[Lore] The Declining Populations of Azeroth

[Tenebrion]

You didn't address anything I said. I said that there is zero continuity in creating a story for a race that only consists of a few survivors when many people will play them. Player choice has almost nothing to do with it.

So players "choosing" to play the new race because it's the new thing has almost nothing to do with "player choice"...

I responded just fine to your original post. It's an mmo. Fantasy games are all about fighting a malevolent threat or overcoming impossible odds. Dragons, goblins, ghouls, etc.

How would it make any sense lore-wise if a new race that had never been seen before had a plentiful, massive population in story just so it could reflect the influx of people race changing or rolling the new race on release day? An entire nation of people don't just march up to SW or Org unannounced saying "Hey can we be friends?"

In lore the Draenei are on the run, being pursued by the Burning Legion and at risk of being completely wiped out. The blood elf population is nowhere near as large as it was as a result of Arthas marching upon Quel'thalas and the undead decimating them. But because Blizz decided to make both races playable they should have retconned the lore to say that they are robust in population just to create a correlation between lore numbers and the fact that every other person just happens to roll the new race in an expansion? It's ludicrous. The lore of the Warcraft universe != what players roll and do in game. If that were the case, Onyxia would have officially died when the first level 60 raid downed her, instead of upon the return of Varian. And the hero that saved us from the cataclysm would be some terrible DK named Nomnombabies, or Frostytank instead of Thrall. Blizzard has no responsibility to cater to metagame thinking. Their lore belongs to them. The game itself is just that, a game loosely based off their lore. Canon != individual player action and trends in game.

[Chonar]

What would you have Blizzard do? Put in a maximum race character limit per server?
Take away the choice from the player to play a specific character, just to preserve the suspension of disbelief?

It's really not an option. Especially with (unfortunatly) thousands of players who don't give a hoot about lore and immersion and just want to be a worgen for the 1% crit bonus.

[Trassk]

pandaren are actully more populated then draenei or worgen, not only living on a giant turtle, but also across the lands of pandaria, where as the draenei are some scattered survivors and worgen are the survivors of a hidden land beyond a wall.

I believe in lowest popualtion of any race is something like gnomes, who only seem to be around gnomeregan

[Callace]

So players "choosing" to play the new race because it's the new thing has almost nothing to do with "player choice"...

No. This is a Lore post. You're making this into something that it isn't. All of the races will have lots of people that play them regardless. This has nothing to do with population balance. I am only talking about Blizzard's insistence on adding racial stories that only spare a few survivors.

How would it make any sense lore-wise if a new race that had never been seen before had a plentiful, massive population in story just so it could reflect the influx of people race changing or rolling the new race on release day? An entire nation of people don't just march up to SW or Org unannounced saying "Hey can we be friends?"

That is essentially what is happening in the story anyway. It would be extremely easy for Blizzard to create a story where there are more than a handful of survivors and retain an atmosphere of a refugee world.

In lore the Draenei are on the run, being pursued by the Burning Legion and at risk of being completely wiped out. The blood elf population is nowhere near as large as it was as a result of Arthas marching upon Quel'thalas and the undead decimating them. But because Blizz decided to make both races playable they should have retconned the lore to say that they are robust in population just to create a correlation between lore numbers and the fact that every other person just happens to roll the new race in an expansion? It's ludicrous.

Stop putting words in my mouth.

In the Burning Crusade, we get hit with a storm of Draenei and Blood Elves, each of which have had their populations decimated upon introduction as playable characters. Compared to say, Humans and Orcs, they're supposed to be relatively rare. But everyone starts playing them and it seems like their numbers are pretty limitless. Now, that in itself isn't a big deal.

---------- Post added 2012-04-13 at 04:42 PM ----------

What would you have Blizzard do? Put in a maximum race character limit per server?
Take away the choice from the player to play a specific character, just to preserve the suspension of disbelief?

It's really not an option. Especially with (unfortunatly) thousands of players who don't give a hoot about lore and immersion and just want to be a worgen for the 1% crit bonus.

They could write a story where the entire race isn't wiped out from the start to add some continuity?

---------- Post added 2012-04-13 at 05:04 PM ----------

pandaren are actully more populated then draenei or worgen, not only living on a giant turtle, but also across the lands of pandaria, where as the draenei are some scattered survivors and worgen are the survivors of a hidden land beyond a wall.

This is true, but the origin we will be seeing is the Wandering Isle.

[Deleted]

It's like the 'Mohican' said in that one Simpsons episode long ago, "Chicks really dig it when you're the last of something!"

I love you.

[Callace]

Something tells me, if the next expansion involves going back to outland, the new races will be Arakkoa and Etherals, since we essentially saved both races from corruption and they have been idle for a few years in lore. Im sure Blizzard could whip up a story about what happened in the mean time.

Other than there, there are very little if none viable races that could be used for new races in WoW

Their stories would fit well population-wise. There are probably more Ethereals than humans. Plenty of Arrakoa too, even though it feels like I killed half of them.