Horde get two brand NEW Races

[ChampionChains]

Void elf: reskinned belf with new hair, facial hair options.
dark iron: reskinned dwarf with glowing eyes and they even mentioned something about burning embers in their beards or something.
LF draenei: reskinned draenei with drastically different horns, hairstyles and facial hair options, also glowing sigil things floating in front of their foreheads.

HM tauren: reskinned tauren, large antlers and a few feathers on their antlers.
Zandalari: reskinned trolls (keep in mind ALL trolls will now have the hunch-free option and blizz stated zandalari was made on the existing troll model), updated faces, new tusks and hair options.
Nightborne: new elf made on the existing night elf skeleton, updated face, new hair styles. It also appears from what has been datamined so far that NB have the fewest customization options of any race made to date.

They look pretty even to me.

[sillag]

zandalar trolls, highmountain tauren and lightforged draenei are just straight upgrades to the existing races. i feel bad for the darkspears we arent going to see many of them around once zandalar are in. people say night elves are getting wiped out in the lore but spare a thought for those vanilla trolls who are being replaced by a much cooler version of themselves

the other races seem ok. dark irons have lots of lore that make them not a replacement for the normal dwarfs. void elf and nightborne are weird but whatever at least they are new choices for their faction

[Nathasil]

I think the best way to rate the additions is their appeal to players of the OPPOSING faction. Because this is what will actually make a difference after the first 3 monsths.

Alliance:
Void Elf: High appeal - but only for Blood Elf players because if you are on Horde and did not like Blood Elves because they are too small and their combat animations are stupid....Night Elves were already there for you. If you are a current Blood Elf player you will find that Void Elves cannot be the classes that ~60% of Blood Elves currently play. Which sucks.
Dark Iron: No appeal. I cannot see anybody who did not play a Bronzebeard pick up Dark Iron. Maybe in PvP for the racials? But PvP is a niche activity.
Lightforged: No appeal. They offer no class Draenei cannot be and the differences between LF and regular Draenei are somewhere between zero and non-existant.

Horde:
Zandalari: To those that say Zandalari are just a *slightly* modified Darkspear: lol? u mad bro? Have you actually SEEN the male Zandalari? Completely ignoring that Darkspear are a small tribe of weed smoking island dwellers who don't get their shit together and Zandalari have an actual EMPIRE...just look at the model. Saying they are *similar* is like saying the ORIGINAL (=pre Update) male Human is similar to the current male Blood Elf. They are WORLDS apart. So fucking high appeal. Especially since BFA will actually tell the story of their HOME. And since you have to be Horde to play those zones anyway, you may just be a Zandalari!
Nightborne: High appeal. They are basically surface dwelling Drow. Drow are EXTREMELY popular. Same problem as Void Elves though: 70% of Night Elves currently play classes that are not available to Nightborne. I like the Nightborne more because of Suramar - but i guess it's pretty equal here.
Highmountain: No appeal at all. If you like Tauren - there already were Tauren. If you don't...chances are antlers are not going to sway you.
Upright Orc: Extremely high appeal. Upright Orcs are just the most masculine race in the game. Period. You can deny that but the numbers WILL show it.

[Ticj]

Except that's 100% bullshit. Different model or not Nightborne do not look fundamentally dissimilar from other elves in the game. Zandalari are just straight back trolls and were already introduced as such in MOP. And Highmountain Tauren are actually just Tauren with Moose Antlers.

I'll agree with the highmountain, which is basically the equivalent of Lightforged Draenei. But disagree all you want, void elves are just reskins of Blood Elves, and Dark Iron dwarves are reskins of Dwarfs. I personally don't really care about that fact, I'm happy to get these races. But I'm saying I can see where OP is coming from. The horde get zandalari which look very different from the normal troll race. (as it should) and the Nightborne seem to have their own look even though being based similarly off the night elf model.


I'll say it again, I don't really find this to be an issue, I'm just playing devil's advocate here.

