… and if you reported them a name change was sure to follow. Not so any more. Even sometimes a GM showed up and forcefully removed such 
elements 
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And I often had GMs actually RP with me, appearing in character.
Had one one that appeared as a pirate Gnome, complete with outfit, admiral’s hat and Long John Silver voice.
Another time my guild were preparing to run ZF, and had an in-character meeting in Darnassus beforehand where we discussed tactics etc. along with our ‘plot reasons’ for going there.
A GM suddenly materialised above our heads in the form of a wind serpent. He never spoke, just kind of hovered there ominously - but it was awesome and really added a sense of threat to the scenario.
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I think that Zandalari Tribe is always a perfect place for a community to start anew. Before anniversary there were some people who actually treated that server as a fresh. Right now it makes little sense, but after few years the situation will repeat. Those who want to play on fresh server will find ZT as a perfect place to start if enough people would organize themselves.
May be not perfect, as there are always dormant characters with very good gear, gold reserves and so on… But good enough.
RP itself… I guess classic is just not the best medium for it. I expect RP people to value retail features much more. infinite number of transmogs, mounts, toys, location, that allows for better role playing.
RP has always been more about interaction with others, personal stories, events and character-driven plots than toys and gadgets.
Vanilla was a sandbox for RP, post-Cataclysm, not so much, because so many world locations are now the scenes of endlessly clashing NPCs chaotically battling it out for all eternity.
Many key locations for RP setups that I remember - such as Maestra’s Post, the abandoned home in Ashenvale, the empty tower in Elwynn Forest etc. were turned into these kinds of ‘endless battle’ areas, effectively ruining them as RP locations.
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Yes, the addition of NPCs just to keep up the appearances of an inhabited game … that’s one of the additions of later WoW.
Let’s not forget that the lore also went downhill from cataclysm for many people.
It’s not fun to keep RPing if the continuation of the lore suddenly makes your character the way you liked it nonsensical.
For example my undead rogue was always more of a follower of Varimathras than Sylvanas. Suddenly Varimathras betrays Sylvanas and my character is forced to choose Sylvanas over Varimathras, which made no sense in character.
It made playing the character less fun. The more sandboxy style of vanilla WoW was better for that, but I get that the story has to move forward at some point.
The first noticeable shift in the lore (not counting the lore expanding between the Warcraft games) came in the Founding of Durotar campaign in Warcraft 3, where Thrall inexplicably turned from a wise and temperate leader into a bloodlusted war criminal and borderline psychopath (forcing Jaina, who only wanted to study, into a quasi-Sophie’s choice of letting her father be murdered).
Then of course came WoW, where Night elves joined the alliance for no reason, even if they had no preference for any Azeroth faction before, and the non-warmonger Thrall was actually their closest fit.
The the Forsaken joined the Horde for even more obscure reasons, even if they comprised mostly of Northern Azerothian humans, who fought the trolls for centuries and orcs for a generation in a bloody war. Sylvanas as ranger general responsoble for the defense of Quet’Thalas personally must have had burning hatred for both Trolls and Orcs.
Both of those joinings were done purely for marketing reasons and had 0 lore basis. Just to have pretty elves on one side and edgy undead on the other.
Then of course came TBC with the ultimate Lore involuntary sexy time of Belfs joining the Horde (!), even though the only people Kael was ever friendly toward were Tyrande and Maiev (and Vashj, but that’s neither here nor there). Obviously joining Night elven faction was the only option (more on that later).
And of course we have the ultimate bending over the barrel: Eredar demons now have good faction for some reason, they are one and the same as the monstrous and alien Draenei from that one mission in belf campaign AND they are now somewhat native to Draenor, even if they arrived long time ago via space travel. Oh, also Hell is now Space. TBC absolutely had it’s way with what was left of Warcraft lore. I won’t even mention Wrath with bringing Muradin back to life (!), turning Arthas into Saturday morning cartoon villain (previously seen with Kael, Vashj and Illidan during the TBC molestation) and the whole insanity with Tyrion and the Death Knights.
What we should have had instead (and would have if Blizzard had more time and less edgy marketers) was 4 separate factions, Horde in the south of Kalimdor and Nelves in the north opposingg them, and Allianse in the south of Azeroth with Undead in the north opposing them.
You could have a Pandaria-like mechanic where some Nelfs choose to honor the peace from Hyjal and at least be neutral to the Horde, while other choosing to use brutal violance to once again defend Ashenvale (especially in face of their new mortality).
On the other side you have Alliance fighting the Scourge. With some members recognizing the conscious nature of the Forsaken and accepting them as the humans and elves and dwarves they used to be, while others treating all undead as enemy. The Scarlet Crusade vs Argent Dawn dichotomy could be explored much more deeply here. Perhaps again as a RP choice for Alliance.
Then of course you have TBC. Blood Elves would obviously join the Night Elves, establishing maritime connection between Quel’Danas island and Teldrassil/Auberdine. Not only are they a sort of long lost cousins, with shared trauma of losing their sources of eternal life in Nordrassil and Sunwell, but also the Night elven expedition to Lordaeron (remember that?) were the only people to show blood elves some kindness in W3 campaigns. You could even have a new blood-night elves sub faction forming even more dedicated to violent means. Perhaps going as far as to enslave demons to feed off of? I always found it weird that all Kaldorei just took Malfurion’s decision to rob them of their immortality in a stride. Surely there would be some who would turn to increasingly despeate means to keep living.
