12-09-2010, 11:12 PM
"Before I start, I must warn that this post contains a few Cataclysm Spoilers regarding Worgens so if you have not played Cata yet, and you want to keep the element of surprise for when you do play, do not read the last section which I will warn you about when it gets to it!
Okay so I have seen and heard many discussions on how long and straining druid transformations are, well I have always said it takes a matter of seconds and I will give you all my reasons why.
Firstly, I see no written blizzard lore about it taking days or hours etc etc... in fact from everything I have seen I have understood that it is quick and painless though it does drain a lot of energy. The most obvious one is in the first World of Warcraft cinematic you see a Night Elf druid running through some forest, and before she jumps the water fall, she changes into her cat form almost instantly in mid air. Secondly Medivh in the opening human cinematic for Warcraft three changes from his bird form to a human quite quickly, though he may not be a traditional druid, the change seems pretty similar.
In all warcraft games druids change instantly in game both players and NPCs.
When druids change, it is because of their balance with nature that they can do so, why would nature make it a long and painful experience makes no sense to me. However it does drain a lot of mana in game which suggests that it is a tough thing to do.
Now comes the spoiler which explains a lot more.
So to conclude, if there is any blizzard written lore about very time consuming changes, then I would love to see it. But until then I can only believe that it takes effort but not time. Remember that WoW has a lot of surreal things in it which is why it is a fantasy game and not realistic.
Okay so I have seen and heard many discussions on how long and straining druid transformations are, well I have always said it takes a matter of seconds and I will give you all my reasons why.
Firstly, I see no written blizzard lore about it taking days or hours etc etc... in fact from everything I have seen I have understood that it is quick and painless though it does drain a lot of energy. The most obvious one is in the first World of Warcraft cinematic you see a Night Elf druid running through some forest, and before she jumps the water fall, she changes into her cat form almost instantly in mid air. Secondly Medivh in the opening human cinematic for Warcraft three changes from his bird form to a human quite quickly, though he may not be a traditional druid, the change seems pretty similar.
In all warcraft games druids change instantly in game both players and NPCs.
When druids change, it is because of their balance with nature that they can do so, why would nature make it a long and painful experience makes no sense to me. However it does drain a lot of mana in game which suggests that it is a tough thing to do.
Now comes the spoiler which explains a lot more.
Spoiler:
After you have been cursed as a worgen you are stuck in that form until you reach the night elf druids in the hollowed tree. They explain how the worgen curse originated from a group of driuds who turned into wolves, whom became feral a long time ago. It became a curse and spread across to the humans of Gilneas. When you are freed from the curse the druids call upon nature to restore the balance which was lost. And again you change pretty much instantly. All worgens are technically partly druids after, even if you are not a full on druid. Blizzard have kindly given a nice transformation animation, which again only takes a very short amount of time. Which suggests that it should only take that much time to change.
So to conclude, if there is any blizzard written lore about very time consuming changes, then I would love to see it. But until then I can only believe that it takes effort but not time. Remember that WoW has a lot of surreal things in it which is why it is a fantasy game and not realistic.