Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Raetary]

And yeah LF and HM should've been options for regular Tauren and Draenei. Same for Mechagnomes and regular Gnomes, and Mag'har, and Dark Iron Dwarves.

They should've gone the FF14 route and added them as 'clan' extensions to the core races, rather than fully established new races.

Like how after picking Hyur you can choose between Midlander and Highlander, it would've been cool if picking a dwarf in wow, the game let you choose between Wildhammer/Bronzebeard/DI and the same for (most) other races.

This way, the AR customization would be baked into the core races as most players would've probably wanted, and Blizzard still can distinguish them for lore purposes, racials and customization.

[Alanar]

The problem isn't really just helf fans, it's Blizzard stoking their wish for years and years.

Blizzard should have put a firm line on Blood/High elves after TBC. Absolutely no new elves added except maybe Alleria.

But Blizzard didn't do that. Instead they canonised and doubled down on High elves not just being separate from Blood elves, but heavily tied to the Alliance. They made the issue impossible to ignore, since they very clearly had a contingent of high elves featured prominently that you simply could not play. It was quite simply impossible to play as an Alliance high elf.

Ye agree on bolted part and think about it, even in MoP, Isle of Thunder, they made it almost entirely blue vs red elves. The weird part of that is they nver came forth with it.. what was the reason? if only just now we have an option to rp as a high elf. They have been saying no for years.. in cata most high elf post were wretched elves and it realy seemed like they were actively getting rid of those numbers.

It will always be a mystery what their purpose was.

[Yarathir]

They should've gone the FF14 route and added them as 'clan' extensions to the core races, rather than fully established new races.

Like how after picking Hyur you can choose between Midlander and Highlander, it would've been cool if picking a dwarf in wow, the game let you choose between Wildhammer/Bronzebeard/DI and the same for (most) other races.

This way, the AR customization would be baked into the core races as most players would've probably wanted, and Blizzard still can distinguish them for lore purposes, racials and customization.

Yeah, you're right about that. It'd have been a way better system and I think it's what people had been askign for with "subraces" for years before the allied race system became a thing.

[Cosmic Janitor]

And yeah LF and HM should've been options for regular Tauren and Draenei. Same for Mechagnomes and regular Gnomes, and Mag'har, and Dark Iron Dwarves.

Well WoW was all about simplifying (MMO)RPG concepts, there is a reason why the racial divide was super clear and obvious in the beginning. I mean it was a major reason why WoW became popular, but it also sacrificed some RPG staples like character backgrounds/tribes/heritage. Allied races were largely just a bandaid to fix that somewhat 12 years later, but even the more pronounced differences just amount to being a fat human or an upright troll, stuff that should be part of the character creation. Now that we can just change our characters on a whim they seemt to have dropped most of the focus on that aspect again and just let you change everything about your character villy-nilly - sadly we now have to drag along the legacy parts, even though they feel redundant.

[Yarathir]

Do you have a source for that by any chance? the only thing I remember what was said somewhere was some article talking about the asian marked needed something like that. Never seen a blue post or post that blizz literally explained that?? Like I said the horde was popular in general in vanilla wow, so I find that a vague reason, to balance what out?

The reason why they went horde seems more clear then what you are saying, it's not realy fimbling up some stuff, it was literally a follow up on warcraft 3, you know with Sylvanas and their undead being outcasts now and her link to the blood elves felt natural. People don't want to hear it, but they had every reason to not join the racist alliance at that time. I even saw prohighelves claim Garrithos was non cannon only to bolster their opinions why thy should have gone Alliance, I know it's crazy.

I can't just snap up a source from years ago for you on a whim but I'll try. But in the meantime..

You think it makes more sense for High Elves to join:

-The Scourge
-The Trolls
-The Orcs

Three groups that tried to wipe them out, over the humans/Alliance because of:

-Garithos
-The fact that the Humans didn't save their ass, when the Humans were at that point being overrun themselves by the very same forces, forces that the High Elves supposedly would later join

[Alanar]

They should've gone the FF14 route and added them as 'clan' extensions to the core races, rather than fully established new races.

Like how after picking Hyur you can choose between Midlander and Highlander, it would've been cool if picking a dwarf in wow, the game let you choose between Wildhammer/Bronzebeard/DI and the same for (most) other races.

