Breakfast Topic: Off to the races
by Mike Schramm 
Feb 27th 2007 at 8:20AM
I doubt that, since the latest expansion featured two new races, we'll see any more playable races in Azeroth for a while-- more likely would be simply new content, a new class, or (most likely) the hero classes we've heard so much about.But sleepyfoxy on Livejournal says that if she could play as one race, it would be the sporelings, the little mushroomy guys that populate Sporeggar in Zangarmarsh. Personally, ever since I ran Mana Tombs for the first time, I think it would be awesome to play as an ethereal, the mana mummy-looking guys that make up the Consortium (I even like their Arabesque smuggler lore background). And though we still haven't seen them in the game, I thought for sure that Pandaren would appear at least as a mention (maybe among the Lower City refugees) in the expansion.
So today's question is: what race will you never play as that you wish you could?
Filed under: Virtual selves, Breakfast Topics, NPCs
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Ehrgeiz Feb 27th 2007 8:32AM
I'm with you I want to be an ethereal.
LOTM Feb 27th 2007 8:32AM
I think being able to use Goblins would be really awesome, I mean, they already have towns and capitals, and a place in the lore. Though they would be a lot like Gnomes...
Matt Park Feb 27th 2007 9:13AM
Pandaren. No matter what, i want my drunken panda ninjas!
Jacob_THG Feb 27th 2007 8:41AM
Goblins. The key would be balancing reputation on each side, Horde and Alliance. If there is too much of an imbalance toward one faction, the other faction is less likely to give you quests or even not kill you in extreme cases.
Falconous Feb 27th 2007 8:44AM
The worgen, this would actually make me want to play on the Alliance side. Having your character change forms from night to day, perhaps giving you different abilities for each time. This could add another layer of depth to the game, having guilds time raids at certain points in order to capitalize on abilities for bosses fights, etc. Plus it would finally give the Alliance a decent racial trait.
Falgorn Feb 27th 2007 8:50AM
@4 interesting concept that, environmental shapeshifting.. I Like it!
Some kind of Sub Illidan Elf Demon Hybrid could be fun.
A goblin class who's abilities all rely on technology and explosives would be interesting. Rank 2 Shredder...!
If I could be any unit in the game though, it would be a Murlock Rogue. ULTIMATE ganking class.
Falgorn Feb 27th 2007 8:50AM
@4 interesting concept that, environmental shapeshifting.. I Like it!
Some kind of Sub Illidan Elf Demon Hybrid could be fun.
A goblin class who's abilities all rely on technology and explosives would be interesting. Rank 2 Shredder...!
If I could be any unit in the game though, it would be a Murlock Rogue. ULTIMATE ganking class. MLUARGGHAHARHGHARHHG
Theadrick Feb 27th 2007 9:15AM
I'm still holding out for Pandarens...
Zuuler Feb 27th 2007 9:10AM
Being ganked by a murloc would bring back lowbie lvl nightmares for me. But they'd make a perfect alliance class since they are only dangerous in groups. To balance tis out the horde would have to have an aquatic and annoying race, like the naga.
When TBC was first announced, there was mention that outland would have the portals Nerzhul had opened to different worlds, so the expansion was going to contain more than just outland (which was obviously changed). Being that the ethereals came through one of those portals, my guess is that ethereals and some other class from their world will be the next playable races.
I would personally like to see the return of classic warcraft races such as goblins and ogres as playable races. This cuts out the alliance though, since the only other race left for them are high elves. I don't think blizzard would add high elves in simply because they would be too similar to blood elves, and they have no capital city or starting zone to speak of.
Tumnus Feb 27th 2007 9:24AM
Heck, I would be happy just to see Pandaren in the game!
Kludama Feb 27th 2007 9:26AM
Before the Alliance race was announced me and a buddy were actually wondering what race or races they would announce. I had an idea that they would announce one race for alliance and surprise us with wait for it...
a neutral race. The goblins.
