Turn Allied Races Into Core Races

Community General Discussion
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Proposal: I made a post talking about my idea to turn the Earthen into a core race by redesigning them with a new, original skeleton that visually differentiates them from the Dwarves in a stronger way. My question now—can we do that with the others? How can we make them feel like entirely new races?

Two qualifications. 1. This assumes no lore changes. This is strictly about visual design, which is a much more reasonable thing to rework. 2. If you don’t want this because you want to preserve the old allied races, consider this. if this were to happen, we can still keep those old options and just give them to their respective core races.

Void Elves
Does anyone feel like Void Elves are just cooler Blood Elves? IMO, that’s not fair to either group. What if the Void Elves had a brand new silhouette? Return the Thalassian model to the Horde, where they can have their own visual identity, then make a new one for the Ren’Dorei. Maybe make the Void Elves desiccated like the Pale Orcs, maybe have common Void features break up that silhouette like bulging eyes and bigger tentacles everywhere.

Lightforged
How can the Lightforging process be made more extreme? Extreme enough so that we question their sanity and value their dedication as much as the Illidari. What would that be like for the Light? Maybe being partially incorporeal or crystalline with no smooth edges, like a Naaru made bidepal and unrecognizable as a former Draenei.

Mechagnomes
I think these poor guys can use a lookover in general. Cyborgs is a great idea! The execution was…well, being robots, adjustable. Just make a new skeleton that allows for clothes to be put on top of it for one thing. Also, allow for asymmetry. That’s just how to fix them as they are now. My larger proposal still applies here though, you can make the robotics more pronounced so they extend out well beyond the normal Gnome silhouette.

Kul’Tiran
Perfect. I wasn’t even consciously thinking about them at first but I’m sure they inspired the rest of this post. Just call them a new core race along with the rest.

Dark Iron
Not sure…maybe because I feel like there’s never been a good enough reason for them to be separate from other Dwarves I can’t think of a way to further visually differentiate them. Maybe they can just focus on reworking the Earthen and then put these guys under the Dwarf tab along with their sibling clans.

Earthen
My post before was more about the general proposal but my idea specifically for them is to be more elemental based, rather than Dwarf-based. Think mini rock monsters like the one from “The Never Ending Story”—a pile of boulders with arms, legs, and a face. Not only different, but has the added bonus of making the Void’s effect more profound.

Mag’har Orcs
It’s possible, maybe you can apply the same reversed corruption principle I pointed out with the Earthen. Maybe their muscularity can be notably less pronounced, not in an unhealthy way but in a non-demonically juiced up way. Maybe people would be open to the flipside being applied to our old Orc models to further show that distinction.

Zandalari
They’re on the right track with a unique model to the Darkspear, but they still deserve more than reusing the Night Elf model. Granted, it’s a modified version but come on with their unique aesthetic and lore they should be made from scratch like their counterpart, the Kul’Tirans.

Nightborne
While it makes more sense for them to use the Night Elf model, that doesn’t mean it’s ideal. Their modifications are interesting, but just that. You can still see the Night Elf underneath. How can they feel as distinct as the Night and Blood Elves do to each other? You can use them to really dig into how Arcane/Order magic outwardly affects beings, rather than just making them addicted.

Highmountain Tauren
Same problem as the Dark Irons but for a visual reason rather than a writing one—superfluity. Antlers instead of horns isn’t nearly enough and at least the others change enough on the outside, but the antlers are only different on one part of their silhouette. Make them a part of Tauren customization and add a revised Taunka or Yaungol race.

Vulpera
I would actually like these guys if they got their own model. Lorewise, they’re the only allied race completely independent of their core race, so it seems like their existence as one is only the result of a technical limitation. The Goblin model was made with the Goblin personality in mind, you can do the same for the Vulpera.

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They already proved they can unlock cosmetic options through quests, so…

Fold them into existing Draenei as cosmetic options.

Fold them into existing Gnomes as cosmetic options.

Fold them into existing Humans as cosmetic options. (also has the side effect of normal human model druids, which people want)

Fold them into existing Dwarves as cosmetic options.

Fold them into existing Orcs as cosmetic options.

Fold them into existing Trolls as cosmetic options. Orcs can already stand up straight with a toggle, Trolls should have a ‘highborn’ option to turn them into Zandalari.

Fold them into existing Blood Elves as cosmetic options.

Fold them into existing Tauren as cosmetic options.

It’s not like Blizzard has cared about racials for the past 5 years anyway–maybe this would be a good excuse for them to take a pass over them, maybe merge some of the racials. It’s not like a regular Dwarf being able to summon a Mole Machine would be super duper immersion shattering.

As for the others…

Without poking the ‘High Elf’ discussion beehive, having a twiggy elf race maybe like the Nightfallen would be neat. The Alliance doesn’t have enough (read: any) ‘monstrous’ races, and I feel like that would be a good fit. People might not be able to simp for Alleria as much, though.

