Most of this sounds completely possible and be and reasonable.
I would still question loudly however, if say, they decide to make Dalaran East European and Asian and all the characters are suddenly Eastern European or Asian skin tones come from.
Because again I point out, we don’t have night elves of different shades depending on where they live, and I greatly doubt Blizzard’s ability to do something like this without it walking on the wire between “An interesting idea” and “Lets justify ”.
“Twitter doesn’t matter”
We got Siame Quashi changed and other lines of dialogue for this patch
Anyways
I’ll be pushing for making Black and Asian vrykul models and retroactively littering them throughout Northrend and Stormheim, stay blessed
In Dalaran’s case, it wouldn’t really affect the current characters, as its recent history has diluted whatever uniqueness it’s culture or people may have had.
After being the neutral base for a wide range of factions, being used as the main hub for several notable campaigns that hosted armies from all races, and the further disolution of most of the aspects that made it a proper human kingdom, I’d say that its “native” population would’ve already dissolved across all other human settlements.
That said, giving it a history like the one i proposed would give more depth to its background and for example, explain how the few architecture that remains, has such a unique aesthetic when compared to that of other human settlements. Just to name an example.
We have Orcs, trolls, and Dwarves.
And in certain sense, we also have that for Night elves in the form of Blood, High and Void Elves.
Only in their case, their evolution was far more drastic. Even if it wasn’t enough to actually consider them a different “race” (as they are still call elves after all).
Its relatively hard. And its doubly tough, if we are predisposed to think ill about any attempt at it (which to be honest, at this point we’d have every reason to).
But the truth is that at some point, we must address the elephant in the room in some way.
Even if its fantasy, the internal consistency of the setting cannot simply hand-wave obvious and dominant physical differentiation amongst the people from the same race.
Yes, from a meta perspective diversity is really important.
No fantasy should feel as if it excludes any collective.
And yes, it’s important that when dealing with those races that resonate more with RL, it should be done with care and sensibility.
But yeah…I think that just as it happens with any other race, its an aspect that to a lesser or greater extent, must be addressed at some point.
It can’t be this obvious that we are to have like twelve distinct troll tribes depending on how they look, but for humans its just…" Well, we just want diversity, so let it be".
And I’ll repeat, this is NOT about looking for a justification to include any racial phenotype. But we can’t just dismiss the obvious relevant aspects these features imply from a worldbuilding point.
I’m sorry but if we are to start taking the games story in any seriousness, we just can’t turn a blind eye to this sort of things (*)
Humans in WoW, are but another Fantasy race whose heritage and ancestry goes back to a similar background as Orcs. And just like the latters diversity leaned on a more or less internally consistent development, I’d expect a similar one regarding humans.
(*) About this bit, there is of course the alternative of rather keeping it shallow, and letting people fill the blanks with whatever head-canon or self-insert they find enjoyable. Totally understandable, and not at all negative. Not condemning either posture.
But if we are to set the bar there, then maybe we should also stop hoping for the better or more developed stories in other lore aspects. Either you take the story “seriously” as a whole or you don’t.
I’ll repeat, have a blank sheet of the lore, with memes, references and all can indeed be very very fun. But then again, do not expect much more development in places where shallow pop-culture references have already filled the void.
And that’s kind of the thing.
We really don’t.
As I said before. I am perfectly fine and was happy with all humans of any skin tone being deformed robots cursed with flesh by giant tentacle monsters in a setting where most of the races are deformed rock constructs or elementals.
It may be nice for people to know that these black skinned characters are from this African/Caribbean/[Insert Hot Afro Centric Theme Here].
But for someone like me, it just becomes another sad reminder that my character can’t just exist in any setting. They have to be considered foreign, special, or different, for no functional reason other than to justify the skin tone.
The biggest obstacle seems to be how the lore has been layed down over the years. The humans would need a complete rewrite from the ground up to make any suggestions work
That is not unique to humans.
Honestly every race needs a complete rewrite.
Because no. I personally don’t really appreciate my cultural representative in WoW being trolls, who say things like “Beware da voodoo”. I cringed so hard I went Legendary Super Saiyan at the painful Waka-I mean Zandalar Forever scene in BFA.
