Breakfast Topic: Are you happy with the new races?
by Andrew Ross 
Mar 6th 2011 at 8:00AM
One of the most anticipated changes next to a revamped Azeroth for Cataclysm was the announcement of two new races. The goblins would be joining the Horde, and the worgen would join the Alliance. These were two races the players have been asking Blizzard to make playable for a number of years. You couldn't browse the forums without seeing threads about what people would name their new goblin rogue or which class should Worgenfreman should play.
Cataclysm has been out for nearly 3 months, and most people have formed an opinion of the new races, whether it be positive or negative. Many people thought it would be a repeat of The Burning Crusade when you saw more draenei and blood elves running around than anything else. Surprisingly, this was not the case. Once Cataclysm went live, a number of people race-changed to one of the new races, while others started with a fresh level 1 to experience the new starting zones.
I played through the goblin zone first. I enjoyed it for the most part but at times it felt bloated or that Blizzard was trying too hard to mold the goblins into a certain image. It was still a blast, and I loved the Escape from Kezan cinematic. The only complaint with the goblins are the faces; all the faces look angry or like they are walking around with something "stuck." The worgen starting zone was fun but felt bloated and too repetitive at times. Overall, I'm not as thrilled with the worgen as I thought I would be. I'm not a fan of the appearance of the worgen, and the Running Wild animation is just weird to me. Seeing a worgen in a robe on all fours is even worse.
What do you think of the new races? Did your main undergo a race change, or are you leveling a new worgen or goblin?
Filed under: Breakfast Topics, Guest Posts
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 11)
Billlop Mar 6th 2011 8:01AM
I think Blizzard cares more about Horde when it comes to Zones and questing content. The Worgen zone was unfinished, buggy and boring. The goblin zone was fun, funny and exciting. Sadly theres no decent Horde server EU so im pretty much stuck with Alliance.
Baba Mar 6th 2011 8:35AM
"The Worgen area was atmospheric, lore-focussed and incredibly engaging."
fixed :)
Psiwave Mar 6th 2011 8:57AM
You mean broken? The worgen starting area 1-10 was excellent, but then it seems they couldn't figure out how to run the story alongside the undead version so just stopped.
The goblins definitely seem to have got the lions share of development time.
lilywillylover Mar 6th 2011 8:58AM
I disagree about the Worgen starting zone assessment. I find the Goblin zone was a whole bunch of nothing. It was all meme and explosions.
The Worgen zone on the other hand had great atmosphere, great lore/story, great characters. I was engaged the whole time.
Billlop Mar 6th 2011 9:16AM
All im saying is the amount of time i had to redo that end "epic" ship battle was frustrating. First they decided not to jump down to the lower decks, then on the next try they decided that the orcs were friendly and instead of attacking they would despawn. THEN the big orc boss at the ned refused to spawn.
It was horribly buggy. The goblin zones seemed a hellova lot longer and i didnt experiance any bugs at all. It was just....fun.
Bionic Radd Mar 6th 2011 9:20AM
I thought both new starting zones ran ENTIRELY too long. I will probably never roll another Goblin or Worgen. It took me longer to get to 13 on my worgen then it took to get to 20 on my blood elf and I was playing both in a similar fashion.
Whyisretgimped Mar 6th 2011 9:49AM
****SPOILER WARNING****
I agree with this wholeheartedly. Much of the story in the Worgen area was convoluted, repetitive, and made no sense. Run through the city, kill some stuff, run through the city, kill some stuff, run through the woods, kill some stuff, worgens are bad, worgens are good, it rarely departed from this reptitive pattern.
Given that you chase the undead out of the city and blow up what I imagine is a major blow to the Horde military budget, a massive gunship, they don't really explain why the city ends up being so empty in the end. Why do the worgen have to flee? Why are the worgen scattered to the wind, yet you see none of them anywhere except Silverpine and Darkshire (where they are different worgen)? If the story ever did explain this, it did a terrible job of it, because I've leveled three worgens now and still have no idea.
It's probably buried in some quest text somewhere, but if they wasted a cut scene to show the tired action sequence of worgen jumping through a stained glass window (used in dozens of comics and movies already), how about making a cut scene that actually explains a massive plot element of the story.
