Race focus should lead the story in warcraft

[username993720]

Exactly, we like the main characters because they represent and work on behalf of their races, not just to follow an allstar adventure with them alone.. save that for the films, TV series, in the game where an anonymous adventurer is the hero, it's more appealing to see the progress of the various denizens you are related to and invovled with and see the future of your tribe.

Just so you know, this almost existed:

During the development of World of Warcraft, each playable race was originally planned to have an epic life quest which told the story of that race. As they started implementing these life quests, however, the designers increasingly found that they felt canned rather than cool and individual since they gave the same backstory to every player character of a particular race. The designers ultimately steered in the direction of simply making epic high-level questlines with stories based around the NPCs, rather than trying to tell players what their character's life story is. A similar idea was eventually implemented with the introduction of heritage armor quests in Battle for Azeroth. https://wow.gamepedia.com/Quest#Trivia

Life quests were a type of epic race-specific questlines which were planned to be included in the original World of Warcraft. Each life quest told the story of its respective race and what their purpose in the world is, often continuing the story set up in the "smaller" regular quests. For example, the undead life quest revolved around their effort to develop a new plague and would have involved rescuing the undead player character's father from captivity, while the orc life quest would give players a taste of the demonic influence from their past and force them to combat it.

Blizzard planned to implement life quests after they had finished adding all of the game's regular quests. However, while life quests were intended to feel cool and individual, the developers increasingly found that they instead started feeling overly canned since they gave the same backstory to every player character of a particular race. The designers ended up steering in the direction of simply making epic high-level questlines with stories based around the NPCs (such as the Darrowshire questline or the Horde Onyxia's Lair attunement) rather than trying to tell players what their character's life story is. https://wow.gamepedia.com/Life_quest

What a shame that this idea was scrapped...

[Beloren]

Just so you know, this almost existed:

During the development of World of Warcraft, each playable race was originally planned to have an epic life quest which told the story of that race. As they started implementing these life quests, however, the designers increasingly found that they felt canned rather than cool and individual since they gave the same backstory to every player character of a particular race. The designers ultimately steered in the direction of simply making epic high-level questlines with stories based around the NPCs, rather than trying to tell players what their character's life story is. A similar idea was eventually implemented with the introduction of heritage armor quests in Battle for Azeroth. https://wow.gamepedia.com/Quest#Trivia

Life quests were a type of epic race-specific questlines which were planned to be included in the original World of Warcraft. Each life quest told the story of its respective race and what their purpose in the world is, often continuing the story set up in the "smaller" regular quests. For example, the undead life quest revolved around their effort to develop a new plague and would have involved rescuing the undead player character's father from captivity, while the orc life quest would give players a taste of the demonic influence from their past and force them to combat it.

Blizzard planned to implement life quests after they had finished adding all of the game's regular quests. However, while life quests were intended to feel cool and individual, the developers increasingly found that they instead started feeling overly canned since they gave the same backstory to every player character of a particular race. The designers ended up steering in the direction of simply making epic high-level questlines with stories based around the NPCs (such as the Darrowshire questline or the Horde Onyxia's Lair attunement) rather than trying to tell players what their character's life story is. https://wow.gamepedia.com/Life_quest

What a shame that this idea was scrapped...

Had no idea, sounded like it would have been really cool. It's just the sort of personal touch the classic quests needed, could have changed so much, if given alongisde what we got.

[Beloren]

HEre are some potential versions from the other thread.
https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...ves-directives

Proposal for What each race should be about?
While most races have a general objective, what they lack is a focused campaign we see this played out or how they go about achieving some of these goals and what they're up to.

now this ofc is the job of the creative team, but they have left enough breadcrumbs to pick up for each race, let's just focus on the ones that don't have anything interesting/worthwhile to do - either because we did it in their campaign

But it would be interesting to see what you feel each race should be doing.
Every race seems to have:
Defend the world
Protect their allies
Destroy the other faction

But most are in complete disarray, near extinction, many are homeless or in half ruined homes - many have complexities of relations local threats the starting ares didn't quite deal with. How should they go about their future purpose.

Now while it's fine for a race to have no singular objective they're about, survival in a dangerous world is enough of handful, how you go about ensuring that though, is what purpose can fix you.

e.g.

Blood Elves
Blood elves can be shown to take bigger steps in securing thier future and securing Quel'thalas, repairing Ghostlands or living in that state. I'd like to see Darkfallen elves, San'layn, High elves all play roles in Quel'thlaas,a nd the various interactions, conflicts, truce's. Blodoe lves shoudl look to securing more land, expansion into northrend and Eastern Plaguelands too, possibly heavy involvement in dragon isles.

I'd also liketo see more outland presence/control. The scryers are working there, and likely involved in cross faction efforts with Draenei - the shattered hand is a blood elf/draenei faction - I'd like to see some involvement with them - like new technologies and magical energy blood levs gain from netherstorm and working with the Draenei.

Blood elf operations in the Kirin'tor is also another facet to look into. I know many don't like how Aethas Sunreavr has behaved, but he has seenthe bigger picture, at all costs the blood elvss cannot be left out of Dalaran affairs,Dalaran cannot be an all alliance asset, and he has allowed the blood elves to bend over backwards against all their pride to ensure their place is secure, this has huge benefits.

