Sethrak playable race when.

[Veluren]

We've all been willfully blind. We all want completely new races so much that we've ignored the evidence in front of our very noses, and what Blizzard has straight up told us.

Neither Vulpera or Sethrak are going to be playable races. They're literally set up the way they are because their rigging allows for use of player equipment, thus reducing development time.

The proof? Look at the faces. BOTH the Vulpera and Sethrak have lower-poly and lower-pixel faces/heads. Zoom in on the faces of each and move them around a bit. You can even clearly see where the one of the polygons connects to another in the crook in the middle of the Vulpera's muzzle. You can see pixelization of the textures on the faces. Now go to any of the actual player races at the same distance. Very different. Much, much higher pixel and resolution count for ALL player races.

Not convinced? Load up the dressing room in Wowhead. Load up a worgen model, or even the female one since that one is a lot closer to a Vulpera. Look at the amazing about of detail, even on a Cataclysm model. Now load up a Vulpera. Everything is much flatter and chunkier looking. Far less detail. Load up any of the other ones, and you'll see the same thing.

Vulpera and Sethrak are NPC races, and are intended to be such. Maybe we'll get them as Allied Races for someone next expansion, but not during this expansion. They'd have to go through a model update before they were to be made available to players. It makes me sad, but at least the rest of the Allied Races should provide some variety.

Counterpoint: Nightborne, literally the exact same thing you're claiming means either won't be available. They got updated player models literally when they became playable, and no time before. If the Vulpera have player rigging, regardless of if it's NPC usage or not, it already puts them in a state of being more potentially playable than Nightborne were until 7.3.5 (And even then, the playable nightborne still have markedly different skeletal quality compared to the Nightborne NPCs in Suramar city, who are still using the old skeleton).

The clippings and model gaps I'm assuming is because it's an early alpha model and they haven't closed off the seams yet to be suitable for the varying snout shapes they can manage.

If Blizzard wants to make them playable, using "But they don't look good right now!" Or "But it's just an NPC model and skeleton!" has been proven to be an extremely flawed reasoning entirely because of Nightborne.

[Deleted]

We've all been willfully blind. We all want completely new races so much that we've ignored the evidence in front of our very noses, and what Blizzard has straight up told us.

Neither Vulpera or Sethrak are going to be playable races. They're literally set up the way they are because their rigging allows for use of player equipment, thus reducing development time.

The proof? Look at the faces. BOTH the Vulpera and Sethrak have lower-poly and lower-pixel faces/heads. Zoom in on the faces of each and move them around a bit. You can even clearly see where the one of the polygons connects to another in the crook in the middle of the Vulpera's muzzle. You can see pixelization of the textures on the faces. Now go to any of the actual player races at the same distance. Very different. Much, much higher pixel and resolution count for ALL player races.

Not convinced? Load up the dressing room in Wowhead. Load up a worgen model, or even the female one since that one is a lot closer to a Vulpera. Look at the amazing about of detail, even on a Cataclysm model. Now load up a Vulpera. Everything is much flatter and chunkier looking. Far less detail. Load up any of the other ones, and you'll see the same thing.

Vulpera and Sethrak are NPC races, and are intended to be such. Maybe we'll get them as Allied Races for someone next expansion, but not during this expansion. They'd have to go through a model update before they were to be made available to players. It makes me sad, but at least the rest of the Allied Races should provide some variety.

Totally agree. People don't get that project management and game development is prepared years in advance. They don't have the capability to react to player feedback generally until the third patch of the expansion. Also, even then theres a limited ammount of manpower for big changes.
Who the allied races are has been decided probably a year ago. Everything from concept art to the planning of the story is done with that in mind. It can't just change with 4 months to go cause someone saw the new foxes and decided they wanted them.
Allied race was an unfortunate designation as was Ion saying that new races weren't off the table. Sure, they aren't for the future, but the BfA content planning has already been done up to the second patch. Nothing is gonna change that now.

