Class inspirations in Warcraft, and yours?

[Teriz]

very likely yeah,but clumsy?have you seen taran zhu?the pandas specialy that faction is pretty clearly portrayed as elite ninjas,not clumsy at all

Brewmaster art shortly after WC3 and way before MoP;



Definitely not clumsy.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

WHat do you think inspired the various classes in warcraft ?

Much of WoW's aesthetics and class design was inspired by metal album covers and D&D fantasy art. Death Knights were inspired by a mixture of heavy metal album covers, and Lord Soth from Dragonlance (aka the first Death Knight in contemporary fiction). Shamans too were also influenced by heavy metal album covers and D&D fantasy art (lots of guys who wield the power of lightning and fire). Mages as well (hence Warcraft's preference for muscular mages).

pandas existed since warcraft,but i dont remember if they had the kung fu aspect back then,or it was something they saw in the movie and liked

Samwise Didier's original Pandaren were samurai Pandas. This was changed during development because Blizzard had a very large Chinese audience, and thus a financial incentive to pander to them. They whined about Pandas wearing Japanese attire and thus Chen's attire was changed. It would have been interesting if pandering to China hadn't been a factor and the Japanese Pandaren had been retained. A hypothetical Pandaria expansion could have different aesthetics. GW1 was similar in that Factions had a new country, Cantha, which was creative mishmash of Korean, Chinese, and Japanese aesthetics, but by the time GW2 rolled around the suits had a vested interest in pleasing Koreans, so when GW2 returned to Cantha it was Korean-washed and lost much of what made it special.







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DK in wow is the antithesis of a Paladin.

Not necessarily. Villainous Death Knights? Sure. Playable Death Knights, not so much. They are heroes like Paladins too, who have died and have returned again with newfound powers that they use to battle evil.

[Alkizon]

Well, have to be that person again...


ps. It's clear that this isn't about "classes'" modern vision (and most of you're aware of my personal attitude to this particular part of their current implementation).

[ClassicPeon]

I mean lets be honest most of it is from DnD. Thats not a bad thing imo but its not like Blizzard actually came up with something new in any of their class identities.

There is a reason they havent made an actual dark ranger class - it would have to be close to something original so its just out of the question.

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Well, have to be that person again...


ps. It's clear that this isn't about "classes'" modern vision (and most of you're aware of my personal attitude to this particular part of their current implementation).

That was actually genuinely interesting to watch - thanks for linking it

[Uncia Amethice]

I mean lets be honest most of it is from DnD. Thats not a bad thing imo but its not like Blizzard actually came up with something new in any of their class identities.

There is a reason they havent made an actual dark ranger class - it would have to be close to something original so its just out of the question.

I'd say a stronger reason why they haven't made Dark Rangers a distinct class is that there really isn't that much in the dark rangers as they are in WoW that would have them feel meaningfully distinct to play from a hunter (or a rogue, if you went the melee route) - they'd feel like a cheap knockoff class, especially since hunters already have several signature DR abilities like Black Arrow. So you'd end up with a warlock situation where one class (warlocks) lose a bunch of their unique or semi-unique spells or abilities just so they can be given to a new class (DH) - and in that case, the DH were at least distinct enough to be worthwhile as a new class, and even then they were only able to squeeze two specs out of them.

With a Dark Ranger class... you'd have, what? They aren't going to be healer, and they aren't going to be tanks. So you have ... a hunter knock-off, maybe a rogue melee knock-off, and then what? What makes them unique more than the look? And to top it off it'd be another new class that's elf-only right on the heels of Demon Hunters.

I'd say expand the ability to be a dark ranger via a suite of hunter glyphs - there are a TON of race or class specific glyphs that they could make to give players more customizability, but they just don't seem to want to put effort into that.

[Linkedblade]

Not necessarily. Villainous Death Knights? Sure. Playable Death Knights, not so much. They are heroes like Paladins too, who have died and have returned again with newfound powers that they use to battle evil.

Originally they were. Take even the Warcraft II units, which had parity between orcs and humans, the death knight was the orc counterpart to the humans' paladin. They are literally warlocks souls in paladin bodies.

The DK start zone is fantastic because you get to slaughter an entire city of humans, who are mostly innocent. But then you break free of the control of the Lich King. I get that they are redeemed and help with the Argent Crusade, and the Order hall campaign, etc. They are more chaotic neutral than chaotic evil now. But originally they are chaotic evil.

[ClassicPeon]

I'd say a stronger reason why they haven't made Dark Rangers a distinct class is that there really isn't that much in the dark rangers as they are in WoW that would have them feel meaningfully distinct to play from a hunter (or a rogue, if you went the melee route) - they'd feel like a cheap knockoff class, especially since hunters already have several signature DR abilities like Black Arrow. So you'd end up with a warlock situation where one class (warlocks) lose a bunch of their unique or semi-unique spells or abilities just so they can be given to a new class (DH) - and in that case, the DH were at least distinct enough to be worthwhile as a new class, and even then they were only able to squeeze two specs out of them.

