Alternate allied race idea

Community General Discussion
1

Okay rather than going with more allied race solutions to player requests, how about this idea instead:

Every class gets a 4th spec. this 4th spec allows you to use a talent point for a shapeshift form. The shapeshift form is based on the class. For example: a shapeshift form for druids would be dryad for females and keepers of the grove for males. Their preset armor would dictate what faction they belong to, so you wouldnt confuse an alliance dryad with a horde dryad.

This same premise could solve a multitude of problems, such as odd body shapes causing the devs to deny certain races due to the issue of making armor for them from level 1-max level. If you’ll recall that was one of the reasons they said no to Ethereals, it was just too hard to make armors for them.

Examples of how this could fix race request issues: High elves on alliance or blue-eyed Blood elves, for example, could be the 4th spec shapeshift forms for alliance and horde mages. their armor would be preset in their respective faction colors so no way to mistake them for each other, and couldnt be mogged. but they could quest for changes to hair / eye color and hair/facial hair styles.

This would allow blood elf mages to have blue eyes and maybe void elf hair/facial hair styles without the tentacles, just in blood elf colors. and allow alliance high elves to have blood elf hairstyles/facial hair styles but in high elf colors (pale blonde, soft blue, pale pink, pale aqua, etc).

same could be true for naga. for ethereals. for ogres. for vrykul. for san’layn. for saberon. these could all be 4th spec shapeshift forms, associated with a particular class. like naga priests. ethereal rogues. ogre warriors for horde. vrykul warriors for alliance, san’layn warlocks for horde, and so on.

you wouldnt be required to put the talent point into that but you could if you wished to rp or just wanted to play your character as that race.

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2

I see where you’re theory’s coming from kind’ve, but the idea is too complex to mesh it with the existing classes. Better just to stick with the Allied Races.

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3

its only cosmetic. it doesnt require new spells new starter areas new racials. it’s only cosmetic

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4

Well that doesn’t really strike me as something that should be used as a fourth spec. Cosmetic options and fourth specs are ideas I’m definitely interested in seeing down the line (something along the lines of Tali & Evi’s class skins). But I think they should remain separate. Besides that, the ability to interchange between races on a whim would definitely be an immersion buster in my opinion.

5

its not any different than using foods/potions/toys/trinkets that change your race, only in this case, we actually get to enjoy races that blizz otherwise wont let us play because of either the political nature (belfs and helfs) or the difficulty of making armor for them due to odd body shapes like dryads, ogres, naga and ethereals.

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6

Third caster spec for Demon Hunters will be Elves looking like Azshara.

Naga are already troops for the Illidari so its not a far fetched idea either.

And we are what we kill so thats another route to take.

7

I mean, if that’s what it is, then what you really want is a heap of appearance changing toys - not an entirely new system.

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8

i want all classes to have access to shape shifting, like druids have, only difference being everybody gets one shape shift per class, whereas druids have several

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9

I mean, that’s fine and all, but I think that that would just invalidate the purpose of Allied Races entirely if people could swap into this and that at will. The system they have works, and I can see this “cosmetic” option becoming a bigger problem than a solution. I’m personally against this idea to be honest.

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10

well allied races have the following drawbacks:

  1. they require alot more developer time, thus leaving other content less developed than it could be
  1. they are offered as substitutes for what people actually say they want, because of other considerations like the political nature of high elves for alliance or blue eyed blood elves for horde. or the difficulties of creating armor for them because of odd body shapes
  1. they aren’t rp -ready like shapeshift since the shape shift can be maintained indefinitely or till you turn it off but arent a necessity
  1. they dont offer the possibilities a 4th spec does. 4th spec provides a foundation for a potential set of abilities to be associated with the class in the future or as a result of questing. so it opens up a whole new type of questing goals.
11

do you honestly believe they will ever give alliance high elves or horde ogres without something like this?

12

Were they ever going to give us either (ogres seem far more likely since they haven’t been outright deconfirmed like High Elves), this kind of implementation seems like it would be low on the list of probabilities.

13

i dunno. they asked people at the beginning of bfa, to log in to the forums and tell them what allied races they wanted. so we did. and we did several polls just to be sure. overwhelmingly, alliance said high elves and horde said ogres.

14

If you wanna play a High Elf, the Horde is there waiting for you.

But besides that, the “overwhelming majority” of votes doesn’t really give credence to this idea.

2 Likes
15

right so thats why i came up with this idea.

16

Can’t say I agree with it.

17

why? it’s an rpg. lol

18

I fail to see why that means I should agree with it.

19

why dont you agree with it?

20

Well a big blanket implementation would require a metric boatload of added animations to existing races that haven’t been playable in the past, something that’s specifically given deep attention to when an Allied Race is either built from a previous race or from the ground up. Barring that, you mentioned preset armors - that means you’re going to have characters running around that will all end up looking exactly alike, and not in the sense that they picked the same transmog; literally exactly the same.

Furthermore, what you’re asking for doesn’t need to be implemented with a fourth spec and a wasted talent point. You can easily just put blue eyes or different hairstyles in the barbershop.

Even furthermore, shapeshifting is not something that every class should be able to do. This cosmetic option would pretty much tear gaping holes in the lore, not to mention it would largely invalidate Druid’s ability.

Lastly, High Elves are not a big deal. Play a Void Elf and make a TRP that says you’re a High Elf.

That’s just a few reasons for why I disagree with your idea off the top of my head.