Bit of an easy way to escape the debate don’t you think?
Listen I get that some restrictions in the game so far have been silly. Remember when Belfs couldn’t be warriors in the beginning? No human hunters?! Absolute nonsense for sure. Stuff like that it’s all fine, there are no real lore implications.
Even some of the oddest choices can be explained in the lore. Thinking Tauren paladins for example. They’re technically not paladins they’re “Sun Warriors” or whatnot, and are empowered by a completely source of power. It’s just the game isn’t expressing that in terms of gameplay.
But how on earth are you going to explain demon hunters and evokers? Especially when evokers are using their species specific make up to you know, spit fire?! Surely you must have read the Illidan novel? It specifically says that only night and blood elves followed him. And atm, unlike DKs who had part of their lore expanded on to make sense for new races, DHs haven’t had that. The Illidary haven’t recruited anyone new yet. Every DH in game so far is one of Illidan’s original.
So yeah the lore might be a bit of a clown fiesta at times, but if we just completely detach it from every element of gameplay then what’s the point of even having it to begin with?
Its why i m pretty sure we ll never have access to High Elves for Midnight, They will implement a dumb, non sens, furry or something else as allied race. Something no one asked for and you ll see some weirdos who support that.
Unlike Square Enix, Blizzard doesnt care about player advise, will and stuff
The only things matter are ESG and MONEY
lgbt buzzword = introducing special romance with npcs
Drag buzzword = introducing Dragtyr… I mean Dracthyr with “nice” face and “nice” makeup for male… i mean body 1 characters
Fatshaming buzzword => Kultirassian
Trans’ buzzword => Deleting male female into Body 1/2
Meetoo and stuff buzzword = deleting picture in base game showing women into fruits bowl
the next objective will be modify voice making possible to put Body 1 voice into a Body 2 charactere and reverse
But do we really need High elves anymore? I mean we have Void and Blood elves that both have all the customization options needed for a High Elf and on is even in the correct faction. Outside of RP (which is player driven) and the racial animation that turns you purple you really can’t tell a Void from a High elf. Plus we already have 4 playable elf races.
I would rather have something like Arrakoa or Tortollan or Thuskar than Elf race 5 or Dwarf race 3 (even though I want the Earthen to have the evil customization option with the void horns). Overall not a fan of ARs and never was.
I m pretty sure that if we make a survey for people who plays void elve if its for playing void elve or for playing high elve in the alliance majority of them will answer the 2nd.
The start zone, “main city” of VE is litteraly a joke : NOTHING, the VOID, a damn rock
Does this really matter. Like I said niche RP thing.
Fair.
We can always ask for an NPC to turn off the visual effect or a glyph.
But if High elves are ever added it would be as an Allied race. No Allied race has a starting area, some arguably have a “city” that boils down to one medium sized room filled with all the things you need and the rest of it being A) empty or B) hostile.
As much a problem as Undead Holy priest, Draenei and LF spriests etc.
Also on the topic of cities, didn’t they pitch “Midnight” as all the elf tribes coming together? Wanna bet they will funnel us all to Silvermoon at the end?
Exactly. If Blizzard would add new playable races without tying them to the expansion, there would be SERIOUS backstory holes for their race… Rendering them flat and one-dimensional at best.
Wanted to jump in to this sub-argument to point out an important thing about a good game writing,
-Lore should never, ever, absolutely ever, hinder/limit gameplay/player decisions.
A good example would be The Elder Scrolls V : Skyrim;
-Nord’s hate anything about mages and they abhor every person who pursue magic, but that doesn’t stop any Nord from learning magic, especially player character.
Same logic should apply to, for example, Demon Hunters;
-Night Elves and Blood elves was followers of Illidan therefore they learned the Demonic arts and take the fel powers, naturally making the fill the ranks of DemonHunters mostly.
-But that doesn’t mean a few human or orc didn’t/couldn’t learn/taught the same things making them effectively a Demon Hunter, in the end Night Elves and Blood Elves wasn’t the only creatures compatible with fel/demonic arts.
And considering our player character is always unique case in the game, there will never be an issue with exceptions like this. Which can be applied to every single race/class combination on top of that making every single race available to play because of the same reasons i have included above.
RP by default is niche in this game and having some splash text that 90% ofplayers don’t even care about is even more niche, yes.
Yes yes we all know that Blizzard pulled Velves from you know where, we all know the rich and extensive history that span all of 5 minutes. What’s done is done at least we got high elf customizations, and we really do not need the exact same race added a 3rd time.
we can imagine High Elve with new standing pose, new and exclusif haircut, blue/green tattoo like alleria, new voice emote and quotes, new /dance etc etc thats not a probleme
They made a rock gemstone dwarf with woke dwarf ladies… i mean body 2 so they can add HElves with new stuff
You look at it from a very surface level. The Nord in TESV: Skyrim despise magic because of recent history. Nord never really despised them since the Dawn of Nirn.
One comment on reddit summarizes it quite well:
It’s a mixture of prejudice against the calamities caused (or ‘caused’) by magic users (Winterhold Collapse, Oblivion Crisis etc.), the threat of the High Elves who historically have been antagonists to the Nords and are some of the most prolific users of magic in Nirn and the Nord philosophy of physical strength being higher than magic, which is used by cowards who are weak ~ JohnFightsDragons
Just because the Nord in Skyrim despise magic doesn’t mean some wouldn’t use it. In former Elder Scrolls titles their mindset wasn’t any different from other races.
