San’layn/vampyr Elf ALLIED RACE Coagulated Megathread of Ideas{Re-VAMPed} (Part 1)

Community General Discussion
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The problem with that analysis is that, in WoW, ideology and racial aesthetics are inextricably linked.

Ok, so you’re proposing a faction conflict where the factions were more defined by their ideologies rather than the races that participate in their composition. So I suppose the best example of this kind of model would be found in the Elder Scrolls Online, where any race from the 10 playable races can elect to be in any of the three available factions.

The problem arises if I were to ask you to describe or at least envision the aesthetic of the playable factions. It’s a lot harder to do because ideology is not necessarily tangible. It’s important, sure, but in a video game where being “iconic” is oftentimes coveted, it isn’t worth sacrificing aesthetics for ideology.

Which is why WoW lore is constructed so that, for the most part, the races actually embody the ideologies of their factions. You can literally see the Horde’s ideology in the physicality of orcs, for instance. It is why, for years now, the term Horde has had an immediate connotation with the image of an orc, even for those that have never played WoW. It is as strong a word association as Disney and Mickey, Batman and DC, etc. I struggle to consider an eventuality where the Alliance receives some manner of reskinned orc as an allied race. To see orcs running about Stormwind would be jarring, and there’s a visual cost to something like that.

That’s also not taking into consideration the fact that developing reskins and shuffling them off to the other faction runs the risk of being wildly two-dimensional. I’ve seen requests for Lightforged Undead for the Alliance and Eredar for the Horde. That’s essentially just asking for a palette swap to emphasize one race’s “goodness” and another race’s “evilness” and situate them within factions that are only deemed “good” and “evil” due to in-lore stereotypes. If Blizzard truly wanted to emphasize Azeroth as a world with “shades of grey,” then the absolute worst thing they could do is create Lightforged Undead or Eredar and give them to the opposite faction.

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Strong blood magic to put him back together giving him a new model that’s a vampire.

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The thing is, you can still add differentiation for opposite faction groups for differentiation’s sake AND to give an aesthetic to their different ideology.

For example, LF Undead and Regular Undead could very easily have different aesthetics. You can certainly redefine what makes each group iconic based on their ideology instead of their race, specially when you are not beholden to copy the model wholesale.

Void Elves already did it, I just wish they would have done it with better lore.

Well, maybe Orcs and Humans should be the two races that would not be allowed to cross over into any cirmscunstance, but yeah for me the game would be more interesting if race choice was agnostic of race. I think it could work for most races, but not for every one, like Orcs or Humans.

While I do understand the possibility of implications about Eredar and Undead, if the point is not making one faction the evil one and the other the good one, I would find better the notion of subverting those steriotypes because on the first place: Why would light forged undead be the good guys? Subversion itself feels a lot more interesting.

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Interesting. I closed the “show preview” pane in the replies last time I was here, and the thread remembered and it’s closed for here but open in other threads.

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I finally get to show my appreciation here for the San’layn ^.^. I used to not really care for them but they have definitely grown on me. Seeing some of the customization I have seen someone put together I believe they look awesome. So now i’m here showing my support. :heart:

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692

It should be part of the Darkfallen’s embassy questline.

  1. Recover Kael’thas’ body.
  2. Recover his head.
  3. Obtain a Dreadlord heart to replace the one that was smashed by the fel crystal he embedded in his chest, and to give him extra vampire powers.
  4. Watch the San’layn perform the ritual to raise him, then make him their leader.
  5. San’layn join the Horde!
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Yeah these forums seem to be great at remembering specific settings per post, which is very nice. There’s a lot to get used to, but I’m starting to warm up to them a bit more. If only my post formatting didn’t get destroyed of course in my first post though, leading me to have to edit it 15 times… Ah well.

Thanks so much! We really appreciate it and you gave me a smile :slight_smile: Here’s to hoping they’ll be in, either soon or in a few years ^^

Sounds pretty interesting and like it could work, they did bring back Illidan, but Illidan had a demon’s soul. If they can do it with Kael’thas via a complex ritual like that, it would be neat, and I know many people do want to see such a thing. Kael needs to be willing to come back though, most likely.

