Blizzard forgot Alliance is more than Humans.

[Deleted]

The night elves were the main leaders for the assault on Archimonde in Hyjal.

That... was... in Warcraft 3.

the gnome leader is Gelbin Mekkatorque - King of the gnomes!!! Where were the humans during operation Gnomeregan? An alliance race capital city is under siege yet no other alliance leader seems to care enough to help? SCREW HUMANS!!!

He's not king of the gnomes, this shows how little is known about him, he's High Tinker, which is totally different as high tinker are elected democratically from the best the gnomes have to offer in terms of achievements.

That High King Varian Wrynn appears often is normal. He is THE King.

For the rest im not very interested anyways. Whiners would whine either way.

The king of humans. I play a night elf. He's not my king.

So you say that their ferocity of Warcraft 3 is gone, but when Tyrande wants to headcharge into the fray and slay all orcs in the sacred temple, you call that out of character. I think you contradict yourself a bit. For me, it WAS a return to war3 origins, even if a small one. Hell, she even rides her nightsaber, just like good old times!

There's a difference between ferocity and being a brute. Here's an example:
-Garrosh is a brute when he attacks the dragons in Twilight Highlands thinking he can win. He's a brute because he attacks without making a plan, without caring what would happen to the rest of the fleet, without knowing if he can even win.
-trolls are ferocious when retaking their islands back. They go there and charge inspiring fear in their enemies yet, they have a plan, they had supplies, they know what would happen with the ones behind, they have it covered.

Now let's look at Tyrande in Warcraft 3:
-she goes and attacks a small human/orc camp at first. She has enough troops, she takes them by surprise, she knows she can win.
-in her race to awaken the druids, she studies the forces around, but she knows how she can sneak enough forces around to awaken them by laying some traps too and she doesn't go to bang her head in all forces at once (I remember after awakening Malfurion there's a map where the orcs, humans and undead are fighting, and she uses the opportunity to get through instead of fighting)
-she will take good cards to prepare for future battles (Illidan)
-she's aggressive in speech, but is willing to take reason (when she meets with Jaina, Thrall and Medivh, though she has a line before, she doesn't shoot either, remember Tyrande is an archer, she could have shot all of them from afar if she was truly a brute, but she didn't, she waited to see their intentions).
-in the Frozen Throne she can know when something is wrong and maybe it's not the best time to attack, if you remember when Maiev calls for Malfurion and she comes too, when they debark she says she's not sure about this, going forward or something, can't remember the speech, and only when Malfurion tells her about mountain giants does she actually understand, meaning she wasn't going to try and storm in without at least enough troops, like a brute.
-she then saves the blood elves, also saving her own troops, this shows that she would protect her own with her life where she can

Now the WoW MoP Tyrande:
-knows it's an orc trap, wants to storm in
-knows it's a sacred temple, wants to defile it with battle
-knows many of her would die with such an approach, doesn't care
-knows how to use traps, doesn't use them, lets Varian teach her how to use traps
-knows her people are mostly ranged fighters, wants to storm in in melee

Are you sure it's same Tyrande? I'm not. the MoP Tyrande is a mindless brute while the Warcraft Tyrande is a ferocious leader.

To be fair, I think Blizzard HAS noticed that they have given very little attention to lore outside of "Orcs VS Humans". I really do think that after Mists of Pandaria you will see the politics of Orcs VS Humans fade. It has to. They have been beaten that Horse, resurrected it, and beaten it again for far too long. I really think in 5.4 Vol'jin will convince the Alliance to side with the rebellion against Garosh. Thus putting a temporary pause on the conflict between the Alliance and the Horde. If there's already been leaked information regarding this please don't spoil it haha.

As IDTheDemon said, we'll see a lot more night elf involvement when Azshara appears (whenever the hell that may be). Sylvanas has been really..quiet which is incredibly alarming. Whenever the Forsaken are out of the picture for this long it usually results in the Forsaken doing something really big.

I strongly believe we'll see the other factions develop after MoP. In terms of lore I can't say i'm too happy with the lore in MoP, that's just me though.

I sure hope we'll see more night elf lore with Azshara and more draenei with Argus, but I worry they'll get the same treatment forsaken and blood elves got in Wrath. Forsaken were there for 2 zones, blood elves for the Argent Tournament, rest they were replaced by orcs though it was first them who suffered by the Lich King.
I fear that when we get to Azshara or Argus we'll get the main force being humans actually and with 1-2 night elves and draenei there just so you wouldn't think they're forgatten.

Don't know if it's been said yet, but I'd like to point out that Humans have a higher population and a more important role in lore. It's a bit like claiming that there's too much media attention on US politics and too little on some tiny obscure African/Asian/etc country's politics.

