Tuesday, May 14, 2013

What New Races Might We Get In The Future?

My prediction for the next expansion is that we will not get any new races, but will instead get the new models for the Vanilla and BC races that they've been talking about for a while (the Dwarf, supposedly, has been done for a while, so we can probably imagine that they've actively been working on this.)

That said, assuming that WoW continues on for a while longer after the next expansion (and I expect it to do so,) we could probably see new races show up. I thought I'd talk about how they could work out.

First, a note on Neutral Races:

The Pandaren broke the mold in terms of how races in WoW work. Every other playable race that came before was strictly aligned with one faction or another. The Blood Elves had a decent reason to not be in the Alliance, and they made the story of how they wound up in the Horde work pretty logically. The Worgen were always sort of a monstrous race, which tend to go to the Horde, but everything about the Worgen backstory pushes them into conflict with the Horde, and the development in how the cause of the curse was revealed shows that really, the Worgen couldn't not be part of the Alliance. Even the Goblins, the prototypical "neutral race," were given exclusively to the Horde because of their status as a kind of mirror to the Gnomes and also the way that they do kind of fit into the Horde milieu better (green skin and recklessness.)

The Pandaren were made a neutral race for two major reasons. One, the just practical reason, is that in an expansion entirely focused on the homeland of the Pandaren, it would seem really unfair for one side to get them and the other to get something else - even if that other race was one people had been clamoring for. The other reason is that the Pandaren culture is all about light-heartedness, and so they seem like they would not want to choose sides. In fact, one gets the impression at the end of the Pandaren starting area that neither side really understands the conflict they're getting into. Aysa and Ji might have had a little falling out, but they certainly didn't expect to become blood enemies engaged in a constant war with one another.

I think it's perfectly possible that we could get more neutral races, but I also think that some of the races would really only fit one faction or the other.

I'm not going to try to pair every race with one for the other faction here.

First, we'll start with some of the more established races:

Ogres:

Ogres came through the Dark Portal along with the Orcs pretty much from the start. Sure, they splintered off and perhaps were never part of the Horde proper (with exceptions like Cho'gall,) but there are, in fact, a number of ogre towns for Horde players, and of course the Mok'nathal to which Rexxar belongs, who are half-orc, half-ogres. This would be a pretty obvious option for a Horde race, but as Blizzard has said, they have no idea what a female Ogre would look like.

Potential Ogre Classes: Warrior, Death Knight, Shaman, Hunter, Mage, Warlock

Naga:

The Naga are one of the more common races we come across in-game, and also one of the few non-playable races to have both male and female models. Sure, they're corrupted, but I think that if we can accept Forsaken as beings of free will who can be good guys, we ought to be able to accept the Naga. The real challenge is to figure out how to do pants, boots, and mounts. The pants and boots I think you could just adapt to cover different parts of the tail. Mounts... maybe have them sit kind of draped over the mount...?

As to what faction the Naga would belong to, I'd put them once again with the Horde, though with some serious lore-nudging (to get around how unhappy the Night Elves would be) you could make them a neutral race. The Naga I feel would have an easier time relating the the Blood Elves as fellow outcasts, and even though they're far from the sort of quasi-barbarianistic vibe of the Horde, they obviously have a ruthless culture that would fit in well with the members of the Eastern Horde.

Potential Naga Classes: Warrior, Death Knight, Hunter, Rogue, Warlock, Mage, Priest

High Elves:

It would be a very simple thing indeed to grant High Elves to the Alliance - you'd simply use Blood Elf models with blue eyes instead of green. You'd also need to give them a different starting zone. While I wouldn't be opposed to this per se, I do think I'd prefer a real new race instead of just increasing the Elf population.

Potential High Elf Classes: Warrior, Death Knight, Paladin, Hunter, Rogue, Druid? (if you had their schism with the Blood Elves push them to rediscover their Night Elf roots,) Mage, Priest (no Warlocks, because I think the whole Fel magic thing is kind of a sticking point for them.)

Centaur:

The Centaur would be cool if they played a bigger role in the world, and they have a decent enough backstory, but ultimately I don't think they would fit well enough with either faction, aren't really cool enough, and that's before you get into the issues with how the hell anything other than a Running Wild-style mount would work.

Potential Centaur Classes: Warrior, Hunter, Shaman, Rogue, Mage, Warlock, Priest

Murlocs:

The Murlocs are one of the iconic races of Warcraft. Could they be playable? That I'm not sure about. For one thing, they seem to be too unintelligent. Pretty much every race in the game is supposed to be of comparable intelligence (I like to think that any perceived differences there are really more cultural. Orcs might have a more anti-intellectual culture - something that Thrall was trying to fix - but hey, we now have Orc Mages.) Murlocs are probably not smart. It took the waters of the Vale of Eternal Blossoms turning them into Jinyu to make them a sapient-level race.

Potential Murloc Classes: Warrior. Shaman, Hunter, Rogue, Druid (just so we can see terrifying fish-bears,) Mage, Warlock, Priest

And now the newer ones:

Ethereals:

The Ethereals would make a great neutral race. They are not without their problems, though. One is that there's a whole lot of overlap between them and Goblins (though there's also overlap between Goblins and Gnomes.) They also don't really have bodies or faces, exactly, though I suppose you could customize your character via the way their wrappings cover them - the wrapping serving like skin under the armor.

Potential Ethereal Classes: Warrior, Paladin, Hunter, Rogue, Mage, Warlock, Priest

Vrykul:

The Vrykul have a pretty deep history, though one that we never really explored that much. The odd thing is that we haven't really seen many of them who weren't evil. King Ymiron was clearly a brute in the eons before the modern day, when the first human children were being born to Vrykul mothers. And then, of course, the Vrykul fell in with the Scourge (does Ymiron know that Arthas was one of those pygmy children?) The one time we saw Vrykul after Arthas' fall, they had joined Twilight's Hammer, attacking us during the Warmaster Blackhorn fight.

I personally like the Vrykul a lot (and hey - we've already got female models!) but I think they might be too limited in scope at the moment to become a playable race. If we could use them to delve further into the Titan lore, that would be cool. As to which faction they'd go to... Well, on one hand, their Viking Warrior culture would seem to fit very well with the Horde, but I could also imagine them being very reluctant to bow down to the Orcs (though given that the Horde is in for some changes...) Depending on how they view their relationship to humanity, they would either be drawn to the Alliance or pushed away from it. If they retained a solidarity with the fellow titanic race, I could see them getting along well with the Dwarves and Gnomes.

Potential Vrykul Classes: Warrior, Paladin (with a connection to Tyr and his silver hand, perhaps,) Death Knight (though I don't quite know how you'd fit them into the DK starting experience,) Hunter, Shaman, Rogue, Mage, Warlock, Priest

Mogu:

With the Thunder King dead, might the Mogu reform? The thing about the Mogu, in my mind, is that they seem to have almost gotten a half-dose of the Curse of Flesh. They got just enough for them to become disillusioned with the Titans and exploit their creators, but not enough to give them the kind of empathy and "humanity" to not be total dicks. There are only two female mogu in all of existence, and we've killed them. So... probably not.

Potential Mogu Classes: They actually explicitly say that Mogu magic breaks the barriers between the various styles, so I'm actually thinking this is just too unlikely.

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