Ask Creative Development and what should be taken from it

The Immediate Response

   Well, I told myself I wasn't going to have two out-of-character posts in a row, Wow.joystiq already has a corner on general WoW news, but this is really just too good to ignore entirely, and there hasn't been all that much interesting int he world of benches today.  Startling, I know.

   So, Bashiok, figurehead that he has become for communicating with the more-sane strata of the WoW playerbase, delivered unto us this topic, that we may know of the Creative Development team's work and, more importantly, their partial disenfranchisement of the the WoW RPG books, better known as 'The stich with which one RPer will beat the head of another RPer in with because his character's eyes are a different color than an out of date book says they can be'.  Good on you, all, by the way, you're really helping the RP community not look like a bunch of aspies in a basement, living off Cheetos and mellow yellow.

   Now, for the non-RPers, what this is for the RP community is, essentially, patch notes for us.  We may not get +5% damage done with one ability that was under powered before, but good god do we get some nifty RP hooks.  Who wouldn't want to see a bunch of submerged zombies raising a derelict ship from the sea floor in the name of their ruthless and tyrannical zombie elf queen?

   That was rhetorical.

   Now, I'm not a lore expert, I haven't spent days upon days pouring over now-non-cannon sources (trolololololol) in search of how to prove someone wrong, but I do remember playing Orc and Humans way back when as a wee young me, even if I didn't understand what I was doing when I clicked.  Of course, I also played Doom at the time, but I'm sure that had no lasting impression on my mental state.

   So, here's what's going to happen, I'm going to pull out little important bits and make fun of the super elitist RP high-end with them, as well as a few jabs at people and/or me.  Let us begin.

RPG books are non-canon unless stated otherwise

   This is gonne be the big one for most people.  For years, the RPG books have been considered hard and fast lore by the community, and was the primary source of the setting's lore (we don't talk about Knaack).

   What this means is that people who used to spend all day making fun of people who strayed outside the lines when coloring in their character can no longer use the RPG books as a wall to hide behind, and must accept that you are simply a prick.  Not that I'm not guilty of doing just that in extreme cases (catgirl vampires do not exist in WoW, and every time I see one I die a little inside), but that doesn't mean you have to give in to the bloodlust the moment you see someone playing as a Aarakoa.  In fact, never do that, Aarakoa are cool.  Blizz, let me play a bird-man, and add in a TRIAL BY STONE quest.

Loa can choose to keep Trolls from regenerating

   

   This, while not a major thing to most Troll RPers, is still an interesting hook for an RP character, as well as  how they explained away Vol'jin's arm not growing back during Warcraft 2.  I was actually playing around with the idea of a hypocondriac Troll for awhile, and now I think  I might just do it, since I have an in-universe explanation for why a race of hunter-shamans might be afraid of every single little thing.

   I also might make The Doctor as a Troll, but that's a discussion for another time.

Sylvanas is Davy Jones

   

The entire Forsaken Naval Fleet.

   Sylvana, the Banshee Queen, has no Naval bases, so where does she get her ships?

   The sea floor, of course!  Nothing quite says "we're about to sink your battleship" like "we're raising our battleship up under yours, have fun".

   You have one week to form a Vashir-based Forsaken Dredging guild before I disown all Forsaken, just FYI.

Fosaken Holy Priests exist, stop saying they don't.

   

   This isn't important at all, it resolves no long-standing lore conundrums, answers any questions, nor does it fill me with a sense of oneness in the universe.  All it does it slaps people in the face who keep applying DnD Greyhawk logic to the Warcraft universe.  It doesn't work that way, and if it did, I'm sure someone would have popped a Wish to make it not work that way by now.

Spellbreakers are too cool to let you in

   This is a sad one for me, as one of my favorite characters was going to become a Spellbreaker, I was just looking for a way to do it.  Unfortunately, even if I were to find someone else who was a Spellbreaker to 'teach' mine how to be one, people left and right would shout me down anytime I tried to RP in the open, especially as a Blood Elf, no matter how well written it was.

   Confound this community, it drives me to hate.

Fel-taint dissipates

   This pleases me, on multiple levels.  On one hand, it means that I can RP a brown orc without being a Mag'hari Orc.  On the other, it means that many, many people who have been RPing their Belves as having blue eyes over green have been vindicated, and are now free to do so, and all the racial-confusion that brings between them and High Elves.

   Not that people still won't be elitists jerks about it, but I can pretend.

Elune is a windchime, Night Elves are dumb

Windchime surrounded by Holy Chimers

   This is one that players have been toying with for some time: Is Elune, goddess of the Night Elves and the Moon, a Naaru, the same Light-based being worshipped by the Draenei?

   The implication in the Dev teams response is this: Yes, and the Night Elves don't want to know.  Which is just silly, I've had some Kaldorei Windchimes forever, I could have just told them I had their god in my backpack this entire time.