There is more to WoW than Humans and Orcs

Lore Story Forum
1

Blizzard’s behaviour is baffling to me. Warcraft 1&2 happened decades ago. WoW is build on Warcraft 3 which was a story about 4 factions; Frozen throne introduced even more factions. WoW has seen the inception of cool races over the years, culminating in Kul Tiran and Zandalari.

Yet instead of using these aesthetically cool, thematically diverse, rich races, they go back to their tired orcs and humans. Also, in doing so, they create inconsistent characterization that doesn’t line up with how the story and world have progressed, pissing off most people.

My question is why?

Take the Guild Wars franchise. Guild Wars 1 was all about humans. A variety of races were introduced but the focus was squarely on the humans. With GW2, numerous races shared the spotlight and showed up as distinct, flavourful, memorable and realistic entities.

If Blizzard wrote GW2, they’d have the focus on the humans, and they’d write the humans as their culture was over a 100 years ago (when GW1 happened).

And why do the fans accept this? Blizzard fans have always had an obsessive streak, and a love for nostalgia; look at all the requests for sequels over the years - Starcraft 2, now Diablo 4, WC 4, all the hype for WC Remastered… does the majority not care about moving forward?

Thoughts?

11 Likes
2

Alliance is Humans and the rest, Horde is Orcs and the rest. That is fact and the sooner people accept it the better

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3

Okay but the first half of your assertion is literally not true. That’s kind of the point of my post. Why is an untruth being repeated and shoved down our throats?

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4

I’ve never seen such an incorrect statement on these forums… no, this is not even remotely close to being a fact. Maybe back in the days of Orcs & Humans, when the game could barely handle a story past a thirty page booklet that came with a floppy disk, but certainly not twenty-five years of worldbuilding later. And even if that were true, just focusing on two “core races” while the rest are occasionally peppered in for flavor is just crappy storytelling, and frankly irresponsible given the Warcraft they’ve built.

“Going back to Warcraft’s roots,” as all the gaming sites described BfA, is not a good thing. Better to embrace modern Azeroth than get hung up on the black and white (it WAS black and white, no matter what Ion thinks) Azeroth of 1994.

23 Likes
5

Also demon hunters are just a tertiary class, and blood elves are still part of the alliance in their hearts

6

Oh, I see. Witty meta-commentary. Carry on.

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7

The alliance is humanity and their afterthought sidekicks by a country mile. “Humanity is special” is one of the core alliance themes blizzard loves to use afterall. The Horde is the faction that behaves more like an actual alliance.

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8

Yeah, but even then, it’s not great. Miles better than SW-lliance tho.

2 Likes
9

I feel people are underrating the Night Elf Warfront quests and trailer…

10

Are you really comparing Terror of Darkshore to the likes of Old Soldier, the latter which took hundreds, thousands of manpower, hours and money to produce over the former, which is a modified game engine creation?

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11

Did you not see Malfurion being a badass?

Did you not see Tyrande killing orcs and offering their heads as sacrifice to ascend to Night Warrior status?

12

Can you please address what I just wrote.

5 Likes
13

My only acknowledgement to your quote is that while its a shame we don’t see Night Elves doing cool things in cinematics like Old Soldier.

It ain’t no skin off my nose when we still see it in the in-game cinematics and in-gameplay.

14

You don’t see a disparity when X is given tangible resources and focus over Y?

6 Likes
15

Yes I do. And to be honest, Night Elves always got the shaft, unless your Illidan.

Warcraft 3 Night Elf cinematic was just Malfurion blowing a horn while most of the screentime is focused on Archimonde dying.

Vanilla WOW’s trailer had that Night Elf lady, but she later got rekt by the Orc.

And Night Elves were only background characters in the BFA trailer.

16

This makes me wanna puke.

4 Likes
17

I’m almost certain that Ion thinks the way the Warcraft movie depicted the Horde is the canon version of events of the video game that the movie is based off of.

It’s the same reason why Khadgar got a makeover for WoD.

3 Likes
18

I mean…eh?

I’ve come to understand a lot of the complaints people have for WoW, but I’ve never been able to see this one.

Gameplay-wise, the locations, quests, dungeons and raids of this expansion have featured a rich diversity of races and cultures. The entire Horde leveling experience is steeped in troll colors, and in 8.2, the Gnomes, of all races, are going to get spotlight alongside the elves.

Lore-wise, the Night Elves, Undead and trolls have gotten WAY more attention than orcs or (Stormwind) humans who aren’t named Anduin/Saurfang. For better or worse, the Undead got a whole novel fleshing them out, and the NElves a short story. Elves have featured heavily in the warbringers and cinematics, and Sylvanas is the most important character in any of them. Teldrassil started the expansion, Nazjatar is going to bring up the middle, and I’d bet money Sylvanas is going to be core to the ending. If anything, this is an elf-biased expo.

And even looking past the Kaldorei and Forsaken, the other races have had their moments. Cairne and Baine are relevant for the first time in forever in major quests, Gallywix shows up on the regular in raids and questing, and even Lor’themar is getting some writing, both in Nazjatar and in the Heritage questline. Even when you focus on the infamous Sadfang storyline, we have Rokhan representing for trolls.

Hell, even the dwarves–pinnacle of side-lined races–got a heritage quest line, and Magni is a major player in day to day progression and the overarching plot (such that it is).

So…can you explain a bit more what you mean? I can see why people might think this is a bad story, but not why they’d think it’s a bad humans and orcs story–unless, like, their yardstick was two cinematics.

3 Likes
19

A) Because Orcs and Humans are and always have been the core of the WC universe and the founders of the Alliance and Horde.

B) Having only two main racial kits to focus on when adding garrisons and towns to the map as opposed to dozens is easier.

C) Art and gameplay trumps story and Human style and Orc style are convenient shorthand for Alliance and Horde that’s visible from a distance. White/gold/blue/lions/clean = Alliance, Black/red/weird orc symbol/spiky = Horde.

Really, “shorthand makes everything artistically and narratively easier” has to be one of the biggest reasons, aside from tradition. There’s nothing wrong with humans and orcs being the main pillars the other races are gathered around as long as the spotlight is shared. On the Alliance, it isn’t, really, which is a shame. But the Jaina stuff is actually very popular off this forum and she’s a fan-favorite character who fits cleanly into the theme of the expansion, so there’s that.

2 Likes
21

Awww, that’s nice of you.