《魔兽世界：永恒》（WoW Forever）Skyborne 新种族评论：优缺点与外观评析

All right, I’ve put it off long enough — let’s talk about the Skyborne in World of Warcraft Forever. I know I wasn’t the only fan who watched the BlizzCon reveal with growing excitement that suddenly split off into a “what are these blue elves about?” tangent. I think it was a weird mistake for Blizzard to display this race so prominently in that reveal, and it became an immediate focal point for conversation that distracted from the overall discussion of the actual game project.

Like ’em, hate ’em, or somewhere in the middle, the Skyborne have been a divisive point about WoW Forever. It’s ammunition for the haters and perhaps a huge financial windfall for Blizzard, so today we’re going to tackle these supermodel smurfs and expose them for what they really are.

So why the Skyborne for Classic Plus?

In the interviews and podcasts following the reveal, Blizzard’s devs spoke to why they decided to include this brand-new race with this version of the MMO. According to them, Chris Metzen pushed them to “swing big” in the race department and not go to the expected wells of Ogres, Goblins, and High Elves. Do something splashy and unexpected.

And that I can understand. It’s actually a good strategy when you think about it. WoW Forever is not #NoChanges in the least; it’s #ATonofChanges that we as fans are still grappling to understand. It’s a third way for World of Warcraft to be, and that design required plenty of flexibility from the developers and the playerbase. So tossing in a brand-new race right from the start signals to everyone that the old, safe way is not what this game is about. This is about preserving the general gameplay feel and old world of Classic but pushing it forward.

I was once told that when you come into a new leadership position, you have about six to eight months and a limited amount of “currency” to make big changes before everything solidified and change became a lot more difficult. You had to spend those “change tokens” (for lack of a better term) wisely, because you only had so many before people wouldn’t take any more adjustments.

This is to say that Blizzard’s setting a new course for a new game, and the Skyborne are part of that strategy. They represent a good chunk of change tokens, but the long-term benefit might be a playerbase that’s more easy-going with future additions. Let players take out their ire on the new thing right now when the excitement for the game at large is even greater, and it’s not going to matter as much if, say, they introduced the Skyborne a year down the road when everyone got too comfortable with all of their traditional trappings.

Legitimate complaints

If you have problems or criticisms with the Skyborne, I’m not going to gainsay you. I might even agree. I’m at best neutral on the idea of them, because there were probably better potential races if Blizzard wanted to do something really new that wasn’t just another elf variant.

Yeah, they totally look way too retail WoW, and that was a miscalculation on Blizzard’s part. WoW Classic fans aren’t generally fond of retail and don’t want to be reminded of that. I’m glad the devs are creating SD models — down the line — but for some, a Skyborne appearing near them will feel jarring and out of place.

I also agree that the Skyborne come across as disconnected with the world-as-character that Blizzard wants to promote here. A magical floating island no one’s ever heard of just showed up, raining blue elves all over the place? That doesn’t fit with the feel and design of any other starting zone or race.

Time will really tell how widespread the adoption and acceptance of Skyborne will be, and from many other expansions in the past, I know that what is weird and prominent today will fade into the comfortable background tomorrow. I mean, remember the hissy fit that retail players had when the Draenei appeared? And Panderen?

But it’s not all bad news

Complaints aside, the Skyborne aren’t going anywhere, and if the overwhelming beta participation is any indication, a whole bunch of people pre-ordered that racial pack when they didn’t have to if all they wanted to do was play the actual game. It’s a new race for Classic players who’ve been saddled with the same-old, same-old since 2019. It’s going to be exciting and popular for that reason, as well as the generally pleasing aesthetics and fun racial abilities.

Having the Skyborne be able to join either Horde or Alliance makes them even more appealing, especially for a launch race like this. Blizzard didn’t want to unbalance the game’s population from the start, and two brand-new races could’ve done that if one proved to be way more popular than the other. The Skyborne allows interested players to pursue the faction of their choice without having to choose between race and faction.

One thing that I haven’t seen anyone really discussing is that the Skyborne may very well represent Blizzard’s model to financing WoW Forever. We may not be getting traditional expansion packs, and if that’s the case, then the studio’s going to want something it can sell to boost profits now and then. A new race or class pack does exactly that, and people will be lining up at the virtual door to buy them. If this approach gives us new quests and zones and features on a regular basis without having to segregate the community between expansions, I’m all for it.

Personally, I’m simply OK with the Skyborne. I’m not the biggest fan of elves, but I do appreciate another choice for Druid (the Tauren feral forms are so off-putting I simply can’t with that race), and the ability to glide down from high places is a huge benefit in a game without flying mounts. They look slim and pretty as elves do, but they lack a good distinct personality that you get from, say, the Forsaken or Gnomes.

All right, I’ve had my say — now it’s your turn. What do you think about the Skyborne? What do you like about their inclusion, and what rustles your jimmies? Let’s get a conversation going in the comments!

Stepping back into the MMO time machine of WoW Classic, Justin Olivetti offers up observations and ground-level analysis as a Gnome with a view. Casually Classic is a more laid-back look at this legacy ruleset for those of us who’ve never stepped into a raid or seen more than 200 gold to our names.