Why does everyone rag on the big human focus but not the massive orc focus, which I would say is even bigger, the orc shadow literally covers the horde, more than humans do with the alliance.
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The orcs dont even have a racial leader anymore. Thralls still sidelined. I dont see how their shadow âliterally covers the hordeâ?
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Possibly because overemphasis on humans in fantasy universes full of different-species civilizations often comes with the implicit idea that non-humans are on some level fundamentally âbrokenâ or âincomplete,â being comprised of narrowly selected and then exaggerated human traits. Consequently the humans frequently come across in the role of the âproperly balancedâ race that all these fractured caricature civilizations need to show them how to be functioning people.
Conversely, while WarCraftâs orc-originating concepts of loyalty to the Horde are made a big deal of, itâs never really implied on a meta-level that the other Horde races are âdoing civilization wrongâ and need to start being more like the orcs to overcome their respective cultural dysfunctions. On the contrary, that was arguably Garroshâs schtick concerning the orcsâ allies, and it was clearly painted as the wrong way to see such things.
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How many cinematics did saurfang get, what was that orc xpac we had before legion? Remember when the first non orc warchief got sidelined for thralls time adventures
remember when the 2nd non orc warchief story became about her ruining orcish honor?
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We saw a less âgameplay orientedâ view of the purge of Stratholme and we see people trying to run out of the city. People potentially not infected.
Also, considering Lordearon still fell the purge was meaningless.
Actually hardly with relative easy and Thoradin in fact required everyone to unite to actually have a more permanent solution to the trolls.
Deathwing could have burned the entire city if he wanted! As for âminorâ I wouldnt call the destruction of an entire section of the city minor.
No one actually knew they might have to shut the portal on Draenor side until after Nerâzhul opened dozens of portals!
The Horde still burned down Tol Barad. And the reason the humans were able to fight back was because the humans had new allies. Heck, warcraft 2 states that âdwarven cannons were fully loaded and others armed themselves with elven steel and mailâ. Not to mention the mages and gryphon riders joined them!
The humans were outnumber. Luckly the Horde were not very tactical in their attack.
The war was hardly phony. It just so happened were all much stronger than he anticipated.
It was a town that at that point had no warrior to defend them. It was an important point that the Alliance attacked them AFTER the hunters all left.
Azeroth is a âhero factoryâ for the most part everyone gets beaten up at the start and gets to later get their moments to shine. Hell, as an example, even though Cenarius died he got ressurected later.
Similarly, the night elves retook their land in Darkshore and even though they lost Teldrassil the Horde paid for it dearly.
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Keep in mind though humans are not Azerothâs indigenous race - Trolls are.
I was discussing the improved ethnicity graphics for humans and noted it was sort of a shame WoW doesnt have much in the way of human diversity. All the kingdoms sorta have the same vaguely European vibe.
Compare that to Warhammer where itâs basically just a magical version of our world. Most of the story centers around that worldâs Germany analogue but variants on Asia, Africa and the Americas exist. Perhaps not touched on much but if they wanted to do fantasy Samurais or Zulus the precedence is there.
But in Azeroth the trolls actually developed kinda like humans did in reality. With different cultures, ethnicities and deities developing around each groupâs geographic circumstance.
Humans in this setting though are all the descendants of robots from space who caught a literal skin condition from Cthulu. Theyâre as magical and out of place as the Orcs when you get right down to it. If they seem weirdly strong and just kinda off relative to other settings itâs because they by design are.
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Poor Volâjin. The perfect mixture of Honor and Pragmatism. A Warchief that actually earned his title. Squandered by a trash mob to settup BfAâŠ
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Humanâs in WoW are boring because blizzard is big on parading around their favorite characters, and ignore everything else. Humanâs donât struggle because that would be a flaw, and a flaw is something they can not have, as they are supposed to be a Jack of All Trades (Blizzard seemed to ignore the Master of None quality though). Their religion has never been flushed out, their military is as bare bones as possible, and their spy agency is flat put incompetent, but it doesnât matter because theyâre just the best.
Itâs stupid because it makes stormwind Boring and so poorly developed that it canât do anything without pisses people off.
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Probably because for all Warcraftâs flaws itâs setting has the best Orcs.
Now I know thatâs subjective. 40ks Orks are probably the most entertaining for my money. But WoW was the first to take Orcs and move them from fantasy battle CE canon fodder to a faction with actual characters, pathos, cultures etc.
Itâs kinda the inverse of Tolkien. Here the Orcs are all dignified with a rich history and memorable characters but the humans are all pretty generic fantasy stock types.
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Tolkien never really liked his Orcs tbf, they were more just a nessesity of giving his villains an evil army to be overcome.
