Trolls > night elves > Draenei > humans > Orcs > Goblins > Everyone else.
Try to prove me wrong. Spoilers. You can’t.
Well of course trolls are the most iconic. What other game let’s you repeatedly wipe out Troll Empires? Feels so good. Love every expansion’s troll raid/dungeon so much.
Night Elves, Draenei, and Humans naturally are next. They’re all good guys! It’s fun to kill evil trolls, but every story needs it’s heroes.
Of course, Orcs and Goblins follow suite. Because just killing trolls is dry, so we need some other races to wipe out to bring good to the world.
As usual, Erevien, you’re 110% correct. I’ll let the Devs know they’re doing a great job as usual.
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My first instinct was, buddy, the first game was called “Orcs and Humans.”
But reading over your rankings again, I think maybe you’re prioritizing uniqueness? Like, races that Warcraft has that other games really don’t? For example, Blood Elves don’t rank because while they’re very popular, they’re not really all that different from “default fantasy” High Elves - especially since the Sunwell was restored and they lost the whole magic addiction angle.
Whereas WoW Trolls have basically nothing in common with “Default Fantasy” trolls outside of regeneration.
If this is the conversation we’re having, I need to shout out Forsaken. In most franchises, intelligent undead are confined to small numbers of exceptionally powerful beings - Vampires and Liches, for instance. An entire society of free zombies is clever and unique.
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Same.
I would say “good Orcs” might be the iconic thing; more so than just Orcs.
I think if you asked random people about Warcraft, of the people who are even aware of it, the “good Orcs” would be up there. Even people who randomly saw the movie would have walked away with that.
But WoW Trolls are pretty unique on a whole different level. And much more diverse when compared to Trolls of other franchises.
Amazonian Dark Elves are also pretty unique.
So depending on the meaning, I guess.
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Humans & Orcs.
That is how it all started.
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Orc
The defining race of Warcraft
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Trolls are usually, in classic fantasy, big dumb brutes with no culture. But those from Warcraft were the first builders of civilization. Same thing for night elves. Draenei come next because I know of no other game who use the “chosen of the gods” stereotype this well. Tolkien surley didn’t think of demonic goat people in his life ever. Orcs and humans are self explainatory because they started this franchise. Goblins come in for the cameo and as comedic relief. I don’t care for the other races at all because all of them fit negative stereotypes that are hurtful for the communities they were based off. Looking at you Tauren.
I would say Night Elves (I know, shocker. I am sure you are all very surprised)
Humans in WoW are pretty generic fantasy humans, and the orcs are nothing special either. Like, the whole “Good” aligned orcs has never really tracked with me. We only really see the orcs as “Good” in their own perspective and for most of their lore they have been active villains in the story.
It is just not that unique or iconic that a villainous race can sometimes find themselves in a heroic role when their own survival is at stake. And that is the only thing that sets them apart from every other portrayal of orcs in fantasy.
Night Elves on the other hand, one can argue that they are Wood Elf flavored Drow… Which isn’t entirely wrong. But I would say, first, That is awesome, and second, the union of Asian, Norse and Celtic themes is just a cool aesthetic that doesn’t sound like it would work but somehow does? Oh and an Ancient Greek early history of their fallen empire?
Just to summarize: A race of tall, matriarchal muscle babe Samurai viking wood elves with purple-blue-green skin and Vibrant hair colors and glowing eyes?
What could possible be more iconic than that?
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Orcs and Humans, the ones that were actually part of the franchise from the very beginning.
Also posting in an Erevien thread.
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Orcs look like they were copied from Warhammer. The Humans are as generic as it gets with medieval european architecture. But where the lore is concerned they shaped the story like no other that is why they show up in my list.
It’s Orcs. Not even humans for all their narrative importance. Orcs are the most iconic for narrative importance, the face of the Horde, and just Orcs are the go to of fantasy. Most of the time you can tell the vibe of a fantasy world by looking at their bog standard Orc.
Not even close. They have the least leading characters. Current apart from Thrall all are dead. And no those one time quest givers from the heritage quest don’t count.
Hard disagree. I will not be entertaining debate on the matter.
There is no debate. Everyone has their opinion.
Iconic races of the world of warcraft franchise listed in alphabetical order.
1: Orc.
The list is now over.
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I can think of no other franchise that lets me be a zombie that wrestled itself back to sentience by sheer force of will. And that zombie can be a fricking wizard!?
No one can tell me anything.
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I would categorize the most iconic franchise races as those that made Warcraft a more unique flagship brand, but versions of them at a certain point in the franchise’s life, as opposed to currently.
TBC Blood Elves, WC3-end of Wrath Night Elves, WC3-End of Wrath Orcs, Forsaken are a bit trickier because while I’d say a lot of their iconic traits faded with Cata, it was also somewhat of a blow in Wrath with the loss of Varimathras. I’d put Draenei up there but as much as they’re one of my favourite races, I think TBC Blood Elves win out for being iconic.
Humans are interesting because earlier in the franchise there’s a genuine uniqueness as they fleshed out Stormwind, and Human Light worship had more of a Diablo influence earlier on that was fairly iconic. Kul Tiras is unique enough and has enough personality to be iconic but was too late in the franchise’s life and attached to a disliked expansion… also left behind a third of the way into that expansion. Dalaran was also a pretty interesting and iconic human-centric nation. So for Humans it’s kind of… bits and pieces are iconic, not the overall race.
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The statue out front of the blizzard offices.
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I think it’s for sure a matter of perception and whether you play Warcraft or not.
From the folks I talk to that DON’T play it, Orcs are pretty much the bread and butter race that they default to, followed closely by Humans (specifically Arthas) and Night Elves.
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Orcs exist in other franchises too. If they were shrooms they would be copycats from Warhammer. No the uniqueness comes from races like Trolls, Pandaren, Vulpera and everything else that breaks with stereotypical races from other fantasy franchises.