Sub-Race Photoshop Mockups

[Amnaught]

I have a feeling we wont see rubraces this expansion, but maybe next one. They would need to tweak the starting zones slightly, after all. Like, to explain why Mag'Har orcs are in Durotar, and doesn't the opening cutscene for dwarves explain that you're an Ironforge Dwarf? The easiest graphical subrace, Gilnean Human, would be awesome to play as, but the entire starting zone is about you becoming a Worgen. They would need separate starting quests.

[Mormolyce]

I quite liked the traditional fantasy angle where humans are concerned. Then again I've never really understood the need and/or pressure for fantasy settings to accommodate and adhere to modern day values of inclusion and representation.

I guess because if you're a girl and you roll a toon in Warcraft and your only available classes are Weaver, Seamstress and Loving Wife you would be kind of mad.

Although to be honest, a lot of males would probably play those for RP purposes. Especially if there was a Trollop class.

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I have a feeling we wont see rubraces this expansion, but maybe next one. They would need to tweak the starting zones slightly, after all. Like, to explain why Mag'Har orcs are in Durotar, and doesn't the opening cutscene for dwarves explain that you're an Ironforge Dwarf? The easiest graphical subrace, Gilnean Human, would be awesome to play as, but the entire starting zone is about you becoming a Worgen. They would need separate starting quests.

I don't think the Dwarf chain explicitly states that you're Ironforge (my memory is hazy) but yeah it's strongly implied given you start in Dun Morogh instead of Twilight Highlands.

If they allowed you to change to most of the proposed subraces really the starting experience would no longer make sense, you'd either have to ignore it or they'd have to make 21+ new 1-10 zones which is unlikely to say the least.

[hrugner]

I have a feeling we wont see rubraces this expansion, but maybe next one. They would need to tweak the starting zones slightly, after all. Like, to explain why Mag'Har orcs are in Durotar, and doesn't the opening cutscene for dwarves explain that you're an Ironforge Dwarf? The easiest graphical subrace, Gilnean Human, would be awesome to play as, but the entire starting zone is about you becoming a Worgen. They would need separate starting quests.

The Gilnean one could probably be handled by you trying to rescue a family member who had been converted. You'd follow the same story, but from a different perspective, and of course, your friend wouldn't be able to be saved like a player character is, and you'd have to put them down.

With the dwarves, it would probably be a good idea to update the starting cinematic narrative to explain more about the three hammers and what's become of Magni. By doing that, you wouldn't need to change the beginning very much, though it would be cool to start out as a dark iron down in black rock; that dungeon is too cool to be used so rarely.

[Psychotrip]

Skin color expression could be a binary phenotype in Warcraft. This would let there be a wide variety of "races" that all interbreed without losing variation. So, skin color ends up more like hair color, where it never really goes away.

I guess it's also possible that skin color is a response to some dietary or environmental factor, but that's something that should have been explored already if that's the case. Though, if someone created a fantasy universe where disease or starvation caused a group to express my genetic traits I would be a little uncomfortable with that.

All that aside, I'm warming up to the idea that Vrykul interbred with a native species the Azotha to explain some of the genetic variation in humans.

I love when people speculate on lore like this. Reminds me of the crazy ideas we throw around over at the elder scrolls forums. Really though, this is a goo theory.

[hrugner]

I suppose, seems unnecessarily complex though. Presumably the Azotha would have to derive from the same Titan "human" seed race somehow, otherwise you have two "human" races with totally different origins on Azeroth.

I think they could work as a completely separate race, with little in the way of ties to Titans. Just some sort of race that's been completely wiped out and only vaguely remembered by history. While it is a bit complicated, genetics often are even when confined to science, let alone Azerothian genetics.

[Skeppio]

Rhlor and Skeppio, could you be bothered to snip all the images in your quote blocks? You just made the page like a mile long.

Sorry about that. I went back and fixed it.

[Immitis]

all i know is that i will take 24 more expansions about garrosh and time travel if it means i get to be an alliance high elf death knight

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I have a feeling we wont see rubraces this expansion, but maybe next one. They would need to tweak the starting zones slightly, after all. Like, to explain why Mag'Har orcs are in Durotar, and doesn't the opening cutscene for dwarves explain that you're an Ironforge Dwarf? The easiest graphical subrace, Gilnean Human, would be awesome to play as, but the entire starting zone is about you becoming a Worgen. They would need separate starting quests.

i think thats really overcomplicating things when like the vast majority of the people who want subraces are just gonna racechange anyways

[Deleted]

I don't think the starting zones require much, if any tweaking. The Alliance and Horde are pretty mixed at this point, so it's not just going to be humans in Elwynn and Ironforge Dwarves in Dun Morogh. The only one requiring any real change would be a non-cursed Gilnean, which imo would be the most pointless subrace ever. If you want to RP a Gilnean human, just make a regular human and RP as a refugee from Gilneas. They're not going to tweak starting zones just so you can roll play on your own in instanced Gilneas for a day.