I'd also like to see the blood elvs, that are now allied with the Nightborne establish the Reliquary as a rival institution of knowledge and magic amongst the horde.

Finally void elves and alliance high elves: This would be interesting, the Silver Covenant seems to be warming up to the blood elves and we'd like to puruse that, whiles most high elves remain alliance friendly i'd love tosee the blood elves winning some over, though they insist on keeping their code. Should a war escalate between the Thalassians factions that ends in a forced turce to prevent hte Sunwell being destroyed again( that sounds like it coudl be a grand plot that results in high elves, void elves and all thalassians sharing Quel'thalas under a join sanctuary imposed state - where no elf killing is allowed and each elven race represents the faction's interest there.. the elves determine whether non-elf races are allowed in, each race from a faction deals with their corresponding elf race in their faction - but since that war, no elf on elf kililng is allowed. That coudl be interesting. Void elves are not allowed near the sunwell, but instead devise a way to protect the area from the void threats (they're fine with this, the void interests them void/arcane not light/arcane, and they're happy to help defend the Sunwell in the way they can. The blood elves set up a secret organisation to monitor the void elves for signs of madness or giving in, with orders to slaughter them all if that happens to be the case. The high elves are on fel watch against the blood elves too, especially since the Illidari started recruiting fel elves from outland who were left aimless without the legion (this is why Illidari options now extend to blood elf warlocks, mages, rogues and hunters). High elves and void elves are intent on changing the political ideology of the blood elves winning them back tot he alliance, however there are some horde fanatic blood elves, and the thing is most Thalassians don't want to be dependent on either faction - this is the one common ground and pursuit that cements this sanctuary and who knows, some where down the line may end up being the thing that eventually brings them together despite their differences.


Nightborne
Nightborne see the elves once a united people, glorious and full of wisdom and nobility, now a fractured people fighting and hating themselves, nearly extinct, and still fighting in the face of that. They find purpose in re-uniting the elven race and restoring the beauty and wonder of the ancient elven civilization their city remains the last of. They find very welcome allies in the Highborne from Kalimdor, who the only other group that understands that culture, remembers the good of that era, and wants to restore it.

They seek to convince their Darnassian and Thalassian allies to come together - most Darnassiasn only remember the horror of the final days of the pre-sundering empire and are unwilling to restore anything - but 10k years have passed, and the Highborne are keen to restore the honour, pride and nobility of their race and feel the world needs their stability, wisdom , nobility and strength in this department like never before. they have the best hope of civilisation to offer and a vision of unity.

So together, they ally seeking to show the world the elves can get along and unity is possible. They decide the Nightborne would work within the horde to temper the hate of the blood elves whiles making sure no Garrosh/Sylvannas situations ever arise and that thee factions would instead be ready to unit to fight world threats rather than destroy each other, the Highborne do the same in the alliance for the Darnassians and to prevent Arthas like horrors from repeating.

They face elven prejudice, old grudges and phobias, but they offer wisdom, logic and hope - they have some powerful elves in high places amongst the Darnassians and Thalassians in support of their cause, but also powerful opposition in some individuals whose hatreds run deep.

The broken isles sees a working relationship between the elven halves of kaldoreai and shal'dorei in opposite factions working together, the friendship of Farodin and the Val'sharah druids and priests as well as the Moonguard continued with Thalyssra and the Nightborne they were separated from after the sundering, with the Highborne from across the sea joining the effort, their is real optimism for being able to achieve this goal despite the challenge.

The Highborne also work to save the Farondis with vital knowledge about the magical device Azshara copted to destroy and curse them and new information from the Shadowlands - together they also start rebuilding the ruins around broken isle. This is becomes about bringin hope, overcoming racial mistrust, fighting saboteurs and those bent on perpetuating hatreds, intrigues and plots, secret gatherings (for peace and for good for a change)




I haven't done detailed ones for other races but:

Orcs: Need a new leader, and what to do about Kalimdor now, the night elves new demands, and room needed for the Mag'har.

Darkspear: With the Zandalari back, Bwonsamdi/Vol'jin reveals, the darkspear have become regarded as the most powerful Loa operatives, shadow hunters amongst troll kind, they gain a special honour and level of respect even amongst the Zandalari for this ancient and powerful purpose they carry. But what of them? We need to see more of the shadow hunter, the establishment of the Darkspear.. Rokhan or Vol'jin needs more reveals and this needs to tie into the darkspear.

What happens with Echo isles? And also Stranglethorn vale once they dealt with the Gurubashi - also we find out why Darkspears have bluish skin - it's becuase of the shadow hunting talent and techniques, otherwise their skin would be green.

it's little things like that i'd love to see.

Zandalari - I'd like to see a reverse plot that results in the Mogu joining the horde as the Pandaren related allied race. we saw a lot of action with them working together as our enemies, now a plot that results in the opposite would be a really great tale.

for the Mag'har - we'd like to tie up the AU Draenor and Lightbound plot, possibly resulting in Arrakoa and light enhanced Saberon (now intelligent or even better Orcs who underwent worgen like ritual to take on Saberon enhancements to fight the Lightbound) in a crazy plot that involves bringing a chunk of AU Draenor to mainland Azeroth - allowing Arrakoa and Saberon to be playable allied races on Azeroth. Yrel ends up dying or finding the true path of the light and joining the Draenei on Azeroth at the end of the conflict. Or somewhere along it.. so alliance fan bois get her back.