Think about it. Being able to get the best of both worlds but after a certain point your allegience must be made. At that point it would be only Horde(FTW) or alliance(FTL). I thought it would be an interesting way to mix things up.
multikast Feb 27th 2007 9:29AM
those of you waiting for the pandarens, don't hold your breath. i could be wrong, but i believe it was said before that they wanted to have them in the game, but because of the large user base that is chinese, they didn't want to offend them by being able to kill the pandaren. i guess they hold their pandas to be sacred or something. still, if you create an arena team, one of the flag icons is a pandaren yeilding a dagger.
Heymish Feb 27th 2007 9:35AM
Necromancer would be the best. There are many ways to make them different than locks. Make them like they were in diablo two. Raising multiple skeletons, and a 10 sec cast for corpse explosion. If you get hit with it, your body goes to nearest graveyard, and you must res there. There would be a lot of very cool corpse explo/redemtion races to see if the pallys can beat out the necros for the reserection of your body.
Zuuler Feb 27th 2007 9:39AM
I definantly like the neutral race idea, and the goblins would be perfect for this since so many neutral goblin towns already exist. They could add Undermine into the game as the goblin starting zone. Then around lvl 20 or so, the quest you get that takes you out of the goblin starting zone forces you to choose alliance or horde by travelling to one of their major cities or a rep grind or something.
The only issue here is would you be able to change your mind? Could somewhere down the road you decide you want to switch from horde to alliance, would their be some kind of rep grind to reverse your allegiance?
I call goblin shredders as racial mounts, and mini-zeps or rocket packs as racial flying mounts.
Gridneo Feb 27th 2007 9:49AM
Wasn't China the reason for the lack of Pandaren...? Somebody mentioned to me once they thought they didn't go with Pandaren because China had a law that prevented the dipicted slaying of Pandas, i.e. utterly anti-WoW? Dunno if that was the reason or not, but if it was, it's retarded... I think that, by far, the Pandaren would be the best race to play...
Still no thoughts on possible class additions though... I'm not up on my lore at all, but I always liked the Monk idea (Fists and Cloth, kill fists from rogues)... Necromancers would be too close to Warlocks. Bards? Not a fan...
What's really difficult is that Blizzard designed the classes to essentially all be hybrids... Most have some form of crowd-control (roots, mind control, fear), where other games like EQ, Vanguard, etc have specific CC classes (Enchanters/Psionists/etc)... If they start adding classes, and taking from the current classes, it could alienate all the fanboys of any particular class. I'd be up for a little diversification, but at the same time, I'd love to see them bring back Faction-only classes, and know how to balance it all to be fair... End-game Pallys were always superior to end-game Shammys... Dunno... Can anybody say raid-wide totems? Hehe.
Nacka Feb 27th 2007 10:04AM
I think Naga would be a pretty cool class to play. They are already integrated into the lore. You could give them racial "tail whip", similar to Tauren warstomp and indefinite underwater breathing. On that note, I also think it would be cool to have an instance that is entirely submerged. You'd have to manage pots/items/skills for underwater breathing, but having a boss fight where positioning in 3D is important would be pretty sweet.
Vogen The D0rf Hunter Feb 27th 2007 9:58AM
Ethereal Rogue, FOR THE WIN!!!! Then I'd make an all Ethereal guild called "The Forty Thieves" or "Arabian Knights".
Ugkul Feb 27th 2007 9:59AM
I think Blizzard is holding out on Pandaren for an Oriental expansion. I doubt if they'd make them a playable race, but would be nice to interact with.
And yes, I would wish for Worgen, though not sure where they'd fit. Alliance or Horde.
apavluck Feb 27th 2007 10:11AM
I think that a cool idea would be to go with the goblins as stated above and have the skills be based on technology. They would be the horde race. Then I think that the murlocs would be a nice alliance race. There cities would be underwater (think vile reef, etc). That would be different and pretty cool, imo.
Zuuler Feb 27th 2007 10:16AM
Fitting Worgen in might be dificult considering the lore behind them. But the shapeshifting idea is cool, and maybe you could make Worgen change faction, during the day as a human would be an alliance player, but at night as a Worgen would be a horde character. This would probably be too dificult to implement but would be cool.