Well, Grom is easy. Grom represents the Old Horde - its experiences, its sins, its journey up to this point. Metaphorically and literally he is the part of the Horde who is tempted to go back to the old ways. An important part of Thrall's journey is learning just how far Grom (and the old Horde) had fallen. And the final level of the orc campaign is subdoing that fallen nature (i.e. Grom) and cleansing-converting it (i.e. with that magic ceremony), a task that can only be achieved by cooperating with the Old Horde's historic enemy the Alliance (i.e. Jaina). Thrall cleanses and saves Grom just as he cleanses and saves the orcs, and their Horde.

Finally, the Horde itself severs its connection to the demonic legion (i.e. Grom kills Mannoroth), and only then does the Old Horde truly die to make way for the New Horde (i.e. Grom dies and makes way for Thrall).

EDIT: There's a reason "Cry of the Warsong" is one of my favorite levels. "Cry of the Warsong" is Grom trying to get you to play Warcraft II again.

I feel it is rather clear why they removed the Forest Trolls from the Horde later on in the development, they wanted to utilize them as enemies in World of Warcraft, possibly to prevent Lordaeron from being too monotonous with all the undead and demons. If they had simply wanted to not deal with the Forest Trolls sailing west, they could have had them eradicated, with Zul'jin dead as well (something they were likely planning anyway, hence the Vengeance for Zul'jin!). But instead, they turned them from rather sympathetic folks of this earlier description into creeps with a rather unpleasant reputation, that reeks of seeding them as a potential villain race for World of Warcraft.

I'm sure them being Creeps is what was the plan for the Blood Elves in WoW too (before TBC anyway). The Blood Elves were already out of the Alliance before TFT but not hostile to them yet. Hence Lord Garithos coming by to do his thing.

From some other thread on here:

Huh. WC3: RoC did have a vibe of the Alliance breaking apart. But it focused more on Arthas' journey for the Human Campaign with the break apart happening before you start playing it.

You wouldn't have a way to upload all the preview info would you?

__________________
тче баттле бегонс...

Huh, interesting. Hadn't seen that before. About those three other playable races - I'm guessing two of them were undead and night elves, and a playable Burning Legion was obviously scrapped, but what was the sixth one?

__________________


Avatar by Baldi Konijn.
Previous avatars: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

"Originally, Blizzard conceived six races. The fifth was the Burning Legion, an ancient race of demons that invaded Azeroth early on in the game. Deciding on a sixth race was like a game of roulette, with the development ball stopping on various ideas. One such race was the goblins, a mischievous and devil-may-care band of green-skinned warriors who had thrown in with the Orc Horde during WarCraft II's events. Early plans for a fleshed-out race of goblins in WarCraft III played up the kamikaze mentality of the goblin with designs such as a catapult that flung units across the map. Ambition gave way to reality when six and even five races proved too difficult for Blizzard to balance. Goblins and the Burning Legion hung around in the game, but not in the form of fully playable factions." - shacknews

That's why they had so many artworks with goblins.

__________________
тче баттле бегонс...

Ah, alright. Thanks!

__________________


Avatar by Baldi Konijn.
Previous avatars: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Yes, but there were some key differences, notably the infighting that would diminish their armies.

Anyway, here we go with the previews.

First, I'd start with this Scrolls of Lore gallery, which contains several magazine scans;

http://www.scrollsoflore.com/gallery/index.php?cat=10

Then there is this site which has many other scans, though mostly in German;

http://www.blizzardarchive.com/pub/i...?id=printmedia
https://www.hiveworkshop.com/threads...thread.155117/

---
(I own some of the magazines in those three links physically, but nothing that is not there, so no use for me to scan anything)

