Possible New Starting Areas? New 'Origins' for Races Idea

[ryuke09]

so there's still plenty of time before Cataclysm and i was going through a lot of Beta videos (and enjoying them). The new starting zones for gnomes and trolls look awesome and the redone starting areas look great for the other races (of course the goblin/worgen ones are just incredible).

I got to thinking that while new starting zones are nice, in the future even past cataclysm they will become stale again to some extent. my idea to remedy this would be multiple starting zones for each race and possibly some for a couple classes. Similar to what dragon age: origins did, have the option to go through a different starting quest story based on race/class/race-class combo. here are some ideas of mine. Keep in mind that i do not know any major story bits in the Cataclysm questing of these new areas that might contradict what my story ideas are.

Alliance

Humans: Have these humans be Stromgarde based, having a quest chain in a phased area of Arathi Highlands and interact with Trollbane (http://www.wowwiki.com/Danath_Trollbane) to retake the kingdom. so you would start off as say a new recruit and work your way to support the campaign by collecting weapons, killing some outposts of the enemy Syndicate or Bolderfist orges. All leading up to an epic quest where you, Trollbane and his army march on the capital to reclaim it. Afterward being the new Alliance town (not "City" really) that will replace the Refuge Point as the ally quest hub for the normal version of the zone.

Dwarfs: These dwarfs would be pure Wildhammer ones, starting off in a phased Hinterlands to fend off attacking forest trolls (supported my the Horde maybe?). You can start off gathering griffins to train for the alliance and then help defend Wildhammer Hold from a massive invasion of trolls. Leading up to you and Npc allies fighting them off and taking the fight back to them slowly but surly. Also Include http://www.wowwiki.com/Kurdran_Wildhammer to lead you.

Nightelves: Interesting idea here, you start off as not a night-elf, but a Satyr 'faction' somewhere in (phased) Felwood. you start off as an evil demon attacking Timbermaw and platoons of Alliance npcs that try to attack your village. After having a hunting party kill a group of alliance paladins, the last one you kill ends up sacrificing himself in a massive explosion of The Light that ends up slowly cleansing you and your hunting party over time(multiple quests) leading up to you finding a group of Night-elven prisoners other members of the satyr village caught, helping them escape and proving to them that you are cleansed by helping them kill the leader of your former Satyr village. Hell have http://www.wowwiki.com/Tyrande_Whisperwind BE one of those prisoners and be involved with you killing the Satyr leader.

Draenei: Another neat one, you start off in a (phased) outland (Zangermrash?) village as a Lost-One draenei. You fight off surviving groups of Lady Vashj naga until you rescues a captive Narru. As a Thankful gesture he infuses you and you NPC friends with the light that starts to help you overtime become a normal broken (the Akama type) and towards the end the normal kind. At the same time a fellow npc from the village that did NOT get the infusion of light gets jealous of you and runs off, leading him to find and make a deal with "the devil" of the surviving Burning legion of Outland. The antagonist npc becomes and evil eredar and its up to you with the help of your other cleansed friends and the assistance of That Narru you helped to kill the demons and save the village from being destroyed. The Narru tells you that Adal wants to talk to you and afterward he helps to talk to Velen (http://www.wowwiki.com/Velen) to get folded into the Alliance.

Gnomes, i got nothing here.



Horde

Orcs: Again these orcs are from Outland (phased Nagrand) where they can fight surviving legion outposts and fend off an invading force of orges from Bladesedge that lead up to you proving your worth (and entry into the Horde via grom) by taking down the leader of the orge threat. (possibly a formerly unknown Son of Gruul?).

Trolls: Have the surving ZA Trolls open a can of worms back in ZA where they summon a bunch of crap from the realm that Hakkar came from in an attempt to reclaim some of their former power. Tons of evil spirit/spirit creatures that push your village back and almost destroy it if it wasn't for you begging the Bloodelves deeper in Ghostlands to put aside their difference to help destroy the threat. Leading up to a cameo appearance from Hakkar, and fighting him back into his realm again. Afterward the Bloodelves that helped out became friendly with you and help you get rolled into the Horde under Vol'jin's command.

