Today’s tea is chai, sweetened with Hazelnut creamer instead. My housemate toyed with it and it’s not half bad. But more to the point:
When it was announced that Blood Elves were finally getting warrior, I was elated. Warrior seemed to fit every race in WoW and the fact they’d have lore for it was pretty cool. Same went with hunters and humans, or even orcs and priests.
Now?
With the announcement of the roadmap of 10.1.5 - Fractures in Time, it was revealed that Warlocks would now be playable as Night Elves, Draenei, Lightforged, Pandaren, Kul Tiran, Tauren, Highmountain, Mag’har, and Zandalari. (And new pet customizations).
I’m curious if this is a “Break glass in case of emergency” bit or if Blizzard has something up their sleeve concerning the lore for each new race being able to harness fel energy.
(Plus, if they don’t give Draenei red skin options, we revolt)
How do you think it will be explained? Or, barring logical explanations, what’s your headcanon?
WoW’s infrastructure just isn’t set up to accommodate players anymore. The content, the storytelling, the graphics are still old and tired. And Blizzard is continuing to struggle to find its voice in its post-scandal era because it’s kind of bonkers to be trying to portray yourself as a company that’s pleasant and progressive when genocide is still your only plot point.
There’s nothing really left for them to do but keep giving away more stuff and it’s actually not going to help all that much because the game has hit a point where it can no longer be grown.
As for lore, I’d be shocked if we ever got a reason. Highmountains love the Legion now. Boom.
You did have the Bloodtotem that became the Feltotem. Maybe the Warlock is a leftover from that. That said I’m really hoping we get some demonic customization options. I’d love Fel Orcs and Eredar. This feels like a break glass in case of emergency situation though.
Well! Considering they gave us new lore for how Orc priests look? I imagine a lot of mew lore will come of this, as well as new class trainers and some backwards compatibility in Legion order halls like they did with tauren rogues.
Personally, I hate the whole idea of “They are just doing this because they know the players will like it in an emergency.”
Shouldnt… we want them to be doing more things like this? Why is it so easy for WoW players to find a reason to dislike or sour everything blizz does? I think more class options is a win and im happy to see it.
Why can’t they do something about the diaper gnomes/mechagnomes? They still can’t wear pants and that has to annoy all the tens of people that play them.
Lightforged Draenei warlocks I kinda don’t like, but I have made a case for Draenei warlocks existing as scholars of fel, trying to learn how to reverse fel corruption in their eredar cousins!
Other races being warlocks, imo, makes sense because Warlockery isn’t something that lore-wise needs to be tied to one race. Every race can be influenced by the fel and fall to its corruption. That being said, I can’t see every society accepting warlocks as part of the fold, and that could lead to some interesting RP in and of itself…
Originally warlocks were just demon hunter casters. They captured and controlled demons for the good of azeroth. Were they shady and mistrusted? Yes. But I think of any race, that view of the class fits LF Dreanei very well. Demon torturer? Sign me up.
People like breaking taboos-- a night elf warlock isn’t all that different from a night elf mage or a demon hunter: ‘you can’t do that! okay, you can do that as long as you do that at our enemies’.
And, honestly, I’m all for player choice-- if you can dream it, you can be it.
tbh the only reason i don’t like LF draenei warlocks is that the lightforging process just kinda feels like something tacked onto LF draenei as a whole, and them being warlocks adds to it. IDK, just doesn’t feel like LF draenei really have a “fantasy” to them the way the hero classes do? and that’s always been my issue with them as a playable race and not a hero class or paladin customization.
But if we treat them as just another draenei, yeah, warlocks work.
it’s always made me a little sad that i’ve never been able to find night elf RP that focuses on “fringe” night elves, or allows for small amounts of them (either as alts or side RP).
like. people seem to act like we can only play Paragons of a culture, exemplary of their people’s beliefs. and i hate this so much, because that’s not how cultures work. not in real life and not even in canon. we have another topic talking about conflict in RP, and an easy form of non-violent, interpersonal conflict comes from playing a fringe case of your character’s culture. it can lead to some interesting interactions between characters, and I have always wanted to play out cases like that.
heck, that’s the entire reason I like playing a sin’dorei demon hunter. She doesn’t feel like she can go home because the Silvermoon she sacrificed everything for, doesn’t feel like home anymore. The blood elves have changed. The actions of the Illidari aren’t hailed as heroes of their people, but of a violent mistake that should be rectified and then buried. It’s a compelling narrative, and there should be room for these narratives just as much as the paragon narratives.
(and i’m not saying the perfect examples of the culture should go away, either. because yeah, if everyone’s playing rebels breaking the rules, that’s just as boring as everyone being Perfect Examples of the Culture. gotta have a balance; that’s why I play characters of a wide range.)