But if they aren’t going to get such a drastic rewrite, which I know they can’t, I’d rather, like I said they just didn’t poke the IRL racial bear.
There’s a ton of cringey cultural stuff in game. Drunken Scottish/Irish dwarves. It’s like Nice job blizz, let’s reduce an entire culture down to being drunkards.
But I’m with you, I rather they leave the racial bear alone and not open any more can of worms. Let them continue to fix the racial stuff already in game and lets leave it at that
Yes because thats what Humans need fleshing out rather than fleshing out their kingdoms, peoples and culture.
Do the humans deserve any depth of complexity or diversity beyond puddle deep imagry of course not.
Alliance deserves less because racism. 
Truely ground breaking changes. Now that I log into wow the story is fixed and world building is fixed.
Night and day difference. Its like the Horde even feels sorry for burning kids alive and not at all apethatic about it.
Why??
Again, look at dwarves. They have the EXACT same background as humans, and yet once they left behind said heritage and Blizzard bothered giving them depth, they developed for them unique traits (as per novels):
Each collective has its own unique culture. And yes, its distinct features.
But at the end of the day they are all dwarves. Most in fact live in the same capitol and are ruled by representatives of each kind.
None of that contradicts one bit their past. And in fact, some of them were made up in the go after the setting had already been established (Wildhammers were properly introduced around BC, and Dark Iron’s more unique physique even later).
In all, there are simply a TON of alternatives that could develop these human segments without touching one bit of their background.
I’m sorry but i find this remark VERY reductive, and in some way, offensive.
It implies I have some underlying motive to dump these into the most stereotypical tropes and racist cliches.
And that’s not the point I’m making. At all.
The point I’m making is that, much like it happens in RL for the culturally diverse nations, and just like it happens with other fantasy races, yes…notably distinct features in the same race require more than a hand-wave.
Because yes, distinct features matter.
But just because they matter, it DOESN’T mean they must draw lines between “us” and “them”.
This is NOT about “Othering” anyone.
Orcs don’t simply cease to be Orcs because they are brown, green, grey, or black.
A human from Stormwind does not simply cease to be such because he or she is black.
You simply do not cease to be from the US because you have black or Asian features.
But…Yes, these differences are there.
And you have two ways of dealing with them (ways that circle back to what I mentioned about the main approaches regarding the story):
Only thing I ask regarding either alternative, is that we are all then consistent with it.
Either we care about the internal consistency of the setting, and abide to its rules, or acknowledge the superficiality and accept we are to have shallow themes base more around mechanisms that appeal to the audience and seek their amusement without being tied by cohesion and the sorts.
EDIT: For the last part, I’ll repeat, that I do not see it as an overall negative. Even if i’m more of a “Purist” and would prefer the first one I do acknowledge the appeal of a more free and flexible setting.
What is being asked here is Blizzard should flesh out the Human Kingdoms and human lore beyond just a name and a flag (if any) AND to somehow weave the different looking humans to this more fleshed out lore for more context.
Instead we get negative IQ takes about racism and stereotyping. Jfc…
Just think why the Orcs get different clans and Humans get more Defias story… what??? How is that fair?
I dont understand why some people here have this fetish that the classical fantasy faction somehow deserves less story and world building because they consider them generic
I’m sorry you feel like you are being attacked and offended.
But I’ve said plenty of times before I’m perfectly fine with them expanding out the cultures and the like. Just leave the skin tones alone.
You may not feel like you are “other” folk with your suggestions. And hell I don’t even believe you are doing so intentionally.
But as I stated before again and again. I’ve been part of enough fandoms where my skin tone was always considered “different”. What you make of that, I personally don’t care, but it was always something that required an explanation. I’d be significantly happier if skin tones could be the one thing that doesn’t.
And I will bold this one more time.
I am all for properly expanding the cultures of the other Human Kingdoms. Good lord they need it. Badly.
Apparently no they dont.
They were vrykul. But now human.
Some Vrykul may or not have been asian.
