I also thought thatād be a cool compromise that makes sense.
Granted they could also go āWell, now we arenāt in danger constantly, letās round up all the fellow Ankoan we can find and found a new Nation and start repopulating.ā.
Which could include an entire population that was left undisturbed/fared better, maybe thereās a bunch hiding on/near the Dragon Isles.
Do you have a moment to talk about our lord and savior the creature from the black lagoon?
The Ankoan are the next best candidate after Mechagnomes. I wasnāt for them at first, but theyāve grown on me. With some extra lore attention, theyād be an incredible addition to the Alliance.
I just wonder if theyād do a female model and what skeleton theyād use. Iām guessing tauren would be unique. Undead female have good animations. Maybe the orc?
This is somthing i could get behindā¦ Who do we want another elf when we could be Jinyu? I loved them in mop I still love them now and I could see myself going alliance to play them =)
So, just to keep the conversation going, I thought Iād post a slight bit of investigation I did that may shed some light either on a crucial aspect of Ankoan culture or on how Ankoan NPCs are coded.
So, let me preface this by saying that the question of Hunter Akanaās gender has probably bothered me much more than it should. The Hordeās bodyguards feature 2 distinctly male gilblins and one female one, so it stands to reason that the Alliance would have a similar distribution. Of course, gilblins are overtly either masculine or feminine at first glance whereas ankoans are not, so the next best way we can determine an ankoanās gender is by listening to their voices. Voice lines have traditionally been the only way to distinguish gender in multiple races where sexual dimorphism is nonexistent.
Now, Akanaās been a bit of an interesting beast. While the other two voices, Bladesman Inowari and Farseer Ori, have distinctly male voices, Akanaās has always come across as female. It is expressly clear that Akanaās voice actor is a woman. But then we have to remember that, in the PTR, Akanaās description when clicking on the campfire used male pronouns to describe him, not female ones. This was removed when 8.2 went live, but not necessarily because it was a mistake. The character descriptions for all bodyguards were rewritten and dramatically shortened, and now none of them have any references to any gender whatsoever.
So I started looking around for any kind of official reference to Akanaās gender and I came across a nifty macro that Iāll post below;
/run local genderTable = { "neutral or unknown", "male", "female"};DEFAULT_CHAT_FRAME:AddMessage('Target is ' ..genderTable[UnitSex("target")] .. '.');
This macro seems to draw from a value located in an NPCās āgender table.ā Now, not every NPC in the game has one, so if you use this macro while a critter like a frog or a prairie dog is targeted you will almost always get the āneutral or unknownā response. But if you use it on a player it will, with 100% accuracy, return with the gender value that matches what the player selected in the character creation menu. E.g. female night elves will always be āfemale,ā male orcs will be "male, " etc. etc. You can also use this on important NPCs. Jaina is female. Genn is male. Shandris is female. Itās great to have that confirmation. So what we can conclude is that, in any race with visible sexual dimorphism, this macro will return with the gender value that corresponds to what their model is already telling you.
But what about those pesky races that share the same model regardless of their gender? Well, at first I thought these races wouldnāt have gendertable values at all. After all, even though some sethrak weāve come across are voiced by women, the fact that female sethrak exist would be more of a lore point rather than something the game itself would need to identify, so why would they need to have gendertable values at all?
But, to my surprise, I was pretty wrong.
I tested the macro on four androgynous races; the jinyu, the tortollans, the sethrak, and the ankoans.
Letās get the jinyu out of the way; every single NPC at pearlfin village returns a āmaleā value. Literally every single one, from the named NPCs to the nameless grunts. Theyāre all male, which lines up with what we know about them because we were never presented with any Jinyu that looked or sounded female during the Pandaria campaign.
Now letās talk about the tortollans. The vast majority are male, but there are a few important figures that pop up in lore that are distinctly female. Running around the tortollan camp in Stormsong reveals that the vast majority of the guards and NPCs posted have a gendertable value of male, with a few that came back with the āneutral or unknownā value. However, Scrollsage Nola was the sole individual who returned a āfemaleā value when the macro was used. I then used the macro again at their outpost in Zuldazar, where there are a more diverse cast of npcs and vendors. There, every NPC that used a feminine voice returned a value of āfemaleā for their gender table. There were a few males that returned the āunknown or neutralā value, but, by and large, the same rule applied to them as well.
