It’s no secret that I’ve grown rather disenchanted with this whole customisation feature, after hearing Danuser state that these weren’t supposed to be canon and just a form to give players more freedom regarding their own gameplay.
But it concerns me even further, when they apply that same philosophy to actual ingame assets and tinker in a similar fashion with features that should be absolutely tied to the plot itself.
Waving aside incongruent/lazy lore around the player character is one thing. Needing to do so with setting elements is another.
I can only lament the wasted opportunities with this feature.
And I wonder, hence the thread, if there was actually any story angle from which I could take this new addition in a more positive light.
Well… at least for the Trolls we have their answer that we should “head canon” to play one from another tribe. This makes sense, but dosen’t sound offical at all. Which is sad.
I would’ve loved to see, let’s simply say a Farraki speaker talking to Talanji, or Rokhan and explaining why they (or he and his group) are joining the Horde. Same goes basically for every other addition. Perhaps someone else can give you a more positive spin to it.
But for me at least the conformation those skins can be considered as new tribes, is at least… neat to know.
Wildhammer are a special case, they are already part of the Alliance.
Black and asian are normal skin tones for humans. There needs not to be an extra explaination for something thats not unnormal. Is that easy enough to understand?
Sure. Just missing the point by a mile. There is nothing unusual about the skin tones. There is something very unusual with racial features not being connected to seperate populations. It’s not a problem, to have Stormwind be the melting pot where everyone comes together. But it is a bit baffling to deny any in-world-implications of differing features.
Did you ever play Guildwars or Guildwars2, by chance?
If you did, then that’s surely you see how in those cases something as simple as skintone could actually give a character or racial group allot more depth?
It didn’t. I actually have no particulair problem with different skintones for humans - Stormwind, Dalarani, Gilnean etc.
In that same movie I also saw a couple of asian elves. It’s Blizzard’s game, their world, they can do whatever it is they want.
I don’t actually recall making the point of that being an issue for me either, but you can quote me on it.
I do take issue with the rampant abuse of words to slander people without reason or right, and certain words being so abused the functionally lost al meaning and weight.
And just this herd mentality of trying to attack, excommunicate or de-platform people asking questions, thinking for themselves or thinking outside of what the ‘current trend’ is what they should be thinking.
And you didn’t even answer my question, I guess you didn’t then?
In Guildwars you had differently skintones and facial features for humans, but Tyria- the game world also featured different Kingdoms to go with them, I’m just saying…that’s another way to go, which actually adds allot more to your character.
Black humans are okay I guess…as Daelinna said they already existed in Classic actually.
Now more difficult to explain are black High/Blood Elves… I think at least a couple of them existed in a past book, one is a dark-skinned priestess in Twilight of the Aspects named Devi and maybe also another one who was not exactly black but with “olive skin”.
And if I’m not mistaken when they changed from Highborne Night Elves to High Elves it is said that they shrinked and losted their purple hue skin colour, but nothing about all of them becoming pale white or not being able to become dark skinned. Which would make sense since they revered the sun and the Sunwell and stayed under its rays and arcane magic all the day after the mutation…we simply didn’t meet a major Blood Elf lore character in-game who is black until now…for the time being at least. But among the general population they were always there.
So as you can see one could even find a “proper” lore justification for dark-skinned Blood Elves if he/she really wants…much less effort is required for humans then
I’m not particularly fond of filling lore voids with head-canon. Specially regarding stuff that should’ve had an explanation beyond “Meh, it was always there”.
I’ll bring again the troll example, and the Kul Tiran: If in those cases we had expanded reasons as to why we had physical differences (reasons that at least tried to be logical), i fail to see the positivity in handwaving features that would naturally be considered unique ethnic groups.
People may be more or less inclined to accept this, but in any realistically developed setting, authors would’ve tried to explain how is it that people with such clearly different features came to coexist in the same kingdom.
As of now, we don’t know even know from where do these black or asian humans come from in WoW.
True…but maybe, the simpler reason is that Anduin actually likes dark-skinned girls in particular, so Blizzard is just adding guards and NPCs like that in the game in preparation for the players to accept a dark-skinned Queen of Stormwind in the future
And anyway Blizzard recently confirmed that homophobia and racism don’t exist in Azeroth (of course racism within the same race doesn’t exist; racism and hatred between different races, even within the same faction, still exist, but not because of the colour of the skin within the same race actually). Blizzard wants Azeroth to be this place where, unlike Earth, there are no differences about gender or ethnicity among people because they want everyone to feel free to play and RP representing whatever they want in a race they like, so if necessary they will also bend and change the lore in order to remove these barriers like racism and homophobia.
