Balance and Implementation of Allied Races and how it could have been

[Zulazibah]

First off -- I want to start this by saying, This is a Discussion, not a complaint, or about how blizzard should hot fix and reverse what has already been set in motion. This is simply to Discuss and to show how if the Developers took more time to care for the story, and to take in the past 14 years of world building and re-invent the status quoe as World of Warcraft has done in the past for MMO's.

Legion really took a narrative turn, and with the addition of Christie Golden, I really believed f or about a day that the story was going to really dive back into what set apart WoW from the other "feature rich" MMO's and mimicker mmo's. Story, and the actual world itself. What is written below are ideas based from things I have read, and some are off the top of my dome, some are ideas that i then elaborate on from my own visions. I really think that BFA is going to be good, the features will be nice, the art has improved SO MUCH. but I can already tell that the narrative and events are really going to suffer if they are anything like the Void Elf introduction.

<-- skip this if you dont want to know about me -->

I am an alliance AND horde player, I like diving into the fantasy of both. I have raided on both, i have been on one side for an entire expansion (vanilla and BC was all alliance, Wrath, cata and MoP was all horde, WoD and legion were alliance AND horde to be honest) With that said I am excited for both sides when things come out, because, it can just enrich the story further. i always try to find the silver lining in something, such as now -- i give a lot of hate to the Lightforged draenei in the text below, but im going to play one, and i will probably love it. but thats because i have accepted the fate of what is to be, and taking it as popcorn entertainment at this point, waiting, patiently, for good story that makes me drop the popcorn and jump up and down.

<-- continue reading here-->

didn't read? i play both sides. and I like it. Now back to the main chunk of text. Here is how i believe that BFA could have had better story, and better faction balance while enriching the story of what is there, what is new, and further building of the world of azeroth:

I started with a comment on another forum here: [ ]

- - - Updated - - -



More advantages? Which are you referring to?

I believe he is referring to the fact that the Horde have been receiving larger race updates over the alliance. The allied race options are abysmal. The horde receive 2 new models (not speaking of rig, model only) while the alliance are stuck with the most bland options of literal re-skins(again talking about actual polygon model). The lightforged draenei should have been a questline to unlock the customization options IF that. the only thing they offer is sick new horn styles, that are LFD ONLY -- these are updates that SHOULD have gone to the normal draenei. The void elfs... ugh...The dark Iron dwarves are skin changes, and now that we have seen them, additional hair options --- AGAIN these should have been given to the NORMAL dwarves of the game, you know the ones that have been here and had the same hair styles (not talking about awful hair that use to be human hair.) The nightborne and zandalar trolls are great options with because they are new polygon models that offer a different race look. Even the highmountain tauren are a great "easy" pick because we had story lines from legion to back up their story for joining.

These 2 alone are awful, then we also go the void elves. they came out of the air that is a fart of chris robinson's butt and are literally just blue blood elves. their "introduction" level is 5 minutes long, it has an awful plot, It reminds me of 1 quest chain in elwynn forest, if that.

What is more infuriating is the lack of thought but into this like the most recent season of game of thrones -- EASY SOLUTIONS WITH RICHER STORY CONTENT.

We literally liberated the Broken of Korkuun. There would have been a great closer quest for Velen's legion story arc and accepting his role of bringing these people back into the normal eredar life, AND YOU COULD HAVE USED THE EXODAR AS A FANTASTIC AREA for the broken! there could have been a wonderful opportunity of putting the vindicaar into the ground next to the exodar and finally opening it up to flight and being an actual city. The story line for the Broken intro could have been a revamped Azuremyst island where that would have given the untouched area some more production value and also given somewhere for the night elves to go once a certain burning happened. OR at bare minimum, reinstance Mac'aree and show a connnection from mac'aree being repopulated by draenei and broken and just opened up exodar to show the space that the broken now occupy after the masscre of the exodar and that, you know, like 20 draenei survived

Now we can talk about the flagship races that are released upon hitting 120 level cap, the zandalari and DI dwarves. The focus of the new expansion is 2 new areas. these 2 new areas bring 2 new races into the mix, the Zandalar trolls, and the Kul'Tiran Humans. And at the end of each faction zone quest line you get the race that you worked 10 levels to recrui---- wait no, you get the dwarves who have already joined your faction in a previous expansion, but now they are,like, serious about joining the alliance. NO, this should have been the alliance's HM tauren. the baseline quest chain that opened up more underground dwellings of dwarves I.E. another deeprun tram that connects IF and an instanced version of BlackRock Depths. Just like the instanced version of freaking Suramar city for the horde.................MORE RACE FANTASY. THAT WAY at the end of an expansion that boasts 2 flagship areas and groups of indivduals, we get the actual folks we have been questing with. the Kul'Tiran Humans.

so lets catch up, what should have been for balance --

Highmountain Tauren <---> Dark Iron Dwarves
Nightborne Elves <---->Broken from Krokuun

Zandalar Trolls <---->Kul'Tiras Humans

IT JUST MAKES SENSE.

