#ChangeMyMind, Night elves should have been horde originally

[Stenchbone-terenas (Stenchbone)]

Like hamburgers are domesticated tauren.

[Reirâ-proudmoore (Reirâ)]

In all honesty I’m amazed we went alliance. Night elves used to be a warrior race, that only cared for elune. Blizzards bad writing turned them into hippies.
It’s why I play a demon hunter, the one class that isn’t a hippie elf

[Ralanthel-thrall (Ralanthel)]

It honestly makes more sense for the Night Elves to have been Horde. Night Elves and Tauren had a good relationship, and the NIght Elves could have had sympathy for the Orcs falling victim to Legion influence, that almost wiped out the NE civilization. They could have worked something out with the trees / resources, Thrall was a peace junky. Hell, the NEs could have even devised special tree growing methods to sell to the horde. That gives them fast renewable lumber without them having to actually deforest the ecosystem. It could have been very beneficial.

The living humans of Stormwind would have had a good story line about accepting the Undead and using the positioning to reclaim Lordaeron / find a prevention or “cure” to the Scourge, along side a united hatred of Arthas. And as much as I hate to say it, in this situation, the Blood Elves rejoining the Alliance would make absolute sense, and the Worgen would have joined the Horde in response to Undead fear / hatred. That solves the issue of Horde needing a “pretty race” in Night Elves, while still giving them the more beastly options and keeping the Alliance more “traditional good guys.”

But it would have taken some fanangling either way. Night Elves sort of hated everyone in WC3, and everyone kind of hated Undead in Vanilla.

[Calaart-stormrage]

The problem is this would have left Alliance with no viable Druid race

could’ve made priest alliance only to compensate

both the light based classes on one faction, and both the nature based classes on the other.

balance wise it might not work out so well; however, thematically I think it would work fine.

[Averax-staghelm (Averax)]

They were originally horde in early early alpha.

Then they decided to make them alliance to give the alliance some presence on Kalimdor, and gave the horde the Forsaken to give the horde a presence on the eastern kingdoms.

[Fizzer-wyrmrest-accord (Fizzer)]

The foundation to this, is Night elves were originally Dark Trolls, and the horde has already allied with several troll tribes. Blood/High elves honestly should have been kept on alliance.

Tell an elf that they should join you because they’re actually trolls and see how far that gets you.

Also, Grom happened.
https://i.redd.it/2qknrv8zgxl11.jpg
Look at his belt.
Also that pike.
Edit: Also the trees above.

[Calaart-stormrage]

@Averax-staghelm

They were originally horde in early early alpha.

do you have a source for that?

this early alpha screenshot shows them as alliance

[Amarlly-azuremyst (Amarlly)]

this early alpha screenshot shows them as alliance

That looks like a blood Elf to me

[Ralanthel-thrall (Ralanthel)]

I’d see it like this:

New Horde - Orcs, Night Elves, Tauren, Trolls, Worgen. Unique Class - Druid. Troll, Orc, Tauren shaman. Night Elf, Tauren druids.

New Alliance - Humans, Undead, Dwarves, Blood Elves, Gnomes. Unique Class - Paladin. Dwarf Shaman. Human, Dwarf, Blood Elf Paladin.

Druid / Paladin would be great since they are both total hybrid specs. Alliance gets one more Paladin option but one less Shaman Option.

[Mooseclub-magtheridon]

How bout no!

I like the way it is

[Calaart-stormrage]

looks like a weird mix of the two imo, like they weren’t quite sure if they wanted high elves or night elves.

EDIT: but ultimately that does look like the model that would become the night elves in either case.

[Divium-archimonde (Divium)]

To be fair, in WC3, the Night Elves attacked first. The Orcs were doing something that was otherwise an innocent act - cutting down trees in a forest to build a camp. Tyrande overreacted. She could have easily sent an envoy and at least tried diplomacy first, then, PERHAPS, a fight could have been avoided. Grom had the ability to rationalize and think with his brain instead of his axe.

Hell, the Orcs probably could have been reasoned with to the point of “Okay, take this patch of woods to build your dwellings but you leave the rest alone.” and then after establishing some contact and border alliance, this whole conquering could have been avoided. At least when Thrall was warchief, and building off of what had to be established relationships with the Tauren already.

The whole deforestation didn’t occur until Garrosh’s war machine picked up. The Night Elves really blew their chance by not befriending the Orcs, who before that they had no problems with.

People forget night elves were initially savages don’t let wow fool you, night elves are very primal even more than orcs in my opinion.

[Mooseclub-magtheridon]

night elves are very primal even more than orcs in my opinion.

