I mean, if we’re talking lore abominations, the reason the Void Elves were kicked out to begin with doesn’t make much sense, when Silvermoon has: Warlocks, Rogues, DH, Shadow Priests… etc… lotta Shadow energy from different sources, and Shadow is just a lesser manifestation of purer Void energies.
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I mean the chief worry was it corrupting the Sunwell since when Alleria got close to it a bunch of bad things happened. Easy fix? Don’t let Void elves near the Sunwell, I mean it’s off on an Island right? They could still visit Silvermoon and not be close to it.
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I can’t speak for all ARs, but I love me some Kul Tirans.
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Plus, we later learn in the VE unlock it wasn’t even Alleria, but Nether Prince Duurzan manipulating the scene. Seems like the sorta thing one would send a message about wouldn’t it? “Hello Lord reagent Lor’themar, I regret to inform you but Void forces would really like your Sunwell.”
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Honestly I’d be fine with normal skinned velves at the end of the day if they didn’t give dark rangers to velves.
Why give a horde flavor to two alliance races and only one to horde.
I mean to nelves it made sense given what happened in dark shore. But why velves???
It would’ve balanced the scales. Both have normal skins and a corrupted variant.
Honestly, I’m convinced that dark ranger for velves was a byproduct BUG from implementation on belves.
I remember it wouldn’t show up in the forums for velf players.
But since velf players stared customizing their characters as such blizzard decided to leave it in to avoid an outcry…
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It was a mistake releasing them with little to no customization options and it was a mistake assuming the majority of the playerbase would be fine with having to play the game (imagine that) to unlock them.
I personally like the quests to unlock them but I unlocked most of them pretty early on. I helped a friend unlock some of the Horde ones recently and it wasn’t too bad.
But I will say, to a new player or a “noob” player who may not use all available resources (Google, Wowhead, even the forums) it is one of the many, many things that is kind of convoluted to figure out on your own in-game.
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Not sure where they were in the game other than the fact that existing BE were once High Elves. High Elves were clearly in the game as NPC’s (and books) which was the entire root of the issue. We still get that basic rationing with every possible combination NPC found in the game (see the history of DK demands and NE paladins) justifies the ability to play them. There only has to be one to start the debate.
The entire Blood Elf blue eye bit and Void Elf customization bit largely put to bed a bunch of issues. Blood Elves were once High Elves, now you had both ones that were uncorrupted, did the cleansing bit or high elves that even went home. Void Elves are exceled Blood elves. The customization kills the High Elf issue, changing raicals would have only pushed the pendulum in the other direction.
Horde players had been asking for Dark Ranges as a class or customization for years too. Blizz seemed to handle this by just bypassing the entire lore bit and making the reward appearance even across the board (people have been demanding more homogenization as time has progressed anyway - could even apply to the BE/VE/HE bit).
I have not used the complete set (only the head and cloak for a good mog fit) but I recall it goes red eyes to the wearer. This doesn’t really fit for the Alliance at present, an some Alliance players would say it gives those Horde players that did an “in your face” but about blue eyes a taste of their own medicine. The only things I can think of is maybe if the red was a Horde-only option for now. I think it can come into RP with Sylvanas blucking up bodies to replenish her ranks for those people, even more so if Blizzard eve enacts some type of world cross-faction play.
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Not only no customizations but also very little if anything in the way of story involvement and racial lore except 4 (Kul’tirans, Nightborne, Zandalari, and MechaGnomes). Everybody else? Sorry… join the “you do not really exist” corner with post Pandaria Pandaren.
Lore wise…the following allied races were mistake
- Maghar Orcs
- Nightborne
And umm…I would have prefered Ogres over Vulperas
Sorry. Human variants only.
The gatekeeping wasn’t consistent. Some were very easy to unlock, others required more effort (IE 5 man and other content). It would also be good to unlock them after the next expansion was released, when the “gatekeeping content” is no longer current it can make new players disappointed to find out they can’t play a race.
I’d also like to see more “allied races” based on what other expansions have shown. In Wrath the Taluka were related to Tauren, why can’t they be an allied race? So change it so you can pick your race, then pick a branch of the race for further customization. Another example, the Windjammer Dwarves from Cataclysm, they could offer another branch of dwarves.
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since high elves as a race and kingdom switched sides and joined the horde would be cool if ogres switched sides and joined the alliance
I enjoy both. The archeology racial feels extra bad nowadays, it was pretty good in Legion. That being said, dark iron does not have this -
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I don’t think Allied Races were a mistake. I actually think they make a lot of sense design wise and are an easier way to add something desirable into expansions instead of designing an entirely new race from the ground up.