The sethrak cast of NPCs is very small, but suffice it to say that Vorrik came back with a male value. Additionally, every sethrak npc at the Terrace of the Devoted with a voice line, such as those that guard the entrances, similarly had a gender value that matched masculinity or femininity of their voices. But hereās the really interesting thing; there are a whole bunch of sethrak vendors inside the terrace itself that have no voice lines whatsoever; you click them, you buy from them, and yet they remain totally silent. Yet still none of them returned a āneutral or unknownā value of their gender table, which would have indicated a lack of importance for that value in their situations. Yet they too had a nice healthy mix of males and females, even though thereās no way to otherwise detect that in a playerās experience. Even the hostile āfaithlessā sethrak currently at war with the devoted just outside the terrace have specific male or female gender values. While the tortollans had a few individuals that returned the third gender value, the one and only sethrak that did so was the avatar of sethraliss, and lorewise that sort of makes sense. This means that, thus far, the Sethrak, even moreso than the tortollans, are a race that is specifically coded to have two distinct genders, although the models they use donāt necessarily represent that.
And now the moment of truth. The ankoans.
So, what gender is Hunter Akana? ā¦ Unknown or Neutral. Thatās a bit anticlimactic. But waitā¦ so is Bladesman Inowari! And every vendor over by the training ground, and the PVP and pearl traders inside the spire, and the guardsmen walking around the camp.
Yes, every ankoan NPC, regardless of their name, service provided, and voice file, returned a āneutral or unknownā value for their gender table. Every ankoanā¦ except for two; Blademaster Okani and Farseer Ori. And, wouldnāt you know, these are the only two ankoans in lore that have been described with male pronouns in quest text (in the case of Ori) or by dialogue from Akana (in the case of Okani). Other āmaleā ankoans were only ever assumed to be male based on their tones of voice, but thereās no dialogue that indicates this to be the case. And since ankoans are based off the jinyu I would imagine that, if the gender value was either overlooked or irrelevant, ankoan npcs would likely all read as āmaleā regardless of the voice files used just like the jinyu are.
Ok, so this was a huge summary of me just running around spamming a macro and invading the privacy of innocent NPCs. Can anything be confirmed based on this? Well, the only thing we know for sure is that the ankoans are coded in such a way that makes them stand out from any other androgynous race Iāve tested so far. The fact that only 2 npcs in the entire ankoan camp come back with āmaleā values is a very interesting curiosity. From this, there are a few possibilities we can draw.
Ankoan voices are so androgynous that certain parts of the design team are unsure of their true gender. While quest text writers make distinctions on the gender of at least a handful of ankoans, the people who actually mess with the coding of other NPCs have nothing else to go on, so for all instances outside of Ori and Okani they just leave the gender value blank.
The ankoans are the first truly āgender fluidā race in WoW (get it, because theyāre fish? heheh) with gender intentionally being undefined for the vast majority of the population save for Ori and Okani who choose to identify as male.
From a design perspective, ankoans are unfinished and, in the future, will have more clear masculine and feminine characteristics at which point their gender value will be added. This would likely happen closer to potential date of playability.
Any one of these possibilities might say something interesting about how ankoans are treated from either a lore or a gameplay perspective.
Thank you for indulging me in my madness.
In the meantime, us DKs are waiting on some allied race love. SanāLayn, where at thou?
Something Iām wondering. Are the npcs that usually come back as neutral typically the randomly spawned in npcs that can be of either gender? Something like say a town guard, there itās not a predefined character, but one thatās more generated? So maybe if proper female models were added later, maybe theyāre pre-set up with a certain template so if those are added, theyāll spawn as those as well in the future.
No to fish man. They smell.