Yea... the difference is that both in the Alliance and the Horde now, each race brings something. Humans are like Germany, Night elves are France. If all the news was about Germany and I heard little about France and all I heard was wrong, then I would be unhappy. Night elves are more important in Kalimdor then humans. Yet I see humans everywhere when it's an Alliance story.

Blizard forgot that...pfft. Sorry but can't say you are right.

For starters the most recent Alliance-based scenario has you with the Dark Irons, the bloody dark iron dwarves that back in vanilla were the bad guys. They definitely are part of the alliance now. In fact the only reason Varian was there was because he wanted to use it as an opportunity to draw the dwarves into his war. Now, the main dedicated force of the Alliance to Pandaria is the humans, but that is reflected with the Orcs Horde side as well. Worgen, Draenei, etc we dont see much of. Hell we shoudl be seeing more Pandaren Alliance side, but we arent.

Blizz hasnt forgotten, but its like the US going to a war with more troops than the rest of Nato is all.

The humans are not the US of NATO! By contrast, you could say the orcs are the same to their faction yet... hmmm...so many orcs died until now they should be on the extinction meter. And while we're at it, so many humans died they aren't that powerful either, remember from Warcraft 3, when, you know the Legion stormed around and killed all they could and sent undead and all there's been only 10 years! That means that even if someone made children right at the end of the Frozen Throne, they still wouldn't be combat ready!

Yeah, devastating ambushes that were either repeled (with their demigod ending up dead for few years) or executed on wrong targets entirely.

Face it, night elves had ten thousand years of calm and instead of progress, they decided for stagnation, now it is biting them in the ass, they are dying out, immortality lost, yet they still refuse to change.

Yea, 10k years of calm... ignoring the Shifting Sands incident, the wars of the Satyr, the banishing of the high elves, the strenghtening of Ashenvale etc, yea, 10k years of calm, sure.

[Verdugo]

Yea, 10k years of calm... ignoring the Shifting Sands incident, the wars of the Satyr, the banishing of the high elves, the strenghtening of Ashenvale etc, yea, 10k years of calm, sure.

Everything but the Shifting Sands happened relatively soon after sundering. Bugs invaded later and it showed how unprepared Night Elves were against anything else than their mutated brethren.

[Wyrt]

I sure hope we'll see more night elf lore with Azshara and more draenei with Argus, but I worry they'll get the same treatment forsaken and blood elves got in Wrath. Forsaken were there for 2 zones, blood elves for the Argent Tournament, rest they were replaced by orcs though it was first them who suffered by the Lich King.
I fear that when we get to Azshara or Argus we'll get the main force being humans actually and with 1-2 night elves and draenei there just so you wouldn't think they're forgatten.

I think they're grooming Anduin to lead the fight against the Legion, so yeah, I'd be very surprised if draenei ended up with more lore than humans in a BL expansion. Not that humans shouldn't be involved, but this is a fight 25,000 years in the making for draenei. .

Azshara could be interesting. There's more hope for night elves getting lore, the question is do you actually want that lore? Because if it continues the way it has been it won't be pretty.

[Deleted]

"Though if your complaint is that we've been human-heavy with the lore, we're pretty guilty! An informal survey of our team reveals that that most of us are human".

While that part of the response did make me smirk, it felt like a cop out answer for me and excuse making for the team's inability or unwillingness to put themselves into the mindset or cultural perspective of a fictional race when humans are available as an option. It's the typical pitfall that so many fantasy writers fall into of using a human perspective to explore a fantasy world because it is "most natural and relatable" for them and the audience. But, I feel the story-telling suffers for their hesitancy in exploring a non-human focus or narrative.

They don't have this problem when writing for the Horde because a human perspective isn't an option when writing for that faction, so they seem to be able to quite easily move away from writing from an exclusively orcish perspective (being the definitive Horde race and counterpart to the Alliance's humans) in Horde lore and shine the spotlight on other races as well, generating good Forsaken, troll and blood elf plot development (I'm assuming Tauren (cow people) is just too out there for them!).

It's because of falling back on writing Alliance lore from a human perspective and with a human focus, because "the Blizzard are human and so are the players", that Alliance lore suffers a detriment compared to Horde lore and feels less interesting and engaging than the Horde storyline.

[bohapjut]

Yeah, devastating ambushes that were either repeled (with their demigod ending up dead for few years) or executed on wrong targets entirely.

