New WoW Alliance Race Revealed

Now.Imperfect writes "The New York Times is reporting that Blizzard has slated the Draenei to be the new Alliance race in the up-and-coming Burning Crusade expansion for World of Warcraft. The article also states that E3 visitors will also be able to test the new flying mount."

Comments

Should have figured.

['nother poster]

So, the Hoard gets a cute race, and the Alliance gets the cool race. Seems par for the course.

Re:Should have figured.

['nother poster]

Horde. Dang it. I should never type while eating. Really bad for spelling skills.

Re:Should have figured.

[SatanicPuppy]

You knew it had to be that way...So far Alliance have gotten all the types who were interested in pretty characters, and Horde have gotten all the types that were interested in pure carnage, so by flipping the expansion races they're hoping to even out the players between the factions.

I'm all for it if it lowers the bg queues.

Finally an Ugly Alliance Race and Pretty Horde!

[Captain Kirk]

One of the bigh imbalances in WoW is that far more people roll "cute" Alliance characters and the Horde is played by people who think about issues like Stun resistance, enhanced melee speed and so on. This makes a HUGE difference in battlegrounds where Horde usually win because they have more thinking players and Alliance have interminable queues becasue there are often 3 to 1 alliance to Horde population imbalances.

I'm an Orc Shaman and we win in battlegrounds 90% of the time. My hope is that this will lift the level of Alliance players a little while encouracing more peope to try Horde characeters.

Re:Finally an Ugly Alliance Race and Pretty Horde!

[dzym]

Hey, maybe if my entire faction were composed of races that had innate resistances to stuns, fears, mind control, and all other manner of crowd control and the other faction weren't entirely dependant on the ability of one single class on clicking one single blessing of freedom button when instead they're all toting 2h weapons instead of healing/shielding/blessing, I'd win more BGs too!

Re:Finally an Ugly Alliance Race and Pretty Horde!

[Meagermanx]

This whole article is going to be just covered in comments like this one...

Re:Finally an Ugly Alliance Race and Pretty Horde!

[Tridus]

Not to mention of course that Shaman are inherently better for PvP then Paladins are.

Re:Finally an Ugly Alliance Race and Pretty Horde!

[thelost]

queue thousands of horde players complaining about fscking alliance swapping over to horde.

over than that, a very much needed change in balance. i agree.

Re:Finally an Ugly Alliance Race and Pretty Horde!

[Now.Imperfect]

ugly vs cute, useful vs useless is a STUPID debate. I get NOTHING out of being a night elf priest, wit hthe shadowmeld nerf, the NE priest racial nerf I could stand to have SOME utility. No way in hell are you gonna tell me that because my character is 6'8" and blue that I don't deserve some utility from my race. Yes I think it'll be cool to have something pretty to look to while you're in Org, but other than that looks shouldn't be an issue. Race should've even be an issue, racials should merel mirror a playign style, and currently Alliance racials reflect nothing. I'll trade you starshard, Elune's dis-Grace, and shadowmeld for any horde racial.

Re:Finally an Ugly Alliance Race and Pretty Horde!

[GodaiYuhsaku]

Yes there's a population imbalance.

However your post makes it seam that alliance are full of idiots.

They both have good players and they both have non-thinking players.

The population imbalance just means its harder to find the good alliance players.

More likely though is that it will cause the Horde to slowly become more like the alliance as the new flood of blood elves hit the servers,
where the good players are harder to find amids all the lesser ones.

--
60 gnome mage

Re:Finally an Ugly Alliance Race and Pretty Horde!

[AuMatar]

Done. You get Tauren's +10 herbalism.

You did say any :)

Re:Finally an Ugly Alliance Race and Pretty Horde!

[Now.Imperfect]

deal, I'll use it more than my current ones =P

well probably about as much as shadowmeld

Re:Finally an Ugly Alliance Race and Pretty Horde!

[Stradenko]

Lucky for me, I'm cute *and* skilled. (and for what it's worth, the only race that can't be made sexy (enough for me..) is orc..)

Re:Finally an Ugly Alliance Race and Pretty Horde!

[Locke03]

Nah, it will still be easy. Just look for the non-Blood Elf characters.

Re:Finally an Ugly Alliance Race and Pretty Horde!

[Rune69]

Camp out in the Barrens for a couple of hours on a Horde character

Damn, can't the alliance do anything besides corpse camp lowbies? :)

Re:Finally an Ugly Alliance Race and Pretty Horde!

[Cecil]

So you entirely agree with him, is what you're saying?

Re:Finally an Ugly Alliance Race and Pretty Horde!

[SatanicPuppy]

This totally sums up all the "problems" people have with the paladin.

On the one hand, they only need to push one button.

On the other hand, everybody thinks its the wrong damn button.

There is no way to win. I stopped playing my pally because I could never get any pvp respect. Jacked criticals using a fast two-hander and laying down the hate about as well as a paladin possibly can, and what do I get? "OMG Duud why ar3nt joo healing m3?! N00B! U suck wtf" People would whine and whine because I had no interest in gimping myself and following them around healing. I'd duel them, win and they still wouldn't shut up about what my job was.

If there was a way to change your name to "IamNotYerHealBitch" I'd still be playing that character.

Oh yea: Gnomes are the second best at escaping crowd control, with their "Get out of Root free" card.

Re:Finally an Ugly Alliance Race and Pretty Horde!

