Fair point. On that single issue, I stand corrected.
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Wrathgate, Derek, not explaining the whole free will thing, being able to raise NEâs at all.
This whole expansion has enough retcons that Iâve stopped caring about the story. I used to read quest text. Now thoughâŚ
No point really to read any of it.
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Theyâre physically different in more ways than hairstyles and tattoos, though. (And that might be why we got Dark Irons as an allied race instead of Wildhammers.)
It seems to me that an allied race should be either significantly physically different from the race theyâre allied to, or newly joining up with them, or both. Otherwise, whatâs the point of making a whole new race instead of just customization options?
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I donât disagree with you. Honestly though, I think the idea of Allied races would have made more sense as subraces that could have been chosen on the customization scree. I think the biggest reason Blizzard didnât do it that way is because they want to further homogenize the factions, and add Alliance Variations of Horde races and vice versa.
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I donât personally feel Dark Irons fit that criteria. A Dark Iron looking dwarf was already a customization option. The previous canonical physical difference between Dwarves and Dark Irons was their skin colors. Wildhammers also used to have the distinction of being relatively taller than their Ironforge kin, but I donât know if that has persisted in current lore and certainly isnât represented in-game.
As for just joining? I mean I overall find it a bit odd that we pretty much already had the Dark Irons join, but now weâre just kind of using the excuse that some of them tried to kill us to justify bringing in that extra murdery segment to the fold.
This has been the biggest Retcon upset for me, and now when i look at it under the lense that Blizzard has thoroughly made the horde the bad guys it bothers me even more. When i considered it bad/inconsistent writting it made me upset but now that it seems in line with there current horde tropes im disengaged.
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IMO itâs really just a cynical money-grab for race change micro-transactions.
Mmm, I feel thatâs a bold statement to say itâs a âretcon.â Were they tempered to be less war-like than their WC1/2 representations? Sure. Of course that tempering itself was a retcon. The original Orc origins had nothing about any different past, and their planet seemed to always be pretty crappy, instead of being made to be crappy by Fel (which wasnât a fully developed concept by that point anyway).
Then consider that book which first shifted that narrative was Lord of the Clans. Where Thrallâs mentor was an Orc who continued a quest to dominate the humans of Azeroth without direction from Gulâdan or the Legion. He had his reasons to be sure (dying planet) but he was no innocent puppy dog either. Then we had Rise of the Horde where the Orcs were indeed tricked into forming the original Horde. Yet many of their leaders honestly didnât seem to need much convincing. Many orcs seemed pretty happy to go on a rampage, even before drinking Mannorthâs blood.
Truth is, theyâve always been a savage race from a brutal and dangerous planet that was trying to kill them. They respond to things with violence as their solution quickly. I donât think that has ever been inconsistent besides a few allusions to them being less violent before the Burning Legion.
I actually donât think what they did with Suramar and the Broken Isles in general is that bad of a retcon. Because sprouting from that retcon we received several zones, including Valâsharah and Highmountain, and one of my favorite storylines in Legion in general, the Nightfallen Rebellion.
If this was the intended goal, making it so race changed toons donât get the heritage set and asking people to level Allied Race character 20-110 might not be conducive to that end.
Maybe. I also think they wanted to have the rep requirements for unlocking allied races, and that might have been harder to code if they were sub-categories of existing races that you can choose even as a brand-new player. Or maybe it was a marketing decision and they just thought separate âallied racesâ sounded like a bigger deal.
Yeah, but now they have cool flaming hair and beards, which wouldnât make sense on any other kind of dwarf. So theyâre significantly different from other dwarves now, even if they werenât before.
I guess you could theoretically do the same kind of retcon with Highborne.
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Itâs a win-win for them even with the alt leveling IMO. They can get money from micro transactions from the players who donât care about heritage armor, and also pad their player engagement numbers which is a defining factor in their business metrics. They basically get the best of both worlds with the model theyâve adopted.
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Why canât you give Bronzebeads flaming beards? They live in a giant forge filled with molten metal! A singed beard fits them just fine IMO. The Dark Irons have some more specific lore for that sure, but it seems silly to create a whole no race for a singed beard and some other smaller flavor cosmetics, at least if weâre talking about other races being more unique than that.
