I’m very confused about how these little furry munchkins came to be.Their lore seems very basic if not non existent.From what I’ve seen in game to what I’ve read on their wowpedia article there really isn’t much to them other than five specific points:
They live in the desert.
They are scavengers and traders.
Some of them became pirates(for some reason).
They have some skill with alchemy.
The Sethrak were enslaving them until the Horde helped them out.
And that’s about it.That is an embarrassingly small amount information about them especially in comparison to the other allied races added to the game which in small part is due to their lack of connection to other previously established races.It makes me wonder why blizz went with these guys instead of something that made a bit more sense like the kelfkin as an allied race connected to goblins.I get the impression that they aren’t native to Zandalar and arrived after Vol’dun got turned into a sandbox for them to play in.Honestly it feels like Blizz just wanted to bank off their cuteness and left it at that.
Am I missing something or looking to deeply into this?
Look at it like this. Blizzard adds races they feel people would like. And apparently the Horde would like little furry fox people.
Lightforged draenei barely exist outside of Turyalon who isn’t a draenei instead of actual fleshed out Broken, because Alliance players love the waggle.
So yeah you are looking too deeply. Just hope Blizzard has a reason to make Vol’dun relevant again.
Sure, it is lacking, but as a big Vulpera fan, I am fine with it. It is understandable. The lore that is there is pretty cool. It is open enough to wonder about, while being grounded and practical in a way that makes them a good fit. The way they proved their usefulness after being snubbed in their Horde Intro Quest was a great way of displaying their “way of being.”
They are a very new race. They don’t have a history that people have been eager to see expanded on for near decades. The Dark Iron, the Zandalari, the Maghar, and Kul Tirans had previous expansions to flesh out their story. The concept of Mechagnomes and robot gnomes is not new for BfA. Void Elves and Lightforged are just an alteration of existing races - Elves and Draenei. But the Vulpera are entirely new. It would make sense that we have less information on them. I dare say if they had too much focus, it could be intrusive and out of place.
Blizzard has just enough lore for Vulpera fans to be enthused and eager for more, while not making them obtrusive or soaking all the spotlight. But I would also add the following points:
The Vulpera discuss a land across the sea where more Vulpera exist. They could be talking about the disparate Vulpera pirates and merchants on Kul Tiras. But they might also be discussing a homeland on a continent we have yet to discover.
Also - Kiro seems to find little value in wallowing in the past, unless it can be of practical use. Meerah finds a book, and Kiro is concerned about the value of it in a practical sense. He says:
“Our wagon has no space for a diary, Meerah. What practical use does it have?”
(And then he tried to burn it. Which sounds almost Orwellian. As if he has been burning books to actively hide their past. But anyway…)
Our story with Kiro isn’t focused on teaching him to be a leader or to believe in themselves, like Talanji or Jaina. Kiro is a respected leader of his people. This attitude of his, of being focused on the present, might be the way the coalition of tribes under his rule have traditionally been for generations.
There are lots of races in the game that have their lore lacking, including original vanilla races. We still don’t know for certain if there’s any truth to Tauren myths. Dwarf and gnome culture often gets forgotten as Blizzard sets their spotlights on humans and nelves.
I don’t expect many of the allied races to get much more attention. That’s just the way it is, sadly.
I dunno, I suppose if they actually allow the Lightbound and Yrel to come in and tempt Turaylon into letting loose on the Horde while we’re gone … such a Light Cosmology Expac could give really great opportunities for more than a few of them. With Light being the antagonistic force, the Forsaken (who desperately need the help right now) and the AU Mag’har are easy choices for focus and attention on the Horde side of things. The VElves and Lightforged/Draenei would be the same for the Alliance.
Doesn’t really help the Vulpera issue. But, since their cultural nitch within the Horde seems to be “support staff” to help even out all the internal workings of the Faction … I suspect that like Gobs they and their reps are pretty flexible when it comes when and where they can be used. I’m not overly worried about them, especially with how popular they are. As a conceptual race, they are probably one of the easiest races to actually use within the story out of any of the Horde ARs.
Gives me the implication that they are running from something and trying to forget their past.Guess only time will tell what Blizz will do with them as well as the other allied races needing a bit more lore.
A big reason they likely became playable is popularity. There was a large faction of players calling for their playability since the day the vulpera were revealed in a Blizzcon preview. The call only got stronger throughout BfA. People like cute things. It’s probable Blizz didn’t originally intend them to be playable, but later changed due to public opinion.
There is room for lore to develop, but they have the basics and do make the most sense. The Horde have been steadfast allies to them in the story.
What separates them from kelfin is that they are a land race. Kelfin can function here, but ultimately like the ankoan they’re deep sea beings who aren’t suited well to or comfortable on dry land. They even complain about it in Nazjatar. It’s not very believable that they’d want to leave the ocean on a more permanent basis and we spent so little time with them. They have nothing worth gaining here.
I see these things said day in and day out, and I agree with it in theory: it makes absolute sense, they’re cute and on the surface there’s no doubt in my mind that a massive portion of the playerbase would be excited to be a Vulpera…
… yet on my servers, I swear to you with all my heart, I’ve seen maybe 10 Vulpera players since they became playable. Anyone else see this?
