People have been doing whatever they want for 18 years, just because nobody can roll certain race/class combos doesn’t mean people aren’t finding ways to make things work (through toys, or transmogs, or willing suspension of disbelief). The story of the game isn’t the entire story of a player.
This is and always has been WoW. You’re totally welcome to stick to rigid ideologies of what constitutes appropriate lore and culture in the game, but there’s no reason the rest of the players need abide by that same ideology. That’s what WoW is to you, and that’s fine, but that’s not what the game is to many of us.
While I do understand the sentiment behind your post, and you do make good points from a lore perspective and a desire to keep WoW’s history intact. I truly do.
But I am going to respectfully disagree with you for a couple reasons.
At this point in the game and lore, the races have been working together for a long time. All races have spent years, and even decades side by side with each other. I think that the probability that races would find their way into gravitating into other followings/teachings/schools/religions (Specs) is pretty logical. Sure it might take time and dedication, but it is possible.
On a different side. Just the customization options. People like customization. People gravitate to different races for aesthetic reasons. Some people prefer one race’s animations over the other. And to appeal to a broader audience, allowing people to play whatever class they choose on whatever race they choose, just gives more people what they ask for.
If the past two expansions have told us anything, its that players will play through horrible lore, and retconning, and half baked stories, dull and uninteresting enemies and bosses. People will tolerate that a Druid can follow a Venthyr or Necrolord Covenant, just because the ability they get is more powerful. Nevermind that those covenants couldnt be further away from druid lore. Players will accept and play through this.
The above caused harm to the game, not because it broke with class/race identity. But because of the artificial limitations and restrictions that were implemented with them.
I am saying that freeing up race/class combos, along with removing the faction barrier, will only do good for the game. It opens the ability to tell many more interesting stories, as well as more customization options. It lets players play what they want to play, and play with their friends without any restrictions. And I think doing that for the game population will end up only being a good thing.
The only reason class/race combos are limited at this point is because they don’t have time to make all the design / quest changes to allow it. I think we’ll see class / race combos trickle in over the next few years. I’m personally ok with that.
You are – and I mean this – COMPLETELY wrong. People may pretend those restrictions don’t exist, but they very obviously do, and they were implemented from the start for a reason. You’re arguing for a different game that the one WoW started out as, otherwise they WOULD HAVE let anyone be anything.
That doesn’t mean it couldn’t change. But trying to argue “oh this is how the game has always been” is simply incorrect.
That’s why people clearly define “head-canon” from ACTUAL canon or Lore.
As I said, those restrictions help to define WHO and WHAT these different Races and Classes are. This being an MMO, this is a shared experience. If Gnomes and Goblins can suddenly become Paladins, then Paladins cease to have any sort of “deep, meaningful history” and instead exist PURELY as a collection of buttons to push.
The fact is, a lot of fans fell in love with the series through the RTS games, where different races are mechanically different, as well. That is a FUNDAMENTAL aspect of Warcraft’s identity.
That isn’t to say an RTS where all the races were identical COULDN’T work. But you have to recognize, that would ultimately be a completely different experience.
And that’s true of WoW, as well. If every race can be every class, then that is a SIGNIFICANT change to what WoW even is. And I think a far lesser experience, at that.
Because if none of the rules apply anymore, if none of ALL of that deep history or lore constituting who each of these cultures are, where each of these classes come from, then you may as well just be playing with toys in a sandbox, because all of that rich lore is just completely meaningless.
Also, there’s no way to really know why race/class restrictions were implemented 17 years ago or however long this game has existed, but it probably was to make racial choices more impactful, likely because there wasn’t a large amount of established lore so it was an easy way to show off some racial culture.
But now that we have much more backstory for most of our races, we don’t need these silly restrictions to cheaply inflate the values of races, they can just stand on their own.
Our entire characters are head canon, so removing race/class restrictions changes nothing about the lore of the game.
You’re incredibly reductive view of the game is not the same one we all share, and it is incredibly reductive.
And once again, player characters are not REAL! We do not exist in any capacity except as the nameless faceless hero plugged in to the story, we can be anything we want and the lore doesn’t change at all around us. A gnome or goblin paladin doesn’t affect the lore at all.
Nobodies character affects the lore, if blizzard doesn’t add gnome paladins to the game as NPC characters with actual implications and factions and history, then the one off character being made as a gnome paladin is just that, a one off. You keep saying this somehow detracts from the lore, but it’s not a part of the lore so the logic doesn’t really follow.
This isn’t the RTS and it’s been almost 20 years since this game launched. Races in RTS games have very specific design spaces to fill that do not translate to races in an RPG.
In your opinion. In mine, it’s what wow always has been, just finally with the ability to more accurately reflect more people’s characters.
The lore still applies to the game if every race can be every class because the character isn’t a part of the game lore doesn’t change with player characters because we are not posters of our races, we are individual characters who exist to fill an amorphous void of “Hero”. We can be or do whatever we want in this role, and it will never truly affect the game.
If you don’t like certain race/class combinations because you feel like they don’t fit with the lore then don’t play them and don’t associate with them, but why should anybody else have to do so when their choices do not affect you or the game in any meaningful way?
You keep saying and acting like the game is not a sandbox but it is, just because there’s a limit to how large the sandbox is, doesn’t mean it’s just not there.
That’s what the appeal was to you. To many of us, WoW has always been about our characters and us having fun. I knew the world from WC3 coming into WoW, but most players didn’t, and so they discover the world bit-by-bit just like in D&D.
I agree with the OP, and heavily disagree with this sentiment.
Anyone who takes this stance, I would challenge you this:
If you think there should be no restrictions whatever, and that personal headcannon and freedom of character creation take precedent over the significance of the fantasy of the cultures that exist in Azeroth, then you should also have no problem with the following:
I think I should be able to create a character with a Nightborne head, an orc torso, a draenei arm, a troll arm, and a tauren and night elf leg. This is the character I want, I can headcanon that they were stitched together by the Forsaken or amalgamated by the Burning Legion, as both are even more justifiable in established lore than some race/class combos.
Further, I don’t want to be any one class. I want to pick change my class at will as if it were a spec to reflect the myriad background of this character.
From a story perspective, there is no more reason that I shouldn’t be able to have this than anyone who wants any other arbitrary race/class combinations.
I’ll make a wild assumption and say that the majority wouldnt be in favor of me or anyone else being able to do this…
Ask yourself why.
Ultimately, in my opinion, it’s because there is some impulse towards preserving the integrity of the world and its sense of fantasy from absurdity, and that this takes precedent over the whims of the individuals in the playerbase.
That is the core of OP’s argument, and having played for the entire run of this game, I support it. Some things just don’t make sense, and we shouldn’t compromise the world we all share together to support individual fancy that should largely be seen as detrimental to said world and the fantasy aesthetic its cultivated for the last 18 years.
God checkmated guys apparently asking for an existing race to learn an existing class will lead to full utter chaos. And we have to have everything or nothing or the lore will suffer and die…like it already has.
I think I should be able to create a character with a Nightborne head, an orc torso, a draenei arm, a troll arm, and a tauren and night elf leg. This is the character I want, I can headcanon that they were stitched together by the Forsaken or amalgamated by the Burning Legion, as both are even more justifiable in established lore than some race/class combos.
