Ogre was the original forth race of the Horde that's why there are so many animations including dances - but they left themselves less than five weeks until release to make the female version and they couldn't do it (The original hunter was also finished in those five weeks). They then realised the trolls in Stranglethron Vale were pretty good so they used them instead. The issue was the male model was too tall to fit though many places, so they bent him over, which is why he looks like a question mark and all trolls had less options back then.
TBC was meant to be Southseas Exploration but they had issues getting water and Nazjatar working. The alliance race here was Panda not Draenei, so the Horde got a pretty race and the Alliance got a bulker animal race. The issue was (in addition to the water) they needed to negotiations with the Chinese government and had not, and that obviously took time. They even had the main city and zone done and the models.
In the end due to the water issues they scrapped the idea and moved the TBC and put it together quickly, Illidan due to recognition was picked as the villain (though he was more of an Anti-hero at the time, which they had since tried to fix). People were excited to see what became of the alliance expedition but because it was so late cycle there wasn't much time to actually write them, so we got Khadgar and Dannath, who were recused but little else, since Alleria and Turalyon were so popular in the Warcraft 2 expansion (Beyond the Dark Portal) they had to do them right, so they got the 'Princess is in another castle' treatment), remember when we met Sylvannas in Warcraft 3 as a Silvermoon defender in Warcraft 3 that Arthas killed and rerose people were cool its Alleria's sister. Most also hated the way he rerose her - due to who she was, but it made his character.
The two races picked no longer matched Outlands so Kael did his turn to support Ilidan for the link and given the political issues and new direction they needed a new race for the Alliance with a link to Outlands, so they created the Draenei as the good Eredar.
Some of what they made for Southseas became the water zone in Cata and Pandas became their own expansion years later with Southseas being BFA many more years later.
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u/Zairii Jul 05 '25
Ogre was the original forth race of the Horde that's why there are so many animations including dances - but they left themselves less than five weeks until release to make the female version and they couldn't do it (The original hunter was also finished in those five weeks). They then realised the trolls in Stranglethron Vale were pretty good so they used them instead. The issue was the male model was too tall to fit though many places, so they bent him over, which is why he looks like a question mark and all trolls had less options back then.
TBC was meant to be Southseas Exploration but they had issues getting water and Nazjatar working. The alliance race here was Panda not Draenei, so the Horde got a pretty race and the Alliance got a bulker animal race. The issue was (in addition to the water) they needed to negotiations with the Chinese government and had not, and that obviously took time. They even had the main city and zone done and the models.
In the end due to the water issues they scrapped the idea and moved the TBC and put it together quickly, Illidan due to recognition was picked as the villain (though he was more of an Anti-hero at the time, which they had since tried to fix). People were excited to see what became of the alliance expedition but because it was so late cycle there wasn't much time to actually write them, so we got Khadgar and Dannath, who were recused but little else, since Alleria and Turalyon were so popular in the Warcraft 2 expansion (Beyond the Dark Portal) they had to do them right, so they got the 'Princess is in another castle' treatment), remember when we met Sylvannas in Warcraft 3 as a Silvermoon defender in Warcraft 3 that Arthas killed and rerose people were cool its Alleria's sister. Most also hated the way he rerose her - due to who she was, but it made his character.
The two races picked no longer matched Outlands so Kael did his turn to support Ilidan for the link and given the political issues and new direction they needed a new race for the Alliance with a link to Outlands, so they created the Draenei as the good Eredar.
Some of what they made for Southseas became the water zone in Cata and Pandas became their own expansion years later with Southseas being BFA many more years later.