How would you feel if humans became playable on the horde

[Vasaru]

Dumbest idea I've ever read. It really irritates me that some people actually wants this..

[Deleted]

You might as well market it as a different franchise, because I can barely recognize the original Warcraft universe as it is now.

Expanding the universe is fine, of course, but it has to stay within certain parameters to keep it recognizable. They're crossing that line too often.

[BeneditaNBeatriz]

i feel like human females would get insta rape from male orcs.

[ravenmoon]

I would find it extremely dumb and as an obvious way of trying to make the two factions more like each other. I don't play as human though so that wouldn't really make me go horde so... would just be extremely stupid and I see no good reason for it really.

the objective is not to make the two factions like each other, it's to allow access to humans on the horde to make them ore popular. Nothing tried so far has worked as intended, and I for one am tired of keepiging the ball rolling in so in favour of the horde just to keep you guys picking the faction up, I want are more drastic and effective solution, and I see nothing else that beats this.

I don't agree with the fears it would make the factions the same, because they never have been the same, even humans on the horde has not achieved the effect (humans on the horde as undead humans). yes the face of the factions change as they add new races, they add new races to progress the game. Humans are already on the horde as undead forsaken, so having some of those undead living again does not change the identity of the horde.

and if you're worried about having visual similarities, then use the blood elf model for the horde forsaken humans and leave the alliance model unique to the alliance. Sub-races, which is the only feasible way human horde can be introduced, ALL use adapted versions of the new models for each race, so it is no tall order to adapt the blood elf model to human by giving them human ears, eyes, eyebrows & facial hair options, and also swap some of the more elven hairstyles for human ones.

yes the races share a lot of hairstyles as it is, sub-races won't change that.

[Celista]

Dumbest idea I've ever read. It really irritates me that some people actually wants this..

Agree. I mean really, there is NO lore justification for this.

[Deleted]

It would be a winning move for PvP balance. Apparently humans are 'OP', although I've never experienced it as so, they just screw up all my BGs.

[ravenmoon]

You might as well market it as a different franchise, because I can barely recognize the original Warcraft universe as it is now.

Expanding the universe is fine, of course, but it has to stay within certain parameters to keep it recognizable. They're crossing that line too often.

a point not many people seem to be recognising, because the franchise changes, and the developers are okay with that, they've changed it a lot, and they have their reasons.

some of the changes made for a great story, and that was the motivation - the whole WC3 came as a result. They did want to add new coampaingns form different sides, but the story determined the direction. With wow, writing a story is much harder on a live action mmo as opposed to a single fixed player rpg, as such gameplay determines everything.

The advent of phasing allowed a story to be told in the wow world environment, but still at a struggle, many changes are made based on gameplay and they have determined the lore. They wanted undead playable, so the horde got a human race called forsaken. They wanted night elves playable as part of a 2 faction system, so they made them alliance when the story was much better with them as their own faction.

They need the horde to be more attractive and appealing so more people will play it evening out the numbers. So initially they gave them better racials, then they added blood elves to the horde instead, then they gave them better stories, better characters, richer developements and plots, they intentionally did this at the expense of the alliance races, nerfing the night elves hard, muting the progress of alliance in comparison to horde.. this affected the whole balance, but the motivation was gameplay.

Just as they changed lore aspects like night elves using magic and the highbourne exile lifted, Tauren adopting a formalized religion in the light so they could have paladin and priest options, undead initially portrayed as extremely un0--natural and against nature can suddenly now tame beasts who love them like best buddies.

Remember they made druids available to the horde and females for gameplay reason, made the alliance able to have warlocks for the same reason, crossed paladins over to the horde and shaman over to the alliance for the same reason.

Balance means everything, and yes, you're right, the distinction has already taken a hit as it is, my point to you is that living human models on the horde wouldn't affect that side anymore than it is already affected, so there is no good reason not to make it happen and many good reasons to make it happen.

[Jessicka]

I know it sounds really way out there, but before you write the first thing that comes to your mind, STOP a sec, actually think about it and imagine.

this will help, don't think that these are alliance humans joining the horde. Think of this as humans being playable on the horde. I know this isn't easy to think of it like this, but try.

