Do you prefer Factions sacrificing racial development & dominating it

[Beloren]

than developing it as the main focus or at least to actively occur alongside the faction narrative - which hasn't happened yet. Currently the races do not get developed outside their introduction. The horde and alliance dominate the narrative and races and zones do not develop. Read this quote from the official forums:

Sadly at this point in time, my observation is races just exist for destruction shock factor and advancing the faction narrative. Your baited into them in their intro, then they don't really matter.

Outside their function of an interesting identity to pick up, they just cease to matter outside their introductory expansion... without fail.

The races introduced in the RTS have not had focused progression outside those games. Every race that was introduced had positive focus then, as well as problems, but afterwards - were just tools to furhter the horde/alliance faction narrative.

WoW became all about the factions from TBC onwards, Classic was about the races and the zones. You got lore, not development, but their presence at least was a progression from the RTS.

Really think about it:
Humans, Dwarves, Gnomes, Night elves, Draenei, Worgen, Pandaren
Orcs, Forsaken, Troll, Tauren, Blood elves, Goblin

None of these have had serious progression outside their intros in wow, whether they were introduced in classic or after. Cata was the only time that happened, because it re-did classic. You get introduced and then you're just a horde/alliance tool

I think it's spot on.

[Evaddon]

The Blood elves have changed since their introduction, but their changes can't be seen in Silvermoon, just with changes through quest and different scenarios like Isles of Thunder, The Forsaken have also changed and so have the Trolls. Although the ladder has only changed in mild ways.

But we aren't talking massive cultural changes, or technological advancements. If they're then that would be kind of hard to introduce and give a description and a narrative while expanding endgame features and content. We get some lore and advancement through heritage questlines though and various things through questing experiences.

But we don't get an a huge focus on one race or another, because a fraction would get to be evolved in something that is just inherited to a singular Race, depending on how you do it and who wants what from said content

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I don't prefer it, but it is what it is in the case of an MMO..they get development just not as quick and as often spread out through different Expansions, quest and side quest.

[Beloren]

The Blood elves have changed since their introduction, but their changes can't be seen in Silvermoon, just with changes through quest and different scenarios like Isles of Thunder, The Forsaken have also changed and so have the Trolls. Although the ladder has only changed in mild ways.

But we aren't talking massive cultural changes, or technological advancements. If they're then that would be kind of hard to introduce and give a description and a narrative while expanding endgame features and content. We get some lore and advancement through heritage questlines though and various things through questing experiences.

But we don't get an a huge focus on one race or another, because a fraction would get to be evolved in something that is just inherited to a singular Race, depending on how you do it and who wants what from said content

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I don't prefer it, but it is what it is in the case of an MMO..they get development just not as quick and as often spread out through different Expansions, quest and side quest.

Classice level 1-20 did give story to each race, after elvel 20, the quests were more about the zones, if a race was part of a zone, you got it's lore on it. Take the Burning steppes, you got dwarf lore there.

When focused narratives started. They did not advance any race, like the RTS or novels may have done, they focused on the factions handling the expansion.

Blood elves had all their major leaps and lore done in TBC, outside that expansion they were introduced in, they do show up to do stuff, but it's not really focused development. I suppose joining the night elves to save Suramar in 7.1 was an instnace this happens, but they do this as the horde really, but being blood elves you see them in action.

The next advance to their story is the formation of the void elves and the return of Alleria.

[MrWolly]

Blood Elves made an appearance in MoP, but yeah. Races have basically only made cameos unless the zone is dedicated to them. Although the Nightborne have been playing a role in this expansion, it definitely has been Horde focused.

[zlygork]

I prefer races sacrificing faction identity to have their moments to shine.

[Evaddon]

Classice level 1-20 did give story to each race, after elvel 20, the quests were more about the zones, if a race was part of a zone, you got it's lore on it. Take the Burning steppes, you got dwarf lore there.

When focused narratives started. They did not advance any race, like the RTS or novels may have done, they focused on the factions handling the expansion.

Blood elves had all their major leaps and lore done in TBC, outside that expansion they were introduced in, they do show up to do stuff, but it's not really focused development. I suppose joining the night elves to save Suramar in 7.1 was an instnace this happens, but they do this as the horde really, but being blood elves you see them in action.

The next advance to their story is the formation of the void elves and the return of Alleria.

Blood elves have been involved and developing since MoP, aiding Garrosh with his research and gaining the Divine Bell and The Purge of Dalaran, and even gaining the Blood Golems and knowledge of Blood Magics on the Isles of Thunder, they've done stuff in WoD with their society and the light, they've gained allies by aiding with Suramar, with many of the Nightborne working with them and even with the Reliquary. Sure this is for the Horde, or with the aid of the Horde but it can't be anything else in the type of narrative or game this is.