Iâd actually find the Nightborne look to have been a cool customization option to go with Night Elf mages. I personally donât get much out of having a Nightborne race when all Iâd do is roll a mage with them. And then Iâd just think, âWhy donât I just play a night elf mage?â
Not âsingedââmade of fire! I personally donât think that really fits bronzebeards. And when you put that together with the skin tones, you get enough of a meaningful difference to justify an allied race, IMHO. But thatâs just MHO.
Bold or not, it is a retcon because it is a change to previously established lore. They could have said from the beginning that the orcs fought each other over territory and resources. In fact, that would have actually humanized them more, seeing as it would show that before the Legion came around they were just like the people of Azeroth.
Direct quote from the orc race summery you can go read on the WoW home page.
âThey abandoned their peaceful culture when Kilâjaeden, a demon lord of the Burning Legion, corrupted the orcs and used them in his vengeful plot against the draenei.â
Again it states clearly that they had a peaceful culture and only change when the Legion showed up. Then WoD happened and said they fought each other all the time.
So thatâs the truth of it. From Blizzardâs own mouth till they decided to change it.
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I understand the throwaway lines about the Orcish peaceful culture, but nothing about the actual depiction or lore of the Orcs has changed. On the one hand we have a few places that say they were peaceful. Then we have actual depictions of them dating back to pre-Warcraft 3 release, which was simultaneously defining their new identity. We then have that same depiction more or less being carried over into WoW and WoW-era novels.
Thereâs no retcon, just a few places where the WoW team describes the Orcs as peaceful (inaccurately).
Edit: Although to temper this I would say that they were indeed relatively peaceful compared to their Legion mania of course. Which is why I think they were described that way. Still, it doesnât mean that they could find some other way to war.
I think this is a spot were we might have to agree to disagree. In response to one of your examples of them being less prone to being peaceful, being from after coming to Azeroth, I think it makes sense for them to think that fighting was all they could do since they were now stuck on a world that in general hated them for what they had done under the effects of demon blood. Kind of the whole cornered animal scenario.
Also, to be more clear, I am not saying they never fought each other on their home world. That wouldnât make sense seeing as they would naturally fight over land and resources just like people do. But WoD changed that by making the orc BRUTAL.
They went from probably some general fighting for land and resources, to being members of such brutal clans that just kill their weak for asking for help or cutting off their hands and replace it with swords, willingly.
They went from shamanistic to full on Death Metal race with WoD. Thatâs what I am getting at. It was a hard tone shift.
Edit: That was not hinted at or said. Thus why I see it as a retcon
I donât understand the âpeaceful nature of the orcsâ When all the clans tend to be defined by warfare. Even prior to the Legion, the Warsong were renowned for raiding against the Ogres. Frostwolf constantly warred with the Thunderlords. Blackrock built weapons of war. Bleeding Hallow constantly fought the Arrakoa. The Shattered Hand literally mutilate themselves and began slaves who killed their masters.
I am not saying any of this history makes the orcs bad or evil. A lot of it is self defense, I get that. But we defiantly canât say the orcs were ever peaceful, except maybe the Shadowmoon.
I think Warlods of Draenor confirmed this more than anything, where the orcs thirsted to be conquerors even without the demon blood.
See I want to know if this was shown prior to WoD. Because if it was, Iâve never seen it and this could just come down to me not having the whole picture.
As far as I am aware though, a lot of this didnât come into knowledge till WoD came out.
WoD defiantly expanded on it. I think it is important to note though, that the orcs were invented by Blizzard originally to be villains. Warcraft 1 and 2, they were the bad guys. So a lot of the lore we have on the orc clans was made through that lens. Here is what is said from the Warcraft 2 manual:
wowwiki.wikia (dot) com/wiki/Clans_of_the_Horde
Not much info, but there are a few consistencies. As far as I know, thatâs kind of the extent of what we knew about Orc clans prior to WoD. There is probably a few things from TBC.
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Okay so with seeing that, it looks like the peaceful culture was the retcon to try and not make them villains in WC3 or WoW and then blizzard switched back.
Even though I played Warcraft 2 the most I never did read the manual, also I was five when it came out lol man I feel old now.