As for WoW, while technically not the first to make good orcs, it did popularize the concept, issue being, most of blizzard did not want that to my knowledge. WoW was in development around the same time as WC3, and the creators of WoW 100% thought the Horde was gonna be Pure Evil, hell, the forsaken are even named âScourgeâ in the games files. Issue is Metzenâs team did make the Horde more then generic Baddies, which completely blindsided the WoW team, and they were forced to, rather begrudgingly in a lot of cases, to make the Horde not âMetalâ as they called it.
Blizzard seems to really want the game to be âGeneric Fantasy Settingâ but were strong armed by actually creative people into making a more unique setting.
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And God bless 'em for that.
The Horde really saves the game creatively. Itâs a pretty basic idea - what if these monstrous fantasy races were ya know, not monsters? - but itâs pretty unique. Sure Orcs at least capable of being friendly is kinda old hat now but minotaurs, the living dead, goblins etc. all being basically people as well is fairly specific to Azeroth.
Thatâs not to say the Alliance is bereft of cool stuff. The Draenei are a stand out addition. Tiny tinkerer types in fantasy isnât new but the Gnomes wear the trope well. Same with the Dwarves. Even the Nelves, who are just Wood Elves but what if purple, have enough distinct style to make WoWâs version stand out.
The humans though? Well - the KulâTirans are a step in the right direction. Their land feels storied and lived in. They have a culture and religion all their own and even folk songs. Compare that to Stormwind which might as well be a playmobil castle playset.
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âmuh titan constructsâ.
I find it amazing people excuse things like the super lackluster portrayal of any mages besides humans with few exceptions (BoD monk and mage boss for Alliance). We have cultures defined by magic in the Horde who often just get to have generic fodder mages as their magical representation. Why is Rommath so absent? Why is the leader of the Nightborne so pathetic? That one is even worse, because they are actually using that character but decided she is only good at barriers for some reason.
Your very being deeply touched by magic doesnât mean anything, but being descended from titan golems turned into flesh is everything apparently. Despite orcs not having their own arcane demigod.
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quote=âZerde-sargeras, post:25, topic:365572â]
We saw a less âgameplay orientedâ view of the purge of Stratholme and we see people trying to run out of the city. People potentially not infected.
Also, considering Lordearon still fell the purge was meaningless.
[/quote]
Thanks to Arthas purging the Undead. They are lucky that they werenât caught by turned citizens because Arthas killed so many Scourge.
The purge was not meanigless as it saved the lives of those uninfected, like you pointed out.
Yes, still prevail against the Trolls.
The neighborhood park and a single statue falling isnât minor damage?
And that was the only danger they faced. They Orcs were never a threat even though it was their world. It was like invading Azeroth, but the humans steamed rolled through them.
Wow! The Orcs burn a small island prison. How hard was that considering they had dragons to protect them from Proudmoore?
No. The dwarven cannons coming from the bronzebeard dorfs only came during the latter half of the Second War. The part where the Horde is humiliatingly running away from the Alliance. Elven assistance was relatively sparse with only alleria putting work. They were busy doing clean up duty after Gulâdan decided to betray the Horde.
If the only positive trait the Orcs had was because they overwhelmingly outnumbered the humans then that does not speak volmues to their quality or threat level. The Scourge outnumbered the humans, but they also had powerful abominations that could cleave charging knights, magic, and the plague.
The Orcs in the Second war not being tactical goes against the description the reader was given of the Orcs during the Draenei genocide. They were supposedly lead by the Blackrock clan, the very clan that is described to have the most discipline and planned their attacks. Obviously this mean Doomhammer is a chump and should have stayed maid to the more militarily gifted Blackhand.
âYou trained them well, Fordring. You delivered the greatest fighting force this world has ever known⊠right into my hands - exactly as I intended! You shall be rewarded for your unwitting sacrifice. Watch now as I raise them from the dead to become masters of the Scourge. They will shroud this world in chaos and destruction. Azerothâs fall will come at their hands â and you will be the first to die.â -LK upon one shotting the raid
âI do not know, Jaina. I suspect that the piece of Arthas that might be left inside the Lich King is all that holds the scourge from annihilating Azeroth.â -Utherâs spirit telling Jaina about Arthas
They were still Tauren. A race of 12 foot minotaurs. It doesnât matter that the hunters left, their village was in danger and these tiny humans should of stuggled against these monsters. We did not get that. Instead what we got was a reminder of what happened to the Native Americans.
I apologize if itâs a little hard to read. Iâm a phone poster and editing my post for proper format is challenging.
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All WoW races has their greatest strengths & flaws regardless however you wish to say otherwise,
Something in common we all share (WoW âracesâ) is time, mortality and history being written based on the accounts of what happened vs being told by a different subjective perspective from someone who will tell the tale based on either their trauma, political mindset, pride and/or resentment.
