New playable races coming to WoW?

[Matthew DeCarlo]

Talk of new playable races in WoW is hardly a new conversation piece, and now some believe that four Halloween masks may be hinting at what’s to come. Traditionally, Halloween masks only depict the playable races. The unearthed masks, found on the Public Test Realm, are of a male and female goblin as well as both sexes of a wolf-like race which many players are labeling worgen.

This discovery is bringing up much debate in the WoW community over whether or not they will be announced as playable races in the next expansion. However, goblins have been a long standing neutral race, servicing both the Alliance and the Horde and the worgen are hostile to both factions.

Being that neither race presently sides with a particular faction, it might be a bit difficult to pull that off. Do you think these races can nestle their way into the lore of the game or is Blizzard just messing with us?

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/35520-new-playable-races-coming-to-wow.html

 

[TomSEA]

That game's getting to be a little long in the tooth - 5 years old come this November. I know it still has a brazillion subscribers, but you'd think some people would start tiring of it and looking for something new.

 

[Guest]

The only thing that's going to meaningfully pull people away from WoW is another, similar Blizzard game.

 

[Relic]

If I'm not mistaken they've used Goblin masks before for various events. Now the wolf-like creatures or Worgens as people are saying is rather interesting especially since they are detailed and we've never seen a female. But I've heard rumors of Worgens since vanilla WoW being the next race (BC+). If I had to put my money somewhere I'd go with them doing something Werewolf/Wogen like for Halloween (New Dungeon/Friendly NPC faction of Worgens/Quests).

TomSEA said:
That game's getting to be a little long in the tooth - 5 years old come this November. I know it still has a brazillion subscribers, but you'd think some people would start tiring of it and looking for something new.

Many new waves of players keep the game going and going. There like little energizers. But personally I think the game hit its climax between BC & WOTLK. So many amazing things to come in 2010+ imo even Blizzards own games SC2/D3.

 

[Tekkaraiden]

Guest said:
The only thing that's going to meaningfully pull people away from WoW is another, similar Blizzard game.

Which Blizzard is ironically working on.

 

[Xecutor]

And we have an internal release date for "Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty" of Nov 2009. Can't wait!!

 

[Rage_3K_Moiz]

Meh. It's just another excuse for people to waste their lives away IMO.

 

[polidiotic]

WOTLK and several of the battlegrounds are still entirely too new. Blizzard puts a lot of effort into updating WoW and has been, consistently w/ patches and expansions. It's also a money tree, so I can't see WoW disappearing into the night anytime soon. Look how long EQ & EQ 2 have lasted. I don't see this going anywhere for a while.

I haven't played the game since the release of WOTLK, but the idea of two new races would certainly invigorate the love that old gamers have for this game (not me, personally... but for others, I'm sure). I'm actually interested in the new SW and AION MMOs that are coming out soon.

Of course, if it's just more of the same gameplay and mind-numbing farming, I'll probably just pass them up. Doesn't hurt to play the trials, though. ;P Hopefully SW: Old Republic doesn't fall into the same pit of hell that Galaxies did.

 

[Guest]

Well, Humans are the only thing people have seen that turn into worgen, so they could break their wild will and go play with the alliance ,and goblins are always only in major citys of the HORDE all the engineering shops for horde citys are run by goblins, while goblins are only in alliance citys during holidays, and just to sell stuff... so HMMMMM

 

[Guest]

Of four of the "possible" playable races yet to be seen (Goblins, Naga, Worgen and Pandarens) only two in my mind stick out as probable.
Goblins on the Horde, Pandaren for the Alliance.
Here's why...

There's been far too much lore and want for Goblins NOT to be a playable race for atleast one side, alliance or horde. But, they'd easily make a perfect fit on the horde since their zepplins are used for the major flight points, theyre tricksters and devilish in nature and the Horde don't have a small/cuddley-ish character to counter-act the Gnomes.

Pandarens on the other hand scream Allaince. They're gentle, humble and good natured beings, who also have a fierce and powerfully faithful side. Plus, the Alliance doesn't have a "teddy bear-esque" chracter to off set the Tauren. And since it's possible to see Pandarens as Shamans, we won't have to endure thousands of squid-head shamans, there would be variety.

Both Goblins and Pandarens come from island countries. And although some would argue that Naga's are from the sea and would be perfect for a sea-based expansion, they have no legs, are far too evil in their creation and would probably rather slit anyones throat then lend a helping hand to either side.

Worgen on the other hand, although a cool idea to play werewolves, don't have a strong enough history in Warcraft lore to warrant being playable. Maybe as NPC's or later a playable race in a different story line other than World of Warcraft, but not for a more recent expansion. They haven't had time to grow or evolve into a powerful race.

