Giving all races all classes will be beneficial for the game!
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Tldr please.
I’m looking forward to having the freedom to choose what class I want for a character regardless of race. I think it makes the game better and more immersive, not less.
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I’m glad you bring up FFXIV, because I do think it’s an important talking point.
And I’ll be honest, while it’s most certainly WoW’s stiffest competition right now, I would also say that WoW should embrace the things it’s good at, and not necessarily try to follow suit just because “that’s how FFXIV does it”.
FFXIV has an incredible story, for sure. But also, other players don’t REALLY “exist” in it. YOU are the “Warrior of Light”, and that’s that. The story TELLS you who your friends are, what decisions you do or don’t make, and while they do a pretty solid job not making too many assumptions, there are certainly instances that can occasionally frustrate people.
Something I’ve advocated for YEARS is that Players should cease to be “Hero” or “Champion of the Horde/Alliance”, but instead go back to being a simple “Adventurer”. An MMO is never TRULY going to allow players to have any agency in the story, so to me, WoW should embrace that, and treat players loosely as adventurers and mercenaries, while the MAIN storylines can still continue to use the likes of Anduin, Wrathion, Tyrande and others.
You also mention one of FFXIV’s strengths is that you can be every class on one character. That’s very true. However, I’d suggest that it’s ALSO one of the game’s weaknesses; the game punishes you pretty brutally for trying to play more than one character. It really WANTS you to play a single character – and also WANTS you to spend money on Fantasia (race-change) potions, as frequently as possible.
One of the things I LOVE about WoW, is HAVING all these different characters, different classes and different races. It ensures that each “character” feels like a completely new experience.
I don’t think either approach is better or worse than the other. Rather, this is simply an area I would say the two are simply different.
But where FFXIV let’s everyone be everything, I would argue that because of it, “Races” in FFXIV feel completely inconsequential and lacking of any sort of identity.
Now FFXIV seems at least aware of that, where they can just say “all of these nations have been inter-mingling for YEARS”, but the problem is that doesn’t always line up with their own world, either. The Au Ra are a great example, where thus far, the Raen have never been shown to have a culture at all, and despite having JUST arrived in Eorzea, they’re just… randomly kind of everywhere? There’s an Au Ra Scholar of Baldesion, who MAY AS WELL just be a human girl, because in FFXIV, races don’t matter.
Again, that’s not “bad”, just “different”. But one of the things that makes new Races so much fun in WoW is that it also means experiencing brand-new cultures. Suramar and the Nightborne are a great example of this. Or the Worgen and Gilneas, a city I would VERY MUCH like to see repaired and made usable at some point. Or the Goblin starting area, which is still one of the funnest experiences in the game.
Like I said, I’m not just automatically against adding ANY sort of new combo. But I think real thought needs to go into that.
The Draenei, for example, I think actually get overlooked quite a lot in the Lore. These people fled from their home tens of thousands of years ago (maybe longer), and have constantly been on the run, their numbers further dwindling over time as their former loved ones hunted them down.
The idea of them becoming Rogues – who are literally Assassins as one of their specs – or presumably later on, becoming Warlocks – literally wielding the same powers and bartering with the same demons who’ve hunted and killed their loved ones – just feels like a fundamental betrayal of who the Draenei are.
Now again, if you’re saying “Hey, after the raid on Antorus, a few Eredar have come forward and are trying to make amends, THEY’RE going to have options like the Rogue and Warlock, but not others like Paladins or Priest”, then absolutely. That’s not just “Lore-friendly”, but it speaks to who THEY are, as a race or culture.
I think neglecting those sorts of details, though, just washes away a LOT of unspoken world-building, and undermines a lot of what makes each of these races culturally distinct and interesting.
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Oof those mogs! But a broken model would be pretty dope.
I’m not saying everything needs to be 100% lore following (I never played any of the Warcraft games anyway) but I do think there’s something fun in having restrictions that make a difference when choosing race class combos.
If there’s going to be every option, I’d love for there to be racial advantages/disadvantages to make it interesting.
But, this train isn’t stopping anyway, so it is what it is.
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Well that is supposed to be the thing with racial abilities. And as someone pointed out and I’m parroting, there should be some recognization that certain classes don’t fit the theme of the culture like orc warlocks.
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You’re free to just not play the taboo race/class combos if they get released.
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TL:DR
I just wanna be a vulpera DH that would be epic as heck
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They don’t really have the same impact. Think:
Tauren DH
- Jumpy stomp thing does increased DMG + 1 second stun
- reduced double jump and glide range
There is no way I am reading all of that, but like other posters here I agree with the title.