Then of course you need to have someone join the Forsaken. This is more of a stretch, but perhaps the Draenei lost in Blasted lands and the Swamp of Sorrows could find some common ground with them on account of thier massive past tragedies and being hated by everyone around. Perhaps some (all?) Draenei Broken are in fact some sort of quasi-undead caused by exposure to massive fel energies. It would explain their frankly horrifying appearance and voices. Maybe there is an influx of them from the newly opened Dark portal, fleeing some new horror on Draenor.
Then of course everyone goes through the portal and establishes contact with their natural allies. Humans with the survivors of Khadgar’s expedition, including last living High Elves. Orcs with brown Orcs. Reunited bloodnight Elves with Kael and Vashj (imagine if Vashj was now completely split from Aszhara’s nagas for whatever internal politics reason and we could explore the 3 types of Sundering survivors talking for the first time in 10k years). And then have a tension between mostly sane elves and the blood faction that is now really going off the deep end from demon dust snorting and appreciating the Naga way of doing things. Imagine if Tyrande here decides to actually get back with Illidan. She had a real brutal streak in W3 and would be good fit for actually embracing the whole blood/naga thing. Perhaps she wasn’t really on board with what Malfurion did on Hyjal and only slowly came to that realization. “Perhaps we’ve lived long enogh already, my love”. “No actually screw that you Emerald Nightmare addled freak” Dun Dun Dun.
And the Forsaken Undead establishing relations with the Draenei survivors. Perhaps more of them are some sort of undead than was initially thought. Perhaps Ner’zhul had a penchant for “undeadifying” his enemies even before being turned into a Lich King by KJ. Perhaps the “Scourge” being “of Undead” was more of his aesthetic choice, not something preordained by the Burning Legion.
Oh the possibilities, oh what could have been if Blizz didn’t eviscerate their own lore. Or perhaps I’m talking out of my butt and the game would have failed miserably like that.
Thanks for coming to my TED talk.
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This is the best post I ever read in this forum.
I always thought, the Undead should be their own faction but not as the Forsaken, but as members of the Scourge where also Humans and Bloodelves would be playable. The Deathknight would be the faction-specific class then, Arthas as the leader of the Scourge.
However, I like your approach with four factions even more. It is Just more credible worldbuilding. Especially the Undead just don’t fit in any faction. Everyone would be disgusted by them. They can be alone or with other fanatic cultists devoted to the Scourge.
Of course, I have no idea, if your idea would be reasonably applicable gameplay- or faction balance-wise. At the same time, that is not relevant in this theoretical discussion…
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I agree in so many parts with you, but there are a few nuances you are missing.
It’s not murder and the orcs are still orcs. Daelin was the aggressor and Jaina knew that. She had befriended thrall and knew that her father was wrong in seeking conflict with the orcs that were not controlled by the demons. But fighting back as hard as they can is also typical orc behaviour.
I agree so much with this. The orcs shamanism as a nature religion is much closer to the druidic ideals of the nightelves. Their alliance with the Tauren and the horde helping and Mount Hyjal (The alliance wasn’t there. Only a few refugees from Lordearon.) is making them natural allies. The orcs even respect the Nightelves as warriors. (Grom called them perfect warriors after all) Thrall would’ve been smarter than letting the Warsong still chop down trees in Ashenvale. Especially after he initially wanted to avoid conflict with Daelin Proudmoore.
The Forsaken as part of the Alliance might even make sense, as their roots are in Lordearon, and if Sylvanas still feels some kind of connection to Quel’thalas, why do undead Lordearonians not feel some connection to the Alliance? It’s quite the stretch, but makes more sense than undead and warlocks in the same horde as Thrall who beat the Warsong up for doing Warlock things again.
Here I have to disagree. The Bloodelves and Highelves are arcane magic uses to a degree like no other faction on Azeroth.
The Nightelves had banished that. And for good reason. It almost brought Sargeras to Azeroth. And the very same people that decided that arcane magic shall be forbidden are the same people that saw what it can do and that are STILL in charge.
But that makes it so absurd that Nightelves can be mages now. Tyrande and Malfurion had forbidden argane magic for literally 10 000 years… and suddenly accept it… literally not even century after human mages had brought the legion to Azeroth TWICE. Medivh did it, and Kel’thuzad did it. Kel’thuzad was a mage before he became a necromancer and lich.
This decision alone is terrible absurd. But it also makes it quite strange that the Nightelves didn’t meet Prince Kael with hatred. Their “long lost cousins” as you named them, are the descendants of the highborne after all, that refused to give up magic after the War of the Ancients.
The Naga, at the time under the control of Illidan, are also descendants of the highborne. And the Highborne were basically those that were responsible for destroying an entire continent and the downfall of the mighty elven race and the Nightelves should’ve been a lot less tolerant to that. But they probably didn’t know at the time what the Naga were. After all Maiev didn’t know what they were fighting in the first mission of the TFT campaign either. And if Maiev doesn’t know an enemy, chances are nobody knows that enemy yet.
I honestly think they should’ve gone with their initial vision for WoW and skipped factions in a PvP sense alltogether. The story of World of Warcraft is way more often than not focused on Alliance and Horde standing against the same enemy, and not against each other. That part always just seems shoehorned in at this point.
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