Race/Class restrictions: fun lore or strawman for real racism?

Two of the three most influential Eredar were Warlocks, and it’s a major storyline of Warlords of Draenor that Draenei are being recruited by the legion. Not so sure that example holds water.

Regarding goblin druids - goblins in particular are problematic. As a race they are portrayed as greedy, self serving manipulators who seek to control others through wealth. Opening up goblins to world views other than “Time is money, friend” would be a breath of fresh air. I’ve always felt that the Cataclysm team really dropped the ball with the goblin implementation, choosing to make Jersey Shore injokes rather than create compelling content.

The Eredar that sided with the Legion are also our enemies, completely despised by the Draenei and untrusted by both the Horde and Alliance, you are basically asking for a race/combo that wouldn’t even be able to join in a faction conflict because everyone would hate or fear them.

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You mean the two Eredar that doomed their race? It’s a great example showing why the Draenei wouldn’t let Eredar Warlocks into their society.

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Personally, I wish society (I don’t know how this parses out in languages, but at least in America) would move away from using race rather than just games using it differently. Because for a long time the word was (at least from what I’ve seen) used as a proxy for supposedly very real/significant biological differences. A point I know many racists still hold onto.

I think it is a negative when the two terms are used interchangeably. But my experience is that people cling closer to race being about supposedly important biological aspects. Using different terms in video games is just addressing a symptom of how we view the term that’s still at issue.

Well ultimately not every game wants to offer perfect agency and freedom. Which in and of itself seems fine from a design standpoint. Super Mario Bros put you in the role of Mario. Whether someone wants to be Bowser. While some people might not like such limitations, sometimes that’s not what game designers want to tell.

Well we’re talking about one-offs. Your argument is essentially asserting nobody in an entire race should or would deviate. Those examples are just showing in the setting, deviation does happen. It seems a bit more odd to me that a race wouldn’t have any deviation and is a perfect bastion of conformity even when we know there are traitors in say the Sargerei or Twilight Hammer.

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Man’ari. Not Draenei. The Eredar split into two distinct societies; the Man’ari and the Draenei. Using Archimonde and Kil’jaedan as examples of how Draenei should be warlocks does not really work.

As for the Sagerei, they were all murder-hoboed by the player character because the rest of the Draenei saw them as traitors to everything they valued. This was in an alternate universe to boot. The fact remains that to the Draenei, fel magic is considered a taboo, and that most practitioners would be killed on sight or at the very least banished.

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:man_facepalming:

I’ll just say what I said to a dear friend of mine who is an active member of this woke cult:

“Brah, I just want to play ma game, not talk everyday politics irl… you know, swing a sword, sling a spell and fight fantasy/sci-fi monsters to save the world from the every Tuesday Apocalypse? Forget about that junk, just for a bit and join me in WoW, then you can go back to that if you want”.

RPG for Life! :v: :blush:
:elf: :mage: :fairy:

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Alright, so let’s explore this idea of one-off characters. Could there be one or two Tauren Mages or Worgen Paladins out there? Sure. Why not. Would they be common enough to justify making them a widely played class/combo? Probably not and if they were then that class combo would not remain a ‘one-off’ now would it? It would create a lapse in story telling and gameplay.

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Well that’s the crux of it. Personally, I’m fine with the idea that one or two is enough to allow a player to make one. They’re the hero, they’re special, they’re one of those one or two in the story. Because in the story, you’re unique. You use the Ashbringer or attending meetings with world leaders.

Blizzard uses ‘common enough’. I don’t like or agree with that standard.

There are already thousands of people who in the story used The Ashbringer. But you’re the hero of the story, you don’t acknowledge how many other players exist that share your precise role. That’s already the case.

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Technically, it was Warlocks who doomed the Orcs as well but they’re still accepted into the Horde. It was an important reason why Garrosh flipped his lid in the first place.

