No Major Worgen or Draenei Activity Yet? [5.1 Spoilers]

[Psychotrip]

See, I'd be happy if they just integrated them into the story better, like they've been doing with blood elves, and for goodness sake do SOMETHING with the ruins of gilneas. It's annoying and immersion-breaking rping there when it's completely empty. No 7th legion soldiers (who lore-wise are there), not even some animal mobs to populate the landscape. It's just barren. Half the buildings are closed too, leaving only a few interior spaces for roleplaying.

[Sett]

I always have a hard time debating who got the short end of the stick. Worgen or the Draenei. Both got it pretty bad and continue to receive little to no lore updates.

They really strained with giving Draenei to the Alliance in the first place. Knowing we were maybe going to have Pandas now makes sense. Their lore was easy to create in Outlands but falls really flat in Azeroth. A few tents here or there but not much going for from strong outside their starting zones/Swamp of Sorrow.

For Worgen... The moment you leave the starting zone you shove everything out the window. You have to play another faction to see the continuation of your 'story' from Gilneas. You're strapped to a boat and sent off with so many questions that don't get answers til you make play Horde. Hell, even after that stuff is still confusing to where some of the important Worgen/Gilneas characters are. Surwich isn't really a heavy 'town' for lore with it focusing more on druidism/dealing with the demons. Probably the best Worgen area given would be that small thing in Duskwood.


TL;DR both races need a lot of love. Worgen need more questions solved ( and not cramped into goddamn comics ) and Draenei need to be taken seriously. Our little space goats have been on Azeroth for how long and all they got to show is tents?

[IdTheDemon]

I'd imagine Draenei will get some lore with the Burning Legion expansion

[Iso]

Velen ruins anything he gets his hands on...

"oooh I knew this was going to happen all along, but I wanted to see how the mortal races would cope. lololol, please kill me?"

[Scummer]

They are too strange for the Alliance soldiers to deal with. At least, that was the excuse in Wrath

Well given how there's a substantial presence of Draenei and some Worgen NPC's at Lion's Landing I'd say it's most likely no longer the case. On top of this the idea of prejudice kinda goes against the Alliance story theme of everybody uniting together.

All the leaders? There's a distinct lack of dwarven leaders and no Velen. While Brann is a dwarf, he's not one of the leaders of the Ironforge dwarves.

Well I misspoke . I instead meant all (most) the races. Probably one those moments where I had a brain fart while typing.

How come some of you have completely missed the fact that one of the SI:7 operatives is a Draenei, and there are plenty of Draenei on the beach fighting the Horde at Lion's Landing. They're even around as NPC's in the keep itself.

I think you're taking it a bit far if you believe token NPC's mean real lore progression, this is kinda worse when you consider Draenei have had no real story in the game since TBC.
The problem with Mishka is that she's not a typical Draenei and doesn't actually help to further the lore of the race in an interesting way. She's simply not what people want out of Draenei. She just does nothing to help with their story.

Having played both story lines it really feels like they put more work into the Horde one to be honest.

If we're comparing the 5.1 faction stories I'd kinda agree that the Horde side is far better quality, whether or not this is simply a lapse in design or the fact the Alliance side of the story was never tried and tested on the beta for aslong remains to be seen.
Quantity wise though the sides are equal which is a step in the right direction. Blizzard just need to work on getting the context and quality equal.


On a side note with quality I'm rather dissapointed that the Trials of the High King are now something Horde players have access to with the latest 5.2 Notes. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't rather annoyed.

"Lorewalker Cho has two new tales to tell: Dagger in the Dark and A Little Patience. Though his mystical story-weaving magic (and well, the Dungeon Finder), both Alliance and Horde characters are now able run these previously faction-specific Scenarios."

[Deleth]

She shows up quite often though and she joins the Kirn Tor offensive.

http://www.wowpedia.org/Lyalia

She shows up in one zone, the cameo in Stonefield and later one stands around at the Shrine. Lorewalker Dezco her Horde counterpart shows up everywhere, is actually involved in the story and not reduced to a cameo as soon as you leave Krasarang.

