So, now that we've got the
introduction out of the way, it's finally time to discuss the
alliance as a whole. We're gonna cover everything up to and including
TBC, first for the alliance in general, then for each individual
faction. Those of you who are more horde-inclined, don't worry, we're
going to cover them at some point in the future as well (probably in
relation to cataclysm).
First,
a quick refresher for which factions are in the alliance or are
associated with them.
Members
The human kingdom of
Dalaran
The human kingdom of
Kul Tiras
The human kingdom of
Stormwind
The humans of
Hillsbrad
The state of
Theramore
The gnomish republic
of Gnomeregan
The dwarves of the
Bronzebeard Clan
The night elves
The Aldor of the
Exodar
The broken who follow
Nobundo
The high elves of
Allerian Stronghold
The dwarves of
wildhammer stronghold
Various draenei
settlements
The humans of Honor
Hold
The furbolg of the
stillpine tribe
Associates
The human kingdom of
Stromgarde
The dwarves of the
Wildhammer Clan
The high elves of
Quel'danil Lodge
The Kurenai broken
Former members or
associates, now neutral
What is the Alliance?
Thematically,
the alliance are the stereotypical fantasy good guys. For most of
their history, they've fulfilled this role in the world of Azeroth as
well, with most other races being evil, murderous primitives or both.
It says a lot that the goblins of Kezan were the most noble major
power on the planet not associated with the alliance. However, now
the alliance have come into a world where they aren't the only good
guys any more, and it takes some adjusting.
In-universe,
the history of the alliance is problematic to say the least. For some
reason, blizzard seems to retcon details every game, leaving a bit of
a cluttered mess.
When
it first appeared in warcraft II, the alliance consisted of the seven
human kingdoms, the elves of Quel'thalas, the gnomes of... someplace,
the dwarves of Ironforge and the dwarves of Northeron. In the
expansion to Warcraft II, it was stated that Stromgarde and Gilneas
had left the alliance and that the other nations had withdrawn
support until only Lordaeron and Stormwind were really supporting it
anymore.
In
warcraft III, the elves had left the alliance after the battle of
Grim Batol (which all official timelines nonsensically place after
Beyond the Dark Portal), and Stromgarde and Gilneas had left in their
wake, rather than leaving between Warcraft II and the expansion, and
the other nations (bar the gnomes, which aren't mentioned at all)
were suddenly still fully loyal to the alliance. As far as retcons
go, those were pretty annoying considering they didn't affect the
story at all. And then in the Frozen Throne manual, the elves were
described as still being members of the alliance, indicating they
never left. My Ramses senses are indicating lack of proper editing.
And
then comes World of Warcraft. Something about the alliance in WoW
just seems off. Sure, the problems with the night elves joining and
Stormwind suddenly being restored are obvious, but it's more than
that. The alliance is ridiculously ineffective, to the point where it
would almost make a good parody. The only location where we actually
see members of the alliance coming together to assist each other is
Alterac Valley, where it would make the least amount of sense. Couple
this with the fact that all major alliance factions bar Stormwind and
Ironforge have their presence toned down and you end up with a real
mess.
Before
we discuss the individual factions, lets take a moment to discuss the
icon of the alliance. Icons can have a lot of power, as they
represent the faction in a single, simple symbol and can serve as a
rallying point for the fans. However, the icon of the alliance is
terrible, simply being the lion of Stormwind. Using the symbol of any
nation in an alliance as the symbol for that alliance is already a
questionable call. However, as stated before, Stormwind isn't even
taking an active role to help the other nations. Why not just keep
using the symbol of Lordaeron?
The human kingdom of
Dalaran
and the survivors of Wizard's row
Why
do these guys still exist? No, seriously, why? Dalaran was, within a
year, invaded by the scourge, crushed by Archimonde, taken over by
the scourge, taken over by the naga, taken over by the night and
blood elves, taken over by the scourge again and then taken over by
the new alliance. Every single inhabitant of the city (bar that one
paladin who was imprisoned by the scourge) should be dead. While
there were probably a few dalaran mages active in other regions
(though most of those would have been in regions affected by the
scourge) and a few probably joined Jaina Proudmoore's expedition, the
faction as a whole should be deader than baroque music. Maybe if
every single remaining person who owes some loyalty to Dalaran
traveled to the city, they could have set up a minor
community, except we know for a fact that didn't happen, since both
Nethergarde and Theramore (which would have the most survivors) kept
their mages.
The
Burning Crusade could have helped a bit in this regard, as a lot of
Dalaran wizards went with the alliance expedition. However, Wizard's
Row, the city built by the dalaran survivors, has also been
completely destroyed. If that wasn't enough, many of the survivors,
most notably Khadgar, have instead joined the sha'tar or other
neutral factions.
The
whole dalaran surviving is going to get especially ridiculous in
WotLK, but we're not here to talk about that. Instead, let's point
out more things that are silly about Dalaran. Take for example the
city shield, a large purple bubble that cuts off Dalaran from the
rest of the world, including their allies. Why would they do that?