I haven't done any serious ones for alliance races. A lot of them already have solid purposes anyway. Night elves could do something whacky like insist on also having a seat on the horde council in Orgrimmar to ensure the horde always honours its pact, they insist on having strict control of any resources from Ashenvale and lobby the Cenarion circle to prioritise growing wood resources in the southern barrens and Durotar. Azshara gets complicated as the night elves insist on having their base of operations and a kaldorei city there to enhance horde/alliance trade relations, but it's really the night elves only condition for peace.. let's see how long it lasts when they absolutely hate the orcs. But can unusual friendships arise even as relationships constantly decline and the headache their interference causes. Night elves come off as arrogant, self righteous "we know how to save the world best" type of people. They also have a strictly off limits policy to certain areas, like Hyjal (unless you're a horde race druid ofc).

It holds, for now, because no one can afford a war. orcs and female night elves find they like fighting each other in duels. Orgrimmar is a violent city after all, and tempers easily run out of hand. In stark contrast to the unification of the highborne/nightborne efforts on the broken isles, we have NElves trying to provoke Nightborne to hate the orcs, sometimes very cleverly sometimes very obviously, but Nb are no fools, but NElves are quite smart, they try on blood elves too, but most blood elves in Orgrimmar are horde hard liners, and hate the night elves - but hate makes strange bed fellows.

and this one for alliance done by Ravenmoon.

okay, here's my attempt on what the races shoudl be up to. I'll mainly focus on alliance raecs

Vulpera: scrounge and scavange; horde wise they could be the horde's "specialist procurement" race - i.e. thieves. Should
Orcs: should be focusing on new leadership, I still think orcs would be ambitious of leading the horde and re-establishing the warchief
Trolls: Darkspear I agree need more depth, outside Vol'jin we know no one, Rokhan can't be the be all, and while shadow hunting can be interesting, I don't think tit should be the focus
Zandalari - Loa and fixing the corruption in the troll races
Goblins - They are definitely one of the more interesting and colourful horde races, they would have purpose and value every where, outside whatever campaign is going on, which exploitation and profit would always provide goals and objectives, other things could include.

Night elves:
I think are better served going into reclusion and isolation focusing entirely on securing Kalimdor. Establishing a new home on Hyjal, a new city and maximising their capability - utilising the Well of Eternity and Nordrassil, policing and monitoring their neighbours and being very strict about whoever gets into their forests. The Highborne are more adventurous, they work a lot more with the humans and high elves and void elves too. the Moon priestesses find a way to stabilise the night warrior ritual, their void experiences attract void elf friendship. That idea about Night elves operating in the hode was one I proposed a awhile ago, it's an interesting one that can only work in an official peace, I still think it's the only non war option the night elves would accept currently, . If they do this, it would be a faction of Night elves Tyrande creates specifically to operate in and with/thehorde

Void elves:
Should be void ambassadors every where in the alliance, showing the usefulness of the void and the readiness of races to deal with the void threat. They wanna ensure all the alliance races are fully prepared and station void contingencies. They also want to work with druids, nature and void effects, the druids need their help to protect the emerald dream from the void, void elf botanists train with druids and develop all manner of interesting fusions both to remove void effects, enhance them to work well with nature and/or prevent them from effecting nature too.

Also void elf high elf relations grow strongly with Alleria and Vereesa like two halves, the high elves and void elves are liek twin pairs working closely together, some high elves join the void elves for interesting the void, others just don't.

Humans
Really continue to obsess on Lordaeron and Arathi, nothing's really happening in the south, although a Troll problem in Stranglethorn happens, but Stranglethorn becomes this weird fusion of piracy and lawlessness, those who don't want the order of Stormwind, brigands, pirates, and while some are race based, most aren't. Alliance leadership also takes a lot of hits, with no war to pursue and some races wanting the horde to pay for the crimes, Anduin can't hold it all together, however the Kul'tirans, Arthians, and Lordaeron survivors as well as the Gilneans are indebted to him for the securing of parts of their nations and allowing them to clai m cities like Loradaeron and Arathor. The High King title becomes High King of the humans, not the alliance. The alliance is not united, certainly not like before, the Night elves are alliance in only name, they don't respond to any of the factions military campaigns or orders, nor do they ask for help and they give none. The only night elves you tend to see are those related to specific orders like the Cenarion circle that have work round the dreamgate trees or the Highborne who work closely with Dalaran

