Humans are terribly characterized in this game

Amadis-draka · November 22, 2019, 5:19am

Zuleika posted this a while back:

Bo Bell worked on the original creation of WoW. The question is in a Reddit AMA, from a user named Qayindo, who had two questions, so I’ve snipped the quote below to just the relevant parts.

https://www.reddit.com/r/classicwow/comments/9fb2bo/john_staats_ama_author_of_the_world_of_warcraft/

Qayindo: I wonder about the Forsaken. What inspired the dev team (or maybe just Chris Metzen) to invent the Forsaken (or at least them being a Scourge breakaway)? Was it just so that there would be non-Scourge Undead as a playable Race? To have “Good Undead”?

Bo Bell: … As for the Forsaken. Well.

Early on, the Horde was definitely considered the “evil” faction. The Forsaken were going to be the undead player race (they weren’t called Forsaken yet). Possibly even part of the Scourge. Metzen was still writing WCIII at the time and nothing was solid yet. Once WCIII was done it was obvious that players couldn’t be Scourge, what with being minions of the Lich King and all. But they were still totally evil. Obviously.

But then, there was the epiphany that some people were into playing evil races/factions. Whereas a LOT more people wanted to play as these "evil races (Forsaken not included) but as the good guys (Thrall’s Orcs during WCIII).

So, Metzen needed to come up with something for the undead. We seriously considered dropping them, but every time we looked at concepts/in game assets we balked. Then he announced the Forsaken.