Homogenization of Cultures due to "Player Choice"

Community General Discussion
1

I’d like to say my piece about all races being Mages, Rogues, and Priests.

I think that many people play this game for the PvP or PvE aspect and do not care a lot about the story or the RPG element; however, A LOT of people do care about the story and the RPG element.

I’m very worried because by allowing all races to be the above three classes, you are destroying the lore that you’ve already created for these races.

For example: the Tauren worship Anshe. They worship the Sun and the Earthmother… and so they would not generally engage in deception or deceptive fighting styles, such as the Rogue.

The Orcs are by nature bound to the earth and her elements, and so it does not make any sense that they all of a sudden begin worshipping the Light.

The only way that this change to allow all classes to be Mage, Rogue, and Priest would work for ME would be if:

a) lore was added in-game to accurately explain WHY these races would behave in such illogical and out-of-script manners.
b) the new lore would limit what type of mage, rogue, or priest these races can be.

For example, I have no problem with the concept of a cloth-wearing elementalist. Perhaps these cultures which are elemental-oriented could gain “mage” because mages use fire and ice.

I would be willing to accept Tauren Rogues, for example, if there was lore added that showed that the Grimtotem tribe was once again welcomed into Thunderbluff, players got the Grimtotem customization options, etc.

I would accept that the Rangari began to teach their ways to Draenei in our world.

I can even accept that Orcs could ONLY be shadow priests canonically in-game due to their exposure to the Shadowmoon Clan of AU Draenor.

I think if we do not take these steps to protect the lore of the game, what we will have is NOTHING.

All cultures in WoW will become indistinguishable from the other; and the only reason you would choose a specific race is because of the way it looks.

I do not like that. I do not want that.

Please, respect your own creation and do not destroy the internal consistency of the world that you have created for “player choice.”

29 Likes
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They already destroyed that part of the lore with several of their past race/class combos, so they may as well unlock the rest of them and allow player freedom. If other players minding their own business and picking what combo they want is what ruins your immersion, then you might need to look at your priorities.

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That is basically what I do now anyways

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4

consider this

Nobody cares

Restrictions are cringe

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I care.

It’s important to me that my game makes sense. It’s okay if you don’t, but I do.

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Nothing makes sense in this game the story has been retconned to the point of resembling the mcu our antagonist is pale thanos with none of the build up that made thanos cool slyvanas wanted to commit genocide but was only punished to do Maw dailies etc. caring about wow lore in 2022 is asking for brain tumors

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Me too, I like that WoW has a different approach compared to the JRPG style that you learn every job/class for a single character, since each class available per race has a story, the fact that Blizzard is moving to a scenario without factions and more class/race combos is because the impact of this restrictions over the years and I’m glad they’re doing more combinations but I wish they could add lore around those, like Rogue Taurens comes from the Grimtotem tribe …etc, maybe Voidelf Paladin worship void instead of light and it’s like a skin without using light effect ( I know some players won’t like this because they really want Hight Elves but you’re void elf not High elf) , there’s a lot of ways to implement new combos.

Actually the new Evoker class was controversial because while other MMOs allow players to use every kind of weapon or be every kind of class/job, Blizzard decided to implement a race with only 1 class for now.

The sad part is that Blizzard won’t implement new starting zone experiences or questlines for this new combo classes because they don’t care about their own lore IMO, they keep using Books for some events and those are missing in game.

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I agree but most players don’t care that this is supposed to be an RPG with gameplay that comes out of the lore. I’m with you on wanting some in game reason for lifting these restrictions but since we’ve never had a lore reason for the existence of M+ I won’t hold my breath.

Allowing Undead to be Holy Priests in Vanilla was a necessary gameplay change but these new additions don’t make any sense other than financial for Blizz.

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Anyone who truly care about the story would acknowledge that the player character is an odd-ball individual that is prone to pick up things outside of the norms.

Grimtotem has rogues, and a sizeable portion of them joined the horde after Magatha tried to massacre the bloodotems.

Blood Elves and Night Borne also got druids, albeit without the feral focus

Belf shaman

Zadalari warlocks:

Fairly certain Vulpera picked up warlock stuff from this zandalari town.

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All these problems could be avoided if they just added culture flavor to classes and specs. For example, it makes no sense to have night elves using holy light or worship the light, but it would make a lot of sense to have their priest abilities be Elune themed. So instead of Holy light its Lunar light. Instead of casting holy-themed smites, you’d be casting moon-themed smites, and so on and so forth.

So its the same exact abilities with the same functionalities, but with lore-consistent flavor that makes it fit.

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Good thing it isn’t your game then ig

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We’ve shot laser rifles at the Judge of All Souls Of All Reality… imagine thinking the idea of the player character growing up tough and learning to throw sand in someone’s eye breaks immersion.

There are certain race/class combinations that shouldn’t work because the race doesn’t have the cultural heritage to have spent their entire life taking part in that traditional. Orc Paladins don’t make sense. Human Shaman don’t make sense. But the idea that a Tauren learned how to drive a dagger underneath armor simply requires said Tauren to NOT have been indoctrinated in certain customs, which is completely plausible.

Your Tauren does not necessarily hail from Thunderbluff anymore. You could have come from anywhere that Tauren may have lived and made your own path before enlisting in your faction’s Armed Forces (assuming that Exile’s Reach is your background story). Your Tauren may just as well find themselves more comfortable with a pair of blades than with a bow. Mage is pretty much the same. Anyone can learn how to channel spells in the WoW universe with study.

Priest is a bit more sketchy to me, but essentially Priest has become the “Faith Based Mage” at this point, as simply a belief in any higher power seems to work. They’re basically D&D Clerics at this point, and there are plenty of Evil Clerics in D&D, all sorts of religions seem valid at this point.

I will consider Blizzard to have crossed a line when Human Shaman or Orc Paladins are a thing though. That’s pretty much a line in the sand I never want to see crossed.

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So ALL Tauren are Anshe worshippers? All orcs are bound by the earth and elements (lol I don’t even know where you got that from)?

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No. You are not.
The race still exists.
The greater culture and society of those race still exists and will be treated normally by the story.

The player character is an outlier and always has been. We do not heavily interact with our races home cities on a regular basis. We’re doing our own thing and that doesn’t have to take away from the the racial norms portrayed elsewhere.

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It’s an mmorpg, I want to play a Tauren who has gone agains this religion and plays rogue

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We had this somewhat in the past and then they took it away.

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If we’re going by OPs logic blood elves shouldn’t be warriors because they are massive sissies too addicted to arcane juice to work out and lift to become strong alpha warriors

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restrictions in video games are bad.

Its a GAME, it is meant to be fun, competitive and engaging

… if you want lore or a tiny self contained world, go read a book from the 60s/70s/80s

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Humans were shamans before founding their realms…when they were more savages like Vykrul

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That’s how it was in TBC and that was the exact lore reason.