[Yriel]

Having played both story lines it really feels like they put more work into the Horde one to be honest. There is simply "more" going on, more things happening an in generally a deeper picture shown of what is happening. That being said people seem to have problems with Blizzard completly ignoring most of the Alliance races.
We have lots of Goblins, Trolls, Orcs, Tauren and other races being active, having named characters and doing stuff all over Pandaria with some very prominent ones in the story such as Sunwalker Dezco (funnily his Nelven counter part was forgotten once you got out of Krasarang) who show up over and over again.

The Alliance has a few characters themselves, they are however far fewer and eventually stop showing up altogether. Also they are either Humans or Nelves as off now. With the Nelves vanishing from the story line immediatly after Krasarang and only showing up in a single scenario.
Did you see Tyrande before that in Lions Landing? No? Me neither. Do you remember that nelven guys name without looking it up who sacrificed his life for his daughters in Krasarang to save his daughter? No? Me neither. Neither do I remember his daughters name, maybe because she vanished right after that zone never to show up again. Sunwalker dezco keeps showing up all over the place.

That's interesting because i find the alliance story line much better and diverse, for example the whole part with the monkey king gives interesting lore parts that the horde is missing. And it's even more amazing since the hozen are supposed to be allied with the horde while now it looks like the alliance has the support of the hozen and the carp-guys.

I agree that the horde races are featured more. I guess thats a byproduct of the meta story because every horde race needs a reason to rebel against Garrosh while the alliance is unified like never before and thus their new High-King and Jaina are sitting in the spotlight. But i think there is no shortage in featured Characters, Agent Connely, Varian, Anduin, the monkey king, Fennie Hornswaggle, Jaina, Vareesa and so on.

[Granyala]

The problem with Mishka is that she's not a typical Draenei and doesn't actually help to further the lore of the race in an interesting way. She's simply not what people want out of Draenei. She just does nothing to help with their story.

Well she doesn't help much with our story, but currently there is no story to tell. Exodar is repaired, Starting zone stuff is wrapped up.
We all have to solve the problems on Azeroth and cease the stupid interfaction squabble before we can form the army of the light and continue kicking demon butt.

It was nice seeing Mishka, more so because she seems to try to find non violent solutions (eliminating their food supply and forcing them to retreat instead of killing them) / save lives. How is that not typical for Draenei?

Personally I was a little bummed that they put in so many nameless vindicator NPCs for the Horde to slaughter. Doesn't make sense to do that with an endangered species very low in numbers.

[Unholyground]

now im making toast

Your scouter fails to read power levels over 1million.

[LazarusLong]

She shows up in one zone, the cameo in Stonefield and later one stands around at the Shrine. Lorewalker Dezco her Horde counterpart shows up everywhere, is actually involved in the story and not reduced to a cameo as soon as you leave Krasarang.

False. Sorry but, it's about the same with Dezco. They both show up in defense of Stoneplow and Gates to the Valley opening. And then he just stands in Shrine.

Of course Sunwalkers > Sentinels so

[Yriel]

False. Sorry but, it's about the same with Dezco. They both show up in defense of Stoneplow and Gates to the Valley opening. And then he just stands in Shrine.

Of course Sunwalkers > Sentinels so

I guess a Tauren Paladin (especially with his T6 shoulders) just stands out more, she is just another Sentinel.

[Psychotrip]

Come on people let's be honest with ourselves, there may be some token characters here and there, but draenei lore has remained stagnant since BC. Compare this to blood elves: for a long time they suffered the same problem to a lesser extent. This was largely be ause quel'thalas is stuck in the past where their land is in ruins and the scourge is running rampant. Now, Blizzard has found a way to integrate the blood elves into the horde in a better way: giving them cool factions, making their leader a 3 dimensional character, and making them, as a nation, DO STUFF. The draenei (and worgen too) are just random token characters scattered around, most of them nameless. Their "homeland" is just a bunch of broken space ship parts. As a result, their homeland looks far more broken and time-stagnant at first glance, making it difficult to rp there outside the city.

