Draenei pre-retcon/Gnome replacement ideas. (Classic+)

[Mungho]

That's the reason, I suggest adding Amani trolls in the Horde, so the Horde can have a footholds on The Eastern Kingdoms. Amani trolls + neutral Gobelins towns should be enough. Same as Theramore and neutral towns in Kalimdor for the Alliance,

Amani would be the more bulky forest trolls, right? But then that would mean the horde would have two kinds of trolls on their faction.

I'm not sure how to feel about a focus on Kalimdor in the first place. Most Alliance races have very little interests in Kalimdor. Sure there's the Theramore, but gnomes or dwarves doesn't share anything there. I fully agree, Alliance presence in Kalimdor is very poor and not well introduced. Theramore should be way more important. In my opinion, the Dwarves thirst for archeology should also be more important. Create links with the Gobelins. Dwarves trying to find the mysteries of UnGoro, Uldum, Feralas and maybe triggering some Silithids secrets.

The dwarves and gnomes were very interested in Kalimdor from Vanilla~Cata, due to all the Titan artifacts lying around Kalimdor. .

I also don't agree with focusing on replacing the gnomes.

[Tealghara]

I haven't think about it. There are forest trolls in Vanilla. They are regular trolls but green. I can live with that kind of retcon, it's not like they are coming from space.

[Triceron]

Draenei were just 'race that got slaughtered by the Orcs', mentioned only in name and not description in the WC1/2 manuals. I believe WC2 is where it was mentioned first though, since we didn't even get the name 'Draenor' till Beyond the Dark Portal.

If I were to add an Alliance race extending from WC2/3 as an alternate TBC thing, then:

Wildhammer Dwarves - Taller, wilder versions of Dwarf. Plenty of outdoor racials

High Elves - Really no reason why we're discounting them. At all. If not High Elves directly, then we can make due with Half Elves, as was originally planned in WC3 (Ranger hero was Half-Elven)

Dragons/Dragonsworn - Plenty of Alliance connections like Krasus having been part of the Kirin Tor and plenty of Blue's being present in the Manga stories, which were set around WC3 timeline. Even a Dragonsworn or Dragon-descendant race could work.

Golems - Not exactly lore based, but they'd easily as a total reinvention of a race, much like how Draenei were reinvented. If we don't have Gnomes, then have em be replaced with a sentient Tech-savvy race of Golems with new origins. Something that looks like the Iron Watchers from Storm Peaks, but much more heroic. Tie em in with Dwarf/Titan connections. They could be an interesting dynamic to some of the larger Horde races, and something to fill the archetype of the large Draenei. Have them bring in Crystal-based tech, have them have connections to the Titans, have them be adept in Engineering and mechanics.

[Tealghara]

The fact that people (I'm not immune to this) seem to have such difficulty with imagining any races in the Alliance outside of the Pick your Human: L, M, S, XS is the wall I'm running up against. Maybe the issue is people assuming: Ally = Good, Horde = Bad, whereas it might be better to view Ally = morally light grey, Horde = morally dark grey (with Forsaken being charcoal) and the alignments are out of convenience beyond Human+Dwarf, Orc+Troll. Even then I'd add some strain between them.

Well, historically Warcraft has always been about Chaos vs Order, Orcs vs Humans, Beasts vs "Whoever knows how to take a bath". If you're looking for an Alliance race that's not human, try finding a race with some of these "order" attributes.

[Cringecaller]

NE were added to the alliance so the factions would have at least one foothold on the two major continents, which is why I think it would've been better if they focused on Kalimdor first.

I said before that Theramore seemed like a bit of a mistake but now I consider it had a purpose as a practical/safe node which Alliance could use to access Kalimdor, especially if they decided against adding the NE to them during development. It's a good bit of game design redundancy.
It's also ironic to think that the initial release would be based around Kalimdor when so much development went into Stormwind and the Eastern Kingdoms more broadly, where as Orgrimmar and Kalimdor were more slap-dash, rushed and an after thought.

This is a product largely of warcraft's storytelling. The alliance has traditionally been various sizes of human, and it has a generally poor track record getting along with anything that's not. Gnolls and trolls have been rather consistenty enemies, and Furbolgs are more of a night elf thing.

WoW lore suggests this is partially an extension of these human-like races, save elves, all being descendants of the titanforged.