This way, the AR customization would be baked into the core races as most players would've probably wanted, and Blizzard still can distinguish them for lore purposes, racials and customization.

Yes, specially races like Hm, orcs, drenaei, gnomes. They felt rather cheap as in * new * races, were if they would just be some clan option, we could have maybe seen things like Krokul, Vrykul or even tuskarr. But I guess that doesn't fall in line of allied races instead of new races

- - - Updated - - -

I can't just snap up a source from years ago for you on a whim but I'll try. But in the meantime..

You think it makes more sense for High Elves to join:

-The Scourge
-The Trolls
-The Orcs

Three groups that tried to wipe them out, over the humans/Alliance because of:

-Garithos
-The fact that the Humans didn't save their ass, when the Humans were at that point being overrun themselves by the very same forces, forces that the High Elves supposedly would later join

It's just that I have not seen that statement anywhere so I was just wondering if you were able to link it, but it's fine.

True, but.. the scourge was seperated into different factions. The undead being the outcasts and hey they had a quel'thalas hero as their leader so it's not weird to see a connection there. Also the undead hates the scourge. Fighting for what hey did to Silvermoon , common goal.
I agree on trolls, they were just weird in the first place. We even saw some troll ambassador walking arround in a tour in Silvermoon. Luckily there was a snippet I believe it was said they were differnt tribe, but could be wrong.
Wasn't thrall one of the main questgivers back in bc when you got to OG as a new blood elf? explaining the horde.

The humans were the face of the alliance back then and it made it even more weird when you think about how Kael was a regular in dalaran etc. They were heavily mistreated for no real reason, besides rasism, hence bc going horde felt more like a logical way if you think about it, also keeping Sylvanas in mind. There were appearntly more Dark rangers (undead elves). I tried to find it, but can not find a source from this and the only thing what was said about it, was that in Wrath we suddenly had a lot more undead elves running around and patrolling undercity. Cata enhanced it in that new storyline in silverpine. So I would say Sylvanas was the only connection and no other elves being named.

Ye, true, but Kael tried to explain and reason with him about the temporarily allies but there was no way in reasoning with the alliance for some reason and only called them traitors when they had no forces to defend themselves.

[Yarathir]

It's just that I have not seen that statement anywhere so I was just wondering if you were able to link it, but it's fine.

No, you're entirely in your right to ask for a source. Just that traipsing through stuff from over 10 years ago in internet time is a bit more difficult than it looks, and it's not the kind of thing they tend to put on wowpedia or anything. Hell, I remember mentioning that Blizzard made a post about Demon Hunter wings as a mount mechanic and that they would consider it if there was enough interest, yet when I had to find it again, I had 0 success. Anyway, I'll still try, because it's it's something that's brought up fairly often in the back-and-forth Blood Elf-High Elf war.[/quote]

True, but.. the scourge was seperated into different factions. The undead being the outcasts and hey they had a quel'thalas hero as their leader so it's not weird to see a connection there. Also the undead hates the scourge. Fighting for what hey did to Silvermoon etc.
I agree on trolls, they were just weird in the first place. We even saw some troll ambassador walking arround in a tour in Silvermoon. Luckily there was a snippet I believe it was said they were differnt tribe, but could be wrong.
Wasn't thrall one of the main questgivers back in bc when you got to OG as a new blood elf? explaining the horde.

The humans were the face of the alliance back then and it made it even more weird when you think about how Kael was a regular in dalaran etc. They were heavily mistreatet for no real reason, besides rasism, hence bc going horde felt more like a logical way if you think about it, also keeping Sylvanas in mind.

Ah, my point was more that if you use Garithos' behavior as an argument for why they would abandon the Alliance, then surely having three separate groups that wanted to exterminate them or that they had waged great wars against would be more of a factor.

I know the Forsaken aren't exactly the Scourge (though BfA would somewhat beg to differ, lol) and the Darkspear aren't the Amani, and people would argue that Thrall's Horde shouldn't be held accountable for the actions of Orgrim's Horde (although I would argue that that's a bit of a cop-out, considering all the bad orcs Thrall revered. He has a monument to Grom, Orgrimmar is literally named after Orgrim, who..

