I love non-playable races. Most of the time I’m ok with side races not being made playable : lorewise, what matters is really just that they are actual members of the concerned faction, and as such are to play their part in war efforts.
The thing is, I find their status to be quite shady. They’re almost systematically recruited for a specific situation. The Horde needed the Hozen to strengthen their take on Pandaria. Same goes for the Shatterspear tribe, whose settlements in Darkshore were geographically interesting. Taunka were needed to fight the Scourge and for their knowledge of Northrend, etc. And then what ? Once those particular goals are reached, what is their status ? Do they ever participate in following worlwide conflicts ? Is their presence attested in further official faction stuff ? I know that there’s a Hozen Horde Vanguard in Dazar’alor, and Ogres serve as guards in several Horde outposts. Is that it ? I can’t think of a single Revantusk, Shatterspear, Taunka or even Hozen (Riko excepted) in Orgrimmar for example. (I’m voluntarily not mentioning the Unshackled : I never understood if they were official members of the Horde or just friendly temporary helpers)
I know nothing of Alliance lore but I guess the same goes for you. Do you ever see Alliance-marked Jinyu, Brokens, Furbolgs and Dryads outside of their respective expansions and territories ?
Unfortunately, the current status of many of the Horde-affiliated races is unknown, most likely due to them not really being relevant to the recent events for some reason. Same goes for the Alliance-affiliated races.
In theory, all allied but not playable races should have a voice in the council, yes.
In reality, they can’t even deal with the core races that’s why Baine does most of the talking as the “best in the horde”
If Blizzard is to fully commit to this council idea, and not as some comfortable way to weasel out of fixing the mess they provoked with the Horde leadership by leaving it all in some undeveloped limbo, there are a LOT of issues that should be addressed.
First of, the one you mention.
There are several allied races that carry a lot of weight with them and should be presented as core council members.
The one that comes to mind atop of them all, is Roanauk.
As chieftain of all Taunka, his position is par on Mayla and slightly above Baine’s (in terms of political weight regarding their race, the Taunka hold much more power than the few Tauren that inhabit Mulgore).
If they have a seat in said council, so should he.
The Hozen are sort of a wild card. As we are unsure as to whether their allegiance was temporary or definitive. But they would probably come second in terms of allies that should be showcased in said council.
I mean, they outnumber Huojin and Vulpera. And may be par on the Maghar.
Also, they would be the strongest vocals regarding the Horde holdings over Pandaria. Yes, even more so than the faction Pandaren (who come from the Wandering isle).
I never liked the idea of allied races. I thought splitting dev attention between even more peoples really can’t be helping them in giving each player race a bit of focus. But I’ve always made an exception for races that were already established members of the Factions and had already earned a place within the story. And this is exactly why. If it’s not playable they will just brush it aside.
Players aren’t exactly picketing Blizzard for their inclusion, either, though. They just don’t all have the fan base that High Elves had. Else those players might actually be heard at one point.
Hard agree here. If the Council is nothing but a temporary band-aid solution to the chaos surrounding Horde leadership, then it being unrepresentative is no big deal. But if it IS the new political faction format, then the PC-races exclusivity is hardly justifiable.
The Taunka should definitely have their seat. The Hozen case is tricky indeed, but at the same time no canon line has ever implied that they’re no longer members of the Horde, and as previously stated, Hozen Horde NPCs are a thing…
Ogres often operate under Orcish commandment, so I guess them not having a seat could be justified - but the Stonemaul Clan for instance clearly has some sort of independence
I don’t know what’s left of the Shatterspear following BFA. Maybe not much. Revantusk however are still well established in the Hinterlands, and in fact they’re one of our very few representatives in Eastern Kingdoms, so they truly are important
Also as Wimbert said, there doesn’t seem to be any feeling of obligation for Blizzard to update and reintegrate a race unless it becomes playable… which is a shame really. I mean WoW is not (or shouldn’t be ?) all about the player and his influence, its world exists by itself…
To be honest, they shouldn’t.
Still, I’m not overly worried with their case, as Rexxar seems to be their representative and I think that he has a seat in the council.
Nevertheless, Ogres are one of the races that should’ve been considered as top priorities to receive the playable status. On top of also having a more direct say in the faction affairs.
The whole notion about them being dumber than rocks, should’ve been dispelled with the introduction of the races lore in WoD. And with characters such as Chogall.
Yuppp. They’re clearly the most legitimate candidate to the playable status, probably as much as Goblins were back in the days.
Blizzard likes to solidify them as the me-smash-heads running joke, but I think we’ve seen enough perfectly cognitively capable Ogres (Cho’gall as you mentioned, and several NPCs here and there, notably in Brackenwall Village) to say that they’re not inherently, biologically idiot.
There’s also the problem that Blizzard seems to mistake poor language for dumbness, which is nonsensical, even more when the language in question is not the individual’s mother tongue. And if it is, well that’s straight up grotesque, as being overly crap at your mother tongue is highly unlikely, unless you’ve been raised in a specific context or stuff like that. But hey, that’s another story for another day…
We can extend this to any area that isn’t part of the live content. Tomb Of Sargeras is still shiny fel green, Suramar is still dominated by loyalists, the split in the barrens and other locations are still massively marked by Deathwing, there are still 2 Dalarans etc etc… It’s a shame they never build upon the entire world together and only focus on whatever is 100% live.
haha those made me laugh.
