World of Elfcraft : Battle for Elves

[Ielenia]

Blizzard (..) are giving what is basically Blood Elves to the Alliance

They are literally giving Blood Elves to the Alliance. Void Elves are Blood Elves, not High Elves. At least, according to WoWPedia.

[Mirishka]

I never said they dismissed further options, nor did I imply that the selection itself was the problem. It's an issue of quantity. With as much time as they're shaving off, giving us only 6 is pretty lazy, honestly.

So in your world, something not being the way you want it to be = laziness?

- - - Updated - - -

They are literally giving Blood Elves to the Alliance. Void Elves are Blood Elves, not High Elves. At least, according to WoWPedia.

And blood elves are, themselves, high elves.

"The high elves' reluctant allegiance to the latter proved short-lived, as the high elven king Anasterian Sunstrider quickly grew apathetic to the plight of his allies, and officially seceded his nation.[2][6] Subsequently, the high elven kingdom was brought to the brink of annihilation when Prince Arthas Menethil invaded the country, and slew almost 90% of the high elves.[5] Rallied by Lor'themar Theron, second-in-command of the fallen Sylvanas Windrunner, the high elves rejoined with Prince Kael'thas Sunstrider, and were proclaimed the blood elves, in honor of their perished brethren.[7] The blood elves seek to unite and restore their people to the glory they enjoyed at the height of high elf civilization,[8] and have retaken much of their land from the Scourge."

[Zarc]

OP is totally missing the point of Allied Races. Aside from perhaps the Nightborne, every Allied Race is just a variation of already existing models, which is the whole point. Lots of additional diversity for a relatively minor effort. I bet they can do a whole bunch of variations like this for every race could do that have a new unique model. Would you have rather had them not have any customization options on the existing races in exchange for there having been like 2 more races in the game? I wouldn't. Every once in a while they can add a new race with a unique model, but combining that with Allied Races that are just variations of existing races is the perfect way to greatly expand the diversity of character appearances. I expect, and hope, that Mag'har Orcs, Wildhammer Dwarves and more variations of Trolls and Taurens will be next. Not to mention more Elves! Like Forsaken (High) Elves and just plain High Elves.

[Ielenia]

And blood elves are, themselves, high elves.

Not disputing that, but you'd have to be quite blind to ignore the massive chasm between Blood Elves, and High Elves that did not go through with Kael'Thas decision to rename their race, like Veressa Windrunner and the Silver Covenant elves. Yes, biologically, they're the same, but political and ideologically, they're very much separate. Perhaps the beginning of BfA will change that, but, as far as I know, High Elves still bear a nearly xenophobic hate for their green-eyed brothers and sisters.

[Wildberry]

Yeah well "there's no excuse to have only 6 allied races" didn't exactly acknowledge that more are coming.

Am I supposed to acknowledge public statements from Blizzard every time I criticize them?

And thematically the ones we're getting make sense. Going back to Outland to recruit orcs and dwarves we haven't seen in a decade doesn't. That's not to say that they wouldn't make great allies or playable options, but recent events in recent expansions explain most of the ones we're getting. The nightborne, void elves, lightforged draenei, etc are all things we've dealt with in recent months and the Zandalari were a dominant force as recently as Mists.

WotLK, and SoO already showed us that the Mag'har had been pretty well-integrated with the Horde already. There's no need to go back to Outland to recruit a race that's been fighting alongside you. Plus, it's not like the Dark Iron are entirely relevant according to the criteria you've outlined.

Honestly I think its odd that you're complaining about this at all. We're getting SIX new race options at the start of an expansion. That's unprecedented. I get it, the whole 'but they're not the 6 I want!' schtick, but its still a really cool thing.

Because they've managed to shave a significant chunk of work off from launching these races. Look at WoD for example. The expansion had a lot of problems, but they put a massive amount of work into the new models. We technically got "no new races," but we had, what, 16 new models at launch, and four more in 6.1?

Conversely, the Highmountain, Lightforged Draenei Dark Iron, from what we've seen, already exist. The Nightborne only require model tweaks, as do the Void Elves (I'm giving Blizzard the benefit of the doubt here, and assuming they'll require a unique animation for their transformation ability. Otherwise, they're reskins). The only "unique" model are the Zandalari (and we still need more information to see whether or not they're using MoP-Zandalari skeletons, animation is the biggest time sink for modeling), and those would have been made anyway.

Given how much work they're saving, I really don't think it's too much to be bothered by the fact that they're stopping there, rather than just adding in things which literally already exist.

So in your world, something not being the way you want it to be = laziness?

No, I didn't exactly want Monks or Pandaren for example, but launching a new race and a class took a decent amount of work. Shaving down one's workload, and leaving it as-is, however, is kind of lazy.

[Magnagarde]

Nightborne don't fit into the Horde as have no elves in the past and the void elves don't fit into the Alliance.

All the allied races except these two are great.

