I do know that. - And they probably got one of the better introduction quests that put weight and empathises on what it meant to be a Man’ari and the difference of the Eredar race.
However,
They still proceed to immediately undercut the whole experience by just making it a soulless customization option with no weight behind it. - What you do get is a customization option for a character you didn’t make.
So for the Draenei players, it’s useless, because presumably they are playing the Draenei specifically for their lore and story etc. And for those few who were interested in the notion of playing a Man’ari, it’s a slap in the face. - They get to have Developer Kevin’s barely half-chewed passion project of the Man’ari race added with no unique racials to reflect their lore, no unique voice lines, no funny new dance, nothing that makes them stand on their own.
I can concede that a better UI to reflect the racial group’s connection to the ‘core races’ as well as having them share customization options, such as beards, hair, etc would be neat.
But saying ‘It should have just been a customization option’ is in my eyes giving Blizzard the thumbs up for their fast passes, High Elves, Darkfallen and the better-off but still bad Man’ari. - who all three have unique lore potential reduced to just being fluff.
There’s definitely an inconsistency regarding ARs and their implementations.
Man’ari should be a distinctively different branch but they are not.
Mechagnomes are the most egregious example as they’re not even a different subrace altogether, they are just Gnomes who replace their limbs with mechanical ones and yet they have their own spot on the playable race roster.
Void Elves were a mistake.
Elves and Dwarves have distinct cultures and branches of their own but some do get a playable race, others don’t.
What fulfills the requirement to be an AR? Having a distinct culture? Some clearly don’t as they spawned out of nowhere, some clearly do and it’s even a main point of contention historically but they don’t get to be on the roster. Being physically different enough for the original branch. Well, no but actually yes (HM Tauren, Mechagnomes). Is it just plain old popularity? I laugh at you. Is it the devs having a peculiar interest in said race and wanting for them to have an impact on the world’s stage past their intro zone (those are dead btw) and quest? Wheezes
My point being is that the essential issue here is that in the pursuit of faction parity, we’re kinda screwed regardless. Man’ari could be their own, but that would mean Alliance gets one more toy compared to the Horde and that cannot pass or else people will complain very hard on the forums. Neutral races? Welp, I hope you like irrelevancy even harder.
Eh. Their implementation was, but my perpetual hot take is that they’re perfectly fine. Their potential was entirely dropped on the floor however, and we’re only slowly reaching a point where it’s being amended.
My only annoyance with races like Void Elves is that they’re added to give the Alliance a more “savage” or “darker side” (re; Night Elves, Worgen, Dark Irons) only to have them massively drop the ball on that whole concept and basicly making them carbon copies of the already noble and good species they’re derived from. (Humans for Worgen, Dwarves for Dark Irons and Blood/High Elves for Void Elves). Thats not what was promised. And even if they do morally sketchy things, its just handwaved away by the “good” and “noble” races they’re derived from or work in tandem with (Void Elves and Light followers, lmao)
I’d say they’re a walking indulgence for the Shadow/Void users IC to not experience consequences of their practices, lest of all have a negative impact on themselves and/or their allies. We get told that velves are living vessels of corruption, mutated and abhorred, and… and there isn’t a single instance of us hearing the voices from beyond, the mutations are purely rudimentary without anything truly monstrous, the race’s face, Alleria, doesn’t even look like the rest of her people, and the objective evil they commit (like the massive corruption of Zuldazar wildlife during the war) is just not mentioned despite being an abhorrence similar to what Garrosh did to the Vale of the Eternal Blossoms, willingly and knowingly. Just as it’s not known how many of the corrupted elves fell even further, joining N’Zoth and/or Xal’atath… maybe because it would question Alleria’s judgement and ability to do her work and remove the weak from her fold quickly and permanently. After all, who would openly judge the consort of an immortal paladin, leading an interstellar crusade? Only the Horde, probably… if anyone gave them a chance to speak.
They’re doing the opposite of amending it though where we’re yet again suffering a massive void onslaught and there’s 0x void elves suffering any consequences, and Alleria just easily shrugs it all off and owns Xal’atath and makes her scream whilst Liadrin shouts “For the Alliance!” in the background.
Void Elves current amendment is just further reducing any and all remaining plot-points the Blood Elves and High Elves had by amalgamating both into a horror-abomination of a race that has black hole’d both races narratives by its mere existence.
Adding the objectively-evil purple elf race to the faction which is dominated 90% by a religion that believes in a final crusade against the Void to put an end to its infinite cosmic horrors just makes no sense.
Every Void Elf NPC you meet either cackles and talks to you in 3 different personalities like a bad schizophrenia stereotype or rambles on infinitely about how they must conduct hours of daily training to resist turning into a void chernobyl. It would seem the average Azerothian is, by comparison, 500% more resistant.
The best narrative hook a race that lost 90% of its population mere decades ago can have is the reason to leave the faction squabbles behind, as would have been proper from the start. But alas, we can’t have truly neutral races playable.
And that’s the blizz own fault to represent all but the most basic races as either something completely different from the original idea or as the caricatures on themselves. We’ve no other examples to take for our RP, not in-game.
They’re caricatures but I also don’t see how hearing the Old Gods 24/7 in your head means you’re more resistant. Alleria confirms the whispers are even louder than they used to be and that its very hard to resist just doing what they want.
Now, the average Azerothian, again, by comparison does not suffer this symptom and needs no daily 5-hour meditation listening to “heroic, inspiring music to lift your soul” from a youtube playlist to keep them from blowing up into void goop. They’re all literally 1-step away from being K’thir given that K’thir have all the same symptoms.
Can’t even say I recognise the original Alleria in her current character tbh, they’ve aged her down and given her a sleek black bodysuit with silver metal and now her personality just seems to be “sure, what the hell”.
And that’s the actual point. The Alliance genuinely needs a cabal of incredibly dangerous, corrupted sorcerers that are one step away from falling to the latest Great Enemy, as a living weapon against those vulnerable to such practices. Which is… anything that’s not Light or Void, ergo anything on Azeroth that might challenge them. If it was any diffirent, the Lightforged would’ve just burned them all on sight as the enemies of the Light they actually are.
Something I highly recommend doing, if only for the comedy, is playing SoD and then playing Retail and comparing the way quest text and quests are handled and written. SoD leans into Vanilla’s semi-realist environs and its (sometimes over-the-top) gritty worldbuilding to deliver some really good storytelling.
Retail by comparison (although I will say the Siren Isle worldbuilding has been surprising) just seems deeply soulless in many ways. Like its going through the motions.
Back in my day the Alliance’s internal conflict was surrounding the differing politics of the nobility / races themselves and how their differing perspectives caused friction when needing to decide on a unified approach to a problem. Ironically, they took this plot from the Alliance and gave it to the Horde. The faction that doesn’t really do the whole nobility thing.