And what, other than refuge are the Gnomes, Worgen and Draenei getting out of the deal in respect to dealing with their own internal issues?
This is borne out of the discussion of whether Alliance should have High Elves, whatever your views are on that, keep it to one of those threads. What I want to ask is why the Alliance bother looking after these refugees races?
It's pretty clear to me, that so long as they remain refugees from their own home towns that they can't really offer the Alliance much of anything. By contrast, the Horde refugees; Goblins and Darkspear seem to be well equipped to having been relocated and re-established themselves in their new homes and the Darkspear have even gone a step further and retaken their own ancestral home.
So, why do the Night Elves, Dwarves and Humans put up with it? The Gnomes have done little more than retake the surface of Gnomeregan and done nothing with it to advance from there. Indeed they seem to struggle to keep what they have. The Worgen are confined to a tree at the northern edge of Darnassus doing precisely nothing whatsoever, while the Draenei are still living out of the hull of a crashed spaceship. They can't look after themselves, so what exactly are they offering as part of an Alliance in return for the protection they're being given?
I ask because it's pretty clear that their own story can't progress and they can't be shown to be helping in any meaningful manner so long as they're still effectively refugees simply because it doesn't make any sense that a faction unable to properly rebuild and resettle isn't going to have too many resources to be going out saving the planet.
To be honest, it's bad storytelling for a start. Sure, it's a tragic story, but three times over it's become a cliche to tie these races into the Alliance and it's also painted them into a corner. They can't go out because they lack numbers and resources, but there's too much else going on to really go back to them to move them along and establish them properly. So what to do with them, and how, if new races are to be given to the factions in future expansions do we tie them in with some actual establishment so we don't just end up care-bearing yet another tiny community that ultimately doesn't really have much to offer.
Gnomes
We all know they bring technology, but they are now not just exiles and refugees from Gnomeregan, they're exiles and refugees from Ironforge too. They're tied up in their own mess, and are unable to contribute significantly to Alliance endevours. Dwarves have been shown to have taken the lead in bringing and operating battlefield tech on the front line, under Human command. If they can't help the Alliance and the Alliance appear to have all but stopped helping them, what's their future as a part of it?
Worgen
Tiny in number, they're exiles and refugees from Gilneas, survivors of one catastrophe after a another. No homes, no resources and apparently many seem too focused on finding a cure for the curse to offer much to their own kind, let alone anyone else if we look at their settlement at Raven Hill.
Gilneas itself would be strategically very important, but there seems little or no action on that point, while by and large they actually appear to be exploited by the Night Elves in their military endevours.
Draenei
Small in number and until recently, very focused on consolidating their islands and repairing the Exodar. That done, they just seem to be hanging around because they've made themselves a sweet home with little to trouble them. A bit of a token gesture in troops to defend Lion's Landing, but realistically given their low population, could they really offer much more than that anyway?