How would you feel if humans became playable on the horde

[ravenmoon]

If we had a fantasy world where imagination runs wild, we wouldn't have humans in the first place.

you know, that could have worked for wow... but then i'll wager no producer is willing to take that risk. Avatar could have been done without humans, at least in the first movie, but then the masses won't relate would they, and it'd probably flop

although you might get a lot of success with a nearly human looking species like Elf or Vulcan.

[Mace]

Hmm, going to read up on this, thanks.

and to curing rot & decay, i can't imagine any way to cure it, Regrowing dead tissue is not a simple task, heck even ingame we're forced to put down beasts because of this... maybe everyone will get mechano-limbs! :O

you can do better Danmakus.. you imagine the cure to undeath the same way you imagine the condition itself. WE all knew a cure for this would come, i'm sure we've not been the only one salivating on the restoration and redemption of Lorderoan, and finally a real recovery from the horrible injustice of undeath that was inflicted on most of the population of Lorderaon.

Any warcraft buff who followed the series has kinda been hoping for the rebirth or resurrection of that place, and why not start the process through this? especially seeing you have a real need for living horde humans, a perfect vehicle for them through the forsaken, and the a chance for one of hell of an exciting story development.

and as i'm sure you've read in earlier posts and threads, there are so many options to choose from how this would come about - one time mystery event probably involving the bronze flight? gradual and random thing like the grain plague? or some sort of completicated rituial from some powerful characters - Cenarius & druids? or Aspects/thrall/malfurion? magical waters like well of eternity of waters of life in panderia? mysterious character playing the two sides? brilliant mage/alchemist? accidental discovery of an agent.

you can choose anything you want, that's the beauty of creative writing, write it well to make it work and achieve what you want.

[ravenmoon]

The best story to use would be a mysterious figure, leaks the cure to both the forsaken and the alliance humans. Forsaken perfect it first, convert 6 of their top agents back to full flesh to infiltrate stormwind and alliance intelligence.

However, before they get high enough to do any real damage, the alliance humans find a way to weaponsze it.. plan to set it off through an explosion - (theramore mana bomb like) at a gathering of all the forsaken that was suppose to be happening to commemorate something special. Their plan was, make all the undead human again, which should deprive the horde of a critical ally because htey'd all be human again and want back in the alliance, and bring the blood elves in tow too. Stormwind off course would provide aid and relief support as well as security while they acclimatise to thier new (or old) condition and would thank them as heroes for saving them from the horrible curse of undeath.

THe undercover agents aren't in time to stop the execution of the plan, but get enough warning so that only half of Undercity is evacuated before the weapon goes off. It does get its desired effect, but a few complications, the nature of weaponising mixed with other factrs lead to the cure not working on every forsaken that was trapped, about 80% of those who weren't out in time are converted. And then the shocker, the "cured" hate the alliance humans even more for pulling that on them, and have no intention of letting them off for trying to exterminate them when they were forsaken.. much to the dismay of the alliance humans, who's attacking party are wiped out by the forsaken, both the human forsaken and the undead ones..

the look of shock and horro on the alliance captains faith and his last words .. "we've just made them impossible to destroy" as realizes no forsaken will ever team up with the alliance, whether undead or human. [lot sof caveats we can add here - tlel the story of newer forsaken who actually drift back to their former human lives, human forsaken who become heven more evil, those whose transfomration din't finish immediately and the regen grotowth slowed that though now fully human again, would take some time, years to fully heal - allowing forsaken humans to have 1 customisable option different to alliance humans on the model) .. (other caveats include Sylvannas' reaction - based on whether her body gets restored to life or she remains undead and her reaction .. the under cover agents, who pass the scrutiny cos while stormwind now gets suspicous on any new arrival to intelligence ranks looking for double agetns, they're never aware the forsaken also had the cure and infiltrated them before the debacle.. not to mention the identity and intent of the mysterious origin of this cure) -- - (human forsaken gradually move from the undercity into the above ground city, though many remain below and start refurbishing Lorderaon). New adventures begin too, although still of the same mindset, and still pretty hateful, the restored humanity allows us to start seeing a bit more compassion from some forsaken, many human and even some undead. Cahmpioning their cause of redemption is an Orc and at some point you get some blood elves involved, Halduron perhaps.. woudl make it even more interesting if he had a thing for Sylvannas which gets turned right back on when she becomes flesh again.

i mean that's an example fleshed out for you. What you guys think?

