Summary
- A former WoW developer revealed that Ogres were intended to be a playable race for the Horde, but the lack of time for female Ogre models led to playable trolls instead.
- Pandaren was originally planned as an Alliance race, but later became a neutral race available to both sides.
- The first WoW expansion was supposed to be a South Seas pirate adventure featuring Nazjatar, but was scrapped due to technology limitations with rendering water.
A former World of Warcraft developer revealed the Horde was a matter of weeks away from getting Ogres as a playable race. This, and other developer insights, were shared during a recent World of Warcraft charity event Q&A.
Dance of the Dead is a yearly community event organized by World of Warcraft players on the Moon Guard server. This year, it managed to raise $7,500 for the Wounded Warriors veteran support charity at the virtual event, which hosted special guest Johnathan Staats–the first 3D level designer on World of Warcraft, described as the “hero of the WoW dev team” by his fellows during his more than 10 years at Blizzard.
During the Q&A period with Staats, the former Blizzard employee spoke on some highlights from early in the development period. Portergauge, a popular World of Warcraft fan and community member, was in attendance and summarized the events of the Q&A on his personal Twitter. Apparently, Ogres were originally planned to be the fourth race for the Horde in vanilla, which is why they have so many animations. However, the devs ran out of time for the female Ogre models, so World of Warcraft co-opted Troll assets, leading to the lanky warriors being playable instead.
Portergauge shared a few other insights from Staats as well. Pandaren was going to be an Alliance race in vanilla World of Warcraft because the development team universally loved Kung Fu movies. However, unlike Ogres, Pandaren at least later joined WoW as a neutral race available to both sides. Additionally, the first World of Warcraft expansion was supposed to be a South Seas pirate adventure featuring Nazjatar, but the idea was scrapped because the developers couldn’t figure out the technology to render water well.
World of Warcraft fans loved getting a look behind the mirror of developing the early game. Ogres are one of the most popular candidates for becoming playable races in WoW, so learning they almost were was devastating for their fans. Even so, most agreed getting playable Trolls was worth the sacrifice, even if most would prefer to have both. Pandarens and Nazjatar eventually made it into the game, so if players are lucky, Ogres will follow suit someday.
BlizzCon is taking place next week, and players are expecting to see the reveal of a new WoW expansion. While fans probably shouldn’t get their hopes up about playable Ogres, whatever comes next in World of Warcraft is sure to be exciting.
World of Warcraft is available now for PC.