"If the Amani pledged themselves to the Horde, they would not become servants. Zul'jin would retain full control over his people. He and Doomhammer would stand as equals against their enemies. Doomhammer finally won Zul'jin's support with an offer: if the Amani committed their forces to the Horde, the orcs would help them annihilate their rivals, the high elves of Quel'Thalas."

Even if you want to invoke the aforementioned nuance argument, that same nuance seems not to be afforded to the Alliance. As a side note, I think you're overstating Sylvanas as a point of connection a little bit, but it's fine, I get your point.

[Alanar]

No, you're entirely in your right to ask for a source. Just that traipsing through stuff from over 10 years ago in internet time is a bit more difficult than it looks, and it's not the kind of thing they tend to put on wowpedia or anything. Hell, I remember mentioning that Blizzard made a post about Demon Hunter wings as a mount mechanic and that they would consider it if there was enough interest, yet when I had to find it again, I had 0 success. Anyway, I'll still try, because it's it's something that's brought up fairly often in the back-and-forth Blood Elf-High Elf war.


Ah, my point was more that if you use Garithos' behavior as an argument for why they would abandon the Alliance, then surely having three separate groups that wanted to exterminate them or that they had waged great wars against would be more of a factor.

I know the Forsaken aren't exactly the Scourge (though BfA would somewhat beg to differ, lol) and the Darkspear aren't the Amani, and people would argue that Thrall's Horde shouldn't be held accountable for the actions of Orgrim's Horde (although I would argue that that's a bit of a cop-out, considering all the bad orcs Thrall revered. He has a monument to Grom, Orgrimmar is literally named after Orgrim, who..

"If the Amani pledged themselves to the Horde, they would not become servants. Zul'jin would retain full control over his people. He and Doomhammer would stand as equals against their enemies. Doomhammer finally won Zul'jin's support with an offer: if the Amani committed their forces to the Horde, the orcs would help them annihilate their rivals, the high elves of Quel'Thalas."

Even if you want to invoke the aforementioned nuance argument, that same nuance seems not to be afforded to the Alliance. As a side note, I think you're overstating Sylvanas as a point of connection a little bit, but it's fine, I get your point.

Fair enough, ye it's more that Garrithos or the Alliance at that point was a factor they probably took in, the destruction of Silvermon city and having common goals with Sylvanas being the lead and still cared for Silvermoon city are all factors that could have been reasons enough for the blood elves join them. They lost alot of people and having allies to fight for the same goal might have been enough. These wars amani troll/scourge are a big factor indeed, they needed allies. Could we say that the undead were there (ghostlands) on the right timing to help? I mean if night elves for example would be there to help them, things could have been different.

Gotcha on the bfa part, so true^^, but with that said it's hard to not count these things in when all races and specially ones we play all have so many clans, factions etc and are mostly pretty important lore elements to divide them.

I was just summing it up to many times sorry, but I do see Sylvanas as just a part of the reason, like common goals with the undead about detroying the scourge or that they had a bad time with humans in warcraft 3. I feel these factors are all pretty equal, but I don't want you to think that I weight Sylvanas more then anything else. All those reasons have fair ammount of things that can be said about it. I just always felt like the blood elf story we got in BC was a continuation from what we already known, hence I started with the Garrithos argument.

[Yarathir]

Fair enough, ye it's more that Garrithos or the Alliance at that point was a factor they probably took in, the destruction of Silvermon city and having common goals with Sylvanas being the lead and still cared for Silvermoon city are all factors that could have been reasons enough for the blood elves join them. They lost alot of people and having allies to fight for the same goal might have been enough. These wars amani troll/scourge are a big factor indeed, they needed allies. Could we say that the undead were there (ghostlands) on the right timing to help? I mean if night elves for example would be there to help them, things could have been different.

Gotcha on the bfa part, so true^^, but with that said it's hard to not count these things in when all races and specially ones we play all have so many clans, factions etc and are mostly pretty important lore elements to divide them.