With a Dark Ranger class... you'd have, what? They aren't going to be healer, and they aren't going to be tanks. So you have ... a hunter knock-off, maybe a rogue melee knock-off, and then what? What makes them unique more than the look? And to top it off it'd be another new class that's elf-only right on the heels of Demon Hunters.

I'd say expand the ability to be a dark ranger via a suite of hunter glyphs - there are a TON of race or class specific glyphs that they could make to give players more customizability, but they just don't seem to want to put effort into that.

I'd disagree.

Just like Balance, Unholy, Affliction and Shadow arent the same spec even though all of them use dots. Creating a visual identity for the Dark Ranger is quite easy. Basically a spellcaster archer firing off dark spells from a bow. Its quite easy to make it look very distinc from the hunter.

And no its probably not going to have a healer spec unless you morh it into sort of a different class. But you could create a tank spec for it.

I'm honestly pretty shocked at the idea that Blizzard had more then 1 person working on stuff like DH for more then a week without being able to make three discting specs. Its really not that hard.

Like imagine your full time job is basically to create visually and mechanically different specs for classes - you arent alone on this job though you have other dedicated specialists - and you spend several months thinking about how you could possibly make three specs for the DH but you just cant come up with three discting specs.

I'd call that a major fail and be quite embarassed.

Just thinking about it for a whole 1 minute here:

Overall class: Could be a class/race thing like the new evoker class tied to the corrupted version of Dark Elves like a Void elf/Nightborne only thing or something like that.
-Warden(tank)
-Demon Hunter(dps)
-Dark Ranger(dps)

This would make for three very distinct specs rooted in the corrupted elves as a base class with a very high fantasy behind each of them compared to havoc and vengeance(like lets be honest vengeance is completely devoid of any original thought - they just felt like they had to make a 2nd spec for the DH).

[Mace]

I'd disagree.

Just like Balance, Unholy, Affliction and Shadow arent the same spec even though all of them use dots. Creating a visual identity for the Dark Ranger is quite easy. Basically a spellcaster archer firing off dark spells from a bow. Its quite easy to make it look very distinc from the hunter.

And no its probably not going to have a healer spec unless you morh it into sort of a different class. But you could create a tank spec for it.

I'm honestly pretty shocked at the idea that Blizzard had more then 1 person working on stuff like DH for more then a week without being able to make three discting specs. Its really not that hard.

Like imagine your full time job is basically to create visually and mechanically different specs for classes - you arent alone on this job though you have other dedicated specialists - and you spend several months thinking about how you could possibly make three specs for the DH but you just cant come up with three discting specs.

I'd call that a major fail and be quite embarassed.

Just thinking about it for a whole 1 minute here:

Overall class: Could be a class/race thing like the new evoker class tied to the corrupted version of Dark Elves like a Void elf/Nightborne only thing or something like that.
-Warden(tank)
-Demon Hunter(dps)
-Dark Ranger(dps)

This would make for three very distinct specs rooted in the corrupted elves as a base class with a very high fantasy behind each of them compared to havoc and vengeance(like lets be honest vengeance is completely devoid of any original thought - they just felt like they had to make a 2nd spec for the DH).

I would say a dark ranger is feasible as a spec, but probably makes more sense as class skin, no?

[Alkizon]

Mace
I would say a dark ranger is feasible as a spec, but probably makes more sense as class skin, no?

No. If you go over information from the video, you can understand that classes were originally meant to be something with something. For example, hunters' meaning/ideological component didn't imply stuff that they began to shove in them later *looking once again with indignation at Legion*, they touched only superficially "out of spec" on certain aspects (hybrid organization in classes approached), which they weren't directly addressed. This example is true for most of original classes in period of their "mechanical" formation. This is completely normal approach - preferences in class mechanics are normalized by lore, and rest is added like spices, without fanaticism and deep bias, but this doesn't mean that there is "common" between classes: implementation of hunters in "original/adequate/prescribed" has same amount from DRs and rogues, as paladins has from priests and warriors or shamans from mages and warriors or druids from everyone else (main thing is mechanics' implementation and integrity of the whole class, its lore identification component). Is that idea clear? Yes, they're similar in some way, but still they're different.

Neither DK nor DH need to rob warlocks with this approach, right?

It's clear that current implementation of classes, as such, goes against healthy design of them, "classes are divided into very narrow small and defective classes-specs" (which aren't similar stylistically-lorewise (but not gameplaywise - gameplay has remained homogenized and over a much wider range, now it's probably even more noticeable than ever) to each other and it's not at all clear why they're combined), and no matter how many "additional trees" they draw, this final fact won't change in any way (in fact, this has already been discussed repeatedly since announcing of that nonsense, which they (as usually) are "very satisfied with"™). Talents aren't talents, abilities aren't whole class mechanics, and classes aren't complete units *shakes head* Oh, well...