It was with the help of Grom using fel energy fountain,


As a proud night elf it's real tired of taking orders from this "High king" stealing the spotlight and making the rest of the leaders look incompetent. What are Malfurion, Jarod, Shandris, Broll, and the ancient protectors doing in Mists? It'd be nice to get some development besides Tyrande blowing Varian

It's the ALLIANCE not the EMPIRE

[checking facts]

It was with the help of Grom using fel energy fountain,


As a proud night elf it's real tired of taking orders from this "High king" stealing the spotlight and making the rest of the leaders look incompetent. What are Malfurion, Jarod, Shandris, Broll, and the ancient protectors doing in Mists? It'd be nice to get some development besides Tyrande blowing Varian

It's the ALLIANCE not the EMPIRE

malfurion is chilling with the druids, jarod is chilling with the wardens, shandris is dreaming about jarod and broll is also blowing varian.

the ancient protectors are just trees, not leaders.

[Jokerfiend]

There is one real big problem with the alliance. Humans Run around doing shit while other races' leaders mostly do nothing at all, and when they are showed, its to be like: "Varian, im your bitch, use all my armies, forever yours. You were right, peace out"

Varian steals all the spotlight from everyone. Horde leaders in comparison are all accounted for in this expansion with appearances in either books or cutscenes.
Here is a small comparison:
Humans
-Varian: Every scenario has him in it, every alliance cutscene deals with him.
-Jaina: A major focus during this expansion is on her. No problem tough, she deserves it.
-Anduin: Same as his father mostly.
Night elves
-Tyrande- Used as a support character for varian in a scenario in MoP, being completely out of character. Didn't do much else. Look up and you will see what she pretty much said.
-Malfurion- AFK ATM
Gnomes
-What gnomes? Who was their leader? Lor'themar mark 2? Not heard from at all.
Worgen
-Genn Greymane. Played a minor role in his starting zone. After that everything went to town and his race became pets for night elves. AFK for the moment.
Dwarves
-Pretty much same as Tyrande.
Draenei
-Velen: He is a prophet. Pretty much nothing else.

I find that highly Irriating. Blizzard wants to make every race in the Alliance a loyal lapdog for the humans. The Night Elves' Ferocity of old is gone. The Worgen, the supposed "savage alliance race" are nothing more but pets and druids. Dwarves are being pricks and are pretty much servant N1 of Varian.

The other alliance races never take any initiative, never do anything untill Varian tells them to. Booring, Characterless, alliance races. Sad.

You know the Alliance was formed between Lordaeron and Stormwind, then brought in the fold, the Dwarves and Gnomes. So the original intention of the "Alliance" was human cooperation. The other races are along for the ride. So I think you put too much into it.

[Pachycrocuta]

You know the Alliance was formed between Lordaeron and Stormwind, then brought in the fold, the Dwarves and Gnomes. So the original intention of the "Alliance" was human cooperation. The other races are along for the ride. So I think you put too much into it.

There was no Alliance after Warcraft 2. That Alliance broke apart when Terenas wanted funds for the internment camps, and was completely destroyed in Warcraft 3 by Arthas. The new Alliance formed after the destruction of Lordaeron, made up of parts of the old Alliance (stormwind, bronzebeard dwarves, and gnomes) with the night elves being included because the Alliance in WoW needed a reason to be on Kalimdor. Same reason the Forsaken were included in the Horde. They needed a reason for the Horde to be on the Eastern Kingdoms.

[Byniri]

Well Blizzard pretty much forgot Horde is more than Orcs until this expac.

[Wyrt]

You know the Alliance was formed between Lordaeron and Stormwind, then brought in the fold, the Dwarves and Gnomes. So the original intention of the "Alliance" was human cooperation. The other races are along for the ride. So I think you put too much into it.

You're totally right, stories should remain stagnant and never evolve.

[Trassk]

The biggest complaint I've read across the boards when it comes to the alliance, is how much they hate feeling like the underdogs.

Really, this is how its been for the last few years, the dynamic has shifted from the horde being the underdogs and the alliance being the goodie good guy white knights, to now the alliance being the underdogs and the horde being the central focus.

Apparently some people don't enjoy the feeling.

[Verdugo]

Apparently some people don't enjoy the feeling.

People like to be white knights. Just look at you as an example, you have to kick dogs in few quests and you are raging everywhere.

[StationaryHawk]

Gnomes
-What gnomes? Who was their leader? Lor'themar mark 2? Not heard from at all.

Operation: Gnomeregan was the greatest moment in Warcraft history, thank you very much.

[Verdugo]

Operation: Gnomeregan was the greatest moment in Warcraft history, thank you very much.

Yes, gnomes killing gnomes, that really made me laugh.

[Deleted]

The night elves were the main leaders for the assault on Archimonde in Hyjal.