[Scrysis]

Counterpoint: Nightborne, literally the exact same thing you're claiming means either won't be available. They got updated player models literally when they became playable, and no time before. If the Vulpera have player rigging, regardless of if it's NPC usage or not, it already puts them in a state of being more potentially playable than Nightborne were until 7.3.5 (And even then, the playable nightborne still have markedly different skeletal quality compared to the Nightborne NPCs in Suramar city, who are still using the old skeleton).

The clippings and model gaps I'm assuming is because it's an early alpha model and they haven't closed off the seams yet to be suitable for the varying snout shapes they can manage.

If Blizzard wants to make them playable, using "But they don't look good right now!" Or "But it's just an NPC model and skeleton!" has been proven to be an extremely flawed reasoning entirely because of Nightborne.

"Maybe we'll get them as Allied Races for someone next expansion. . . "

I did include that line because I don't know the future. As they stand right now, however, they are not meant to be PC races. Sure, if they update the models, then of course my opinion will change. My reasoning is not flawed at all. If Blizzard fully intended, at this moment, for them to be future allied races to be released shortly after 8.0, or even mid-way through the expansion, they wouldn't have "alpha models". They'd have fleshed-out models like the Zandalari or Dark Iron. There are no "gaps" or "seams", just low poly counts.

And my counterpoint to your example with the Nightborne is that the Nightborne were designed, modeled, textured, and released YEARS ago, LONG before the concept of Allied Races was even a thing. Of course they'd have to update the models to let players play them. But Sethrak and Vulpera are being released after the conceptualization and implementation of Allied Races. They would have no reason to make lower-quality models if they knew they were going to make them allied races. It wastes more in resources to make two stages of models if you already know that you're going to make one a PC race. So they do not currently have plans to make either Vulpera or Sethrak an allied race.

Plans can change, and I'd be delighted if they changed their minds, but Vulpera and Sethrak aren't going to be Allied Races.

[Veluren]

Plans can change, and I'd be delighted if they changed their minds, but Vulpera and Sethrak aren't going to be Allied Races.

Legitimately the only thing I can say is "Not with that attitude", that's why we should get blizzard to notice. They've definitely changed plans in regard to what players want in the past, no way to say if we can change their minds with the future.

[Gado]

If Blizzard wants to make them playable, using "But they don't look good right now!" Or "But it's just an NPC model and skeleton!" has been proven to be an extremely flawed reasoning entirely because of Nightborne.

Speaking of making them look good:


And all that was done there was widening the helm a bit, even less work than this guy who is already in the game:

[Scrysis]

Legitimately the only thing I can say is "Not with that attitude", that's why we should get blizzard to notice. They've definitely changed plans in regard to what players want in the past, no way to say if we can change their minds with the future.

I can get behind this.

To be honest though, it's rather frustrating to lobby for them. They aren't slated to be allied races, but everyone has it in their heads that Horde are going to have an allied Vulpera race due to a single flag. (The faction rep has changed names, so for all we know, it could be a different kind of rep now.) Any time I try to point out that it would be more logical for Sethrak to potentially be a Horde race, even without getting into the fact that snakes fit more into the savage imagery Blizzard has developed for the Horde than for the Alliance, I get jumped on by half-a-dozen Alliance players. They don't want to consider that they could be wrong, and that they're so sure they have everything planned out. Hell, anyone who wants to go contrary to their view points is called "greedy" because "you already have Vulpera".

Well, dammit, Horde don't have Vulpera. No one has anything at this moment, which is kind of the point. I'm not greedy for lobbying for something when we don't have it. Hell, no one has really suggested any alternative races that might be more suitable for the Alliance. To be 100% honest, Vulpera don't fit the Classic Horde imagery that Blizzard has tried to develop. Yeah, the Nightborne don't fit either, but that's a different topic. Going back, it's really hard to be positive when everyone else is shouting you down. The assumptions and attitudes that everyone seems to possess are positively poisonous and constrains the options available.

