We have hit patch 10.2 and we are officially in the Emerald Dream and finally we have news of when we will be going back to reclaim Gilneas!
The last coming patches of the expansion are absolutely perfectly timed to introduce playable Night Elf worgen. The lore is there 100% and perhaps even more than that! It’s almost painful to not have this in game and I cannot help but express my thoughts and passion on this particular topic.
Nearly five years ago (I can’t believe it’s been that long!), I wrote a post all about the Night Elf worgen, their lore, how they could be implemented, racials, even how we could differentiate the differences between Night Elf worgen and Gilnean worgen. Here is a link to that thread though do keep in mind this was posted all the way back in BFA so things have changed since then!
Ever since the concept of Allied Races came into play and saw that they were, for the most part, basically subraces of our core races, Night Elf worgen screamed at me. Though what differentiates an Allied Race to a Core race other than some visual difference? Culture. Culture and lore is a very definitive factor in these Allied Races thus why at the time, I strongly believed Night Elf worgen would be a very suitable candidate.
This however is no longer the case because Blizzard’s technology and capabilities have grown substantially. We now have the ability to unlock character customizations via in game quests. The Night Warrior, the Darkfallen, and the Man’ari skins are all prime examples of this. The best part is is that the assets/models are already in our game files! This would not really require the resources from art team at all. Unless of course we can finally unlock an optional tail for our worgen which I think this is just -too- perfect to do in this case. The art team would not need to do much of anything as opposed to making night elf worgen an Allied Race. Thankfully, Shadowlands finally gave us the ability customize each form respectively.
So how exactly would this work?
- Worgen players would become eligible for a questline that unlocks this customization.
- Worgen players go through a series of quests which further explains the story of how worgen came to be and the Night Elves’ connection to it all. I would highly -highly- recommend Belysra, Arvell, Alpha Prime, and Goldrinn being involved with this story telling. If you do not know the actual lore behind all of this, please check out the above thread and/or read the Curse of the Worgen comic.
- An Allied Race would require a quest chain anyways so this kind of goes hand in hand. Generally Allied Race quests are much more involved whereas this could be something simplified like the Man’ari chain.
- Once the quest chain is complete, the ability to have your non-shifted form be a Night Elf unlocks as well as the tail option for all worgen players. This particular customization would be tied to worgen only.
The benefits of having it as a customization as opposed to an Allied Race:
- The Art team would not need to come up new models that make Night Elf worgen different from Gilneans. In the end, both are worgen and this is purely an aesthetic addition that is already in the game.
- There will be absolutely no need to create new racials. They are still under worgen.
- The Art team would not need to create a new heritage armor set. (Though it should be flagged that if you’re a night elf, you get the night elven heritage and same with Gilneans getting their respective armor.) Both of which are in game already.
The downfalls:
- A lot of coding I’d think would have to be involved with the character creation screen/barber shop. I would imagine this be something like druid forms perhaps?
- A quest chain would need to be developed to unlock this.
- Players would probably have to be at least level 70 to be eligible for the quest due to it possibly involving going to the Emerald Dream and Gilneas. We don’t really know the details on what’s going on with Gilneas at this time so I can’t really say anything on that front.
Some of you may think… Why?
- We are at the point of our Warcraft story where this would be a perfect time to implement this.
- For the TLDR on lore points: Night Elf worgen still slumber in the Emerald Dream. While some have broken out of the Dream, most of them are located at Daral’nir (which is Tal’doren, the tree in the Blackwald in Gilneas where the Night Elves performed the ritual for the Gilnean worgen to regain their humanity.) And since we’re now going back to Gilneas…
- Night Elf worgen already exist in Warcraft. Felwood (Denmother Ulric and her pack) and Val’sharah’s feral worgen npcs are examples of where you can find them. Not to mention, Arugal summoned night elven worgen to Shadowfang. It’s how Gilneans got the curse to begin with. I believe there could be a chance that a few night elf worgen roams around the vicinity still.
- We have methods now to contain the rage of the curse so their feral antics would be quelled.
- This is a prime opportunity to elaborate and expand upon the lore and relationships between Gilneans and the Night Elves.
- Finally, in creating this bit of content, this would be the perfect opportunity to open up the much demanded tail customization players have been asking for since Cataclysm’s alpha.
One last thing to note is that Ion himself said in Blizzcon 2023’s Q&A session that more customization will come when the time is right. I literally cannot think of a more perfect time for this.
What about a starting zone?
Well… they can still either choose Gilneas or Exile’s reach. They aren’t an Allied Race but even then Allied Races don’t have special zones of their own. Some of you may think that it doesn’t make sense but remember, Teldrassil and Tirisfal are still playable. If you really want to be creative, you can simply say your night elf worgen was there during the outbreak of the curse and got involved with Gilneans then ultimately had to fend off the Forsaken for survival. Just an idea.
I really do thank you all for looking at this thread!