That was back in WCIII. Night Elves, and especially Tyrande were great in WCIII, but the OP is not talking about WCIII but about wow.

---------- Post added 2013-04-26 at 06:01 PM ----------

The biggest complaint I've read across the boards when it comes to the alliance, is how much they hate feeling like the underdogs.

Really, this is how its been for the last few years, the dynamic has shifted from the horde being the underdogs and the alliance being the goodie good guy white knights, to now the alliance being the underdogs and the horde being the central focus.

Apparently some people don't enjoy the feeling.

But this has nothing to do with our subject, it's not about horde/alliance, it's about the Alliance. Now most of the time, but I could be wrong, an alliance got more than one guy in it, we just want to hear a bit more about all of the other guys in the alliance.

[Dristereau]

Operation: Gnomeregan was the greatest moment in Warcraft history, thank you very much.

Yeah, they assaulted their home and managed to fail again, still with no support from the Ironforge Dwarves or Humans. Meanwhile Trolls casually took the Echo Isles. Still see more Bias towards Horde in MoP so far. 5.1 was decent, equal and had Anduin, Varian and Jaina (Pretty sure there was a random crazy Night Elf, not sure who ). Unfortunately it's portrayl of Dalaran was not really the greatest, it split Dalaran in half and solidified the Sunreavers for the Horde and Blood Elves. Also it broke down communications between Lor'thermar and Varian.

The problem so far is Varian is turning into Blue Jesus, able to solve anything apparently, and then we have Anduin, Boy Wonder. More Worgen would be nice. And Draenei. Don't care about Gnomes :P

Also Worgen are pretty awesome. Silverpine Forest does a good job showing them off as vicious (Ivar Bloodfang). The only problem is that you can only see this by playing as Horde, and by the end of the zone (and next zone) Alliance is retreating/destroyed.

[Deleted]

Well Blizzard pretty much forgot Horde is more than Orcs until this expac.

Dont know, the forsaken in cata were pretty much baller.

---------- Post added 2013-04-26 at 06:18 PM ----------

The biggest complaint I've read across the boards when it comes to the alliance, is how much they hate feeling like the underdogs.

Really, this is how its been for the last few years, the dynamic has shifted from the horde being the underdogs and the alliance being the goodie good guy white knights, to now the alliance being the underdogs and the horde being the central focus.

Apparently some people don't enjoy the feeling.

Being the underdogs can feel good, providing you fight back knowing that the chances are against you. But It dosent when while you are underdog, you continue to lose more and more, and the other faction continues to gain more and more. Both in Strategical standpoint and lore standpoint. Take Andorhal for example. The alliance were the underdogs here, fighting with farmers against the trained Forsaken army.
And you still get the shit beaten out of you and then your allies get raised against you, and you have to run for your life like a sissy not continuing the battle.

[Trassk]

well then it boils down to the alliance being knocked off there pedestal they've been sat on for years, as opposed to being so low they'd have to crawl there way up from the dirt and reach higher, which is what the orcs and horde in general had to do.
The alliance should get to know how it feels to dig there way up from the dirt, it might humble them.

[Florena]

Yeah, they assaulted their home and managed to fail again, still with no support from the Ironforge Dwarves or Humans. Meanwhile Trolls casually took the Echo Isles. Still see more Bias towards Horde in MoP so far. 5.1 was decent, equal and had Anduin, Varian and Jaina (Pretty sure there was a random crazy Night Elf, not sure who ). Unfortunately it's portrayl of Dalaran was not really the greatest, it split Dalaran in half and solidified the Sunreavers for the Horde and Blood Elves. Also it broke down communications between Lor'thermar and Varian.

The problem so far is Varian is turning into Blue Jesus, able to solve anything apparently, and then we have Anduin, Boy Wonder. More Worgen would be nice. And Draenei. Don't care about Gnomes :P

Also Worgen are pretty awesome. Silverpine Forest does a good job showing them off as vicious (Ivar Bloodfang). The only problem is that you can only see this by playing as Horde, and by the end of the zone (and next zone) Alliance is retreating/destroyed.

Operaton Gnomeregan wasn't entirely a failure. They didn't take the whole city back, but Gnomeregan is a much bigger place than the Echo Isles, and they managed to retake the outside as well as a sizable chunk in the interior up to the instance portal.

[Wyrt]

well then it boils down to the alliance being knocked off there pedestal they've been sat on for years, as opposed to being so low they'd have to crawl there way up from the dirt and reach higher, which is what the orcs and horde in general had to do.
The alliance should get to know how it feels to dig there way up from the dirt, it might humble them.

This has nothing at all to do with this thread.