Now that we are caught up timeline scale of injustices that have befallen the weeks after blizzcon. FUTURE ALLIED RACES can be spoken of.

Orcs bitches, the horde is getting more orcs and it is awesome. They are what seems to be what remained of the iron horde of clear minded orcs that said, hey, no, wod? whats that? THAT IS AWESOME, there should be some AU revilitization in the quests resetting WOD and giving us more story of what happened to the leaders. like you know, grommash -- one of the original main universe leaders of the horde, a prominent orc. and then there is also, you know, Durotan --- Large story characters that have had their universe completely derailed. also Durotan is kinda thrall's father, but in this story line thrall was killed as an infant or, not even born at all. what would have been a great re-introduction story for thrall, would have been great to re-unite the "iron horde" remnants into the horde and given the orc's a council to be their leaders. Grommash, Durotan, Thrall, and Saurfang. There would have been great story (or maybe there will be we dont know just yet) thrall getting to know is dear old dad, and grommash learning from his main universe self that drinking the blood and not raising a son (because he died) that would eventually become crazed was not the path to go down. this would have been a nice transition to recognize that WoD happened and show there is still value that came from it.

conversation in this timelines future of a wow player to another "which expansion is your least favorite? Wod? yeah mine too... but at least it gave us the orc story line with the allied races. Being able to see how grommash and Durotan could lead together by working together with their younger conterparts thrall and saurfang... its really great to see an evolution of Orcish leadership that still have a brutallity to their nature, but balanced by wisdom."
Not only that, but You are confirmed getting straight back orcs which is a nice upgrade FOR THE EXISTING RACE (cough, LFD) Also a really great BFA battlefront would be a theramore assault that had a horde stronghold that was built into the main part of land, and theramore remains was the actual staging area of the fight, becuase the orcish walls would be built right up to the former gates of theramore, and they were using the other coastal areas as harbors to send support to Eastern kingdoms. https://imgur.com/3cf3mP0 = map for visual aid Also this would be a great way to rebuild menethil harbor and have it is as the "load the boats" staging area for that warfront

Now people are like, ok well what are the alliance equivalent to what the orcs will be?? Break in High Elf Fantasy of a noble, proud, magical people. We are talking about the damned high elves that live in trace amounts throughout the kingdom and possibly even outland. These are High Elves that are like Alleria. Once Jaina comes back into the fold of the story, she would reveal to us that she had been studying the magical properties of her storm staff that was formed by infusing her Staff of Antonidas with the remains of the thunder king. This was a largely elemental power that she tasked a group of high elves taken from dalaran to study with her off in the human remains of Stromgarde--- where the city was revitalized and fortified, with new shipyards below that acted as a staging area for easy travel to Kul'tiras, which jaina often visited during the events of legion. Upon defeat of sargeras and the aftermath of the sword making azurite pop up everywhere the High elves found a large seam of it in the shores and caverns behind stromgarde. They used a powder form of azureite and infused it with the power of the storm-staff and created a substance that when used in elemental ruinistic patterns on the body completely neutralized their hunger/addiction for magic. The New HIGH ELF allied race, that was made from actual places in BFA and give actual reasons for stromgarde being constantly beseiged, and gave the fantasy of non-addicted High Elf class fantasy to the alliance while giving a wonderful tapestry of human-elf existance in the lights of stromgarde. (possible new buildings that have elf and human archetecture, teleportation devices to get from the top of stromgarde to the harbor. The allied race quest would be a group of these elves, led by alleria and the ability to have them become shamans instead of paladins, with updated skins and hairstyles and posture (more noble nose stuck up in the air look). JUST LIKE THE ORC OPTIONS COMING. but then people complain, there arent enough highelves around - shut up, in this fantasy story the HIGH ELF (or storm elf) was able to come up with the complete nuetralization of addiction to magic. Meaning they could do it to ANY level, you would just have to paint yourself blue.... blue.... elves..... but seriously, more markings means more addiction level, so they would be able to recruit blood elves who believed what they were preaching (obviously some are like, naw this cant really be, i will remain a blood elf). Also yet another reason for the horde to be attacking stromgarde because traitor blood elfs were switching. this would give blue eyes to the elves, and the celtic markings like alleria and O FUCKING G of the the original storyline. PLUS way more reason for stormgarde than what i am sure will be there. It would also shake up the allied race storyline of FACTION>RECRUIT ALL, they could show a storyline of the alliance trust forming between the high elves and allowing the high elves to rejoin the alliance. https://imgur.com/6duqD5A = map to give visual aid


WITH THIS--

There are injustices on the horde side!!! No Zanadalari Paladins is BULLSHIT BLIZZARD. complete shit. and also HM tauren as well, the sunwalkers came from the seers, and highmountian have seers, and have worked with the power of nature /the sun, therefore would be great sunwalkers.

