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

Community General Discussion
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I took a picture of the new character creation screen to share in the different megathreads:

It seems as if there is room for 6 more races on both sides before a new column has to be made. The important thing to note, of course, is that there is plenty of room for new races.

It’s cool to see new races in general in WoW. Seeing both factions grow over time with new members is great for them to evolve as a whole, and having more options is also good for players. Hopefully, we see races people have been wanting in general added to that screen.

Not to mention that I know a few races that would love to help fill up the space on the Horde side. :crocodile: :japanese_ogre: :bat:

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I sincerely hope that Blizzard hasn’t abandoned the idea of Allied Races. Fingers really crossed for San’layn, of course, and any other races too that are asked for like Ogres, Sethrak, Saurok, etc. Plus it also looks like a few can fit in both columns going toward the bottom as well in the first ones. One for each on that side.

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I don’t think they’ve abandoned it. I just think that any future allied races will be more like the Vulpera in that, while they may use the rig of another race, they are unrelated to that race and are their own thing. They aren’t a derivative of another race.

For example, of the Shadowlands races, the Night Fae (both male and female) use the Draenei female rig, but they aren’t related to Draenei in any way. They’d be a prime candidate for being an allied race (assuming Blizzard had any intention of making allied races from the Shadowlands covenant races, which they very well may not).

Other examples might be for the Horde to finally get Ogres by using the Kul Tiran rig as a base. Or Saberon for either Alliance or Horde (I’d lean Horde for the cats vs. dogs theme) using the Worgen rig.

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True, though more I hope they didn’t abandon allied races that people have been asking for too. I know San’layn use the blood elf model but still believe they are unique enough to warrant the AR, like how Zandalari trolls were just hunched trolls way back when but got their own unique rig in BfA and such like that (And pandaland but again prior to that were old models).

As for covenant Allied Races, maybe it’s because I’m selfish and sincerely dislike the Venthyr, but I really hope they don’t become playable. Beyond my own bias, it’d feel very strange lorewise for guardians of the afterlife to suddenly abandon that post and fight with the living. The only reason we’re going to help them is that someone from our realm completely messed things up, and I’m assuming we won’t be able to return again after this expansion (after all, being able to always freely visit the realm you go to when dead seems… off. I like how we can during the expansion to participate in battle, but beyond that, no!)

I’d, of course, just deal with it regardless though if we got like fangs/claw toggles, undead skins, and red eyes (pure black like Lana’thel though would be SICK) for blood elves (with lore explaining how San’layn joined the Horde of course.) I wouldn’t ever roll a venthyr and dislike their lore quite a bit, but might lighten up a bit if there’s some connection to the vampyr curse on Azeroth. Who knows.

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Plain and simple, the Venthyr, as presented thus far, aren’t what I think most people would consider traditionally attractive. I believe that Thalassians, even the undead ones, are, for more people than not. So I’m totally with you in hoping that the Venthyr aren’t an allied race, as I’d much prefer the San’layn over them purely because of the aesthetics.

It would seem strange to me for any of the covenant races to end up as allied races though. These are spirits of the dead, with a purpose in the afterlife. I can’t really imagine why they’d get involved in the living world except where it impacts the Shadowlands and their roles in it. And that doesn’t even get into choosing a faction.

I also think it would be weird leveling a Shadowlands race… in Shadowlands content, because you know Blizzard wouldn’t just start them at 60 or let them join any covenant that isn’t “their covenant”.

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The thing with them is far beyond any sort of model thing, too. Aside from the fact that they’re ugly, and I don’t like ugly vampires (which people are endorsing because ‘NO MORE ELVES’), San’layn were here in Lich King era, and the stories I’ve created around my characters are for San’layn and vampyr that they already established in wrath.

As opposed to actually expanding upon that, they just shove it aside for this new nonsense with the same exact theme. Venthyr could be the most beautiful things in the world and I’d still hate them, because the lore and stories I enjoy were for San’layn and the vampyr curse.

So unless it’s connected in some way, I’m going to continue to hate them and being pushed aside for nothing. The void elf and high elf debacle might feel the same, but the thing is, void elves and high elves have different themes.

High elves are already a part of the Alliance, and they don’t have a connection to the void–void elves took the model, but not theme. (Though their frustration was understandable too, even if I like the style of void elves better). From what I’ve seen from the community, more natural hair colors and a smidgeon of lore would be really satisfying.

We’re going into a death expansion with 1/4 of it being a vampire theme with no sign of San’layn lore whatsoever or hope of even customization for Blood Elves. And it’s not a matter of model sharing like the Kelfin/Vulpera, because in that case, they weren’t lorewise replacing anything. Kelfin got their lore and need their customization, they’re already in the horde. Plus using the same model really isn’t a big deal, as we’ve seen, should Kelfin still be on the table for an allied race.

