Grakor Grumbles: Subraces

[Grakor456]

Time to blow dust off of this blog.

Keep in mind that the current ideas are still a work in progress and are subject to change.

I'm going to make this rather brief in order to get to the meat of what this is about. Discussion regarding "subraces" has occurred and the okay was given from Kretol to be more lenient with regards to CMC requests for these. Now, a few things here:

Why must things like forest trolls and mag'har be CMC'd at all? Primarily for readability. The difference between a forest troll and a jungle troll, or a green orc and a mag'har, is pretty significant as far as physical differences and how they are treated culturally. For that reason, it's important that on a graphical RP medium like WoW, that a character's race be easily readable at a glance.

How will this new lenience work, then? As Loxy and Reigen are being given the ability to CMC, the commands for changing models is actually not that bad. The idea is to still limit these new types of character, however, to prevent over-saturation. Subrace characters would then be allowed on main accounts, but players would be limited to one per player (not counting against their "real" CMC limit.) Approval for these would go much faster, however.

What is a "subrace"? Essentially, variants on the current races that would realistically fit within the given factions. Current ideas: mag'har, taunka, forest trolls, and broken being the main culprits, though this system could conceivably also be used for people that want the specific skins for things like dark irons, Wildhammer dwarves, Blackrocks, and Dragonmaw orcs. Note, however, that this list is subject to additions or subtractions, we're still juggling possibilities.

What about high elves? This is where things get sticky, and the ultimate reason I'm putting this in my blog. The subject of high elves came up during the GM discussions with this, and it would be inevitable that it would come up from the playerbase.

Here's the thing: Blizzard originally added blood elves to the Horde for a very specific purpose: to boost the popularity of the Horde and add a more conventionally attractive race to its numbers to draw in more players that might be turned off by the Horde's looks otherwise. On CotH, the blood elves serve the same purpose. With Horde RP rather shaky even at the best of times, and much (though admittedly not all) of that RP ending up being dependent on blood elven presence, the addition of high elves serves as a very possible threat to Horde activity. People who may have once rolled blood elves would feel compelled to go for high elves in order to get the more frequent Alliance RP, and this would in turn hurt Horde RP even more.

That's not a fair reason to permanently bar them. I know that and so does the rest of the GM team. However, it is a real problem and one that is creating a significant amount of hesitation on this issue. Ideas on how to mitigate that possibility would be welcome, but I believe it ultimately boils down to trying to find some permanent solution that would draw more interest Horde-side.

Comments, questions, leave 'em here.

[Xigo]

I personally believe there to be a difference between Blood Elf/Undead roleplay and Horde roleplay. Just like there's a difference between Night Elf/Draenei roleplay and Alliance roleplay. They are the 'outliers' of their faction. The ones with radically different cultures from the rest of the faction. Sure they can fit in, but the interactions tend to be awkward at best.

I sincerely do not believe that Blood Elf activity translates into Horde activity. Thus, I believe the concept of 'if we have High Elves that means less roleplay for Horde roleplayers' is inaccurate. Sure, if when you say 'Horde' you mean every single race of the Horde and every faction within the Horde then the statement's accurate.

But when most people say 'Horde roleplay', they're really referring to Orc/Troll/Tauren/Goblin roleplay with maybe a smattering of Blood Elves and Undead.

Just like when most people say 'Alliance roleplay', they're referring to Human/Worgen roleplay with the occasional rare and endangered Dwarf/Gnome/Draenei/Night Elf.

Actually, on that note... High Elves could potentially add diversity to Alliance roleplay, because it's seriously filled with Humans and Worgen (or as I like to call most humanoid wolf people who don't really roleplay like Worgen, but instead as Humans with a super cool wolf form that's intimidating and they're in almost complete control of and don't view it as a curse, Horgans.)
... So it would really be a good thing to allow High Elves. Even if I know I won't like how they'll be roleplayed.
Please police the High Elf roleplayers.