[Mace]

Right, I bet none of you have considered this, not even you Raven.

Should humans also be available on the horde, it is likely that the horde will become a lot more popular than the alliance. It could seriously swing the penduluum the other way... explore!

[Ranganathan]

It seems silly that most members of a given species belong to one faction or the other. There are humans not in the Alliance, so there could be humans in the Horde. There are orcs not in the Horde, so there could be orcs in the Alliance. Maybe not many at all, granted. But from a lore standpoint, there's no reason to say that there are literally zero humans in the Horde, and literally zero orcs in the Alliance. This goes for all the races.

The question of them being playable is a bit different though. We saw that it really wasn't an issue with pandas being either faction, as they say, "If it's red, it's dead." (Which works on a meta level too, if you think about it.) I think you'll see many/most race/class combos opened up long before you have playable Horde humans, or Alliance orcs though.

[Mace]

It seems silly that most members of a given species belong to one faction or the other. There are humans not in the Alliance, so there could be humans in the Horde. There are orcs not in the Horde, so there could be orcs in the Alliance. Maybe not many at all, granted. But from a lore standpoint, there's no reason to say that there are literally zero humans in the Horde, and literally zero orcs in the Alliance. This goes for all the races.

The question of them being playable is a bit different though. We saw that it really wasn't an issue with pandas being either faction, as they say, "If it's red, it's dead." (Which works on a meta level too, if you think about it.) I think you'll see many/most race/class combos opened up long before you have playable Horde humans, or Alliance orcs though.

and there never has been truth be told. The forsaken were never likely to join the horde, nor were the night elves the alliance from the intro they got in warcraft 3, in fact it made sense t o start Wow with a 4 faction system and not 2. why did they do 2? Blood elves in horde was even more surprising form a lore standpoint, but once you had chosen the 2 faction system, and horde were lagging terribly behind alliance in numbers, it made it the only logical thing to do.

Which comes to the reason why we won't see orcs on the alliance or dwarves on the horde, or the desired "I have my race I can choose any faction I want." (which I like the idea of this with some limitations). The 2 faction system was new to the genre when wow launched I think, it was very unique and very core part of the warcraft theme. The factions are really divided by the races on them being distinct and separate to enhance that distinction, and is one of the reason why living human forsaken and high elves if ever a playable reality, would be as a sub-group, a minor race/racial faction and not get the intro of a full race because the idea is that while there is some cross over on a factional level between the two Empires, it is small. The high elf population is small, so whiles the majority of their counterparts are on horde, being small allows blizzard to maintain the faction racial distinction without too much compromise. Likewise should living human forsaken become a reality, they would also be a small group, just part of the forsaken group , in fact 1 of 3 factions of forsaken. Again, even though exciting, importnat, and pumped up for the expansion adverts, they will be again a small part of the horde.


look at it this way, only 2 of the 20 racial faction groups mentioned in the other topic I wrote and also mentioned earlier here belong to races that are a major part of the opposing faction. Only 2. and they have a very good reason to become available. For humans, it's as Raven said, it fixes a balance problem he enjoys talking about...alot (no we don't discuss wow irl, really only on forums or in game), what he says is worth thinking about. For High elves, it's because it's a very popular request, and they're already in the lore same as the horde humans.. and with living horde humans the impact of having high elves available on the horde won't be disastrous to faction balance, and may even be necessary since I am suspecting that it would make the horde a lot more popular than the alliance with the current set up.