Worgen:
Night elf worgen return from the emerald dream and replace the Gilneans interacting with the night elves in night elf homes. While they are based in Val'sharah occupying Shal'anir as their home, many venture to Kalimdor becoming great friends with the night elves. While some Gilneans remain, or rather very few, they're replaced by night elf worgen (new unique night elf model). The Gilneans, which make up the core race Worgen, their campaign sees them reclaiming Gilenas and Silverpine fllowing into western hillsbrad. Genn's refusal to support Anduins choices over the alliance may have ben teh spark that cuased the fracture, but he stood by him nonetheless in the leadership vote, Genn still defers to Anduin' as High King though in truth this is only over the human nations. . other therats lure, something has been destablisign the newly reformed nation of Lordaron and effecting worgen too, it is later discoverd to be a new type of undead humans that are indsitingusihable in appearance from normal humans save for the cold touch of death, they seem to have extraoridnary abilities and corspes are found with their blood completley drained, this sparks a race that threatens to lose all the northern EK to the new menace and forms the bulk of the cmapaign - they are later uncovered to be vampires, and would have succeeded completley if their mystry hadn't been uncovered. THe discovery leads to nearly total vicotry over them but the forsaken step in and rescue leading to a complex state of affairs betwen living, dead, undead and vampire in lordaeron and gilneas - welcome the Underworld of Warcraft. Results in Calia lieading a huana nd undead Lordaron, but with interesting facots and influences from worgen and other forsaken who'd rather this unique colaboration cease, yet, life continues.

Draenei
are light bastion, they have repaired the Exodar but are also rebuilding Draenei cities, like Shattrath and those we see on Argus. Draenei are looking into ways of rescuing those from Argus and possibly reclaiming it (but that ends in the discovery that Argus won't be hospitable for millennia), this venture leads to the return of the Eredar and possiblity of that sub-race as an allied race as well as the Kro'kul (or broken) too. Draenei communities living with shift in balnace and split between 3 major groups.

The Lightforged
Settle in the Dalaran crater, they build New Auchindouin as their new bastion, they are quite close with the humans, more so than the Draenei, they feel the blood elves are abusing the light and missing the primary purpose of it, which the void elves find a shame cos they really like the Lightforged, the blood elves don't appreciate their efforts of re-indoctriantion, this provides new challenges. There is a blood elf colony in Bloodmyst which had reached a truce with the Draenei,.

Draenei are not hte only ones that can become Lightforged, but just like you can only play human undead, you can only play Draenei Lightforged.

Dwarves,
especially bronzebeards are now obsessed even more with the titans, unlocking titan powers within them, a dwarven priesthood grows to great prominence in Ironforge society, the Paths of the Titans is a huge fad, bu with it comes a looking down of sorts on Wildhammer clans who seem a lot more storm and lightning orientated, elements etc. Wildhammer shamanism is quite unique too, it's not the primitive type of the Tauren and Orcs, but it has a tribalism based on their clans - their shaminism is far more tied to lightning warhammers they use on their gryphons.

Dark Irons become the Azeorth champions, deep earth delving, and Magni actually connects and works a lot more with them on Azeroth's behalf than he does with the Ironforge cadre. but they still regard him as king in ironforge even though he doesn't rule them, and becuase of that even when tensions arise, the dark irons and Bronzebeards don't go to war, and end up preventing one between the Wildhammers and Bronzebeards. on domestic issues, the fighting with other races is Wildhammer based.. the Hinterlands and Tiwlight highlands become battle fronts. Wildhammers and high elves against forest torlls, and Wildhammers against Dragonmaw -


Mechagnomes
become ambassadors of mechanisation and augmentation, and are completely shocekd that no one is interested. Still their work focuses on helping gnome kind who is open, their advance technlogy provides a way to reconstitute a lot of gnomes that became goo, the side effects iresults in tehsegnomes appearing as leper gnomes.

Gnomeragan
Was an ancient mobile city in its original design, the mechagnomes provide the added ingenuity to mobilise the city. However the gnomes find a new cause, leper gnomes are been enslaved all over the world, especially in amongst horde races, Silvermoon employing leper gnomes slaves sparks a mission to expose which ends up causing severe embarrassment to the sin'dorei, Leper gnomes as slaves in forsaken and orc territories and cultures is common, some are willing after having been rejected by the alliance races. The gnomes begin a mission liberate gnomekind, and we see a lot of engienering tech, setalth tech etc employed.

There is also a science v magic and magic augmentation to science unit and pursuit of study, with two intellectual factions in rivalry, Gnomes get drawn to the draenei magi-tech and also to the Lightforged light tech -s o there is some cross race interaction there. Gnomes become one of hte best alliance races for rogues and tinkers.

[Varodoc]

Unlike Guild Wars 2 or LOTRO, WoW was built on a two factions system, thus it is inherently impossible for single races to receive more spotlight than the actual factions.

[Combatbutler]

I have seen the covenant storylines that is just four, let me tell you, they would fail miserably at more than that.

[ravenmoon]

Unlike Guild Wars 2 or LOTRO, WoW was built on a two factions system, thus it is inherently impossible for single races to receive more spotlight than the actual factions.

Actually, factions are just the vehicle by which players are organised into two camps, they don't need to be the main focus, .. you can easily have a story focus that focuses on what races are doing and you effectively work for your race, like you did for your class in Legion, which had a minor faction role.

That everything has to revolve around faction is actually quite arbitrary and entirely optional. All that is necessary is for their to be two factions to organise the game systems, - there can be multiple races and multiple race stories, just like you can have multiple classes and multiple zones too.

[Beloren]

I have seen the covenant storylines that is just four, let me tell you, they would fail miserably at more than that.

And this is why they need to go back to zone and race based story telling. Everyone is doing their thing.. you can some threads that lead to bigger faction wide collaborations to take down, but it's mostly everyone doing their own adventure - and your adventure is based on where you choose to quest or your race. If i'ts purely zone based, then an orc can experience a blood elves storyline, if it's race based like in Legion then obviously not. Could be a combination of the two or the three.

