Races and Classes and their Restrictions

Two anecdotes:

When Worgen were announced as a new playable race, I decided that this was the only race I might change my main to. My other favorite playable race, the Draenei, already held a position as one of my most played classes in the Death Knight. However, Worgen did not receive Paladins as a class available to them (though there's no really good reason why not: Gilneas was part of the Alliance in the time of Uther and Turalyon et. al.) So I've stuck with my human. I've always felt a little odd about having a human main, as that the "boring" option, but when I got started, there were only two racial choices for Paladins, and damn if that human mage in the original WoW cinematic didn't look badass, blasting Infernal after Infernal off that tower.

In addition to its two new races, Cataclysm added a whole bunch of new race/class combinations. If you're one of the few people who began playing after Wrath of the Lich King, you may not realize that many of your class options used to be more restricted. For example, Humans could not be Hunters, Orcs could not be Mages, and there were only two races who could be Druids: Night Elves and Tauren. A total of thirteen new race/class combos were introduced, and that's before you consider the two new races that were added (and of course Mists of Pandaria gave us a new race and a new class.)

At this point, most races can be most of the classes. In Vanilla, Tauren and Gnomes could each only be four of the nine classes. However, some restrictions remain. You still can't have a Draenei Warlock, or an Orc Paladin.

But what if you could? What if they opened up the floodgates and just let you choose any combination of race and class? Pandaren Druids, Human Shamans, Worgen Monks (they have by far the sharpest claws of any race, ought they not to fight bare-handed?)

In fact, given the marginalization of the need for class trainers, now that we learn our abilities automatically, you could even get away without putting in any new NPCs.

There are two major hurdles:

First is art. Even before we get into having to make a new Paladin mount for every other race (Undead could just use the Blood Elf one, or even the Human/Dwarf one,) there's also Druid forms to consider, which are each fairly complex and need to look very good. While it would be cool to see what everyone's Shaman totems would look like (Undead could have gravestones!) This would be a major sink into the art department's time.

The other is lore. And this comes in two parts:

Part one is that there's just some logistical issues. Worgen, for instance, begin very clearly before the events of Mists of Pandaria. Having Monks in walled-off Gilneas stretches belief a bit, even if they did manage to make Druids work. Flipping that around though, you have Death Knights. Now, Goblins were not much of a problem as there have been tons of Goblins around since WCII, but Worgen required a bit of a stretch, and Pandaren would need even more of one (though I suppose you could be a fellow traveler like Chen. You'd also probably need to pick a faction from the get-go.)

But beyond logistics, there's also logic. Admittedly, you might just say that with all the interacting that's been going on between the various races, there's been some cultural diffusion. A Night Elf might decide becoming a champion of the light sounds pretty groovy, or a Tauren realizes that demonic power is actually pretty damn effective. Or a Gnome decides that he loves animals/shooting animals.

But Undead Paladins? Ok, bad example because that would be super-badass - someone who has such strong convictions that they are willing to be a champion for a power that literally burns away at them every time they do anything? But Undead Druids? Can the Undead really become masters of life-magic? That seems a little counter-intuitive.

Still, none of these arguments rule the possibility out entirely. The only real worry I would have on the player end is that it might begin to make the races feel all the same. Restrictions, after all, can provide identity. In fact, if you look at Humans and Undead, the Undead can be any class the Humans can, except Paladins. This is a pretty simple way of showing the difference between them. The fact that Blood Elves cannot be Druids gives you an idea of the big cultural rift that exists between the two races.

In the end, would I like my Worgen Paladin to exist? Absolutely. And perhaps there will come a time when they decide that people should be able to create the character they want and not have to worry about fitting into Blizzard's lore restrictions. But I also think there's a good chance that, not counting other races and other classes that come out, we're going to keep the same options we have today.