World of Warcraft has a pretty large range of firearms overall. From machine guns to muzzle loaded rifles. What’s the overall opinion on the ‘standard’ type of firearms used? Can they feel a little overpowered at times?
What would be the most common gun for soldiers to use, Alliance or Horde? Curious to see what people’s opinions are on that.
`https://twitter.com/DaveKosak/status/436978645551169536
I personally go with this.
I go with anything better than black powder + flintlocks or wheel locks is probably pretty rare.
My Gnome has a revolver, but this is purposefully described as something she gained from her military service and quite a unique firearm overall. It is distinctly Gnomish, and ultimately still reliant on black powder.
WoW as a universe certainly has some more experimental and crazy weapons, (there are Maxim-gun equivalents used by the militaries on both sides) but they’re probably limited to places a lot of characters won’t have access.
I honestly don’t think so. Sometimes a gun is a great equaliser against someone who can spread bat wings from their back, throw a fireball, summon an infernal, or raise the dead from the earth. A lot of WoW’s fantasy armour potentially stands up very well to gunfire as well - I don’t think the average musket ball is liable to shave a saronite breast plate in half.
Probably muskets, with marksman given rifles. It does depend on the race, though. Lorewise, it appears Gilneans are more prone to using rifles. Night and Void Elves are probably going to go for bows, too. Wasn’t it mentioned that Tauren archers can be like a sentient ballistae somewhere?
I’d always played it as your standard black powder weapons being the most common for military usage by standard soldiers, then got really confused around the WoD era when we saw those Iron Horde orcs popping at us with those paintball guns. I always wondered why the Alliance and the Horde didn’t adopt those weapons as a whole, but I suppose they can’t have been that much of a game-changer if they (The Iron Horde) lost.
I always figured that (Human) Footmen kept using crossbows for logistical reasons, and that the soldiers may just like fighting with them, like Dwarves seem to do with their rifles.
For Gala here, who I play as a quasi Paratrooper Farstrider, he uses a elven made rifle that can fire standard rounds or mana rounds, I use the Auchenai rifle in game to represent this. Its a semi auto rifle that can work as a bolt action should the action cease working… Much like the Gewehr 41 (m), the Mauser alternative that was rejected for production.
I really assume that most firearms would be open for use in WoW, technology is rather haphazard and inconsistent, we have airships, guns and motorbikes while at the same time still using swords, horses and arrows. So most things I’d assume are fair game.
I recall that at some point your hunter would eventually have full metal jackets if you were an engineer, spidertanks have gattlings and kul tirans have automatic sub machine muskets.
Only certain races match the gun aesthetic, goblins, gnomes and dwarves being the main ones, but an argument could be made for all races.
Although I don’t mind people having far fetched concepts for a ranged weapon, as long as it isn’t overkill.
They have pros and cons, but this comes down to how far the roleplayer is willing to take the weapons.
In my head my warrior here has a flintlock, for those occasions when it’s just easier to shoot someone. I’m a firm believer in elves with bows, humans and draenai with crossbows, and gnomes / dwarves / Gilneans using everything from mortars to rifles and shotguns, but as others do say, it’s more about the character than the race. A gnomish assassin might consider a quieter crossbow, an elven outlaw may well run around with a pistol for those moments fighting fair doesn’t come into play.
As for overpowered I think so long as we’re in the realms of “needs reloading” or in the case of engineered electrical bolt guns “charging time” then it’s all fine. Just don’t run in Scorsese style and level a tavern.
At least when it comes to myself I prefer seeing automatic weaponry kept on vehicles, I already had cases of goblins claiming to be able to stop me with one bullet despite the fact WoW has much different armor materials which they refuse to acknowledge since over the top tech is only thing about their character.
Evidently, the presence of firearms has yet to dominate WoW warfare the way it has IRL.
I chalk this down to most widespread firearms still being unreliable, in combination with the considerable toughness of Azeroth’s inhabitants (and, perhaps more pertinently, their armour).
From my understanding, Thorium is the standard for Horde equipment. It makes sense why there’s a larger propensity for firearms Blue-side (and why there’s more infrastructure for it) than the more tribal/ranger ways of the Horde. From personal experience it’s -really- hard to do gunforging and make ammunition. Def makes sense why they’d be unreliable wide-spread and more restricted.
In doing some personal history research (and touring a Victoria-Era fort here in CANADA) apparently the maximum speed for firing a front-loading musket was 2-4 shots PER MINUTE. Once they started introducing breach-fire muskets that rose up to 5-8 per minute. The potential for misfire was huge, just as big as the chance the gun could straight up explode in your face and kill you.