Blood-elves: You start out as a Wretched (http://www.wowwiki.com/Wretched), and fight for your survival in the ruined section of silvermoon. You kill any mana-eels and eat them so you don't die and fight off (not killing) silvermoon guards trying to purge the ruins from the likes of you. Because you are in the ruined part of the city, no one notices the entrance to the main city where a group of (Cultists?, Alliance spy?, etc?) are plotting to attack the city. Even thou they don't trust you at first, the Bloodelves realize you are still loyal to silvermoon and you help them destroy the threat that is in the city. As a reward, you are sent to the Sunwell by Lady Liadrin (http://www.wowwiki.com/Lady_Liadrin), who was involved with fighting the threat in the city. The sunwell cures you and you are transformed back to a normal BE and you become a full member of the Horde.

Undead: Here's one of my favorites, you start off a HUMAN at first in some no-name village (maybe phased Western Plaguelands since Cataclysm time the area is more habitual.) After trying to fight them off you get captured by cultists (the remains of the cult of the damned which Kel'thuzad may still be alive to lead cause his phylactery wasn't destroyed?) you are than sacrificed in a cultist ritual to become undead, where you are forced to do their bidding. A team of Forsaken investigating recent disturbances in the area finds the cultist camp and the undead(you) that are being enslaved. They help you you regain your free will and together you kill the cultist leader (maybe a cameo from Kel'thuzad after?) After everything is said and done you are recruited into the Forsaken for helping them fight the cultists.

Tauren: Again i don't have anything worth mentioning here idea wise.


and that's about all i got. hopefully the wall of text didn't bore you guys. so anyway what would you guys do for additional starting zones in the future?

[Oweena]

That... is actually a very nice idea if implemented properly..

However I think certain races need a relook over... i.e Night Elfs... wouldn't work a Satyr cannot return to being a NE... However with Highborne returning to teach arcane arts to NE they are a viable secondary starting zone for NE

Also, draenei, it's impossible to be cleansed back into a draenei state.. (Oh and btw Akama is half-way between broken and lost one) However a different starting zone could be attempting to take control of the exodar in outlands, and you go through that but when at level 12 or 6 depending.. the exodar is in your control flying to azeroth and crashing, then wake up in the care of the priests onboard exodar ready to go to either azuremyst or to kalimdor

same with BE... cleansing corruption just is impossible

[placeholdername]

I suggest a Taunka secondary origin for the Tauren.

[TerraMagus]

That... is actually a very nice idea if implemented properly..

However I think certain races need a relook over... i.e Night Elfs... wouldn't work a Satyr cannot return to being a NE... However with Highborne returning to teach arcane arts to NE they are a viable secondary starting zone for NE

Also, draenei, it's impossible to be cleansed back into a draenei state.. (Oh and btw Akama is half-way between broken and lost one)

There's actually a dude in Ashenvale who turns back into a Night Elf.

[Swixal]

I actually love this idea although i can't ever see it being implemented =\ but ill give it 9.5/10 great idea love the undead one btw (:

[chaos01123]

may i first off say..i like this idea nice job taking the time to share it. i think it would be very neat to let the other races have a starting type of quests that act kinda like how the worgen and goblin come into the story or just giving them a new experience.

idea for gnomes could be something to do with maybe a flashback play through of become gnomergan got to how it is/was. (not good with gnome lore so not sure really)

idea for tauren could have something to do with the ordeal of the whole after Cairne's death and leading players into helping baine out with the bad taurens (sorry cant remember the tribe they're called that poison cairne).


gnomes i think i heard are starting somewhere new think gnomergan or another and same with trolls so i think they will have a new type of experience.

[Noxous24]

this is a great concept. just needs a lore re work, but is still awesome. =)
plus its all phased so u wouldnt have to worry about re-leveling each area.
+1 internets

[Clawtrocity]

Bravo, I think this is a great idea and I can totally see blizzard implementing it sometime in the future. It probably won't be in cataclysm, but something like this for the next expansion would be one of those "Selling points" that every expansion gets.

[Dacia Ultan]

I kind of like it. However—as others have pointed out—returning Broken, much less Lost Ones, to their unmutated state is still beyond what anyone's been able to figure out.

[Omglulwhat]

Everything you described was the same except the names of races and enemies, -insert race- fends off -insert enemy-.Blah boring.