The final crowning achievement is to plop you down in Darnassus for no reason and abruptly end the entire story line by making you hunt for quest givers in what is still one of the worst intro zones in the game (Darkshore). Why aren't you sent back to Gilneas to fight the undead? Oh I know why, because Blizzard hates the alliance and there's no flight points anywhere within 10,000 in game yards of that corner of the Eastern Kingdoms. It's extremely poor design because you now have a brand new zone, with this whole new style of architecture, that no one will ever, ever go to ever. How many hours of dev time did they waste to guarantee an empty zone? This all smacks of them running out of time and slapping something together, something unforgivable given Blizzard's massive income and player base.
Also, don't get me started on the lack of mailboxes. Trying to get items sent to an alt is impossible for about six levels.
All in all, I generally like the Worgens in terms of how the models are built and animated. My only real complaint is the spellcasting animations make worgen look like spastic monkeys who were pushed out of the emergency exit of the shortbus. They need to tone that flailing down. Not sure why a calm priest would look like someone stroking out in a 70's disco every time they cast a spell.
Sleutel Mar 6th 2011 10:42AM
@Whyisretgimped:
"Also, don't get me started on the lack of mailboxes. Trying to get items sent to an alt is impossible for about six levels."
I think most of your post is excellent, but I have to call out one point. You need to turn on your mailbox tracking before you complain about the lack. I've sent Heirloom items straight to two Worgen alts the second I rolled them, because right where you enter the game after the initial intro cutscene, there's a mailbox just a few yards away, in the center of the courtyard. That's a far cry from "impossible for six levels"--that is, in fact, "possible from the second you first enter the game."
You should easily be able to mail everything over before you log into the toon for the first time, and then (assuming you sent yourself bags) there should be no need to mail anything back at all until you hit the village where you're first in your Worgen form.
Swifteye Mar 6th 2011 10:43AM
Although I feel fairly loyal to the Horde (I do play both sides occasionally, but Horde is like 90%+ of it overall), I think lilywillylover put it astonishingly well.
I prefer the Goblins for their affiliation, models and animations... but their starting zone was "meh" at best for me. I guess all I can say is that it lacked heart.
The Worgen starting zone was awesome; it actually made me hate Sylvanas even more (which I honestly didn't think was possible) and, without spoiling anything, the whole thing with Liam really did get to me in the end.
Oh, and I started my Goblin fresh... I had considered race-changing my Mage, but then I decided it was the perfect excuse to finally level a Rogue, mwahahahahaaaaa...
Maldren Mar 6th 2011 10:56AM
I couldn't agree more, the first time I played a worgen when I was fighting for the city I felt it was going to be so epic taking the city back... when all of the sudden some NPC tells me to leave and go to the night elves... I was like hu? what did I miss!
ElSantos Mar 6th 2011 11:26AM
The Worgen starting zone only explains the first half of the story of Gilneas. The second half is shown through the new Silverpine Forest content for horde. It explains everything that happens after the ship leaves for Darnassus, and why Gilneas is now empty today. Silverpine is a brilliant zone, and well worth anyone who cares about the Gilneas story to make an undead character and play through it.
Jabadabadana Mar 18th 2011 3:24AM
@whyisretgimped
"Buried in the quest text somewhere" Is where the story for most of the entire game is. Read it and understand.
The first part of the worgen zone is a zombie movie with worgen in place of zombies. The second is personal redemption and fighting the forsaken. The third is pushing the forsaken out, but finding that they've Plagued the city, and so you can't return, which is why you have to leave. Staying is asking to be turned into shapeless goo.
The plot to the worgen zone makes a lot of sense... it's just a shame that it's a bit buggy.
I would agree on the architecture thing... but how often do hordies go to Silvermoon? Large beautiful city... that no one looks at.
As for the new races as a whole... I like them, except for the female worgen. Demented and sniffly makes them just kind of sad and awkward.
SamLowry Mar 6th 2011 11:55AM
Sleutel, he didn't say there was no mailbox at the very start--he said you could easily go 6 levels without seeing a mailbox, which is pretty much what I experienced.
The long distance between inns made me feel like I was trapped, isolated and forced to keep slogging along just to get to the end so I can finally enter the rest of the world.
It was a pain, in other words.
