New Races are Bad Content

I think I might be missing something, crew. I simply don’t see why adding new races makes for an exciting expansion pack. This isn’t specific to WoW, either. This applies to every game that’s ever added a new race as a selling point for a new product. What is it about adding a new skin, ready to hide under new armor, that makes someone say, “I’ve got to play that?”

The natural reason would be lore, I suppose. That assumes, however, that the lore is compelling enough to make me replay the same content just to experience it. Though this isn’t MMO specific, let’s take WoW’s TBC expansion which added Blood Elves and Draenei to the game. Each race, I assume had some kind of background in the RTS series. Yet, much like works of short fiction, content within MMOs should be able to stand on its own, outside of external sources. I would argue that both of those races had very little basis in Warcraft the MMO. So, other than sheer aesthetic, what compelling reason is there for a WoW veteran to give up their main to re-roll? Racials. That’s it. A few tiny skills that will go unused at the later levels.

The only way new races make good content is if they offer something new to the player. Unfortunately, the player’s expectations of balance demand homogonization. You can’t have give certain races meaningful bonuses without also buffing the existing ones. Not unless you want public outcry on the forums, that is (though, I personally think we cater too much to the vocal minority). So, the result is a re-skin plus a couple of throwaway skills/traits. Extra gold for goblins, anyone? That might have been good four years ago, but, today, it’s less than compelling.

Don’t get me wrong. I certainly think it’s possible to make a new race interesting enough to play. You could make a new class fun with a few simple aesthetic skills, like the Worgen wolf-form. The problem, though, is that visual tricks lose their shine over time. Longevity is the key to making a new race worth playing.

There’s also something to be said for simply adding more options. The hope is to always acquire new players, after all, and it’s nice to see more than a few standard options at the character creation screen. Yet, such small additions to the game seem like a better fit for a patch than an expansion. In that case, I might even understand get excited about it too. Races, at their core, are nothing more than a customization option and don’t really require their own starter areas. That’s the kind of addition that looks great on a content patch and “alright” on an expansion list. I want features with expasion packs.

In their current state, however, the addition of extra races into a game is little more than a gimmick. It’s a bullet point on a features list that needs padding. I respect the time and effort that goes into modeling and programming new models, but I have to think that the time would be better spent including more meaningful additions to the game.

New classes, though, now there’s an idea…