What races are underused in the lore and story ?

[Terrorthatflapsinthenight]

What are the races that are in your opinion underused in the story of Warcraft ,whenever it comes to political presence, the resolution of societal and and economic problems as well as military or magic support during conflicts ?

I feel that the Dwarves have been really underused during the expansions of Wow with them being one of the strongest military, technological and economical powers of the Alliance with them being the second biggest provider of high tech to the Alliance behind the Gnomes and while it's clear that they can't have a navy as large as Kul Tiras or Stormwind fleets theirs could still be a really dangerous and useful one with them having steam-powered, better armed and protected ships than most human ships. I also think that it would be interesting to see more of their internal issues such as seeing the Ironforge senate and see if Wildhammer and Dark Irons became part of the senate and what is their representation here, and what problems there must be with it.

The Wildhammers too have their usefulness with their Griffon riders but also their proximity to nature with them having many Shamans, and it's possible that they could have druids if the Night Elves or the Worgens teach them, while the Dark Iron have too lots of technology at their side with their own cannons, riffles but also their mole machines that could be very useful for infiltration or sabotage; and their connection and use of fire and shadow magics such as fire and magma elements or void creatures and their Dark Iron Golems that can be reinforced by magic such as the Omnitron Defense System could be very useful to the Alliance.

The Gnomes too have been really neglected with their technological expertise and capacity to produce strange but far from harmless technological devices or weapons haven't been exploited enough in the story. I am pretty sure that they could have found lots of means for example to fight the biological weapons of the Forsaken or Goblins weapons or Old Gods or Burning Legion minions. It's also have been noted that Gnomish mages can be very powerful and that they have the most creative repertoire of spells of all arcane users races but it's almost never seen in the story. The city of Mechagon and what technologies are found here are for me telling about the things they could have done and what Gnomeregan could be if they had some real focus on and that they were finally allowed to restore their capital and move forward from their loss.

On the Horde side I find that Nightborne and Blood Elves' mastery and knowledge of magic, as well as their unique techniques haven't been used enough by the Horde during both the Alliance-Horde War, the war against the Burning Legion and the recent conflict in BFA despite the two races being among the most knowledeable and powerful users of magic in Azeroth. Lorthemar is also in my opinion one of the most interesting and reasonnable racial leaders and it could be interesting to see what changes and reforms he could bring to his people to help restore and better their society.

I also feel that the Taurens rarely if almost never do something really interesting or amazing in the story despite being the strongest playable race but also having a good versatility and number of magic using classes such as druids, shamans, priests or paladins and outside of Baine, Mayla and Hamuul they don't have many leaders and other characters who do something important in the story, and even these are pretty flawed characters who don't do that much in the story, outside of rebelling against tyrannical warchiefs in Baine's case.

[Mic_128]

Every race except Humans and Orcs. Even the races who have members that are doing major things - the Forsaken, for example - are still largely underdeveloped.

[VinceVega]

Like.... nearly every race? I would say the only once who get actuall development sometimes are orcs and trolls.
Every other race is completly stagnant with the only development is in their leaders and even that is mostly lacking.

The lore development is really scarce in wow. But it has been that way since classic to be fair. Blizz doesn't really want to bring the overall world forward i think. They care more about the individuals. Maybe that is what the overall playerbase likes more. IDK. But i don't think they are doing it out of spite or anything.

Every race in Blizz is handeled as a hive with a king/queen on top who makes all the decisions and everyone else follows suite without any character.

Taurens, Nightelves, Humans, Undead, Orcs.... Dwarfes and taurens don't get anything. Allied races are not ment to be more then there leader i think.