[Shakou]

I'll agree with the highmountain, which is basically the equivalent of Lightforged Draenei. But disagree all you want, void elves are just reskins of Blood Elves, and Dark Iron dwarves are reskins of Dwarfs. I personally don't really care about that fact, I'm happy to get these races. But I'm saying I can see where OP is coming from. The horde get zandalari which look very different from the normal troll race. (as it should) and the Nightborne seem to have their own look even though being based similarly off the night elf model.


I'll say it again, I don't really find this to be an issue, I'm just playing devil's advocate here.

Dude you don't understand, they didn't make new models from scratch for any of these things. They are all reskins. All of them.

[Tyron]

I'll never understand these posts of "my faction was cucked, look at what shiny new thing the others got!" . Both factions get the same amount of subraces, perhaps horde ones look more unique, so what? These are the first of many to come, alliance will get a better one in the next couple of patches.

[Doffen]

Horde won this one, clearly. But move on. Maybe alliance wins next one.

[Obelisk Kai]

Shrug. I am fine with the current situation. I just agree that Alliance sort of got the bad end of the deal.

This occurred because of the never ending demand for High Elves on the Alliance. Blizzard was never going to give you a clone of a Horde race. A heavy modification, sure, but an outright clone?

Yet they did end up giving you the model at last, and that took up a slot.

I figure they knew they were going to do this years ago and created AND seeded the Nightborne specifically as an equivalent for the Horde, else Suramar would just have been a city of ordinary Night Elves.

Void elfs are kinda cool but as I'm looking at the wowhead model viewer most of the cool hairstyles have glowly draenei tentacles shoved in them.

Something I find very funny on one level, but the tentacles are thematically appropriate. They went out of their way to change the model and aesthetic while still giving it to the Alliance. But there's no way people can pretend a Void Elf is a High Elf, not even if they take the non tentacle options.

[ello]

I'm fully expecting Void Elves to become the surpass Night Elves and become the second most popular Alliance race by the end of the expansion. Hell they may even be more popular than Zandalari. The Thalassian model is obviously popular and people love their edgelords, many BElf players WILL switch for them, especially warlock/hunter/priest players and those who felt "forced" to play red side.

So no, I don't think the Horde "won" this one.

[Pucek]

Dude you don't understand, they didn't make new models from scratch for any of these things. They are all reskins. All of them.

Sure, they are all reskins. What you seem not to notice is amount of effort put into them. Look at LFD, DI and Highmountain, all they changed is skin/eye color and horns. Then take a look at Nightborne/Zandalari, they sure use a preexisting skeleton, but the model itself is very different to the original Night Elf/Troll.

(Void Elves are left out deliberately since changed or not, Blizz is giving Alliance a Horde model).

[Shakou]

Dark Iron look great, in fact I'd say out of all of them the two best looking of them are those and Zandalari.

I imagine they will do further tweaking but what we seen of the Nightborne honestly isn't very inspiring. They don't (in builds we've seen) have very many customization options and whatever that male face is it looks terrible.

[MyWholeLifeIsThunder]

Nightborne and Zandalari and truly unique models.

Lightforged, Dark Iron and Void Elves aren't. Not to mention all this:

Alliance:
- Dark Irons: Reskinned existing model. No recent story development. Their home is a bunch of old dungeons. (Gnomeregan 2.0, anyone?)
- Lightforged: Reskinned existing model. Lackluster story. No home.
- Void Elves: Unique model. Lackluster story. No home.

Horde:
- Zandalari: Unique model. Three zones worth of story development in BFA. Fleshed out capital city.
- Nightborne: Unique model. Massive story development in Legion. Capital that dwarfs both faction capitals.
- Highmountain: Reskinned existing model. Properly developed story. Fleshed out capital city.

You have to be blind not to see how lobsided this is in terms of both story development and actual in-game assets.

