I know this is a topic often discussed, but I know I am not alone in thinking that it is time to lift restrictions on class and race combinations. The heart of RPG is having the freedom to create any character you can dream of–having a backstory for your character is something extremely enriching, and everyone should be able to have their most ideal character to play as.
I understand that there are some restrictions that come from this being a physical, tangible game created by a group of people for us to play with limited resources, but you think of almost any class/race combo and there is a lore example of that character being possible.
I can understand Blizzard not wanting to make a druid form for every single race and allied race that is in the game now, but MOST class/race combos wouldn’t require that level of art team development time to get it into player hands. The other class that comes to mind is shaman, because totems are an art development, but I personally feel that would be an investment that would be worth it for Blizzard in the long run, as totems are (I imagine) a much smaller time sink than making individual druid forms for every race.
Player agency seems to be something that Blizzard is trying to get back to in some capacity, and this would go a long way towards that goal.
It’s almost as though you ignored my entire post, but I’m not too surprised by that.
Most race/class combos have plenty of in-game lore examples–it is actually possible (and even, quite easy) to both allow player choice and still be true to lore.
It would definitely take a lot of work to make things like druid for every race, but I’d love it personally. I think it would be worth it. The only problem then would be choosing between all of the races…
I don’t care about the lore at this point. Blizz retcons the lore when it suits them. I don’t want lore to be what stops us from having the choice of the race/class combination we really want.
I wanted to make a Kul Tiran Paladin and was very disappointed to see they could not be Paladins. WTH? So I still don’t have an Ally Paladin because I can’t play the race I really want to play as one.
I really want a Tauren Mage too and a Draenei Rogue, a Monk Worgen and Goblin. Very disappointing again.
Then you don’t need to make the class/race combos you disagree with. Why is it that someone else in the world playing a class/race combo you maybe disagree with detracting from your own play?
I am pretty big on playing a game that feels “real”, and would probably prefer to play on an RP server, but if you feel the same way, then play on an RP server and anyone you run into will have their own backstory and lore reason for their toon existing. Otherwise, you can just ignore everyone around you, as we are all canonically these “lore giants”, which is already somewhat lore breaking to me anyways.
Which class/race combo were you thinking of? There is a night elf Paladin in the Paladin order hall, worgen shaman on the island expeditions, undead Paladins exist in lore…I’m sure I could do some research and find almost any combo you could think of, outside of things like Undead Druid which I agree would be a hard sell.
It is sad to me that someone else getting something they dream of having is such a negative to so many people. I don’t see how it so strongly affects lore–look at Death Knights, everyone said it would break lore to have Allied Races able to be DKs because of the fact it would mess up the timeline so bad, but they still were able to make it happen.
And can we talk about how ridiculous Lightforged Draenei DKs are? And yet, they are playable. And even though I can’t even fathom wanting to have a LF DK, I would never want to take that away from someone who was really excited to have that as an option.
Also, as a last note… Even if there was a negative race trait for the class/race combo I want, I would 100% still play it.
I suppose you could argue that I want to step on the anti-dream. I have a hard time understanding the “yes we love restrictions” camp, as for me and RPG means open skies and unlimited possibilities, but I don’t think there is much more I can say in direct conversation with you.
I absolutely agree, but I also don’t have any definable “in lore” examples of those particular class/race combos. They can definitely be given a story and be done, but there are also so many class/race combos that DON’T exist but DO have lore examples backing them up. It is silly to me.