What possible reason could Dalaran have to cut itself off from its
allies?
There
is also another question; if so many Dalarani survived the
destruction of their city, where were they during Garithos' attempt
to purge the blood elves? The elves and the people of Dalaran were
long-standing allies, and there were several elves in high-ranking
government positions (in day of the dragon, at least one of the
councilors was an elf), so I can't imagine them ever supporting that
sort of thing. It also calls to question what happened to the elves
of Dalaran during that purge, but we'll get to that when we cover
WotLK.
The human kingdom of
Kul Tiras
There
is a reason why I spelled out the full list of factions rather than
just the playable races, like most listings do. That reason is this:
WHERE THE HELL ARE THESE PEOPLE? While some of the other factions of
playable races do actually appear in the game, their role is almost
completely repressed whenever it comes to events of any global
importance.
This
is especially notable with Kul Tiras, which, lorewise, should be one
of the strongest nations on the planet, as its homeland was the only
human nation in the alliance not to fall during any of three wars.
However, they're almost completely unrepresented in-game. We
occasionally see someone wearing the Kul Tiras tabard, but we have no
idea what is going on with the nation itself. Who is it's leader? I
guess it's one of Jaina's siblings (she was described as being
Daelin's youngest daughter, so she at least has an older sister), but
we have no idea who that person might be. Was it attacked by the
scourge during the third war? Are they supporting the actions of
Northwatch? Did the scourge invade it at the start of WotLK? How did
the Cataclysm affect it? Has the horde attacked it since Garrosh
became warchief? These are just some very basic questions, and there
has never even been a hint regarding any of them.
I'm
going to break my own rules here and talk about some expansions we
haven't covered yet, because it should have been so easy to introduce
Kul Tiras as a faction in any of them:
TBC:
The starting questline of the draenei: Why not replace Admiral
Odesyus with Lieutenant Alverold? It makes absolutely no sense for a
stormwind admiral to be sailing anywhere near azuremyst isle, but we
already had Alverold established as sailing around Kalimdor back in
Vanilla. If you don't want to use Alverold himself due to the
morally questionable nature of Daelin's soldiers, that's fine too;
you can just use another Kul Tiras officer who was in the area to
look for Alverold's fleet.
Hell, have Alverold/the officer land
his fleet and have them serve as a reputation faction (as a
counterpart to tranquillen) during the bloodmyst isle questline. You
clearly didn't have enough ideas for that zone anyway, so you can
kill two flies with one stone.
Alternatively, you could
simply have a small Kul Tiras outpost in Draenor. While we know that
they weren't amongst the leading forces in the expedition, it makes
perfect sense for there to have been a contingent of Kul Tiras
soldiers in Nethergarde Keep who could have joined in the assault.
WotLK:
The alliance assault on Northrend happens mostly by boat, so why not
make one of the invasion points a stronghold of Kul Tiras? Valiance
Keep seems like the best choice, as you could make Farshire a colony
of Kul Tiras, rather than leaving it up in the air to what nation it
belonged, and it makes a lot of sense for a nation of traders to maintain colonies.
Cata:
There is this huge battle over Gilneas and Silverpine forest with
several waves of alliance reinforcements. Why not have one of those
waves be Kul Tiras soldiers? Kul Tiras is very close to the
continent of Lordaeron (though we don't know exactly where it is due
to map changes between games), so it seems silly for them to have
been left out of the battle.
Or what about Uldum? It would
make perfect sense to replace the gnomish fleet (what the hell were
they doing there anyway?) with the remains of Alverold's scouting
fleet.
MoP:
An epic battle between a horde fleet and an alliance fleet is what
sets off the events of the expansion to begin with. Later, a second
invasion fleet arrives to repel the horde from Pandaria. Either of
these fleets could be Tirasian or have a couple of ships flying the
Tirasian flag.
The human kingdom of
Stormwind
World
of Warcraft had a really bad habit of dodging a lot of the more
complicated moral situations that the earlier games created. Two
examples have already been mentioned above, with Dalaran's
involvement in the purge of the blood elves and Kul Tiras' reaction
to Jaina aiding in the death of Daelin Proudmoore. Another one pops
up here: the remaining orcish internment camps.
Back
in Warcraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal, it was pretty explicit that
there were a large number of internment camps in Stormwind. It was
part of the backstory of both Danath Trollbane (who was a warden of
these camps) and Grom Hellscream (who was said to be unsuccessfully
fighting to free those camps in the warcraft III manual). We also
know that Thrall was mostly active in Lordaeron, so he can't have
freed the orcs in these camps either.
However,
then World of Warcraft comes around, and all the orcish internment
camps are suddenly gone. We can kind of forgive this with the
remaining camps in Lordaeron (which were probably just exterminated
during the third war or set free in the interim period), but the
disappearance of all the southern camps is just silly. They can't
have been set free, as Varian vanished before signing the peace
agreement with the horde, and I can't imagine Onyxia agreeing with
just setting them free.