But still races get involvement and advanced in individual focus since Cataclysm..some having small parts, some having big parts in the narrative focus of the overall expansion. I'm not sure what exactly you want. In single player focus and books its easier to tell the proscribed story you wish. But its harder in a Multiplayer game with multiple layers of story, and different arcs.

Not saying I wouldn't want them to focus on individual race, or give them their time to shine.But the response is how (outside of books),and why in the current narrative?

[Kokolums]

than developing it as the main focus or at least to actively occur alongside the faction narrative - which hasn't happened yet. Currently the races do not get developed outside their introduction. The horde and alliance dominate the narrative and races and zones do not develop. Read this quote from the official forums:

Why should they be developed?

Many of these races have existed unchanged for a very long time. The night elves I don't think have changed in thousands of years. Seems a bit contrived for all of them to suddenly undergo radical changes at the same time. They should be a rock in the storyline. An unmoving, unchanging focus that persist while other things change as a contrast.

[Directionalk9]

Guessing this just another thread that wants "NO MORE FACTIONS! I wanna group with my buddy." Totally possible while still keeping the faction divide and Horde/Alliance hostile toward each other.

I also don't think we need to sacrifice the Factions in order to develop racial narratives. The real problem is this is a game that can only allocate so much story into one direction while still servicing the elements of the game the player-base is interested in. I love the Tauren, Orcs and Goblins, I'd love if each expansion was Tauren, Orc and Goblin focused, but at the end of the day we need raids, BGs, dungeons, world content, professions, the list goes on. All those need to have something to set them apart from what came before.

Where I think Blizzard really screwed up, all the way back in Vanilla, was they never truly gave the Horde and the Alliance a unique personality or identity. They were from the get go, Team Red with Monsters and Team Blue with Heroes. The Horde is suppose to be disparate people bound together for survival in a world that hates them under the rule of the Warchief; whereas the Alliance is a union of kingdoms and nations, that share the similar goals and ideologies, to protect its people and the world from dangerous actors.

Right away a clear separation that should've been exploited in the nature of story-telling is a dictatorship v. a democracy. Pretty quickly it was just Team Red with single leader and Team Blue with a single leader. We were never exposed the laws and regulations that make up either faction. Found a traitor? Bring in their head. Thieves? Bring in their head. Evil doer? Bring in their head? Why not this, Horde resorts to trial by combat, break the law/act against the Horde, you fight to re-earn your freedom or bring in their head. The Alliance, consisting of urbanized civilizations should really be about a court systems, no more killing for heads, you capture them, and the quest reveals they'll be standing trial, we don't need to see the trial, maybe sometimes.

Getting back to racially themed development, we don't need to abandon the factional element, but instead incorporate into that narrative. Hypothetically we travel a path the explores the Three (should be four) dwarf clans going through a schism of sorts. All of the dwarf clans are unique from one each other, they have different values, philosophies, and means of internal governing; the Dark Irons had a fighting pit, the other two (should be three) clearly don't. Anyway in said hypothetical story the dwarf clans are on the brink of civil war, our job as a hero of the Alliance is to explore it and well stop it, but in the background or the C plot of that story could or should be, how does this affect the Alliance? Another wrinkle, what if an averted Dwarven civil war, inadvertently strengthened the Forsaken or Orcish holding in the surrounding regions?

My opinion, if you're looking for deep and developing stories, WoW and MMOs probably isn't the best place to look. In lieu of that, cutting out one complication (faction narrative) doesn't help, keeping levels of complication will provide story opportunities down the road.

[ravenmoon]

Why should they be developed?

Many of these races have existed unchanged for a very long time. The night elves I don't think have changed in thousands of years. Seems a bit contrived for all of them to suddenly undergo radical changes at the same time. They should be a rock in the storyline. An unmoving, unchanging focus that persist while other things change as a contrast.

Because events have demanded such a change. Your ngiht elves example for instance. THe first invasion of the legion and hte sundering necessitated a change. The long vigil era culture was set up to prevent hte return of the legion and watch out for them - hence no arcane magic to rebuild and no civilization (cities and normal living) - hunt arcane users who might call the legion back and guard the well secret.

once WC3 and the legion invades, this changes everything. THe long vigil ends, that lifestyle, the ban on arcane magic, and the reason for living the last 10,000 years ceases to be. Change must occur. They build their first city in 10,000 years, discover arcane magic can be used without detecting signcalling off the legion - humans, high elves, Draenei and other night elves like the Shend'ralar have been doing that for 10,000 years and more....and a few years later the ban i s lifted. All this is change

Now track what changes the cataclysm would instigate, then Legion happens, where Suramar thought destroyed returns, druidsm is found to be even more corruptible than the arcane and with this one you don't have a choice, arcane addiction is understood and cured, the demon hunters are discovered not to be legion agents, the legion is discovered not to be invaded to consume the magic of the well, Illidan was never a traitor, the Cathedral of eternal night's original corruption is finally broken, The legion is also finally defeated having huge ramifications - then the War of thorns happens at the hand of the horde

The night elves are bound to have some huge changes to everything since we met them in WC3 - doesn't mean they need to stop being badass or highly skilled or a good/benevolent race - the biggest genocide, the 1st invasion didn't make them into vengeful prideful monsters, the legion is a huge weight of their shoulder, and the war of thorns demands action taken to redress a wrong.

