Imagine an expansion doing for the different races what Legion did for the different classes, allowing us to explore unique questlines to unlock new customizations, transmogs, and possibly even class skins.
For instance, a longer Night Elf questline could easily explore the druidic identity for antlers and ‘Emerald Dream’ green eyes, the priesthood for new shiny Elune markings, the ancient Highborne heritage for a couple of extra necklaces and tiaras, and even the tale of the Night Elves raised by Sylvanas for ‘Dark Ranger’ red eyes as the latest addition following the events of BFA and SL.
Blood Elves could get Farstrider tattoos and feathered jewelry from a relevant storyline.
Dwarves could be given a mean to acquire a Wildhammer transmog set to go with their recently acquired tattoos.
Trolls could get a questline about honoring their elders granting beards, or one with the Revantusk tribe unlocking green skins.
Nightborne characters, on the other hand, could delve into different aspects such as druidism (unlocking the extra class, after all we have seen Nightborne botanists!!!), and unlock customizations for Felborne warlocks (green hands and markings) or even nightfallen(?) options.
Yay or nay?
What extra features/questlines would you like to see for your race?
[Edited: added a few examples]
[Edited again: in case it wasn’t clear, the idea behind this proposal is to obtain access to extra customizations and transmogs for each race through questlines that would bring the player to make a better acquaintance with the most common and/or underrepresented ‘subfactions’ and ‘racial minorities’, and is not at all meant to be limited to the examples given]
Uhm, I think you’re bringing too much real life gender identity into game.
I believe in Legion we had multiple legendary weapons questlines for each class, and we got to explore class identity, without having to identify with another class than the one we selected at start.
So all I am saying is that in 10.0 (whatever that is) each race could get questlines connected to its own unexplored subfactions for appropriate rewards.
For instance, Night Elves could get quest lines exploring the lore of the former Shen’dralar Highborne unlocking jewelry, and/or the Dark Rangers raised after the Burning unlocking red eyes…
Trolls could get a questline about the Revantusk tribe unlocking green skins…
I think she meant getting back the class fantasy you’ve seen in Legion.
Remember, every class had unique questlines, every spec a unique artifact weapon, each with 20+ different skins.
Compare it to the 4 generic types of armor sets per raid tier (with 3 recolors) and 4 covenants’ worth of collectibles which again are shared between armor types, but with the choice from 4 different abilities per class.
Astranea might have found it a bit lacking that only the covenant abilities are classwide and even then, the signature ability is generic for everyone who is part of the same covenant.
That’s 36 abilities for both expansions, with 4x4 + 4x3 endgame sets (which aren’t unique to classes), 28 total.
Legion only had 12 armor sets, but 36x20=720 possible weapon looks minimum, and I have yet to count all the class mounts added (~18?)
Sounds great, but it honestly doesn’t seem feasible. There’s 12 classes, but twice as many races at the moment. Giving them all extensive questlines is just not cost-effective I fear.
I’d love to get a bit of it though, but having it be the focus like in Legion won’t work I think; there’s just too many of them.
I think it’s a great idea. I think going back to our roots and rediscovering “who we are” - racial identity, class identity, and seeing where the world of Azeroth has gone and what has happened to where we came from while we were away in the realms of death and the world of the legion or blinded by war and hatred is a great idea for an expansion focused on the end of the faction conflict.
That’s actually one of the reasons why I think races should be treated a main expansion feature. There won’t be enough attention to them if they aren’t!
Or, they might have decided to delay them for release in a more appropriate content update?
One can only dream.
True, but we got an artefact questline for each spec, so 36 unique questlines each with its own scenarios, and a sheer number of models and recolors for each of the weapons, that felt much more interesting and rewarding to farm than the covenant cosmetics, because they were a better investment.
Covenants were sort of fun as a novelty, but I will always be a mage, while people will stop caring about my Shadowlands covenant after 10.0 hits.
While it’s true that we can change the race of a toon from the shop, I think exploring and expanding racial fantasy would be an extremely appealing way to ‘get back to Azeroth’ for many players.
I don’t think you can compare the two. With covenants you can do all of that with your one character = a ton of collectable stuff on a single character.
For races, you’d need 24 characters if you want to experience it all and collect it all. I don’t think that’s reasonable (the alternative is to spend real money getting race changes, something I think is even less reasonable).
While I’d love to see more focus/immersion on races and definitely more customization, more race specific transmog (although let’s be honest; quite a few races haven’t even received their heritage armor yet) and such, I just don’t think it’s a feasible thing on the scale you’re suggesting.
Serious question for you then; did you collect all 36 artifact weapons and all appearances for them?
Because I didn’t, never felt compelled to, and yet nowadays I occasionally enjoy going back and collecting some for an alt as a way to fill in gaming time in between patches.
Just because some content is there it doesn’t mean it must ALL be collected.
Of course they should! There is rich potential for a Kul’tiran starting zone - mentioning that one since you play one, in the area surrounding Boralus and inside Boralus itself. There’s a whole city there with which not much was done. Furthermore the story there is about bandits and an unruly city that can now be cleaned up by a more confident royal family. Perfect opportunity.
EDIT: Exile’s Reach sucks. It’s quite possibly the worst levelling zone ever added to the game, and even if it weren’t it’s just boring for everyone to start in the same place with no tales about or feel for the character’s origin. So let’s update and replace!
No. But I DID do almost all of the class quest storylines (I skipped priests because I loathe playing them).
And sure, there’s plenty of races I personally wouldn’t care about just because I don’t like them, but…
Sure. But that’s what a lot of people do though.
I don’t personally collect everything; I focus on what I actually like and would use. That is the stuff I want and will try and get. But like I said: A lot of people are completionists.
My ultimate point is: I think such questlines would be too narrowly focused. Too niche. For us the players it might be cool to get a questline for our favorite race, but Blizzard wants their content to be played by as many people as possible. I just don’t see them doing this.
Maybe, just maybe, short ones: Like the artifact weapon starter quests. But not long elaborate questlines. I just don’t see it happening.
These games are supposed to be about choices and limitless adventure. That’s literally one of the first things you hear in any WoW trailer and it says it on the back of the vanilla game box. Limitless content is one of the core features of this game, so limiting it for the sake of completionists, which are almost never going to actually succeed anyway, is folly, and it just means less fun for all of us.
