How would Ethereals work?

[PvPisthelifeforme]

I see all to often players suggesting the idea of playable Ethereals. While they might look cool, there is not much to distinguish from one another. They have no face, they have no body, and above everything else they lack a gender. When Dimensius the All-Devouring invaded their home planet, it is said the arcane energies ripped their mortal bodies to shreds, and they had to bind their souls to empowered pieces of cloth to BARELY survive without a body.

This leaves us with a few things that are key for RPGs...

- Gender (Physical appearance of one)
- Distinguishable features (Different faces..etc)

I am not looking for a flame war, I am just curious how Ethereals could work for as a playable race within WoW, when they lack some major points of what makes the heroes of Azeroth unique.

[mordale]

like pandas, only alot more greedy, ruthless, and cold.

but in terms of customization they could have more embellishments in terms of wrappings and emissions then the etherals we've met so far.

[Duito]

They used to have bodies, make them retry to gain life, and be half what we know of Ethereals and half of what they used to be

done

[Irisel]

I see no way for them to, honestly...

[Beenie]

As far as gender, if they have bound their souls to empowered cloth I suppose they could also control if that soul manifests within the cloth as masculine or feminine. Distinguishable features I can't see much way around. I imagine you could choose the color of the cloth, or even the color of the soul beneath it. Past that, I can't think of anything else.

[Rivin]

It's really no different than it was for worgen. They had one model, all with the exact same features, just as ethereal do now. If Blizzard wants to make ethereals playable, it's a simple matter of updating them with distinguishing features. Although they wouldn't have faces, there are plenty of ways to make them customizable: patterns, tears, energy swirls, etc. For gender they just have to add breasts. It wouldn't really be all that difficult. The question is how noticeable it would be, since humans tend to fixate on faces (and the character portrait would, of course, be centered on the head).

[reef]

there is an npc named eric thibeau who says:
“we openly deal with the ethereal, ignorant of their true intentions. could we be aiding in the preparation of our own demise?”
i don't think ethereals will ever be a playable race.

[PvPisthelifeforme]

there is an npc named eric thibeau who says:
“we openly deal with the ethereal, ignorant of their true intentions. could we be aiding in the preparation of our own demise?”
i don't think ethereals will ever be a playable race.

Ethereal are said to be like Goblins, but on a much larger scale. The ones we aided in Burning Crusade were said to have joined the sha'tar after BC at some point, so if they were playable we could be "sha'tar Ethereal".

The gender portion of adding breasts (when does adding breasts ever go wrong? On second thought.... don't answer), I could see how that could handle that portion, but the face is where I am still unconvinced.

[JoeShmo]

The same way they made goblins have various character options. The same way they made draenei different than the broken. New troll models. Etc. Etc.

If blizzard decided to do a once over of the ethereals to make them playable, they could EASILY change them up to add customizable features.

[Justignoreme]

there is an npc named eric thibeau who says:
“we openly deal with the ethereal, ignorant of their true intentions. could we be aiding in the preparation of our own demise?”
i don't think ethereals will ever be a playable race.

Ya that's true he said that. but, who the hell is he in the grand scheme of things but a nobody? He could be just another ignorant savage like the humans in the Velen short story calling the Draenei "Hooved demons".

[Adoxe]

They don't really need to have a different face, leave them "faceless". Their customization could be unique rather than the usual, since they are pretty much a essence within bunch of wrappings, that pretty much means they could take any shape right? Well why not make different shapes of the playable Ethereal models, on top of that add stuff like Color of Essence, color of wrappings, style of wrappings and that's all they need!

[PvPisthelifeforme]

They don't really need to have a different face, leave them "faceless". Their customization could be unique rather than the usual, since they are pretty much a essence within bunch of wrappings, that pretty much means they could take any shape right? Well why not make different shapes of the playable Ethereal models, on top of that add stuff like Color of Essence, color of wrappings, style of wrappings and that's all they need!

That would be interesting to see WoW's first RPG race, with no face. The race with no face who came from space. I like it!

[Golden Yak]

There was a discussion about their appearance in a thread a while back. I liked the idea that ethereals could wear masks over their bandage faces, like the funeral masks of the egyptians. That gives us an option to customize a range of appearances, with of course the option to have a few unmasked bandaged faces thrown in.

And of course we could have lady ones. There area a couple of races with females who have no female models in game at the moment (ogres, mogu, presumably gnolls, troggs, and other monsters must have ladies, etc). Not having a physical form any more doesn't mean you can't identify as a particular gender - ethereal ladies would simply have a generalized female form the same way current ethereals have a generalized male form.