There is another issue that's far more important than any mere
continuity: Stormwind is easily and by a long shot the worst faction
design in the game. In most fantasy settings, humanity tends to be
the default, and therefore least interesting race. Warcraft II tried
to improve on this somewhat, by giving each of the human nations some
unique traits. Lordaeron was the religious nation, Stromgarde was a
nation of gruff warriors, Kul Tiras possessed a powerful navy,
Gilneas refused to aid its allies, Dalaran was a city of great mages
and Alterac had shady nobles who betrayed the alliance. However,
Stormwind wasn't really given an identity. I'm going to quote the
manual to illustrate my point here (note: Stormwind was called
Azeroth in the earlier games):
Before
the coming of the Age of Chaos when the Portal was first
opened, the kingdom of Azeroth was the mightiest of all Human
nations. Ruled by the wise and just King Llane, Azeroth stood as a
beacon of light and truth throughout the known world. After the First
War, Azeroth and all of its lands were devastated by the Horde. With
King Llane dead, Sir Lothar took charge of the shattered armies of
Azeroth and led the survivors across the Great Sea to the shores of
Lordaeron. King Terenas, ruler of Lordaeron, agreed to support the
landless Azerothiens. The people of Azeroth settled near the
Southshore region of Lordaeron, pledging their loyalty to the
Alliance. Battle-hardened and brave, the last of the once great
armies of Azeroth now seek retribution for the loss of their
homeland.
So yeah, the unique trait given to Stormwind was “Generic human
fantasy kingdom that lost its homeland”. With the end of the second
war and the founding of New Stormwind, Stormwind lost that trait. It
was just “Generic human fantasy kingdom” now.
Without any interesting traits to set it apart, the designers of WoW
apparently decided to just give it the traits of all the human
nations. After all, it was “the
mightiest of all Human nations”.
It was given the religious strength of Lordaeron, with the Archbishop
and the knights of the silver hand moving to Stormwind City. It was
given the martial culture of Stromgarde, with the outlying provinces
forming their own powerful militias. It was given the fleets of Kul
Tiras, with its fleets dominating any alliance naval battle in the
game. It was given the mages of Dalaran, with an entire district in
the city dedicated to magic. Gilneas and Alterac were represented
too, with there being many shady nobles that were preventing the
armies of Stormwind from aiding its' allies and were looking to
betray the alliance. Hell, they've even got Theramore's main villain
of Onyxia. If that wasn't bad enough, entire districts of Stormwind
were dedicated to its non-human allies, with the park given to the
night elves (why would so many night elves want to move to Stormwind
anyway?) and the dwarven district given to the dwarves. Since the RPG
was still canon back in Vanilla, Stormwind also had most of the
world's high and half-elves. The result was a nation that not only
didn't manage to be interesting on its own, but took away from the
uniqueness of the other nations while also plastering their national
flag all over the planet.
I simply don't get
why Stormwind wasn't further defined. There was certainly plenty of
opportunity. You could extend the idea of the house of nobles and
SI:7 and make Stormwind a land of political intrigue. Instead of the
“generic human town”©s, make the quest hubs strongholds of
various lords who seek to extend their power, with SI:7 being the
only thing keeping them in check. You could extend the idea of the
Defias riots (who are pure evil in the game because enemies of the
“generic human fantasy kingdom” always are) and make Stormwind a
land on the brink of civil war, with the outlying provinces ready to
break away from the main kingdom. You could even extend the idea of
the Brotherhood of the Horse and make Stormwind the homeland of
knighthood (the knights in warcraft III were members of the silver
hand, which was founded by survivors from Stormwind), with castles,
chivalry, various knightly orders and tournaments. Just give it some
traits, any traits, of its own.
While
the writers based their design of
Stormwind on the “the
mightiest of all Human nations”
quote, they kind of seemed to have forgotten another quote: “Before
the coming of the Age of Chaos”.
Stormwind was absolutely devastated during the first war and second
wars, with the only survivors of the first war having to flee by boat
to Southshore, which became one of the first targets for the horde
during the second war. While there have been about two decades to
rebuild since the second war, that simply can't have made up for the
sheer population loss the nation of Stormwind should have suffered.
Unlike Dalaran, Stormwind makes sense as still being a full nation.
However, making it the most powerful nation in the alliance is just
silly. Related to this: When did New Stormwind become Stormwind City
again? And how does Stormwind City have an old district if the town
is only twenty years old? And, while we're at it, why are Nethergarde
and Southshore under the command of Stormwind rather than their
founding nations?
The
Humans of Hillsbrad
The old hillsbrad
foothills had some quests that made fans of lore go “Huh?”. For
example, the citizens have to pay taxes to Stormwind. That's just...
random. Shouldn't Hillsbrad be its own nation? What happened to Calia
Menethil? If the people of Hillsbrad were going to join another
nation, why would they join Stormwind, which doesn't do anything to
help them? If they are citizens of Stormwind, how can they openly be
attacked by the forsaken without it starting a war? If the forsaken
are openly attacking the people of Hillsbrad, why hasn't Thrall
kicked them out of the horde yet? Also, this:
Second War
Varian
Wrynn: “I
beseech thee for help, lord of Lordaeron. A swarm of demon-empowered
monstrosities has overrun my kingdom, killing most of my people,
including my father.”
