So Blizzcon is over and while there wasnāt really much in the way of anything Saurok related, there were a number of things coming from the various announcements that are of Saurok interest, as well as of interest to several other race request megathreads.
Iāll be making a similar post in both my megathreads, edited to make comments of interest to that megathreadās theme of course, and Iāll gradually post thoughts in other race request megathreads as well. This is likely going to be a bit of a post, so letās get some music to jam to as I type a whole bunch of stuff.
Right, with the introduction out of the way, letās talk expansionsā¦and no, that wasnāt a typo.
So the biggest announcement was not just one, but three expansions as part of the āWorld Soul Saga.ā Not much details on them aside from the next expansion coming out:
Itās a mostly underground expansion with Stone Dwarvesā¦more on that in a bit.
This expansion is suppose to be void themed with a focus on elves and uniting elf tribes of some sort.
And finally, this one involves a return to the old world (of Warcraft!) while also returning to Northrend. I assume we beat up some big bad, maybe an evil titan or two.
All three expansions are expected to be released by 2030, and there was a mention that 20 years of WoW has been planned andā¦good grief, am I really going to be running my megathreads for 20 years? I guess when you really want somethingā¦maybe weāll get lucky within there. x- x
Since details are fairly sparse on the latter two expansions, I canāt really say whether we could see Saurok involved or not since Elves are the focus in the second expansion coming up. There is something of a void link, given that Nāzoth-like eye on some of the Saurok equipment, though I would hope they would help us battle the void and not become enemy Void Saurok or something.
As for the third expansion, a lot depends on the return to the old world (of Warcraft!). If there happen to be evil titans to beat up, Saurok could be interested since the evil Mogu clans have some relations to the titans. If Northrend is a focus, however, weāll have to see what exactly the storyline is, though maybe Saurok with fur coats and mittens on could work. Who knows?
Getting back to the next expansion, it doesnāt really sound like much going on for Saurok in there since weāre going deep underground. Not that I would expect Saurok to be that deep, unless they were digging for shinies or bones to gnaw on I guess. So while Iāll keep my eyes peeled, Iām not expecting Saurok stuff next expansion.
With the expansion announcements looked at, letās look at the next playable race: The Earthernā¦wooā¦
A neutral allied race of Stone Dwarves. And yes, that means they can be on the Hordeā¦yes, reallyā¦no, Iām not making a joke here. Horde Dwarves are happening next expansion. They also can be every class except Druids, Demon Hunters, and Evokers.
Itās no secret that my impressions of the Earthen have beenā¦less than fun, shall we say. And it isnāt because I didnāt get what I particularly wanted. If you want to know my full thoughts, I typed up a frustrated post in my Ogre megathread that Iāll leave behind a clickable thing down below. Just note that it is in my own personal opinion and I was venting some frustrations when typing it.
Thoughts on Earthen by a frustrated Bagzak
Simply put: Iām not particularly thrilled by the Earthen, and there are a number of issues that I have with them.
Let me be perfectly clear: I stated my expectation/hope for if we got new playable races was that any of them would be races people have been requesting. After all, several of them have been requested since the game actually launched, and with BfA, a lot of us have been submitting feedback regularly in support of them. Part of me was kinda expecting playable Neutral Tuskarr if we got any playable races if Iām perfectly honest.
I also want to state that Iām not against new races being created in general. A lot of races were at one point new to Warcraft in general. Vulpera, for example, had their own identity in looks and culture despite using Goblin animations, and NPC races that use skeletons like Sethrak, Saurok, Saberon, and so on would still be their own race if they became playable while utilizing models of other races.
Earthen as a wholeā¦kinda bother me for several reasons. Iāll try my best to explain how. Iāll preface by saying this is all my own personal opinion and I say a lot of this out of frustration. Again, Iām not salty because I didnāt get what I specifically wanted. That said, let me try to grumble grumble in some coherent way to convey how I honestly feel.
The biggest problem is that the Wildhammer Dwarves, who had importance to the Alliance since the RTS Warcraft days and has a statue in front of Stormwind, gets a PowerPoint slide reveal of Bronzebeards LARPing as them. Whereas this race race, that could just work as a Customization Race given how they look pretty much like edited Dark Iron Dwarves (about as lackluster as LF Draenei or HM Tauren), gets to be a full race.
Speaking of, races like Wildhammer Dwarves, Darkfallen, and Manāari get slapped onto parent races as customization races while losing their identity in playable form, but Earthen get to be a completely separate playable race? Something feels really off on this thinking and is really making the already muddied waters even more muddied.
Furthermore, the idea that since BfA, weāll be at 3 expansions since then with the newly announced expansion, and despite feedback of many races we want to see playable, it was somehow discussed and agreed upon to have a neutral race of Dwarves that, at least initially from what weāve seen at the time of this post, donāt have a lot of visual differences over regular Dwarves and Dark Iron Dwarves. Again, something seems a bit off with priorities here.
And speaking of neutrality, Iām not particularly fond of the idea of them being neutral, as weāll be seeing Dwarves running around Orgrimmar. Especially since from the sound of it, their group is comprised of a few broken up factions that may come back together againā¦only to break up more when joining the Horde and Alliance, and likely even more if there was ever a faction war again. At least with Void Elves, despite being a dubious choice for different reasons, fit with the Alliance since High Elves were and some still are part of that faction. Here, it just makes faction identity a lot weirder with the choice of letting them be on the Horde.
A lot of it strikes me as laziness and cost cutting to me. Some variants of existing races can work well to be different from Core Races, like Kelfin and Sanālayn can still be much different from Goblins and Blood Elves while feeling unique. Earthen just feelā¦cheap to me. And despite there being some mentions and such of Earthen in lore, feel really out of left field.
