New update for Stormwinds guards: Black and asian skins to the NPCs. Positive or Lore-breaking?

Lore Story
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I have read them too and I am quite sure I remember descriptions using metaphors, comparisons or other style figures to suggest a person is black-skinned. So they have always existed on Azeroth.

As for being racist, I believe that “disagreeing” with this feature in particular ends up being a racist attitude as you are promoting exclusion of certain human races’ representation from literally the only (bar Kul’tiras) and biggest human Kingdom of Azeroth that is also the only one that is playable. Even if it was indeed a retcon (which it is not), it would bue a retcon for good reasons and it would not hurt anyone, much on the contrary.

I commend you for your capability of holding a discussion without insults and threats, but with a clear explanation of your point of view. It is rare to find such things in these forums.

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I know they’ve always existed on Azeroth.

Makasa is black.
The raiders in Tanaris were also described in the Traveller as having arabic features.

But each had one thing in common: a defined background outside of Stormwind.

I’ve read three different people in this thread (myself included) who disliked/disagreed with this feature.
Two never advocated for that sort of exclusion. And the third one argued (wrongly) that said features were never part of the story.

I’ll repeat, and i can only speak for myself here, that i do not like this feature.

Not because i think there weren’t any blacks, or asians, in the story, but because i think that the way they are being suddenly introduced, is not the way to go with these sort of things.

Every race has a background, and a reason to be. We know why there are blacks, asians, whites, etc., in any world country. We know how every minority came to be.

Same should happen in WoW.

Stormwind can have any ethnicity they want as part of it, but the story should be one that explained how said circumstance came to be.
And yes, that would mean giving black or asian people in WoW, the background they had before joining the kingdom.

Racial diversity doesn’t appear spontaneously. Going with “Lol, magic” is some cheap and bad kind of storytelling.

And this is a fact Blizzard unconsciously knew when writing their stories, and highlighted the fact that those few black/asian/whatever characters they had as protagonists, were from other parts of the world.

Why do you think is good for the story?

Because, no offense, but with the way you worded it, it seemed to be more about it being good because it would fill some diversity checkbox.

I’ll leave a TLDR to get across my point easier:

I disagree with this whole thing because i think that these racial features should be presented as culturally independent from Stormwind, and in a way that allowed them to develop their own thing while also enabling certain wiggle room for Stormwind to have its own culture as Gilneas and Kul Tiras do. Even if they needed to ultimately converge into the same thing.

You think this is good, and went as far as arguing about a positive retcon, because…? Explain please.

Thank you.
And without wanting to sound as a jerk, i must say that i’m not a fan about how broadly you insulted anyone that disagreed as a racist.

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First off, I would like to apologize if I offended you, and others, by calling you racist. I admit that perhaps it was quite impulsive of me to simply consider you as such.

That idea of further exploring a possible story and cultural differences in the different races of the human race would actually be a wonderful idea. But we know that would recquire a tremendous ammount of work by Blizzard’s part and to what point would it be story-friendly? In the sense that we play as Stormwind humans and as such, if they opened up these customization options as part of a different race among the humans, with all the cultural differences, how is that not an Allied race?
I think it is simpler to simply add them this way as already a part of the Kingdom of Stormwind. If, in the future there is room for that then wonderful but right now it is better to have the options than not to have them.

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Because it would give a solid explanation regarding the sudden influx of characters that will randomly populate Stormwind and turn it into the multicultural city that it’ll seem to be come SL.

And because i dont see the reason (*) as to why should Blizzard implement them as part of the list of ingame assets, if they are not going to bother giving an expanded explanation to it.

We have new troll skin tones that point at a series of different tribes, and still i would say that it’d be stupid to expect players to accept the sudden transformation of Darkspear guards into trolls with Sandfury skins.

Again i ask, as you said this change is positive for the story.
How, in the way its currently being presented, is it positive for the story?

