World Of Warcraft

While I wouldn't personally tie it to animation skeletons specifically, along similar lines I believe that they should vary Allied Races as much as reasonably possible, and that means avoiding having lots of close varients of the same race.

But even that is more of a general guideline. Taunka for example probably shouldn't be added for the sake of being added because we already have a Tauren varient, but if we have a Return to Northrend expansion then we probably shouldn't dismiss them out of hand just because Highmountain Tauren are a thing.

It has been my impression that one of the key differences between allied races and "new" races is the reuse of models.

Yes. Except when it isn't (Kul Tiran Humans). In general they are meant to be "cheaper" from a development cost perspective and can therefore be added much more frequently.

To follow up on my previous posts on the subject, while I am of the mind that Allied Races should avoid being too similar, I dislike putting any sort of absolute technical rules in place for what is an is not a good Allied Race.

Are the Zandalari just a reskin? Model wise they're very distinct from other trolls. Or are they just he troll model upright?

If they are their item thing, I can see the flagship allied races being exceptions to the rule.

Edited by sgamer82 on Nov 8th 2018 at 12:30:33 PM

The Zandalari model uses the Night Elf model as baseline, if I remember well.

The fact that the Sethrak model is based on the female Worgen one means it's not a big restriction on what can be done.

Another big advantage of Allied races is that they don't need a big new starting zone.

Edited by Oazard on Nov 8th 2018 at 2:45:27 PM

So, uh...did we ever get any extra context for the Vulpera "purge squads" or do we have to wait until December to see just what the fuck the Alliance is thinking there?

Apparently the Alliance side has you ordered to only go for the supplies, because the Vulpera caravan supplies for the Horde.

Kind of wonder if there's any way to reconcile the two sides. Like a combination of some Vulpera being killed in the chaos and simply being unaware of the details of the Alliance orders causes them to mistake the caravan raiders for death squads. I'd have to actually play both versions to be sure and I haven't caught the Vol'dun incursion when it was active on the PTR.

On a totally unrelated note, I've been toying around with the idea that the Gnomes might retake Gnomeregan officially during their heritage armor questline. From what we've seen so far with the Dwarves and Blood Elves, the questlines have been fairly low-key a retrospective on the Scourge invasion of Quel'thelas for the Blood Elves and forging a set of Mountain King Armor for the Dwarves and avoided having a big lore development. But I kind of think it also would kind of work in this instance.

Retaking Gnomeregan was always going to be a major diversion from whatever story was taking place. So the heritage armor questline is probably the best place to do it.

Though the other option is to somehow tie it into Mechagon story. My latest crackpot theory is that King Mechagon is in fact Sico Thermaplugg, who transformed himself into a Mechagnome in order to stabilize his condition (while it reversed the physical effects, his mind remains as screwed up as ever).

For the Vulpera, supplies are life living in a desert like that. They drive that point down hard in the horde campaign. If the Alliance is raiding supplies it is very much killing people and something the Vulpera will fight to the death for... being their only lifeline.

I don't see the Vulpera actually supplying the horde beyond a trading partner, they are barely surviving as is.

Edited by Memers on Nov 8th 2018 at 5:42:41 AM

I'm not really arguing that point. Regardless of what the Alliance orders are on paper, the Vulpera would almost certainly regard attacking their caravans as an act of war.

The question I want to see answered is "Does the Horde version show Alliance mobs doing things that are blatant violations of the orders given in the Alliance version".

The phrase "death squad" has very specific connotations that go above and beyond waging war in a manner that kills people. So it matters whether the Vulpera are reacting to the Alliance attacks as if they are death squads, or they are actually plainly shown to be death squads through their actions.

I'd argue with Memers that the distinction between 'the Alliance is ordered to burn Vulpera alive' and 'the Alliance is ordered to burn supplies, and does that, but also burns Vulpera alive' is a little bit academic. Burning supplies in a desert environment is a kill order, just one with a little more leeway for Alliance players to get to sleep at night.

This.

if you burn the homes and food and waterskins of people living in a desert, then outright murdering them is probably more merciful than the agonizing, days long death from starvation and heat stroke you've condemned them to

Like, yeah, sure, the temple is a ten-minute walk to the south and Zuldazar isn't that far away either, in-game, but the Vulpera make it very clear that their survival is a day-to-day thing that depends on using whatever resources they can find. In-universe, it's a death sentence. It really would be more merciful to just kill them.

Though, again, I will say that I hope this isn't just some random commander ordering this so the Alliance can say 'yeah, this was all that one guy and the rest of us are perfectly upstanding'. I'm still salty about the Cata Stonetalon Mountains questline being hurriedly swept under the rug and discarded, because it was one of the most interesting things they ever did with Garrosh - seeing the leader of a brutal war campaign executing a subordinate for underhanded means because we're at war, yes, and we plan to kill our enemies, but we still have honor.

Taking that away from the Horde and giving it to the Alliance by having the Vulpera massacre be an off-script order by some frontier lieutenant who can be easily removed from power isn't a great look for the story writing. Like I've said before, the Alliance absolutely needs to be given the freedom to do bad things in war - even with Anduin calling it out as something the Alliance Does Not Do, because A) he's a member of the Alliance and of course would want to believe that they're better, and B) it highlights his idealism and could be contrasted with Genn and Tyrande's willingness, or even desire, to do cruel things in wartime. But if the narrative is the one saying 'yeah, the Alliance actually never does this, it's just this one maniac who acts like a Horde general would and that's wrong', then that does both factions a disservice.

