RP is what you make of it… the overwhelming vast majority of the player base couldn’t care two coppers about RP. It’s whatever gives the best racials for raiding which is why the playerbase is overwhelmingly Horde.
Do you have a number or something to support this “overwhelming vast majority of the playerbase choses for racial power” statistic. There are lots of dofferent reasons as to why the horde has a bigger playerbase. Its not just something as simple as the racials and thats it.
Actually it is… because at the upper most tiers of raiding those racials matter.
Maybe you were around when those two motorcycles were being made by those folks who go on TV making custom bikes. They made one or Horde and one for the Alliance real actual bikes. Voting was opened up globally and the winning bike wound up being a free bike for that faction while the other one wound up being a 300k gold purchase.
The Horde bike was voted in at over a 2:1 ratio.
The Horde faction is popular because they are the Klingons of the Franchise.
Ive raided CE on ally before. I am well aware of how the factions have changed population wise. Racials are a factor, but established server economy has a lot more to do with high end raiding. Mechagnomes were busted for a while and guilds were not scrambling to switch over to ally then. Players followed the big dogs and streamers due to perception and stayed. Saying its just due to racials is simplifying things drastically.
Yeah, just look at the original RPG, D&D! Where you could only be an Elven Ranger, Human Fighter, or Gnome Wizard.
Oh… wait…
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Good thing wow isnt D&D and has its own lore and flavor.
I’m sorry, were we talking about, ‘RPG Elements,’ or WoW having it’s own, ‘lore and flavor?’
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Maybe im dumb but im having a hard time figuring out what point youre trying to make. Wow races get their class selection due to lore background. Making the world feel more coherent and consistant. Giving every race every class takes from that because blizzard does very little to give proper lore reasoning and flavor to make them feel like they actually make sense.
Yes and no.
Specifically, the playable classes aren’t determined by race, but by nationality. In other words, this is why you find Gilnean Druids (Harvest Witches) or Kul Tiran Shamans (Tide Priests). So, as a race Humanity can be just about anything (other than Evoker/Demon Hunter), but the Stormwind Humans can’t be Druids/Shamans, simply because it’s not a part of their culture.
But then you realize how most of the human nations have been destroyed and united under God-King Anduin anyways, and those lines on nationality blurr. Ask yourself, why wouldn’t some Stormwind Farmer want to learn the ways of the Harvest Witches, to produce better crops? Why wouldn’t a Stormwind Sailor want to learn the ways of the Tide Priests, to ensure a safer voyage?
The question asked is, “what’s preventing them from doing this,” and the answer is, “Nothing.”
As you’ve mentioned, WoW has its own Lore, and over the expansions, WoW’s Lore has evolved in such a way that race/class restrictions don’t really make sense. Anyone theoretically could be anything. Heck, even now once outlandish ideas like Forsaken Paladins/Druids have clear examples in the lore showing us they work (Death Druidism via Drust/Ardenweald, and holy undead like Calia or Lightforged Draenei Death Knights).
So, there really isn’t any Lore reason to prevent opening all classes to all races.
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Thats nice. Draenei warlocks would be dumb though. Same with orc paladins or night elf warlocks. All races shouldnt be able to be all classes. I think there are definite no no combinations.
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Why not? We’ve got Draenei Shadow Priests, and its not as if the Eredar have Sargeras to answer to anymore. If the Highborne can come back to the Kaldorei, why can’t the Eredar reunite with the Draenei? Heck, the Draenei are way more chill than the Night Elves to begin with, so that seems even easier to make happen.
Have you seen the racial composition of the Argent Crusade?
Seems like a downgrade from Demon Hunters, honestly, so I don’t see why not if Demon Hunters are already a thing for Night Elves.
There’s lore to explain just about any race/class combination at this point.
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Agreed. Mag’har Orc warlocks for instance are redundant and defeat the point of being Mag’har, as fel exposure & use eventually turns your skin green anyway.
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Adding onto this.
If I recall correctly, not all of the race/class restrictions were even defined by lore to begin with. It also partially has to do with the UI going back to vanilla, which for some reason had a hard limit of 6 assignable classes per race. This is why humans ended up not having hunters as a class option; the character creation screen had no room. And because forsaken were meant to mirror humans in selectable classes sans paladins, it wouldn’t be “fair” if they had hunters while living humans didn’t. So they didn’t get a 6th class period.