[Varodoc]

Actually, factions are just the vehicle by which players are organised into two camps, they don't need to be the main focus, .. you can easily have a story focus that focuses on what races are doing and you effectively work for your race, like you did for your class in Legion, which had a minor faction role.

That everything has to revolve around faction is actually quite arbitrary and entirely optional. All that is necessary is for their to be two factions to organise the game systems, - there can be multiple races and multiple race stories, just like you can have multiple classes and multiple zones too.

No because the vast majority of players don't care about the story. Which kind of conflict would generate more hype and internet traffic for the game? Goblin vs. gnomes, blood elves vs. night elves, or Alliance vs. Horde?

Also it took massive effort and resources to create the various storylines for the Legion order halls. Legion was already in development when WoD wasn't even out. "Blizzard should focus more on single race storylines like they did with classes", that's much easier said than done.

[Combatbutler]

And this is why they need to go back to zone and race based story telling. Everyone is doing their thing.. you can some threads that lead to bigger faction wide collaborations to take down, but it's mostly everyone doing their own adventure - and your adventure is based on where you choose to quest or your race. If i'ts purely zone based, then an orc can experience a blood elves storyline, if it's race based like in Legion then obviously not. Could be a combination of the two or the three.

Covenants are already pretty much story and race based zones and I am telling you what you want here is wishful thinking.

[Kyphael]

It always has been. The title of the first game that spawned this entire IP is titled "Orcs vs. Humans." The only reason the game has focused less on Orcs recently and more on perceptually hot Undead chicks is because A) Chris Metzen retired and B) People belly ached there was too much focus on Orcs (Thrall, Garrosh, Warlords all back to back.)

[Koryn123]

I did something like this in another thread and colored over a composite map of the Eastern Kingdoms to explain what the story of each race would be after a potential 5-20 year time skip during Shadowlands: https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...tern-Kingdoms)

It's very long though, so I won't post it here, but I don't think any of the ideas presented by me or anyone else would work if it was treated as some extra thing like the war campaign or heritage armor questlines. This would have to be a world revamp where these are the quests people do. This is the new world, not race exclusive or anything. Best suited for certain races because the story in the area is about them, but any race could do them. The story needs to be about the groups and explain what's going on in the WORLD, not just what's happening to one character. This would push the stories of the races along, and would make the world feel much more like a vast world with many different problems in different places, occasionally interacting, but no single thing requiring the attention of everyone in the entire world at the same time, like the Legion and Old God conflicts we keep getting squished into following a Khadgar or a Lorewalker Cho or a Magni to deal with, where the story really suits nobody and the world just feels stale and boring because nothing else is going on conveniently to make room for one singular problem every 2 years like clockwork.

The centaur are really just sitting around peacefully all this time? What are the Scarlet Crusade doing? The world needs to be updated periodically. Rather than making new zones every expansion and introducing yet another race of furry quirky animal humanoids who need your help with a goofy puzzle world quest and taking your attention away from a cool conflict going on in the old world you can only read about on your mission table, put that effort toward updating the old zones. No need for a visual overhaul (imo, Arathi doesn't feel at all like old Arathi, it just looks like generic post-MoP Green Grassland #6), just the quests.

[ravenmoon]

Covenants are already pretty much story and race based zones and I am telling you what you want here is wishful thinking.

Agreed.. I would have preferred they used the races in this manner.

Look at their statements here:

Development Update: The Road to Shadowlands

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Before starting an arena match, engaging a raid boss, or entering a dungeon, a character in Shadowlands can change their specialization, talents (and PvP talents if appropriate), legendary item, other equipment, active soulbind, and chosen path within that soulbind. When it comes to customizing your “loadout” – the set of tools you’re going to take into a given encounter – WoW offers more options than ever before, and you can almost entirely reshape your character on the fly to suit the moment. But as malleable as those choices are, none of them, other than perhaps your specialization, defines your character – they aren’t who you are, but rather what you happen to be doing at any given moment.

Rather than add yet another layer to that decision matrix, we’re trying to do something different here, and let players more meaningfully define their character’s identity and set themselves apart from others who play the same class. And that identity entails a blend of aesthetic preference, narrative experience, and mechanical strengths and weaknesses. From the earliest sketched designs of the covenant system, our goal was for the answer to “what do you play?” in Shadowlands to be “Kyrian paladin” or “Venthyr paladin” rather than just “paladin.” And given the central role of combat and power progression to World of Warcraft as a whole, achieving that goal for most players requires that there be player power implications to covenant choice.

They race basically recognising that your class/specialization defines your character and want your covenant to do so.. the interesting thing is your RACE should be defining your character significantly. but it's only system is the 4-6 racials you have which have negligible effect.

Now if they just swapped covenant with your actual race, it would have been far more interesting. New things can be nice, but when existing things like races are so bad shape lore wise, as fundamental parts of your character, it's hard to be into a new set of races.