Just my two cents,
-T

 

[Guest]

Maybe you're right, but I can't share your ideas about Pandarens. I know many players want to see pandarens in the WoW, but there are reasons against them from the real world. First of all (and that's the main reason I think) Pandarens have a very similar layout to Pandas, and Pandas are sacrifical animals in the Chinese cultur. And I'm quite sure, that there are more players from China out there, than from all the other countries!!! And Blizzard should think about how many people and subscriptions they lose when the Chinese Government Shutdown their servers cause the Pandarens!

And your theory about the islands is really great, but the Blood elves don't live on a separate island, they are on Eastern Kingdoms.

What I'm trying to say is everything is possible. And that keeps my dream alive about the high elves.

 

[Guest]

Goblins are pretty obvious to go with the Horde if they go anywhrere for the reasons stated above.

Worgen, although initially a mindless race under the control of Arugal, as well as the group in Duskwood, has seen a lot of exposure in Wrath with the Grizzly Hills stories (although they do all go back to Arugal). I think that if they make them a bigger part in 3.3 and 3.4 they could pull this off for 4.0 (the next expansion). I am guessing we will see Arugal working for Arthas in Icecrown Citadel with all his Worgen minions, and if when you defeat him there they have his control over them broken and they become more in control of themselves, then we could easily see them as members of the alliance as 99% of all worgen are Humans (there is 1 Forsaken that was a Worgen as well).

I was reading a post on another site with them starting behind the wall in Silverpine Forrest, which would be a great place since there is no other Ally group that starts up near there and it has Southshore right there after they break through the wall and get into the 20's.

 

[Guest]

Yeah, goblin would be most likely be horde, they have every trait to be the next viable race for the Horde. In Warcraft the Pandaren did side with the Alliance but they are both still marked neutral races.
IMO: Horde next race is Goblin for sure.
Main City: The Undermine
Racial Mount: Shredder or Turtle

Alliance has a number of possible races that might be their next race. Some say Worgen, others say Pandaren or Naga.The Question is what will the main City and Racial Mount be?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Naga - Main city: Nazjatar(Located near Maelstrom)
- Racial Mount:Unknown(How do they mount anything??? Possibly a Chariot...lol)
Pandaren - Main City: Pandaria
- Racial Mount:Horse( In case you haven't noticed already taken by Humans... XD)
Worgen - Main City: Unknown
- Racial Mount: Unknown
Most of my information came from Wowwiki.com and wow.com.
http://fc05.deviantart.com/fs27/f/2008/169/f/7/Map_of_Azeroth_by_Prince_Philip.jpg
- That link is a map of Azeroth from google images in case you are wondering where The Undermine and Nazjatar are.

 

[shossofe]

hmmmmm....seems interesting.

 

[Guest]

I think, if Blizzard has brains, they would choose their new races based on popularity.

If we go back to 2006, exactly the same problem has struck the Draenei. Since they were a product of a badly-designed retcon, they had no real roots in the word, and no fans to buy the game just because of them!

I recently did a bit of googling, just to see how many hits I can get with certain keywords (e.g. naga+wow+expansion or worgen+wow+expansion, and many similar). The result was interesting, and did reflect my expectations.

Pandaren were undoubtedly the most popular "hitherto unseen" race. They had at least 5 times more hits (!) than any other race. So if Blizzard has brains, they would surely go after this theme at first place. (of course, the policy at China might always be a problem, such as with WoTLK, but that's nothing new. Chinese authorities complain with every WoW product, no matter what it contains. And the prescribers in US/EU/JAP/KOR pay several times the money a new chinese subscriber brings)

The second most popular race was the Naga. Though they only surpassed the rest with a moderate margin (approx. 1.5x - 2x). They do have a certain "coolness factor" around them, since they are a primarily aquatic race. Problems are the realization of armor on Naga models (already done) and mount riding animations, etc. But there's frankly nothing Blizzard couldn't do about this. Yet it is true, that level designers would have a though job making an underwater city.

The third most popular race was Goblins. Many people dream of trying their skins out. They also have a perfect lore and art background in the game. Potential problems revolve around the fact, that a tiny, tinkering race was already included as playable (Gnomes), so Goblins would provide little new thematics.

The rest of the races were fairly similarly, and lowly popular. Perhaps the Worgen were still best that the other, but that might just be the hype around these masks. Other, sometimes desired races, such as Ogres, Murlocs, Gnolls, Harpies, Draconids, Dryads, Furbolgs, etc. have very-very low popularity. All these monsterous races bring some color to the game, but that's they are: just mobs giving a taste. Most (if not all) of them are neither popular enough, nor thematically suitable to become an entire playable race. Well, UNLESS Blizz wants to repeat the Draenei "hat trick".

 

[snowchick7669]

We should be able to play the Naga as a new race, now that would possibly make me install WoW again just to play that