One tree - one whole class, same general mechanics, which are its distinctive and characteristic features.

Let's assume that there's normal hierarchy, and question of DR implementing as "cumulative" hybrid - by analogy with original approaches, will be raised. Which of abilities and mechanics are the most characteristic and fit into image of these creatures? They're obvious shadow mages, natural and related natural magics/abilities are clearly not representative for them, as well as literal physical impact (every their move is enchanted). Yes, their original weapons aren't staves or magic wands, but who said that magic is so selective in accumulating/directing artifact? No, of course, we have paladins, we have shamans and DKs, who do most of damage as magic with initially "brute" weapons... we have already discussed all these concepts more than once. For example, here is my version of hybrid (superficial description, but it's possible). Main thing here is to understand that directions of class development won't cut each other off (as they do now), but only allow certain common parts to be comprehended deeper.

ps. That’s why they didn’t succeed in DH, they tried to cut off the whole faction by one class with all its stylistically represented internal classes, of which there were (still are) a lot: mages/warriors/clerics/hunters/etc. Just wanted to make a fast buck, that's the whole conversation.

[username993720]

I made a thread about this:
https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...lasses-origins

[loras]

DK in wow is the antithesis of a Paladin. Although necromancy and the light aren't actually opposite forces. You've missed the bit about runemaster as well. But that seems to have gone away, not sure if DK still self enchant their weapons.

Druid gets even stranger if you incorporate the original two races. You have the class being a cross between DnD and celtic mythos. The night elves are what i want to say middle eastern? in culture, lots of moon symbolism and their architecture is far eastern? And then Tauren culture and architecture are based on North American natives.

It's such an eclectic mixture.

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Chinese + kung fu + pandas + whimsical drunken monkey kung fu + eastern mythos. It's really an entire bag chinese or asian ideas. I'm sure there is some cross pollination.

The runes are partially what i was referring to with the black knight thing, as plenty sought to legitimate or "enhance" themselves with the use of old symbols such as occasionally runes.

The moon is nowadays associated with the east thanks to islam, but reverence of the moon is far older than that, along with the cultures referenced with druidism. I am inclined to say that it has no real eastern connection, barring perhaps the penchant for open wooden buildings. The animal transformation thing though is what made me mention germanic/nordic shamanism, it's rather prevalent there.

[Loveliest]

Not necessarily. Villainous Death Knights? Sure. Playable Death Knights, not so much. They are heroes like Paladins too, who have died and have returned again with newfound powers that they use to battle evil.

It was the other way around. Paladins are the anti-death knights in WoW lore. They were created exactly to counter them (the original DKs, made by Gul'dan).

[ClassicPeon]

I would say a dark ranger is feasible as a spec, but probably makes more sense as class skin, no?

I dno. I think the game could use more ranged specs and especially a ranged bow/xbow users since right now only hunters use that weapon type.

The class fantasy of an archer is severely under utilized in wow imo - and its one of the most iconic class fantasies along with warriors, mages and paladins.

Right now we basically have 1 spec in the game that closely resembles an archer.

[Mace]

I dno. I think the game could use more ranged specs and especially a ranged bow/xbow users since right now only hunters use that weapon type.

The class fantasy of an archer is severely under utilized in wow imo - and its one of the most iconic class fantasies along with warriors, mages and paladins.

Right now we basically have 1 spec in the game that closely resembles an archer.

WEll, more ranged fantasies would be good. While a warlock could double as a demon hunter range, it would be nice to have a demon hunter tailored range spec

The question then becomes, is it better to have the range specs on a class that doesn't have one, like the DH and possibly the pala, or add one to the hunter or priest? Cos fantasy wise, ranged holy spec fits priest more than pala because if a pala goes ranged, isn't he just a priest again because paladins were all priests who took the light into melee battle, or warriors who were taught the light - surely if you go range, you're now priest lore wise - so a paladin range spec doesn't make s much sense, but functionally, adding a range spec to a melee class greatly increases range options more than it would adding it to a a pure ranged class,

Do we add a necromancer to the DK for range? or put it on the warlock? Or do we add a 4th fel themed ranged spec to the warlock based on the DH? But then unlike the Pala, the DHs are the antithesis of the warlocks - warlocks love the demons for power, DHS want to destroy them all and will ruthlessly use them for power to destroy the legion.. fight fire with fire. Besides , teh DH is a spell caster, most of his abilities are magical, and we know that actually in the lore, Illidan and his lot are great spell casters, they also go further and train extensively in melee, they actually good at both, the gameplay just didn't want to add a 3rdspec to the DH, thinking it was too similar to the warlock at the time.

but it won't be hard to create a range spec for it either.

[Tanaria]

It's hard what I'd like, because so many people would rightfully say "yes, but that's just an <x> class."

I'd love Astromancer and Nethermancer for Mage and Warlock respectively, but they are just Mages and Warlocks.

[katerine66]

I really don't know what i"m exactly like and i think find answer at this forum