Potentially but not consistently. As noted above I wasnāt able to get the neutral response to trigger with sethrak or jinyu NPCs, regardless of whether or not they were town guards or vendors (the avatar of sethraliss was the sole exception). The ankoans are designated as āneutralā for the entire race sans Ori and Okani.
With the tortollans it was definitely possible to get the neutral response for the guardsmen at the Stormsong camp, but there were a few named NPCs that triggered it as well (such as Soola, if memory serves).
Given that, Iām not sure thereās enough of an identifiable pattern here that would indicate the āneutralā response to be reserved for spawned-in NPCs. Itās probably something that is treated differently depending on the race in question.
The folks over at the sethrak thread might find these results promising, since the sethrak race seems 100% good to go as far as their gendertable values are concerned.
If I find the time I might try using the macro on the broken in BC and Legion and the Arakkoa in BC and WoD just to see what results pop for them.
Iāve noticed something with Bladesmaster Okani. When you ask him for the history of the Wave, he tells you it is a tale of sadness, and that it is better that you recover from your own losses before telling you it.
I have a feeling this dialogue may become unlocked after LFR wing 3 opens next week, or in 8.2.5. Might shed some light on them becoming an allied race
Well, i guess if i had to choose between Scrapyard rejects or Muh Honor iād have to take the Ankoan.
Who says theyāre mutually exclusive?
Please god no.
Itās time for Gnojudgement Day. The punting will be repaid tenfold.
Honestly, I hope so, we need true aquatic player Races in WOW, mostly to appease the Naga fans, but also it would be nice to have another race that evolved on Azeroth who is not descended from Trolls or Titan constructs. Their Murloc ancestry can open up a bunch of fun bits of side lore while leveling, ie maybe understanding Murloc language, being neutral to them unless they are corrupted Murlocs. The Racials would have to include water breathing and fast swimming, itās where the come from after all.
Hell If I got one I already know I would level near the seas at all times, which posses a question Panderia their ancient homeland or Cataclysm and Vashjāir taking the fight to Naga. Conversely the Horde getting the new Gilgoblins fits nicely as they are already mostly ready for Player character status. However, I do see on issue with both Races, what class? Seriously I will have both, what classes?
Yes you point out the right class options.
Mage, Priest, Rogue, Monk, Shaman, Hunter, and Warriors.
Gilgoblin would get basically what Goblins get minus DKs and Warlocks. (making them tied to LFD with 5 classes)
All in all I support this Idea, and in the off chance Blizzard plans to do this, 
Also I want a Junker Gnome, like Hard.
Hopefully they add these 4 as allied Races before the end of BfA
JumkerGnome(A), Vulpera(H), Ankoan(A), Gilgoblin(H)
My only request is they get unique Dances.
JumkerGnome( CyberGoth https://youtu.be/kBYwMOPKuPo )
Vulpera (Something Anime and cute https://youtu.be/53iTMpwwnQg )
Ankoan ( https://youtu.be/mg5U-8QZAfw )
Gilgoblin( Baby Shark Dance https://youtu.be/XqZsoesa55w p.s. donāt hate me for this suggestion but it fits Gilgoblins and their lore. )
I think Samurai Jackās rave dance would be a better fit: https://youtu.be/CL-893hKSzI?t=39
Hope so. Iāve been keeping an eye on that dialogue just to make sure there was nothing that could be done in-game to progress it. Right now, I can say that completing the ankoanās storyline in Nazjatar doesnāt change what Okani has to say, nor does reaching exalted with the waveblade.
Iāll run through that last LFR wing when it pops and Iāll definitely be paying a visit to Okani when 8.2.5 hits just to see if there are any changes. Iāll post here if/when I find anything.
Suffice it to say, itād definitely be interesting if it was some sort of a prelude to a further expansion of the ankoan backstory. Allied race or not, Iām thirsty for additional info. What we have in 8.2 is unfortunately pretty light so far.
I see you are a man of culture.
The Ankoan have creepy kidnapper voices that sound neither male or female.
just have fins stick through the armor like elves ears, tauren horns.