Not super related, sorry, but it still confuses me.
I don’t pay too much attention or anything but I’ve seen a noticeable amount of them around ever since they became playable.
Low-effort census on my server right now shows 41 vulpera at level 60, versus 27 pandaren, 35 nightborne, 37 highmountain, 26 mag’har. So (by a slim margin) they’re at least the second most popular horde AR at 3:33 PM weekend server time, for whatever good that is. And granted, this race came out at the tail end of BFA.
Zandalari beats them at 99 (I went through class by class) but 64 of them are made up entirely of paladins and druids.
I feel the same about a lot of the new allied races. But, they’re practically fresh out of the oven. The only one that had strong roots to the story was the Kul Tirans and the Zandalari.
It’s not very believable that they’d want to leave the ocean on a more permanent basis and we spent so little time with them. They have nothing worth gaining here.
Don’t forget that they are hanging out on the shores of Durotar and they are doing just fine there. Durotar is an arid desert. The notion that they wouldn’t leave the ocean has been long dispelled not to mention that there is water in almost every area wow.
They have nothing worth gaining here.
I mean. Ya they do. A partnership with a group of people who saved them from the naga. That is super valuable, plus there is plenty of knowledge to be learned on land.
I don’t pay too much attention or anything but I’ve seen a noticeable amount of them around ever since they became playable.
Low-effort census on my server right now shows 41 vulpera at level 60, versus 27 pandaren, 35 nightborne, 37 highmountain, 26 mag’har. So (by a slim margin) they’re at least the second most popular horde AR at 3:33 PM weekend server time, for whatever good that is. And granted, this race came out at the tail end of BFA.
It is mostly just a group of very vocal individuals. There is a large lobbying group for Vulpera and Sethrak who had a goal of getting as much discussion going about Sethrak and Vulpera. A few people hyping up a race. Yada yada yada. You have the illusion of popularity.
A big reason they likely became playable is popularity.
Unlikely because the same group of people lobbying for them were also lobbying for sethrak and most of the work was done by the time vulpera hit beta.
The Vulpera could definitely use some bolstering lore-wise, but I can’t really see that happening any time soon, at least not in Shadowlands.
Like with the Nightborne and Blood Elves, I think it would be nice if the Zandalari and Vulpera form a closer bond that sees them interacting in each others’ storylines.
I was stoked to see Kiro at Rastakhan’s funeral. That was a pretty unnecessary detail that had very little impact on the narrative, but it was powerful. He laid out his disdain for the Alliance’s actions, and affirmed the bonds between their people.
The alchemy one is debatable. It’s more that they have knowledge of Vol’dun’s environs so they can make use of its unique flora/fauna.
But yeah, that’s pretty much all of vulpera lore in a nutshell. Except not even in a nutshell, that’s pretty much just all of it. There is no sapient WoW race with less lore than vulpera, to my knowledge, but people clamored for them to be playable so Blizzard went, “Why yes, we’d like some easy race-change money”.
Where’d they come from?
We don’t know.
What have they done in the past?
We don’t know.
What are their goals outside of base survival?
We don’t know.
What are their values outside of base survival?
Arguably community, but that is a pragmatic thing in that they die alone or survive together.
As for people who claim races like LF Draenei or Void Elves are comparable, they have the springboard of their original, base race. Void Elves have all the Belf/Helf/Nelf lore in their history, LF Draenei have either draenei or ancient eredar lore, etc. We know more about grummles than we do about vulpera, which is one of my biggest gripes about them as a playable race.
Allied races weren’t originally an intended thing, they came about when Blizzard realized that they didn’t have a hook for BfA and many were tossed together using what had already been made for the customization revamp. That’s why the allied races with the least amount of options correlate with the base races that got the most with the updates.
Tinfoil hat, I know, but there’s a lot of evidence that seems to point to this and I would be very surprised if they made any more allied races in the future.
As such, the Vulpera don’t have much lore because they were meant to be just another one off continental race that we never really interact with again once the expansion was over, much like the Wolvar, the Gorlocs, the Sporelings, Jinyu, Hozen, Tuskar, and so on.
It’s actually insane how obvious it is, when you think about it. Gnomes, for instance, didn’t get any ‘unique’ feature customization like some other races did… because the mechagnome options were probably originally meant to be that. Nightborne have almost no options, meanwhile Night Elves got a lot of stuff. Dark Irons get tattoos for some reason, when they were never known to have them before.
Humans have scars locked to certain faces because those faces were yoinked for Kul Tirans, and then given back to them. Same as a lot of hairstyles and facial hair options.
Blood Elves are also a pretty big tell, mostly due to the addon Mogit, which has been broken for a while when it comes to seeing what something looks like on another race. The bug will stretch your character’s race skin over the ‘skeleton’ of the race you want to look at. The result for Void Elf to Blood Elf? Every hairstyle translates seamlessly, with any Void Effects showing up in red, as if they made the hairstyles for Blood Elves first, then just pasted on Void effects for some after.