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Maybe a bit of flavour text would be nice though, like if you're a Dark Iron Dwarf the others are more distrustful of you.

[Yig]

Dark Irons and Wildhammer specifically moved into Ironforge in Cataclysm, wtf are you people smoking. There are Wildhammer shaman trainers now in the starting areas, and a Dark Iron embassy is in Ironforge.
Mag'har have been coming to Orgrimmar since Thrall established contact with Nagrand. The same reason 20 somethings from the midwest all flock to NYC and LA. It's the place to go. Mag'har NPCs are all over the place. You don't need a huge reason for half o these there is already precedent. As soon as we establish relations with a new faction, we begin trading with them. We have all manner of people's in our cities from all over the world and Planar Realms, the game is limited, the lore is not. You even have human mercenaries and warlocks living in Orgrimmar. This isn't a land of stereotypes, as fun as they are. Cataclysm specifically was about shaking up the world so fring elements so rare they were all but unheard of came out of hiding and became playable. They ares till fringe elements. At most we need a voice over for the intro narrative level 1 opening, and a custom 1st quest text.

[shoc]

Dark Irons and Wildhammer specifically moved into Ironforge in Cataclysm, wtf are you people smoking. There are Wildhammer shaman trainers now in the starting areas, and a Dark Iron embassy is in Ironforge.
Mag'har have been coming to Orgrimmar since Thrall established contact with Nagrand. The same reason 20 somethings from the midwest all flock to NYC and LA. It's the place to go. Mag'har NPCs are all over the place. You don't need a huge reason for half o these there is already precedent. As soon as we establish relations with a new faction, we begin trading with them. We have all manner of people's in our cities from all over the world and Planar Realms, the game is limited, the lore is not. You even have human mercenaries and warlocks living in Orgrimmar. This isn't a land of stereotypes, as fun as they are. Cataclysm specifically was about shaking up the world so fring elements so rare they were all but unheard of came out of hiding and became playable. They ares till fringe elements. At most we need a voice over for the intro narrative level 1 opening, and a custom 1st quest text.

I would like for them just to have race specific scenarios for each sub-race option that gives a little backstory as to why they are suddenly a playable sub-race, which would definitely beat a line of dialogue in the starter zone. I would prefer sub-races be account-unlocked at max level instead of being available at level 1.

[Deleted]

I would like for them just to have race specific scenarios for each sub-race option that gives a little backstory as to why they are suddenly a playable sub-race, which would definitely beat a line of dialogue in the starter zone. I would prefer sub-races be account-unlocked at max level instead of being available at level 1.

A think a quest line to unlock each sub race would be the best. Racial themed heirlooms as a reward as well to give a bit more of an incentive to complete them beyond just customisation and scaled so you can complete them at any level past say 10.

[Zathrendar]

I also have the points I made beneath the quote, which are directly from the games. Warcraft III, the lore of the kaldorei, the well of eternity, the history of Dalaran (they were attracting demons JUST by using arcane magic) the fact that the high elves needed those runestones to hide their magical activity from the burning legion (They weren't widely using fel magic back then, these stones were built thousands of years ago).

The guardians of Tirisfal, like Aegwyyn and Medivh, were created in response to increased demon attacks after the high elves taught humans how to use arcane magic after the troll wars. The Guardians were supposed to be (hopefully) the only people who could be trusted with that level of arcane magic and not be corrupted, but as we know, Medivh was tainted by Sargeras at the moment of his birth so that didn't really work out.

But yes, read all the points I listed below that quote as well.

The 'corruptive' nature of the arcane stems from it making fel more appetising. Little more. It does alter the person using it but as I said before, that's merely an evolutionary property of it. You could consider the addiction corruptive but like Aeluron said, the sources in question are outdated and de-canonised. They may be true, but equally they may be written from the POV of overly cautious (or cynical) wizards or druids.

The addiction is simply a dependence on it by creatures which have been evolved by using arcane energies. I wouldn't consider it corruptive, just the price of this evolution. That said, I agree with Caesius. Just because they now have a buffer to sate their addiction does not mean they're all goody two shoes.

[Vightnic]

I don't see the point in putting conditions on subrace availability. They're either a part of the faction or they're not.