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I agree with Fallyn on the quil, though. It has to mean something because the quil didn’t appear until after we showed such dedication and passion in advocating for the San’layn. That, in turn means, Blizzard is aware of our love and desire for them. They see that there is a considerable (not as much as other races) demand and a strong enough fan base for San’layn. Perhaps, they’ve been following our cause for a while and have possibly seen our suggestions and ideas for customization. The quil might be a hint/foreshadowing for San’layn or at the very least, it’s an acknowledgement of our community.

One last thing, San’layn appeared prominently in the Alliance War Campaign and that was after a long time in the freezer (save for Blood Princess Thalena). Why did they appear after so long? Why not some other intelligent and free undead? The quil can’t be a coincidence, especially since San’layn have recently resurfaced and the awareness of our fervent request is pretty high. They have to put time and resources making that model and it’s for an enchanting item. Not a toy, not a pet, not a mount, an item that drains health/heals. It didn’t need a unique model to do its job, only animations.

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You have a very golden point here. We’ve been here since April, I believe, and started out small. This whole thing started when I had very little hope but figured “Hey… why not. I see other Allied Race threads popping up, so you know what? I’ll give mine a go. I don’t believe we’ll have much of a chance, but you miss every single enemy you don’t swing an axe at.” A month later, and I’m pretty sure it’s unrelated to my starting of the San’layn stuff, Dreven datamined content came out. It is actually a really interesting coincidence, and I am so glad I ended up starting this all before the new San’layn stuff came out, because Blizzard can realize it wasn’t as a result from us seeing that stuff and going like, “Ooo, shiny new stuff, we want it now!” and instead we can be like, “Well, we actually were talking about this before it came out, we really do want it.”

I think the fact that we’ve worked hard to keep our community contained and respectful also helps. We’ve had our ups and downs, and I know I used to be a bit more inflammatory when it came to responding to trolls. Nowadays, we handle things much better and simply repeat what we’ve said before to back us up (or, in my case, tell people to scroll up sometimes :stuck_out_tongue: ).

And yes–the Alliance could have had much greater of an impact if this villain they were fighting was a Zandalari or prominent Dark Ranger. They could have chunked the horde and claimed a bigger enemy if Blizzard made the main issue of their warfront to be something relevant. Instead… they bring back an enemy that they left behind in WoTLK (aside from a few mentions here and there, like Stormheim or Thal’ena.) They specifically have Talanji mention that Sylv said they have a place in the Horde and are going to be given a chance. Why would they do that? Clearly it brought out a lot of hype. I think this does run a lot deeper than many think.

And it all comes back to the Quill now, too. You’re right. It’s not a toy, not a pet, not a mount. An item… linked to a quest chain, with flavor text specifically mentioning “It could be either made by Lana’thel or inspired by her.” They make an entirely new model for it, with a wonderful bat-like design, and show it at Blizzcon.

Perhaps they wanted to see, silently, what we thought about the Quill’s design, as small as it is, without giving any true information that would allude us to San’layn being more prominent in the story or possible for an Allied Race because they might not be ready yet. If that’s the case, I think the consensus is that the quill’s design is exactly what we’d be looking for in terms of how we envision San’layn designs in general. If Blizzard is therefore watching us, then, providing such feedback might be helpful, and further now expanding on our previous ideas.

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Imo we should have to also get his sword (mage fire weapon from legion)

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Imagine if he could summon a blood phoenix, if he ever does actually come back as Blood King Kael’thas? How cool would that be?!

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Dreven, and most likely the San’layn following him, are completely brand new, and Dreven is a BLOOD PRINCE. meaning that the 2 missing Blood Princes are able to not only create more San’layn, but also create new Blood Princes. this could also mean that there is in fact a new Blood Queen if the princes themselves can’t make more princes.

no one horde side actually knows about this, since everyone is killed anyways they can just say the alliance killed those 3 forsaken grunts. and besides, Sylvanas would do the exact same and would most likely expect her followers to do everything in their power to succeed even if it meant sacrificing a small group of soldiers (it also took 3 Forsaken because they don’t have a lot of blood, could have very easily taken 1 of another race, or not even killed the victim).

