A special look at - the alliance

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

• The survivors of Wizard's Row
• The Cenarion Circle
• The Timbermaw furbolg

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to Warcraft II, it was stated that Stromgarde and Gilneas had left the alliance and that the other nations had withdrawn support until only Lordaeron and Stormwind were really supporting it anymore.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.