Does Cataclysm Kill WoW’s Lore?

Alongside the elation and cheers of millions of WoW players, a selection of players weren't happy with the proposed changes in WoW's upcoming expanion, Cataclysm. The main issue these players have is the addition of several class/race combinations.

In Cataclysm, players will be able to play characters of the following class/race in addition to the existing choices:

Horde

Orc Mage, Undead Hunter, Tauren Paladin, Tauren Priest, Troll Druid, Blood Elf Warrior

Alliance

Human Hunter, Dwarf Mage, Dwarf Shaman, Night Elf Mage, Gnome Priest

Fans have accused Blizzard of butchering Lore, making these changes purely to make people re-roll characters once they get bored wit their current ones, or maybe enticing them to use the upcoming paid race change feature. However, as Wryxian explains below, the new combos DO actually fit in with Lore.

But again I feel what is really grating for some people is that there are so many new combinations at once. Because as we've stated already, these new combinations are based on storyline progression and not the other way around. We've had these evolutions in our playable race options planned for quite some time, so I think it is just that they're coming all at once that is making people raise an eye in suspicion -- because it is so clearly linked to opening up new possibilities for game play in our upcoming expansion.

And sure, it's quite obvious we are definitely wanting to open up some new combinations, and we don't see this as a bad thing. But the changes in terms of game play are indeed well rooted in lore and will be further explained through quests and other in-game text and events to highlight this even more.

Let's see how night elf society treats and adapts to having a few of their arcane wielding kind playable instead of quietly hidden away in Dire Maul, before we jump to conclusions on how wrong or right we feel it is from our perspective. The humans also do not like warlocks, but yet we didn't decide to not include the human warlocks just because some people might feel they don't fit with the human lore. Like Night Elf mages, human warlocks do exist and opening them up to being playable was, in my opinion at least, a cool idea and I feel pretty much the same about the new combinations coming in Cataclysm including the Night Elf mages.

Though personally I have my gleaming crocolisk eyes on those dwarven shaman... and I don't mean just for a tasty elemental flavoured snack...