I would love for more customization options to be added in. I wish “Class Skins” were a thing, because for say, a Draenei/Lightforged Draenei, Shadow spec would become “Lightbringer” spec, and make all of the damage dealt by its spells be either Fire or Holy damage, and rather than Shadowform, Draenei would have “Lightform”.
6 Likes
What I’d like to see at Blizzconline:
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San’layn/Undead Allied race recruitment or unlockable customization via questline ala The Night Warrior quest.
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Dark Ranger Customization unlocked after completing a questline. This one could fall into the San’layn customization/allied race listed above.
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More customization for Allied Races and the most shafted core races.
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Meaningful and Interesting Scourge Questlines set on Azeroth pertaining to the presently grim situation and our fight against the Scourge. I cannot stress how much I want the Scourge situation to be resolved with respect as the Scourge is an iconic (and for me cherished) part of Warcraft history. It shouldn’t be just easily solved or destroyed. I’ve said it before and I’m saying it here. I still believe that we’ll be reforging the Helm of Domination but this time free of corruption so the next Lich King doesn’t do the dark side slide.
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Undead cat hunter pet models maybe skeletal and stitched with battle pet versions of both. I’d love a stitched or spectral kitten pet based on Jelly cat’s model. Let’s not forget the slime cat mount that didn’t win. I still want that.
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Dark Ranger Velonara. I cannot find her at all. She once stood outside the Orgrimmar Embassy and gave you some informative dialogue after the forming of the council, but now she’s now where to be found. Not only that, it’s odd we haven’t seen Horde Dark Rangers or Maw-Sworn Dark Rangers considering Sylvanas is a major factor in Shadowlands and THE Dark Ranger. I wanna see our Dark Rangers faceoff against Sylvanas’ Dark Rangers.
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Creepy spooky bows, please.
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Something, something Archaeology update maybe two new categories: one for Lordaeronian artifacts and one for Thalassian. We could dig up artifacts from Arthas’ reign of death through both Lordaeron and Quel’thalas among those of actual archaeological value.
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More dead people from Azeroth in the Shadowlands. I wanna see Pamela in a happy place after everything she suffered.
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A return to Northrend with new content (very wishful thinking) where we find hidden places beneath the ice, snow and frost with lurking Nerubians.
6 Likes
In terms of reasonable things to expect at Blizzconline, there are a few things that come to my mind:
The first is pathfinder for flying and the criteria to unlock it. Granted, I usually worry about what could become criteria, but if it is at least something I can work on solo, it won’t be too bad. Even if I log in each day to work on it.
The second is seeing how Azeroth is faring with all the undead rampaging across the lands. I will admit that some of it is me wanting to be out of the afterlife, but I do want to know how bad things are and what everyone is doing to fend off all the undead supposedly sieging places like Orgrimmar and such. Not to mention that it would be good opportunities to add in some allied race possibilities by having them assist the Horde/Alliance in defending their territory. (San’layn helping Silvermoon, Ogres helping Orgrimmar, etc)
The third is the continuing of storylines with characters like Kael’thas, likely leading to a raid or something against Kel’thuzad. Not sure what direction Kael’thas in particular will go, but maybe we’ll see more with him mentioned.
Speaking of allied races, I still do not see the covenant races becoming playable for reasons myself and others have stated multiple times. Not entirely impossible, but it still seems very unlikely. If they did somehow become playable, I would be very disappointed and not particularly happy. No offense to those who do want them, of course. It’s just my own personal opinion.
As usual, there is a part of me that does hope for something involving my most wanted races on a path to become playable, but I usually temper those hopes when it comes to patches within an expansion as opposed to when an expansion launches (unless we somehow deal with those races again during an expansion). Still, there is a part of me that hopes to see them become part of the story and join their respective factions somehow.
With San’layn, it can go many ways:
Best case scenario, we get them as an allied race and we all rejoice. Huzzah!
Next would be no mention of them at all. Frustrating, of course, but it wouldn’t really rule them out in the future in some fashion.