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The only change they have said they are making so far is that all races can be Warrior, Rogue, Mage, and Priest (and Death Knight when they “die”).
That’s only 5 classes out of 12 (not including Evoker, which is a specific circumstance). While there may be more combos in the future, I would argue that those 4 classes are the “core” classes of all fantasy tropes, and anything else is a riff off of those. Even D & D recognized this early on and truthfully it was actually a surprise not to find that in WoW.
I’m not going to argue with Blizz on these specific ones because I feel they just “make sense”, but I’d probably argue other points where the lore of a particular race might clash with another class opening up to them (such as a Draenei Warlock, which I fundamentally disagree they should be, despite any existing NPCs).
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I’m inclined to think that players will come up with great ideas to contextualize new class options.
For example, Goblins weren’t allowed to be monks because they generally lack the disposition. But just imagine a Goblin who is one of those workaholic CEOs who does beer yoga or power-meditation for quick stress relief, and is into the aesthetic of Pandaren culture while completely missing the point of it.
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You could still play those old race/class combos. They will likely have and still have the unique lore. It’s just that other races will also have access to the classes.
Like Lightforged dks… don’t really have much lore. And I have one that I have yet to level but it looks really cool. A veteran of the fourth war is it all it is. And all it needs to be. A very simple background.
I don’t like your view on orc mages though. They are directly descending from Ogres who are very good mages. And orcs are descended from titans as well as the humans. They have the same capabilities and different origins since the creature they descend from was made from wanting to maintain balance from the life beings on the planet.
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Muh lore.
LMAO.
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I see goblin monks as a way to have a guard force without needing weapons, just make beer for them to throw at people. It’s goblin genius inspired by Kaja-cola. The Kaja-cola someone enhances there mistweaver capabilities.
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I sincerely think you are right on the money.
But while to a lot of us WoW is this amazing virtual fantasy World with living history and culture that should be respected; to Blizzard, it is just a product.
So they are going to do whatever they think, no matter how stupid or destructive to the framing of the game (as seen with addition of cross faction play), will cater to the greatest amount of customers in order to bring in the most amount of money they can for their product.
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No…at an RPG standpoint, there are some races that should be unable to be certain classes.
Let’s look at Lightforged Draenei. Their bodies and souls have been fundamentally changed, or forged, by the Light. They would be unable to wield the powers of the Void or Fel, because doing so in any capacity would result in them being, essentially, disoriented and put under great pain ot even destruction with repeated use of conflicting forces.
For this same reason, Void Elves would be unable to wield the Light or Fel. Draenei, Humans, and Dwarves are cultures that actively participate in the worship of the Light. The members of these races who fall under this category would be met with incredible resistance if they tried to use alternate powers, but wouldn’t be unable to like Lightforged or Void Elves. Even a large portion of Blood Elves would be affected as their energy is sustained by the energy of a Naaru.
Being a Paladin is a lot more than just being some priest who puts on plate armor and picks up a big hammer or sword. They are fundamentally devout followers of the Light who trained together in a Brotherhood rigorously, and they have to be this way in order to wield the Light effectively in combat. (Blizzard largely based the idea of Paladins off of Jedi)
Cacnonically, Tauren Paladins aren’t even Paladins in the sense Humans or Dwarves are Paladins. A Tauren Paladin is literally a solar druid. I have no idea what Zanadalari Freethinkers are, but they’re dumb.
I’m all for them removing class/race restriction at this point because the playerbase has proven that lore and RPG elements have become a non-focal point of the game, but the issue when removing these RPG elements and justifying it as: “anyone can work hard and become what they want!” is this:
It removes all uniqueness from the game. The places we’ve been, the history that’s happened between every race, the conflicts that were resolved and unresolved–it takes away the sense of the WORLD in World of Warcraft.
I remember a time when Shamanism was a unique part of the culture to Tauren, Orcs, and Trolls. When Night Elves were seen as a Druidic Society with fierce female warriors, when Light worship was what made Humans and Drawves unique. When Goblins and Gnomes had very different forms of engineering…the list goes on and on.
Everything is being homogenized, and whether or not that’s good, I don’t know.
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That might have been their name back in vanilla/OG ZG but BFA named them Prelates and they are, more or less, warriors blessed by the loa like human/dwarf paladins are blessed by the light.
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I would just point out that just like Forsaken using the Light as Priests seems antithetical, so too does LFD as a Shadow Priest. Yet, both are allowed.
There are some lines they have already crossed.
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The lines crossed are more due to game mechanics, lore wise the light brings pain to the forsaken and as such, via lore, they are mostly shadow and/or discipline priests.
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