Let me know how you feel about this, why you feel the way that you feel - before you attack the notion of the idea.

It will hlep if you think of the forsaken being the source of the humans. In my version, some of the undead human forsaken somehow get cured, not all of them. It also helps to remember that they really do hate the alliance, so they're loyal to the horde, but also to bear in mind, hating the alliance doesn't mean they're evil, and it's quite possible to write good roles for them, a story of redemption, loyally forsaken, but different because of this transformation.

How will you feel about playing this kind of human on the horde, how do you feel it will affect the game? This is not a proposal topic, it's an exploration one, imagine what if. There are reasons i will share later I do think this will benefit the video game, but I'd like to hear your thoughts.

There are humans. They are called Forsaken. I don't see how getting human models and racials is important.

[Zarc]

From a lore standpoint: Indifferent
From a gameplay standpoint: I like me some differences between factions.

From a lore standpoint: Outrageous, I would hate this.
From a gameplay standpoint: Indifferent


Visuals and models is shit without the awesome lore that WoW has, this is one of the reasons why WoW is so much better for me than say, Rift. I played Rift but always felt indifferent to the game because I wasn't involved in whatever lore that game has. Same with Guild Wars 2. For WoW I know it all and the game is like a book to me, where I want to stay tuned and updated with the story. I haven't even had a sub for 6+ months, but I still follow the story of it, and the story is what will makes me return every new expansion. Of course I return for the content and gameplay, too, but without the story I would probably have chosen other games over a WoW expansion now when the game is almost 10 years old. But I'm involved, so I stick around.

The fundamental conflict of Warcraft is that of Orcs and Humans, and therefore having either on the other faction would just ruin a lot of the spirit of the game, and the core conflict. But of course, the fallen human nation of Alterac (now the Syndicate) could for example join the Horde just like the Forsaken and the Blood Elves did, for an alliance of convenience. And the Horde seem to accept anybody as they accepted the Forsaken and the Blood Elves. So lore-wise it wouldn't be outlandish or a bending of the lore in any way. But it would be bad for the story.

[Deleted]

I'd rather take the Vrykul into the Horde than cured Forsaken.

[ravenmoon]

From a lore standpoint: Outrageous, I would hate this.
From a gameplay standpoint: Indifferent


Visuals and models is shit without the awesome lore that WoW has, this is one of the reasons why WoW is so much better for me than say, Rift. I played Rift but always felt indifferent to the game because I wasn't involved in whatever lore that game has. Same with Guild Wars 2. For WoW I know it all and the game is like a book to me, where I want to stay tuned and updated with the story. I haven't even had a sub for 6+ months, but I still follow the story of it, and the story is what will makes me return every new expansion. Of course I return for the content and gameplay, too, but without the story I would probably have chosen other games over a WoW expansion now when the game is almost 10 years old. But I'm involved, so I stick around.

The fundamental conflict of Warcraft is that of Orcs and Humans, and therefore having either on the other faction would just ruin a lot of the spirit of the game, and the core conflict. But of course, the fallen human nation of Alterac (now the Syndicate) could for example join the Horde just like the Forsaken and the Blood Elves did, for an alliance of convenience. And the Horde seem to accept anybody as they accepted the Forsaken and the Blood Elves. So lore-wise it wouldn't be outlandish or a bending of the lore in any way. But it would be bad for the story.

by the way.. I love a lore guy, you guys make an interesting discussion.. i mean this means so much less without interesting lore. It's one of the reasons too that SwToR and WoW appeal to me so much more than Rift and GW2, they have much better story backgrounds and they really gooda t showing them.

The fundamental conflict of Warcaraft is Orcs and Humans, and playable humans on the horde side as sub-group won't change this at all. You have to remember, humans are already playable on the horde as undead, humans played a part actively on the horde as a sub-group too in WC2 when Alterac sided with the horde. You recognize this good. THe horde as already accepted the forsaken, that won't change should some of the forsaken become living again causing no conflict to the Orc v Human core.

this is why I urged posters to not imagine these humans as alliance humans - it's hard to present an idea without a full trailer that actually shows this. And the stuff you can do with the story of how som e of the forsaken undead manage to become living again is immense. the impact for a great story also seeing that it is forsaken humans i.e. lorderaon humans that become living again,, you can resurrect Lordearon too.

it's oimportnat to realize you're not giving living foraken humans as a full race, they'll be a sub-race of forsaken, given with many sub-races of the other races in a package, - they allow access to a human looking model. My proposal is not to use the alliance human model anymore but rather adapt the blood elf model to human by giving them human ears, eyes, eyebrows and facial hair options (males), and swaping some of the more elvish male hair styles for human ones.