Terenas
Menethil: “Do
not worry, young wrynn. In my lands, your people will be save.
Together, we can retake your kingdom, for which I shall secure the
funds necessary to rebuild it.”
Third War
Calia
Menethil: “I
beseech thee for help, lord of Stormwind. A swarm of demon-empowered
monstrosities has overrun my kingdom, killing most of my people,
including my father.”
Varian
Wrynn: “Guess
that means you're paying taxes to me now, suckers!”
The
State of Theramore
Theramore is in an
odd situation. With every new warcraft product that comes out, it
seems to decrease in importance. In warcraft III, it was founded by
the last survivors of Lordaeron, as that continent was turned to
ashes by the burning legion. In TFT, it was the only large city still
controlled by the people from Lordaeron. In the RPG, it was one of
many great alliance cities, but it was still of great political
importance, effectively leading the alliance. In Vanilla and TBC, it
was the only major human alliance settlement on the continent and its
leader was one of the faction leaders of the alliance.
However, unlike many
other changes, I'm not that critical of this one (well, at least
until we get to WotLK). This is because the reason that Theramore
lost importance was to add diversity to the game. Not diversity in
factions mind you, but diversity in its zones. Theramore's main
importance was as a haven for the refugees from Lordaeron. However,
World of Warcraft seriously toned down the implied advance of the
scourge and the burning legion (they cover about as much area as they
did when Archimonde was summoned, despite the burning legion joining
in assaults against humanity afterwards). This was done because a
Lordaeron where every zone was blighted and filled with undead would
frankly be pretty monotonous. Vanilla simply lacked the resources to
make the logical amount of undead-filled zones seem interesting. As
such, many human settlements that we assumed were destroyed during
warcraft III survived, and the people of Theramore were no longer the
only survivors.
That said, I'm still
a bit disappointed, though it's admittedly because Jaina Proudmoore
was my favorite character in Warcraft III. Theramore definitely feels
too small compared to how it was portrayed in Warcraft III. Since an
extra capital city would have imbalanced the game, it might have been
a good idea to have Theramore use the city shield rather than
Dalaran. Considering Jaina was a prodigy amongst the Kirin Tor, it
would be logical for her to have been able to recruit a large amount
of mages for her expedition, in addition to surviving high elves and
hydromancers from Kul Tiras. It actually kind of makes sense for
Theramore to not want random alliance ships visiting, as Jaina would
fear that these could be used to stage an attack against the horde.
You could even tie it into the Onyxia storyline by saying that she
would only drop the shield when the alliance leaders signed the
official peace agreement with the horde, which became impossible with
the disappearance of Varian Wrynn. Ah well, I'm just throwing ideas
around with hindsight. As it is, I'm plenty happy with how theramore
turned out.
The
Gnomish Republic of Gnomeregan
I've covered my
problems with the handling of Gnomeregan before, so I'm just going to
summarize: As a technologically advanced nation, Gnomeregan has
something that makes it easily recognizable and unique. However, the
writers went way too far with some of its technological aspects, to
the point where gnomes really should be the most dominant force on
the planet. While this technology is usually used as a basis for
comedy, it's still rather disconcerting as part of the greater
warcraft setting.
The
Dwarves of the Bronzebeard Clan
I like the warcraft
dwarves and their implementation in World of Warcraft is actually
handled rather well, probably the best out of any of the playable
races. Their main writing flaw is a weird inconsistency regarding
their obsession with archeology, as they invade three different horde
territories to get to minor titan digsites, despite there being at
least two titan cities within their own or allied territory that they
haven't fully uncovered yet. However, that's a relatively minor
writing inconsistency.
The
Night Elves and the Cenarion Circle
To understand one of
the main issues with the night elves, we need to discuss class
design. While I like the overall design of most classes a lot, world
of warcraft made a number of questionable or outright bad calls when
it came to the lore of the classes.
Most famously, there
are a number of weird race/class combinations. Has there been any
sign before or since World of Warcraft that trolls practice arcane
magic? So what's up with them being able to become mages? Or how
about gnomish warriors? Why can't forsaken or humans become hunters?
Or blood elves become warriors? And why are there orcish, human and
gnomish warlocks? I get that there is a need to balance out the two
factions, but there has to be a better way.
However, there is
also a number of internal class design choices that are just
confusing. Take hunters for example. While the various design aspects
do make sense individually, the choice to make the ranged weapon
specialist also draw on the power of the animal kingdom comes
straight out of nowhere. Or how about priests. I get holy priests and
shadow priests, but what in the world is a discipline priest supposed
to be? It's not like there is a shortage of divine power sources for
other priest specs in the warcraft universe.