The problem with San’layn is they never got lore saying they joined the Horde or expanded story at all, so even if they added customization, it’d be not enough because there’s 0 story behind it at all.

Therefore, I’m frustrated after working on this for 3 years sharing ideas and stories only to have no word or response whatsoever and have this entirely new race come out of the blue, be loved because “it’s not an elf”, and all that.

It’s just so tiresome, and now people come into my thread saying this replacement ugly race with out-of-the-blue lore should be added as opposed to San’layn. I keep telling people to go make their own thread and community, but it keeps happening in this thread.

All of my art, all of the stories, and vampire themes are for San’layn, and for many people too, only to have this vampire theme snatched away and likely replaced by these things. Even void elves didn’t do that, they didn’t replace high elves, they had a different theme. Venthyr? Same theme, but far uglier and ‘not an elf’.

If San’layn are destined to be customization (with fangs and claws, no slacking on that) that’s fine, but I just have a feeling that if there’s no sign of them and this out-of-the-blue race of which is a complete theme replacement is added, even asking for that will get people to FLOOD this thread and say: “YOU HAVE PLAYABLE VAMPIRES ALREADY SHUT UP”.

It’d be far worse than the “no more elves” mantra.

Edit: Oh wow this was a long one, well… I guess my feelings on this are very clear.

Edit 2: And after years of trying to push this and being insulted to the ground for liking vampires, now suddenly there’s a gigantic boom of support for the theme, but because they’re “not elves” even though they look quite a bit like elves, but are ugly. So not only does the above happen, but to see the same community that relentlessly was the way it was turn around and say “Yeah they’re awesome” after being so bitter here just makes me very frustrated.

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Toreador really aren’t that great a vampire clan whatsoever. They are rather boring. Toreador ANTI though? Now that’s interesting. Or even Toreador Anarch.

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New races in general are great for business. They provide hype for an expansion and act as a cash cow for either level boosts, race changes, or increased subscription time from leveling the characters. It can also act as a great marketing material, and can generate interest in the game.

For allied races specifically, I think they’ll still use the system for some (not all) races. It works to get people to do content and even grind out rep and the like, granted some people weren’t fond of the whole rep grind. For me, it was something that was worthwhile and was fun to work towards while planning out characters I wanted to make of the new races.

Not to mention that there is still room in both embassies for more race banners. Currently there is a glaring hole for at least one banner in both areas, and the whole embassy building can always be reorganized or completely redesigned to allow more as needed.

In terms of the covenants, I’ve talked about it before but I’ll talk about it again. I really honestly don’t see any of them becoming playable specifically because of it being in the afterlife. It’s hard to imagine the supernatural beings, who have their own thing going on in the afterlife of all places, to get interested in a faction war in the living world. This is even assuming we’d have access to the Shadowlands after the expansion, which I don’t see and…quite frankly, is weird to be able to just go and hang out in the afterlife without consequences anytime the Horde/Alliance jolly well pleases. Really diminishes the whole life/death cycle even more than this expansion does.

Even if we can’t return to it, it’s hard for me to imagine some of the Shadowlands denizens being able to come with and stay with us, both of free will and having gotten the boot out of the area. Yes, Kyrians were able to come to our world and kidnap people or something, but we don’t know how long they’d be able to, and obviously they went back to the Shadowlands afterwards.

They’re beings that already died before in some fashion or were possibly manifested to reside in the afterlife. Would they die naturally at some point in our world? Are they living again? How would they handle alts of these races joining covenants that isn’t their home ones? So many issues with them, that I don’t see it happening at all without some convoluted story being written.

Nothing wrong with those that’d like the covenant races playable. It’s just my own personal opinion. If we weren’t in the afterlife, I’d probably look at it differently, though likely more annoyed that Venthyr came out of nowhere as opposed to seeing San’layn being given an actual role.

Still, we haven’t see much of Shadowlands at all, so I’m waiting to go through it to see if San’layn play any role of any sort, preferably not as Sylvanas’ boot lickers of course.

We got a few years of Shadowlands, and anything can happen. Still, in my opinion, San’layn are the best option for as playable vampire race, both for aesthetics and storyline purposes. Not because they’re elves, but they have a lot of potential for character creation and backstory.

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Personally I love Toreador and the entire concept around being “beautiful and/or adorable but with the ability to rip you limb from limb.” Felbloods fall into this, as do Shivarra, San’layn, Night Elves, even Vulpera (for adorable factor). We all have different tastes. If there were connections between Venthyr and the Vampyr curse which opened up the customizations, I’d deal with it.

I’m fine with getting both. I’m not fine with getting the venthyr and then being screamed at that I should ‘be happy with them’ when I would not be.