Can you imagine the possible implciations and what you could right if Sylvannas became living flesh again, or if she didn't and half of her undead became living again - they could infiltrate stormwind humans, rebuild lorderon, you could have orc/blood elf human stories , there could be power struggles.. coudl have some of the newer forsaken be so relieved to be living human again they abandon the forsaken group and get hunted down, the older forsaken would detest the alliance who tried to wipe them out as undead even when they had made it clear they were not scourge controlled by the lich king, but victims of an abusive violation of the highest order. They may turn out to be good and decent but they would want nothing to do with the human alliance or the pious night elves who woudl veiw some of their freinds still trapped as undead as abominations.

Could also do an intersting story of an undead couple where one half of the couple becomes human again (say the wife) and the other half remains undead (the husband) -- do we create some sort of miracle child? the stuff you could do with this would be AWESOME for the story.

[Laukkanen]

the objective is not to make the two factions like each other, it's to allow access to humans on the horde to make them ore popular. Nothing tried so far has worked as intended, and I for one am tired of keepiging the ball rolling in so in favour of the horde just to keep you guys picking the faction up, I want are more drastic and effective solution, and I see nothing else that beats this.

I don't agree with the fears it would make the factions the same, because they neve rhave been, and humans on the horde has not achieved the effect. yes the face of the factions change as they add new races, they add new races to progress the game. Humans are already on the horde as undead forsaken, so having some of those undead living again does not change the identity of the horde.

and if you're worried about having visual similarities, then use the blood elf model for the horde forsaken humans and leave the alliance model unique to the alliance. Sub-races, which is the only feasible way human horde can be introduced, ALL use adapted versions of the new models for each race, so it is no tall order to adapt the blood elf model to human by giving them human ears, eyes, eyebrows & facial hair options, and also swap some of the more elven hairstyles for human ones.

yes the races share a lot of hairstyles as it is, sub-races won't change that.

Can't Horde relish and enjoy the fact they are extremely imbalanced when it comes to top-raiding?

If they want to change the general player's view on the Horde I think they'd need to tune down the "rawr we kill stuff but we are still victim" rather than giving them another race from the alliance.

Last I looked it was 60-40 in Alliance favour. I don't see why that's a problem really. Horde are preferred when raiding in general whilst Alliance are the slightly more popular regular choice.

If you're trying to answer the question of how to find balance between the two factions in terms of what players roll I think you've stumbled upon the dumbest idea possible.

And the part about forsaken. The forsaken (human yes) identifies themselves as dead rather than living. They are the unliving and they identify themselves as that. I don't think they have that much in common with living humans anymore and I find that argument to be void.
If they still identified themselves close to human I assume they'd try to reach out to the Alliance and actually tell them the deal "yes we are dead, but we still see ourselves as lordareonians and we'd like to try to keep the connections between the two of us in order to keep Stormwind for the human, be it living or the dead." They haven't however, they consider themselves to be the true Lordareon people and anyone living (in dual sense) in the area are slaughtered/removed from the area.

Giving Horde humans as well would basically be "yeah some of them turned evil and wants to fight the Alliance but they are still the exact same race".

We already have some races that are close to/the same in-game but they actually differ themselves from each other somewhat. Forsaken are dead humans from Lordareon whilst the in-game humans are living Stormwinders.

Night Elves and Blood Elves have undergone changes that took 10 000 of years with their connection to/isolation from arcane and fel magic.

What kind of metamorphosis would these horde humans meet before they turned to the Horde? Because just introducing the exact same race to the other faction without any sort of genetic changes, serious lore creativity or different aspects is both boring and extremely uncreative.

And I think they can manage to take care of the imbalance (if that's even a problem) in another way, by introducing new cool and interesting races to both factions rather than giving the Horde an already existing and the most central of all the Horde races enemy.

