because a new race with an odd or new skeleton would need to have all the visible armor pieces in the game, some 120 levels worth, remapped to their skeletons, vs. sets designed for them exclusively.
If they had to do this Blizzard would be the worst coders in human history. You make everything in software design modular.
say you have an image texture that represents a mooncloth robe. every race in the game can wear it, no matter how short, how tall, how skinny, how thicc. there’s an algorithm that sizes it up or down, out or in, to fit the skeleton of the models that will wear it.
but at some point, when the texture leaves the comfort of the algorithm, problems begin. clipping sets in and it can get really bad. the texture stretches so the image smears, bones jut out of the material during animations, and so on. that all has to be accounted for in the algorithm on a new or odd body type. it isnt as if the dimensions of each texture are identical either.
look at the various idling animations of races that are unique. if stuff clips while idling, its very apparent. for example, a hip clipping thru a robe, an elbow jutting thru a sleeve. are you saying their algorithm adjusts for all that without oversight? if so, that’s alot better than i thought. we should have playable ethereals then.
I probably wouldn’t opt to play as anything other than Elf related … maybe Zandalari bcz I like their lore, but these body type ideas you describing would be cool to see for people who have wanted to play as Centaur or Naga or what have you, and then it would also be cool to see Blizzard show they can do anything / the sky’s the limit with adding things people want!
I believe ethereals could work if Blizz wanted to put forth the effort. Some of them already wear armor pieces, they’d basically need a model in which their ethereal form always pokes through armor pieces, similar to how the current Forsaken always have bones poking through their equipment
Alas, Ethereals no longer bring a unique theme with them now that we have Void Elves. I’d welcome them regardless though
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creepy ethereal
https://media.mmo-champion.com/images/news/2017/june/VoidEtherealBoss.jpg
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While I don’t disagree with that philosophically, I do from a business standpoint Lann: it makes no financial sense for Blizzard to invest the resources to create all of these ARs without some legitimate ROI numbers they can take to the bean counters. It is, after all, a for-profit publicly held company. 
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I hope you don’t mind I’m using my BE I like seeing my Golden eyes. But I tend to go for more emotional / philosophical arguments just in general. Especially since Blizzard IMO could do more across the board.
I know we’re talking about player races in game but just an example for me is the Darkshore Tyrande cincematic resolution, I think it’s really in poor taste in my opinion to have watched Teldrassil burn via CGI cinematic, watch several Saurfang CGI cinematics, and the one real Alliance CGI cinematic IMO was when Sylvanas got away… (which I’m a Sylvanas fan but still) it would have been nice for a Tyrande CGI type aesthetic resolution that started the whole expansion in the … faction war expansion. But instead Blizzard chose to cut corners for a business standpoint.
I’m an on and off again SWTOR player, and I’ve never unsubbed from WoW faster then WOD I quested… and then I? The whole expansion was one big cut losses see you all in legion.
We don’t even get Tier sets anymore so they can design? Customizations and AR’s and then Nightborne seemed rushed, and IMO I love Void Elves but it would have made more sense to instead of have them as a pre order add on have them IN BFA with some rep from Alleria maybe give her something akin to 7th Legion but not 7th Legion just some rep group that makes more sense then the dranei broken of Argus.
So I don’t have a horse in this particular race I think is the expression and I see your point and am fine with the explanation but just in general I am tired of seeing Blizzard do things from a business standpoint, obviously it’s business but there has to be some fan service that isn’t idk rushed or half done. It would be nice to see Blizzard do something like this for the simple sake of showing they can and do like to do things out of the box I guess is what I see.
The problem with ethereals is the fact that they are see through and you can see the untextured parts of the armor or it would be invisible from one side.
And you don’t need to redo every single armor piece once you add a new race. Just the Geo-Sets and their anker points.
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They could just up the bandages except on say the head to show customization of faces. Treat bandages as skin with a glow through the edges… Different colors for bandages shifts in glow color.
I bet they could do it now with a bit of work.
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they did that on a few of them. you couldn’t see any of the glowy bits except for some patches on the face. and locus-walker is almost entirely covered from the front - though you can see bits of his spirit body on the backside of his arms, that wouldnt be necessary on a playable character as ethereals are very easy to recognize. there’s really no need to show it. in fact, i dont think you even need to show the bandages, except on the face. as long as you have that idling stance and those crazy hands and wacky run animation.
if you dont recognize an ethereal when you see one, you need to play tbc and legion. they are very distinctive. there’s nothing else like them in the game.
you can see locus-walker in the void elf starting area. he doesnt have a face, just a slit where the bandages on his face form the shape of an eye.
http://www.vanion.eu/userfiles/images/patch73-locuswalker.jpg
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My ONE issue with them is BC ethereals hurt my eyes, the domes and zones and idk the new aesthetic of void and Locus walker seems to be much more dark rich purple and I can see a lot of improvements between now and then so if they did become playable I would think it can be done and might be interesting to see it done
I think that’s cause there’s two kinds. The more arcane and the more void.
The older ones were more arcane in nature and the more recent ones were more void in nature.
So both have different palettes.
oh whats a geo-set?
Basically it’s the thing that shapes the models skin to look like the shape of gear when it gets put on.
Gear uses a few geosets with textures laid on top.
Anker points are more like where soldiers helmets and other independent 3D models are attached to the player.
Here to show support for playable Alliance High Elves!
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Here to oppose playable Alliance high elves.
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Here to post memes, youtube videos and random other stuff
https://www.justapinch.com/recipes/dessert/cake/german-hazelnut-torte.html
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Here to suggest wrapping Alliance High Elves into Void Elves because that is realistically the most likely way we’d get them and no they would not be white folk with pointy ears anymore.
that sounds like it would be messy and painful for them
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