We could just start a beautiful circular argument here about where has Blizzard ever said that an in-game skin or face option is canon. Void Elves have Quel’Dorei customizations available. Does that mean Void Elves can now get rid of their blueberry skin even if there’s no example in game or that it’s just a customization option added for the sake of people who wanted to play High Elves ?
That’s a bit of a different issue though, isn’t it ? No one is claiming that Kaldorei dark rangers are not canon, for example, but that they are not yet part of the Alliance due to the lack of evidence to support that position. We know Kaldorei dark rangers are a thing because we have actual npc’s (all of them Forsaken so far) just as we have actual black and asian Human npc’s. What we don’t have are stories or npc’s to indicate that the dark rangers in question have been accepted into the Alliance at this point in time which means they haven’t, but that they wish to return. If Blizzard has added that customization now and without the necessary lore to provide a due background on the issue it is because they wanted to bring back players and avoid a backlash on the Alliance side once the Horde would get playable dark rangers (something asked for years).
In my headcanon I am the Ashbringer because I can obtain the item in question therefore I am the Ashbringer. Look, even the NPC’s call me Highlord every time I go inside the Sanctum of Light underneath Light’s Hope Chapel.
But back on the subject a hand, they haven’t said that about customizations because the issue never came up. People didn’t need to ask. They did, however, say that about many other game mechanics and it is easy to deduce from there that it would apply to another game mechanic, like early dark ranger skins for Alliance elves. Chris Metzen on the issue of warlock pets summoned in Stormwind. Steve Danuser on the issue of Oribos portals in the Mage Tower. And the list can go on.
It’s the Highlord, aka me. Liadrin is just a place holder. I was too lazy to get out of bed the day Sargeras’ sword struck Azeroth.
Credit where credit is due, at least Blizzard had made some effort of integrating these customization options into the lore and ongoing storylines in the past. Allied Races had their recruitment quests, the Black Moon eye Night Elves had their questline, Death Knights and Demon Hunters had their share of introductions and convoluted scenarios for why they aren’t hunted to the ends of the earth, how the class/race combinations of Gnome priests, Tauren Paladins, Kul Tiran Shaman and Druids and Zandalari Paladins can exist.
Which makes this crapshoot all the worse because we even have an in-game questchain that rewards the Dark Ranger skins and it doesn’t state anything the pro-Dark Ranger camp claims to be set in stone. We have a Horde Dark Ranger say “Yeah they are free to do what they want, I just hope the Alliance will accept them”, a throwaway line in BFA from Tyrande and a lot of world building and story that contradicts having any Dark Ranger being within spitting distance of Stormwind City.
It’s such a weirdly goofy implementation that I would have thought Blizzard would at least quality check the questchain so it’s in line with how it was handled before.
As for Blizzard claiming whether character customization options are canon or not, have they ever tweeted about Lightforged Draenei shadow priests, Void Elf holy priests or other far fetched race/class choices that seem to entirely exist for gameplay reasons and not due to lore?
After having created an in game world filled with flying machines, machine guns and far more, Blizzard at one point stated anything more advanced than a matchlock musket is either highly experimental or at best technology only available to the military.
It’s a circular argument at this point and it is to be expected. When people have no shared ground on what to consider/not consider as viable evidence they will just end up repeating the same things over and over again without being able to reach any conclusion.
On the bright side, at least the reason for which this topic was made in the first place, which is how SW guard roleplayers should deal with dark ranger roleplayers in SW, seems to have reached a conclusion.
As for everyone else, you can’t force or convince them if they hold different standards in how to interpret the lore. We might as well be living in parallel universes where different laws of physics apply.
Regardless of anyone’s views on what the lore actually is, I do have to say:
Anyone who is interested in playing a Dark Ranger due to their lore and wanting to stay true to the concept… isn’t in Stormwind City. I have hangups about the lore because it isn’t specific enough for me to bring my own character into SW but I would likely still not do it even if they were permitted, as it’s just sort of antithetical to what DRs are all about.
If you see one in Stormwind, and I hate to say this because I hate to make assumptions of people’s RP quality, but assume that they’re probably just the same kind of people who RP San’layn in Lion’s Rest and that most if not all of them will vanish within a few weeks once they are no longer the new hotness or once people stop giving them reactions IC and they get bored.
If you’re interested in playing a Dark Ranger in a more… accurate way, consider heading to Brill or Lordaeron (though I’m not sure if the disguise still is applied to you after the quest chain is over if you’re Alliance) or wandering the world and getting interactions there, rather than in a city that goes entirely against your character’s central theming.
I get what you mean 100%, I sometimes feel like I sound abit elitist when I say DKs/DH’s/Locks with demons out/now DR’s dont belong in SW, but facts are facts, its Stormwind…it isnt the Undercity it isnt Ogrimmar, its Stormwind a very very different place/culture, for me Stormwind is still very much the light worshipping centre of the Alliance with imo a mostly light worshipping population of SW/Alliance patriots, having a bunch of undead/demonic creatures walking about just does not fit in.
No, it would be great if this particular development did. Like the other occasions I have listed already in my previous post. Please don’t present a hyperbole when it’s unnecessary.
And even then, plenty of people may still not be so charming toward them lol, even if they got a letter saying “yall cool now, you can chill now” doesnt mean every single citizen of Stormwind/Alliance is going to be happy about their presence, DK’s used to get butchered frequently when walking around with a ghoul pet back in the day.
“City Elves” and things like them have a bad stigma for a reason. Stormwind’s reputation as “the place people go to RP” unfortunately means that it attracts a lot of characters that truly have no business being there, and because of that, do not RP accurately to their character concept.
DHs, Wardens, DKs, Warlocks, and now DRs chilling on a wall like they’re Roxas and his friends in Kingdom Hearts are weird and always will be.
Yeah mostly Nelves though I think, Helves kinda always had a home in SW even in “blackscreen” when Helves werent a playable choice, nelves ofc have the whole “a few woulda migrated” thing, but even then, generally there are better spots for the incredibly traditional nature loving wild god worshipping nelf majority concept.
Because Metzen and Danuser (whatever the names) stated that just because portals in Mage Tower lead to Oribos, doesn’t mean it’s canon. It’s a game mechanic. Which only means that you can treat such customization options, which is a mechanic, not as a 100% lore fact.
