Race Lore Changes, The good the bad and the WTF

Blizzard has made changes to its living universe over time to let people try more race-class combinations.  Some were introduced with style some were written in by someone wanting to just go home after a long week and no creative energy left and some were just added with no explanation whatsoever.  So just for fun here are my thoughts on them - Ill go from worst to best.

#1 & #2 - Orc & Mage (Cataclysm), Draenei & Mage (Burning Crusade)

Ok so Orcs and Draenei  have a cultural hatred for things Fel (Like mage magic drawn from the twisting Nether).  yet they just have Mageswith no real explanations given.  The starting mage trainers for both races doesn't even have a dialog when you click on her.



#3 & #4 - Human & Hunter (Cataclysm),  Night Elf & Mage (Cataclysm)

There was a human trained by High Elves in the skills of a hunter.  He was the only human trained by the High Elves.  But with the removal quest to go kill him what lore there is on human hunters exists in the Forsaken lands...or would but all the dialog is gone just the name of the NPC remains.  The Highborn are in a similar boat with their run up quest to Cata not adapted at all their just suddenly there well, because.

#5 - Worgen & Druid (Cataclysm)

Other than a bit of dialog with your starting trainer about being 'Harvest Priests' the Worgen Druids get zero lore.  Also the Worgen never call them Harvest priests elsewhere.  It could of been a really great little story if they bothered to tell it.

#6, #7, & #8 - Forsaken & Hunter (Cataclysm), Gnome & Priests (Cataclysm),  Blood Elf & Warrior

The baisc lore is that there were always NPCs of these characters so now their PCs.  The Forsaken get a bonus lore point in having the only elven trained human hunter as one of theirs now.  Why are these groups heading out to adventure now?  Who knows?

#9 & #10 -Goblin & Shaman (Cataclysm), Draenei & Shaman (Burning Crusade),  Troll & Druid (Cataclysm)

For Horde shamans there are some NPCs running around with sort of amusing comments about Goblins and how they abuse the elements and a few colorful NPCs and their quests you can examine.  For Alliance shamans you have the same only much plainer quests and dialog.  As a comprehensive lore for whats going on that is pretty weak.  Though I do have to admit its better than the examples above because you can get a small clue but both of them feel like they were going somewhere that ended up being on the cutting room floor.  The trolls fall somewhere between the two in being worked in kinda then just abandoned.  In fact I rate these three worse than the Dwarves because their religions with virtually no cultural tie in.

#11, #12, & #13 - Dwarf & Mage (Cataclysm), Dwarf & Warlock (Cataclysm), Dwarf & Shaman (Cataclysm)

With the addition of the Dark Irons and Wildhammer Dwarves each brought with them their own knowledge. Now this is a really fantastic and elegant way to add the classes.  Sadly its not backed up by any dialog in game I've found.  Why ar the Dark Irons teaching anyone their Mage craft?  Why do the Wildhammers trust the Darkirons enough to teach them the Shamanistic arts?  Answers could of existed for this but I don't think they updated the dwarven lore much.


#14 & #15 Tauren & Paladin (Cataclysm),  Tauren & Priest (Cataclysm)

The Tauren probably score worse than the Dwarves on lore only because the really amazing dialog for the run up for Cataclysm has been entirely removed.  But Im very fond of the work the did on making them one unified group (Sunwalkers) who just have a little different training.  It feels like they had great plans for where to go from their introduction that just never got used but what is left is a sensible bit of lore that is very well done.

#16  Blood Elf  & Paladin (Burning Crusade)

The big winners in Blizzards efforts to make unusual classes fit.  The Blood Knights had a plot line that slowly unfolded throughout the Burning Crusade that was quite amazing.  In fact they gave a handy reason for the lack of warriors - everyone with any blade skill was converted to paladins.  Even with the Blood Elf race stuck in a sort of holding pattern since the Burning Crusade I think this stands as a shinning gem of how to work the mechanics of class into the world.  I had really high Hopes the Sunwalker would get a similar treatment, even if their story wasn't so pivotal to the Cataclysm plot.

Lore: Use wisely or it will bite you on the...

The lesion here is a simple one.  None of these classes had and reason to be any less than good in presentation.  I could of wove an excellent lore story for each that could of been worked into the dialog with minimal effort to really help the world live and grow.