It makes sense why Crossbows and Bows (if muskets/hunting rifles are still the reg) are more widely put together. Especially if our Tanks/Demolishers either run purely on super-boiled water, high-yield explosives, or pushing.
As with all things it depends on the player.
I’ve seen them handled well, with people achknowledging that reloading is a long task for old school rifles and such.
I’ve seen them handled poorly with multiple shots from a flintlawk pistuhl, or somehow firing even when soaking wet as an old firearm.
Personally, I suspect they’re not mass produced the same way modern guns are, and have as many cons as pros. Plus magic is a thing.
Whenever I see this argument about how good bows and swords are in modern warfare I am reminded of ‘Mad’ Jack Churchill, a British officer who fought throughout the entirety of World War II with a Longbow, a basket hilted Scottish sword, and Bagpipes, whose most infamous quote was “Any Officer who goes into battle without a sword is improperly dressed”. Apparently he both scared the hell out of, and supremely impressed the Germans, and was regarded as ‘unkillable’, to the extent that when SS troops had managed to take him and others prisoner, and were rumoured to be about to execute them, a regular German army unit rocked up saying they would turn their guns on the SS troops if they tried to. The SS promptly backed down and retreated, and the German troops just said “It wasn’t their place to keep such a man prisoner” and he ended up walking 150 miles to Verona where he rejoined Allied forces. What a lad…
Anyway, I think the way I tend to look at it is that Guns just aren’t the game changer on Azeroth that they are on Earth. They simply can’t be, as, as has been pointed out, if they -were- then everyone would be using them, however, to bear in mind is the fact that using the example of ‘Mad Jack’ there, in the hands of a skilled archer, a Longbow is every bit, if not more, deadly than a firearm, for races like Kaldorei and Sin’dorei, both of whom culturally are well known for their archers, it makes sense that whilst they know how guns work, and can make them, they still likely favour bows. The Elven ranger with their bow is an enduring stereotype after all.
Whether this is because Azeroth’s inhabitants really are ‘tougher’ than humans in our world, or because armour is more effective (doesn’t really explain cloth armour though)or simply whether guns are as -powerful- as in our world is up for debate, but what does seem to be the case is that guns are used chiefly by those species to whom it is a cultural imperative, such as Gnomes, Dwarves, Gilneans, Kul Tirans, Goblins and to a lesser extent, humans and Forsaken, The other races have people with guns, sure, but aren’t as culturally associated with them, and moreover, don’t seem to suffer from not using them en masse.
Way I personally look at it is the “Guns simply aren’t all that and a bag of chips” argument. They’re nothing special, just another weapon, not powerful enough to revolutionise warfare, but powerful enough to be a viable tool of war, so it really is just a question of culture and aesthetics,as to whether they are used.
You have guns. You also have axes that can cleave tanks in half. It balances itself out.
In a world where Rule of Cool is the most important thing, guns and bullets are as strong or weak, advanced or rudimentary as the story needs them to be at any given point.
For me the most important aspect of engineering in World of Warcraft is that it should be a trade of artistry where artificers made unique and experimental devices. Each piece should be unique and strange in its own way, a labour of love from some intelligent soul with its own special quirks.
As soon as we start talking advanced mass-produced tech it takes me out of it a bit, because at that point it should be avaliable to everyone and all. Black powder stuff to me seems the mass produced stuff and things beyond that may be created by singular engineers. I always had this feeling about things back in the day in WoW atleast, but seems less so these days.
Magic is so much cooler than firearms. Absolutely.
Blackpowder = Enchanted Armour = Artisan Bows = Magic
Equivelancy is still a thing in a fantasy setting.
Morning fellow forum dwellers! Thought i’d throw my two cent into this age old discussion.
It goes without saying that the technological disparty between races is no joke. We’ve seen applications of fully automatic weaponry, lasers, rocket launchers and our most main-stay example, the blackpowder or wheel-lock firearms…
Are they overpowered? Well in some ways yes. But the drawbacks to such firearms are plenty. Energy/ammunition demands! Not to mention powder can easily become wet or explode if a mage decides to throw a fireball your way.
There’s a balancing act in applying fire-arms to roleplay and its key to note that with the massive assortment of metals in this genre coupled with other factors that firearms operate as followed.
You are pretty much a mage, just a mage who can only fire one spell at varying speeds and with an intermediate pause to reload or give your weapon a chance to cool-down (and that is without mentioning human error) but the speed of which the projectile hits is noticeably faster and you don’t risk becoming exhausted by it or running out of mana.
You give, you take. The balance can at times make a mage seem overpowered. What with all the schools of magic at their disposal. Or a spellbreaker, or a demon hunter, or a deathknight… So really, its all about execution in the end.
Hope to see other great responses here, its a nice topic!