Basically Humans and Blood Elves never had any problem of racism toward their own dark-skinned people because now it’s canon they have always been there and accepted freely both in Stormwind and Silvermoon without any racism at all.
Why are some orcs pale yellow and some teal? Why are some tauren brown and some blonde? Why are some night elves purple and some light blue? And these aren’t Allied Races, these are options within a simple, vanilla race, who are all shown to be from around the same area.
A human being either pink or brown is simply going down the gradient, as with the other races. Every single race in the game has an option to choose a plethora of skin colours, from a wide range. No one ever asks for explanations for those; we merely accept “that’s how those races work”.
Well, that’s how humans work, too. There doesn’t need to be any sort of lore explanation, just as no one’s asking for the explanation as to why some Darkspear are light blue and some are dark blue.
The clear issue highlighted here is that people take issue with representation in their safe gamer-space and try to hide it under “wanting lore purity”. Luckily, Blizzard doesn’t agree with that notion, and it’s a lost battle. Or a victory for us PoC.
Also worth noting that Chris Metzen, among other loreheads, were involved in the casting of the 2016 Warcraft Movie. They consciously chose to cast Ruth Negga, a mixed-race woman born in Ethopia, as Queen Taria Wrynn.
Her, on top of the other black and Asian actors cast in Stormwind human roles (including a prominent soldier/guard) shows that the humans are clearly not intended to be portrayed as a white ethno-state (like, say, the Lord of the Rings film franchise), otherwise I feel the casting directors would have stepped in.
There were afro/asian people in Lord of the Rings too. Aside from Rhun, Harad, Khand, and Umbar, there were also a few asian people in the Gondor army.
So really I dont know why some people instantly assume fantasy humans should only be white.
Asking for a defined background for different ethnic groups isn’t promoting racism or homophobia. It creates realism.
You don’t create a kingdom with Black, asian, and white people out of nowhere. Differentiated features and skin tones do not spring at random.
That’s the reason we have an explanation behind the most notable physical traits of Orcs, trolls and tauren.
There is nothing wrong with having a multicultural kingdom. But the least writers should’ve done, is have the decency of giving the races that inhabit the story that explains how it came to pass.
Forcing it without cause or explanation besides one tacit “Deal with it”, can be called out as it is.
Why are there people from the same race or ethnic group with different skin tones, or facial features? Why is my brother tanned and i’m not?
Minor differences can be explained without any kind of explanation beyond circumstantial stuff such as the time spent under the sun, your diet, or simply your parental genetics.
Major ones, such as distinct features for human races, require of a lot more.
That’s why black-skinned orcs were given a reason to have such.
That’s why light brown skin is associated with trolls that live in the dessert, and only forest trolls have moss.
That’s why we have the Zandalari standing out.
That’s why we have taunka, or Yaungol.
No, its not.
There’s a reason why you can distinguish a black person from an extremely tanned white dude. Even if there are cases when tanned people are darker than certain blacks.
There is more to it that some “gradient”.
Yes, there is. Distinct racial feature require from an explanation when said changes are major differences and point at distinct ethnic groups.
And Blizzard knows this even if they are now throwing around this new feature. That’s why the Wastewanders are themed after arabic features, while most of the hostile (or native) human NPCs of Stranglethorn, currently have a darker skin.
Yeah, you can start cutting the crap, not buying it.
Shockingly for you this subforum is about arguing about elements from a lore point of view.
If your only argument is about defending the feature for stuff that has nothing to do with the story, you have entered the wrong thread.
Lay out any argument that isn’t leaning on ignoring the story for the sake of it, and you may have something to grasp at here.
I don’t care about the good intentions behind this feature. I already said that i applaud any attempt at promoting positive values.
But if the result to be had is a half-assed attempt, without enough care to actually back it up, i’m entitled to call on said bs as it is.
And even point out how it could be interpreted as nothing other than virtue signalling.
I can call on bad-storytelling regardless of the writer’s good intentions.
Yeah, because casting directors would NEVER allow any story to be meddled with in order to fill in some PR checkbox…
And i honestly do not see what the movie has to do with any of this. In case you didn’t read the argument i made before replying (suspect i might be onto something there…), the issue isn’t having a multicultural kingdom. The issue is the lack on explanation behind it.
Another simple way for them to explain it in retrospect could be:
The first human tribes lived not unified. In time they adapted to their surroundings and thus you have the differences in humanity.
Then Arathor came along and unifiteid the humans. People left their tribes to resettle in the first fortified settlements, help to build their first towns and even went to places like Stormguarde for new opportunities and later to join the defense against the Trolls.
Doesn’t really work well with the geography, but you could hand wave it away like that.
This thread was an epic 
show 
