A way to address racials in a possible revamp...

[Skytotem]

Perhaps break them into Race, Class, and Faction subsets, where you pick a few from each 'pool' of racials upon character creation?

That way the racials that you really can't do without don't end up on just one race (Every Man for Himself for example) but not everyone has them, for example, a night elf priest might have an elune themed racial while a human priest might have one that's the same mechanically, but aesthetically different, but since a racial for priests might not be ideal for warriors, they might pick out something different when making their character.

Plus, we could have a gnome mage and a forsaken mage with the same 'mage' racial but could differ in everything else.

At the other end of the spectrum, two orc warriors might have similar racials overall, but differ in whether they took ones that'd be ideal for tanks or pve or pvp or whatever.

What do you guys think? I worry that having a subset tied to class, while cool, might end up too similar to passive talents.

[Justignoreme]

As unbalanced as they are now, I'm complacent with them. GCs tone makes it seem like they aren't going to adjust them anyways. As far as aesthetics. If they can give Warlocks green fire via class quest, they can give Night Elf priestesses silver spells via class/race quests.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

I imagine GC's opinion is the same as his opinion on flying. "I don't want it, but it's there now."

[velde046]

That way the racials that you really can't do without don't end up on just one race (Every Man for Himself for example) but not everyone has them, for example, a night elf priest might have an elune themed racial while a human priest might have one that's the same mechanically, but aesthetically different, but since a racial for priests might not be ideal for warriors, they might pick out something different when making their character.

That's actually more a talent you're talking about now...

Plus, we could have a gnome mage and a forsaken mage with the same 'mage' racial but could differ in everything else.

really lol, did you even look at that sentence? Mage is not a race.... gnomes and Forsaken are races, mages are classes.... so technically it would be a choosable class trait, which we have in the form of talents....

And if every race got access to the same racial abilities albeit in a different form then there would be no reason to choose a specific race anymore...
I chose gnome mage because of the Expansive Mind ability, just a I chose human for my Priest for the spirit racial etc.
The game is also about making decisions and should remain that way. It's not like the racials are game-breaking really....



At the other end of the spectrum, two orc warriors might have similar racials overall, but differ in whether they took ones that'd be ideal for tanks or pve or pvp or whatever.

[anabolicz]

It's just a shame that every PvP player is forced to play "HUMAN" in a fantasy game.. Yeah if u ain't no human playing them arenas u ain't smart...
I wanna be a tauren paladin /sob /sob

[Soulwind]

Basically, faction talent trees?

I would remove racials completely, or leave them as aesthetic fun abilities.

[Deleted]

I like your idea, it should be a perk on creation screen. (or just remove this crap completly, and give every race some fun, but totally useless racials.)

[anabolicz]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XihmoY0shI4

[Krob]

i think that racials are an heritage from other fantasy games, where they reflect the fact that a dwarf is tougher than a human and so on.. At the end of the day you choose the race/class you like for subjective reasons and having a good bonus is just what it's called, a bonus