Can The Worgen Be Fixed?

Lore Story Forum
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And not in the Bob Barker way.

I made a similar post on the neighboring RP forums because man do I love werewolves. There’s so many interesting stories you can do with them.

The concept of a part time monster is so inherently gripping. It conjures up unpleasant paranoia. Afterall how well do you really know your neighbors, friends, family- and even yourself? What do they do when they’re strangely unaccounted for during large swaths of time? Ever fail to remember what you did one night? Are you sure it was just boring and that’s why you don’t remember? Unaccounted for time is a scary thing.

As is our own relationship with the Id. The Primal. That shrieking ape still in your head that makes you do so many impulsive things. What if it was dialed up to 11? What if there was a predator in there? We’ve all had times where despite ourselves, we can’t help but get carried away in the emotional winds of the situation. And isn’t that terrifying?

Just imagine a crippling pain coming over yourself. The agony giving way to glee as the scent of prey reaches your nostrils, and your teeth twist into daggers to address it. Your conscious mind slipping away like when falling asleep, but this time unconsciousness gives way to a cacophony of roars and a ravenous hunger that will be sated.

Such is the torment of the Worgen. And I’m not even being cute here, that’s what Blizz decided to call this lovely piece of fiction;

"I did this. I don’t remember doing it, but it cannot be otherwise.
I have committed sins in my life before. I even killed a man once who didn’t deserve it. But this is different.

I am changed.

These murders were not my choice. A beast lives inside of me.
I will be hunted and shunned. I need to hide. Run. Bury the bodies.
I start to walk outside when I realize what truly bothers me.

I feel no guilt."

What a powerful fantasy concept. And what did they do when Worgen became a playable race?

Well…

Anduin’s pet bulldogs. How embarrassing.

Yet I do not think the concept is beyond salvaging. Gilneas in general is a sunk ship of a concept. I’ve rarely seen people treat their own inventions with such indifferent neglect, and I main Forsaken, so that’s saying something.

But there’s nothing saying we can’t see a rebirth of the Worgen curse. Perhaps one cooked up in the churning cauldrons of Drustvar Witches and unleashed upon an unsuspecting humanity. Or perhaps a mad Kaldorei Druid, driven to ceaseless fevered thought by the nightmare, is the one to release the pathogen. Its ultimately fairly irrelevant. We just need a plot device.

A plot device in service of making Worgen monsters again. Make it a curse. Make Stormwindians fearful to walk the streets at night. Make no sensible man trust even their best friend when the gibbous moon rises bright over the white stone.

Make this have a huge prejudice swarm over the existing, domesticated Worgen who are ill equipped to handle this. Give them cause to resettle fair Gilneas, or failing that make their own city on the banks of the Azuremyst Isles. Where they can try to study and cure this new strain.

To no avail. And in fact, worse yet, some are becoming awfully interested in letting go, in letting the beast take the wheel. Afterall there’s no shortage of prey if they simply release the leash in the right location.

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Plus it’d just be fun to have another proper Halloween War between monsters. That you only get to properly experience in the Silverpine questline.

Rather than a battle between creatures of the night in fog filled forests and haunted castles the Forsaken V Gilnean rivalry, when Blizz remembers it exists, feels less like a gothic horror cage match and more like;

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I always liked the idea of Worgen Supremiscts spreading the plague to willing refugees who want to take the fight to the Horde. It turns even the standard farmer or civuilan into a killing machine. Maybe we could get a new Alpha who leads them against the horde.

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What I’d love more than anything is if we revisited Silverpine because the Scarlet Onslaught, intent to purge the Forsaken and Worgen mutation from the dirt of once noble Lordaeron and Gilneas, launched an invasion.

And you’ve like the Bloodfangs and a neo Forsaken Cult of the Damned hyping up their respective alternative humanity to exasperated human refugees.

Like a worgen is explaining how much better raw meat tastes and a Forsaken is just stabbing herself repeatedly to show off how resilient they are.

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Been there, done that. It was what happened to the refugees of Southshore.

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Well those mouth breathers had more than ample opportunity to flee to Alliance territory. But they figured trying to exterminate their now more bright eyed former neighbors might play out in their favor.

