I always thought that, putting class balance aside, the story would’ve made way more sense if the Night Elves were originally a Horde race and the Forsaken an Alliance race. I mean, sure, Grom killed Cenarius… but he’s a Wild God, so it was more like he just took a nap in the Emerald Dream / Ardenweald; and the Horde did slay Mannoroth and help defend Mt. Hyjal from Archimonde. So, they could’ve written the story in a way that the two events sort of cancelled each other out.
Then come TBC, Draenei could’ve been Horde for some interesting story developments between them and the now free Orcs. Meanwhile, all the H.Elf folks could’ve gotten their wish with B.Elves being on the Alliance.
The story would’ve been really interesting to see if that’s how things had played out 20 years ago.
Why did the Tauren go to the Orc’s in the first place?
They were the only group that would help/support them at all.
Orc’s have only been on Kalimdor for a few years, while Tauren/NE for hundreds/thousands. Again, makes no sense that those 2 groups with nearly identical views would never align themselves.
Night Elves might’ve worked decently as a Horde race. The idea of the Orcs seeking redemption from a past of being manipulated by the Legion might’ve really appealed to the Kaldorei.
That said, the Forsaken in the Alliance is an issue. I mean, there’s a reason they call themselves, ‘The Forsaken,’ and its not because the Scourge gave up on them.
It is absolutely within Thrall’s character to extend the hand of friendship to the Draenei and try to help them settle on Azeroth. Just one more step on the path to redemption. It would’ve been a more organic way of introducing Paladins to the Horde as well.
Speaking as one of those, ‘High Elf folks,’ I’m honestly not sure if that’s the direction I’d want the lore to go. It depends.
Is Kael’thas their racial leader rather than a raid boss? Well, alright then. Kael’thas was such a monumental part of the Blood Elves’ identity that his loss was a blow they never quite recovered from.
If Kael’thas is going to be a raid boss, just make the playable race High Elves and we can spend an expansion killing demon-allied Blood Elves. Leave Quel’Thalas such an utterly blighted land they can never return. High Elves having chosen morals over their homeland remains one of the key components I really like about them. If that meant they passed up their only chance to purify their homeland, all the better. Choices need consequences to have meaning.
Agreed. Even the idea of the Forsaken on the Alliance could have had some potential, although there would be issues to gloss over. Namely, a new name for the free-willed undead.
For sure there would be some massive differences with this hypothetical alternate universe. What they exactly would look like, I’ve no idea, but that’s what hypotheticals are for. I could probably sit down and figure out something as a thought experiment… but it would take awhile and not sure if I really want to put that much effort into it.
I’ve come to the point where I rarely will invest more effort into what could have been, than Blizzard has put into their own story. It’s become the line I draw for myself.
Still shocked Maiev and the Shendralar can sit together in Amirdrassil without them glaring at her. I cant believe how they brushed everything under the rug… with the corpses of Evenshade’s disciples.
Not much different from the Horde courting the Zandalari, and the Blood Elves, Nightborne, and Pandaren having absolutely nothing to say about it in the slightest.
There’s no indication that the Tauren asked for help with the Centaur problem. The Tauren were handling it for one-thousand-one-hundred years without anyone’s help.
To be fair, were Wolfheart to be retconned, nothing is really lost. There was never any sign of Garrosh’s original campaign to conquer Ashenvale, for example. At best Varian coming to terms with his rage, and the Worgen being voted into the Alliance are about the best that book gave us, both which would could easily be explained with a few paragraphs of dialogue from an in-game NPC.
If you call being steadily exterminated and in retreat “handling it”. Okay. It’s established game lore that if the Orcs hadn’t intervened it would have been game over for the tauren save possibly for the settlement in Feralas.
They didn’t “pretend” it didn’t exist. At worse like a lot of thing it was just side stepped because alot of other pressing things were weighing on everyone.
What did she do?
She murdered innocents, hoping to sever our people’s ties with the Alliance.
Still, I couldn’t bring myself to kill her.
At first I thought I’d been weak – that love had left me unable to do what was necessary.
I know my sister. She’d never commit such crimes unless she was under some foul influence.
Even so, rather than investigate fully, I assumed the worst.
I’ve been a poor brother, but there’s still time for me to make things right.
Who knows, if we ever get season of Discovery Cata version maybe they will fix it/make it flow better.
She was a member of the Alliance that did something bad… of course it’s totally forgiven and swept under the rug. I’m merely surprised they didn’t immediately retcon it to all having been due to mind control so she can be considered morally pure the entire time. Only if she’d joined the Horde/Legion/Black Empire Servants would she be instantly and irredeemably marked for death.
As long we we’re sidebarring into what could have been, I’d rather the game did 4 factions: Alliance (Humans, Dwarves, Gnomes), Horde (Orcs, Tauren, Trolls), Lordaeron Accord (Forsaken and Blood Elves), and Kaldorei Preserve (Night Elves and Draenei). Idk I just made the names up for the latter two but you get the idea.
But as someone who started playing WoW shorly after getting totally obsessed with Warcraft III, I just sorta went with the idea of Forsaken in Horde and Night Elves in Alliance as more of a gameplay design decision than a lore one.
Oh it most likely was. And to give each faction a capital / starting zone in the opposite continent. That way they weren’t massively one sided to either faction. That being Eastern Kingdoms for Alliance, Kalimdor for the Horde.
Although it is silly that we got an explanation as to why and how the Forsaken joined the horde in Vanilla (Tauren felt empathy for the forsaken, wanted to see if they could find a way to reverse the plague of undeath etc, convinced Thrall to let them in). Yet we did not get something like that for Night Elves joining the Alliance. Instead the assumed canon is that Jaina built up a bond with Tyrande and Malfurion during the Battle for Mount Hyjal and with the Horde restarting their logging efforts in Ashenvale, the Night Elves needed allies.
Four factions may have been too much. My personal take would be:
Alliance
Humans
Dwarves
Gnomes
High Elves
Horde:
Orcs
Trolls
Tauren
Goblins
Neutral:
Night Elves
Forsaken
Draenei
Pandaren
In this case, neutral races become a strong focal point for specific threats, or specific content. For example, the Night Elves would be the focus for the Emerald Nightmare, the Forsaken for fighting the Scourge, and the Draenei for fighting the Burning Legion. The Pandaren don’t really focus on fighting anyone, but could make for a good, ‘mediator,’ type for whenever the Horde and Alliance need to peacefully co-exist in a shared city or something.
With this set-up, the neutral races have a good reason to have individual members of their races choosing to support the Horde or the Alliance: to build strong relationships in order to secure supplies and manpower for the specific threat the race is fighting against.
Conversely, this also provides a somewhat more organic reason for some races to be accepted in different factions. While the Night Elves may have felt like a good fit for the Horde initially, they know firsthand the value of the Alliance as well. The Horde and Alliance both understand the threat of the Scourge, and knowing that threat is ever present would be fools to ignore the Forsaken out of hand. The Draenei may have more in common with the Alliance in matters of faith, but as I said before, I don’t see Thrall passing up the chance for the Orcs to take another step on the path to redemption.
Yes. A roleplaying…game. You can make some concessions to gameplay if it better suits a narrative. It’s a balancing act and I do have to hand it to Blizzard that they’d done a reasonably good job about it over the years with what they have to work with.