[Incoherent07]

Um, not really, just that most paladins don't know how to play their class... including the guy above you who somehow thinks paladins are damage dealers, and that hate means anything in PvP.

Oh wait, did I say that?

Re:Finally an Ugly Alliance Race and Pretty Horde!

[SatanicPuppy]

Having played both of the "ZOMG SO OVER POWERED NERF NERF" classes to 60, I can confidently say that people who honestly believe that one class causes all the swing are completely wrong. For every alliance player who swears Shammys are unbeatable, there is a horde player who's frothing at the mouth because Pallys are unkillable.

Yea sure, 1 on 1 a shammy can beat a pally, I'd say 3 times out of 5 easily, all other things being equal. At the same time, 2 pallys in a pvp group is just fricking WRONG.

Considering that I've been playing for a looong time, on multiple servers, for both factions, the one thing I have noticed is that there is always a population imbalance favoring the alliance. At the same time, there is often a battleground win/loss ratio that favors the horde. Now why this is the case, I have no idea. But I have noticed that when the alliance organizes, they tend to clean up, because they generally have better equipment.

So why do they not do as well in even contests? I have no idea. Probably does have something to do with the differing mindsets though, people who would choose one side over another. What that says about the various sides, I have no idea.

Re:Finally an Ugly Alliance Race and Pretty Horde!

[LithiumX]

Hate does mean everything in PvP.

Your character is driven by mana/energy/rage/whatever-makes-him-happy.

YOU are driven by... hate. And pretzels. And beer.

I've wished, many a time, that I could affect my character's healing, damage-dealing, speed, etc simply by shrieking and howling into the microphone. It sure seems to work on team members in teamspeak.

Re:Finally an Ugly Alliance Race and Pretty Horde!

[jherekc]

I play a NE Druid and I use Shadowmeld loads! (Even in humanoid form)

Re:Finally an Ugly Alliance Race and Pretty Horde!

[Chris Burke]

The reality is that the Horde players and Alliance players are, on average, equally skilled. The fact that the Horde wins 90% of the time cannot be attributed to skill and must be attributed to simple balance issues. Face it, Shamans are horrendously overpowered. It's not skill, it's not luck, it's bad balance.

It can't be the fault of shamans, because I have the same experience in BGs with no shamans.

Really, my experience across multiple servers and multiple brackets on each is that the alliance is just as good at fighting yet is on average much, much worse at strategizing. The Alliance tends to win individual skirmishes as often as they lose. It's not character balance. If killing the other guy was all it took to win a BG, the record would be close to 50-50. Yet it isn't. The tendency of Alliance to pick strategies that are guaranteed to lose no matter how skillfully they play is striking.

In Warsong Gulch, they will turtle inside their flag room. This makes it hard to take their flag, sure, but eventually it can be taken and in the meantime they have virutally no offense. No offense == no victory.

In Arathi Basin, they will zerg around in a huge mob from node to node. Yes, they can easily take nodes this way, but they can't actually keep any. Just by letting them take the node they're trying for at the moment, and re-taking the node they just left, it's easy to make sure they never get more than two nodes. Taking nodes but never actually holding more than your enemy == no victory.

Sometimes you get a group that is on the whole clueful about strategy and intends to win rather than farm HKs and collect a single token. These are usually also good players, and these are tough fights with or without shamans on the horde side. This is where the 10% comes from.

Do I think this imbalance in ability to strategize stems from the races' "cuteness"? I'm not sure, but it's all I can think of to explain it. 25% of all WoW players are night elves. A large number of them are hunters, and a large number of those are named a derivatve of Legolas. Teenies who are thinking more about how they look like Orlando Bloom than how to win the battle? That's what I'm implying. I shudder to think of what's going to happen now that Horde is going to have blond haired fair-skinned elven hunters.

Re:Finally an Ugly Alliance Race and Pretty Horde!

[EnderGT]

I shudder to think of what's going to happen now that Horde is going to have blond haired fair-skinned elven hunters.

Actually, no - Blood Elves cannot be Hunters (see here)

Re:Finally an Ugly Alliance Race and Pretty Horde!

[Chris Burke]

I pray that is true. Everything I've seen about Blood Elves has indicated that they can be hunters.

Re:Finally an Ugly Alliance Race and Pretty Horde!

[Anonymous Coward]

Paladins are "holy warriors who are always at the front line of the battle" according to Blizzard. Or, at least, that used to be what Blizzard said they were. It changed at some point in the last year.

The parent poster most certainly knew what he signed up to play. The fact that it isn't what he wanted it to be is Blizzard's fault. The more you play WoW, the more apparent it becomes that no one on the Blizzard QA team actually played the content from the Alliance side, and soley focused on the Horde classes. Paladins, the Alliance signature class, are incredibly poorly thought out, while Shamans are incredibly powerful.

I have yet to check out the Shaman review, but I have a feeling that they'll be receiving more buffs yet again.

Face it, Shamans are more powerful than Paladins, and this is a flaw in the game design. Blizzard told Paladin players that they would be playing "holy warriors", not that they'd have to sit in the background and heal constantly. It's not surprising that people want to play their character the way it was advertised.

Re:Finally an Ugly Alliance Race and Pretty Horde!

[plalonde2]

I'm betting the side with the shortest queues wins more BGs. Practice makes perfect, and getting to play 2-3 times as often will do wonders.