And the funniest thing to me is the ones who drank the wolf blood got marched into a rocket turret killzone with overlapping fields of fire. Just so the Gilneans could set up more meaningful traps for the Forsaken down the line.

I’ve never seen a more idiotic group of people in any setting, and I hope they all wound up in Maldraxxus as undead worgen just so their abject stupidity could dawn on them.

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  1. You do realize the Forsaken have spent the better part of their existence as a meat shield for the Horde. 2) Based on the Eastern Kingdoms book the Alliance is finally planning on reclaiming it. 3) the events that occured suggested even though a good number were killed many more were turned. 4) Sylvanas got betrayed by Godfrey, the Forsaken have the least right to call anyone idiotic. 4) The worgens will probably end up in Ardenweald/Bastion. If anyone is going to Maldraxxus its the forsaken.
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Neat. They still get to be a fun gothic horror faction. Meanwhile the worgen are pets. And I just sort of presume the Draenei have replaced oxen in Elwyn seeing as all non human factions are just playthings for the Stormwindians.

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I think you’d have to change how the writers want to portray the alliance at all in order to really spice things up. Obviously I’m biased on the subject but I think worgen on alliance are almost inherently dampened as a horde opponent because the whole “peekaboo monster” and infectious nature has been designed to only affect the same races they’re allied with; no horde member is going to inherently trust what looks like a human solely on account of his race.

I suppose you could tweak the writing a bit so that worgen bites are naturally venomously fatal to other races instead. If a monster mash is what you’re after, I think worgen would only pair well with draenei (demons); perhaps you could do a dark/light 2v2 match of worgen/draenei with forsaken/tauren.

Blizzard toyed with the idea of having that moon juice cure only be temporary in WoD, but cut that content altogether. So I assume that, unless interest changes, them not being monsters is now the point because that’s what separates them from the “real” monsters of the horde. And Blizzard seems averse to showing intra-faction prejudice for a race that currently ought to be more naturally anti-human than even the forsaken.

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The biggest issue concerning the worgen? Is getting blizzard to realize they still exist as a playable race (besides when it’s convenient for them).

There is so much potential but sadly it’s been squandered for the last 10+ yrs. :wolf:

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I saw you update your post to change the sad face to a wolf and it was like watching emoji lycanthropy happen in real time. :stuck_out_tongue:

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I thought the biggest issue facing Worgen, was how Blizz settup Worgen?

Where the curse doesn’t pass down through children, which means it has to come through infection. Its treated as a curse, with few real advantages to the downsides outside of combat (and in this game where power levels do not matter and a teenager pretending to be a paladin is a god of combat) And its so potent that it actually afflicts your very soul, so you are a Worgen even after death? Which has resulted in a “yeah … we’re not passing this down to the next generation if we can help it” philosophy from like … all of the Gilnean leaders?

In short, Blizz has created a weird problem where you have a bunch of players who love playing Werewolves, playing in universe people who don’t have any reason to continue being werewolves (nor propagating that curse). And the only way to propagate it is to essentially violate and force it on someone, as there are just not enough current positives to offset the apparent negatives for people to request/accept the curse willingly. Since … again … it alters you down to your very eternal soul. Its a one and done deal.

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There is that too, it’s just…there’s a ton of problems facing the worgen and it’s a complicated issue that is going to take YEARS of competent writing to even begin to address them, let alone fix them.

Not gonna lie, it’s why I secretly bristle at the notion that the kaldorei have had it the worst when it comes to writing. At least blizz remembers they’re still in the damn game, you know?

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You’re probably not the only one sadly. Nor of the only race (Lookin at you Tauren, Gnome, Dwarf, and Forsaken fans). Because truly, just like the Worgen, none of these races really get stories or written. Its just their leaders get placed in stories irrelevant to their respective races. Pretty sure “irrelevant to their respective race” is not something you can latch to whatever is going on with Tyrande, Elune, and the Night Warrior atm.

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Exactly, Ardenweald…the one place where Wild Gods are reborn. Perfect time to dedicate a LITTLE TIME to the worgen curse and maybe add a little extra flavor or background lore it.