Also, for the record, while I still very much want San’layn, I would play the gargoyle people in a heartbeat. I like those waaaaay better than venthyr. They looks monstrous as opposed to straight up ugly.

I agree (well that much is obvious) and you put it into words very well in your post, I appreciate that. Also true, anything can happen, which is why I’m holding out hope for either some side quests (apparently not all are release in beta?) or 9.1 + content that shows connections to mainland Azeroth things like the vampyr curse.

The connection seriously is right there. And I’d feel much better if they finally showed it. But as of now, it’s just so frustrating because it feels like the vampyr curse was an entirely abandoned concept.

Maybe I should just be more patient, but it does feel a tad bit frustrating going into an expansion with 1/4 of it having a vampire theme… aaaaand no sign of what they’ve been setting up for mainland Azeroth vampires whatsoever.

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It’s also very frustrating to see San’layn have what seemed like a hint of becoming an allied race, only to be abandoned and what feels like having been forgotten about in general. It’s also been awhile since Shadowlands was announced, and we don’t know when it’ll actually come out now. The wait between the end of BfA and whenever Shadowlands launches has been a bit of a buzzkill in that regard, so it’s understandable why frustrations and worry are growing more and more.

Still, I plan to go Venthyr and read quest text, explore, and whatnot. I’ll post any findings I see and share screenshots of anything of interest. I also have three other characters for the other covenants in case there is something of interest with them.

Even if we don’t see anything in the beginning of Shadowlands, there will be more patches and likely areas added, similar to Nazjatar and Mechagon. I’ll continue to investigate as Shadowlands occurs. I expect some long waits between patches though, like with BfA. It’s up in the air what to expect in general for the storyline as well.

Regardless, I think it’s still important to continue showing San’layn support and such, frustrating as it can be to see what goes on (or what doesn’t occur) in Shadowlands. :bat:

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dang this is cool! We already seen confirmation that the San’layn exist in the horde too.

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As someone who regularly plays both factions, this felt horrible.

I happened to do the war campaign on my Alliance character early in the expansion, and was intrigued at the prospect of San’layn joining the Horde. I really assumed the whole “stop them from joining” portion would fail, or at least not succeed entirely. “Surely we can’t stop a race from joining the other faction,” I foolishly thought.

When I did the war campaign on my Horde, I was disappointed to not see or hear a peep about the San’layn and hoped we’d be seeing them down the line later in the expansion. As we all know, this didn’t happen.

Looking back at that storyline now, with nothing more said or heard about the San’layn since is pretty disheartening. It feels like yet another wasted plot point that was put forth and then abandoned.

Hopefully this is something they plan on revisiting in the future, but with more than just a cruel tease.

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All of this.

I won’t mind if they become AR’s but it’ll be odd to me.

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Yeah, it sucks because a lot of people come in here and say my favorite race/concept in the game happens to just be “fodder for killing to make the Alliance look good”. But my lover pointed out to me that this is pretty silly, because how can the Alliance feel accomplished if they destroy nothing to do with the main story? And with the Horde side not hearing about this at all? Like… it’s like kicking a blood-sucking puppy at that point.

The reason I say that is because off the phrasing. When Rhokan (spelling?) was talking about it, he emphasized that they have no home and it was obvious they really, truly wanted a place in the Horde (like Forsaken and Death Knights.) It gave me so much hope. It’s why I’m so frustrated.

The set-up was right there. Plus… the players themselves for the most part found out eventually anyway. It just felt so carrot-on-a-stick, and since then, we’ve heard nothing on it. People say that everything’s over, they were all killed on the ship, but that was never confirmed and we still don’t know Dreven’s origin.

I just hope Blizzard truly looks at the feedback in threads like these from people who do contribute in depth ideas. Because I am still so disappointed as to how that worked out.

Edit: and there could have been a bloody vampire-hunter plotline for the Alliance too! That dynamic is interesting, like Shandris having a rivalry/hatred with San’layn in general would have brought more depth to the character. Same if there were a hunting faction, or the “section” added to Order of Embers (think I got that faction right). Like this concept could have spiced up Drustvar too. Argh ><

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Rokhan*

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as i write this we have had 6853 replies to this thread alone. 67k views.
642 unique users have commented in this thread.
17.7k likes.
i SWEAR to you.
blizzard has this on there radar.
edit : " i spell bad "

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I play both factions as well, and it was really odd how the Horde players didn’t deal with the San’layn at all. More frustrating when we had long waits between patches to see what was coming next, only to have disjointed areas we went to, a damp squib of a conclusion, and having allied race DK’s as an early access preorder bonus instead of more allied races.

