I'm not sure if I'm allowed to repost her comic, so I'm just giving you the link to it. Noxy's comics are adorable and feminine, and this one really set out the annoyances a lot of us have with our limited choices on horde. Blood elves are petite and Taurens have nice child-bearing hips, but only our orc sisters have any real curves -- probably to make up for their excruciating hair and face options. (Undead women do have some buxom rotting flesh, but they also slouch. Slouching = no visible curves.)
Which brings me to ask: why does The Man have to keep the horde down? What did we ever do to Blizzard? They do, in fact, realize that by making us uglier, they make us "the bad guys" of the game. Forget trusting players to realize that looks alone don't determine motives or personality, or even that many of the horde races were violently oppressed and broke away to try and rebuild a proud, free society -- when you first enter the character creation screen, you get to choose between evil monsters or sexy heroic good guys. That is what people think. It's what I thought. So if the horde isn't actually evil, just misunderstood (which is mostly the case), why can't we get some more good-looking races? Seriously, mix it up a little.For example, nymphs/dryads for the next alliance race and vrykul for horde. My husband wants ethereals, but I've never seen an ethereal woman and the vrykul women are actually quite pretty, if intense-looking.
These are just examples and not my all-time "/slitmywrists if I don't get them" favorites. Rather, my call to Blizzard is just . . . please stop giving us butt-ugly women. You did well with the blood elves, making them a pretty race that all the horde can enjoy. But they still don't quite make up for the . . . attribute discrepancy between the factions. They're a good start, though.
Beautiful people can be evil and ugly people can be good. It's about time things got mixed up a little more. Horde might be the underpriveledged bastard child of the game, but do we have to look like it too? Do we have to accept all the races that the alliance reject?
Horde are designed to be earthy, but what that means is a lot of dirt and blood. Real life women, for the most part (some are hardier), don't like dirt and blood. We got some style with the blood elves, but the alliance are designed to inspire feelings of grace and grandeur. We are designed to inspire chest-pounding and grunts. We are, in some ways, more human than the alliance, because our problems are more real, our motives more obvious. Survival, revenge, freedom. But our nobility is less visually obvious. And while I've already stated my feelings in defense of the horde elsewhere, and while it is possible to find horde women attractive and I'm not arguing it isn't, the basic fact of the matter is that girl gamers started playing horde more once we had blood elves. Almost every girl I know (who started her character after BC) plays a blood elf as her main. And her alt. And most of the rest of her alts.
So this is for the Women of the Horde. We like pretty things.
This all is written with the understanding that people who play female horde, even orcs, are usually emotionally attached to their character and find her beautiful in some way. This is natural, since we spend so much time examining our own characters -- even I think the curve of Plum's hip is one of the prettiest things in the game, and she's a furry cow.
I also understand that some female players don't want to be lumped into the "pretty things YAY" group and wish to be taken seriously as hardcore gamers. While I think it's possible to do both, I also understand the viewpoint. And that's fine. But I've found that most of the women I know play with a boyfriend or spouse and enjoy the visual aspects more than the technical aspects. My generalizations obviously have exceptions but, in my experience, it's more common that women like visually pleasing things than not.
Posts
That comic totally was cute >.<, I also like that artist's previous ones, they were pretty funny.
ReplyDeleteOn the topic of Horde races, I think the majority of the Horde races were established in Warcraft 3, long before they had really dug in with WoW. Tauren, Orc and Troll were always sorta buddy-buddy. The Forsaken coming in helped fit that fourth race. Then there were Bloodelves, who even Blizzard came out and admitted were added to give the horde a "pretty" race.
The same is true for the Alliance though, Humans, Dwarves and Gnomes have been friends since Warcraft 2 and they made friends with the Nightelves in 3.
Suffice to say, a lot of the horde was already set from the get go.
That said...they really could have given Troll and Orc females some less...umm...well, angry, faces. I think both races have 1 "pretty" (as in, not snarling, wrinkly or angry) face...though both races got 2 more each with Death Knights (only death knights seem to be able to use them though sadly).
OK! *takes breath* I think Blizzard really likes the Horde deep down, a s a lot of the heavy lore quests and things are Horde oriented (L70ETC is Horde, Blizzard's poster-boy band) but they do sort of expect people to look beyond the obvious at the creation screen.
I liked that you pointed out Vrykul for Horde, they might fight especially if the story goes that they get liberated from the whole evil deal later on somehow. 'Cept maybe Ethereals should be Alliance, give the Alliance a more "evil" looking race to balance things out...like, I dunno, Furbolgs.
Anyhoo, sorry for the WALL OF TEXT +50....I liked your post and couldn't stop writing :)
Vrykul as the next Horde race would be really cool...another tough, yet obviously female character. I wouldn't want the Ethereal. Do they even have women? I thought maybe they reproduced like amoeba, but with little lightning effects.
ReplyDeleteAs for getting attached to your character, and thinking they look more beautiful than most anyone else would think, it's true. I even love my warriors toes :)
FWIW, a lot of long time Horde players hate the "pretty" Blood Elves and mock people who make troll girls with the one "cute" face, men and women included. They want to keep the Horde ugly. For many, the fact that they're the mean nasty monsters is part of the appeal.
ReplyDeleteI really want vrykul as next horde race. I find very few of the races appealing in the game, and -as you said- my main character is a blood elf.
ReplyDeleteI know others who would really like this, though I -am- a bit closer to the /slitmywristsifIdontgetthis attitude :/