[CappnRob]

Having seen the best and worst of High Elf RP on Prologue, I highly suggest that if they're approved they're done so with exceptional scrutiny. I like high elves, I like their lore, their tragedy, and so forth; however I do know that making them too common will essentially draw from the Blood Elf RPers, particularly the ones who are already very neutral-inclined to begin with.

As for all other subraces, I really like the idea of them being added to our accounts!

Edit: what xigo said is cool too

[Thoradin]

I have to agree with Xigo. I would actually go so far as to say that even Undead and Blood Elves are their own brands of RP in and of themselves. High Elves shouldn't be an issue, but I'll reiterate my own stance, at least concerning Forest Trolls.

They are very easy to emote, even without having to rely on an addon to do the work. The other ones, sure. I wont even argue about or for. Broken demand their own model, Taunka... even if it is just the face? Sure. But Forest Trolls shouldn't be an issue. Your character does not have to look like what the Player Model is. I could have a human who is scrawny and not Brick McVanderhuge. Spikey's own Teztez, for example, is a rather large troll, looking in no way like the base model. I've seen Orcs who aren't ripped, or overly ripped, as well.

The point is that someone can emote, or even give a courtesy briefing to players, that their characters are entirely unlike what the model would suggest. I'm all for there being a streamlined CMC process for those characters that require the model (Mag'har, Fel Orc, Broken, Taunka, Lost One, etc etc) because those are the races that would prove very difficult to convey conventionally through the use of in-game emotes.


That's my own two, very noted, cents. /endrant

[Grakor456]

I personally believe there to be a difference between Blood Elf/Undead roleplay and Horde roleplay. Just like there's a difference between Night Elf/Draenei roleplay and Alliance roleplay. They are the 'outliers' of their faction. The ones with radically different cultures from the rest of the faction. Sure they can fit in, but the interactions tend to be awkward at best.

I sincerely do not believe that Blood Elf activity translates into Horde activity. Thus, I believe the concept of 'if we have High Elves that means less roleplay for Horde roleplayers' is inaccurate. Sure, if when you say 'Horde' you mean every single race of the Horde and every faction within the Horde then the statement's accurate.

I mean Horde as a general entity, which includes blood elves. If I weren't including them, I wouldn't have bothered to mention them at all.

Let me put it this way: if there is a lot of RP in Silvermoon, yeah, it's annoying if I'd rather play orcs or some other "Kalimdor Horde" race. But I can come up with reasons for them to show up in Silvermoon if I want to. I've done it before, it's not that hard, so it's at the very least -possible- to get RP on any Horde-aligned character when Blood Elves see consistent play. If the RP at present is Alliance in Stormwind, that is not a possibility.

Whether it's ideal or not is an entirely separate topic. However, I would argue that even blood elf RP is not entirely stable, given that it's RP reliant entirely on one race. So when I say it negatively impacts Horde RP, I do also mean blood elves themselves as well.

[Harmonic]

Generally speaking, if it's regulated it shouldn't be that bad. Like---I don't think people will try to substitute Blood Elves for High Elves---as they are really two different mind sets and play-styles.

[Grakor456]

Generally speaking, if it's regulated it shouldn't be that bad. Like---I don't think people will try to substitute Blood Elves for High Elves---as they are really two different mind sets and play-styles.

Considering how a number of people play blood elves...eh heh...heh......heh..........

But on a more serious note, I think we'd be kidding ourselves if we didn't admit that the look of a race means a lot on whether someone plays it. Elves get a lot of traffic not because they're deep psychological studies, but because they look nice to the eyes of the average player. And before someone jumps down my throat, I'm not saying that's a bad thing, or even something that people necessarily consciously recognize, but the most played races being the most human-like and "pretty" races is most definitely a thing.

So...yeah, there's no question in my mind. High elves would be used as a substitute for blood elves in order to get to the more plentiful Alliance RP. No question at all.

[Harmonic]

I dunno. Generally speaking, the "Prettyness" of elves is what -detracted- me from playing them for so long, or why I generally avoid it's RP. Of course though, that's a personal thing...