(*) I want to add regarding this bit, that the only reason i feel they had is getting on the trendy debate about diversity and how much they care about it. It gets more apparent given they haven’t shown this consideration regarding any other race or customisation option so far.
And i don’t like when a writer tweaks any setting for the sake of filling some checkbox.

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Stormwind has for years been the refuge for the survivors of all the fallen Kingdoms of humanity, and since Cataclysm a major Seaport. I think the multicultural character has always been there, it’s just that we only get to see it now.

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But that’s your own interpretation.
You are taking something that will happen with the visual aspects of the game, and working yourself on an explanation that backs it up.

Nothing so far has shown that Stormwind is particularly multicultural in terms of the humans that inhabit it.
Those few novels that delve in the human lore, after the Third War, never highlighted such to be the case.

If that’s the angle Blizzard wanted to give it, fine.
But even that should be exposed more clearly if that’s the intent.

As of now, storywise speaking, this seems random. From a meta standpoint, smells of virtue signalling.

PS: And personally, i’m not really a fan of said angle either, as i think that said racial differences deserve more than being dumped into the human-lore amalgam that Stormwind is. It was so easy to lean on other human collectives such as the Wastewanders, or the Blackwater Raiders.

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-We know that it has a harbor
-We know that it served as refuge for humans from other kingdoms

As long as they don’t mention the opposite, it’s just common sense (in my oppinion) to assume a melting-pot-culture.
But you’re right. They never mentioned either, so they have basically a blank slate to work with in thet aspect.

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  • Whats the kingdom/settlement of these human races?
  • How is it that the only notable refugee collective mentioned so far, is the one that came from Lordaeron?
  • Why is it that Theramore and Kul Tiras, who had/have a stronger naval presence, aren’t as affected by this as Stormwind is?

I don’t think that common sense alone serves to make this situation stand on its own. And at best, we’d have an educated guess that falls on the same sack as speculation. Not actual, canon lore.

Trying to think of a way to explain this, is still putting more effort regarding the story, than those that should be in charge of it.
And does nothing but highlight how little they cared about it, while further reinforcing the sentiment that this decision might have come because of some external factor that “fishily” enough, appeared around the time when its trendy to get behind stuff like BLM.

Coming up with an excuse afterwards won’t make the situation anything other than what it already is.

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We had the whole classic arc about a guy who infiltrated stormwind by pretending to be nobility from Alterac, his Sister, impersonating a lordaeronian noble, becoming the closest advisor to Varian.
Do you think this would work if not a good part of refugees from there went to Stormwind? Where would their influence come from?

It just makes sense for Stormwind to have a big migrant population as the only surviving human Kingdom that wasn’t isolationist.

Theramore was nuked years ago, and while it lasted it never seemed to be a major power to me, why would anyone go there?
It wasn’t a major trading hub, the surrounding lands were dangerous, and the Horde was close.
Stormwind makes much more sense as a target for migration and refugees.

Kul’Tiras seems to have been mostly isolationist after the death of daelin, and while it was open to trade, except for the Harbor in Boralus, there are only Kul’Tirans around as far as i know.
And, according to their “mainlander” comments, they seem also hostile or uninviting to strangers.
So, it makes sense for them to be not much affected by people from other places.

True, this all is just speculation, because Blizzard said that the new customizations are not reflected in lore unfortunately.

I basically just try to wrap my head around it and explain it :wink:

ps. I can’t find the lore about Nefarian impersonating a noble at the moment. Since my memory about it is really old i may be wrong there…

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It is good. Versatile NPC matches the new customization of player chars.

It will be bad if player chars change while NPCs don’t.

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The issue here is that you’d also need to factor the fact that as far as we know, none of the known kingdoms that made up the human nations, were populated by any of the new ethic groups that make up the new customisation options.

And still, we’d be reaching for an explanation based around our own guess.
And again, it’d highlight the fact that far from having actual lore supporting such, we’d need to revert to speculation to try and explain something that should have its own place in the story as a relevant factor.

I don’t think Nefarian ever impersonated a noble. When Deathwing sent both his kids to destabilise the human kingdoms, Nefarian was sent to take control of the orc clans on Blackrock while Onixia was sent to take control of the human kingdosm with Stormwind at their head.

