Scars of Honor Players Are Already Fighting Over Bloodmages, Pets, and … — April 9, 2026

For a while, this Scars of Honor general chat looked like any healthy MMO tavern: people posting nonsense, reliving childhood TV awakenings, arguing about energy drinks, and threatening to level up through sheer force of manifestation. Then the real stuff bubbled up through the chaos, and suddenly you could see the shape of the community forming in real time.

What players want from this game is not subtle. They want the April playtest to land cleanly. They want class fantasies that actually sing. They want race choices that feel cool rather than arbitrarily fenced off. And they want all of that without another overhyped MMO faceplant lurking in the background. If you’ve spent any time around crowdfunded fantasy MMOs, you can probably hear the collective side-eye from here.

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The Race-Class Lock Debate Is Already Getting Spicy

One of the busiest game-specific threads kicked off when a newcomer asked the most basic, useful question imaginable: where do you even check the game’s classes and races? The answer they got was practical enough for the upcoming test build: apparently the playtest is expected to feature four races — Dwarf, Human, Undead, and Infernal Demon — alongside four classes, with Druid, Ranger, Paladin, and Mage named as the current lineup.

That simple answer immediately opened the next can of worms: class access and race restrictions.

Players quickly noted that older class information is muddy, possibly outdated, and maybe not worth treating as gospel. One person flatly said the older version had already been pushed aside, another said both versions floating around are probably wrong compared to what the game will actually ship with, and the general feeling was that the updates have been confusing. That’s not catastrophic this far from launch, but it does matter, because people are already attaching themselves to class fantasies that may or may not survive contact with reality.

The sharpest pushback landed on race-class pairings. The immediate example was Necromancer, and the complaint was blunt: a lot of people did not like the idea of dwarf-only necromancers. The resistance wasn’t theoretical either. Players were already talking like this is the kind of decision that hardens into concrete if the team waits too long.

One player’s basic argument was simple: once the models, animations, and lore are built around a pairing, changing it gets much harder.

That’s the heart of it. MMO communities can live with almost any design choice if it feels intentional and exciting. What they hate is the sense that a restriction exists because somebody pinned a moodboard to a wall and never came back to interrogate it. Several people said they expect the developers to eventually bend toward the most sought-after combinations, assuming the lore can support it. That sounds less like entitlement and more like a community trying to save the game from avoidable friction.

There was also a quieter, smarter counterpoint: races don’t need to justify themselves purely through mechanical access. One player argued that aesthetics should be the main reason for race choice anyway. Fair enough. But even that defense came with an implied warning. If aesthetics are the point, then locking beloved archetypes behind unpopular pairings is a great way to make the aesthetic choice feel bad.

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Bloodmage Brainstorming Stole the Show

If there was one class concept that genuinely lit up the room, it was Bloodmage. Not in a “please add this, devs” drive-by way, either. Players started workshopping actual mechanics, and the ideas were better than a lot of official class pitches you’ll hear in MMO marketing.

The broad fantasy was clear right away: draining, shielding, buffing allies, and using blood as a real resource rather than just red-colored spell effects. Players weren’t satisfied with the old standby of “spend HP to cast stronger spells.” They wanted something with texture.

A few especially good threads emerged:

• Use enemy blood first, with your own health as an emergency reserve.
• Build a blood resource through different playstyles, then spend it in different ways.
• Let self-blood casting carry a meaningful drawback, like reduced healing received for a short time.
• Add pain-sharing or health-equalizing mechanics to create a support angle.

That first idea got the strongest reaction because it gives the archetype a twist. Instead of the usual self-harm caster, you’d have a predator-support hybrid: siphon from enemies, stabilize yourself, then decide whether burning your own life is worth the risk. That’s a class identity. That’s the sort of thing players remember.

There was also some overlap with concerns about Berserker-style design. If another class already leans on the “hurt yourself to do cool things” fantasy, then Bloodmage needs a different spine. The community instinctively understood that. They weren’t just asking for edge; they were asking for distinction.