Re:Finally an Ugly Alliance Race and Pretty Horde!

[Anonymous Coward]

I play an undead warlock on EU-Ravenholdt(Which is RP-PVP), and I think one reason is that many horde seem to come from other PvP-centric games. For example, in Hillsbrad, a band of us lvl 21-28 Horde will defend against lvl 30-59 alliance come to gank us, and we fight the odds, still getting a fair number of kills on them, while on another PvP server I play a gnome mage, and there's just not the same combat mentality in my experience. "This area is a gank zone, just deal with it" "I'm trying to, so why don't you help clear it out?" "Just stfu noob". Actual conversation.

Re:Finally an Ugly Alliance Race and Pretty Horde!

[Tsunayoshi]

I am fairly certain that Wiki page also mentions that what classes the new races can be is also just a WAG based on vairous hints dropped by developers and what people think would be balanced for both Factions.

However, the Horde already has 3 races that can be Hunters, while the Alliance only has 2. 4 of 5 races allowed to be Hunters on one faction is not too cool by my book.

That way the chart is now, the factions look pretty balanced with # of possible race/class combinations.

Re:Finally an Ugly Alliance Race and Pretty Horde!

[Incoherent07]

To be perfectly honest, if you were expecting a paladin to be simply a warrior with healing spells, that was never the case to begin with. Paladins sacrifice the damage of a warrior to gain quite a bit of survivability: healing spells, an invulnerability shield, immunity to most kinds of debuffs, and a short range stun. Yes, paladins can dish out some decent damage with the right gear and spec, but part of playing a character is playing to their strengths as they are. The paladin class hasn't changed significantly since release; their review merely shuffled some talents around.

As for your assertion that shamans are superior to paladins...

In the PvE game, paladins are far superior to shamans. Four paladins can give more mana regen, more threat reduction, and more attack power to EVERY MEMBER OF THE RAID with blessings than eight shamans can with totems, and even without the greater blessings the blessings last longer than the totems. Paladins themselves have the most efficient, lowest threat heals in the game, and can remove three different kinds of debuffs with one fairly cheap spell. About all shamans have going for them is Windfury/Grace of Air, which only apply to the shaman's group and cannot be used at the same time as the threat reduction totem or each other.

In PvP, they're opposite sides of the same coin. Paladins are by far the dominant PvP healer class simply because of their survivability, and can leverage their heals and Cleanse to make their group that much more powerful, even if a paladin by himself isn't much of a threat. Shamans are an excellent offensive class with some capacity to heal and (against bad opponents) buff their groups.

The reason so many people think shamans are more poweful than paladins is because 90% of paladins keep thinking they're a warrior with healing spells, instead of using the rest of their abilities. It's like playing a hunter in PvP without a pet, or a druid without using forms.

Re:Finally an Ugly Alliance Race and Pretty Horde!

[SatanicPuppy]

Yea, I have to admit, that's my personal theory as well. People who play Horde tend to be more agressive and pvp-centric. My supporting evidence is the amount of alliance high-level content guilds in all the servers I've played on, vs the number of horde guilds. It's not just a difference in raw numbers...Alliance proportionally gets together more lvl 60 raid guilds in my experience. It just seems to suggest some mental divergence in game focus.

Re:Finally an Ugly Alliance Race and Pretty Horde!

[garylian]

You aren't sure why the Horde generally beats the Alliance no matter what server? Damn, that's a simple one.

Prior to the (dis)Honor system and Battlegrounds, on most (especially PvP) servers, the Alliance used a lot of zerging to beat the Horde, and keep them from rising up in levels. The Horde would fight back, and once the numbers came close to a balance, the Alliance would run away because they had too much chance of dying.

Then came the (dis)Honor system. And the Alliance started to camp several key locations in places the Horde needed to go to level. How many level 50-60 Alliance toons does it take to crush the Crossroads? Seems the average # is about 30. Gotta gank those lvl 10-15 Hordelings! After that, they would move on to Tarren Mill, and do the same. I still remember Alliance folks complaining that the guards respawned too fast early on, and it made their ganking harder. So, zerging had now become the primary tactic for many Alliance players. Horde players had to think strategy, and learn to coordinate both offensive and defensive tactics.

Then came the Battlefields, and suddenly the Alliance people found they had to play with equal numbers. Add to that, and they couldn't play as often in a battlefield instance, because they had huge queues, while many/most horde players could get into a new instance within 15 minutes, if not immediately. All that practice surviving overwhelming odds, as well as a lot more familiarity with which tactics worked best in each battlefield, and the Horde players stomped the crap out of the Alliance.

People will generally take the path of least resistance. Playing Alliance made a lot of things easier, especially for PvP. When things became challenging, many Alliance players failed to raise their game. The Horde players, meanwhile, had been forced to bring their A game for months, and because of the population inbalances, they can play in a battlefield more frequently to work on tactics and become a better player.

This isn't to paint all Alliance players as idiots, and all Horde players as tactical genuises. It simply is a cause-effect relationship.

I quit playing a while ago. Does the Alliance still gank folks at both Tarren Mill and Crossroads on the non-PvP servers? It was an all day event on Uther for months. Hard as hell to complete quests when your quest givers were dead.

Re:Finally an Ugly Alliance Race and Pretty Horde!

[Rayonic]

25% of all WoW players are night elves.