Whyisretgimped Mar 6th 2011 12:19PM
In the starting two areas there's a mailbox... and then you don't one again until you leave Gilneas. So from level about 8 to about 15 or 16, no mailboxes. Now if the starting zone was so amazing that it sucked you in and made you forget you were playing, this might be forgivable. Given how lame the area is and how lame the quests are, this becomes extremely frustrating. I even tried to get myself summoned out of Gilneas so I could get my heirlooms. The game won't let you until you leave Gilneas. That lack of freedom is so not worth how suck the zone is. I'll take Ghostlands or Azuremyst any day of the week over the worgen crapzone.
Tokkar Mar 6th 2011 12:50PM
"I find the Goblin zone was a whole bunch of nothing. It was all meme and explosions."
And this differs from how goblins are any other time in the game...how, exactly?
I'm loving my goblin warlock, and all of the quests involving goblins are quirky, silly, but most of all FUN to my warped sense of humor.
The worgen quests? Dark, moody, early 19th century Romanian romance with English flair and while interesting, I found they dragged far too much. And what truly stinks about it is that there's this whole great city that was created which can still be accessed after the starting quests...but there's nothing there! Come on, Blizzard, at least populate it with undead and have it look ransacked or something! I understand why we can't go back to the Goblin towns (both of them) - they were blown up! But Gilneas? It's just empty streets and roving dogs, foxes and sheep. Yay.
Odinfrost Mar 6th 2011 3:53PM
I bumped a character to a “holding server” to make room for a Worgen and sadly I wouldn’t consider making another. The repetitiveness of the starting zone is forgivable, but the shear amount of bugs in it is not…what a freaking pain in the backside to have to keep dropping and redoing quest to get the NPC’s to behave properly, or even show up in the first place in some cases.
And the sudden drop of the storyline at the end “get on this boat and go see the elves”, who thought that was a good idea?
As ElSantos says above “The Worgen starting zone only explains the first half of the story of Gilneas. The second half is shown through the new Silverpine Forest content for horde.” That right there is nothing but lose and fail, whoever thought this was a good idea needs to be issued a mop and bucket and “promoted” to head floor cleaner. Lame. Don’t make me roll a character in the opposite faction to finish the storyline…blatant and ham-fisted attempt to “time sink” the playerbase, absolute fooking bull$hite.
And yeah, Worgen in robes and “Running Wild” looks a little weird…but really it’s the Gilneas quests and story arc that I see as the main problem but hey, I got a top hat right?
WoWie Zowie Mar 6th 2011 4:38PM
bring on the hatin but i agree with the OP in that the goblin starting zone was engaging and fun whereas the worgen starting zone was dull and drab and generally not enjoyable. having a town-in-a-box is fun. stretches of grey are not. going into greymane's castle mansion was fun, but didn't seem to last long enough. i don't think they hyped up the tension of being turned into a worgen enough. it was like grrr we hate worgens! and then bam you're a worgen and they're like o ok well we will rethink our ways cya. would have liked more development on the struggle and turmoil of flipping your life upside down.
and then you go to darnassus and the journey is over. at least the goblins got to quest in azshara when they got out of the starter area. worgens get to go to darkshore where you can further the path of dreary grey landscapes and no worgen lore. also quite often i found myself bored with the worgen music so much that i put on the sleepy hollow soundtrack to get more in the mood. ya i'm a dork like that. the goblin music is lively and fun, the worgen music is generic. like russell brower ran out of ideas after introducing the main theme, and just made something bland that might work as well in an ye olde town as it would in a stretch of grassy grey.
so i give the goblin area 2 thumbs up and i give the worgen area 1 up and 1 down
lilywillylover Mar 6th 2011 5:52PM
@Tokkar
"And this differs from how goblins are any other time in the game...how, exactly?"
It doesn't... which makes it just as boring as every other Goblin quests. It was just on a much grander scale.
Seviar Mar 6th 2011 8:03AM
I was rather disappointed with the Worgen Starting zone ending so abruptly and how theres not many f them around the world. Still, I like them and the goblins as well.
squig_masta Mar 6th 2011 3:29PM
It kind of makes sense that there arn't that many worgen running around though. Afterall the worgen are all from one country that up till recently were proud to be behind a giant wall, and even of them only a minority of the population were ever turned into worgen in the first place. It'd be kind of weird if you saw them every where you turned.
Plus if you think about it, we see more Gilneans then we see Bildgwater goblins. Most of the goblin settlements around the world are part of the steemwheedle cartel, or some other neutral faction. Sure, obviously goblins are goblins are goblins, but in terms of presence in the world the alliance-specific worgen have a much bigger impact then the horde-specific goblins.