Trolls were going to have warlocks instead of mages, but this would’ve left forsaken as the only mage-capable race on the horde versus three warlocks. Since trolls were already at 6 classes, warlock got swapped out for mage and the lore pivoted to accommodate for that with “trolls adapted and learned arcane themselves after the troll wars” or something like that.
A mix of that and aesthetics is kinda why blood elves didn’t have warriors at first, either. 6 classes, along with the logic of “why would you play a blood elf if you didn’t want to play a magic-using class?” It was up to warrior VS rogue, and warrior got cut for it.
WotLK forced them to fix the UI aspect to accommodate for death knights. After that, they revisited some of the old class restrictions when Cataclysm came about, which is why the options were expanded on.
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Because whenever they do make a new class race combo for something whacky it feels lazy and tacked on. There will never EVER be a Tauren sunwalker with the same impact or cool lore like morgraine or uther to say. No Zandalari paladins as memorable as the scarlet crusade. I want them to make cool lore. You homoginize everything and then nothings cool or memorable. These combos get made. They get a little five minutes of fame quest giver npc and then theyre forgotten about.
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“Why can’t the Eredar reunite with the Draenei?”
Because all of the Man’ari Eredar betrayed their people in the pursuit of power offered by Sargeras, and bar very few exceptions such as Illidari-Lord Balthas, have consistently stayed on that path since. Also, Draenei aren’t that chill and the Lightforged Draenei would always kill any Man’ari Eredar that came their way, without any exception.
“Have you seen the racial composition of the Argent Crusade?”
The Argent Crusade does not make Lightwielding and Light Worship mandatory.
“There’s lore to explain just about any race/class combination at this point.”
No there isn’t.
Drinking Demon Blood turned their skin green, not being Warlocks.
Does there really need to be? That to me feels more like a matter of opinion. Its not as if there are any major Troll Mage characters out there, but you don’t see me kvetching about trolls having mages. Technically that didn’t even make sense since the only reason the elves ever kicked the trolls around was because of magic.
I’m less concerned about there being, ‘Cool,’ lore for every race/class combination out there (especially when Blizzard’s idea of, ‘New and Cool,’ produces a lorelol like Void Elves), and more concerned with people being able to customize their characters to their heart’s content, including race/class options.
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No, fel exposure - any type of fel exposure - does it too. Durotan and the Frostwolf Clan never drank, with Drek’thar for instance becoming a warlock, yet they got green skin anyway.
To apply this to the Night Elves and Highborne…
“Because all of the Highborne betrayed their people in pursuit of power offered by Sargeras, and bar very few exceptions such as Dath’remar Sunstrider, have consistently stayed on that path. Also, Night Elves aren’t chill, and the Wardens would always kill any Highborne that came their way, without exception.”
Nor does it say, “Sorry, if your race doesn’t practice the Light, you’re not learning from us.”
Yeah, there is. If you don’t like it, that’s your opinion. Thinking of Calia makes me sick, for example. Doesn’t mean she isn’t canon.
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Touche, I have forgotten that one. Regardless, however, the level of exposure seems to need to be exceptionally high. I mean, we’ve got blue-eyed High Elf Warlocks out there, you’d think they’d have developed green eyes. If exposure was enough by itself, I imagine any Mag’har going through Felwood would end up with green skin.
The Night Elves have very different societal values than the Draenei, and it took them over ten thousand years to let the Highborne back into society.
The Draenei have lived for longer than they, and we still don’t see any Draenei warlocks or Eredar running around the Exodar.
Correct, the Argent Crusade does not say that, but that raises the question of why an Orc would want to abandon their people’s faith in the Elements & ancestors, to go get infused with the Holy Light - the same magic wielded by those that once imprisoned their people and forced them into slavery and horrific conditions. -
And there isn’t. Gnome druids, Mechagnome druids, Void Elf druids, and paladins, Nightborne paladins, even some of the playable race/class combinations don’t have any lore - since when were Vulpera priests ever seen in Vol’dun questing? - And yeah, I can agree that Calia is absolutely dumb. Though I don’t see why she’d open up any race/class combinations. She’s a priest, and the Forsaken already have those. They can also wield the light - though it’s extremely painful for them. -