Bladespire and Karabor should have been the Mag'har Orc and Lightforged Hubs

[shoc]

I think, in general, there was a big lost opportunity to make Bladespire Fortress and Karabor the race hubs for the Mag'har and Lightforged, respectively. Both were originally intended to be the Draenor faction hubs for the Horde and Alliance, and a slight adjustment of story could have made them possible. The Lightforged Draenei could have been assimilated into Yrel's army of Light-fanatic Draenei, while the Orcs could have stood their ground in Draenor against the Draenei, making their final stand in one of Draenor's most remote and inhospitable environments.

Most importantly, both are hell of a lot cooler than both racial hubs. A building in Orgrimmar for the Mag'har is pretty pathetic, and the Vindicaar for Lightforged isn't particularly interesting either. Compared to the Dark Irons who get Shadowforge City, Highmountain getting Thunder Totem, Void Elves in Telogrus, Nightborne in Suramar - Bladespire and Karabor would have made for worthy equivalents.

Finally, it would have represented another reason for the Horde to gripe against the Alliance - the Alliance would be openly accepting of a people who waged a literal genocide against their own allies, something that would easily justify the burning of Teldrassil.

[Byleth]

You realise of course that these "faction hubs" everyone is so worked up over literally serve 2 purposes. A spawn point for a new toon, and a place to return to at max level to get your heritage armor. Thay are not big elaborate zones with lore and interesting things to do, they are just flavor places.

Shadowforge seems to have blurred this line, and people are now getting hub envy.

That said, you're idea is solid and I give it a +1.

[Khaza-R]

Finally, it would have represented another reason for the Horde to gripe against the Alliance - the Alliance would be openly accepting of a people who waged a literal genocide against their own allies, something that would easily justify the burning of Teldrassil.

Wait. Aren't the Lightbound and the Lightforged completely different groups?

[shoc]

Wait. Aren't the Lightbound and the Lightforged completely different groups?

They are. But based on what we've seen of the Lightbound on the Beta, they are 'Lightforged' too. What I'm saying is that there was a missed opportunity for the Lightforged and Lightbound to join forces. The Lightforged as a people are already low in numbers, surely even lower now that they've waged a costly, near suicidal war against the Legion. Surely, there would be many who would rather spend their days among their fellow Light-transformed Draenei in a proper, intact, Draenic civilization than on a Spaceship with no actual amenities. Yrel is also way more interesting than Captain Fareeya, too.

Plus, now that Teldrassil is a burning stump, the Alliance has every reason to incite further violence against the Mag'har, who've really chosen a really bad time to join the Horde and come back to Azeroth. If Sylvanas is Hitler, then those guys just joined the Axis of Evil at the beginning of WW2.

- - - Updated - - -

You realise of course that these "faction hubs" everyone is so worked up over literally serve 2 purposes. A spawn point for a new toon, and a place to return to at max level to get your heritage armor. Thay are not big elaborate zones with lore and interesting things to do, they are just flavor places.

Shadowforge seems to have blurred this line, and people are now getting hub envy.

That said, you're idea is solid and I give it a +1.

There is definite hub envy going on. But I think there's a good reason to be so.

Dark Irons - Shadowforge City (Awesome)
Void Elves - Telogrus (Definitely Unique)
Nightborne - Suramar City (Awesome)
Zandalar - Zuldazar (Awesome)
Kul Tirans - Boralus (Awesome)
Highmountain - Thunder Totem (Good Enough)

Lightforged - Vindicaar (ehh)
Mag'har - Orgimmar Building (ehhhhhhhhhhhhhh)

Line them up and the difference is made pretty damn clear. Plus, what more would they need to do to Bladespire and Karabor to make them hub worthy? I'm not saying they need to develop the interior of Karabor Temple, and Bladespire just needs to be populated by NPCs.

Both of these locations were also painfully underutilized in WoD, I don't see any downsides IMO.

[Wyrt]

The Lightforged would ruin Karabor by shitting gold all over it just like they ruined the Vindicaar.

[Byleth]

There is definite hub envy going on. But I think there's a good reason to be so.

I'm not arguing against the suggestion, to be clear. I just think that hub envy is pretty dumb giving how the hubs are actually utilized.