From a story standpoint, i think it’s worse to force a change that isn’t supported by any canon piece.

Dwarves now have Wildhammer customisation options, and Trolls have Sandfury skins.
And it would be really bad to have Bronzebeard guards or Darkspear soldiers, appearing as Wildhammer/Sandfury for the sake of “diversifying” their in-game representation.

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The option for the skin colors was always there from classic so I think it is a good thing, some slight diversity? That’s a nice change !

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100% positive. I have always assumed that the population of Stormwind was far more diverse than the collection of pasty NPCs made 15 years ago implied.

I don’t consider it to have any impact on the story whatsoever.

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The only thing that annoys me with this, is Blizzard once more selling it as promoting progressive values, when in fact they simply reverse what they’ve failed at, in the WoD model revamp. Classic already had different human racial features and skin colors, that were simply removed with their same-face character revamp.

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Only racists deny more diversity for human skin colors. It’s easy to tell the bad people apart on the forums.

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Meh. I don’t care. Not anymore.

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You have to enlighten me about the physical differences between Gilnean and Stormwind humans here. Stormwind Humans can be bitten and turned into worgen, too, so that’s no physical difference.

Especially because Worgen characters will get the same customizations as humans get.
There is also no physical difference between Lordaeron, Alteraci or Stromic humans.

The only notable physical difference is a part of Kul Tiras’ population, and I think there is an argument for them not even being completely human.
The Kul Tiran humans also have skintones from the entire spectrum of irl humans. Again, no real difference.

Conclusion is that black people are just as “native” to Stormwind as white or asian humans are. There is no real reason to think otherwise. Or do you perhaps want Blizzard to also invent an entirely different culture for black skinned dwarves, gnomes or blood elves?

Culture isn’t about skin colour. I think it’s just mental to take issue in this positive change.

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Even if the physical attributes weren’t as notable, Beyond the Dark Portal, and Tides of Darkness, highlight several differences regarding the sort of culture these kingdoms had.
Stromgarde and Alterac were based more around Nordic archetypes, whereas Stormwind, and Lordaeron followed on a more romanic theme.

And said sort of differentiation would in time present them with a different (although not notable), physical differentiation akin to the one we have IRL between countries.

How? How and when did Stormwind manage to have all sorts of ethnically different groups amongst the population of its kingdom?

Distinct racial features do not appear spontaneously.
Race isn’t just hitting the randomise button and having suddenly a population with both black skinned and blonde, blue-eyed citizens.

Those RL countries that have such have an explanation for it in every single case.

Do tell me how and when did Stormwind manage to have such.

Yes.
I want Blizzard to create distinct cultures for those races that show notable differences regarding their physique, when those differences go beyond being more tanned than usual, as is the case with several of these examples.

Much like we have Jungle, Sand, or Ice trolls with their own roots, culture and background, same should be for these sort of customisation options that signal relevant differences regarding the human race.
And if Blizzard then dumps them all with a plot that has them pledge their loyalty to Stormwind (for example), great. They will have wrapped nicely the explanation behind their human diversity.

What can i say, i like when the story is coherent, and isn’t contingent to some checkbox thrown into the mix for the sake of virtue signalling.

Why do you think this is positive for the story in the way it is being implemented?

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When the humans of WoW were created from metallic giants that were turned to flesh.

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Where are the black or asian Vrykuls? The Curse of Flesh skipped several generations to start throwing about Black or asian genes for a particular bunch of humans?

“Poof, Magic” ?
That’s your explanation for differences that in other cases made Blizzard create several subspecies for races that lived in different climates?
Those are your standards for the story regarding said physical differences?

I mean, at least Blizzard cared a bit more regarding said circumstance when they tried to realistically paint collectives such as the Wastewanders with features more fitting of those that would live in said climates. Or having for example black-skinned Makasa (human protagonist of the Traveller books), have certain background with Stranglethorn.

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