An early orc quest involves killing Kul Tiras Marines and Soldiers. Their faction affiliation is clearly listed as Stormwind. Hillsbrad Fields is a comparable area. NPCs friendly to alliance, the horde needs to kill them for quests, their faction is Stormwind. In contrast, the Dalaran NPCs in Silverpine and Alterac don't have any faction affiliation below their nametag.

Kul Tiras is a reasonable inclusion in any island expansion, but without retcon changes it can't be neutral. It is an alliance city.

Most things need to be retconned to some degree. Hell, the orcs virtually wiped out the entire draenei culture, but yet in TBC, they are freely welcomed into Shat City. Not to mention Blood Elves to boot. Kul Tiras going neutral is alot easier to swallow than that was.

Besides, if I remember correctly "Could be mistaken...been awhile since WC3", Admiral Proudmoore acted independently of Jaina, Kul Tiras and the rest of the Alliance with their pseudo invasion of Durator. I'm pretty sure Thrall is aware of this.

Not exactly true. There could be plot/quest-related drama (An occupation, perhaps?) that means players have to "unlock" it ala The Shadow Vault base for the Knights of the Ebon Blade in Icecrown. An occupation sounds like a good enough reason for Jaina to take a larger than normal interest in the place, and if she puts out the call for assistance...

I really don't see them making a clearly human city a neutral zone tho. There's no precedent in lore of Kul Tiran soldiers dealing amicably with the Horde. At least with Zuldazar the trolls there have had dealings with horde and alliance thru ZG so there's some type of precedent. Granted it does seem that blizz loves to have a powerful human mage run each neutral city (Khadgar, Rhonin) so on that note I could see Jaina taking Kul Tiras and making it neutral with a possibility but in the end I doubt it.

Actually, it has been mentioned a lot (I bet even on this thread) that Goblins as a playable (Horde) race choice doesn't mean all the Goblins as a whole species suddenly go pro-Horde only.
The Steamwheedle Cartel and thus Booty Bay, Ratchet, Gadgetzan, Everlook and is neutral, the Venture Co. is rather hostile to everyone who doesn't work for them, and then there are several other mentioned trade cartels/subfactions of the Goblins, one could easily still feel attached to the Orcs/Horde, or choose to join the Horde exclusively for more recent reasons. Starting zone could be a middle-sized and so far unknown island in the South Sea, or even not far east of Durotar/Azshara, a good reason for close ties with the Horde.

If Blizzard does go as far as just making the entire Goblin race join the Horde then I could see Undermine becoming a Horde town. This opens a new fun possibility of 2 separate cities by going the route of having the Alliance use Kul Tiras as their staging point and the Horde using Undermine instead of us seeing a neutral city. This would also work well in further showing the tensions between the factions (depending on how things are after Icecrown).

I think it is more likely that Blizzard will make up a island or 2 and some city for the Horde goblins though.

I doubt the holidays would ever be a reason for that considering that it isn't hard to go into a BG and get it or elsewhere. I just like the idea of both sides having their own little cities rather than the whole neutral bit.

I love Dalaran, really, I do. But Dalaran is too crowded and thus too laggy. I wouldn't mind seeing two cities, if only to fix the lag/load problems.

On that note, I really, really, would like to see some work done on the old world. Imagine Gnomergan being a port city, and some other (either newly built Troll city, or some re-occupied Troll city) dwelling for the Darkspear.

New Gnomergan if you will. It annoys the hell out of me that lorewise we've defeated Kil'Jaden, slain Illidan, slaughtered an Aspect of Magic, and yet Gnomes haven't made improvements on Gnomergan.

Kul Tiras is the only alliance city that has been attacked by the horde as it exists in WoW. (Edit: As posters below pointed out to me that attack was in Theramore, although it was an attack on Daelan Proudmoore and Kul Tiras's navy. It's been awhile since I played Frozen Throne.) Dalaran got sacked by the WC2 demon-controlled horde, by the scourge, and by the blood elves, but Blizzard can still halfway justify horde belf DKs hanging out in Dalaran because horde belf DKs aren't loyal to Kael or the scourge or the old horde. Blizzard can't use that excuse for horde in Kul Tiras. The Frozen Throne campaign where Rexxar killed Daelan Proudmoore was the only attack on an alliance city that Thrall signed off on.


Which of the following seems more like a logical continuation of WC3?


-The people of Kul Tiras continue to not like orcs, and the horde badge vendors are in Undermine or some troll city...

OR

-The following dialogue occurs in a cutscene we have to watch on all of our alts at level 83:

Thrall: "People of Kul Tiras, Rexxar was totally out of line. I barely know that guy, he mostly hangs out in Desolace. Daelan Proudmoore wasn't a genocidal asshole after all, and we must all work together to kill Azshara or Deathwing or whoever. For the horde! And the Alliance!"

Jaina: "Oh Thrall, take me now you green stallion! Let's make half orc babies that will become lore characters in the level 100 expansion!"


Actually I think I've defeated my own argument because scenario #2 is exactly what Blizzard would do. 100g on Kul Tiras being the new neutral city.

Kul Tiras wasn't attacked by the Horde in WC3 and you are likely thinking of when they attacked Theramore. Now of course Kul Tiras wouldn't be too happy about their old leader being killed by the Horde but the RPG books make it seem like his disappearance was covered up.

