Allied Races - WTF?

[SilverCoin]

I like the concept. Like Ion said: you want the armor set? Earn it!
Ofc Blizzard charges you if you wanna Race-Change because you don´t want to level another toon... why the hell they shouldn´t ?
They hadn´t give away free race changes back in Cata where they introduced more Class/Race combos... why should they now?

IMO the only thing which is discussable is the fact that the only way to "unlock" the armor sets is via leveling, maybe there is a way to make it possible for players who pay for the race change to achieve the sets via Max-Level content. So they still would "earn it".

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I don't understand what the big deal is. My plan is to level a second paladin, have fun with the planned BfA leveling changes, earn the armor, then race change my main. It's only $25. Why cry over something most successful people earn in an hour or less?

My plan is leveling a lightforged draenei Priest for Battle-Priest style

[Shakou]

They are effectively replacing one or two starting zones for each of these races with a short quest you'll do once with your main and forget about.

You say that as if you're not part of a tiny minority that even cares about those things. One thing Blizz knows for sure is that the vast majority of people only care about getting through leveling as fast as possible. I would bank on new starter zones never being a thing again for a few reasons, not the least of which is that there is simply only so much space in the game world and this takes away design space from end-game content. People also don't like being locked in to how and where they level up and Blizzard is moving away from that entirely anyways, and beside that doing a starter zone similar to Goblins/Worgen can limit what classes those races can be.

You haven't even played the xpac at all, so that you feel this is "meaningless" is 100% just your opinion based on pure speculation. You don't know how in-depth and thought out the questlines to bring these characters into your race are going to be, and that experience certainly gives Blizzard a lot more options than locking it all in with another starter zone/capital city that people will mainly never visit.

[Soulwind]

You say that as if you're not part of a tiny minority that even cares about those things. One thing Blizz knows for sure is that the vast majority of people only care about getting through leveling as fast as possible. I would bank on new starter zones never being a thing again for a few reasons, not the least of which is that there is simply only so much space in the game world and this takes away design space from end-game content. People also don't like being locked in to how and where they level up and Blizzard is moving away from that entirely anyways, and beside that doing a starter zone similar to Goblins/Worgen can limit what classes those races can be.

You haven't even played the xpac at all, so that you feel this is "meaningless" is 100% just your opinion based on pure speculation. You don't know how in-depth and thought out the questlines to bring these characters into your race are going to be, and that experience certainly gives Blizzard a lot more options than locking it all in with another starter zone/capital city that people will mainly never visit.

Imagine Lord of the Rings started with Frodo arriving to Rivendell, without showing the Shire at all. Do you think the character feels the same?

Having a place where your character starts that isn't them just arriving at the capital at level 20 is important.

And no, I don't think for a moment they are going to make Suramar-long campaigns to unlock each of the allied races. We'll just spend a dozen quests talking to their leaders, killing their most immediate threat and rescuing some civilians. Get some gold, an achievement and never see a relevant NPC of their race/faction again.

Hell, for Void Elves the Alliance is probably not going to set foot anywhere near Silvermoon.

[Beet]

The whole concept is pretty lame. Having players re-level classes they probably already have? Yea no thanks. Leveling is already boring as shit. Why would it be more interesting if you were a void elf or a highmountain tauren? It won't be; it's the same pointless chore so blizz can say playtimes are at an all time high lol. The heritage armor looks like dog shit anyways. I won't be doing any of these quest lines or re-leveling any characters.

Wow so you're telling me that a game company wants their players to actually spend time playing the game?!? And if you think leveling is boring as shit then don't do it. I'm not sure which heritage armor you're looking at but some of them look amazing and rival most stuff they've put out. The Dark Iron Dwarf armor is badass.

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It's like if blizzard gave people gold bars, they'd complain cos they'd have to buy a wheel barrow to carry them

Ugh I'm hitting my palm to my face so hard after that. If you're going to badly copy someone's quote, don't have the original in your own sig. Youre not improving on the original quote.

[Pull My Finger]

queef

I kind of enjoy seeing you helplessly whine and cuss.

[phealin]

The visual differences may not be huge I personally think they're very different looking and you'll probably have no problem spotting them in a crowd of other Draenei even without the heritage armor.

But the lore is different, FAR different and that's the point of the Allied races, their story and how they join your faction in the war.

