The homogenization of the peoples in World of Warcraft is clearly noticeable. This really annoys MeinMMO demon Cortyn.
World of Warcraft has changed significantly and has long outgrown the roots of Warcraft III. Sure, the major peoples of the strategy game still exist, but they have lost much of their uniqueness in recent years. With the existence of the Alliance and the Horde, the peoples have grown closer together. However, this has led to something that is often called homogenization in the community – many peoples have become somewhat similar and only differ visually.
Those who created a Night Elf in the early days of World of Warcraft and quested from the Leafshade Valley through Teldrassil, then the Darkshore and Ashenvale, ended up with a pretty good impression of who the Night Elves are, what their culture is like, their military structure, their belief in the goddess, their connection to nature, and their skepticism towards the younger peoples.
These cultures basically ran throughout the entire Vanilla world. Back then, there was no major overarching plot, and the developers were simply expanding the world that was established with Warcraft III. The clear goal was to make the peoples multifaceted and detailed. Therefore, several areas are dedicated to each people. I don’t mean to say that Classic was necessarily better in terms of story (because from my perspective it wasn’t), but it was simply able to provide much more room to give the peoples a strong, individual character.
From this starting position, WoW has continued to evolve. New peoples like Blood Elves, Draenei, or Worgen were added, and at least through the starting areas their stories were well explained, and the peculiarities of their peoples were internalized.
There are moments where the conflicts between the peoples flare up. In Midnight we see the High Elves of the Silver Covenant, who still harbor a great hatred for the Blood Elves and behave quite dismissively.
But that is becoming more and more the exception. The latest patches and expansions are characterized by a reduction in conflicts between the peoples.
I am not fundamentally against peace or the rapprochement of the individual peoples. “Politics” has always been a part of World of Warcraft to a certain extent.
The peoples are losing their uniqueness
But what bothers me the most is the fact that the peoples are losing their distinctiveness. In the WoW subreddit, there is a meme that basically all the peoples are just “humans with different ears or skin colors” – and unfortunately, that is true.
Now and then, you see a brief flash of the peculiarities of the peoples, when a group of Void Elves summons a bunch of Void Portals or Moon Priests call upon the blessing of the goddess. Or when there is an event specially tailored to a people, such as the major questline about Bel’ameth and the new home of the Night Elves.
But in many respects, the cultures and peculiarities have increasingly blended and then been aligned to humans.
I miss Night Elves that seem mystical, martial, and exotic to other peoples. The beings that are thousands of years old, with whom shorter-lived peoples could never be sure what such ancient creatures think and know.
And yes, I also miss the racism. Because as abominable as it is in the real world, it is essential for an exciting fantasy universe that is based on the diversity of various peoples, cultures, and species. Especially the tensions and differences between the peoples, formed over more than 10,000 years, are a major appeal of Warcraft for me.
- I want to see how the conflict between Trolls and Blood Elves flares up again and again.
- I want to see how Orcs never really make peace with Night Elves and one act of revenge leads to another.
- I want to feel what it means to belong to a dying people as a Night Elf, once ruled over the whole world and now had to cede almost all territories to “artificially created aliens” – because nothing else are the creatures created by the Titans.
In recent years, there has been less and less of that. That doesn’t mean that the current story of WoW is bad – it’s not. I love the theme of the Void, liked the character development of Anduin, and find Xal’atath as an antagonist great.
But I would like it even more if the peoples were to differentiate themselves more strongly from each other again. Not just on paper, but also in actions and consequences in quests and the major events in Azeroth.
The Alliance suffers more than the Horde
I find that these problems are significantly greater in the Alliance than in the Horde. This may be due to the fact that we recently had a patch that focused entirely on the Goblins, but largely also because there have always been internal conflicts in the Horde. Mutual distrust, especially through Sylvanas, and many missions where the cultures have to meet and find a consensus.
In the Alliance, this happens much less frequently – and that’s a shame. I still find it extremely ridiculous that there have basically been no (or very, very few) quests in which the different Alliance peoples react dismissively towards the Void Elves or are more skeptical of the Lightforged with their fanaticism.
I believe that Blizzard is increasingly receiving this feedback over the years and must know that a “cuddle-wuddle world”, where everyone is constantly coming closer together and becoming more alike and completely rationally comes to the conclusion that they should cooperate, eventually loses its appeal. This can be seen in the drastic reactions to Lady Liadrin in Midnight, but also already in the Arathi patch, when from an Orc-hating operator of internment camps, who even named himself “Trollbane”, suddenly becomes an understanding man who wants no war.
What bothers me the most is the fact that this seems to work like a cycle. A new people is introduced, which seems foreign, complex, and simply “different” for precisely one expansion, and at the latest in the following addon, it is so integrated into the Horde or Alliance that the culture or peculiarities no longer play a significant role. This was the case with the Voidborn, it was the case with the Vulpera, and it threatens to be the case with the so promising Haranir again.
It doesn’t help that more and more peoples and allied races are joining the two factions. Because with now 26 peoples, only a very small percentage of attention remains that developers can give to an individual people at all. Perhaps it would be good to draw a line here and first not introduce any new peoples, but to breathe a little more life and individuality back into the existing ones.
This really annoys me. I want to see peoples that clearly and noticeably differ from each other. Where cultural differences lead to conflicts that openly and covertly express hostilities and often do not come to a consensus. Or how do you see it?