[ravenmoon]

I'd rather take the Vrykul into the Horde than cured Forsaken.

that could be an option, i don't like it as much as I do cure forsaken, i would really like a humanity wing to the forsaken and the horde, it has much more potential than the Vrykul, but Vrykul is possible.. I also think that full human is more appealing to most players than a giant human, same with human san'layan.. (i think fully human is better than human vampires), but they are alternatives worth serious consideration.

[Doktor Faustus]

I am human, just a reanimated corpse.

I tilled my fields until the Kirin Tor realised my pumpkins were magically enchanted from my unknown skills, started training to be a mage.

Then the plague came, I died.

Scourge twisted my magi powers and made me turn to the dark arts.

Became a Warlock, torched many people and children of many races, then Lady Sylvanus broke the curse upon me, and now I serve her, until my rotting corpse gives in.

[ravenmoon]

There are humans. They are called Forsaken. I don't see how getting human models and racials is important.

exactly, so some of htem being living, again so you can have a human looking model for newbies and fans to pick giving more options (which is what sub-races does) would be a huge boost, right?

[Jessicka]

exactly, so some of htem being living, again so you can have a human looking model for newbies and fans to pick giving more options (which is what sub-races does) would be a huge boost, right?

If the lore fit, then I'm pretty indifferent. I think "healing" Forsaken is a really weak and terrible excuse to do that, however.

[Deleted]

a point not many people seem to be recognising, because the franchise changes, and the developers are okay with that, they've changed it a lot, and they have their reasons.

some of the changes made for a great story, and that was the motivation - the whole WC3 came as a result. They did want to add new coampaingns form different sides, but the story determined the direction. With wow, writing a story is much harder on a live action mmo as opposed to a single fixed player rpg, as such gameplay determines everything.

The advent of phasing allowed a story to be told in the wow world environment, but still at a struggle, many changes are made based on gameplay and they have determined the lore. They wanted undead playable, so the horde got a human race called forsaken. They wanted night elves playable as part of a 2 faction system, so they made them alliance when the story was much better with them as their own faction.

They need the horde to be more attractive and appealing so more people will play it evening out the numbers. So initially they gave them better racials, then they added blood elves to the horde instead, then they gave them better stories, better characters, richer developements and plots, they intentionally did this at the expense of the alliance races, nerfing the night elves hard, muting the progress of alliance in comparison to horde.. this affected the whole balance, but the motivation was gameplay.

Just as they changed lore aspects like night elves using magic and the highbourne exile lifted, Tauren adopting a formalized religion in the light so they could have paladin and priest options, undead initially portrayed as extremely un0--natural and against nature can suddenly now tame beasts who love them like best buddies.

Remember they made druids available to the horde and females for gameplay reason, made the alliance able to have warlocks for the same reason, crossed paladins over to the horde and shaman over to the alliance for the same reason.

Balance means everything, and yes, you're right, the distinction has already taken a hit as it is, my point to you is that living human models on the horde wouldn't affect that side anymore than it is already affected, so there is no good reason not to make it happen and many good reasons to make it happen.

Well-written.

All I can add is that I myself prioritize the story. I would not have made those changes that you listed, even if they greatly benefit the gameplay. Perhaps I am wrong in thinking that.

[Laukkanen]

If waht you're saying is true that they are trying to balance up the Horde and getting more subscribers to the Horde then why are they patch by patch, expansion by expansion turning the Horde more chaotic evil and less noble/honorable/somewhat morally attached to the world? It doesn't make sense really. Because for some reason the Alliance are gathering more players, and if its one thing that differs the two factions it would be the fact that the Alliance are slightly less evil/crooked/mental than the Horde.

[ravenmoon]

Can't Horde relish and enjoy the fact they are extremely imbalanced when it comes to top-raiding?

I feel you here. it's great for a horde fan, but it's not for an alliance fan, and not good for the game in the long run. 7 years is a long time to hold the advantage (and I say 7 instead of 10 years, because it wasn't till paladins were accessible to the horde that the pvE superiority became evident, and not until faction change became a reality mid WotLK before many guilds could take advantage of it by faction changing.