[Deleted]

Little wierd considering Naga already wear player available armor.

Also {Citation needed}

Not only can they wear player made armour, they can wear all armour except boots just fine. Yes even the legs are modeled on Naga. It really is strange that the primary problem of making races playable is already solved with the Naga it is just the animation work they needed to do to make them actually playable (and a lore reason why they're abandoning their queen admittedly).

As for "Neither races are going to be playable" from Scrysis, well, as others have said, not with that attitude they won't be. So what, we should just sit here and not made our voices heard?

As for you being called Greedy, you do have to admit the Horde have the lion's share of the 'cool' allied races. You can understand why Alliance players, who currently only have reskins as their main source of Allied races with the probability of just Thicc humans on the horizon (which seems to be decidedly split about people hating them and people thinking their cool) as their next Allied race might view a Horde playing also wanting Sethrak as being greedy, you've already got all your cool races, the Alliance ain't got shite so far that would really be considered 'cool'.

[Veluren]

I can get behind this.

To be honest though, it's rather frustrating to lobby for them. They aren't slated to be allied races, but everyone has it in their heads that Horde are going to have an allied Vulpera race due to a single flag. (The faction rep has changed names, so for all we know, it could be a different kind of rep now.) Any time I try to point out that it would be more logical for Sethrak to potentially be a Horde race, even without getting into the fact that snakes fit more into the savage imagery Blizzard has developed for the Horde than for the Alliance, I get jumped on by half-a-dozen Alliance players. They don't want to consider that they could be wrong, and that they're so sure they have everything planned out. Hell, anyone who wants to go contrary to their view points is called "greedy" because "you already have Vulpera".

Well, dammit, Horde don't have Vulpera. No one has anything at this moment, which is kind of the point. I'm not greedy for lobbying for something when we don't have it. Hell, no one has really suggested any alternative races that might be more suitable for the Alliance. To be 100% honest, Vulpera don't fit the Classic Horde imagery that Blizzard has tried to develop. Yeah, the Nightborne don't fit either, but that's a different topic. Going back, it's really hard to be positive when everyone else is shouting you down. The assumptions and attitudes that everyone seems to possess are positively poisonous and constrains the options available.

It's a passionate topic, and passion and forums do not go well together due to a mix of lacking in tone and being able to dehumanize your opposition in a debate-style back and forth on this like this.

That's what we need to be super careful about when discussing things like this.

As to your points, I both agree and disagree, Vulpera are a good fit for the Horde as they're deceptively savage for their looks, and come from a place of hardship, fear and struggle to survive, the Horde's creed will likely strike them very strongly as a place to finally give them protection and equal treatment in return for servitude that doesn't involve torture and the risk of ending up as extra weight on a Sethrak for spraining an ankle.

Sethrak would fit because they're savage-but-cultured in all the ways Zandalari are, but at the same time it's established they -despise- the Zandalari, besides Vorik's Believer faction who are willing to let bygones be bygones, but we also haven't (as of this moment) seen how the Zandalari themselves react to this proposition. I'm willing to chalk up to Sylvanas being a non-presence in Zandalar until later in the patch cycles, so every buck would likely stop at Rastakhan until then.

I feel like they could end up as Horde as easily as they could end up on Alliance, but as I said earlier, I think their potential for developing as a race is a lot more on the Alliance where they'd be the advanced but still bestial compliment to a faction of people where the most backwards races tech-wise are still noble and proud with no detriments, whereas on the Horde they'd just make sure the slavery stopped and be like "Cool, now go eat some gnomes."

And really, to sum it all up, I do think it would be cool to get a race with such a narrative and culture clash ending up on the Alliance and having to deal with the repercussions of that decision for both Sethrak and Alliance. I'm at peace with the idea of Kul'Tiran humans, but we haven't gotten a race that clashes with the Alliance's aesthetics since Cataclysm, and even then that's only physically, as culturally the Worgen were never anything but another flavor of angry human.

