I wish Blizz would go a little further with cultures than their stereotypes

Community General Discussion
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Like…okay.
Lemme rattle off a list for you.
Human: Stereotypical fantasy human. European dark ages. Boring.
Dwarf: Irish stereotype. Beer potatoes and beer. Angry. Drunk. Oh gods.
Gnomes: Super smart EXPLOSIONS but totally controlled haha irradiation what?
Draenei: Sad religious goat people. Also broken are stupid. Haha draenei don’t understand human culture
Night Elf: Girls like NATURE and SAVING SQUIRRELS and the Guys are all BEARS AND CATS and must save the forest! 10,000 years of experience, who’s heard of that?
Worgen: Argh. British. It’s Chewsday innit? Oh wait sorry I was never a person I’m actually just a l o n g d o g :tm: Struggle between humanity and beast? OH LOOK A BONE!

Pandaren: Chinese stereotypes. Gods the grummles just…oh gods.

Orcs: Hurr Durr DUMB PEONS also DUMB ORCS also ORC WANT WAR also ORC
Undead: Haha I’m evil, end all life on Azeroth, look at my waggly tongue, was I ever human? Totally not traumatized bro
Blood elves: Rich people stereotype? Dunno. Posh, drinks manawine, does drugs but since they’re rich it doesn’t matter. Trauma from sunwell? It’s finnnne forgettahboutit
Tauren: Oh…boy. There’s some native american stereotypes there and like…oh dear.
Trolls: Jamaican stereotype…and…oh gods.
Goblin: Haha I’ll do anything for money even enslave others I’m THAT chaotic evil! I’m capitalism incarnate and morality is a myth

Just like…okay. I think it’s fine to take inspiration from a culture or a time period, but don’t just rip it off and use it to print out one dimensional characters that are just embodiments of that culture’s stereotype in western culture.

Like…okay, let’s take humans and orcs. Humans - sure, start out with stormwind as that fantasy standard (it shouldn’t be) but how about we get some more visible lore about the cultures of all the other human kingdoms? About how they’re more varied and culturally different the further north you go? The humans of stormwind are the youngest, and last human culture, and could have this exploration of their past while also trying to figure out where to go next. Just ANYTHING BUT THE STANDARD MIDDLE AGES EUROPE

The orcs have SO MUCH lost potential. You have this culture that essentially had their traditions and ways erased by the demons, as well as every other war. There could be this dichotomy between trying to move away from their past while dealing with the fact that they have to protect themselves. There could be the rediscovery of old traditions while also pushing forward, slowly and carefully this time. Orcs would make progress as a society, as well as innovate in technology, far beyond their warrior-based system. I just…wish blizzard would move away from these…cookie cutter standards I guess.

ALSO PLEASE just stop with the drunk dwarves and goodness just flesh all of these cultures out a bit so they can be…better.

EDIT: Aight I’m rather bad at judging what stereotypes are and what aren’t - TLDR of this post is that I’m rather miffed that Blizz is just scratching the surface of what they’ve got. Like there’s a great foundation laid for all these cultures and we’re just not seeing much of it.

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Apparently we are also from the Bronx or something haha.

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Sorry I’m from boston that’s just how we talk 'round here.

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Sorry, but blizzard shouldn’t take any advice on flushing out races by somebody who seems to boil orcs down to unga bunga

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Okay but have you BEEN to the Iron Docks dungeon? Or been inside the upper Blackrock mountain dungeon? Or talked to most orc npcs? It’s either unga bunga or they’re just bloodthirsty for no reason

Like I KNOW there are exceptions. I’m just saying like…in general, y’know?

Me busy, leave me alone

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Such a wall of text for something that… makes no point. Sorry, don’t mean to be rude.

Fantasy & RPG genre has fundamental classic stereotypes because that IS what makes it fantasy.

It is also a 15 (almost 16) year old game.

Also, it HAS in fact incorporated A LOT of different influences that are not part of the root of the genre.

What exactly do you want that hasn’t been done?

Lore development sadly is no longer the forte of the game. It just isn’t. And it can’t be mind you.

That isn’t what most young players look for, and they NEED to cater to them, not us.