Regardless of the lore (which yeah, the horde is getting the good stuff) Nightborne and Zandalari models aren't really unique you guys like why do you keep saying this? Nightborne are skinnier nelves with a different idle pose, Zandalari males we aren't sure what they are using in game, but they are also reused. And Zandalari females are reskinned trolls.

- - - Updated - - -

Lore is created by developers to justify their choices. It is whatever they want it to be. Fictional characters have no agency of their own. This is not a difficult concept to grasp.

But if you want to play it by lore, sure, let's go there. Because apparently you have already forgotten that Valewalker Farodin, a Night Elf, is solely responsible for the Nightborne's salvation through the creation of the Arcan'dor at Shal'Aran, which nobody would've known about without him, and without which the Dusk Lily would've never been able to fight back against Elisande.

But hey, Tyrande made one snide remark so that totally counteracts weeks of story development at Shal'Aran, right?

Valewalker Farodin Is freaking neutral and has never been aligned with the Alliance!

[DookuDookuTree]

All the “Horde gets this and Alliance gets that, it’s not faaaaiiiir!” whining is really getting old. Not everything has to be exactly equal. Life isn’t fair.

But it could be. i want sea goblins on alliance or I will blow up the blizzard offices.

[Alteiry]

But there's no way people can pretend a Void Elf is a High Elf, not even if they take the non tentacle options.

How long before Blizzard adds a Velf-specific toy or ability that disguises them as high elves when out of combat?

[Shakou]

I bet all the gold that Alliance will eventually get mechagnomes. In which case I'm just not playing horde anymore.

[Doffen]

Something I find very funny on one level, but the tentacles are thematically appropriate. They went out of their way to change the model and aesthetic while still giving it to the Alliance. But there's no way people can pretend a Void Elf is a High Elf, not even if they take the non tentacle options.

When I make my Void Elf I will run outside Silvermoon and pretend that I am a High Elf.

()

[DrMcNinja]

To be fair, I think Void Elves look vastly different. Their hair is messier, their facial hair is much more impactful. I think I might roll a void elf male for that manly beard.

[Eazy]

Lightforged - recolored Draenei with a few different customization options.
Dark Iron Dwarfes - lol just dwarves.
Void Elves - recolored Blood Elves with a few different customization options.

Zandalari Trolls - new models.
Nightborne - new models.
Highmountain - recolored Taurens with a few different customization options.

[Shakou]

Lightforged Draenei - More space goats, but this time with tattoos!
Dark Iron Dwarfes - recolored Dwarves with different customization options and easily the best looking heritage armor set
Void Elves - Most retarded idea ever and will still for sure be the most played out of any of these Allied Races if not one of the most played races overall.

Zandalari Trolls - Everyone says they want one until they look at the feet
Nightborne - Look like they're getting fisted
Highmountain - Will soon replace gnomes as least played race.

Edited for accuracy.

[MrTharne]

With what we know from everything we've seen :

Lightforged - reskin Draeneis with okay customization options. (less faces and colors than original race though but better horns for females and beards for males + sign on forehead and tattoos)
Void Elves - reskin Blood Elves with a lot of customization options. (and more than the original race to be honest)
Dark Iron Dwarves - resking Dwarves with...we don't know the customization options.

Highmountain - reskin Taurens with a really small amount of customization options. (and a lot less skin color, horn options. You can see that the tattoos are tied to the fucking skin color, you can't change the tattoo's color either, nor the color of the horns, the faces all have the same eye color...pale blue...) It's a sub-par Tauren with big horns and ornaments in beards.
Nightborne - modified Night Elves model with an okay amount of customization. (a lot less than Void Elves though, less skin and hair color, less faces and hairstyles options...) Nice tattoos and earings though.
Zandalari Trolls - modified Night Elves or Trolls conflicting info on this one with no idea about customization options.

I mean Void Elves are just above the others for the moment. (easy to see why with how the BE population size is...)
Lore wise Horde is better served though.