Even the jokes were useful. Someone compared the fantasy to turning into a Darkest Dungeon-style vampire mosquito, which is silly on the surface but also gets at the danger of overcommitting to one visual lane. Players want blood magic, sure, but they also want it to feel elegant, tactical, and maybe a little sinister — not just gross for the sake of it.

And that’s the encouraging part here: when your community starts designing around tradeoffs, resource loops, and team utility, they’re telling you they want systems with bite. Not just another hotbar with red particles.

Bot Tests Don’t Impress Anyone Anymore

If class fantasy was the fun debate, performance was the skeptical one.

A thread about server testing and bot counts drew immediate MMO-veteran energy. The pushback was fast: bot tests are better than nothing, but they’re nowhere near the same as actual players hammering a server with real movement, real combat decisions, and the kind of chaotic nonsense humans are uniquely gifted at producing.

That alone wouldn’t be remarkable, except the chat didn’t stop at the usual “bots aren’t real players” line. People connected it to MMO marketing history. One player pointed to Camelot Unchained as an example of this kind of test being used for promotional shine without necessarily proving what players actually care about. Another wondered what kind of performance target the team is even aiming for, because if the answer is something like 20 FPS in a stress scenario, that’s not exactly a victory parade.

There was one meaningful note of context: someone reminded the channel that a screenshot being discussed showed the game running inside Unity, not as a compiled build. That matters. Editor performance is not shipping performance. But even that defense came with a little nervous laughter attached, because the engine question itself triggered another familiar MMO scar.

Unity came up, and so did Crowfall.

That comparison was not flattering. One player said they hope the Unity route works out, because Crowfall also tried to build there and everyone remembers how that went. Another countered by praising Throne and Liberty for its optimization on UE4, which is less a direct comparison than a reminder that players absolutely notice technical competence now. They’ve been burned too many times not to.

The mood wasn’t doomposting, exactly. It was more like a room full of MMO refugees saying, please don’t try to sell us a stress test as proof of life. Show us the thing under real pressure. Show us what happens when players, not bots, decide to stand on the same hill and make the server regret being born.

The Playtest Hype Is Real, but So Is the Baggage

The cleanest factual beat of the day was the playtest window: April 30 through May 11. That date drop cut through the noise immediately. People started counting down the days, talking about what they’d play in the meantime, and asking the practical access questions that always show up once a test feels close enough to touch.

A newcomer asked whether there was any way into the test besides Steam, maybe a founder pack, maybe a promo, maybe some alternate route for someone with software QA experience. The answer from the community was straightforward: sign up for the Steam playtest, wishlist the game, and wait for access waves. No secret coupon dungeon, no backdoor founder package, no magic phrase whispered to a moderator.

That answer matters because it also exposed a second conversation: legacy support perks and the weird social gravity they create. Someone noticed the supporter tag and immediately asked how people got it, whether there had been a Kickstarter they missed, and how they could support the game now. The response was basically, yes, it’s a legacy thing, and no, it’s not some current golden ticket.

That didn’t stop the mild envy, of course. One player joked that the support tag is pay-to-win. Another called it a gold star sticker and nothing more. Both statements are true in the way only Discord status symbols can be true: meaningless and weirdly powerful at the same time.

More interesting was what players projected onto the upcoming test. One person said the game looked like it might scratch the same itch as Crowfall, but with better combat. That’s a loaded comparison. It says there’s hunger here for faction conflict, PvP energy, and a game that can pick up the pieces left behind by MMOs that never quite became what their communities wanted.

It also says Scars of Honor is inheriting a very specific audience: people who are willing to be excited, but only while keeping one hand on the eject button.

Pets, Transmog, and the Eternal MMO Flex Economy

No MMO chat stays on combat theory forever. Eventually somebody asks the really important question: when do we get tiny creatures and dress-up systems?