If there are more, let me know id love to discuss them. I havent gotten to play through the allied race stuff horde side yet so really let me know.


Lets gather this up again, and summarize TL;DR style

Future Allied Races, Mag'Har Orcs, High Elves (storm elves)

Zones for these races, Warfront (horde controlled) Theramore ruins and (alliance controlled)Stromgarde

Better storylines for future races, rebuilding old zones for more story content that can last (i.e. keeping these zones warfronts so you can revisit them for a couple of expansions, similar to battlegrounds) also making the zones in the real world great world pvp locations (world quests that have you visit the other parts of the zones, with higher rewards for being flagged pvp)


That is it for now, maybe edits as the discussion grows.

thanks, Zulazibah.


- - - Updated - - -

http://bogm.wikia.com/wiki/Quel%27Sh...=Quelshala.jpg - human / elf sort of structures to elaborate the picture in my head of stromgarde

[Deleted]

I have a really bad feeling about future allied races. They’re going to be a cash shop unlocks aren’t they. It’s all too quite from Blizzard, they have multiple unannounced races ready to go in early alpha surely they would have announced these for BfA has a huge selling point before hand.

[lordsesho]

to me looks like a complain thread

[Zulazibah]

to me looks like a complain thread

Well it is supposed to be a discussion of were the story could have gone, view it as a complaint or not, just add to the discussion

[Rukario]

I say give Sethrak to the Alliance and be done with it...most interesting of the BfA races.

[Hawkknight97]

WoW. This Link to a Fanmade Continent Zone for High Elves is pretty cool. I hope Blizzard takes some notes from good fanmade stories/Art.

[Pawstruck]

There's a reason people don't start off discussions with a 30-minute tirade. It's disrespectful and I'm not going to read it.

If you think the Alliance are getting screwed, don't play them. If you're feeling ripped-off by this expansion, don't play it. And if you want to write yourself a damn Ph.D thesis on Allied Races... buy a diary.

[Jastall]

I don't believe in parity when it comes to Alliance vs Horde. It's what ends up with silly stuff like Alliance settlements getting a beatdown in Cata so Horde could have an equal number of zones, Vol'jin dying because Varian did, or the High King position being conjured out of nowhere so the Alliance could have a blue Warchief.

So yeah, maybe the Horde will get cooler races (even that is arguable, the Nightborne model is obviously the most unfinished of the lot). And I don't think that's a bad thing. I'm kind of tired of the eternal complains about the grass being greener on the other side, but at this point they will happen regardless of what Blizzard does so I don't think they should seek out to enforce a parity or balance at any cost.

And regardless of what forum goers say, we know, we just know that Void Elves will absolutely be the most popular Allied Race of them all due to the simple fact that they just gave the model of the most popular Horde race to the Alliance with different hair and a skin condition. And most players choose their race based on the model, not the lore. So in a way the argument could be made that the balance is skewed towards the Alliance.

[zammin]

They've all been incredibly rushed so far. The only race that felt 'complete' at its launch was void elf, but their story felt incomplete instead. Nightborne are aching for more attention or even a face that doesn't look like they're in the midst of menopause. Actually, the males couldn't even have earrings due to how bugged they were. Highmountain Tauren suffer from the same lack of options. Lightforged Draenei only have three skintones.

What is Blizzard's response? Churn out more. Draenor orcs are already in full-swing. I understand they've expanded their art team, but could we still get a sense of closure first?

[Xaviaton]

Though it is only my speculation, I am fully expecting Blizzard to do a flip when it comes to Dark Iron Dwarves as the level 120 unlock race for Alliance. Like you say, it just makes much more sense to make this the Kul Tiran Humans instead. I am pretty sure they said they had not yet decided how the third allied race would be unlocked yet at the reveal, but now they know. While I find the Void Elves somewhat uninspired as well, the Blood Elves are by far the most played race on the Horde side. Giving Alliance access to that model is pretty huge, even if I personally prefer the Nightborne. The Broken may have been a more lore appropriate race, and some people would prefer them, but I think you severely underestimate how much some people like the Void Elves. If you go by the (unconfirmed) assumption that the Kul Tiran Humans will be the next Alliance allied race, the trade-off will also stand:
Mag'har Orcs <---> Dark Iron Dwarves (New skin colour only)
Highmountain Tauren <---> Lightforged Draenei (New horns and tattoos)
Nightborne <---> Void Elves (Opposing faction model)
Zandalari Trolls <---> Kul Tiran Humans ("New" model)
My personal opinion is still that Horde gets the better part of the deal, but that's simply because I love the Nightborne and Zandalari. It can even be argued that Zandalari female is a very minor upgrade from regular troll, and only the male Zandalari is truly new. The Nightborne seem to have an up on the Void Elves due to new (playable) models. Then remember the silent Blood Elf majority, the ones that don't want to play the "ugly" races but might now create a Nightborne character. Overall, I think the divide is pretty fair when it comes to allied races, though depending on your preference, one side is bound to be the winner.