Every move blizz makes is to get the game further and further away from making any sense so that anything goes. It doesn’t matter what people with standards want; that effort will go over the heads of average normie target consumers. Blizz wants the lowest common denominator to log in for the first time and say “hurrdurr I can play a sneaky hanburger, I’m so funny see guys”, to the detriment of our game.
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Tauren Paladins are a better example of why stagnation is bad for class themes because Tauren Paladins were a fantastic inclusion to the lore of utilizing the Light.
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I’m not super against Tauren Paladins, but they could use much more lore.
We need restrictions added back into the game. We can accompany it with story on how certain groups were wiped out and players cannot create these race/class combinations anymore.
I’m so happy this thread exists so that the dev team can see not everyone is ready to throw race identity out the window!
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just gona give my 2 cents didn;t read much.
Class/race combo’s should be opened up but…
SOME OF THEM SHOULD GET ADDITIONAL WORK with a CLASS NAME CHANGE but still mechanically the same class
Night elf paladins → Elune - Moonlight Themed class skin - Sentinel of Elune
Void Elf paladin → Void Knight
ALL Elf shamans → keep lighting themes but remove some of the elemental themes for Forest based ones (totems will be totems still themed racially)
think instead of fire/Air/Earth elemental a Ancient of War/Lore/Life
this could be done and rework existing combo’s like Dark iron Paladin a fire themed skin/Tauren Paladin - Druid based Sunwalker skin
Death Knights were raised from all classes, not just paladins, and going by the original DK races, there were more races that were raised as death knights that could not be paladins then could be.
Original races that could be paladins (4):
Draeni, Dwarf, Human, Blood Elf
Original races that could not be paladins (5):
Gnome, NightElf, Tauren, Troll, Undead
Exception Tauren after Wrath, but at the time of DK introduction they could not. However if giving Tauren to can be paladins in Cata, Worgen and Goblin also added as DK’s in Cata both could not be paladins, so it remains more races raised as death knights could not be paladins then could.
So saying that there is ‘victim to homogenization’ due to paladin relation to Death Knights is silly, since the can’t be paladins raised outnumbered those that could be, before BFA and Allied races.
Look at this guy adding immersion instead of restricting. What a guy.
Explain how.
Lore-wise, Tauren Paladins don’t exist. They literally ARE NOT PALADINS IN THE LORE ITSELF! To me, that is completely and utterly bonkers. They’re “Sun Druids”.
They don’t worship “the Light”, they don’t have any sort of connection to the Silver Hand, nor is there even so much as an attempt to bridge the gap during the Paladin Class Hall in Legion, where your character literally becomes Highlord of the Silver Hand.
Zandalari Prelates, while understandably quite different, are still clearly PALADINS. They’re new enough, there really hasn’t been any opportunity to elaborate on their connection to the Light or how it might correlate (or differ) from those of other Paladins, but it’s still very much in the same spirit.
Tauren Paladins are literally just a case of “just add it as an option, we literally don’t care”.
Good thing you’re not a dev for WoW. You are right, the game is “World of Warcraft”, but nothing in that name means you can be this but can’t be this.
And also, Player Characters in lore a defined as “unnamed champion.” There is nothing stating on what we look like, what class we are, what our race is.
Second of all, some class/race restrictions that will be eventually lifted, would also be coming with lore to how they would work. Just like how the Tauren Paladins are actually Tauren Sunwalkers, or the Zandalari Paladins are Zandalari Prelates.
I mean I put it this way, I am just sick and tired of all the gatekeeping people come to the forums that do to others because they disagree with it. Every single time, there is someone trying to gatekeep something because they disagree with it. Enough is enough!
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They do now.
There’s no such thing. Find one, just one, reference to Sun Druids in lore. I’ll wait.
I want an actual link, not your head canon.
Yes they do. An’she is a god of Light.
They do now. Aponi is one of the leaders.
They didn’t need a huge back story and I wish they would have been given some but it comes down to they’re a noble warrior race that worships a god of Light. It’s really that simple.
Lore grows and evolves. Deal with it. You are an example of lore growing and evolving. Death Knights used to be Horde 1.0 only and orcs shoved into Paladin bodies.
