Humans began as the “good guys” of the Warcraft saga, thrown into battle time and time again with the savage orcs in the first two games. They were portrayed as the more moral, more sympathetic, and more civilized of the two factions, trying their best to defend their world and their people from an invading force bent on their total destruction.

[edit] Moral Ambiguity
However, in Warcraft III the race’s distinction as the “noble humans” blurred. Two new races, with their own philosophies, religions and agendas, were introduced: the Night Elves and the Undead. The game began with a practice campaign in which the player was introduced to the game’s mechanics and premise by taking on the role of the now-sympathetic Orcs, carrying out raids on human settlements to free enslaved Trolls, Ogres and Orcs. The first full campaign in the game involved commanding the Human forces, but required the player to commit increasingly questionable acts and a protagonist whose true motivations and loyalties grew increasingly suspect. Indeed, the transition from the Human campaign to the Undead campaign involved little change in the dramatis personae on stage, and the Humans would later serve as opponents for player-controlled Undead, Night Elf and Orc forces.

Likewise, Human forces not under the player’s control were often shown to be engaged in arguably ignoble acts. Prior to the events depicted in Warcraft III, for instance, some human nations were shown enslaving the orcs, rounding them up in internment camps, and forcing them to engage in gladitorial combat for human entertainment. It should be noted however that the Orcs had just launched attacks against the entire human race in an attempt to destroy it. In the expansion to Warcraft III, The Frozen Throne, human forces were shown attempting genocide against the Blood elves, though, again, that this was the action of an individual, and not the human race as a whole.

[edit] Debate in World of Warcraft
With the release of the MMORPG World of Warcraft, some fans (particularly those who played as Horde races) gradually came to think of the Humans as the “bad guys,” citing the aforementioned acts and their continued fighting with the Orcs (who were now free from demonic corruption) and their allies in the Horde. They argue that while a great part of the orcs’ misdeeds ostensibly came from being under demonic corruption, the humans actively and knowingly broke the truce that was formed after the different factions banded together to defeat the demons during the opening of the Dark Portal.

Other players defend the actions of the Humans, arguing that the Horde brought much of the conflict on themselves, with many quests in the game involving attacks on otherwise inoffensive Humans, Night Elves, etc – many of whom were civilians or simply healing the lands in which they lived. Likewise, defenders of the Humans’ moral stance point to the generations of conflict between the races in which the Humans were repeatedly attacked without provocation; to the atrocities committed by the Orcs in previous games; and to the fact that many of the Human leaders were unwittingly manipulated by demonic or Undead forces (much like the Orcs once had been) or were simply led by immoral individuals.

[edit] Introduction of the Draenei
The issue of the Humans’ moral superiority was further muddied with the introduction of the Draenei as a playable race in the World of Warcraft expansion, The Burning Crusade. The Draenei themselves seemed to embody the virtues which the Human race had previously championed in earlier games. They too had Paladins and Priests and served the Naaru; likewise, they had been nearly wiped out by the Horde at once point. Unlike the humans however, Draenei may not play as Warlocks; the evil which the Draenei might have been capable of was attributed to the Eredar, the parent race from which they had split off. Thus the humans were left as both good and evil, while very little moral ambiguity or ambivalence was given to the Draenei.

How Blizzard will continue to develop the Warcraft universe’s Humans remains to be seen.