Honestly I think they’re fine as they are–they’re a bit taller than regular Dwarves and the crystals break up their silhouette pretty well.

Remove them from the game :+1:

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Light Forged should be as transformed by The Light as the Man’ari were by the fel. Cracked, glowing skin. Glowing hooves (with optional hoof-prints trailing as they walk). Crystalline glowing spikes on the back and shoulders, geometric naaru-like “wings”.

They need to be more than “draenei but yellow eyes”, which they are right now.

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Make them slightly taller and make their body proportions match their size.

Make their body more mooselike to match their antlers.

Add Nightborne/Belf hybrid customizations. Give them some of their own animations. They need their own dance.

Why are these Horde? Yeet them and give Horde something else.

We are never going to get a real new race. Blizzard has determined that it isn’t worth development time to make new skeletons. They’ll refit old ones but there is a reason Dracthyr can’t transmog.

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How about we ship a mana bomb into Ironforge? Dwarves are so 2002.

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I suppose but I’m just starting from the principle of making new races from scratch. But I do agree that a lot of these should just be folded into their core races.

I say go even further, more along the lines of how different the Broken are

But imo we shouldn’t even start from our current models they should make a new one for them

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I like my Allied Races the way they are, thanks. Blizz isn’t going to make all new rigs, all new starter zones, etc.

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Jeez with the snark, qualification number 2, and this is for fun so for fun’s sake let’s imagine Blizzard Activision isn’t the mom and pop indie company we know they are :roll_eyes:

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A massive amount of work for unnecessary redesigns that no one is asking for. Not happening.

Deleting a race from the game and pulling a new race out of thin air to replace it. Also not happening, just like the thousand other times it was suggested.

Not a single person who plays Alliance would enjoy logging in to see that their pretty space elf is now an emaciated aberration, especially when half the people playing it are doing so to experience the ideal Alliance high elf fantasy.

You would have to write new lore to justify the Horde suddenly having yaungol, because they currently don’t.

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These are two lines that are incompatible.

Also, nah. Allied races (except Vulpera) are extremely close relatives to other races, oftentimes being different cultures or factions of the same race. They do a good job at what they are. They could use some sprucing up, Lightforged especially imo, but making them completely different isn’t what they are designed or intended as.

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So many words to be so boring. I did not say to delete anything. I only suggested to move the superfluous options under their core races. The “necessity” of it is entirely subjective and once again, for fun’s sake, let’s imagine Blizz isn’t the mom and pop indie company they are. Also, hello, I’m a person, I would prefer that. I subjectively think making them prettier is a hat on a hat, just like you subjectively think otherwise. But again, like I said, you can still give those old options to Blood Elves, while also adding new things.

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Those are functionally the same. Removing the option and putting it somewhere else (somewhere else in this case is behind a faction change paywall and incompatible with being Alliance in anyway). You want major lore changes and model changes that take away. Why not simply ask for pale orcs or a new race, instead of framing it in the way of removing things? You’ll get far less pushback that way I can assure you.

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This is actually a great idea for next xpac. Who cares about having 1 new race when you can have 13

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The person you’re quoting is posting on a monstrous race. :wolf:

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I disagree, how they look isn’t specifically a part of either of their stories. Their stories are about what they do. I’m putting my own interpretation on the visual storytelling there, but at least it’s something more substantive than just color differences.

I don’t really care about moving the superfluous options anywhere, this post is really just about my ideas for visual upgrades, not replacements or removal.

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Whether it’s a core race, allied race, or whatever you count Pandas and Dracthyr as, I like the content that focuses on cosmetics and culture of the different races we have.

I’d even say I like that stuff more than the main plot stuff we get. I enjoyed the Tauren quests in DF, I always love doing heritage quest lines, doing the Darkshore stuff to unlock eye customizations for Nelves and doing the quest for Manari was sweet.

That’s the kind of stuff I like. I wish it wasn’t drip fed to us. I wish they would do some kind of creative dump where we just got a metric ship ton of customizations for all races instead of a hairstyle here or there once a patch per expansion.

Even though expansion content is almost always gonna focus on the “task at hand” and the bad guy du jour I would love if we got a lot more content going a bit back to the basics than what we get.

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Oh. Yeah. I think I’m numb to Worgen at this point–too many jokes about furries. But you’re right.

No harm in another one though, right?

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It is, though. The Ren’dorei and the Army of the Light are not separate species. Of the Allied Races, the only unique species are Vulpera, everything else is closely related.

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Notice something in what you said, them being the same species is about what they are, not what they look like. That’s the difference for me, they can be the same species lorewise and also look different because of what happened to them

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And they look different. But they don’t look like geometry either, they are still Elves and Draenei and look like Elves and Draenei.