However, we're
supposed to be talking about the night elves here, so let's get back
to them. In warcraft III, the night elves had been given two unique
magical arts that defined much of their culture: The power of Elune
and the arts of druidism. However, then World of Warcraft came along.
For some ungodly reason, the designers decided to give all the
moon-based powers to the druid class. First of all, it was very
specifically mentioned several times that druids do not in any way
shape or form draw their power from Elune, so merging these two
classes is about as bizarre as merging shamans and death knights.
Second, if all the moon priestess powers have been merged into the
druid class, why do night elves still have access to the priest
class?
And then there was
the second mistake; making this class, which now represents most of
the night elves' cultural identity, available to other races. Not
only that, but they made the members of this class a completely
neutral faction. Since many of the other notable features of the
night elves (their natural allies, their warrior culture and their
gender policies) were dropped from the game, it makes the race far
less distinct. For an alternate class solution, see appendix one.
Even aside from the
“we made the most distinct aspects of a playable race into a
neutral faction”, the cenarion circle is still a terrible idea.
Druidism and the night elves are two concepts that are were designed
to be ingrained with one another. Just look at Warcraft III. So
separating these two is like having all shamans leave the horde, or
all mages leave the blood elves.
That said, a druid
reputation faction could still somewhat work. Having a number of
neutral druids act outside night elf territory to get some
cross-faction help in druidic problems makes perfect sense. These
guys could deal with Naralex, the corruption of felwood or the
various instances of corrupted green dragons. However, that's not
what they went with. Instead, all druids were members of the cenarion
circle.
Which starts raising
some questions. It's obvious that druids are still part of general
night elf society as well. You see quite a number of them throughout
Teldrassil, and they have their own section within the capital (which
for some reason also has the rogue and hunter trainers, classes you'd
think to be related to the sentinels). Both Malfurion and Fandral
were still considered leaders of the night elves. So how exactly can
the cenarion circle maintain faction-independent holdings if one of
its leaders is also a faction leader? It would be like the US
vice-president declaring himself independent of any nation, but
keeping his job. Having neutral agents in other countries makes
sense. Having an independent neutral nation does not. Especially not
in the way they chose to handle it, with the cenarion circle taking
over the old capital. To keep with our analogy, it's like the US
vice-president declaring the north-eastern states an independent
nation led by him, but still keeping his old job.
Which brings us to
Teldrassil. I doubt I can fully explain how ludicrous the entire
concept is and in how many ways it doesn't make sense. But let's try
anyway, beginning with an obvious one. The original world tree was
grown from an acorn of G'hanir, gifted by Alexstrasza. G'hanir has
been dead and gone for about ten thousand years now. So where did
they get the seed for the new world tree?
Two; why do they
even need a new world tree? The loss of the night elves' immortality
was because Malfurion sacrificed the blessings of the aspects to
destroy Archimonde, not because of physical damage to the world tree.
Why can't they simply ask the aspects to renew their blessing on the
old world tree?
Three; the location
of the world tree. As the new source of immortality for the night
elves, this tree would be a huge strategic weakness. As such, you're
going to want it in a defensible position. Moonglade would probably
have been the best choice, being surrounded by mountains on all side.
You could even put it a bit lower on the slopes to mount hyjal.
However, they instead chose to put it on an island, which it soon
outgrew, leaving only one viable harbor. This means that any attack
that doesn't come from the south can only be fought off by boat or by
flight. Couple this with the fact that even a small attack could
potentially set the world tree on fire and the night elves have an
enormous tactical disadvantage.
Four; Teldrassil as
a zone. The decision to turn Teldrassil into a zone is what baffles
me the most. As a tree, it has no large horizontal surface area. If
we ignore a few sources we could speculate that it's a tree stump
rather than a full tree, but that makes even less sense, as the night
elves still expect the tree to be growing, so it would be stupid to
build anything on top of it. The only explanation that makes sense
would be for Teldrassil to be a metaphorical scaled representation of
the actual Teldrassil walkable areas, which were cut into the trunk.
Except that wouldn't make sense either. Why did the night elves cut
holes into their sacred tree to plant more trees? Why did they cut
holes to create mountains? Why did they cut holes for satyr and
harpies to live in? Why would you introduce a zone that you can't
represent in your game engine and doesn't make sense from any
standpoint?
Five; Teldrassil's
internal design. Okay, let's ignore all the greater design oddities
of Teldrassil and look at the smaller picture. There are so many
little things that don't make any sense. For example, why doesn't
your character, an adult night elf that presumably heard at least a
bit about night elf history, instantly recognize a satyr? If the
night elves know about this satyr (and several other ones in class
quests), why haven't they killed it yet? If the pact with Ysera was
not renewed, why are there druids sleeping in the barrow dens? How
can Darnassus contain highborne architecture when it was only
constructed recently? How can Denalan have been in the swamp of
sorrows decades ago? Hell, that one is impossible in two entirely
different ways, as the night elves were insular until about four
years before WoW and the swamp only became a separate area nineteen
years ago. How can so many elements of night elf culture be named
after Darnassus if the city is only four years old?