I think the issue was in BFA, because Kul Tirans and Mechagnomes were incredibly lackluster compared to Zandalari and Vulpera. In terms of design, effort, and appeal. I also agree that there should be easier accessibility for allied races, maybe after an expansion is done.
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Yes, in that a lot are still missing customization options, far fewer than several other races.
Not all Allied Races were created equal, and everyone knows this. Look at Void Elves.
You should see male Kul’Tirans and how few options they have. Blizzard basically wasted resources on that one.
Nightborne males too. They are so scuffed compared to the NPCs that rarely does anyone actually play one.
And knowing Blizzard, nothing will be done for several years, assuming something will actually be done.
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I think some Allied Races were a mistake, but as a whole, no, they weren’t all a mistake.
I look at the Zandalari, the Nightborne, the Highmountain, the Vulpera, and the Mag’har, and I can’t call them a mistake. These races were seeded into the story before they were made playable, the set of customizations on them was satisfactory, and virtually every one of them had been requested as playable by Horde players. The weakest of them as far as this criteria goes would be the Highmountain Tauren.
I look at the Alliance’s Allied Races, and this is where some problems start cropping up.
Lightforged Draenei barely existed for a patch before they were added to the game, and their gimmick was, “Draenei with extra Light.” There wasn’t any time to build up a separate culture for them. We see them as zealots and a martial society, but most of that has to be inferred from their text, rather than something we actually see.
Kul Tirans were… somewhat seeded into the story? I mean, they’re humans, after all. The problem is Blizzard decided the playable Kul Tirans are going to be the fat ones, while all the actual important Kul Tiran characters are… not. They’re the only Allied Race to receive an entirely new rig, but older armor looks stretched out on them pretty badly. I feel like Kul Tirans were a good concept, but Blizzard dropped the ball in how they went about it. As they are now, they feel like they could’ve been a second body-option for humans.
Dark Irons are by far the Alliance’s strongest allied race, hands down. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t like their addition, they were well seeded into the story long beforehand, and their customizations are all on point.
Mechagnomes are controversial, mostly because many players wanted another race. Objectively speaking, although Mechagnomes only had a single patch to be developed, that patch did them justice. There’s a real sense of how different they are from other Gnomes. While the transmogs restrictions are a sore point for them, there’s no denying polish went into their animations to make them feel much more robotic. Have you ever played a Mechagnome and gone into water? They use their hands as propellers!
Void Elves… I’ve written way too much about Void Elves.
They weren’t seeded into the lore. At all. No one had heard of a, ‘Magister Umbric,’ (great name by the way, his parents must’ve been prophets who could’ve put Velen and Zul to shame to nail that one), or his exiled band of followers. The Void Elves themselves didn’t even exist until the last five minutes of their recruitment scenario! Compared to other Allied Races, their customizations weren’t great either. Only a handful of hairstyles are generally popular among players, most of which lacked tentacles. Other than that, they were blue/purple elves, which we already had with the Night Elves. Their racial has an annoying, uncontrollable visual element to it which is only annoying because it’s nowhere near as amazing as Alleria’s was. Their heritage armor looks like they ripped that stuff off of the corpses of Dreadlords and dipped it into Void Pools.
If any Allied Race was unequivocally a mistake, it has to be the Void Elves. Not just because of everything listed above, but also because Blizzard never did anything with them. At least the Lightforged Draenei had a patch to exist before being added and we know they’re military draenei with extra light. The Void Elves? They don’t have any sort of culture that we can see. They don’t even have a cast of names characters. You’ve got Alleria as an honorary Void Elf, and then Umbric, and that’s it. At least most Allied Races had 2-3 named characters to them.
To put it bluntly, if this was the plan Blizzard always had with Void Elves, they should’ve just added High Elves. At least then the lack of development is not an issue, because High Elves have been a part of the Alliance’s narrative since Vanilla, more or less. They didn’t need it.
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While the above may be true or not, there was visual bugs with the skin and outfit for more then just them. The gear look wouldn’t show on the forums for many, those transmogged with it, like my hunter here, would appear as if they transmogged all slots including pants as nothing (ala undergarments naked) on both the armory and the forums for awhile after they were available.
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More options are never a mistake in a video game. If you think so, you’re a boomer karen.
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Void elves and vulpera are the 2 best races in the game. So they were 100% not a mistake in my eyes.
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Orcs were the mistake, and should’ve been kept within the Alliance camps, just saying.