The real crime here is that draenei are so unique and yet so underutilized. They're freaking blue space goat octopi powered by magitech and religious fervor. That alone is an awesome combination! Imagine how much history each immortal draenei has, all the planets and cultures they've seen. Interested? Too bad because blizzard isn't. Sure, maybe that doesn't directly tie into this expansion, but plenty of races and factions get their own subplot, or help out the main plot in their own unique way that further fleshes them out. Blizzard seriously needs to utilize the potential of the oldest race of wizards and clerics in the known universe.

---------- Post added 2013-02-01 at 06:43 PM ----------

This post from a thread on the official forums called "Ghostcrawler on Draenei" really sums up my thoughts on this:

"01/29/2013 08:51 AMPosted by Shanush
Draenei were shoved in during BC because of Metzen's erotic Sci-fi obsession, and now, because they don't fit anywhere into the current lore without being a jarring contrast to the other races of fantasy, Blizz is kind of stuck where to go with them.


This has become something of a self-fulfilling prophecy. "We don't do anything with them because they don't fit, and they don't fit because we haven't done anything with them."

The draenei don't fit any worse in the current (WoW-era) state of Warcraft lore than anything else, but Metzen let the jokes about "lolore retcons lol" and "lololol spacegoats lol" get to him, went off to cry in a corner, and hasn't had the stone to touch the draenei since, even though they're really the one race in the lineup that isn't a takeoff of a standard-issue fantasy race. There have been plenty of ways to integrate the draenei into the greater Alliance and the greater storyline, Blizzard's just always been too lazy or too timid or too busy to use them.

-Nobundo was the first draenei to speak with the elements, and brought the concept of shamanism to the draenei who embraced it wholesale. He's a visionary, one of the major heroes of his race. Where is he in Cataclysm, the big shaman expansion? He doesn't get so much as a single line of dialogue, because Cataclysm was The Thrall Show.

-What about Vindicator Maraad? He's supposedly Garona's uncle by blood and a powerful vindicator, but he's never done a bloody thing in-game, just stands on the Skyshredder's deck in Icecrown as a piece of scenery.

-Draenei have long known the power of the arcane, their mages powerful and more, some of them boasting over twenty millennia of experience. Why don't we see a couple of them in Dalaran, sharing their knowledge? The Kirin Tor would lap that !@#$ up.

-Draenei count amongst their number their own paladin order, light-bringers who serve to protect their race and smash the unholy forces that oppose them. Why couldn't we see them bringing their own strength and experience to bear against the Scourge in Wrath? Blizzard gives us one half-assed explanation about some guy (who later turns out to be a Scourge agent) trying to stonewall them, then forgets about it entirely.

-What about Forest Song in Ashenvale? Why not use it as a jumping-off point in Cataclysm to show some bitter draenei taking the chance to take it to the orcs in revenge? Instead Blizzard spends their time turning Zoram'gar into a fortress and putting a mouthy fire elemental in the middle of the zone.

I'm just throwing this stuff out here, seriously.

-How about in Swamp of Sorrows a group of broken from the Harborage link up with Joanna Blueheart's army and start using the guerrilla tactics they learned staying alive on Draenor against the Horde there, butchering them and leaving grisly trophies hanging from the trees in warning, something that Joanna approves of, but maybe an uncorrupted draenei finds uncomfortable.

-When BC first dropped the draenei had racial buffs called 'heroic presence' (for melee classes) and 'inspiring presence' (for casters) because apparently the draenei are so in tunewith the Light that just being near them makes people feel heartened and energized. Why not play with this concept? Have an Alliance regiment somewhere with a draenei priest who acts as a fire-and-brimstone preacher, extolling the virtues of the Light mid-battle and urging them to fight harder, boosting their morale and making them far more dangerous.

Again, I'm just dropping this stuff off the top of my head. You're seriously going to tell me that Blizzard can't come up with this stuff in four years?

None of what I've listed here even bothers with the draenei's sci-fi trappings or touches upon their history with the Legion. These are all potential story hooks that Blizzard could use for the draenei, but don't because either they wimp out or they're too busy Horde-humping - which is why the worgen ended up with the same fate of irrelevence within their own expansion."