[ravenmoon]

atm, humans and elves are the only 2 groups that can realistically work being playable across both factions without hurting distinction much. because these 2 races exist on both factions in the lore already. Humans as forsaken (undead humans), and Elves as high elves on the alliance. Humans are already playable , the model of undead allows a greater visual (only) distinction although the reality is they're still human (the lore already has horde humans), which removes any lore problems concerning humans on the horde. Which leaves only overcoming the hesistation of relaxing the visual distinctions from the two factions a little bit more to accomodate living humans i.e. having the human model accessible to the horde. And as far as "from a gameplay" standpoint, is a vital necessity now for huge balance reasons, making it a very worthy reason to compromse faction model distinctiveness, far more worthy than it was compromising that faction distinctiveness for the Panderans. Something they only did because they feared giving them to only one faction would be unfair.

Panderan models sharing factions was a preventive measure = prevented from causing a balance headache (as well as easier to go with one new race than 2)
Human models sharing factions would be correcting measure = it will cause specifically the rise in horde numbers necessary to balance the factions in a way superior racials, better plots, blood elves, better storylines, cooler stuff, better quests, more novels have all failed to fix and which cannot continue like it is just to keep people picking horde instead of alliance.

give the damn human model to horde as well, lets have a balanced game and write a balanced story, and stop having to skew everything one way to keep people picking the monster faction because they don't have a likeness of themselves there.

[Deleted]

Oh look, the one-man "humans in horde" crusade is still going on. Anyone else give a shit yet? Maybe try making more threads.

[Avathegreat]

I like human racials as a member of the horde and i wouldn't mind having them for pvp but....humans are ally. They will always be an enemy of the horde. That would be like having orc ally. It cant be done or we wouldnt have our war.

[Mace]

Human models sharing factions would be correcting measure = it will cause specifically the rise in horde numbers necessary to balance the factions in a way superior racials, better plots, blood elves, better storylines, cooler stuff, better quests, more novels have all failed to fix and which cannot continue like it is just to keep people picking horde instead of alliance.

not sure it's been explored if it will skew the horde to a far greater majority.

FAce it, if humans are the only thing keeping the alliance numbers up over the horde, and you gave humans to the horde, won't the exodus be complete? Why would any player choose alliance over horde? As it stands, the horde have the better racials, the better diversity, the better story, the better quests, they're the cooler faction. Now you can play human, a lot of new players would pick the faction, you can even tell your human/blood elf stories again - this would be a major attraction for the alliance faithful to switch to horde - you get Silvermoon, you get Lordearon & Undercity, You get Thunderbluff, you get Orgrimmar, you get Kezan - each of these are vastly different, richer fuller - I don't think we've explored this possibility.

[Deleted]

Absolutely not.

[ravenmoon]

Absolutely not.

btw.. I love your name, why ChowChilaCharlie and interesting avatar jpg.

anyway.. back on topic, what do you feel about this, and why absolutely not?

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not sure it's been explored if it will skew the horde to a far greater majority.

FAce it, if humans are the only thing keeping the alliance numbers up over the horde, and you gave humans to the horde, won't the exodus be complete? Why would any player choose alliance over horde? As it stands, the horde have the better racials, the better diversity, the better story, the better quests, they're the cooler faction. Now you can play human, a lot of new players would pick the faction, you can even tell your human/blood elf stories again - this would be a major attraction for the alliance faithful to switch to horde - you get Silvermoon, you get Lordearon & Undercity, You get Thunderbluff, you get Orgrimmar, you get Kezan - each of these are vastly different, richer fuller - I don't think we've explored this possibility.

no, you count on that fact. the alliance has been downplayed because of their higher numbers. If you made the human model accessible to the horde.

you wouldn't need to skew anything the alliances way, but you would see a momentary raising of their profile to match the horde. you can expect the night elves to be a bit more active and attractive again, not sure if htey 'll regain their warcraft 3 attractiveness again, but it would improve. You would no longer see offensive racials exclusive to horde, they'd be spread more evenly, expect a review too, especially with racial factions - expect a much better spread too.

