Does anybody else think Blizzard should do a small overhaul of the character race system in the near future?
I just think it's a big bess with Allied Races, and the various customisation options added in Shadowlands and Dragonflight.
It would be amazing if they streamlined it, so you had the following races:
- Human
- Dwarf
- Kaldorei
- Gnome
- Eredar
- Pandaren
- Dracthyr
- Orc
- Tauren
- Troll
- Quel'dorei
- Goblin
- Vulpera
Then as you click each race, you see different "sub races" (for lack of a better word). You can pick a backstory, nation or culture, which opens up for example "Stormwindians", Kul Tiran, Worgen and Forsaken. Obviously some will be faction-locked. Your racial abilities might be locked to your chosen "sub race" for the easy route, or they could have a sort of talent tree similar to the PvP talent tree, which lets you select from a few depending on the race you chose.
As an added bonus, this could open up the ability to easily add more flavour in the future, and to open up some current restrictions. For example, they could give Wildhammer Dwarves some more attention, as well as San'layn elves. There might even be a new form of Lordaeronians that join the Alliance (backstory-wise) or a more neutral form of Quel'dorei (High Elves) that either side can pick.
I imagine racials are the difficult part to balance properly against eachother. Some races have several flavor racials, some have one. Some have several utility or DPS racials, some have just one big one. How do you for instance balance a big utility racial like Shadowmeld or EMFH?
Maybe it could work, but I think racials in general would need to be more homogenized for it to work.
The world revamp dream will never die!
You're right. I do think racial abilities are due for an overhaul as well, tbh.
I would love to see a simple tree like the one we have for Dragonriding. Pick between some cosmetic abilities, unlock a few stronger ones everyone get within that race, etc. But none of them should impact instanced or competitive gameplay to a large degree.
As long as the new cosmetic options are super cool, I think a lot of players are willing to forgive losing out on a little bit of power. It'll also encourage picking what you prefer based on theme, instead of power.
A Quel'dorei might unlock some type of "Silvermoon Arcanist" or "Thalassian Ranger" ability regardless if they're a Void Elf, a Blood Elf, a High Elf or a San'layn Elf. But each also has a selection of unique ones to mark that difference.
If you got 1-5 renown for every fish fished out of a pool, or something as simple as that, I would actually have maxed a renown by now. I've not got any of them higher than 13 I think...
And I don't mean I've already done enough fishing for that. I mean I would have been fishing this whole time instead of just once in a while. I like fishing as it is right now. I just don't need the fish.
Fan-made art.
Yeah, I found it my bad. I am really sorry about that.
I was like "Uh, Blizzard has never marked Tel'abim. So I was like just curious to fact check it."
Last edited by Foreign Exchange Ztudent; 2023-09-17 at 07:36 PM.
I no longer reply to quotations beyond if you're asking a genuine question or have a non-confrontational stance.
Nihil.
The problem is that at this point they have several races that have multiple/all of their distinct cultural groups mashed together into a single race option that i don't see how they could possibly seperate and categorize them without upsetting a truckload of people.
Also, regardless of whether or not CFP is a thing, they'll likely never get rid of the factions prominence on the character creation screen.
So they have to either add or mash options together just to have the UI balanced on both sides.
I hear ya.
I'm in this odd place where all I really want to do is use /sit underneath some nice tree beside a clear stream, and hear the music and ambience sounds all around me. Zuldazar, Stormsong Valley, Azure Span, and a bunch of other places are perfect for this.
But alas, actually doing it stresses me out a bit. Because I have a limited playtime (busy job and a toddler), I feel like I need to do the standard routine in order to get any Renown and "keep up" with cosmetic rewards, story, and just general expansion gameplay. So World Quests, some LFR, a few world events, etc. That's it for my playtime.
But a revamped Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms with a sort of generic Renown that reset with every major patch or expansion, and just let me stack loads of fish, herbs, ore, etc. and turn in for rep and rewards? I'm in! Doesn't even matter if it's less efficient. It'd be my kind of gameplay.
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I agree it'd be difficult, but it would be popular with a lot of players.
I think a reasonable solution is as follows:
1. Enter the Character Creation screen.
2. Pick a race you'd like to find out more about, from the ones listed in my other post. Let's use Dwarf as an example. Nice little info blurb that mentions unique racial abilities etc.
3. Select an available "culture" or whatever they call it. This is just part of the customisation process.
4. Customise your character's appearance. Some choice will appear "locked", and hovering the mouse cursor above them informs you why in case you want to change. Just as today with Human skin colours, there are these dependancies in choices further down.
5. (Optional for bonus points, hehe) choose a backstory for some extra flair, or leave it empty for head canon.
6. Log in to the game and open up your Talent Tree. There's a section for "Race", which lets you pick between a few. Some appear locked because of your earlier choice. But these become available if you make a switch at the Barbershop. Perhaps switching sub race comes with a price, or a cooldown, especially if it's between factions.
7. Level up for more Talent points.
If they want to keep the spirit of the faction choice alive in the character creation screen, then "core" races might be locked to the left or right under appropriate faction banners, while some might be in the middle if they're more neutral.
Last edited by Worldshaper; 2023-09-17 at 08:16 PM.
47 days until Blizzcon! Get HYPE! 11.0! 11.0!
For the next couple of weeks, we're in this weird bubble between the hype from 10.2's PTR diminishing, and BlizzCon's marketing picking up.
Then we head into the Harvest Festival, Turbulent Timeways, Brewfest, Cataclysm Timewalking, Eastern Kingdoms Cup, and Hallow's End all within a couple of weeks. That's when it all starts to get exciting again, really.![]()
I'd dismiss the Harvest Festival stuff... that in-game holiday doesn't give a lot other than food (and not even the kind that gives buffs) it was sort of a holiday Blizz just abandoned.
Everything else is kinda exciting especially Hallow's End which got significant changes.
I found it odd that there are a lot of Hallows End revamped assets that didn't make it into 10.1.7, but are in the 10.2 files.
Like what are the implications? They need a new phase? Assets that couldn't get done in time?
Last edited by Cheezits; 2023-09-17 at 11:58 PM.
My point wasn't to belittle your knowledge, it was that ultimately Genesis and Exodus are also greek/latin roots. As the names of the first two books of the bible they work very well as thematic names for a pair of ships--they reference a pair of books but also have very strong English implications that are readily understood, but as Nymrohd pointed out, this isn't an infinite well. They stand out as two specific really convenient examples, but something like Leviticus, even putting aside its unsavory associations, does not work well, nor do the next ~20 book names, and Ecclesedar and Lamenedar don't exactly hit with the same poignancy as Genedar and Exodar.
So they just went with latin/greek roots for ship purposes rather than attempting to force wonkier names or doubling down on the references and switching over to super explicit and direct name based things like Nazedar or Sinedar or something.
Admittedly, that's my fault for being unnecessarily defensive. Apologies for that, that was stupidly hasty of me to infer.
Not sure those unsavory associations would be the first thoughts of most, though I suppose certain degrading externalities and purveyors of externalities have a habit of inducing a flawed image of things.
In retrospect, you and @Nymrohd are likely right. Perhaps it would be a bit difficult to stretch out that motif for very long, and it's not as if the current names aren't serviceable. I'm going to put this down as myself being too unwilling to accept even inevitable deviation from prior precedent. There's a good number of cases where deviation from the established motifs might become excessive or jarring, but this is probably not one of them.
Nazedar has a bit of a nice ring, though.
"As a matter of fact, the Conservative has exactly the same error as the Progressive. . . That is to say, he judges a thing by whether it is of yesterday or today or tomorrow, and not by what it is in eternity." —G.K. Chesterton