And to all those who would readily point out it's much easier to do with 4 races (i.e. covenants) than 25 races, I think they should use their creative genius to figure out a way to make it work

- - - Updated - - -

I did something like this in another thread and colored over a composite map of the Eastern Kingdoms to explain what the story of each race would be after a potential 5-20 year time skip during Shadowlands: https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...tern-Kingdoms)

It's very long though, so I won't post it here, but I don't think any of the ideas presented by me or anyone else would work if it was treated as some extra thing like the war campaign or heritage armor questlines. This would have to be a world revamp where these are the quests people do. This is the new world, not race exclusive or anything. Best suited for certain races because the story in the area is about them, but any race could do them. The story needs to be about the groups and explain what's going on in the WORLD, not just what's happening to one character. This would push the stories of the races along, and would make the world feel much more like a vast world with many different problems in different places, occasionally interacting, but no single thing requiring the attention of everyone in the entire world at the same time, like the Legion and Old God conflicts we keep getting squished into following a Khadgar or a Lorewalker Cho or a Magni to deal with, where the story really suits nobody and the world just feels stale and boring.

Agreed, if they were going to do something in that ball park it would have to be 100% effort, like Covenants are, it would be the main system of the expansion or even go deeper than that a founding new system integrated into the game that was carried into multiple expansion with whatever new systems they added.

i also proposed something similar in City building /race based expansion that centred the progress around developing your race, having a complete integrate system for that expansion, but a break away version that would continue beyond it with whatever ne system the new expansion introduced , allowing you to continue to develop your race for several expansions as a long term multi-expansion progress system that did not reset every expansion because the breakaway portion was more cosmetic and and secondary system based (like followers etc) it wasn't main combat based. It would make things like professions, NPcs, housing, zone and city aesthetics all improved with time and not reset with a new expansion.

This would be possible because it didn't effect your characters power. However whatever new expansion system that effected your characters power for that expansion could easily tie into it so that it always remained relevant, but yet also progressed too. Without needing a reset.

[Aresk]

Isn't this inherently racist? Should all Alliance demon hunters be forced to play through the night elf story, despite the fact that they're at best a splinter group from the Sentinels? Are blood elf warlocks and rangers really invested in the same things? How do you tell a story for orcs that satisfies both Thrall and Garrosh fans? While there are regional threats that might inspire interest across the spectrum, similar to how both the Alliance and Horde were invested in N'zoth's invasion, I think transitioning to racial stories being the major focus of an expansion would be a mistake (and not just because it would require an alt of every race to see the whole story). Now if it were more generic storylines open to all characters (e.g. the Night Elf darkshore assault or the Zandalari coup), I think it would be fine.

[Beloren]

Isn't this inherently racist? Should all Alliance demon hunters be forced to play through the night elf story, despite the fact that they're at best a splinter group from the Sentinels? Are blood elf warlocks and rangers really invested in the same things? How do you tell a story for orcs that satisfies both Thrall and Garrosh fans? While there are regional threats that might inspire interest across the spectrum, similar to how both the Alliance and Horde were invested in N'zoth's invasion, I think transitioning to racial stories being the major focus of an expansion would be a mistake (and not just because it would require an alt of every race to see the whole story). Now if it were more generic storylines open to all characters (e.g. the Night Elf darkshore assault or the Zandalari coup), I think it would be fine.

Depends on how you want to play it, does the demon hunter identify with his race now? Whether or not they're okay with him, are they okay with his help? it's hard to imagine they would say no to the hero who defeated the Legion, Azshara, N'zoth, fought with their race through Darkshore 9if night elf), did all the heorics of the shadowlands, only for the racial leaders to still suspect him.

I wouldn't imagine you'd need to do a separate one for the Illidari because they seem to love thier people a lot, I mean it was vengeance for their people that got them int o Demon hunting.

The DKs is a bit different, with many races, I would have a story thread for them, but it would be tied to the forsaken. I mean they are both undead, and their are many story elements with the scourge, helm of damnation aftermath of shadowlands, the San'layn, vampires, the Darkfallen , Lightforged forsaken, Lordaeron, Northrend, the vrykul that still need tying up .. it's a big story line and can be intertwined with the forsaken so if you are a DK you get to go on the undead storyline path. IF they are kind they would give you a choice to choose your races path or the undead path.

if they did it zone based, you could probably experience a lot of another races storyline, but you wouldn't be doing that race's actual campaign or rep gain, but that would likely be a handful of repeatable quests and WQs you rack up that get additions and updates slowly through the patches, so it's not a whole lt you'll be missing.

it depends on how they organise the system. The most recent proposal I have viewed is a combination of zone and race based. So in a revamp major plotlines would be tied to zones, and focus on the races that are connected both genetically and geographically.

however, eventually after the zone areas are done the further quests are race locked, however a lot of races would be sharing the same quests, based on what' their campaigns are doing. It actually won't be designing 23 different distinct full racial campaigns, even though it would be 23, because of the sharing/duplicate, it would be something like 7-13 distinct ones.

think of it like how they did the 35 specs for artifact weapon and ended up with 13 class campaigns It's slightly different for races, but you can combine and chop and change. Here is what I wrote in the other thread.

Indeed, that's the complication, we have more races than classes, however I think races can be combined/shared based on their grouping and geography.

e.g. Human, Forsaken, Blood elf, void elf can all be part of one plot - with smaller sections devoting to them
Stormwind, Gilneas, Kul'tiras, Dalaran, Arathor - also another plot that ties into the above

Basically they decide what each of the races are doing, including allied races, then they weave a story that is zone based. So you will get a lot of what the blood elves are doing in Quel'thalas and northern eastern kingdoms, but Quel'thalas will also touch story for high elves and void elves.