Uh... there are four Alliance races at the moment. So if players were evenly distributed across the races, each race would end up with 25%.

Re:Finally an Ugly Alliance Race and Pretty Horde!

[Anonymous Coward]

bubble hearth! bubble hearth!!

Re:Finally an Ugly Alliance Race and Pretty Horde!

[kieronb]

Yes, but there are also four Horde races... so if players we evenly distributed you would expect to see 12.5% of the population playing each race. This is not the case.

Re:Finally an Ugly Alliance Race and Pretty Horde!

[Wildclaw]

One button? Paladins have more trouble that any other class to place their skills on the hotbars. Between, blessings, seals, healing, utility and auras, there is lots to do for a Paladin.

Of course that is only for PvE and especially 5 man groups.

If you play WoW for PvP you have chosen the wrong game. Blizzard has totally killed PvP by overpowering attack compared to defense.

Re:Finally an Ugly Alliance Race and Pretty Horde!

[Chris Burke]

Heh, I meant what I said: 25% of all WoW players. Another 25% are human. As in half of all characters in the game are those two races. Gnomes and Dwarves are much lower in population. Overal Alliance outnumbers Horde by 2.6 to one, mostly due to humans and night elves. If you weren't aware, and just assumed that WoW populations were equally distributed, then I can see why you didn't get my point.

Re:Finally an Ugly Alliance Race and Pretty Horde!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's interesting that you omit Alterac Valley, the one BG where Alliance consistently wins. It's very, very frustrating as a Horde player. WTF is with that? 2/3rds of my AB or WSG games are wins, but in AV we rarely make it north before FW is taken, signaling our inevitible loss.

Re:Finally an Ugly Alliance Race and Pretty Horde!

[Chris Burke]

My experience with AV is actually more or less the same as far as win frequency, but it isn't as easy to summarize the strategy mistakes the Alliance makes in two sentences. Also being as huge as it is I don't have that many full games under my belt and am generally less familiar with it. That's why I omitted it, as the problem isn't as simple as "turtling" or "zerging".

Re:Finally an Ugly Alliance Race and Pretty Horde!

[SatanicPuppy]

Well, I haven't played a non-pvp server since forever ago, but they definitely do a lot of camping at Tarren Mill.

One of the things they did fix with the honor system is giving people dishonorable kills for killing non-pvp flagged quest givers, so that's not much of a problem anymore.

Wow...

[Psychotext]

...no-one saw that coming

For What It's Worth

[eldavojohn]

This was posted on Wikipedia quite sometime ago as a rumor. I use them for a lot of my information (old and new).

In addition to Thottbot (quests) and Allakhazam (pricing and searching), a lot of the WoW Wikis out there provide for me a lot of my World of Warcraft information.

It seems they're introducing more "middle styled" races that are akin to the otherside. Perhaps they're planning to allow draenei to be warlock and blood elves to be palladins? This is all speculation but I know that I, for one, am very much looking forward to this expansion.

Re:For What It's Worth

[Tridus]

Draenei races are Paladins, Warrior, Priest, Mage, Hunter. Both sides already have Warlocks, maybe you're thinking Shaman?

Re:For What It's Worth

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, I meant shaman, I apologize. Didn't proof read that one ... thanks for the correction, hope I only get one :)

Re:For What It's Worth

[HaloZero]

Could you cite your source, please?

Re:For What It's Worth

[SnowDog_2112]

There's an interview on the NYTimes site:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/09/technology/10war craftqa.web.html

It has info on the race, profession choices, and much more. Very interesting read.

Re:For What It's Worth

[SatanicPuppy]

Blood elf classes, if I remember correctly, are Hunter, Rogue, Mage, Warlock, Warrior. That was from a gamespot preview I read a few weeks ago.

I doubt they'll move the faction specific classes around...that's one of the few things that will drive you to play one side or the other. I was wondering for a while if we'd get new options for druid, but that seems to not be the case either.

Re:For What It's Worth

[Nazmun]

In the NYT article kaplan does say a class maybe added or removed. I seriously hope they will be removing paladin... that just fucks up the lore in which the draeni were shamanistic.

Re:For What It's Worth

[HaloZero]

Would also make sense to add the Rogue class to the Draeni, as 'The Broken' seem to have that sort of stealth/assassin thing down pat...

Course, far be it from me to suggest they don't implement a 'Wandering Minstrel' class or somesuch.

Re:For What It's Worth

[Southpaw018]

Dranei became shamanistic after settling on Draenor, before its destruction and transformation into Outworld. They are a highly magical race, and their history fits perfectly into giving them Paladins, Priests, and Mages as their three primary classes, as they were originally saved from being corrupted into the demonic Eredar (as Archimonde) by the Naaru, who are somehow related to the Holy Light that gives Paladins their power.

Apologies to those who aren't familiar with the Warcraft Universe. I'm not typing out the novel that would be required to explain that. ;)

Re:For What It's Worth

[MBGMorden]

That's an odd looking list IMHO. Substitute Priest for Hunter and it would make sense, but BE's just don't strike me as the hunting type.

Re:For What It's Worth

[SatanicPuppy]

I remember Hunter specifically, because I want to play one. I think they're trying to give them a kind of dark racial personality, so you end up with a lot of damage dealing classes, and no healers.

Fuzzy...