So yeah, Teldrassil
(while admittedly very pretty) makes no sense on just about every
level you can think of. However, that's not the only problem with the
night elves. While never really savage, the night elves of warcraft
III had a certain amount of... roughness to their behavior. There was
no doubt that they'd kill anyone who just looked at their forests the
wrong way. But the night elves of World of Warcraft are more like
your typical fantasy forest elves, always seeking the peaceful
solution first. It's really disconcerting to do the night elf zones
right after playing Warcraft III, with the night elves only fighting
unquestionably evil enemies and letting dwarves poke around the ruins
of their ancestors for magical treasure. It's a bad change.
Finally, there's the
absence or under-representation of most night elf natural allies,
which I mentioned before. This and all the earlier mentioned
criticisms should make it clear that the night elf zones really
should have gotten some more refinement and/or a complete redesign
before their final release, but alas.
Also, what the hell
is up with the cenarion expedition? Why would druids be interested in
going to outland? Sure, druids might be interested in restoring the
power of nature, but there's still a lot of other corrupted areas,
both at home and in the eastern kingdoms. And then there are some
quests that say one of the main purposes of the druids in outland is
taxonomy. Words fail me at how silly that is.
The
Aldor of the Exodar, the broken who follow Nobundo, various draenei
settlements, the Kurenai and the Stillpine furbolg
Those of you who
followed World of Warcraft back when The Burning Crusade was first
announced may remember something odd about the racial announcements.
While the blood elves were announced as the new horde race almost
immediately after the expansion itself, it took several more months
for the alliance race to be announced.
While I don't think
it has ever been officially confirmed, the common assumption amongst
fans is that the draenei were announced so late is because they
simply weren't decided on until late in development. I've seen the
theory many times, usually with either furbolgs or pandaren as the
original playable race. Pandaren seem pretty unlikely, but furbolg
actually make quite a bit of sense.
First of all,
they're a perfect mirror for the blood elves, having a strong
connection to the night elves while having a culture more similar to
that of the horde. The environment of the draenei starting area also
makes a lot of sense for a furbolg starting zone, with the blood
elves having crashed the Exodar rather than the draenei. The furbolg
would already have been allies of the night elves, with the events of
the zone supplying them with a reason to go to outland: “REVENGE!”
(insert dramatic musical cue). Also, preventing that kind of stuff
from happening again. But mostly revenge.
The draenei starting
areas have a lot of weird plot holes which could easily be filled if
you assumed the quests were originally designed for the furbolg. Why
were the crash survivors able to survive, despite being thrown
several miles from the crash site and being injured in a hostile
environment for weeks? Because the original intent was for the
survivors to be from the player's village and the quest to take place
just after the crash. The stasis pod was only added to explain why
the player character wasn't injured. Why doesn't draenei architecture
make any sense? Because the questing hubs were intended to be furbolg
villages rather than fragments from a ship and didn't make the
transition well. Why does that one questline about the draenei being
infiltrated by an eredar and one of their military leaders being
corrupted not fit with the flow of the quests and never reaching its
conclusion? Because it was only added later and never fully finished.
Of course, it's just
pure speculation, but it fits really well and would explain why the
draenei presence in the alliance is so weirdly handled. Most notably,
the draenei never actually join the alliance. The closest thing they
get is “I have prepared a letter of introduction to the people of
Auberdine, the closest Alliance settlement, proposing cooperation in
the fight against our foes”, which isn't much in the way of joining
an organization, and there is nothing that would spur a closer
alliance after that. The relation between the exodar draenei, the
aldor and the alliance draenei of outland is equally weird. Velen is
the head of the exodar draenei, as well as being the head of the
aldor. So why are the two separate groups? The only excuse I can
think of is that Velen sees a conflict of interest between the groups
(which, to be frank, I don't see), but then why would he still
recruit the draenei of Telredor and the temple of Telhamat for the
alliance?
The Kurenai have the
same problem. Why do they ally with the alliance (which doesn't
assist them at all), rather than with the sha'tar? The Kurenai,
Nobundo's broken, the ashtongue and the tribes illidan enslaved also
have a bit of a different problem, in that they are interesting,
well-developed and likable characters. Normally, that wouldn't be a
problem, but a good thing. Except that it makes the idea that the
other broken are insane and aggressive by their very nature
impossible, making the players brutally slaughtering some of the
tribes seem not just against the standards of the two factions, but
also stupid, since they could try recruiting 'em. Plus there's the
whole timeline issue that I mentioned in my review of TBC.
A much smaller
complaint is playable draenei mages. They just seem out of place in
such a light-centered society (not to mention that draenei look
rather silly in colorful robes). Most draenei technology seems to
work by channeling the holy light anyway, so its not like the mages
take up a vital place in society.