Admittedly it also sort of comes to the strange nature of whats considered 'the right thing to do' in WoW. As apparently slaughtering gnolls, non-horde trolls, kobolds, murlocs, etc is fine, but one must be considerate and thoughtful towards the Horde races.

WoW factions didn't need to conform to the "Orcs V Humans" framework, which is why it was interesting to add the NE. Of course their soul began being bled out of them from day one, but it was a nice opportunity. My impression was that Gnolls, Trolls etc were always hostile themselves, it wasn't that L/M/S Humans were particularly antisocial or disagreeable. Well, perhaps with regarding the Elf-Human-Troll wars in the North-East. But that was more of a clash of empires.

Correct me if I'm wrong but most of the Titanforged stuff turned up in WotLK, right? I.e. this train of thought just becomes a post-facto justification. The appeal of doing an alt-Classic rewrite/fork is not having to follow the later plot, lore or even game design. Some people on the Lore Forums might be enamored with the Earthen-to-Dwarf story line and lore but no one I know IRL or have ever played with gave a damn about it. A few people cared about the Human aspect, but that was mostly because they thought Vyrkul were "pretty kewl". I'd probably just have Uldaman etc reveal Dwarves had a very strong connection with the Titans in the past, which could lead into more titan-related sheningans, but I've been writing some other plot for Dwarves and wouldn't focus so heavily on the Titans and all that Archaeology.

To answer your questions in order:

1. As a few folks said, pre-TBC Lore--backed up by the novel Rise of the Horde--states the Draenei were exterminated. The playable ones in TFT we find out in TBC are called Broken by the Draenei because...[]

3. I'm not entirely sure why you would want to Replace the Gnomes as a playable race. Granted, they've had very little Lore development--the same can easily be said for Goblins in general--but they've had enough development to make them feel relevant. The Gnomes' backstory is explained in Vanilla: The release of radiation in their city Gnomeregan forced them to flee. They initially lived with their cousins the Dwarves in Ironforge but after the events of The Shattering....[]

"we find out in TBC that..." well there's your problem. This assumes that TFT Draenei weren't intended as legitimate when I don't think light-wielding Protoss-goats were even a twinkle in Metzen's eye at that point (Metzen was working part-time as a milkman). Tonnes of stuff was a ret-con, or just came out of nowhere, and it was totally unnecessary. If they were dead-set on giving the Alliance Draenei, they were perfectly serviceable as they were. Just have a subgroup (or the majority) realise that 'oh dear this Illidan fellow isn't all there' and flee to the Alliance for help. "We hate Orcs, you hate Orcs too? let's hang out and hate Orcs".
They also had to force the Draenei more into the L/M/S Human mold by turning the guys into Buzz Lightyear goatman, and the chicks into hot goats with porn-arses.

I don't exactly want to replace the Gnomes, but as I said before it's tough to write anything for them, and when writing any of the rest of the plot, they don't really figure into it. They're just 'there'. They have some other marks against them though:

- They've never been very popular with the playerbase. Not only do people avoid rolling them, some people even resent having to play with them.
- Their aesthetic clashes a bit with the rest of the setting.
- I understand a world with magic suffers the same problem generally, but the tech focus introduces plot-holes or power creep where you end up asking why they didn't solve X by using the Draenei spaceship laser, or Gnome nuke etc.

I don't think they're a travesty like Space Goats, but I can't help but feel like Gnomes are a missed opportunity.

Is it just me or do Gnomes figure disproportionately in Blizzard advertising or other out-of-game media, but are then strangely absent while actually playing?

high elves, even though you banned them

I salute your commitment to the High Elf cause!

Draenei were just 'race that got slaughtered by the Orcs', mentioned only in name and not description in the WC1/2 manuals. I believe WC2 is where it was mentioned first though, since we didn't even get the name 'Draenor' till Beyond the Dark Portal.

If I were to add an Alliance race extending from WC2/3 as an alternate TBC thing, then:

Wildhammer Dwarves - Taller, wilder versions of Dwarf. Plenty of outdoor racials

High Elves - Really no reason why we're discounting them. At all. If not High Elves directly, then we can make due with Half Elves, as was originally planned in WC3 (Ranger hero was Half-Elven)

Dragons/Dragonsworn - Plenty of Alliance connections like Krasus having been part of the Kirin Tor and plenty of Blue's being present in the Manga stories, which were set around WC3 timeline. Even a Dragonsworn or Dragon-descendant race could work.