Edited by RedSavant on Nov 9th 2018 at 3:03:45 PM

My guild is 2/8 Mythic as of last night, making us first in our realm group. (raider.io)

GZ! My raid group extended our G'huun Heroic lookout this week to finally get curved, got him down to 2%, we have high hopes for Sunday, I hope the 2 orb runners that we have to exchange will get replaced by experienced people (fat chance).

I've mentioned it before a few months ago, but it comes down to how Horde looks at fringe elements compared to Alliance.

Horde will protect someone who does something awful unless it harms innocents or horde-loyal soldiers or could lead to people getting pissed, giving Alliance more justification to attack them, whereas on Alliance that person is immediately ousted as an outlaw and told to be slain by Alliance champions, it's, frustratingly, just how the story is written, so the odds of the one ordering death squads to target Vulpera being a "mad dog" commander that even the Alliance might try to kill is... pretty high.

Edited by NaraNumas on Nov 9th 2018 at 11:52:46 AM

RE: Nara Numas

There are times in Wo W where an Alliance commander does something terrible and continues to appear in high ranking roles though, with both the Alliance and the narrative acting like the commander never did anything wrong.

Look up Bael Modan for example.

I won't be surprised at this point if we end up with a vulpera leader saying the caravans were a legitimate military target and any Vulpera who tries to retaliate deserves exile.

Edited by Monsund on Nov 9th 2018 at 1:44:26 AM

I think the biggest potential place for the Alliance to overstep in a way that really matters is on the Kalimdor front.

I can see a potential scenario where Sylvanas is unseated by Saurfang, only to find Anduin (who is not offically High King in spite of often being treated as though he is) unable to stop Tyrande and other more radical voices in the Alliance from pushing the offensive anyways...right when N'Zoth is making his move.

I think it's worth noting that the Darkshore Warfront only happens in the first place because Tyrande acts against Anduin's recommendation and all Anduin can do is let her walk away.

Considering how cartoonishly evil the forsaken are in Darkshore, I doubt it.

Edited by Monsund on Nov 9th 2018 at 1:42:44 AM

I've been thinking, I kind of wonder if Mechagon is more then just a setup for a Cyborg Gnome Allied Race, and is actually a setup for a full blown tech-based hero class coming in the next expansion.

By rooting the class in Mechagon tech (that the individual races then put their own spin on) you can easily justify why such varied races with varied technology all have the same core mechanics. Mechagon also makes a handy place to set their starting area.

For playable races I'd actually go beyond Goblins and Gnomes and include all races with any sort of technological inclination whatsoever.

So I'd probably go with:

• Gnomes
• Cyborg Gnomes (if playable)
• Dwarves
• Dark Iron Dwarves
• Draenei
• Lightforged Draenei

• Goblins
• Vulpera (if playable)
• Blood Elves
• Nightborne
• Mag'har Orcs
• Forsaken

The class would use an exoskeleton all the time, and could deploy a full mech suit using certain cooldowns. The exoskeletons and mech suits would have race specific skins, and potentially additional variants could be obtained through different means. So for example the Forsaken would have a Frankenstein/Mad scientist theme going, while the Mag'har would be more Iron Horde themed.

On the level of specs I'm not sure if they should heal, tank or both. But what I am absolutely certain of is that, thanks to their exoskeleton, they could dual-wield ranged weapons for a DPS spec.

So there was an interview with Eurogamer discussing what their future plans for Sylvanas are. At the moment, they're dug in heels that Sylvanas won't die as a raid boss, though this was the most interesting quote from it I thought;

"I'm excited about the feedback," Wo W creative director Alex Afrasiabi told me at Blizz Con 2018. "I've heard these discussions on the internet about 'she's going off the rails', but is she? I've been writing Sylvanas personally since 2006, and this is pretty much - the Wrathgate and the Blight and the Forsaken - in character. Those were all under Sylvanas' orders. What we're seeing now is an escalation of the plans Sylvanas has, clearly, and we're in the middle of that."

We knew she ordered the Blight, but in saying she also ordered the Wrathgate attack they retroactively changed one of the biggest moments of splitting the factions apart over miscommunication and treachery to being all a part of Sylvanas' plans while letting her claim deniability and throwing Varimathris and Putress under the bus as just a part of her grand scheme. Somehow this doesn't endear me to her much more than it did before.

Edited by NaraNumas on Nov 10th 2018 at 10:06:50 AM

It's not supposed to. Blizzard is telling us point blank that all of Sylvanas' actions are in-character for her and completely intentional.

Edited by Fighteer on Nov 10th 2018 at 11:14:35 AM

Wait, but that doesn't make any sense. The Wrathgate was a rebellion by Putriss and Varimathras. Turning around and saying Sylvanas planned it twelve years after the fact is ridiculous.

^Sorry, but it also doesn't exactly fly to say 'yes, all of the actions Sylvanas has taken in-game portray her as an amoral monster for whom this is all intentional and planned' in reference to a team member saying, a decade after the fact in a throwaway comment in an interview, that a key event that wasn't planned by her actually was.

Edited by RedSavant on Nov 10th 2018 at 11:25:52 AM

I think he probably just worded things a little more hastily then he should of, but Chronicle 3 lays it out as:

• Putress and Varimathras did indeed rebel and Sylvanas did not intend for the blight to be deployed at the Wrathgate.

HOWEVER

• The blight was nonetheless developed and manufactured under her direct orders, and the other Horde leaders were not informed of this detail.

Right, which lines up much more with what we know (hell, the Blight used in the defense of Undercity is basically what was used at the Wrathgate). That's very different, however, from saying that the whole retaking of Undercity was an elaborate ploy to bomb allied forces, botch killing Arthas, then kill her two most powerful lieutenants and nearly get iced by Jaina.