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Hate to break it to you but wow from the very beginning has been all about ripping off popular stereotypes, like, thats its thing, If i was going to meme wow thats what it would be about.

ps i did like the chewsday innit comment lol

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you forgot void elfs, over privileged Cali kids wanting to rebel and act oppressed, omg they are antifa… :open_mouth:

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So your mad about what the peons day when you click on them…? You mean the dialog interaction designed to be a meme when you click them repeatedly…?

That’s how you think blizz tries to show orcs as In game?

We just gonna forget their storylines in Outland, borean tundra, the entirety of warlords? Black morass? Saurfangs character development?

We just gonna pretend those don’t exist?

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Okay I know that’s how it started, I do! I understand that! This was a game made in 2003.
But it has also been OVER A DECADE. You have the opportunity with this game to take its CORE PLAYABLE CULTURES and DO SOMETHING WITH THEM. Like…I’ll be honest. I loved Kul’tiras. I loved Zandalar. That was some great world building. The thing is, when you put them side by side with the core cultures, it’s like comparing a book to a parody short story. Like the second one is funny and all, for a bit, but it’s not something you can continue reading for OVER A DECADE.

What I’m saying is, rather, my point, is that there needs to be an update to these cultures. The heritage armor quests are…a move in the right direction, but I’m asking for much more than that, and for less stereotypical characters to be be pushed out - which they are, I’ll concede.
I guess I just want more is all.

Okay LISTEN. I know there are exceptions!! But also, in WoD, besides the cheifs, all the orcs we fought were portrayed as either dumb or bloodthirsty! In Outland, we had a good couple questlines, but also a bunch where orcs just wanna do orc things - like kill.

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Yeah I can agree with you there, I wish it was more also but some of it just seems like a joke. maybe its just how the game is?

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It’s just that… What exactly do you want? Darkspears aren’t going to randomly move from being a tribe to building an Empire because they got inspired by the Zandalari for an example.

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I know - for the Darkspear, I’d like to see more of what defines them as a tribe - if they still do. Do they all worship Bwonsambdi? Have they grown in numbers since SoO? Have they rebuilt the echo isles as something that’s less of a sandy wooden pit and more like a town/city? What do they want? What do they think is important?

Also just…Mythicor, you bring up a good point. Is that how the game is? A series of jokes?
It’s…interesting. Because the game feels like it wants you to take it seriously at some points and then kinda fails to deliver. It does really good jokes! But…when you contrast that with the stuff they’re trying to do, LIKE the Saurfang arc, then it kinda throws the silly stuff into a different light.

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You want more, yet refuse to see what’s already been done.

Garrosh Hellscream
Thrall
Saurfang

Sylvanas
Lilian Voss
Calia

Baine

Galliwix

Jaina
Alleria and Turalyon
Nathanos

Talanji
Council of the 3 hammers and Moira

Death Knights and the Ebon Blade

Tyrande
Wrathion

I mean… do I need to keep going on character development and change in morality and complexity?

The evolution is there. For better or worse, that’s a matter of opinion but it’s there.

Again… WOW is a game FIRST, a story SECOND.

Read the books, they made help you get that “development” you are looking for.

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actually Boston, or just outside Boston and saying Boston because no one else who doesn’t live in the state realizes that there’s anything BUT Boston, Marthas Vineyard and MAYBE Plymouth? (I’m the latter, for the record. I say my town, and people are like “oh where is that” say the region of the state “oh where again?” say “x time outside boston” “oh you live in Boston, i know where that is!” fine, I live in Boston. that works

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Maybe if bliz made more of those short stories like the animated ones they just made for SL release, they could flesh this stuff out so players could see it (not write books that a small % only would read).

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These troll posts are getting quite creative.

It’s quite literally not feasable to rework the entire WoW lore and cultures inside of it at this point. Warcraft came out in 1994, the franchise is 26 years old and you want them to rework all of their history and culture because of modern day retrospect? I have to assume this is a troll post. Also, a lot of the races go much deeper than the stereotypes you mentioned. It’s like you dont’ even play the game.

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You must not know us very well. It’s actually insulting that you think OUR inventions would “explode”. Do you take us for some back water, oil chugging Goblin?

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You came out swinging didnt you lol

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Orcs are based on German Barbarians that plagued the Roman Empire fyi.