Golems - Not exactly lore based, but they'd easily as a total reinvention of a race, much like how Draenei were reinvented. If we don't have Gnomes, then have em be replaced with a sentient Tech-savvy race of Golems with new origins. Something that looks like the Iron Watchers from Storm Peaks, but much more heroic. Tie em in with Dwarf/Titan connections. They could be an interesting dynamic to some of the larger Horde races, and something to fill the archetype of the large Draenei. Have them bring in Crystal-based tech, have them have connections to the Titans, have them be adept in Engineering and mechanics.

Ok, thanks for that Re: 'Draenor'.

Wildhammer are redundant, boring, and feel too much like someone ctrl+c some lines of Night Elf description, and ctrl+v over the Dwarf template. And yes I know they were around before Night Elves. It would be like advertising the Alliance has 4 Unique Races! and they're Stormwindian, Arathi, Lordaeronian Refugee and Dwarf.
Except Dwarves have human models scaled down by 5%.

High Elves have 3 related reasons for discounting them:
1. They're dull, cliched and generic.
2. Blood Elves made them obsolete. Blood Elves were the progression of High Elves into a form with more character and 'bite', and gave them more motivation, tension and story, which also made sense given the massive trauma and other occurrences in the plot. I don't discount there are some scattered Elves not aligned with the Blood Elves, but the Elves in control of whatever was left of Silvermoon (which was left way too pristine in TBC) and the bulk of them left with any sort of organisational structure were Blood Elves.
3. I'm using the Blood Elves for other stuff and it kind of precludes High Elves from being a playable Alliance race.

Well, historically Warcraft has always been about Chaos vs Order, Orcs vs Humans, Beasts vs "Whoever knows how to take a bath". If you're looking for an Alliance race that's not human, try finding a race with some of these "order" attributes.

I don't think that's an accurate description of what Warcraft has "always been about".

----

I'm really warming to the Gnoll idea. I think they could be really cool if they had a mad max/post-apocalypse thing going on, maybe mixed with some Gypsy cliches (Sayge). I dunno how similar that is to the later Vulpera, coz I haven't played retail in ages and ages.
The personality type would be cheerful or optimistic, but violent. A bit like Warhammer Orcs they'd enjoy fighting just for the sake of it, not necessarily out of hate or vengeance or because they're Noble Savages or thieving goblins, they just love the rush and are addicted to excitement. Think teens doing bone-headed Jackass stunts.

They have major hurdles for joining though. They're such a quintessential lowbie "kill X" mob that you slaughter by the millions (Hogger) and what is driving them into the Alliance? Or making the Alliance consider allowing that? what's the mutual threat bringing them together?
There isn't really any room for them to get a start zone of their own, and it would be stupidly awkward to give them the same start as Humans, for example.
Realistically it would deviate too far from the original, and because of that would be waaay too much effort, but it might be workable if Stormwind and the surrounding areas were still in early recovery from the first war. The zones could be more anarchic, the Humans are in a much weaker position, and Stormwind is more shambolic and still undergoing major repairs.
Maybe that could be the driver, marauding Blackrock Orcs and other groups causing havoc in the wider region, so the most dominant Gnolls and Stormwind Humans align to bring some basic order and stability.
I never really liked the idea that Stormwind got totally demolished in WC1 and then they come roaring back some time later with the most impressive city seen in the game at that point, and a population rivaling any other group. It definitely puts Lordaeron to shame.

On the whole the Human plot is the one I'm least interested in changing though.

[Mic_128]

You're just baiting yourself here. From the very start of W3, it was never about good vs bad or shades of grey morality. It was just two distinct groups with bad blood between them due to history. That's why blood elves siding with orcs, trolls, and undead was always idiotic from a narrative point of view.

I dunno, it seemed pretty 'shade-of'grey' to me. Either join the Horde - the group who do whatever it takes to survive (which fits, as they were currently feeding on Fel from Outland and a captured Naaru to deal with their addictions) and has a leader that's formerly an elf; or join the Alliance, (the faction that the active leadership very recently tried to kill them repeatedly before outright attempting to execute them) and risk being surrounded not just by Scourge, but also Horde-aligned Forsaken, leaving them incredibly vulnerable with no readily available help should the Horde not like a hostile magical alliance city on their doorstep.

There is no 'good' option there. I do wish that their reluctance to join the Horde was played up more, could have been interesting to explore.

[Triceron]

High Elves have 3 related reasons for discounting them:
1. They're dull, cliched and generic.