Still, as a game developer you do want both factions to be equally represented, and people to want to play both sides equally, to that effect you want the incentives to be equally balanced, you want both to be cool, both to have good storylines and plots, both to have some killer racials (especially the less popular races) etc. However if doing so means that most people will default to alliance because they have humans, you have to keep the horde with these advantages until you find a way that they are just as likely and do pick horde without having these advantages. Humans are the key to this. Without them, you have to keep the hoarde bias running indefinitely or people would stop picking them.

If they want to change the general player's view on the Horde I think they'd need to tune down the "rawr we kill stuff but we are still victim" rather than giving them another race from the alliance.

I agree, it is my hope that sub-groups will do this by introducing racial factions like Mag'har orcs, Taunka, Amani trolls, San'layan elves, human forsaken that either are noble and wise but bad ass groups like Mag'har and Taunka are, or are evil cruel sedastici pricks (Like Amani and San'layan are) you can write the darkspears and blood elves as actually being good without undermining the conflicted state of the horde or negating it's dark elements. without the san'layan and the amani trolls becoming a playable part of the horde, the darkspears and blood elves becoming more virtuous smacks of far too much homogenization.

Last I looked it was 60-40 in Alliance favour. I don't see why that's a problem really. Horde are preferred when raiding in general whilst Alliance are the slightly more popular regular choice

. it is a huge problem, becusase to get it to 60/40 we've had to write up the horde, continue to give it superior storylines, plots, victories, coolness, giving better models, everything better really than the alliance in the last 9 years of development, only to cut the alliance lead from 75/25 to 55/45 (in the best models). Why? it's humans, most of the new players cannot identify with anything but humans, having them only on the alliance is giving it a default boost nothing that's been done is fixing and no developer wants to keep throwing everything at the horde, a developer wants a balanced story.

Fast forward to a movie, take Warcraft to the main screen, to focus on a decent conflict between the two factions, we'll have to default the alliance to win if they were the only ones that humans, because most of our audience is human and that sells - you mean gusy come in and invade us and get scary fuckers on their side, and they win in the end? we can't do that. We have to alter things about the horde and it works better for us if they had humans too they could identify with. Admittedly the movie having a common enemy can sidestep the issue for now, but warcraft presents a unique opportunity in film to have that and a conflict with equally likeable groups on both sides. otherwise it's just another lord of the rings.. humans and humanity triumphing over the monsters. What if both sides had monsters? and both sides had elves?
alliance monsters are worgen and Draenei even though draenei are sophisticated monsters (aliens)
horde monsters are orcs, trolls, tauren, goblin

human races: Alliance and horde both have humans and elves - both having evil and good ones, but both having the majority good characters..including the good undead, even if most of the undead are sedastic.

it makes for a far more palatible story. Furthermore, back to game, the story potential is enormous.

If you're trying to answer the question of how to find balance between the two factions in terms of what players roll I think you've stumbled upon the dumbest idea possible.

And the part about forsaken. The forsaken (human yes) identifies themselves as dead rather than living. They are the unliving and they identify themselves as that. I don't think they have that much in common with living humans anymore and I find that argument to be void.

maybe, but why are you really thinking it's dumb? is it because agian you're thinking they're humans, they can't possibly be in the horde at all? might you be thinking that because immediately what comes to mind is that goofy alliance human you like to bash in pvp. This is why presenting this without a trailer is hard, because you have to get people to stop thinking down that part, blizzard would have no trouble with that as their unveiling will demonstrate their origin plausibly, you wudln't think of them at all as being alliance humans...a point of view that only affects existing players. New players would see humans on horde or alliance and just pick one largely. a cool intro will help influence them, but in such a scenario as a devleoper you woudl want any race they pick on to be cool as that enitces them to the game. you don't want to sling all the coolness to one side to make them more attractive.

[Laukkanen]

I feel you here. it's great for a horde fan, but it's not for an alliance fan, and not good for the game in the long run. 7 years is a long time to hold the advantage (and I say 7 instead of 10 years, because it wasn't till paladins were accessible to the horde that the pvE superiority became evident, and not until faction change became a reality mid WotLK before many guilds could take advantage of it by faction changing.