[FryingDutchman]

And if the snowstorm gets too bad you can cut one of these open and seek warm shelter inside it.

Seriously do any of you WoW players see the string that is tied around that ever-fleeting carrot?

Having never played I can speak down upon your addiction with impunity but I do feel for you all...please get well soon.

Re:Fuzzy...

[rehtonAesoohC]

Sorry, all I got out of that post was a reminder that I had a Carrot on a Stick in my bank...

Re:Fuzzy...

[crabpeople]

"Seriously do any of you WoW players see the string that is tied around that ever-fleeting carrot?"

As you can clearly see, there is no string.

Hmmm...

[Dhrakar]

Well, actually, I think my Troll Shaman is kinda sexy in her own cute little 3 toed way ;-) Now, if only Blizzard's artist would give us trolls some fine-art love like the other races do.

Yeah, and you can trust the NYT too

[mark_jabroni]

Thing is, it ain't Draenei (as much as I would like it, they were my prediction).

There is a leaked video from the E3 floor (filmed during setup). And it shows a video playing on the show floor, with the new alliance race -- which was originally misidentified as Draenei but was really Erador.

Nobody predicted it, because the Erador are evil demons. These (alliance) Erador are somehow the wisps that killed Archimonde (an Erador himself) at the end of WCIII, or something like that.

Either that, or someone made a fake video showing a huge videoscreen showing faked in-game WoW cut-scenes.

Re:Yeah, and you can trust the NYT too

[Tridus]

...

WorldOfWarcraft.com is linking to the NYT article. Is that trustworthy enough for you?

Re:Yeah, and you can trust the NYT too

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering the NYT has an interview up with Kaplan stating that the Dranei are decended from the same race as the Eredar, it seems a bit silly to be considering the wisp story as true.

Re:Yeah, and you can trust the NYT too

[xmuskrat]

Blizzard has linked to the same NYT article from WorldOfWarcraft.com

Armor

[Doytch]

I want to see how armor is going to look on them. It sounds quite disgusting.

What ever happened to...

[cdogbert]

...the Pandaren?

Re:What ever happened to...

[Brandee07]

Pandaran WERE the original idea. China objected to seeing a national icon murdered in a video game.

Re:What ever happened to...

[snuf23]

Has this ever been cofirmed? I've heard it stated that this reason was a load of bullshit and that the real reason was that there was too much interest in playing the Pandarens and that it would have lead to further imbalance in Alliance versus Horde numbers. It's obvious that the Blood Elves are a way to attract gamers to the Horde by allowing them to have a "pretty" race.

Re:What ever happened to...

[F_Scentura]

It was a hoax, people are still biting.

Re:What ever happened to...

[Whyte Panther]

I'd have assumed it would be that like the Goblins, the Pandaren were truly neutral to the two factions, since they were neutral heros in Warcraft III. They could just as easily be a Horde faction as they could be an Alliance faction. IIRC, the only Pandaren in the campaigns was the one that joined you in the Orc mini-campaign in the Frozen Throne.

Re:What ever happened to...

[cheese-cube]

I think Caylen "Abraham" Burroughs from Something Awful put it best:

No, Pandaren are not going to be the next race for the Alliance, unless you want for WoW to be the reason for the next Cold War with China.

haha, I think I'm wrong

[mark_jabroni]

I think the draenei might just look very different from what we've previously seen of them (ala Klingons). I scanned the article and didn't notice the Actual Bliz Quote. My mistake.

Re:haha, I think I'm wrong

[Soybean47]

The NYT server seems to be choking at the moment, but I'm told that the article says that the Draenei are related to the Eredor. And some of them look like it. The ones we've seen so far (prior to the E3 video) are all disfigured for some reason.

So... there's an explanation out there, anyway, odd though it may be.

Crap no pandaren!?!

[mozumder]

no more triple-fun for me...

Dude...

[E-Sabbath]

I'm sorry. I know about the rumored china issue...

But I wanted pandaren. I would so have played a Pandaren. And then I'd attack every PvP and Penny Arcade player I could find. Cause... you know, giant panda.

Re:Dude...

[mozumder]

DRUNKEN giant panda..

*sigh*

Doesn't quite make sense

[Rayonic]

It doesn't make sense that the Draenei are a sub-race of the Eredar. Did they migrate to the Orc homeworld ages ago, or something?

I was under the impression that The Broken (pic here) were the unmutated version of the Draenei. The new race pics don't look anything like that. The head shape is all wrong, not to mention the number of fingers and the lack of a nose.

We need Blizzard's official announcement and press release to make sense of this, I think.

Re:Doesn't quite make sense

[cbuskirk]

You got it in reverse. Those drainai are called "The Broken" because they have been corrupted by thier world. They have reverted to thier most primitive state because of the magics of the twisting nether. Thier ancestors who I imagine looked very similar probably split off from the Eradar eons ago when they began to practice demonic magics and settled on a new world founding Dreanor. Then as the Dreanai evolved into what we see now in the new WoW video the Eradar became what we see in Warcraft 3, similar but twisted by evil.

Re:Doesn't quite make sense

[MachDelta]

Man, Blizzard really mangled this one. They've previously stated that the Draeni in their original, un-mutated forms, looked nearly identical to humans. This was an emergency lore bashing to handle the fact that the famous "half orc, half human" assassin Garona was infact too old to be an orc/human mixbreed (having been born long before the dark portal ever opened). So then they changed her to "half orc, half draeni" with the subtext that "uncorrupted" Draeni looked startingly Human except for having green skin. NOW we're being told that the Draeni are somehow related to the Eredar? The ancient galaxy spanning evil pawns of Sargeras? Huh?