They did say that more is planned in the future, these are just the tests to see how the system works and later they will add more races, will they have their own bone structures? Probably not, that's the whole point of a subrace right? That it's based of the original race?
But that means they can release more races faster, maybe even as a part of content patches, who knows.

[TriHard]

They better add skin tones to the game's barbershop now. It's long overdue, paying 25 euro to recustomize your character's skin tone is utterly shit.

[Deleted]

Because of people like you, this is why we can't have nice things. Complaining about something that was requested, Blizz listened and introduced that? Are you mad? It's not even obligatory, if you don't like it, you feel attached to your current character, then guess what - nobody forces you to create an Allied Race.

[derpkitteh]

I hope most Allied Races are subraces, and they don't use this feature to skimp on future races.

They are effectively replacing one or two starting zones for each of these races with a short quest you'll do once with your main and forget about.

That's fine for "boring" races such as Dark Iron or Highmountain, races that could have been added as mere customization, but Nightfallen, and especially Void Elves are going to be introduced without context.

Imagine if ethereals or some other highly demanded race was to be implemented in such a meaningless way.

ogres should be implemented this way.

like i've said before, they have no distinct culture anymore, their only identity is horde. they have no starting area, not even a racial leader.

having them start at 20 in orgrimmar with a couple ogre npcs added would fit.

but i would prefer naga or something like that to have a full race introduction.

[Shakou]

Imagine Lord of the Rings started with Frodo arriving to Rivendell

I'm not imagining not reading the rest of your post.

There is positively nothing they could add to any playable race in this game to flesh them out in a starter zone, that they cannot put someplace else. Particularly true of this first batch of Allied Races, with the exception of Void Elves and Lightforged Draenei. We've already gotten the full experience just about with all the others, especially with the Nightborne and Highmountain Tauren.

I honestly can't even comprehend how some of you are so against this. The feature literally unchains them from having to add races in such a developmental heavy way that takes a lot of development away from end-game content, and they're achieving this without taking anything away other than a starter zone that's just going to sit there and rot for the most part anyways and take up space in the game world that could be used for something better.

For all you know something like the Naga will get the full Nightborne treatment in BFA, and then added as a playable race later on the same way these are, how in the world is that a bad thing? I feel like I've spent more than enough time in the Nightborne starter zone at this point, what more could they possibly add to the game that's worthwhile by sending us back there to level up?

I'm certain this is for sure the case with the Zandalari at least. Before you ever recruit them into the Horde you literally quest through from 110-120 and learn all about them while you're working on bringing them into your faction.

Stop thinking so 2-dimensionally.

[Miatog]

Why then should I have to go and level another Zandalari to max level to get Heritage armour? Why isn't there some max level grind I can do.

And people would complain about that. Honestly I'd rather level a new guy up because it's easier and more fun than most end game grinds.

[Redroniksre]

I would expect this to be the way they go forward with branch off races. Do realize that unique starting zones are kind of a waste of time? You get what, 20 levels out of them? So like a couple hours max, and then they are left to rot like Eversong? I am sure they were glad to get to use the Pandaren starting zone as the order hall and give it some more use.

[Halyon]

The zandalar trolls are a seperate society from the darkspears...enough to make them their own thing... Same with most of the other allied races. So making them just a toggle option is way too cheap.

[Enthusiastic Steward]

No word on whether they're getting their own emotes,

Q: Allied Races - will they all be re voiced as well?
A: They will get full character kits: their own emotes, their own flirts, funnies, exertions, etc

http://finalboss.tv/main/2017/11/5/b...iew-transcript

[Deleted]

Imagine you had to lvl blood elf at the start of TBC from lvl 1. With all this slow lvling. everyone was in KZ already and you still had lvl 40. Was that fair? I bet you would be happy to pay 25 bucks to swap race.

[Soulwind]

I'm not imagining not reading the rest of your post.

There is positively nothing they could add to any playable race in this game to flesh them out in a starter zone, that they cannot put someplace else. Particularly true of this first batch of Allied Races, with the exception of Void Elves and Lightforged Draenei. We've already gotten the full experience just about with all the others, especially with the Nightborne and Highmountain Tauren.

I honestly can't even comprehend how some of you are so against this, the feature literally unchains them from having to add races in such a developmental heavy way without taking anything away from that process it doesn't take anything away other than a starter zone that's just going to sit there and rot for the most part anyways.