Human lore
~Fin
Now let me write you 30 pages about how special trolls and Tauren are.
I don’t think anybody is saying that other kingdoms shouldn’t be expanded on. But skin color and facial features isn’t some inextricable narrative link to that just because that’s how it played out in the real world. I don’t think the comparison to orcs is quite there because nobody IRL is born with green skin and made to be the “other” because of it; that’s staying within the bounds of metaphor.
Nah, the name needed to be changed as soon as what it meant in Patois came to light. And it was a simple change because of, ironically, trolls’ lack of development in the game. The name of the group doesn’t appear anywhere else and there are no voiced lines mentioning them, so it was a quick fix that was fortunately able to be expedited.
It’s not comparable to fictional war crimes.
I think we are going to need to disagree then.
It may be because of the influence of other settings, or the treatment other WoW races had, but I simply cannot separate visually distinct features (when they are so blatant and obvious), from the rest of world building elements regarding racial construction.
And when applying this logic, I make no distinctions between different races. Regardless of how similar they may look to us in RL.
There are limits to how much I’m willing to accept, and of course I’ll call them out if I feel that writers are stepping out of line with certain themes.
But for the most part? That’s where I stand regarding this.
And I see that’s a viewpoint that may be impossible to reconcile with others (be that because of their personal circumstances, experiences with other player, or any other reason).
The comparison I made with Orcs was more about pointing that Eitrigg isn’t being “othered” in Orgrimmar simply because he is a Blackrock with grey skin.
And in said line, I wouldn’t expect, want, or desire any WoW human with a particular feature to be “othered” from Stormwind. Even if Blizzard expanded on how his or her traits go back to some kingdom heritage that had his or her ancestors sporting said traits.
I don’t understand your obsession with the Horde. In the other thread you were saying that BFA would be wonderful if it was the other way around and Ally had practiced genocide. It’s not like you really care about it, clearly you don’t, it’s just your obsession with feeling like the underdog and wanting to make everyone feel bad about it.
In fact, in every post of yours, I only see you asking for something unique from the Horde to the Alliance, why don’t you create an orc and stop with this deeply offended Ally player cosplay?
Seriously this. Thank you for saying it in better words lol
Warhammer used almost all european cultures for its human casts.
Slavics, Skandinavia, german, french, spanic/italy.
the funny thing, it didn´t used english heritage for its human races.
the point gerwin tries to make is not that black human are not degraded stone titanic robots, but he would like to get a different heritage in terms of kingdoms.
for example if we got uldum as some kind of egypt titanforged/human kingdom instead of what we got now.
Evidently it won’t be like “the real world” because these humans are almost completely the same culturally. There is a comparison to Orcs, Tauren, Trolls, Dwarves and even Elves where everybody dependent on even being one zone over, looks or dresses different. Why shouldn’t humans? Everybody gets that level of dedication except humans.
There is no upside of not developing human lore and sprinkling this on top while you are at it. There are some strawmen arguments about fantasy africa, middle east or china being added as reasons for why adding human diversity but thats not what is being suggested.
All that is being said as a counter argument is “We are happy with how undeveloped the human lore currently is because its less racist if it were to otherwise be developed as others have been.”
I don’t even know what this change is, i googled it and its apparently jargon? anyway if it makes some people happy then fine whatever. I never noticed it before doubt I would notice it now. So its not on my radar.
I don’t mind the fictional war crimes, the problem is how its being resolved and addressed by the story and its characters. Its the single biggest immersion breaking lore dead elephant in the bathroom that they are ignoring.
Use the smooth grey matter between your ears and understand that if the Allies had done it it would not have double villain batted the Horde, it would have made a case for why the Horde should stick together, it would have removed the high king from the Alliance and reintroduced the Alliance council of kings. Not to mention it would have brought both factions on the same moral playing field.
But right now we got a faction that is diseased with morally black tendencies that the narrative has no choice but ignore, gaslight and excuse because they can’t justify it without putting the onus on the Horde rather than a singular individual.
I have 4 Orcs.
Bretonnia is kind of both French and English.
Their peasant long bows and arthurian theme?