But nope….somehow I’m supposed to care about the Night Warrior, and I don’t, like at all. Don’t get me wrong, I get the legitimate concerns NE fans have, but at least they didn’t get a heritage armor quest that basically told worgen players You suck, human potential rules baby and your race WILL die on in a generation

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Or Maldraxxus, the literal root source of the Forsaken (and their creator)? You’d think AS A RACE, they could find some relevance there too. But nope lol! Or the Tauren ANYWHERE in the lands of the dead? Nope. Its all “By the Light”, “Human Death Knights”, and “The Night Warrior” subplot.

EDIT: Also, as a weird tangent, I was browsing through that NE Echo-Chamber of a thread “Night Elves and the Alliance”. God, if there was ever a thread that proves that certain segments of the NE playerbase only see the Worgen and Draenei as accessory races of the NEs (to be used for their convenience, to justify certain Anti-Alliance story beats they want to see) … it be that one lol! Those two PC races are tools.

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Thats wrong. The most ne don’t want the worgen and draenei be forced in a position in which one their characters works differently as their character supposed to work.

Most ne want a different position within the alliance, but they dont wanr this supreme-human- potential. Most of the time the ne characters are written in an entire different way, compared to their former characters

Thats an argument in bad faith

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And its just “convenience” that them “working the way they should” just happens to be REALLY convenient for what parts of the NE playerbase wants. Because truly, neither the Worgen/Gilneans OR the Draenei have reasons to leave the Alliance for the NEs in ANY hypothetical Kaldorei 3rd Faction. The Draenei culturally mesh far more naturally with the other Light Practicing races of the EK Alliance than they do the Kaldorei. And the Worgen’s primary goal is the reclamation of their home of Gilneas (and the surrounding areas) … which is on EK.

But … those factors aren’t allowed to play into such Anti-Alliance NE discussions. And when I see certain NE players complaining about “Human Potential”, it definitely doesn’t come off like they’re mad that that sort of preferential treatment exists. Rather they just see the Kaldorei as more worthy and deserving of it. Which is part of why you can go into that thread and look at so many of our dear Worgen-Fan resident (Micah)'s posts and see just how few NE players actually threw a like her way. Because they only care about NEs.

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I’m probably putting a bit too much of myself into this, but I think another missed opportunity was in the game not seemingly doing a whole lot with the whole “lost identity” aspect and questioning whether or not you really are a monster. As far as I know, there’s only a single instance of this in Duskwood, and they unfortunately ruined the Lolita reference trying to do it.

Imagine a worgen waking up, looking in the mirror, and the reflection looking back at him is the face of a monster that figuratively killed him, and almost literally did as well. Having your self-perception thrown out the window, hating yourself for becoming what you were raised to fear, and essentially going into the closet because “normal” people wouldn’t accept you, even if you want them to. That should screw you up.

To me, monster is an otherizing word, a label you put on other things or people out of disrespect, revulsion, fear, or a mix of them, etc. Self-identity isn’t the only part of your identity, and I think that if you want a character to identify as a monster (even if to put a positive spin on it), then they need to struggle with feeling or being treated like one first, by people they want to accept them. Because if they’re accepted off the bat, why wouldn’t they continue to hold onto their old identities as humans?

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The thing is they have some great moments in Horde, and Neutral, content.

I’ve said at length before how well done Silverpine is so I won’t rehash it at length. But to say it quickly, the Worgen are so ferocious and ruthless that it gives pause to the Banshee Queen. Little Miss Mass Murder herself is going;

"Well ish. Even I don’t use suicide bombers. These dudes are really playing for keeps’

There’s also the Worgen pirates in the Booty Bay story. Which is actually a really fun and easily missed questline. And it shows a surprising commitment to quest continuity. I’d noticed in Classic that a lot of pirates were Gilnean. Probably so Stormwindian players felt less weird beheading humans in Horde territory. But they actually kept that plot thread going.

And they get a fun bit on the Horde intro in BFA. Where you’ve to escape from an army of Worgen who hound you across Stormwind. And it’s the only time it feels tense as unlike Anduin these guys are going to give you a lot worse than a stern talking to.

So there are plenty of times where the Worgen come off as borderline feral monsters who’ve come to wreak havoc. But they won’t let you experience that while playing a Worgen, for some reason.

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