[Rhlor]

I would have preferred forest troll before Zandalari, Zandalari were enemies of the Horde and Revantusk are part of the horde from WC2

[Jagd]

Really not thrilled to see more elves on horde. Still don't like blood elves :/ But hey, need to make some money off those race transfers as everyone seems to lap up some delicious fantasy elf trope. Our Elves Are Better

[Al Gorefiend]

I agree with @Wildberry honestly. Every discussion of sub-races the community has ever had in the history of forever uses Mag'har/Mok'Nathal Orcs as the most cited example. Everyone wanted unhunched Orcs as well.

They should have been the FIRST ones to be completed and showcased.

But yeah, look at how people in this thread are already being thrown into a hissy over semantics regarding blood elf/high elf differences. Elves sell, nerds are sluts for elves. Blizzard made elves. :/

[Maxilian]

I agree with @Wildberry honestly. Every discussion of sub-races the community has ever had in the history of forever uses Mag'har/Mok'Nathal Orcs as the most cited example. Everyone wanted unhunched Orcs as well.

They should have been the FIRST ones to be completed and showcased.

But yeah, look at how people in this thread are already being thrown into a hissy over semantics regarding blood elf/high elf differences. Elves sell, nerds are sluts for elves. Blizzard made elves. :/

Well they did said that the unhunched orcs are comming (i believe they are comming with the first couple races -as an option in the barber shop-)

[Pull My Finger]

It's SUB RACES, not completely new races, for God's sake. It's a customization option for something that's already there.

[TyrannicalPuppy]

Yeah, that's basically my complaint : I wanted a whole new skeleton, even if it was only for the lauch races and others would use existing ones :S

You're trading quality for quantity, mate. More races = fewer custom skeletons.

[zlygork]

It's SUB RACES, not completely new races, for God's sake. It's a customization option for something that's already there.

Nope, they are entirely independent races

[MyWholeLifeIsThunder]

I mean they are allied races, the whole point is that they are easier to implement? The fact that they have said more will come in the future makes me hopeful we will be seeing more varied stuff, and even when new skeletons take a lot of effort, I do hope they are implemented through the Allied Races system. Today is elves, hopefully in the future something more new.

And blood elves are, themselves, high elves.

"The high elves' reluctant allegiance to the latter proved short-lived, as the high elven king Anasterian Sunstrider quickly grew apathetic to the plight of his allies, and officially seceded his nation.[2][6] Subsequently, the high elven kingdom was brought to the brink of annihilation when Prince Arthas Menethil invaded the country, and slew almost 90% of the high elves.[5] Rallied by Lor'themar Theron, second-in-command of the fallen Sylvanas Windrunner, the high elves rejoined with Prince Kael'thas Sunstrider, and were proclaimed the blood elves, in honor of their perished brethren.[7] The blood elves seek to unite and restore their people to the glory they enjoyed at the height of high elf civilization,[8] and have retaken much of their land from the Scourge."

I'm not being shady here, but why do people keep missing the point on this? High Elves and Blood Elves currently both exist in game as separate political entities, The Silver Covenant High Elves being present in several alliance campaigns since WotLK. Do you realize that when people say "we'd like high elves" they are talking about the Alliance High Elves currently within the faction?

Yes, WE ALL KNOW that Blood Elves and High Elves are genetically the same, the point has ALWAYS been about how they have divided themselves in two political groups, one belonging to the horde, and the other to the alliance, much like the Tushui/Huojin divide, with a far more established lore that has spawned across expansions.

[TyrannicalPuppy]

Nope, they are entirely independent races

What, exactly, is the division point between "subrace" and "independent race"? They are races with different customisation options based on already existing races. Sounds pretty "subrace"y to me.

[Marrilaife]

Simple matter of popularity, bet more players Horde side will end up playing Nightborne than we'd ever see playing potential Ogres, who would be another niche race picked by maybe 1-2% of the playerbase.

Last 10 years of wow has proven Blood Elves win the popularity contest, so adding more elves is a good marketing move.

Also people asked for sub-races, new hairstyles, tattoos, new tauren horn styles, and so forth, for ages, so this is one of the approaches onto the subject.

Apparently no matter what, someone is gonna complain.

[zlygork]

What, exactly, is the division point between "subrace" and "independent race"? They are races with different customisation options based on already existing races. Sounds pretty "subrace"y to me.

The difference really comes down purely to gameplay. If you put their possible lore conenctions and appearances aside, they are mechanically fully disconnected races, whereas people were combinced our subraces would be a barbershop away.

[Mirishka]

Am I supposed to acknowledge public statements from Blizzard every time I criticize them?



WotLK, and SoO already showed us that the Mag'har had been pretty well-integrated with the Horde already. There's no need to go back to Outland to recruit a race that's been fighting alongside you. Plus, it's not like the Dark Iron are entirely relevant according to the criteria you've outlined.


Because they've managed to shave a significant chunk of work off from launching these races. Look at WoD for example. The expansion had a lot of problems, but they put a massive amount of work into the new models. We technically got "no new races," but we had, what, 16 new models at launch, and four more in 6.1?