This guy here likes playing the ugly scruff buff fellas that can smoke cigars and swig beer at the same time while refusing to shave.

[Grakor456]

I dunno. Generally speaking, the "Prettyness" of elves is what -detracted- me from playing them for so long, or why I generally avoid it's RP. Of course though, that's a personal thing...

This guy here likes playing the ugly scruff buff fellas that can smoke cigars and swig beer at the same time while refusing to shave.

Oh, I'm right there with you. But is that not itself an aesthetic preference that informs your racial decisions? You said yourself that you avoided elves because you were turned off by their "pretty" features. I'm sure you also probably understand that people like you and I are in the minority and the majority enjoy the "pretty" races, else they wouldn't have had significant majority on retail.

And I'm not putting myself on some superior pedestal, to note. I play orcs because my own aesthetic preferences and standards of attractiveness lean towards bullish and bearish men with a lot of "grr-manly." My own aesthetic preferences have influenced what I play, so I'd be hypocritical to say that I play what I do solely because of the lore or racial mindset (though that can definitely help!)

So when aesthetics plays a large role, you're going to have people choosing between two concepts, and things like relative population and ease of RP access are going to be a big deal in what they choose. -If- all things were the same, why would anyone roll blood elf when high elf would give more reliable RP?

[Harmonic]

I would simply say that Blood Elf RP would still be reliable. Mostly because there's a lot of people that play Belves, and rolling a High Elf of course means you're not getting that RP. However, I can see what you mean---that's mean that the "pretty" elf players would want to play on the Alliance for more variation.

However, I think that people that play Blood Elves play them mostly to play with their friends. Otherwise, there's still plenty of cross-faction RP to integrate blood elves with humans anyways---like the Argent Dawn.

So, all in all, I don't think it'd take away from Horde RP all that much as it's still sort of it's own thing. If it really become that big of an issue, you guys could say "Welp, that proved true, time to make a cutoff point." like we used to do with demon hunters, eh?

[Reigen]

Blood elf RP really isn't as frequent as people make it out to be. Silvermoon has been pretty much empty beyond one or two people for the past couple of months. It comes and goes in phases. They spike in population and then die down. I'd hardly call it reliable. It doesn't help that a lot of horde groups like to alienate blood elves from the RP - which would only further encourage people to take a high elf instead where they won't be shunned from guilds.

I will also admit.

I play blood elves because they are pretty. I cannot play a character whose model I cannot look at. The lore is really just a plus once I found our I liked the belf lore.

[Thoradin]

Personally, in the way I am reading it, I am seeing that High Elves are looked down upon/semi-banned due to a "lack of Horde RP". While there would certainly be a few High Elves that pop up, it's inevitable, there isn't exactly an over abundance of pure Alliance RP either. Granted there have been some event chains (Regiment's Khaz Modan stuff, for example), but I see vastly more neutral RP in the form of neutral guilds like the Argent Crusade.

But, as I had found out, that the Horde is similar to Ants and Honey. Spread a little honey on something and ants will come out and surround it. A couple of times I have hopped on a Hordie, went to Orgrimmar, and advertised! Once was even on Zinga, my Forest Troll. A good few people crawled out of nowhere at the mention of the illusive Horde roleplay, scourge of the seven seas.

Even on Alliance I generally have to stir up the bee's nest just to get folks to support their King on Tol Barad, let alone anyone to show up on their Horde. Something has happened to the point where, if anyone does have pure Horde or pure Alliance characters, they only show up for Events on those characters. Again, I see vastly more neutral RP than I do anything. Booty Bay, Hearthglen, if it is neutral, you'll see more people there. Not sure what happened, but no one is loyal to the factions anymore and sparse few attempt to spark up RP for either of them.

Just how I've seen things lately.

[Maulbane]

High Elves have pretty much always been a taboo on CotH, even in the real early days when it was just Kretol and his guildmates, if I remember correctly. They're often (and, sadly, generally not incorrectly) associated with special snowflake and mary-sue tendencies. Maybe times have changed, but many Blood Elves are already RP'd in the vein of High Elves anyhow - I don't know if it's worth opening the flood-gate just to see how it'd end up.