Theramore was/is a colony of Kul Tiras though, I believe. At the very least Theramore wasn't politically distinct from Kul Tiras in Frozen Throne. I may be unclear on whether the name applies to the city or the nation.

Wrong. Theramore was founded by Jaina, and only shortly taken over by her father.

We had Shattrath being a Dranei city, Dalaran being a human city, am I the only one hoping we don't get yet another Alliance city for the neutral hub?

Undermine is still possible even if the Goblins join up with the Horde, it is unlikely every trade prince will join with them, more likely one faction. Also Zulzadar is a better fit too, we're all on friendly relations with them after Hakkar, and the Darkspear of the Horde would likely be welcomed. If Azshara does raise Nazjantar it is likely they'll let Alliance base there to help against the Naga.

Zulzadar is a really interesting one. It is basically the trolls Mecca, holy ground where they meet to discuss things. Should it become threatened by Azshara I wonder if we won't see aid come from the other warring troll factions till the threat has passed. Would be pretty cool fighting alongside Amani and the like.

They do clearly wear Kirin Tor tabards, though, so I don't think this analogy really holds. Before Dalaran in Northrend was introduced, those Dalaran NPCs were the only visible part of the Kirin Tor in WoW, so it doesn't really make sense to say they were unaffiliated with the Alliance - they were, simply because they were green to Alliance and red to Horde. And Horde does kill them by the crapton (crapton*10 if you ever tried to farm that stupid black kitten).

Point being, that doesn't stop Horde from hanging out in Dalaran in Northrend, so the same reasoning would easily apply for Kul Tiras, should Blizzard decide that it's what they want in the next expansion. Remember that there does seem to be some acknowledgment of temporal distance in the leveling process, so stuff you do as level 10-20 happens, in the world, logically before stuff you do at level 70-80, so it's fairly easy to justify the changes in the overall situation.

That being said, I'm with Vaccine here. I'd much rather have a Horde-inspired capital city in the next expansion.

Before I start, let me say that I don't see this as incredibly likely, I'm just throwing ideas out there.

Is it possible that the Worgen leak isn't actually a new race leak, but will act more like a new class? Unless only humans can be infected with the curse, I see this as possible from a lore perspective. From a gameplay perspective though, it sort of starts to fall apart. We were just giving a new melee DPS/tank the form of DKs, which would basically cover the only real roles I could see this "class" filling. Also, as has been pointed out before, we really don't need any more physically damaging classes, no matter what armor class they are capable of wearing.

Like I said, not likely to happen. Mostly this is the only feasible (if only slightly) way I could come up with for playing a Worgen without switching to Alliance.

(Delete please, redundant.)

You know what would be a great mount for goblins? Shredders. Your tongue-in-cheek mention of ogres caused the image of a goblin on a bipedal mount to flash in my mind, and my mind immediately edited it to be a fairly standard shredder. It fits and is very iconic for goblins.

If not shredders, then I expect some kind of shimmering-flats-style speeder perhaps, or maybe some kind of dune-buggy-ish vehicle.

For worgen, I keep coming back to this image of them dropping to all four and shifting to a ghost-wolf-like travel form, but I agree that can't happen. People just care about mounts too much. I've also been trying to find connections between Gilneas and any mount other than a horse, and have been unsuccesful So, what will they get?. Well, if one of the thoughts behind adding worgen to the alliance is to get the alliance a more bestial race, perhaps that extends to mounts as well. There would be something interesting about a dire wolf mount, but I can't expect that (since orcs already have them). The best I've come up with so far is some kind of war boar, such as warhammer orcs ride. Giant boar mounts aren't all that uncommon in fantasy settings, and are unrepresented in WoW so far.

(I suppose another possibility is that each race lets each faction access one mount from the other side, with worgen getting dire wolves and goblins getting mechanostriders. But that's lazy and boring, so I can't grant the possibility much weight.)

I could see Worgen riding boars or savage bears.

There are Worgen Spellcasters in Duskwood, by the way.

Wowwiki also lists Worgen as being Warlocks, Priests and Mages (in addition to Barbarian and Warrior). So assuming Worgen was a class, don't assume they will be tank/melee.

It's absolutely an interesting concept, in my opinion. Worgen as a class and their talent specs can determine if they're melee or caster. If I remember correctly the Worgen in Shadowfang have some nasty curses. (OH! and on top of that, isn't there a Worgen boss there who is a priest?).

Fake edit: Upon further looking, it appears there are instances of Forsaken turning into Worgen. Apothecary Berard - WoWWiki - Your guide to the World of Warcraft

Another Worgen?

As for goblin mounts, Shredders would be the optimal choice. They've been with us for so long they're an iconic combination -- think goblins, you think sappers, fast-talking, being separated from your gold with ease... and shredders. Even if it's just a micro-shredder, it'll work.

Remember whatever the mount is all races will be using it. As much as I'd love a tauren sized Shredder I can't see it happening.

Since we are on the topic of mounts, I want to post this. Somebody on Scrolls of Lore drew this and posted it in a similar thread. The idea was for Goblins. However, I think Giant Rats would work awesomely for Worgen also.



As for Goblins, outside of them riding ROUS's, which is hella cool in my opinion...Princess Bride anybody? I think Boars would work in nicely as well as Turtles. And with Turtles I don't mean cute Turtles like the ones the Tuskaar ride. I mean a new type of Turtle Species/Model that is native to Kezan. More menacing and what have you.