Opinion: Horde should not have had Druids

[Shaetha]

It's sort of cultural thing for night elves. The night elf priesthood is called Sisterhood of Elune. That's due to the belief that only women can comprehend the Goddess.
Sure, the wiki says that some men are allowed in, but that's to justify why we can choose to play a nelf male priest...
Same as night elf Sentinels, a warrior society, was 'mostly female.

Those are important RPG aspects that just went aside to allow us to play however we want...

Restricting options is the opposite of an RPG aspect.

[LazarusLong]

Lore wise, druids shouldn't be horde, as they have shamans. Maybe it was a decision based on players whining about not having droods on horde side? Who knows.
Blizz seems to change their lore to fit classes that dont initially belong to canon lore. Oh well.

Lorewise, Tauren were the first druids.

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By definition, the Horde should not even have Tauren at this point anymore, nevermind just Druids. The Forsaken alone are an absolute aberration to everything the Tauren hold dear and sacred. The Tauren should've packed up and went solo the moment they were let in.

It was Taurens who supported bringing the Forsaken to the Horde. Everything else is your headcanon.

[stomination]

Which was precisely my point. In a video game, the lore needs to serve the gameplay, not the other way around.

And that is how bfa was born.

[Yoshingo]

The tauren are the reason the forsaken are a part of the horde. Hamuul himself argued with Thrall that everything should be given a chance at redemption and that letting the forsaken have theirs would be ok.

Yup. People constantly attack Thrall (rightly so) for all the shit that he enabled, like Garrosh and ultimately Sylvanas getting into power, but Hamuul never had a coming to Jesus moment for being the reason the Forsaken joined the Horde. Especially after they went and destroyed a giant bastion of life (Teldrassil), and then bastardized the spirits of the Night Elves to create more Dark Rangers, ancestors being a thing the Tauren supposedly care for.

Hamuul just sits in Silithus as if nothing's wrong with the world but the sword.

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Lorewise, Tauren were the first druids.

Malfurion was canonically the first mortal trained in druidism as per Chronicle. Cenarius merely lived among the Yaungol around the same time. The Yaungol could use rudimentary nature magic but being an actual Druid is a specific school of training.

There's another example of this thing too in Suramar, Valewalker Farodin practiced a proto-version of Druidism but him and his fellow (now-deceased) Suramar exiles who created the Arcan'dor were not full druids. This was confirmed by Don Adams, a senior game designer, who again repeated that Malfurion is the first druid.

[Xzan]

Restricting options is the opposite of an RPG aspect.

What... ? In true RPG sense, for reasons I even mentioned above, restricting certain classes to one or the other gender makes sense (if WoW was more harcore on the role-play aspect of this RPG).
So just how do you manage to be so wrong and still find the post button? Do you even know what role-play means?

[Stricks]

I think the races on each faction are fine. Horde is meant to be a collection of odd parts put together to form a faction while the alliance is more of a formal, um, alliance. They don't have to all be into the same things on the horde side (nature as referenced) to form a faction... Just like IRL.

[Shaetha]

What... ? In true RPG sense, for reasons I even mentioned above, restricting certain classes to one or the other gender makes sense (if WoW was more harcore on the role-play aspect of this RPG).
So just how do you manage to be so wrong and still find the post button? Do you even know what role-play means?

True role play can make anything work, so no. You're wrong about that. The concession of narrowed world building has nothing to do with an RPG. It's a mechanic of only wanting to make one model. In real life there are exceptions to basically every societal rule.

[Xzan]

True role play can make anything work, so no. You're wrong about that. The concession of narrowed world building has nothing to do with an RPG. It's a mechanic of only wanting to make one model. In real life there are exceptions to basically every societal rule.

Yes, exceptions happen. But I still disagree with you if "exceptions" mean that anything flies for everyone

[guisadop]

they changed and retcon'd a lot of stuff in WoW.

RIP draenei lore.

[Ogarash]

Hear me out
Druid should have been an Alliance only class and Shaman should have been the Horde equivalent.

Alliance Paladin should have been offset by Horde Warlock.

My basis for this reasoning is troops types available in WC3 as well as a loose understanding of lore.

It would also make more sense for BC seeing as Alliance would have gotten a demon themed class in a demon themed expansion rather then a nature themed class.

You are wrong, I've heard you but you are wrong. The only druids the horde can have in vanilla are Tauren. The Tauren folk have a long history with the Night Elves and Druidism. Druidism among the Night Elves is common nowdays but was not always so either and they learned it from Cenarius, who is a demigod. The first people to learn it were Malfurion and Illidan Stormrage, accompanied by Tyrande. Illidan and Tyrande chose different paths, with Illidan going towards sorcery and Tyrande becoming a priestess of Elune, but Malfurion became the first druid.

Tauren already lived in what is now Kalimdor back then, this being some 10 thousand years ago in Azeroths timeline. They eventually started practicing druidism since it's so akin to the shamanism they were already known for.
To be perfectly frank, Tauren are more naturally incilined towards druidism than the Night Elves ever were.

So no. Horde should absolutely have druids.
I do find it a tad bit strange that none of the alliance factions have shaman among them, given the strong druidism prevalation among the Night Elves. Maybe they are just not that many and those that are, are part of the Earthen Ring and care not for faction wars.

[Shaetha]

Yes, exceptions happen. But I still disagree with you if "exceptions" mean that anything flies for everyone

You've never done proper role playing then. Part of the fun is trying to get truly outlandish things to work and make sense instead of just sticking to Tolkien. The restrictions come from the game portion of the equation. Games are what have to have rules(read: mechanics). Most video games also have story and setting, which impose even further restrictions.

