Alliance: “Hey can we have Vrykul?”
Ion: “We have Vrykul at home.”
Vrykul at home:
Kul’tirans are technically yet another freakin’ monkey’s paw for Alliance races. And more proof the devs don’t listen at all. When the main complaint about a faction is that “there’s too many human-types”, you don’t turn an entire allied race slot into literally a human.
Absolute incompetence.
Also, the female barely has facial animations.
I think the bigger issue is, like most Allied Races, they’d make far better enhanced customization to their base race, rather than a new race on their own.
I think of things in the inverse. Vulpera was the mistake and we should have gotten gilgoblins since they’d be in line with how ever other allied race has been.
Oh I disagree.
Think of all the requested allied races that haven’t happened though and vulpera wasn’t added because of popular demand. There was a leak in june of bfa that vulpera and mechagnomes would be playable 8.3 which shows that they were both preplanned. Plus also think of many of the races in wow that aren’t requested often, but would be popular. There is hundreds upon hundreds. The forums are mostly just vocal minorities. Prior to coming to the forums I didn’t even know what races like sanlayn and high elves were.
Also, I don’t mind the whole “fat human” thing - I love the concept of a big burly sailor lady who retired and studied the ways of the drust because she wants to protect her family, unlocking family lineage powers she didn’t even know she had.
I don’t like how that should have been a toggle for regular humans.
A body size is not a race. There is literally nothing “special” about the Kul’tirans to the equiv of any other allied races that makes them scream “I am different” outside … playable shamans? Having to scratch and dig for a lore reason for them to be unique is the problem.
Mag’har at least had a very good lore reason to be entirely seperate, and it was requested for years. They had an in game focus for with multiple characters for years. Jaina looks like a stormwind human mode. So? Woo?
When it comes to body type options for humans, the most I’ve ever seen was “I don’t want my arms to look like stuffed hams that are about to explode. I want to look like a regular human being.”
This isn’t the 80’s or 90’s anymore - not everybody wants to look like they can lift a truck with their bare hands.
And like, yeah, Kul’tirans look more regular than the actual human (male) model, but …
who thought this was going to be a fair trade for Zandalari, which were one of the most requested playable races for the game pretty much ever?
did you ever quest
Usually I would play horde so I never saw the high elf stuff and while I know that there was vampires in ICC, I never really thought much of them beyond just trash mobs to be found. They were just one of many names in the back of my mind.
Fair.
I think if new customizations hadn’t been a thing, then I’d agree with this completely. However, Blizzard has shown they’re perfectly willing and happy to put what should be new Allied Races (Wildhammers, Forest Trolls, High Elves, etc…) into existing races through customization.
That thoroughly de-legitimizes so many existing Allied Races, since they could have easily been extra customization. One can argue that these should-be Allied Races don’t offer any new classes, but I would disagree, as Wildhammer Druids make perfect sense and were even a thing in the RPGs.
What “makes sense” for the game isn’t necessarily what makes sense for the setting. With the exception of Zandalari Trolls and Kul Tiras Humans, the two major factions of BFA, all of the allied races have been re-skinned versions of other races. Vulpera have a bit more work put into them, but they still use the goblin female animation rig.
I agree that Void Elves came out of nowhere. The other allied races were all introduced in Legion, and felt like familiar faces choosing sides in the upcoming war. The void elves were kind of a weird compromise. For a long time, people have been saying they want high elves. But making high elves the allied race could have been construed as low effort, and there were limited ideas for customization options to differentiate them from blood elves, both up close and at a glance.
Personally, I find it a specious argument to say that they’re insufficiently distinct when both sides have Pandaren, but that’s just me being salty. Making them Void Elves gave the art team a cohesive direction to work with, for new skintones and hairstyles that wouldn’t infringe upon blood elf customization options. So as a design strategy, it does make sense.
If they were going to explore the void with an allied race, I would’ve liked to see Ethereals. Locus Walker was great, and the Argus models for Ethereals were an absolute treat. But it would’ve been resource intensive to accomplish something like that. In addition to all of the challenging points of customization (wrappings, crowns, masks, jewelry, energy color), Blizzard would have to a) figure out how to put boobs on an energy being (see Grand Lacky Erkh in Hearthstone), or b) have the bravery to release a genderless / non-binary race.
It’s actually sad how many race ideas get shut down by Blizzard because it’s too difficult or risky to design female models for them. We’ve had two whole expansions on Draenor but not one ogre woman. The Broken Draenei are in the same boat, even after Legion brought in the Argussian Reach (who are, for some reason, the reputation requirement for Void Elves).
See, I don’t really see an issue with female Ethereals. I don’t think it’d be insanely hard to design them by just adapting an existing rig. Boobs on an energy being aren’t hard at all. Ever watch Ben 10? His grandma isn’t exactly flat chested when she isn’t pretending to be human.
Ethereals would’ve been an amazing race. Mix in a dash of Reboot’s Hexadecimal (masks you can swap for different expressions), and you’d have something truly amazing.
Not exactly because there is a number of flaws in this. Take a look at all the customizations they did give us and a lot of them can’t be applied to allied races in the same way unless blizzard did some new precedent breaking thing. These new customizations don’t offer much in the way of new geometry. Here is a few examples of races it doesn’t work with as well.
Mechagnomes. Mechagnomes have mechanical limbs with a bunch of custom animations and custom voices. if they were made customization they would have to do a lot of rigging for a customization.
Kultirans
Blizzard has said that they can’t just add drastically different body shapes with their existing engine without running into problems.