I mean, they could also not animate them and have characters T-pose around. That'd also unchain them from having to put many hours into making the races likeable and relatable, since apparently that doesn't matter.

We know who the Nightborne are, we don't know who our Nightborne is. A few quests done with another character will do little to flesh out their origins.

Gameplay first and all, but the very basis of having different races is that the player may feel more connected to the visuals, background and, yes, starting area of some of them.

If you're fine with them removing that context, then they may as well add murlocs as an allied race and don't justify it. We've done plenty of quests with murlocs, surely we know who they are by now.

Again, I understand allied races replacing subraces. There's little they could do to make Dark Iron dwarves or Highmountain tauren different from the existing races, but using this tool as an excuse not to make any more starting areas for brand new races is objectively a loss.

ogres should be implemented this way.

like i've said before, they have no distinct culture anymore, their only identity is horde. they have no starting area, not even a racial leader.

having them start at 20 in orgrimmar with a couple ogre npcs added would fit.

but i would prefer naga or something like that to have a full race introduction.

It depends. If they're the dumb brutes that joined the Horde originally, then sure. But I get the feeling that if we ever get playable ogres, it'll be a very specific, smart faction of them, and those would need some introduction.

[Shakou]

Again, I understand allied races replacing subraces. There's little they could do to make Dark Iron dwarves or Highmountain tauren different from the existing races, but using this tool as an excuse not to make any more starting areas for brand new races is objectively a loss.

The only objective loss here is the waste of time that is having a discussion about this with you. You can't even define in even vague terms why the starter zone experience is important at all, you just assume it is and that the same or even far better things (objectively the entire Suramar questline in Legion trump's anything ever done in a fucking starter zone) can't be put somewhere else.

One thing is for certain, you don't know the first thing about telling a good story. A good story isn't rehashing everything for no actual reason just to satisfy some dude on MMO Champion that thinks the fucking starter zone is the end-all be all of what's great about new playable races. There's no law of nature stating that this is how it has to be for it to be good.

You're really not even making a good argument to back up your point of view here.

[Ophenia]

They should have revamped leveling completely though. 120 levels starts to be way too much and too painful. But I guess they won't do that now because of the character boost and race change. 100% sucks.

stop whining, you get a free character boost (AND 6 NEW CHARACTER SLOTS). Use it on an allied race if you want to.

No Allied transmog if you boost though. You have to level regularly.

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Regarding the depart zones, they could just have thrown the subraces where they come from. They just had to add a few quests in Suramar to discover the background of your char, a few quests in Highmountain, etc. Quests where you would eventually cross roads with Alliance/Horde heroes helping you out during Legion's context, and bam, your character now has a story without even needing to design a completely new area.

[Soulwind]

The only objective loss here is the waste of time that is having a discussion about this with you. You can't even define in even vague terms why the starter zone experience is important at all, you just assume it is and that the same things can't be put somewhere else.

One thing is for certain, you don't know the first thing about telling a good story. A good story isn't rehashing everything for no actual reason just to satisfy some dude on MMO Champion that thinks the fucking starter zone is the end-all be all of what's great about new playable races. There's no law of nature stating that this is how it has to be for it to be good.

You're really not even making a good argument to back up your point of view here.

I did, you ignored it. Our characters are heroes, adventurers, and they're proud members of their race. Having a place they call home, a place they come from, a place where you, as the player, met them for the first time is important. Them being "someone from that faction I helped once with another character" is painting the words "side character" on their forehead.

"My main is a night elf, he comes from Teldrassil, he spent years training before leaving in search for adventures"

vs

"My main is a void elf, well, it was something else before, because I had to unlock him. I think he comes from Silvermoon, but I can't go there because it's a Horde capital, I just randomly started playing with him one day"


If all characters started at the capital regardless of their race, they wouldn't feel nearly as unique. They may as well be humans and orcs with different abilities for PvP.

Would you argue that the whole leveling process is as disposable as the first 20 levels? Maybe it's you who doesn't see the point in spending time with a character before diving into the main gameplay elements of the game.

[Sencha]

"we want sub races"

Here you go sub races

"omfg blizzard such a cash grabbing whores forcing to race ranche for money !!!11!1"

So much this...