Honestly I think I liked that Eredar/Whisp junk that was floating around on the forums, better. Oh well.

Ah, talking out the arse, then?

[Moraelin]

"Seriously do any of you WoW players see the string that is tied around that ever-fleeting carrot?

Having never played I can speak down upon your addiction with impunity but I do feel for you all...please get well soon."

So, you've never actually played something, you have no first-hand experience with it, but you feel qualified anyway to pass judgment upon it and compare it with a carrot in the stick. Pray tell, on what do you base that judgment, then?

_How_, pray tell, do you know then whether WoW is good or bad, and what do those players find in it? Maybe, just maybe, it's not just illogical addiction, but paying for a game that's every bit comparable to Oblivion as both complexity and fun factor go. In fact, to about 10-12 Oblivions, since it has a _lot_ more content to explore and enjoy.

WoW has its own issues, later, much later in the game. You need to play pretty damn intensively for a month or more before you get anywhere near the level where it becomes a carrot-on-a-stick exercise. Or more if you try playing more than one character. At which point you got more content for your money out of it than out of any SP RPG you can get for love or money nowadays.

Still, yes, it has them. But you've never experienced them. So even then I'll rather hear about them from other players who _do_ know first hand what they're talking about. Do you even know what the carrot _is_ in that metaphor you sling about? What do you bring to the table, other than some more noise to drown the useful signal with?

So, yeah, I feel for you. Get well soon. Talk to a competent psychiatrist about getting your head removed from your ass. And maybe, just maybe, try talking about stuff you have any clue about next time. Might keep you from looking like a trolling retard, for a change. Because even as trolling goes, this has got to be the most retarded form of it.

Re:Ah, talking out the arse, then?

[FryingDutchman]

Ok I'll admit my post came off a bit brash - but you admit it yourself, after enough intensive playing you realize it is, in fact, a carrot on a stick.

If it's fun then it's fun and rock on - I couldn't feel stronger that sometimes having fun is reason enough to spend $15 a month on an MMO.

I haven't played but working in IT everyone I work with plays it incessantly and all admit that it's reached apoint where they can't stop and yet they don't see any point in continuing. I don't need to use cocaine to know it's addictive and has no real finite purpose.

Where you may deem my opinion trolling, I simply offer up a point of view. If you really do feel like any perspective contrary to your own is "idiotic" and "noise" then I strongly encourage you to ignore me and get back to the "useful signal". I'll go try and find that head of mine.

Re:Ah, talking out the arse, then?

[the.Ceph]

Talk to a competent psychiatrist about getting your head removed from your ass.

In my experience a good proctologist is what you're looking for.

Re:Ah, talking out the arse, then?

[sweetwayne]

I think you make a good point though. For a lot of people this isn't just a game, but a way of life. I say this as someone who plays WoW pretty hardcore. It differs, however, from your cocaine analogy in that it's not a physical addiction; you're not going to have physical withdrawal symptoms (psychological, maybe) when you quit playing. For me, though, the game is still fun, and I have a lot of in-game friends that I enjoy hanging out with, but when it becomes boring to me, or too much like work, then I doubt I'll have much trouble pulling the plug. Your IT friends will have to face the realization that they've spent hundreds and hundreds of hours of their time doing absolutely nothing of any real value with their time. I think that's the main reason people end up feeling that "it's reached a point where they can't stop."

Re:Ah, talking out the arse, then?

[JayBonci]

Carrot on a stick? Dude, you can get that at like 48 and it's a pretty easy quest if you're in ZF anyways. That is assuming you have a guildie or a PUG who has the mallet. Gaz'rilla isn't even that bad in a 5-man. We did it with a Warlock pet as the MT! What's so hard about... Oh, um, wait. Nevermind.

slashdot priotities

[jevring]

You'd think this'd rank higher than just a headline note on the front page...

Re:slashdot priotities

[Anonymous Coward]

Haha! You said "titties".

HUrm.

[Churla]

I just don't get how Blizzard are calling whisps that "corrupted" and "posessed" demons (SAtyrs in this case) and twisted their appearance to match the demons from outland (Eredar) as Draenei. Makes no sense whatsoever..

Oh.. wait... forgot who I was talking about.

It's a real shame to see what was a great backstory and lore in a gameworld being so shamelessly bend over and violated for the sake of fitting game dynamics they'd like into the game world.

Re:HUrm.

[electronym]

Except that's not even close to what they're doing. Read the lore on the site. You're citing some made-up crap that was debunked several days ago.

Too little, too late.

[TooMuchEspressoGuy]

When the big buzz in an online game is a new *race,* you know that the playerbase is starved for new content. Blizzard has already failed to bring that content to the masses; all of their new content-patches in the past year or more have brought nothing but new grinds or new raid-instances.

I left two months ago for that reason, and haven't looked back.

Re:Too little, too late.

[Picticon]

Most of the bigger MMORPGS (before WoW), released new content/expansions every year, or even 6 months. It's been almost two years for WoW. That's on par for Blizzard. They take their time, but they do things right. It's their philosophy. And it seems to work. Even though it's a painful wait.