Personally I think this is a silly thing to be upset over, unique hubs = more work = potentially less allied races. I'd rather have no hubs are more allied races.

[Deleted]

The Void elves have 2 floating rocks in space that an intern probably cobbled together in one afternoon...
Unique does not equalize good.

I completely dissagree, blizz should not spend any recources on the allied hubs, they serve no purpose whatsoever.

[Soon-TM]

You're asking for effort put into your re-skins? Lmfao.

These are not real races.

I think of allied races as a mod made by some amateur programmer. No, I take that back; amateur programmers actually do more impressive stuff from time to time.

[Armourboy]

The Void elves have 2 floating rocks in space that an intern probably cobbled together in one afternoon...
Unique does not equalize good.

I completely dissagree, blizz should not spend any recources on the allied hubs, they serve no purpose whatsoever.

Exactly and it's the reason why I can't understand why anyone is upset over it. No one hangs out there, there is nothing to do. The only thing it does is give you access to your heritage armor. There is absolutely no reason to waste any time at all on them.

[Powerogue]

The Vindicaar was a good choice for the lightforged since it better fits their color scheme (and I love the top-down view of Azeroth), but I can grant that the mag'har should have some sort of central hub and that'd be as good a one as any. Everybody else has some place like that, however humble and using mostly recycled assets, do the mag'har seriously not get one?

[The Stormbringer]

But then they would've had to finish them! C'mon Shoc, you know as well as I do that they'll never do that.

[Every Pwny]

These are just additional customization options for existing races, they aren't going to put that much effort into introducing them.

[DeicideUH]

Exactly and it's the reason why I can't understand why anyone is upset over it. No one hangs out there, there is nothing to do. The only thing it does is give you access to your heritage armor. There is absolutely no reason to waste any time at all on them.

Because it's immersive and can be used to expand the race's lore in subtle ways by showing racial activity.
But the results have been very lackluster because, aside from Thunder Totem (which was already developed and fleshed out beforehand), all allied race hubs have problems in some way.

Suramar is pretty and has some details, but most of the areas are wasted with NPCs standing there. Still, it's the second best one.

Vindicaar just took Argus!Vindicaar, kept most of the same NPCs but swapped the draenei models for lightforged. For 7.3.5, Blizzard even forgot to change their voice lines from normal Draenei to Lightforged (this is corrected in 8.0). None of the named Lightforged heroes aside from Fareeya has a presence there. Even the gnome portal guy and the high elf stable master were kept. Vindicaar could be awesome but they wasted the potential.

Telogrus is just two small islands floating in space with some tents. It feels more empty than a small town. There are a few interesting dialogue/events there, but it fails to flesh out the void elves beyond what we already knew about them. It doesn't even answer if there's ways to create more void elves.

Shadowforge is just a tiny portion of the city, despite we having many areas that could be added to it. No meaningful events, few interesting NPCs. Even the tavern NPCs were reused, with no new dialogue. It's the third best hub of the bunch, but still far from the first two.

Mag'har hub does not exist. One can say it was the best cost/benefit, since it's lackluster but didn't cost many hours of development. The others had effort on them, but in the end are just as unsatisfying.

[Hugnomo]

They could have just made a hub out of the Underhold from Siege of Orgrimmar. Garrosh made it all iron horde like. And most of these hubs are instanced anyway. They could litter them with Wod props. Would have been way better than a lame building.

[GreenJesus]

I think of allied races as a mod made by some amateur programmer. No, I take that back; amateur programmers actually do more impressive stuff from time to time.

It's the job they give to the summer interns.

[Soon-TM]

Exactly and it's the reason why I can't understand why anyone is upset over it. No one hangs out there, there is nothing to do. The only thing it does is give you access to your heritage armor. There is absolutely no reason to waste any time at all on them.

Well, technically no capital city sees a lot of visits, except ppl leveling alts and ofc SW/Org. That doesn't mean that we should get rid of the rest of the cities, does it? And Blizz could always add a reason for people to go there from time to time: weekly quests, xmog NPCs/AH, (unique) portals, etc... I personally think that Bladespire/Karabor are WoD in a nutshell; huge, impressive undertakings that were cut down for... reasons, leaving nothing but a disgusting shell in the map.