Really, the keystone for -everything- is the still-developing story, until we see the narrative in the finished Vol'dun and what Alliance quests are like when they go there at 120, it is pure speculation and "What I want"s.

Edit: Post-shower thoughts to really clarify what I mean.

The Worgen aren't different from the Alliance as a whole besides willingness to go behind supply lines and run guerilla campaigns, they're basically the Warrior to the rest of the Alliance's Paladin when it comes to moral willigness and pragmatism.

Whereas the Sethrak would be the Rogues, they'd be befriended for the sake of having a hold on Zandalar, but in return for what looks like magical competence, sly nature and bringing in their empire and all of their race into the Alliance war machine (assuming that would be what happens and not a splinter group), they would have to be hemmed in to make sure that their savage sides don't slip in and they poison a civilian town's water supply, justifying it as hurting their infrastructure, or turn acres of verdant farmland into desert to cut out food supplies but also leaving it unusable for conquest. And on Horde, that's Just Another Day for the Forsaken, so it wouldn't make them stand out at all, they'd just be savage and ruthlessly pragmatic blending in with savage and ruthlessly pragmatic.

Basically have X leader spend time working with them and go "There's a race of good people in there somewhere, we just need to help them find it, so let's bring them in before the Zandalari wipe them out." that'd really be it.

All that being said, I do appreciate you hanging out in this thread and offering counterpoints and such, much as forum debates can turn nasty, having an echo chamber where we can eventually delude ourselves into absolutes instead of speculation is way worse.

...wow that turned into a doorstopper, I need to go to bed before I end up editing this post into a novel.

- - - Updated - - -

Aleis on the official forums counterpart to this post also makes a great point: From what see of the Sethrak, they don't live in mud huts and scrounge to live, their savagery is in their willingness to harm and poison and torture. Culture-wise, they live in massive layered temples covered in gold and jewels, they love their lavishness and luxury, and it's very likely what Vulpera slaves aren't used for hard labor and construction are probably kept akin to house servants. In that way, it makes them a lot more cultured and civilized than the non-elf, non-zandalari horde races.

[endersblade]

Speaking of making them look good:


And all that was done there was widening the helm a bit, even less work than this guy who is already in the game:

Or they could simply make most helms not show up, like how a lot of boots don't show for trolls and draenei. Pally/Priest halos and such would work of course, but closed helms wouldn't. I really hope they wouldn't do what they did with the Worgen...good lord, remodel those fucking helms! The way they made them, they're entirely impractical. They stretched and warped something made for a humanoid head, to fit on a canine head. No. Fucking retarded. Whatever lazy designer came up with that idea needs to be taken out back and shot. Or at least fired.

[Scrysis]

It's a passionate topic, and passion and forums do not go well together due to a mix of lacking in tone and being able to dehumanize your opposition in a debate-style back and forth on this like this.

That's what we need to be super careful about when discussing things like this.

As to your points, I both agree and disagree, Vulpera are a good fit for the Horde as they're deceptively savage for their looks, and come from a place of hardship, fear and struggle to survive, the Horde's creed will likely strike them very strongly as a place to finally give them protection and equal treatment in return for servitude that doesn't involve torture and the risk of ending up as extra weight on a Sethrak for spraining an ankle.

Sethrak would fit because they're savage-but-cultured in all the ways Zandalari are, but at the same time it's established they -despise- the Zandalari, besides Vorik's Believer faction who are willing to let bygones be bygones, but we also haven't (as of this moment) seen how the Zandalari themselves react to this proposition. I'm willing to chalk up to Sylvanas being a non-presence in Zandalar until later in the patch cycles, so every buck would likely stop at Rastakhan until then.