I think if the Earthen were more rock elemental in looks as opposed to looking like edited Dark Iron Dwarves, I would be a lot more receptive to it. But the fact that they look like edited Dark Iron Dwarves, likely will have the same animations and dances, and barely look different than either playable Dwarf race at the time of this post makes them really banal. Much as I hate to see playable races as opportunity costs, I feel like the resources couldāve gone into making something more unique as opposed to something that could have been a Customization Race, moreso when Wildhammer Dwarves continue to get the short end of the stick.
Iām sure I could go on, and may have forgotten a point or two, but regardless of how I personally feelā¦weāre kinda stuck with Earthen. Who knows? Maybe weāll see them edited more and be more unique visually and through their culture. Maybe Iāll be more interested when I actually see and work with them in quests and stuff once the next expansion launches.
However, I do feel like I had to let out how I honestly feel in some way as some sort of feedback. Again, Iām not against new races being made from out of nowhere and becoming playable, but I would hope that they would be unique enough to stand on their own as their own race slot. Kelfin, Sanālayn, Broken, Wildhammer Dwarves, and several other races have more of a unique flair to them and have importance to their respective factions. Earthernā¦really donāt have that feeling from the looks of things, and the constant shoving of the Wildhammer aside really doesnāt feel great in the grand scheme of things.
Ok, enough of the grumble grumble from me. As I said, Iāll make a post in the near future about the other announcements of the next expansion and some things I think would be worth discussing (allied race system, neutrality, etc).
And no, Iām not giving up on playable Horde Saurok. I knew this would be a marathon instead of a sprint when I first came to the forums, and I fully intent to keep at it with support playable Horde Ogres and Saurok, and a few other races I want to see playable of course.
Hopefully I was able to explain my thoughts on the Earthen without being too RAWR about it. Iām far from a perfect person, but sometimes, you gotta let stuff out before you feel better. At least there will be more chances of playable races in the future.
-ahem- With that out of my system, there are some interesting aspects of the Earthen I wanted to go over:
-Death Knights-
Earthen are the first playable race since Shadowlands that can be Death Knights, and since weāll be meeting them for the first time next expansion, it means that it is still very possible for Death Knights to raise more of their kind. Makes me wonder if theyāll change the Shadowlands starting area to bring it up to speed with what happened with Bolvar and add Earthen and other playable races to the area.
What this means is that we should be able to expect almost any new playable race (assuming we donāt get a āDracthyr can only be Evokersā type of race again) in the future to be Death Knights! So my dreams of having one of my Saurok characters be an Unholy Death Knight stillā¦lives? Unlives? Bah, you know what I mean!
Iāll be sure to report on what all is done with Earthen Death Knights whenever they are available to create. Will be very interesting to see what is doneā¦
-Allied Race System-
Yep. The Allied Race system from BfA wasnāt a BfA exclusive feature at all, which Iām honestly happy for as it does open the door for some races to become playable that isnāt the nightmare that is having them becoming Customization Races, which I assume will continue to be a thing for worse or worse, if you know my opinions on the treatment of Customization Races.
For Saurok, they could work as either an Allied Race or Core Race still, and since the Allied Race system is being utilized again and likely will be in the future, Iāll have to reflect that in the main post of the megathread. As I said, get a bunch of huge meat loversā pizzas, and Iām sure Saurok will happily get on the Horde side of that character creation screen!
-Neutral Races-
Speculation is that neutral races will be favored going forward, since it would mean less development costs. And with the Horde getting a variant of Dwarves (what a weird thing to type out), itās possible that faction wonāt be much of a consideration.
Now, Iām not against neutral races. In fact, several NPC races I think would work best as neutral races for various reasons, Ethereals, Sethrak, and Tuskarr being a few notable ones. However, I would hope that neutral races wouldnāt be the focus going forward.
In my own personal opinion, I feel like having a whole bunch of neutral races kinda destroys the whole faction identity thing and dilutes that feeling of Warcraft as a whole. I still view faction identity as a pretty important thing to the game, and having a whole lot of races as neutral races just makes the waters muddy to me. Moreso if you start having new races created that can be things like Alliance Tauren and Horde Gnomes, which I hope races like the Earthen would be used sparingly going forward. And even with unique races, having like 20+ neutral races just dilutes the faction identity even more.
So to be clear: neutral races are perfectly fine as long as it isnāt overused with every race and makes sense.
As for Saurok, while I do think they fit much better on the Horde, I could see arguments for them as a neutral race. Mostly this is because of the whole Horde Dwarf thing thatāll happen in the future, and I suppose as a neutral race, Saurok would have more resources and focus on them for their customization options.
Honestly? If I can still make Horde Saurok characters, Iāll take Neutral Saurok over no playable Saurok. I still think theyāre a Horde race of course, but Iāll take what I can get if it is the only way to see them playable and also if it is within reason.
Iāll likely edit that section in the main post of the megathread as well in the near future to at least go over the idea some.
And with that, that is about all I can think of from the recent announcements that I wanted to type about. If I think of any more things, Iāll make another post on it.
And as I said many times before, Iām still going to march in support of playable Horde Saurok as best as I can. And honestly? If we can have several flavors of Elves, Dwarves, Gnomes, Humans, Orcs, and so on as playable races, I see no reason why we canāt have several reptilian races as well.
Iāll keep an eye out for anything of Saurok interest in the next three expansions and beyond as we learn details in the future. Until then, Iāll keep dreaming of seeing Saurok as champions of the Horde someday!
-Playable Saurok for the Horde please!