I do actually like
the addition of the draenei. They have an interesting visual
aesthetic, their backstory is pretty interesting, they fit in well
with the alliance and there are a lot of cultural elements that are
easily portrayed in-game. However, their execution leave a lot to be
desired.
The high elves of
Allerian Stronghold, the dwarves of wildhammer stronghold and the
humans of Honor Hold
I've got no
complaints about these guys, since they were handled pretty decently.
Hope to see Vereesa and Turalyon some day soon.
The
human kingdom of Stromgarde
Stromgarde is a
really good example of how incompetent storytelling in WoW can be.
This is a nation with an interesting backstory, a culture that can
easily be integrated into the game, a series of mysteries (the
assassination of Lord Trollbane, the syndicate using bloodstone and
the stuff related to myzrael) that could spark a long an interesting
questchain and a weapon of legend that has a backstory that doesn't
require it to be overpowered.
However, instead of
that, the quests are mostly just bugging the horde, killing random
enemies without much of a specific reason and grabbing some random
magical stuff that an archmage was too much of an idiot to take with
him when he fled. Hell, I don't think you actually visited the
human-controlled part of Stromgarde once during the questchain.
It would have been
so easy to combine these elements into a strong narrative. But no,
these things barely relate to the nation at all. I don't even think
its ever been revealed who killed the king. Guess we're supposed to
not care.
The
dwarves of the Wildhammer Clan
Again, these guys
were handled fairly competently, though there was a bit of a shortage
of quests that were actually about the clan.
The high elves of
Quel'danil Lodge
While
some people didn't like these guys, I'll admit I think they're
actually a pretty clever idea. Since the split with the other elves
happened before Kael'thas gathered his soldiers, there is a plausible
explanation for them keeping their old culture (unlike some of the
elves we get to see later). Going cold turkey to deal with the magic
addiction is actually a pretty interesting idea, and I can imagine
why the other elves didn't even think to try it, and it still leaves
them with ranger magic to make them a unique part of the alliance.
The
timbermaw furbolg
Pretty decently
handled, though not without some flaws. First of all, the the idea
that they are the only uncorrupted tribe was always a bit silly. Even
when there were no others in the game, the RPG (still canon at the
time) had already established there were furbolgs in Northrend.
Second, and more
importantly; How are the timbermaw uncorrupted? It's been pretty
implicit that certain species are more naturally vulnerable to
corruption, most notably creatures that were created by the ancient
guardians (furbolg, quilboar, harpy, dryad) and, somewhat less
severely, creatures that are connected to the emerald dream
(ancients, faerie drakes and even druids). The gnarlpine tribe got
corrupted just by standing on a tree with some trace elements of
corruption. So how is a tribe able to live right next to felwood and
remain unaffected?
Closing
thoughts
So, that pretty much
covers everything for the alliance (though I'm sure I've forgotten
about a dozen things, WoW is kinda big). As I remarked in the
foreword and will say again when I cover the horde, many of the
problems stem from a lack of the writers just sitting down to discuss
what they're going to do with a certain faction. Even in the factions
that were handled decently, there is a distinct lack of focus in
their quests and a lot of understated cultural elements.
Though I speak with
obvious hindsight, I think the RPG for once had an actual idea here:
Only put one of the continents in the game. This not only gives you
less factions to develop, but gives you more room to develop them in.
Well, that's all I
had to say (barring the appendix), so I'll see you guys next time.
I'm not entirely sure what I'm going to cover next, since I haven't
read Cycle of Hatred yet, so I don't know if it has enough stuff to
comment on. If it doesn't, we're going to return to the warcraft
comic instead. Or I might even take a short break from warcraft
review and look at a few random episodes of stargate instead.
Appendix
One – Alternative Class System
Now I've got it
easy. I don't actually have to come up with working designs for a
game that's going be played and scrutinized by millions. Plus, I have
access to hindsight (The most powerful of the magical arts). But
still, I'm going to offer up an alternative, integrating all the
points I mentioned above.
Okay, basic class
changes:
Hunters have been
renamed primals, focusing on animal-based powers and ranged
weaponry. Marksmanship abilities are redesigned to work with both
bows and thrown weapons. Arcane shot and concussive shot are renamed
searing sting and storm bolt, having been reanimated accordingly.
Priests have lost
their discipline specialization, instead gaining an animism
specialization. Discipline spells are left mostly intact, but simply
have their names and animation changed.
Druids have lost
their balance specialization, instead having their feral
specialization split in two, one for DPS and one for tanking.
Now for the class
Distribution in vanilla:
Warriors, rogues
and Priests are the base classes, available to most races. Gnomes
are unable to become warriors, tauren are unable to become rogues
and orcs and night elves are unable to become priests.
Paladin, Druid,
Shaman and Warlock are faction-exclusive classes. Only the western
horde can become shamans, only the forsaken can become warlocks,
only the eastern alliance can become paladins and only the night
elves can become druids.