[Thundering]

1. Dwarfes
2. Gnomes
3. Worgen (As a people)
4. Pandarians
5. Elfs (Beside night elfs currently)
6. Taurens

[Varodoc]

Without a doubt it's the Ren'dorei and it's not even up for debate. Two simple facts make the Ren'dorei the most underutilized race in the entire franchise's history:

- In 8.3, the patch about the OLD GODS AND VOID, the Ren'dorei, Children of the VOID, whose entire purpose is fighting the WHISPERS of the VOID, are not even mentioned by Anduin when looking for advisors, and are instead shafted entirely for Anduin's boyfriend Wrathion. They are featured in 8.3 as VILLAINS in an ALTERNATE DIMENSION (so in the end even that development was completely meaningless). How do you screw up the story so badly? Imagine building up a faction dedicated solely to the annihilation of the Void, only to not even mention them at all in the Void patch.

- Alleria WINDRUNNER is nowhere to be seen during the patch revolving around Sylvanas WINDRUNNER, despite vowing that she would SEE SYLVANAS FALL, that it is extremely EASY to go to the Shadowlands (since fucking Old Emma the old rotting peasant is there), and it is a patch all about reunions (like Thrall and Draka).

To me there is no contest to be had, the Ren'dorei are clearly the most underused race by far now.

[KOUNTERPARTS]

Tauren, worgen, pandaren by far.


No thesis needed to overly explain personal bias and falsely claim the contrary.

[spalernTJ]

Heck, even Humans and Orcs as far as people / societies goes, have become more or less as neglected as the rest. The whole warchief / council thing is a horde, not an orc thing. Anduin is also just one important human character.

[Powerogue]

Even as a nelf shill who started that as his first character I have to admit that humans, orcs, and particularly night elves have been given a lot of spotlight in the last few expansions.

I suppose BFA also gave us some gnomes and trolls, but we were hardly at a troll shortage either.

I guess that leaves most of the other races. Seconded for dwarves, for sure. We see the faces of "the alliance leaders" and "the horde leaders" as big us vs them in BFA, no dwarves in there.

I'll give the allied races a break because they were only relatively recently added. They were the focus when we were learning about them and recruiting them. So I'll say tauren other than Baine as well as dwarves really need some love. Pandaren come to mind.

[Accendor]

I mean you could argue that the night elves recently got a major lore development, but I'm pretty sure most players would have preferred that it did not happen...

[Aleksej89]

As far as modern wow story telling goes its better for a race to be underused than to be (ab)used by Daloser.
One look at what they did to NE in bfa and SL is enough for a soul to vomit...

Some races such as gnomes and goblins end up being annoying AF whenever they get some spotlight.
Blizzard had countless opportunities to do good stories with trolls, taurens etc but they chose to focus mostly on Orc & Human.

[jellmoo]

Dwarves, Worgen, Gnomes, Tauren, Goblins, Pandaren.

Just no more Elves of any variety. We've been repeatedly slapped in the face with Elves wayyy too much recently. Let them breathe so that they can be interesting again. Not everything needs to Elf-centric.

[Toppy]

Just about every race, since the focus in WoW is more on heroes than ANY level of world building.

For instance, Stormwind, has no culture. They've done pretty much nothing with Stormwind and its people. Its always a hero OF Stormwind.

Races occasionally get a little something, like the Dwarf clan stuff, but its always very brief and then swiftly ignored. Tauren exist pretty much in just their start zone, Pandaren never got ANYTHING regarding their factional philosophies. At most Elves get a CONSTANT stream of focus. Night Elves especcially. But they are about it.

[BrintoSFJ]

Unpopular opinion: all of them. I just feel like we never see these races actually achieve anything meaningful or change in a meaningful way.

[LemonDemonGirl]

We need more troll characters who don't end up dying half an expansion later. And more troll cities that don't end up raided

[Darkeon]

Everyone besides the key characters. There is no world in this MMORPG, merely main characters, where everyone is a tool for their development, akin to a book.

[Nnyco]

Every race except humans, orcs and nightelves basically.

[dunkl]

I love arakkoa and hope they are playable. I thought they'd be how we get into the shadowlands, with their ability to traverse shadowrealms. It would have been cooler and more connective important getting to the shadowlands with the help of our shadowy/skulking esoteric pals, and they could have joined us since death being broken affects all life, and the horde would fill the gap we're missing with that dark, ritualistic race and culture who cherishes trinkets and peers into the unknown through smoky crystal balls and uses shadowy dusts and seances and explored the less-known mysteries/occult.