[Zathrendar]

I always considering Stormwind to be a big melting pot city made up of members of every Human nation. There are Humans of all colours residing in Stormwind, which would seem a little odd considering their geographic identicalness. It's not like in Elder Scrolls where you have the Nordic Nords from Scandinavia aka Skyrim, and the Redguards from the Desert. In my own little headcanon, I always considered it to be like this:

Arathorian: Nordic, Viking types
Gilnean: British, White guys
Kul tiras: Darker, more Spanish esque
Lordaeron: Medieval Europeans
Dalaran: Wizards

Where Black and Asian Humans came from, I have no idea.

Well that's my point. All the known kingdoms are European (by which I mean Europid caucasian, which would include Spaniards) in nature. There's a couple of black NPCs here and there but it does seem black dragons quite like taking human form, so who knows? SW is a melting pot but the humans there don't seem particularly dark, either. It's interesting to speculate on those oddball NPCs out there. Humans descend from the Vrykul and it is the Curse of Flesh that was the primary evolutionary agent on the humans, so give or take a few thousand years, I don't see much time for them to differentiate much from each other, so much so as to form distinct subraces. It's possible that it did nonetheless occur.

I don't particularly care, as I don't see the game as having an obligation to equally represent each RL race. It should make sense within the confines of the setting. TBH, because Blizzard borrows so extensively from real world mythologies and cultures, they may have done this to reserve particular niches for non-human races. E.g. whereas the Pandaren have Chinese vibes to them. All that would be required is just to give some ethnicities as 'subraces', it'd be just peachy.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Need to upload a picture to show something messed up. Hold on Reserving post.

http://i.imgur.com/7wE56wd.jpg?1

[Psychotrip]

The 'corruptive' nature of the arcane stems from it making fel more appetising. Little more. It does alter the person using it but as I said before, that's merely an evolutionary property of it. You could consider the addiction corruptive but like Aeluron said, the sources in question are outdated and de-canonised. They may be true, but equally they may be written from the POV of overly cautious (or cynical) wizards or druids.

The addiction is simply a dependence on it by creatures which have been evolved by using arcane energies. I wouldn't consider it corruptive, just the price of this evolution. That said, I agree with Caesius. Just because they now have a buffer to sate their addiction does not mean they're all goody two shoes.

The reason I have to disagree is because of the things we've seen outside the rpgs. I think everyone is focusing on the rpg stuff I quoted instead of the various examples I provided from the novels, Warcraft III, the lore of the night elves (who were specifically corrupted by the ARCANE well of eternity), the fact that dalaran was attracting demons like flies to honey, the fact that the high elves needed to create the runestones to hide their arcane signature from the legion and other demons, etc. I dont mean to imply that arcane magic itself is corrupt (it's really neutral) just that mortals have trouble handling the power without becoming hopelessly addicted and unstable, and it tends to attract destructive supernatural forces.

It's not nearly as bad as fel magic, of course, which is concentrated arcane magic in its most raw form, but arcane magic can definitely influence your behavior in a negative way beyond simply being addictive. The rpg definitely took its negative effects farther than what we see in the games, but even in the games it's not considered completely safe or benign.

Jeez this is getting really off topic.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Then stop responding

[Zathrendar]

The reason I have to disagree is because of the things we've seen outside the rpgs. I think everyone is focusing on the rpg stuff I quoted instead of the various examples I provided from the novels, Warcraft III, the lore of the night elves (who were specifically corrupted by the ARCANE well of eternity), the fact that dalaran was attracting demons like flies to honey, the fact that the high elves needed to create the runestones to hide their arcane signature from the legion and other demons, etc. I dont mean to imply that arcane magic itself is corrupt (it's really neutral) just that mortals have trouble handling the power without becoming hopelessly addicted and unstable, and it tends to attract destructive supernatural forces.

I agree with all that. I think the WRPG takes it a step further, though. The real risk it poses is that demons want it, but their goal is to conquer all of existence anyway.

Fel is riskier stuff but it can still be controlled. I wouldn't say it's raw arcane energies. Nether energies seem to be, with fel being their demonically suffused form. That said, not all demons belong to the Legion, but it does have a potentially corruptive nature if you don't want to become more demonic.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

back on topic for the love of lordaeron!

[mykro9]

back on topic for the love of lordaeron!

This. So much this...

Home MMO-Champion» Forum» World of Warcraft» Warlords of Draenor - General Discussions» Sub-Race Photoshop Mockup

In what part of this section of general discussion and a thread title of "Sub-Race Photoshop Mockup" did it devolve into a lore discussion of all things elvish?

Can we just get back to new and fun pics of the new models in all their multi-colored goodness? And move the lore talk to another/new thread?

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It has been PAGES now without almost any images, and has ruined the spirit of this thread.