World of Warcraft:: Races and the Rawlsian Community

The first decision that one has to make when starting to play World of Warcraft is - what race should your character be. Races are broadly organized into two large categories: Alliance and Horde. Alliance appear to be the good guys as they are more attractive physically, while Horde appears to be bad guys are the are generally unattractive. This distinction (good guys versus bad guys) is not quite true but you have to get much deeper into the lore to discover this. And that is way beyond the scope of this post.

Alliance races include: Humans, Dwarves, Gnomes, Night Elves and Draenei. Horde races include: Orcs, Undead, Tauren, Troll and Blood Elves. There is very little help of any kind to guide the user in making this decision. However, as it turns out, that doesn't really matter much. John Rawls said something to the effect that society should be designed so that it does not matter which role you are born into. And WoW is a quintessential Rawlsian community. There are really only three factors to consider in your choice of race; all relatively minor.

First, the race you choose will determine the area in which your character starts. Dwarves and Gnomes begin in the snowy land of Dun Morogh while Trolls and Orcs begin under the punishing sun in the dessert land of Durotar. There are numerous starting places but they are all of approximately the same difficulty. So, the only factor that is really affected by location is the visual scenery that serves as a backdrop to your play. This is not to be dismissed too easily as it does affect your game play experience. However, it is also very much a matter of personal taste. So it is difficult to determine an optimal choice without just trying the different options.

Second, the race you choice will determine how your character looks. Since you will be spending a lot of time looking at your character, you want to choose a character that you like looking at. Peronally, I prefer gnomes and night elves. But it is very much a question of personal taste.

Neither of these first two options is all that critical as I would recommend that a serious player, over time, play a variety of different races. The landscape is interesting and the quests are different in the different lands. Although the level of difficulty is roughly the same, the variety still makes it worth while. As you play longer, you find that the diferent races start covering a lot of common territory. But the starting areas are unique, interesting and fun.

The third issue is the decision to go with an Alliance or a Horde character. Some poeple feel very strongly about this not unlike supporters of a local football team. I have characters of both categories and do not see a huge difference other than the territory they cover and the visual effects. Alliance characters and territories tend to be more aesthetically pleasing. While Horde characters and territories then to be a little harsher. However, if you are going to have multiple characters on a server, it is important to have all Horde or all Alliance on a given server.

Character on a server can share resources via email. This will become very important later, especially with professions. But, an Alliance character cannot email resources to a Horde character and vice versa. So, it is best to have all characters on one server on the same side.

Yet, the bottom line here is that you cannot really make a bad choice with regard to race. Class, however, is a different matter and we will take that up next time.