The idea of a sub-race in an RPG allows you to add more cosmetic options without necessarily requiring you to create new mechanics or even story. Many racial variations exist in-game among NPCs, but are not available for players, despite the fact that there is plenty of story justification to allow for these groups to play alongside the existing iterations of the playable races, as we'll see below.
So what could we do with sub-races?
Human:
Oh boy, let's just start with the elephant in the room. Warcraft's humans are all basically white people, and even though there are (or were) seven human kingdoms, they're all variations on European cultures. Now, there are a handful of faces and skin tones that allow you to create pseudo-Asiatic or black human characters, but especially when you consider the NPCs, it's basically all white folks. The fact that in Warcraft, humans are descended from the Viking-like Vrykul reinforces this idea of whiteness being equivalent to humanity. I can't really defend this other than saying that I think this flaw in the game's world was done with thoughtlessness rather than conscious bigotry. Unfortunately, this isn't the only problematic race in the game (Trolls are probably the biggest offenders, though Tauren and Pandaren have their issues as well.)
Anyway, aside from creating entire "lost kingdoms" of humanity that borrow from other real-world cultures, I think just fleshing out appearance options is all you can do. Maybe give us more than one "Asian" face to choose from, and perhaps different hair textures. And maybe have some non-White human NPCs.
Dwarf:
This is pretty obvious and built-in, especially given that since Cataclysm, we've officially had all three major dwarf clans inducted into the Alliance. So let players make Dark Iron and Wildhammer dwarves. This could be as easy as just adding different skin color options (that would alter eyes or tattoos for Dark Irons and Wildhammers respectively) unless they wanted to make more official subrace options.
Gnome:
This one's a bit tricky. Aside from leper gnomes, we don't see a lot of variants on the Gnomes. Mechagnomes are different enough that I don't think they'd count as the same race (same with Earthen for Dwarves.) This might be an argument for only giving races with obvious subraces the option (to be fair, in D&D, this is the case, with only one type of Tiefling but three kinds of elves.)
Night Elf:
You could make the distinction between Highborne (like the Shen'dralar) and the greater Night Elf population more pronounced. At the moment, I think the only real difference is hair color. One wild idea is if you were to make High Elves, though lore-wise it would make most sense for this to either be an Alliance-playable variant of Blood Elves, perhaps starting in the Human starting zone, if not getting their own unique one. The Nightborne could also be an option here, though I think they'd make the most sense as a new race.
Orc:
There are actually a few options here, especially as we saw the various orc clans fleshed out in Warlords of Draenor. You could easily have Mag'har brown-skinned orcs (I don't know if you'd want to have alternate-Draenor Frostwolves or just stick with the main universe.) You could also have the grey-skinned Blackrock/Dragonmaw Orcs, whom we did see brought into the Horde (at least partially) during Garrosh's reign. While canonically I think most of them went with Garrosh after he escaped, I imagine some might have stayed under Vol'jin. Also, let's not forget that even though he doesn't look it, Saurfang, who is the de facto Orc leader, is a Blackrock.
Troll:
I'm not going to delve into the problematic nature of the Trolls as I did for humans, but one area where the distinctions is not so problematic (within the race) is that we actually have some firmly delineated Troll empires with their own variations. Zandalari, Gurubashi, Amani, Drakkari, and Farraki trolls all have pretty different looks and feels to them. While the Darkspear would technically fall under Gurubashi, you could add in some new looks and features to allow for some or all of these other empires to get representation. The question, though, is what brings them into the Horde. The role of Zandalar in the next expansion would determine a lot for this idea.
Tauren:
Again, setting the problems of Warcraft's "noble savage" race aside, what might we see as variations? Well, if we want to set the bar low, we could do something as simple as just allowing us to have tattooed Grimtotem Tauren. If we wanted to go farther, though, we could add in the Taunka, who are technically a different race but obviously very closely related. I don't think Yaungol would work, given that there's no real lore connection that would make them part of the Horde (also, they're technically only as related to the Tauren as the Trolls are to the Night Elves.)
Undead:
The question here is how much physical variations we could tolerate. Technically, any undead in any form that serves Sylvanas is a part of the Forsaken. That includes undead High Elves (almost always Dark Rangers) as well as ghosts, skeletons, abominations, and the like. I think the undead elves would be easiest to implement, and skeletons could be just a skin option (existing Forsaken already have lots of exposed bone.) Ghosts and abominations would probably go a little outside the whole "humanoid form" that you need for a playable race.
Draenei:
We've actually got two great options for Draenei sub-races. First, there's the obvious: the Broken. The only thing about the Broken is that it would have to be class-restricted from Priests and Paladins. But otherwise, they've been there since BC, and they're truly just Draenei who have been hit with some nasty curse. The other option is new, which is the Lightforged. These guys do look different, but not so much that you wouldn't call them Draenei. Technically, this could apply to other races, as Turalyon is one as well, though with X'era dead (um, spoilers, I guess?) I don't know if new Lightforged are capable of being created. If nothing else, let us get some of those beards that the Lightforged have. My Mage needs a good wizard beard!
Blood Elves:
The most obvious thing here would be High Elves, but those would be an Alliance variant. That being said, depending on how official this sub-race option would be, you could actually implement that without too much trouble. There aren't really any other variants that don't involve being consumed by magic withdrawal or taking a big step on the path to becoming demons.
Worgen:
Actually, the only real variant I could imagine is if you had Night Elf Worgen. The cosmetic effect might only manifest when using your Two Forms ability, but it would make sense in-lore. I'd settle for a Warlords-style model revamp.
Goblin:
Ok, the craziest here would be to allow Hobgoblins, which are those ogre-like guys that Goblins hand out with. Beyond that, the only other variant I can think of are Gilgoblins, but I don't know if that's something Blizzard really wants to go deep on in-lore. Like with Worgen, I'd settle for a Warlords-style model revamp.
Pandaren:
Ironically, you could have made Wandering Isle Pandaren and Pandaria Pandaren quite different, but I think the whole point of the Wandering Isle was to justify playable Pandaren having just as little knowledge about Pandaria as any other playable races. We already have Black and Red Pandaren as fur color options, so maybe that's all we get.
So that's what we've got. I think that subraces as an option are definitely doable, but only if Blizzard is willing to leave some races out. In fact, in most of these cases, you get some of the benefit of new playable races without needing to implement new zones and leveling experiences (the exception might be the High Elves, who would not logically be starting in Quel'thalas, given that they'd probably be Alliance.)
I know this is something players have been hoping for for a long time. The question is whether people would find it a suitable major feature for an expansion, assuming this would take the place of adding new races.
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