I think that’s supposed to be the point of humans in fantasy games like this. It doesn’t matter how fantastical their backstory happens to be compared to other races. Because we’re human IRL, they serve a dual purpose as a racial option and as a grounding role when it comes to self-inserting as a normal person.
9 Likes
It’s dangerous to have said approach with any race in a game.
It creates a slippery slope that opens people to interpret that whatever happens to said race, or whatever said race does, is something writers have directed at the RL collective that self inserted itself as part of it. Regardless of how the story frames said actions and how the writers address said events.
And that creates a ton of problems from a narrative point of view.
For example, if a particular segment, subculture, or specific collective of said race, decides to behave in a morally reprehensible way (for our RL standards), people will take it as a personal attack on them.
It will spark complaints about racism, bigotry, religious intolerance, or whatever adjective can we label with, for the “attack” against a certain characteristic of said group.
And in turn, make it impossible for Blizzard to have any mildly conflicting story with said race, limiting the narrative as a whole.
Not at all. It is only dangerous when applied to Humans, because unlike Orcs, Elves, and Tauren, Humans are actual creatures in real life.
Telling people they are only Human based on the color of their skin, and othering them based on pigmentation - that is dangerous.
The only limitation is the imagination of Players who need a reason to see people of color in their fantasy world. These sort of people have a fantasy world where people of color are a nightmare that needs a separate story from humanity.
Currently in WoW, Humans are Human. I hope that stays the same. Humans can have lore and story without race baiting.
6 Likes
We’ve seen how player preferences and selfinserts have turned BfA discussions into a mud-fight, with for example, accusations that having anything other than total reject to what happened in Teldrassil, implies that the person in particular is an advocate for RL genocides.
We’ve seen people grasping at any theme that resonates with RL regarding all/most playable races, and using it as a weapon to attack either writers or players, for their writing, treatment, or overall opinion. Often devolving again into mud flinging and name-calling.
Granted, in many cases its pretty obvious that certain themes indeed are reflections of RL ones, but I’ve seen people taking them to the absolute extreme to defend what basically came as their particular self-insert, and lash out with some pretty nasty takes against Blizzard or other players.
So yeah, its pretty dangerous to go down said line.
As it demonstrably encourages a set of stances that often end up poisoning everything around the setting (when people go down the aforementioned slope).
Even if we are to accept that humans serve as a catalyst for players to selfinsert themselves into the narrative, as I explained to Karestae, the WoW human situation in the story would greatly limit the “othering” a lot.
In fact, it would be one of the most restrictive amongst all races of the game.
(And to be honest, i can’t even understand the logic that acknowledging the obvious physical differences amongst the same race, automatically makes someone feel segregated. As a society, i though we were all beyond that).
I must say that I’d need to read again the entire thread, but i have not seen any of those people around here. Not denying they exist, but I don’t think anyone made said point.
You and I have different perspectives on what qualifies as dangerous.
All that jazz you posted is just internet discussion. Hardly a danger.
However, perspectives on the skin color of Humans and whether people with different skin color qualify as Human is a thing that drives people to violence IRL. That is truly dangerous.
That is quite dishonest. Who suggested that physical traits can not be acknowledged? They can be acknowledged without being “othered.”
The segregation comes in when people demand to pigeon hole and sort origin narratives for other Human Players - contrary to the current open lore Blizzard has.
6 Likes
Online violence, including but not limited to cyberbullying, may also lead to severe consequences both mental and physical if people take it to the extreme.
And that’s not counting the minor side effect of poisoning the setting itself as it happened in BfA.
There’s a reason why there are new measures that police said behaviour as well as other kinds more in line with what you mention.
Edit: And I’m, by no means, downplaying what you are saying.
But I have to reiterate that online violence, in this day and age, is simply far more widespread and common.
And also can reach disturbing levels that include, but are not limited to, death threats, doxxing, etc.
Madeleine Roux had to outright quit social media for some time after the backlash she got from her book.
And I’m honestly surprised that Christie Golden (knowing what a kind and soft person she is), has still managed to be at the forefront of Blizzard writers without apparently breaking down over the flack she constantly gets for her takes.
That’s why I believe that even if we can indeed tackle the story from a RL angle, in my opinion, managing to distance oneself from it, and consider it mere fiction in all the instances we can, serves as a far more effective deterrent to avoid having it all devolve into said kind of toxicity.
That’s a strawman.
Where on earth, in any of the posts of this thread, did you get that at any point I (or anyone for that matter), argued that WoW humans with a particular skin tone would be less human?
At best, you have my argument that I personally do not take the race as a whole as a parallel of our RL one.
As its background is so detached from our reality, that I treat the fact that they look human as a mere coincidence.
Do people self-inset themselves into them? Ok.
I cannot bring myself to do such. There is little I find in common with them.
Hence why I treat them as if they were basically on the same line as Dwarves or Elves.
…which, if we are honest with ourselves, basically is to not acknowledge them.
Personally, I would like traits that are canonically acknowledges as being more common in one human nationality than another for flavor reasons, but I think that skin color should specifically not be one of them.
Like, let Arathor have the highest number of redheads. Or Dalaran has the highest number of blue eyed humans, and Kul Tiras green, etc. Maybe Stormwind has the highest occurrence of freckles. But have skin color be varied throughout.