To be clear, allied race DK’s are a good thing, but it felt flat to have them be an early access pre-order bonus as it felt like something that should’ve been put in the game to begin with.

I have to wonder if the Horde players dealt with the San’layn, what it would’ve been like. It would’ve been great to see them on a more friendly and somewhat humble note (with some humorous sass of course), and they could’ve been a great ally in fending off the Blood Trolls in the area. I don’t even know what happened to the Blood Troll remnants, and San’layn could help in finishing them off and earning the Horde and Talanji’s favor. Instead, we get a blown up Blood Prince and some acolytes stuck on a boat, never to be mentioned again…

It would’ve been cool to see the Alliance side see the Horde gain the San’layn and seeing them as a threat, whereas the Horde side you see them as sympathetic people trying to survive after having been slaves to the Lich King and also wanting to reconnect with their kin. It was a great opportunity to work with them as an allied race, but…well, I’m still hoping we see Horde San’layn in Shadowlands, but we’ll have to see where the story takes us.

I’ve ranted many a time on how the San’layn were treated in BfA, so if anyone wants more in-depth RAWRing, you can find some of my older posts. I’m sure there is a lot more I can say, though. Maybe enough to write a thesis paper or two.

BfA’s flow really seemed to be chaotic and rushed as we went on in the expansion. Lots of opportunities or plot points seemed to fall to the wayside, and we quickly moved from BfA areas to two random old zones, which didn’t have a whole lot to them in the context of story.

I hope so as well. I would imagine megathreads would be part of marketing research they would keep tabs on, seeing as they sorta reference them in the last April Fools joke with the High Dwarves part. Seeing as they supposedly plan expansions two in advance past the current one, it’ll be unknown if it’ll have any effect on their decisions.

Now, I have decided that at least once a month to submit suggestions for a few playable races, each a separate suggestion, and refer to the megathreads in them on the official forums. I’ve been doing that for some of my most wanted races, San’layn included of course.

If anyone wants to submit suggestions in-game, assuming add-ons don’t change anything, press escape, go to Help, and there is a section to type up suggestions and send them in game. There is a limit to the number of characters you can type, but it’s worth utilizing and referring to the megathreads, specifically mentioning they’re on the official US WoW forums under Genderal Discussion.

I’ve also been trying to look into different avenues of showing support for playable races I want. It won’t be a guarantee of getting them playable, but it’s worth a shot IMO. It’s also fun to do stuff in this line of thinking. Hopefully, I’ll be able to figure out what all I can do though.

Still, I do think megathreads are important to show support off of some kind. You never know if anyone is paying attention. :bat:

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I wouldn’t mind them being playable, but only as long as it also doesn’t keep San’layn from being playable. They certainly deserve to be playable.
I have seen some talk from a low level Kyrian about how they want to go out and travel the cosmos or whatever once they ascend, plus we’ve seen Draka go elsewhere in her video.
With things heading to a more cosmic setting, it doesn’t seem all that far fetched for beings of other planes or worlds to become playable. I think that’s possibly the reason for those text lines too…to leave it open.

For beings from another world, it’d be real cool to find a small band of Aldrachi on some world somewhere fighting guerilla style against some legion remnants. Becoming playable and a demon hunter option.

I kinda feel like Venthyr would be a good example of what an allied race should be, but San’layn would be a good example of what a subrace should be.
Not just some customization options thrown in on the main race, but a separate button you click that designates your character as a San’layn with all the flavor racials and voiceset and things you’d expect of a current allied race, most of which are just subraces anyway.

Basically they’re the same thing, but grouped different.

I want to play a San’layn…not so sure about a Venthyr.
A kyrian…maybe, I’d much rather have a Vrykul.

I’d rather alliance have a fully fleshed out high elf main race and void being a subrace of that.

An allied race quest chain for that would be great.

I think the gargoyle forms would mak for really neat San’layn demon hunters. although I wish there was a way to use the demon form all the time or a lot more often while in combat. Something you can keep powered up as you fight extending the duration, or just go the Illidan route and have it as a main form.

Ditto. It seemed like it was leading to something.

It’s also a bit annoying to want playable necromancers and have new spell effects, a death themed expansion with a new starting zone that features necromancers prominently and not have them made playable.

This is my expectation, there’s room for 4 more portals that could lead to other realms.

Even more would be cool, but unlikely…a little setup to swap the portals out like the doors in Monsters Inc would have been neat.

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Its not really even close to San’layn…but this character I made in prepatch and is in the theme/spirit of a san’layn. Ignoring the armor, since I don’t bother with transmog at such a low level (armor is replaced fast).

Still, probably as close as any character can get character appearance wise to a san’layn as it can currently get. And I think this character looks pretty awesome…and look at the name :smiley:

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How do you tell the unique users?