Sure if nothing changes to the hore, and humans become available, horde will overwhelm alliance, so you would have a more positive alliance themes. High elves becoming playable as a sub group may also help boost the alliance a bit, I would make high elves one of the last minor races to be released and living forsaken humans one of the first. I suspect by the time high elves sub race is made available, the horde should have the majority.. and they can boost the alliance gradually in the story plots and cool factors till there is an eveness.

[judgementofantonidas]

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.

Human's can be inherantly evil. I think that they should be able to make the choice of being horde or alliance. Just as some classes should NOT have the choice.

Sorry but "the light" should not be wielded by the horde.

[icausewipes]

The Alliance are scum and I do not want them infecting my beloved horde.

[ravenmoon]

Human's can be inherantly evil. I think that they should be able to make the choice of being horde or alliance. Just as some classes should NOT have the choice.

Sorry but "the light" should not be wielded by the horde.

that's a very good point, and I agree with you there. .. not on the light should not be wielded by the horde, because some horde races and characters are actually good. one thing things like this allow you to do... for e.g. if borken were avaialble form the start, the Eredar Draenei would never have been allowed to be shaman, you'd have had to pick Broken Draenei to have access to the shaman.

Similarly a Bronzebeard dwarf would not be able to be shaman, you'd have had to pick a Wildhammer dwarf.

A night elf would not need to have forgone a 10,000 year old magic abstinence, you could roll a highbourne to play as a night elf mage.

Forskaen woudl not have been able to become priests, although you could make the living human forsaken able too. Priests are slightly different, blizzard should have done for forsaken what they ended up doing for blood knights, same class just change the names /theme, so instead of using the light, you're using the darkness. Swtor does that , calls the same class something else on a different faction. It worked

[Vasti]

from the replies I read you should ask this question after vanilla race models have been updated (for the humans at least)

I for one wouldn't like it. Not because of Lore reasons, but because the game would lose a bit of its essence when faction differences are homogenized.
Soon the only thing different will be the capital cities

Racial skills being pickable from the same list for every faction, race, class...that I can get behind.

[ravenmoon]

from the replies I read you should ask this question after vanilla race models have been updated (for the humans at least)

I for one wouldn't like it. Not because of Lore reasons, but because the game would lose a bit of its essence when faction differences are homogenized.
Soon the only thing different will be the capital cities

Racial skills being pickable from the same list for every faction, race, class...that I can get behind.

Question is, is it worth that risk? we cry homogeniation etc etc, but these things mean little if the whole game is out of balance.

then the next question is how much so called "homogenization" is having 2 out of 5 sub races or 2 out of 10 or 2 out of 20? it's one thing sharing panderans another thing sharing elves and humans, but from a lore perspective, we already share elves and humans among the two factions. This adds no more homogenization, unless it is perceived to. And if it is a matter of perception, then how you present it and sell it would go a long way. The game needs living human models accessible by the horde, it has an active faction of humans tied into it and avaialble to play, so we add them as a sub-group of that group and voila.

everyone knows high elves are alliance, having them accessible would only piss off those who want them exclusively accessible as blood elves and on the horde..but then if you take the human model horde side, the Elf model would have to go alliance side. The lore isn't an issue.

Ther eis a thrid alternative... actually give undead forsaken models that are identical to humans ecept with some discoulration, no change in lore needed, no one says undead have to look like those current models, they could just be slightly discouloured versions of the human model as one option with a bit of decay showing on the face that you can adjust, and there you go. However it won't be the same nor as exciting as actually having a living model to use and customise.

[Zallex]

Well considering Anduin is an alliance traitor, a major horde sympathizer, and probably will be king of SW one day...

it would actually make sense from a lore standpoint

[hrugner]

Well considering Anduin is an alliance traitor, a major horde sympathizer, and probably will be king of SW one day...

it would actually make sense from a lore standpoint

Nah, the horde will kill his girlfriend in front of him and turn her undead or something. Then he'll suddenly show a hidden violent streak and start breaking horde skulls.

[Deleted]

No.
I would think no.
If I logged in one day and saw a bunch of pink turds led by a temperamental pussy of a pink turd called Vaginal Wrynn were on my side, I would think "No".