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Yeah… so why did Sylvanas put a blood drinker on a ship alone in the middle of the ocean with only a bunch of forsaken there? Clearly he had no sustenance aside from those forsaken at all, either. Perhaps this was actually a part of Sylv’s plan. Why she would do it, however, I have no idea. It baffles me, but there’s no way she didn’t know what she was doing there, I mean she has to know her allies’ requirements.

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You want Darkfallen, I want Darkfallen, some don’t. But here is why I think it’s possible, just not in BFA. Azjol-Nerub still exists under northrend. It stretches out about half the size of northrend and it’s leader is still living. Blizzard actually intended to release this zone in a patch but scrapped it because it was just too much work, understandably so. We could go back in an expansion. The use of the Darkfallen would be invaluable in this instance, but in fighting the alliance and some blood dudes I don’t think will cut it. I can only see Darkfallen added if we return to deal with Azjol. I don’t see them joining the alliance and I don’t see the horde taking them in unless our banshee queen sticks around.

I would also love blizzard to make race bound classes. Sure the Darkfallen can be rouges warriors and what not, but why not a Darkfallen class or classes. Make it a hero race so only one to keep population down. It could be the most specialized race and I doubt anyone will have a problem with that.

But then if you style them after the blood princes or the blood queen you get some wacky boss models and gear will look silly. I can’t see any one of the blood princes in that netherweave cloth gear. Or the blood queen in some wacky gear set. Their mount can be just a skeletal charger or the use of blood could be their own mount. Some kind of mist travel. Worgen have themselves as mounts so I don’t see why not.

I can really only Darkfallen in Darkfallen gear which would be fine if we make them a specialized race with its own unique gear and classes, with the addition of everyone’s own private loot that’s no big deal. People won’t even see the Darkfallen stuff come up and it’s no big deal.

Anyway rant over. I want the race but I think it needs to be limited to its own classes and it’s own gear sets.

Just that means we need to think of the alliance equivalent so we can make blizzard’s work easier and they can just mic drop them all in.

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they would then have to give whichever alliance counterpart they get a hero class to go specifically for that race, and the last time we had anything similar to that it was Vanilla with the Paladins and Shaman. i do not think that style would work well in the current modern game.

i was only able to see Nightborne in their fancy purple glowing armor sets but they are able to use all armor and not just NB specific armor, and they use a modified NE model (just like the Blood Princes)

if we gave the Darkfallen/San’layn their own race and own unique armor that only they could use then it would just be too much work for them to be an Allied Race, especially when combined with the fact that we’d have to give the alliance their own allied race with a unique hero class and armor sets as well

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Good to see you at it still

+1 for San’layn

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The thing is, we won’t be playing a Blood Queen or Blood Prince, I think we’d be a neophyte if the story is correct. Or one of the original Darkfallen that was slain in Northrend during the Illidan v. Lich King battle, however just a solider as opposed to a hero unit, if you catch my drift. It’d be, I imagine, quite like the concept of forsaken, where you have zombies in different gear sets, but this time it’s vampires. Or worgen, with werewolves in your gearsets, but this time, vampyr.

I hope Blizzard does look into our ideas and speculations here in this thread too, because there is a huge opening here to make the San’layn look bat-like and very different from the other races.

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i said before…and i say again…
the san’layn people love to look after is the blood princes or even lana’thal for that matter… NO ONE cares about those dk body copies we saw between the corridors of icecrown citadel
BLOOD PRINCES ARE AWESOME, the regular undead ones are crap

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I agree on raising Kael as a San’layn, but I don’t want him to be the leader.

Boy has a lot to atone for, he has to earn his place.

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On the one hand I want Keal to rest in peace and not have any more “Merely a setback!” situations.

On the other the San’layn used to be his troops and it would be a great act of loyalty.

And on the mysterious third hand, Sylvanas raising her brother as one is juicy.

Hmmm…

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