And toss in some non-genetic appearances, too - Like robes are most popular everydaw wear in Dalaran (even amongst non-mages) and Loradaeron, while Arathor and Gilneas tend to prefer trousers for everyone, and Stormwind prefers more simple styles (because they’re used to conserving cloth from the era of rebuilding Stormwind - but their royal ceremonial outfits are bulky due to Lordaeronian influence, etc). Or perhaps Kul Tirans tend to wear more jewelry than the other kingdoms, especially ivory and bone jewelry, compared to Gilneas’ love of intricate metal filigree, etc.
8 Likes
Sooo… If ‘human’ skin tone was not the product of genetics but rather a by product of of the curse of flesh would that make people happy. Humans would have an element of chaos within them which activates at birth to determine their skin colour. This could open up many different variants of skin colour like purple, blue, orange or green. It would have no bearing on the colour of their parents skin. Members of the house of nobles could be black, blue, orange, purple, green or even white. It wouldn’t matter.
Technically, with the current lore, humans might as well come in blue, orange, or other wild colors.
Must say that said line is sort of weird, but I’m not really against it.
In fact, it’s something similar to what Blizzard did with Kul Tirans: a specific feature that marked them apart from the Stormwind PC.
That’s 100%. A thousand times yes.
I would love to see more variety across the outfits, traditional kingdom garbs, daily garments, colour palette…
Even if all are based around European fantasy, have it spiced with inspirations from different origins.
I liked for example, how the Day of the Dragon novel, sort of picture Thoras Trollbane as clad in fur and iron, as opposed to Terenas leather and mail.
Gave me Game of Throne vibes, with northerner vs southerner outfits.
In WoD, the Garrison gave us transmogs for each clan. That’s the sort of concept I’d like for each kingdom. Only more spread across NPCs, with several variations.
1 Like
If that was to happen to the Stromgardians like a mix of rome meets celts. That would be awesome to see. Atleast better than Red Stormwind of course.
2 Likes
Here is realizing the problem. Stormwind just doesn’t have enough space and room for all the poor refugees and poor races like Night Elves, Worgen, Void Elves, and etc can’t stay in one big city that is populated as heck. That’s why I hope to see Gilneas return to the Alliance because the Worgen right now could use a New Home along with the Night Elves.
Plus also the fact it doesn’t help you still see Night Elven and Worgen/Gilnean Refugees on the streets of stormwind still even after BFA is over.
“I’m not playing God. All this time… I’ve been playing human.”
Before the Dark Portal opened there were the original seven human kingdoms.
Of those seven Kingdoms:
Alterac is dead and gone.
Dalaran is now neutral.
Lordaeron is made up Forsaken, who were Lordaeron citizens in life and are so again in death, and is part of the Horde.
Leaving Stormwind, Stromgarde, Gilneas, and Kul’Tiras all part of the Alliance currently.
In the old days when they were still seven separate human kingdoms, no Alliance between them, there supposedly was a lot of political rivalry between some of them. Lordaeron and Gilneas were often at odds and I’m pretty sure Stromgarde and Alterac were at war on more than one occasion.
Now that there’s relative peace between Horde and Alliance, what’s to keep these human kingdoms from conniving and scheming once again? Yes, I know Lordaeron is qualified for this too, but for now I’m concentrating on the four Alliance kingoms.
Now, you can’t tell me that certain peoples withing these Alliance nations aren’t eyeballing Lordaeron in some form or another with varying motivations.
It might be anger. Seeing the nation where the Alliance was born filled with undead and the nation flying Horde banners probably still stings for a lot of peoples. Genn Greymane was certainly raging at Sylvanas sitting in King Terenas’s throne afterall, even though he and Terenas supposedly didn’t like each other that much from what I understand.
Or it might be greed. Lordaeron was always the largest and most prosperous of the human kingdoms leading up to the 3rd war. Someone might have aspirations to tap those riches.
Or it might be some poor folks who fled Lordaeron before the Scourge came and would like to go home, but don’t want to be neighbors with the undead. I can see Turalyon fitting into this category.
It just seems there’s lots of potential here for political or future war intrigue, but it seems Blizzard would have us believe that all four are sitting together, holding hands, and being happy to be alive, at peace, and Alliance. Like they need nothing else.
/shrug 
Humanity needs more Game of Thrones in this game if you ask me.
1 Like
Considering that Tirisfal is like, the Holy Land of humanity (The homeland of Mereldar, the first human to use the Holy Light, and where the Church of the Holy Light was born) you would think that the original goal of the Scarlet Crusade would still be popular, but in need of new branding.
Like, have it called something else, but heavily hint that it is made up of ex Scarlets and backed by he Scarlet Brotherhood with members of the Alliance being anonymous patrons to the cause.
2 Likes
But you look like deathwing through.
Through there are some parts of Lordaeron that isn’t Forsaken owned and half of the Kirin Tor that is still Alliance and isn’t neutral.
1 Like
Hopefully, with Anduin out of the picture, human kingdoms will finally be able to develop a proper cast of protagonist that feel as having a mind of their own.
Genn is the only one I feel unique. And we need more of that.
Characters with actual personal motives, an agenda, and a personality that contributes to create plots.
3 Likes
Didn’t Lord of the Rings did humanity better of them being divided or something?
https://imgur.com/DqyQUN1
I am Deathwing!
But small.
1 Like