Class campaigns really weren't that detailed, the idea is you add stuff incremenetally. Void elves will get their quests from Teleogrus rift or Stormwind o as their order hall.

After the zones tell the story, race campaigns would be relatively easy, it would be a few quests aded for each race, but added every patch, that allows players to build new rep with their race.

So say for first two patches of next expansion, You're actually building rep with the Farstriders, then next 2, it's the Magisters, next 2, it's the Sunsworn - each will come with quests that send you to the ew expansion areas, but sometimes other parts of azeroth.

Once you do the intiail set up and overaching plot, it's kinda quite easy to continue it for several expansions.


You only need to do zones people are affected, and you don't need to do massive for everyone.

If you're doing a revamp of EK and Kalimdor, some races are going to have a lot more than others, but that's fine, e.g. Kul'tiras wouldn't have that much, but once a kul'tiran finishes his story it's woven in to the meet the humans a long a certain point. Because Kul'tiras wasn't revamped, thre's not a huge story going on there, so Kul'tirans get roughly a third of what humans get, they join the human campaign 1/3rd into it, but becuase of this, part of the human campaign will involve Kul'tiras a little later on.

THis is just an example of how you combine things



Nightborne and night elf is another combination, but it's geographically based, these races have the broken isle in common and are connected because they are NElf culture, so Night elves start with Darnassian related and kalimdor related stuff for their first half,, and then the focus switches to the Highborne and the Nightborne on the borken isles with the other night elves and what happens between them, so for half of the campaign, Nightborne and Night elves share the same campaign. Although in later patches, they will get individula quests, because the story is tied, they're likely going to be the same quests. as the cause they're involve in is related.

So you're not doing 29 different full campaigns, you're actually doing something like 6-13 tops

Humans, Kul'tirans, Gilneans, Forsaken, Void elves and Blood elves - all one campaign with 6 different begins that slowly come together
Dwarves/Dark irons, Gnomes, Mechagnomes, Vulpera and Goblins - also one campaign
Night elves, Nightborne - one campaign
Orcs, Trolls, Zandalari, Mag'har, Tauren, Highmountain, Vulpera, Goblins - one campaign (HM Tauren touch Nightborne)
Draenei, Lightforged - one campaign (LF touch humans, blood elves and night elves)
Pandaren - one campaign (sorry they need that love)
Undead - one campaign (involves DKs, scourge, forsaken, san'layn, dark rangers , dark fallen etc)

(demon hunters share the campaign of their respective races unlike DKs)

So it's 7 really, but there would be shared quests based on what the objectives are and the location is, so while the forsaken have their own campaign, they also will share quests when appropriate with the Human/Thalassian group.

it's effevctively 7-13 campaigns, even though each race will have it's own quest givers and city/area to work from (though some of these can change during the course of the story - a race might start homeless but ended up with one along the way etc) . So it seems like it's 23 different ones, but actually it's not. Think about the artifact quests, initially you had 33 openings, you will have 23 starts, but they'll combine and share later stages in roughly 7-13 different campaigns not 23.

That's how I'd do it.

They are the systems experts, I'm sure if they wanted to they could make it work. How I wish they will want to, especially for this above. I wish I wish I wish i wish.

[Koryn123]

Isn't this inherently racist? Should all Alliance demon hunters be forced to play through the night elf story, despite the fact that they're at best a splinter group from the Sentinels? Are blood elf warlocks and rangers really invested in the same things? How do you tell a story for orcs that satisfies both Thrall and Garrosh fans? While there are regional threats that might inspire interest across the spectrum, similar to how both the Alliance and Horde were invested in N'zoth's invasion, I think transitioning to racial stories being the major focus of an expansion would be a mistake (and not just because it would require an alt of every race to see the whole story). Now if it were more generic storylines open to all characters (e.g. the Night Elf darkshore assault or the Zandalari coup), I think it would be fine.

Illidan was pretty invested in the safety of the Night Elves in WC3. It was only in this globalized homogenized story of WoW that it became about saving Azeroth in general. I think it's important to explain what the demon hunters are up to now that the Legion is defeated. They should be adjusting to protecting their people again imo.

The only other thing they could do would be maybe trying to enslave the rest of the Legion to work for the interests of Azeroth against threats like the void, and that would be boring imo. If you're like "I fight for my family," we'd expect you to at least visit your family once in a while. We need to reset the stakes, bring things down, lower the drama a bit, and make our conflicts about normal realistic things everyone can identify with like a need for resources, territory, survival against a looming threat, justice for the dead, etc.

[ravenmoon]

Illidan was pretty invested in the safety of the Night Elves in WC3. It was only in this globalized homogenized story of WoW that it became about saving Azeroth in general. I think it's important to explain what the demon hunters are up to now that the Legion is defeated. They should be adjusting to protecting their people again imo.

The only other thing they could do would be maybe trying to enslave the rest of the Legion to work for the interests of Azeroth against threats like the void, and that would be boring imo. If you're like "I fight for my family," we'd expect you to at least visit your family once in a while. We need to reset the stakes, bring things down, lower the drama a bit, and make our conflicts about normal realistic things everyone can identify with like a need for resources, territory, survival against a looming threat, justice for the dead, etc.