Mages and primals
are faction-restricted classes. Only the western horde and the night
elves can become primals and only the eastern alliance and the
forsaken can become mages.
|
Human |
Gnome |
Dwarf |
Night
Elf |
Orc |
Troll |
Tauren |
Forsaken |
| Warrior |
X
|
|
X
|
X
|
X
|
X
|
X
|
X
|
| Rogue |
X
|
X
|
X
|
X
|
X
|
X
|
|
X
|
| Priest |
X
|
X
|
X
|
|
|
X
|
X
|
X
|
| Paladin |
X
|
X
|
X
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Druid |
|
|
|
X
|
|
|
|
|
| Shaman |
|
|
|
|
X
|
X
|
X
|
|
| Warlock |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
X
|
| Mage |
X
|
X
|
X
|
|
|
|
|
X
|
| Primal |
|
|
|
X
|
X
|
X
|
X
|
|
As you can see, the
factions are perfectly balanced between factions. Admitted drawback
is that there are slightly less race/class combinations (36 here vs
40 in vanilla).
Now for TBC. Both
the draenei and the blood elves get:
Access to all three
base classes
Access to one
faction-exclusive class of their own faction (paladins for draenei,
warlocks for blood elves)
Access to one
faction-exclusive class of the opposite faction (shamans for
draenei, druids for blood elves).
Access to one
faction-restricted class available mainly to the opposing faction
(primals for draenei, mages for blood elves)
| Human | Gnome | Dwarf | Night Elf | Draenei | Orc | Troll | Tauren | Forsaken | Blood elf |
| Warrior |
X
|
|
X
|
X
|
X
|
X
|
X
|
X
|
X
|
X
|
| Rogue |
X
|
X
|
X
|
X
|
X
|
X
|
X
|
|
X
|
X
|
| Priest |
X
|
X
|
X
|
|
X
|
|
X
|
X
|
X
|
X
|
| Paladin |
X
|
X
|
X
|
|
X
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Druid |
|
|
|
X
|
|
|
|
|
|
X
|
| Shaman |
|
|
|
|
X
|
X
|
X
|
X
|
|
|
| Warlock |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
X
|
X
|
| Mage |
X
|
X
|
X
|
|
|
|
|
|
X
|
X
|
| Primal |
|
|
|
X
|
X
|
X
|
X
|
X
|
|
|
Explanation of some (lack
of) class combinations:
Human, gnome and orc
warlocks still exist lorewise. However, their specialization is
considered illegal and they are not able to perform it openly as
adventurers.
Night elf priests
still exist lorewise. However, the temple of Elune keeps direct
control of all priests, with none of them acting as adventurers.
Out-of-universe, keeping them non-playable allows them to remain a
female-only organization.
The night elf
sentinels still only allow females to join their numbers. However,
individual male warriors and primals still act as adventurers, or as
agents of the alliance.
Night elf druids
don't have gender restrictions, as that would just be silly.
Draenei mages do not
exist in notable numbers. Their ships and technologies work entirely
by channeling holy power.
Draenei primals and
draenei rogues have the same origin as draenei shamans, with these
ways having emerged thanks to integration of broken ones in draenei
society.
Orc priests do not
exist, as orcs do not practice animism in the same manner as tauren
or trolls. While orcs believe in many spirits, these are only bound
to living creatures and thus part of shamanism.
Blood elf holy
priests and paladins don't exist in WoW for the same reason given in
TBC. However, they have not captured a naaru to draw power from.
Instead, many blood elf priests have joined their forsaken brethren
in rejecting the light and embracing the cult of the forgotten
shadow.
Blood elf druids have
their powers originating from the arcane. Lorewise, they are only
able to cast restoration spells, but they have access to the other
specializations for gameplay reasons (like tauren, human and gnome
shadow priests)
Alternatively, if furbolgs
had become a playable race rather than the draenei:
| Human | Gnome | Dwarf | Night Elf | Furbolg | Orc | Troll | Tauren | Forsaken | Blood elf |
| Warrior |
X
|
|
X
|
X
|
X
|
X
|
X
|
X
|
X
|
X
|
| Rogue |
X
|
X
|
X
|
X
|
X
|
X
|
X
|
|
X
|
X
|
| Priest |
X
|
X
|
X
|
|
X
|
|
X
|
X
|
X
|
X
|
| Paladin |
X
|
X
|
X
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
X
|
| Druid |
|
|
|
X
|
X
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Shaman |
|
|
|
|
X
|
X
|
X
|
X
|
|
|
| Warlock |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
X
|
X
|
| Mage |
X
|
X
|
X
|
|
|
|
|
|
X
|
X
|
| Primal |
|
|
|
X
|
X
|
X
|
X
|
X
|
|
|
Explanation of some (lack
of) class combinations:
Here, the blood elves
never lost their holy powers (or the stupid bit with the captured
naaru is kept), so they retain paladins and most priests are still
holy.
Blood elf druids on
the other hand have all but vanished, due to nature becoming
corrupted and uncontrollable after the attack by the scourge.
Furbolg priests
practice animism.
