More on Why WarCraft Reforged Failed

While most units that Reforged has made turned out well, there were few that fell short.

However, these were from the most beloved to the community races and that is what made them so angry.

They get certain races such as Dwarfs right. They are just as round, sturdy and friendly as they are supposed to be.

However, they are two races/fractions that turned out badly and these are demons and elves.

The problem was at concept art/idea level rather at 3D implementation.

Demons

In Warcraft lore demons of the Burning Legion are narcissistic and obsessed with amassing as much power as possible at expense of everything else.

That made them a worthy opponent to fight and defeat. You can feel that they are enough of a threat to protect your fraction from.

Another role demons play, is ave and fear inspiring power wielders that inspires in some desire to covet this power. This power has to be who can grant one the power worthy of betraying your people for. 

That is because power that demons have is so great that they have ability to seduce people to join them, promising to share it with those who will join. Queen Ashara, Gul'Dan, Illidan, Kael'Thas and many others were all seduced by this power.

Warlocks and Mages classes from WoW too use the demonic power for their spells. Mages do so more conservatively, but Warlocks go no limit on it. That is why Night Elves for example do not allow these classes (they allow Mages since Cata, though) as to avoid attracting demons and repeat of Queen Ashara situation. In contrast Druids avoid demonic energies, priding themselves on being sustainable green magic users. You can even see how their sustainable magic compares to a demonic one of mages in game.

Thus, it is crucial for the story that demons do look inspiring enough for people to betray their races for a chance of becoming as mighty as Archimonde. Without it the story just does not work.

Original demon design used to make sure to depict them as mighty, proud and very powerful.

Pit Lords looked not only brutal, but also mighty. You could feal they raw strength. Redesign model makes them look more of a clumsy and fat than mighty.

Dread Lords or Natheresims were fancy and vainglorious with their oversize wings, sometimes decorated with ornaments. However, they were also witty and cunning. They were narcissism incarnates.

Eredar are both mightier than Pit Lords and even more sophisticated than Dread Lord. They have fancy capes, elaborate golden ornaments and lots of fanciness overall. They are the strongest of them all and clearly stand on top of the ladder.

Shivaras and Fel Guards also have cool and impressive designs.

In contrast Reforged models do not convey the same ave and might.

Pit Lords look clumsy and fat. They no longer give the same impression of strength they used to.

Fat Dread Lords take all the vanity and beaty of this race out of the window. If devs wanted to give fat people more prominence they should have just increased Tuskarrs prominence in campaign, who look aesthetically pleasing for fat characters.

Even Eredars often look more tortured, tired and pathetic. 

Lore wise Eredars are of the same race as Alliance Drenai, so their basic anatomy should match. It is just Eredars got much larger by consuming the demonic energies and some of them can literally trample on their once fellow Drenai like on ants. 

However, Reforged just flings that out of the window. Presence or absence of wings used to be an anatomical distinction between Eredars and Natheresims, but it is no longer the case.

Demons of the Burning Legion, like Alliance and Horde and to lesser extend Scourge, to consist of several separate races with their own histories and reasons to join Legion in the first place. Lore only covered how Eredars joined the Legion as well as how Drenai split from them. Other races of the Legion might deserve a similar lore story or perhaps even an expansion of their own where Alliance and Horde will take fight to Legion core worlds.

In fact, Kel'Thuzad mentioned in Scourge campaign that Legion consumed innumerable worlds and drained their energies. One can only speculate how these worlds used to look like and what kind of creatures used to inhabit them. In fact, this theme can carry several expansions.

Elves

I will cover all elven races here as they share the same problems. 

Elves are also vainglorious, proud and sophisticated. That makes them similar to demons in that regard. May be that is why Reforged devs failed these races in particular. Unlike demons' elves are mostly on good side.

A lot of lore is dedicated to elves and how they became many distinct fractions from one common beginning. Elves is the only race that has members in Alliance, Horde, Buring Legion and even Scourge.

All of them however do share this magical and mystical sophistication. As well as aesthetic beaty. Nigth and Blood Elves were the most popular races to play in WoW for that same reason. Because of that it was crucial that elves should have turned out right.

Instead, Elves turned out worst of the races. Many elven units ended up looking deformed and ugly. Dryad is particularly outrageous example, however none of the elven unit looks like super fancy, sophisticated and desirable being. 

Somehow, they even ruined the Spell Breaker, despite there being plenty of them to reference from WoW as they share model with Quel'Thalas guards.

Archers look weary and feral.

Sorceress somewhat alright but not as fancy as they used to be.

Priests have similar forehead problem as dryads do.

They either lack their distinctive glowing eyes or have it too faint and hard to notice. Color of glow in the eyes is what sets apart Blood and High Elves as they split apart only recently.

High Elves are those who stayed with the Alliance, even if they are not playable in WoW, there are High Elf NPCs here and there.

Developers ended up destroying the very essence that made elves popular with players. From a race of intellectual superiority, they became just some ugly deformed creatures.

Paladins

Reforged introduced many new models for Paladins. Sure, diversity is good, but there is one issue. 

Paladins are a special Military-Religious Order with their unique rituals and insignia. WoW even makes them their own class separate from both priests and warriors. Just like a special unit Paladins have their own special insignia and other attributes that make them distinct from other units. 

Like for example Russian VDV has blue berets and stripy shirts under their camouflage as part of unit identity. You cannot make berets green or purple instead, or downright replace berets with Stalhelm and still call them VDV. 

Yet that is what they have done with Paladins. There is no element that unites all the models, that will both hint the player that they are facing Paladin as well as maintain unit consistency. 

Symbols of Silver Hand as well as those of Church of Holy Light should have been displayed prominently on each of them. 

It would have been appropriate to arm them all with large two-handed hammers. Sure, in WoW there is a Paladin with Ashbringer, but when you create a Paladin character you too start with hammer. So, it is appropriate to consider hammer a special weapon of the order that defines the Paladin and sets him apart from other soldiers.

Also, there is a book they carry with them at all times, and they use it to make spells. That too should be a standard issue for every Paladin. In the original they will always open this book to cast their spells. In the later part of Burning Crusade opening cinematic you can also notice a Drenai Paladin opening his book to cast a spell.