BfA Patch Speculation thread (8.3 and later).

[Alga]

Now I really want to see one regular mortal cutting off all his limbs and maybe his ears and eyes. And if we are at it, why not half of the upper skull. Friggin' easy, yeah.

[rda]

^^ What's up with your nick? An alt account or a name change?

[Eleccybubb]

^^ What's up with your nick? An alt account or a name change?

Judging by the name I guess a fan of mine? /Shrug. Either way I appreciate the gesture.

I can confirm this is my only account on this site though.

[Eurhetemec]

I disagree. I could easily see a gnome doing it simply to see if it works. Lightforging is not undertaken so lightly in comparison.

And that's the problem with Mechagnomes, they're just Gnomes²: Even Gnomier. LF Draenei are a different, far more militaristic culture than Exodar Draenei. HM Tauren also have some different approaches than plains Tauren.

I think the whole Night Warrior thing totally undermines your position re: Lightforged, but you're entitled to your opinion.

[Eleccybubb]

I think the whole Night Warrior thing totally undermines your position re: Lightforged, but you're entitled to your opinion.

Is the Night Warrior that whole business with Tyrande or do you mean the customisation?

Because that imo was a cool unlock. That's the kind of things that they could put behind levelling an Allied Race rather than making the race itself repgated and whatnot imo.

I dunno for example. Level a KT to 120 you get a thin option or level a void elf to 120 you can use a more Void Night Elf style appearance to it.

[Eurhetemec]

Is the Night Warrior that whole business with Tyrande or do you mean the customisation?

Because that imo was a cool unlock. That's the kind of things that they could put behind levelling an Allied Race rather than making the race itself repgated and whatnot imo.

I dunno for example. Level a KT to 120 you get a thin option or level a void elf to 120 you can use a more Void Night Elf style appearance to it.

Yeah that's what I mean - re: Lightforged, becoming a Night Warrior is a similarly bonkers/extreme process to becoming a Lightforged Draenei, but one is a race and one is a customization we unlock.

I really wish they'd quit with the repgating myself. As someone who comes and goes from WoW it's kind of frustrating. I've earned all the Alliance races so far (Kul Tirans were quite annoying to get the rep for, because there's so little you can do), but it'd be a hell of a grind to earn the Maghar and Zandalari - which stinks because I'd love to play the Zandalari. Maybe if there's some kind of catch-up deal at the end of the expansion I'll grab them. I really dislike repgating behind faction-specific reps especially. At least in Legion all the reps were cross-faction ones.

Getting off-topic but if the next expansion arrives and continues the faction-specific repgating, well, that isn't going to be a "hard pass" for me, but it's going to be a serious negative and make me maybe just quit WoW until they put in a catch-up mechanism. I live for alts, honestly, and if there are fun and engaging ways to get the rep, great - 7th Legion wasn't bad at all - my wife needed to catch up on that and we got it done in 4 days because there were so many ways to get it. But the area-specific ones? Jesus. It's just a case of logging in every time there's an Emissary for them, which is tedious and frustrating.

[Eleccybubb]

Yeah that's what I mean - re: Lightforged, becoming a Night Warrior is a similarly bonkers/extreme process to becoming a Lightforged Draenei, but one is a race and one is a customization we unlock.

I really wish they'd quit with the repgating myself. As someone who comes and goes from WoW it's kind of frustrating. I've earned all the Alliance races so far (Kul Tirans were quite annoying to get the rep for, because there's so little you can do), but it'd be a hell of a grind to earn the Maghar and Zandalari - which stinks because I'd love to play the Zandalari. Maybe if there's some kind of catch-up deal at the end of the expansion I'll grab them. I really dislike repgating behind faction-specific reps especially. At least in Legion all the reps were cross-faction ones.

Getting off-topic but if the next expansion arrives and continues the faction-specific repgating, well, that isn't going to be a "hard pass" for me, but it's going to be a serious negative and make me maybe just quit WoW until they put in a catch-up mechanism. I live for alts, honestly, and if there are fun and engaging ways to get the rep, great - 7th Legion wasn't bad at all - my wife needed to catch up on that and we got it done in 4 days because there were so many ways to get it. But the area-specific ones? Jesus. It's just a case of logging in every time there's an Emissary for them, which is tedious and frustrating.

Imo Allied Races should be unlocked or maybe some breadcrumb story when they are ready to be rolled out.

The rewards should be based around playing one and purely cosmetic. Hell the mounts being a levelling reward would have been a great idea.

[Nathanyel]

And we've had NPC races with dances before. Even Drustvar witches have a dance for some reason.

That's the Arakkoa dance, which has been ingame since BC. So long ago it's not really an argument here. Not trying to invalidate your statement, but could you provide more recent examples?

[allegrian]

It’s not just the dance, they have a new animation for pretty much each emote.

[huth]

Yeah that's what I mean - re: Lightforged, becoming a Night Warrior is a similarly bonkers/extreme process to becoming a Lightforged Draenei, but one is a race and one is a customization we unlock.

One is something that happened to all Night Elves present when Tyrande did the ritual(and took all of the risk), while the other is something everybody needs to do personally. And that's just for the visual differences.

The Lightforged were already from a different culture than their Exodar cousins before they went through that process.
Mechagnomes are barely different beyond some prosthetics that wouldn't even be out of place on a regular gnome.

[Taeldorian]

One is something that happened to all Night Elves present when Tyrande did the ritual(and took all of the risk), while the other is something everybody needs to do personally. And that's just for the visual differences.

The Lightforged were already from a different culture than their Exodar cousins before they went through that process.
Mechagnomes are barely different beyond some prosthetics that wouldn't even be out of place on a regular gnome.