[Grakor456]

Even on Alliance I generally have to stir up the bee's nest just to get folks to support their King on Tol Barad, let alone anyone to show up on their Horde. Something has happened to the point where, if anyone does have pure Horde or pure Alliance characters, they only show up for Events on those characters. Again, I see vastly more neutral RP than I do anything. Booty Bay, Hearthglen, if it is neutral, you'll see more people there. Not sure what happened, but no one is loyal to the factions anymore and sparse few attempt to spark up RP for either of them.

The heavy focus on neutral RP is a recent development, all told, but not an unexpected one. As pointed out, these things tend to come in waves, but for those of us who have been around for as long as we have, it's easy to see the patterns. In general, RP will rock back and forth between neutral and Alliance RP, with Horde RP occasionally coming up in its own cyclical pattern. The point being: Alliance characters always have some RP going on (even if it's neutral) while Horde characters do not. Therefore it may not have an immediate negative impact on Horde RP now, it will in the long-term.

Though the people showing up "for the event" and then immediately ditching has been a problem since forever. I tend to find that this negatively impacts Horde more than Alliance due to the reasons above: Horde casual RP is nonexistent, so when events wind down Horde players just disappear without any transition while Alliance players have greater opportunity to linger and merge with other casual RP going on. Again, this depends on the event as well: when an event is dealing with characters not seeing use in casual RP, that will happen. But again, this will generally negatively impact Horde characters more than Alliance ones.

I could hypothesize why this is, ranging from factors like how the Horde races are portrayed in ways that emphasize war-like aspects and discourage people from exploring more casual/domestic issues with them, but that's probably an analysis for another thread.

[Sorum]

Blood elf RP really isn't as frequent as people make it out to be. Silvermoon has been pretty much empty beyond one or two people for the past couple of months. It comes and goes in phases. They spike in population and then die down. I'd hardly call it reliable. It doesn't help that a lot of horde groups like to alienate blood elves from the RP - which would only further encourage people to take a high elf instead where they won't be shunned from guilds.

Reigen hit the nail right here.

And the last part is an issue in itself. People choose Blood Elves in the first place because they are pretty and seem human-like. But the same people begin to reconsider and roll another race after they realize Blood Elves really lack RP outside of the Blood Elf groups. Roleplayers here really like to show their character's dislike for Blood Elves in RP. I am not saying it's a bad thing, no. But everyone should know that they are giving -themselves- less RP in the first place by pushing away some player characters from around their own.

As for the High Elf matter.. Let's remember that there really -aren't- many High Elves around anymore. Far less than Blood Elves and that should really be kept in mind. We could have high elves be profiled before they are roleplayed (even tho I really don't want to see high elves with green eyes on their model along with red skin). That way the staff can keep record of how many high elves are there in the world and keep that number low. Surely, it would also cause a problem: "Why can't I RP a High Elf. I am good at it! Sorry for not being here when others have! Wow this server sucks." This wouldn't be cool at all and cause a problem. CMCing the High Elves would be an idea, we don't have many players, like.. thirty, forty active ones? Probably fifteen will use their 'lesser CMC' slot for a High Elf. There are other races to pick from. This way, you could have the High Elf population kinda low and nothing to worry about. We also know that not everyone RPs their characters for a long time anyway.

At least I see that the High Elves are a somewhat difficult problem.. Providing it took me a few minutes to actually come up with a solution. And I also don't know how good it is. I just hope you guys understand that saying "We want High Elves." won't get anyone anywhere. We need solutions to -how- they should be introduced on the server without destabilizing the Horde RP. I will quote Grakor: "Horde RP is rather shaky even at the best of times." As far as I see it, the staff isn't troubled by the idea of having people RP High Elves. The issue is that allowing it may cause a disturbance in the RP. Taking chances and letting the snakes out of the cage isn't one of CotH's strengths. But it got many others!

Just my fifty cents. See you in RP, yes?