----

Then there is this old fansite, which gathered everything it could on Warcraft III back in the day, and as such, there is a lot of information on the units and their abilities as envisioned in earlier versions. There are also many transcriptions of interviews, translations of non-English previews (including some of those German above), etc;

https://web.archive.org/web/20010711...aftiii.net:80/

And there is also this old official timeline, from a Computer Games magazine preview (sadly, I do not own this preview, and have not been able to find a scan yet, all I know is it featured this timeline and some extensive information on the Night Elves). There are some interesting tidbits there, like Aegwynn defeating Sargeras merely 45 years ago, the Horde succeeding in destroying Quel'Thalas during the Second War, and the Alliance descending into civil strife as Warcraft III begins;

https://web.archive.org/web/20010602...timeline.shtml

Then there is this GameFan preview, which is one of the few previews that mention the decade long conflict;

https://web.archive.org/web/20000621...=1747&t=p&pg=1



Then there is this IGN preview, but not too much there;

https://web.archive.org/web/20010413...ews/12906.html

And finally, there is also this exact copy of the 2000 Press Kit. The texts for the Alliance, the Horde, and the Scourge are relatively same as at release, but there is also a text for the Burning Legion (they were still planned to be playable at that point), revealing the original backstory for the Eredar.

https://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/G.../Warcraft_III/



----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There's also the fact that the original map for Warcraft III had the Undermine looking rather, uhm, significant.

The Priest says "In Memory of Quel'thalas" (or something like that) when attacking. Would that be a leftover from Qt getting detroyed by the Horde?

It's rather likely. The same as with the Troll Headhunters (who were supposed to be forest trolls originally) saying "Vengeance for Zul'jin!". Plus, there were many more high elven units in the Alliance roster originally, like the Ranger hero or the Wind Serpent unit (later remade into Dragonhawk Rider).

I wonder where the High Elves were supposed to be during development and afterwards. I mean, considering WoW. You don't suppose making them into Blood Elves was done to have more Creeps in WoW?

A very old concept map for World of Warcraft had the isle of Quel'Danas listed as "new elven hangout", whereas Quel'Thalas and Silvermoon were listed as "ex elven hangout, semi-burned". Moreover, Quel'Danas was supposed to have a port to Valgarde (and Valgarde to Kul Tiras), strongly implying they were planned to be human aligned. So yes, I think the Blood Elves were conceptualized far late, to have more creeps in WoW (possibly Outland).

And the RPG had Blood Elves being villainous a lot. So was Illidan.

I know that bit about the Eredar destroying their own plane has long since been retconned, but it's interesting when compared to how Kil'jaeden seemed to feel about Argus.

I've always digged the idea of having playable Eredar and maintain that they are the best newly faction-locked playable species on paper (Night Elves shouldn't be in a Human Power Alliance, Worgens are too gimmicky, Blood Elves and Forsaken should be neutral). But I kinda wish they did more with their backstory than to make them retreads of the Orcs. If only by making them already imperialists hence getting Sargeras' attention.

According to TFT's preview, Illidan was an option to become the Lich King. I wonder if the bits in the RPG where Illida allied with the Blood Elves and tried to loot the Lich King's magic might have been based on an early draft of TFT.

Also, I guess most of the mentionings of WC3 happening in a decade were in German sources?

1) It might be. Honestly, not really unimaginable for Illidan to consume the Lich King's magic instead of destroying it.

2) I know of one German, and the one I posted here.

What was the German one called?

I think it was mentioned in one of the GameStar previews, not sure which one. I know one of them mentioned that the Tauren joined the Horde to repay the centuries of human oppresion (yes, the Tauren were originally present in the East), it could be that one, had a lot of backstory present.

They were going all out on Humanity being the real monsters?

Well, as they said in that one interview, their aim was to get them almost down to the level of the Horde. Evening the scales.

In my opinion, a key difference was that we got to play as the Horde having fun while being bad, in WC1-2.

To even those scales and give humans a similar feel, WCIII would've needed to merge the Alliance and the Scourge into a single faction. Death Knights fighting alongside Footmen and Peasants, just as they had done with Grunts and Peons beforehand. Have Arthas become the actual king of Lordaeron instead of king of zombies.

I understand why they didn't go that way. But still. Now I'm thinking how fun it would've been.

Warcraft III Alpha had fanatical Crusaders, mad Elven Rangers and Wind Serpents, and Steam Tanks that were actually tanks. Lots of bad fun there, I'd say. But I actually thought of what you are suggesting there as well, mostly with my suggestions that the undead should have been the fourth Alliance race in World of Warcraft, not the Night Elves.

1. "Mad" Elven Rangers?

2. You mean the Forsaken? How would the Alliance accept them?