Conversely, the Highmountain, Lightforged Draenei Dark Iron, from what we've seen, already exist. The Nightborne only require model tweaks, as do the Void Elves (I'm giving Blizzard the benefit of the doubt here, and assuming they'll require a unique animation for their transformation ability. Otherwise, they're reskins). The only "unique" model are the Zandalari (and we still need more information to see whether or not they're using MoP-Zandalari skeletons, animation is the biggest time sink for modeling), and those would have been made anyway.

Given how much work they're saving, I really don't think it's too much to be bothered by the fact that they're stopping there, rather than just adding in things which literally already exist.

No, I didn't exactly want Monks or Pandaren for example, but launching a new race and a class took a decent amount of work. Shaving down one's workload, and leaving it as-is, however, is kind of lazy.

The Dark Iron helped us tremendously during Mists, actually impressing Varian (and presumably, others) and made it clear that they wanted to contribute. Sure that took a few years to manifest, but people have wanted playable DI dwarves for a long while. I saw requests for that as far back as vanilla on the official forums.

And hey, you make some valid points, but 'lazy' is a tired, cliche'd criticism. Blizzard has its share of problems as a developer, but laziness isn't one of them... Legion for example, I'd argue that Legion changed too much stuff and tried too many things that didn't stick.

So when I see 'lazy' I tend to roll my eyes because it almost always boils down to 'they didn't do what I wanted'. Even you, your whole post can be boiled down to 'the 2 races I want aren't in, they're lazy'.

There's literally like 10 more that I'd like... Vrykul, mantid, mechagnomes, etc - but I still recognize the work that goes into the 6 we're initially getting. You seem to think its so easy, since some of those models are already there - but there's a big difference between 'some models in the files' and 'fully-functioning, playable race'.

And frankly you aren't familiar enough with their processes in general, much less those related to creating their races, to know what is being left 'as-is'. That's pure speculation on your part.

- - - Updated - - -

Apparently no matter what, someone is gonna complain.

If WoW cured cancer, people would find a way to complain about it.

- - - Updated - - -

What, exactly, is the division point between "subrace" and "independent race"? They are races with different customisation options based on already existing races. Sounds pretty "subrace"y to me.

The division is that they are separate, selectable races at the menu level. You don't make a standard dwarve and then pick a dark iron skin. You either make a dwarf or a dark iron dwarf, which will have its own emotes, voice, etc.

Nightborne, as another example, are completely different from existing night elves in Legion - and will be even more so in BFA because they're being remodeled. Their models in Legion look nice but are not designed to be a playable race, as all their clothes and armor and such are actually 3d-modeled as part of their bodies. That does not lend itself to the manner in which Blizz does interchangeable armor/clothes for playable races.

[Florena]

So, Blizzard once again heard the people's demands, and are giving what is basically Blood Elves to the Alliance and Night Elves to the Horde.

To me, it's really too many elves, but hey, I understand, even if I don't share the passion every fantasy nerd has with elves (I'm more of a dwarf kinda guy ).

The problem, to me, is that for launch features, these seem quite underwhelming. I would have been happier with more exotism, even while considering the popular demand : what about Ogres ? What about those "bulky" human models we can see in Kul'Tiras ?

The "allied races" features deserved more "effort", at least, give us a new race that doesn't use another playable race's skeleton..
Also their racials seem very powerful, and may soon make these races mandatory choices if you want to dabble in endgame content, depending on how powerful the racials end up to be. So we'll end up playing a Warcraft game with little to no orcs OR humans..

Everyone kept complaining about "orcs orcs orcs" during WoD (which I actually liked), but how come no one complains about "elves, elves, elves" now that we've had so many elf focus during Legion (particulary 7.1) and more are coming our way ?

TL ; DR : I understand, but still, I don't get it.

Specifically on the orc complaint, that came about from fighting ORCS ORCS ORCS with a small side of goblins for the last two patches of MOP, leading right into fighting ORCS ORCS ORCS in WoD. The latter part of MOP had the 'true horde' as the antagonist followed by the iron horde. People wanted something else.

Early Legion does have a lot of elf stuff. But it was also the elf's day in the sun with them not getting attention as consistently as orcs tended to before, and wasn't chaitned together over two expansions like mostly fighting orcs was. If the end of Legion saw us fighting elves fora year and then we lead into fighting more elves as the main foes of BFA we'd probably get the same complaint.

[Lazuli]

They've said these 6 are just the beginning.

And it isn't all just copy-paste - Nightborne had to be remodeled for BFA to take classic armors/customization into account. Their armor in Legion is fully 3d modeled geometry, and a part of their core mesh files. 0 compatibility with the way WoW applies armor and textures to currently playable races.

That's sad... they actually downgraded them instead of letting us have 3D model gear, I am crying on the inside. Didn't they even think of this while doing the new updated models in the first place? It's silly as fuck having head/shoulder/belt/glove/boot look decent then your chest piece is just ugly as fuck painted onto your character.