The way Blizzard sees them is totally different now

Revenge? Pfff they all mellow as jello it would seem

[Karat-anubarak (Karat)]

But if Grom had been approached and allowed to determine that his choices were 1) Play nice for awhile or 2) Fight an insanely uphill-battle against a bunch of unknowns, I think he would have chosen to delay the fighting at least until he knew more about what he was up against.

Potentially. He loved Thrall like a brother and respected his judgement. He was pretty irked about Thrall sending him and the Warsong to collect lumber (instead of being where they both thought the fighting would be) but I think his also understood that it wasn’t a baseless punishment.

But since he was attacked first, it was party time. At least until he started losing.

I’ll agree with this somewhat. Being attacked first gave him the perfect excuse to give Thrall on why his axe was bloody.

However, I think that Grom went all in once he had that excuse. He was in full party mode from the start. By the time Cenarius came about, he was so hopped up on violence that he basically didn’t care about why or should anymore.

Tyrande was the control factor and she reacted as aggressively as Grom would have. She could have changed the entire course of events if that one moment had gone differently.

Tyrande wasn’t there at the very first moment. She was in charge of the NEs but she wasn’t there at the pivotal moment. It was a lower-ranking NE who likely overreacted to them cutting down trees and massively underestimated the Warsong’s ability and will to wage war. She probably thought that a good ambush or two would break their will (as it might something like quilboar) and the rest would be easy pickings.

Of course this is really all on the writers who control the characters, but this is fun stuff.

This, we can agree on.

As a side note, I like that he was one or the few that drank the blood that didn’t really suffer from withdrawal. He was able to keep the Warsong from capture after the old Horde fell apart but he struggled to keep his warriors motivated and moving. The power he gained obviously waned (otherwise he wouldn’t have need to drink again to kill Cenarius) but it never fully burned out the same way that it did for most.

[Ralanthel-thrall (Ralanthel)]

The power he gained obviously waned (otherwise he wouldn’t have need to drink again to kill Cenarius) but it never fully burned out the same way that it did for most.

Grom and Garrosh were both characters that I feel were totally wasted. The difference being that Grom fulfilled the role of the story that was being told at the time, and Garrosh was thrown under the bus due to incompetent writing. To the point where a bronze dragon bags on us in game saying “lol you guys got the crappiest version of Garrosh imaginable.” That was painful

I’m having fun rewriting the lore and factions in my head though, it actually works out logically. If anyone from the High Elf threads see me putting Blood Elves on the New Alliance and being excited about it, I’ll get quoted into the ground, but oh well. Under these alternate conditions it would make perfect sense.

[Averax-staghelm (Averax)]

Earlier than that.

They mentioned it once in an interview forever ago. Like when they were laying down the game’s foundations

The horde was also going to have ogres

Also original forsaken looked more interesting than they do now. More human, but clearly dead.

[Msinformed-area-52]

What happened to that dwarfs face? lol

[Fizzer-wyrmrest-accord (Fizzer)]

Uh… Dwarf?

[Msinformed-area-52]

Sorry, I quoted the wrong link (yours) to a response of a link posted earlier.

I think I did that because that link you posted, of Grom, is really cool.
Reminds me of Frank Frazzetta’s work.

[Karat-anubarak (Karat)]

Grom and Garrosh were both characters that I feel were totally wasted. The difference being that Grom fulfilled the role of the story that was being told at the time, and Garrosh was thrown under the bus due to incompetent writing.

The only part of Grom (at least MU Grom) that I thought was odd was his being captured during the WC3 prologue. Other than that, I think that Grom was actually handled well, especially with the development he got in other media. He was always an incredibly skilled and strong-willed but reckless and violent warrior.

That’s both what damned him so much with the demon’s blood but it’s also why he directly attacked (and killed) Mannoroth when he thought Thrall was dead. The smart move would’ve been to (at least pretend to) bow but that wasn’t him. He had the skill and power to be a threat along with the will to kill his “benefactor” (as Mannoroth thought Grom saw him) when he wanted to. As I said earlier, I find that having him be the start and end of the Orcs’ addiction is rather poetic.

As far as Garrosh goes, I always thought he was supposed to be a failure. If Grom was the best of what the Warsong could be, Garrosh was everything that Grom wasn’t. I found it odd when they had him do a 180 at the end of the Nagrand chain.

If I had to pick an Orc that I think they did a disservice to I’d go with Dranosh Saurfang. He’s shown as a berserker in a few quests in Nagrand and then basically does nothing until he dies at the Wrathgate. I think that, especially if they wanted to keep Varok relevant, they should’ve kept him in the Horde. If they had him follow Grom’s footprints despite not being demon-tainted while Varok, who drank the blood and knew what happened when you went too far, struggled to keep him from going too far it would’ve been a much more interesting storyline.