I don't think that's an accurate description of what Warcraft has "always been about".

I'm really warming to the Gnoll idea.

To be honest, why even ask for opinions if you're only going to focus on shutting em down, calling people put for 'Not getting Warcraft' and stick with your own suggestion that doesn't fit the Alliance at all? You coulda just did without this thread entirely and did your own thing.

Nothing against your idea of Gnolls for Alliance, but it doesn't make any more sense than the cliche of High Elves, because WC1 and 2 were built on cliches. Humans, Dwarves and Elves are the staple three heroic fantasy races, so calling it out while keeping human and Dwarf seems like an odd double standard. Why not replace dwarf with Gnoll then?

And I notice how you only responded to the suggestions you didn't approve of rather than address the more creative solutions. Makes me wonder if you're looking for any solution at all since you seem to already have your mind made up from the beginning and simply want to argue your points.

It would be like advertising the Alliance has 4 Unique Races! and they're Stormwindian, Arathi, Lordaeronian Refugee and Dwarf.

To be fair, Blizzard already did quite a bit of distinct fantasy flavouring by evolving each kingdom well beyond simple 'Human subrace'.

Gilneans are literally cursed into Worgens now, and they have their own noble Victorian culture that makes em quite distinct visually.
Kul Tirans are huge and seafaring, and have a fair connection to the Drust.
Lordaeronian could easily be represented by Lightforged Forsaken like Calia, which is as non-standard human as it gets.

If anything, you could even move Gilneans/Worgen up to replace the High Elves since the timeline of them being cursed could have easily have happened earlier, rather than 'right before Cataclysm'. It would still make more sense than adding Gnolls, which don't formally talk or have any diplomatic relations to the Alliance whatsoever.

[Daronokk]

The only thing known about the Draenei prior to WC3 TFT was that the Orcs killed all of them, they were extinct.

Which if you ask me should have stayed that way. Draenei are one of the worst additions to the franchise, their addition had to go paired with lots of stupid retcons. Now we're left with a spaceship faring people (in a medieval fantasy franchise!) being named after a world they are not from originally and the Orc homeworld having the Draenei name although it's the Orc homeworld and not the Draenei's. None of it makes sense.

[Yooginava182]

Except that isn't exactly what happened? Garithos was never "the Alliance". The Alliance in itself was in shambles and scattered.

Except at the time, Garithos was the face of the Alliance. Basically ordering the elves to their deaths. "oops sorry, we know you need these troops to fight the massive wave of undead heading your way, figure something out and good luck". Kael did just that. He improvised to save himself and the alliance. And for that, Garithos had him and his people locked up for execution. You really think elves just forget that shit. Why didn't the nightborne join the alliance? Oh thats right, cause Tyrande held a grudge from over 10,000 years ago. And im pretty sure the beef extended to the blood elves, which is why the Night elves were spying on the blood elves in the first place. ( Play through the starter zone for blood elves and you'll see. The Night elves were spying on them BEFORE they even joined the horde.

Again, with Garithos literally being the face of the Alliance army ( shattered or not ) he was still the face of the alliance, and unfortunately, he burnt that bridge.

[Beloren]

High elves, of course. They were a not-insignificant part of the 'human' roster back in Waecraft 3 (priest and sorceress, then later blood mage and spellbreaker).

Yes, I know you "banned" the high elves as a valid option in your OP, but considering you didn't give a single reason (much less a valid one) as to why they should not be allowed or even why we should abide by this exclusion, this just feels like arbitrary ruling which I am not feeling compelled to follow.

So, yeah, my vote goes for the high elves.

High elves would have been the logical choice, and then to release blood elves later, who would get Silvermoon.

So classic would have High elves, but start zone for them would actually be Theramore. The alliance being too popular causes blizzard to share elves instead of humans because it's humans who lead the alliance, so they are more reluctant.

Blood elves come on the scene, with a reclaimed Silvermoon, Quel'thalas in it's beauty and glory, making it an attractive sight for horde, but they would also get some options like tattoos, scars, fel effects, magic effects, that high elves won't have

Now the Asian player girlfriends can join their lads on the horde ,

- - - Updated - - -

My personal choice, would have been to share humans. However vampire and necromancy humans and put it as part of the undead package.. so you can design a ghoul (current forsaken), a vampire (upright skinny human pale skin, good looks), and a necromancer human - (basically the vampire without the transformation and extra features, but Lich like powers)


If the horde had got that to kick off, that would have been amazing. Would pick that over high/blood elves

[Rockefellah]

Id stick with high elves instead of gnomes (gnomes are fine as an NPC race, Gnomeregan stays as a quest).