Thankfully, I didn't play for the first year. I'm only 6 months into the game.

Re:Too little, too late.

[Now.Imperfect]

I agree to some extent.. all the "new content" is for 60s. I want to run a new low level instance!

Supposed to be ogre

[smartidiotaz]

http://videogames1.mtv.com/pages/news/story.php?id =6150056 Draenei :( Not ogre. Now all the change in the ogre artwork is worthless. They were much better as big fat ogres.

Hi. You're a bit off.

[BitterAndDrunk]

So, you've never actually played something, you have no first-hand experience with it, but you feel qualified anyway to pass judgment upon it and compare it with a carrot in the stick. Pray tell, on what do you base that judgment, then?

I've never shot heroin into my cock, but I'm pretty sure that would be a Very Bad Idea. And I do feel qualified to say that.

Not completely disagreeing with you, but your point above isn't strong.

Re:Hi. You're a bit off.

[Some_Llama]

"I've never shot heroin into my cock, but I'm pretty sure that would be a Very Bad Idea."

See I think that is the parent's point, you have never tried H in your wee wee but yet you think it is a bad idea, in fact it might be a great idea and something you would love personally, but alas you will never know?

Don't knock it till you try it!

Just like any other game, then?

[Moraelin]

"I haven't played but working in IT everyone I work with plays it incessantly and all admit that it's reached apoint where they can't stop and yet they don't see any point in continuing. I don't need to use cocaine to know it's addictive and has no real finite purpose."

Some people get addicted to it, yes. But then people get addicted to anything else. Including:

- counterstrike
- BSD/Linux/Amiga/obscure-programming-language debates
- Everquest2 (and unlike EQ1, I can't even really see what a couple of co-workers even see in EQ2, since it's mostly just a mediocre idea and badly executed)
- sex
- porn (see people who end up unable to stop browsing for it even at work, and then sue the employer for firing them)
- karma-whoring on Slashdot

Etc, etc, etc.

The problem isn't as much the game, as the people. Some people are the kind that just has to find refuge in something and, unsurprisingly, a good game will collect more of them than a bad one. So, yes, you're more likely to find them in WoW than in crap games like Anarchy Online or SWG.

And some people basically have an Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder, so they can't leave anything they haven't 100% finished. They _must_ have opened every single chest, killed every single boss and collected every single armour piece, before they can consider a game finished and move on. I can see how some MMOs would trap them, because they're games designed so you can't really finish them. The end-game grind in WoW is there precisely so you'd need at _least_ a year of doing the same thing over and over again before you're finally "finished".

Again, I'd "blame" the people not the game. (Well, not as much "blame" as have some compassion.) The same personality types do the exact same in other games too. E.g., I had a friend who simply _had_ to find every single chest, secret door and quest in such games as "Betrayal At Krondor". I remember that game particularly because he's explicitly fumed about not being sure if he covered 100% of an area, and there could be some chest he's missed. Or in games like Panzer General he'd save before moving each and every single unit, and reload if the dice-driven result was anything less than _perfect_. (Meaning his unit had to take exactly zero damage, and the enemy had to take exactly the maximum attack value of his unit.) Not because he couldn't have finished it otherwise, but because it _had_ to be perfect, if he could help it.

At any rate, I'd venture a guess that it's not really the game which turned them into that.

Is it just addiction and carrot-on-a-stick for everyone? I'd say I'm proof enough that it isn't, seein' as I'm not even playing it any more. Can't recall any withdrawal syndrome either. If you _don't_ approach it with some silly idea that it's like a marriage for life, or that you _must_ finish everything before you give up, giving it up is actually pretty darn easy. It's just a game. You've seen as much content as was enjoyable, and when it starts being consistently unenjoyable, it's goodbye and good riddance.

As for my comments about "trolling" or "noise drowning the signal", they're not about your having an opinion. It's about your passing a harsh judgment on something you just don't have the data to judge. Knowing one IT guy who's a WoW addict doesn't make you an expert in WoW, and, no, doesn't give you enough data to extrapolate about why everyone else is playing it. It's like knowing that some terrorist was from South America and did drugs, and deciding that surely all people in South America are terrorists and junkies. It's that uninformed a judgment. That's all.

Re:Just like any other game, then?

[snuf23]

"Is it just addiction and carrot-on-a-stick for everyone? I'd say I'm proof enough that it isn't, seein' as I'm not even playing it any more. Can't recall any withdrawal syndrome either. If you _don't_ approach it with some silly idea that it's like a marriage for life, or that you _must_ finish everything before you give up, giving it up is actually pretty darn easy. It's just a game. You've seen as much content as was enjoyable, and when it starts being consistently unenjoyable, it's goodbye and good riddance."