I feel like they could end up as Horde as easily as they could end up on Alliance, but as I said earlier, I think their potential for developing as a race is a lot more on the Alliance where they'd be the advanced but still bestial compliment to a faction of people where the most backwards races tech-wise are still noble and proud with no detriments, whereas on the Horde they'd just make sure the slavery stopped and be like "Cool, now go eat some gnomes."

And really, to sum it all up, I do think it would be cool to get a race with such a narrative and culture clash ending up on the Alliance and having to deal with the repercussions of that decision for both Sethrak and Alliance. I'm at peace with the idea of Kul'Tiran humans, but we haven't gotten a race that clashes with the Alliance's aesthetics since Cataclysm, and even then that's only physically, as culturally the Worgen were never anything but another flavor of angry human.

Really, the keystone for -everything- is the still-developing story, until we see the narrative in the finished Vol'dun and what Alliance quests are like when they go there at 120, it is pure speculation and "What I want"s.

Edit: Post-shower thoughts to really clarify what I mean.

The Worgen aren't different from the Alliance as a whole besides willingness to go behind supply lines and run guerilla campaigns, they're basically the Warrior to the rest of the Alliance's Paladin when it comes to moral willigness and pragmatism.

Whereas the Sethrak would be the Rogues, they'd be befriended for the sake of having a hold on Zandalar, but in return for what looks like magical competence, sly nature and bringing in their empire and all of their race into the Alliance war machine (assuming that would be what happens and not a splinter group), they would have to be hemmed in to make sure that their savage sides don't slip in and they poison a civilian town's water supply, justifying it as hurting their infrastructure, or turn acres of verdant farmland into desert to cut out food supplies but also leaving it unusable for conquest. And on Horde, that's Just Another Day for the Forsaken, so it wouldn't make them stand out at all, they'd just be savage and ruthlessly pragmatic blending in with savage and ruthlessly pragmatic.

Basically have X leader spend time working with them and go "There's a race of good people in there somewhere, we just need to help them find it, so let's bring them in before the Zandalari wipe them out." that'd really be it.

All that being said, I do appreciate you hanging out in this thread and offering counterpoints and such, much as forum debates can turn nasty, having an echo chamber where we can eventually delude ourselves into absolutes instead of speculation is way worse.

...wow that turned into a doorstopper, I need to go to bed before I end up editing this post into a novel.

- - - Updated - - -

Aleis on the official forums counterpart to this post also makes a great point: From what see of the Sethrak, they don't live in mud huts and scrounge to live, their savagery is in their willingness to harm and poison and torture. Culture-wise, they live in massive layered temples covered in gold and jewels, they love their lavishness and luxury, and it's very likely what Vulpera slaves aren't used for hard labor and construction are probably kept akin to house servants. In that way, it makes them a lot more cultured and civilized than the non-elf, non-zandalari horde races.

Heh. Thanks for the encouragement.

And I have it on good authority that gnomes are extremely tasty. You guys don't know what you're missing.

I actually think Vulpera would be a good Alliance race, not only because they fit faction profile better, but from the gypsy caravans that they have, they could help assist and psychologically counsel the Worgen and Night Elves about losing their homes. One had their home made uninhabitable by biowarfare, and the other literally had their home burn down around them. That can't be good on the psyche, not to mention that both the Worgen and the Night Elves are ill-equipped to handle the refugee crisis that they now have. The Vulpera could teach them how to make gypsy wagons (can you imagine how cool those would look?) while they look for a new place to call home, and a place to live while they rebuild.

It really would be nice to have more anthro races (not a fan of the pandas, turtles, or quillboar, admittedly), rather than more human-esque races.

Update:

Aleis on the official forums counterpart to this post also makes a great point: From what see of the Sethrak, they don't live in mud huts and scrounge to live, their savagery is in their willingness to harm and poison and torture. Culture-wise, they live in massive layered temples covered in gold and jewels, they love their lavishness and luxury, and it's very likely what Vulpera slaves aren't used for hard labor and construction are probably kept akin to house servants. In that way, it makes them a lot more cultured and civilized than the non-elf, non-zandalari horde races.