Agreed, racial focus would turn the global/universe ending plots down or at least give a break.

Focusing on important local matters, which can also be very interesting and very important too. So much to catch up on what everyone is doing, has faired in response to the various crises, how they've been shaped etc. Upgrades and new developments, good and bad.

It's their time to actually tell great eciting stories but that have good endings too that improve and boost the races too, building them up in cool ways people would really like, then to unleash them against the next threat as well as each other in relevant cases.

And spot on about the Illidari too. They definitely care for their people. Even though Illidan was all about proteting Azeroth in the end, his goodbye messages show that he held Tyande and his brother close to his heart, i canonly assume most DHs devotion to such extreme self sacrificial measures is indeed for the people they love.

AS for ensalving the demons, spot on. This is why i have felt for a very long time Illidari should be primarily Demon hunters and demon hunting Warlocks - 2 classes, the green fire warlock being their caster version of warlock with thier own unique name like Arcanitols have for a troll version of mage. My preference has always been Fel Lord. Some warlocks love demons, bu the class is about enslaving and binding hem to your will to use and abuse or love to your hearts content. Mainly warlocks love the power for megalomaniac purposes, Illidari desire the power but to destroy bigger demons who threaten their world.

[Koryn123]

Having the Demon Hunters return home would provide for some interesting drama not just within factions but within races. We need to reset the board and take inventory of the various major influential groups within each race.

With Tyrande missing in the Shadowlands, it would be cool for the demon hunters and the Watchers to become major players in Night Elf society, both pulling their people in two similar but also different directions, both fiercely dedicated to the defense and vengeance for their people, but taking alternate routes to get there. I'd like to see the night elf Illidari return to night elf society and turn their attention toward the orcs and the demons in Kalimdor, while the blood elf Illidari return to Quel'thalas and turn their attention toward the Scourge, as it was created by the Legion after all.

The Illidari's use of fel magic would provide for a neat callback to BC blood elf attitudes, possibly making fel use popular again at least in the Ghostlands to fend off the Scourge, as it secured their borders pretty much overnight when Rommath brought it to Quel'thalas.

[Combatbutler]

Illidan was pretty invested in the safety of the Night Elves in WC3. It was only in this globalized homogenized story of WoW that it became about saving Azeroth in general. I think it's important to explain what the demon hunters are up to now that the Legion is defeated. They should be adjusting to protecting their people again imo.

I wouldn't say illidan cared for his people


Tyrande Whisperwind: "The Legion has returned, Illidan. Your people have need of you once more."
Illidan breaks free from his cell.
Illidan Stormrage: "Because I once cared for you, Tyrande, I will hunt down the demons. But I will never owe our people anything!"

https://wow.gamepedia.com/Brothers_i...(WC3_NightElf)

[ravenmoon]

I wouldn't say illidan cared for his people




Tyrande Whisperwind: "The Legion has returned, Illidan. Your people have need of you once more."
Illidan breaks free from his cell.
Illidan Stormrage: "Because I once cared for you, Tyrande, I will hunt down the demons. But I will never owe our people anything!"


https://wow.gamepedia.com/Brothers_i...(WC3_NightElf)

That doesn't say he doesn't care for his people, a lot even. You are correct that Illidan doesn't owe his people anything, he's done more than all, sacrificed more than all, and was punished for it.


But I still feel he does care deeply for them, his entire motivation for all of this is rooted in a deep love for the very people , and one of the things I love about him, is that inspite of all that he still goes ahead to save them and the world, and I think that after Legion events many night elves will see this.

Now this is what I feel. I can see the Illidari getting new recruits or at least fan service, especially from Nelf males who would use Illidan as their inspiration.


At least that's one of the things I'd do. This is what happens when a people realise they got something very wrong and did a terrible injustice to some one. I even think they'd blame themselves for some of the bad things he did to achieve this victory , albeit misguided, thinking that if they had given him more support he would have had other options or could have persuaded him to.

Short story - history will treat him kinder amongst the Night elves than it did the last 10,000 years did.

[Tanaria]

AS for ensalving the demons, spot on. This is why i have felt for a very long time Illidari should be primarily Demon hunters and demon hunting Warlocks - 2 classes, the green fire warlock being their caster version of warlock with thier own unique name like Arcanitols have for a troll version of mage. My preference has always been Fel Lord. Some warlocks love demons, bu the class is about enslaving and binding hem to your will to use and abuse or love to your hearts content. Mainly warlocks love the power for megalomaniac purposes, Illidari desire the power but to destroy bigger demons who threaten their world.

But why would anyone go through those near, life-ending rituals, if you all your going to be is a Warlock?
You simply wouldn't do it.

Blood Elf Warlocks of Silvermoon didn't need to become akin to Demon Hunters to learn how to simply weave fel magic.
The crazed Shen'dralar under Tortheldrin didn't need to become akin to Demon Hunters to learn how to siphon the demonic magic.

The Illidari goes beyond just Demon Hunters and Warlocks. I mean, why can't my Blood Elf Warrior have Illidari features? She was once an Illidari Defender...