I was just summing it up to many times sorry, but I do see Sylvanas as just a part of the reason, like common goals with the undead about detroying the scourge or that they had a bad time with humans in warcraft 3. I feel these factors are all pretty equal, but I don't want you to think that I weight Sylvanas more then anything else. All those reasons have fair ammount of things that can be said about it. I just always felt like the blood elf story we got in BC was a continuation from what we already known, hence I started with the Garrithos argument.

No problem, I get your point and I do think having a Windrunner as part of the Horde plays a role. Wonder how that is now, though, with two Windrunners firmly in the Alliance camp.

Regardless, I think if you want to be totally nuanced, there's an argument for High/Blood Elves in both factions, but despite that, I understand that a lot of Alliance High Elf fans felt a bit betrayed by Blizzard just plopping the Blood Elves into the Horde and then going "Yeah deal with it."

Speaking of the BfA part, I really have to wonder what Nightborne thought of that. I mean, we got some stuff, but surely they would be going pale at the Burning of Teldrassil and everything up to 8.0. "Did we make a mistake?"

If we're talking about joining former enemies, I think the argument that the Darkspear and Amani aren't the same is the strongest one, personally. Considering the Forsaken were indeed part of the same Scourge that ravaged the Quel'dorei before they broke free, and Thrall's Horde was built up on a foundation that not only didn't condemn the original Horde members that tried to invade and murder everyone, but outright honored them as heroes.

Yet still Elf-Darkspear hostilities are often played up the most, which I find funny.

[Alanar]

No problem, I get your point and I do think having a Windrunner as part of the Horde plays a role. Wonder how that is now, though, with two Windrunners firmly in the Alliance camp.

Regardless, I think if you want to be totally nuanced, there's an argument for High/Blood Elves in both factions, but despite that, I understand that a lot of Alliance High Elf fans felt a bit betrayed by Blizzard just plopping the Blood Elves into the Horde and then going "Yeah deal with it."

Speaking of the BfA part, I really have to wonder what Nightborne thought of that. I mean, we got some stuff, but surely they would be going pale at the Burning of Teldrassil and everything up to 8.0. "Did we make a mistake?"

If we're talking about joining former enemies, I think the argument that the Darkspear and Amani aren't the same is the strongest one, personally. Considering the Forsaken were indeed part of the same Scourge that ravaged the Quel'dorei before they broke free, and Thrall's Horde was built up on a foundation that not only didn't condemn the original Horde members that tried to invade and murder everyone, but outright honored them as heroes.

Yet still Elf-Darkspear hostilities are often played up the most, which I find funny.

It's understandable from the other side pov, but from following their story from their introduction from war 2,and firmly as blood elves in war 3 to wow they had more reason to join red then blue, I mean did we had any other alliance and blood elf team up between war 3 and wow? So for people who didn't play war2 i could imagine it would feel more obvious to join red. I also believe some people weight the warcraft 2 high elf to hard in in these times, I mean the elf, men, dwarf alliance was temporarily as in they moved on, their story moved on.

I am not sure about the Nightborne, they can't compare two, only thing she got from the alliance was a bitter Tyrande who was certaintly not helpfull or reasonable to them. It's hard for them I would imagine to think that it's better at the other side. Thalyssra never interacted much or never with other races on the alliance. The good part is that pretty much most of the horde was against her actions and she was not alone in that sense, but I sure believe she would have fought like wtf did I get myself into *teleports back to Suramar*

[Hitei]

I am not sure about the Nightborne, they can't compare two, only thing she got from the alliance was a bitter Tyrande who was certaintly not helpfull or reasonable to them. It's hard for them I would imagine to think that it's better at the other side. Thalyssra never interacted much or never with other races on the alliance. The good part is that pretty much most of the horde was against her actions and she was not alone in that sense, but I sure believe she would have fought like wtf did I get myself into *teleports back to Suramar*

Not sure why people are still repeating this objectively false information years later. Tyrande's forces were literally fighting and dying for Thaylssra's people to reclaim the Nightwell, you can't really get more helpful or reasonable than that. The only "bitter" thing Tyrande did was ask one question about how the Nighborne could be trusted given their history, and when Thalyssra gave an answer, Tyrande accepted it and said something along the lines of "I guess we'll see".

