You can agree with both, though. Orc Mages seem stupid to me. Orcs are shamanistic. Even warlocks are a stretch given their history. Undead Spriests make sense but not Disc or Holy and certainly not Paladins. Forsaken are destroyed by the light. Yes, I’ve fought Four Horseman. That’s a retcon being used to justify a nonsensical addition.
Tauren Paladins I’m not a fan of. But I think Gnome Warriors are dumb too. Let’s tank Onyxia as a 2.5’ 45lb garden ornament with a 1h sword roughly the size of a butter knife.
But at the end of the day it’s a fantasy game. All of the lore is made up, rarely consistent and often contradictory. Let people play what they want. It’s not a serious game with serious lore.
"Even warlocks are a stretch given their history." Which is the backstory of the Vanilla and Classic Warlocks.
And think of warriors as less of a "this is a tank" and more of "this is the normal footsoldier cannonfodder template", every race should have a simple "knight"-esque archetype.
I always thought it was dumb to say small races tanking is "unbelievable." If we want to be realistic, no one is going to come out unscathed from being hit by a giant dragon. Not even a tauren.
But then think about it relative to our own size: is it easier to catch a small dog or a mouse? If anything, if we want to think semi-realistically, it would probably be better to be a small race when fighting a raid boss.
Tauren Rogues aren't really an issue since we know that in the lore, Stealth is basically magic that makes you actually disappear from view, instead of trying to be sneaky.
Your example is very good, I think a lot of people tend to mix up realism with verisimilitude, or plausibility. Most things in fantasy settings aren't realistic, but they don't need to be, they just need to be mostly coherent with the rest of the setting.
Is it "realistic" for a Gnome Warrior to be as strong as a Tauren? No, but it's plausible to think that in the world of Azeroth, Warriors are clearly capable of superhuman feats that go way beyond matters of size that would be crippling in real life.
If you want to be technical, playable warlocks don't make sense period, given the usual logic that goes for playable races. But the Abbey of Northshire just accepts them regardless for example.
They only make sense for the Undead, maybe Gnomes, if you follow the logic of "every class/race combination needs to make sense as an adventurer just starting out in X starting zone".
I would absolutely LOVE for warlocks to be slightly the odd ones out in their factions -- you start level 1 in a different place (a creepy basement ritual in the capital before you run to the regular starting area maybe lol) and your demons are attacked on sight (or chased off) by friendly city guards.
Would be a giggle if everytime you walked to town the guards would run off your imp without realizing you were the master. "Sir, look out! There's an imp behind you! I'll handle this!"
I'm sure there would be lots of glitches and potential for abuse and weirdness (getting a demon in an inaccessible spot to constantly aggro guards for example) but it would be so #flavorful....
I would kill for an EQ1 style "super evil faction" punishment by the NPCs where warlocks, regardless of race, could only start in a certain city (Undercity for Horde, for example) and be KOS in the others without a rep grind.
But without other EQ1 penalties to make death meaningful it would quickly turn into another Retail-style rep grind for no reason.
Even warlocks are a stretch, given their history!?
Dude, Orcs are in lore the OG warlocks. Warlocks are practically fel-corrupted shamans. Gul'dan and Ner'zhul are the poster boys of warlocks (and bad decisionmaking). Both are Orcs.
Maybe you confuse it with the Blood Curse. Breaking free from that had nothing to do with cutting Orcs off from warlock powers, though.
Have you ever played Warlock on the Horde? Orgrimmar NPCs are fairly hostile to you and one admits that the entire class is on thin ice and only welcome in the Horde by the grace of Thrall, who only actually wants them there so they can be watched instead of left to their own devices.
He’s not saying Orc Warlocks don’t make sense. He’s saying playable Orc Warlocks don’t make sense.
He’s saying playable Orc Warlocks don’t make sense.
He's literally not saying that. Apparently he meant to say that. Which is rough, because it's rather easy to express that sentiment, yet there is not a single word about the distinction between what should be possible for a race and what should be playable for a race.
Are you the same guy on an alt account, or why do you feel so strongly about this?
You can agree with both, though. Orc Mages seem stupid to me. Orcs are shamanistic. Even warlocks are a stretch given their history. Undead Spriests make sense but not Disc or Holy and certainly not Paladins. Forsaken are destroyed by the light. Yes, I’ve fought Four Horseman. That’s a retcon being used to justify a nonsensical addition.
