I honestly really don’t get the logic behind it, for a few reasons, both against their inclusion as a whole and against the Alliance in specific.
For starters, their model’s kinda… Not up to the standards of other playable races- Most notably, their eyes are baked into their model and not animated. This would lead to their expressions looking… Not great. Granted, Nightborne were like that as well (I believe their armor is baked into their model as well, same as Nightborne) but we ended up getting a vastly inferior version of them as playable, which we also would for Sethrak most likely.
Second, and potentially less of an issue, is their body shape. A lot of helmets would either straight up not work or look INCREDIBLY goofy on them. This could be circumvented by simply not letting them use helmets (like Mechagnomes and their limb pieces) but… Eh?
As for them joining the Alliance, there are two very big issues with that imo: One, their questline, which most people credit as the main reason they’d join us, is legit just a reused series of Horde quests that just takes place in another location. Also, why would they join the Alliance when they live on a continent vastly dominated by the Zandalari, allies of the Horde? Seems like far too much of a risk to take, even if they trusted their would-be allies.
This isn’t me trying to put down anyone who wanted them, mind. I’m just legitimately confused by why people were so assured they would join us- And on the Alliance no less.
I am willing to bet if Blizzard introduced the dancing paperclip from MS Word as a mob within a day someone would make a post about how and why they should be a playable race.
You know they use the Worgen skeleton, right?
It would work very similar to how Worgen wear helmets. They simply modify how they fit.
Nobody asked for Trashdiaper Gnomes, but Blizzard forced them on us anyway.
There were hundreds of people upvoting Sethrak threads as an opposing race to the Vulpera, but instead of giving mechanical parts to Gnomes as Shadowlands customization options, they once again showed us that they don’t care about what the Alliance wants.
Time and time again this is proven with their half-assed effort and their “Just give them more horses.” stance.
If anymore races are ever added to the game, I can fully expect the Alliance to get something utterly stupid, while the Horde get Ogres.
I mean, gnomes were bound to get an allied race one way or another. To think otherwise would be silly- The only races that didn’t get one linked to them somehow were worgen, pandaren and forsaken.
It’s just the way people are. They look at an NPC and they’re convinced that they will be playable one day. Sometimes they’re right but most times they’re not
You are always welcome to come to the sethrak discussion to talk to those of us in favor of them. We would happily talk about our reasons there.
Snakes in real life do not have the ability to move their eyes in their sockets so this is actually expected. We think this is a neat divergence from standard wow races and using head movements and other body language would not immensely cause an issue.
Also notable the Sethrak do close a type of eyelid over their eyes in their adorable sleeping position and death animations.
I do not believe this is true but as you point out that may not be a major issue. The nightborne were I’ve like this.
There are countless demonstrations showing that the “helmet issue” is not really an issue. They look more or less as good or bad as worgen and Tauren in this regard.
No doubt, we cannot directly content this. Though while similar to the horde quest it is a part of their story that we recover one of the three keystone for Vorrik and save him from a Faithless attempt on his life.
From there our quest sees us assist (just like the horde) in defending the devoted from an attack by the faithless. Afterwards both Umbric and Wrymbane show interest in working with the sethrak further. Sadly blizzard seems to have abandoned this storyline.
In the Sethrak discussion we share many ways we think this could be salvaged to see them join the alliance, a scenario we work with because many of us feel they thematically for the alliance better then the horde.
Gun to our heads though we just want them playable. Horde, Alliance, neutral, new faction ? We will take anything to see them playable.
Come to us in the Sethrak discussion thread. We’d love to share our thoughts and listen to yours.
Yes their model is not player quality, but it is higher quality than your average npc model. And as you pointed out the nightborne also didn’t have a player quality model although this one can be explained that they didn’t plan to have them as an AR when they released legion.
But the vulpera when first shown also didn’t have a player quality model back in alpha/early beta, they also had 2d eyes. And back then in early alpha/beta did the vulpera model get a lot of updates to be the player quality model we now know.
The sethrak model also got several edits during the alpha/beta and even had a geoset for player cloaks and tabards added at one point but was later removed. The sethrak also used to be taller than tauren but was shrunk to be a more player friendly size.
Shorthy after that the updates to the sethrak model stopped while the vulpera got finished.
And even if it’s a lot of work models can be improved.
Sure the majority of helmets would look clunky but not impossible, just look at the tauren or worgen. And blizzard have shown that they would even hide some transmog slots if it comes to that.
The alliance sethrak fanbase really started back in early alpha when all we knew is that the sethrak are enemies and enslaved the vulpera, and that the vulpera work with the horde. And now knowing of the AR system that was planned for BFA a lot of people assumed and speculated that the sethrak would be a counterpart for the vulpera that would most likely go horde.
A lot of npc dialogue was also datamined but it was mixed up with a dialogue of vulpera fighting sethrak and of some blighting some forsaken does, so for a short while it seemed like the horde would help the vulpera by blighting the sethrak, as well as the quests from the alliance war campaign helping Vorrik was datamined around this time.
You can see why sethrak alliance would get quite a following at this point, after all a cool snake race that seem to be attacked by the horde and helped by the alliance?
Then we got the rest of the horde quests where they help a lot more, save Sethraliss, kill Korthek etc. But by this point the sethrak alliance fandom was already quite established.
It didn’t help that the alliance didn’t really work with any other race at all in early BFA except the kul tirans. So the alliance really latched onto the sethrak as it’s a cool race and they don’t work with any other race except the Ankoan and mechagnomes in 8.2.
But yes, the current story is in favor of the horde as they did a lot more with them, and in every interaction, after launch, our interaction with them (although almost non-existent) have been neutral or horde only.
TL;DR: In early alpha/beta we only knew the vulpera was with the horde and that the sethrak was enemies of the vulpera and that the alliance helped some sethrak.
Lack of potential AR candidates for alliance in early BFA didn’t help either.
Beats me. Both sides help out the Sethrak, and the Horde actually helps them more, so I don’t see why they would go to one side (although that hasn’t stopped Blizzard before).
I personally never actually thought they’d be added as an allied race, I just WANT them to be. Playing as a weird, creepy-eyed bipedal snakeboi sounds awesome.
The general idea is that the alliance helped them first and the vulpera wouldn’t forgive the sethrak.
The vulpera were always going to be horde. While vorrik very much wants to reunite all of the sethrak under sethraliss who is to say that the vulpera would just forgive them just because they turned over a new leaf? The vulpera very much could have continued attacks on the sethrak post unification and being allies the horde and zandalari would likely choose the side of the vulpera. In turn this would force the sethrak to seek help and the alliance are the only ones that could do that.
alternatively to sethrak ankoan would have been a good counterpart to vulpera. Jinyu while not a very high request is still one of the more popular requests by the alliance. Ankoan pretty much fold into jinyu as the same thing. I have no idea they were not designed from the start as being playable. when blizzard already had the allied race system in place.
Just like the vulpera they are a race native to the land that aids their respective factions. Gilbin will possibly come with the shadowlands customization. The unshackled are currently in bladefist bay outside orgrimmar as of 8.3. Not just the gilbin but the makura and sea giants too. I would not be surprised if they formally joined the horde.
? We will take anything to see them playable.