Fel users are discovered not to be toxic evil sons of bitches, but can actually be trusted to do the right thing, with their corruption part of their sacrifice and superficial, not their soul. Arcane users are discovered to be perfectly okay to use and free of addiction if balanced is maintained, plus their is a cure, and arcane power works well with nature. Druidic corruption while cleansed shows you it is even more fallible than arcane addiction and the means to deal with both is available.

This demands lots of changes. If you undergo a society changing event and the reasons for that are finally over, you will change too. your experience of night elves in the game has not been their full identity, to see that you have to go to the pre-addiction era of their pre-sundering civilisation where they wielded the arcane, nature and had an intrinsic Elune centred faith permeating their society. This version of the night elves hasn't been seen and it is the state that catapulted them into a global civilization and empire. The state that led them to be called children of the stars and their original identity and destiny which had to be put on pause for the long vigil, this can now resume. And would ofc mean change.

Tyrande was willing to change when she released illidan, and again when she accepted arcane magic and the highborne back, but then the night elves were willing to change after the sundering too. Huge events do that.

Change happens, and sometimes that is good. When you are broken by an event, you don't want to stay in war guerrilla or watch mode forever. To expect the nighte lves to remain unchanged from the long vigil period after the legion returns and they come out of isolation makes no sense. The great appeal of these games is that the story goes on and you can see changes happen. Good and great changes should happen. Doesn't mean the races should be free of tragedy or conflict, but it also doesn't mean its only tragedy and conflict they get - which is the cur

[Aeula]

It doesn’t need to sacrifice those things at all.

Though I’ve given up on factions at this point. It’s clear Blizzard want to homogenise us into a different colour of Alliance once Sylvanas is gone.

[dope_danny]

One of the biggest issues with WoW in general that always persistet is: "Okay you finished this area, now you may as well lock it off because its probably never going to be relevant again". Before the Shattering patch kalimdor and eastern kingdoms were dead and i remember reading some articles that Blizzard commented that on some servers places like Desolace and Feralas had not seen a living soul pass through them for over a year. Factions are just another part of this.

They got a little better with things like revisiting the sunwell for Quel'Delar or Legion sending you to places like the lake about Deathknell but they are almost always for one and done quests that are for a subset rather than the players in general.

Sure theres also the 20 years out of date sports team mentality treatment of factions thats been pretty dead in mmo's since the era of the wrath clones that are all barely holding on ghost towns or straight up dead -with some actually abandoning the faction divide over time like Rift- but its just another system of the not at all recent idea that anything thats not part of the current expansion in WoW is abandoned and thats the big irony of calling it 'world' of warcraft when the 'world' is just a current tier busywork to fill time before the current instanced gear treadmill.

[Beloren]

It doesn’t need to sacrifice those things at all.

Though I’ve given up on factions at this point. It’s clear Blizzard want to homogenise us into a different colour of Alliance once Sylvanas is gone.

Shocking huh. It doesn't at all, but yet it does. They are just lazy about showing hte positive changes and developing new cool things.

Although maybe allied races can be viewed as "new things" for each race, new things that the player can use. But that doens't have to mean sacrificing the races developing even if you don't/can't update the world.

[Directionalk9]

So I was right about the thread.

But, @ravenmoon are you asking for a revamp, like Cataclysm? Because otherwise what you laid out is entirely racial development.

[Powerogue]

That is one of the biggest downsides to adding all these allied races, more to share the spotlight.

[ravenmoon]

So I was right about the thread.

But, @ravenmoon are you asking for a revamp, like Cataclysm? Because otherwise what you laid out is entirely racial development.

Racial development, something g I feel they can do without a world revamp. A racial campaign that can be based on a new continent but have quests that could take you to various zones all around the world as they advance the lore.

However I do feel they should revamp a world zone for each race to reflect the rebuilding process. This maymeannuograding about 10 zones, assuming gnomes and dwarves still share dark spears and orcs still share a zone top though they each have their cities. If night elvesandnightborneshare, as well as void elves and blood elves, same with the rest of the allied races, then you are looking at 11 zones, with some having much more work than others.. I dont imagine the human zone needing much work at all, seeing how regularly updated stormwind is and relatively unscathed most of the human zones are

[Unholyground]

So far the Zandalari and Kul'Tiran have had a ton, but ya generally after the expansion they are introduced they are all but forgotten in the ongoing lore.