Still, as a game developer you do want both factions to be equally represented, and people to want to play both sides equally, to that effect you want the incentives to be equally balanced, you want both to be cool, both to have good storylines and plots, both to have some killer racials (especially the less popular races) etc. However if doing so means that most people will default to alliance because they have humans, you have to keep the horde with these advantages until you find a way that they are just as likely and do pick horde without having these advantages. Humans are the key to this. Without them, you have to keep the hoarde bias running indefinitely or people would stop picking them.
I agree, it is my hope that sub-groups will do this by introducing racial factions like Mag'har orcs, Taunka, Amani trolls, San'layan elves, human forsaken that either are noble and wise but bad ass groups like Mag'har and Taunka are, or are evil cruel sedastici pricks (Like Amani and San'layan are) you can write the darkspears and blood elves as actually being good without undermining the conflicted state of the horde or negating it's dark elements. without the san'layan and the amani trolls becoming a playable part of the horde, the darkspears and blood elves becoming more virtuous smacks of far too much homogenization.

. it is a huge problem, becusase to get it to 60/40 we've had to write up the horde, continue to give it superior storylines, plots, victories, coolness, giving better models, everything better really than the alliance in the last 9 years of development, only to cut the alliance lead from 75/25 to 55/45 (in the best models). Why? it's humans, most of the new players cannot identify with anything but humans, having them only on the alliance is giving it a default boost nothing that's been done is fixing and no developer wants to keep throwing everything at the horde, a developer wants a balanced story.

Fast forward to a movie, take Warcraft to the main screen, to focus on a decent conflict between the two factions, we'll have to default the alliance to win if they were the only ones that humans, because most of our audience is human and that sells - you mean gusy come in and invade us and get scary fuckers on their side, and they win in the end? we can't do that. We have to alter things about the horde and it works better for us if they had humans too they could identify with. Admittedly the movie having a common enemy can sidestep the issue for now, but warcraft presents a unique opportunity in film to have that and a conflict with equally likeable groups on both sides. otherwise it's just another lord of the rings.. humans and humanity triumphing over the monsters. What if both sides had monsters? and both sides had elves?
alliance monsters are worgen and Draenei even though draenei are sophisticated monsters (aliens)
horde monsters are orcs, trolls, tauren, goblin

human races: Alliance and horde both have humans and elves - both having evil and good ones, but both having the majority good characters..including the good undead, even if most of the undead are sedastic.

it makes for a far more palatible story. Furthermore, back to game, the story potential is enormous.


maybe, but why are you really thinking it's dumb? is it because agian you're thinking they're humans, they can't possibly be in the horde at all? might you be thinking that because immediately what comes to mind is that goofy alliance human you like to bash in pvp. This is why presenting this without a trailer is hard, because you have to get people to stop thinking down that part, blizzard would have no trouble with that as their unveiling will demonstrate their origin plausibly, you wudln't think of them at all as being alliance humans...a point of view that only affects existing players. New players would see humans on horde or alliance and just pick one largely. a cool intro will help influence them, but in such a scenario as a devleoper you woudl want any race they pick on to be cool as that enitces them to the game. you don't want to sling all the coolness to one side to make them more attractive.

Because I care more about the lore and the little sense it makes and absolutely nothing about the in-game choices people make.

Again, why is it a prioblem that the Alliance are preferred? In what way does it ruin the experience for anyone? If anything it has given the two different factions even more of an edge to each other.

Also, prove to me that newcomers roll human more than the older players do? Because atm I feel you're just talking about stuff you believe to be confirmed truth and I'm extremely skeptical about that being the case.

And I'm against it because I like the fact that Blizzard has somewhat restricted the game-play due to the lore. Such as no draenei being warlocks, no humans on horde etc etc. I don't see the benefits of humans ending up as a horde race as well. I like the game due to these differences not despite them. And I think you're gonna losa a lot of subscriptions if you took away all the lore-restricting barriers in game to make it pssible for any race to be anything, any race to be any faction and every class and race to be the exact same. Because if you want to make the two factions the exact same you should just mirror all of the races to both sides, that way we'll have a 100 % balance hopefully and no need to make new quests different, they can use the same quests because that way there won't be any draw back of playing one faction over the other.