Tauren Paladins I’m not a fan of. But I think Gnome Warriors are dumb too. Let’s tank Onyxia as a 2.5’ 45lb garden ornament with a 1h sword roughly the size of a butter knife.
But at the end of the day it’s a fantasy game. All of the lore is made up, rarely consistent and often contradictory. Let people play what they want. It’s not a serious game with serious lore.
What you're saying is straight up not in the comment. Is this some weird gaslighting attempt, or are you lost and think of a different comment?
All good, the crazy part is that your quote even reads like an edited version of one of the sentences in the comment replied to. So I was starting to question my sanity.
Feel free to point out what would imply a misunderstanding. It would be an ExtremePrivilege to have such a distinguished mind share its invaluable thoughts.
Warlocks should absolutely 100% not be tolerated among Orcs. Two shaman became warlocks and nearly destroyed their entire race and planet. Being an Orc warlock would be a death sentence to be public about. The fact that Orgrimmar has a cleft of shadows is unthinkable.
This should have been obvious from my comment. I even explicitly said “given their history”. But Reddit is illiterate.
I think that's just a case of you thinking something is implied while writing without any context to specify your general statement. Not a lack of understanding for anyone else. Orcs having the ability to become a certain class is something very different from it being generally tolerated by society. It's easy to construct a lore context where it's a group acting in secrecy. Or a group under constant supervision, only tolerated because they use their abilities for the common goal. Which is quite literally the Warlock situation in OG. So when you write
Even warlocks are a stretch given their history.
it's rather logical to assume you're talking about general access to the class for a race in terms of ability, not how you can justify it in the societal context of the lore.
Keep in mind that we're all strangers on the internet. No one can reasonably assume the great genius and lore-knower that is hidden behind your name. And when in doubt, randomname123 is more likely to know less than more. So there is no point in acting insulted when someone makes a rather obvious correction to a statement that makes little sense without being in your head at the time you typed it.
I think it's one of those things where they were bound into orc culture from the get go by the influence of Gul'dan and the Shadow Council and that cultural grip just never let go.
Classic is a little more morally grey with its faction design. Warlocks assassinating public officials, Druids doing work for Fandral who we discover isn't using all that morrowgrain to open a bakery, Rogues being sent to assassinate liabilities and loose ends, Mages conducting frankly openly dangerous experiments and forcing the player to clean up their mess afterwards...
Honestly playable warlocks in general were a huge stretch in Classic. You mean you just came off a major Legion invasion only a few years ago, and you are allowing warlocks to walk your cities and represent your faction? You mean to tell me the Horde accepted warlocks after their recent incident with Mannoroth's blood, not to mention a bloody dreadlord as the Forsaken's second in command? The Alliance is just going to accept people who summon demons after the Legion just used the Scourge to take out every major nation north of Silverpine and then slaughtered the survivors until the Scourge and the Forsaken finished them off? Are none of the faction leaders afraid a warlock might lose control of their demons and spark some minor invasion?
Compared to warlocks being playable at all, I don't feel like tauren paladins are that egregious. Maybe it's about time they give different flavors of the same class some different customization on their spells to further emphasize how they are not your typical light worshipping paladin or whatever. No class is in greater need of this than paladins considering how controversial it is any time any race that isn't a Light worshipper gets the class.
Could've been more flavorful indeed, although its not like it feels weird in the context of WoW solely, demons in WoW itself are sort of "just another problem" and not especially more of a threat than Scourge, trolls running rampant ot the AQ insects...
But it wouldve been fun if the different races or factions had different demons to summon, at least appearancewise, with some lore explanation for why these were "ok demons" -- for undead it could be that these are varimathras' spawn and under his command to serve you...for orcs it could be "wild demons" who live in RFC's depths, flame spirits not actually under the legion's control...flaming voidwalker is an easy idea...for trolls it could be "tormented ancestor demons" that are dangerous but just because theyll attempt revenge for wrongs suffered in life, not end the world...gnomes just dgaf about consequences and summon demon demons...and humans...maybe shouldnt be warlocks lol, cant think of anything plausible there.
