Horde Paladins and Alliance Shaman in WoW Expansion

Gamespot has the news that Blizzard will be allowing 'crossover' classes with the new races promised for the Burning Crusade expansion. The Paladin class, up until now an Alliance class, will be allowed for the Horde race of Blood Elves. Likewise, the Alliance Draenei will be able to choose the Horde Shaman class. From the article: "According to Blizzard, Horde paladins and Alliance shamans will have many of the same talents of their traditional counterparts, though they "will also enjoy some unique abilities to themselves, similar to the priest class' racial specialties." Since this new feature will fundamentally change the asymmetry between the game's two factions, it will presumably have a significant impact on the way the game is played, especially in competitive player-versus-player combat." It's also likely to somewhat balance the preference between the two factions. A pretty race for the Horde, and what is considered (by some) a very powerful class for the Alliance.

Astonished

[umbrellasd]

The thing that astonishes me the most (and I've played WoW off-and-on since the release day) is that it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever for Blood Elves to be Paladins. These are the elves that broke with the night elf race due to their all consuming addiction to magic. Paladins draw their powers from divine sources and divine power is non-magical (if you don't play WoW or have familiarity with the backstory, this may not make sense). But anyway, it smacks of a slap-and-dash solution to an underlying game issue and it just makes no sense. I always really liked the fact that the Horde went to the elements for their power and the Alliance went to their belief in divinity. Now that distinction is worthless, and it was done in a way that contradicts the backstory of one of the races. I'm sure, they will come up with some hokey "explanation", but I don't even play a Paladin or a Shaman (any more), and I'm still looking at this change and going, "WTF? That makes no sense." I didn't really expect that my first reaction to a basic fact about the expansion would be that. I was more expecting, "Hey, neat." Blizzard caves to the eternal whining of the forumkiddies. How disappointing.

Re:Doesn't Fit..

[GJSchaller]

"As for the lore justification, you can make up anything you want when you are alowed to say stuff like 'they didn't have this power but they stole it, so now they do'."

Yes, but that doesn't mean it's a good product. One of the things that makes a story, mythology, or saga so good is the consistency of it. Things don't happen "just because" - it ruins the credibility of it, and makes it less believable, and thus less enjoyable. Granted, large half-bovine humanoids and sexy purple-skinned elves don't exist in real life, but the consistency of their background in the Warcraft universe makes them more believable, than, say, Plan 9 from Outer Space.

The reaction players are having is that the foundation that has been built up, and is very cool and enjoyable, and is even the hallmark of Blizzard's excellence, has been yanked out from under the player base like the hall rug, leaving us going "WTF, mate?". They put enough detail into the game that the ruins of Loaderon in WoW are an exact model of the castle you see Arthas walk into in the WC3 cinematic sequence, and you even hear sound clips from his grisly deed there - it's very cool to see that and say, "Wow, I remember this from before, it's exactly the same... I feel like I'm seeing history!". All that attention to detail has just been crapped on, and is now worthless because the values they are based on have been proven unstable, and subject to change at Blizzard's whim.

I wouldn't have minded if the story was more plausible, but the current explanation they have given has gone too far, and stretched my willingness to suspend disbelief past the breaking point. It's like Lucas changing Star Wars. Yes, it's his story and he can change it if he wants to. The moment he does, however, the majority of his viewers feel he made a change for the worse, and his story loses credibility because it changed.

Re:Whine, bitch, moan, sniffle

[scot4875]

I quit because I had played the solo game to death, but couldn't commit the time necessary to join a raiding guild. I was also incredibly disappointed that the only new content that Blizzard added was new places to farm for gear/reputation/whatever. They completely forgot about the solo game, and once you hit 60 there's really no point in playing any more unless you want to farm the same raid instances for months to get your better gear to enable you to move on to farming the next raid instance for months.

I had more fun tooling around with friends and trying to 2- or 3-man the level 55-60 instances than I ever did waiting around in raids. Unfortunately, even pushing the limits gets boring when there's nothing new to do.

--Jeremy

Re:Whine, bitch, moan, sniffle

[Dixie_Flatline]

I just quit WoW a few days ago for the same reasons. Everything in the game is the worst kind of grind. Now I'm trying out Eve online, 'cause even though everything there is a grind too, I don't need to be intensely on top of it for hours and hours; I can set my ship to go somewhere, and come back later to do things that require my attention, then leave it again. I'm starting to appreciate the slow pace and the fact that a lot of the conflict in the game (that is, most of the conflict) is generated by the crazy things that players do.

For instance: A few months ago, a contingent of players from Russia decided to take over a bit of deep space. They went off, and nobody heard from them for months and months. When they finally DID hear from them, it was in the form of an invasion. Nobody was prepared for this onslaught of players from out of nowhere, coming through the systems and crushing everything in their paths. That's the sort of thing that's hard for game designers to do on their own. The universe feels more mutable.

That had nothing to do with WoW, but I thought I'd mention it. It's the sort of thing everyone wishes they could be a part of, whereas finishing a raid dungeon is kind of a mediocre experience and story by comparison.