Thing about it is though, it's someone else's story. What they say goes, but you can role play anything you want that's more restrictive than the rules you're given, so it behooves a game to give as many choices as possible. Especially when those choices have no overhead in time investment.

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I do find it a tad bit strange that none of the alliance factions have shaman among them, given the strong druidism prevalation among the Night Elves. Maybe they are just not that many and those that are, are part of the Earthen Ring and care not for faction wars.

I could see it as a lack of affinity for the elements outside nature, but this requires getting into the minutiae of nature(as in nature magic) vs "nature"/the elements.

The more questionable thing is Tauren using moonfire.

[Xzan]

You've never done proper role playing then. Part of the fun is trying to get truly outlandish things to work and make sense instead of just sticking to Tolkien. The restrictions come from the game portion of the equation. Games are what have to have rules(read: mechanics). Most video games also have story and setting, which impose even further restrictions.

Thing about it is though, it's someone else's story. What they say goes, but you can role play anything you want that's more restrictive than the rules you're given, so it behooves a game to give as many choices as possible. Especially when those choices have no overhead in time investment.

I have roleplayed a lot. Didn't need to break and bend the given rules to make it fun though.

[Shaetha]

I have roleplayed a lot. Didn't need to break and bend the given rules to make it fun though.

My point was that role playing doesn't have rules. It's the video game that has rules. Rules that are whatever the developer can afford at actualize.

[Travace]

You are wrong, I've heard you but you are wrong. The only druids the horde can have in vanilla are Tauren. The Tauren folk have a long history with the Night Elves and Druidism. Druidism among the Night Elves is common nowdays but was not always so either and they learned it from Cenarius, who is a demigod. The first people to learn it were Malfurion and Illidan Stormrage, accompanied by Tyrande. Illidan and Tyrande chose different paths, with Illidan going towards sorcery and Tyrande becoming a priestess of Elune, but Malfurion became the first druid.

Tauren already lived in what is now Kalimdor back then, this being some 10 thousand years ago in Azeroths timeline. They eventually started practicing druidism since it's so akin to the shamanism they were already known for.
To be perfectly frank, Tauren are more naturally incilined towards druidism than the Night Elves ever were.

So no. Horde should absolutely have druids.
I do find it a tad bit strange that none of the alliance factions have shaman among them, given the strong druidism prevalation among the Night Elves. Maybe they are just not that many and those that are, are part of the Earthen Ring and care not for faction wars.

Shamanism is a connection to the primal forces of the planet, which in my opinion is more natural and akin to what everyone considers to be "nature" magic.
Druidism is a connection to the emerald dream, a plane of existence where nothing has been disturbed by the development of races that affect nature. The Night Elf's culture, buildings and method for gathering wood, reflects the idea that they shouldnt harm nature and the Emerald Dream is an ideal.

The Tauren do not share the same view, or else they would have had a problem with Orcs the same as Night Elves do, which is why Shamanism is better explanation of their nature connection than Druidism is.

Also Druidism gives you star and moon powers, something that makes sense for priestesses of Elune but doesnt make sense for anything in the Tauren culture, they just have a Native Americanish names for the Moons.

To be extra cheeky, I will also say that the lore you are referencing was written After Vanilla to explain their decisions, so had the decisions in vanilla been different, which is what I'm suggesting, the lore that followed would have reflected that. My opinion is based on the information that was available at the time of vanilla's release.

[Mirishka]

And that is how bfa was born.

Eh no, wrong. There are countless examples of gameplay trumping story throughout the game's history. Even the devs (in particular, GC) have stated how, once you sit down and actually start playing the game, gameplay needs to supercede everything else.

I know its fun to ride along on the 'retail sux' bandwagon and all that but this has been a thing for far longer than BFA.

[Travace]

Why not just give both factions completely exclusive races. Then you'll get something like the Paladin and Shaman in Vanilla, where both classes mirror each other more and more, because you can't give one faction a gameplay advantage. And then you'll get to where SWTOR is where both factions have the exact same 4 classes. What's the point of giving the classes different names then?

A Sith Warrior and Jedi Knight are mechanically mirrors of each other but their animations and themes are unique, giving you the feeling that you are playing to distinct classes.

An Orc Warrior and a Human Warrior are exact mirrors of each other mechanically and thematically, which feels wrong and robs them of identity.
You can apply this to any class in WoW. It's worse now in retail since race animations are now being mirrored across factions as well.

A Tauren Shaman and a Night Elf Druid could have, mechanically been the same, but thematically provided identity for the factions associated with class.

[Leronas]

A Sith Warrior and Jedi Knight are mechanically mirrors of each other but their animations and themes are unique, giving you the feeling that you are playing to distinct classes.

Stop.

Sith Warrior and Jedi Knight are classes.

Orc and Human are different races.

What?

[Travace]

Stop.

Sith Warrior and Jedi Knight are classes.

Orc and Human are different races.

What?

In WoW the characters receive their identity from their races. In Swtor the characters receive their identity from their faction.
If it helps, I'll say that the a Horde Warrior should be different than an Alliance Warrior.

But in Warcraft it goes deeper than that:
A Human Warrior should be different than a Night Elf Warrior or a Dwarf Warrior, which is why I made the racial distinction.

[Wangming]

Lets open another can of worms. Priest. Lorewise Draenei and Tauren shouldn't be shadow priests while Forsaken shouldn't be Shadow priests. Should we lock specs now? Or split priest into two classes?

[Leronas]

In WoW the characters receive their identity from their races

What are you talking about.

Both games have races, classes and two factions.

What are you talking about.