I agree. I gave it up when it got annoying and boring. I stayed perhaps a couple months longer than a should have, mostly because of the camaraderie with guildies and real life friends that were also playing.
For me quitting actually had the opposite effect of withdrawal. I got City of Villains for Xmas (used to play City of Heroes) and found hey I was having fun gaming again. It was a pleasure to try something different. Initially I figured I would keep my WoW account and just play CoV for a little while (I knew already that CoH/CoV are very repetitive) but everytime I logged into WoW (when I could stand to wait for a 45 minute queue), I just stared at the crowds in the Iron Forge, chatted a bit with people and logged off. Needless to say I cancelled my account.
I love MMOs and I'm usually playing one or the other (I'm playing EQ2 now, and yes I like it - call me weird) but I've learned not to get "married" to the game. Some of my old WoW guildies still play. Some have 3 level 60 characters. Others have started new toons on PVP servers. Some only logon to run MC for the 900th time. Personally I just can't see running through the same content over and over. I'm a content junkie, I like to see new things and WoW can't offer me that anymore.
Seriously obsessive compulsives should probably stay away from MMOs - then again they might just be the best players! :D

Females need to be shown

[Spitfire15]

My Concern with the New Alliance Race is this. What are the female models going to look like? Seriously, males aren't the only gender to play as. I was just thinking that Blizzard needed a lot of time thinking of a race which needed female characters. I hope Blizzard shows us a female model of the Draenei.

Re:Females need to be shown

[GodaiYuhsaku]

http://i.i.com.com/cnet.g2/images/2006/129/928901_ 20060510_screen028.jpg Is good enough for me. :)

Re:Females need to be shown

[.Spyder78.]

Isn't that a blood elf?

Re:Females need to be shown

[GodaiYuhsaku]

Notice the hooves and the chin tenticles.

Re:Females need to be shown

[wuie]

Nope, it sure isn't. That's a picture of the Draenei female. Blood elves have pale skin. This picture has blueish skin. I saw this over on the WoW forums, and this picture is also lumped in with the male Draenei pictures and an 'evolution' picture.

Re:Females need to be shown

[.Spyder78.]

Thanks! My mistake :)

Official Draenei homepage

[Zatar]

Well, it's pretty official now since they have updated the expansion website with information on the Draenei.

It also explains that the Draenei are the remnants of the Eredar race who chose not to become evil demons back when Sargeras was forming the burning crusade.

It makes my mount go 3% faster!

[Malakusen]

I've got one for all my rams and horses!

where's the REAL information?

[jimfinity]

yeah yeah...new alliance race, i'm thrilled.

but what about the real MEAT of the expansion information?

jewelcrafting? how will it work. what abilities will it give us? where will we get these jewels? what items will be socketed?

new abilities? what abilities will each class have? will they just be updated verisons of old abilities or totally new abilities? both?

new talents? how will the talent trees work post level 60? will there be a new set of talents, or just more talent points to distribute?

beta testing? when will beta testing start for burning crusade? can i get in? what will the beta test include exactly?

this was the information i was hoping to get today! is this something i'm going to have to wait even longer for?

but will it?

[snuf23]

"That's on par for Blizzard. They take their time, but they do things right. It's their philosophy. And it seems to work. Even though it's a painful wait."

The thing is there is such a huge difference in power between level 60 characters without epic gear and those with. Blizzard has released BWL, ZG and AQ all of which have very powerful items (OK ZG is more pain in the ass than getting epics from MC) and long term raiders have been at it for a year. How will they balance Burning Crusade content for both hardcore epic equipped raiders and casual lvl 60s wearing tier 0 and or DM blue items?

Another source of information....

[NivenMK1]

Troll on over to the game's website and have a gander at the first news listing.

Or for the impatient, check the Draenei page directly.

I was wrong!

[Rayonic]

The official Blizzard announcement came out, and looks like I was wrong.

But the new background lore of the Draenei is totally screwed up. The old lore said that the Eredar were corrupted and evil before Sargeras turned bad. But the new backstory says that the Eredar were corrupted by Sargeras.

They've got to fix it one way or another. Either way could have the Draenei splitting off.

For most people, entertainment != addiction

[patio11]

Suppose you join a bowling league. You're out with your bowling friends one or several nights a week for a few hours. You put a little of your spending cash (although not so much) into buying new balls, shoes, etc. You gradually become more skilled at bowling, which accomplishes nothing for you in terms of non-bowling skills (aside from perhaps causing the odd jibe from non-bowling friends about your new status as The Bowler). The same could be said of gardening, or golf, or any number of non-professional hobbies. And you know what? Good for bowlers/gardeners/golfers/WoW players. Most the vast majority of them, its a monetarily-cheap time-expensive hobby with minimal social effects compared to many socially-acceptable hobbies (whens the last time you heard a WoW player get into a head-on collision with a family of four after a late night in Molten Core? Because that happens to drinking buddies all the time.)

Bottom line: if a WoW player or anyone else can handle their other commitments along with their hobby, if they get good reviews at the job, if their family feels loved, if they go to church on Sunday or put in time at the food pantry or whatever, whats the harm?

It just blows my mind...

[patio11]

... that in 2006 the Paper of Record can print an article asking, with a straight face, "So how do you feel about itemization?" Its like I'm seeing a brave new world with strange new technology becoming part of the general knowledge you assume people have about society. I'm having one of my "WoW, I'm feeling kind of old, I remember when they had to explain concepts like 'e-mail' so that the masses would get it" and I only turned 24 this month...

Blizzard fails it.

[Ritontor]

As a horde player, I feel cruelly ripped off by our having gotten Blood Elves as a new character. They're just regular old night elves with a different texture. The model looks identical. Way to go, Blizzard, you certainly put a lot of work in on that one.

Ugh... They just Added That

[Nazmun]

They just totally changed wow lore... Go back to the old pages...

In it the Demonic Eredar race corrupted Sargeras and now in the new burning crusade page it's Sargeras who corrupted them... god.