First, penance wasn’t the original reason they chose Durotar. According to WC3, they also appreciated the fact that it reminded them of Draenor. Though this was soft-retconned when we actually saw Draenor and found out that most of it didn’t look like Durotar.
And second, the “penance” has been overstated. It wasn’t that Thrall intended for his people to be constantly on the edge of starvation and/or lumber deprivation; he thought the land would be difficult, but that they could make a good living there with hard work. Here are the exact quotes, from The Shattering:
What troubled [Thrall] most were the good of his people, of the Horde as a whole, and the unhappiness of the elements. His people were clamoring for more wood to build homes, but the very world itself seemed troubled. He had chosen Durotar for the exact reasons he had spoken—because it enabled his people to atone for the harm they had done, and because this land had toughened and strengthened them. But he had never anticipated that so many rivers would dry up; that so much of what little forest there was would be denuded by a war that, while utterly necessary, was also utterly damaging.
“It is true that this land of Durotar, the new homeland of the orcs, is a harsh place. But that is nothing new. It has always been a difficult environment in which to dwell. But we are orcs, and this land suits us. It suits us because it is so harsh, because it is brutal, because few beings other than orcs could wrest a living from it. We came to this world from Draenor, after warlock magics had rendered most of it lifeless. And we could have done the same to this one. When I rebuilt the Horde, I might indeed have taken a more fertile land. But I did not.”
Murmurs rippled throughout the hall. Cairne looked at him with narrowed eyes, no doubt wondering why Thrall was choosing to remind his people that Durotar was a difficult land at best. He nodded almost imperceptibly to his old friend, reassuring him that he knew what he was doing.
“I did not, because we had wronged this world. And yet, we were here in it, we had a right to live. To find a homeland. I chose a place that we could make our own—a land that asked of us all we could give. Living here has done much to cleanse us of the curse that so damaged us as a people. It has made us even stronger, hardier—more orclike than living in a soft land ever would.”
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