[Falarson]

Alliance

Humans: Arathi Human. Phased Stromgarde.
Dwarves: Wildhammer. Phased Hinterlands, or Northeron.
Gnomes: Mechagnomes. Phased Ulduar.
Night Elves: Highborne. Phased Dire Maul.
Draenei: Broken. Phased Temple of Karabor.
Worgen: Grizzly Hills Trapper. Phased Grizzly Hills.

Horde

Orc: Mag'har. Phased Garadar/Nagrand.
Tauren: Taunka. Phased Icemist Village.
Troll: Forest Troll (Revantusk). Phased Hinterlands.
Forsaken: Forsaken Quel'thalas Elves. Phased Quel'thalas.
Blood Elves: Can't get anything but High Elves, which are Alliance. No idea. Maybe Wretched, or some new kind of Elf?
Goblin: Horde-sided Steamwheedle Goblin. Like the ones in WC2. Phased I-have-no-idea.

[Aberration]

Reminds me of Dragon Age: Origins. I like it.

[OnlineSamantha]

The problem is that it's one troll tribe. The other troll tribes frankly don't care for the Horde.

[ryuke09]

The problem is that it's one troll tribe. The other troll tribes frankly don't care for the Horde.

yeah i realize that, i figured the best way to get a new troll starting zone was for a new tribe to join the horde (or in my example's case the surviving group of a tribe we pretty much destroyed over in the ZA raid). i think the ZA trolls could work the best because we killed Zul'jin and A LOT of trolls in ZA, leaving what was left weak and leaderless (also Zul'jin was kind of crazy). so an "enemy of my enemy" idea could work, as well as the fact that those trolls only option for survival, much like the early Forsaken (even now probably), is to join the Horde. i bit of a stretch? yeah kind of but it my idea after all =p

as for the "cleansing is impossible" thing...i don't know we managed to cleanse a bunch of things in WoW, the most major being Eranikus (old ST boss) from the nightmare via a raid (from back in the old AQ: gate opening quest-line for those who don't know.) its not too far a stretch that we can reverse the Satyr corruption, the reversing of the draenei mutation is more arguable i suppose. i will defend the blood-elf cleansing because that wasn't an evil force wreaking havoc on a given races' body, it was addiction and withdrawals that the sunwell would cure(in fact it DID cure magic-addiction in the BC epilogue). at least what i know about BE lore that's what it was.

anyway glad most of you enjoyed that little essay of mine =D

[Explosion_Rex]

The problem is that it's one troll tribe. The other troll tribes frankly don't care for the Horde.

Except the Revantusk. The Forest Troll Horde outpost in Hinterlands.

[Fourty-two]

It is good idea, but what would happen to all the low level areas? Your plan would seem to get you around to lv10+ or so. The starting areas would be kinda obsolete then.

[Seekzor]

Except the Revantusk. The Forest Troll Horde outpost in Hinterlands.

Revantusk isn't part of the Horde, they just have a pact with them. So it's not an outpost of the Horde. Players are just allowed to be there. This might be different in Cataclysm though. You can compare them with the wildhammer clan for the alliance pre cataclysm,not officially a part of the Alliance but still friendly towards them.

[Ryker]

Goblin: Horde-sided Steamwheedle Goblin. Like the ones in WC2. Phased I-have-no-idea.

They already have one

[Opalbreeze]

Let me ask something... is this intented to just present alternatives to the starting zones? Or can it possibly introduce some slightly variations (cosmetic ones) too? I just got too excited when Vorack said "I suggest a Taunka secondary origin for the Tauren".

It would be AWESOME to have the option to start on a new zone, and playing with the cosmetic appearance of a Taunka, a Mechagnome, a Satyr(?), a Forest Troll, etc, etc, etc.

What do you guys think? Would it work if added to the original idea of this thread?

Would it work at all?

[Deleted]

Trolls: Have the surving ZA Trolls open a can of worms back in ZA where they summon a bunch of crap from the realm that Hakkar came from in an attempt to reclaim some of their former power. Tons of evil spirit/spirit creatures that push your village back and almost destroy it if it wasn't for you begging the Bloodelves deeper in Ghostlands to put aside their difference to help destroy the threat. Leading up to a cameo appearance from Hakkar, and fighting him back into his realm again. Afterward the Bloodelves that helped out became friendly with you and help you get rolled into the Horde under Vol'jin's command.

The Amani would rather die than accept help from an elf. Not a chance in hell that this would ever happen. Try again.