Humans are versatile & a jack of all trades creatures indeed, and can never be excellent at all or even at one craft (magic, swordsmanship, power to rule, blacksmith etc.,) even if one was to dedicated their whole lives to something they desire to master (Jaina with magic, Mattias Shawn on espionage, assasination & Anduin still willing to learn to handle politics over combat).
But thatâs far from the truth regarding versatility, it is the diversity in which what a single human can bring that would prosper an event (A veteran knight that not only excelled at combat but also inherited more survival tips to share for the next generation for either battle, proper ways to work within your own team, and/ or how to better switch stances between defenders mobility and charge offenders while avoiding straight face to face combat with a physical superior orc).
âAgainst all oddsâ isnât necessary something thatâs noble worth for sacrificing, it could also mean that a general would send cavalry directly towards a heavily fortified enemy defense just to attempt to shatter it all while at the cost of knowing well the survival chances for those cavalry troops would be 1 to none. It can also be something related to survival mindset and still do what you can to either escape it or overcome it while morality & hope isnât found.
I cannot state that these qualities are what makes humans superior while I cannot dent that humans are indeed far more versatile than all races in which comes at greatest advantage and or disadvantage when it doesnât work try the other way.
An elf could indeed be mastering swordsmanship and military tactics for other a thousand years but swordsmanship ship styles are also too diverse and it based based on the type of sword youâre seeking to better handle it (A pike sword, scimitar, long/short swords etc,. are all wielded differently & thus it is all situational based)
Not undermining elves here, just the fact that their culture is too stagnant for being long lived races that it is difficult to comprehend the concept of âliving longerâ and still maintain memory/skill practice to what you did all your life without going obsolete. Then again why the hell invest all your life on something while not giving room for learning in other areas?
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I wouldnât agree. Azeroth seems beset by numerous threats. On one hand, you have the mundane issues that plague life. Bandits (like the Defias or Gnolls), animals (wolves, bears, so on), various monsters of organized and unorganized fashion (Trolls, Ogres, etc).
Then on top of this, greater threats. The Legion (for a long time), the Scourge and other rogue undead factions like the Cult of the Damned, invasions from other worlds, invasions from other timelines, cataclysm causing dragons, undersea Naga sinking ships. Old Gods and their bug minions about. Almost every human nation has fallen by now, most of the elves are all genocided (Blood Elf, Nightborne, and Night Elf).
That said, Warcraft is not Warhammer. Clearly the depictions of humanity are not the same between them. And it doesnât necessarily need to be. A bigger issue (to me) is that the story can shift tonally a lot depending on the writer or situation. You can have the Ashbringer strike down a ton of undead or you can have one guy struggling against a single Orc. There are clear gulfs in tone there.
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This may sound crazy, but the solution to human potential might be more human kingdoms in the Alliance. There has possibly been a trend with human talent being inversely proportional to variety in humans. In Vanilla, the Alliance had human representation from:
1.) Stormwind
2.) Dalaran (outside the cityâs shield, Ambermill, Nethergarde Keep, Lordamere Internment Camp)
3.) Theramore
4.) Stromgarde (1/3 of Stromgarde Keep, Refuge Pointe, Arathi Basin)
5.) remnants of Lordaeron (Southshore, Hillsbrad Fields, Azureload Mine)
Since then, Dalaran is now neutral-ish, Ambermill and Azureload Mine were lost, Nethergarde Keep, Lordamere Internment Camp, Theramore, Northwatch Hold, Southshore, and Hillsbrad Fields were all destroyed. But all the while, the role of humans has only increased, as has their talent. Stormwind replaced Ironforge as the main hub. Varian was so highly capable, he made Tyrande, Muradin, and Falstad look like buffoons. The General of the Sentinel Army did field work alongside a human meme character. Anduin and Jaina are growing in power. And Anduinâs harem and pool of doting father figures are only increasing.
We can only hope Kul Tiras rejoining and Stromgarde being restored will help the situation. And if so, hope for the return of Gilneas and Dalaran as well.
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No, stop this, i refuse to let any more Reclaiming Lordaeron obsessed Idiots emerge. Stromgarde fine, whatever, Gilneas, why not, but not Lordaeron, because i am sick and tired of stupid faction conflict obsessed players being given fuel for their fire.
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Oh I completely agree. Part of my plan is that if the factions get back everything they had in Vanilla, those players would have a lot of their grievances pulled out from under them. 
But I think the capital city and the rest of Lordaeron (other than those select spots) should always remain Forsaken controlled.
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Then let the Alliance have Lordearon. The remaining Forsaken can have all of Northrend for all I care.
Why would the Forsaken want Northrend when Lordaeron has always been rightfully theirs?
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