I dont mean that all the summons would be super different, that seems visually confusing...just like, the orc ones are a bit redder and flamey, the troll ones have a few random voodoo type held objects/clothing items added (which could be randomized like the names), the undead ones could have a subtle chain collar thing on them bc theyre varimathras's crew, with gnomes keep basic demons.
The notion of troll demons holding random things is kinda killing me...like your imp can randomly be holding a fish, a stick, have a voodoo mask on, etc, and it's set that way after the first summon like the name. I think people would literally play to level 3 and reroll if they didnt get the one they wanted lol. It would be hype I think.
Gnomes are literally sculpted by stone and iron. While they might be small they should in all actuality sink fast for being so densely formed by earth titan daddy
Nah the four horseman thing isn't a retcon. It was agonizing for them, but since the very start of vanilla the Light still can have beneficial aspects and the Light is necessary to be able to cast shadow magic as well, even if it is frowned upon by forsaken society as seen in the Garments of Darkness Quest from Vanilla.
and ngl characters like Leonid in vanilla make Forsaken Paladins one of the easier to accept roles as well because the outline was already there.
I think he's not saying that warlocks make no sense but rather they shouldnt be in a playable faction.
Something I'd say I agree with but it's a bit late to change that what with 22 years of them being in game.
The background lore of Warlocks and them being a hated occupation on the planet is precisely the reason i intensely wish they'll never add Necromancers. Cause if Warlocks are hated then Necromancers are flagged as kill on sight according to lore.
Onyxia is about 1000x bigger than an orc and 3000x bigger than a gnome...there's clearly some "warrior magic" or other fantasy business going on for either of you to have a chance.
Instead of going deeper into the different cultures and identities of the races, they're doing the same thing retail did by throwing it all out the window. It's really discouraging.
One of the reasons people still like the classic lore is because it goes back to before Blizz stopped caring about keeping it consistent. The game isn't even out and the first thing they do is say "fuck the lore".
You should, legitimately, not post online until you read 20 books and take a college class on writing.
You unironically just argued that "Instead of going deeper into the different cultures and identies [by expanding upon Tauren religious practices and what their dual gods are and symbolize] they're - throwing it all out the window."
You should seriously just shut the fuck up. You don't think before you speak. It's embarassing to the rest of the community.
But a lot of the OG classic spec/race combos didn't make sense either even way before retail, a lot of it was for gameplay reasons. I remember in the original lore, the average undead priest was only a shadow priest, but obviously they couldn't have player created undead priests be only locked to shadow spec in the actual game. Troll/NE priests using Light based spells like they were human priests made no sense, but again for gameplay reasons they couldn't make a whole separate spellbook just for those races of priests. Player created warlocks probably only made sense for undead and MAYBE orc, but they probably didn't want warlocks to be restricted to only 1 or 2 races in the game. This isn't a "retail" problem or blizz being careless, a lot of it is for gameplay reasons.
The OG classic exceptions were also sometimes odd lorewise along with the additions. There was no reason humans couldn't be hunters in the beginning, and again for gameplay reasons, they probably just didn't want to get humans way too many classes, when they already could be almost all of them.
The dude has the rogue icon, the class people complained didn't fit in Warcraft lore when it was originally announced. The only rogue type character in Warcraft 1, 2 or 3 is Garona.
It's kinda funny that you have the rogue icon when that was the class everyone complained about when World of Warcraft was originally announced as there are basically no rogue type characters in the lore of Warcraft 1, 2 or 3 except Garona.
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u/ExtremePrivilege 16h ago
You can agree with both, though. Orc Mages seem stupid to me. Orcs are shamanistic. Even warlocks are a stretch given their history. Undead Spriests make sense but not Disc or Holy and certainly not Paladins. Forsaken are destroyed by the light. Yes, I’ve fought Four Horseman. That’s a retcon being used to justify a nonsensical addition.
Tauren Paladins I’m not a fan of. But I think Gnome Warriors are dumb too. Let’s tank Onyxia as a 2.5’ 45lb garden ornament with a 1h sword roughly the size of a butter knife.
But at the end of the day it’s a fantasy game. All of the lore is made up, rarely consistent and often contradictory. Let people play what they want. It’s not a serious game with serious lore.