Can’t wait to see how on earth they’re going to manage to shoehorn this one day (delete spaces for link):
Sure, but there they have the kind of valid excuse that it is quite a bit of work to change that (while still allowing people to replay the quests). For not including Hozen in the “random grunt” representation for new content, or not putting the Taunka leader in the new council they don’t even have that excuse.
Well they’ve got Chromie time and bronze dragons in nearly all areas now, so there’s no excuse anymore at all really. I’d imagine the real reason behind things like that is like always the fact that they spend so many resources creating new systems, balancing classes and trying to reinvent the bloody wheel each addon instead of creating loads of new content across the whole game.
You could argue that people visit old areas extremely rarely so why bother. it’s exactly because there’s nothing to do or new to see. I would love to return to Suramar and see how the Night Born are doing, hell if there’s some cool quests that reward some nice cosmetics whilst also making you catch up with what’s going on in the area I’d go back. Currently I don’t because even though we’ve beat the baddies and their allies, Elissande is still hanging out in a cave and rebels are still hiding, which is lame. Typically, we got a glimpse through the instanced Night Born allied race quest but that’s it, it’s instanced.
Now concerning the non-playable race I think it’s easier to justify. Taunkas mostly allied to the Horde out of necessity and because they felt they could trust the Tauren. Doesn’t mean they like all of the Horde, their ideals or want to take part any further in their conflicts. Plenty of real world examples from nations temporarily allying themselves to deal with some struggle, only to just shake hands and go about their own ways in the end (if that even).
As for the Hozen… Well not going to lie I really don’t remember their lore and story, but they don’t strike me as the kind of species that stand as a united nation ready to take part in world politics and international relationships.
Don’t get me wrong, would be nice to see them walking around or traveling, like in Dazar’alor, makes the world feel bigger and more alive. It was surprisingly fun seeing all of those races hanging out in that harbor.
“but they don’t strike me as the kind of species that stand as a united nation ready to take part in world politics and international relationships.”
True, but they could become, though. My guess is that the Darkspear and Mulgore Taurens, who were respectively a weak fleeing troll tribe and a struggling nomadic people, were not much into big-scale faction stuff and international politics at first.
But actually, the Taunka and Hozen not wanting to involve in this and distancing themselves from the Horde could perfectly be a legitimate, coherent situation. It would be no fun for us and I wouldn’t like it, but it would be valid lorewise. But we just… don’t know. We have no clue, the matter is simply ignored. I only want to know what’s up with them, so I can get a better grasp of the current racial and geopolitical map of the factions, but Blizzard won’t even give me that. Instead they go “You know what ? Let’s never care about this once it’s released and focus on delivering new cosmic existence-erasing stuff and teasing twisted Sylvanas X Anduin potential love interest”.
Now to be fair, maybe that’s what people want…
That is a fair point. My thoughts on this would be that the Tauren and Darkspear tribe are inherently more powerful and intelligent than a species like the Hozen, so they perceived all the positives of stepping up as a people and joining a faction larger than them. I get what you mean though, would be nice if there were was at least a couple of NPCs or some other in game or piece of media that would wrap up all the loose ends instead of being cast out in the dark pit of old content (the real maw)
Ah yeah but you and I imagine the rest of us nerds that bother to come in this forum and have discussions about a half assed fantasy world, actually care about this universe as a whole. I’m not sure the people who make the stuff are as invested as us some times.
Eeeeeew can you imagine that’s where it will lead?!
I think you’re probably right about us investing ourselves in the universe more than they do… They initially came up with a gorgeous and inspiring world, but it’s like they don’t have that much respect for it. Anyway, yeah dude, my call : Sylvanas-Anduin is totally gonna end up that way ROFL
It frustrates me because i know blizzard wont make them a playable race, ogres are the biggest offenders of this, literally a horde race since warcraft 3 but still not playable.
Also arrakoa, even if they are never included in the story again i love everything about my bird boys
I’m not sure about those, but I do see High elves being relevant in almost every expansion.
Vanilla: helping the Alliance in Theramore, Hinterlands, Stormwind, Stonetalon mountains.
BC: Helping the Alliance in the Allerian Stronghold
Wrath: helping the Alliance vanguard
Cata: Representing the Alliance side in Zul’Aman
MOP: helped the Alliance in isle of Thunder, plus helped with the purge of Dalaran.
Some of them died in Theramore too.
Legion: helped in the Hunter lodge and Suramar campaign. Also helped the Void elves settle in Stormwind and show them around.
BFA: helped the 7th legion (Alliance)
Shadowlands: helped fight against the Zombie Invastion in Northerd and created a portal.
I always see them being active every expansion. But obviously they won’t be playable due to the fact they are similar to Belves. The closest thing to them now on the playable alliance races is Void elves.
