Night Elves never join the Alliance, never integrate their sexes across societal castes. (No male sentinels, no female druids.) They also keep the savage amazonian edge they exuded in WC3.
The Forsaken never join the Horde. Neither do the Blood Elves. The Blood Elves and Forsaken however do ally but have some trust issues.
The Amani very much become their own faction but remain friendly with the Horde now that the Horde’s never accepted elves into their ranks.
Distant kinship with the Darkspear further help this along, as well as the general respect the Horde still has for Zul’jin.
Nobody ever refers to Arthas much anymore as nobody saw him ascend the throne.
The Cult of the Damned is very much still active and still revere Ner’Zuhl, the Lich King. Arthas technically no longer exists, just what remains of his body after the Lich King took control of it.
The Draenai/Eredar retcon is re-retconned. Now Draenai are redeemed former Eredar rather than the other way around. (this means the Sargeras corruption retcon is also de-retconned.)
We get to keep all the neat things from the Draenai but add more depth by exploring their redemption history rather than some boring “they were always good guys.” junk.
The broken and lost ones are still mutant Draenai warped by Ner’zuhl’s nether portals and fel-exposure at the end of WC2.
They become close allies with the surviving Arrakoa and band together against the fel-orcs of Outland.
Ogre exiles band together in the southern eastern kingdoms, near the rift of the destroyed dark portal, and seem to be forming a new incarnation of the Gorian empire and get in frequent skirmishes with the Gurubashi.
The Horde, Alliance and Sentinels are and remain at peace post Hyjal.
The Sentinels form a friendship with the Horde through their shared veneration of nature and spirits and through a combination of shamanistic and druidic magics alleviate the Horde’s need to cut down Ashenvale.
The primary axis’ of tension in the world is:
Burning Legion is still out there and plotting.
Ner’Zuhl and the Scourge are dormant but through the Cult of the Damned remain a threat.
The Gurubashi empire and Hakkar form a powerful enemy despite their entanglements with New Goria.
C’thun and the Silithid lurk in southern kalimdor.
The Naga play a more prominent role.
Late in the story the Zandalari come into play as a major power and rally surviving Amani, Gurubashi, Drakkari and Farraki trolls under their banner.
WC4 is about complex geopolitics amid a world full of threats.
Primary playable factions are:
The Horde
The Alliance
The Sentinels
The Forsaken/Scourge (share tech tree)
The Zandalari.
There’s a heavy creep and mercenary emphasis in melee maps, further diversifying the formula from Starcraft into the RPG/RTS hybrid vs the pure RTS.
The merc angle allows you to play with more varied units and strategies also featured in the campaign such as Naga, Legion, New Goria and Silithids.
Expansion adds the:
The Naarun (Draenai/Arrakoa alliance. Arrakoa regain sunpriesthood with Dreanai allies.)
SC2-like co-op mode is added as well as a full-on co-op campaign mode following a hand full of different shorter stories than the main campaign.
Naturally during development some features end up getting cut, but I’m shooting for the moon here in this hypothetical pitch.
