(well of text incoming ; yes I can only write walls of text)
Ogres are the one OG Horde race that we still can’t play as, and they’re THE historical request from Horde players. A lot of things have been said about the idea of playable Ogres over the years and I thought it would be nice to reexamine all these elements and what was often identified as “obstacles” to their inclusion, as well as provide a lore-driven analysis of what they represent.
- Lore :
Ogres were descended from the Ogron, and they are the ancestors of the Orcs. Besides having been part of the Horde since its inception, there are currently 3 Ogre clans in the Horde : the MU Stonemaul of Dustwallow and Feralas (recruited by Rexxar in WC3, still in the Horde and actually prospering as per Exploring Azeroth : Kalimdor), the AU Stonemaul (as part of the Mag’har clans brought to Azeroth in BFA), and the Dunemaul of Tanaris (“recruited” by the Bilgewater in Cataclysm). As such, just like the Dark Irons when they were added, they don’t even need new lore to justify their inclusion : they’re fully integrated in the Horde landscape already. It would also be awesome to get to play as the Orcs’ ancestor race, hence further safeguarding the Breakers’ lineage. Additionally, there should already be a decent number of Ogres in the Horde currently, at the very least definitely more than there are Horde Vulpera/Pandaren/Dracthyr/Earthen. Ogres could also be recruited among the ranks of the Ogri’la or the Dark Horde, which is freshly collapsed (again) as of Midnight. As for which clan should be the playable one, the MU Stonemaul clearly come to mind as the obvious pick, since they’re the most prominent ones.
- Classes :
In terms of playable classes for the Ogres, my guess would be Warrior, Mage, Warlock, Shaman, Hunter, Monk. Could even add Priest/Paladin if the Lightbound Ogres from AU Draenor are added to the mix. What’s very cool about the Ogres is that they have pretty awesome, already established class fantasies : Gladiator (for Warrior), Geomancer (for Shaman), two-headed Magi (for Mage), Twilight Cultist (for Warlock)…
- Model/design :
Honestly, their WoD model still looks pretty good. Plenty of potential in terms of customization options too, with a variety of warpaints/tattoos, horn options, eye options (two eyes VS one eye), etc. If possible, being able to play as a two-headed Ogres would be fantastic ; if it isn’t because of transmog issues (which don’t seem unsolvable to me but what do I know), then that’s okay too, tbh. Also, correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure Ogres already have most of the player character animations already, so that’s less work to put in.
- Story inclusion :
Right now I would say the best suited expansion concepts for an Ogre addition would be either a “return to Kalimdor” expansion (which has decent odds of happening after TLT, honestly) or an expansion that features the return of the Yrel/Lightbound plot. As I was saying, the good thing about Ogres is that they’re so well integrated in the Horde landscape and faction lore already that they wouldn’t need a lot of narrative build up. A cool angle to explore in terms of what they could bring the Horde (despite capable warriors and mages) is their shipbuilding abilities : Ogre-made juggernaughts were instrumental to the Horde during the Second War.
Now addressing some of the things that have been often identified as obstacles to the Ogres’ inclusion :
- Size :
This is the big one, yet it’s actually hardly a problem. Lorewise, Ogres are about the size of Tauren : Ogres’ height ranges from 6 to 10 feet, with an average of 8 feet (source : Traveler), while the average Tauren height is 10 feet for males and 9 feet for females (source : archived Sean Copeland tweets). To give you an idea, ingame, the size of the Tauren player model is 9 feet for males, 8 feet for females. So yeah, size is actually a non-issue here : you can just downsize Ogres if needed. It is true that the downsized version of the OG Ogre model looked a little awkward, but the downsized WoD model actually looks pretty good !
- Female model :
This has also been brought up for years, including by Blizz devs themselves a while ago, as a justification for the absence of playable Ogres. I think this reasoning is a bit dated now, because I dare hope we’ve since come to terms with the fact that female models don’t have to be conventionally attractive and correspond to our (generally Western) standards of beauty lol that’s a bit twisted. I think Blizzard has more or less internalized that too, judging from the availability of facial hair for female Earthen. I also want to say that… this was never a problem for female Orcs, was it ? Well there’s no reason for female Ogres to be any “uglier” than female Orcs, so we should be fine. I for one always that that the female Dire Blood Troll model from BFA was a great example of what female Ogres could look like : buff and towering, but still cool-looking. https://www.wowhead.com/npc=122483/dire-blood-troll-1x
- Intelligence :
I’ve seen people argue that Ogres are too dumb to be playable. I believe there’s a misconception here : Ogres are not inherently, biologically dumb. WoD Ogres are as smart as any sentient race out there. What happened to MU Ogres is that they went through a complete civilizational collapse that had them spiral downward as a society. The destruction of Goria saw the start of their empire’s brutal collapse, which eventually resulted in them getting enslaved by the Orcs and used as fodder or for manual labor. They lost virtually all of their Gorian knowledge, basically sending them into a dark age. As such, they now sit at the very bottom of the social hierarchy of the Horde (and more generally, of Azeroth, since the non Horde-aligned clans are pretty much just gangs of thieves and disorganized rogue factions). It’s actually pretty interesting to compare them to the Orcs : remember Orc peons ? They speak with broken grammar as well. Yet they’re Orcs, so their perceived “low intelligence” isn’t biological : it’s just a social and political phenomeon. Exploited by the higher ups and used for debilitating manual labor with no access to knowledge and education. Well, same goes for the Ogres - only difference is in their case, it’s way more widespread than the Orcs, because again, they’re stuck in the lowest echelon of the social structure. Even among MU Ogres though, smart ones exist. If you want to solve that issue, just address that problem from that angle, or even have AU Stonemaul help their MU kin reconnect with their Gorian heritage.
- Who would want to play as an Ogre ???
Definitely many more than people who wanted to play as an Earthen or a Junk Gnome lolz
…So yeah. Lore is not an issue, numbers are not an issue, heigh is not an issue, female model is not an issue, intelligence is not an issue. The only issue here is Blizzard’s willingness to do so.