It would have been a more important way to get there, taking on death and the story from our own footing and point of view, making it matter. Maybe they slice reality with their enchanted knife and we slip through the back way into the shadowlands and explored it on our own for a bit, spying on the peculiar lands and inhabitants, the denizens being unknown that we're there yet, instead of plunging straight through the way we did. Getting there with the help of beings who dabble in the dark arts but are generally spirited and a little kooky would have been important, making our races and friends useful instead of relying on such grand and vast concepts. Keep it small and keep what we do in our hands.

We horde could have been the sun, welcoming them back into existence and they'd no longer have to hide in the shade or from the oppressive cousins, who, could be part of the shinning alliance and offer interesting dynamic there with an arial assault capabilities and a race who worships the sun and collects trinkets. Tuskarr, would be nice too, and a samurai rabbit race, perhaps on or near pandaria or another side of azeroth, maybe who vermin de-evolved from.

[Razion]

Vulpera seem like they have the least lore and story.
After being recruited basically nothing is done with them.
Their only major zone is mostly hijacked by the Sethrak story.

[Soon-TM]

Every race except humans, orcs and nightelves basically.

Basically this. One could argue that gnomes and (Zandalari) trolls had a bit more presence in BfA, but nowhere near the screentime of humans/orcs/nelfs. Even Forsaken, who had an ostensibly large role in BfA, didn't feature in the slightest, outside Sylv (who had decided to betray them long ago) and Calia (who isn't even Forsaken).

The Alliance part of BfA was quite telling from the very beginning: TEH CHAMPYUN is summoned to SW Keep to discuss the next steps after the Horde incursion and the whole Teldrassil affair - and there aren't any non-humans there, other than Velen, who barely speaks. Even Genn acts like a full-fledged human.

I'd really like to see e.g. more Dwarves, Pandas or especially DS trolls. It would be nice to have a troll-themed town/city that doesn't end up being raided or otherwise plundered.

[deviantcultist]

Without a doubt it's the Ren'dorei and it's not even up for debate. Two simple facts make the Ren'dorei the most underutilized race in the entire franchise's history:

- In 8.3, the patch about the OLD GODS AND VOID, the Ren'dorei, Children of the VOID, whose entire purpose is fighting the WHISPERS of the VOID, are not even mentioned by Anduin when looking for advisors, and are instead shafted entirely for Anduin's boyfriend Wrathion. They are featured in 8.3 as VILLAINS in an ALTERNATE DIMENSION (so in the end even that development was completely meaningless). How do you screw up the story so badly? Imagine building up a faction dedicated solely to the annihilation of the Void, only to not even mention them at all in the Void patch.

- Alleria WINDRUNNER is nowhere to be seen during the patch revolving around Sylvanas WINDRUNNER, despite vowing that she would SEE SYLVANAS FALL, that it is extremely EASY to go to the Shadowlands (since fucking Old Emma the old rotting peasant is there), and it is a patch all about reunions (like Thrall and Draka).

To me there is no contest to be had, the Ren'dorei are clearly the most underused race by far now.

It is true. The Void Elves are underrepresented, underrated, and underdeveloped in every possible way.

The issue goes deeper as I think people in WoW have little awareness or appreciation for deeper/sophisticated concepts like the Void. For someone like me who used to play Blood Elf Shadowpriest and always felt like the race culture as a whole is too fancy for Shadow/Void themes, I feel vindicated that they added the Void variation.

We got the Legion climax featuring Light and Void, only to be grounded in BfA with the childish faction war and then regurgitate Death themes to appease the Wrath nostalgia.

Are they saving them for later? Did they decide to drop these plots so they can go for "easier" themes? I personally got hope with Legion adding a clear Void theme to Spriest, the introduction of more Void stuff on Argus and the addition of Void Elves only to be pushed to the sidelines for almost 5 years now.

Here's hoping the cosmic war will explode after Shadowlands.