They'd probably get along just fine with Sylvanas then. O_o

[Ithekro]

I am trying to see how Sylvanas gets Rastakhan to submit to her authority.

[PomPup]

While alpha - we have a chance.
The Vulper was greatly altered, obviously for the players.

[Skeppio]

While alpha - we have a chance.
The Vulper was greatly altered, obviously for the players.

True. It also came out of nowhere. One build, their models were first shown, next build.... BOOM they were retooled with full player-level customisation and armour rigging. It happened right out of the blue and set off a ton of speculation, so there's no reason to think it's impossible for the same thing to happen with the Sethrak.

[Deleted]

True. It also came out of nowhere. One build, their models were first shown, next build.... BOOM they were retooled with full player-level customisation and armour rigging. It happened right out of the blue and set off a ton of speculation, so there's no reason to think it's impossible for the same thing to happen with the Sethrak.

Not only that but we've seen that slowly they've been tweaked on the back end. Armour that didn't work at all on them when first introduced to the wowhead dressing room suddenly started fitting them a few builds later.

[Skeppio]

Not only that but we've seen that slowly they've been tweaked on the back end. Armour that didn't work at all on them when first introduced to the wowhead dressing room suddenly started fitting them a few builds later.

Hopefully we'll start getting clearer answers once Vol'dun is opened. I've heard we'll possibly be able to level in the other factions zones. Thinking back to that Alliance flight point dtatamined with a bunch of Sethrak NPCs, things may get interesting when all zones are fully open...

[Darktbs]

Not only can they wear player made armour, they can wear all armour except boots just fine. Yes even the legs are modeled on Naga. It really is strange that the primary problem of making races playable is already solved with the Naga it is just the animation work they needed to do to make them actually playable (and a lore reason why they're abandoning their queen admittedly).
.

Its not even the boots, when you equip them, they wrap around the tail(they are some what there), the only piece that they don't wear is the helmet.

[Deleted]

Its not even the boots, when you equip them, they wrap around the tail(they are some what there), the only piece that they don't wear is the helmet.

Female Naga seem to have trouble wearing plate boots, it gets a little wonky on them at times. Though you are right, it is just helms they can't wear...I'm pretty sure they only missing a few key animations as well on each gender. I wonder if the Sethrak sitting and mounting emotes are the Devs testing things for Naga. Don't get me wrong, I still want dem sneks but I am kind of curious.

[Mutineer]

Female Naga seem to have trouble wearing plate boots, it gets a little wonky on them at times. Though you are right, it is just helms they can't wear...I'm pretty sure they only missing a few key animations as well on each gender. I wonder if the Sethrak sitting and mounting emotes are the Devs testing things for Naga. Don't get me wrong, I still want dem sneks but I am kind of curious.

I'm of the opinion that any race worn by hunters as a tier set is out of the running.

I like to think they were seriously considering and testing the waters for playable naga in the background of Legion's development. They have naga wearing pants and robes in Azsuna and Eye of Azshara. The Illidari present cooperative naga and offer the player a bodyguard. They show us a faction of naga that forsake Azshara to join the Legion, and tell us that naga, like anyone else, have factions with their own loyalties.

Then comes Antorus, and suddenly naga are being worn as gear. I'm sure it's different artists who do this stuff, but it's funny imagining whoever designed that set getting some catharsis out of it after being frustrated trying to fit various 3D armor pieces and player animations onto naga.

If anything, sethrak seem like an end result to me. They address the biggest problems with naga, namely their giant fins and lack of legs.

[Deleted]

i have to agree the naga was one of the best possible races but how will they ride certain mounts, the sethrak are easier the work with, also we rilly need a scalie dude as a race we need some real predators in this game.

[Syce]

the only issue i have with allied races is people would want to have every race available to them. does Blizzard open up more and more character slots for people as more allied races are added? or how do u think that would work?