Not everything needs to be available for everyone/every race. Otherwise it stops being special.
Same reason why no other race than Dracthyr will ever be Evokers. Why? Because NO OTHER PLAYABLE RACE can breathe fire or similar for the spells to work. And unless Blizzard wants to rework the entire class to please A SMALL MINORITY of players it isn’t needed nor the time and effort worth to do it.
And regarding “pandering to minorities”… Considering that even Warhammer 40k has now DEI issues really makes the idea of opening up specific races/class combos that are very specific like Demon Hunters a lot less appealing to me.
As i mentioned a good writing never hinders game play, and your Evoker example fits perfectly.
It is written inconsiderately, making it impossible to expand to other races without altering lore or creating new realities unconnected to the game’s lore.
For the making it “Special” argument, that is simply your personal feelings. If something is valuable to you only if they are limited, which is making it a personal preference for you, but harmful to the overall players enjoyment to the game, listening to you in this argument would be;
Let people enjoy the game the way they want. Don’t try to limit players for your selfish reasons.
Tl;DR: The amount of effort needed to make EVERY race/class combo possible is so high it is not feasible to even try.
Here are a few other reasons why new allied races or classes are restricted in their available choices (on launch and later on):
Each new race needs to have ALL class-available (cloth/leather/mail/plate), universal transmogs in the game to work with them (meaning adjustments to textures, the rig and the models itself) (unless a beast-race like Dracthyr with pre-determined barber options)
Each new race needs to have UNIQUE, NEW animations for EACH active skill assigned for EACH class in the game they can play. Same in reverse for each new added class to the game available to all races.
Each new race needs an ENTIRE, OWN, UNIQUE starting zone WITH INTRODUCTIONAL STORY unless it is an allied race, in which case the expansion zones serve as background story areas (see Lightforged Draenei, Zandalari Trolls, Highmountain Tauren, Void Elves, Kul Tirans, Vulpera, Mag’har, etc.)
Right now, WoW has:
24 individual races (not counting Dracthyr and Pandaren twice for each side).
6 RACE-SPECIFIC Classes (Paladin, Druid, Shaman, Demon Hunter, Evoker, Death Knight ← Since Dracthyr can’t be Death Knights atm.)
Of the 24 individual races 20 have UNIQUE animations and stances for classes, with only 4 of those races sharing them across allied races/faction versions.
So, let’s do the math. On average each class has roughly 30 active spells/skills with animations. We have 20 races with 2 different body types, meaning 40 different animation data sets to use.
In equation that means for all potentially possible combinations:
40 (data sets) x 13 (classes) x 30 (animated skils per class) = 15.600 individual animations
That alone would be a massive effort for all races to be able to play every class.
As of right now that would be with the remaining race-specific classes still…
40 x 6 x 30 = 7.200 individual animations
And of course I could go the extra mile and separate all the classes into ranged/melee gameplay… But I have other stuff to do. This alone should help you get a grasp of how much effort it would be to make every option possible in the game. And with each race or class added, the amount of work increases, almost doubles when both a new class and race gets introduced.
The Devs can only do so much with their limited work power. To make every class/race combo possible in a next upcoming patch Blizzard would have to be 20-200x the size of Team 2 (the WoW Team) to even get remotely there in a short time frame. And as mentioned, each new race or class would require an entire rework for each race to some extent just to make it work. The odds are EVER-increasing.
And this excludes of course all the other funky aspects of game development required for that. Like coding, asset design, sound design, balancing, bug testing, etc.
Imagine trying to do all of that WHILE ALSO developing NEW CONTENT for EVERY patch AND another expansion alongside it.
In other words, your expectations are too high.
Not everything needs to be suited to everyone.
Some people love Horror Games. I hate them. I DON’T demand them to be made less scary because I am not the target audience.
Some people love very hard games (like Dark Souls). I hate very hard games. I DON’T demand them to be made less difficulty just because I suck, have ill patience and don’t want to improve to beat the game… Because I am NOT the target audience.
Some people love racing games. I hate racing games. I DON’T demand them to have a walk-mode like GTA so I can jump out of my car and explore the (limited) world of the race tracks. Because I am NOT the target audience.
I could go on and on. Just because you and others don’t like something a certain way doesn’t mean it needs to be changed. After all, the world doesn’t revolve solely around you or anybody else.
As mentioned, look at Warhammer 40k. People are BOYKOTTING their hobby now because Games Workshop apparently gave in into demands from Amazon (due to the upcoming Warhammer Streaming Show) to retcon an entire male-only chapter of a faction just to squeeze in women for “equality” while COMPLETELY IGNORING that the Warhammer 40k franchise ALREADY HAS a chapter for Female-only with the Sisters of Battle. Because apparently establishing something new and unique wasn’t another option. Nope. Gotta have to retcon the lore.
Imagine Blizzard pulling a “Anduin was always into men, had dark skin, black hair and dreadlocks” to fit some “checkbox” of some minority that pushes financial/reputational pressure on Blizzard (such as ESG and SBI do).
This isn’t about “letting people enjoy the game the way they want”. It’s about “ruining things for others by changing the entire product to a different target audience instead of improving it by adding new things”.
