarde]

I hope OP knows that 'jin is the surname of troll chieftains.

[Wyrt]

They already did this, it was called mists of pandaria, and everyone whined about it because it wasnt "warcraft" enough.

Did you miss the Alliance story in MoP? That was 110% humans.

[Toppy]

While I want all races to receive focus, I don't want humans or orcs to be pushed aside or play almost no role, because they quite literally are the foundation of the factions.

Foundation is one thing, be all end all is another.

Again, not as bad with the Horde but for the Alliance:

Espionage and scouting is handled by a human agency. Not say, the Night Elves who supposedly specialize in that. Yes, Night Elves do have their Druids, but they only ever act in a neutral capacity, rather than for the Alliance.

Both human kings (Varian and Anduin) didn't really have that much experience with other races, or leadership experience at all. Varian went from kid to kidnapped in short order, to reappear and head an alliance comprised of races he either had little to no experience with, or wasnt even aware of (night elves and draenei), and showed himself over and over to be a very poor diplomat. Anduin himself still is just a kid, and has shown himself to be, if anything, ignorant of the world. Despite all of this, they are pretty much the heads of the Alliance for seemingly no other reason than being human.

The greatest Mages are humans, and not say, the immortal race of arcane masters.

While the humans don't make the machinery, they for some reason tend to operate it. 7th Legion I'm looking at you.

Despite pretty much all the alliance races being pious (except the gnomes), mankind is the only one that ever tends to do anything of importance when it comes to using the light. Draenei did step in a little bit on this recently, only for an immortal human paladin to come and lead their long awaited army of light while the new human king is taking his place as head light guy.

The soldiers of the Alliance are for some reason 95% human. The only time I can remember the other major warrior race doing anything (Dwarves) was when they had an unnamed mountain king NPC in MoP. Though Legion alleviated this somewhat with the Worgen, we'll see if the trend holds.

The main argument I see for this is "They are the most populace race" which makes little sense when you consider they were nearly all killed off in the second war. Every single human kingdom had fall within a single generation. Only three got back up (Stormwind, Dalaran, Kul'Tiras) and we know for sure that two of those had to rebuild their entire capitol, and one of them seems to be greatly made up of elves, and maintains neutrality (while the third may or may not be part of the Alliance at all).

- - - Updated - - -

I hope OP knows that 'jin is the surname of troll chieftains.

I do. I was more so pointing out that blizzard has pretty much never given us much when it comes to trolls to the point where most people only know Vol'Jin.

[Zulkhan]

I still remember with disgust the Nagrand NPCs of WoD, guards of multiple races all wearing footman (Alliance) or grunt (Horde) gear. Seeing Blood Elves and Forsaken dressed like grunts was bad enough but Draenei and Night Elves looked goofy as fuck in footman armor. Possibly the worst attempt imaginable to add racial diversity without not really doing it.

[WhiteEagle888]

Where should this particular xpack take place?

[Deleted]

Do you think blizzard would ever attempt this? And I dont mean that the concept would be that humans, orcs, and elves are missing, rather they just aren't around.

If their directors have more than 10 live neurons between them, they'll never do anything of the kind.

[Arrashi]

Where should this particular xpack take place?

Neo-pandaria. Its like normal pandaria but now its styled for bladerunner.

[Chemical Ellis]

Where should this particular xpack take place?

Of the common expansion ideas, it seems like

Underground (Dwarves, Gnomes, Goblins, Aqir, Undead, Old God stuff, Titan stuff)

or

Zandalar (Trolls, Pandaren, Aqir, Titanforged)

make the most sense.

[The Iron Fist]

Nope. The core of WarCraft is Orcs and Humans; Alliance and Horde. It will never go away, nor should it. If you don't like it then go play another game. What you're asking for is like going into Diablo asking for less Angels and Demons... uh, no...

[Deleted]

Well, the "Orcs VS Humans" comflict is kinda the base of all Warcraft.. Also, Troll have had many focus patches from Vanilla to MoP (ZA, ZG, Thunder Isle, ...), and Draenei are pretty much the main focus of Legion when considering "our side" of the comflict..

This leaves us with :

-Gnomes, but since their retaking of Gnomeregan, they don't seem to face any diffuculty or problem in particular.
-Dwarves, main focus being the Council of 3 Hammers
-Worgen, and the retaking of Gilneas, although a lot of Cataclysm's "early zones" deal with the Forsaken/Gilnean war.

-Tauren, the most overlooked race by far.. Almost no lore except for a few physical variations here and there (taunka in WOTLK, Yaungol during MoP and Highmountain antler-wearing tauren in Legion with a tiny bit of lore, but nothing too important)
-Goblins. Again, no lore since Cataclysm. Not even a model for their racial leader.
-Forsaken. A bit overused imo, but could be an interesting and "classic" antagonist to the Worgen.

-Pandaren... We had MoP, so, we're good there.. maybe re-unite the two factions of playable pandaren, but I can't see any interest in doing this.


The real problem is more "Which race is now relevant to the story ?" and to be honest, Worgen and Forsaken may be the most logic choice here, considering their unfinished buisness together. Next would be Humans (through Jaina and Anduin) VS the "classic" Horde (Trolls, orcs and goblins), especially after Alleria's return in 4.3. Finally, Trolls could have a traditional content patch, but not a place in the "main" storyline imo : their best chance at this, Voljin being warchief of the Horde, in now gone..


So, TL;DR : As much as I'd like to see more about Dwarves, Tauren, goblins and Gnomes, it looks like we're gonna deal with Forsaken VS Worgen.

[Maljinwo]

-Trolls, who have had lots of time in the sun since Vanilla, almost "traditionally" through content patches (ZA, ZG, Thunder Isle, ...)

By killing each tribe and not fleshing out the playable ones except "we have some islands now. Also a Warchief. He died"

[Dracullus]

Let's see at Legion:

1. Azsuna: demon/elf ghosts/nightfallen/naga theme
2. Valsharah: nelf/nightmare theme
3. Highmountain: tauren/drogbar theme
4. Stormheim: undead vs. worgen + vrykul theme
5. Suramar: demon/nightborne theme
6. Broken Shore: demon/elf ghosts/naga theme
7. Argus: demon/draenei them.

So we have:

- Alliance side: Nelf (heavy), Draenei (medium), Worgen (light)
- Horde side: Tauren (light), Undead (light), Belf (light)
- Neutral/Enemy: Demon (heavy), Nightborne (medium), Naga (light), Nightmare (light), Drogbar (light), Vrykul (light)

Legion is elf heavy expansion, but that's about it. If we ignore elves and demons (duh), it's pretty well balanced. Orcs are basically forgotten and only humans with heavy presence are Khadgar 7.0-7.2.5 and Turalyon in 7.3 (by heavy presence I mean you see him very often during daily stuff; Anduin is important, but he just have few one-time questlines in game).

On the other hand, 8.0 will probably be human heavy expansion. If it will be just Kul Tiras, humans will be new elves/orcs; if all South Seas, I expect:

- Horde side: Trolls (Zandalar), Goblins (Undermine), Undead (next parts of Sylvanas story)
- Alliance side: Humans (Kul Tiras and Plunder Isle), maybe Dwarves (Moira), maybe Gnomes (counterpart to Goblins).
- Enemy: Naga, Faceless, maybe Ethereals.

So I'm 95% sure that Elves will became new Orcs next expansion (forgotten, I mean), Orcs will continue to have very small presence (and I think it will be mostly about Thrall return), but it will be Human heavy.