The worst would be seeing them as Sylvanas’ minions and jobbers for a raid, new questing area, or so on. I will stress that such an occurrence is not the end of the world, as there could still be other San’layn covens that would be more likely to help the Horde, but seeing them as bad guys destined to die for teh phat lewts would be a huge downer in general.
I try to keep some hope of some decent announcements in general, but I think I’ll remain dubious until this expansion passes. Honestly, the sooner we go back to Azeroth, the happier I will be. I’ll try to keep an open mind, but darned if it is really hard to worry about what comes next.
That is all I can think of for now. I’m sure I’ll think of other things to talk about as we get closer.
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The situation should be dire and teetering on apocalypse. I wanna see Scourge devastation, I want to experience first hand. Like most of you on this thread, I develop stories for my favorite toons/characters. This toon is Ivonia’s older sister, who witnessed Arthas’ attack on Quel’thalas and escaped with the youngest (Ivonia who was a young child) while her parents and oldest sister fell. I want to play Ivonia as if the Scourge invasion is dredging up memories long banished to the darkest places of her psyche while she faces what her parents and sisters once faced. The Scourge invasion should have a lasting impact on Azeroth.
5 Likes
What I want to see in blizzcon.
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New allied race customization
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Blood elf dark ranger customization (undead skin tones, eyes, body deformities)
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The merging of allied races with base pairs. And allowing us to pick more bodytypes. This would merge orcs and maghar in the barbershop. Fuse the classes they can play and mix their customization.
So mixed races would be gnomes-mechagnomes, orcs-maghar, dark iron-bronzebeard-wildhammer, trolls-zandalari, kultirans-stormwind humans, dranei-lightforged, highmountain and thunderbluff tauren. -
The mixed races would come with a new feature that’s mostly for roleplay (identity tags) so it would add an rp race to your avatar when you hover over someone. So trolls can pick Zandalari or other tribes, humans can pick the city (stormwind/kultirans), tauren can pick their city, This would make it possible to just add good customization worthy of an allied race as a bodytype option to similar races. San’layn high elves, darkfallen night elves would be a good example of different bodytypes that can be added in the barbershop. And allow for more niche bodytypes, and sort of be like skin transmog to collect. Tauren would eventually be able to unlock Yaungol and Taunka bodytypes for example. Other examples are like orcs getting the missing skin tones/ or Moknathal. Goblins getting kelfin bodypes. Racials can be added to allow for more faction balancing options if blizz wants. It would make old races feel new in some regards and have continued ways to add customization as rewards that isn’t mounts or gear or transmog.
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Legendary weapon crafting. Let’s craft our own mourneblades please.
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Torgast transmog sets, wether it be like island expeditoins, or torgast covenant sets (torgast mixed with covenants would be nice) and or old lost recolor sets.
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Torgast based/ solo loot options for great vault for solo gameplay style. Something like Visions of N’zoth 5 mask run would be nice for solo players to progress through.
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Part of me hopes they will start let us unlocking stuff like race/class comboes by patches instead of by expansions. It seems like Ardenweald should for example let anyone be a death druid if they wanted to. (Covenant specs? or something? ) In destiny they add more specs to already existing classes, so it would be cool if blizzard sort of did that someday. What if joining Ardenweald unlocked a healing spec at the end of the expansion? This isn’t very likely but it would be nice to get more gameplay options. Perhaps our covenant abilities always be usable with that spec even after the expansion ends.
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Marry me. (Jk) You have so many good ideas. Give me your powers.
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So I got into a talk with my wife about the terms San’layn vs Darkfallen.
In my head, and as clearly as I can recall, the term “Darkfallen” was applied as a racial name for the vampire Belfs in Northrend, and the term “San’layn” was the name for the faction of the Scourge the Darkfallen were a part of.
As an example Undead is a term applied to a race, Forsaken is a faction of undead that is part of the Horde.
However, when I did some digging, Wowwiki has Darkfallen listed as the faction and San’layn as the race. And Wowpedia has Darkfallen listed as just another term for San’layn.
This is not what I recall reading in the past.
Further Google-fu lead to some older posts on 3rd party sites made by players (oldest was from 2012) that were similar to what I recall.
So I guess I am just looking for other lore hound thoughts. Am I just mistaken? Was it retconned at some point? Any insight is appreciated!