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They worship their interpretation of the Light.
That’s more on Blizzard for going the safe route and designing the Legion Paladin Class Hall solely for Alliance races, except Draenei. This isn’t a Tauren Paladin issue, this was an issue with using the Silver Hand.
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It is such a mediocre hill that they are willingly and openly choosing to die upon with so much frothing, it honestly is starting to feel embarrassing to see their retorts.
A handful of restrictions are going to be lifted in DL, and suddenly they act like someone put a lego in their shoe. When it was clearly stated now already in multiple interviews that it is a work in progress and not opening the damn flood gates at once.
My theory is we’ll, get what they announced for PrePatch / DL Launch, and possibly two more combos during each major patch update, probably each with the similar miniquest lines that happened for Taurens and Night Elves.
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I do think CERTAIN race and class combos should be open, and classes like Monk have no reason not to be open to every class. Demon Hunter Draenei and orcs also are something that makes sense and would be really fun.
That said I’m really hoping that say, Goblins don’t get druids. I adore goblins, really. But that makes no lore sense.
Not only that, but Faction and Racial identity are big parts of what makes WoW, WoW.
Also a lot of people using the restrictions options are kind of forgetting that, WoW, has 23 different playable races with their own lore, and everything. FFXIV has 9 and that’s only if you count the two Hyur Clans separately. Everything else is just customization differences. There’s a much more limited choice, and FFXIV leans into the “your character is special” WAY more than WoW does.
More options and flexibility is fine, just like I think Adding cross faction content is fine. but doing away with some of the class restrictions entirely kind of ruin what makes WoW a unique mmo.
The truly sad thing is that Blizzard could make a compelling and immersive story for their inclusion, but folks will stamp it as bad writing solely because they believe it shouldn’t exist.
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The thing is, SOMEBODY has to be willing to support the integrity of the setting. Because otherwise, the setting doesn’t matter, and it’s all little more than cheap fanfic.
Ideally, it would be Blizzard. But with them talking about throwing away those distinctions, it paints the image that the folks working at Blizzard don’t care about the setting anymore. I certainly hope that isn’t the case, but it’s why I feel the need to present this point of view.
Like I said, these “restrictions” are a large part of what help define who and what these different racial cultures are. It’s what makes the world so uniquely “Warcraft”. The Tauren aren’t tinkerers, they aren’t scholarly mages, they aren’t ruthless necromancers; they’re a primitive, spiritual people, and their class choices are a reflection of that.
If everyone can be everything, then Tauren are no longer “a people”, they’re simply “a species”. They lose even more of their identity and what little agency they’ve ever really had in the story. Then nothing distinguishes a Night Elf from a Blood Elf or the Nightborne, or a Void Elf. They’re just “slightly different cosmetic choices”.
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You say this after WoD, BFA, and Shadowlands?
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Interesting how you deleted your own thread on this then. Care to answer why?
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I’m pretty sure I am breaking the rules here by saying this, but someone marked it as trolling and the mods took it down. I don’t think I have ever been so shocked by a mod action. There are so many obvious troll posts that people put up. I have an unpopular opinion that I actually believe in and it is considered trolling…
These mods are garbage… im sorry
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You’re looking at it from the wrong point of view. I’m going to use Blood Elves and Void Elves for example on this one, before anyone attacks me over this, I do not advocate for VE Paladins in this post, but lets just say the class/race restrictions are all unlocked now, and people were rolling between the Void Elves and Blood Elves for the Paladin class. Now, the culture identity would be different between both groups, because technically in the lore, the Blood Elves would be known as Blood Knights, and I can’t confirm by lore or any actual sources for the Void Elves except for observation, but the Void Elves would be known as the Riftblades. That would be the culture identity. (As I mentioned, can’t confirm with any lore sources for the Void Elves, just observation from other posters and what is seen in game.)
Now, the thing is, it isn’t the removal of the class/race restrictions that is going to harm the game, but more or less, the bad implementations. If Blizzard just removes the class/race restrictions, then yes, it would be bad. But if Blizzard adds lore, and really gets back on track to adding decent lore to how these could work, then no, it wouldn’t be harmful to the game.