Which by the way isn't even the reason Thalyssra joined the Horde, because as is confirmed in the intro for Nightborne, the only reason Thalyssra pledges to the Horde is that after that exchange, Tyrande never texted her back saying "hey, come join the Alliance". The Nightborne weren't offended, it wasn't a "the Horde treat us better", it was just that the Horde invited them and the Alliance didn't.

The whole thing was fucking awful writing and it invalidated a huge chunk of Legion story content for half the playerbase. It was dumb, and I will repeat for the millionth time that all Blizzard had to do was have the leftover remnants of Elisande's Duskwatch join the Horde, because they are the reject exiles who need a home and a people to belong to, the Horde's M.O., and would be totally fine with Sylvanas, because they were okay with Elisande's questionable methods, and would not care at all about helping her fight the Darnassian Night Elves. They are also the ones who have a similar story to the Blood Elves, since they went from mana addiction to making deals with the Legion for survival, and have the same dangerous raw ambition--unlike the Nightfallen, whose whole story was about them figuring out they needed to balance their arcane obsession with their druidic roots. (We won't even talk about how Blizzard seemingly completely forgot this whole plot point and the associated NPC, and that they also had a bunch of Val'sharahian druids hanging out with them in Shal'aran.)

[draugril]

There is plenty of stuff that requires your faction to be actually populated, like finding groups, guilds, etc.; especially in the context of TBC, pre-CRZ.

Also Belfs make up roughly 30%, with major races being around 15% and the new stuff filling out the rest. Hardly 90%.

You are pointing out a mechanical disadvantage to having the faction split. I do not disagree with that.

What mechanical advantage is there as a result of the split?

- - - Updated - - -

An option that only recently became viable.

It’s been “viable” since the ending of WCIII.

[Cosmic Janitor]

You are pointing out a mechanical disadvantage to having the faction split. I do not disagree with that.

What mechanical advantage is there as a result of the split?

You are just moving the goalposts here. That was never what the argument was about. The faction split is simply a given, especially in the historical context of the game. The horde having belfs was simply a good descision at the time and has served the game well for over 10 years. We are also still nowhere near removing factions or at least the strict faction divide, so your post simply makes no sense in regards to faction identity. The factions exist and so does the desire of most people to play something aesthetically pleasing. These are the realities we have to live with.

[draugril]

Never said we should get rid of factions.

Merely that the limitations of the system provide no mechanical advantage and hamstrings storytelling.

[Raetary]

It’s been “viable” since the ending of WCIII.

From a game and narrative point of view, yes.
Certainly not to Blizzard themselves.

[draugril]

From a game and narrative point of view, yes.
Certainly not to Blizzard themselves.

Because, originally, they intended to have a DAoC-inspired PvP system to compliment their EQ-inspired PvE. Original AV was their only real step toward realizing that vision, but the engine collapsed under its own weight and AV was made instanced.

That should have been the point that cross-faction grouping was enabled - upon the realization that WoW couldn’t be a DAoC-style game. Instead, we’re left with a system that is nothing but negative for everyone but the PR team.

[Sondrelk]

Seeing all the ToS mythic recolors made me realize how much I have missed class sets. The data mining is so much more exciting when you have 12 high quality sets to potentially get excited gathering on alts instead of 4.

[Fahrad Wagner]

Seeing all the ToS mythic recolors made me realize how much I have missed class sets. The data mining is so much more exciting when you have 12 high quality sets to potentially get excited gathering on alts instead of 4.

Amen... although I wish the themes were not necessarily linked to the raid, like they were doing in the late editions.

[Sondrelk]

Amen... although I wish the themes were not necessarily linked to the raid, like they were doing in the late editions.

Thinking about it I wonder whether the ideal solution might be a compromise where Blizzard makes one expansion themed set (not raid themed) for each class, one "generic" or anything goes class set, and 4 raid themed sets for each armor type per raid. Spread that out over the entire expansion and I think you would have a nice compromise solution that might make it easier on the artists, bit in work required as well as creative blocks, and still gives class sets.

Might be a hard sell but still.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

Amen... although I wish the themes were not necessarily linked to the raid, like they were doing in the late editions.

Hey you could have been a hunter where it's "which boss' skull will I be wearing this season"....

Since 2004.