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To be honest, this is a good, and tricky, question. The short answer is: No one knows for sure.
Here’s the long answer, though. “San’layn” is speculated very strongly to mean “Darkfallen” in Thalassian–like how Sin’dorei means “Blood Elf”. This is further complicated by the additional “Darkfallen” in Argus, which aren’t San’layn at all, but are Broken. Now, I just did a short google search on those units, which appear… gone? I don’t know why I can’t find the broken draenei “darkfallen” unless they shadow-changed the name.
Matters become complicated even further when you realize the vampyr curse can afflict Vry’kul & humans–meaning, most likely, all races in Azeroth. “Darkfallen” might refer specifically to Thalassian elves that have ‘fallen’, with “San’layn” being their name in their language.
Then there’s the whole “Vampire” debacle. As we know, Venthyr are called “Vampire”, but are very clearly not the same as Darkfallen/San’layn, being from the afterlife and not undead. They also drink soul energy, not blood. “Vampyr” are what the San’layn are called… usually. But then, sometimes, it’s “Vampire” as well.
https://wow.gamepedia.com/Vampire specifically https://www.wowhead.com/achievement=4618/once-bitten-twice-shy-25-player with the wording: “Defeat Blood-Queen Lana’thel once as a vampire and again without becoming a vampire in 25-player mode.”
So in conclusion, there’s not really much to tell of a distinction for Darkfallen v. San’layn v. Vampyr v. Vampire. They seem majorly interchanged, which isn’t the most convenient, as it applies to multiple instances/species that in many cases are distinct from one another, sometimes not even being from the same planet or plane of existence.
7 Likes
This makes me think of a potential /silly for San’layn:
“Better to be Darkfallen than to be Lightrisen.”
I’m sure something could be worked with it to make it more funny, but the point still stands. :V
5 Likes
Yeah, kinda what I figured. Blizz’s lore is always swiss cheese, guess this is no exception.
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San’layn is a Thalassian word meaning Darkfallen. So San’layn identity is related to blood elf views on Darkfallen. Darkfallen can be any race actually, we have Darkfallen night elves in BFA for example. Darkfallen seems to be a common word for one that is cursed and have fallen to dark magics and probably resseructed. So you can probably broaden that name to any other race. It’s a state of being for living beings.
If you compare other types of resseructions the lifebinder rezzed us and we retained our original states in the Argus fight for example. Then we have calia the first wow resurrection by the light (working with a bit of shadow magic) to a holy state. Necromancy is forcefully binding a soul and ripping it from the shadowlands or wherever it was and forcing it back into the body via shadow magics. And it seems they can apply weaknesses/curses and powers onto the new body. For example the San’layn and the Venthyr have many similarities. They have similar themed roles. The lich king was said to have San’layn to replace the Nathrezim who were originally vampiric. And they themselves have a connection to the Sire Denathrius. The blood curse is also of shadow magic, the being usually hungers for blood, so I am wondering how much it is tied to either shadow magic or death magic. That hasn’t been entirely explained.
It is why I generally promote and love the Idea of San’layn - the vampire elves. Darkfallen as a more generic term that may apply to beings like Slyvannas’ dark rangers as they were also former scourge. And any customization being mixed with just undead zombie, and one vampiric undead with mutagens affecting physical characteristics. Similar to demon hunters who can choose to look a bit fel or a bit more full on fel demon look.
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Looks like it’s due to the area being Darkfall Ridge, so the Krokul in the area are called Darkfallen.
https://wow.gamepedia.com/Darkfallen_Refugee
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Also I don’t wanna see one person who likes a certain tall vampire lady come into this thread and scream at me about liking aesthetically pleasing vampires >.> Not for even one moment.
“But Falls San’layn don’t–”
Quoth prince Taladram: “I will feast on your remains.”
Quoth Prince Valanar: “ALL. MUST. DIE.”
Quoth Prince Keleseth: Keleseth casts a massive soul drain that kills the Vengeance Landing troops.
Prince Keleseth says: Listen to your men’s dying breaths as I drink in their souls!"