That happened here too, and it was revealing in its own way. Players wanted cosmetic pets, rare-drop pets, skilling-style pets, maybe even weird collector’s-edition-style companions in the vein of old Diablo or World of Warcraft bonuses. One player wanted pets to be a brutally low drop chance from bosses so only the true grinders could flex them. Another immediately pushed back that 0.1% drop rates are not, in fact, fun. A third split the difference: low drop chance, yes, but not sadistic.

That’s the MMO flex economy in miniature. Players want prestige, but they want prestige that feels earned rather than mathematically hostile.

The free-to-play angle crept in too. One person said they’d prefer cosmetic pets to be rare in-game rewards, but doubted that would happen in an F2P model. That’s a fair read. Once a game goes free-to-play, every cosmetic dream gets shadowed by the cash shop.

Transmog got a more concrete discussion. A player said they thought they’d heard about a system where you can buy the skin for items you’ve found, and another clarified the current understanding: you can buy tokens to change the appearance of armor using another armor’s look, and there may also be store-bought cosmetics that can be applied broadly. The details still sound fuzzy, but the appetite is obvious.

There was also a genuinely neat suggestion buried in the chatter: special skins for achievement mounts that are only purchasable if you already own the mount. That’s a very MMO-player idea — monetization with a gate that preserves bragging rights. It probably doesn’t print enough money to become a priority, but it’s the kind of compromise live-service teams should think about more often.

And because no pet conversation can remain normal for long, someone proposed a pet breeding system involving a horse, a duck, a $5 hatch fee, and a Willy Wonka suit. If nothing else, the community remains committed to never letting a good idea leave the room without putting it through a blender first.

The Community Vibe Might Be the Real Selling Point

A lot of the log had nothing to do with game systems on paper. It had to do with whether this place feels like somewhere people actually want to hang out while waiting for a game to become real.

On that front, the answer was mostly yes.

Players repeatedly called the server chill compared to stricter game communities where every off-topic detour gets stomped flat. People welcomed newcomers, answered questions, redirected folks to the right channels, and generally treated the place like a social hub rather than a customer support queue. Even moderation, while occasionally exasperated, came off more like exhausted camp counselors than hall monitors.

That doesn’t mean it was spotless. Mods had to step in more than once to rein in people dodging the word filter, pushing jokes too far, or posting things that crossed the line from goofy to uncomfortable. The pushback was usually immediate and public: keep it friendly, don’t evade automod, shared space means safe space. That’s healthy. Communities don’t stay welcoming by accident.

The funniest part is that the server’s personality is now inseparable from its game anticipation. The countdown to the demo sat right alongside arguments about Pokémon polls with broken yes/no options, old Friends streams in voice chat, bread photos, prom drama, and the ongoing saga of people trying to level up through spam and vibes. It sounds ridiculous because it is ridiculous. It also sounds alive.

That matters more than studios sometimes realize. A pre-release MMO isn’t just selling systems. It’s selling the possibility of a place — and not only in-game. If the Discord already feels like a tavern full of recurring characters, in-jokes, and occasional brawls over class design, that’s not a distraction from the product. For this genre, it is part of the product.

What This Crowd Is Really Asking For

Under all the jokes, the community handed Scars of Honor a pretty clear to-do list.

Players want clearer communication on classes and race pairings before those decisions calcify. They want class fantasies with mechanical teeth, not just archetype names. They want performance proof that means something in a genre where “stress test” has become a punchline. They want cosmetics and prestige systems that reward play, not only spending. And they want the April test to feel like the beginning of trust, not another audition tape from a game that never quite arrives.

That’s the good news and the hard part. This crowd is engaged, funny, and obviously ready to throw itself into the game. But it’s also carrying the memory of every MMO that overpromised, underdelivered, or got lost in its own design fog. If Scars of Honor can answer even half of those anxieties with something solid in the playtest, it won’t just have attention. It’ll have believers. And in this genre, believers are the rare drop.