Unless you are proposing just giving blood elves a purple skin and tatoos are calling it a day.
In a basic level it may seem as though it can work, but high elf customization only worked alliance side because of the existance of void elves. Mag’har orcs can’t be warlocks in lore so they can’t be a skin for orcs. In this case I would have just opted for giving mag’har a more unique model.
The whole faction thing is the problem here.
Now DI dwarves, Highmountain tauren and LF draenei this could have worked. I think blizzard handled the whole allied race system bad tbh. It seems like they didn’t know what they wanted and were just making up rules as they went.
I find Nightborne, Void Elves, Zandalari, and Vulpera to be cases where just adding them to their base races doesn’t work. As you noted, Void Elves and Nightborne bring a new model to each faction. Zandalari bring in a highly modified troll model, and the Vulpera, well, they are their own separate race, biologically, from Goblins, and different enough in appearance. It’d be the same thing with Sethrak, using the female worgen rig, but looking different enough, and being a completely biologically different race.
Mag’har can be Warlocks lorewise. Nothing is really stopping them. I’d argue their intense hatred for the Light makes them being priests kinda weird.
The reverse is something of a problem with Void Elves. High Elves can be Paladins, and Void Elves can’t.
This seems to be a pet issue for you, Mr. Sargeras.
Ultimately, “Blizzard added Insert Race Here because it made sense at the time” doesn’t fly as an argument because Blizzard is in full control of what does and does not make sense at any given time. If there is anything tying their hands it would be time and money (though they don’t seem to lack for either), and not some slavish devotion to a story and setting they retcon every other patch.
The fact remains that Blizzard gave the Horde what is essentially an entirely new playable race in the form of the Vulpera, and the Alliance got gnomes who look like they’re wearing diapers. There is a clear lack of equivalence here, even if you, personally, enjoy bediapered gnomes.
lol
To be fair, a lot of love was put into Mechagnomes when you take a close look at them. The adjusted movements are a bit subtle but make it very obvious their limbs are mechanical. There’s a lot of polish to them.
Honestly, I still would’ve rather seen them added to Gnomes as customization. Heck, make it a second body-type option such as Orcs having straight backs, since their animations are different.
Can you imagine how insanely popular Kul Tirans would have been if they had gone directly for a “half drust” concept rather than “chunky sailor”?
I.e. taller than the average human, muscular but more slender than actual Vrykul, more human-like facial features compared to the ogre-like current Kul Tirans but still a variety of viking-like hair and beard options, etc.
Basically what Zandalari are to trolls for humans–a bigger, fancier version with more class options.
But uh potbellied sailors are cool too I guess, big time shout out to the 0.2% of players or whatever who main Kul Tirans
and yet they never stopped to consider if players wanted them
There is a great conceit to the modern developers at Blizzard.
“Don’t you guys have phones?”
“You think you do, but you don’t.”
“We’ll launch WoD without flying and add it later. Actually, we never intended to add flying ever again.”
I would have liked skinny options for Kul Tirans.
I would have rather had Sehtrak on the Alliance for Vulpera and then to pair with Mechagnomes, Gilgoblins.
Still waiting for Arrakoa and better BG rewards.
blizzard says a lot of things and maybe if their… 17? year old game can’t handle stuff maybe it’s time to go under the hood extensively. also kind of want to call BS because postures are kind of a middle ground so like why not push that envelope a bit more with full on body types
like, idk, beefy orc ladies or slim draenei dudes or broad shouldered night elf ladies or -
(or release a full sequel)
also void elves should’ve been a worgen “two form” thing for quel’dorei fight me IRL outside of a Quiznos
The fact remains that Blizzard gave the Horde what is essentially an entirely new playable race in the form of the Vulpera, and the Alliance got gnomes who look like they’re wearing diapers. There is a clear lack of equivalence here, even if you, personally, enjoy bediapered gnomes.
Which is why I said we should have gotten gilgoblins instead. Gilgoblins are just about as desired as vulpera too. They just don’t have the same organized lobbying effort as vulpera does and they would have made much more sense.
Here is another question though. Should blizzard add races based on popular request? Cause I don’t think people realize what the implications of adding races based on popular request is. Few reasons why it would be a problem.
People think that mechagnomes are an unpopular race nobody wanted right now yes? Well in a world where blizzard is only in the habit of adding races based on popular request then sethrak may be considered an unpopular race nobody asked for by comparison to other races.
Lets be honest. If blizzard only ever added races based on popular request there would be no pandas, dwarfs, goblins, gnomes and pretty much all allied races even vulpera. Vulpera is only like 3% of the playerbase in reality when I checked wowcensus. They just have a loud playerbase. And who is to say that people who want these niche races should just be completely ignored? The fact is that sometimes even if something is unpopular, it doesn’t mean its a bad idea.
and yet they never stopped to consider if players wanted them
Judging by the amount of mechagnomes and activity I’ve seen in the mechagnome love thread a lot of people did in fact want them. I mean. This thread is more active then the Sethrak discussion thread to date.
I do agree with this, but I don’t think it’s for lore reasons, anyone can become big after all.
It’s honestly the technical side about it, the KT is built as a fully new race, without being based on anything prior in their model. The human model and the Tauren model have as much in common as the KT and regular human one.
Having it be a simple toggle like the orc hunch is not comparable, the orc hunch is just a posture change that still can use all the old customization, not a full blown new model that can’t, they would have to remake all the old human customization on the KT one which would cost significant dev time, unless the fat option simply would have much less and different options overall.