What was that about San’layn not being utterly dangerous and bloodthirsty? We’re not talking about some prissy elves. We’re talking about vampyr who trained DEATH KNIGHTS.
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stamps with approval
stamps again
stamps
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I was always taught that “Vampire” means you were a Human in Life, and that “Vampyr” means you were an Elf in Life.
Not gonna lie, it would sort of make me laugh if they finally put in a vampiric Allied Race and instead of pretty, elfy San’layn it was the Nosfaratu-looking Ven’thyr. I feel like suddenly, all of the desire to play a vampire race would evaporate.
I dunno because now “Vampire” is used for Venthyr as well (not my cup of tea at all) and also was used for that achievement, meaning even back then anyone ‘turned’ was a ‘vampire’. At this point I think it’s interchangeable, but I usually call any undead non-afterlife-related things “vampyr” to distinguish it.
I’ve been pushing for San’layn since before Venthyr were even seen, and have 0 interest in the venthyr. In fact, even prior to their appearance in BfA beta, I started these ideas a month before people even knew they were coming back. Think I’ve made my thoughts on them extremely clear. We can have a brutal vampiric race while also being aesthetically pleasing, and in my opinion, there’s nothing wrong with that either. I know there’s this whole crusade against vampires that look nice because of a certain terrible (in my personal opinion, no offence to those that like it, I do not) movie/book franchise, but it is what it is. I like the idea of aesthetically pleasing monsters that will also rip your throat out in the next second if you cross them wrong.
Therefore, I have 0 desire for just a “Vampire race”. I want san’layn specifically, because I like the lore that’s been built for them, not this new nonsense (again–personal opinion, I won’t hate on anyone for liking/loving Shadowlands lore, I simply am sharing mine as I do not.) I like how they expanded the vampyr curse to other azeroth races, that was cool, but not this entirely out-of-the-blue concept that is rather tiresome after sincerely loving the lore introduced back in Wrath for vampyr, only to have it abandoned.
6 Likes
Awhile ago, I mentioned the example of how San’layn being something like human instead of elf would still have me interested in them. I used this as an example of why them being specifically elves is not a reason why I like them, though I will admit that it does make them seem pretty cool and works really well for their backstory IMO. I like the San’layn for a variety of reasons, including some really neat storyline potential.
One thing that example was not meant for was that a vampire race of any other kind would replace San’layn while I feel the same about them as I do the San’layn completely. I like the San’layn for being San’layn. Their aesthetics, their culture, their backstory, etc. That is a big reason why I support them as a playable race. I wouldn’t want to see a race of any sort become playable to act as a replacement for another race people want as a playable race.
Venthyr for me are neat as a NPC race, but given they reside in the afterlife and have really big roles in the whole life/death cycle, I have a hard time seeing them join either faction and becoming playable. It also wouldn’t be fun to see them be put in and being treated like a replacement or “compromise” in place of playable San’layn. Especially after San’layn as an allied race were kinda teased in BfA.
While, in my own personal opinion, I don’t see any of the covenant races becoming playable, the chances are not 0%. I will say that if that does happen, it wouldn’t cause me to quit the game, but it would really kill a lot of my interest in WoW in general for many reasons. No offense to those who do want them playable, of course, as I stress again that this is my own personal opinion.
At the moment, I’m still keeping hope we’ll see more San’layn stuff expanded, preferably with them joining the Horde of course. It’s hard to know what to expect for future Shadowlands patches, however. I still feel uneasy and full of dread for future announces of this expansion. I will feel a lot better once we’re back in Azeroth, where we can see lore of different races expanded upon, existing storylines that have yet to reach conclusions continue, and opportunities of seeing the Horde and Alliance evolve are more likely.
In the meantime, I continue to hope for playable Horde San’layn. 
6 Likes
I’m still welcome here I hope. I think my thread is shunning me or they’re super busy in game or elsewhere.
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Yeah of course you are! Seems like many of the allied race/customization threads are having fading activity. I think many people are anticipating what’s to come in 9.1, to be honest. Sadly I’ve been drank dry (hah) in terms of idea sharing, think through my posts here, I’ve made my… point.
4 Likes