That said, I don’t really understand why there aren’t human Demon Hunters (and anymore then one Orc Demon Hunter if we accept Healthstone as canon.) I mean, there’s hundreds of Humans (lorewise) following Illidan in the Black Temple, how could there not be a single one.

A good of example of that is we’ve had quite a few Night Elf Paladins throughout the lore, the most important being the Eternal Champion, that much like the Zandalari Prelates, acted as royal protector and more recently we’ve got Delas Moonfang and yet Night Elves are due to having Paladins unlocked.

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Warlocks ruined Human society through Medivh and Kel’Thuzad. Warlocks ruined Orc society via Gul’Dan and Ner’Zhul. The sunwell was extinguished to resurrect a warlock. Yet humans, orcs, and blood elves all still welcome warlocks.

Well, Necromancer, actually.

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Orcs and Draenei have completely different cultures, especially Orcs after the Burning Legion came.

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See, now I am going to have to contradict myself because Night Elf Paladins actually makes sense to me and has for a long time. I think it is fair to say that Night Elves have an extremely martial faction with the Sentinels, which works closely with the Priesthood of Elune, so you’d think they would have had the same bright idea that the humans did and combined the two together. Especially now of all times, that this ‘Night Warrior’ business is going on.

Coming in from a lore perspective, I can see where there were certain choices made–but made very arbitrarily, from the beginning.

For example, before WoW, night elven druids were only males. They added in lore later to justify there having been past female druids, just that they were rare, etc. But before the game even began, there were restrictions. They decided to discard those for the game, though.

While I love the idea of there being lore reasons for things, they have been, thus far, so shoddily added into the game from a lore perspective (like, we don’t get a story, for instance, on why suddenly gnomes are priests, or why humans finally got to be hunters. Or really any good and meaningful explanation of tauren paladins. Most of those have been fan-created;) that I find myself wishing that they’d added stories for things–or lore reasons. But barring them doing that, just make everything available to every race at this point.

I don’t see it as being a racist thing, either, by the way, since there is no option that is restricted from any player playing it–save that it isn’t offered by the game. And while this is a reflection of where Blizzard has chosen to spend its resources (rather than making new animations for the various races and making sure, if they bring them in from another race, that they work without looking wonky, for instance,) it certainly isn’t a reflection of inherent or subtle racism on their part. I imagine it’s just a time, money, and resources issue.

But I will still wish there were some good story explanations for various things, even if those explanations were just, “This has existed for a long, long while, but until now, none of them wanted to join the Alliance military. But now they have! Yay! We have hunters in the army now!” …or something. It would help every race and class get a good feel for where they came from–a jumping-off point. But for now, it’s mostly left up to our imaginations. Which…isn’t all bad, either–most of the time.

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Blizzard has been quite clear about this, individuals of certain races CAN BREAK the mold of their respective race/class combo but the player character is NOT suppose to be said individual. We are more like the “common stock” of people, hence why we can only play the common classes said race can play.

That does not mean things like pandaren Death knights(which have been a thing since WoD) or night elf paladins(a thing since Legion) do not exist, but they are the exception not the rule.

Said rules might someday be broken(I actually expect another Cata style class revamp someday) but that is a story for another time and for now the class restrictions are a way to tell the audience about the culture of each race.

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“Allowable” is not necessarily the same as welcomed. There’s a reason why the warlock trainers in Orgrimmar are located underground and not at the surface.

Similarly, demon hunters were only “allowed” because they had Khadgar vouch for them. Again, there’s a reason why most DH’s we’ve seen are off doing their own thing and not really mingling with other races.

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Sure, but the discussion at hand is should they be playable. And to be playable, they just have to be allowable. In the same way Void Elves, Demon Hunters, Warlocks, and Death Knights are allowed in-game to do all the quests everyone else does.

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Well that’s just game mechanics. Blizzard is never going to limit access to quests because of the class or race a player chose unless it plays into a certain theme, like class halls.

Hence why being allowable is all that matters. Whether or not they’re accepted, they still have access to the quests and regions.

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