Night Elves and Forsaken are NPC factions.

Blood Elves never get added to the Horde, instead be NPC/neutral in Silvermoon and Draenei remain in their pre-retcon as a farmer/weak race on Draenor. It may still be as the story continues that they are a devolved version of the Eredar. (E.g. Velen fled from the other Eredar, and used the light to turn the exiles into a devolved stayed so they would stay unnoticed from the legion).

Instead TBC adds Ogre (Horde) and uncorrupted Arakkoa (Alliance), and WoTLK adds Dragonkin (Horde) and Vrykul (Alliance), Cata adds Worgen (Alliance) and goblins (Horde), while Legion adds Nightborn to the horde (they finally get their elves) and Draenei (as we know them) to the alliance.

Sub races would be added from Vanilla:

Humans: Alteraci (refugees), Lordaeronian (refugees), Stromic, Dalaranian, Gilnean (exiles), Tirasian.
*Stromgarde never falls to ruin, Dalaran doesn't become neutral, Kul Tiras is not moved to an island and enlarged.
** Different human subraces allow different classes / have different passives to be better at certain classes/roles
High Elves: Thalassian, Shen'dralar, Night Elves eventually unlock as a subrace
Dwarves: Bronzebeard clan, Dark Iron clan, Wildhammer clan, Stormpike Clan,

Orcs: Blackrock clan, Frostwolf clan, Stormreaver clan, Thunderlord clan, Warsong clan
Tauren: Bloodhoof, Dawnstrider, Grimtotem (yes Tauren Rogues will be a thing!), Mistrunner, Ragetotem. Highmountain, Taunka, Yaungol added later.
Trolls: Darkspear initially, more troll clans follow later.

[Mungho]

Okay, but that means horde don't get a 'pretty' race until Legion(and even then, I thought the nightborne were hideous until they fixed them up).

[Triceron]

Okay, but that means horde don't get a 'pretty' race until Legion(and even then, I thought the nightborne were hideous until they fixed them up).

If Night Elf and Forsaken were added as neutral races, it coulda worked out fine. Considering the end of WC3, there's really no reason why either of these had to be faction locked. They were as separate as Pandaren were.

[javierdsv]

I think Worgen should have been a great replacement for Gnomes. But the original Worgen, those that were actually Night Elves.

[Cringecaller]

If anything, you could even move Gilneans/Worgen up to replace the High Elves since the timeline of them being cursed could have easily have happened earlier, rather than 'right before Cataclysm'. It would still make more sense than adding Gnolls, which don't formally talk or have any diplomatic relations to the Alliance whatsoever.

I like the Worgen idea too, but I'd want to lock them into fur-mode. But then it might be too much of a stretch for them to be Alliance if they are literally demonic/extra-dimensional/whatever monsters. It would accentuate the Alliance vs Forsaken conflict which would be good. Playing Alliance, I found it easy to forget Forsaken even existed unless you were hanging around SS, or getting ganked by them at lvl 40+.

The only thing known about the Draenei prior to WC3 TFT was that the Orcs killed all of them, they were extinct.

Which if you ask me should have stayed that way. Draenei are one of the worst additions to the franchise, their addition had to go paired with lots of stupid retcons. Now we're left with a spaceship faring people (in a medieval fantasy franchise!) being named after a world they are not from originally and the Orc homeworld having the Draenei name although it's the Orc homeworld and not the Draenei's. None of it makes sense.

Would you take back their addition to TFT as well, or just the Space Goat bits? I don't think they were that central to TFT so I guess that's workable. Totally agree about the name thing that was so stupid.

OMG, this is one instance I wish people ignored my post since that's what usually happens to me on this website. I'll go ahead and delete my OP as well as try to forget I ever saw this thread.

I don't want to end up getting modded so I'll stop my rantfest there.

Yeah sorry dude I realise I didn't actually mention that I wanted to know pre-TBC Draenei lore because I wanted to avoid repeating it, and I was rewriting the story from Vanilla on. The context was obvious in my head but I see it isn't at all when I put myself in someone else's shoes reading the OP.

I think Worgen should have been a great replacement for Gnomes. But the original Worgen, those that were actually Night Elves.

Worgen would probably be better than Gnomes. I can't imagine they'd be less popular.