The cultural differences are pretty small. Lightforged Draenei could’ve easily been customization for regular Draenei. If you’re saying LF Draenei have a different culture than regular Draenei so therefore it’s fine to have them as an allied race then you can say the same thing for mechagnomes.

Blood elves got golden eyes, nelves got black eyes and I think face tats that go along the eye. Lightforged Draenei have golden hooves, eyes, tats and a few different hair styles. It’s a very disappointing race that could’ve easily been added as a customization option. Regular Draenei can become Lightforged as well through a process so the cultural difference isn’t really massive at all.

I don’t really want mechagnomes unless they add robo-chest customization but if you think LF Draenei are fine as a race cosmetically than mechagnomes are too. Hell, mechagnomes have more customization than LF Draenei do. LF Draenei are just Draenei fighting a war against the Void/legion, regular Draenei follow a very similar style. Mechagnomes are just gnomes that fight against king mechagon and heavily support body modification. The cultural differences for both are very minimal, not enough to carry a race on its own. I know people might not like the broken as a race but they would’ve been both visually different and culturally different.

[derpkitteh]

And we've had NPC races with dances before. Even Drustvar witches have a dance for some reason.

arrakoa and ogres are the only ones i can really think of that ever had a unique dance.

the witches use the arrakoa model, so it's probably the same dance.

but this is modern blizzard we're talking about here, they don't take the time to do that kind of thing these days for an npc race. this is a unique dance, with more than just two animations(likely an answer to the criticism that kul tirans got), there's no way this isn't going to be playable.

[Elias01]

It’s not just the dance, they have a new animation for pretty much each emote.

Yes yes they will be new allied race yes. In next expansion as Blizzard alredy told us that they are happy with number of allied races for yhis expansion. So stop hoping thay they will come out in 8.2.5 or 8.3 becouse they wont.

[Makabreska]

Geebus, Azshara Dungeon Journal entry is an entire book. And I thought Jaina had a lot of abilities. :v

"Stage Four: This Palace Is a Prison:
Unable to leave, Azshara turns her full force upon the raid. Players must contend with Azshara while attempting to keep the Titan Console under control."

Yes, N'zoth is chained down there, but does it mean, that maybe Azshara herself is unable to leave the Palace for some reason?

[Gurmech]

Yikes, you guys REALLY don't want mechagnomes, huh. At this point, I think it is pretty naive to think they won't be an allied race, and I for one welcome our robot gnome overlords.

Can't wait to see what their racials will be.

[huth]

The cultural differences are pretty small.

No, they're not. One group spend the last 25 millenia waging war. The other spent that time running away from the force the first was warring against.

Mechagnomes... do pretty much the exact same thing as regular gnomes. Their cultural differences aren't small, they're non-existent.

[Gurmech]

Mechagnomes... do pretty much the exact same thing as regular gnomes. Their cultural differences aren't small, they're non-existent.

Mechagnomes have a monarchy, regular gnomes have a democracy.
Mechagnomes have a position on the curse of flesh which has influenced their culture to a great extent, making mechanical limbs pretty much mandatory.
Mechagon is implied to be home to technology far greater than current Gnome and Goblin tech.
Mechagnomes also have the whole recycling and repurposing thing going on.
They also don't have the same dislike for Goblins their kin have.

Face it. They are as distinct from their parent race as any other allied race, in fact, they seem to be more distinct than some, like the Mag'har Orcs which are just orcs, but brown and smug.

[Gurahk]

Face it. They are as distinct from their parent race as any other allied race, in fact, they seem to be more distinct than some, like the Mag'har Orcs which are just orcs, but brown and smug.

Brown, smug AND able to operate a death-train! What more can you get?

[Taeldorian]

Mechagnomes have a monarchy, regular gnomes have a democracy.
Mechagnomes have a position on the curse of flesh which has influenced their culture to a great extent, making mechanical limbs pretty much mandatory.
Mechagon is implied to be home to technology far greater than current Gnome and Goblin tech.
Mechagnomes also have the whole recycling and repurposing thing going on.
They also don't have the same dislike for Goblins their kin have.

Face it. They are as distinct from their parent race as any other allied race, in fact, they seem to be more distinct than some, like the Mag'har Orcs which are just orcs, but brown and smug.

@huth

My list is basically the same as Gurmechs so I’ll quote his response. Somehow all of this is less distinct than 1 race waging war against the legion and 1 running from the legion. Let’s be realistic, if Lightforged Draenei are somehow super culturally different than regular Draenei than mechagnomes are super culturally different than regular gnomes. LF Draenei don’t have more lore than mechagnomes do.

I don’t want mechagnomes either but it feels like you’re extremely biased to the point of ignoring specific things about mechagnomes. There’s no actual way someone can approve of LF draenei lorewise/culturewise but not mechagnomes. Neither of them are culturally rich compared to their counterparts. In regards to visual differences, both of them could technically be customization but we have nothing in the game that’d be similar to mechagnome customization while LF Draenei have 1/4th of their visual differences already added as customization for other classes (dark eyes/golden eyes for nelves/belves).

[EbaumsTipster]

Mechagnomes bad because "Alliance didn't want it".
Mag'har good because "Horde wanted it".

End of story. Stop pretending as though there is any other reason for it.

Ironically, nobody asked for the Iron Horde to be playable, but because you can play pretend that your marking-less, boring Warsong/Frostwolf orc is from Outlands nobody cares.

- - - Updated - - -

Something that particularly infuriates me is that you KNOW that people will say "Horde asked for Vulpera and they got them" when Vulpera were designed to be playable as early as late-Alpha. They were always going to be playable the moment they got those new models. Nobody cared about them when they looked Cata Goblins without tails.

Doesn't matter though. People will say anything to further their shitty little narratives.